No Rock And Roll Fun

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

"We're not copy-Editors"

Tom Smith doesn't like Editors being compared to Interpol. It makes him all sweary and everything:

"When people dismiss us as a second-rate whoever it pisses you off.

"Vocally there is a similarity with Interpol and that's fine but our first album The Back Room doesn't sound anything like them.

"What amazes me is we still get that on this record, An End Has A Start, which sounds nothing like Interpol or Joy Division. If you're a music journalist saying that then you're deaf and need a new job."

Tom, honey; the comparisons with Interpol and Joy Division should flatter you. It's the Coldplay references that you should be worried about.

Allen: It's not a love-in

Didn't Lily Allen say she was going to stop posting to MySpace as it always appeared in the papers the next day, all twisted?

Mind you, the post about Kurt Cobain's wife by Keith Allen's daughter seems pretty unequivocal:

“I am not bfs w/ C Love, one night with her made me realise why Kurt killed himself. I nearly checked into rehab.”

Yes, she really did say "bfs", like Courtney was in her homeroom or something. FFS.

The Kurt jibe, though, is a bit below the belt - while Courtney's robust enough to cope with anything up to and including an 18 wheeler, will Frances be chuckling at the thought her mum drove her Dad to suicide?

Oh, really?

Let's be charitable, and assume that the main story in Bizarre this morning - that Lindsay Lohan has got a £25,000 bet that she can fuck David Beckham before anyone else, like some skanky Phileas Fogg, was told to Victoria Newton by somebody reall, really plausible and that the paper-thing tale seemed a lot more likely before it was written down and published in one of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Kelly Clarkson recants

Perhaps it must have been mouth herpes, but something made dumper-edge-dweller Kelly Clarkson suddenly feel the urge to clarify (i.e. withdraw completely and pretend she meant the opposite) remarks she made about label head (i.e. her boss) Clive Davis:

"I want to set the record straight on this by saying that I want my band, my advisors [sic], those close to me and my record label to be one big, tightly knit family. Like any family we will disagree and argue sometimes but, in the end, it's respect and admiration that will keep us together."

"Contrary to recent characterizations in the press, I'm well aware that Clive is one of the great record men of all time."

Respect and admiration will keep you together. And, of course, the creeping realisation that it's merely the support of the record label which is keeping you aloft.

Skateboarding completely naked in paradise

Ben Lee had a lovely, lovely idea for the video for Love Me Like The World Is Ending. They were going to depict the end of the world, and what people would get up to if the game was finally up. One of the aspects of this tableau was to be naked skateboarding - but, being America, they were only going to get the skaties to wear nude-coloured bodysuits. Only something went wrong:

[S]omething must have gotten lost in the translation, a direction must have been misheard, because as we went for our first take of the day, the skateboarders evidently dropped their shorts and skated down Crosby St fully exposed! This would not have been a problem except that some of New York City's Finest saw the display, and pretty quickly stepped in to stop filming. Our shooting permit was then revoked, leaving us with an unusable half a take of a very expensive video shoot!

Naturally, YouTube already has the visuals.

Dude, you're getting a Devo

The first new Devo track in seventeen years is now out in the wild. Sadly, it's an advertising jingle. Even more sadly, it's for Dell Computers. Surely it's now only a matter of weeks before we get "are we not men? We are Tesco".

The Axl comes off the wheels

The 20th anniversary of Appetite For Destruction - you might have known friends who liked it - looks set to be marked with a Guns N Roses reunion. Only without Axl Rose. Arguably, that's closer to the original G'N'R than Axl's roving bunch of comedy bucket-heads. The birthday party is penciled for the Key Club in LA (of course) on the 28th; two Guns tribute acts will also be playing - although presumably they'll bring their faux Axl.

Rap sheet: two arrests in New York

Police-related problems for Lil Wayne and Ja Rule, both of whom were stopped by police while allegedly carrying guns at the weekend.

Wayne managed to draw attention to himself by smoking a joint in the street; Mr. Rule's car was pulled over for speeding. Both men were carrying handguns, according to the crimesheets.

Kelly Clarkson fears cold sores

Don't go expecting to get a snog and a feel-up from Kelly Clarkson. She doesn't do that:

"I just don't make out with people. That's a waste of my kisses and time.

"And it's so personal - it's, like, my face. I'm afraid of mouth herpes."

