No Rock And Roll Fun

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Gordon in the morning: We're only trying to get us some peace

Whatever happened to Gordon Brown's use of the Widow Twankey ratings he was giving to Lady GaGa's outfits? Today he merely details that she wasn't wearing a bra. Perhaps he felt a bit ashamed of the whole "Twankeys out of ten" concept. But then, he's a grown man going "phwoarr, she's not wearing a bra", like a ten year-old caught in a Carry On movie, so perhaps he's just over-excited.

Elsewhere, Gordon has news of a collaboration:

JOSS STONE and MICK JAGGER are making sweet music together again.

Again?

The songbird and the wrinkly ROLLING STONE first collaborated in 2004 on track Lonely Without You, for the soundtrack to the movie Alfie.

Oh, yes... who could, erm, forget that one?

But now they have roped in some dazzling pals to make their next songs even more special.

Wow. Even more special than a track nobody's heard off a film that nobody saw? These must be some pretty dazzling pals indeed to deliver on such a promise.

The duo have been working with BOB MARLEY’s sons DAMIAN and STEPHEN as well as Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack composer A.R. RAHMAN and rapper NAS.

To you or I, this might sound like "some people who happened to be hanging about the recording studio who had a spare hour before lunch", but Gordon? Gordon's impressed:

It’s a mind-boggling roll call of musical heavy-hitters and they have come together to work on an album that will be issued on the UN’s International Day Of Peace, September 21.

A mind-boggling roll call? Really? The woman from the flake advert, someone's sons, a tax exile, a film composer and a random rapper? That boggles your mind, Gordon? Thank God you weren't born when Hear N Aid made Stars, your very head would have popped off and rolled clear down the street, like a whole pickled cabbage losing a fight with gravity.

Still, hats off to the UN for deciding to mark the International Day Of Peace by releasing a record from people known these days mostly for making a godawful racket.

You know what's missing from this well-meaning but pointless endeavour, though?

U2 frontman BONO is also involved in the project and has been recording separately with Damian.

Ah. There you are, Mr. Bono.

Monday, May 04, 2009

Thatcher-off: Number one

Well, before the final match of the season, we're going to present the winning team with their trophy. 1979 was better for music, and the best 1990 had to offer was conceived against the grain of Thatcherism. I'm not sure you can really lay claim to a legacy that really only existed because people wanted to force you into an industrial cheese grater. "I made people creative by the sheer force of their hatred for me" isn't a line you'd ever want to open a chapter of autobiography with, is it?

Anyway, it's a formality, but let's have one last round:

Number 1, April 1979: Art Garfunkel - Bright Eyes

Mike Batt went on from this to slaughtering rabbits. It is, he explained, the only language they understand. He's spent the bank holiday laying Womble traps.

Number 1, November 1990: The Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody

Wow. Thatcher's career, bookended by sloppy soundtrack music. At least in 1979 they had the good grace to write something new, rather than disinter a track that should have been let lie after Jimmy Young had had a go at it.

Final scores: Music before Thatcher - 7; Music after Thatcher - 3.

1979 wins by four votes; 1990 just about keeps its deposit.

[Follow all the Thatcher-Off fun]

Thatcher-off: Number two

With Thatcher's cultural legacy now playing for honour alone, we move to to a sniff of the top of the charts.

Number 2, April 1979: Racey - Some Girls

Remember, this was outselling all the 1979 songs we've seen so far, so Callaghan can't be too complacent. Aimed squarely at the Look-In, Non-Threatening-Boys market, the middle prong of the crepe-suits attack alongside Shawaddywaddy and Darts, this was pretty much the same song Racey kept releasing.

1990 is going to have to have a stinker to lose out here.

Number 2, November 1990: The Beautiful South - A Little Time

To be fair, it's hard to see that this record would even have existed had Thatcher not been around. Paul Heaton existed solely in opposition, with even his band's name attuned to the tenor of the times. Plus, it's an excellent song. I can never remember the reason we're supposed to despise The Beautiful South.

