MAC AND JOBS?: The ongoing problems between Apple Corp, which is basically the Beatles, and Apple Computers, which is mostly the iPod, is leading to a rumour that Paul McCartney might end up on the Apple board. Somehow, that really looks like a victory for Microsoft.

GOSPEL? STREWTH: Upsetment in abudndance with Kayne West's nomination for the Stellar Awards Best Gospel Album. The College Dropout does have a song about Jesus on it, but it also has some really sweary and rude stuff on it. Stellar are suggesting this was a bit of a cock-up on the ballot front.

THE AMP ET AL SWAP SIDES: Sky have more or less thrown in the towel on the music channel side, passing day-to-day running of The Amp, Scuzz and Flaunt to Chart Show Channels. CSC, which spun out of the much-missed Channel 4/ITV Chart Show, currently run three services of their own, sort-of; now they'll have a portfolio of six to play with. Hence, it's hoped, economies of scale.

CAN'T STAND YOU NOW: Pete Doherty has written a song, Gang of Gin, about how everyone is just so beastly to him, only giving him the four or five chances to come off smack, and all:

"I’ll tell you my story
The treachery, it bores me
Carl and McGee both promised me
It would not happen this way
Carl is kept sedated
The frontman elevated.
[...]
In this industry of fools
Musclemen and ghouls
If you’re not a puppet or a muppet
Then you might as well call it a day"

Pete, of course, is pushing on with his recording career - we guess that's "muppet", then?

SIDESTEPPING THE RIAA: The answer to all, some, or fewer of your online music worries could be here, in the form of Grouper. It's another peer-to-peer network, which allows file sharing, but with a difference. First, it only allows sharing between friends; secondly, and most importantly as far as copyright law goes, you don't download nuffink - you listen to streams of your friend's music. Of course, record labels will still froth and foam - they always do - but even they might decide that something analoguous to listening to your mates play records in their house rather than having them burn you a CD might be worth supporting rather than trying to kill off.

CHRISTINA AGUILERA: AN APOLOGY: Over recent months we may have given the impression that Christina Aguilera was devoid of talent. A long campaign of attrition may have given the impression that we believe Christina to be mostly useless. However, it has now been brought to our attention that she is "capable of opening my own [car] door and don't necessarily need a man to do it" (our emphasis). We are happy to make this clear.

BLUESOBIT: John 'Buddy' Connor, bluesman, died in Berkley, California on Spetember 3rd. The singer, whose career spanned five decades, specialised in blues but was also a noted jazz vocalist. It wasn't until late in his career - 1996, when he was 66 - that he released a track under his own name, Can't Hide Love.

BRITNEY - "BUY CURIOUS": Time is ticking down before we get to see Britney Spears' advert for Curious, a new fragrance from Elizabeth Arden. Until the advert airs on the 17th, we can only imagine what it'll be like, but I'm guessing Britney in knickers and a small shirt jiggling about.



Meanwhile, we're enjoying Lynne Spear's column on the Britney website, where she reveals that Britney has apparently taken up undertaking:

Britney had a girlfriend over to visit and they spent the day laying out by the pool. Kevin went golfing with his friends and cooked dinner for everyone.

LIKE A MATROYOSKA: We were kind of excited to discover that Madonna is being recast as a Russian nesting doll - how apt; the longer you go on, the smaller she gets, until eventually you're left with a Madonna with no surprises left inside her - but then we discovered you can already get U2 Russian Dolls, too. Presumably you keep opening them up until you find Gordon Gecko at their heart.

OOH, SIRE, GET HIM: The relaunch of Sire is being hung on a new deal between the once-successful label and Scando-dandy-gothers Him. Everyone at Sire is very excited:

Sire founder Seymour Stein says, "Bringing H.I.M. to Sire Records is one of the most exciting events since the re-launch of the label. The fact that they picked Sire for international distribution is a tremendous coup for us and one that underscores the label's reputation as a magnet for great music."

Except, of course, the label has been more-or-less defunct for the past few years - indeed, the mere fact that it's treating signing the cosmically over-rated Him as a big deal suggests just how far the label has fallen from its period of importance. If you visit Sire's website, you're greeted with a picture of the Ramones. Relaunching Sire might work, but if all they intend to do is sign some ropey goth acts and trade of their history, they might as well not bother.

EXTRAS, EXTRAS: We've just received this list of the extras which will be included on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs DVD:

A 16 song live concert recorded earlier this year at the Fillmore in San Francisco.
6 bonus live songs
A Japanese tour documentary directed by PATRICK DAUGHTERS (director of the ‘Maps’ and ‘Date With The Night’ videos)
An audience documentary directed by SPIKE JONZE (director of the ‘Y Control’ video) and LANCE BANGS
Promo videos for ‘Maps’, ‘Date With The Night’, ‘Pin’ and the controversial ‘Y Control’and
The band’s performance at the US MTV Music Awards this year



Some of these things are worth having, although the Y Control video gives us the willies - if you've not had the pleasure yet, you can see it here (low) or here (broadband) [Real]; all from a page with a lot of YYY stuff on it.