Leaving aside the mouth herpes bit - which sounds like someone who's been a victim of an over-enthusiastic personal skills teacher - surely it being your face, and close-up, is the whole point of making-out? It really is one of those jobs you can't palm off onto your personal assitant.

And "a waste of my kisses"? She has a limited supply?

The crushing shame is that Clarkson turns out to be so goal-oriented that, much as she clearly makes music to shift units and not express her personality, she doesn't see that sometimes just kissing with people - even people you might not be intending to spend the rest of your life with - can be fun in its own right.

Buju signs piece of paper

Buju Banton has made at least some gay rights campaigners happy by signing a pledge to stop peforming tracks which call for the murder of homosexuals.

Not everyone's delighted, though:

Vincent Nap, a British-based reggae artist, said there was a problem of homophobia in dancehall music, but attacking artists' commercial interests would not solve the issue. "If they keep attacking us, we will fight back," he said. "If they try to stop our music we are going to have to defend ourselves."

Presumably Nap didn't mean to make his comments sound quite so menacing, although when you're defending the right of people to sing about shooting gay men, it's probably hard not to sound a little aggressive.

Others suggest that this might be the least meaningful piece of paper since Munich:

Mark Richards, known as DJ Kemist from reggae label Xtremix records, said: "I can see why he's done it. He doesn't want to jeopardise his whole career over just a few songs. But it doesn't mean it's going to change any of his opinions."

Which is the problem - you want Banton to not perform hateful incitements to crime because it's wrong, not because he's signed some pledge to allow him to do tours of the UK.

It's hard to see why a man who performed a song about pouring acid on gay men last year would necessarily treat a career-salvaging contract with representatives of a gay pressure group as a binding agreement, anyway. What happens if he breaks his word?

Channel 4 thinks inside The Box

In a somewhat surprising move, Channel 4 has bought half of EMAP's music TV business for £28million. Proving that Channel 4 really, really needed that £14m from the licence fee for digital switchover - why, without that, it could only have afforded a quarter share of The Box and Smash Hits TV.

There had been talk back in February about a possible link between the public broadcaster and the magazine publisher, but it seemed that it was going nowhere, like the 4/5 merger.

EMAP, of course, are thrilled:

"It will benefit from the combination of Emap's TV brands and distribution and Channel 4's premium music-based content and expertise in digital channel and platform management, and there will be increased cross-promotional opportunities spanning both media companies' portfolios."

Of course, there was no mention of programmes, but then there never is.

Mindy returns

It's been a while since we heard from Mindy McCready, but she's managed to break her silence by getting herself arrested in Florida. She tried to not get arrested, so she's got a charge of resisting arrest sitting alongside the original battery-related misdemeanor charges. We've missed you, Mindy. Welcome back.

Spiceconomics

We'd wondered how the figures on the announced Spice Girls tour were going to stack up. Now it's slightly clearer - having got them to sign up, according to the Mirror, Simon Fuller is pushing them to double the number of dates. That'll be where the profit was in the business plan, then.

Robbie Williams is not going to be able to carry an album on his own

What do you do when your career has started to slow - creativity shot, an audience interested only in the big hits from your youth, catalogue outselling new releases?

Hey, how about a duets album? Get in some younger, more vibrant acts to carry the more difficult part of some songs, rely on a little sales jump from their fans. Sure, it's the musical equivalent of taking a small role in panto or a breakfast show on local radio, but it keeps the cash flowing.

Apparently, Robbie Williams is planning just such an album. Apparently Freebass - Rourke/Joyce/Hook/Mani - have "been approached". Let's hope they've got the sense to back away slowly.

By the way, let's give a tip of the hat to the terrible headline on Newton's piece:

LA Robbie's galaxy of stars

- for no reason, and quite unsuccessfully, working in a reference to the pub soccer team David Beckham is playing for now. Even though the album has nothing to do with Beckham, or football, and even LA is a stretch. And "Galaxy of stars" is a bit of a laugh, too - JJustin Timberlake, perhaps, but Mark Ronson?

Girls on film

In news to gladden the heart of tabloid editors everywhere, Kate Moss is (supposedly) in a flap: she wants to destroy the video diaries she made with Pete Doherty, but two tapes are missing.

