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Weren't asked, then, Ricky?
Ricky Wilson has swung a right hook at the bands lining up to play the Do You Recall Princess Diana Gig. He suggests they're in it for the money:
But Ricky said the Chiefs - who topped the charts recently with Ruby - will not be joining the line-up, adding: "A lot of them are doing it to sell more records.
"It's fine if you're doing something-like Live8, which is raising awareness or events that raise awareness over green issues. That's all right.
"But not just Diana. I'm not disrespecting her, but can you imagine someone like Kasabian playing at the concert?
"Elton John can do it - he knew her. I didn't know her. It would be hypocritical."
"It's fine if you're doing something-like Live8, which is raising awareness or events that raise awareness over green issues. That's all right.
"But not just Diana. I'm not disrespecting her, but can you imagine someone like Kasabian playing at the concert?
"Elton John can do it - he knew her. I didn't know her. It would be hypocritical."
Phew! It's lucky playing Live8 is okay, isn't it, Ricky? We're a little puzzled by the logic here - after all, the line-up is meant to be a celebration of the life of Diana, a thanksgiving for her work, and to raise funds for charity. Now, we can see there's an argument that you might not want to play an event for a rich woman - even one who died in a horrible car accident - whose values are abhorrent to your own; even that you don't want to raise funds for the nominated charity - but to not do so because you "never met her" is a little lame.
It'd be like Bono turning down the Nobel Prize because he never met Alfred. And we all know how likely that is to happen.
10 comments:
I can actually see HIS point. If you're not a royalist why bother. Just cos she raised money for charity doesn't make her a nice person or even someone to be respected. Some of her charity work was just to make herself look good anyway. And if you don't have any feelings towards something or someone, isnt it hypocritical to come out in support of that if you don't have belief in it? She obviously means nothing to him. She means & meant nothing to me either. There are better direct causes. Why not just do a charity concert, why in her name? So who gives a shit. Really. She's dead.
Bit harsh, but true really. It's all a matter of choice & you can't really expect everyone to support it. She wasn't a saint like some people seem to think and to put her on this pedestal like she is is ridiculous. Kaiser Chiefs did the Teenage Cancer Trust last weekend. Now that was a good gig to do and for people who needed the money directly. Not for some woman who chaired this and that charity. I think that was his basic point. To do a gig for someone who supported charities seems pointless. The point is to do the gig for the charity & if her name wasn't attached maybe it'd be respectable. Afterall she was really only a toffee nosed tart with a heart.
Oh, I agree totally with both of you - not doing the event because you're a Republican, or because you didn't like her. I would turn down on both grounds.
But Ricky, remember, has said that he's not playing because he never met her. That's plain bizarre.
Why would you do a concert for someone you never met or who meant nothing to you? Does it really matter. Let all the crappy artists do it who need the publicity. This is a concert for HER but in addition is raising money. It's not a concert just to raise money. I think this is his thinking. But that's even if he was quoted properly, you know these papers. They may not have even written it in context. Plus Indie bands playing at a Diana concert would be a bit wrong. I can't see it really.
Nat: of course we're always relying on the quote as given by the press, but what else can we do?
And so if you decide to trust the journalist's shorthand, and his transcription, and the subediting and reproduction, that's what so strange: He didn't say he wasn't playing because Diana meant nothing to him; he said they weren't playing because they never met her. It's just such odd grounds.
I do agree, though, it would be odd for indie bands to play the event. Aren't Kaiser Chiefs distributed by Universal, though?
Just to underline my point: If Ricky Wilson is against the aristocracy and anti-royalist:
http://princes-trust.org.uk/Main%20Site%20v2/headline%20news/whats%20in%20your%20region/yorkshire%20and%20the%20humber.asp
...how come the Kaiser Chiefs do a lot of good work for the Princes Trust?
