Pete Doherty: Back on the wing

Life: Funny, isn't it? Last year, you couldn't go through a week without Pete Doherty going to court, everyone expecting him to be locked up, only for him to trot out again promising to be good.

Now, though, he's managed to get himself sent down without anyone expecting it.

He's been sent to prison for 14 weeks for violating the terms of his probation order; apparently this included missing one appointment with his probation officer and being late for another.

It's screwed up his Royal Albert Hall gig; if he doesn't get early release, he'll be an absentee from Glastonbury as well.

Eavis dismisses Smart's stories as "malicious"

Gordon Smart has run two days running with pieces claiming Jay-Z is going to pull out of Glastonbury; today, Glastonbury has responded. Michael Eavis isn't happy:

Speaking to XFM, Eavis appeared to suggest that The Sun had got the story from the organisers of the Wireless Festival in London, where Jay-Z will headline the week after Glastonbury.

"The Sun was carrying a story that he was pulling out,” Eavis said.
“I'm not sure where they got from, probably from the people that were doing a show in London the following week [Wireless festival] because they were tying to sell tickets for their show.”

Of course, this whole story is helping take the focus off the broader question of how Glastonbury has managed to turn itself from a sell-out event to one desperately offering second chances to register. It's funny how everyone is blaming Jay-Z and nobody is pointing the finger at the Kings Of Bloody Leon, isn't it?

Norah Jones attempts to be the indie Norah Jones

We hope that someone develops a system soon so that we can easily recall the difference between Katie Meluah and Norah Jones: surely there should be a mnemonic.

Things aren't helped by Jones launching a new identity, which makes... well, one and-a-bit identities, if we're being generous.

She's going indie.

If by "indie" you mean "has a shorter haircut and a side-project doing much the same stuff under a silly name." She's adopted the name Maddie for the band, El Madmo ("You don't have to be el Madmo to work here, but...") and - ooh - has written a song called Rock Your Balls Off.

Twenty years ago, this would have been a silly artistic project. Now, it looks more like an attempt to create a secondary brand without hurting the core product.

Starr pruned

In other Beatles' news, the hedge-effigies of the band which greet the very, very few passengers who use the Liverpool South Parkway interchange have been vandalised. Or possibly gardened: Ringo has had his head chopped off.

Fifth Beatle only Beatle at own funeral

Given that he was so central to guiding their business for so many years, how touching that, erm, neither Ringo nor Macca appear to have gone to Neil Aspinall's funeral.

Yoko and, erm, Stella McCartney managed to make it to Twickenham.

Glastonbury: If this fails, it'll be free tickets with Sugar Puffs

Terrible news for Glastonbury - much worse that Smart's flapping about the Jay-Z story. The take-up of tickets has fallen so short of expectations that they're being forced to reopen the registration process.

Yes, the registration process, not merely sales:

Emily Eavis says they are giving people who wanted to go another chance to register.

She said: "We're having a massive influx of people saying they didn't register.

"So what we're going to reopen registration and allow the extra people who want to come to do so."

Emily tries to suggest there isn't a massive over-supply of tickets:

"We had registration open for a month and we're just going to reopen it for a few days.

"To be honest, there aren't that many tickets left to sell. They'll probably trickle along I imagine over the next few weeks. There won't be a massive surge."

But for a festival that is used to selling out in hours, having to basically run after people in the streets yelling "come back, please... we'll make it easier for you" isn't a good sign.

Whatever happened to Ruslana?

There she was, winning Eurovision and taking the crown for Ukraine, back in 2004:



But what has Ruslana been up to since? It turns out that, while she still does the semi-naked dancey shout ostpop, she's now doing it with a political message, campaigning to reduce Ukraine's dependence on natural gas. It's not so much a carbon footprint issue as worries about Putin's control of the gas pipe, naturally.

So far, though, she's doing it all metaphorically:

Ruslana, who rarely uses her last name, Lyzhychko, doesn't sing about carbon footprints and gas prices; she sings about the wild energy of love.