1990 wins a round.

Pre-Thatcher: 6; Post-Thatcher: 3

Ciara: One handed debating

Now, it might be that - if you were Ciara, and had recorded a duet with Chris Brown, you might have had some concerns about releasing the track. You know, with that whole 'hitting women' thing hanging over him and all.

But Ciara has decided to go ahead and release it any way. Of course, she's really thought it through:

"You know what it is? Honestly, with that record, it's just more about the music for me," Ciara told MTV News last weekend. "I wanted to focus on the music and leave it at that, because it's a record that I've had for a while, I love the way it sounds and it's one of my most favorite records on the album. And if I alter it, it's not gonna sound the same. So for me, really it's nothing more than about the music, so I kept it there."

"I'mma be honest with you, pretty much everyone on my team was supportive [of keeping the record on the album]. Because we knew what the whole reasoning of wanting to keep it was," she explained. "Being as though I was leaving it at that, I felt OK about that. When you listen to the album, from the beginning to the end, it feels good to you, and it just felt good to me. I could try to do it a different way and I even had moments where I played with it a little bit, but it didn't feel right. So it's all about what feels good to me, so that's why I kept it.

"It definitely took time [to make the final decision]," Ciara added. "In the decision-making process for the records, once you get down to the last few days, that's when you kind of know. It definitely took time, but [the question was] more if the record made sense for the album, period. And that's how I weighed all the records."

So it sounds like she drew up a pair of lists, one headed 'in favour of not incurring further expense rerecording record' and the other headed... well, actually, I don't really think there was another column. Perhaps Ciara could have explained a little about the actual weighing of the decision, but it looks a little like someone at the label decided to go ahead and the rationale has been reverse-engineered from there?

Supreme Court to inspect Janet Jackson's breasts

It lasted only three sixteenths of a second, and yet, five years on, we're still not at the end of the Janet Jackson nipple slip. Now, the Supreme Court is going to inspect the appeal court's rejection of the ridiculous fine that CBS was hit with after a slice of nipple fluttered across the TV screens during Superbowl 2004.

Ofcom might sometimes attach itself to the passing mob, but at least it manages to come to its conclusions, however poor, fairly quickly.

Thatcher-off: Number three

The best Thatcher's musical legacy can hope for now is a draw. But can it at least stay in the game, and force us to come up with an equivalent of a penalty shoot out, which we have no idea how we'd do and I really wish I had come up with before starting out...

Number 3, April 1979: Squeeze - Cool For Cats

"with the Dancing Girls", the title on YouTube helpfully points out, just in case you hadn't spotted them. A bit of everything chucked in: slightly drunken passes, 1970s television, American history. Difford and Tilbrook's songwriting often lurched towards the kitchen sink drama, but with this one, it was just throw the kitchen sink in. Lovely.

Number 3, November 1990: Kim Appleby - Don't Worry

After Mel, this was Kim's comeback (and, as it turned out, farewell) hit as a solo artist, and it was much more than a sympathy/curiosity purchase. It managed to pull off a combination of introspection with the trademark, upbeat, show-must-go-on ethos of the SAW stable. It's actually a pretty good pop song.

But it's no Cool For Cats.

1979 wins again.

Pre-Thatcher - 6; Post-Thatcher - 2.

Chung people: MTV shares money with Twitter and Facebook

As if there was any need to suspect that Alexa Chung's big American break was of dubious prognosis. She's presenting MTV's replacement for TRL, a show axed because it no longer had an audience; it now turns out that MTV is going to share the advertising money the programme makes (if any) with Twitter and Facebook.

It's a generous move on MTV's part, but also one that is surely only going to draw more attention to the weakness of the proposition of What You're Watching: it needs social networking partners because, erm, that's where the audience has gone. And why would anyone want to watch a large pool of tweets and status updates from people they don't know when they could be genuinely social networking on the internet?

