Guitarobit: Casey Calvert

The guitarist with Hawthorne Heights, Casey Calvert, died in his sleep on Friday.

The band have issued at a statement:

Today is probably the worst day ever. Its with our deepest regrets that we have to write this. Casey Calvert passed away in his sleep last night. We found out this afternoon before sound-check. We've spent the entire day trying to come to grips with this and figure out as much as possible. At this time we're not sure what exactly happened. Just last night he was joking around with everyone before he went to bed. We can say with absolute certainty that he was not doing anything illegal. Please, out of respect to Casey and his family, don't contribute or succumb to any gossip you may hear. We don't want his memory to be tainted in the least. Casey was our best friend. He was quirky and awesome and there will truly be no others like him! His loss is unexplainable. As soon as we know more we will let you know.

Calvert was 26 years old. He had lived through some volatile times as a member of Hawthorne Heights, including fighting a battle to be freed from the terms of contract with Victory Records which the band maintained was unfair, and becoming embroiled in a seedy attempt to nobble NeYo's sales by encouraging fans to make it difficult to find his album. The band claimed this was down to the label and they knew nothing about it.

With or without dirty tricks, Hawthorne Heights built an impressive fan base; their second album, If Only You Were Lonely, made it to number three in the Billboard album charts early last year.

[Update: 26/11/07 - Billboard are reporting the cause of death was probably asthma]

The Role at an end?

Some dispiriting news from Bonde Do Role: Rodrigo Gorky suggests they're on the edge of falling to pieces:

"We're having internal problems, we are trying to sort things out but meanwhile we are just going to have to cancel some of the shows... We are sorting things out right now."

Let's hope its just touring strains and not deep-seated endgame problems.

Blondes prepping

While we're looking forward to the things that might delight us next year, the Long Blondes are in the studio, too. Long overdue, too.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Christmas confusion

Poor old Gennaro Castaldo. Whenever a new contender for the Christmas number one comes onto the slate, he has to pretend its in with a chance, because if he shrugs and says "not a hope in hell", he won't get his employer's name in the papers.

So it is that he finds himself straight-facedly insisting that Shaun The Sheep has a chance of outstripping all the other contenders to get to the top.

Manson song titles leak

The track-listing for next Spring's Shirley Manson solo album has appeared on the web:

* "Don't Want Anyone To Hurt"
* "Don't Want To Pretend"
* "Gone Upside"
* "Hot Shit"
* "Kid Ourselves"
* "Lighten Up"
* "Little Dough"
* "No Regrets"
* "Pissholes"
* "Pure Genius"
* "So Shines A Good Deed"
* "Spooky"
* "Stop"
* "Sweet Old World"
* "The Desert"
* "To Be King"

We're not sure if Hot Shit or Pissholes will be the more popular for first dances at society weddings next summer, but we can't wait to find out.

Valentines download album

In what Gigwise describes as 'doing a Radiohead', My Bloody Valentine's manager Vinita Joshi has suggested they're thinking of making the new album available as a download and a vinyl version.

Which is hardly "doing a Radiohead", especially since:

[S]he added that MBV are unlikely to follow Radio head’s ‘pay what you like’ stance for the download.

Austria pulls out of Europe

In a protest at the new rules run up by the Eurovision managers, Austria has decided to withdraw:

According to Edgar Bohm, entertainment head for the Austrian public broadcaster, there are still too many open questions regarding the two semi-finals in 2008 for ORF to commit now to sending an entry.

"We must send our application to the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 right now, but at this time important points ... have not been clarified," Bohm said.

ORF programme director [Wolfgang Lorenz] has gone on record saying, "As long as the the Song Contest is a political parade ground and not an international entertainment programme, ORF has no desire to send more talent out of Austria to a competition where they have no chances."

Given that, apart from Norway, nobody's flunked as often as Austria, we'd imagine it's going to be a very long time before we see an entry from Vienna being belittled by a slightly tiddly Terry Wogan.

