May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions...

My pipe is out, my glass is dry

My fire is almost ashes too

But once again, before you go

And I prepare to meet the New

Old Year! a parting word that's true

For we've been comrades, you and I

I thank God for each day of you

There! bless you now!  Old Year, good-bye!

 Robert W. Service

Ben Stewart on Copenhagen matters...

I will leave the last word to the late Kurt Vonnegut Jr., who would have given voice to the insanity of Copenhagen better than I ever could, and whose poem Requiem is perhaps appropriate at this moment: ‘When the last living thing, has died on account of us, how poetical it would be if Earth could say, in a voice floating up, perhaps from the floor of the Grand Canyon, “It is done. People did not like it here”.

Tori Amos: when you gonna make up your mind...

When I play I don't feel as if I'm a sex -- sometimes. Sometimes I feel as [if I'm] an entity and an energy and a musician. But the word musician isn't male or female and there are times when I play that I feel as if I have a third leg. And there are times that I feel that I'm pregnant. If I were a male musician I do believe in a way there'd be less available women around because I would know how to turn some of them out -- particularly Jennifer Aniston. Because I just look at her sometimes and say, "I know what to do with you." But that's my third leg self talking, that's not the woman who wants to eat pussy -- because I just don't want to do that. WATCH!

Jack White: I'm thinking about my doorbell, when you gonna ring it...

I feel like I’m a bad storyteller in real life when I talk to people but I feel like when I’m writing a song I have a chance to do it right, I have a chance to say it the right way in the words I would like to use. That’s what happens. I end up dwelling on all the characters in the song and forgetting about myself. It almost feels boring to talk about myself: I know that story already. But these characters who come from an example of other people that I’m seeing, that story seems a lot more interesting for me and the people listening to it and I can get some life out of it down the road, playing it a hundred times.

I don't know why I feel that way with you...

“We don’t have normal jobs, we go out all the time, we don’t have sentimental lives that are stable,” Nicolas confesses, trying to quantify what it means to be one of France’s biggest musical exports.

Jean-Benoît has a broader picture in mind. “The difficult thing is you’re AIR, at night, in the morning… when you become an artist it’s for all of your life. You’re even working when you dream. The music is always there. This intensity, the fact you’re always searching, makes you an artist.”

PJ Harvey: cracks in the canvas look like roads that never end...

Doesn’t that sound funny to you, Polly? That you’ve been going for 20 years. I mean, I bought Dry when it came out, and it just doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.

It doesn’t feel to me, either. It’s actually really odd; it’s been more than 20 years. My first record came out in 1990, so that does feel really odd. I feel about 18, like I haven’t even begun yet. That’s something we all feel. I remember talking to my grandmother on her deathbed about that. She was saying, “I still feel 18.” She was so sweet; she had a crush on the doctor who kept coming through to see her and he was about 30. And that’s how we got talking about it. I can see what she means. In some ways I feel like a kid, like I’ve barely started. Presumably, that’s how one keeps carrying on. Next thing people will be calling me a “legend” and I’ll feel like I’m in the grave already! WATCH!

Carol Brown took a bus out of town...

Bret, Jemaine and James (co-creator / director) said “we’ve noticed the less we say about the future of the show, the more people want to talk about it, so in an effort to reverse this trend we are today announcing that we won’t be returning for a 3rd season. We’re very proud of the two seasons we made and we like the way the show ended. We’d like to thank everyone who helped make the show and also everyone who watched it. While the characters Bret and Jemaine will no longer be around, the real Bret and Jemaine will continue to exist.

Basement Jaxx: just like raindrops, you feel so good upon my lips...

All of this highlights perhaps the most crucial difference between Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx: While Daft Punk have not budged from an image established in the late 1990s, have released only three studio albums over the past 13 years, and have been mostly coasting on the success of a record from 2001, Basement Jaxx have never been still for long, and seem entirely unafraid of failure. They are constantly striving and experimenting, and when you're brave enough to take artistic risks, you're bound to turn out a dud here and there. All of Basement Jaxx's missteps to date have been noble in ambition and easily forgiven when you take into account that the same impulses that produce an awkward misfit of a song like "She's No Good" also yield the glorious house psychedelia of "Raindrops". Basement Jaxx may not have a strong brand identity, but their eagerness to toy with their formula and broaden the emotional range of their material is truly inspiring, and sometimes that matters much more than being popular and influential. WATCH!

