Me, I Disconnect From You

Gary Numan won't be reworking his old stuff, oh no, no, no:

"Me? Join in on the '80s revival? I'd rather eat worms. I've absolutely no interest in going back to the '80s.

"I was there the first time so it's got nothing new to offer. I've always refused to do anything connected to the '80s, any TV shows or retro tours, and I play very little old stuff at my gigs."

Gary Numan will, erm, complete his tour playing through his 1979 album Replicas in its entirety, building on the success of the tour of material from the Telekon album.

Japan creates RIAA's dream scenario

The BPI will be casting envious glances towards Tokyo, where reports suggest Japanese ISPs are about to introduce the sort of measures against filesharers the British music industry would like to see here - with punishment, including disconnection, for the "worst" offenders.

The idea has been floated in Japan before, mind: back then, though, the government warned that it would breach privacy rules. It's not clear why things would be different in 2008.

Curve weekend: Coast Is Clear - Live

Continuing our rewind through Curve's career, here's a performance of Coast Is Clear from Channel 4's short-lived, ill-conceived Friday At The Dome in 1991:



Part of Curve weekend]

Dutch TMF counts filesharers, shapes programming

Viacom's TMF channel in the Netherlands has started to blend filesharing trends into making playlist decisions, although original plans to build the figures into the weekly chart were dumped when the local RIAA client organisation started to protest:

Wouter Rutten, the spokesman for the Dutch IFPI said he doesn’t see the use of P2P data as problematic as long as they don’t explicitly use it for their music charts or advertise it in any other way.

So, it's alright for TMF to listen to the audience and choose what to play based on the peer-to-peer networks, but not to directly report what filesharers are sharing. It's almost as if the music industry aren't that worried about filesharing providing its only used as a background promotional tool - it's okay for it to exist on the strict understanding that nobody talks about it. Curious.

Spears snoops sacked, says Simpson

While Britney Spears was in the UCLA Medical Center having her problems enumerated if not exactly solved, some of the staff took the chance to take a sneak peak at her medical records.

Hospital Human Resource head Jeri Simpson has found out, and canned the employees.

While it's heartening to see the hospital move so swiftly and decisively, we're not entirely sure it's done the right thing. Because before there were curious employees who knew some secrets about Britney Spears, but couldn't share them, because it would cost their jobs, and nobody knew they knew things they shouldn't know.

Now, there are unemployed people who have no jobs to lose, and a press statement revealing their existence. Hasn't the sackings and Simpson's announcements made a bad situation potentially a lot worse?

Especially as this is the second time it's happened - same patient, same hospital, same head of HR, same transgression, same result. You might wonder if the problem is not with the individuals, but perhaps further up in the hiring and training chain.

Curve weekend: Superblaster

The full video - complete with countdown clock and everything:



[Part of Curve weekend]

Something to listen to: REM SXSW NPR

NPR is hosting a full stream of REM's SXSW show.

[LINK FIXED - apologies]

Darkness at 3AM: Cooking up stories

We know it's only the gossip column on the Daily Mirror, but even so: a restaurant run by Kevin Federline and Jamie Spears? They really believe that's going to happen?

Muse become the anti-Elbow

At the end of the week when Guy Garvey moaned and moaned and moaned about how people won't buy all the tracks off an album if you let them pick and choose, Muse have decided to more or less give albums the chop and give the people what they want. Matt Bellamy explains:

"I don't think we're going to approach the next album like we're making an album," Bellamy revealed. "I like the idea of releasing a series of songs, every month or every couple of months - just putting songs out there.

"Almost like making the single a more prominent format, and then every few years doing a best of from that period and that would be the album. So in other words, throw out songs every couple of months and see how people like them."

Malcolm McLaren has seen the future and, in it, he works

We always get nervous when Malcolm McLaren starts talking about the future. We've seen his futures in the past - skipping ropes and opera mash-ups - but let's at least see what he's got to offer this time, shall we?

About 10 years ago I gave a lecture in London to the Television Society in which I proffered that it would not be long before culture became fully interactive and people would start making their own programmes in every shape and form in every medium. Did they listen? No, sadly, but to me and others it seemed obvious.

Ah, the old trick of pretending that you were the voice of wisdom that everyone ignored. But would McLaren really have expected the BBC to suddenly change what it was doing on the basis of a coming change that the technology wasn't quite ready for? ("And now on BBC2, it's over to you... well, we seem to be three or four years ahead of being ready for that next programme, so until then, here's some music...")

