Korn's drummer like a girlfriend changing the curtains, or something

Terry Bozzio had to split up with Korn because, apparently, he started to behave like he owned the place, reckons James Shaffer:

"There were certain demands that he made. We weren't ready to meet those demands. We just brought him in to write," Shaffner told WENN. "It's like some chick that you hang out with and all of a sudden they want to move in. What do you say to that? 'You were supposed to stay for the weekend, but you moved in all your [stuff].' It was kind of like that.

"He was a great guy and a phenomenal drummer but the demands that he made were offensive. He wanted to be a member of the band, and that included ownership. We were like, 'What, you want to have 25 per cent of everything?' We can't just sign away the right to music on a whim."

Good point. Just because the bloke's doing the drumming work, why on earth should he expect to be paid for it, eh?

United ground CSS

CSS had been due to play Lollapalooza this weekend, but didn't. Their set fell foul of the airlines; habits of selling more seats than they actually have, in the hope that people won't turn up - something that in most industries would be fraudulent.

The band posted the story to MySpace, and was copied to Music Slut:

*Well, folks. Wanna read a story? This is how things happened: A couple of weeks ago we finished the first part of the crazy SUMMER FESTIVAL TOURS. So we were happy we were having some days off, yay! But we had to get our working visas for USA, so instead of going home, we went to Lisbon to get our visas issued. We statyed a couple of days in sunny Lisbon (yummy Lisbon), got the papers, rested for four days and came to US.

Yesterday we played our NYC gig, which by the way was very very very fun. The crew and a part of the band headed right after the show to Chicago with the bus (which didn't have enough room for everybody) and the rest of us went stayed one more night in NYC. We had a flight to Chicago eleven in the morning of the next day (aka today). So we woke up very early, got an expensive taxi to the LaGuardia airport, checked in almost three hours before the flight and GUESS WHAT?

United Airlines oversold the flight and... and... they're very sorry cuz there's no other way for us to go to Chicago and play our gig! And they're also VERY SORRY cuz our luggages went to Chicago. And they're very sorry they ain't paying for our hotels here in NYC today, our cab, our fucking dignity. And by the way, they were the ASSHOLEST people I ever saw in my life. They treated us like shit. FUCK UNITED AIRLINES BIG TIME. BIG TIME. ASSHOLES. ARSE-HOLES.

NOW WHERE'S MY FUCKING CASE? SHIT.
We're so sorry. And pissed.
Love. And hate.
CSS.*

We've still yet to have it convincingly explained to us how airlines are able to sell something they've already sold to someone else - we have heard vague explanations that it's in someway important to maintain their ability to keep flying, but presumably they could use the same argument if they started pickpocketing customers queuing up to check in.

Exit David Coverdale, pursued by a bear

Or, rather, exit a bear, pursued by David Coverdale. Oh, yes, the bears at Lake Tahoe took on the wrong guy when one of them went into Coverdale's house. Black bear versus Whitesnake? It's not even a fair battle, is it?

The singer said he could feel the animal's breath on his hand as he closed the kitchen window, before he "ran around" the house to make sure all the other entrances and exits were secure.

"I'd like to think it was the smell of my fab cooking that seduced him," said Coverdale, "but it was only a slightly charred bagel!"

Coverdale, 55, recounted how he ran at the animal with an air horn canister and scared him into the garden.

Still, Mr Bear, at least he didn't sing at you. Small mercies, eh?

Stereolab weekend: Pack Yr Romatic Mind

live at The Phoenix, March 14, 2006

Eddie Murphy does the right thing, grudgingly, belatedly

Eddie Murphy has issued a statement accepting that he's not going to be able to wriggle out of this one ("accepting paternity of Mel B's kid"):

"He acknowledges paternity of the child, Angel, and has paid child support to Ms Brown as well as covering the expenses of her pregnancy."

The star added that he "views this as a private matter and as such, will not be making any further comments about it".

Exactly. As he did when he went on the television and implied, in front of the viewing millions, that the woman he'd impregnated was such a harlot it was impossible to discern who may or may not be the father. That sort of private matter.

Gennaro Castaldo watch: Now he's a Fopp

Surveying his new, expanded kingdom, Gennaro Castaldo welcomes the formal transfer of Fopp into the HMV family. (And it is a family. A dysfunctional one with two members of life support already, but a family nevertheless):

"Those stores actually were profitable and the Fopp brand - there's a lot of customer interest in it, it was very appealing, and I think it was working strongly across the country, but some stores were purchased and maybe didn't fit in with the original plans."

"Where those members of staff are available we'll certainly be looking to rehire them which hopefully will mean up to 70 jobs are saved."

As some commenters have pointed out, HMV are by no means picking up all the profitable links in the Fopp chanin, which suggests that the company simply couldn't extend itself to take on any more - you can see they might want to have avoided the MusicZone and MVC branches that dragged down Fopp in the first place, but there must have been some other branches which the people currently keeping HMV afloat wouldn't extend on.

Stereolab weekend: French Disko

The state of pop tv must be bad if we're starting to miss the contribution of The Word to Britain's musical cultural life.



Stereolab weekend

Robbie Williams is not going to have the shellfish there again

Does anyone here remember Robbie Williams? That's right, the straight guy. He's having a rough time of it at the moment, according to 3AM:

Robbie woes began when the 33-year-old cracked his rib during a rough boxing match - leaving him "beyond depressed".
[...]
Then, to add insult to injury, a prawn dish had him hobbling to the lavatory all day and night.

Oddly, 3AM don't seem at all surprised that Williams might have been stripped down to his shorts with another bloke, hammering around each other's bones. Robbie Williams boxing? We'd pay money to see that. Especially as he doesn't sound that good at it. Presumably too busy protecting the face.

We're sure you'll want to know more about his prawn mishap:

"I had a prawn incident. I had stuff coming out of my mouth and everywhere else in my body."

Unpleasant. We know how horrible the stuff Williams wants to come out his mouth is, so we're not even going to picture the scene.

3AM tell us that Robbie's especially upset about the injury, as he's been really getting off on that football team he runs:

Since then he has thrown himself into organising games for his football team, complete with bonding sessions in the jacuzzi.

Ah, well, he can still have the bonding in the bath with the other guys, eh? There's always consolations to be had.

Simpsons: maybe quitting music might have been a tad hasty

Jessica Simpson's bid to reinvent herself as something-or-other have run into the sand, as Blonde Ambition, the first movie in which she was asked to do more than stand around in cut-off shorts, has been rated too poor for cinema release by the studio. It's planned now to go straight to DVD, if they can find a disc able to take the movie without decaying.

Oh, god, this doesn't mean she's going to try and resurrect the music career, does it?

Allen kicks photographer, claims photographer

We have a difference of opinion, Geoffrey, over the claims that Lily Allen kicked a photographer who tried to take pictures of her as she landed at Melbourne airport.

The photographer's agency says:

"Lily Allen hid and actually kicked the photographer who asked her for just one photo."

While Allen's people say:

The photographer was jumping all over everyone. He was really in her face.

"He was asked by two tour managers to back off and then he was yelling stuff out."

Although, to us, that sounds like a justification for kicking someone rather than a denial of doing so.

Mind you, anyone who wants to take pictures of Lily Allen is probably asking for some sort of violent intervention, and we can't help feeling in five years the guy will be dining out better on the "I was kicked by a minor celebrity" story than any picture of said celebrity red-eyed after a transcontinental flight.