This week just gone

Seven days on No Rock and Roll Fun:

The ten most-popular stories this week:
1. Lindi Hingston: My night with Pete Doherty
2. R Kelly 'underage' sex video to get legal airing
3. Lily Allen changes her knickers between stations
4. Beth Ditto nude for the NME
5. Roisin Isner loses fingers, career in firework assault
6. Britney Spears: will drop pants for acting work
7. McFly nude for their Gay show
8. Nick Lachey sex photo flap
9. Early tickets for T in the Park 2008 sell out
10. Akon hands kids money off vouchers for dildos

You can read the whole week on one page,
or skim the previous week in one post.

Also this week: Trying to deny she'd ripped off one songwriter, Avril Lavigne admitted ripping off the Stones and Ramones; Shed Seven, Steps and Atomic Kitten cameback and Duncan James and Towers of London went; the Mail On Sunday wanted to make the charts and Michael Eavis pledged to bring back the 'old' Glastonbury spirit by, erm, selling tickets on the phones.

Five years ago: Fred Durst hoped to keep out of trouble with dead fans by playing gigs through cinema screens; record companies complaints about covermounts expanded to include the whine that the free CDs boost circulations so record labels have to pay more to buy ads inside; Dionne Warwick's explanation for the discovery of cannabis in her handbag was the factual-but-weak "someone must have put it in there"; Mike Oldfield complained about how uninspired modern music is - between anniversary editions of Tubular Bells, of course; Garlands burned in Liverpool; someone waved a gun at - or near - Hear'Say; those lovely major labels started to get caught up in a modern payola scandal while Janis Ian explained why the labels are ultimately doomed; and the Norman Cook Brighton Beach party led to local press over-reaction on a scale larger than the actual gig.

This week's interesting new stuff:


The Strange Death of Liberal England's "apocalyptic post-rock singing, dancing, clapping and shouting" at album length


...and Elvis Perkins' surprisingly similarly sleeved CD


Violet Violet album - with free cut-out moustache


If you foolishly spent the Britpop years bearing the indiegrudge against the mighty Lou Wener, grab a Sleeper best of and admit you were wrong


It's been nine years since the last Buffalo Tom album... until now


Young Marble Giants re-issued and expanded even more Colossal Youth


Tenth anniversary buff-up for the Foo's The Colour and the Shape


Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, EmmyLou Harris, Elvis Costello and others pay tribute to June Carter Cash


Mooney Suzuki shrug off the "garage rock's Spinal Tap" jibe from Rolling Stone


Twenty garage rock psych-outs

They could fill their cakehole again

If the Take That Reunion was like meeting long-lost friends, and the Spice Girls comeback bumping into people you remember from school, that would make the rumoured Atomic Kitten resurrection a bit like that sinking feeling when you run across someone who you used to work with. Who smelled of carpets.

They're plotting to do a Cilla Black cover - Anyone Who Had A Heart, sadly, and no "Oh no sir, nothing tastes nicer, than Cadbury's Dairy Milk" - but, if we as a nation show even a glimmer of something other than total indifference, they're threatening to do more.

Kaisers eye Wembley

Talking of people seriously overestimating their pulling-power, it turns out that the Kaiser Chiefs are hoping for a little of that Muse action:

"Their shows are spectacular and their reputation has grown and grown," Nick [Baines] told the Daily Star. "They've sneaked up and become a stadium band. We've seen that if you've got the guts to book stadiums, people will buy the tickets.

"Muse aren't as dynamic as us - and we have more banter. People talk about Muse in the same way as U2 or the Rolling Stones - and that's what we want."

We're not sure if they're really hoping to be be spoken of as Muse are - a band who've managed to control their rise to larger venues without, yet, pandering to the perceived needs of a wider audience - or, as would seem to be more likely - U2 and the Stones, bands who play large venues because it allows them to disguise a long-dead spark with massive screens and a huge merchadinsing stall.

Duncan James: The dream is over

Can it really be true that Duncan James is giving up on music? And only a year or two after music gave up on him?

The singer became disillusioned with the music industry after his solo songs failed to sell well in the UK, and he is enjoying his current role in a West End production of Chicago far more.