It triumphs over a synthetic world, dependent on synthetic energy. In the video version, that world is represented by a pale, metallic-looking woman who gets her strength from a giant machine. She's transformed, though, into a kind of Wild Energy woman, reminiscent of Xena the warrior princess.

There's a worry that the issue isn't stimulating enough for young Ukranians; perhaps something a bit more direct might be helpful?

First spin: Hard Candy

The Times has had a first listen to Hard Candy, the new Timbaland and Pharrell Williams collaboration featuring Madonna on vocals. Pete(r) Paphides isn't entirely convinced:

When the songs work, it doesn’t much matter that Madonna is blazing a fourth-hand trail. After 25 years of reinvention, we can surely cut her slack in that department. But on Dance 2Night, She’s Not Me and Give It 2 Me, what surprises is how deferential Madonna is to her collaborators. Even the album’s showstopping ballad, The Devil Wouldn’t Recognise You succumbs to a default mode of vast beats.

By this late stage, you rather feel like you’re in your fifth hour at the Ambassador’s famous party. Great, but is there anything else on offer other than Ferrero sodding Rochers?

Fourth hand? If she's doing twenty-year old Prince style "2"s instead of "to"s, that might be over generous.

What appears to have happened is - as one of pop's foremost brands - Madonna has followed the logic of turning herself into a corporation to the ultimate conclusion. She's outsourced the album.

Gordon in the morning: Lay-z journalism

Gordon returns to the possible pull-out of Jay-Z from Glastonbury this morning, with a grim headline:

Glastonfury

Smart is trying to work up the possiblity of a Jay-Z pullout, and the question of if and when organisers knew, into some sort of sub-Watchdog outrage:

One ticket-holder said: “I want to find out if they knew about this before Sunday.

“If they were aware Jay-Z might not be playing they should have said something before I bought my ticket.

“I’m going to see Jay-Z. I wouldn’t have bothered buying tickets to this year’s Glastonbury otherwise.”

Another said: “Jay-Z is the world’s greatest rapper. I was only going to see him.”

Hang on a minute: These angry ticket holders who, supposedly, "only" wanted to see Jay-Z, don't have any names. Why is that, Gordon?

When you're "reporting" on rumours from "friends" of celebrities and "sources" within stars' organisations, there's some sort of justification for keeping anonymity. But why are these people so angry about their tickets but not revealing their names? Are they afraid that Emily Eavis might turn up at their houses and start putting the windows out?

Come to that, why are they so angry before Jay-Z has actually cancelled, and, consequently, before organisers have even had a chance to say 'if you want a refund, then you can have one'? It's a little early to be making up angry punters, isn't it?

Meanwhile, in a triumph for 'here's something I read in a magazine' journalism, today;s column features adverts for Closer Magazine (Coleen McLoughlin dressed - hilariously - as Audrey Hepburn) and Shape Magazine (Denise Richards). If Gordon keeps padding his pieces out with this sort of stuff, they could just cut a hole in his page and invite readers to peer through at the magazine rack when they pick up their paper.

Rotten hotel chain promotes Coldplay

Travelodge are a rotten hotel chain. Even by budget standards, they're especially mean-spirited: not only paring the cheese, but proudly flaunt their penny-pinching:

Why can't you call the reception from the telephone in your room?

Providing a concierge-style service requires additional staff which means additional cost. And we reckon that for the sake of a short walk to the reception desk, customers would rather enjoy our great-value low room rates.

But since the person on the desk has to answer the questions anyway, how does it save money to make people trump along the halls and down the lifts to do it in person? And what do you do in an emergency?

In the event of an emergency you can call 999 direct on the room phone.

In other words, if you accidentally slash your wrists or crack your head open while in the room, you can't ask for help from the person "the short walk" down the hall, you have to ring up the police and wait for them to arrive.

