EMI come up with plausible revenue stream

It's not exactly a novel idea, and the question is 'what took you so long', but EMI are launching a special division to deal with instant live albums:

Abbey Road Live, EMI's new live music audio and video recording and instant production service, will allow fans to purchase high quality live recordings of shows they've just attended. Mixed and mastered on site, the recordings will be made available in a range of formats including CD, DVD and USB or via secure digital delivery to home computers or mobile as streams or downloads.

The secure digital delivery is probably the sweet spot - waiting for you at home before you've got your boots off.

Gordon in the morning: Ice cream man

It's hard to imagine anything more horrific than this:

MIKA whipped up chaos yesterday when he turned up in an ice-cream van to hand out tickets to last night's exclusive Bizarre gig.

I'd announced there would be a ticket giveaway just for Sun readers - and hundreds (and thousands) of you flocked there to grab passes.

But no one expected pop star Mika to be manning the van himself.

Isn't it much more likely - on a warm day at the start of autumn - that the people crowding round the ice cream van were flocking there to grab ice creams? Only for Mika to pop out trying to make you go and see his show instead.

At least he did give out some ice cream:

A crowd quickly gathered as word spread that the colourful singer was handing out cornets and free passes. Last night Mika performed a special set for 700 lucky Bizarre readers at the Bloomsbury Ballroom.

I'm not quite sure how a van handing out tickets with much hoopla managed to only target Bizarre readers. Perhaps you had to do some sort of test, like managing to look interested while someone talked about JLS.

Fans of Gordon's inability to cope with the idea of head-to-head challenges will be delighted to hear there's a textbook example today:

TAKE THAT and their former bandmate ROBBIE WILLIAMS have been getting on famously recently. But that could all change this Christmas - when they go head to head in the album charts.

Head-to-head? Really?

Rob drops his collection Reality Killed The Video Star on November 9, then GARY BARLOW's gang issue live CD The Greatest Day just three weeks later.

Only 21 days apart? That's almost the same day, if you look at it on an astronomical time scale.

Jackson: Luckily saved for posterity

Now, here's a funny thing, as Karl T points out:

Fear not, MJ fans! Despite the singer's death, AEG aren't going to deprive you of new product!

Now, obviously, there are reasons to have cameras at a dress rehersal (performer feedback, making of.. documentary, blocking of shots for the actual performance etc etc), but to have captured Jackson's final performance in "multi-camera high-definition video and multi-track surround-sound audio" is fortuitous indeed.

If only the guys involved in formulating digital strategy for the major labels had had that kind of foresight.

It's popularly believed that AEG didn't have an insurance policy for the fifty nights... it turns out that maybe they did after all.

You should wait to see what he's got planned for the MusicPass version

Van Morrison prepares a live version of Astral Weeks. Pitchfork don't like the sleeve.

To be fair, it does look like a flier for a Mike Reid gig. But what would Pitchfork have suggested instead? (Actually, how about creating a new version of the old one?)

Dulli bootlegs self, officially

Last year, Greg Dulli played a set at Seattle's Triple Door Theatre; later this month, the gig is being released as an album. It's coming out on his own Infernal Recordings imprint.

The Clash want your cash

After having spent the summer watching John 'I never did' Lydon trying to flog Sex Pistols DVDs, it's almost something of a relief to know that the focus of the not-punk-anymore market is shifting to The Clash this autumn: the 1982 Shea Stadium gig - where they supported The Who - is out on CD in October; accompanied by a DVD which we're apparently forced to describe as a career-spanning retrospective and - leading it all off - an official biography.

New Yazoo

The Yazoo reunion tour is going to spawn a new release, although nothing that's going to keep Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke locked away in a studio or anything. Well, not overmuch. Explains Vince to Sideline:

"There are indeed plans to record the London shows with Liveherenow, but they won't be released like we did with Erasure, instead it should be a finished product, well produced and all in a studio whilst taking the time to deliver a proper product that meets the standards we want."

The Sideline link will also offer you some meaty Yazoo remixes to download to the privacy of your personal devices, too.