The BBC used to have a fifth network... what was its name?

Tomorrow is the tenth birthday of Radio Five Live, the BBC’s News and Sport network. Which makes today the tenth anniversary of the closure of Radio Five, the station which went to make room for it, and which, for the short period in which it existed, was the most exciting music outlet in the country.

It started, as did so many things back then, with Thatcher. She’d decided that simulcasting the same radio programmes on FM and AM was a waste of a scarce national resource - in other words, saw the opportunity to flog something and make a few bob. So, the commercial broadcasters were warned to make better use of their frequencies, or lose them (resulting in the sudden creation of the Gold channels on medium wave up and down the country) and the BBC lost control of the old Radios One and Three medium wave frequencies which went off to become Talk and Virgin. Afraid of losing any more ground, the Beeb resolved to make better use of its radio real estate, forcing Radio Two to finalise its move to FM only and to do something else with what had always been 433 and 330, but had become converted to 693 and 909.

The plan was to scoop up a lot of programming which had never had a proper home - Schools Radio, the Open University stuff that had long been chucked out on Radio Four Long Wave at weekends under the odd “Options” banner, and to build on some experiments which had been taking place to do radio for teenagers, like Steve Blacknell’s Pirate Radio Four, which had also opted out the speech network to offer a talky alternative to Radio One for the young people of the nation. Topped up with the first new kids programmes since David Ryder’s Playground had been dug up off Radio One, the station had an undeniable air of mish-mash, but in amongst the acres of space filling (The “Citizen’s Advice Bureau of the air”, the weather forecast which attempted to namecheck every town in Britain, and, of course, lots of sport) there were some wonderful programmes.

Best of the lot were the regional yoof shows in the evening - originally ninety minutes at 9.30, they quickly moved them up to ten to give them a full two hours. Except when the sport overran. Highlights included The Mix, from London, Scotland’s Earshot and Hit The North.

Named after a Fall song, presented by the then-unknown-nationally Mark Radcliffe from the BBC’s Oxford Road studios in Manchester (already, of course, a legendary name in the music pantheon thanks to the Duran-heavy midweek Whistle Test light of BBC Two’s Oxford Road Show), Hit The North provided an outlet for a range of comedy items of varying quality - Frank Sidebottom would often pop up and usually wear out a welcome, some sort of reportage that would sit well on Lamacq Live these days, the world’s worst jingle (“Hit... hit... hit the north”) and classic music which never paid very much attention to the supposed rule of representing the region. A vital element was missing, however, but a few months in a former member of The Creepers turned up to do a gossip slot (“I’m not one to gossip... but pull up a chair”) and one of the great radio double acts was born. Ironically, Mark and Lard lasted right up until yesterday, when their Radio One adventure ended.

But besides two northerners who said “knackers” a lot, Hit the North had another gift for the nation: the five song live session. Probably the greatest of these was The Verve - back when they were still Verve - who were doing so well Radcliffe encouraged them to extend a track by an extra few minutes, leading to Richard Ashcroft and Mark extemporising the legendary ‘Who’s on the news?’ right up until Nick Mullins had to do the eleven o’clock bulletin.

Hit the North nearly disappeared when, in a further spot of Thatcher-inspired fiddling, the BBC decided it should try and outsource a quarter of its radio production to independent producers, targetting the regional shows as an easy way of doing this. A clearly pissed-off Radcliffe made tart reference to the sell-off on air, but in the end the show survived through a management buy-out. It remained the same, with the sole exception that there was an “M and TV” production credit at the end.

The Mix wasn’t so lucky, though, and got replaced by Fabulous, allowing Mark Lamarr to spread his wings further than he was able to on The Word. This wasn’t so bad, though, as Lamarr’s quick wit and handy catchphrase - “thank god you’re here” - proved a fitting replacement.

At the other end of the day, Breakfast had been given over to Morning Edition, which struggled a bit to find its feet. The first format had been current affairs based, but with such a soft agenda that you needed wellingtons to get past some of the features. Andy Kershaw would pop in once a week to talk about World Music releases - Baba Maal with your Rice Krispies not being everyone’s taste - and there’d be horse racing tips and, quick, let’s review the newspapers until the schools programmes start. However, someone, somewhere, was struck with inspiration and the programme was passed to the bloke who’d originally turned up to do the football phone-in on saturday nights. Morning Edish on Radio Fish was born, and Danny Baker did the show of his life. With a management who was just happy to have someone turn up and fill the airtime, Baker was given the freedom and trust to follow his instincts and lines of thought, creating some great moments. Despite the need to keep stopping for Claire Balding to give the racing tips. Turning news reader Allis Moss into a sidekick, and treating the audience as a resource, it remains one of the high-water marks in British radio.

There were other good things about Five, too: The shouty soap opera of The Mall, featuring a guest appearance by Saint Etienne; Normski’s terribly named Vibe; the return of Johnnie Walker to national radio hosting a daily show; the original version of Room 101, which was always a much better radio format than a TV show. And, uniquely for a British radio service, there was never a single musical format on the station. You’d hear Fry and Laurie doing stuff from the Jeeves and Wooster album when you woke up, move through country and western and go to be with bhangra or the BMX Bandits. Even Six doesn’t come close in the sheer range of music that would find its way onto the air.

