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What do you get if you take Lois, Carrie from Sleater-Kinney and Pete from Marine Research?
Pretty much this:
Another short-lived project, this was the only record from this particular supergroup.
[Part of The Lois Maffeo weekend]
Will the horror of this economic crisis never end? Latest victim of the crunching and austerity is The Liberace Museum in Las Vegas is shutting its doors.
It used to attract half a million visitors a year, but not so many come any more.
Actually, it's not entirely the credit crunch, and more that Liberace was of his time, and fewer people are interested:
“We really started pushing the idea of bling, and Liberace was the first person who was really doing bling,” said Jeffrey P. Koep, the chairman of the Liberace Foundation and dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. “He had the big rings. He had the look that you see the kids doing now that’s very popular.”That's the sort of idea a grandmother would come up with - "you wear big rings, don't you, dear? Look, this man had big rings, too" - so it's not surprising it flopped.
Billy Vassiliadis, the head of the advertising agency that represents the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, said the loss of the museum “was a shame, especially for us older folks.” But, he said, Las Vegas, like Liberace, has always been about reinventing itself.The sad thing is, he's probably not wide of the mark with that one.
“We have to keep refreshing Las Vegas,” he said. “Thousands of people turn 21 every day. Who knows, maybe we’ll have a Lady Gaga museum in 10 years.”
Backwards in time, now, to a 1992 Lois Maffeo band, Lumihoops. They played once, and released just one track:
This was that single track, Roman Holiday. Not a tribute to the sailor-suit beclad middle-England pop act of almost the same name, thank god.
[Part of The Lois Maffeo weekend]
Do you have photos of people gathered round a piano? The Kilroy teamDarren Hayman wants to hear from you:
Here's what I want from you. I want to make a video comprised of 100s of photos of pianos. I want all of the photos to be sourced or 'found' and rarely staged. I want photos that already exist. The idea is that the piano photos would present a chronolgy, so we start with the oldest photo first onto the most modern. For that reason what I really want is your old family photos and even better photos of your grandparents and earlier.You can find out why, and more on what he's looking for, over on his website.
Another track from that 2008 New York gig:
[Part of the Lois Maffeo weekend]
California girth: Katy Perry's skin-tight silver dress clings in all the wrong placesReally, Daily Mail?
With the material buckling around the waist, the figure-hugging design even gave the impression of a protruding belly.
A US government study has warned that the recorded music industry might be allowing its legacy to crumble into dust, Variety reports:
The 169-page white paper, subtitled "A National Legacy at Risk in the Digital Age," concludes that nothing less than congressional revision of copyright law will help alleviate the many issues facing overtaxed, underfunded, technologically inadequate institutions involved in preservation work.Masters of bands that labels have concluded they can no longer make money of have been junked - don't even think about what might have happened if instead of destroying them, the labels had allowed artists to take back and do what they would with them. Don't think about what the majors might have consigned to destruction.
The major sectors of showbiz are working to preserve iconic works (Variety, Aug. 2-8) and U.S. music labels have taken steps to ensure preservation of their catalogs, but, crucially, "It is uncertain whether master recordings are being maintained or preserved when there is no prospect for their reissue or for monetary gain from their digital distribution," according to the NRPB study.
"Current programs to systematically preserve (digital) recordings are inadequate," says the NRPB.And one of the biggest threats to preserving recordings? It's copyright law. The study suggests that if people paid attention to copyright law, virtually all attempts to preserve audio recordings would be illegal.
Funding for preservation is "decentralized and inadequate," the study says. And the problem has only grown with the steep music-industry downturn of the last decade: The study notes, for instance, that the Grammy Foundation's preservation awards totaled $441,000 in 2008 and just $150,000 in 2009.
Analog-to-digital archiving is beyond the scope of most institutions. The study takes a dim view of recordable CDs as an archival medium, noting they have "placed preservation programs at great risk."
