No Rock And Roll Fun

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Slim pickings for Lily Allen

Lily Allen's well-known for her attacks on size zero, the fashion industry and those magazines whose choices of cover girl reinforce the idea that unless you're slim, you're not worth anything.

Here, for example, she's doing just that in Manchester:

So, erm, who's on the cover of Gq "showing off her new slimline figure"? Could it be Lily Allen?

Robbie Williams is not that sorry

Buried deep on this morning's Bizarre is the news that Robbie Williams is going to apologise in court for the song which had a pop at Take That manager Nigel Martin-Smith:

In the original lyrics of the song, The 90s – which Rob had to change after the lawsuit was launched – he said how he fantasised about gouging Nigel’s eyes out. Nice guy.

Yes, the lyrics were repugnant. We know that, of course, because the previous incumbent of Bizarre - and now Gordon's boss, the Suntertainment uberfuhrer, Victoria Newton, published them in full. Unfounded claims that Martin-Smith had stolen cash and all.

Oddly, while Gordon's column finds room to speculate on if Williams will feel the pinch from the damages, he seems to have forgotten that The Sun also paid damages to Nigel Martin-Smith because of the song.

Gordon in the morning

Enjoying the perks of his new role, Gordon Smart has flown himself out to Vancouver for the first night of the Spice Girls tour. Naturally, the focus is on breasts:

They're back... and they're bigger than ever

(And so are the Spice Girls)

Gordon is delighted by the outfits. Or, rather:

one girdle-tight costume to another.

While the boss is away in Canada, the team back in Wapping are trying to match Gordon's tone. So, there's a new video from Tatu. Do we find out where they've been and what they've been up to? No, Smart's Bizarre knows what's important:

No snogging this time – but great underwear.

Oddly, though, they seem to have quietly dropped Gordon's "advent calendar" after three days.

Monday, December 03, 2007

U2 go a bit Paul Simon, a bit Donald Trump

Bono has been talking about the next U2 album, which - depending on your point of view - will either bring a refreshing African sensibility to the record, or else attempt to patch up the clapped-out warhorse by slapping some African sounds over the top.

Oh, and they're going dance:

"Normally when you play a U2 tune, it clears the dancefloor. And that may not be true of this. There's some trance influences. But there's some very hardcore guitar coming out of the Edge. Real molten metal. It's not like anything we've ever done before, and we don't think it sounds like anything anyone else has done either."

So, that's Afro-trance-dance-metal, then. Or 'lobbing everything into the mix in a desperate attempt to hope something sticks', as it's also known.

Meanwhile, the band's unlovely U2 tower in Dublin and plans to revamp The Clarence Hotel on the Liffey are continuing to draw criticism, now from Irish heritage body An Taisce:

"Our biggest concern is that the U2 Tower will stick out of the skyline from parts of Georgian Dublin like Merrion Square. It could potentially be an incongruous blot on the skyline on the south side of the city," said Ian Lumley, An Taisce's national heritage officer. [...]

"Since 2000 Ireland has had strong protection for listed buildings which are now called 'protected structures'," Smith said. "In the case of The Clarence the developers' belief that there is an exceptional need to pander to international five-star punters' alleged insistence on underground parking and swimming pools is unlikely to pass muster ... If An Bord Pleanála say yes I will go straight to the high court to block what U2 are planning."

It's a little hard to see how Bono can claim to be worried about Africa while proposing changes to the Clarence that will increase car use in Dublin, further harming the environment.

Avril fans put into deep freeze

It's always annoying when bands fail to turn up on time. Even worse, though, when you're waiting in a blizzard.

Avril Lavigne had her fans hang about in the snow for forty minutes before... well, making them wait a little longer as a woman from Best Buy droned on about her albums to fill time when she still didn't show up. She did come on stage eventually, but not in time to spare her fans from turning blue.

Universal break artists' MySpace pages

One of the great things about MySpace - actually, given the hideously mangled pages most people stick up there, one of the few great things about MySpace - is the music. Full tracks. Mostly streaming, true, but combined with the number of users, MySpace works like radio in the last century.

Not for much longer, though. Alarmed by a tiny proportion of MySpacers using workarounds to scrape the streaming music into takeaway files, Universal are instructing all their artists to restrict files to pointless, 90 second snatches.

UMG believes this will stop people stealing the tracks. And so it might. But do they really think the piddling two or three extra sales they make from closing out a few page-scrapers is going to offset the thousands and thousands of people who'll be turned off by artists who treat their "friends" like potential thieves?