It's funny that... his not-especially-good records fail to sell, and he blames the music industry rather than, say, his limited talent, or over-optimistic belief about his own attractiveness to the record-buying public?

"I'm not a big fan of how the music industry works," Duncan told Hot Stars magazine. "A lot of people who work in it don't care about music, only money. Pop music isn't doing very well, but I think the Spice Girls will change all that!"

Asked about the possibility of a Blue reunion, he said: "As it stands right now, everything about it would make me feel sick. I don't think I've got the confidence any more."

Perhaps the most heartbreaking aspect of this is that Duncan has dipped so far off the public's radar he was reduced to making his farewell statement in Hot Stars. Of course, it's bad news for Girl Talk, who had been hoping for the exclusive.

Curtis blows? Fiddy album shoved back again

After a lukewarm response to the lead singles in the US, 50 Cent is shoving back the release of new album Curtis.

It had originally been due in June, but now the record's new early September date has been moved back again to September 11th. Still, there's something which appeals to the nostalgic in my watching a record going backwards - the rushed-forward release to cope with internet leaks has become so common this last couple of years. It must be slightly depressing for Fiddy to discover his album is so unattractive nobody even wants to whack it on peer to peer.

Remy Ma abandons SUV, disappears after shooting

Remy Ma's SUV has been found, crashed and abandoned, by police investigating a shooting incident in New York. The suspect in the shooting has been described as "a woman in her 20s"; the 26 year-old Ma scampered away from her car a block away, and is being sought for questioning.

Snoop career reaches the twilight years

A staging post in the career cycyle as obvious as the first gold disc and the first limo to the gig, Snoop has now reached the reality series point.

The traditional way of showing an empty creative storecupboard, we are promised:

the show would be "hilarious and heart-warming" and would show the rapper balancing family duties with the world of hardcore hip-hop.

It's the Snoop Doggy Cosby Show.

Now 'Allen prettier than Cole' is an established FACT

The summer is always prone to uninspired companies carrying out pointless polls in a bid to grab some lazy newspaper coverage. Even so, did nobody at Thorpe Park stop to ask what they were doing when they paid for a survey, and then released the results, showing that a small percentage of people thought Lily Allen was more "beautiful" than Cheryl Tweedy Cole? It's far from clear what the link between the survey and their business is; some might also wonder if a family attraction should really be indulging in a "whodyaratherfuck" game in the first place.

By the end of the summer, we're going to be invited to play spin the bottle with Alton Towers.

Stunted publicity?

The happy news that Chantelle and Preston are down in Brighton, shopping with their stupid little rat-dogs under their arms is tempered somewhat by the unsettling suspicion that surely they haven't used a divorce as a publicity tool?

This sort of behaviour will require Iain Duncan-Smith to produce tax-breaks plans so that people will take divorce seriously in future.

Newton meets Blunt: The greatest fawn since Bambi

The real problem at the heart of the Sun's Bizarre column is not its shaky grip on research, or its frequently rushed pieces reading like the first draft of an Innovations catalogue. The real, screeching paradox is the column affects to be some sort of papery-conscience to the stars, calling them on their actions and exposing their wrong-doings, but as soon as Newton finds herself face-to-face with one of the people she writes about, she turns into a gushing schoolgirl.

For example, today she meets James Blunt:

[H]e’s an easy target for cool rock stars who slag him off to grab a headline.

But now, with the follow-up album to his multi-million selling debut Back To Bedlam, JAMES BLUNT is about to prove he’s much more than a one-hit wonder.

His new album, All The Lost Souls, is a collection of Seventies-inspired classic pop songs with emotional heart-rending lyrics and melodies that you simply can’t get out of your head once you’ve heard them.

It would be almost impossible to come up with an album that could mirror the achievements of 2005 sensation Back To Bedlam, which sold 11 million copies worldwide and is the second best-selling album since 2000, behind DIDO’s No Angel.

And the pressure of coming up with a better song than You’re Beautiful would surely be too much for any songwriter.

We wouldn't have thought so - the Big Brother housemates managed to come up with a better song than You're Beautiful in about ten minutes a couple of weeks ago; indeed, our cat manages to come up with a better tune than You're Beautiful when he'd rather have a pouch of wetfood instead of biscuit.