However, despite this Spartan approach to keeping costs down, the company does seem to have an enormous pile of money to waste on pointless surveys. The latest has 'discovered' that British people fall asleep to Coldplay, and unveils this astonishing gem:

"The research shows that we are increasingly relying on slow, sleepy music and unchallenging books to take our minds off the pressures of modern living, to help us switch off and get to sleep at night", said Travelodge spokesperson Leigh McCarron.

Really? That's a surprise. You mean people don't tend to put on salsa tunes and start to snort coke when they want to go to bed?

A business that won't provide a biscuit to its guests because that would push up prices, but will commission a survey to discover that, when you're going to bed, you listen to quiet music.
Clearly, though, the very thought of Coldplay in an unlovely hotel room sent someone off a little early at the NME.

Shout Out Louds shuffle off early

Get well soon, Bebban Stenborg: she fell ill during last night's Shout Out Louds gig in Leeds causing the show to be abandoned.

Bebban says she's sorry:

"Hello people of Leeds," he wrote [Apparently so under the weather she changed gender, according to NME]. "My sincere apologies for the show cut short in your fair city. I was abominably under the weather, hence to blame for the untimely demise of the performance. I will do my absolute best make it up to you all on our next visit."

The band hope to pick up the tour tomorrow in Dublin. Meanwhile, you can enjoy Bebban reading a ghost story from Daytrotter.

Kelly Clarkson: What if you leaked an album and nobody heard?

Kelly Clarkson is really upset that tracks from her new album have found their way onto the internet - somehow, oh, who can know who?

In fact, she's been talking about how sucky it is:

"The fact that people have heard music that's not ready yet sucks, but I hope they like it."

It must suck, and it's in no way a carefully orchestrated release of work-in-progress in an attempt to try and stop people talking about, you know, the whole last album.

At least it's not John Lennon's piano

George Michael and Kenny Goss are showing Texas a huge chunk of their private art collection, funded by George Michael's muscial career and Kenny Gosses' ... well, his income.

The Goss-Michael Foundation is displaying the works; Goss has been elected to discuss them with the media:

"We want to expose the Dallas art community to work that they've quite potentially never seen if they weren't able to travel, these works that in some ways may be a little controversial for one thing, a little strong."

The works which Texans unable to travel have potentially never seen before (although, who knows, they might have) include Damien Hirst's Saint Sebastian, Exquisite Pain.

Goss explains what the cow-and-arrow work means:

"Most people initially freak a little bit about Sebastian, then they stare and stare at it and they say, 'That's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.'"

Or potentially ever seen.

"Let's face it, art a lot of times is about sex, love, death, loss."

At other times, let's face it, art is about pictures of red-jacketed huntsmen chasing foxes and dogs playing pool.

Goss is excited by exposing young people to art:

"They sit in front of these pieces. They sketch it. They write about it. They think about their thoughts. I've come here before and I've seen four or five students just sitting on the floor writing," he said.

Thinking about thoughts, eh? No wonder they need to sit down when their minds are working on such an elevated plane.

Seriously, it's a lovely, generous gesture to share art with the world; it's just a pity that Kenny was left to try and put the unsayable into words.

Specials erect quality threshold for reunion

Here's something that, we suspect, hasn't been factored into the NKOTB or Boyzone comebacks: The Specials won't play together if they're no bloody good any more.

Neville Staple explains:

“A couple of months ago we started talking. “We had to talk first to see if we could get on, but we got past the talking stage. Then we said, ‘Okay, let’s see what we’re like in a room together rehearsing with instruments’.

“So the musicians done that first, then Terry went down. So we’ve had two rehearsals. One where they're on their own, and then the last one where me and Terry went in.

“We’re just seeing how it goes. If it gels, it gels. If it doesn’t, you don’t wanna go out there as some old geriatrics – not me. What we've got to do is make sure the music at least is right.

“We’re feeling it out now. It sounded alright actually but it’s gonna take more than one rehearsal.

