OZZY AND THERAPIST

You'd have thought that years of faux-devil worshipping, accidently feasting on bats, and having to watch Kelly rehearse would take its toll on the mind of Ozzy Osbourne, and, indeed it has: he now goes nowhere without a travelling therapist. It's Sharon that causes him the most worry:

"People with addictive personalities have different thought patterns. In my head I'll go, 'My wife's late: She's had a car crash... I'll think, 'She's fucking run off with some other rock star. My head creates havoc - I can't fucking take pain in my life anymore."

We can only imagine how terrible this is - you've got yourself to the point where you're convinced that, for whatever reason, Sharon isn't coming home. Then you hear her key in the lock. Imagine how the sudden loss of that hope would hit you.

music ozzy osbourne sharon osbourne

APOLOGIES, IT'S KORN

We can understand Korn being excited by their deal with EMI - apparently, the label has forgotten its RIAA-given mission to use the money it makes to support struggling new artists and decided to just spunk about GBP7million straight into the cadaverous rock beast. What we don't understand is why Yahoo Music is so excited by the deal:

The British-based record company has signed the rock-rap act to a precedent-setting deal. In what may well be a template for future band-label contracts, EMI will not only take a cut of Korn's CD sales, but the company will also pocket around 25 percent of the act's publishing, merchandising and touring revenue.

Precedent-setting? In the sense that it's the first time a rock-rap act has ever signed a deal exactly the same as the one Robbie Williams signed a few years back?

music korn emi

YOU ARE FROGGING JOKING, SURELY?

It's time to take a reading again from the US media, nearly two years on from Janet Jackson's nipple incident. A study by the Center for Creative Voices in Media has found that, apparently, there's a link between media consolidation and indecency. Now, we'd love to think that was true, but frankly it's just bonkers. Unless we want to believe that Clear Channel's business plan involves buying as many stations as possible in order to get the word "fuck" onto the airwaves.

No, actually, what the finding says is:

that from 2000 to 2003, four of the largest radio companies in the US were responsible for 96% of FCC indecency fines.

Sure, we support the CCVM call for caps on media ownership and so on, but this is just a spurious argument. Perhaps the reason why the four largest radio companies get fined so much is, erm, because they own so many radio stations? We're not sure what the combined market penetration of these four companies are, but it's going to be pretty high; added to which, the fact that they often buy up well-loved local outfits and change them beyond recognition might lead to the audiences of their networks being pissed off with their attitude to begin with, and thus more likely to complain if obscenity slips out. (You'll let the local ditzy lady get away with much more than someone who's shipped in out of town.) Finally, the FCC is probably more minded to come down heavily on obscenity which is syndicated than just slipping out on a single network.

So: yes, there may be a correlation, but we can't accept there's a causal link.

music radio fcc

WHO KNEW THERE WAS A BATTLE LESS COMPELLING THAN THE TORY PARTY LEADERSHIP RACE

Despite the best efforts of some to strip the planet bare, we live in a world where there is enough for all; plenty to go round. Especially when it comes to dull singer-songwriters - the massive sales racked up by James Blunt would show that there's no shortage of takers for chunky men strumming guitars and singing like they're forcing out an especially tenacious deer-poop in the mistaken belief that this shows them to be especially soulfull.

So why does David Gray feel the need to have a go at James Blunt?:

"James Blunt is doing alright but I don't have too much of an opinion. I don't have his record. [...] Getting success is relatively easy compared to hanging onto it. [...] Perhaps I've been responsible for opening a door in that way."

Depressingly enough, Gray, this town is more than big enough for the pair of you, and probably five or six others as well. Still, if you ever do fancy taking on Blunt in a fight to the death in a metal cage, we'd be happy to organise a sponsor of some sort.

music james blunt david gray

VIRGIN LOSES IT

A curiosity in the current advertising campaign for Virgin Radio: at the end of the advert, the station's frequency is given as "104.9FM in London and Digital nationwide", or words to that effect. Which means they've appeared to have dropped their AM frequency altogether, at least from their promotions. Very modern and forward-looking, but we wonder if it's not a tad premature.

music radio virgin

AN OLD FRIEND GETS A NEW FACE

Yes, yes, of course the Guardian had its relaunch today (bring back Doonesbury, Rusbridger, then we'll talk), but so did nme.com. It's an interesting new look, in that it's set out to try and make things look cleaner but, in the process, wound up feeling slightly more cluttered than it did before. So, the news pages now have larger photos, but the actual news story has been shoved right off to the edge, which feels a little bit uncomfortable to read that easily - there's no reason why you have to follow the web design crowd, of course, but intuitively, a thinish column on the right of a page feels like it's secondary material.