And, unless McLaren is tuned in to nothing but Current, we're still not quite at the point where "everybody is making their own programmes in every medium". But McLaren is convinced that we're there now. And why? Because someone's let him make a show:

Well, here we are in 2008 and the BBC are embarking upon expeditions into that world with things like The Game, a radio show starring myself. It's set in a place called Parispace, and involves me fighting boredom for what I call the "outlaw spirit". The whole thing is set as a computer game and I travel through various levels meeting people like Jean-Paul Sartre and the Phantom Of The Opera.

"Starring myself". Yes, Malcolm's brave new world is a video-game conceit documentary on Radio 2. It sounds from the press release like the sort of programme that Channel 4 were churning out in their early years, and - indeed - like the sort of thing that McLaren has been banging out for years. In effect, it's Ghosts of London meets Sonic The Hedgehog.

Malc then bangs on about how film is "dinosauric" and TV has "gone the same way". He dismisses them as media for "the over 40s" - which, since that's the fastest growing demographic, doesn't seem to be such bad news, and, since he's made this programme for Radio 2, shouldn't really be a worry.

McLaren's somehow convinced that his programme is going to unleash a new age:

You're definitely going to see something with a lot more authenticity and therefore more integrity and something with a lot more confidence. We're seeing that desperate fast track now in Hollywood - the whole system is breaking down and becoming anti-corporate. It can't do anything else because being anti-corporate and anti-globalisation and anti-commodification of the culture is now de rigueur, it's fashion. And it's borne out of what is happening on Broadway and the radio.

So the BBC should be praised for commissioning mad, experimental, programming like this, as much as a disaster one might want to suggest it is. Everyone should be commended for allowing people to make disasters, to make failures - you've just got to be sure that it's a magnificent failure and that, by creating a magnificent failure, you plant the seed. The Game needed a much bigger budget to make it work, but at least there is a willingness there to not make the typical, dull, DJ formatted programmes. And following this route may ultimately, dare I say it, make the BBC more culturally subversive.

We love the way that McLaren still believes that his schtick is in any way subversive - and, indeed, hasn't appeared to have listened to any radio output from the last twenty years judging by the way he seems to believe that it's all "DJ formatted programming".

A thing to remember: McLaren's love of subversive television, and understanding of the current media world, led him to agree to go on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Here.

Embed and breakfast man: Curve

With news of the re-emergence of Tony Halliday, what slimmer excuse could we need for a weekend of Curve videoage?

First up, here's Clipped, which looks a little as if it might have been extracted from one of those 'collect and send in' coupon deals that the music press used to have. Imagine trying to tell kids today if they collect a coupon a week for the next month, and then send off a letter, eventually they'll get a tape or something back through the post.



Further shoegoth video fun throughout the weekend
Superblaster
Coast Is Clear - live on Fridays at The Dome
Leftfield: Original - featuring Toni's vocals
Acid Android - Faults - more guest appearances from Toni

Buy
Pubic Fruit - the first three EPs on one CD
The Way Of Curve - comprehensive two disc career collection

Gordon in the morning: Sit down, there's some reporting

It's not all writing about breasts, you know: Gordon's actually got a proper, decent story this morning:

COLDPLAY are being paid a whopping £1.2million to play a festival in Japan later this year.

If they gig for 75 minutes on both nights, they will trouser a jaw-dropping £8,000 A MINUTE.

We don't know where he's got the figure from, but assuming it's true and he's not merely dressed up a story he read in Billboard with a made-up figure, the scoop - and the accompanying picture of a very-smug looking Chris Martin - is a pretty solid one.

Of course, Gordon thinks this is brilliant news, and then spends some time getting excited - excited - over the prospect of a new Coldplay album before ending on a weak pun:

They should change their name to Goldplay.

And, with long lens shots of Cheryl Cole's ring finger and Pussycat Dolls in "undercrackers", it's quickly back to business as usual.

RIAA facing legal woe

Just under a month ago, the judge hearing Tanya Andersen's claims of malicious prosecution against the RIAA dismissed her claim, giving her a month to refile. At some point today, she intends to do just that, promises her attorney Lory Lybeck. As the judge has said there won't be any more motions to dismiss entertained, this could mean the RIAA is about to have to reveal a lot of its innermost workings:

Lybeck tells Ars that he'll be digging into agreements between the RIAA, RIAA member companies, MediaSentry, and the Settlement Support Sentry. Part of that will involve looking at compensation, like how much MediaSentry gets from each settlement. "I'd love to know what kind of bounty MediaSentry got paid to supply erroneous identities to the RIAA," Lybeck says.

