NEW MUSIC

If you thought the return of Duran Duran - walking back into the studio and picking up the threads where they'd left off a decade before (i.e rather than from the glory days) - was surprising, Roxy Music aren't just regrouping for the Isle of Wight festival; Bryan Ferry, Phil Manzanera, Andy Mackay, Paul Thompson and Brian Eno are going to make their first album together since 1973. We're not so sure that trying to recapture the spirit of the band after so long is a good idea - gran rock rather than glam rock; we're picturing them singing "what's her name? Virginia Plain? Who was that? Was that Alfie's oldest?" - and we fear the odds are stacked against them. But, on the other hand, Bryan Ferry can still sing anything and make it sound worthwhile, so perhaps it's not a totally doomed idea.

music music bryan ferry

MORE GUN TWATTERY

Another nice night out ruined by a pratt with a gun, as someone jumps on stage at Nas' Brixton Academy date and fires two shots into the ceiling:

Brixton Academy spokeswoman Louise Kovacs said the venue had been evacuated following consultation with police.

She said there was "a high level of security" at every event.

More than 100 security staff had been working at the show and concert-goers passed through scanning and security checks at the entrance to the venue.

A high level of security, and yet a chap can clamber on stage, fire a gun and nobody is able to stop him...

music rap nas brixton

MORE GUN TWATTERY

Another nice night out ruined by a pratt with a gun, as someone jumps on stage at Nas' Brixton Academy date and fires two shots into the ceiling:

Brixton Academy spokeswoman Louise Kovacs said the venue had been evacuated following consultation with police.

She said there was "a high level of security" at every event.

More than 100 security staff had been working at the show and concert-goers passed through scanning and security checks at the entrance to the venue.

A high level of security, and yet a chap can clamber on stage, fire a gun and nobody is able to stop him...

music rap nas brixton

THE MUSIC INDUSTRY: IT'S NOW JUST A BILLBOARD

What does music mean to you? Emotion, love, sadness, hearts, flowers, going la la la and giggling? You might want to look away now, then, as Toyota have launched a record label as part of a marketing write-off for the launch of its new American model, the Scion. Yep, music is now so debased, it's reduced to being little more than a way of flogging a few extra cars - they've even cut out the pretence of just using the music as a soundtrack to adverts (or "Moby" as it was known). Now, there's no way of even pretending to have any dignity. The whole existence of the records - initially from Dakah Hip Hop Orchestra - will be to sell vehicles.

And what vehicles. Meet the Toyota Scion:



Ugly, boxy, way too large and ruinious to the environment. It should fit in with being an RIAA member just fine.

music toyota riaa

We can't actually quite believe that the internet actually has this non-story on it, so we'll repeat it in full:

Flamboyant pop singer Boy George has impressed software billionaire Bill Gates - not with his catchy tunes, but with his organic broccoli.

The Karma Chameleon star, whose raunchy new autobiography Straight is currently causing a stir, co-owns a plush health food shop in the wealthy area of Kensington, London.

And Microsoft magnate Gates - who has a mansion nearby - is hooked on the wholesome produce from the former Culture Club singer's shop.

George, real name George O'Dowd, reveals, "Bill comes in and buys lots of organic veg.

"The floor staff are always joking that he probably turns all his potatoes into chips - they're a witty bunch."

We've read it backwards and forwards, and checked several websites to see if "organic veg" is some sort of euphemism, but it doesn't seem to be. So... we're left with our rational head trying to believe that Bill Gates (i) does his own shopping; (ii) is in London often enough that he regularly has to buy vegetables; and (iii) buys his vegetables from Boy George.

We suspect it's some bloke with glasses who might look a little like Bill Gates.



Our artist's impression was thrown together too quickly to work in a "would you like an apple?"/"I really don't fancy any fruits" joke.

music fruit boy george bill gates

HERE THEY COME AGAIN

Giving the nineteen people in Liverpool who weren't in the original line-up a chance to do their time in the La's, Lee Mavers and John Power are resurrecting the band. We wish it was because an Arab Prince was offering half a million quid, but it's more down to the Summer Sonic festival in Tokyo giving an offer of a few quid.

music the las liverpool

RECORD LABEL CRUSHES NERD

A Further example of how record companies spend all their time worrying about their artists rather than buying nice chairs for the boardroom: NERD have decided to stop working as a band because of the management at their label, Pharrell Williams told Radio One:

"NERD is dead. I don't agree with the management at Virgin Records so we're done. Me and Chad (Hugo) still do what we do in the studio, Shay is still our best friend, you know, perhaps we'll do some music for our fans and leak it to the internet or something, who knows?"