The missed trick, though, is that there's no obvious RSS feed from the news pages - most of their rivals allow readers to set up their newsreader to do the legwork; we guess the commercial logic is that if you don't let people see what's in the window, they'll be forced to come through the front door to find out. Our gut instinct, though, is that people will visit much more frequently if they don't have to go out of their way to find out what's on offer.

music nme web design

BEN FIVE FOLDS

It never seemed to be that likely, but Ben Folds has confirmed to 6Music that the Ben Folds Five won't be reuniting. Ever.

Which is good news, but it's not like someone's burnt his piano.

music music ben folds five

FIRST LOVES NEVER, EVER DIE

Curious... Robbie Williams claimes to have a soft spot for Keira Knightly because she reminds him of his first true love.

We wonder...



... no, surely not...

music graham souness keira knightly robbie williams

A GREAT WAY TO FLY

Delta Goodrem - the poor man's Kerry Katona - apparently managed to get a plane to delay its take off by lying to the air hostess. The plane was due to leave Dubai, when Goodrem remembered she'd forgotten her diary. Somehow, the air hostess got the idea she was talking about "study papers for an exam" and had the plane return to the gate.

I think we can safely assume from this that Delta wasn't anywhere near the back of the plane.

Let's hope that didn't cause the plane to miss its flight slot - otherwise, you know, she might find a lot of fellow passengers suing her for losses due to the delay.

music delta goodrem aviation

LONDONIST LIKE THE CHILDREN

Amongst the early reviews of the War Child album comes one from Londonist, which is like Gothamist, only more Steptoe and Son than Kate and Allie.

As with it's predecessor it makes for decent snapshot of our NME / XFM sponsored music scene and whilst hanging together better as an album in its own right. Many of the songs included here are worthy of a place on a full-on long player.

The mildly approving tone is withheld from the Kaiser Chief's Heard It Through The Grapevine, though ("a fairly droneful, uninspiring cover") but, in keeping with received ideas, Babyshambles are given a tick without any real underwriting of why:

Kudos then to Pete D and crew who raise the stakes once more, late entrants in the game too, with the pleasingly shambolic acoustic strum through From Bollywood To Battersea replete with rain sticks. Well why not.

We do wonder, though, if we'd not be better served by people reviewing charity albums without telling them that's what they are - nobody really wants to criticise a collection pulled together with an open heart; it'd be like phoning up the Spastics Society and asking them if they couldn't find a prettier girl to model for the child-in-calipers collection box.

music warchild londonist

MAKING ENDS MEET

The RIAA claims that it needs to sue dead people and preteens in order to ensure that its members can continue to support new talent. It's a plausible excuse, of course, but hardly stands up to any sort of scrutiny - the major labels barely keep any musician's larder full, as the experience of the Mooney Suzuki shows.

The zooks, as nobody ever calls them, aren't a bad bunch and have a pretty solid following, but the decision to merge Sony and BMG had left them without a label; they've finally been able to persuade V2 to take them on, but what kept them going wasn't all this fabled investment from RIAA members, but the cash from soundtracking adverts.

So, that's a band who are commercial enough to, well, be used in commercials, but who take months to find a label willing to take them on as a low-risk. What chance do the bands whose music might not sit quite so well on the top of a Levis model have of getting a decent living out of an RIAA company?

music mooney suzuki riaa

MCCARTNEY ACCUSED OF GROPING

It was never like this back in the 60s, of course, when a spot of unrequested fondling was less likely to see you thrown into jail. But this is the 21st century, and Mike McCartney, former member of Scaffold and (of course) younger brother of the more famous Paul is looking at a jail sentence after, it's alleged, he went up to a waitress during a family function at a Wirral pub, and "groped her behind." McCartney has been charegd with "indecent touching" - after he originally suggested bringing the police in to sort matters out:

"I have been a prisoner in my own home, restricted in what I can say in this very delicate matter.

"It was originally me who insisted the police be involved to resolve the matter.

"I have been asking for the truth to be told for over a year.

"All will be revealed when we get to the truth of this ludicrous allegation."

McCartney pleaded not guilty to the charge last week; the case comes back to court next month.

music scaffold mike mccartney

INSIDE ROBBIE'S HEAD

Robbie Williams has pulled together a dream vision for his latest video. Or rather his director Johan Renck has. Renck explains the goings-on thus:

"It's dark and playful, with the feeling of being chased without managing to get anywhere. It's like a dream and the paranoid feeling of tripping out."