We're not sure what could be on them that we haven't already seen (or at least imagined), but I suppose the very real fear is there more of him and her singing duets. Nobody wants to see that.

There's a source:

“In one of the clips they put online Kate is wearing just knickers and a see-through nightgown as Pete sings to her.

“If they made that public, just think what could be on the tapes they held back.”

Well, with their record of public exhibitionism, there's every chance that they would have put up the most eye-catching of the films.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

The past's future: 1981

So, this weekend we've been reliving the 1981 Smash Hits Readers Poll "brightest hopes", with YouTube illustrations. The chart in full:

1. Altered Images
2. Soft Cell
3. Haircut 100
4. The Fun Boy Three
5. U2
6. Heaven 17
7. Modern Romance
8. 8. Bow Wow Wow
9. 9. ABC
10. 10. Orange Juice

The past's future: 1981 - 1. Altered Images

The brightest hope for 1982, accoridng to Smash Hits readers: Altered Images. Or the Bluebells and a woman who once had sex with Ian Beale.

Clare Grogan dragged herself off her sick bed to thank the readers:

It's great. I must congratulate Smash hits readers on their good taste. It's things like this that boost your ego and make you want to keep going.

She also revealed that America was going to get a version of Gregory's Girl with the voices redubbed "but Bill Forsyth says it's alright."

Dead Pop Stars, at the 1980 Futurama Festival:

[Buy: Pinky Blue+]
More Clare Grogan YouTube loveliness

Nash bashes hash

Who knew that putting a stop to drugs would only take senior politicians starting to talk about how they dabbled while they were at college? Now, everyone is rushing to disassociate themselves from drug culture faster than they fled bluejeans when Jeremy Clarkson started to be known for wearing them.

Kate Nash, for one, is clear that she doesn't like drugs:

"Drugs are ugly and scary, stuff like coke, I'd just hate to put something up my nose.

"And it just hits you there [top of the nose] and destroys part of your brain!

"I've been tempted. But I've got really heightened emotions anyway. I can get really over-excited about... a biscuit!"

So she spends her weekends getting Tuced up, then.

They're not much good at naming things, are they?

When Max and Igor Cavalera founded their first group, they were young, and calling it Sepultrua probably seemed like a good idea.

Now, they're older, wiser, and forming a new band. They're calling it Inflikted. They're surely way, way too old for that sort of thing.

The past's future: 1981 - 2. Soft Cell

"Just edged out" from the Top Spot, Soft Cell. It's kind of wonderful that Smash Hits was such a broad church, it's readers in 1981 were excited by the knitwear-clad Haircut 100s and the Fetish-strewn Soft Cell. And now, the kids are given McFly. And it were all fields round here.

To celebrate their victory from 25 years go, here's Soft Cell joined by Jim Foetus on a Suicide cover:

[Buy: The bedsit tapes, a glorious collection of early stuff put together in a studio at Leeds Poly]

Fiddy sticks one on game company

Apparently, 50 Cent's people were surfing MySpace when they saw an advert for a computer game featuring a bloke being shot.

50 Cent is a bloke. And he's been shot. It's a clear case of passing off. Naturally, this can only mean lawsuits have to be launched:

His lawyer Peter Raymond said the advert does not use 50 Cent's name, but "the character is intended to be him".

Because, of course, no other black guy has ever been shot in America. Apart from Malcolm X, but he wore a suit, so the advert couldn't have been about him.

The price of this slight? Cent is looking for a million dollars to make good his hurt feelings.

The past's future: 1981 - 3. Haircut 100

Third most-promising act of 1981, according to Smash Hits readers, was Haircut 100. The magazine was surprised they'd managed to do so well despite "only starting to break as we published the forms" and were confident enough to predict:

Expect knitting to become very fashionable during 1982

.
That future turned out to mean a lot of work soundtracking fun on the inflatables during Cheggers Plays Pop, a comic strip in Look-In, a slow slide down the dumper and a not-entirely successful resurrection of Nick Heyward on Creation during their 'rich off Oasis' years.

But what remains, of course, is the knitwear:

[Buy: A mightily-expanded Pelican West]

The past's future: 1981 - 4. The Fun Boy Three

When Smash Hits readers described them as "promising", did any of them think that future might be getting wheeled on as trophy collaborators by the daughter of a light comedian? The magazine used their ennoblement to call for "another single". Jerry Dammers, meanwhile, sobbed slightly and wondered if anyone would ever listen to him again.

