It may be 294 days 'til the millennium, but that pesky Y2K bug is already claiming victims. |

If anyone knows about computers, it's Orbital, one of Britain's more technically savvy and enduring ambient bands. But last Monday night, the band was bit in the arse by their own technology. The duo attempted to preview their new album, The Middle of Nowhere, on National British radio and found that they couldn't due to a corrupted computer disc. "When we play live we use these really basic sequencers because you can improvise with the structure of a song and make a track last an hour or a minute," Phil Hartnoll, one half of the sibling act, told the BBC. "But they're very temperamental. When we were dumping down the tracks, corrupt data was on all our back-ups, so we lost about two weeks work and we couldn't play. I guess it's like a singer in a traditional band getting laryngitis." Not exactly. The brother act has until March 13 to remedy the situation and recreate the lost material, since they've already booked a tour to promote the album. Perhaps it's a case of ghost in the machine: Orbital sampled Suzi Quatro's 1974 chart topper, "Devil Gate Drive," for the record's first single, "Style." Scarier still, they've given the album the same name as those underage devil worshipers Hanson, who released their own Middle of Nowhere in 1997 . . .

Some people -- mostly those with their six remaining hairs tied back into a ponytail of sorts -- might call the latest "signing" by TVT Records an example of "synergy," but we call it yet another sign of the impending apocalypse. Later this month, the label will issue a greatest hits album from the ever-popular Frankie & Louie. If you don't think you've ever heard Frankie & Louie's music, well, you'd be absolutely right -- but you are, no doubt, familiar with their long and illustrious career in the world of family entertainment. Frankie & Louie, you see, are the animatronic lizards that Budweiser uses to peddle its suds on television. As to how this entitles them to a record deal, your guess is as good as ours -- although we have to commend the marketing genius who unearthed yet another way to package moldy oldies by Kiss, Guns n' Roses and (believe it or not) Bob Marley . . .

Speaking of reptilian creatures, Sammy Hagar also hopped on the synergy train this past week at New York's Hard Rock Cafe, where he launched both his new album, Red Voodoo and a brand of tequila that will bear his name. The lead single from Voodoo? A Gary Glitter-inspired jingle called "Mas Tequila." We were so eager to get outta that shindig that we finally sympathized with Hagar's plaint about not being able to drive fifty-five . . .

Seems Blur's Damon Albarn still finds modern life rubbish. Though his band's new album, 13, comes out March 23, the musician recently took a trip back to decidedly simpler times. The frontman collaborated with renowned soundtrack composer Michael Nyman on music for Ravenous, a period movie based on the Gold Rush-era California. The two of them co-wrote most of the material and then repaired to their own respective studios to record the stuff, using original Native American music and period instruments such as the dulcimer to create an archaic, Steven Foster-kind of sound. In fact, Nyman is such a big fan of the "Oh, Susanna!" scribe that he rearranged some of Foster's old quadrilles for the soundtrack. But Albarn is used to Nyman's idiosyncratic work habits. The two of them worked together on "London Pride" for the Red Hot compilation 20th Century Blues Tribute Album to Noel Coward. And if that isn't enough, Albarn also has a close relationship with Ravenous director Antonia Bird, who he met on the set of Face, during his first big screen debut, when he played a gangster for that flick . . .

The RSN Staff(March 12, 1999)