Surely MTV needs to find a way to do something that the audiences feel they need more than being online, rather than just acting like a one-way Twitterfall search engine?

Thatcher-off: Number four

In case you've missed this so far today, we're attempting a politico-sociological experiment to decide if music was better before or after Thatcher. April 1979 is starting to look pretty good, but we've got four rounds left to play.

Number 4, April 1979: Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive

Oh, it could be game over for 1990, couldn't it? Sure, this might be the worst music video ever, with its confused use of rollerskating to depict 'freedom' (a conceit later adopted by most early sanitary product commercials) but this is just a cultural cornerstone, isn't it? If the 1979 election was being fought today, Sunny Jim would appear on TV intoning "first, I was afraid, I was petrified..." and romp home.

Number 4, November 1990: Berlin - Take My Breath Away

Between you and me, right: you know that Kelly McGillis, right? Well... let's just say, she wouldn't be interested in Tom Cruise in real life, right. Don't tell anyone, though. It's the best-kept secret in showbiz.

Yes, a decade of Thatcherism, and this is what was passing for anthemic - a big, airy nothing slapped on a movie soundtrack about fighter pilots. Top Gun didn't make the air force sound as much fun as the Village People did the navy, did it?

1979 wins. Again.

Pre-Thatcher: 5; Post-Thatcher - 2.

Thatcher-off: Number five

Into the top half of the chart battle between music as Thatcher found it, and as she left it, and our international panel of experts suggest that it was a little bit better in 1979. But what of number five?

Number 5, April 1979: The Village People - In The Navy

They. Want. You. Oh my goodness. They. Want. You. What am i going to do in a submarine? Gay, splashy, men-in-uniforms. Did we mention gay? Oh, yes, it's cheesy, but something of a tribute to the state of British society that something so clearly camp could win the heart of the nation. Politicalfact: Under Thatcher's Clause 28, teachers caught humming Village People songs were sacked on the spot, with no right of appeal or pensions.

Number 5, November 1990: Paul Gascoigne & Lindisfine - The Fog On The Tyne

There are nowhere near enough conceits that allow you weigh the relative merits of a gay pop act against a footballer-turned-lets-be-kind-and-say-singer. Still, the success of Gazza at least proves that Thatcher didn't quite get round to killing everyone who lived in the North of England, which is something to consider if you're thinking of writing a book which re-evaluates her impact on British society. Although this was enough to make most of North-East England die of shame. Politicalfact: After this record was released, Newcastle council voted in favour of filling in the Tyne out of shame; the plan was only abandoned when people from Gateshead got excited about being able to stroll across the river.

1979 wins by a wide mile.

Pre-Thatcher, 4; Post-Thatcher, 2.

Thatcher-off: Number six

1979 has done well with Sister Sledge and M; 1990 has relied on Kylie and Belinda Carlisle. So as we complete the top half of the chart, either pre- or post-Thatch has a chance to take the lead to prove whatever it was we were thinking we were going to prove.

Number 6, April 1979: The Jacksons - Shake Your Body Down To The Ground

Captured on The Best Of Midnight Special - should Michael have been up that late at his age? That's going to cause problems later on, you mark my words.

It's hard to believe that people were so bloody miserable in 1979, isn't it? The charts were brilliant. 1990 is going to need something pretty special to boot this out the water...

Number 6, November 1990: Black Box - Fantasy

Go on - before you press play - hum it. Go on.

Apparently, this fantasy involves Gary Glitter playing himself at draughts, which is a bit confusing. Instantly forgettable dance-by-the-numbers, suggesting that Thatcher Ruined Dance. (Except for the flooding the country with ecstasy bit.)

1979 wins.

After five rounds: Pre-Thatcher 3 - Post-Thatcher 2.