It lasted four years, until it was deemed to be in the way. The last part of the BBC’s great plan had been to create a 24 hour news service - Radio Six, based in a loose fashion on the Gulf War rolling news service, known as Scud FM. Oddly, the BBC’s own reports on the launch of Five Live seems convinced that Scud FM had been carried on Radio Five, even although its very name shows that it was actually an opt-out on Radio 4 FM. During the first Gulf war, Today had rolled on until the World At One kicked off, which had then expanded round until PM, and so on. And this was to have been the basis of Radio Six, which had its eye on 198 Long Wave. The only problem was, after contracts had been exchanged and the work begun, expats suddenly realised if they took Radio Four off long wave to make room for news, they would no longer be able to hear the station in France and Spain. They mustered, marched on Broadcasting House and, oddly, won. Quite why the management at the BBC made the decision to listen to a few hundred people who didn’t pay a penny in licence fees isn’t totally clear - the fact they all voted and all tended to be Tory voters may have been a factor - but listen they did, backing down and saving 198 for Radio Four. And Test Match Special. But BBC News wasn’t going to give up quite so easily, and so started looking for a new home. And they settled on Radio Five. The young network hadn’t got a very large audience - because it was mostly aimed at children and the odd specialist taste - and it was unlikely the few thousands who enjoyed Northern Ireland’s Across The Line would be voting Tory (“marching on the BBC headquarters”) in quite the same way. In addition, a lot of the talent the station had nurtured had already moved on - Hit the North had lost Mark and Lard to Radio One, Danny Baker had also gone there for his short-lived show in the old DLT slot, and so on, and the sports elements of the old Five were going to find a new home on what was possibly going to be called UK Live - so there wasn’t much of a fight put up by anyone to save Radio Five.

The big switch off came March 27th, 1994. The last week of the old Radio Five showcased all that was best about it - anarchic, unexpected, funny, and going far from quietly. Seven days in which everyone was pissed off; even the kid’s story Wiggly Park stuck two fingers up at management, with a final tale which saw the park levelled to make way for “newspaper offices and a sports centre.” Not until digital radio made more space on the airwaves would a station with such a wide-ranging musical remit be given the space to just get on with it and the chance to try out so many unexpected presenters. We tend to think that 6Music is basically the old Radio Five, but without the sports. Or the schools programmes. Or the phone-ins about neighbourhood disputes. And it was the launch of 6Music which finally made us able to forgive the BBC for killing off our Radio Five.

CHILLING YOUR MARROW: Never mind "London will be the subject of a terrorist attack, it is inevitable" - is there anything more frightening than this headline from the Gleaner: Listen Up: New bands influenced by sounds of ELO?

Atomic Kitten have a lot to answer for.

YOU JUST HAVEN'T EARNED IT YET, BABY: If you're reading our piece yesterday on the BPI's earnest desire that people don't steal music because it hurts the people who make music, you might want to balance it with, say, these words from DMX about just how those record labels support their talent:

The highest paid artists get 18 cents off a dollar, and the record company still owns their product even though they've paid for it.
It's like straight robbery, straight robbery. They give you nothing, everything is an advance. But they offer it to you, you know. 'Hey, we was looking at the new Range Rover, we thought it would be a great idea if we got it for you.' They get it for you, you look on your P&L (profit and loss) report, you've got $80,000 and like 'thank you' - you end up thanking yourself."

Remember, when the record labels start to talk about morality, it's like being lectured on happy marriages by Bluebeard.

PINK'S NOT DEAD RUDE: The thing we like the best about Pink's live show is that she uses the inflatable dolls to take the place of her co-stars on Lady Marmalade - although it's a bit harsh to call Mya a pumped up plastic sex toy, it's levelled out by being an understatement for Christina. Pink reckons the show isn't as raunchy as the reviwers say, mind:

"It's not as raunchy as they say, it could be a lot worse. Even what I have right now, they tell me to tone down. There's a little, I wouldn't say nudity exactly, and I wouldn't exactly say simulated sex with rubber dolls either. But some people would!"

We're guessing it's not simulated, then.

'GUILTY' VERDICT IN ZAPATA TRIAL: After three days of deliberation, the jury in the Mia Zapata murder trial have returned a guilty verdict. Jesus Mesquia will be sentenced next month. He's facing up to twenty years in prison.

WILLIE APPEALS TO BUSH: So, the navy wants to take over some land in North Carolina for practice, and YahooWillie Nelson clings to the hope that George Bush might give a shit about some family farmers who'll be affected. Yeah, maybe he will - which oil family did you say they were from again, Mr. Nelson?

DON'T TELL ME THE DREAM IS OVER, I LIVE IN A DREAM: It's like the end of, well, not an era. It's more like the end of a tube of Smarties. But it is, nevertheless, an end. Mark and Lard have left the Palace of Glittering Delights. (The final show is archived to listen to through Real Player* - we haven't heard it ourselves yet - but apparently the Tindersticks weren't on, which seems wrong to us.)

