. . . were on Conan O’Brien earlier this week. Here’s the clip in case you’re interested. I was.

Now is the time - the campaign to propel ‘Christmas Card From A Hooker in Minneapolis’ by Tom Waits to number one in Ireland next week is gathering steam - act now you may never get another chance.

Tickets for Radiohead’s summer concert in Malahide Castle went on sale today with a fairly hefty price tag of €70.70 and that doesn’t even include the Ticketmaster tax. Over on Jim’s blog there’s been a right old row about the price and today he has an interesting post with perhaps the most unconvincing and ill-informed “defence” from Radiohead’s Phil Selway of high prices I have ever heard.

NME and NBC were singing from the same hymn sheet late last month when news broke that Barbra Streisand had cancelled the Roman concert which had been due to kick-start her European tour later this week.

Despite the organiser’s protestations that it had been scrapped because of “production difficulties”, the indie bible and the mainstream US broadcaster, alongside many other news sources, linked the cancellation to a strident consumer protest at the prices being charged for tickets. At €150, the cheap seats were anything but and those willing to splash out to get the very best seats in the 24,000-seater Stadio Flaminio were getting little change out of €1,000.
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A couple of weeks ago a major British retailer announced it was to stop stocking cassettes. Could it be tha the single is to b next for the chop? A British supermarket chain certainly thinks so. Asda is to is stop selling singles in the wake of the success of digital downloads Asda will. It said dwindling customer demand for singles sold in-store was down to
cheaper album prices and the popularity of digital downloads.

Ah well. It has been doomed for a long time but it finally looks like it is the end of the road for the cassette tape following the announcement that Curry’s in Ireland is to stop stocking the format which defined the 1980s and 90s. The first cassette I bought was Kings of the Wild Frontier by Adam and the Ants a long long time ago. It cost a fairly hefty £4.99 and lasted just three months before being swallowed by a knackered old cassette player. Good times. Experts have predicted that tape decks will also be history within 18 months. The Independent has a nice piece about its passing.