Massive Attack on US territory foiled

Massive Attack had been hoping to play a tour of the US and Canada, but they've had a spot of visa trouble - funny that.

Getting into Canada wouldn't have been a problem, but US visas weren't forthcoming. We're not sure, but we suspect there might have been some cross-referencing between lists of names of people who took out full-page adverts condemning American foreign policy and lists of people hoping to enter the US.

Although there's no problem getting into Canada, the band have pulled their dates there, too. Not the first time Canada's suffered because of its neighbours.

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Lovefoxxx says "take off my dress..."

... and give it back.

Yep, some lightfingered so-and-so made off from CSS' Manchester gig with Lovefoxxx's black and white dress. There's a reward if you can reunite singer and dress, although that might just be not having Brazilian whoop-ass unleashed on you.

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Dave Stewart continues to flog made-up horse

Oh, god, we were hoping that he'd forgotten about this project, but no: Dave Stewart is continuing to press ahead with the Platinum Weird conceit.

The idea is that the Weird were Stewarts band back in the early 1970s and somehow the tapes have just reappeared:

Stewart originally formed the the rock band Platinum Weird in 1973 and was signed to Elton John's Rocket Records label.
By '74, just before the album was released, lead singer, Erin Grace, disappeared. Now, 32 years later, Dave not only resurrected Platinum Weird with a new singer at the helm, and a new PW studio album, but has miraculously unearthed the master tapes of the
previously unreleased '74 "Make Believe" album.

Yes... that's quite a miracle.

We know that music is meant to be a magical place of surprise and playing roles, but sometime the role you play is King Arthur, at the heart of Camelot. But this is more Arthur Fowler, down at the allotment.

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Some girls are bigger than others

KT Tunstall has been musing on life and, you know, stuff, at a fashion party:

After being penniless for 10 years, this is very educational. I don't know much about fashion really. Some ladies are really tall. I'm not tall."

Some ladies are really tall. You can't argue with that. You might want to argue if she was actually penniless, or just pretending, keeping a foot in the rich family she came from at the time. But you can't deny she's short.

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A Loftus Road wedding

There have been so many articles claiming to know where Pete Doherty is going to marry (or has already married) Kate Moss that the only places not so far nominated as likely venues are the Bolton Asda staff canteen and the top of Mount Fuji.

The Daily Mail claims that Doherty has a hankering to hold the reception in Loftus Road, home of his beloved Queens Park Rangers, but the club aren't keen. What with him having form for shooting up in the VIP toilets and everything.

If only there was a source to tell us more.

Hang on, there is:

A source said: "Both Pete and Kate want a quirky wedding, which is going to fit their personalities. They want a no frills wedding, just a simple day with their friends.

"Pete’s first love is QPR, and holding his big day there is something which he has always thought about.

"To him it would be a laugh — and that is what he and Kate want their nuptials to be about.

"They are an unlikely coupling but they have a lot of fun together."

Well, yes, Loftus Road does often ring to the sound of laughter, we understand.

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Robbie Williams is not getting away with it

After taking quite a lot of bile from Robbie Williams over the years, it sounds like the latest smattering of attacks on his honesty has finally pushed Take That manager Nigel Martin-Smith over the edge.

As Robbie has been giving interviews explaining the song he's written in which he talks about cutting out Martin-Smith's eyes, and claiming that he either ripped off the band or was rubbish as a manager, Martin-Smith has been talking to his lawyers:

A highly-placed music insider tells us: "Robbie has called into question Nigel's honesty and ability as a manager when it's well-known that without him he wouldn't have a career in the first place. This has got to stop."

Funnily enough, Williams' interview with The Sun earlier this week in which he talked about Martin-Smith has disappeared from the paper's website.

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3am infernal

Since one of them left, the Mirror's 3am Girls have been working as a duo, but it looks like they're auditioning a new member this morning, to judge by their websites. We're not sure Jon Clements' debut is that strong, though... he seems to lack the knack for the light, showbiz fluff which usually marks out the column.

3am girls

Robbie Williams is not an educational aid

Good news, we suppose, for children from Leeds - whereas normally it takes Kenneth Baker's bungling of teacher-employer relations or a day of heavy snow to get a mid-term day off, eleven schools are being closed due to poor planning of Robbie Williams' Leeds gigs. The local council has more or less decided that it can't be arsed to make sure residents are able to go about their lives and so have effectively told people to lock themselves in their houses until it's all gone away.

Denetta Copeland, whose two children are pupils at Moor Allerton Hall Primary School, said the closure would cause many knock-on effects for parents.

She said: "It is going to cause an outward spiral; it is affecting schools, which is affecting parents, which is affecting the workforce, which is affecting other people who are now being brought in to do the childcare, or the picking up from school.

"He is only Robbie Williams, he is not bigger than education."

Williams denies this, although he did have to admit that education does a bit better than he does in the Americas.

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Fightstar not dumped but dropped

As if the bungling blunder of getting drunk and groping your former colleague's girlfriend wasn't bad enough, why prolong the agony by electing to give interviews about an incident that might be best for those involved if they forgot it, and that has already been forgotten by the rest of us?

Still, for what it's worth Charlie Simpson claims "nothing happened" between him and Emma Griffiths, currently in the role of Matt Willis, Charlie's old mate in Busted. He was, you see, very very drunk:

“I was so excited. Fightstar had been nominated for Best British Band [at the Kerrang awards] and loads of my heroes were there. So I got absolutely shitfaced. But nothing happened with me and Emma. If you saw the picture you can draw the wrong conclusion.

“I love my girlfriend to bits. I’d never do anything to hurt her. I texted Matt the next morning and said, ‘Mate, you know how these things work. It is bull.’ But I did get a massive rollocking from my girlfriend.”

It's understandable. Fightstar being nominated for a prize from Kerrang must have convinced him he'd died and gone to a world where he was respected and treated seriously - and in such a bizzaro world, he probably imagined he could get away with anything. Clearly, it's all Kerrang's fault for taking the piss out of Fightstar with a comedy nomination in the first place.

We love the "it's all bull" text, too - all bull, except, erm, yes, I did get pissed and attempted to dry hump your girlfriend in front of the press and Alice Cooper.

More importantly, perhaps, Fightstar have been dumped by Island Records. Or, as Charlie puts it:

Earlier this week we decided to tear up the contract. They wanted a pop album and we didn’t.

“I’ve put so much into this band I don’t want to start compromising now.

“We’re thinking about going to America. The market for our stuff is much bigger over there. It’s the first time I’ve been totally free since Busted. I’m spreading my wings at last.

“I didn’t want to die and leave Busted as my legacy. I proved myself with Fightstar’s first album. Now people either like Fightstar or they don’t — there’s no issues about my Busted past.

“My life now could not be better. I’m living my dream. I’d be happy on minimum wage doing this.”

"We decided to tear up the contract" - in other words, Island could see that Fightstar weren't going to go anywhere in their current form, and refused to put in any more money unless Simpson started to make music people wanted to listen to.

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Lohan's bagged

We're not even going to dignify this by asking what sort of vlurt stuffs a million bucks' worth of jewels into a hangbag and then doesn't clutch the bag to them like it's an oddly-shaped extra limb: Lindsay Lohan lost her handbag at Heathrow and, yes, it had more than a Chapstick and a spare pair of tights in.

Oh, she was pushing the handbag on a trolley rather than carrying it.

The Sun suggests there's an irony here:

Ironically, her last film was Just My Luck.

No, it would have been ironic if it had been called I'm Stupid.

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