Glastonbury 2014: View from the sofa

"We're not going to go on about it" reassure Mark Radcliffe and Jo Whiley, leading off the late night live chunk of Glastonbury coverage on BBC Two.

But they do, of course.

And then when they hand over to Lauren Laverne in another part of the field, she can't help but talk about it, too.

And why wouldn't they? This year, clearly, isn't the Glastonbury of Metallica; it's the Glastonbury where the lights went out.

Trouble is, although Lauren had rather a good anecdote - about being chided for asking the bear-slaughterers if they'd bought the heavy metal thunder with them - the stuff that was most interesting about the power outage wasn't touched on.

(Incidentally, it wouldn't be Metallica's heavy metal thunder; Dolly Parton has brought a rainbow with her, and we all know what you have to endure to get one of those working.)

Normally, the BBC's Glastonbury coverage is padded with films of people who've paid silly money for tickets doing really dull things - giving us a taste of the "festival experience". This year, when it'd actually be really interesting to know what it was like to be in a city of tens of thousands of people when the electricity stopped being in the wires and was just in the sky - nothing.

Apart from Mark Radcliffe saying something about communal singing in a tattoo tent, there was no answer to the question 'what was it like on the site?'

Instead, the crisis was reduced to a short snatch of footage of Rudimental walking off the stage.

The big disappointment this year is the red button coverage - clearly all the love has been poured into the website. Three channels of music, more or less lobbed on screen; with whatever happens to be on TV given (it appears) a free pass.

So, at one point, you could have watched Elbow on BBC Three, or something else on BBC Two. If those options didn't delight you, you could press red to get three more bands - except one was Elbow and one was BBC Two.

What's the point of pushing the stream that's already on TV through the red button service?

And doing it so badly - for a good ten minutes, the "BBC Two" Glastonbury feed was so locked in to simulcasting BBC Two that it pushed out a great chunk of Newsnight. (If Jean-Claude Juncker was actually being inducted in the cabaret tent, my apologies to the red button team.)

I suppose it's fair to say that it's more surprising that there's a red button at all - with SmartTVs and Chromecasts and whatnot, it's easier than ever to get the rather good bbc.co.uk experience onto your TV.

(Slight grumble here - the Glastonbury content from iPlayer doesn't show up on the iPhone version of iPlayer, which makes it harder to enjoy on a TV. I know this is a bit like complaining that the handle on the cup the ambrosia comes in is a little fiddly to hold, but... worth mentioning.)

So, what of the bands themselves?

Arcade Fire, it's clear, have edged ever closer to vanishing over the Bono Horizon.

I know, I know...

... how can I possibly think that?

You know when the fireworks (literal fireworks) are at the start, not the end, of the set, that you're watching a band who are overdoing the spectacle.

Men made out of mirrors; the bobbleheads; two-faced skeletons (one of whom, distractingly, had a brand name of a morphsuit maker on his ass); a stage full of around thirty people at one; racoon make-up; pyrotechnics... it's just so fucking tiring to watch, and it's dressing up music that doesn't really need all this extra packing. You've written songs that are packed full of strong, striking images - why are you hiding them in the worst circus ever?

Elsewhere, Blondie were a little ragged around the edges - doing the high bit from Rapture would be difficult under normal circumstances, but Harry just-about nailed it on a stage, early in the day, outdoors. And the cover of (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party) was a delight - especially watching the ripple of 'oh! this is what this is!' run through the crowd at different speeds.

Sidenote: After last year's fuss about whether jokes about the Rolling Stones being old were okay, it's worth mentioning that Debbie Harry is 69 on Tuesday. But people don't obsess over it because jokes about Blondie being old were never a thing.

Also because she'd kick your butt.

Chvrches were great; and Drenge are still on course to become Mudhoney by the end of next year.

I collect, I reject: Bobbleheads

A message arrives from a retailer of bobbleheads, announcing a new toy in the range:

The [name redacted] figures have finally arrived (we just took this photo on the right). We apologize for the delay, but Drastic Plastic did an amazing job with her likeness and details.

Ah, yes. The delay while the bobblehead manufacturers were doing such a great job.