“So if it works, we’ll do it. If not, well. I’m sorry lads and girls. But we’re trying.”

The Sex Pistols do something similar, although it's more about checking the cash amounts offered sound right rather than the band.

The Kid Jensens of indie rock

Thurston Moore has made clear that Sonic Youth won't change their name to refelect their entry into the time of life when you start to wonder what it feels like to ride a chairlift:

Moore says, "Some people say it's ridiculous - 'you should change your name.'

"(But) I think it's a good thing as far as a state of grace, state of mind. It's actually more fun playing the older we get."

We're a little at a loss as to why anyone would have thought they'd change anyway: surely 'Sonic Youth' is an ideal rather than a description; thinking it should change as the band age suggests its being interpreted as 'we are young people with guitars', but it's really like insisting that the Foo Fighters change their name as the USAF knows exactly what they are these days.

Madonna: Don't you wish she was fighting for your continent, too?

It would be one thing if Madonna had simply used her Vanity Fair interview to suggest that there was some sort of parity between Britney Spears' personal life and the lives of Africans.

Instead, Madonna also gave us a glimpse of how she views the continent:

“When you think about the way people treat each other in Africa, about witchcraft and people inflicting cruelty and pain on each other, then come back here and, you know, people taking pictures of people when they’re in their homes, being taken to hospitals, or suffering, and selling them, getting energy from them, that’s a terrible infliction of cruelty. So who’s worse off? You know what I mean?”

Madonna, did you just say that "people treat each other in Africa" with "witchcraft" and "inflict[ing] pain on each other"? Do you really picture the continent in those terms?

A continent of withcraft and cruelty. It makes you a little nervous that someone who can paint such a view of a place is involved in trying to push her religion into one of the nations there.

Darkness at 3AM: Not gun wedding

Did the rest of the media miss something? The 3AM Girls are breathless with excitement:

CRAY-Z IN LOVE
Guns drama at Bey's wedding

A guns drama? Did someone shoot somebody?

Erm, no:

But three guns were left in an amnesty box outside Jay-Z's Tribeca apartment.

So, the "drama" was people were asked not bring guns, and so three guests (or one guest with issues) left their guns in an amnesty box as requested.

You know what else? There were no dirty bombs exploded anywhere near the wedding. Where's the "Beyonce 'dirty bomb drama' at wedding" headline?

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet

Dean Wareham's book, A Rock & Roll Romance, reviewed for the New York Times by Liz Phair:

One particularly unforgettable story involves the rags-to-riches-to-rags-again tale of a high-flying A & R executive at Elektra named Terry Tolkin, whose musical discernment never translated into the other areas of his life. Riding around in limousines, showing up late to work, throwing outrageous parties for artists and charging it all to the label, the surprisingly likable Terry finds himself on shaky ground as a corporate realignment threatens to squeeze him out of a job: “If he had signed just one platinum act, all would have been forgiven. Instead he gave them Luna, Stereolab and the Afghan Whigs.”

Gordon in the morning: An empty pyramid

Gordon rushes through the newsroom, hollering "Hold the front page!":

GLASTONBURY headline act JAY-Z is on the verge of pulling out of the festival.

Goodness. This actually is news, although perhaps not quite as serious as Smart would hope to have us believe:

Unless a last-minute peace deal is brokered his cancellation looks set to disappoint many of the 100,000 music fans who bought festival tickets when they went on sale yesterday morning.

Really? "Many"? "Some" might be a stretch, but many?

Mr. Z is supposedly upset by, well, everything:

The rapper, who married BEYONCE on Friday, is upset organisers used his planned appearance to hype the event’s appeal to a younger and more “urban” crowd.

He was also angered by suggestions his signing caused fewer ticket registrations than last year and the reaction to his appearance on some festival message boards.

Really? Jay-Z is worried by things that people have posted on the internet? And is "upset" that he was used to attract his core audience? How does that actually make sense? Are we supposed to believe that Jay-Z thought he was being signed to disappoint the regular audience rather than attract a (slightly) different one?

