Saturday, July 09, 2016

Franz Ferdinand: Walk away, walk away

Nick McCarthy, who was with Franz Ferdinand before anyone had heard of them, and was still with them now people don't remember them, has quit the band. There was an official statement on Facebook, which explained Nick wanted to spend more time with his family.

The conclusion was amusing:

We'd love to say this is a result of personal or musical differences, but it's not. Those differences are what we formed the band around in the first place.


Bring Me The Horizon, and peel me a grape

What would the festival season be without a few squabbles round the back of the VIP area?

So lets drop by Spain's Resurrection Fest - imagine Download, if it was somewhere warm and less picky about the bill.

There, Ben Baker - once of Minor Threat and currently part of Bad Religion - spotted something backstage.

I'm going to stop these people every time I see them today and tell them how much their band sucks

A photo posted by Brian Baker (@brianbakers) on



There is something quite cute about Bring Me The Horizon deciding that they're important enough to not need to show passes, but being self-aware enough to know that most people couldn't pick them out of a police line-up, even if the rest of the line-up consisted of drawings of Andrea Leadsom.

They, though, weren't happy. Brooklyn Vegan reports they responded grumpily:
Matt commented on the Instagram:
Hahah I can’t imagine being as old as you are and still acting like a 14 year old girl. Saw you at least 10 times and you didn’t bat an eye lid. You got bigger things to worry about nowadays anyway, like ya pension, or cold weather. Dickhead.

Oli added, “Yeah we are not your enemy, winter is your enemy.”
Here's a pro-tip: if you're going to attack someone for being old, probably don't do it in a way that allows your target to smile patronisingly at you, pat you on the head, and say "oh, you poor child":
It seems you’ve missed the point entirely. The issue here is entitlement. My post was a comment on your collective delusion that working local crew at a thirty band festival should be required to memorize your faces to spare you the indignity of breaking stride on the way to your backstage oasis or even worse, the humiliation of carrying credentials. Your literal display of arrogance (and the hilariously unrecognized irony within it) was what I was sharing with my followers. I honestly don’t know if your music is bad or good – it’s not for old people! I meant that you suck as humans. Sorry for the confusion.
We can help you on the music point, Brian. It's not for any people.


Tuesday, July 05, 2016

In these strange times, we need Lily Allen

Long-term readers of No Rock will know that I've never been Lily Allen's biggest fan. But we live in strange days, and she's pretty much made herself invaluable over the last couple of weeks.

In fact, her delightful sharing of Rupert Murdoch, Nigel Farage, and the now-defunct Liam Fox having fun at a barbecue is one of the delights of the summer so far:




Apparently some of the guests tutted that Allen would post these images, but she had a really great riposte for that, too:
Allen also said that other guests at the party had told her she should not post pictures or videos of Murdoch. “His publications have been making money from publishing pictures of me, though,” she said.