Via Rock Sellout
I was reading today about how the Mathletes were going to cover MBV for their new album, so they’ve been on my mind a bit. What luck to find that the rumor mill has been spinning with whispers of the group’s reunion for next year’s Coachella!
MP3: My Bloody Valentine - Only Shallow
Via DS
But now some tantalizing hints have emerged in the past few weeks that suggest the band is finally gearing up for a return to action. In July, several fans reported encounters with Shields at Primal Scream and Dinosaur Jr. shows in England, Ireland, and Russia, each returning with the same story: that Shields very matter-of-factly spoke of My Bloody Valentine in the very present tense. The fans reported Shields said that two new My Bloody Valentine releases are in the works – an anthology of unreleased 90s material and an album of brand new studio recordings – along with the imminent release of remastered versions of the band’s original studio work. He is also reported as saying, on several different occasions, that a 2008 tour is in the works that will feature the band’s original lineup. Furthermore, in an interview published earlier this year in Magnet magazine, Shields was adamant about the band’s return: “We are 100% going to make another My Bloody Valentine record unless we die or something,” he said.
Equally intriguing is the appearance of a new official My Bloody Valentine MySpace page earlier this month, which also links to mybloodyvalentine.co.uk, a website that now has just a generic holding page. In an email with The Daily Swarm, Kevin Shields’ manager, Vinita Joshi, confirmed that the MySpace page is indeed officially affiliated with the band, and that Debbie Googe, the group’s bass player, is actively working on creating the My Bloody Valentine website. Joshi, who is also owner of the Rocket Girl record label and mail order distribution company, has the My Bloody Valentine track “Soon” as the soundtrack to her personal MySpace page. Regarding Coachella and the tour, Joshi wrote, “there are no confirmed shows at all.”
For Coachella founder and musical programmer Paul Tollett, an appearance by My Bloody Valentine would be a major coup, furthering a now international reputation as the booker who persuades much-sought-after disbanded or dormant groups to make their return to the stage at his celebrated festival in the California desert. It would also cap off years of concert industry chatter about Tollett’s burning desire to see the band play at Coachella – and his standing 7-figure offer.
(Update: Tollett will neither confirm nor deny this story. In an email response to The Daily Swarm, he wrote, “I don’t comment on booking because it would make my job difficult responding to every rumor.”)
