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We do apologise that so many of the great things we have to tell you about gigs seem to be in London Town; on this occasion, it's the journey Field Music are making to play the Borderline next Thursday (21st July). If you're around, and can make it, you can go see their Wire-meets-the-Beach-Boys stuff (that's what Uncut reckons, anyway).
We wish we could say it was something more pressing which meant we didn't catch Jarvis Cocker's TV Pop Rules until last night, but it probably wasn't. Channel 4's invitation to get El Jarvo (as, of course, we're forced to call him) to run through what makes a good pop TV show was half-inspired, but we'd still much rather have seen them get him to make a proper TV pop programme rather than a show about the shows.
And while there was a lot of stuff we've seen so many times before (Tony Wilson talking about the Pistols on So It Goes; Pans People dancing with disinterested dogs) this was balanced with some clippage that we hadn't seen - some scary Yorkshire TV hybrid between Rockschool and Bob Ross, with an audience full of the sort of pensionners always used as a fallback by a researcher with a beacher or two to fill suddenly being given guitars and encouraged to "play pop".
A couple of the rules were just plain wrong. Under no circumstances, Jarvis, should you get Saville in - although you deserve a mark of respect for being the only person to interview him recently who left the man with some dignity; after Theroux's depcition of the first TOTP presenter as a quasi-tramp it's a wonder Jimmy let anyone into his house with a camera ever again.
It's also great that Cocker found a positive note to go out on - The Streets 2005 Brit Awards performance as a sign that pop TV still has life in it. Of course, with TOTP only a few minutes now from slinking off to a new life battling with Antiques Roadshow, the point was double-edged - there's very, very little prime time pop at all now and the Brits Awards is one of the few times you'll see proper singers on the two main channels during peak hours. The slots on shows like Wogan have more or less dried up; the weeknight chart show has all but vanished; even Channel 4 would rather not do pop while the audience was awake anymore, preferring anything - even shows like this - to actually offering pop. Later once again lives up to its name. We'd like to see someone come up with an idea that would get people excited about watching music TV with their dinners in their laps again - clearly, people are happy to watch stuff like Stars In Their Eyes and Pop Idol. Can't anyone come up with a format that would spark people's interests in actual, proper bands?
Gently prodding you in the direction of Amazon:
Killing Joke's back catalogue gets a mid-price re-release
Saw You Standing In Pictures: Eyeless In Gaza - who play London later this month - caught in 1982 Le Harve gig
This might be the proof of the power of the solitary masturbator's prayer, but it does really sound as if that Britney Spears is going to film her childbirth for a special edition of her UPN series. They're saying it's going to be "like the Dad filming the birth." Which, in this case, would mean presumably the camera whirring away while Kevin points it at the mirror to practice pulling faces as Britney squeals in the background - by now, of course, he's learned to ignore Britney when she yells and makes demands. Apparently, according to sources:
"Cameras won't roll through the most intimate parts but there will be scenes included."
In other words, she's leaving something for Christina's follow-up. (Let's not pause at all to ponder the extent to which you could make a television programme in which scenes were not included.)
Almost certainly not, of course, but there's going to be a lot more of it going on as talent-in-search-of-a-project Simon Amstell gets a dry-run for XFM on Saturday afternoons. We're sure there's no way in which this could be considered an audition for a long-term replacement for Christian O'Connell on breakfasts, at all.
There's a quote from an XFM type:
According to one Xfm dude: "Simon Amstell is one of the most exciting and intelligent presenters out there."
We're not sure if this means generally, or if he was looking at the smoking area at the back of Channel 4's studios while he was talking.
The next Death Cab For Cutie single is also making an appearance online, with the band offering it streamed from their My Space webslot. There's plans for an album, um, Plans, to follow.
The ever-wonderful take Your Medicine is offering a chance to hear a live hint of what the next Bloc Party album might sound like.
Last week, while trumpeting the 10 millionth legal UK download, someone from the BPI insisted that this means that the battle against illegal downloads is being won. On the other hand, latest independent figures suggest there's been a 20% increase in filesharing on peer to peer networks in the last twelve months, which would suggest the two are co-existing quite happily. (To be fair, there are legal uses of p2p, and those figures are global).
