NEWS DIGEST: Tuesday, June 24

5:30 PM GMT 24/06/2008

Kings Of Leon have announced details of their fourth album. Only By The Night emerges on September 22 in the UK. Recorded in Nashville’s Blackbird Studios and co-produced with Angelo Petraglia and Jacquire King, the record promises stronger melodies, attributed by singer Caleb Followill to the painkillers he was prescribed after injuring an arm in a fistfight with his brother, guitarist Nathan. Track titles include Crawl and Cold Desert.

Velvet Revolver and ex-Guns N’Roses drummer Matt Sorum has declared himself convinced of an eventual Axl Rose-Slash reunion – not that he expects to benefit. "I'm sure it'll happen eventually," he tells musicians’ web site MusicRadar.com. "They could be having meetings about it right now. They could be in a bomb shelter, with Axl and Slash and Duff. And Izzy! Maybe Steven Adler - I don't know. I'd probably be the very, very, very last guy to get the call."

Glastonbury are still 3000 tickets short of selling out. Still, that’ll make the crush at the front for Jay-Z on Saturday night a touch more tolerable.

“There's a lot at stake.” Michael Eavis told the BBC this morning. “We really do need a good year this year, that's for sure. There were about 3,000 left this morning. But they are going out slowly. We did about 800 yesterday so we'll just about scrape home without losing my shirt.”

He added that Glastonbury’s charity contribution will have to be reduced if the shortfall remains. So if Africa has a harder time than usual this summer, it’s all your fault for not going to Glastonbury to see the Fratellis.

On the positive side, the weather forecast promises “merely” showers for Friday and Saturday.

Minneapolis-via-Brooklyn pub-romantics The Hold Steady are due to play an instore at HMV’s 150 Oxford Street branch, Monday July 14 at 6pm, where they’ll be previewing songs off their excellent new album, Stay Positive. Other MOJO favourites on the HMV stump include Seth Lakeman (who plays a lunchtime set at HMV Plymouth on June 30, and the Exeter branch the same evening before an assignation on Oxford Street, July 1) and Black Kids (at 150 Oxford Street, July 7). More details here.

It’s Jeff Beck’s birthday today. An opportunity to revel in his guitar-smashing turn in Antonioni’s swinging ’60s conspiracy flick, Blow-Up. Well, at least Jimmy Page was amused…

Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 5:30 PM GMT 24/06/2008

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