You have to go more-or-less to the end of this clip about Tea Party events in Georgia, but there you'll see Maureen Tucker, complaining about taxes:
Is it Moe? The Maureen Tucker from the Velvets does live just an hour's drive away in Douglas, so it's her 'local' gathering of confused patriots against government spending on things they don't agree with. What are the chances of two Maureen Tuckers being in the area?
[via Guardian Music]
The tracks where you get to look at a sleeve are great, but let's thrill to the visuals, shall we? This is Lois playing live:
The man is David Carswell; this was Lois' first live performance in ages. 2008 in New York.
[Part of the Lois Maffeo weekend]
Sometimes, we point and snigger at Neil McCormick, the Telegraph's friend of Bono music writer, but he's got a point this morning, listing the churning products of the Lennon Industry:
This is the latest offering from a posthumous, multi-million-dollar Lennon industry, partly fuelled by his widow's sometimes suspect desire to keep the flame burning. It has led to such dubious tributes as a TV commercial for the Citroën DS3, a Mont Blanc fountain pen retailing at $27,000, a limited edition Gibson Imagine guitar ($10,748), alongside the usual array of Lennon-branded mugs, clothing, books, calendars, prints and even an Imagine brand of Ben & Jerry's ice cream.I suspect Neil and I would disagree over the core of his argument. Neil insists this isn't what the man himself would want, or be doing, were he alive today; my suspicion is that Lennon would just be more careful than Yoko at merchandising the idea of the rock ascetic. But the headline?
John Lennon's 70th birthday: these tacky souvenirs and adverts insult his memoryI think we can agree on that.
From Courtney Love the band - Lois and Pat Maley:
[Part of the the Lois Maffeo weekend]
You know what Ne-Yo hates? People who make music just to make money. Gee, those guys are the worst:
"People's reasons for making music have changed. I remember a time when people made music for the sheer joy of it. Nowadays people are just trying to make money and you can hear it. Everything sounds the same: it's shallow, hollow and thin. I take the time."Yeah! You go, Ne-Yo - you wave your angry little fist at people who simply use their profiles as a way to fill their bank balances. They're so vulgar.
A weekend of embedded videos which will continue with sound only, I suspect, as we dip into the career of Lois Maffeo. Lois, as she was often professionally known:
That's her first sort-of solo debut, Press Play And Record, although she'd been making excellent music for years before that came out in 1992. At the start of the 1990s, she was in Courtney Love. The band, of course, the one that makes (her ex-roommate) Courtney Love the person fume and rage about who has the rights to a made-up name.
Before that, she'd arrived in Olympia and become a one-woman radio cult with a show on KAOS; it seems like you couldn't help but be well-connected in Olympia at the time and her cross-collaborations would give Pete Frame cold sweats trying to keep track of.
She writes a mean song. This is going to be a brilliant weekend, I think, even if the 'videos' are just pictures filling the hole in the screen.
Buy
Infinity Plus [download version]
Butterfly Kiss
Bet The Sky
Lois online
K Records artist page
YouTube playlist by GrrlBandGeek (which this weekend's features will be drawing heavily, but not exhaustively, upon)
Lois Maffeo's writing for The Stranger
More across the weekend
Courtney Love - 2nd Most Beautiful Girl In The World
Strumpet live
I Hate The Sun live
Roman Holiday - Lumihoops
Tentacles - The Touch
The Go Team - My Head Hurts
Cradle Robbers - Sotto Voce
It's perhaps appropriate that Robbie Williams is using Bizarre to reach out to Nigel Martin-Smith.
After all, it was there, back when Victoria Newton was in charge - a phrase I'm using in its insulting sense - that The Sun had to run a grovelling apology to Martin-Smith (and make a payout) after giving Williams the space to grind his axe back in 2006. Williams, too, apologised in court.
It does make it all a little strange, then, that Smart quotes Williams saying this:
"All I want to do now is throw my arms around him and give him a hug. I want to hear sorry from him, I want to say I'm sorry."Robbie has already said sorry; in court. And he was saying sorry for making unsubstantiated claims about Martin-Smith. So how come - despite claiming "I don't want to hold any malice towards somebody from my past because that only hurts myself" - Williams is still suggesting Nigel Martin-Smith has something to apologise for?