Thatcher-off: Number seven

"Yes, she might have crushed your right to be represented by a union, but we never had swine flu under her, did we?"

Round four in our battle between the charts before Thatcher, and after her.

Number 7, April 1979: Sister Sledge - He's The Greatest Dancer

We're not here to judge fashion, people. Concentrate on the music.

This is what The Sledge were doing as Thatcher drove up the Mall. Six years into the Thatcher project, and they were reduced to doing Frankie, which is a career trajectory similar to going from the RSC to playing a bear on kid's TV.

Number 7, November 1990: Robert Palmer & UB40 - I'll Be Your Baby Tonight

UB40 had long since lost any real interest in reggae, and were instead serving up vast vats of Supermarket Own Brand Reggae Flavoured Pop. Robert Palmer, with his cheap suits and general air of junior minister at Ag and Fish, always seemed to be a very Thatcheresque pop star. And when they came together... it was dismal. Truly upsetting.

1979 wins.

After four rounds: Pre-Thatcher 2, Post-Thatcher 2. Another in about sixty minutes.

Gordon in the morning has broken

Today, Gordon has news that Yusuf Islam has suggested that Coldplay have lifted the song they supposedly pinched from Joey Satriani:

Yusuf explained: “There’s been this argument about Coldplay stealing this melody from JOE SATRIANI, but, if you listen to it, it’s mine! It’s the Foreigner Suite, it is!”

Gordon, shocked that anyone might think Martin more than a talented hack, offers up an explanation:

Unconsciously stealing musical ideas has a name. My experts say it’s a condition called cryptomnesia.

Your experts? What experts would those be, Gordon? Your forensic psychologists department, or Wikipedia.

Still, good work on finding a defence. Even if...

I bet Chris regrets what he said to Rolling Stone mag in 2005: “We’re good, but I don’t think we’re that original. I regard us as being incredibly good plagiarists.

... you then destroy it.

Amazon try to distance themselves from torrents

Coda FM, a torrent site, has been offering people the opportunity to buy albums after sampling tracks for free, by using Amazon links. It's worked, too - they've sold a not insubstantial number of albums. Now, though, Amazon are asking them to stop.

Which means that Amazon appear to be saying they really don't want to offer people the chance to legitimately purchase a product if they had previously had a grey version of it. Wouldn't it be more copyright friendly to offer sinners a way to repent?

Anyway, the site isn't going to stop linking:

“We give the user the option to easily buy an album that they liked after downloading and hearing it for free,” the Coda.fm founder told TorrentFreak. He thought it was a good idea, and it therefore came as a surprise when Amazon asked him to remove the links from the site. In addition, the world’s largest online retailer closed his associate account.

Even though he's not making any money from the links any more, he's keen for there to still be a legal purchase route. Presumably Amazon's fear is of seeming to give legitimacy to a peer-to-peer site?

Thatcher-off: Number eight

If you're just joining us, as you shelter from an inevitable Bank Holiday deluge, hello. Today, we're trying to decide if the charts were better before or after Thatcher, by using one of our patented poorly-conceived analytical methods. In this case, comparing the best sellers from the last months of the Callaghan and Thatcher premierships. So far, it's one-all.

Round three, then:

Number 8, April 1979 - Sex Pistols & Ten Pole Tudor - Silly Thing/Who Killed Bambi

The best thing about this late-period Pistols/Tudor split 7" was the angry letter written to Smash Hits complaining about the advert they ran for it. It was distressing to see a page which referred, obliquely, to a dead cartoon deer.

The record itself? Ed Pole's effort was alright, but clearly only added to give some extra heft to a Pistols track from a band who had run out not just of steam, but even the ability to pretend they were what they were supposed to be. Bambi wasn't the only cartoon character getting laid out by this one.

Number 8, November 1990: Belinda Carlisle - We Want The Same Thing

Ah, a woman with a successful career, having broken out from her group, desperately claiming that she wants the same thing as you. Did, I wonder, Thatcher sing this to the men in grey suits as they came in, one-by-one, to tell her they couldn't support her any more? Almost certainly not.