As if it wasn't bad enough for the Two remaining TLC members to have to deal with INXS pinching their idea for a series - R U The Girl With T-Boz and Chilli hasn't aired yet, and INXS have already started whittling down their new member potentials - T-Boz Watkins nearly ended up reuniting with Left Eye on Indpendence Day, when a neighbour got arsey about their fireworks [Registraton required]:
According to a Gwinnett County police report, the Grammy-winning R&B pop star and members of her family and friends were setting off fireworks in the street late on Independence Day when they were approached by an angry neighbor, Jeffery Strickland. He allegedly told T-Boz, "Things are going to get ugly" if the pyrotechnics display didn't stop.
Two Sugar Loaf Country Club security guards initially responded to the noise complaint but opted to call Gwinnett authorities when they discovered Strickland was brandishing a 45-caliber handgun.
According to witnesses, Strickland tried to break up the party by speeding his black SUV toward Watkins and her guests. When officers arrived, Strickland told them that Watkins and company had started the incident. The report details that officers "noticed a strong aroma of alcohol" coming from Strickland and that his speech was slurred.
According to the police report, when quizzed about driving his vehicle at a high rate of speed toward the TLC member and her guests, he replied: "I got a high-priced attorney. I know how the game works. I was testing my transmission."
After his gun was secured back inside his home, Strickland was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a vehicle.
Apparently, Strickland's attorney claims that his client was "seeking to defuse the situation" by backing his car into people - see, that's the sort of quality thinking them high-price attorneys come up with. We're excited by this new form of crisis mediation, and look forward to ACAS gathering together management and unions and reversing trucks into them to break the deadlock in industrial disputes.
Lined up for just a smidgen into the month of August: a new EP from Willy Mason - although this is a proper, old style EP with a full five tracks on it - Hard Hand To Hold, and the four songs from Glastonbury this year: Wild Dog Blues, Live It Up, Oxygen and When The River Moves On. His set on the John Peel Stage featured his brother drumming and his mum doing backing vocals, so he deserves extra credit for resisting the temptation to do Its A Family Affair.
It's like watching an intellectual giant being freed from the constraints on sharing his thoughts - now he's no longer a member of Blue, Lee Ryan is at long last able to share his truths with us:
"It feels different because I can actually talk, whereas before I didn't used to talk. The boys would be the ones to answer all the questions. I'd stay stuff because I was very passionate about stuff. It would come out wrong half the time, and they would tell me to shut up.
"By the end of it I didn't really care. I'd say stuff that was truthful, whereas a lot of people would say stuff you wanted to hear. I'm not too bothered about what people think, I'd rather speak my heart."
The people have a new leader, then - how long we have been like babes crying, lost in the wilderness, waiting for a calm voice to lead us. Thank god Lee's now able to say stuff about stuff - the stuff that he's passionate about, mind, not just any old stuff.
Of course, this does seem to be Ryan claiming that he's not that bothered about responding to the mass murder of thousands of people in a terrorist attack on 11th September with the observation that "who cares about that when elephants are dying?" being seen as a thick, callous, even moronic demonstration of a low-wattage brain unable to process more than one piece of information at a time and incapable of considering empathetically the likely effect of a statement, however heartfelt, on people suffering feelings of fear and anxiety. Let's hope we can bear the truths he now chooses to share with us.
The figures are in for the first two weeks sales of Mel B's new album (no, we didn't, either) - and it's great news. She's sold 600 copies of LA State of Mind. That's more than The Legends debut 7" managed, and proves that cruel jibes that only her friends would buy the album were misplaced - Mel B doesn't have 600 friends.
They keep telling us that publishing is in dire straits, and yet apparently someone is prepared to cough up half a million for a book by Jennifer Ellison. Now, obviously, the talk of a half a million deal is rubbish, but even so - why would anyone want a book about her life? Ellison is certain it's a great idea:
"I may be young, but I think I have lived many lives," Ellison told the Daily Star.
Hmm... a part in a soap opera after everyone had stopped watching it; a singing career that stiffed after just one single; a role in a film which was so small she was upstaged by the 'turn off your mobile' advert... perhaps we could suggest 'Bouncing Back' as a title? And a free torch for every purchaser?
On the other hand, maybe she's going to spill all about her boyfriends' connections with legitimate businessmen. Although we suspect the editing of such a tome might prove painful...
We've read a couple of reports online that Cerys Matthews has given birth to a son, and called him Jones, after Tom Jones. And we know she was pregnant, and so it's possible - the only thing is, the reports keep describing Jones as "her first child", when she's already got a daughter.
Yes, Tom Jones - according to the story, she started having contractions on the way to see a Tom Jones gig (such is the power of the man); and Jones might be a middle name - we have to hope so, because Jones Matthews is a clumsy old name to be working around with...
