Gordon in the morning: Olly Murs' guide to girls

Another staggering piece of high-quality journalism from Gordon Smart this morning:

[Olly Murs] admitted he only used to head to malls with pals to get girls’ numbers.

He said: “I used to go after them and try to chat them up.

“Once I walked home from one and we had seven or eight numbers up our arms.”

Plus five pairs of tight trousers...

Young man goes to public place to talk to women - you can see why Gordon would make room for such a story, can't you?

Not entirely sure about the five pairs of tight trousers - I'm presuming that's a reference to erections in a family newspaper, but why five? Has Gordon conjured this image up so clearly in his head he's been able to count the numbers of swelling groins? Or does he know that Olly has four friends? All rather curious.

Saxobit: Thomas Marth

Long-standing Las Vegas musician Thomas Marth has died.

Marth is probably best known for his work with The Killers - he played on Sam's Town and Day And Age, and was a part of the expanded touring line-up for the band. In Vegas, he played with a number of acts, including The Big Friendly Corporation - a family concern which also had his sister and brother.

Reports suggest Marth took his own life; he was 33.

A snippet from Jack White's interview on Today

- has Meg heard the album?
- I don't know... she doesn't often answer the phone. I don't know if she's heard it; I'd have to fly to Detroit to ask her.

George Galloway springs Pete Burns

Apparently George Galloway keeps in touch with his reality TV chums - he says he got Pete Burns released from a police cell. The Telegraph reports:

“I got him out of jail,” he says. “I had to go to a police station and pay a sum of money, of surety, to get him out of the cells.”

Pete Burns' spokesman (I suspect this might be Pete Burns pretending to be his own staff) confirms to the Telegraph that Galloway did help during an incident, but insists that no charges had been laid.

Which does raise the question: what sort of surety would Galloway be paying to spring someone who hasn't been charged with anything? My - admittedly limited - understanding of the law is that although you can be released on bail while an investigation continues, such a bail release wouldn't require a cash sum to be laid down.

Gordon in the morning: No flipping

A dispatch from Kasabian's US tour bus? With Gordon Smart's very own byline on it?

Surely this must be a deeply serious story. Brace yourselves, Britain:

WHAT is the most vital thing on Kasabian’s tour bus? The band’s instruments? Their supply of Pot Noodle snacks?

Neither. Frontman Tom Meighan explains: “The televison remote control is the most important thing. If that gets lost, everyone s**** it.

“I just watched Fargo this morning – bit of an intense film for that time of day.

“We’ve got satellite TV on the bus so we can watch footie on Fox Soccer.”

On Fox Soccer? I'm sure Meighan actually named the channel, as - since we know - Rupert Murdoch's newspapers do not push his other business interests. He said that on oath yesterday, and Rupert Murdoch would never tell a lie.

Obviously, Gordon wouldn't have snuck a little reference to one of News Corp's other businesses onto the page the very day after Murdoch had said that, because how would that help?

But: seriously - lost remote controls and 'what I watched on television'? I think Meighan would probably have judged that a little dull for his own Twitter stream, never mind a national sort-of-newspaper.

Gordon in the morning: Song for whoever

Presumably assuming we don't understand that most chart pop hits are now made like Per Una trousersuits, sitched together to a basic design and then offered up to someone in the hope they'll fit, Rita Ora turns up to insist that she was given the chance to do the new Cheryl Cole song first:

She decided the house track — which is written and produced by Calvin Harris — was too dance orientated. She said: “I heard Call My Name quite a while ago because I was offered it.

“I turned it down. I do like the song but I didn’t want to sing it ’cos it’s not really me.

“I don’t want to go down the dance route that a lot of other pop stars are doing.

“I prefer to have my own sound and do my own thing.”

That would be the "doing your own thing" which, er, involves auditioning songs written for whoever fancies doing them.

Sinead O'Connor axes tour

Sinead O'Connor has pulled most of her outstanding dates for the year:

With enormous regret I must announce that I have to cancel all touring for the year as am very unwell due to bipolar disorder. As you all know I had a very serious breakdown between December and March and I had been advised by my doctor not to go on tour but didn't want to 'fail' or let anyone down as the tour was already booked to coincide with album release. So very stupidly I ignored his advice to my great detriment, attempting to be stronger than I actually am. I apologize sincerely for any difficulties this may cause. While touring will be cancelled I do hope and plan to appear at the Curtis Mayfield tribute in The Lincoln Centre in July."

Gordon in the morning: A man who uses the word 'ogle'

Ogle, ogle, ogle. Oy, oy, oy. This morning, Gordon runs a photo of Gerard Butler at a basketball match:

GERARD Butler made no attempt to hide his admiration for the LA Lakers cheerleaders.

In the photo, Butler is smiling, and looking forward; in the foreground there's a cheerleader. For comparison, there's a similar photo of David Beckham not looking in the direction of a cheerleader.

The fact that both these are snaps and, for all we know, Butler might have been looking past the cheerleader to someone selling snowcones and smiling at those, while Beckham could have just had a quick glance upwards to try and cope with his excitement.

Butler doesn't even seem to be looking at a cheerleader. It's a single moment in time being spun.

But bachelor Gerard, who sat courtside at the Staples Center in LA on Sunday, won’t get in any trouble at home for having a good old ogle.

