EVERYTHING'S GOING GREEN?: In a year where festivals have been collapsing all over the place - Manchester Pride looks set to go the way of London Pride at the moment, for example - reports that Glasgow's Gig on the Green have asked to reduce their capacity from 35,000 to 25,000 have, naturally, led to eyebrow raising and suggestions that the whole thing must be looking dodgy. Organisers are still talking up the event, saying that the reduction is in order to loosen up the restrictions that would be needed if more people came - which, while true, would still have been true at the start of planning the event, wouldn't it? What appears to have happened is ticket sales have been lower than expected, and only by easing the straitjacket imposed for a now not coming crowd of 35,000 can the event hope to make a profit. While disappointing, it seems far from disastorous.

ROCK PHILOSOPHY 101:Action Attack Helicopter Magazine ponders the question: Just what is a one-hit wonder?
(From our point of view, we use only the GRRR Guiness Book definition: first hit at number one, then no further charting records, ever. It narrows the field down, but it makes more sense than "They had a number six, and never did quite as well again", which seems to be the formula used these days. I mean - Radiohead?

NET CLOSES ON NETHEADS?: Deputy Assistant (US) Attorney General John Malcolm has said that, were it not for Sep'ven, prosecutions of individual peer to peer music file swappers would have started already, and that the Department of Justice is preparing to send out a message that "Stealing is Stealing is Stealing." Congress has been pushing for the DOJ to use powers under the Clinton-era No Electronic Theft act (NET, see - geddit?) to bring individual users into court. This act is quite nasty, as it catches people who has infringed copyright for a financial advantage of $1000 in any 180 day period. Oh, and then redifines financial gain to include receiving items, including copyrighted works. So, basically, this is being set up so that you can be prosecuted for making your files available on the basis of the files you received through the system.
Obviously, this could get tortuous - firstly, there should be an onus of proof on the prosecutors to demonstrate the files that have come through a network were in direct payment for the files that the accused made available - this could be a stumbling block - will the prosecutors be able to show that Mr X's collection of MP3s were available on a filesharing system in order to reward people whose ripped tracks he was downloading?
Second, there's that the whole $1,000 value. The act defines this as "total retail value", but makes no attempt to clarify this further. So, will this be the total retail value of the tracks had they been purchased on CD? Or will it be a supposed cost had they been legal downloads? (In which case, the strangely high charges on Pressplay take on a somewhat sinister light - maybe the service isn't so much about testing markets as establishing a legal value for downloads?) See, if this was a simple case of flogging copies of Fleetwood Mac cds for cash out a suitcase, then the cash value would be simple. But it's easy to forsee any legal proceedings being caught in a long and winding argument over what the exact retail value of a single song is - and you hope that the RIAA's lawyers have clearly explained to the heads of the labels that the result might be awkward for them if it comes to be proven in court that the song part of a CD isn't very much of the total retail price. And does a deleted song from, say, Sleeper, have any retail value at all, if you couldn't buy it if you wanted?
Another nasty little pill in the NET act is that a convicted person will have the equipment used in the manufacture of the "stolen" items seized. Now, while you can see this being fair enough if we're talking about someone making dozens and dozens of CDs at a time for actual financial gain (as opposed to the act's definition of it) - sure, take their industrial sized equipment away. But if we're considering peer to peer users, what this means is removing their computers, modems and wherewithall. In the 21st century, this is the equivalent of forbidding people from communicating with others - a really dangerous act to embark upon.
As more than one person has pointed out, if file swapping is as widespread as the RIAA would have us believe, it's a brave government who sets out to prosecute millions and millions of its own citizens.
We'll smash your bottles and trash your stills [CNET] - "If we add in that tape of Frasier he borrowed off his mate, we're up to $997 - let's search again and see if we can find any tapes of the Top 40..."

MEN TO GO: Women.com have just produced their 12 sexiest men in rock results, and amongst the obvious-but-perplexing likes of Jon Bon Jovi and Lenny Kravitz, there's a few surprisingly good choices: Cornelius ("technically the name of Keigo's band"); "never Peter, always" Pete Yorn and Julian 'don't worry, he looks scruffy but he's actually posh' Casablancas.
Of course, this sort of thing trivialises the important business of music and treats artists as nothing more than eyecandy, firm thighs and a pulse. Yeah, right we believe that.