It might have taken a while for the Pixies to get round to following up Trompe le Monde, but that's nothing - theNew York Dolls are finally going to do a follow up to 1974's Too Much Too Soon. Rumours that it's going to be called Too Little, Too Late are probably just cruel but not that wide of the mark.
We can hardly contain our excitement at the mystery of Christina Aguilera's arm. The burlesque artist and sometimes singer apparently is wearing a cast and sling due to an extraordinary accident at her home:
Aguilera, 24, sliced two tendons in her arm two weeks ago when she picked up a piece of glass from a vase her dog knocked over and broke in her Los Angeles-area house, publicist Jill Fritzo said Friday.
Now, we're not an expert in these things, but how exactly do you manage to cut through two tendons accidently? While picking up a piece of broken glass? And how do you do that to your own arm, rather than your hand? It sounds like a terrible piece of bad luck leading to a chain of unexpected events. But of course, it must be the truth and not merely a story cooked up to counter the one that everyone believes, that the injury occured during a drunken fight in a Paris nightclub.
More interestingly - what's with her hair these days, and is she actively trying for a 'Kelly Osbourne does Marilyn Monroe auditioning for a part in the Lil'Rascals' look?
People with nothing better to do, the Parents Television Council, have completed playing through the ABC coverage of Live 8 and found something to be upset about - not for them the thought that it was all well-meant, and everyone was working to a quick turnaround, and if the odd rude word slipped through - well, compared with the obsecenity of people dying for want in a world of plenty, does it really matter that much? Oh no, the PTC has fired off a demand for ABC to be fined for missing a single "fuck" in the lyrics of a Who song:
"The program was aired on a tape delay, which should have given ABC ample time to edit all obscenities from the concert prior to broadcast," said Tim Winter, executive director of the PTC. "ABC took steps to edit other profanity from the broadcast. But given the time of day that this program aired, the broad family appeal of the Live 8 event, as well as the program's PG rating, ABC should have been more diligent."
The broad family appeal of Live 8? But surely a parent who didn't mind their younger children watching Snoop isn't going to freak with a barely audible fuck tucked away in the Who set? Added to which, what sort of family appeal does the fifty-something Who actually have? Were preteens really begging Mom and Pop to let them watch the tubby guys in M&S shirts and reading glasses.
Of course, nobody at all is that bothered; even by the PTC's own admission ABC caught all the other sweary bits so this was clearly just a small error - one might say a fuck-up - rather than any knowing attempt by the network to upset people by pumping sexspeak into their living rooms. The site of a supposed Christian organisation using an attempt to do something worthwhile as an excuse for their ongoing, mind-numbing attempt to force us all to live by their narrow standards isn't exactly edifying; the question remains: if you dislike TV so much, why do keep watching it so closely? Get rid of the TV, sell the VCR and spend the rest of your days playing Jenga and reading the less racy parts of the Bible. Don't try and force the rest of us to live by your own narrow moral code.
Victor Edward Willis isn't a cop, but he played one in the Village People. Now he's getting to hang out with real policemen, as they take him down to the station and process him after finding a gun and some drugs in his car. On top of that, there was apparently a fifteen grand felony warrant outstanding for other drug-related offences. They want you, oh my goodness.
It's not known if the one who dressed as a builder is having any building work done, but it's not impossible.
Babyshambles let down Oasis; The Zutons took their place. But now The Zutons have had to pull out of their REM support tomorrow - they'd been supposed to be playing with the band last week; but of course, the London bombings put paid to that. (When you think about it, this means that The Zutons were only free to do the Oasis MK date last week because of the terrorist attacks, which is... well, pragmatic is one word for it.) REM will now face Hyde Park with just three supports - Johnathan Rice, Idlewild and Feeder.
For the second time this year, The Killers have had to cut short a show in Cologne because Brandon Flowers has lost his voice a handful of songs in.
The band's people are suggesting that this time round, it's just a spot of voice problems at the end of a somewhat extended European tour - but the fact its struck twice in the same city makes you wonder if he's allergic to something in the local air?
Anyway: if they arrange another gig there, and you go, insist you'll only pay for the songs they actually get through.
According to 6Music news yesterday, Strangeways' governor turned down Ian Brown's offer to return to the prison he did time in, to do a quick gig for the inmates. We're not sure of the reason, but we'd imagine that it was a combination of the average of people in British prisons being about 13 now, so they wouldn't know who Brown was, and Brown's little micro-riot at T in the Park. Last thing Strangeways needs is another riot...