Ex-fireman Robert Linhart is obsessed to the point of arrest with Madonna:
According to the BBC, retired fireman Robert Linhart was arrested on Tuesday while spray-painting messages on the pavement to the singer asking to meet her.It would be puzzlingly heartwarming were it not for the massive icepick he was carrying with him in the car.
One read: "M, the universe brought us together in 1992 and again this year in Prague. Meet me please."
His lawyer, Cheryl Bader, defended his actions telling the New York Daily News: "There was no threatening conduct. My understanding is it's not a crime to adore Madonna. If it were, the court would be a lot more crowded."Probably not very crowded; like glue-sniffing, there was a lot of it about in the 1980s but most people now view those minor infractions as one of the silly things you do before you grow up, surely?
If you're in London - and chances are you're not, so, sorry - Amelia Fletcher is guest dj tonight at How Does It Feel To Be Loved? Canterbury Crescent, Brixton from 9pm.
Here's something worrying - apparently Razorlight are making a new album:
Johnny [Borrell] told radio station Xfm: "Big bands get too serious about things. You get very self important and rock and roll is not worth taking too seriously."I know we should be polite and say something encouraging like "You, Johnny? Self-important? Oh, never", but... well, yes. Yes, you're right.
"The last album was a breakup album and I'm not breaking up with anybody at the moment, thank God, so this is another party album."Another party album? Just because you don't wear a shirt doesn't make the record a party album, Johnny.
"To me it is going back more to the spirit and the energy of 'Up All Night' or the 'Somewhere Else' kind of Razorlight, which is my favourite period of the band - it's an energetic rock 'n' roll album."I cherish that even when he's telling us how much of a party album he's making, he still sounds serious and self-important.
Curious. Given how rarely JLS string together words into actual sentences, when they talk about Blackberry's proprietary instant messaging system in this morning's Sun they sound like... well, salespeople:
Aston said: "That's the new thing, the PINs. It's just PINs everywhere. Do you remember MSN? Instant messaging? That's what it's like."Yes, and you can deal with Carphones 4 U to get a Blackberry Daddio on an unlimited PIN scheme for just £24-99 a month, I understand" read Squibble from a small piece of paper.
"I always revert to my BlackBerry because that's the only thing I text on. It's just easier and it's an instant message."
Oritse added: "And you know when the person's read the message, which is quite cool."
50 Cent - he's such a laugh right? Three weeks ago, he tweeted this rib-tickler:
“Perez Hilton calld me douchebag so I had my homie shoot up a gay wedding. wasnt his but still made me feel better”After some grown-ups saw it, that was taken down.
A tweet posted on his wall this morning read: "If you a man and your [sic] over 25 and you don't eat pu**y just kill your damn self. The world will be a better place. Lol"Lol indeed, Mr. Cent. Gay men should commit suicide. What astonishing insight you have into the human condition. Let's get you into your carpet slippers and let you have a bit of a rest in a comfy armchair, shall we? We'll pull the curtains so nasty old real life doesn't intervene, shall we?
Now, as rock and roll injuries go, being bitten by a lion is quite cool. It's only slightly diminished by Russell Lissack having been in an animal sanctuary when it happened.
Still a bloody lion, though.
From last night's Jimmy Fallon:
[Buy: Write About Love]
[via The Audio Perv]
South Korea's parliament is launching an enquiry into teenage pop bands to explore if they're too sexualised:
"The committee will ask them whether the teenagers have been compelled to wear revealing clothes and sing songs with suggestive moves and lyrics," the aide to lawmaker Ahn Hyoung-Hwan of the ruling Grand National Party told AFP.Any suggestion that this is an excuse for South Korean parliamentarians to sit about watching teenage girls in short skirts for "research purposes" is totally wide of the mark.
"Some of the popular girl groups are sixth and seventh graders (aged 13-14)... we need some legal devices to protect those young performers from possible abuse."