Here's their work:

Any ideas?

Apparently meant to be Debbie Harry.

Debbie Harry: A piece of cake

Admittedly, turning yourself into a cake effigy isn't everyday behaviour, but the NME's headline on the Debbie Harry story misses the point a bit:

Blondie's Debbie Harry butchers nude model of herself onstage

Or 'slices a cake onstage', if you want to be less extreme about it.

The NME admits it's just copied the story direct from the Daily Mail, but - not for the first time - you wonder if the point of being the NME should be not simply nodding along with everything it reads on the internet:

An inside source, meanwhile, described the performance as "controversial and unnecessary" before going on to add: "This is appalling for women all over the world who suffer domestic violence."

The Mail actually doesn't even pretend this is a "source", simply ascribing the quote to an "insider".

An insider of what? You wouldn't expect the Mail to bother with the question, but surely the NME might show a bit of curiosity about the quote it's typing out. Especially since it's potentially the sort of issue the NME used to care about - is it okay for a woman to cut up a cake of herself on stage? Or does it really represent (as the Mail suggests the audience claimed) violence against women?

Gordon in the morning: First with the news

Everyone knows Debbie Harry's "I was picked up by Ted Bundy" story, right? Harry was telling people about it back in the 1980s, and it's right up there with 'Marianne Faithfull and half a Mars bar' and 'heart attack after eating a ham sandwich' stock half-true myths that circulate around pop music.

Amazingly, Gordon Smart is repeating it today as if it was news.

What makes it even worse is that - whoever was in the car that Harry got into - it wasn't Ted Bundy. I know Smart's habit of running stories that aren't true is well known, but surely this is the first time he's ever run a story that's been debunked by Snopes.com - Bundy never went to New York, where Harry's incident happened; the car Bundy drove was nothing like the car Harry described and Bundy hadn't started his spree at the time Harry was meant to be the first victim.

Doubtless Gordon will be clearing space tomorrow for an exclusive: 'Charles Manson auditioned for the Monkees'.

(To be fair to Gordon, The Telegraph also trots out hoary-old-anecdote-as-breaking-news.)

Gordon in the morning: Wig out

This is an entire Gordon news story from this morning:

BLONDIE goes whitey as singer DEBBIE HARRY tries out the platinum look.

But Debbie, 65 - known for her yellow locks in the '70s - was sporting a wig at a New York charity bash.

Let's not even worry about how platinum and white hair colours are different. Let's not even worry about the suggestion that Debbie Harry was known for her hair rather than her music. The real oddity in those two sentences is the "but".

Now, I don't subscribe the idea that you can't start a sentence with "but", but...

Still, it's better than the jokey approach to Billy Ray Cyrus' divorce, which titters over how Miley will have an "Achy Breaky Heart". I guess we should be lucky it's just a divorce and not a death which Gordon's wheeled that out for.

Wearing it well

A PR email drifts gently through the ether offering a chance to:

... become part of rock history!

How, though? How?

Tell me, for I must know:

[The company] celebrates Debbie Harry's birthday and offers 10% off all her T-shirts throughout the first two weeks of July. The talented and beautiful Debbie Harry celebrates her birthday today and [the company] is the perfect way to become part of rock history!

So... I'm going to become part of rock history, am I? By wearing a tshirt?

I'm wearing denim jeans this morning, by which reckoning I'm actually French.

Glastonbury 1999: Blondie

More pickings from the festival a decade ago, and even a reactivated Blondie is still Blondie:



[Part of Glastonbury 1999]

Debbie Harry's embryo face

We love Debbie Harry - even when she tried to insist on being called Deborah Harry, we still loved her. The only thing is...

"I had these cells injected in to me in my early thirties," Debbie reveals. "I read that the famous heart surgeon Christian Barnard was involved in a Swiss clinic researching fresh cell replacement.

"I went along to Switzerland to have a course of 11 injections, from the embryos of black sheep.

"They would take from the liver, glands, bone and whatever and make up these injections.

"It turned out that I was the youngest person to ever have the treatment. Whether that treatment lasted this long, I don't know. But I feel great."

... we don't think we'll kiss her on the cheek, thank you.