When Beckham acts

So, there was something quite triumphant about Victoria Beckham's cameo in Ugly Betty after all. Watching it straight after Anne Widdecombe's marshalling of Have I Got News For You, it made Widdy look like the greatest comedy talent in the world.

The Betty team went wrong giving her lines: it's perhaps heartbreaking that Beckham is incapable of playing herself convincingly, but at least if all she had to do was wave and stand up, she'd have got away with it.

You do wonder if the 'Beckham locked in a cupboard' part of the episode was the result of a quick rewrite having seen her mangle her lines in earlier scenes. "Oh, bugger, just lock her in a cupboard..."

It says a lot about stage schools that, despite not having gone to one, Vera Wang out-performed Beckham, who had.

Fans of Beckham's acting will also have had the pleasure of the Tesco advert appearing. We're not quite sure we understand this: the five Spices independently turn up at the same branch of Tesco at the same time, and try to hid from each other. But why? Are they ashamed of being seen in Tesco? And if that's the point, why would Tesco have spent a fortune creating an advert suggesting that its stores are the sort of place where even Mel C would be embarrassed to be shopping in? Is their big Christmas message really supposed to be "Go on, try the Co-Op; you can hold your head up in there"?

The underwhelming nature of the Tescos ad has, at least, allowed me to find some rare common ground with Kerry Katona. She's not impressed, either:

"I know it's competition for my Iceland adverts, but it's not as good as mine, so it's fine."

Well, that's going a little far, Kerry. It's not that rotten.

Robbie Williams is not... oh, yes he is

Robbie Williams has, inevitably, gone into pantomime.

He's going to appear alongside his good friend Jonathan Wilkes, of course, in Cinderella - although Robbie will appear as a projection. A bit like Laurence Olivier in that Cliff Richard musical a few years back (Time, or rather Dave Clark's Time).

Why is he doing it? The Sunday Mirror says it's a poke at Take That:

Robbie Williams has signed up for panto - to wind up his former Take That partners.

The superstar will appear as a hologram called Stardust in Cinderella in his home town, Stoke On Trent.
[...]
And a source said: "Robbie called his character Stardust to take the mickey out of them."

Yes... ha! That'll show 'em... doing a provincial panto as a character called Stardust. Because... erm... why, exactly?

Take That sang a song on the sound-track of the movie Stardust.

Oh.

Actually, even then: what? In what way does calling a character after a film they were vaguely involved with even approach taking the piss out of them? Now, if it had been Marco Spencer-cheapsuit, perhaps we'd be getting somewhere.

Rav insists Britney is about to adopt

In a story which sounds brilliant but which we suspect most people would have taken a deep breath and thought about before publishing in a newspaper, Rav Singh claims that Britney Spears is about to adopt.

Adopt twins.

Adopt Chinese twins.

Rav "exclusively reveals" this, presumably on the grounds that most other people would have weighed the chances of an adoption agency allowing Spears to take on children from a different background at a time when the courts barely allow her to wave at her own kids without supervision and realised it would probably be somewhat implausible and insisting it would just make you look silly.

Hang about... wasn't Macca supposed to be dating a Republican?

The yammering excitement whenever Paul McCartney comes within touching distance of a woman has been set off by the News of the World deciding he's dating Rosanna Arquette.

The most striking thing about the paper's piece isn't the way James Desborough gets excited by the secrecy involved in McCartney hanging out with Arquette:

The couple spent more than two hours at the house, where Macca has a shrine to his late wife Linda.

They then left together, with Rosanna hiding in the back of the car.

Eventually, the motor pulled up beside an empty black cab.

Macca then led Rosanna to the taxi, hugging her for a few seconds before it whisked her back to the nearby home of her pals, songwriter Amanda Ghost and film director Gregor Cameron.

It doesn't seem to occur to Desborough that this could just be a couple of mates hanging out, and the "cloak and dagger stuff" that's made him a little excited could be to try and spare the tabloids jumping to conclusions rather than to keep secret a relationship.

But, no, more striking is the paper's bizarre insistence that Arquette is "Heather Mills' double" - in that both have a vaguely similar colour of hair, and are women, presumably.