We're a little puzzled about Seal electing to give people tips on being famous - it's like getting tourist advice from your grandad for a place he visited during the war. Anyway, seal stopped shagging Heidi Klum and eating panther steaks for long enough to warn people just how awful it is being famous and rich and fabulous. Oh, you wouldn't know:
"Your private life is suddenly owned by everyone. They control you, make up stories, exaggerate things. Many people crack under this pressure."
The terrible pressures of deciding which helicopter to use really do get to a person after a while. Poor Seal; poor, poor Seal.
Sharon Osbourne is having trouble flogging off the mansion they used on their "look at us" TV show - she thinks its because people gather outside to have a gander; we suspect it might be because buyers saw that dog shitting all over the place (Anne Maurice would agree with us, we're sure). So, ever the woman of business affairs, Osbourne is thinking of turning the house into a tourist attraction. Well, she's already turned her family into global circus freaks; why not have a sideshow as well?
Trouble over in St Louis, where KATZ-FM's DJ Kaos and DJ Sylli Asz have been suspended after spending some time onair talking about the best ways to fight policemen. Station boss Lee Clear (oddly, it's owned by Clear Channel - no relation) says that this was "entirely inappropriate." It's not helped that a week ago Sergeant William McEntee had been shot and killed in the line of duty in St Louis.
DJ Silly Ass? Oh, my sides.
Things must be jolly in the Pixies camp right now - not only are they doing lots of dates, taking them into year two of a reunion, but they're talking about making a whole new album.
Black Charles Frank Francis says this:
“It's all hugs and kisses, I'm pleased to report. We have been discussing recording a new album lately. As happy as we are with the success of the reunion tour, we really want to make a record for the right reasons, whether it is successful commercially or not. We would be satisfied if it played like our other records, never chart-topping but always in print."
And we'd be happy if it was better than Trompe Le Monde, which we never thought was a very high note to bow out on anyway.
Our favourite former Spice, Mel C, has poured cold water on rumours of Spice Girls reunion, despite the claims they're all off recording stuff for it. Mel, it seems, doesn't want it:
"I'm sure some people are quite keen for that to happen but I am not one of them."
There are rumours that the reunion of the Five Spices will now be like the Five Doctors, with Mel C frozen on a screen and her absence explained away as her being trapped in some sort of Space stasis. And Geri will be played by a small old man who looks a bit like her.
Let nobody think for a minute that Jessica Simpson is a bubble-headed idiot who views the poor and dispossesed as some sort of toy - she's much more stupid than that:
The singer turned actress has revealed that she tried to adopt a child from a Mexican orphanage when she was 16.
According to IOL.com she said: "That's what I wanted for my birthday but I couldn't legally get a baby across the Mexican border."
Apparently, her and her comedy partner ("husband") Nick Lachey are going to adopt - it's a great way of adding a character to their television series without Jessica actually having to ever be in the same room as Nick.
Of course, we're the last people to raise an eyebrow at a hastily-worded phrase on the internet... but are BBC News really suggesting that the Queen wouldn't let Queen back into a royal park until they changed their lead singer?:
It will be the first time Queen has performed in Hyde Park for 29 years, with original singer Freddie Mercury now replaced by Paul Rodgers.
Not, of course, that Paul Rodgers has replaced Freddie... you can put on someone else's lurex catsuit, but that doesn't mean it'll fit. The current Queen are like The Golden Palace - a spin-off with everything except what made the thing worth watching in the first place.
So, the first BBC TWO TOTP airs this Sunday, but if you're hoping for a leap in quality, the who's on page will leave you feeling slightly disappointed. First item listed?
Fantastic Four 'Star Guest'
Alas, they're not singing or anything, but the cast of Marvel's new Fantastic 4 movie will be dropping in for a chat on this week's show.
Presumably if we did ring up and ask why, someone would have an answer, wouldn't they?
Actually, two of the songs on next month's new Cowboy Junkies album are going to be new, but the rest are covers, although - to be honest - the choices (Lennon, Dylan, U2) are somewhat pedestrian and disappointing. Especially given their field of concern:
The Junkies instructed one another to "bring two or three songs, written by others and the themes of the songs had to relate to war, violence, fear, greed, ignorance, loss." In doing so, their goal was "to create our own small document of hope."
Nothing, you'll note, from We Don't Want Your Fucking War.
Still, we're sure it'll sound lovely.
Early 21st century Blues is available for pre-order now.
