NME Awards 2015: Kasabian, Kasabian, Kasabian

Last night was the NME Awards, which a few years back had become quite a thing; even getting televised. This year, they don't even seem to have bothered putting people picking up the prizes on the NME YouTube channel, although there's some video on the NME site.

The lack of a livestream seemed to upset some people on Twitter last night, but looking at the list of winners, it might have been wise for the magazine to try and do it in secret:

Godlike genius award Suede
Rock’n’roll soul award Jimmy Page
Best British band Kasabian
Best international band Foo Fighters
Outstanding contribution to music Teenage Cancer Trust
Best solo artist Jake Bugg
Best new band Royal Blood
Best live band Royal Blood
Best album 48:13 by Kasabian
Best track Zombie by Jamie T
Best video Zombie by Jamie T
Best festival Glastonbury
Philip Hall radar award Dean Blunt
Best TV show Game Of Thrones
Best film Northern Soul
Best music film Pulp: a Film About Life, Death and Supermarkets
Reissue of the year The Holy Bible by Manic Street Preachers
Dancefloor filler Fancy by Iggy Azalea featuring Charli XCX
Worst band 5 Seconds Of Summer
Villain of the year Nigel Farage
Hero of the year Alex Turner
Music moment of the year Jamie T’s comeback
Best fan community Muse
Small festival of the year Liverpool Psych Fest
Book of the year Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys by Viv Albertine
Best band social media Liam Gallagher’s Twitter
Best lyric “I’m wearing Win Butler’s hair/There’s a scalpless singer in a Montreal rock band somewhere” by Happyness
Best quote “Five records, ten years. We’ve earned our shot” - Sergio Pizzorno of Kasabian talking about headlining Glastonbury

Let's just take a second to look at the full name of one category, shall we?

Best International Band supported by Austin, Texas – The Live Music Capital Of The World®

Sponsored awards? Well, that's probably unavoidable. The sponsor's crappy slogan? If you must. But a registered trademark symbol as part of the prize name? Jesus wept. Or rather Jesus wept with the King James Bible copyright the Bible.

(Incidentally, the NME 'full list of winners' doesn't actually list all the winners.)

There's a lot of Kasabian and Jamie T there. Could the prize giving be any more awful?

Oh, hang on. Yes. Yes, it could. Added Gervais:

A special video, featuring the band's former manager comedian Ricky Gervais, was also shown - watch the video above. "I did help this band out a little bit in the early years," he comments. "When I told them I couldn't manage them anymore, there were no tears, they didn't beg - and that's when their career really took off."

At least he didn't do it in character as Derek, I guess.

Let's celebrate the good news here: Liverpool Psych fest; Viv Albertine; respect for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

But then... look at that "quote of the year"" - Serge out of Kasabian suggesting that they've paid their dues and it's now buggin's turn. Look at the belief that the best thing that happened in music during the whole of 2014 - the whole of 2014 was Jamie T's comeback (to a world that hadn't even noticed he'd gone in the firts place. The way that Muse still won a fucking prize.

Good lord. A magazine that has set its sights so very low might struggle to even give itself away.

The secret diary of Mark Frith

Hard though it may be to believe, the Mail is running a third day of Mark Frith's diaries.

Mark is opening his Christmas cards:

No matter how well things are going, there are Ricky Gervais's Christmas cards to put you in your place.

Last year it was: 'Dear people in charge of fame. Merry Xmas. PS: I have a picture of a celebrity with a pimple. If you magnify it, you could fill a couple of pages. Do I get any money?'

This year he's gone for: 'To all Heat readers, May you find happiness and something better to do with your time in the New Year. Love, Ricky Gervais.'

This is, actually, one of the most fascinating things I've read - Ricky Gervais, desperately trying to distance himself from the whole celebrity merry-go-round, but not so far he's not going to not send Heat a Christmas card; the editor of Heat, knowing that the card is an uncomfortable attempt to simultaneously embrace and yet keep dignity , suggesting that the messages undercut him, but still using them to bolster how important he is.

NME Radio starts as it doesn't mean to go on

The long-planned NME radio station has set a launch date of June 2nd. Or, rather, it hasn't, it's set a launch date of June 24th, but will be doing "test transmissions" prior to those dates.

Still, they've got a big name signed up: Ricky Gervais. He's signed up for a two-hour programme. Just the one, mind, although they look set to play it again and again.

Gervais is a slightly odd choice for the show - admittedly, he was a big hit on XFM and then with his podcasts, but even when he was on XFM the music was hardly the key factor in the mix. And is Gervais all that NME? Eddie Izzard - we could understand him being chosen; or the Mighty Boosh. But Ricky look-I'm-having-a-laugh-with-Bono Gervais? Ricky Night-at-the-Museum Gervais? It's not even as if he's at the top of his game any more - indeed, if he was, chances are he'd be too busy to be NME's launch monkey.

And should it be a comedian anyway? If the NME is meant to be IPC's way of owning music, why is it launching with a big splash with a comedy bloke?