Well... the sense that you're not going anywhere and are trapped is something we've always experienced watching his videos in the past, so it's great that things are being kept consistent.

Apparently, he spends much of the video fopping it up as a dandy and spend some time with men with frocks. If that's what your dreams are, Robbie...

music robbie williams

YOU KNOW, THIS IS PROBABLY WHAT GEORGE WOULD HAVE WANTED

Being a forgiving and open-minded sort, George Harrison woyuld probably have been more appalled by the outraged attitude in the local press that the man who stabbed him, Michael Abram, is working for the Citizens Advice Bureau than that Abrams is healthy and doing work to help others.

We're sure that won't stop the frothing outrage, though.

music george harrison the beatles

EDITH BOWMAN'S TITS

Still one of the most popular google search terms bringing people to No Rock, and today they're doing some good work for charity, as Edith fronts Breast Cancer Care:

"I've been supporting Breast Cancer Care and the campaign for a couple of years.

"I've had experience of cancer in my family and it's good to use what we do in terms of drawing people's attention to it. It's one of the benefits of doing what you do.

"I've never had breast cancer but you want to be aware of it before it goes too far. It's the kind of thing you need to check. I'm the first person to admit I'm really lazy and not up to speed on checking myself every month but when you do something like this, you realise you should do it."

Apparently by buying a pair of pink wellingtons from Asda you can help, too. No word on if Colin Murray's bollocks are going to be doing any charity work in the future.

music edith bowman

IS SHE A MUMMY?

Lots of excitement with Britney Spears rushing to hospital yesterday - could she have had her kid a month early?

No, as it turns out.

Perhaps she had some other reason for rushing to the hospital - we bet Kevin Federline got a saucepan stuck on his head.

music britney spears pregnancy

THE THINGS WE DO WHEN WE'RE OFF OUR HEADS

Has Kate Moss finally taken the joke too far? Pete Doherty was taunting paparazzi photographers* by waving round a wedding ring and claiming they'd missed the junkie wedding of the year.

* - taunting photographers from The Sun by claiming he's married a model. Just how cool is he?

music pete doherty kate moss babyshambles

WHAT THE POP PAPERS SAY: They report a riot

Shortly after the tracklist for the War Child album was announced, we did a lazy cut and paste from the BBC News site to slap the list onto No Rock. The Independent, it seems, did pretty much the same thing - although they pasted into the newspaper layout. So it was that, yesterday morning, after the tracks were already up and available for download, Independent readers would have been informed two of the tracks were called 'To Be Confirmed'.

Also in the Saturday paper, Deborah Orr had a pop at Chris Martin and, while we're always up for a bit of goosing Mr. Martin, she doesn't seem to have twigged that his claim X&Y was based on "watching porn" was a heavy-handed joke rather than an actual fact. (To be fair, we didn't bother to watch their Mercury acceptance video close enough to notice that - rather than get some proper truckers to do the video, they wasted time and effort on making themselves up instead - it's not easy to tell when Coldplay are having a laugh). And Orr is bang on the money when she dismisses Martin's lip-quivering at the onslaught of poor reviews - "Martin is vain enough to enjoy his 'modest' image, and perhaps he thinks... he is being sensitive. Actually, it's just arrogant. [...] Maybe in America they prefer less homogenous critics as well as less homogenous music." Well, she has a point until the "maybe in America" bit.

It's been a bit of a queasy week reading The Guardian, as the paper prepares to drop the broadsheet format and go berliner - the first quality newspaper to make a single switch without a mid-way 'dual-format' period since The Sunday Correspondent. (Yes, there was a Sunday Correspondent, even although it sounds like the sort of newspaper title that mid-quality ITV dramas would give to a fictional newspaper.) The shuffling of the paper has meant that it's been virtually impossible to make it through a page this week without hitting someone saying "...this is the last column."

Amongst the losses are the radio diary, which is bittersweet - no more Colin Murray, but also no more Andrew Collins; and the Friday Review. Having said which, the Friday Review is being replaced by a magazine called something like Film and Music, which seems to be exactly the same thing but without a title that gets too easily confused with the Guardian Review, the Saturday books supplement.

For the farewell (Friday) Review, Mick Jagger sat down with Simon Hattenstone to talk about the latest batch of Rolling Stones songs. It's perhaps utterly disappointing, as Hattenstone warns less than two columns into a three page spread: "I'm waiting for great stories, but they don't come. Jagger is a rock & roll diplomat, an anecdote-free zone."

