IT'S NEW RELEASE MONDAY: or, rather, it was. And it's a great week for new stuff, with K records bringing back Heavenly versus Satan, that controversial (aren't they all?) Ready Mades and Flophouse Junior offering Hour Glass House. Highlight of the week, though, must be Lifted, or..., which despite straying into the Hall of the Way Too Long Name looks set to establish Bright Eyes' reputation in the UK. We shall enjoy just a couple more minutes of having Conor Oberst to ourselves...

Midprice stuff is also having a great week - Sparks do a Best Of, Melody AM from Royksopp and Destiny's Child's Writings on the Wall make what seems like early entries into the pocket money price bracket. If you don't really like music - or know someone you hate - The Man Who... is now available for something nearer to what it's actually worth. But the best of all is the entire Suede catalogue going MidPrice - offering cheap thrills with songs about cheap thrills from suede to dogmanstar and sci-fi lullabies, head music and beyond...

NB: The behemoth that is Amazon can sometimes be a bit flaky about getting its midprice stock available on time, so you might be better off popping into a shop for the cheaper titles...

Singles - Sinead O'Connor's Troy is coming around again - presumably she's got a load of communion wine to buy; it's pitching up against Sugababes Round Round and Royksopp's Remind Me.

LITTLE TAKEOVER?: Last night's Newsnight mailout suggests Alan 'Uncle of Stuart' Little is making a bid to take over Jeremy Vine's position as BBC News' Head of Music:
And who is Ayn Rand, and why does her work fascinate restless Tories? We'll have to play some songs from Rush to help explain, but it will be worth waiting for.
Uh? Now, I think I'm right in saying that this item was dropped because of developments in Newmarket (or it might have been that we swapped to see if it was a Max Bygraves-era Family Fortunes on Challenge before it came on) but we have to ask: is there any instance in which playing the music of Rush at a television audience is justified? Jeremy remains the boss.
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WHY BOTHER, THEN, NOEL?: Noel Gallagher's given an interview to the New York Post, deriding the American music industry and people who buy records in the States. If the US is so shit, Noel, why are you going to so much trouble to try and break your band in the country again? Having had a disaster-strewn start to the tour, if you really don't care about selling records there, why not just come home? The writers of that report pushing for an office to flog British music in New York (shamefully including one of the Sundays, as it turns out) worry that this sort of behaviour seems arrogant - it's not, it's just reeking of sour grapes. Further, Noel believes that you shouldn't be allowed to buy records before you're 16, and is bemused by the success of Britney Spears and Eminem. He's clearly spending too much time hanging out with Ole Man Weller, isn't he? Tunes, Noel, it's tunes...
Why don't you shut up? Please, shut up. [BBC] - no, really, shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up.

RADIOHEAD: FILE UNDER RADIOHEAD: Can anyone explain why, on theBBC music homepage, 'Radiohead' is treated as a genre?

BUT WASN'T RIDICULE NOTHING TO BE SCARED OF?: Adam Ant has pleaded guilty to affray. The charges related to an incident when drinkers in the Prince of Wales pub in Kentish Town took the piss out of Adam's combat jacket and flat cap. It's claimed that Adam - who appeared in court under his real name Stuart Goddard - threatened to shoot them if they didn't move back. Other charges against him have been dropped; he's due back in court on October 2nd.'Diddley qua qua' not a valid plea [nme.com] - shall we do the mirror (not a bullet or a knife) joke again?

UPDATE: Following the collapse of Korea's file sharing system under the weight of their legal action, the Korean record companies are trying to take over the system - maybe one of them would like to give Bertelsman a call and ask about how much luck they've had with Napster?
MP3 Pay Service Faces Obstacles, understates the Korea Times - interesting hints of a CD boycott, though

MAKING PLANS FOR NIGEL: We love the Internet, you know. Not the bits where a now largely deserted office sticks up a page of stuff to fill the gaps between adverts, but the parts where people make seize the opportunity to turn the stuff in their heads into something that other people can look at. One such site is the frankly remarkable Nigel's Golden Days, a collection of charts from the years between 1973 and 1984, with - and this is the special bit - a personal commentary from Nigel on every track. Sometimes you get stories about being escorted to the record counter of Woolworths by policemen, sometimes an Allan Jones style factoid, but there's always something. The sort of website that should be required reading for anybody working in the music industry to peruse, to make them realise what's on the other end of their piecharts and carefully orchestrated release of tracks to the media.