[*To use the link in your Real Player, right click and copy shortcut, then paste in - if you want to use the BBC Radio Player, click on the first link]

UNION IN MOTION: Okay, it's not the teaching union, so it must be the rapper Nas about to tour the UK. Dates where you can see him shifting copies of his rehash ("tenth anniversary edition") of Illmatic are May 1 - Manchester Apollo; 7 - Glasgow Apollo; 8 - Bristol Creation; 9 - Birmingham NEC and 11 - London Apollo.

DO AS DADDY TELLS YOU: Pretty much in the same way that Blair had to struggle to find reasons to support Bush in his war on Iraq, so that his ally didn't have to go it alone and look stupid, it seems the BPI has been bounced into threatening to copy the RIAA's storngarm tactics against music fans in the UK to make Cary and the gang seem less gung-ho heavy-handed.

The BPI have put UK filesharers on a warning:

The British record industry has put illegal filesharers of music on notice that if they continue with their activities they risk court action.
UK record companies? trade association the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) this morning unveiled research indicating that 8.0m people in the UK claim to be downloading music ? 92% of them (7.4m people) using illegal sites.

This has lead to some reporters claiming that "only 8% use legal sites", which isn't the case at all, of course - it's possible, and amost probable, that of the 92% who use illegal sites would also be using legal sites as well, and many of them may only be using the illegal sites because the music industry has chosen not to make the music they want available in the format they want at a fair price. It's perhaps fair at this point to do a spot of number crunching with the raw survey data that the BPI have produced. They surveyed 3,367 people in the UK, 17.8 per cent of whom said they had downloaded music -so, the assumptions they're making on the habits of downloaders are based on just 600 responses. That's 600 people answering for eight million people - or every 'yes' counting for 13,333 people, which seems a little shaky to say the least. This survey also dates from a vague "late last year" time, which would put it before the launch of MyCokeMusic and the beefing up of Wippit, the first proper attempts to provide a viable alternative - kind of like asking Spanish voters intentions three weeks before the Madrid train crash changed the situation.

Downloaders spending less on music
For the first time research has quantified the effect of illegal file-sharing on the record industry. A comparison of the buying behaviour indicates that downloaders spending on albums was down 32%, and spending on singles was down 59% over the previous year.
?There is no clearer evidence of the damage that illegal downloading is doing to British music and the British music industry,? says BPI Chairman Peter Jamieson.

But this isn't actually providing proof of that - perhaps the reason their spending on music was down was because they found sites like CD Wow which allowed them to buy the same number of CDs but pay less money for them? Or because they realised if they picked up their records in Asda they could pay half the price they used to? Or because the industry reluctantly realised it had to stop charging what the fuck they liked for music.

?Illegal filesharing is causing real financial damage to artists, to songwriters, to record companies, publishers, retailers and everyone involved in the business.?

By the BPI's own figures, the size of the music market has shrunk by just 0.8% in the period they're looking at. This at a time of a lot of price cutting. EMI has just announced ballsy profits. It's hard to see the evidence of this damage - and if it was obvious, then surely they wouldn't need to be issuing surveys with number play trying to prove it?

File-sharing is illegal
The BPI points out that illegal file-sharing is outlawed under the The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Specifically it runs counter to:
Section 16, which reserves to the owner exclusive rights to copy and to communicate their works to the public;
Section 20, which says communication to the public includes ?the making available to the public of the work by electronic transmission in such a way that members of the public may access it from a place and at a time individually chosen by them?.
Instant messages warn of action
The BPI has unveiled a new ?instant messaging? campaign over the internet warning uploaders that they face court action if they do not disable file-sharing software on their computers.


Illegal, yes, generally. We know. But since having file-sharing software is not illegal, what right do the BPI have to tell me or anyone to disable it. Can we tell the BPI to switch off their Microsoft Word programs, on the grounds that it's possible to use Word to produce illegal copies of newspaper articles? And how will the BPI know people have file sharing software in the first place? Are they just going to guess (in which case, that would be spam, which is also outlawed) or are they going to poke about on people's hard-drives? The BPI says they're going to be using the built in IM functions of the file sharing software, which we seem to remember is actually a breach of the terms of use of the software in the first place.

No excuses
The BPI points out that the UK is at the forefront of the development of new legal download services.

No it isn't. Napster, Walmart, BestBuy and iTunes are - the UK is tottering along slowly behind

?There is no excuse whatsoever for people taking music without permission,? says Jamieson. ?There are literally hundreds of thousands of tracks available on legal internet music services in the UK, and the number of tracks available and the number of services providing them grows weekly.?

Erm... "hundreds of thousands" tracks available isn't quite the same thing as every song you might want being available. How many tunes would you find in an average Virgin Megastore? Even a pokey one probably has about half a million there. The BPI try to make out that they're all about the music lovers, but you have to be slightly insane to suggest that the logical reaction to not being able to find a legal download of, say, Hurrah's How Many Rivers is to plump for a legal download of Meat Loaf doing 'Bat of Hell' instead of seeking out a bootleg version. And it's that complete faliure to grasp what drives the main downloading frenzy - a desire to hear a specific tune, now, in a simple format (and at a fair price), now, now, now. The BPI's bid to portray illegal downloaders as thieves shoving CDs under their jumper at random in a branch of Woolies is why they'll never be able to stop them; a closer model - if you must have a criminal model - is of jewel thieves breaking into private collections to steal pieces to order. The BPI is trying to stop that with the equivalent of putting reinforced glass in Elizabeth Duke's windows.