The song which has caused the greatest interest on the new album, the one about Bush that isn't about Bush, Sweet Neocon, isn't mentioned at all; the heat generated in the US over the track doesn't even get alluded to tangentally. But then even when songs are discussed, Sir Mick seems less than keen to talk about them - he's more interested in Hattenstone's waist size compared to his own (Jagger is 28 inches round, if you're planning a pub quiz). Having done everything he can to make the interview as dull as possible, Jagger then complains to his press officer that "it's getting a little Woman's Own."

A little better value is another knight of the realm, Paul McCartney, over in Time. Which is ironic, for while Jagger's interview shows the supposed rebel of rock is little more than the CEO of a well-organised machine, McCartney more or less accepts he's quite dull - "I'm pretty straight, and I don't mind at all that people see me that way" - he seems to be much more interested in making music for music's sake, and quite happy to serve up words unminced. Working with Radiohead producer Nigel Goodrich, for example, wasn't always easy: "There were a few times I thought, I could sack this guy. I've produced more records than he's even looked at in a shop."

Ian Brown used to be in The Stone Roses, you know, and this week, he's on the cover of the NME. "There's more chance of me reforming the Happy Mondays than the Stone Roses" he announces, before launching into a happy run through of his solo career highlights. And, yes, that does mean he starts going on about dolphins used to be monkeys again. And why shouldn't he? It'll only be a matter of time before they have to teach that as a theory in US schools, too.

Leading off the news is that a film of the Libertines doing a guerilla gig in 2003 is going to be part of the Raindance Film festival - it could well yet prove to be a moment like that one of the Pistols playing Manchester, where virtually everyone in the audience went on to be someone you've heard of, and a valuable historical document. Or, on the other hand, it might just be a pilot for a sitcom that never made it to a full length series. Whichever, the movie seems to be less interesting right now than it will be in ten year's time.

The results of the 2005 festival season poll is in. The summer's overall rating for 'the best ever' - 45% - makes it slightly more popular than George Bush. But what's telling is the lack of anything totally outstanding anywhere - the best Festival might have been Glastonbury (25%) or Reading Weekend (24%) or maybe Leeds (14%). Or possibly T (12%). The best band? The Foo Fighters. But only 16% reckon so; Kasabian and The Arcade Fire both poll 13%. Interestingly, the same proportion of people think Live8 and Oasis were the best shows of the season.

A slightly less rosy view of the Festival season rolls up with a belated page covering the violence at the end of Leeds - crowds chanting "I predict a riot" and claims that security were heavy handed. The seriousness of the trouble is marked by Melvin Benn, of Clear Channel's Mean Fiddler Group, sending a pre-emptive letter to the paper admitting there was some bad things happening - or, as he puts it, "hugely disappointing scenes." The "disappointments" include kids losing their eyes as gas canisters exploded in fires (a curious echo of the story told in the swiftly-deleted Reading security guy's post); security guys coming under a shower of missiles; the woman in charge of the cider tent screaming in terror as her stock was ransacked; security being poured in to protect a sponsor tent (yes, make sure the sponsor's tents are protected - were FEMA running security at Reading?). Benn has promised to look into claims that security responded to these "disappointments" with heavy-handed action, but says that he saw no evidence of it himself. He has asked for people who did to get in touch, though.

The Leeds Festival is sponsored by Carling Lager.

Peter Robinson meets up with Tony Mitchell of the Mitchell Brothers and nearly avoids mentioning eastenders at all. But he does, anyway, and gets Mitchell to blurt out that he'd pinch Zoe Slater's arse and go through the back door. It's like Round The Horne never ended, isn't it?

Wonderfully, they invite Ms Dynamite to write about the curse of the Mercury Prize . She says that she didn't even notice there was meant to be a curse attached to winning the thing - which she did, back in 2002, when she was famous. Perhaps the curse works like that overused frog-in-gently-heating-water metaphor; it creeps up on you bit by bit and you don't notice as your feet slowly melt. Or, indeed, until you suddenly wonder how long you've been standing in frog soup.

Art rock? Synths? "Goerring has an H&M charge card" costume fun? It can only be a Visage retrospective. Or, perhaps, radar looking at White Rose Movement. Ironically (obviously ironically, this is bloody art rock) they're named after a Weimar German anti-Nazi group. One of them is called Taxxi.

Despite not actually winning either the band of the summer or the surprise hit of the festival polls, they go ahead and tell The Arcade Fire are the toast of Reading-Leeds. Win wasn't impressed with Pete Doherty: "Baby-sham-balls. The name says it all."

