Mojo - The Music Magazine

NEWS DIGEST MONDAY MAY 18

The artwork for the Manic Street Preachers' new album has been censored by leading supermarket chains.

Sainsbury's has described the cover for Journal for Plague Lovers, designed by Cambridge artist Jenny Saville, as "inappropriate" and will be stocking copies in plain slipcases, as will Tesco and Asda.

"It is bizarre that supermarkets actually think that [the cover is] going to impinge on anyone's psyche," said James Dean Bradfield of Saville's painting featuring a boy who appears to have blood on his face.

"We just thought it was a beautiful painting," he added "If you're familiar with [Saville's] work, there's a lot of ochres and browns and reds... Perhaps people are looking for us to be more provocative than we are being. You can have lovely shiny buttocks and guns everywhere in the supermarket on covers of magazines and CDs, but you show a piece of art and people just freak out."

Saville also designed the sleeve for 1994's The Holy Bible.

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Indie rock wastrels The Libertines reunited during the early hours of Saturday morning (May 16).

Carl Barât and drummer Gary Powell joined Pete - sorry, Peter - Doherty on stage just before 3am at London's Rhythm Factory for a six-song set, featuring What A Waster, Time For Heroes and Can't Stand Me Now. Babyshambles' Drew McConnell stood in for original Libertines bassist John Hassall.

Although Doherty has spoken recently about reforming the band with Barât, it is unclear whether the reunion will be more long-term.

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Jarvis Cocker will feature in a film adaptation of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox.

The former Pulp frontman - who has previously appeared in Harry Potter And The Goblet of Fire - will provide the voice for 'Petey', a mandolin-playing puppet, in an animated version of the children's classic directed by Wes Anderson.

As well as composing "a little hoedown number" for the stop-motion film, Cocker also narrated an early cut of the movie.

"I did a narration bit at the start of Mr Fox, too," he says, "but they showed that to test audiences in the US and they were very bamboozled. So I've ended up on the cutting-room floor. I tried to enunciate clearly!"

Cocker will also be headlining The John Peel Stage on Saturday night at this year's Glastonbury (June 27).

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Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament has been attacked and mugged outside an Atlanta studio.

Three masked men dressed in black jumped out from woods behind Southern Tracks studio and attacked Ament and studio employee Mark Anthony Smith as they arrived in a rented Jeep. The attackers made off with $3,000 cash, over $4,000 worth of equipment and Ament's passport. The bassist was later treated for head lacerations.

Pearl Jam had been working on their ninth studio album with producer Brendan O'Brien.

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And finally... is has been revealed that George Harrison did not like having Jelly Babies thrown at him.

Set to auction next month for an estimated £800, a letter written by Harrison in 1963 to teenage fan Lynn Smith expresses the guitarist's dismay at being pelted with confectionary.

"Think how we feel standing on stage trying to dodge the stuff, before you throw some more at us," Harrison wrote to Smith. "Couldn't you eat them yourself, besides it is dangerous. I was hit in the eye once with a boiled sweet, and it's not funny!"

Harrison once expressed his fondness for the iconic sweet only to be bombarded - quite literally - with them by fans.

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Albums out today:

Manic Street Preachers - Journal For Plague Lovers
Madness - The Liberty Of Norton Folgate
Steve Earl - Townes
Jarvis Cocker - Further Complications
Iron & Wine - Around The Well