This is far from classic Carlisle - even a little by-rote - but still edges ahead of 1979. Pre-Thatcher 1 - Post-Thatcher 2.

Thatcher-off: Number nine

So, an early lead for music after Thatcher, thanks to Kylie power. Funny that an economic migrant has given Thatch the lead, eh?

Let us climb a place higher:

Number 9, April 1979 - M - Pop Muzik

"You're living in a disco" claimed Robin Scott, "forget about the rat race". You might as well, as you're not going to get any sleep with all that pumping music and flashing lights. Maybe you should have taken the rooms above the butcher's instead.

A fine love letter to pop music. You can't complain about that.

Number 9, November 1990 - Vanilla Ice - Ice, Ice Baby

The Thatcher years were a difficult time for race relations, weren't they?

After two rounds, then: Pre-Thatcher 1, Post-Thatcher 1.

Another round to follow in about an hour...

Thatcher-off: The chart showdown

Thirty years ago this morning, James Callaghan was looking for boxes, while The Queen was facing the horror of having her hand kissed by Thatcher. (Although at least we can be sure that she didn't drivel and/or drool as she kissed her.) And thus began the period of British politics which, it seems, we're now obliged to say saw Thatcher "do what had to be done" - sorry, all you people, you had to be done, never mind.

But was it good for the country, really? There's only one way to find out, and that's by comparing the top tens for April 1979, the last month of a Labour government, with November 1990, when even Thatcher's closest chums got sick of her. Were the charts in a better state when she arrived, or when she left?

Number 10, April 1979: Hallelujah - Milk And Honey

Fresh from winning Eurovision - back at a time when people still felt obliged to point out that, actually, Israel would be Middle East rather than Europe - the declining moments of a Labour government were hymned by a desire for peace, and love. Isreal's entries to Eurovision often sing about peace and understanding, because otherwise the bands would be force to appear carrying signs saying "It's not our fault. We're just musicians."

Number 10, November 1990: Kylie Minogue - Step Back In Time

There are some who might suggest that it;s appropriate that, as the nation moved from the Victorian Values of Thatcher to Major's bicycling virgins going to Orwellian churches, what could be more appropriate than a song calling on us to step back in time? (And, as we'll see as we climb the charts, music had pretty much done that anyway.)

This video, apparently, is the fifth most popular performance on CD:UK ever ever ever.

Clearly, though, in this battle there is only one winner: Pre-Thatcher - 0; Post-Thatcher 1.

[More across the day]

UPDATE: 09/04/13 - Replaced the Milk & Honey video with one that works

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Alright, look back a little bit, then

The arrival of Bob Dylan at the top of the UK album charts has puzzled the editorial team of Pendle Today. How could such a thing happen, and in 2009, too?

They send, naturally, for Gennaro Castaldo, thought-wrangler for HMV:

HMV's Gennaro Castaldo said: "Dylan is arguably our greatest cultural icon and his words and music remain as relevant and as powerful today as they did five decades ago.

"His albums always sell consistently well, but with demand for his catalogue of recordings up significantly in recent months, it's evident that Dylan is going through one of his zeitgeist moments, as a new generation of fans join his more established followers in appreciating his musical legacy."

Mam! Mam! Our Bob is upstairs having one of his zeitgeist moments again, and I'm not going to clean it up with a damp rag this time...

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Telegraph runs bemusing story about mp3 players

I know it's a bank holiday weekend and many people would rather be sat on a canal toepath eating a scotch egg and fishing, but even that doesn't really explain this oddity in the Telegraph:

Budget MP3 beats iPod in consumer poll
A budget MP3 player which costs less than half the price of an Apple iPod has topped a web poll of consumers.