What's really strange about this, though, is that Newton thinks she's praising Blunt, but effectively she's implying that all the signs are that he's one trick pony.

Of course, when most people have had a successful first album, the second one is usually a duff affair focusing on how fame bites and how many drugs they've taken since they became famous. Surely a trap Blunt won't fall into, eh, Victoria?

[1973] looks back at James’s memories of going out and having a great time with friends

I can’t help but think this song has been inspired by spending many a night in the drug-fuelled nightclubs of Ibiza.

And in one standout track, Give Me Some Love, James makes reference to drugs with a line in the chorus that says: “Give me some love, I’ve taken ****loads of drugs.”

Same Mistake sounds a bit like a track that could have been penned by COLDPLAY frontman CHRIS MARTIN, and is the song James performed at last Saturday’s Live Earth gig.

The album also tackles the issue of dealing with fame, which James has struggled with.

His overnight global success and his penchant for bedding beautiful and famous young women has meant he’s made a fair few appearances in newspapers and magazines.

This is reflected in songs such as Annie and One Of The Brightest Stars.

James says: “Just because I’ve been given the fickle title of celebrity, it doesn’t mean I’m any less human. I go through the same things, only my mother hears about them first now!”

So, there's two about drugs, one that sounds like Chris martin and a song about the pressures of fame. The surprise, I guess, is how few sound like Coldplay.

Hush, Usher

Usher has been making a bit of hash of things lately, and that has caused a little comment. But Usher just wants to be left alone. He doesn't want to make his mistakes in public, so he's decided it's time to reclaim his privacy.

By, erm, writing a piece for People magazine about how he wants to be out the glare of publicity. In People magazine:

"I am happy, excited, completely clear and independent on my direction, feelings, decisions and I am NOT BEING LED," Usher wrote. "Some media and bloggers have been totally intrusive, they have misconstrued aspects of my personal life and, because of this, my 'true' fans are not sure about what is fact and what is fiction. There is a difference in stating an opinion versus drawing a conclusion that is incorrect.

"I have NEVER threatened or harassed anyone from any media format - print, radio, television or Internet media. At this point the best thing to say to my fans is just because it sounds enticing and it MAY sound 'true,' that does not make it truth. I understand the fact that I must sacrifice some anonymity for the career I love, however, some things are personal like having a child or a marriage."

So, then, the claims that Usher threatened radio presenters must be made-up then. Surprising that three radio stations simultaneously made up the allegations, but we guess that should be put down to being like the time all the sheep around the world learned to roll over the cattle grids to get across them. Even though it wasn't possible and it never happened.

Towers collapse

We're trying to be strong, but now that The Rev and Snell have left Towers of London, we're not sure there's any reason to go on ahead.

Donny has pledged the band will continue - although, to be honest, we thought these days it existed solely in the description of "from punk band Towers of London" in gossip items about Peaches Geldof.

Mail on Sunday wants to break the album charts

The Mail on Sunday is threatening legal action if the Prince album its giving away this weekend doesn't get counted for the charts. Although they're supposedly selling a newspaper and giving away the CD, and not the other way round.

It's not that MOS managing editor doesn't have a good reason for calling for his newspaper to be treated as an album:

"We are spending a fortune on this," said Mr Miron.

Words which failed to melt the hearts of the Official UK Chart company. So he tries some bluster:

"Given our belief that this album should still be included on the official UK album charts and having responded to your issues, I would urge you to reconsider your previous position as a matter of urgency, before we engage our lawyers for legal advice to force a challenge to this restraint on our trade."

We would have thought that it might have been a good idea to seek legal advice from your lawyers before sending threatening letters - especially since it's not clear how not qualifying for the album charts constitutes "restraint of trade": is it not going to be stocked anywhere because it falls foul of the rules? Does Miron believe that having a Prince album at number one will somehow help sales of the Mail On Sunday the following week, when it doesn't have a prince album to give away? Does he think people won't buy a record because it doesn't count towards the charts?

The Chart Company won't budge:

The Official UK Charts Company has refused to enter the album Planet Earth on its chart, saying it could not prove that newspaper sales were "genuine consumer purchases" and that it could not audit sales accurately.