FAITH IN PEOPLE: There's been a follow-up by Janis Ian to her original piece about downloads, copyright and the whole damn hoo-hah. Suddenly forced to the front of a battle she wasn't expecting, Ian expresses the hope that, while the RIAA can afford to pour millions into lobbyists pockets and the wallets of the legislators, it can't afford to alienate record buyers and offers a modest proposal, whereby all the labels would build a site to house downloads of their out-of-print material at a resonable rate - "By "reasonable" I'm not talking $1.50 per song; that's usurious when you can purchase a brand-new 17-song CD for a high price of $16.99, and a low price of $12.99. I mean something in the order of a quarter per song. I read a report recently showing that in the heyday of Napster, if record companies had agreed to charge just a nickel a download, they would have been splitting $500,000 a day, 24 hours a day, 52 weeks a year.
Record companies would have to agree that there'd be no limits on how many songs you could download, so long as you were willing to pay for each one; this is a major reason their own sites haven't been more successful."
This would also, of course, get over the other problem about charging for downloads, which is suddenly slapping a ten dollar plus bill onto something that had previously been experienced as a giveaway - although getting the labels to see and accept that would take the efforts of a stronger man than I.
As to her first point - faith in the people - I'm not sure I can share her enthusiasm. The principle was established at the last election that the Will of the People can be interpreted by the courts, and there's precious little evidence that US capaitalism has ever heard the cries of the people it's driving over before; why the record companies should have better ears than pharmaceuticals or utilties or motors isn't clear. Indeed, an industry that believes Christina Aguilera to have the voice of a diva may prove to be the deafest of the lot. More importantly, America dominates the world of recorded music, and most of us don't have a voice in the political process that relates to how its companies operate. We're just left having to deal with its fallout.
Janis Ian's responses in full - offers of marriage to the usual address...

HERE'S ONE FOR MICHAEL BUERK AND HIS TEAM: Obviously the Rocking Vicar is doing this sort of thing so much better these days anyway, but isn't there something slightly icky about Popbitch carrying ads? "You spill the beans... we'll count them?" - nobody would deny the Popdog team need to make cash, but the whole thing seems to be a bit fraught with risk - f'rexample, this item about a popstar having details of her pregnancy stolen from her mobile phone was being served up with an advert for Orange when we read it. Still, not as bad as last night's Tonight which, having had an interview with the parents of those girls apparently forced into a car and driven away went to commercials, kicking off with the Direct Line ad which has a child being driven away in a car shouting and waving...

ONE BECOMES TWO: The long delayed launch of 1Xtra, the black music station spun out of late night Radio One, has finally arrived. The station goes live - online, on DAB, on DSat - this Friday. Beats are expected to be dropped.
1Xtra - another extra station from the BBC

IT'S SOMERSET VERSUS BURNAGE: There is probably something apt in The Wurzels covering Oasis. (Or Oo-ar-sis, as they winningly call them.) We must admit we were surprised to find out they were still going; surely the passage of time have left them looking oldfashioned and a bit of an embarrassment? Mind you (cue punchline) you could say the same about The Wurzels...
cider-fuelled indie [Ananova] - What do you call a bunch of yokels banging on about how much prozac they take? The Elizabeth Wurzels

SALES FALL: Reports coming from the BPI suggest that singles and album sales in the second quarter of the year are down by 15.6 per cent (albums) and 13.8 per cent (singles) on the same period in 2001. The BPI has actually decided to blame things other than piracy this time round - the jubilee, the world cup, bad weather (are they confusing records and trips to Blackpool?) but then caved in and went "ooh, it must be piracy." It's curious that the more file swapping services close, the more sales actually drop, isn't it? We're ages on from Napster - the last service that anyone bothered with in huge numbers - and Audiogalaxy was getting worse and finally axed during this sales period - and yet, apparently aided by Beckham and rain, it's file swapping that has led to the drop in sales. We get tired of repeating this, but we'll try it again: Maybe piracy might hit sales. Perhaps the attraction of other things could cause problems. But why doesn't the BPI ever go "Maybe we've sold fewer records because they've been generally more rubbishy than this time last year?"
Oh, and BPI - you forgot to blame Big Brother taking press space away from bands and cash from the shops. Have that one on us.
The sky is falling [FT] - Maybe if we got Darius to record with hear'say?