One of the allegations in the amended complaint will involve MediaSentry's status as a private investigator. "MediaSentry claims it is able to gain access to people's hard drives without their permission and collect information," notes Lybeck. "It's illegal because they're not licensed to do that work."

The RIAA isn't keen on having its secret deals revealed - and it's likely that the people at the labels who bankroll the organisation will be less than thrilled at being exposed in this way, too. Normally, if things get sticky for the RIAA on a case like this, they just abandon the case - but that's not an option when you're the accused. It could get very interesting.

[Thanks to Michael M]

Eavis rubbishes own bill

It's only a few weeks since Michael Eavis was trumpeting what a brilliant and potentially historic booking Jay-Z was, a key part of a reinvigorated Glastonbury Festival.

Now, though, he's sounding a bit less thrilled, as registrations for the Glastonbury ticket charge are down on last year:

"There's not as many as last year because we haven't got the super, big, big, big sort of headlining act anymore.

"We've gone for something middle range although Jay-Z is huge in America. It's going to be absolutely brilliant. But it's not like a Radiohead or a Muse or a Coldplay or an Oasis is it?"

Of course, the tickets will all be sold, but the decline in interest must be a bit of a worry - it's almost as if having made it so very, very hard in terms of cost and administration to get in, people are thinking they'd be better off elsewhere.

Still, at least it might mean Eavis won't have to make so many biodegradable tentpegs, which are being trialled this year to see if the problem of discarded metal pegs injuring cows can be avoided.

The pegs are made from wheat and potatoes, which seems to be a bit risky to us - with the notorious Glastonbury rains, won't this just mean you're putting your tent up with Smash?

Lou Reed likes it hi-fi

Ignoring that some of the very best songs ever were designed to come out of a tinny transistor and were none the worse for that, Lou Reed has been moaning about mp3s:

"If you find out you like good sound you have to go out and get a good unit to play over," he told Variety.

"If the guy making the record likes good sound, the price goes up. People have to have higher standards. Some might say 'that's elitist'."

Reed went on: "You can get any song you want in the world. If you don't care about good sound, none of this matters for a second.

"If no one cares, it will stay the same. Technology is talking us backwards, making it easier to make things worse."

Now, a nice quality sound is fine, but it's not everything, is it? Suggesting that it'd be better to not to be able to get access to a squillion songs because some of them you might notice are a bit flat if you play them through massive speakers seems to be missing the point quite spectacularly. It's like suggesting you'd be better off illiterate than to have to put up with books printed on cheap paper.

MTV, what are you, MTV?

We got sent a copy of the press release for that offspring of the famous game show MTV is lining up, and while the detail doesn't seem any less horrifying, we were taken with the description of where MTV sees itself in the current media world:

MTV is the dynamic, vibrant experiment at the intersection of music, creativity and youth culture. For over 26 years, MTV has evolved, challenged the norm, and detonated boundaries -- giving each new generation a creative outlet and voice that entertains, informs and unites on every platform and screen.

It's an "experiment", is it? And what would the aim of that experiment be - to see if you can shake the taint of 'what your dad used to watch' from the brand?

Andrew Collins on the NME

We wish we could pretend that we've taken a week to get round to mentioning Andrew Collins full length reaction to Stephen Dalton's piece on the NME from The Times as some sort of cosmic joke on his contention that the internet means you don't have to wait a week to hear about things any more, but actually we've taken a week to hear about it.

Andrew Collins still buys the NME, but:

I continue to read the NME because of its heritage, and for old times' sake, and because I'm actually too old to go to smelly pub gigs and sniff out the latest thing, and I'm certainly not going to loiter around MySpace at my age, so it offers me a shortcut to new stuff. But I am categorically not the NME's target audience, and I'm not going to keep it afloat on my own.

You wonder, actually, if the few thousand who do buy the NME now might not actually be significantly comprised of people like Mr Collins who buy it for old times sake.

Maybe that's where the future of the magazine could be: tempting back the audience who once bought the paper but don't feel it's what it was. Perhaps rather than worrying about pretending Joe Lean and The Bing Bang Bong are worth writing about, the magazine should swallow the commercial logic and carry rather more on Steve Earle and The Breeders - music that's still contemporary, but not so focused on the perpretual chimera of newness.

AC also misses one key point:

Paul Morley once told me that his job at the NME of the late 70s was to provide a narrative. This narrative now comes from other media - especially the internet. If you want to know what a new single sounds like, you can go and download it, you don't need someone learned and wise like Morley to describe it for you. What was once his role is now redundant. NME writers now are just music fans with moderately better access to Bloc Party than you.