Quick, Gordon, your story is melting faster than yesterday's snow:

Yesterday Eavis denied Jay-Z had pulled out, insisting: “I spoke to his people this weekend. Everything is fine. I’m excited.”

Gordon reports of Myleene Klass' birthday party. He's not impressed:

The former HEAR'SAY singer celebrated her 30th birthday at the Vanilla club in London's West End and invited a cast of Z-lister friends to help her do it in, er, style.

Having spent a few paragraphs calling anyone who showed up so obscure as to be of no interest to the likes of his readers, Gordon then invites his readers to:

See some of the guests at the bash by clicking on the link below.

There is a fairly big story in The Sun, which gets pushed onto Gordon's page:

MADONNA is to adopt a baby from India, The Sun can reveal.

Really?

They met Bollywood choreographer Sandip Soparrkar – who has adopted an Indian baby.

Sandip said: “We spoke about how there are so many children in India who need homes.”

A source said: “Madonna was very taken with Sandip. He told her there were orphans who would melt her heart. Guy was against the idea, but when she wants something, she gets it.”

So, then, there's no actual adoption process in place, just - perhaps - a vague idea. The piece, boiled down, says "it's too tricky to take an African child, let's see if the Indians are bit less worried about handing over their children", all, of course, hung on this "a source", a source so vague that they don't even indicate why they'd be in a position for us to take this seriously.

Junos split in two

It must be hard for the Junos, trying to attract attention to Canada's music scene while knowing they never quite pack the cultural punch of the Grammys. Given the hill they set themselves to climb, it's impressive they've decided to stack the odds even more against themselves by splitting the event across two nights. Perhaps the thinking is that it makes them harder to miss. "Surely they'll notice if there's two ceremonies?"

It doesn't work.

Anyway, last night, Feist won, and she's expected to tonight.

Prizes:
Blue Rodeo "Small Miracles" - adult alternative album of the year
Serena Ryder - new artist of the year
Arcade Fire "Neon Bible"- alternative album of the year
Feist - artist of the year
Feist - songwriter of the year.
Belly - best rap recording of the year.
Nathan "Key Principles" - roots and traditional album of the year.
Jully Black "Revival" - best soul and R&B recording.
Blue Rodeo "C'mon" - best video
Arcade Fire "Neon Bible" - best album artwork

Perhaps if they lost a few of the lamer categories, they could get it done in one night.

Lily Allen returns books unread

Culture sighs and breathes again: Citing "ill-health", Lily Allen has quit the Orange Prize judging panel. It's that ill-health that lets you present a TV show in front of dozens of viewers but stops you from reading books.

Cold dead hands

In the spirit of not speaking ill of the dead - even one whose love of guns made him the focus of the bloodthirsty, the paranoid and the reactionary who make up the NRA - let's remember Charlton Heston before he developed Alzheimer's and started to suggest that guns don't kill people, it's people making 'pickle, pickle' noises while pointing their fingers who do.

Here, by way of tribute for his paid work rather than political views, is Stump's Charlton Heston:

It suddenly hits you, a surprise, a bullet, a shock - you're falling in love with one of the New Kids on the Block

It's official - if, of course, there was ever any doubt - the original members of the New Kids On The Block have run out of money. Sorry, we mean are getting back together.

They confirmed it on Friday:

"It is better than Christmas," trumpetetd Jonathan Knight.

Santa and Jesus are currently in talks with legal representatives over whether to seek a formal apology for this apparent libel.

They weren't going to announce the reunion this soon, but they were worried about the rumours. Probably that there weren't any.

You can watch the big announcement from the NBC Today programme, assuming you don't mind losing ten minutes of your life to it.

Glastonbury tickets update

11.45: Server is still too busy. And the internet is full of unhappy people.

CockMonster on Designerstalk is unhappy:

Anyone here been able to get through to buy tickets for Glastonbury?
Been trying to get through all morning with fuck all luck.