TAKING THE RISE: Pinched before it disappears into the ether, Mark Sutherland's 6Music editiorial on Bobby Gillespie:
Bobby Gillespie has always been a bit of an idiot, but at least he used to have the courage of his convictions. But, as the latest Primal Scream album Evil Heat totters into the shops on the back of the usual bundle of great reviews, it's surely time to ask the question: how on earth does he get away with it?
This is a man whose band has veered from none-more-mimsy jangle pop (when the Scream were unequivocally fantastic, by the way) to greasermetal (when they were rubbish) to blissed out post-house pop (brilliant again) to wonky Black Crowes rock (rubbish) before ending up as some half-arsed techno industrial shock-rockers (rubbish again, which at least breaks the sequence). With anyone else it would be called bandwagon jumping, with the Scream, it's genius, apparently.
But what's worse is, they're now shock rockers who are too scared to shock. The album features a track called Rise which was originally, in a rather more headline-grabbing style, entitled Bomb The Pentagon. The retitling might be fair enough if Bobby G admitted that he'd been a silly boy and that now that his attempt to get a reaction had been put into rather horrible perspective he'd thought better of it.
But no. Instead he attempts to weedle out of it by saying the sentiments remain but the title was too cartoonish, and it's his right as an artist to change any element of his songzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz? it's nonsense, isn't it? He's bottled it, pure and simple, cos he wants his record released in America and/or can't face the flak he'd get. Understandable, undoubtedly, but without honesty it's difficult to take anything he says seriously again. Which, from one of the few rock stars left with something to say, is a damned shame.
Maybe you should have stuck to writing nice little indie songs like Velocity Girl, eh Bob? You were quite good at that.
And Mark... please get the BBC to make some space to store these things, could you? It's ridiculous that a site that has so much cash to spend and which happily makes room for Match the Moptops can't actually find the space on their servers to keep a series of editorials which are usually pretty nifty...

SHE'S BACK...: Hurrah! Cerys Matthews is back - or rather, not, as she's in Americkey, but she's recording some stuff, and - whereas Catatonia produced a lot but never really got their online selves together, The Woman We Name Our Plants After has got a functional website complete with an online diary. And everything.

NO NO NO: Leeds-Reading a slightly bleaker prospect with the pull-out of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs...
Another band stays in to finish homework [nme.com] - but there's still Andrew WK. Hoo-fooking-rah

WAYS AHEAD: The Classical music industry is in a far less healthy state than its rock sibling - and seemingly better able to point the finger at declining competition in the retail market than any number of online downloads as being at the root cause. One of the ways ahead seems to be for the orchestras to set up their own indie labels. The London Symphony Orchestra has done this - spurred on by a desire to provide music at a price that would encourage people to buy, rather than a desire to make as much money from consumers as possible. The result? A modest profit for all involved, and a sense of connection between artist and audience.
Maybe it's time a few of the Radiohead sized bands learned a trick from the LSO?
Classical musicians adapting to a difficult world [Boston Globe] - there's more ways to sell classics than putting women in bikinis...

THE GEDGE OF A BREAKDOWN: Apparently because he sort of knows the cod doctor's press officer, David Gedge turned up in the Sunday Mirror yesterday in a feature about your 'biological age'. Alongside Andy, a customer services manager and Juliet, a personal trainer, David, who "is lead singer of a band called Cinerama" is berated for being a 53 year old in a 37 year old's body (he's only 37? Blimey) and told to get some antioxidants.
It'll be all those broken hearts, it puts years on you...

BOWIE BRAVER THAN BRIT: Just when you think you can be no further impressed by David Bowie, he goes on stage in a thunderstorm and nearly gets barbecued as a result...
And he was doing Heroes at the time... [Sunday Mirror] - and he's got kiddies to worry about, Brit

LOCK UP TEENAGERS BEFORE YOU CALL THEM UP: You might have thought that US attorney general would be a man whose plate has got more than enough pie on it right now, what with Martha Stewart, and Enron, and Guantanamo Bay, and Worldcom, and his boss, and his bosses v-p and... well, you get the picture. However, he's now being called on to make cracking down on Napster clones and their users. In a letter, 19 members of Congress called on him to prosecute the service providers, and their users; although one of signatories Lamarr Smith (R, Texas) denies that they want to see individuals locked up in chokey for mucking about with Metallica MP3s - but then, he only got $6,000 from the music & media industries this year. Fellow signatory F. James Sensenberger (R, Wichita) pocketed $21,000 from the sector - more than any other industry gave to him - and may be hoping for something a bit more hardline. Joe Biden's senatoral support income of $39,000 could go some way to explaining his sudden attachment to copyright issues, while Diane Feinstein found her path back to office helped by $215,000 worth of music and media money - getting dangerously close to being priced on a par with Mariah Carey.
Anyway, nobody will be very much surprised to hear the RIAA has wholeheartedly approved of this letter - Hilary Rosen issued a statement saying ""There is no doubt, mass copying off the Internet is illegal and deserves to be a high priority for the Department of Justice" - we'll not spend any time picking apart the lack of understanding betrayed by the phrase "mass copying off the Internet" with regard to P2P networks, but instead just ponder why stopping a few copies of Puddle of Mudd tracks changing hands should be considered on a par with the threat of terrorist attacks (apparently so dangerous we need to bomb the arse out of Iraqis to stop them), and fighting the fraud marble-ribbed through the companies on which the whole of American society depend...
And make them turn it down, too [USA Today] - then throw away the encryption key...
opensecrets.org - handy collection of data on who is buying which US politicians