The last guy who did the PR for Jet has given it all up to study catering in Northampton. And sorting out the Northern branch of the Toby carvery in that city would surely give greater benefit to mankind than forcing the Cester brother's faces into yet another magazine. It's like the bloody Oasis Babies, it really is, with a bunch of half-considered soundbites which would be self-aggrandising if they made any sense. For example, they stayed in a villa shortly after Mikhail Gorbachev had stayed in there so they blurt "the fuckin' KGB will be after us now." What does that even mean? Because you went to a place after someone who is no longer the head of state of a nation stayed there, you're going to be pursued by a now-defunct secret police force? I once spent a night in a hotel that Charles II was meant to have slept in - presumably I should ensure my life insurance covers death by cavalier?

reviews
live
black rebel motorcycle club - london garage - "evolved, and better for it" (and, from the photo, Robert has evolved into Xander Harris)
the research - london 93 feet east - "hide bitter, twisted lyrics"
lancaster bombers - hoxton underbelly - "a jagged mess... the anti-bore rock fightback starts here"

albums
dandy warhols - odditorium or warlords of mars - "a tricky beast to love", 6
paul mccartney - chaos and creation in the backyward - "he has come out of his safety zone, but...", 6
simple minds - black & white 050505 - "round them up like pigs; shoot them like dogs", 2

tracks
totw - devendra banhart - i feel just like a child - "he's weird, he has a beard, he needs to be revered"
mew - special - "what might happen if they got their shit together a bit?"
HIM - wings of a butterfly - "reminiscent of Final Countdowners Europe"

And, finally, as Charlotte Church is the victim of the dullest ever attempt to wreck a career with a kiss and tell (to be honest, there's more dirt in The Sunday Times' headline on its profile of her - "A Welcome In My Hillside" - than in it's sister paper, the News of the World's lame expose), we can't help but notice that Max Clifford is having his memoirs serialised. In the Daily Express. If Clifford is such a shit-hot press manipulator, couldn't he have placed his book with something a little less shabby? Like the Brighton and Hove Leader, or somewhere inside the Friday-Ad?

music magazines newspapers guardian berliner mick jagger paul mccartney pete doherty babyshambles charlotte church arcade fire dandy warhols chris martin coldplay rolling stones

YOU MIGHT BE PLAYING IN A FIELD, BUT... SURELY THERE MUST HAVE BEEN MIRRORS?

Rolling Stone have just published their gallery of Reading images. Which raises a huge question:



Juliette Lewis, what the hell were you thinking?

music reading festival reading juliette lewis

BLUESOBIT: Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown

While living in a temporary home after fleeing Hurricane Katrina, Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown has died.

Born into a musical family in 1924, Brown was taught fiddle and guitar by his father; skills which allowed him to join a travelling show and - after a spell in the army - to find a role as a jobbing musician inSan Antonio. From there, he moved to Don Robey's San Antonio club, the Peacock, where his big break came when asked to fill in for an ailing T-Bone Walker. Robey was so pleased with his success as a fill-in - he'd pulled in $600 in tips - he suggested Gatemouth (the nickname came from his deep voice) try his luck in Los Angeles.

First on the Aladdin label, and then on Robey's own label, also called Peacock, Brown pulled together a formidable body of work, but felt the need to stretch himself artistically. In 1961, he quit Peacock and tried a range of styles, recording for Chess, Black and Blue, Barclay and others and leaping between jazz, country, cajun and various shades of blues over the next two decades. He even managed a novelty hit, May The Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose.

In the 1980s, Rounder Records paired him with a brassy band to great effect - 1982's Alright Again won him a Grammy; that opened a period of being almost battered by prizes: eight WC Handy Blues awards, induction into the Blues Hall of Fame, the R&B Foundation's Pioneer Award; and a Heroes recogntion from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

Even as he started to slide into ill-health, Brown managed to do a couple of live gigs every week, something he saw as slacking:

“I started off at 300 (dates a year) and then I backed off to 250. Now I do maybe 100 a year.”

His final album was for HighTone Records, Timeless; it was released a year ago this week.

Brown had been struggling against lung cancer and heart disease for some time, but his agent, Rick Cady, believes that his home in Slidell, LA, was destroyed had left him "heartbroken, literally and figuratively":

"He evacuated successfully before the hurricane hit, but I'm sure it weighed heavily on his soul."