Five years ago today

Coldplay showed what witty young things they are by covering Barbie Girl;
Pete Waterman said he'd kill himself if One True Voice didn't make number one, thereby securing Girls Aloud's chart victory;
Peter York psychoanalysed Diana Spencer through her record collection;
Myleene Klass kept going through her lean years by flogging eye surgery; and
Joan Jett threw a hissy because Rolling Stone called Pink rock.

This week just gone

This week on No Rock & Roll Fun, the ten most-read pieces were:

1. R Kelly's sex video to get court viewing
2. Heather Mills and her nude picture past
3. McFly and their naked dancing at GAY
4. Nelly Furtado turns down Playboy
5. Beth Ditto's confused NME naked cover
6. Cerys Matthews signs up for I'm A Celebrity
7. Edith Bowman's anger at topless shots
8. Children In Need 2007
9. Thom Yorke steals Radiohead album
10. Daily Telegraph discovers women can make music, sees a trend

These were the floggable bits of the week:


Band Of Holy Joy: Leaves That Fall In The Spring Long overdue best-of album from the BOHJ


Neko Case: Blacklisted Re-release for 2002's Patsy Cline-in-a-dive collection


Sufjan Stevens: Songs For Christmas Five disc festive singalong side project


Bonnie Prince Billy: Ask Forgiveness Will Oldham covers Bjork, Ochs, Sinatra, Danzig...


Grange Hill: The Album Odd re-release for 1986 Just Say No full length cash-in


Mitchell Brothers: Dressed For The Occasion Mike Skinner produces; Franz Ferdinand and - oh - Lily Allen guest


Seinfeld Season Nine Serenity now... serenity now


Buffy Seasons 1 to 7 Obviously, anyone would already have all the episodes, so it's hard to see who this is aimed at, but...


Oliver Sacks: Musicophilia What music, and the love of music, says about us as people


Ian Gittins: Top Of The Pops - Mishaps, Mimings and Music Affectionate history-cum-obituary for TOTP

Babyshambles split... again

As Babyshambles head out onto their arena tour, the line-up has already shifted, with returning guitarist Patrick Walden quitting again without playing a note.

He got as far as the Manchester MEN arena, but didn't make the stage:

Speaking exclusively to NME.COM, guitarist Mick Whitnall said that "complications" caused Walden's sudden change of heart.

"He came up to Manchester on the tourbus with us, he was going to come out and play on a couple of songs, but there were complications and he had to go home. Personally, I just found it all a bit strange," he said.

If you're in Babyshambles, and things appear strange to you, they must be very rum indeed.

No more Stone Roses ever - pledge

Ian Brown has insisted that there's not enough money in the world to tempt him back to reunite with the Roses:

"I've got offers to play in 15 different countries [as a solo act]. I really enjoy collaborating with whoever I want and going round the world.

"I know the Roses mean a lot to people, but I haven't really thought about it much in the last ten years.

"We get offered a lot of money to do it. I know they say every man his price, but I'm not for sale."

Of course, anyone who really loved the Roses wishes they'd actually split before the second album, rather than hopes they'd reunite in early middle age.

Last FM attempts to fix Christmas

In the seasonal rush for a Christmas number one - Cliff Richard, whatever bag of spuds is spewed up from the X Factor, something supposedly funny - a new paper-hat-from-a-cracker has been hurled into the ring in the shape of Lucky Soul's Lips Are Unhappy. This has been chosen by the CBS-funded Last.FM community to be the target for a campaign designed to show the power of online hitmaking. The idea being that everyone on Last.FM buys a copy, it takes the seasonal number one position and everyone in the music industry quakes in front of the power of the new hitmakers.

There's a couple of problems here. First, as the NME's embarrassing attempts to propel God Save The Queen to number one demonstrated, it's not actually that easy to rig the charts in this way.

The second is what, exactly, is the motivation for Last.FM members meant to be here? Admittedly, they were invited to participate in a vote to chose the record that would be pushed by the campaign - but presumably the people who voted for Lucky Soul would be interested in buying it anyway; those who preferred another track would, surely, rather spend their money on buying a song they liked rather than one they didn't?