Miron counters that this is, erm, a human rights issue:

"It's denying Prince his rights," Mr Miron told MediaGuardian.co.uk. "It will be number one in the UK chart and we think that's something that he should be able to do.

"The fact that they are referring back to rules put in place ages ago doesn't seem to fit with the way the music industry is now. I think they are mad."

Now, if you're going to throw around claims that people are "mad", suggesting that - somehow - the chart company should be enabling every newsagent, sweetshop and old bloke with a newsstand to function as a chart return shop by the end of the week might lead a few people to assume that Miron has a couple of bees loose in his processing-honeypot. And suggesting that Prince has a right to number one based on discs that will be given away with a newspaper that would have been purchased with or without the CD isn't exactly sane - does someone who sneaks CDs hidden into homes disguised as a Franklin Mint insert in You Magazine really deserve the chart position more than someone whose fans have actually, actively purchased the record?

Besides which, of course, even if you pretend that the paper comes free with the album, and not vice-versa, and even if the newsagents of Britain could be linked in to the chart return system, even then Prince still wouldn't qualify for the charts. The paper - sorry, CD - is just too cheap, coming in under £2.69 ceiling for "budget albums" and, as the chart eligiiblity rules state [pdf]:

Albums Chart: Budget Albums
Budget albums are excluded from all published Album Charts, except Classical Album Charts.

And, the provision of a newspaper and two general-interest magazines "for free" with the Prince record would seem to fall foul of this rule, too, forbidding:

procuring the sale of a record in conjunction with a non-related or excessive gift, ie which gives the consumer a product, voucher or benefit or anything else which is either unrelated to the record concerned or of a value in excess of the value of the record without that gift (value means normal retail price)

Clearly, the Chart Company aren't going to back down on this one anyway - the precedent would mean any covermount CD would become eligible for the charts, and in effect the music industry would end up underwriting the costs of auditing magazines circulations.

Missy Elliott apparently stalked by John Culshaw

We're read Missy Elliott's account of how she ended up being arrested because she had a stalker, but still don't quite get it:

"I've been put in handcuffs. I had a stalker who was impersonating me.

"He was making threats to people over the radio and they thought it was me.

"Somebody put a warrant out, so I had to turn myself in. They found out it was the stalker, but I still ended up getting in trouble."

But why would a stalker go on the radio to threaten people? And how good an impressionist would he have had to have been? And what show would allow someone - even if they thought it was a pop star - to issue threats on air? It's all very confusing.

We did wonder if "the stalker who made all the threats" was like the bad boys who did things and ran away when I was little?

Bad news for Sharon's act

Whoever lands Sharon Osbourne as "mentor" in the forthcoming series of New Faces: she's pledged to quit the show if her charges lose again.

Seriously: she could be working with a young Debbie Harry with the wits of a young Jarvis Cocker, but the thought TV could free of Osbourne is surely going to persuade the public to vote against her.

The King and the Doctor

After Dave Mustaine's UN song, here's another grudge-carrying pop star with a, shall we say, curious interpretation of facts, as Jonathan King writes a tune for Harold Shipman. In it, King suggests that Shipman was less a murderous bastard who topped the elderly as soon as they became troublesome, more a kindly, Jack Kervorkian type who was bringing a gentle end:

"Police will inflate and the law says it's fine to accommodate tabloids with a solid headline
But a real psycho monster who's killing for fame would leave notes for acclaim to establish his name

"Some people will sigh when they're waiting to die
Won't you please speed it up as I'm starting to cry
There's one thing he ain't and that's saviour or saint
But a pleading complaint didn't pass him by"

Ah... so he wasn't a monster because he didn't want to get caught killing dozens in order to become famous. It's an interesting take on the law - that you don't only have to prove a criminal had an intention to commit a crime, but also that they were only doing so to get on the news.

It's not clear if King has bothered to read any of the evidence of inquiries into the people he killed, like Winifred Arrowsmith, a 70 year-old who was in remarkably good health until a visit from Shipman where he "found her dead". We suspect he hasn't - after all, King's interest is well-documented as laying at the other end of the human lifecycle.