There are, though, quite a few positive stories from people who've basically had a bunch of people, all throwing the kitchen sink at the refresh button on numerous machines. Irony, of course, is that the system is so bad because so few people trust it they feel the need to swamp the system with requests which brings the whole thing down.

There is, though, a slightly easier way: the more robust seetickets website has a page that works a bit better: although seetickets server keeps falling over as well; it just takes you a step closer.

Why everything sounds the same

Showbiz Zoe from Showbiz Zoe Column brings intelligence from the Kasabian album build - if that isn't an oxymoron. They're calling in some outside ears, says Chris Edwards:

"We're going to play it for Noel Gallagher in a couple of weeks.

He speaks his mind."

Well, yes he does. But so does that bloke outside Sainsburys who yells "Metal whores! You're all metal whores!" at passing cars. It doesn't mean you should listen to him, though.

After all, if Noel Gallagher knew how to make a good album... well, the recent Oasis back catalogue would be a little different, wouldn't it?

Glastonbury tickets update

10.55: Things are getting better - the 'server is too busy' message has reappeared.

Rav suggests he was right all along

You'll recall last week Rav Singh ran a piece in the News of the World about a Hollywood star about to be outed:

AN A-lister star of Hollywood will be outed next week, I can reveal.

This particular actor is known as a bit of a ladies man but in fact, he really has a secret eye for the fellas.

My man in LA told me: "This guy is not married. He's been out with many women but has been seeing men too.

"A US mag is revealing it next week which will send Hollywood into overdrive."

Now, you might be thinking "funny... I never heard anything about an a-list actor being outed last week. Rav must have been wrong."

Rav, though, revels in being right this morning:

Hollywood rocked by star's outing (part two)

LAST week I told you a male Hollywood star would be outed in the States as liking the fellas.

Turns out it was singer/ actor JOHN MAYER who has apparently been snogging my mate PEREZ HILTON in Los Angeles.

He even took a lie detector test on TV to prove his claims!

What we love about this is the way that Rav is not only pretending that Mayer is an a-lister, but, having last week claimed an actor was about to be outed, Singh now calls Mayer a "singer/actor" - but IMDB lists not a single acting credit for him.

And also - Perez Hilton taking a lie detector test saying that he'd kissed a bloke isn't really "outing" that bloke, is it?

Rav is really on the back foot this week - he's also reduced to running a story about Sarah Harding having a bad back, something over all the papers a couple of weeks ago; he's also got a story about Britney planning a world tour. Okay, that's interesting, but 'pop star plans to play gigs' is hardly that surprising, is it?

Cheap thrills with Heather Mills

With almost perfect timing, a couple of days after Julie Bindel took a hard look at the naked-awareness raising photo campaigns (the nadir, of course, being Mel B stripping off to, erm, fight sex trafficking), the News of the World uncovers Heather Mills' photos for landline awareness that she, supposedly, shot in 1999 but which have - until now - been protected by the cloak of McCartney's lawyers.

The NOTW tries to suggest that there's something hypocritical about this shoot:

Mucca claimed in her book, Out On A Limb, that she turned her back on raunchy modelling aged 17. She said: "Posing topless just didn't satisfy me."

It seems stripping off entirely obviously did.

She clearly had no idea what she was doing, if she expected full-frontal, gynecological shots to be used generally, even in a good cause. And there is a big question over if stripping off clothes is always (or ever) the best way to draw attention to human suffering. But does the NOTW really think that a well-intentioned art shot by a professional model is analogous to the sort of work done to fill the DVDs and magazines sold in the classified sections of, erm, the News of the World?

Glastonbury tickets update

The server is now not even managing to return a Server Is Too Busy message.

Glastonbury tickets on sale...

They've been trading for an hour and seventeen minutes. The site is currently returning a "server is too busy" message.

Every bloody year. It's music's own Terminal Five.