Could Jack Dee meets Jedward on Never Mind The Buzzcocks really be one step short of Abu Ghraib?
And the stand-up veteran spent the entire recording ribbing gormless John and Edward Grimes.Really? It was that bad, was it?
Producers now face a delicate editing operation to make the show suitable for broadcast amid fears Dee might be accused of bullying.
Jedward said last night: "Jack Dee was a bit rude but we've had worse. At the end of the show he asked for a picture with us so we think he's secretly a massive fan."So, erm, no, then.
Banging on for ages about not having been paid? No, no, that's not crossing the line, says Andy Parfitt.
But he's not in hock to his celebrity presenter.
And when Moyles does step over the line?
That's not really a problem either:
He added that the number of times the DJ has been censured by the BBC or Ofcom could be "counted on the fingers of one hand, probably on two or three fingers".Given that Ofcom or the BBC getting involved at this sort of level is a pretty serious injunction, you might wonder if every presenter who got "two or three" black spots next to their name would still be indulged after a clankingly bad programme like last week's. You'd suspect not - but, hey, Andy Parfitt isn't in hock to Chris Moyles. So probably everyone gets a third or fourth or fifth or sixth chance, right?
"Management – ie me – are not in hock to Chris. Chris and I have a long-term relationship and he is absolutely clear where the red lines are," said Parfitt.
For reasons that we're sure are well-meaning, the BBC is trying to develop a popular, mainstream, prime-time music programme for a general audience. MediaGuardian reports:
"We are working on it," [Andy] Parfitt told a Broadcasting Press Guild breakfast today, adding that it was "absolute rot" to say there was no music on BBC TV.Maybe there is such a mythical format, a world where The Ting Tings, Susan Boyle, The Cast Of Phantom Of The Opera and Sharon Corr can co-exist happily.
"It would be great if we could get a new popular music-based programme with a new format, a new kind of offer that really worked for the audience," he said.
"The work is on to try and find a format but we are not trying to relaunch or reinvent Top of the Pops. That is kind of a red herring. Should we be looking for a programme? Of course we should and we are.
"Would it be a good thing to try and persevere and work with producers to identify a new format? Yes. That's what television does all the time. Jan Younghusband is actually leading that process and I am closely involved with that."
Hey, don't be all crying: it turns out that Barry Diller always planned to step down from LiveNation. So says, erm, still-at-LiveNation executive chairman Irving Azoff:
As usual the press reports are ridiculous. It was always Barry Diller'sYes, in pretty much the same way David Miliband was always hoping to be a backbench MP, I'll bet.
intention to step down from LNE COB during first year after TM/LN
merger. I look forward to continue to work with him during his time on
the board. I thank him for the many years of dedication and loyalty to
everyone at TM.
“I have always said, since the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation, that I only planned to stay as chairman through the transition and integration of the two companies. It’s been almost a year and I informed the board today that while there was no rush, the board should start the process now to appoint a new chairman.”It was always the plan. All he wanted to do was oversee the union, and then he'd leave happily. He always said he'd do that. Always. And this was exactly how he'd planned to have his departure announced. Always.
Trent Reznor is - it says here - turning Year Zero into a mini-series:
"We are in [the development phase of] pre-production with HBO and BBC to do a miniseries," Reznor told the Los Angeles Times's Hero Complex blog. "It's exciting. I probably shouldn't say too much about it except that I understand that there's a thousand hurdles before anything shows up in your TV listing. It's been an interesting and very educational process and it cleared the HBO hurdle a few months ago and now we're writing drafts back and forth. So it's very much alive and incubating at the moment."If this is a success, ELO's Out Of The Blue is thought to be next up.
Barry Diller - who, in his head at least, was responsible for the megalithic monoplistish LiveNation-Ticketmaster - has walked out the company in a huff and a half:
Barry Diller, the media mogul who claimed credit for the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, said Tuesday he would resign as chairman of the merged company after a boardroom power struggle with another media giant and director, John Malone, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.Diller's resignation letter was eventually accepted by the company after he had coughed up a five pound processing fee and a three quid convenience charge.