Of course, when pressed, King reveals that - as with everything else he's ever done - the song isn't about Shipman at all, but how hard done by he is:

"It is actually not really about Harold Shipman. It's about the tendency of the media, the police and the CPS to inflate and exaggerate in order to get convictions and headlines and circulation and ratings increases."

King has previously suggested that his conviction for having sex with fourteen and fifteen year-old boys made him a little like Oscar Wilde; oddly, now he's claiming kinship with Shipman - not the most obvious choice for lashing a bid for rehabilitation to.

The trouble is, if you're going to start raving about inaccuracy in media coverage and police procedures, you should probably start by making sure that you're at least in possession of a degree of accuracy yourself. And to suggest that the media somehow invented Shipman to boost circulations is to fail completely to understand how Shipman got away with it in the first place - because who in the media, or the police, or CPS, would even notice the quiet but unusually common deaths of old people in a corner of Manchester?

Not Feeling it: Haywards Heath fest drains council

The rather bizarre line-up for Haywards Heath's three-day Big Culture Show - The Feeling, a bloke dressed up as Bob The Builder, and Chas and Dave - didn't quite capture anyone's imagination and now locals are trying to find out who signed off on the flop, which left a £150,000 loss to be made good by pubic funds:

Organisers said they were "extremely disappointed" and have blamed bad weather for the lack of takings.

But Councillor Paddy Henry, the sole Labour representative on the Tory-led council, said the three-day event was a "total waste" and that heads should roll.

He said: "If you worked for a private company and you lost £150,000 you'd be out the door. When you're bolstered and feather bedded by council tax money it seems you can just squander it, no questions asked.

"Someone should throw themselves on their sword for this."

The organisers, though, are bullish:

Paul Squires, head of leisure and well being, said the loss represented less than one per cent of his £17 million budget.

He added: "We worked extremely hard to bring a fresh event to Mid Sussex and we are all obviously extremely disappointed with the outcome and the attendance.

"Due to the generosity and support of many local businesses we were able to keep our expenditure well within budget however the income from sales was well down on projections.

"Just like elsewhere, we suffered as a result of bad weather.

"This event was not the success we had hoped for, however the losses represent less than one per cent of our total leisure and culture business.

"As such it will not impact on people's council tax bills as the growth and management of the remainder of our business will be sufficient to ensure we continue to bring innovative, exciting - and occasionally daring - events to Mid Sussex."

Surely not that Paul Squires?

Still, we love the idea that a big gig in a field by The Feeling is what passes for "daring" now in Brett Anderson's childhood hometown.

Lavigne threatens cinemas

One of those wonderful moments when people say something while, clearly, feeling the opposite as Avril Lavigne offers herself to producers:

"I want to do more movies. If that means more auditions, then that's fine," says Lavigne, 22. "I think it's cool, as it's humbling. It's like having to start all over again and I enjoy that."

The vision of the humble artisan actor is somewhat undercut, though, by her apparent belief that it's noteworthy that someone like her should be auditioning at all.

Arctic Monkeys plan to live forever; learn how to fly

This morning, for reasons that we can't begin to unravel, Victoria Newton has invested effort "proving" that the Arctic Monkeys and Alex have changed:

[He] has always made a point of shunning the showbiz spotlight and acting like he is not affected by the fame game.

But [...] maybe it is going to the cheeky monkey’s head.

How so, Victoria? She points to two previous events:

The band have become increasingly obsessed with fancy dress and recently wore clown costumes for a performance on JONATHAN ROSS’s BBC1 chat show.

And earlier this year they wore Wizard Of Oz outfits to record their Brit Awards acceptance message — having shunned that ceremony, despite winning the two top gongs.

Now, most people - even those not keen on the Monkeys - would interpret turning up to play a song on Ross' show dressed as a clown or accepting the Brits dressed as friends of Dorothy as being a shrug at the institution rather than an embrace of fame's tender caress.

Besides, this is all somewhat old, so does Newton have some new "evidence" for this change in attitude:

“He has set up an email account in the name Aleks and now signs off with it. It’s the sort of quirky and rather puzzling thing that he does. I hope it doesn’t go too far. He’ll start replacing his name with a picture of a monkey next.”

Victoria then Googles Aleks to fill up some space ("provide some background"):

I’d love to know what Aleks’s inspiration is for his new name.
“Aleks” is an artificial intelligence system designed in the US for testing students and there’s also an obscure Mexican singer/songwriter called Aleks Syntek.