SIMON PICKS UP LONG SPOON: Following McCartney's vague decision to not turn up to receive a Kennedy Center award this year, Paul Simon has stepped into the breach. Macca's reasons for not attending haven't been made public, but we can't help wondering if turning up and sharing a stage with George and Laura Bush, at an event being hosted by Colin Powell, at a time when they're just itching to launch missiles against Iraq, may have seemed a little much for the Beatle man to swallow.
The Kennedy Center people are claiming that Paul Simon was in line for the honor anyway, and that he wasn't just the first person who hadn't already got something to do that night who answered the phone. Of course, it's lucky Condaleeza Rice isn't hosting; that whole 'how much did the White House know' press conference showed she isn't very good at lying with a straight face.
Bridge over troubled waters to be praised by trouble waters [Rolling Stone] - Next year, it'll have to be Art's turn now...

SECONDS OUT...: The reports that the BBC are going to make a full series of Celebrity Boxing (tschaw, and David Liddiment accuses them of being ratings-obsessed whores) raises the delicious possibility that, instead of constant moaning and sniping, we could just settle the great Pop Issues of the day with televised fisticuffs. After all, listening to reports of Liam and Coldplay bloke wittering on about cocks would be nowhere near as much fun as seeing them batter each other. And at least boxing, unlike name-calling, has a definite winner. Then everyone can beat-up Toploader, too. Hurrah.

(c) FOREVER: So, Sonny Bono produced legislation in the states which extended copyrights - all copyrights - for an extra twenty years. Something similar happened in Europe, when Phil Collins, of all people, got the EU to standarise copyright laws, resulting in titles which had been in the public domain went back into copyright. Of course, nobody would deny the creator of a work their right to exploit it; nor their estate's ability to earn a living, but the Bono act is a step towards perpetual copyright, which is a bit of a scary concept. Because, seriously, do you think an songwriter, given the choice between their music being played two hundred years hence, or descendents having a copyright so scattered as to be worthless stopping that happen, are going to want a perpetual copyright? The only people who would be able to cash in on a copyright forever would be corporations... hey, that could be related, do you think? (Oh yes, it was the fear of Mickey Mouse coming into public domain that caused this scampering and tampering in the first place). But a legal fightback is on, and probably deserves the support of anyone who believes what culture creates has a value beyond its price tab.
Useful resources on the fight back here - may be slightly legal in nature
Salon com report

COMPETITION: Look at this picture of Gareth Gates and new Pepsi Twist. Which do you think will still be around this time next summer?

NUCLEAR STRIKE: We know why people do it, but we're suprised they still bother. Now Ryan Adams is to pull the 'deleted on day of release' stunt with his next single, Nuclear. Which doesn't mean, let us remind you, that it'll be a rare and collectable gem; just that the shops will over-order in a panic and be left flogging them off for 45p a throw months, maybe years, after.
Now, destroying leftover copies at the end of the day... [NME} - that would be something

"IT WAS LIKE A DREAM COME TRUE" As far as we can tell, this heartwarming tale from rec.arts.disney is the very first online mention of Britney Spears. She was the first mouseketeer from Louisiana, you know...
We don't think anyone posted that they hated her until 1999.

TEN: Top ten artists with most tribute acts to them, according to the PRS
1 Elvis Presley
2 The Beatles
3 Abba
4 Queen/Freddie Mercury
5 George Michael/Wham
5 The Blues Brothers
7 Robbie Williams
8 The Bee Gees
9 Tina Turner
10 U2
Some surprises there - the biggest being that George and Wham are at number five; I'm trying to imagine which songs that would be, and picturing a rather grim evening once the Andrew Ridgeley impersonator has stepped down (or, more likely, been folded up). And The Blues Brothers - a tribute to a band that didn't really exist? People do do some strange things with their spare time, don't they?

