Jon Bon Jovi calls Steve Jobs a killer

Who killed the music industry? I'd always thought it would turn out to be like Murder On The Orient Express, with lots of people having had a little stab, but Jon Bon Jovi, out of the Jon Bon Jovi and The Bon Jovis, points the finger at just one man:

And yet he accuses Steve Jobs of being the scorpion in the decline of jacket-based music purchases: "I hate to sound like an old man now, but I am, and you mark my words, in a generation from now people are going to say: 'What happened?' Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business."

Yes. Not just in a metaphorical sense, but personally. Like he finished it off with a car jack.

That noise you can hear? It's Shawn Fanning yelling "yes - it was Steve Jobs! Clearly, the man is guilty. He alone. Phew."

I'm sure Jobs already has a defence prepared - given that the iPod and iTunes found a way to successfully sell music tracks fairly easily available elsewhere for free, he might hope to be seen as having helped keep an ailing industry alive. Bon Jovi's attack is a bit like having a go at the Good Samaritan for no other reason than he happened to be there at the time.

Bon worries that children are missing out on whole experience:

[H]e believes people today miss "The beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it."

... before getting it home and discovering it was a bit rubbish.

If Jovi's big worry is that people no longer buy records without hearing them first, then shouldn't his ire be directed at listening posts in HMV? Or, more accurately, at whoever first put those booths in record shops back when Paul McCartney was alive?

Still: nobody buys records based purely on what the cover looks like anymore. It's a tragic loss. I felt exactly the same way when the last Pig-In-A-Poke salesman went out of business.

Gordon in the morning: Worth the entry fee

It's one of those days where Gordon confounds expectations and runs a decent story, albeit one copied off the Bon Jovi message boards:

BON JOVI face a backlash from furious fans over the £1,300 price tag for the best seats at their O2 residency next June.

The New Jersey rockers, who make much of their working-class roots, are set to play a string of gigs at the East London venue.

It's not just the top tickets which are eye-wateringly expensive; the crappest part of the venue will cost you forty quid.

New album The Circle from the quartet fronted by Jon Bon Jovi tackles issues such as the recent global financial downturn, and the irony is not lost on fans.

Oddly, Gordon doesn't use any of the contacts in his rolodex to bother getting any response from the ticket agency, the band, their management, the venue or even "sources close to". But at least it's a point worth raising.

Bon Jovi gigs: High risk

While a woman who claims she was run over by Bon Jovi staff during the Milton Keynes gig pursues legal action in the UK, a Canadian man is suing after his neck got broken during an Edmonton Bon Jovi date.

I'm a cowboy, on a golf cart I ride/ I'm wanted, dead or alive

Bon Jovi are in big, big trouble: one of their entourage is alleged to have driven a golf cart over a woman during their Milton Keynes gig in 2006; now, Sally Allen is suing.

She wasn't even an audience member - she was part of the security team on an importangt task:

Mrs Allen, 37, was part of a cordon preventing back-stage access after a fire broke out in the VIP area.

A member of the US band's personal security team, Kevin McDonnell, drove up to her demanding access and allegedly said: "I don't care about your emergency situation. Get out of my way, you fucking whore."

Mr McDonnell, an American, is said to have added: "Do you know who I am? You can't fucking stop me."

Wow. It's bad when alleged celebrities pull the 'do you know what I am' line; when the jumped-up security detail driving round in a Rascal starts barking it, there's a serious problem.

Curiously, Thames Valley Police said they couldn't investigate the case because McDonnell "left the country" after the incident:

Det Sgt Chris Jackson, the investigating officer, said: "Once we had pursued all lines of enquiry that we could and established that he was abroad, we could not pursue the matter further.

"But if we found out that he was back in this country there is nothing to stop us arresting him and interviewing him about the alleged attack."

Given that the UK government is happy to deport people to America under any circumstances, and McDonnell had only gone to the US, rather than disappearing into the Amazon rainforest, this seems a little lame on the part of the Thames Valley Force. Still, heartening for criminals to know they can evade the British police by nothing more onerous than taking rooms in Manhattan.