PROTECTION: There's an interesting little aside in an interview with Sue Whitehouse, the manager of the Darkness: it seems record companies lie to the very talent they're supposedly protecting about how crappy their copy protection is:

"When we first released the album we had it copy-protected, which I didn't want. I really argued that you hear terrible things about CDs not working and messing up computers, but the record company talked me into it, saying that there was new technology that had proved to be problem-free. And, of course, the album came out and we were flooded with complaints about it not working."

SURELY ASDA MORE ABOUT THEIR MARK?: Proving the value of a quick intervention, Tesco have decided to stock Goldie Lookin' Chain's new album. They had decided not to bother, on the grounds that it was full of words like "penis" and, frankly, so shoddy it makes Tesco Value Lager look like some sort of ambrosia, but the Chain had been threatening to "picket" the Tescos in Harlech Retail Park and so the chain has elected to take the line of least resistance and are going to order a couple of copies to lay, unloved, on the shelves.

We're not actually sure why they bothered, though: most branches of Tescos have their doorways cluttered by hordes of incoherent young people in ugly clothes getting in people's way. If only it was so simple to persuade them all to leave.

ALE AND PARTY: Oddly, for a woman who's supposedly in Israel flogging magic water, Madonna is also in London spending a grand total of thirty quid on a knees-up for Guy Ritchie's birthday. The bash at an "Irish" theme pub in Mayfair was twenty of Guy's closest friends (i.e. all of them, and then some more to make up the numbers) and an Oirish Band. Everyone had a splendid time, although I'm sure Guy couldn't help having a quiet think that he's married to one of the richest women in the world and yet she was too mean to actually fly them to Dublin for a Irish-themed birthday. "Thirty quid" he might have thought, "that's what - two pieces of red string? We could have Ryanaired to Dublin for less than that."

TILTING AT WINDBAGS: Really, there's no need for Alex Kapranos to attack Pop Idol; it's like Boeing having a pop at the chap who sells balsawood planes in a little toy shop in Harrogate, isn't it? I mean, he's spot on calling Gareth Gates and Michelle McManus* "boring", but it's not really worth the effort. Indeed, it sort of makes Franz Ferdinand seem less exciting that they're even bothering - is that what they intend to do with the spotlight? Complain about Pop Idol?

"Some of the contestants can't write music and they need other people to produce their records. It's not about talent. It's about marketing."

It's not even a coherent attack - frankly, who cares who writes the songs so long as they're brilliant? The Proms, eh - bunch of shit; none of the guys in the orchestra have written the stuff, have they? Alex, sweetness, nobody cares what you think about Gareth Gates. Good fucking grief, complaining about Michelle MacManus. Does anyone even remember who the hell she was? What's it going to be next month? 'Kapranos rails against Lena Zavaroni - "Opportunity Knocks Should Be Banned"'

OR YOU COULD JUST BUY YOUR MUM A BIG BOX OF TERRY'S ALL GOLD: Now we're past the September 11th Memorials, the shops are starting to fill up with tat for Christmas. And top of the list for that "Oh... how, um, nice" reaction this year will be yet another Tina Turner compilation. Of course, the last one nabbed the title Simply The Best, so this time round she's making do with All The Best (which sounds wrong - maybe Ike will rush-release one called Cheers, Pal) and it's got all those songs on. As is the way, there's a new single to prop up the whole shaky edifice. The new songs are Complicated Disaster and Trevor Horn-endorsed Something Special.

BITTER MEN OF POP: The man who made Smack My Bitch Up has had a pop at the Beastie Boys calling them "weak and dated". Laim Howlett is basically grumbling that the Beasties invited him to DJ before their Reading set only to make some suggestions about what to play. How shocking. Let's hope that The Prodigy continue to do well, otherwise Liam might find himself in the position of the hired hand in other circumstances. He's especially peeved they wouldn't let him play Bitch - probably thought the Beasties were picking on him, specifically, but it's such a rubbish song it's now included as a standard on all contracts for mobile DJs that they won't play it.

Grump on, Liam:

"I hate their new record. It's weak and dated. But, I mean, I don't ring them up and tell them their album's crap, do I?"

No, you just tell the San Francisco Chronicle. Liam also says that Madonna's new stuff is shit and, yeah, he did DJ for her, but only for the money. Curious that he's happy to whore for Maddy but not for Ad-Rock. Perhaps Ad should have paid him another tenner?