Macca on the One

In a slightly bemusing move, Paul McCartney, Debbie Harry and Noel Gallagher are being invited to hosts shows on Radio One to celebrate its 40th birthday. There are going to be a few younger guest presenters: The Arctic Monkeys and, erm, Gwen Stefani, for example, but it does throw up the problems involved in a station resolutely aimed at young people trying to mark four decades - as the everyday business of the station focuses on the music of today, getting a sexagenarian to play songs by Jerry Lee Lewis is, at best, a reminder of what the network has turned its back on to survive. Let's hope the tension between Radio One of the Always Now and this sudden affection for heritage radio doesn't cause a snapping.

We're also puzzled by this:

Radio 1 marks its 40th birthday from 17-28 September.

As part of the anniversary, current DJs from the Radio 1 roster will co-host shows with DJs from yesteryear.

On 30 September, the date of the station's first broadcast in 1967, breakfast show DJ Chris Moyles will host a show with Tony Blackburn - the first DJ to appear on the network.

If it's marking it's birthday between the 17th & 28th, then what is the programme on the 30th?

[Thanks to Jim McCabe]

CBGBobit: Hilly Kristal

Hilly Kristal, the founder of CBGBs, has died at the age of 75.

Born in Manhattan in 1932, Kristal was performer in his own right, before turning his hand to managing a string of New York clubs in the 1950s - including The Village Vanguard. He opened his own club, Hilly's On Ninth Street, which over the years would move and change its name to Country Bluegrass and Blues. The titular music was quickly pushed aside, though, as CBGBs became the home of US punk in the 1970s.

Debbie Harry led the tributes:

I am very sorry that Hilly is gone. He was a big help to Blondie and to the New York music scene for many years. His club CBGB’s has become a part of New York lore and Rock n’ Roll history.

Kristal remained associated with CBGBs for thirty-three years. His death on Tuesday morning was related to the lung cancer from which he had been suffering.

Dirty Harry

We yield to no man in our admiration for and love of Debbie Harry, but we're a little worried by her reaction to British Airways losing her luggage:

"I've been wandering around in dirty pants for five days. I'm going to have to go to M&S to buy some new ones. I'm not happy."

We're alarmed that it's not until she's tried backwards, forwards and inside-out that she finally breaks and decides to invest a couple of pounds in a second pair of knickers. And doesn't she have access to a sink in her hotel room?

Dreaming is free

The coming together of two of the creeping weeds choking theatre ("two of the great themes of modern theatre") as the play-adpated-from-a-well-known-movie meets the musical-based-on-back-catalogue, as someone pokes Blondie songs into Desperately Seeking Susan. Debbie Harry's even written a single new song to go with the old songs, which makes it even more like a greatest hits collection.

Coming next week: Romancing The Stone, with Carter USM songs dropped in at random points.

Debbie Harry's charmed life

As if the story of surviving one maniac - Ted Bundy - wasn't enough, now it turns out Debbie Harry also has a tale about coming face-to-face with not convicted of any crime as of this moment gun love Phil Spector:

"He pulled a gun, that notorious thing he does. He stuck it in my boot. And he went 'Bang.'

I thought, 'Get me out of here! I want to go home!'

It's his schtick, you know but why a person would be walking around carrying a .45 automatic in their home... and now he's finally gone and done it."

Or maybe not, depending on what the jury thinks. Let's hope Debbie doesn't now find herself besieged by bloodthirsty NRA gunophiles explaining that if everyone walked around their homes carrying 45s, then Pearl Harbour would never have happened, or some equally guff-like guff.

Dunst defends doing Debbie

In perhaps a sign that prepublicity for the movie isn't going as smoothly as the studios would probably have hoped, Kirsten Dunst has started trying to defend her casting in the lead on the Deborah Harry biopic:

"Debbie chose me for this role so anyone who disputes this can take it up with her.

I'll work hard on this character because she is the coolest woman of all time."

Just as a general point, you probably shouldn't ask someone "who would you want to play you in the story of your life" - for example, in No Rock - The Movie, I'd cast John Simm to play me. The rest of the world, though, would be putting in a call to Danny DeVito.