Yes... or maybe it's just a phonetic spelling like when Ashleys turn themselves into Ashlees. Because it would be a bit of a strange coincidence if Mr. Turner happened to have been so inspired by an American educational tool he decided to change his name in its honour, and it just happened to sound the same.

Newton - afraid she might have gone so far, and aware the bottom of the page is still some way off - then adds in the sort of empty flattery that Basil Fawlty would reserve for minor royals:

Alex is one of the most gifted songwriters of his generation so we’ll let him off — the Arktiks’ latest single, Fluorescent Adolescent, is an example of his greatness.

"is an example of his greatness" is such a clunking phrase it deserves to be put in some sort of museum, or at least used in journalism training courses as a warning from history.

Now Sony BMG kicks downwards

You might have thought that, having settled with the people on whose computers they installed malware on their machines, Sony BMG would write off the USD5.75million and try to move on.

Not a bit of it. They're now suing The Amergence Group Inc, blaming their technology for getting them into trouble in the first place.

Amergence say 'we're sorry, this has nothing to do with us':

In a statement, The Amergence Group vowed to fight what it described as unwarranted allegations by Sony BMG.

The company also suggested that lawsuits against Sony BMG over CD copy-protection primarily stemmed from Sony's use of another technology.

This one sounds like it's going to be fun.

Sony is looking for about USD12m in damages, which effectively would mean they'd be making a profit on the whole deal. How sweet is that, eh?

Internet Radio: three days and off

The new, unrealistically high rates for internet radio royalties are due to start on the 15th of this month. An attempt to get a court order to suspend the new rates has been rejected. Now the last hope is for a new piece of legislation - they're hoping Congress might get something passed before the weekend.

Dave Mustaine is the John Bolton of hard rock

Dave Mustaine has written a song about the United Nations. A whole album, in fact.

It's not especially positive about the body - the cover, for example, features a plane flying into the UN building. Interesting. We wonder how many other buildings in New York someone could depict being the subject of a 9/11-style attack without, at the very least, Bill O'Reilly camping out on your doorstep, demanding you be swathed in orange dungarees and relocated to someowhere south of Florida.

Obviously, Mustaine isn't in control of his facts, and UN Dispatch takes great delight in wading through the spite to show that he's basing his distrust on misundestandings, half-truths, lies and ignorance. Oh, and some Book of Revelations stuff:

The threat is real, the Locust King has come
Don't tell me the truth; I don't like what they've done
It's payback time for the United Abominations

This is where things get weird. 'The Locust King' is drawn from the Book of Revelation, Chapter 9. Mustain's decision to use apocalyptic literature found in Revelation is quite, uh, revealing. He seems to be sympathetic to a fundamentalist doctrine known as pre-millenialism, in which an anti-Christ is said to rule the world during a period of tribulation before the messiah (Christ) returns. Some modern day pre-millenialist sects believe that the United Nations (or the Secretary General), is either literally the anti-Christ, or is setting the geopolitical conditions in which the anti-Christ will rise. Mustaine seems to believe this lunacy as well.

Iran funds Hamas, and attacked the US in the seventies, there was no stinking UN

I think Mustaine may be confusing Hamas for Hezbollah, the Iranian backed militant group in Lebanon. Agents of Hezbollah bombed US marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, when the United States and other international forces were part of a UN sanctioned mission to end the bloody Lebanese civil war. Mustaine may also be referring to the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979. In this case, obituaries of the recently deceased UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim noted that securing the release of 14 Iranian-held American hostages in 1981 was one of the most significant achievements of his otherwise unremarkable tenure.

What has been Mustaine's reaction to being skewered?

Apparently, not knowing what he's talking about doesn't matter, as - if we've got this right - not blowing out his backtrumpet would infringe his Constitutional rights:

"I would rather feel right and be wrong with the semantics or facts in the song and have expressed my right to free speech, than to feel wrong and be right and sit back, like the rest of the cowards of the world, not saying anything."

Right, Dave. You don't think if you're going to issue a political statement it might be a good idea to at least check your facts first? Because speaking out against things that don't actually exist makes you look a little paranoid. And a lot like Richard Littlejohn.