Click, you disconnect from me...

In the west we live in a society that doesn't respect and look after the artist. In some other societies, and particularly in the past, for example, the hunter gatherers would look after the artist because they were an important part of the community. If we lived in a society that was like then, cool, but we don't. We live in a society that demands I pay my kids' school fees, that the car needs servicing and the roof leaks. And I have to pay money down Tesco's to feed my kid. If I could walk into Tesco's and show my card that said 'artist' and they said 'No worry Mr. Hyde, here's your shopping trolley, just fill it up and go the fast track through the revered artists section,' then great.

I think that you're my dream girl, probably just dreaming...

"It's not as simple as reading it like you're reading my diary. Y'know once you start writing things down it becomes about poetry, it becomes about the way the words scan. What I love most about Rock and Roll is this way that you can say things that are trite or mundane, but when you put them to the music they become fantastic, like amazing, magical poetry. You can say lines like "I Can't Stop Loving You" or any number of lines like that, and on their own they don't really stand, but with the music they become like magic."

I just want my trophy back, its not for sale...

So when I went to San Francisco I stayed right by the City Lights Bookstore, and I saw Jack Kerouac's street and the landscapes and the bay area, pine forests...everything I hoped it would be - Golden Caifornia with slightly sleazy undertones, really lovely things happening, like walking down the street at three in the morning after I'd gone to a really weird warehouse party where everyone was taking acid or something, it was quite scary... and then walk down the street and you just come across four black guys.. I think they were living on the street but like, tap dancing and singing like a chain gang kind of thing... just randomly echoing with nobody around , they could have been ghosts or something. You come across these amazing people, I came across lots of musicians, lots of people who told me that I should be going home to do it, and that I should do music and stuff.

Sydney was without a doubt the most fun I've ever had at a show. :)

The internet is such a fucked-up bizzaro land. I'm not exagge- rating when I say that of all of the places that I've gone, I've had a great fucking time and not one fucking person comes up to me and says, "You suck!" And then I get home. And I hop on these message boards and see, "Yeah, he's such a dickhead. I saw him at this thing once and…" And then they'll make up this midget polar bear story, you know what I mean?

You got to give your mouth a rest...

My favorite artist of all time is Rubens. I saw Rubens’ The Union of Earth and Water in St. Petersburg the other day. It’s the most perfect picture of a man and woman you’ve ever seen in your life. The characters are so real, it perfectly encapsulates the most realistic, yet romantic notions of what a relationship between a man and a woman is. He’s Earth and he’s really strong, he’s not even looking into the picture. He’s looking at her, it’s all about her and she just looks so intelligent, she looks like she's got it right sussed. He’s strong and grounded and there for her and she’s clever. It’s just a brilliant picture.

Strange, don't you think I'm looking older...

Is he smoking crack? "No."

Has he ever? "No!" He starts again. "I mean, I've done different things at different times that I shouldn't have done, once or twice, you know." I say I'd hate to think of him on crack. "Of course. Of course. Nobody wants to regularly smoke crack." I'm feeling more parental by the second. It's hard not to worry about Michael – for all his paranoia, recklessness and self-absorption, he exudes intelligence, warmth and generosity. "Look me in the eye," I say. "Were you smoking crack?"

"Was I? On that occasion? Yeah."

Too bad you weren't there...

At dead of night, when strangers roam
The streets in search of anyone who'll take them home
I lie alone, the clock strikes three
And anyone who wanted to could contact me
At dead of night, 'till break of day
Endless thoughts and questions keep me awake
It's much too late

Heaven or Las Vegas

"I feel sorry for the general public because I hear her singing in the house and it's truly amazing," he says. "But she's absolutely genuine in every way possible. Which can be very frustrating, but is an amazing attribute to have. I've worked with many singers, and a lot of them are fake. The world is a sadder place without Elizabeth singing."

Fraser smiles sweetly, and doesn't say a word.