Fresh from curating a pod at last night’s Flight 5065 event at the London Eye, Xfm Online spoke exclusively to Damon Albarn who confirmed Gorillaz will be playing a number live shows before the end of the year.

Speaking about the cartoon band’s live commitments, Albarn explained that due to the complexity of the show and the number of live guests involved, the band will be playing six shows in one venue this coming winter.

“[Things with the Gorillaz' album] are going very well,” he explained. “We’re gonna play in Manchester for six nights, I think, at the Opera House. And the reason for that is that we wanted to play somewhere where we could be central because of all the mad collection of musicians and to get them in one place at one time is really difficult.

“That’s how it’s ended up. And I think it’s in November.”

Albarn also spoke about his involvement with the Café direct ‘Flight 5065′ event and the experience of curating a half hour show for just 25 people, surrounded in glass, some 500 feet in the air.

“My record label Honest Jon’s were asked if we’d like to curate a pod,” Albarn continued, “And at the time I don’t think we really viewed it as having any relationship to G8, and Live 8 wasn’t happening then - this was about three months ago we were asked - but it just happens to come at a time when there’s a lively debate about things, which is fantastic. It’s something I feel very strongly about.

“We have an artist called Ko Kan Ko Sata who’s from Mali. It’s a big country, with I don’t know how many languages, it’s very diverse and like most countries in Africa it’s the result of colonial cake dividing. She plays an instrument called the magoni which is like a harp and she sings with that and sometimes with percussion. And she’s very good!”

Xfm

Fair-trade company café direct gets a boost when Damon Albarn and others perform in the London Eye for a select few.

Having criticised Bob Geldof’s plans for Live8, Damon Albarn has found an African-flavoured arts festival that is much more his cup of organic coffee.

Tomorrow Albarn will climb aboard one of the pods of the London Eye to give an exclusive performance to an audience of no more than 20. During the half hour the capsule takes to complete a single revolution, the Blur singer has agreed to perform songs “inspired by visions of Africa” in order to raise money for the fair-trade hot drinks company café direct.

In other capsules, ticketholders will get close-up concerts from Beth Orton and Turin Brakes or an intimate performance from actors with the Royal Court Theatre or a stand-up routine from comedian Jo Brand. In total, 96 performances will take place for the lucky 2,000 people who obtained the £21 tickets.

The extraordinary event, called Flight 5065 (named after café direct’s instant coffee brand), has been three months in the planning and - as well as breaking new ground in the arts - could revolutionise British marketing. Rather than using traditional advertising platforms, café direct is attempting to market its brand through live performance, creating a buzz through word of mouth.

Robin Smith, creative director of the advertising agency Host, which planned Flight 5065 for café direct, says: “This would have made a good television commercial but we wouldn’t have had any money to air it. We are creating a new media platform for café direct.”

The success of such an approach is dependent, he says, on providing high-quality content that not only raises the status of the brand but also gives customers a story to relate to friends. He says: “The power of this kind of marketing is that if we do it right it lives with people for a long time. Whereas the average ad does not live with you for much longer than you are looking at it.”

Café direct, which works with 250,000 growers in 11 countries, enjoys considerable goodwill from celebrity supporters. Nonetheless, it is a commercial organisation that needs to convince consumers that they are getting a high-quality product for what is a premium price.

Helen Ireland, communications director of café direct, says: “We’ve always tried to be a pioneer and do things today which we hope other people will do tomorrow.” The London Eye neatly fits the coffee’s branding of being “uplifting” and the Flight 5065 event is designed, like the drink, to arouse the senses. “It’s important that there’s a synergy in what we are doing,” Ireland says. “When you do something in a positive way people engage with that. They will talk to their friends about their experiences of being in a pod with Damon Albarn or the Royal Court Theatre.”

The event was modestly advertised through the London Calling flyer distribution outfit and emails from Ticketweb. Three ads were placed in The Independent, showing a digitally created image of Madonna as a coffee grower, which in turn generated editorial coverage in the Daily Mirror. The concept for Flight 5065 grew out of an earlier café direct project - also devised by Host - called The Lift, in which “audiences” were invited to step into a steel box, the size of a standard elevator, and be entertained by performance artists. The project, initially staged on Brighton beach, was transferred to the Edinburgh festival, where it was critically acclaimed.

The idea of both these projects, according to Smith, was to mirror the close relationship between café direct and its tea and coffee growers in the developing world through the intimacy between the performers and the audience in a confined space. “It really is quite intense,” he says. “I’ve read tons of pieces about the holy grail of holistic marketing and that’s exactly what we are trying to achieve: to make the idea live in the client.”

Host itself is not so much an ad agency as a network that does not retain employees but builds teams of specialist workers for specific projects. For Flight 5065 the team is 300-strong. “We get high-powered people working in short bursts,” says Smith.

There is one drawback with the project, he acknowledges. This radical form of marketing is difficult to evaluate. “You just have to watch the heat and look for a lift in sales,” he says. “It’s hard to measure but much more fulfilling.”

The Independent

Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn has dismissed Live 8, saying too few black artists are taking part and it may not be the best way to help Africa.

Performers should also be charged for taking part because they will receive so much free publicity, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

But a Live 8 spokesman hit back, saying Albarn should “check his facts”.

Live 8 said they wanted to get the most popular stars for the shows, which would feature a large “urban element”.

However Albarn said it was the “greatest oversight” not to include many black and world music artists on the bill for the London gig.

“This country is incredibly diverse,” he said. “More than ever, black culture is an integral part of society. So why is the bill so damn Anglo-Saxon?

“If you are holding a party on behalf of people, then surely you don’t shut the door on them.

“It’s insensitive and it also perpetuates this idea that Africa is separated in some way.”

But the Live 8 spokesman said organisers did not simply want to “preach to the converted” by appealing only to world music fans.

“Bob Geldof’s intention was to get headline-grabbing shows full of people who fill stadiums and arenas,” he said.

“This is not [world music festival] Womad. We are not doing an arts festival.”

Ms Dynamite, US rapper Snoop Dogg and Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour are the only black artists currently due to perform in London on 2 July.

The US concert in Philadelphia will feature a string of African American stars including Stevie Wonder, 50 Cent and Jay-Z.

A large African event is also being planned, the spokesman added, although it is not confirmed.

Albarn also said there should be “some kind of tariff” on record companies.

“All the artists that play there will enjoy increased record sales - if they play a good gig, they will benefit from it,” the singer said.

Artists should put pressure on their record labels to “genuinely show this is an altruistic act and that there is no self-gain in it”.

“Because surely that negates… the message if there is,” he said.

‘More sophisticated’

Albarn, who released an album with musicians from Mali in 2002, said he had not been asked to play at Live 8.

“I don’t want to take part in an event that is so exclusive. Is this the most effective way to help Africa?” he said.

Live 8 treated Africa like it was “a failing, ill, sick, tired place”, he said.

“My personal experience of Africa is that yes, I have witnessed all those things there.

“But it’s incredibly sophisticated - the society and the structure of people’s lives is as sophisticated, if not more sophisticated in some ways, than in the West.”

BBC News

UK trade paper Music Week have reported on the impressive sales of Demon Days.

The 11th June issue reports sales figures already passing the 1 million mark after just one week of being on sale. Initial signs of the album matching the commercial succes of the debut look promising.

Blur FC