SHOWOBIT: Fred Ebb, the lyricist who was "sweetly vague" about his true age, has died. Ebb, believed to be 76, suffered a fatal heart attack at his home in New York.

Over a four-decade collaboration with John Kander, he provided the music for eleven Broadway musicals, including Cabert, Chicago and Kiss of the Spiderwoman. His most successful work was probably New York, New York - originally part of the score for a 1977 Scorsese movie, it was destined to become one of Frank Sinatra's standards. A winner of four Tony awards and an Olivier (for Chicago), and nominated for five Golden Globes, Ebb's prominence in musical theatre would have seemed unlikely to anyone who knew his family - apparently no music was ever listened to in the home he grew up in, but Ebb developed his taste outside.

After graduating with a degree in English Literature, Ebb drifted from job to job (including a spell bronzing baby shoes) before hooking up with Phil Springer, who introduced him to prosody (the AABA song paterns rather than verse-chorus-verse). In 1953, the Ebb/Springer partnership were hired to write for Judy Garland, and they went on to produce a stream of songs for nightclubs and revues. In 1964, however, Ebb was introduced to John Kander, and it was at this point (after a couple of false starts, notably the unstaged Golden Gate musical) that he really hit his stride. Besides the musicals, the partnership also produced a number of songs for Liza Minelli's TV series.

In 1997, Ebb and Kander received the Kennedy Center honor. Ebb's last major work was 1997's Steel Pier.

SWAMPY DRAINED: The death of Wane Swampy Jarvis was a bit of a blow to his wife and daughter - although an Australian music legend, Jarvis hadn't exactly made a pile during his life, and had only fifty four dollars to his name when he died. Picking themselves up, his widow Kerrie and daughter gathered together a collection of memoribilia and held an auction; in the process, they managed to raise $65,000 - enough to allow them to live in relative comfort. Except the trustees for Jarvis' estate then turned up and took the lot. They felt that since Jarvis had died a bankrupt, they deserved the money - even although the items his family had been selling hadn't actually belonged to him, and weren't actually part of the estate at all. Indeed, some of the items didn't even have any connection to Jarvis at all. Kerrie plans to try and get her money back from the "trustees" of Wane's estate, but she's already expecting to see the cash disappear in legal fees, even if she is successful.

WHO CAN YOU TRUST?: We're very impressed with the work the World of Stuart has done investigating The Industry Trust For IP Awareness, and in particular their Jonathan Ross-fronted claims that people knocking out dodgy CDs and DVDs at car boot sales are really gangsters. (Of course, the short version of this is: if people selling pirate discs were gangsters, wouldn't the So Solid Crew be releasing a single about it by now? "Goin' down the school field / floggin' wonky DVDs/ also got some china dogs/ I'm sellin' for my aunties"). Perhaps the most amusing part of the study is how, in each of the local packs, the spokesperson for the local Trading Standards people used exactly the same words; there's some impressive sleuthing into an incident which the ITIPA claims proves the link between DVD duplication and drucks:

So. The "Industry Trust for IP Awareness Limited's"

QUOTE:Counterfeit DVD production was found to be financing drug trafficking, when a seizure of counterfeit DVDs from a boot sale in East Sussex led police to raid premises at which cannabis resin and cocaine were seized with a street value of £20,000.

should in fact be

QUOTE: Counterfeit, stolen and dangerous items, including dodgy DVDs, dodgy clothing and airguns, were seized at a car boot sale in East Sussex. Six individuals were arrested and their homes were searched. Police found what they believe to be a small amount of drugs in a house in Eastbourne, and DVD copying equipment was found in different premises miles away. No link whatsoever has been presented between the counterfeit DVDs and the alleged drugs.

In fact, it's pretty comprehensively shown that the whole document is about as reliable as that one that Colin Powell showed to the UN that time, and shows the same sort of disregard for fact in an attempt to reach a conclusion that's already been arrived at. Yes, piracy is wrong, and bad, but it's not the major threat to everything we hold dear that the movie and record industry would have us believe.

"AND SITTING DOWN? THAT WAS OUR IDEA, TOO": We're fascinated by the current legal spat between Simons Cowell and Fuller over similarities between Pop Idol and The X-Factor. You'd have to be symapthetic to 19 Television's claim that X Factor is similar to Pop Idol - both are an almost unwatchable parade of overpaid puffed-up foghorns spraying gratuitously worded insults as the deluded untalented shuffle forward for their moment in the spotlight. We do look forward, though, to the lawsuit, where 19 argue that copying New Faces was their idea first.