That's quite an interesting claim. So, give us some details, Ian Johnston:

The little-known Sansa Clip – which was developed as a sideline by SanDisk, which normally makes memory chips – scored 9.1 out of 10 for value for money, according to thousands of people who voted in electrical goods review site Reevoo's Customer Choice Awards.

So it hasn't actually beaten the iPod, it's just got a higher score amongst the people who have voted on the various products - so it might have impressed more of its users, but since they're talking about their impressions of the specific player, and not comparing them directly, it hasn't really beaten anything, has it?

And if you nip over to Reevoo, look up mp3 players and sort by customer ratings, the Sansa clip doesn't appear until you're half way down the second page - not only is it behind the iPod, but it lags behind similarly sized Sony and Samsung devices as well.

Oh, and the "thousands" who have voted according to the Telegraph? The current most-reviewed Sandisk Clip has been rated by, erm, just over thirty reviews.

Apple pulls Nails

The Nine Inch Nails iPhone app was something a triumph for everyone involved - it showed Apple's mobile platform was capable of sexy, alluring, grown-up uses; it gave Trent Reznor reach into a different market. It was wonderful.

Was. Apple have now yanked it because of 'offensive content'. Presumably, in the same way that post-Brand, the BBC have gone compliance crazy, having had its reputation tarnished by the baby shaking monstrosity, Apple are now hitting the delete button as soon as anything that would upset the faintest of maiden aunts is discovered.

Pete Waterman: How did he reach 154 million?

Pete Waterman has, so far, been the biggest moaner taking the PRS line on YouTube royalties. You'll recall his complaint:

"If 154 million plays means £11, I get more from Radio Stoke playing Never Gonna Give You Up than I do from YouTube."

Now, we've already pointed out that he was including views from all over the world - not just the UK - and that he only qualifies for a writer's payment, and that has to be split three ways.

And we've always had our doubts about 154 million plays in the first place.

Handily, the good people at Visible Measures have launched their list of the most-watched videos of all time. These figures are interesting because Visible Measures use True Reach, which counts spoofs, forwards and derivative works as well. They reckon 18 videos have broken the 100 million mark.

Rick Astley doesn't appear on the list.

Now, they're counting in one way, and there's room for margins of error and so on. But there's a massive gulf between "154 million" and "less than 100 million", don't you think?

Lisa Hannigan Sunday: Free Until They Cut Me Down

Recorded live in London, at St John's Church, December 2008:

[Part of Lisa Hannigan Sunday]

RIAA seeking radio money

Naturally, the RIAA aren't so stupid as to push Guy Hands into the battle to persuade Congress to pass a radio royalty for recorded music. Instead, they find a slightly more p=heart-rending spokesperson:

Jack Ely, the singer whose 1963 version of "Louie Louie" still makes the rounds on oldies radio, lives with his wife in a mobile home on a horse ranch in Oregon. Ely says they share $30,000 a year from her teacher's pension and his Social Security checks. They are paying down a mortgage.

So sometimes it bothers Ely, 65, when he hears his voice singing "Louie Louie" on the radio or in sports arenas, knowing he's not getting paid.

"It gets played twice a day by every oldies radio station everywhere in the world. And I get nothing," said Ely, who recorded the song with The Kingsmen before getting drafted by the Army and leaving the band. "I got one check for $5,000. That's all I ever saw from the sale of `Louie Louie.'"

It's a sad story. You might, of course, wonder if the single cheque might not suggest that not only were the radio companies not chipping in, but also the record companies. And if there isn't something a little tawdry in the RIAA parading people who they've spent forty years helping live in impoverishment in order to make a few more quid for their businesses.

But then again, the record companies aren't the most consistent of organisations. And perhaps if there was only one inconsistency it wouldn't be too bad.

Mitch Bainwol, the chairman of the Recording Industry Association of America, says he's prepared for a "multiyear" fight.