The Republicans upset yet another musician

At this rate, if McCain does win and makes it through to his inauguration, they're only going to have the Charlie Daniels Band left to play for the party. Jon Bon Jovi has joined the chorus of acts asking the GOP to just not play their music. Sarah Palin - who's based on a character created by Tina Fey - had been using Who Says You Can't Go Home at her rallies.

Which not only implies an endorsement from Bon Jovi, but is a poorly chosen song anyway: nobody is saying you can't go home, Sarah; indeed, half the world is praying that you will.

Bon Jovi hates the touts... but not very much

Bon Jovi, out of The Bon Jovis, discovered that tickets to the forthcoming free gig in Central Park were changing hands on eBay, like common shoes or unwanted kidneys. Someone talking with the authoritative voice of the band blogged about their disappointment:

“There are reports in the media about tickets being scalped for... the free concert. I for one am not surprised, but our organisation is sorely disappointed.”

The strange twist, though? the post disappeared from the site as quickly as it appeared. Did BJ suddenly remember he loved ticket scalpers after all?

Bon Jovi gig turns into confused people standing around waiting for loud noise

Bon Jovi's Florida date this weekend was disrupted when a bomb hoax was phoned through to local police. Well, actually, it was a bomb threat that was phoned in - you wouldn't bother ringing the cops up to tell them you were pulling a hoax, would you?

The venue was evacuated, but police found nothing of any interest during a search; afterwards, the fans were allowed back in and still nothing of any interest happened.

Bon Jovi loves your town

Jon By Jovi out the Von Jovis wants you to help him out. There's going to be a huge tour of the US this year, and rather than merely yell out "{name of city or town} are ya ready to rawwwwwck" and "we love you, {name of city or town}", some semblance of place and time is to be achieved by flashing images of the town they're in onto a massive back projection at the show. And rather than film them themselves, they're looking for fans to do the work for them.

You have to upload the videos through YouTube, according to the website, and there's no indication anywhere that, if you win, you'll be asked to supply the original video, which seems to imply that Bon Jovi are going to be flashing videos designed for viewing on a tiny window on a web browser onto a big backdrop at a rock stadium. Can anyone see a problem with that?

You do get tickets if your shoot is one of the selected ones - which might sound like great deal, but the terms and conditions state that just by uploading the video you transfer ownership of your work to Bon Jovi, forever. Even if you don't win.

We love this part of the rules, too:

Bon Jovi Tours, Inc. and BonJoviLovesMyTown.com reserve the right at their sole discretion to reject and disqualify any nude video or those videos which are deemed in its sole discretion to be obscene, profane, offensive, lewd, pornographic or otherwise inappropriate.

They could simply choose not to project any porny videos on their stage, but instead, they're going to disqualify and reject them as well. It's unclear if rejection means that Bon Jovi no longer owns the rights to sell the video, by the way.

There's some advice to aspiring filmmakers, too. Bon offers examples of "cool shots" (a sign from Fisherman's Wharf, some people stood on a street, a skyline shot and - and this might be the peak of cool - Kermit The Frog's star outside the Chinese Theatre: these boys really know how to get to the beating heart of a town). And don't forget, filmmakers:

The secret to good storytelling is to show, don't tell. As the selected videos will be shown without sound on the live concert stage, it's good to be visual.

Yes. If you don't have any sound, being visual might be a good idea.

If only Bon was coming to Milton Keynes.

Bon Jovi: Big tipper

Whatever else you might say about Bon Jovi, he's not tight: he left a six hundred quid tip after a meal at a seafood restaurant in Australia.

Tantamount to treason

Good lord, doesn't the Queen deserve a bit of a break? Don't get me wrong, I'm as Republican as can be, but even compared to what happened to the Romanovs the Royal Variety line-up this year seems a little harsh. Liz and Phil are going to have to sit through Enrique Inglesias, Bon Jovi and James Blunt. Who put that lot together? Al-Fayed?

Your suspicions about My Chemical Romance? They were spot-on

My Chemical Romance are going to open for Bon Jovi.

Bon Jovi has a red cow

Jon Bon Jovi out of the Bon Jovis is flicking his legal muscles in the direction of MiJovi energy drink, claiming that the company is trading off his name.