Fergie "didn't sell out totally"

Women's Wear Daily is reporting that Fergie is threatening legal action against the Sunday Times over the story that she was taking cash from fashion chain Candies in return for singing about them:

"It's completely false," she told WWD on Monday, adding that she is taking legal action against the paper. "I don't know where they got it from. I sing about a lot of things in my songs — from cars to Taco Bell — but not because I'm paid to!"

She is, however, taking money to endorse the brand in other ways, as the chain's parent company makes clear in its denial:

A spokeswoman for Iconix Brand Group also denied that Fergie was being paid to plug the brand in her music. "Contrary to recent reports, Candie's does not have an arrangement with Fergie whereby she will incorporate the Candie's brand into her lyrics. Currently, Fergie acts as the junior brand's spokesperson and appears in its multimedia marketing campaigns including print, national television, Internet and promotions."

It's understandable that Fergie would want to defend herself against the suggestion that her creative process is being influenced by a corporate buy-in.

Mind you, the original press release announcing her tie-up with the company shows that the line between her musical career, and her business as a corporate shill, is more than a little blurred nevertheless:

Iconix Brand Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: ICON) recently announced its exclusive partnership with 3x Grammy award-winning artist, Fergie for its Candie's(R) brand fall '07 television, print and online advertising campaign. The junior brand, available exclusively at Kohl's Department Stores, styled her current music video "Big Girl Don't Cry," which features Candie's apparel, footwear, jewelry, sleepwear, hats and bedding. The Candie's television commercial is a direct cut from the "Big Girls Don't Cry" music video and the print campaign will feature candid shots taken on set during the shoot. This is the first time a junior fashion brand has extracted their campaign from a music video. "Big Girls Don't Cry" is in the top five on Billboard's Hot 100 chart and among the top 10 most played videos on MTV and VH-1.

Commenting on the partnership, Fergie stated, "Candie's is giving me creative input and they are allowing me to bring my touch to the campaign and I love that! The clothes are so wonderful and we are tying it all together, the commercial, the print ads and my video and I am really excited about it."

This is interesting - the idea that, simultaneously, the adverts are a "direct cut" from the video and that Candies allowed Fergie an input into the campaign. In other words, she was allowed a say in an advert that was part of her video.

Dari Marder, Chief Marketing Officer, Iconix Brand Group, Inc. said, "This is a wonderful opportunity for Candie's to be able to lift our brand creative straight out of Fergie's hit video, "Big Girls Don't Cry." It further validates the Candie's brand as part of pop culture."

Julie Gardner, Kohl's Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, said, "The new Candie's advertising campaign marks a first for a junior fashion brand. The campaign is innovative and authentic and leverages the music video, which makes the brand more relevant to our junior shoppers."

Candie's recently announced its exclusive fashion sponsorship with Fergie on her first solo tour. Fergie's Verizon VIP Tour has a 20-city schedule and tickets are exclusive to Candie's and Verizon Wireless through give-a-ways and Kohl's in-store events in select markets, as no tickets will be sold for this tour. The tour has received amazing reviews from critics and fans. At each concert there is a live Candie's fashion show.

So, part of her gigs is an advertorial for the chain's fashion as well - presumably, that support act would be there even if it hadn't been paid for.

We can understand that Fergie might not want people to think her artistic decisions are being directed by a sponsor. At least, not unsubtly.

3AM very excited about Delia

We imagine it's some sort of technical problem, but according to the 3AM Girls' RSS feed, they've published the news of Delia Smith's return to telvision every thirty minutes for the past twenty four hours.

Eavis hits the phones to bring back the old Glastonbury

Michael Eavis has admitted that Glastonbury is middle-aged, middle-class and 'respectable' (although we're sure he's said the same thing before) and has announced plans to do something about it:

"We're trying to get the youngsters because numbers were down this year," Mr Eavis said. "People say we're getting middle class, but we're attracting more people in their thirties and forties and need the Radio 1 and NME crowds.

"These kids add so much to the flavour of it. The people who now come have the right attitude, they grin and bear the mud, but they do change the nature of the show."

So, what's the big idea?