BAD REVIEW: We were delighted a couple of Corries back when the Weatherfield Recorder ran Ken Barlow's review of the Webster child's school production of Grease - as Norris pointed out, it was on page 32. The selfsame page the eponymous Bad Review in the Half Man Half Biscuit song appeared on. Hopefully the storyline would have been an object lesson to all - singers, actors, singer-songwriters and their soon to be ex-wives - that responding to a bad review makes you look even more shit than the performance which lead to the review in the first place did.

We're thinking that maybe we should send over a tape of that episode to Ryan Adams, a man who seems incapable of just shrugging and walking away from any criticism at all. He called up Pitchfork for an interview telling them how much he loved, no, really, loved, their scathing review of his work and suggestions that he's actually gone a bit shit, but thathe wanted to put his side, too. On the plus side, though, Amanda Petrusich manages to get a good interview out of him, in which he pledges he'd never call Sting up and tell him to stop making records because he sucks. Which must come as a bit of a relief for Sting, then. But it's actually the first Adams piece I've read in about two years that hasn't made me want to use him as the sample in my 'can people float in a bowl of piping hot chicken soup' experiments.

COSTELLO READIES PEN, ELECTRIC TYPEWRITER: We're half convinced that Elvis Costello has only agreed to write two books purely to allow the headline writers to use 'everyday i write the book' on the story. One of the titles seems to be some sort of loose adaptation of his lyrics into a novel form (presumably with an eye to Ben Elton picking them up for the stage) - lots of joining of Oilver's Army when you hear a Tokyo Storm Warning type fun ahead, then; the second book is "a work of comic philosophy" called How To Play The Guitar, Sing Loudly and Impress Girls... Or Boys. Which, give Elv's way with a tale, could actually turn out to be quite good.

H-A-R-M-OW: Trouble at SXSW: Har Mar Superstar loses it after he gets hit in the face by a giant penis - although it was when the cock-tosser then poured a drink over Mr. Superstar's head that Har went all Grr and a bit punchy - or rather, threw some garbage at him.

Elsewhere at SXSW, a security guard needed surgery after a scuffle at a Chikinki gig. Mind you, this really boils down "blood spilled in brawl in Texas bar on a Saturday night" so it's not so much of a news story as it might have been.

Also in the 'when audiences cause trouble' file: Fran Healy is trying to recast his outburst during Travis' Cardiff gig as 'good humoured':

"Hey all.. For what it's worth, from where we were standing, we thought the gig was brilliant. Lots of excitement on stage and happy faces wherever I looked. There was the coin throwing, maybe meant as a donation to my busking I think. It was meant in good humour but you should never throw coins at a stage, it's a big no no. When I pulled whoever did it up he was booed into next week. Thank you Cardiff."

Yeah, it's all in fun, and maybe those people who were throwing coins at you didn't know they could hurt, eh? (Or perhaps they didn't realise it's more fun if you heat them up first?). We wonder if Fran always views assaults in such a positive way - "Ha-ha, yes, poke the knife in like that - careful, not at an angle, that hurts a little bit more like that... ho-ho, yes, my nose probably could do with a gentle reshaping... was that a bone crunch? Oh, you are a one..."

CONGRATULATIONS, IT'S A BABY SHAMBLES: Pete Doherty's side project Babyshambles are set to launch a debut single - just 2,000 CDs and 1,000 on vinyl are being pressed, although that's enough to get to number one these days. Apparently, this is to be the start of a "series" of Babyshambles releases this year.

HAVE THEY COME ACROSS THE INTERNET BEFORE?: That interview which has been doing the rounds for a couple of weeks - the Century FM one where DJ Tony Wrighton asks Kylie deliberately provocative questions and she calls him a twat (after she thinks nobody is listening) got turned into a song, you know. But Century have made kylie.co.uk take it down because they were unhappy about it being used in that way. They seem not to have realised that once it's out there, it's out there. Although, to be honest, the original tape was much more fun. Kylie claims she's never had plastic surgery in it.

DOES WHAT EVER A SPIDER CAN: We're loving more and more the Distillers round our way. Although the recording of soundtracks for computer games thing sucks a bit - Brody et al are providing the them for a new Spiderman game - because it's the 21st century version of going on the Val Doonican show. But don't tell her we said that.

BROWN DRIES EYES, LEAVES COURT: You know, we'd have sobbed like a baby if we'd been sent down, too, but there's good news for Bobby Brown as he gets released from chokey. Oddly enough, that big unpaid child maintainence bill that he said he couldn't afford had been settled - strange how spending a night with Marilyn, the squat thrust champion from Block C, can jog your memory about where you might have put sixty thousand dollars aside for emergencies, isn't it?

As he came out of court, Brown told reporters:

"I thought it was paid. Things happen like that when other people are dealing with your business."