The 81 year-old had been living with his brother's family in Orange, Texas since quitting Louisiana. The town had been his childhood home. A fund had been established to try and replace some of his lost instruments.

music obit obituary clarence gatemouth brown gatemouth katrina hurricane katrina

LUCKY OLD GWYNETH PALTROW

Fair enough, she might have the horror of having to pass the bathroom door when Chris Martin has left it open, but there's something to be said for being Gwyneth Paltrow: apparently, Chris Martin refuses to let his wife and kid listen to Coldplay.

We respect that about him; but we're not quite sure why he'd feel it appropriate for anyone else to do something he wouldn't ask his own family to do. It's like a proper Labour MP sending their kid to private school.

music gwyneth paltrow coldplay chris martin

IF ONLY SHE COULD ACTUALLY MAKE CONVINCING POP MUSIC

God, we'd love to love Charlotte Church - maybe if someone could give her some dancing lessons or something, or bought her a load of Banarama DVDs it might help. But we're thinking more and more we should overlook her unconvincing delivery, because, frankly, people who can smack out perfect ripostes like her reaction to Cheryl Tweedy are the sort of people we need in pop.

Tweedy, as you might remember, reckoned Charlotte had stolen "the Girls Aloud style" (itself lifted from Toto Coelo). Charlotte's response?

"I thought, love, when you can fucking sing Ave Maria, then have a go."

music charlotte church cheryl tweedy girls aloud

SORRY, WE MIGHT HAVE JUST FALLEN OFF THE CHAIR LAUGHING

Last week, you might recall, Lee Ryan was hinting that he was about to record a duet with a mysterious, top name female vocalist.

You'll never guess who she is.

Jo O'Meara.

Sorry, did we say you wouldn't guess who she was? We meant remember who she was. She was the one of S Club 7 who wasn't Rachel Stevens or, the, um, other five. What was the one who dressed up as the hot dog?

Lee, you're playing with the big names now. We hope you're ready to take the step up.

music lee ryan jo o'meara s club 7

THIS IS YOUR BIG DEAL?

Well, we have to say, we're frankly shocked, having read the stuff from the News of the World where Charlotte Church's ex, Steve Johnson 'reveals all'. Shocked that she was able to put up with such a prurient, deluded twonk for as long as eighteen months.

Charlotte, what were you thinking?

Johnson - and was ever a prick so well named? - claimed that the stuff in his book was so astonishing, if the Church family didn't pay him millions, they'd be rocked to their very foundations and Chazza's career would be in tatters. So, what have you got, Johnson?

"I was at my dad's house in Cardiff Bay when I got a call from a friend of Charlotte's," recalled Steve, who has written a book about his life with the pop and classical diva.

"She said asked if I could get them some weed. I had some cannabis and told the girls to come over. Charlotte and three mates arrived at my door about 9pm. I'd seen Charlotte at a party a few weeks before but we'd never spoken.

"I invited them up to my bedroom where I was smoking with two mates. I rolled a spliff, sparked it up and took a big fat puff. Then I passed it on to Charlotte.

"She inhaled it deeply. I could tell it wasn't her first time.

Teenage girl in 21st century Britain smoke a bit of blow? Well, I never did. You'll be telling us she used poppers next.

"She took a few more pulls then sniffed from a small bottle of poppers, which gives you a sort of head rush.

"They stayed about two hours and we had two or three spliffs between us. When she left at 2am I asked or a kiss and she let me. It was a proper French kiss and I wanted to get it on with her there and then.

Goodness... not a proper French kiss with a man she's known for a while? If you'll excuse me, I'll have to go and look up what the appropriate letter for carving on this harlot's bossom actually is.

"We met next day and she invited me to her place. She said her mum was away and they were having a party. ‘Bring some weed,' she said.

So, really, she was just interested in you as a dealer, is what you're telling us?

Oh, but there's more, much more:

"So I took a bag of skunk. When I arrived at Charlotte's mansion she was already drunk. We were snogging as soon as I got through the door. She tried to roll a spliff on the kitchen table but was so drunk that I had to do it in the end.

"Then I took her up to her attic bedroom and we fell on her four-poster. I slipped her top off and we started kissing passionately.

"But then she pulled away and admitted she was a virgin and asked me to leave. She told me we had to keep our relationship from her mum and the Press. But the papers soon found out and her mum went berserk. For two months we had to date in secret but still we just kissed and cuddled.

Hmm... Johnson, have you forgotten you're meant to be portraying Charlotte as some sort of sex-crazed hell kitten.