Whose home would you rather hang out in? One where you're made to feel at home or one where your mates' parents hover in the background, counting the spoons?

Lessons from Laura Veirs

If you're looking to learn guitar, how about being taught by Laura Veirs? This isn't one of those YouTube play-in-a-day deals; Ms Veirs is really taking on guitar students. You'll need to be in Portland, mind.

Maximo Park say 'drink us'

Maximo Park are being honoured - after a fashion - by having bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale shipped with labels designed by the band:

Frontman Paul Smith said: "So many amazing things have happened for our band in a short space of time and to have our image emblazoned on a Brown label is another addition to that list.

"It would be great for our band to be as synonymous with Newcastle as the mighty Brown Ale, and it's both amusing and an honour to be able to deface the label in this manner!"

Newcastle Brown Ale, of course, isn't actually synonymous with Newcastle at all, as it's actually brewed in Gateshead.

We're also a little confused as to how naming a beer Maximo Brown Ale squares with alcohol industry's own Portman Group and rules on not naming drinks in a way that will have "particular appeal to under-18s".

Best of updated

We've added some more highlights from best of lists across the internet; what's starting to come through as a trend is that despite an early release, The Arcade Fire's Neon Bible has held up remarkably well; The Good, The Bad & The Queen seems to have been largely forgotten over the last twelve months (or perhaps, simply didn't stand up to repeated listening) and - perhaps surprisingly - the Arctic Monkeys are finding critics cooling towards them. Bruce Springsteen, meanwhile, looks like being this year's comeback king.

The updating list of lists is on this page.

Five years ago today

Peter Garrett decided his future lay in politics; Midnight Oil planned to carry on without him;
Rivers Cuomo palled up with Fred Durst;
Spin announced 2002 had been all about The Strokes;
and Cary Sherman leaned on the universities to wish them compliments of the season.

Island shrinking; Sony BMG too

In order to ensure they can keep feeding cash into the RIAA money pit, the majors are celebrating Christmas by throwing some people out of work. Sony BMG are rumoured to be about to make deep cuts somewhere, though rumours aren't sure which label will feel the pain; while Universal's Island DefJam are tossing people out, too.

Amongst those caught in the fallout is Ultragrrrl's Stolen Transmission, although she's upbeat about it:

Now that I've had my experience with Island/Def Jam, I know how to actually run a label, and I helped set up 9 amazing releases from Permanent ME, the Oohlas, Monty Are I, Bright Light Fever, the Horrors, Schoolyard Heroes, PlayRadioPlay!, Innerpartysystem, and the Photo Atlas. I'm so fucking proud that my label went from me and a bunch of interns sitting in my bedroom smoking and watching degrassi and eating guac i had just made to me sitting in meetings once a week with JayZ and now it'll just go back to being run from my apartment again. We plan on continuing with Stolen Transmission and are really excited to be returning to our indie roots.

It's unclear if guacamole will be playing a key role in the new, downsized Stolen Transmission.

Mika won't make it

Mika has pulled out of two London shows this week, on medical advice:

"I can only apologise... for the inconvenience and disappointment this postponement has caused.

"I thought after last night's performance I could do the shows, but this morning it was obvious I could not proceed. After consulting a specialist, I have been advised to rest my voice for a minimum of 48 hours.

"If I did not do this, I would risk long-term damage to my vocal cords," he said. "Thank you all for your continued support and understanding."

More inconvenience than disappointment, we'd suspect. Mika will play the gigs sometime in 2008, if anyone remembers who he was.

Ed O'Brien: We quit because Terra Firma wasn't solid ground

Ed O'Brien has revealed that Radiohead left EMI because they didn't much like the new owners:

"EMI is in a state of flux,. It's been taken over by somebody who's never owned a record company before, Guy Hands and Terra Firma, and they don't realise what they're dealing with.

"It was really sad to leave all the people. But he wouldn't give us what we wanted. He didn't know what to offer us. Terra Firma doesn't understand the music industry."

Which may well be true - but then, as Radiohead's In Rainbows experiment showed, nobody much understands the music industry any more. Indeed, one of the few good things you can say about Terra Firma is that, while they might not understand the music industry, they do at least understand that the music industry has changed beyond all recognition, and are the only one of the majors to not be trying to shore up the old regime for as long as possible.

