Gorillaz Converse range, ‘new track’, Damon now on Universal, Gorillaz originally asked to play show

Some news from the past few days…

Gorillaz official Converse shows, new song, GSS show
The NME reports today that a range of Gorillaz Converse shoes will be released in February 2012. To coincide with the release, Gorillaz will ‘record and release’ a new song in February.
Serverloco sends pictures of the shoes. There have been some fanmade ones out there before now but these pictures appear to show the real deal. Converse has a series of music-related shoes and Gorillaz are the latest signing to this range. Check out the photos here.
Gorillaz Sound System will be playing a show at London’s 100 Club next month (on 1st December) possibly as a tie-in (the NME is reporting the news together with the Converse news) and the 100 Club is sponsored by Converse shoes.

Gorillaz were originally asked to play the London Greenpeace show
According to this mini audio interview with Paul Simonon, bassist of the Clash, Gorillaz live band and The Good, The Bad & The Queen, Greenpeace originally asked if Gorillaz would play but it would be too expensive and they woudln’t have been able to get an adequate number of guests with people doing other things in their schedules etc.Also Paul says that as far as anyone has any plans at the moment, this GBQ show is a one-off, with no further activity planned. Paul was in the news recently when it was revealed that he took part in a recent piece of Greenpeace activism at an oil rig off Greenland. Frida sends the link to the full story on the Guardian here

EMI split into two; recorded music division bought by Universal
As reported absolutely everywhere, the major record label EMI, to which Gorillaz and Damon were signed, has been split into two (into recorded music and publishing divisions) and sold, the recorded music part has been sold to Universal, a major record label. This means Gorillaz, and Damon, are now on Universal (Damon told Word magazine at the end of 2008 that he had a contract with EMI stretching far into the future, so presumably he will now see out this contract with Universal).

Win signed ‘Slippery In Seattle’ lithos
Lithos signed by Damon and Jamie, free entry, check out the contest on recordstore.co.uk here