I really don't see what the problem is. Just because there is a charity gig, doesn't mean you have to play it agree with the reasoning behind it. I wouldn't do a charity gig for someone if i'd never met them either! And Diana was just the mother of princes when she died. She wasn't considered a real member of the royal family by that point. The princes trust has nothing to do with her anyway. He never said he was anti royal anyway. Just maybe anti doing a concert for Princess Diana.
They are signed to B-Unique if you do your homework. Arent most indie bands are distributed by the major companies as they own the market?
And anyway, she wasn't into indie/rock n'roll, so why should indie/rock n roll be into her? Just cos she's dead? If she was living this conversation wouldn't be happening because no-one would really care who said yes to playing or not & that IS hypocracy.
Nat, I'm not sure if it's just that I'm explaining myself badly, or if there's just a basic breakdown in communication here.
Ricky Wilson - and, yes, yes, we're going to have to accept that he wasn't misquoted - didn't say he wasn't playing the gig because he disagrees with the charitable aims, or what Diana stood for - he's not playing because he never met her. Which is a little odd, don't you think? If he criticised what she stood for, or who she was - fair play. But to suggest you can only do something in the memory of a person if you met them is a little odd.
Maybe it just strikes me as a little odd.
The Princes Trust thing is apposite because there's no difference between the Princes Trust and the Diana memorial charity - both set up by heirs to the throne to celebrate their parents. Had Ricky met Charles Windsor when he played the Princes Trust? If not, what's the difference between playing for the Prince of Wales, and playing for the Princess of Wales?
What it boils down to, of course, is that Wilson was trying to have his cake and eat it - happy to slag off bands for playing the Diana benefit "to sell more records" while doing work for the Princes Trust, for what may be the same ultimate motive; suggesting there's something hypocritical in playing for Diana while not having the guts to actually criticise the very idea of a mawkish attempt to revisit the dark days of 1997 when everyone pretended to be upset she was dead.
But maybe, as I say, that's just me.
They are signed to B-Unique if you do your homework. Arent most indie bands are distributed by the major companies as they own the market?
No, because an indie label means one which has independent distribution. Anything else is just a major.
And anyway, she wasn't into indie/rock n'roll, so why should indie/rock n roll be into her?
You seem to have somehow got the impression that I think the Kaiser Chiefs should be playing the gig - I don't, I just wish they'd have the guts to be honest about their reasons for not playing.
Personally, I don't think throwing an event to celebrate someone stupid enough to travel in a car with a drunken driver while not even wearing a seatbelt makes any sort of sense.
Just cos she's dead? If she was living this conversation wouldn't be happening because no-one would really care who said yes to playing or not & that IS hypocracy.
Eh? If she was alive nobody would be worried about who was playing a gig to mark the tenth anniversary of her suicidal dash through the Streets of Paris?
For the record, though, Diana was into pop music - how else do you think Charles was dragged to Live Aid?
I think what hes trying to say is that he thinks that people who are playing a concert in celebration of someones life should be people who knew and loved her, not a bunch of randoms in it for themselves and who really couldn't careless about the charity the cause or the person.
But that's a bit illogical, isn't it? She died a decade ago, and to suggest that to keep the memory of someone alive can only be done by people who knew them means that we should forget everyone who died two generations back - after all, why play the Henry Wood Proms? None of the musicians who appear in the Royal Albert Hall knew him.
Should only bands who met John Peel play the John Peel stage at Glastonbury? Should Brazil hand back the Jules Rimet trophy because nobody on the current team was his contemporary? "Don't sit in the Arthur Gilligan Stand, mother, we never met the man."
There are dozens of good reasons for not playing a memorial event - and if this was a solemn thanksgiving for a recently deceased woman, Ricky would be spot on (it would have overtones of Pete Kay's ill-judged hijacking of Ronnie Barker's memorial). But this is a pop concert, not a funeral-substitute.
I suspect Ricky doesn't want to be seen to be playing a Sloane-themed event, but equally doesn't want to be given the tabloid kicking that saying that would bring on.
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