Yeah, it can be a bit of a bummer when you cede responsibility to make sure your own kids have shoes and enough jello and Mr Goodbars to survive on to somebody else. You can't be expected to know that your own kids have been left to doing the best they can on Mac and Cheese, can you? Obviously, if you ever saw them you might have spotted the ribs poking through the goodwill store shirts, but I daresay that's something else you palmed off to someone elsewhere in the Brown Organisation.

See you back in court May 5th?

ME AGAINST THE MUSIC: You can't fault her ability to sniff out a bandwagon and clamber aboard - Madnna is joining the growing ebb of pop stars going to court, as her vanity label sues its parents. Maverick claims that Warner Music has shafted it, "engaging in acts of self-dealing and profit-taking." Maverick believes it's contributed GBP55 million in profits to Warner's bottom line, while Warners hasn't kept to its side of the deal in providing services like marketing and promotion. Warner has a forty per cent stake in the label, but is going to have to tread carefully round this one as Madonna is signed directly to them. Which could make things interesting.

THE OSBOURNES AND THE LOVES: ITS LIKE A VERY BAD SOAP OPERA: Oh, god, it's like two Liz McDonalds at once: Courtney and Sharon Osbourne screeching at each other through the media. Here's a sample:

"I saw her (Courtney) on TV and I felt so bad for her, my heart went out to her and I thought, 'Lay off her, leave her alone, she's got enough c**p going on in her life and she doesn't need me giving her a hard time,' but that was last week.
Well missus, it's not cool to say that you got them (drugs) from Courtney because Courtney's not cool.
You're right when you say I don't want you to hang with KELLY. I don't and I don't want you to go near my son. Carry on with your own life. God bless you, good luck with everything in life, just stay away from the Osbournes. Leave us alone."

Yes. Both of you, leave us alone.

LET'S HOPE THOM YORKE BREAKS HIS FINGER OFF ANYWAY: With a heart sinking at the certainty that someone, somewhere is already dubbing this "fingergate", the whole world is abuzz with the question Did Simon Cowell give Paula Abdul the finger, or do you not give a fuck. Oddly, since Cowell's whole persona is supposedly based around this blunt character who doesn't mince his words, Simes seems incredibly outraged that anyone could think him capable of doing such a thing:

"I certainly would never make a gesture like that toward Paula or on national television. Sometimes I lean on my index finger. Sometimes a different finger. Sometimes two at the same time, or, God help me, even the whole hand. I never even thought about it until now."

Yeah, good god that you should find a reputation for making playground gestures should start to replace your current reputation for telling sixteen year old girls that they look shit, sing shit, are shit and that their dreams of being popstars are so misplaced the only way they'll ever get near to celebrity is being allowed to suck the cock of the least clean roadie in return for a glimpse through the backstage door crack at a Bros reunion tour. I mean, getting your jollies pissing on the dreams of kids is one thing, but you wouldn't want to be thought of as being a little impulsive.

Curiously, the main fuel for this particular fire has come from the Drudge report - no, really. Obviously time weighs heavy since Clinton stepped down.



Naturally, the FCC have decided this sort of thing is something they need to look into. Naturally.

JACKSON LEAVES WORLD TO FEND FOR ITSELF: We're considering producing a 'more bad news for Michael Jackson' template to save our fingers. In fact, we might look into suing him if we ever develop RSI. This time, Jackson's charities are going tits-up; his Heal The World Foundation has been suspended since 2002, when it failed to file any accounting statements - in its last year its assets of USD3500 were nibbled away by USD2500 expense claims; Heal LA has been lying doggo since 2001 and the New York sister project Heal The Kids has been so useless that the attorney general has told it to disband; and the Neverland Zoo Foundation went to pieces in 1998.

It's not that Jackson hasn't been handing out cash, of course: it's just he's been a lot more targetted in his generosity, making a massive USD14million payment to one specific kid in a bid to keep him out of the courts.

Nobody seems sure why Jacko's charities have been faring so badly, although our charity expert said "Hello? Michael Jackson's charities? Would you trust him with so much as a meat raffle?" But perhaps the lack of any earnings he needed to have tax offset on might give a clue, too.

FIRE PUT OUT: The less-than-tactful Great White Burning House of Love compilation is being pulled from the stores. The band's management claim that the label responsible for the clanging name hadn't thought through the connection between the album title and the not-entirely-under-reported burning to death of a hundred people at a Great White gig. Which is a bit like saying "What?" when caught flogging Diana Car Crash Princess Headless Dolls.

BOYS LIKE YOU... ARE BAD THROUGH AND THROUGH...: Ah, pity the poor plight of the British Theatre. Where once Shaw and Wilde held court, now it's reduced to a murky backwater full of ill-conceived musicals based loosely on a collection of song titles. The latest threat is Wham! - The Musical, which apparently more than one producer is trying to bring to the West End. Actually, we could see this working if the early stuff was marshalled properly into vaguely homoerotic tale of a boy watching his best mate head off to get hitched without ever telling him that he had down there thoughts about him. Actually, we'd make it more than vaguely homoerotic. Very, very dirty indeed. But I can't see Ben Elton going down that route.