And it's the purchase price that is key here: sure, the download is priced at a reasonable 49p, but that's still an actual payment. Why would anyone want to spend half a quid of their own money on what is, in effect, a marketing campaign for a company owned by one of the biggest media organisations in the world? If CBS want to push Last.FM, can't they use some of the Viacom outdoor poster sites rather than shaking down the userbase to chip in to cover the costs?

Mills' infiltration plans fall apart

Heather Mills' super-secret plans to infiltrate the powerful and rich to make everyone do her bidding seems to have hit a snag. While GM-TV were happy to run interviews (more like pieces-to-camera, to be honest) when she was sobbing about her nasty divorce, it turns out they're less keen to let her use the sofa to promote her vegan interests.

The Mirror's Nicola Methven is relieved:

She'd only urge everyone to drink rat's milk. Yuck!

Not, surely, for a vegan campaign, Nicola?

Borrell dates shopkeeper's daughter

According to what's left of the 3AM team, Johnny Borrell is currently dating Camilla Al Fayed, daughter of the more rich ("more famous") Mohammed Al Fayed.

Al Fayed, of course, owns Harrods and spends most of his days dictating the front page of the Daily Express. Unfortunately, Borrell has just played a solo gig at Harvey Nichols.

Apparently, that wasn't very good, either:

"It wasn't a very good place to give a performance as no one was really interested and people stayed in the bar."

We love the way the implication is that the audience is somehow lacking something, rather than the performance. Whoever knew that drinking would be preferable to listening to a Borrell solo show?

Newton leaves with a five year-old story

Yes, just because she's leaving doesn't mean that Newton hasn't got time to bring forward the big stories today. She's running a piece on Kylie's bum-in-the-air waxwork:

Kylie shamed by saucy waxwork

The admission came as the pop princess was immortalised with the unveiling of a brand new statue in her native Australia.

Actually, Victoria, the "admission" that Kylie didn't like the statue came when she spoke to the Kylie.co.uk website about it back in August 2002.

The end of an error: Newton takes her leave

If you have tears, pretend to shed them now. Victoria Newton is taking her leave of Bizarre, dedicating the lion's share of her column today to herself. So, no change there, then.

Like everything else, it doesn't make any sense:

THIS is a sad day as I’m giving up the best job in showbiz - editing Bizarre.

Really? So being entertainment boss of the entire paper is a worse job than editing a page? Why on earth would someone leave a job for one that's worse?

The time has come, after almost five eventful, fun and hangover-packed years, to finally grow up and try something new.

Did she mean to imply that the past five years have only been "almost" fun and eventful? Still, it's nice to see her suggest that she's not been writing like an adult for the time she's been at Bizarre.

I’m hanging up my designer heels to take an important new job as a Sun exec.

"Important new job"? I think you missed a "self" at the start there, Victoria.

But I’ll never forget my time in the hot seat experiencing some of the best moments of my life during my reign as The Sun’s Queen Of Showbiz, including being drawn by the people behind The Simpsons.

The woman who wrote this sentence has been promoted, giving her charge over other writers. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
There's a bunch of photos of artists pretending to like her, and some craven cowards have even sent "messages", like she'd died or something:

Some A-list names have sent messages wishing me well with my new gig - even though I’ve been a constant menace digging up stories for my loyal Bizarre readers, including many that ended up on the front page.

In other words, some hapless junior hack has had to ring around press offices to gather some quotes from PRs who care more about getting space in the tabloids than the quality of journalism in the UK.

My biggest idol and favourite pop star of all time, Madonna, said: “From the Queen Of Pop to the Queen Of Showbiz — good luck.”

Madonna, of course, has long since ceased to be Queen of pop; it's like getting a leaving present from ex-King Constantine of Greece.