Nice one, EMI (for it is they who lurk behind Virgin). Would anyone from the label care to remind us how they believe they "represent" their artists?

The way they were:

NERD - Fly Or Die

music nerd virgin

HAVING SAID WHICH...

This is from the Emancipation of Mimi photo booklet:



Not quite Mariah Carey naked, but... really, she's not got the hang of this "more demure" business, has she?

music mariah carey

RECORD COMPANY CUTS AIRBRUSHING TIME BY THREE DAYS

Half of the wish we made by rubbing the magic wishing frog of Barcalona has come true - Mariah Carey's stylist has made he start covering up her chest as part of the work to try and make the comeback stick: in other words, she's being told to wear more appropriate attire in the workplace. We're still hoping the magic frog does its work on the other half of the wish, though, and someone forces her to wear a gimp mask - or at the very least a ball gag - whenever she even thinks of going near a microphone.

music mariah carey

GREAT IDEA

Billie Piper isn't going to watch the first episode of the new Doctor Who - she says she's going to get drunk instead. Nice to see she's takne some lessons from her marriage to Chris Evans - as we recall, it wasn't unknown for him to be pissed when his programmes were going out, too. But there's no real need for you to go to the pub to avoid Dr Who, Billie - you could just do what everyone else is doing, and watch Ant and Dec instead.


It's not Doctor Who without the Cyberman, anyway.

music billie piper doctor who tv

WHAT DOES HALF A MILLION BUY YOU THESE DAYS?

We're a little surprised that anyone who has half a million to spare would use it to buy a private dance ("gig") from Dannii Minogue. Apparently, she's not in a position to turn it down ("thinking about accepting the offer"). The sweet irony, of course, is that the half a million quid is on offer from an Arab prince (is she sure, come to think of it, that it's not that hack from the News of the World again?) - and we know how Dannii panics when surrounded by signs and so on in Arabic... oh, hang on, she doesn't mind places in Australia having signage in the language spoken by the people who live there, she was only saying, wasn't she?

music dannii minogue selling

THE BEST BIT WAS WHEN THEY HID THE SPANNER IN HIS COFFIN

We're always excited to hear of new stuff from Luke Haines, even when the dreaded words "concept album" are being bandied about for his new project, an album calledThe State Funeral of Winston Churchill. At the moment, mind, it's just a title.

music luke haines albums

THE BEST BIT WAS WHEN THEY HID THE SPANNER IN HIS COFFIN

We're always excited to hear of new stuff from Luke Haines, even when the dreaded words "concept album" are being bandied about for his new project, an album calledThe State Funeral of Winston Churchill. At the moment, mind, it's just a title.

music luke haines albums

THE BEST BIT WAS WHEN THEY HID THE SPANNER IN HIS COFFIN

We're always excited to hear of new stuff from Luke Haines, even when the dreaded words "concept album" are being bandied about for his new project, an album calledThe State Funeral of Winston Churchill. At the moment, mind, it's just a title.

music luke haines albums

THE BEST BIT WAS WHEN THEY HID THE SPANNER IN HIS COFFIN

We're always excited to hear of new stuff from Luke Haines, even when the dreaded words "concept album" are being bandied about for his new project, an album calledThe State Funeral of Winston Churchill. At the moment, mind, it's just a title.

music luke haines albums

ROCKOBIT

The funeral takes place today of Gareth Bonetto. Bonetto - under his stage name of Eddie Richards - lead metal act Blood Retch, who had built a small but dedicated following around the world and even managed a hit single in the Netherlands.

Bonetto had been unwell for some time and had spent a period in the Royal Glamorgan before his death. It's believed he comitted suicide. The band had been discussing the possibility of a US tour.

music obit obituary blood retch

SWEET MARIA!

When RCA were plotting their bungled Elvisathon, attempting to stake out the top of the charts for 18 weeks with Elvis re-releases, they probably never thought that The Stereophonics would have caused them problems, as last week. But what they certainly wouldn't have counted on would have been Tony Christie confounding them, too. Not only has Christie taken this week's number one slot (thanks to the Peter Kay video and Comic Relief), but he's outsold every other single this year, and most of last year's as well. In a single week. Is This The Way To Amarillo - much, much more popular than Elvis.

Now we're hoping the British draught sherry Amarillo - which used the song on its 1970s TV ads - rides the crest of the comeback wave. We'd like to swagger down the grocers with an empty bottle.