He then goes on to detail her loss of virginity - he really does want us to think he's a greedy, valueless arsehole, doesn't he? - and claim they did the "A to Z of sex" - although, for someone happy to spill the details of someone's virginity to the cheaper newspapers, Steve doesn't sound that adventurous:

One night I was eating strawberry ice cream in bed and she said, ‘Can you spread it on me and lick it off?'

You'll note he doesn't actually say that he did it - indeed, he seems to think this is some kind of outre, virtually continental request rather than the sort of thing most grown-up people do much of the time. Is anyone else thinking Alan Partridge and the chocolate mousse here?

But, hey, Johnson was on the look out for her career:

On top of all the skunk she smoked 20 cigarettes a day—not a good idea when your voice is your fortune.

No, Steve; her fortune was her fortune, actually. But nice of you to be concerned.

You're probably wondering why Charlotte is no longer with this charmer. The obvious answer is that she woke up to herself one day; or finally realised that: yes, she could do better. Or perhaps having done the A-Z of Sex, she thought she might be better off with someone who did it passionately rather than in a bid to work through some sort of list. There's a list of possible reasons, but Steve has his own theory:

When Steve found success as a model rows began to flare.

He found success as a model? Really? That must have been one of the Marshall Wards catalogues we missed out on.

"Everyone believes I was the bad guy who brought down the angel. But Charlotte can do that all by herself."

Although, Johnson, you do seem to be quite keen to get some sort of knuckle-headed revenge, what with the demands for money to not publish this book. And, who knows, if Charlotte had been attempting to run for Pope, or maybe even a junior ministership at the Home Office, "girl has typical life of a British teen" might have given you that revenge. As it is, you just come out of it looking pretty shabby yourself - a money grubbing type who seems to be shocked and surprised by mild drug abuse and slightly kinky sex. Good luck with your modelling career, mate - and do watch out for the cocaine. Although how much luck you'll have in any job where discretion is valued in the future is quite debatable.

music charlotte church steve johnson

THIS WEEK, WE PLUGGED...

Try and get past the slightly grisly cover


Pet Shop Boys take nearly 100 years to complete a film soundtrack


A post-apocalyptic world where the only TV is Words and Pictures


Twelve live pieces from the Violent Femmes

RAY CHARLES' STUFF - NEVER STOLEN

The case against Ray Charles' former audio engineer, in which Terry Howard was accused of pinching master tapes, has been thrown out by a judge in Los Angeles:

But Superior Court Judge Samuel Mayerson dismissed the charges after two days of preliminary hearings, ruling there to be insufficient evidence for a trial.

"I do not find that he, at any time, intended to permanently deprive the victims of this property, and I dismiss this case," Mayerson said in court.

Howard's lawyer told reporters that Joe Adams, the man charged with representing Ray Charles' legacy at "Ray Charles Enterprises" made no attempt to request the return of the masters - believed to be some eight million dollars' worth - and just reported the supposed theft to the police.

music ray charles

MR. MADONNA SHOOTS SELF IN FOOT

Showing the sort of sympathetic understanding of other people's feelings you'd expect from the family of one of the world's bigger cults, some bright spark slapped up a massive poster for Guy Ritchie's new movie Revolver on the spot of a fatal shooting last year.

Of course, it's not Ritchie's fault it happened - the high-profile member of the Kabbalah organisation merely made another dimwitted movie elevating gun-waving morons into some sort of latter day heroes; he didn't actually put the posters for the film up.

Oddly, Redbus, who distribute the film, also say it's not their fault:

The distribution company behind the film, Redbus, said it is sorry if it has caused any distress but added it is impossible to check individual poster sites.

Really? They're shoving up so many posters they can't check where they're putting them? Really? But if you can't guarantee your gun-romaticising poster isn't going to be going somewhere inappropriate, then should you be putting any up anywhere? Let's say, for example, we walked into a room with 1,000 cardboard boxes, one of which had the managing director of Redbus in it. And we had a gun. Would it be acceptable to fire a gun into one of the boxes, apoligising if we did cause any death and misery, so long as we explained that it was impossible to check if the box we were shooting into had the MD in it first?



Mind you, we think the Metropolitan Police might be worrying a little overmuch:

Sgt Greg Wakefield, of the Met Police, said the poster was sending out the wrong message to youths.

"If they saw this they would think that it was cool to carry a gun and shoot people," he said.

Generally, anything associated with Ritchie tends to lose any possible sheen of cool it may once have had.

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100 COUNTRIES?