Marcos Carrington, who flogs the kick-in-a-tin, maintains that the drink is named after his girlfriend, who is called Jovita. But then maybe he just tapped off with her so he could steal a portion of Bon Jovi's name. Presumably if he'd been dating a girl called Rose, we'd be seeing Axl wielding a lawsuit.

Besides, why would anyone want to append Bon Jovi's name to an oversweet concoction that is intended to make your heart race a little but actually just winds up leaving you feeling a bit shaky and empty... oh...

Blimey, that was quick

Richie Sambora has wound up his thirty day rehab after a week. Apparently he's incredibly fast-healing, like Locke on the island.

Rehabitat: Sambora checks in

Perhaps driven by no force stronger than a desire to distance himself from the clunking interview his boss did yesterday, Richie Sambora has signed up for rehab. Puzzlingly:

The guitarist's spokesman furthered, "He asks that you respect his and his family's privacy at this time."

Although, surely, if you want to be left alone, having your publicist announce your trip to the health club isn't the best way to go about it?

Oooh, ooh, he's halfway there

Jim McCabe, rather generously, suggests that Jon Bon Jovi's curiously aggressive interview in today's Guardian might have been a bad homage to Spinal Tap. To us, though, it just looks like a humourless old bore who feels he's above it all:

Your music is often defined as soft rock or rock light. How do you feel about that?

You can call it whatever you want - it's Bon Jovi.

Is that people being snobby?

It's not for me to decide what someone's perception is, darlin', it's theirs.

Do you care what reviewers think?

Is that what this interview is about?

I have a whole load of questions.

Move on.

Really?

Don't get like that.

OK. I didn't mean to upset you.

You're not upsetting me. Don't belittle yourself. If you want to talk about music, let's talk.

Later on, it becomes clear that Jon doesn't think he gets enough respect from the media in Britain:

Is the rock industry sexist?

I don't give it much thought. I can't comment.

You must have female friends who are musicians?

I can't comment on that.

Is rock as a genre in decline?

No.

Did you have too much success too young?

No, we didn't actually. It took us three albums to get any notoriety.

But when you got it, it was pretty massive?

Yes, it was. Slippery When Wet is a phenomenon. The trick was not getting it; it was staying there.

Is it true that you hit a depression and didn't know what to do next?

Sure. There is a reason why it is called the music business. It was a drag to find out it wasn't just about music, it was about running a business, but you either get over that hump or you fall back into a lesser state of success or eventual breaking-up or obscurity or whatever.

How did you stick with it? Was it therapy?

No, no, no, crap, the English media, you guys just love this shit, that's why I'm not a bigger "celebrity". I can't sit here and ...

What do we love? What "shit"? What do you mean?

Forget it - I'm not even going to jab with you. So, it's just what it is.

Do you find British press tricky compared with Americans?

Cheeky. Isn't that the word for it?

You mean asking deliberately annoying questions?

[Laughs] Yeah.

Of course he prefers the American media, with its 'here's a question your PR people asked me to ask'/'when's the album out' agenda; but if Jovi wanted to talk about the music, why was his reaction to the (fair) 'soft rock' question so bristly?

How do you revive a clapped-out warhorse?

In the case of MTV Unplugged, an idea which had its time and now wants it over again, you try by hiring acts who are even older and more dried-out than the format. Bon Jovi, The Police, Kenny Chesney and John Mayer are all lined up to do their thing.

Only Lenny Kravitz can save us now

Some more names have been added to the not-growing-that-fast bill for Al Gore's "let's save the Planet" gig. The line-up now features Snow Patrol, Bon Jovi, Paolo Nutini, Fall Out Boy, Black Eyed Peas and, of course, the apparently still reactivated Duran Duran.

We think we might have misunderstood the idea of this gig - we thought it was meant to be trying to encourage people to save the planet from global warming, but looking at the terrible bill, it seems more like Gore is trying to get us to be quietly relieved that sea levels will rise and we'll all burn to death after going mad from having to drink sea water. After all, compared to watching Lenny Kravitz lecturing us on using low-energy lightbulbs before launching into 'Are You Gonna Go My Way', being caught in a collapsing infrastructure as Gaia implodes will seem like a cakewalk.