It's just a pity Radiohead decided to quit before TF brought in John Birt to be in charge of artist relationships. I don't think it would have helped, but who wouldn't have wanted to be a fly on the wall at that meeting?

Mathew Street report: it's a secret

The murky background to the pulling of the Mathew Street Festival - and the claims that senior figures knew the event was going to be axed as early as February - is thickening rather than clearing.

Despite having ordered an internal - rather than independent - enquiry, Liverpool council leader Warren Bradley has refused to let anyone see the finished report as he feels an urge to "correct inaccuracies" in it. A version with "corrections" has been published, but now, somewhat grudgingly, council chief executive Colin Hilton has said the original might be opened.

Once.

To Labour opposition leader Joe Anderson.

But only under the sort of conditions usually reserved for rare books in the Bodleian Library:

Colin Hilton has said he is considering letting Labour’s Cllr Anderson read the original document in the presence of town hall finance chief Phil Halsall and standards committee chairman Howard Winik.

In a letter to Cllr Anderson, Mr Hilton said: “I am asking the monitoring officer to consider a facilitated reading of that document on a strictly private and confidential basis.”

What's the point of that? So Anderson can know what the original report said, but not tell anyone?

Bradley should have the courage to publish the original version - with his "corrected inaccuracies" alongside, if he so wishes. It's time Liverpool City Council remembered it's meant to be a democrat body answerable to its citizenry rather than a privately-owned entertainment industry.

Johnny's had his day

Johnny Hallyday has decided the time has come to retire from live performance, telling TF1:

"I've decided to stop. I made this decision, not an easy one, because there comes a day when you have to stop."

And, of course, if you never retire, how can you have the lucrative comebacks?

Virgin's door bangs again

Is Virgin Radio really in a constant state of schedule flux, or is it just the impression they give? No sooner had the line-up been reworked to make way for JK and Joel and Iain 'off the 11 O'Clock Show which had Ali G on it' Lee, than Suggs announces he's quitting the afternoon show. Suggs only took up the job less than a year ago.

Superbowl surprise

We know that - ever since Janet Jackson - the NFL has played safe with the Superbowl half-time entertainment, but even so: Tom Petty is a bit of a surprise, surely? A safe pair of hands, and hugely respected (even if we've never been quite sure why), but is he really a big draw?

Cerys returns, but not to glory

If Cerys had been hoping that her I'm A Celeb spell would restore her to the nation's hearts, today's papers will make slightly grim reading for her. Admittedly, the attacks are coming from two newspaper groups who she didn't flog her 'my slightly grubby sort-of-romance to' at the weekend.

In the Mirror, Gavin Martin shakes his head more in sorrow than in anger:

"I've met Cerys many times and always found her extremely pleasant, so easy to talk to.

"She's also an exceptionally talented singer but her stint on reality TV is overshadowing all that ability. I don't blame her for doing the show, she's got bills to pay, but you can't help feeling she's better than that."

The Mail, meanwhile, is less with the sorrow, more with the anger, sniffing that the audience is being played:

Celebrity love sham: Cerys and Marc are too busy cashing in to rekindle their romance

She said it hit her like a thunderbolt. He said he hoped they could have children together.

But for a lovestruck pair, Cerys Matthews and Marc Bannerman seem strangely reluctant to rush back into each other's arms.

The singer and actor, who met while competing on I'm a Celebrity...Get me Out of Here! in Australia, have not managed to meet up after emerging from the jungle.

Goodness. Are they suggesting that it might be all made up?

Gordon in the morning

There are signs that Gordon Smart is starting to tire of the constant procession of breasts on his pages, restricting himself today to adding an "advent" shot of Heidi Klum and bunch of pictures of Paris Hilton in not much. This is prompted because, erm, Hilton went out dressed sensibly for December, which has worried Gordon:

Let's hope this isn't a sign of things to come, we're already losing JORDAN's mega bangers...

Some observers have wondered if Gordon knows that he's not making a private scrapbook to hide in the smoke-and-wank clubhouse tree, and there are signs that maybe he doesn't:

The blonde heiress is famous for showing off as much flesh as she can in her revealing outfits, but she decided to cover up for this special event.

I hope she doesn't find out I said this, but she actually pulled it off and looked great.

Pssst... Gordon, you're in a newspaper. People are reading what you write. Never mind Paris Hilton, your family can read it.