If I was a US radio broadcaster, that would give me heart - it's possible that in two or three years the RIAA, if it still exists, would be incapable of holding a beetle drive, never mind winning a legal battle. A long game would work in radio's interests.

The second inconsistency comes when comparing the RIAA's attitude to its members' incomes with its attitude to others' outgoings. The main reason why the RIAA wants piracy prosecuted and new copyright rules is because - although the music and media industries have changed completely, it still feels its income should at a level back like it was when it was delivering scarce, physical products. There should be every effort made to protect that income.

However, when it looks at FM and AM radio royalties in the US, this inherent conservative streak vanishes and - despite decades of precedence of the radio networks not having to pay, the RIAA feels that now, because the music and media industries have changed completely, the terms of trade must change to reflect that.

Yes, it's hypocrisy, but it's more than that. The RIAA have never taken a considered approach to anything in the last decade, just responding to each question as it comes up with the thought "how can we make the most money out of this?" What is most damning is the way these contradictions point to an organisation that is still just flapping in the breeze, without any real guiding principle at its heart.

Lisa Hannigan Sunday: The Man I Love

Recorded live at the Songs That Scare Children event from the Dublin Fringe Festival 2008:

[Part of Lisa Hannigan Sunday]

Britney Spears: That would be crazy how, exactly?

TMZ screeches the breaking-ish news:

Crazy Fan Arrested at Britney Spears Concert

Goodness. Crazy, you say? And how did this craziness manifest itself? Did he wear a hat, or go to the theatre?

Connecticut State Police say the 20-year-old fan -- who they say had definitely been drinking -- was detained after charging on stage during Britney's encore performance of "Womanizer."

Ah. So he got on stage.

Forgive me - my psychology training wasn't the greatest - but how does this actually constitute "crazy"? If he had been trying to pull her hair, maybe there might have been something crazed about the incident. Or, indeed, if he had been running up and down the stage, removing his clothes, blethering about Saint Francis Of Assisi, that might have been an indication of "crazy". But have we come this far, that simply getting on stage is a sign not just of ego-driven nuisance, but also of mental illness?

And he got arrested. Arrested, for getting on stage:

The CSP says after the guy was taken into custody, he was being highly uncooperative -- so they also booked him for interfering with police.

Interfering with police? I guess it's lucky this bloke was only looking to have a bit of a dance, otherwise he'd been getting waterboarding about now.

Lisa Hannigan Sunday: Lille

Taken from RTE2's Other Voices programme, this is Lisa Hannigan doing Lille:

[Part of Lisa Hannigan Sunday

Doves flu: People stokes the panic

If a public health official tells you it might be a good idea not to start a needless panic, that's clearly the signal to, erm, help the Sunday People try and start a panic:

Pig flu victim Iain Askham told last night how he tried to warn health bosses he had been at a packed rock concert while infected with the bug - and was ordered to keep quiet about it.

Askham - or that bloke who caught the flu on his Mexican honeymoon but is doing alright now, what with it being flu and not SARS or anything - had apparently managed to squeeze in a visit to see Doves:

Doves had to axe their show the following night after their drummer Andy Williams, 39, fell ill at the Edinburgh gig.

Are they suggesting that Williams had the swine flu? That he somehow caught it - perhaps from a vague sneeze at the back of the room?

Who better to help stoke the Fear (clever wording - cheers) than a public health official? Or maybe a member of the band? Or, failing that... erm, a shop girl who happened to be at the gig?

Shop assistant Deborah Keogh, 26, was at the rock concert with 29-year-old boyfriend Colin Sutherland. She said last night: "It is shocking, scary really.

"You can see how something like that could have been passed on." Doves drummer Andy began feeling ill during the Edinburgh gig and the band pulled out of next night's show in Leeds. The nature of his illness is not known."

Although he was back behind the drum kit in Manchester, on the 26th, so it's pretty unlikely that he had swine flu, isn't it? But then I can't be sure, I'm neither a health professional, nor work in a shop.