They're tiny; they look a little odd; and they're totally constructed from plastic. And now JLS have dolls just like them, too.
Gordon's very excited, but dollies are, sadly, something for most of the JLS to look forward to when they get a bit older and their parents don't have to worry about choking hazards. Nobody wants to hear about a child choking to death on Ortise's hat.
Global Voices gathers Jamaican (and other) reactions to Buju Banton's mistrial:
Repeating Islands reposts a mainstream media report confirming that the star's U.S. drug trial is the talk of Jamaica, “where islanders are debating his guilt or innocence on street corners, in offices, in letters to the editor and on social networking websites.” There is no doubt the singer has mobilised strong support from his fan base - there is even a website that has been set up to advocate for his freedom. Many conspiracy theories are floating around, including one claiming that Banton was set up by members of the international gay community as payback for his homophobic lyrics in past songs. (Banton signed a pledge a few years ago to desist from singing such songs again).Ah, yes, that well-known international gay community and their dirty tricks squad.
More misery, and - oh - here's Pete Doherty at the centre of it:
Singer Pete Doherty has been charged with one count of possession of cocaine following an inquiry into the death of a filmmaker.Lucky that Babyshambles reunion happened just in time to help with the lawyers.
Robin Whitehead, 27, a member of the Goldsmith family who was working on a documentary on the singer, was found dead in a flat in Hackney in January.
Another man, Peter Wolfe, 42, of Bury St Edmunds, was charged with possessing and supplying cocaine.
A third man, Alan Wass, 29, of west London, was charged with possession.
All three remain on bail and are due to appear at Thames Magistrates' Court on 18 October.
While some people will pay a fortune for a vague promise that a celeb will follow them on Twitter, The XX know how to make a charity auction:
The xx are now making the final preparations for their final (read: last chance to see them play for a very long time!!!) tour after which they head home for some well-deserved r&r before starting work on the follow up to xx. The band have decided rather than let the lightboxes sit in storage they will put them to good use by auctioning them off with all proceeds going to one of the band’s favorite charities Amnesty International.They come as a set and sellers won't split, which has apparently put Exene Cervenka off bidding.
MGMT's second album wasn't quite such a till-tickling success as their debut (indeed, Target seem to be denying Congratulations ever existed and are still shelving Oracular Spectacular on their shelf for introducing new acts.)
This probably explains, though doesn't excuse, why Sony are trying to tug the chain for album number three:
Andrew told the [Daily Record's showbiz column] Razz: "I definitely think our music will change in the future because Congratulations is almost two years old now.I'm not sure why the Columbia imprint would decide this is the way to go. Does anyone in an office really think "the audience didn't warm to MGMT making the record last time, so what they really need is some accountants dropping a few ideas into the pot"?
"We have some ideas and have been talking about possible directions of where to go next.
"We are just in much more positive mental states than when we wrote Congratulations.
"We're less anxious. We've been looking at relationships with the label during the recording process and it's quite different this time.
"They'll be more involved and not give us as much freedom."
Gordon has put on the spangly bikini and is parading round the boxing ring with a large card again this morning:
THERE hasn't been a decent chart battle since little JOE McELDERRY squared up to RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE last Christmas.Really, Gordon? Only yesterday somebody - by which I mean you - told me this:
There's gonna be a lively chart battle this week as TINIE TEMPAH and LABRINTH release singles today.Then there was Flo Rida against Roll Deep in August; Flo Rida against The Saturdays; Professor Green taking on Eminem and Mark Ronson; Professor Green squaring up to Scouting For Girls; Rangers battling Celtic; The Wanted in a chart battle with nobody in particular and Jedward and Vanilla Ice in a battle with taste.
New boys JLS will attempt to slay man band TAKE THAT in the album charts.JLS? Against Take That? In the album chart? Oh, yes, that's a fight of equals. Like pitching a greyhound against a horse, and then racing them round the Grand National course.