However, away from breasts, there's a little background homophobia as well. Jesse Metcalfe turned up to support his girlfriend when Girls Aloud played GAY at the weekend. Smart snickers away:

Jesse has a G.A.Y. old time

And when I first saw the pictures, I thought the Desperate Housewives star had decided to out himself.

But of course not.

Why "of course not", Gordon?

Jesse got a special award, bearing the club name, which he held up. But lest people got the wrong message he held on tight to Nadine.

Or, maybe, he was hugging his girlfriend because he was out with his girlfriend and the fear-of-being-thought-gay is merely something in your head, Gordon?

Goodness... Dannii really hates Louis. Apart from the 'really' bit

Having treated its audiences like cash-cow schmucks, ITV now seems content to really treat them like they're stupid: The latest in a long line of staged X Factor 'arguments' happened on Saturday when Louis Walsh read out a line that cued up a walkout from Dannii Minogue:

She failed to return following an ad break, leaving Sharon Osbourne to fill her absence by clambering on to Simon Cowell’s lap.

We're not quite sure what "absence" it is that The Sun is suggesting Osbourne was filling there, and we really don't want to picture it.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Creem turns sour

There's a book been published for the Christmas market pulling together the best bits of Creem, the closest thing Rolling Stone had to competition. it's been put together by Robert Matheu, who bought the trademark with a crazy dream of reviving the magazine he once took photos for.

JJ Kramer, son of Creem founder Barry, is less than thrilled at this - he's seeking to regain title to the title in the courts.

It was something of a surprise, then, when Kramer turned up at Matheu's New York book signing:

According to one witness, a longtime friend of Mr. Kramer’s named Elizabeth Houlihan, Mr. Matheu shouted “What the fuck are you doing here?” at Mr. Kramer when he saw him. When Mr. Kramer walked over, according to Ms. Houlihan, Mr. Matheu grabbed him by the shirt and pushed him.

“J.J. pushed him back in self-defense,” Ms. Houlihan said. “And then Robert pushed J.J. again, grabbed his face and drew all over it with permanent marker.”

Security was subsequently called and Mr. Kramer was escorted out of the building, Ms. Houlihan said.

Matheu tells a different story, claiming he was the innocent victim:

“I think my behavior was flawless,” Mr. Matheu told The Observer. “Had he come into the party and maybe had a different demeanor about him, we were all prepared to simply say, ‘Listen, we have a lawsuit pending, we have nothing to say to you, but feel free to visit with some of your dad’s friends here, as there are probably some people here who would like to meet you.’”

The actual question of who hit whom is probably as impossible to unpick - and as hard to care about - as the question of if Matheu agreed to give Kramer 30% of the magazine in the first place. It's an astonishing amount of fuss over a magazine that hasn't published in nearly twenty years.

Bless! There's still part of the world that's afraid of Ozzy

Churches in New Zealand are panicking, trying to prevent the forces of darkness descending on their land. Wellington pentecostal church Lifepoint are campaigning to stop Ozzy Obsourne taking part in a rock festival next year.

We did wonder if the church was alarmed - what with Ozzy's shilling for I Can't Believe It's Not Butter - at a margarine salesman running amok in the land of Anchor, but as they're also worried about Kiss and - really - Lordi turning up, too:

"It's not appropriate from our angle of things," said pastor Karen Crawshaw.

"I don't think we can force our views on others but at the same time we think it's a very negative influence on our city.

"It'll put a damper on the things the church traditionally focuses on at the Easter season."

Perhaps they're just feeling awkward about the poor quality of line-up for the bank holiday.

Do you suppose Van Zandt knows he's being self-defeating?

Steve Van Zandt is putting together a curriculum for teaching the history of rock and roll in schools, as part of his rock and roll forever foundation.

Apparently, Van Zandt believes that teaching the importance of rock to kids will inspire them, and not turn an already flailing cultural form into something about as exciting as Martello Towers and pre-decimal coinage.

Van Zandt might be having some trouble putting together his course. He's clearly having difficulty putting together a sentence or two about it:

"The history of rock and roll is a history of, certainly, 20th-century America, from there on, anyway. All the cultural impact that it had with civil rights and women's rights and all that other stuff. Well, this is what's going to last. This is what's going to, you know, be here long after we're gone,"

We're reeling slightly from the idea that there might be an essay set on Motley Crue's contribution to the women's movement, but can't wait to find out the role that rock played in "all that other stuff" that defined the last century.