Ogle. Yes, really. Ogle.

Given the Sun is, basically, some writing wrapped around soft porn, isn't having a go at a man for - possibly - looking at a cheerleader a bit of a stretch anyway?

Wyclef Jean: What if you threw a gig for stoners and they were, like, whatever or whatever?

4/20 is, according to Wikipedia, a secular holiday in America - it's not, it's just a day when people who haven't quite got over being pleased with themselves at smoking dope gather to be pleased with themselves in public. It's pretending to be part of a counterculture from firmly within mainstream culture.

To mark the day, Colorado University in Boulder booked Wyclef Jean to do a gig. Although the stressed that he wasn't to mark the day:

From item twelve in the contract ("The Agency Shall" section):

"The Agency shall ensure that Attraction avoids making direct referrences to marijuana and other illegal drugs or make 4/20 related remarks as this is a University sponsored event."

It's like booking Perry Como to do a Christmas Eve set and making him sign a waiver barring him from mentioning Holidays, Jesus or gifts.

So, how did it go, then? Not well, as Jean played to a mostly empty room.

Westword was speculating there were 400 people in the 11,000-capacity venue; even if that number doubled as the evening went on, with Jean getting a flat-fee of $80,000 for the event, that'd make it a $100-a-head event.

Moral: probably don't bother holding a big event on a day when everyone is getting out their faces. They should probably have spent the fee they gave Jean on Curly-Wurlys and crisps.

One Direction: Capital Radio really are big babies

Back when the Brits happened, and One Direction got confused and thanked Radio One for a prize voted for by Capital FM listeners, Capital vowed that One Direction were dead to them.

At the time, I raised a curious eyebrow. Would a pop radio station really be so bitter as to not play songs by one of the biggest bands for their target audience?

Turns out, yes. Capital really are holding a grudge, regardless of how self-damaging it might be, and how petty it makes them seem:

Figures from Compare My Radio provided to Radio Today show that in the period between 1st January and 21st February this year, 95.8 Capital FM in London played ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ 50 times and follow-up single ‘One Thing’ twice. That works out on average at one play of the band every day. Between 22 February and 18 April the station hasn’t played a single One Direction track, according to the monitoring by Compare My Radio which takes information from ‘Now Playing’ feeds.

When the group’s album became the first ever debut release by a British act to go straight in at the top the US charts, news bulletins on Capital didn’t mention it – despite many of their rival stations highlighting one of the biggest UK music successes in America since The Beatles.

All because One Direction aren't the fizziest drinks in the cupboard. There are Jewish grandmothers suggesting that Capital might need to stop playing the victim so much.

Gordon in the morning: Any umbrellas to fix today?

Really, Gordon? Five years on the best joke you can come up with to promote Rihanna's show on Sky Living ("welcome Rihanna's move to Britain") is a joke about Umbrellas?

Well... not quite:

The singer — famous for her skimpy outfits — filmed two episodes earlier this year and is due back next month.

Rihanna has won 18 American Music Awards, two Brits, three MOBOs and five Grammys. She's sold over 25 million albums and 60 million singles. In what way is she "famous for her skimpy outfits"?

One Direction fans are passionate about One Direction, or nearest equivalent

Oh, how much do One Direction fans love One Direction?

With a fierce and burning passion that can only be sparked by the band.

Or, erm, anyone who looks a bit like they might be in the band:

New Zealand teenage girls turned out in their thousands over the weekend hoping for a glimpse of British-Irish boy band One Direction but it seems not all knew who they were screaming for.

A radio producer wearing a beanie, dark glasses and a scarf, was mobbed when he left an Auckland hotel after interviewing the stars with young girls believing he was a member of the five-piece band.

Guy Parsons, 23, is older and taller than members of One Direction but still fooled the hysterical young girls who chased him down the street.

This could be a risk when you construct a band out of unthreatening bloke-types; it becomes impossible to recognise them out of context.

Interestingly, even when they had their error pointed out, some fans didn't care:

"I said 'I've got you, I'm not one of them', but they still wanted photos," Parsons told the Sunday Star-Times, adding he enjoyed his brief moment of fame.

There's a lot of critical theory which would tell you that boybands just fill a hole which gives young girls something to direct their passion at; this would seem to support that.

One Direction fans: incredibly passionate; just not that fussy.

This week just gone

The most-read April 2012 stories so far:

1. The illustrated Friends
2. Joni Mitchell fights the bugs
3. Courtney Love apologises to Frances Bean for being rude about Dave Grohl
4. Man stabbed at Jessie J/Blackberry party
5. Krissi Murison jumps the NME ship
6. John Lydon draws attention to record he doesn't want you to buy
7. Gordon Smart reveals George Michael is haunted by a vampire ghost
8. Mail takes NME pro-Doherty piece, turns it into anti-Doherty piece
9. RIP: Dick Clark
10. Cowell's One Direction fans threaten the original One Direction

This week's interesting releases:


Loudon Wainwright III - Older Than My Old Man Now

Download Older Than My Old Man Now



Battles - Drop Gloss

Download Drop Gloss



Human Don't Be Angry - Human Don't Be Angry

Download Human Don't Be Angry



Spritiualized - Sweet Heart Sweet Light

Download MTV Unplugged



Sheena Easton - The Collection

Download The Collection



Crass - Ten Notes On A Summer's Day