Ike Turner, Neneh Cherry, Martina Topley-Bird and Booty Brown are the latest names to be added to the line-up for next week’s series of Gorillaz shows in Manchester.

Damon Albarn’s animated hip hop supergroup are due to play a run of five consecutive shows at the city’s Opera House, featuring a steller cast of live contributors.

The new names join a line-up that already includes Shaun Ryder, De La Soul, MF Doom and Roots Manuva. The enormous collective are set to unveil the band’s acclaimed “Demon Days” LP in full.

In an interview with The Times in the UK, Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, who designed the characters in the band, confirmed the full bill.

They also spoke about the future of Gorillaz, amid reports that their appearance at next week’s MTV Europe Awards will see the band appear as holograms.

Talking about the event, in Lisbon, Portugal, Hewlett explained: “We’re doing something that’s never, ever been done. We’re going to have the animated characters on stage. I suppose they’re like super-holograms.

“It’s what we’ve dreamt about doing since we began Gorillaz. It’s looking incredible. Mind you, for the effect to work, everyone has their places where they’re allowed to go and where they’re not.

“If you ran behind them, shining a torch at them, it would probably all go horribly wrong.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Albarn said he “hated” the last Blur tour, because of the absence of departed guitarist Graham Coxon.

He explained: “I never really liked the last Blur tour. I hated playing the old material. I just found that really depressing without Graham.

“It was a painful experience to play songs that belonged to a band where one member was missing. It was easy to do stuff from ‘Think Tank’, but they were the only bits I looked forward to.”

Dotmusic

Gorillaz will perform live on stage as 3D holograms with De La Soul at the MTV Europe Music Awards 2005.

The animated four-piece will be projected onto the stage using cutting edge technology that has never before been used as part of a live music TV performance. Real life collaborators De La Soul will perform alongside them.

Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s creations are up for five gongs at the ceremony that will air live from Lisbon, Portugal at 8pm GMT on November 3. Feel Good Inc has been nominated for Best Video, and they are also in the running for Best Group, Best Song, Best Pop Act and Best UK & Ireland Act.

They join a breathtaking list of atists performing at the EMAs 2005, including Akon, Coldplay, Green Day, Foo Fighters, Madonna, Robbie Williams, Pussycat Dolls and The Black Eyed Peas. The event will be hosted by Borat Sagdiyev – AKA Ali G creator Sacha Baron Cohen.

Sponsored by LG Mobile and Replay Blue Jeans, the MTV Europe Music Awards 2005 will air to a potential worldwide audience of more than a billion people.

MTV

Damon Albarn has been speaking to Xfm about his plans for a brand new “aggressively laid back” Blur EP to be released before the end of the year, plus the possibility of some low key live dates.

Following reports that the new Blur material will be more lo-fi and stripped down than their previous work, Albarn spoke to Xfm and explained that fans will probably be able to hear new material from the band pretty soon (if they can find it).

“I think we’re gonna do an EP first, sometime by the end of this year,” he confessed, “But you probably won’t know about it. It’ll just ‘come out’. It’ll be so, sort of, underplayed. It’ll come out but you won’t know it’s us as it’ll be so, well, not us.”

“We’ve got the songs but we’re gonna record them in a few hours and just be very laid back about it. But not musically laid back. It’ll be aggressive. Aggressively laid back. It’s the total opposite of Gorillaz.

“I can’t really make another Blur record that’s a big landscape sort of thing, due to my very basic guitar ability. Cos I want to sing and play so it has to be three chords. I can only do three chords and not look at the guitar.”

Albarn also kyboshed the idea of getting a new guitarist to replace the long departed Graham Coxon saying, “What’s the point? We’d never be able to get one as good as Graham.”

He also admitted that Blur would be playing some live dates towards the end of the year, saying they’d, “Probably do a couple of pubs round Christmas. To be honest with you, it’ll be nice.”

Xfm

Gorillaz won two awards, ‘Best Dance Artist’ and ‘Artist of the Year’, at this years BT Digital Music Awards. Both awards were voted for by the public.

Additionally the Official Gorillaz Fan Site – fans.gorillaz.com came 12th in the Top 200 People’s Choice Award. Graham Coxon’s official website – www.grahamcoxon.com came 128th.

Check out the full list of winners at the BT Digital Music Awards 2005.

The video for ‘Dirty Harry’ the next single from Gorillaz will be shown exclusively on gorillaz.com on Tuesday 25th October.

If you can’t wait that long there’s a trailer at the Gorillaz Box Office.