BONO'S NEW FRIENDS: You'll have heard, no doubt, of Bono's new venture capital adventure, with the singer sticking cash into Elevation Partners. It might seem kind of curious for someone who makes much of his commitment to relieve the burden of debt in the Third World suddenly popping up hanging out with investment bankers - it's like an animal rights campaigner suddenly inviting the badger baiters round for a meal. (At the end of 1976, USD75billion of the non-OPEC least developed countries' debt was with commercial banks, USD45bn of which was held by American finanical institutions). Even if you don't think there's anything wrong with simultaneously calling for overseas debt to be set aside while wading into the investment market yourself, you might wonder about the sort of people you're dealing with.

So, who else is joining him in this exciting new opportunity? Well, Private Equity Week reports that Bret Pearlman's on board. Pearlman has, hitherto, been a senior managing executive with The Blackstone Group, a company who are very cosy with Kissinger Associates, Inc, Henry Kissinger's consulting firm. Blackstone were appointed to be Enron's principal financial advisors "with regard to its financial restructuring." Wonder how that's going. And Kissinger, of course, has a rap sheet as long as a long monkey's arm: Christopher Hitchens could fill in some blanks for you.

Also onboard is Roger MacNamee, who previously was at Integral Capital Partners. Amongst ICP's investments was Rambus Inc, bollocked by the FTC in 2002 for "deliberately engaging in a pattern of anticompetitive acts and practices that served to deceive an industry-wide standard-setting organization" - in other words, they participated in an open standards project while simultaneously attempting to patent a proprietary standard behind everyone's back. Of course, you can't really blame the company's backers for that, can you?

Merrill Lynch has been hired to act as placement agents for Elevation Partners. Back in 2001, Merrill Lynch were found to have been promoting stocks to investors while ridiculing them in private. In a nice piece of circular motion, one of those stocks is believed to be Enron.

But, of course, none of these murky pasts are reasons not to do business with people. After all, what would be the other option for Bono? Not drawing down the healthy rewards for being part of the Financial Services Industry? Not being invited to all those lunches and suppers and coporate jollies? Unthinkable.

POOR WORLD: Can the claim possibly be true that Celine Dion has sold more records than any other female artist, ever?. She's being given some sort of award to mark this depressing fact.

NOTHING UPSETS CHRISTINA: ... like the media focusing on just one aspect of her personality. Which does surprise us - there are aspects beyond "here are my boobies"?

THE EVER-EXPANDING HINTERLAND OF KIM WILDE: So, what do we have on the list? Rock star, gardener, TV presenter, PMS expert, knowledgeable about parenting, defender of the fell pathways - and now Kim Wilde is a promoting waste management and recycling at an event in Cambridge.

APPEARING IN VISIONS? SHE REALLY DOES THINK SHE'S THE OTHER FREAKING MADONNA: People are supposedly spotting Madonna selling overpriced water and schmuck-priced pieces of string to passers-by:

A source tells internet blog THE JEWLICIOUS, "My friend TZVI reported the first Madonna sighting of the Holiday season. Just after midnight last night he was stepping out of the home of an actual Kabbalist in the old city he saw a man and woman walking down Rehov Shonei Halachot.
The woman, dressed in layered, flowery Israeli-hippy style dress, was clearly recognized as the Material-turned-Spiritual Girl herself as she passed him by. The man seemed to be a bodyguard. They were, we think, on the way to the Kotel to pray."

Hmm. Somehow, we're not buying it. But it's a beautiful dream.

A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN: It's probably inevitable, since her bland pop is the sort of stuff we imagine footballers* dream of soundtracking their signing for the likes of Man United or Real Madrird, that a footballer would end up "dating" Dido - it was probably only a question of who it would be. Sol Campbell, as it turns out.

* - Except Pat Nevin.

CAN RE-DO: Monster Movie, Tago Mago, Ege Bamyasi and Soundtracks, four selections from the Can back catalogue are being re-released in a remastered format. Oh, and with new sleeve notes, as well. Yes.

CROOKS ATTACKS GANGSTAS: Joining the queue of people condemning rap's fascination with the violent side of life is Garth Crooks, Spurs player turned TV presenter:

There is an epidemic out there, and it is killing some of our children. Do you think there could be a correlation between this and the growing dissipation of our cultural values?

Crooks was talking at yesterday's London Schools and the Black Child conference, organised by Diane Abbott. Abbott, of course, signalled her determination to try and change things by, erm, taking her kid out of the State System. As far as we can tell, nobody actually bothered to invite anyone who is involved in British rap to put their perspective.

JAKARTA OFF? NO, SHE PULLED OUT OF HER OWN ACCORD: Following the bomb outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, Alicia Keys has pulled her date for the Indonesian capital. Blue are also scheduled to play there in October, but haven't et made a decision on whether to play or not. Surely, so long as no elephants are dying, though, they'd want to go ahead?