Actually, what does it say about the confidence in the team that, effectively, the launch message is 'we don't think any of our regular stuff is strong enough to be of interest, so we've hired in some entertainers to get us going'?

There's a reason that Gervais has been persuaded to take part - it looks like a called-in favour:

Sammy Jacob, NME Radio managing director, has worked with Gervias previously at XFM.

"Hearing Ricky, Steve and Karl in action again will no doubt keep me on my toes," he declared.

"I used to bury myself hearing Ricky and Steve on air in 1997, fearing we would lose our licence each time they went on," he continued. Having Karl on board has only made matters worse. I look forward to some compelling radio."

What better way to launch a brand-new radio show than reviving an eleven year-old programme. We hear Round The Horne is going to be on at lunchtimes.

Does It Offend You, Yeah? pinched from the Office

Does It Offend You, Yeah? have revealed the name they've saddled themselves with is a quote from - saints preserve us - Ricky Gervias. Apparently:

When me and James first started writing music together we decided to put it up on MySpace. We needed a name to put as our profile name so just put what was the first thing that was said on TV, we switched it on and Ricky Gervais said 'Does it offend you, yeah? My drinking?' so we just went with that. No thought went into it whatsoever."

We're not buying that it was the first thing they heard, mind. Bet they were constantly switching the TV on and off all evening, building up a shortlist of names: "news from where you are", "call the BBC Action Line", "Ten Minute Freeview" - before landing on the one they've wound up with.

They should, perhaps, have switched the set on one more time.

Ricky Gervais' clean break

The news that Doherty has slipped - again - won't impress Ricky Gervais, who's been snorting derisively at the praise the Lohans and Spears get for kicking addictions:

"I feel sorry for those people who don't know any better, have these addictions and go off the rails (but) it makes me laugh when someone says, 'I haven't taken drugs for three years,' and they get a round of applause.

"Most people haven't taken drugs their whole life! It's like, 'I haven't murdered for a week - way to go!' I'm one of those people who think, 'Pull yourself together!'"

Yes, it's true that, Ricky. It's almost like they're glamourising drugs by turning the struggle against them into something noble. You know, like making a video game about drug dealers might be thought of as doing.

[Thanks to Michael M for the link to the quote]

If you tell us all the jokes, it won't actually be funny

Nice to see that while he won't take part in something useful like Stephen Fry's HIV documentary, George Michael is happy to turn up in any and all Christmas specials on offer: he's added Extras to Catherine Tate.

The Mirror has effectively rendered Michael's appearance pointless, by detailing what he's going to do in the programme in such detail they could use it as a DVD extra.

Ricky Gervias and the first rule of comedy

Former new romantic popstar Ricky Gervais has been entertaining his famous chums again, reports The Sun:

PRINCES William and Harry sneaked into Ricky Gervais’ stand-up show — and roared with laughter at a joke about their gran WEEING.

Office star Gervais, 46, poked fun at the Queen’s toilet habits, despite knowing the two fun-loving royals were in the audience.

It's heartwarming to hear that Gervais' act has now caught up with that of younger comedians and, in particular, Ted Bovis' "famous people on the toilet routine" that always went down so well at Maplins.

Swearing and spoofery

After all that unpleasantness with bad language during Live 8, the BBC production team must have been hoping that the message about keeping it clean had got through.

I think it was two minutes into the start of the BBC One segment that Russell Brand was yelling "Jesus Christ" after Jonathan Ross pretended he was drinking water he'd previously passed; if the production team had been hoping that crossing to the stage would prove safer, how they must have been delighted when Chris Rock came on and tried to get out of his first joke (about Paris Hilton playing Wembley next week) flopping like a jellyfish without a moral compass by throwing out a "motherfucker". Quickly, we found ourselves back in the BBC commentary box for apologies from Ross.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers - if you ignored the bizarre poncho Kiedis was wearing - turned in a fine set; it does seem that nowadays they exist almost solely to pop up in the middle of these monster gigs.

Coming back after spending some time up in the loft (don't ask) the somewhat pointless Spinal Tap set was winding up - if you didn't know it was a spoof, you'd be wondering why there was a not-especially good rock band so far up the bill; knowing it was a spoof it was even harder to work out what they were here for: is this a serious statement, or is this ironic detachment? - before going back for more apologies about bad language from Jonathan Ross.

It's impossible to tell if Ricky Gervais' tale of only doing the Diana Concert because "I'm a sucker for the personal touch, and William and Harry asked me" is the spoofy-starstruck persona he used for his first couple of Comic Relief films, or if it's more like the "big mates with Bono" stuff he was showing off in this year's Comic Relief contribution.

James Blunt is singing Wild World at the moment, with all the conviction of a man whose idea of wildness is sneaking into the ten items or less checkout with a dozen eggs.

Catchphrase and wig and the jokes are lame

Ricky Gervais hangs out with David Bowie for real: The Bowster, as nobody ever calls him and we promise we'll never call him again, did the MC duties for Gervais' New York stand-up show. Apparently Bowie sang a song, but presumably not Sad Little Fat Man.