Hersh shares

Kristin Hersh is experimenting with a new way of making music available; the PR team working with CASH music have (admittedly somewhat apologetically) described it as "doing a Radiohead - sort of", but it's much different too that: she's making a new track available each month under a Creative Commons licence, alongside the ProTools bits needed to remix, remake, remodel; although there's a request for payment, it's not the same thing as Radiohead's In Rainbows arrangement at all.

It's part of a wider plan, as Hersh explains:

Just to head off any potential confusion, CASH Music is not "me", or "mine". It's a group of people that have built a framework that is not meant for any single artist. I'm only the first. Look for more artists soon. The next featured artist and a co-founder of the coalition is Donita Sparks. CASH will soon be open to any and all independent artists who want a set of tools to offer their music directly to their audience for collaboration as well as financial support.

The first track, Slippershell, is available in in a number of formats and is rather fine.

Osbourne v Love

If you draw a venn diagram of Sharon Osbourne's feuds, and one of Courtney Love's feuds, at the intersection point, you'd discover the long-running battle of 'who was responsible for Jack Osbourne's drugs problems'?

It might now be down to men in wigs to pick the bones out of that one:

[Osbourne says]: "It’s an ugly situation. It’s got to the point where it’s now in legal hands so we can’t talk about it."

Oh, for a day when all Osbourne and Love's affairs were in legal hands and they couldn't talk about anything in public.

[Thanks to James P for the link]

Lee Ryan offers to butter loaves

You could almost love Lee Ryan, couldn't you? He's keen to open a restaurant, even although you'd hardly leave him in charge of opening a tin of beans:

"I'd love to open a restaurant in L A. I have had talks with a few London restaurant owners who might want to expand their brand and need help."

Yes. You're running a restaurant, you need help with branding - so you choose the 'who cares about 9/11 when elephants are dying' man. It's a natural choice.

Rav bets the farm on Britney being pregnant

Rav Singh - the showbizziest of all the reporters or however he styles himself - reckons that Britney is pregnant. Curiously, he seems to offer his off-beam story last week that she was adopting Chinese twins as some sort of evidence:

Only last week I revealed she wanted to adopt Chinese twins after losing custody of sons SEAN PRESTON, two, and one-year-old JAYDEN JAMES.

Perhaps Rav thinks she's stuffed them inside, somehow.

Hilariously, Rav also claims to have been the first to announce Britney's divorce. Presumably that was at the time when the rest of the world was convinced it was a fairytale dream come true.

Rav, of course, has nothing to offer to "prove" his story; he's just working the odds that, if she is up the duff, he can add this to his list of amazing stories he got right, and if she isn't, then everyone will have forgotten. See you at the christening, Rav.

Meanwhile, Kevin Federline has been picked as the seventh most-powerful person in the world by Details magazine. We're not quite sure what his power is - perhaps he's some sort of hypnotist - but as the list was headed by Zac Effron (or Bo Duke in the 21st Century), we're imagining that 'power' was measured by showing photos of the shortlist to OK readers and measuring how heartily they applauded.

Five years ago today

The BNP weren't exactly rushing to remove their praise for Dannii Minogue's take on immigration;
After a fight in a Munich nightclub, Oasis said they were attacked first; police and German newspapers said otherwise;
Taylor Dayne released a single with twenty mixes of the same track;
Shania Twain revealed she wasn't all that arsed about entertaining;
and a team from Microsoft announced that DRM was always doomed to fail.

Could someone get Cerys out of there now, please?

We spent the run of I'm A Celebrity looking the other way, to be honest - although we were very taken with Charlie Booker's description of the "relationship" between her and that bloke who used to be in EastEnders as being more like that between a nurse and a child; Brooker, too, described the news that Cerys had gone into the series as being "like when Kirsty McColl died".

This morning, though, Cerys is continuing to work her way along the weary reality TV show path by appearing in her knickers in the News of the World and giving an ooh I'm giddy interview:

"I can't wait to see him again. I'd love to go to him straight away but my children are the priority.

"I'm sure we will be on the phone as often as possible. Right now, we just want to talk and talk.

"I'm looking forward to a big Marc hug but mostly I want to chat to him, go for dinner, go to the cinema, show him the countryside. It's exciting. I can't wait to show him around Wales. He's only ever been to Abergavenny."

It's quite a turn around - last month, Cerys couldn't even bring herself to mention her divorce when being interviewed; now, here she is, in her knickers telling News of the World readers about heroin addiction and breaking up with Seth.

We're just hoping that it's not going to lead to Iceland break bumpers next winter.