Anyway, regardless of how regrettable it all might be, George Michael seems to feel like it's an inevitablilty:

"Two or three different producers have approached Andrew and I about this and I'm a bit torn. I absolutely hate the idea on a creative level. But on another level I know that a certain generation of people would love it."

For which we read "fuck, I've committed myself to giving away my future records for free on the internet... how the hell will I pay the gas bill? Ah, I've got a cunning plan..."

But he admits that the creaky tunes which made early Wham so great were like musical timebombs:

"Those songs are borderline in terms of presentation, and the only reason we got away with the pastiche of them is because they were done with so much conviction and big hair and big teeth, and genuine fun and passion. But the truth is that done on stage there will be no charm and you'll be left with a lot of cheese, so I'm torn. Am I being too much of a snob? I would literally have to avoid the premiere."

On the other hand, we bet Andrew turns up, stuffing his overall pockets with the cheese footballs and gala pie slices from the green room.



- yes, only vaguely homoerotic...

MTV BLINKS FIRST: MTV has backed down in its battle with indie labels, having calculated that they really were prepared to wipe Eminem-to-White Stripes off their networks. Viacom has returned to collective bargaining, and sent an open letter from MTV's "David" Brent Hansen:

"Don't get me wrong - we still fundamentally believe that collective licensing does not serve the best interests of independent labels as they relate to MTV," Mr Brent said in the letter.
"Direct deals offer many significant benefits and we remain convinced at the strength of our case - and unconvinced by the arguments and tactics of the VPL and AIM.
However, in the interests of supporting the issues that the indies have raised and in a genuine effort to reach a resolution we have decided to return to the negotiating table with the VPL."

You see, smaller labels - they're only doing it in your best interests. Of course it would be better for you to negotiate individual deals - because you're going to have much more leverage as a label representing a couple of welsh indie bands than as part of an industry group representing a couple of hundred Top 40 artists, aren't you?

IPSWICH... ARE YOU READY TO SWAY MILDLY?: We're not sure why we're bringing you the Will Young tour dates, but here they are:
May 22 , 23, St. David's Hall, Cardiff; 24, New Theatre, Oxford; 25, Regent Theatre, Ipswich; 27, BIC, Bournemouth; 28, Colston Hall, Bristol; 29, Pavillions, Plymouth; 31, Royal Festival Hall, London; June 1, Dome, Brighton; 3, Guildhall, Portsmouth; 4, Royal Albert Hall, London; 6 , 7, Bridgewater Theatre, Manchester; 9, Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow; 10, Playhouse, Edinburgh; 12, Symphony Hall, Birmingham; 13 , 14, Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham; 15, City Hall, Newcastle; 17, Empire, Liverpool; 18, Symphony Hall, Birmingham;19, Royal Opera House, Blackpool

We're not sure about some of those two night bookings - Nottingham two nights in a row for a tour that's also calling at Oxford and Ipswich? That might be a bit of a misjudgement. Unless it's one night for the gay fans, one for the screaming girlies?

ARE THERE NO JUDGES WHO'LL SIDE WITH A SINGER?: Bad news in court for Michael Jackson, who's had many of his claims for unpaid royalty payments thrown out by a judge in LA. He's being allowed to proceed with claims from after 1994, but any demands for money Michael has made that are over ten years old have been struck out. It's all related to the way that Jackson's been paid by Universal for stuff he did on Motown when he had a normal-looking nose and some talent.

BROWN IN THE RED, SO HE'S BACK IN THE POUND: Bobby Brown broke down and sobbed as he realised he was heading straight into jail again, so soon after getting an early release from a Georgia prison so he could trot off over to Massacheusetts for a child support hearing. It turns out that he owes the mother of his children about sixty thousand bucks. The court didn't believe Brown when he said he couldn't pay because he had "no job and no income." His own attorney was so scathing about Brown's career we're thinking of offering him a guest spot on No Rock - he admitted that his client had been successful in the 80s and early 90s but "he has been nowhere near that in recent years." Brown seems convinced he's about to make a film and a new album, which somehow he's going to turn around in thirty days, but the judge refused to believe he'd not got an advance on all this work and knocked back an offer of ten grand now, fifteen by the end of next week and a friendly chat about the rest, and sent him to prison for ninety days or until he comes up with a better offer. Only trouble is, of course, on May 5th Brown is due in another court, back in Georgia, over charges relating to the beating Whitney incident. Whitney, meanwhile, has checked herself out of drug rehab and so that should make for an interesting hearing.

HALLELUJAH AND GLORY TO GOD: All she was asking for was a little bedrest, and she got it - Aretha's out of hospital following what was either an allergic reaction to antibiotics or a virus. Her publicist said she had a "rash-like skin condition", which would be a rash, then. Anyway, she whooped a hallelujah or two and has gone home to get fully well.