It's nice to see another telethon romping out to raise money for those caught up in Katrina - because, heaven knows, after two weeks of watching kids who've lost their parents, old people dying in the streets, houses being smashed open by troops, people wading through a toxic soup of piss, shit, chemicals and oil to grab a box of lasagne, crying, pleading and human misery, it wouldn't be until Ellen DeGeneres tells a couple of jokes that I'd think "Hang on... maybe i should make a donation, here."

We're raising a curious eyebrow at the claim that viewers in 100 countries" could have watched the programme - we're pretty certain that it didn't air here in the UK, but maybe it did on some wilder shore of the Sky Digibox than we're accustomed to watching (hey, we were surprised to discover that Gems TV has a sister station now) - although we did see a couple of seconds on one of the US News Networks, so we don't know if that counted or not.

Kanye West appeared, but was made to stick to singing - his microphone was "broken" for a couple of moments at the start of his song; we guess that was someone testing the panic button a little too late. Having said which, producer Joe Gallen had pledged that anyone taking part who said something political would be left unbleeped:

"I think people know that politicizing will certainly not be a smart thing to do as far as inspiring people who want to call in and rally around this cause, which all of us in America are doing, not just the entertainment industry," Gallen said.

"If anybody has those kinds of feelings or are tempted to do it, I believe that's where they are going to channel their feelings, to inspire people to donate and leave the politicizing at home."

Of course, telling people that they'd be better off not speaking their mind, and leaning on them to suggest that there needs to be a massive charitable injection into a rescue effort in the richest nation on Earth, rather than, say, lobbying your senator to insist the plans to abolish estate tax be dropped and the money raised by doing that be used to rebuild Louisianan lives could, in itself, be thought as politicising things.

The Dixie Chicks were there, mind, singing their little hearts out. So, not entirely a politically neutered affair - because nobody ever sees the Dixie Chicks without thinking about Natalie Maines claiming to be embarrassed about coming from the same state. And, of course, when they did their Barbara Sawyer "clarification" interview, there was this:

SAWYER: Are you ashamed that the President is from your state?

MAINES: No.. I'm not truly embarrassed that you know President Bush is from my state, that's not really what I care about. It was the wrong wording with genuine emotion and questions and concern behind it…

MAGUIRE: I felt like there was a lack of compassion every time I saw Bush talking about this. I honestly felt a lack of compassion. And I realized ...

SAWYER: For whom? For ... ?

MAGUIRE: …for me…for people that are questioning this, for the people that are about to die for this on both sides…

Oh, yes. There's no way that having the Dixie Chicks on a telethon in this week could not be viewed as a gentle, political act.

Over on BET, a separate telethon was taking place (we're not entirely sure why black viewers had to have a separate fund raiser; perhaps there's a good reason we just can't think of - Diddy described it as "these are our people"), and another implied criticism of Bush:

Former President Bill Clinton called in to the BET telethon to express support and was asked by co-host Steve Harvey what his administration would have done differently if it were in power during the hurricane. Clinton refrained from criticizing Bush, but talked about the importance he placed on the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"We always thought faster was better than slower," Clinton said.

If that's refraining from criticizing Bush, we look forward to when he's free to really speak his mind.

Meanwhile, Kanye's comments continue to... well, not ruin his career. With Bush's approval rating dropping to 39% and people still scooping up armfulls of West's new albums, it's not altogether surprising that Pepsi are more than happy to keep their commercial relationship with him going. The fact that one of the touchiest companies in the US is happy to carry on using him as a spokesperson (remember how quickly the dropped Madonna?) would suggest that they're finding that Kanye's chiming with the majority view, rather than dropping an enormous clanger.

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YOU DON'T NEED NO MUSICIANS

Make your own music with the mighty WolframTones. Muck about choosing instruments, their role, percussive style and type of music and draw your own soundtrack out your PC.

To be honest, after a couple of minutes making a range of organs play the blues to a house beat, we started to wonder if we could find any solo stuff from the Atomic Kitten girls to clean our ears out with. Wolfram - only a Hart shy of their true, evil purpose.

music applications composition wolfram tones

FIRE WON'T BE GOING OUT SOON

Well, that's the end of that chapter - Arcade Fire have ruled out any further UK dates this side of a new album - and that could be quite a way off. Tim Kingsbury, the bassist, explains:

We want to start making a new record. We've got a lot of writing to do too. We've been touring these songs for a couple of years so we're ready to move on. Hopefully it will be out within a year but it's hard to say."

Disturbingly, they've got their own studio to work in so can spend as long as they please on the next record - which is great for them, but there's always a risk that without a meter running focusing attention on matters in hand, you're liable to end up with a Second Coming. Stone Roses style, not Jesus.

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