But the thing is nowadays everyone can be published like Paul Morley. But not everyone can write like Paul Morley.

Landes again soon

Some great news, albeit better for people with easy access to London than the rest of the country: Dawn Landes is coming back to the UK, with a date scheduled for the Borderline on Thursday 20th March.

The rest of us can take solace in the luxuriance of a Marc Riley's Brain Surgery session for 6Music the night before.

You! Me! Um... Louis Walsh?

Quick, lock the doors: Louis Walsh likes Los Campesinos!:

"I love that song. There's a really good vibe about the band, there's an innocence that is very nice about them.

"I don't think the business has tarnished them yet, and I hope it doesn't. And it's great to see three girls and four boys together. Historically that doesn't happen much."

You might argue that being praised, in public, by Walsh, is all the tarnishing a career needs.

Crow lines up for Mac

Sheryl Crow is going to be working with Fleetwood Mac at some point soon, she, erm, hasn't quite announced:

"I don't want to make any official announcements, but I will say that we definitely have plans for collaborating in the future, and we'll see what happens."

Of course, she could have made herself clearer, but if you're going to work with Stevie Nicks, you probably want to avoid being too comprehensible.

Mail uses Rings flop to beat BBC

The Lord of the Rings stage show - which was horribly expensive and aimed squarely at the sort of people who don't leave the house very often - is closing, having managed to lose somewhere in the region of twelve million quid. However, the Mail notices the next production at the theatre is I'll Do Anything, which allows the BBC to be blamed in some way:

Lord Of The Rings stage show closed to make way for BBC-cast Oliver!

Baz Bamigboye then goes on lament that musicals are chasing out 'proper' shows. Like over-designed spectacles based on Hollywood movies, of course.

Gordon in the morning: Cancer sticks

Last week, Gordon was using his column to encourage people to send positive thoughts and happy messages to Patrick Swayze. Today, he's running long lens pap snaps of Patrick puffing on a fag and getting Emily Smith to tick him off for it.

[Swayze's brother] also said Patrick’s wife Lisa, 51, is liquidising high-fat dinners as he is having trouble keeping down solid foods.

Yeah, a man who's that ill really deserves to have a newspaper lecturing him about one of the few pleasures he might have left. If you've got pancreatic cancer that is so far advanced, not having a cigarette might make very little difference, surely?

Gordon, meanwhile, has... shall we say issues? He looks at a photo of Eva Longoria-Parker, and what does he see?

Now this new pic of her struggling to keep her lady lumps in her dress has got me craving chocolaty mallow-filled WAGON WHEELS. Yum.

Wagon Wheels is one thing. We're trying not to picture Gordon's Sherbert Fountain.

There's also a really bemusing piece about Miley Cyrus:

THIS is the most Googled girl on t’internet — teenage actress MILEY CYRUS.

Yes, "t'internet" again.

The star, daughter of mulleted Achy Breaky Heart singer BILLY RAY CYRUS, has coined it in since her success in Disney sitcom Hannah Montana.

The reference to coining it is merely to try and prop up the dreadful headline:

Montana star is silly pay Cyrus

Oddly, Having been confident with the programme that made Miley famous, Gordon then seems to forget it again:

The nippers tell me Miley plays Miley Stewart in the show, whose alter-ego is pop sensation Hannah Montana.

The showbiz editor of Britain's largest daily newspaper affecting to not know about Hannah Montana in 2008 is a bit odd, but then Gordon caps it:

Hannah Montana, THE TING TINGS, JOE LEAN AND THE JING JANG JONG?

The world is going completely mad...

Not only does he pad out the piece with a 'these young people and their crazy names' line that would have looked weak in a Mike Yarwood sketch in the early 80s, but also makes some sort of connection between Cyrus and the Ting Tings. He gets paid for doing this, you know.

Wilde, Wilde radio

With Tony Hadley off on some sort of holiday, Virgin Radio needs someone to fill his shoes. They've got Kim Wilde to cover over Easter.

Which is great, and will help fight the impression that Virgin is a bit blokey, right?

"Kim is an absolute 80s icon and a sex kitten to boot," said Mark Bingham, the programme manager at Virgin Radio.

Hmm. Although Kim is a bit of a sex kitten, we're not sure we recall anyone describing Hadley or Suggs through their sexuality when they joined the station, did they?