WHAT THE POP PAPERS SAY: Courtney and Malcolm punks not dead edition
So, it’s been a grim week on the outskirts of the music press, with The Face and Just Seventeen being invited in to see the manager, leaving a couple of minutes later with a pink slip and a black plastic sack to put their belongings into; so it’s cheering that another not-strictly pop paper came into being. The London News Review, in its launch format of a Rhine Zeitung style newsprint broadsheet, looks a lot more like it reads now, and there’s much in it of interest to, well, people who read this. Like the quiet way it points out that Janelly Fourtou, who pushed through the European parliament’s Intellectual Property Enforcement Directive is married to the CEO of Vivendi; apparently the concept of ‘conflict of interests’ didn’t occur to her as she cheerfully criminalised making a CD copy of an MP3 you’ve paid for; the revived Rock Against Racism gig is reviewed, and the Google-proof ‘just the gist’ lyric quiz has survived beta testing. Oh, and the manwhofellasleep pops up in there, too.

Over at the Observer, Miranda Sawyer has gone to meet Alison ‘Va-va-voom’ Goldfrapp, musing that “it’s odd that she [isn’t] straddling music like a jack-booted frilly knickered wonder woman.” Odder yet that the Goldfrapp piece is booted from the Observer Music Monthly to the bog standard cakes and makeover weekly magazine to make way for Alicia Keays. What’s going on there? Is the magazine proper trying to attract attention from the casual OMM reader, or did the OMM decide that the ho-hum no-offence Keays is where they should be going towards, leaving the more interesting Goldfrapp to be picked up by the other supplement? So it’s the Magazine which gets the good stuff: Goldfrapp announcing that her fans are either all overly sincere, or pervy. Some times, Alison, it’s possible to have long lists in green ink and wear waders to bed, you know.

Whereas the OMM is left to pick the bones of the very nice, managed as tightly as a security team protecting the President Alicia Keays. Worryingly, she seems determined to have a crack at acting.

The chart is the best one so far - ten worst reunions, although the 21st century Doors barely counts as a reunion; it’s more a tribute act. Who cares what percentage of non-Morrisson original members are involved? It’s a shadow cabinet act through and through. Jesus Jones, we learn, have got back together simply to play a single song at motivational speaking events in the US - although who the hell would be motivated by Jesus Jones isn’t explained.

Maybe we’re getting desensitised, only we were surprised to see that people had written letters complaining about last month’s Outkast cover. Naked women, see? You might have thought that it was a rather lovingly re-created pastiche of seventies artwork; and perhaps the outraged letters were in the same vein - “I’m going to write a letter in the style of Andrea Dworkin.” If the writers were serious, then we’re even more convinced we’ve become too desensitised: apparently, all the gains of women post Sylvia Pankhurst were undone in one moment four weeks ago, and we never noticed.

There is no secret life of George Michael left to be explored; a man who waggles his willy in the face of all comers is in every extent public. Still clinging to 1980s knobs, Tim Moore recalls buying into the Merton Parkas C&A take on Mod, offering the justification that it’s better than Avril Lavigne.

Eastenders Ray Panthaki has decided the time has come to explore music beyond hiphop. Oddly, it was hearing Starsailor which led to this decision, something which would lead most normal people not to consult the record doctor but to stick sharpened drumsticks deep into their ear canals. Anyway, the doctor suggest Jeff Buckly who goes down well, but The Specials leave Ray cold - “a bit too UB40.” A man who can find life-changing charm in Starsailor but can’t tell the difference between Too Much Too Young and Rat In Mi Kitchen? What is he using to base his judgement on - sleeve colour?

Oh god, Malcolm McClaren is back. For some reason, music’s del Boy is always treated well despite his rubbish track record. What’s he actually ever achieved? He’s credited with being some sort of godfather of punk, when all he did was follow a trend and pretty much throw out all the things which made punk a vital youth artform and turned it into some granny-baiting parody played by cartoons - in short, he took The New York Dolls and gave us Blink 182. And having managed to make a bit of cash out of being in the right place at the right time, ever since he’s tried desperately to try and live up to the popular view of him as an instigator; it’s like Fleming was so ashamed of being credited with the discovery of penicillin when he really just employed the people who did the work that he spent the next forty years trying to interest the world in other sorts of moulds: “look, this greeny-blue stuff that grows on damp wood in window frames... that might cure rabies or cancer or something.” This time, following the lack of interest in opera-as-rock, double dutching and Ghosts of Oxford Street, McClaren is pushing chip music, made from the gizzards of PacMan machines. “You don’t need instruments to make it, you can use a gameboy” he pitches, blissfully unaware that the Kids were using their X-Boxes to mix music together when he was still trying to flog us frock coats.

Julie Burchill believes that we’re all children of Thatcher and McClaren, but this misses that they’re actually one and the same: she came from a grocers, he came from a trouser shop; they built their position on the back of the working classes preaching the virtues of self-interest, while making sure they got more than their share of the spoils. And none of them have done anything decent since Jubilee Year.

Oh, and Malc claims that ITV wanted to bring him in to replace John Lydon when he quit I’m A Celebrity. Yeah, Malc, and you wrote Anarchy in the UK.

Sufjan Stevens is picked by Kitty Empire as a name to watch for the future: in his spare time he teaches knitting to the blind, which is good news for Gyles Brandereth.