They're going to sell 40% of the tickets via phones next year:

Mr Eavis said this year's internet-only sales policy favoured people with fast internet connections. "Next year kids will be able to use their mobile phones to get tickets," he said.

Because, of course, people in their teens wouldn't have access to broadband, would they?

Let's set aside for a moment the question of how phone sales will sit alongside the pre-registration rigmarole, and just wonder if the important part of the ticket process which might put off the younger, less respectable end of the market is not how they're sold, but how much they're sold for.

"Dead fat guy in a bath" might have been "dead fat guy in a toilet cubicle"

In a surprising and somewhat late development in the death of Jim Morrison, a former vice-president of Eurodisney has remembered that, actually, Jim Morrison died in his nightclub. Sam Bernett has written a book about it. Now, 35 years on:

In a new book Sam Bernett claims Morrison died in a toilet cubicle in his Paris club in 1971 after what he believed was a heroin overdose.

Two drug dealers then took Morrison's body back to his apartment and dropped it in his bath in an unsuccessful bid to revive him, according to Mr Bernett.

In his book The End: Jim Morrison, Bernett says he asked a doctor to examine the 27-year-old singer in the toilet of his Rock and Roll Circus nightclub on 3 July 1971.

He writes: "When we found him dead, he had a little foam on his nose, and some blood too, and the doctor said, 'That must be an overdose of heroin.'"

Right: so a doctor comes into contact with an illustrious corpse in a Paris nightclub, wipes the heroin bubbling out the end of his nose off, pronounces him dead and then wanders off, leaving two drug dealers who are so unfamiliar with death to carry the corpse back home and try to pull a Lazarus by putting the body in water.

Of course, Morrison's girlfriend maintains that he ODed in the bath after a night out - which would seem an odd lie to tell to cover up for two drug dealers who apparently rolled the body of Jim through the streets of Paris.

Not to mention how nobody would have seen the somewhat hefty corpse of Morrison being shunted about hither-and-dither, nor why a nightclub owner would have chosen to give the dead Morrison into the custody of two drug dealers. Nor, come to that, why the doctor who apparently saw the ODed pop star never reported that to the police, or even came forward during the inquest into his death. Nor how this unlikely story has kept hidden for thirty-five years. But we're sure all that will be explained in the book. Aliens, probably. Or something to do with Opus Dei.

The Coral also don't trust these carphone things, either

What are the Coral, like 75 years old or something? Lee Southall doesn't hold with all this internet malarkey:

"I don’t use it the internet, seriously! But the other lads in the bands do and they can get some good things off it and get your downloaded. It’s good if you want to use it in that way.

”It’s a magical thing when you go and buy and album, you get the album and you get the artwork and that. If people are just downloading it, then the magic’s lost.

“I hope it doesn’t turn into like, you go into a record shop and there’s no CDs, you’ve got to download it onto your iPod. That would piss me off."

In related news, Wagon Wheels are getting smaller.

Brace yourself: Ozzy has public policy views to share

Ozzy Osbourne - the 21st century answer to the Country Life buttermen - isnj't happy with olympic spending:

That thing is going to cost about nine billion pounds! That's a lot of money to watch some guy run around a fucking track.

"I could go to some gym and see that for free."

Equally, though, Ozzy, if we wanted to see some addled old wreck working from a mistake brief, holding forth about the incorrect use of public funds, we could go to the local Tory party committee meeting.

Not so Kool

Words to chill the blood: Kool and the Gang are going after a 'younger audience':

"We have a couple of younger people in the band. We wanted to broaden our audience.

"People do get surprised as they expect us to be a dance band, but we are more than just that. If you follow the history of Kool and the Gang, we were an instrumental band, but when disco came along we needed to switch to that kind of music to stay involved and current.

We did a rap album, but I don't think people want to hear their fathers rapping."

Quite what they're intending to do to make themselves "younger-sounding" we don't know. We just know we wish they wouldn't.

Winehouse favourite for no-show

William Hill are now taking bets on Amy Winehouse not turning up for gigs, although the odds of her not showing are so short - 2-1 on - that it's hardly worth the gamble.

Of course, with the likely real cause of Amy's "exhuastion", the odds really should just be 2-1. (We're now doing the jokes in tic-tac, by the way.)