November 22 is also the date for the new Now! compilationYes, that's true. I'm sure the detail of compilation albums being listed in a totally separate chart won't spoil that competition at all, Gordon.
Given that he was supposed to be fighting a difficult presidential campaign right now, since Wyclef Jean has been hospitalised with fatigue, perhaps it's lucky he didn't make it onto the ballot after all.
The founder of Solar Records, Dick Griffey, has died.
Griffey had eeny-meeny-miney-moed his way into nightclub owner over medicine as a career and had quickly established an eye for talent. By the turn of the 1970s, he was booking world tours for stars of Stevie Wonder's pedigree, and it was his ear and contacts book which lead to him becoming talent booker on Soul Train.
Unencumbered by ITA-style conflict of interest worries, Soul Train spawned its own label. The imaginatively-titled Soul Train Records had some successes, most notably early Shalamar, but folded in 1977. Having helped create the label, Griffey took the leftovers and used them to found Solar (Sounds Of Los Angeles Records). Coming at the start of a mythical golden Soul-Disco age, the timing was right. Before eventually winding up as part of an EMI firesale which would see catalogue sold to Unidisc, Solar would provide a home for Shalamar, Midnight Star, Klymaxx and even the first recording featuring Snoop Doggy Dogg. It also turned out LA Reid, whose journey from musician to besuited industry paragon is a story all of its own.
Solar also counted amongst its rosta Carrie Lewis. Arguably, she was the main artist on the label; inarguably, she was the only one married to Griffey.
Dick Griffey died from complications following a multiple bypass. He was 66.
Whoopsie-daisy. ACS:Law, one of the legal firms that has done very nicely, thank you, out of pursuing unlicensed music files appears to have published thousands of pieces of personal data on the internet. Technology Guardian reports:
The website went offline after users of the online messageboard 4Chan orchestrated a sustained attack on it, putting the site offline for much of the week. A file containing the confidential information – which includes thousands of emails to and from the company – appears to have been inadvertently published on the front page of ACS:Law's website as it recovered from an attack, security experts Symantec told the Guardian. The file has since been distributed widely across the internet.What do ACS say?
Andrew Crossley, the lead solicitor at ACS:Law who has shouldered much of the ire from compainants, this morning told the Guardian that he had contacted the information commissioner about the distribution of this confidential information, adding: "We're aware of it and unable to comment about it for legal reasons."What those legal reasons are aren't clear - perhaps ACS:Law have taken an injunction out on themselves to prevent them suggesting that email communications with them might end up on the internet. Although they'd be aware of it happening.
The suggestion that Nadine Coyle's video was "too sexy for TV" is the absolute god's honest truth, and not merely a desperate ploy to try and get people interested in Nadine Coyle's solo career.
The Irish singer flashes the flesh as she writhes around in a tiny black dress in the promo for Insatiable, but TV viewers won't be able to see the saucy scenes after the footage "failed" a standards test.Actually, that makes it sound like the video didn't pass the test for photosensitive epilepsy, doesn't it?
Coyle admits producers will now attempt to re-edit the video to make it suitable for TV audiences.
In a post on her Twitter.com page, the singer writes, "Crunch time on the video front, apparently it has failed a test for TV. We have to go back and re-edit or you can't see it!"
There's a 6.04am publishing time on Helienne Lindvall's piece on Doctrow and Godin for PaidContent, so let's be generous and assume she was still half-asleep when she wrote it:
A friend of mine recently tried to book Seth Godin for a music industry panel and was told by his speaker agent that he charges $150,000 to come to London from his home in New York. And, like pretty much all these “gurus”, he demands a first-class round-trip flight ticket to boot. But if they let him do it via video link from his hometown it would only cost $15,000 plus expenses, said the agent.Um... yes, and? That's what the Freemium model is, Helienne. You give away content for free where it makes sense, and charge what you can when you're able. So Seth Godin makes a lot of his stuff available for free, which builds his reputation and saves him having to chase people making infinite copies online, and means he can charge a lot for the non-replicable stuff. That's his idea.
