Off the record: David Smyth's column

The fate of Camden's Electric Ballroom looks uncertain again after it was saved from demolition two years ago, and the Astoria on Charing Cross Road is now facing the bulldozers to make way for rail redevelopment.

The Astoria has been a theatre, a cinema and a pickle factory, but has been most successful as a concert venue.

Anyone who's anyone has played it: rock royals from Nirvana and Oasis to the Rolling Stones have performed momentous gigs here, and its G-A-Y club night, one of the biggest in Europe, has been host to pop princesses from Mariah Carey to the Spice Girls and Kylie Minogue.

It saw the Manic Street Preachers' last performance before the disappearance of guitarist Richey Edwards in 1994, and it is where, in 2001, Bono announced that U2 were "reapplying for the job" of greatest band in the world and were instantly hired.

But if the long-delayed Crossrail bill continues its progress through Parliament - it should gain Royal Assent by the end of this year - the venue will be forced to close to allow for the construction of a new station at Tottenham Court Road.

Property company Derwent Valley owns the building, and mega music promoter Live Nation only leases it. It remains to be seen whether either will support the online petition at www.savetheastoria.org, which was set up by two gig-going students and has now collected more than 30,000 signatures.

Westminster council, which says that the threat has been public knowledge since 1990, is unsympathetic. Before Crossrail became interested in the site, Tottenham Court Road was already earmarked as a station that needed redevelopment following the King's Cross fire, so even if Crossrail fails, London Underground will still need to knock the Astoria down.

Crossrail agrees that they see no alternative to construction at the site. The barely visible silver lining is that the council has secured an agreement that once the Crossrail construction is completed optimistically around 2015, there will be space for "a replacement theatre at sub-basement level, beneath the ticket hall", but it will only have a capacity of 250 seated.

The Astoria holds 2,000 standing, and while its black walls and sticky floors won't appeal to more sedate concertgoers, its aged griminess, steeped in sweaty memories, is exactly what attracts the world's greatest bands.

Its demise would be a huge loss to London's live music scene, and it is a great shame that if it was just another 100 yards down the road, it could live happily ever after.

I was a little daunted to receive the new album by Denver rock band the Apples in Stereo, a pet project for new record company owner Elijah Wood, and see that it weighs in at a monstrous 24 tracks. Their sunny indie pop is pleasant enough, but who needs that amount of it?

Similarly, the last three releases by folky w¸nderkind Sufjan Stevens have contained 42, 21 and 22 songs, while Ryan Adams recently uploaded 10 new albums onto his website, all of which were appalling.

Life's too short for this kind of self-indulgence, so I'm loving a competition run by New York radio station WFMU, which asks listeners to remix famous tracks so they last no more than 60 seconds.

Radiohead's Paranoid Android is renamed Prndandrd to save time, Isaac Hayes's 18-minute By the Time I Get to Phoenix becomes a much more tolerable journey and Stairway to Heaven is more like a stepladder. Listen for yourself at http://blog.wfmu. org/freeform/2007/01/the_sixty_ secon.html

NEW ON THE NET

Radio station Kiss 100 has just launched a new downloads store at www.totalkiss.com. Other commercial stations look like they'll be following suit, which raises the possibility of a future in which you can buy a song directly from any broadcaster as soon as you hear it - sounds good to me.

More surprisingly, the other person pointing the way to the future of music this week is the staunchly unadventurous Kelly Jones of the Stereophonics. He has recorded 10 new ballads while he was supposed to be working on his band's new album, and bunged them out on iTunes as a solo release called Only the Names Have Been Changed. It took about three days' work to give fans a decent chunk of new material without fanfare, a way of working that should be encouraged.

AN EARLY LISTEN TO...

Ono
Yes, I'm a Witch (Parlophone)
This consistently surprising remix album is a great opportunity to reassess Yoko Ono's singular talents. Released on 19 February, Yes, I'm a Witch features vocals from throughout Ono's singing career, with new backing tracks by hip young things including Cat Power, Spiritualized and Antony and the Johnsons.

It's remarkably accessible, especially Kiss Kiss Kiss by fellow provocateur Peaches, and Porcupine Tree's haunting Death of Samantha. The Flaming Lips offer a bouncy tune called Cambridge 1969/2007 - though anyone inspired to revisit the 26-minute cacophony of the original is in for a nasty surprise ...