The Independent ran a nice piece on Saturday where they asked the good people of Amarillo about the song.

music peter kay tony christie elvis charts

A QUICK LOOK AT THIS MORNING'S FRONT PAGES

We're bemused by the continuing coverage of the Lena Zavaroni of our age, Charlotte Church - both The Sun (who have another mainly racist front page today) and The Star make space for the latest twist in the tale:



- but who is it they think is interested? Even Charlotte's gran has long since abandoned her scrapbook. Shouldn't we at least insist she sells some records like, this decade, before she gets any more coverage for her sex romp/love rat lifestyle?

The Mail and Express, however, have more important matters on their mind: they know their middle management readers love a spot of mild s&m:



Those teases at the Mail tuck away that Kylie corset in the inner pages, but Richard Desmond didn't get where he is today without letting his readers have a full splash on his front page:



Apparently we're about to see "the return of the corset" - although, surely, for one or two tabloid editors it never really went away, did it?

music newspapers charlotte church corsets kylie kylie minogue

DIDDY IN THE DOCK

There's probably enough material for a spin-off all P Diddy Lawsuit blog these days, but since we can't be arsed to set one up we'll just throw down the Colombia Pictures action being launched against Sean Combs here. Colombia claim that Diddy and his Bad Boy laundering service... sorry, record label (we always get those two muddled up) was meant to pay a million quid up front to cover the costs of producing the soundtrack for Bad Boys 2, but somehow Colombia ended up paying the bills themselves.



Diddy, talking through a spokesperson, reckons its - yes - all a terrible misunderstanding:

"This is a misunderstanding which we believe has been resolved and anticipate that the lawsuit will be withdrawn shortly."

music rap hiphop puff daddy movies

LET'S HOPE HE'S STILL OFF HIS CHUMP ON DRUGS...

... because if Pete Doherty's judgement isn't being clouded by a mixture of heroin, crack, vim and parma violets, then why the hell would Pete Doherty agree to record a track with Ocean Colour Scene?

Simon Fowler of OCS says:

"Despite Pete's drug addiction he is one of the most talented artists around and writes amazing, poetic songs."

See? He sounds as amazed as anyone else.

music ocean colour scence pete doherty babyshambles

STEAL THIS RECORD

Now, here's something to raise the next time you find yourself in a moot court: if an artist tells you that he'd rather you steal his record off the web than buy it, and record companies insist that they're only trying to stop artists losing out when people download, does that make it okay to download? We only ask right now because Alex Kapranos is so pissed off at Roadrunner for releasing The Karelia album Divorce At High Noon, he's encouraging people to go and get it off bittorrent instead of at the shops:

"It's a bit strange to see Roadrunner re-releasing it now and making a big fanfare.

"There's something that doesn't sit quite right, because they dropped us and deleted us from their back catalogue and website - they completely deleted all trace of us.

"Do you want to know the honest truth? I'd rather people downloaded it from the internet than bought it off them."

music franz ferdinand downloads

COMMERCIAL PAIN

Moby has had a pop at Beyonce because of her commercial sidelines:

"I see so many public figures just gratuitously lending their names to products that I really don't understand.

"I just wonder why, like, Beyonce's doing this Tommy Hilfiger thing, and isn't it enough to have $50m? Do you need $51m?"

Moby, of course, wouldn't do such a thing. Indeed, he was much more savvy, allowing his music to soundtrack car adverts while still banging on about how evil cars are. So much smarter than actually letting your name be attached to your endorsements.

Moby is worried that picking on Beyonce may lead to trouble:

"It wouldn't be good, because then all of a sudden Jay-Z (Beyonce's boyfriend) and Damon Dash (Jay-Z's business partner) would be involved.

"I'd find myself at the bottom of the Hudson River."

That's the terrible thing about Jay-Z and Damon Dash - they're terrible with the pollution when they're dumping bodies. Maybe you should go and have a fight with Lil'Kim, Mobes - we hear she gets her henchmen to ensure all their targets get properly recycled. 85% less gets sent to landfill than Tupac ever managed.

music moby beyonce

CUTTING HER CLOTH

Maybe nobody had bothered to tell Christina that she was one of those tacky celebs with their own clothing lines when she made her comments about how awful that whole business is, and how it's the mark of the desperate and short of ideas to start flogging pants off their brand name. But she doesn't need to worry now - Black Box, who had signed a deal to market her fashions, have now axed the contract. Of course, they've also instructed a lawyer to set about recouping the investment her yakking has just blown out the water.

music fashion christina aguilera

THE END OF THE DROUGHT

American scientists have expressed relief that the long-running drought of stories about Britney Spears being pregnant has ended. It had been almost three weeks since anyone had observed behaviour that would lead to the appearance of 'Is Britney pregnant' stories in the press, and concerns had been expressed that without something, the gossip pages would have been forced to fall back onto speculation about the date of Christina Aguilera's wedding for possibly the whole of the summer. However, jubilation has broken out amongst observers following Britney telling baby store staff that she's 'nine weeks pregnant'. "This is brilliant news for us" said an observer, "as it's more than enough to ensure we can run another two months worth of long-lens pictures of Spears' belly with 'is he or isn't she' captions."

music britney spears pregnancy britney spears pregnant

SOME GOOD NEWS FOR ONCE

Good news from Grace Maxwell - her husband Edwyn Collins is out of danger:

"His doctors are delighted and a bit confounded at his progress. We are organising his next move, to intensive neuro rehabilitation. This is a tough challenge but he’s beaten the odds already."

music edwyn collins

NOTE TO BRIAN: DELETE 'DELTA', INSERT 'ANYTHING'

Apparently Osmond-Chipmunk crossbreed Brian McFadden has been warned to not write any more songs about Delta Goodrem in case it harms his career. In one of the biggest PR disasters of recent times - oh, alright, since The Hamiltons, then - Brian and Delta's attempts to give each other a shoe-up by pretending that they give each a gee-up has blown up as The Sort Of People Who Care are more outraged by his not living like a monk after the collapse of his marriage to Kerry Katona, former topless model and something or other. TV presenter of some sort, was it? Now, it's looking like Brian is going to have to stop doing lovesongs altogether - which leaves an enormous question: what the hell is he going to sing about instead? The World Bank? Biomechanics?

music brian mcfadden delta goodrem

THAT'S GREAT, BUT DON'T YOU HAVE SOME CHEESE AND CRACKERS?

Faced with the problems of the starving in Brazil, Lenny Kravitz has made a generous donataion of, erm, a guitar. Okay, you can't actually eat guitars but the idea is that the Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will auction the instrument and spend the money he gets on sandwiches and crisps for everyone. Oh, alright, on water cisterns in North East Brazil. Everyone comes out well of this deal - Brazil takes a small step closer on its mission to wipe out hunger by 2006; the rest of the world comes one guitar closer on our campaign to leave Kravitz with no instruments to make his godawful music with by July 2007.

music Brazil lenny kravitz

ALMOST LIKE A REAL STAR

There's some people who would try and tell you that people who win American Idol aren't proper musical celebs at all, but that just isn't true: Look at Ruben Studdard. He's being sued for breach of contract by his manager, just like a proper singer. Former manager Ron Edwards is actually counter-suing Studdard - Studdard launched a suit against him claiming that he'd misused a quarter of a million dollars; now Edwards is calling for half a million for not paying management fees or nothing. Although he seems to undermine his own complaint:

Edwards' attorney, Glennon Threatt, told the Birmingham News that his client and Studdard, 26, were longtime family friends and that Edwards agreed to help Studdard for free before he won American Idol in May 2003.

music american idol

THE LEBANOT

Although it won't be affecting the odds overmuch, Lebanon has pulled out of the Eurovision song contest. No, not because someone at state broadcaster Tele Liban sent a message to Eurovision headquarters saying "Yes, we checked and you're right, Lebanon is in the Middle East and not Europe after all", but because they got the hump over Israel also being involved:

Tele Liban’s head, Ibrahim Khoury, confirmed the decision to pull out, saying that the broadcaster was unaware of the presence of an Israeli participant when it confirmed its entry in December.

"Lebanon is in a state of war with Israel. If the Israeli contestant wins, we would have to show the celebrations," Khoury said.

He would also be obliged to allow viewers to vote for the Israeli entry. "I cannot do this," he said.

Obviously Lebanon is so really keen on the Eurovision Song Contest, it managed to not notice Dana International's victory for Israel in 1998.

music eurovision israel lebanon

MELTING WITH PATTI

Last year, it was Morrissey who came in to do the honours with the Meltdown Festival. This year, Patti Smith will be stood backstage with the clipboard trying to make sure that all the stars get on and do their songs proper.



Patti's Meltdown will take place between June 11th and 26th at the Royal Festival Hall.

music patti smith meltdown