So what kind of valuable advice would you get for that tidy sum of money? In his interview Music Vs the Music Industry (his advice applies to just about everything, he adds) – Godin says: “This is the greatest moment in the history of music if your dream is to distribute as much music as possible to as many people as possible … If your focus is on the industry part and the limos, the advances, the lawyers, polycarbonate and vinyl, it’s horrible.”
I like a Pizza Express, me. They're doing a buy-one, get-one-for-a-quid offer for the next fortnight, too, and have just launched three new bruschettas in the starters range.
How can they ensure they can cope with the numbers that are liable to swamp their doors, I wonder?
Kasabian drummer Ian Matthews is set to return to his second band for a gig in the Soho branch of Pizza Express' Jazz Club."Warning: some dishes have risk of drummer from Kasabian playing jazz". Yes, that'd do it.
A heartfelt plea in this morning's Guardian for Bono to be treated with respect. Oh, cries Dorian Lynskey:
Down with Bono-bashingBy "bashing" what Lynskey means is "asking questions about what the self-appointed chum of the powerful says and does". This, surprisingly, turns out to be a Bad Thing To Do:
Ridiculing the U2 singer only makes it harder for any band with ideals to stick their neck out
He has been ridiculed for the financial struggles of his ethical clothing line, Edun, and private equity firm, Elevation Partners, his lobbying appearance at a Conservative party conference, the carbon footprint of U2's 360° tour, and even the back injury which forced the band to cancel their slot at Glastonbury. Anyone else would have to run for office to receive such relentlessly harsh scrutiny.Whereas Bono is simply trying to shape policy and direct governments without running for office.
Of course, someone with Bono's profile and clout deserves to have his feet held to the fire. His manner can be off-putting, not least in his columns for the New York Times; he underestimated (or ignored) leftwing discomfort with his realpolitik charm offensive on the Bush administration, and U2's 2006 decision to move their publishing business to the Netherlands for tax reasons was a disastrous own goal which needs to be reversed. But amid the growing chorus of cynicism, he rarely gets credit for the huge efforts he has made on issues such as debt relief and Aids prevention.So it seems there are some "good" criticisms of Bono, which DK approves of, and others, cherry-picked, which are unfair. It seems Dorian can question Bono's tax arrangements without being cynical, but other people asking other questions? That's just so rotten.
o matter that the U2 frontman is not responsible for ONE's day-to-day decision-making, nor that ONE's own website declares that it "does not provide aid directly" but is "an advocacy and campaigning organisation", nor that the source of attack was a rightwing tabloid. On sites such as Twitter, it was whoopingly greeted as yet further proof that Bono is a blowhard, a hypocrite, a fraud.Let's not even bother with the curious suggestion that because a story was broken by a right-wing tabloid we should pretend it doesn't exist, which is such an absurd statement it would take a thin book to pull apart - hopefully pointing out that 'not providing such awful examples of muddle-headed thinking to allow the right to take attention off inequality and focus instead on the providing of cookies to starving Manhattan journalists' will do for now - and instead ponder why it is that Bono is a figurehead, founder and face of One when things are going well, but not when the organisation does something stupid?
But any young band with political ideals might well compare his experience with that of a band like the Rolling Stones, who moved their business to the Netherlands but without inspiring a fraction of the ire, and take the path of least resistance.I don't recall Mick Jagger and Keith Richards popping up all over the place telling governments how to spend the taxes they were busily trying to minimise.
Bono's activism is an ongoing experiment to see how far fame can be used to lobby for progressive causes, and to what degree a musician can act on principles rather than merely voice them.... but, erm, if people point out that his hulking stage set for his tour makes a mockery of the environmental concern he espouses, that's somehow wrong.
If he is discredited, then so is the whole endeavour.Um... no. No, it isn't. "If Bono isn't given a free pass - except on the bits Lysnkey disagrees with - then the whole idea that artists can express their opinions lies in tatters" is just penthouse-quality rubbish.