Their Top of the Pops performance of The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum marked some sort of high water mark for mainstream TV directors using technology in a desperate bid to inject teatime-friendly life into something a little difficult and downbeat - although you can see the same effect on ITV News these days:

[Buy: 1997's Fun Boy Three best of]

The chart rundown will conclude later today

50 Cent: Nas isn't thick enough

There is despair, and then there is the pit of despair, as 50 Cent pinpoints the reason for Nas' decline - he's too worried about all this booklearning:

“Nas is a really smart guy. He reads books constantly. We were around him on the Nastradamus tour. He was almost weirder than me 'cause we would go to breakfast and he'd be there reading a book."

A book? Can you even imagine such a weird thing to be doing?

"Conceptually, I think that's what made him drift away from what his initial audience enjoys from him and why he's not hot right now."

If having some interest in your world moves you "conceptually" away from your audience, that would seem to be an audience you're better without. Happily for 50 Cent, we can comfortably conclude he's not about to try and raise himself above whatever level of ignorance he has so far managed to achieve.

Winehouse plays gig. Perhaps she shouldn't.

Having managed to turn up to play a gig, Amy Winehouse was delighted to discover the lucky audience who were actually getting a performance in return for their ticket money included Tyler James, her ex-boyfriend. Consummate professional that she is, Amy decided the show had to go on, and so on it did go, as she went on and on at her ex. According to people who were there, who talk to the People (who weren't), it was like being caught in that MFI advert where people scream at each other as if they weren't in public. We don't understand why MFI think that's going to make people want to buy kitchens, and it clearly isn't going to make people want to buy records.

Winehouse had earlier suggested the audience should be thinking themselves lucky for getting a show:

"At least I turned up.

"I'm so unorganised I don't even know which side of the bed I'm waking up on most days."

Is it just us, or does that sentence not actually make any sense? Who organises what side of the bed they'll be lying on as the dawn arrives? And isn't the problem more that Winehouse doesn't know which barstool she'll be waking up on these days?

The past's future: 1981 - 5. U2

You can tell that Smash Hits were distinctly unimpressed with that bunch of mulletted punks turning up in the Brightest Hope again:

U2 occupy exactly the same position as they did last year; isn't it about time they came up with a really hot single and fulfilled some of that potential?

Yeah. Isn't it just? Sadly, though, it wasn't to be, and now Paul Hewson - who fronted the band - is something large in property and stocks.

U2 were actually quite good back then - but already slightly conceited - as their Pinkpop appearance shows:

[Buy: Achtung, Bono by Half Man Half Biscuit]

The Enemy's enemy is a straw man

The Enemy are quite self-assured for a band whose profile depends as much on one of them being linked to Peaches Geldof as any music they might have made, aren't they?

Today, they give Paul Potts a kicking for, erm, selling more records than them:

"I've just heard that we are about to be knocked off Number One by that fat bloke from Britain's Got Talent," Tom told [Zoe Showbiz]. "It's a fucking disgrace.

"Nobody will know who this bloke is this time next year. If he thinks he is going be making music in a year's time then he has another think coming.

"People who win talent shows have a habit of disappearing. They make one hit album, do a wave of promotion - and then it's on to the next big thing."

Yes, that's true, Tom. He might be a bit of national joke. But he is still selling more records than you, isn't he? And while people who win talent shows do have a bit of habit of getting some attention and then disappearing... you could say the same about bands-mainly-famous-for-hanging-out-with-Peaches-Geldof.

The reality TV gene pool

At last, 18th century farming villages can point to somewhere and say "you think we're incestuous". Reality TV is such a small pool, the News of the World is reporting this morning that Kerry 'I'm A Celebrity' Katona "romped" (their word) with Ziggy off Big Brother. What brought them together? Why, largely-forgotten ITV reality show Elimidate, of course.

Kerry really has had a tragic life, hasn't she?

The past's future: 1981 - 6. Heaven 17

Smash Hits were sure that H17 would thrive as

"their Human League connections can't have done them any harm at all."

Although, in retrospect, they probably did - cast by their spin-off status into a perpetual battle they could never win.

The band were together for the Billy MacKenzie Memorial in March, from which this Temptation is sourced: