I don't suppose I'll get a mother chance

Mum are doing a gig at the Museum of Garden History on August 29th, with a random element of ticket-lottery involved. Although, erm, they seem to have closed the entries off now. Bugger.

Bad Boys

George Michael has made a start on his community service, doing gardening at a homeless shelter in London:

"I'm just like everyone else. If you do something stupid, you have to pay the price. I've been doing some gardening and really enjoyed it.

"I'll do whatever they want me to do. I don't want any special treatment."

Putting George to work in the gardens is a great idea; his interests in herbs, especially, is well known.

And people think the Windsors are out of touch

Kanye West tells of a moment of terrible embarrassment with the Princes backstage at the Diana concert:

"One of them said 'I thought those glasses were bling' and the other one said 'It's Kanye West, they'd have to be bling.' I didn't have the heart to tell them that I'm the anti-bling."

What makes this timely is Jonathan Freedland's claims in yesterday's Guardian:

When Diana's sons strode on to the stage for that memorial concert, their ID badges hanging, roadie-style, around their necks, they bellowed: "Hello, Wembley!" Hard to imagine either their father or grandfather doing that.

Well, perhaps not onstage at Wembley, but there's a long history of royalty trying to seem at ease with young people by trying (and not really managing) to blend in - the Duke of Edinburgh Awards, The Prince's Trust, the Diana Concert are three generations of well-meaning attempts to connect with the kids on the street. And, as Kanye's anecdote shows, like their grandad and father, the Princes are willing to try to blend in - they're just not very good at it.

She said yes, yes, yes

After the roasting that the Sun's entertainment team got for being scooped on the Pete Doherty story by the Mirror, let's hope they've got a good explanation for why, when they're telling the world the answer to Amy's problems is gettting landlords to, erm, not serve her friends while the Mirror has a scoop.

They reckon Amy has admitted her drug use, and is flying off to a rehab clinic "recommended by Kelly Osbourne" - someone really should set up a rehab equivalent of TripAdvisor, shouldn't they?

Again, according to the Mirror, Winehouse and Fielder-Civil stripped off in front of their family to "prove they hadn't been injecting" - although if we had Blake's skinny frame flopping about in front of us, we wouldn't have the stomach to check his penis for track marks, and we're not even related.

Ah, yes. There's no pubs in the suburbs

We really hope that the story in this morning's Bizarre is just a spot of space-filling speculation and that Amy Winehouse's dad and manager don't think that the way to deal with someone who has serious addiction problems is to get them to "move out of Camden" and to "have a word with landlords in Camden":

"Ray has been to see the landlords of pubs in Camden to ask them to help keep Amy in check.

“He wants them to look out for hangers-on who might lead her into trouble."

Ah, yes. Because up to now, the people who run Camden's pubs would have been unaware that Amy was in trouble.

More to the point, what are they supposed to do? "I'm not serving you, you've got a hanger-on with you. You'll have to go outside if you want an acolyte..."

And if the landlords of Camden could somehow control Winehouse's drinking, then why would you take the trouble to move her away to another part of town where her manager hasn't had a word?

Still, having seen Newton's interview style on last night's Britain's Next Top Model, we're starting to see how this sort of thing might appear in the papers. The would-be models were put through a "task" where they were grilled by Newton on supposed scandals they'd been involved in; "I'm Victoria Newton from The Sun" sat asking them weak questions, wearing enormous sunglasses (I do apologise if Victoria had recently had a cataract operation before she'd filmed the segment.) How can you interview someone properly on a sex or drug scandal if you're unable to make eye contact with them? The whole piece was a bit stilted - the programmes quickly moved on to a bit with Joan Rivers and Max Clifford instead - but did include the comedy gold of Newton, in all seriousness, suggesting that showing your breasts might undermine your modelling career.

AT&T snip the 'looza

AT&T made a pretty play for the young-ish, web-hip market earlier this month by webcasting Lollapalooza sets.

Up to a point: it turns out somehow AT&T's webcast mislaid Eddie Vedder's anti-Bush speech during Pearl Jam's set. (And yet they left the music in.)

Funnily enough, this is the same AT&T which happily handed over details of thousands and thousands of its customers private phone calls to the National Security Council, even although none of them were suspected of any crime and there had been no request through the courts for the information. By a strange coincidence.

It must be great being American

Or, rather, in America - because at the moment, Rolling Stone is streaming the new Donnas album. To people in America, though.

If you're American, perhaps you could have a quick listen and tell us if it's any good?

Drummer, singer, actor... artist?

Later this year, the Dallas Museum of Art is hosting Phil Collins: the world won’t listen, a video installation where Phil Collins invites Smiths fans around the world to contribute karaoke renditions of Smiths songs.

We can't make up our mind, though, if Rolling Stone really believes that the drummer from Genesis and the 2006 Turner-shortlisted artist are the same Phil Collins, or if it's just a joke. We fear they might be being serious, though.

For whom the bong tolls?

Curious. Earlier today, Pitchfork reported that Mike Skinner was pushing a bong-making contest via The Streets' MySpace site.

Oddly, if you follow the link they offer, you get this message:

This user's profile has been temporarily disabled for special maintenance.
The profile will be available again shortly.
Sorry for the inconvenience. 8/13/2007

"Special maintenance", eh? I wonder what that could mean.

£100 a pop?

The music industry dreams of being able to charge more for records, but no label has yet had the balls to try and demand £100 for a debut single.

Until now.

Record of The Day have founded an imprint - Victorious Kiam (named after Victor, of course) - to push The Thurston Revival's first seven inch. And, yes, they're asking £100. There's an element of stunt pricing to it, of course:

“But I’m not bothered if some don’t sell. The hefty price tag is a statement on the value of music in general. Music’s value is subjective. How much you love a song has nothing to do with how much you paid for it. Somewhere There’s an Angel is on my page on MySpace and anyone can hear it for free. Does that mean the song has no value? Of course not. Yet that’s what we’re constantly told.”

Hmm. Fair point, but we're not sure the economic theory quite supports the professed experiment.

First, the record is on a very limited edition, which, coupled with the press interest, means a lot of the value of the disc is going to be determined by both its scarcity and its curiosity value. Then, there's this:

10 acclaimed young British artists, including Jasper Joffe, Sarah Doyle, Cathy Lomax, Edward Ward and Harry Pye, have each designed a sleeve – there will be 10 of each – inspired by the song.

You might, perhaps, wonder if the sleeve by Cathy Lomax might be the call to purchase rather than the vinyl inside.

Record of the Day insists not:

“The value of the product is not in the artwork, it’s in the concept,” insists James Barton, commercial director of Record of the Day, the London-based music company that set up the show. “We wanted to help Dan because Somewhere There’s an Angel is one of the most astonishing pieces of music we’ve ever come across. If any pop song can remind people that music is art, this is it.”

Of course, it's all a stunt, but it's a lovely piece of marketing theatre and does raise an interesting question in an engaging way - more than a free ringtone with every download would, for example.

The choice of Victor Kiam for label inspiration, though, does carry a warning for those who would build their artist by making a huge splash in the press. As Kiam said:

You can hype a questionable product for a little while, but you'll never build an enduring business.

The cost of the second single is going to be down to the quality of the music, and the quality of the music alone.

Record companies only have themselves to blame

Even when she's not overdosing on, uh, exhaustion, Amy Winehouse is being talked about a lot. In the US, she's been nominated for MTV Video awards. It must be great for her label, Universal, who can only be shifting shedloads of copies of Frank in the US wiht all this publicity, right?

Erm... nope. They're thinking about seeing about getting a release for it in three months time.

Yep, November.

Unsurprisingly, what with the album having been around so long in the UK, black and grey market copies are swamping the US at the moment - figures suggest that 18,000 copies have been flogged in the US already.

Universal's response? Of course, they've rushed forward the American release, desperate to meet this huge demand for their product and capitalise on a... hang on, I'll read that again. Oh, no. They're trying to shore up the November release date by threatening to sue anyone selling grey market copies.

Apparently the music industry is in some sort of crisis, you know.

McClure waves fist at Borrell

John McClure, out of Reverend and The Makers, isn't impressed with Johnny Borrell.

John, honeycakes, nobody is impressed with Johnny Borrell. But do go on:

"He's a bell end, he doesn't mean anything he says.

"On one level I respect his self-confidence, in the way you might begrudgingly respect Hitler for building the autobahns. If it were matched up with a genuine talent and intelligence then fair enough, but he hasn't got either. He's just got a big gob."

We quite like Kirkby's House, but we wouldn't suggest that it was comparable with an Autobahn - more a pleasant B Road in need of some repair.

Allen has note from her Dad. Sorry, doctor

Almost as if she feels that Amy Winehouse has spoiled it for the rest of them, Lily Allen has posted a photo of her holding up her doctor's note which has signed off her performing for her next run of festival bookings:

I've got sinusitis and strep throat ( i don't even know what that is ) and have been advised to take a couple of weeks off by a doctor in LA and a doctor here .Before anyone starts trying to accuse me of neglecting my fans I want to apologise and say how sorry I am , but I cant risk causing any permanent damage . I hope people can understand and arent too angry .

It's actually rather a brave move - or perhaps we mean foolish - to put a picture of the note, as you can make out most of her doctor's name and the Primary Care Trust he works under. Mind you, with the new NHS computer system nobody's records will have privacy any more, so maybe we shouldn't be too bothered.

Religion, race and the X-Factor

There's a curious little story pushing the new series of The X-Factor in today's Mirror:

X Factor Muslim turmoil

Dannii Minogue says a Muslim X Factor contestant will be disowned by her family when they find out she auditioned.

New judge Dannii said: "One girl, a Muslim, was shaking."

Hang on a moment - why does the woman's religion even warrant a mention, never mind the headline "Muslim turmoil"? Surely the point of the story is that the girl went on the show despite her parent's disapproval; the religion is incidental, isn't it?

Doubtless Dannii would insist she was "only mentioning" the Islamic connection - in the same way she was "only mentioning" those Arabic street signs - but the whole thing leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, with a lingering suggestion that Islam is such a crazy religion, it even won't let its followers be insulted by Simon Cowell. Is ITV really comfortable helping foster this false sense of otherness? Wouldn't the story be strong enough to promote a silly game show without trying to wrap it up in some "clash of cultures" rubbish?

After all, what we really have here is a child rebelling against strict parents, which can happen anywhere - even in atheist's houses.

This becomes clear as Dannii continues:

"We said, 'What's wrong?' she said, 'My parents don't know I'm here. If they find out they'll throw me out and never speak to me again'.
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"We said, 'Well, is that what you want?'

"She said 'It's my dream to be a singer. I've got to do it even though it means I'll never speak to them'.

"So we said, 'OK, let's go ahead with the audition'."

Her performance will appear in the auditions programmes. So, since ITV has not only chosen to broadcast the sequence, with the repercussions it will bring to her private life, but also use it for pre-publicity, she must do well, surely?

A show source said: "She did have talent but don't expect to see her in the final stages as her voice wasn't strong enough."

Ah. So they're going to cause a rift in her family life by sticking her on the telly, and then kick her off the show without so much as a Countdown teapot as a thank you.

Well done, ITV.

Madonna worms to the heart of the Big Apple

Victoria Newton gets all of a twitter with news of "secret" plans for Madonna to play Central Park to mark her 50th Birthday.

Newton suggests this would be a rare, special event:

SIMON & GARFUNKEL famously performed for free to more than 500,000 people in Central Park back in September 1981.

Blimey - so would this be the first gig at Central Park since then? In over quarter of a century?

Erm, no: as Last FM's Central Park gig guide points out, the park is full of venues and Madge will be following in the footsteps of acts such as Paul Van Dyk, Underworld and, erm, Slightly Stoopid, all of whom are playing the park this month.

Mel B's got a keeper

It's turning out that Stephen Belafonte is something of a charmer - he's "chosen not to contest" charges of domestic violence against his last wife, Nicole Contreras (in other words, not even having the balls to admit what he'd done) and now it turns out he beat a duck to death with a brick. Oh, and he's never quite got round to paying the fine for that one.

What a wonderful addition he is to our public life.

Prince a random element at Prince parties

In a bid to try and draw the sting of disappointment when Prince fails to turn up to his own aftershow parties, his official website has clarified that he might not be there.

Which is fine, although when you're selling tickets as a lucrative way of topping up revenue from the gigs, perhaps the time to stress this is before you take people's cash rather than after.

To be fair, Ticketmaster did, in its cringe-encrusted promotional email for the events, try to point out Prince would only ever appear as an extra rather than a focus:

The agency's website promoted the "aftershow" as "the white hot place to hang for those still in need of some serious grooves".

Ticketmaster also stated: "Please be aware that Prince and the band are not guaranteed to perform, but as we all know with these cats - expect the unexpected."

But fans who forked out up to £75 have complained that the warning that you're more than likely to, uh, not see a grooving cat was buried. And "expect the unexpected" does sound like quite a big nudge-nudge, wink-wink that he'll be turning up more often than not.

Fashion has no mercy

Investigations by The Sunday Times have suggested that the Kate Moss TopShop clothing range is being put together by workers in slave-like conditions:

Workers making [Topshop] clothes, many of whom were fearful of talking to a reporter, described how they are kept in crowded dormitories and work from 7am until late. “When I go to bed at the end of the day, I lay down and weep,” said one woman.

“There is a lot of pressure on us to get our targets. If we do not reach the target of 50 pieces [segments of T-shirts] per hour, then we are sent back to our dormitories and suspended,” she claimed.

The woman, a Bangladeshi worker at Compagnie Mauricienne de Textile (CMT), which makes clothes for Topman, said she had to work 12-hour days for £64 a month.

A worker at Star Knitwear, which makes T-shirts for the Topshop Kate Moss range, said they were paid £112 a month - equivalent to about 40p an hour. The T-shirts are sold in Topshop for £12.

Topshop's Philip Green said he took the allegations "seriously":

I sent inspectors to factories to look at the working conditions, to see that they are not working in sweat-shops, that the working conditions are good. I can’t stand there and count how many hours people are working. Last night I interviewed a woman who was there four weeks ago. She said the factory was in excellent shape.

“You are telling me that factories are happy to breach our code of conduct. I’ve got to look into it.”

Moss, meanwhile, was "unavailable for comment".

Imbruglia urges Winehouse to take care

Most of us can only imagine what it's like to suddenly zoom from being obscure to getting toasted on both side of the Atlantic, sought after by everyone from the South Bank Show to the Grammy judges.

Natalie Imbruglia, like us, can only imagine it, but she's having a crack at putting herself in Amy Winehouse's shoes:

Talking about Winehouse's situation, Imbruglia said that she doesn’t believe Winehouse is “very comfortable with this whole fame thing.”

That's the sort of insight you only pick up with a couple of years on Neighbours, isn't it?

“I think she's an incredibly raw performer and a very real person and I don't think she's very comfortable with this whole fame thing. It shows,” Imbruglia told yahoo music.

"She's just got this gift you know, often people who are that talented struggle with all the attention and everything.

"I hope she doesn't quit. I've read interviews where she's spoken about just wanting to be a mum and that's scary to think, that she won't make records.""

Although, really, wouldn't it better for everyone if she found a lifestyle which didn't turn her into a smackhead victim rather than one that does?

Abuse of trust

James Brown seems to have been as good at choosing trustees as he was at choosing partners: One of the estate's trustees had made off with a third of a million bucks. The money has been handed back - or, at least a cheque for the amount has been, so let's just pause until it clears.

More Wilson tributes

Amongst those adding their memories of Tony Wilson are John Cooper Clarke:

"He gave me my first television gig, actually. On his Granada show. He came out to see The Buzzcocks, and I was third on the bill, and ended up getting chucked out of the venue for something or other, but he noticed me and said 'No, give him a chance'. It really gave me a leg up - in those days it was really hard to get on TV, and it tripled my audiences overnight."

.. and Tim Burgess:

"(Wilson) put out records by my favourite bands - Joy Division and New Order - which made me believe I could be in a band and put out records," Burgess said.

"I feel like I felt when Joe Strummer died. It's like losing a musical dad."

Cerys: Airplane EP landing

Cerys Matthews is busily working on a Welsh-language EP, due this October on My Kung Fu records:

“This is my first EP since Catatonia’s first EPs in 1993 and it is extra special as it’s my first ever Welsh language-only release and because it’s being released on My Kung Fu, a label based in Cardiff, where I was born.”

And where Torchwood is based. Which isn't significant, we just thought we should mention it.

Cold rice

Talking of ITV... it's now two months since we asked ITV the simple question "did you pass the advertising revenue raised during the Challenge Anneka programme on to the Children's Hospice the show was supposed to be helping?"

It's still not been answered. Each day that passes starts to make it look like more like an awkward no, doesn't it?

Simon Cowell dumps six year-old

The always-doomed-to-end-in-tears idea of allowing a six year-old kid to compete for a "million-pound" record contract has, erm, ended in tears as Simon Cowell dumps that six year old kid who did Somewhere Over The Rainbow.

Connie Talbot's parents tell the Sunday People how, you know, they know these things happen and nobody wants to cause a fuss but LOOK AT THE SOBBING CHILD WHO NOW THINKS SIMON COWELL HATES HER.

Meanwhile, Cowell tries to shift the blame to Sony BMG:

My views on Connie have NOT changed. I think she's a wonderful talent. But I was persuaded by everyone at Sony BMG that she is just much too young to beembarking on a recording career.

"When the time is right I will be delighted to see if we can make it work.

"My views on Connie are still exactly the same. She's an amazing little girl with a beautiful voice."

The record company, instead, blame Connie for not being old enough:

"There was some deliberation over the possibility of recording with Connie.

"However the decision not to proceed was made with the best intentions for Connie, taking into consideration her age and that it would not be right to do so at this time."

All of which raises the question: wouldn't they time for tellign Talbot she was too young to embark on a showbiz career be before parading her on television, and not after? Is it fair to make a kid go through all that on the promise of a showbiz career that she's considered too young for?

That would seem to be a question for ITV and the producer of the show... Simon Cowell, wasn't it?

Doherty turns up

Good news for the London Paper - they can go ahead and make up a review of last night's Pete Doherty's show at the Tap N Tin in Chatham.

He did He actually turned up for this one.

Winehouse: My - inevitably - drugs hell

Amy Winehouse emerged from hospital to talk about "her drugs hell" - most of the papers seem to have heard, although she doesn't seem to have spoken to any of them. The Sunday Mirror reports her saying this:

"I never want to feel that way again. It was just crazy - one of the most terrifying moments of my life. I've scared myself this time. I was all over the place. I know things have got to change. I have to sort myself out.

I'm fine. I'll be back at work on Monday."

Well, so long as you give yourself a Sunday to get over it.

Amy, according to the Mirror, has been the subject of an intervention. Unfortunately, it was a British intervention, and we don't do this sort of thing at all well:

Amy spoke out after her parents and in-laws rallied round in a five-star hotel to try to make her see sense.

The Sunday Mirror can reveal she fled the meeting with husband Blake Fielder Civil after blazing public rows involving her, dad Mitch and Blake's father Giles.

Taxi driver Mitch almost came to blows with Giles as tensions rose over Blake's influence on painfully thin Amy.

If you're planning to have an awkward attempt to persuade a loved one to take better care of themselves, our key tip would be to not do it in public:

An onlooker at the Four Seasons Hotel in Hook, Hants, said: "They were talking and then all of a sudden it got really heated and Mitch went mad. He just couldn't take it any more. He told her that she's ruining everything - her career and more importantly her life. He told her to look at what she was doing to her friends and family.

"It got to the point where they were screaming at each other. Amy told him to butt out - she claimed to know what she was doing.

"Then at the end, Amy just pushed him out of the way. She kept shouting 'No' and 'Stop it', running back to her suite in floods of tears."

Mitch, having failed to talk his daughter into getting some help, and perhaps inspired by Pete Doherty's use of the Daily Mirror to appeal to Kate Moss, decided to try and scare her straight by talking to the Sunday paper:

"She is skinny as anything and dehydrated and looks like she has just come from a concentration camp," he said. "She is barely eating. She is not sleeping. I try to get her to eat but that is easier said than done. I know that if she doesn't eat she will die."

Well, yes. Eating is quite important in the not dying.

Even the tabloid seemed to be a little queasy about the comparison between a rich woman sticking expensive drugs in her body and the millions brutally murdered in the Nazi camps, trying to make it sound alright:

Mitch, who is Jewish, told the Sunday Mirror Amy looked like a concentration camp victim.

It doesn't make it any better. If anything, it suggests Winehouse senior should know better than throwing that sort of comparison around.

Waiting for a Cure

Clearly, hanging around with Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson does no good for the creative process: Robert Smith has pushed the next Cure album back again. Originally due for May this year, it's now not going to appear before Spring 2008.

More Katona grief

Oh, good lord. Following on from the couple of weeks of Katona dirty washing in public, today's News of the World contains a shock - assuming you retain the interest or capacity to be shocked by the tawdry soap opera any longer - that Katona has been unfaithful, sleeping with her supplier.

That's Tony Ogden, her drug dealer. She's not having sex with Iceland, as far as we know.

Mind you, she might not be having sex with Ogden, eitherr - it depends on if you're more or less willing than the NOTW to accept the word of a drug dealer. Especially one who somehow managed to forget to mention it the last time he spoke to the paper. Perhaps he was just being discrete.

Tony Wilson's world: Durutti Column

The Durutti Column turned up on every iteration of Factory Records, which makes them either very, very patient or locked-in to some sort of soul-centred contract.

This is a BBC 2 performance of Jacqueline from 1988:

This week just gone

Seven days on No Rock and Roll Fun:

The ten, normally nudity-involved, most-read stories were:

1. Lily Allen swaps her trousers on a train
2. R Kelly's sex video will be shown in court - and now we know when
3. Heather Mills McCartney naked: is it really so fascinating?
4. McFly strip off their trousers
5. Airbrushed to buggery, Beth Ditto naked for the NME
6. Does KT Tunstall date women?
7. Akon hands out free sex toy vouchers
8. Rebekah Wade slams Sun journos as Doherty goes to Mirror
9. Britney Spears offers to show her breasts to get into movies
10. MP3 destroying computer virus - how deadly is it? (Not very)

Also this week:
Tony Wilson died; Universal took a ginger step towards DRM free downloads; U2 invested in Bolton; Amy Winehouse overdoses on, um, exhaustion; Alan McGee slagged off his greatest hits;Babyshambles plan to share a tour bus with The View as Pete was sent back home to live with his parents; Courtney Love and Lily Allen entered some sort of parallel-universe truce but not before Allen was turned back from immigration in the US. And - thank theLordi! - Eurovision isn't actually fixed.

Five years ago:
Orrin Hatch attempted to spin a musical career out of his everyone-hating political act - with support from Bono; the 25th anniversary of the death of Elvis led to an - apparently serious - call for a rock and roll truth and reconciliation committee; Mark Goodier left Radio One; the two Bucks Fizz bands finally settled their differences; Napster version one appeared to own $25million worth of assets; Goo Goo Dolls turned their gigs into some sort of Harvest Festival; America wasn't impressed with Oasis while Oasis weren't impressed with America; Adam Ant pleaded guilty to affray; Hilary Rosen told the FT she didn't mind being attacked while Cary Sherman couldn't even begin to believe that record sales might be dropping because new music wasn't as exciting and Janis Ian suggested some new models for their industry which they ignored, of course; and 1xtra launched.

This was our tawdry market-place trawl:


Julian Cope returns with two discs' worth of politics, religion, parapolitics and "post-everything stasis"


Time to find out if Kate Nash's Foundations are strong enough to support a full album


The Coral release their now traditional biennial collection to the traditonally muted response


3 CD packages of Love's post-Elektra adventures with Blue Thumb


Surely this can't really be the first time Innes and Idle's Beatle-improving spoof The Rutles soundtrack has been on CD, can it?


Ivy York - big at home in Australia, apparently - brings the UK her Cyndi Lauper-meets-Julia Fordham debut


Bonus reboot remix remagiced edition of Ladytron's Witching Hour


Much delayed re-release of Sex Gang Children's 1993 Medea album as part of a slew of remasterings


The slightly misfiring nature of Devotchka's How It Ends might account for the three years its taken to secure a British release


Not noticeably different mixes of Joy Division released by the estate of Martin Hannett - however, with legal action being proposed by the New Orderites, might be worth buying for rarity value alone


Primal Scream fling out the Riot City Blues tour on DVD


Flipper!