At least Bowie's contribution wasn't fawning - in fact, it sounds like someone mentioned her name to him, and scribbled down the response without the "oh, yeah, I remember - that one from The Sun, isn't it?" at the start:

He sent me this rambling message: “The last time I met Vic I had just given up smoking and I mentioned making the casual decision to start smoking at 13 years old as being possibly one of the worst moves of my life, though the artwork on some of the packets was brilliant and kept me buying them just to flash the pack around.”

Coldplay - in what is surely the final abdication of any credibility they may have had left - go for a full-out fawn:

Chris, GUY, JONNY and WILL took time out at Coldplay HQ to draw the brilliant goodbye picture. Needless to say it will be framed and put in pride of place on a wall in my house.

And so, you might wonder, what has Victoria decided to be her major contribution to the profession of Woodward and Bernstein, Cudlipp and Foot?

I take great pride in having given HEATHER MILLS McCARTNEY her nickname of LADY MUCCA after exposing her as a former porn star.

Good luck with the divorce settlement, Mucca, I don’t think.

Well done, Victoria, you came up with a nickname that nobody else uses, based on a "revelation" that had already been in papers back before the McCartney-Mills wedding; you're vilifying a woman for appearing in sexual poses in a newspaper supported by Page Three. What a glowing achievement. We'll miss you.

And that's all the thanks they get...

What has been the main beneficiary of U2's intimate charity gig? Well, obviously MENCAP will do well from it. But doing rather better was an old story on BBC News about how ropey some of Bono's lyrics are, which experienced something of a bounce:

More people reading about Bono's "living like a mole" than their super secret surprise set.

... and then there was 1 am

The 3AM Girls column has been looking a bit ropey for a while, what with only two AM Girls writing it; now, sole survivor of the original line-up Eva Sampson has quit. She's off to work on thelondonpaper, which appears to be a Rupert Murdoch sponsored initiative to cover the pavements outside railway stations in London with paper. Presumably it's to hide the chewing gum or something.

The other 3AMie, Caroline Hedley, is stuck in America as Victoria Beckham correspondent - possibly the smallest job in showbusiness - and is said by the MediaGuardian to be in talks about her future, too.

Newton gorn from The Sun, possibly no 3AM in the Mirror? If we didn't expect the vacuum to be filled with new forms of vacuity, we'd be secretly thrilled.

France threatens to cut pirates adrift

Whoever would have guessed that if you put the head of a record shop in charge of a copyright review, the end results would be fixated on trying to preserve the status quo?

That's what's happened in France, where Nicholas Sarkozy's government has adopted suggestions from a review run by Denis Olivennes, head of the FNAC chain, that will see tight punishments for file-sharers. A proposed government body will demand ISP user details, with heavy users being investigated on the assumption that they might be up to something wrong.

We're not quite sure how the presumption of guilt sits with the usual way things are meant to work.

If you're "caught" three times, you'll be cast off the internet.

It's not just Olivennes' financial interest in eking out the sale of physical products for as long as possible which suggests he might not have been the most impartial chap to carry out such a review: he wrote Free is Theft which, according to the FT:

accused ISPs of exploiting an abundance of pirated material on the web to recruit new subscribers. "It is a little like . . . big store chains putting out free stocks of stolen CDs and DVDs to attract new customers into their shops," he wrote.

Even although, of course, it isn't.

50 Cent sends his respects

At first, it looked like 50 Cent's condolences to Kanye West on the death of Donda were going to be somewhat muted:

”That's really an unfortunate situation."

Yes, there are few "situations" more "unfortunate" than the untimely death of your mother.

But, to be fair, 50 came through and actually delivered quite a touching tribute to the mother of his nemesis:

"Kanye's relationship with his mom had a lot more depth to it than a lot of people's. He was really close to his mom.

"I hope that he can work his through his way through it. If you're active, you'll find reasons to smile, reasons to be happy."

Take That upset the MAD

Howard Donald's fairly balanced suggestion that the legal provision of mild cannabis would be more beneficial than the availability of strong alcohol has created a storm of squawking from anti-drug campaigners.

Donald observed:

"Cannabis should be legalised. I know it's a touchy subject. But if more people went out stoned than drunk - which a lot of people are on the weekend - I think there would be less fighting, less trouble and less violence."