NOTEBOOKS OUT, BIDEN: While you sit there drawing black rings round CDs to be able to make a passable fist of getting tracks off your album onto your computer, you might want to imagine a future where you actually are breaking the law doing this. This week's Need To Know focuses heavily on the forthcoming European and British legislation that seeks to reverse the concept of the consumer being king. Pretty much the sort of laws you'd expect to be made if whoever is running Vivendi this afternoon had seized power in a bloodless coup last week, you no longer would have the right to use the record you pay for in the ways you choose. Buying a CD would be taken as an agreement that you will only use the thing in ways defined by the copyright holder - so attempting to fix it to work on your PC's CD tray would be an offence on a par with copying the album and flogging it in Camden market. For those of you who are already thinking of using the European Copyright Directive as a handy stick to beat the 'loss of soveriegnty' drum with, hold fast a mo: the directive is pretty mean and on the side of the corporations. But the British legislation that the Blair government is planning on bringing forward to implement the directive is even worse - not only has a timetable been set that would challenge Roger Black to keep up (into law by Christmas), but in the interests of "efficiency" a lot of the Euro provisions have been dumped - such as the sort that might give fair use defences to us lot, the people whose money are funding these corporations in the first place.
Of course, if it's in a Queens Speech during a war, it'll get even less attention than they're clearly hoping for. Don't let them get away with it. The Record Companies have the right to stop people ripping them off - I don't think anyone would argue against that. What they don't have the right to do is start to insist how you use their products once you've paid for them. Time to start campaigning.

ACTUALLY, HE DID MEAN SHIT TO ME: Chuck D has reversed his position on Elvis, saying that when he said he was a straight up racist sucker, simple and plain, he really meant that he had a lot of respect for Elvis. The curious thing, of course, is that D says his attack was more on the way that Elvis' status "made it like no-one else counted", which sort of makes us wonder why he's chosen to talk about how great Elvis is as part of a week where the world is going to be treating Elvis like some sort of Lard-consuming pope figure, adding to the general impression that Elvis is the only cultural icon that ever mattered. Oh - hang about - at the bottom of the article it says Public Enemy have got a new album out.
Expletives deleted, and then recanted [AP] - next week: Strummer stammers 'we didn't really mean no Elvis in '77' explanation

JERRY MIGHT GET HIS WISH: Jerry, of course, wanted to be a Rockette, according to the Inspiral Carpets, and may get his chance. For reasons too depressing to go into, the owner of the Radio City Music Hall is thinking about getting rid of the current batch of Rockettes and holding open auditions to replace them (with something cheaper, presumably). Probably an idea suggested by management consultants.
High kicked out [Austin Statesman] - mind you, we held up when Legs & Co went

BAD SMELL: As Celine Dion prepares her perfume - apparently, we've had it confirmed that she herself won't be squirting the stuff in bunnies' eyes personally - and attempts to choose a name, she might cast a nervous eye at fellow diva Jennifer Lopez's problems. The J-Lo has chosen to call her pong glow, which would have been fine were it not for the existence of Glow industries perfumes, soaps, musts and so on...
Hey, be careful, she knows scary people [CDNow] - how about calling it G-Lo? Or maybe even G to tha Lo?

DOES LENNY LEAK?: Now, we all like a nice clean pair of trousers, but according to the Smoking Gun, Lenny Kravtiz won't play unless all the details of a high quality dry cleaners are on hand. Psssst - lenny, if you wore dark trousers, it wouldn't show as bad, mate...