THE MTV ALTERNATIVE: Pausing only to roll our eyes at a group of Christian extremists who make time in their busy schedule during The Last Days to protest against MTV , we're wondering how long it'll be before The Osbournes are reclaimed for the Side of Goodness in the same way The Simpsons have been. We give it a couple of months before some well-meaning Person of God starts a preamble with "Yes, there is swearing and there are rows, but The Osbournes are that most wonderful of things, a loving, solid family..."

CONGRATULATIONS TO BBC & BSKYB: They've come up with the name Freeview for their re-re-hash of ITV Digital's service. Hmmm - who's going to tell Greg Dye that he's chosen a name already well-used in digital television for the teasing tasters used by the porn channels?
"We thought either 'Freeview' or 'Red Hot Amateurs' [MediaGuardian] - the team here working up joke based around spanking ITV Digital monkey

BAA!: While the BUAV rightly raises the plight of mice forced to listen to the Prodigy, who is speaking up for the sheep of Bridlington? They're being played goth music twice a week - sure, the farmer says it's helping their yields, but what's it doing to their minds? Do we really want a load of disaffected sheep hanging about?
Life-imitates-the-Archers [Ananova] - sheep complain nobody understands them
Sheep gig strangely absent from Torsohorse official site
Torsohorse tell BBC 'nobody should be a puppet of society' - presumably being a sheep is OK for their fans, though?

HOT SHIT: You could worry about the Stereophonics versus Radiohead 'spat' in Hot Press (even the HP website can't be arsed to report on the 'story' - nme.com does; apparently the 'phonics think the problem is that that Radiohead haven't done proper jobs; or maybe a spell in the forces would sort them out), but if you really want some Hot Press fun, we'd recommend the Tim Burgess interview. Pigs heads, lying about dead grannies, and Arthur Brown. The man gives great interview.

LEEDS NEAT: We tend to take a pretty sharp view of things done by Mean Fiddler here, so it's only fair to give 'em kudos when they do something that sounds like a move in the right direction, as with their plans to try and control litter at the Leeds Festival by running a 'swap litter for raffle tickets' scheme. Not sure if they're also planning a 'tickets for not burning down the chemical toilet block' draw as well, but it's a start.
Pre-raffle-ite- win a guitar [NME] - that'll keep the rock boys happy, but what about the Ladytron fans?

SO, IT'S COME TO THIS: Max Headroom advertising baldness products. Even virtual celebs fade.
Mind you, at least he's doing better than his protege Belouis Some...

INTERESTING PERSPECTIVE: This piece by Kevin Wilson on Alter.net suggests that the return to hip hop's roots (and the connected improvement in quality) might be a sign of times getting harder in a place I, as a white englishman, really can't call the 'hood'. Now, if I really wanted to cook up a conspiracy, I'd suggest that the RIAA is deliberately sucking investment out of the lower class neighbourhoods in order to -ahem - 'inspire' residents into providing stuff for them to sell...

GOOD WORK SPIZZAZZ FELLA: In an idea which we'll certainly be leaving for a week or two, and then reworking it to make it seem like it was ours, Spizzazz brings you thirty nine postings live from the Only Chart That Counts. genius.

CREAMSHAKES: With news of the police investigations into Cream making the national press now - the Guardian for example picking up on the alleged money-for-licence story, industry watchers will be interested to see that the nightclub operators have scampered to the High Court. the aim is to stop the Liverpool Echo from running any more stories about Cream - on the grounds that they might be about Cream as a whole rather than merely the guy involved in the convoluted Creamfields licence allegation. Curious. The Liverpool paper always had quite a close relationship with the superclub, but of late it's taken to running a lot of articles having a pop at them, such as a sudden discovery that the Millennium eve clean up bill was apparently dumped on the Council by Cream - could this really have taken 18 months to come to light? Curiouser and, of course, curiouser...

BOY AND BIRD WELL ACCEPTED EVERYWHERE: We seem to be having trouble getting to see if any of our stuff is actually reachable at the moment, but since we plug on regardless anyway, we'll, um, plug on regardless anyway. Badly Drawn Boy tour dates?
November 24 - Northumbria University;
25 - Leeds University;
27 - Sheffield Octagon;
28 - Birmingham Academy;
29 - Manchester Apollo;
2 - Cardiff University;
3 - Bristol Academy;
4 - Nottingham Rock City;
December 6 - Norwich UEA;
7 - Cambridge Corn Exchange;
9 - Portsmouth Guildhall;
10 - London Brixton Academy

and, similar but not identical Doves tour dates:
November 18 - Newcastle, Northumbria University;
19 - Glasgow, Barrowlands;
21 - Sheffield, University;
23 - Liverpool, University;
24 - Leeds, University;
25 - Birmingham, Academy;
27 - Bristol, Academy;
28 - Southampton, Guildhall;
29 - Exeter, University;
December 1 - Norwich, UEA;
2 - London, Brixton Academy;
5 - Cambridge, Corn Exchange;
6 - Cardiff, University;
7 - Manchester, Apollo

BUT HE DOESN'T LIKE TO TALK ABOUT IT...: Good work, Ian Brown, for raising cash for sightsavers by auctioning off his handprint or something. The winner paid £641, which we can imagine would have David Dickinson sucking his teeth, but will give a few people their sight back. It's hard to calculate, of course, but we reckon Brown's probably had more direct effect on the quality of people's lives than all Bono's posturing...

NEW RELEASES TODAY: Some returns can be wonderful - such as making us fall with joy upon the reactivated Mudhoney and since we've become translucent, cool though the critical reception has been. Other returns make us shudder - what were UB40 thinking of when they produced the fathers of reggae - getting the greats to cover their Brum-dump-dub tunes? It's like offering William Shakespeare a part in the Kiss Me Kate chorus, isn't it? The Get Up Kids drop copies of on a wire off at the shops, while death has not stopped a new Eva Cassidy album - though its debatable if imagine is anything more than some funeral cold cuts. People who polish their cars will be delighted at the opportunity to turtle wax away to Toploader's magic hotel; if the thought of drinking wax seems more attractive, there's always the Liars' they threw us in a trench...

In a quiet week for back catalogue, another Fall gets a chance at the afterlife, with dragnet, Imperial Teen give you a chance to play on and ponder exactly whatever did happen to them, and a slew of Replacements (... take the trash out) and pretty things (parachute) pad out the list.

Don't buy the tide is high by Atomic Kitten, for so many reasons. Celine Dion rubs it in that I'm alive, offering no apology or explanation. For singles you can cheerfully purchase, try Guided By Voices' back to the lake or Cornershop's staging.

FACTORY CLOSING SALE: One of the worst things about the closure of any label is not so much the way hubris can be so fattening, but the way that the collapse of even the most bloated, self-important label can take decent stuff into the netherworld of deleted back catalogue. For example, when Factory closed, the world lost the imprint that was keeping Cath Carrol's work to date on the order books. The good news is that England Made Me has received a re-release on the Les Temps Modernes label. BossaNova and Salsa refracted through the Mancunian rain, England Made Me was first released in '91 and sounded deliciously unexpected then; that it still manages to shake you and seem fresh is as much a condemnation of the last ten years of pop as it is a tribute to Cath's undoubted talents. The re-release comes just before a step even further back, with the release of Peel Sessions from Cath's old band Miaow, and a jump forward, with fresh new material.
Prior to checking some details for this piece, I had no idea Unrest had recorded a tribute song to Cath called Cath Carrol. Which is a good name for it, when you think of it.

I KNOW SHE WANTS ME: Daniel Bedingfield seems pretty convinced that Mariah Carey is going to want to record with him, judging by what he's told worldpop, but is it just us or does this sound a little like closing time talk to us? "Sure... Mariah, Daniel. Yeah... my son is writing for Madonna you know... and her behind the bar? She used to be Cyndi Lauper..."

FIVE JULIANA HATFIELDS=ONE WEIRD AL YANKOVIC: The making public of the Clear Channel artist rates gives you the chance to play Popex for real. Even before pulling the data into an Excel spreadsheet there's some curiosities - Natalie Merchant seven times the value of 10,000 Maniacs; David Gray 25% extra than Dido; B52s generally available...