The dull truth - that it would have caused an unnecessary panic to start calling everyone in who'd been at a Doves gig, and would have about as much point as trying to find anyone who might have been in the airport or down Tesco or on the bus with Askham - isn't quite so hysteria-friendly, though, is it?

Still: the possibility of indie music fans getting flu isn't quite an Armageddon scenario. Can you ratchet it up a little, People?

And worryingly, Iain's pal Graeme Pacitti, who caught swine flu off him, revealed yesterday that he was among a crowd of 17,000 people at the Scottish Cup semi-final at Glasgow's Hampden Park stadium last Sunday.

That'll do it. You wonder if they sat in the newsroom, debating if they should add "... and said he couldn't be sure if he'd sneezed all over the pies on the pie stall" to that paragraph.

Doctors say that the long-term prognosis for anyone who is infected with swine flu is "a million or so times better than that of the Sunday People".

Embed and breakfast man: Lisa Hannigan Sunday

To celebrate tomorrow's release of Sea Sew, let's spend some time with Lisa Hannigan.

This is the first track to be released out into the world from the album, with a stereotype-defying video shot in an Irish pub:

More Lisa Hannigan stuff online
Official site
On Twitter
On Last.FM
On MySpace
On Wikipedia
Lisa Hannigan posts on No Rock

More from Lisa Hannigan during the day
Lille - live
The Man I Love - live

Ozzy Osbourne: prepare yourself for a shock

This may prove a little hard to believe, but it seems Ozzy Osbourne might not have been totally in the room when they made The Osbournes:

Rock legend Ozzy Osbourne has confessed he refuses to watch his family's hit reality TV show, The Osbournes - because he was stoned or drunk every day of filming.

The Black Sabbath frontman, 60, said: "Every shot, I can tell you what time of day it was by the way my body language was.

At the end of the day I'd go in my bunker and smoke."

I know, I know... it's hard to believe, isn't it? And yet he hid it so well.

News of the World discovers that Gary Glitter still eats, breathes

Apparently believing it be some sort of public service, the News of the World has tracked down Gary Glitter:

EVIL pop paedophile Gary Glitter has adopted a cunning new disguise to dupe the public - he's had a Rolf Harris makeover and calls himself Darren.

By "Rolf Harris makeover", they mean that he's got grey hair and a grey beard. But "stopped dying his hair" doesn't, presumably, sound sinister enough for the paper.

Actually, "looking like Rolf Harris" isn't especially sinister, either, and means that the writer Lucy Panton switches her guff between trying to make yer bloods run cold, and knockabout humour:

Parents should study our pictures well. For the child abuser - who is on the sex offenders register - is still a constant danger and threat to innocent kids.
[...]
Glitter's new look in the style of Aussie artist, singer and TV presenter Rolf - catchphrase "Can you see what it is yet?" - is just the latest in a catalogue of images the beast has cultivated.

Why mention Rolf Harris' catchphrase at all? In fact, why mention Rolf Harris? Surely, if you really wanted to twist the knife, you'd draw the comparison with that other kindly old man with a white beard? "Unlike Santa, you wouldn't want your kids bouncing on his lookalike's knee"?

Lucy, it seems, can barely contain her contempt for the lengths Glitter is going to in order to disguise himself:

When he arrived at Heathrow he was clearly the Glitter we all know and loathe.

But now the fallen king of 1970s glam rock has ditched the silly hats, wacky goatee and raggedy clothes that made him stick out like a sore thumb.

It's a pleasing idea that a judge should force Glitter to always wear a jumpsuit and platforms, that the children of the nation might see him coming; I'm not so sure that having a goatee and old clothes would really have been making him "stick out like a sore thumb."

Unless, of course, the News of the World seriously wants its readers to believe that you can spot a paedo because they look a bit odd. Which, in the long run, would be a far greater disservice to a credulous readership than running photos of Glitter would be useful.