LIGHT MY FIRE, HELP MY SALES: If you felt slightly queasy at seeing - as well as hearing - Hendrix flogging cars earlier this year, it might give you a warm glow to know that at least The Doors' legacy is being protected from from commercial exploitation. John Densmore tells The Nation readers about the struggles he has with his own conscience and his own band members to try and keep true to Jim's vision for what the band was meant to be about. As the silver anniversary of the other dead fat bathroom bloke passes with him being hoiked to the sale of evil Nike shoes - a morally dubious choice of footwear that the grasping Ono allowed Lennon's ghost to plug, too. The nice thing is that Densmore is as happy to admit that he's let his guard down in the past - but at least the Riders on the Storm tyre ads had a bit of creative impact behind them, John.
What's almost unsaid is the band politics behind - the message between the lines ("I'm trying to keep the spirit alive, the others aren't, and as the stakes rise, it's getting harder") fulfills the Rupert Giles formula (the subtext is rapidly becoming text). The global politics are clearer - Densmore cheerfully admits that he doesn't want anarchy, but he'd like the return of the middle class.
It's just a pity he wasn't able to stop Will Young.

I COLLECT, I REJECT - SPECIAL: We couldn't pass up the chance to mark twenty five years since that last fateful poo in Graceland, and - to acknowledge that nothing generates tasteless tat like a famous, bloated corpse - we present the top ten pieces of Elvis tat on ebay:
10. Elvis-Marilyn (or is it Geri Halliwell?) shopping bag
9. Singing and dancing Elvis telephone
8. Cast Iron Elvis doorstop
7. Elvis 'swinging hip' clock
6. Not one, not two, but five Elvis musical whiskey decanters - "empty, but can be filled"
5. A postcard that plays like a record
4. Elmo Elvis
3. A not inappropriate cookie jar - one hundred bucks worth?
2. An Elvis musical pop-up
and, at number one:
A photo taken in Elvis' bathroom on the day of his death. The seller points out how it is only a portion of the bedroom, but you can spot bottles of prescription medicines in it. It's what he would uh-huh-v'd wanted...

TIMEWASTER OF THE DAY: Vintage keyboard crossword

THAT OZZY CAN LAUGH AT HIMSELF, CAN'T HE?: Erm... apparently not. If you were feeling a spot of sympathy for Mr O at being sued by someone who claims they thought of the idea of his life first, worry not - the supposed God of Rock isn't above a spot of self-important legal weight-throwing himself. Harry Enfield has just been on the receiving end of a stiff letter from Ozzy plc, warning him against including any characters based on Ozzy "or any of the Osbourne family" in the series Enfield is currently making for the BBC.
What makes it worse and more perplexing is that Enfield's working on an adaptation of Private Eye's Celeb strip, that was running back when Mani from the Primals looked human. Maybe the Celeb writers Peattie & Taylor should send a letter to ozzy warning him against stealing Gary Bloke's routine...
Next, it'll be cease & desist letters to Spinal Tap [Independent] - don't worry, Ozzy - Gary Bloke is meant to still actually be selling records...

ADAMS AT 'EM: Ryan Adams to tour the UK in November:
11/11 London, Royal Festival Hall
23/11 Manchester Apollo
24/11 Edinburgh Usher Hall
26/11Belfast Waterfront Hall
27,28/11Dublin Olympia
And Ireland - [NME] - but who will be helping out Every Other Singer Songwriter in their studios while he's touring?

OBSOLETE TECHNOLOGY: The return of Toploader looks set to keep us topped up with easy targets for months to come - do they really believe this whole thing? Do they live this? Only a band from Eastbourne could attempt to foist the 'I'd Like To Buy The World A Coke' advert on us and pretend its a, like, totally new concept, man. There are just too many smug, self-satisified bands in the world - you'll know I'm no fan of the Gallagher carcrash (a term that's become slightly more ironic recently), but at least they do try and talk their music up, unlike acts like Ver Loader, or Jammyragoquai, who just give off this whole air of 'You should be pleased we have come to entertain you'. Listen here, Josh - you can buy the world all the Cokes you can afford, but it still won't make the purchase of a Toploader single anything more than an empty, meanigless cash-based transaction devoid of any effect upon the quality of the purchaser's life, the depth of their thoughts, or the extent of their joy. You might think we've fallen for your schtick, that we believe your Ozric Tentacles-meets-Boyzone tunes are in some way a celebration of the sweet beauty of life and the tingling delight of love, but we've got you sussed: the only thing Toploader celebrate is themselves. There are no holes in the body of World Culture which are shaped like a Toploader song; so please stop trying to fill them.