Gordon this morning runs the not altogether surprising story about Tom Jones still liking women despite - gasp - being 70:
SINGER TOM JONES is still tempted by female fans offering him sex - at 70.Indeed he is. What's missing from this story, though, is the context in which the remarks were made. Even the Telegraph - no great fan of the BBC - manages to admit that it heard the quote on Desert Island Discs.
The womanising Welshman admits he's "a little weak-minded" when propositioned.
"We need enforcement mechanisms and we need governments to play ball … There is no difference with going into a store and stealing Pringles or a handbag and taking this stuff. It's a basic condition for investment and economic growth and there should be the same level of property rights whether it's a house or a movie," he said.Of course, sensible people don't mind a bit of sharing and cross-quoting, providing there's an acknowledgment of the original source and it's not being passed off as your own work. But that isn't the case here - there's no concession that Gordon Smart's column is making good use of the licence fee - and, well, NI aren't sensible people. What was the official line from Wapping about websites which just print chunks of other people's journalism?
"The idea that there's a new consumer class and you have to be consumer-friendly when they're stealing stuff. No. There should be the same level of sanctity as there is around property. Content is no different. They're not crazy kids. No. Punish them."
“News International makes a significant investment in journalism and we believe that it is entirely appropriate for us to ask that our rights are respected. NewsNow has acknowledged that they require our permission to use our content and, in the absence of our permission, has ceased to do so.”
Skibunny want to give you an mp3 in return for an email address. The track is Ooh Ah, and it works very well indeed.
The email harvesting machine they're using doesn't work quite so well, and is apparently too full to eat any more emails, but you can still get the track.
How do you cope with a sibling in a similar line of work, but who has done a bit better for themselves? Are there lessons for David in Dannii Minogue's autobiography?
Being compared to the better, more popular, talented one all the time? Water off a duck's back, it seems:
Minogue wrote: "Ever since I arrived in the UK in 1991, the media have pitted us against one another, first favouring my supposed 'cooler, darker' image over Kylie's bubblegum sweetness, then turning on me with a deluge of unflattering comparisons.You see, David? You're not competing with your sibling, and the comparisons are just pointless because - hey - remember, you've sold a few records yourself. And were the popular one once. Briefly. Just keep mentioning that, over and over again, with figures if you must, and nobody will ever come away with the impression that you're seething inside and wondering if you could get a fake grin actually botoxed onto your face for those times when you have to stress you couldn't really care less.
"Never mind that Dannii has had ten Top 10 records - Kylie has had 20! Never mind that Dannii's album has gone gold - Kylie's has gone platinum! Less success was no success at all as far as my critics were concerned. As much as it broke my heart at times, it never made me any less proud and supportive of my sister, and I received the same love and support from her.
"The truth is I never felt as if I was competing with my sister. Although I got very tired of the constant comparisons, it wasn't because I was jealous. I think all the Dannii-bashing headlines often hurt Kylie more than they hurt me."
The most popular stories this month:
1. Radiohead give fan-produced DVD a free soundtrack
2. RIP: Mike Edwards
3. Jon Brookes collapses on stage
4. Chris Moyles whines that he's not getting paid for this
5. Gordon Smart runs photos of kid because he has famous parents
6. Is Steve Blacknell really the man with the child in his eyes?
7. Gordon Smart attempts link between Moors Murderers and George Michael
8. Oh, God: the JLS condom is no longer a joke
9. Two Of The Beatles Have Died released
10. Lady GaGa markets herself as a Halloween Costume
These were the new releases, a couple of weeks back:
The Charlatans - Who We Touch
Download Who We Touch
The Like - Release Me
Download Release Me
Hurts - Happiness
Download Happiness
James - The Morning After
Download The Morning After
Brian Wilson - Reimagines Gershwin
Download Reimagines Gershwin
The Jim Jones Revue - Burning Your House Down
Download Burning Down Your House
Tracy Ullman - Move Over Darling: The Complete Stiff Recordings
Download The Best Of...