BEATEN: You might recall a while ago, there was a report about how scientists had played The Prodigy to mice who had, subsequently, died. It now turns out that there was more to this story than was originally reported. First, the mice weren't merely played Firestarter, but were given speed as well (a fact left out of most of the reports). More interestingly, the original coverage spoke of "Scientists from Cambridge University", but it was actually research done by Huntingdon Life Sciences, the company who have constantly been at the centre of allegations of dubious activities (this weekend it was buying up an MP to ask questions in Parliament). Finally, it turns out the research wasn't actually licensed, and so they've been bollocked by the Home Office.
"I want the Prodigy really loud" [Telegraph] - they were lucky it wasn't Achy Breaky Heart

DON'T LISTEN: Quick question about the closure of Listen4ever.com: What's happened is that The Big Record Companies filed a copyright infringement suit against ISPs in Manhattan, claiming the site had allowed people to download Bruce, and Mariah and all sorts of stuff that they hadn't paid for. Now, the ISPs went meekly "okay, we'll block that site, then." Whatever happened to their demands to be treated as a dumb pipe, then? Are ISPs actually now admitting responsibility for the sites that their users access (this isn't even a site they host, remember)? Because that could be seen as a bit of a dangerous precedent they've set there...
The RIAA! They'll tell us what to do [BBC] - whether we want to or not

ANDY'S IN A HOLE AGAIN: Atomic Kitten have apparently kicked Andy McCluskey into touch - well, what's the point of having a songwriter when you can just buy an old copy of Smash Hits on ebay and sing a couple of songs out of that instead?
"Come back... you can do Talking Loud and Clear" [Ananova] - of course they don't need him, dammit. They have their own breasts, erm, talent, to fall back on...

TONIGHT, I'M GOING TO BE: The NME used to do a pretty good job of getting popstars to dress up as other popstars for its Christmas issues - Damon Albarn as Debbie Harry, Miles Hunt as Lady Miss Kier; you might spot a trend. Last night's Stars in Their Eyes Special (ITV1) had a similar premise, but without the cross-dressy fun.
Overall winner was Jarvis Cocker, of course - he'd chosen Rolf Harris for his little bit of Pulp fiction, and it's hard to imagine anyone else doing either Rolf or the show with as much grace or love. Matthew Kelly seemed to be genuinely delighted at El Jarvo's presence on the show - suggesting that the former star of Relative Strangers may go home and kick back to This Is Hardcore of an evening; certainly, he relished the phrase "Jarvis Cocker... as Rolf Harris" so much that he begged the indulgence of being allowed to repeat it. And as for Cocker's involvement, it demonstrated again why the people who love him have taken him to their true pop hearts. Could you imagine Bobby Gillespie pitching up for a Saturday night light ent slot, winning over the studio audience, and still leaving with his cool rating enhanced, rather than destroyed? But Jarvis, clearly, was there because he knows; Not to partake in a post-modern sneer; not swallowing something hard and jagged in the interest of a few more sales. Jarvis' love of pop is something genuine and affectionate, and as such he recognises Stars In Their Eyes for what it is - the air guitar/banana-as-microphone bedroom moment writ large. Unlike it's brash Saturday night neighbour Pop Idol, the Stars format is set up to pay a quiet, personal tribute to the music that soundtracks our lives. It reflects back the way that music used to give us a chance to slip out our skins and be someone else, rather than offers singing any old thing as a stepping stone to OK covers and the chance to present an award at next year's BAFTAs. The people I want to hear singing are the people who feel about music in that way, the way that I do.
And while Jarvis did it best, most of those selected last night brought that sense of genuine attachment to the songs they performed - the Honeyz as Supremes; Kim Wilde did Doris Day (beautifully turning up the volume on the Hint of Rude under Doris' apple pie image) - even him out of East 17 doing Ali Campbell worked well (if you could leave aside the fact it was him doing him). In fact, the only duff contribution was Allstars as Steps, which not only made no sense (one bland manufactured band attempting to sound like another bland band - one who they'd toured with a couple of months before) but chose a Steps song that was lifeless anyway. Clearly tacked on to justify a 'something for everyone' billing, it was a segment that was so pointless, you wondered if it was some sort of joke on the part of the production team.
The night belonged to Jarvis, and Rolf. But I think we all grew a little.