John Harris explores Cajun country, going beyond swamps and crayfish to discover ”an audible win-some-lose-some fatalism and affectingly sad songs.”

reviews judges Patti Smith’s Trampin to be sometimes “close to horses” and Paul Morley qupis that “without Stars in their Eyes there wouldn’t be dry ice in our house” - maybe you had to be there. Helena Christansen asks Michael Stipe “Who is carrying the torch of music?” (yes, exactly like that); Stipe waffles and mentions no names before suggesting that no one person can carry the torch, for which read “I haven’t bought a record since 1987 but I’m not about to admit that.”

And the OMM has given Peter Robinson two pages to fill with stuff, which he does with a broken Phixx mug and an old Smash Hits.

Back over at his other job, then, the NME has got Franz Ferdinand in white jackets on the cover, which is less ‘for those about to rock’, more ‘On tonight’s watchdog...’ Inside, mind, they’re dressed up in school uniform, and they look a lot more comfortable. The video they’re so attired for is a tribute to Blue Remembered Hills, which we remember pissing off writers to Points of View because they couldn’t cope with adults playing children.

The news kicks off with Courtney, of course, who is a one-woman column filler. There’s breasts and self-serving and pity me pie aplenty, including her attempt to demonstrate how unfair life is by claiming “No-one in the history of rock music has ever been arrested for someone being hurt at a show” - without even needing to point to examples where people have been seriously injured, Shane McGowan was arrested for precisely the same thing as Courtney when he hit someone at Liverpool University with a mic stand.

Round, like a circle in a spiral, NME has bought the finger off Thom Yorke’s Brat award from ebay and is now offering it as a prize. They paid two hundred and fifty quid for the thing, which makes us assume it’ll be back on Ebay without seconds of it arriving at the prize winner’s house, although they’re hoping their ‘I deserve to be fingered by Thom Yorke’ tie breaker style comp will preclude that happening.

Icarus Line burn the CD: Rollerskate Skinny, Lilys and Kool Keith.

Peter Robinson’s Other Kingdom meets Har Mar superstar. He’s not real, you know, he’s just a made-up comedy character who advertises vodka.

Art Brut are the radar band, and they deserve your attention, if only because they’re releasing a single that mentions Top of the Pops - just like the Rezillos.

Franz Ferdinand scoff at the Daily Record and the way they write about David Byrne as “Scots born”, despite his having moved away when he was six. (The Liverpool Echo, of course, still worships McCartney, and treats Kim Cattrell and Halle Berry as if they lived in Huyton - but then, look at what they’d have to work with otherwise). This is made even funnier by the “discovery” that Elvis was, in some vague way, Scottish.

They also start to talk about having used Hitler’s microphone and suddenly realise they’re heading off towards a National Front Disco where Kula Shaker draw swastikas on the wall. Instead, they list bands who kept it right all the way through: Belle & Sebastian, Pulp, The Smiths, and Brian Eno.

Ty Cobb have apparently renamed themselves Mad Action.

Completely unmentioned on the front cover, there’s an interview with Brody Dalle - and she does it naked. Down a telephone line, yes, but you can imagine. (Unless you’re an Observer Music Monthly reader, who’ll probably be mentally dressing her in some cord dungarees).

The pull-out posters are all of mug shots - damn, only jack White looks any good in his.

Four skinny southern Indie boys? Lying in a bunch of yellow spring flowers? Is the Ride revival under way? Not quite; these are delays, a band who spent last Christmas making a hash cake contaminated with E.

reviews
live
cky - london astoria - “ftotally shitty dude”, 1
adam green, ICA - “best song poet since Leonard Cohen”, 6

albums
radiohead - com lag: 2+2=5 [the japanese bside collection] “bloody minded as ever”, 7
weird war - if you can’t beat ‘em, bite ‘em - “retro-ghetto”, 4

singles
sotw - art brut - formed a band “this might be a chord. now form a band”
pink grease - fever - “a daft man trying to be sexy”

and finally... ana mantronic loves siouxse and the banshees. the last time she (sioux, not the scissor sister) appeared on the front of the nme they also had a feature about Hurrah!, you know.

INDIES TO MTV: YOU'RE NOT COOL ANY MORE: Are we just vultures, or is everyone enjoying the indies versus MTV battle? Yesterday, MTV tried to smash up the indie coalition by saying that it was demanding stupid money. Today, the indies have hit back, warning MTV that it's no longer the place for cool music and making it clear that they're not joking: the Strokes, White Stripes and MisTeeq could soon be banned from the MTV family. Apart from the slightly cringey use of the word "cool" - like the company which made stars of Dire Straits, Ray Cokes and Sharon Osbourne has ever been cool - it's nice to see some slightly smaller companies standing up to an attempt to bully them. Of course, with EMAP and Sky's music channels to fall back on, it's not exactly like the AIM labels are betting the whole farm.

HONESTLY, VICTORIA, YOU'VE GOT NOTHING TO PROVE TO US: She's become like a woman possessed, seemingly desperate to have a number one to silence the critics who would suggest that she couldn't carry a tune if she bought a bicycle with a special basket designed precisely for tune-carrying by a team of German aerodynamic design experts. Now, Victoria Beckham has drafted in Cathy Dennis to write a song for her, a song she hopes will return her to the top of the tree and allow her to gloat. It's a nice try, but rather than using your money to buy songwriting talent, why not use it more wisely and get someone to do the singing for you?