Which, you'd think, would be an interesting viewpoint to engage with.

Not, of course, for Mothers Against Drugs:

Spokeswoman Gail MCCann says, "Anyone who tells you cannabis is perfectly safe is talking rubbish. It can cause psychosis and paranoia.

"I'd like Take That to see the work we do and ask if they'd like to donate some of the millions they earn to drug treatment."

But Donald didn't say that cannabis is perfectly safe - he said that having legally available cannabis might lead to less alcohol-fuelled violence on British streets. Which is, of course, a totally different proposition.

Missing logo costs Sony BMG five million dollars

Having been ordered by a court in a previous settlement to properly credit Cleveland International on Bat Out Of Hell, Sony "forgot" to pop the smaller company's logo onto the CDs.

An expensive oversight: having had to pay the label $6.7million in the original lawsuit, they've now been forced to hand over a further five million.

Have we wasted money on these 'Bono go home' placards?

U2 are firmly denying any plans for London dates at the Millennium Dome. They're urging fans to not buy any tickets for their gigs they might see advertised, which is the best bloody advice Bono has given out in years.

Secret stripes

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller - former head of MI5 - is on Desert Island Discs. She's just chosen The White Stripes cover of I Don't Know What To Do With Myself, which is perhaps a little surprising. Maybe she liked the Kate Moss poledancing video.

Yoko makes some more Penneys

Over on the Guardian music blog, Andrew Purcell launches into an almost spirited defence of Yoko Ono's decision to allow a John Lennon song to soundtrack JC Penney's Christmas advert:

The second most common criticism, is that she has betrayed her husband's legacy.
As a director of Apple Corp, however, Yoko has been incredibly protective of the Beatles image. She would certainly never have allowed a gruesome bar band cover of All You Need Is Love to sell nappies offering "leak protection for less." But she doesn't own the publishing rights to that song - Sony does. Harrison's fear that "unless we do something about it, every Beatles song is going to end up advertising bras and pork pies" may well come true, but it won't be Yoko's fault.

We're not quite sure how "someone else selling a Beatles song for a nappy advert" has any bearing on whether Ono was right or not to flog a different Lennon song to a different company - it's kind of like Alistair Darling trying to defend the HMRC loss of those CDs by saying "it was a totally different company which published its customers' credit card details onto the web."

Purcell rightly points out that a lot of the criticism of Ono is little more than thinly disguised racism and sexism, and that she suffered a terrible, terrible experience:

[A]s someone who witnessed the love of her life and the father of her child being shot, she deserves understanding, not abuse.

But that's hardly a valid argument: flogging the song to JC Penneys is a cold-headed business decision, not some sort of emotional catharsis, and it's patronising and belittling to suggest that Ono is incapable of being judged as a businesswoman because of her husband's death.

So, it comes down to this: Ono is keen to stoke the myth of the Imagine Lennon, the "no possessions, we've given our clothes to charity" Lennon while simultaneously flogging his music to the American equivalent of Debenhams to flog Christmas sweaters and candle holders. At least Kevin Barnes admits he's embracing capitalism when he does so.

Andrew Purcell suggests that "maybe" Lennon would have been happy with the deal; we don't doubt that he would have been - that's kind of the point.

Ono doesn't need the money, so, as we can comfortably rule out the Of Montreal "the cash helps keep me creating" defence, this just comes down to the question of the endorsement. And it's fine for Ono to endorse JC Penney. Providing we stop pretending that she and her husband are part of some sort of anti-materialism counterculture.

Girls Aloud are a little shaky

The imminent implosion of Girls Aloud has been predicted before, of course, more than once, but the problems are usually smoothed out by selling a few more records, making a bit more money. But today's Daily Mail interview sees them so humped with the whole business, you wouldn't place bits on there being a band much longer:

"We'll see how this album goes then sit down and have a conversation about the next stage," says Cheryl. "All we can say for definite is that we'll be together up to the end of the tour."

- not exactly a ringing declaration of "five more years", is it?

Reunion in 2011, then, anyone?