Jackson apparently refinances

No wonder the dollar's been plummeting today - it turns out US banks are still unable to tell the difference between a sweet deal and a leaky bucket full of mouse urine. Michael Jackson's lawyer claims that Fortress Investment Group, LLC has allowed him to refinance the loan on Neverland. God alone knows where they think the money will come from - twenty-fifth anniversary reissues of BAD?

Why (or, perhaps because) HMV is trying to turn itself into a games store

Last year, for the first time, more cash was spent on games than music in retail stores in the UK, says the Entertainment Retailers Association.

More music items are still being bought, but in terms of actual pound notes changing hands, music has been eclipsed. And, we suspect, there's a much healthier mark-up on games.

Who owns Guitar Hero?

Activision's Guitar Hero, a game where you can pretend like you're playing guitar in the same way that a karaoke machine can make you pretend you're actually a singer, has just been hit by a lawsuit from Gibson. Apparently, Gibson filed a patent back in 1999 claiming to have invented a way of playing guitar that wasn't actually playing guitars, but would be enough like the experience to persuade people to hand over large sums of cash:

A copy of Gibson's patent included in the court filing showed a method for simulating a live performance using a musical instrument, a 3D headset with stereo speakers, and a pre-recorded concert.

"Based on our preliminary analysis, the 'Guitar Hero' software (including any expansion packs) and the guitar controller provided by Activision being used as a musical instrument (packaged with the software or sold standalone) are covered by the ... patent," Gibson's law firm said in its January 7 letter. "Gibson requests that Activision obtain a license under Gibson's ... patent or halt sales of any version of the 'Guitar Hero' game software."

We're not sure Gibson should have been allowed the patent anyway - didn't Fisher Price have a plastic guitar-shaped toy with buttons you could press to make noise on the market about two decades ago?

Parton's back down again

Something that won't be happening at this year's SXSW: Dolly Parton has pulled her gig as her back is still giving her trouble.

First night: REM at SXSW

They had a new album to push - an album so modern, it's being streamed online, if you can imagine such a science-fiction concept. So, how did REM go down in Austin?

Like Elliot Spitzer at a Catholic Mother's Meeting.

Village Voice tried to be kind, but:

The songs are a bit louder, brasher, angrier, but still exploding into that sunny, boppy sort of R.E.M. chorus that's simultaneously recognizable and forgettable. The song bitching about Barbara Bush's post-Katrina Superdome quips is half-finished at best; "I'm Gonna DJ" is half-clever at worst. Michael Stipe these days is prone to corny non-sequitur exclamations -- "Hey!" "Whoa!" "Yeah!" -- amid his typical half-loopy, half-preachy banter: anti-war, pro-Obama (called that one), etc. He's endearing, but the band's flaccid, and the crowd is even worse, beaten down by New One after New One and barely perking up when the dudes deign to toss out "Drive" or "Fall on Me" or "Man on the Moon."

Austin360 couldn't even work out why they'd show up to a new band fest. Then it got it:

SXSW has become a recognizable youth culture brand. It's where old bands go to be young again.

Or to try, anyway. Did it work? MTV News' YouAreHere blogger Aaron Pinkston seemed impressed, charmed but not quite convinced:

I came to the show not being a huge fan of the band, just because they weren’t really part of my generation. However, with that said, leaving the show I definitely understand why the line to get in went for a mile down Red River Street. I was highly impressed by R.E.M.’s performance and definitely hope to one day see them perform again!

WNYC's Soundcheck blog liked what it heard, but...

R.E.M. bit into mostly new stuff, with an opener that was, well, heaven. I haven’t heard anything on the new album besides the single — and that’s a lot, mind you — but that first song sounded wonderful. New songs kept on coming, and I can’t wait to hear the new record. Sigh … I leave midway through the set to catch a ride, as we have another big Soundcheck on tap tomorrow.

... if it was that good, wouldn't you have stayed to the end?

The concert blog lists the set as played, while the merest glimpse of the band live has turned up on the YouTube:

Van Morrison 'grumpy' reports surprised website

Van Morrison's reputation clearly doesn't precede him to quite the extent you'd have thought, as ContactMusic sounds a note of surprise that he came onstage at SXSW in a bad mood:

He curtly told the audience, "We'd like to do the next album. If someone turns off that mobile phone we can start it."

ContactMusic also reports, breathlessly:

Cameras and recording equipment were also banned from the venue.

No, really? Unlike every other gig in the world which has tickets carrying a rule banning the use of cameras or recording equipment.

Winehouse for beer fest

Amy Winehouse has confirmed she'll be playing T in the Park this summer.

Or, rather: Amy Winehouse has confirmed plans to cancel an appearance at T in the Park this summer. It's not yet known what day between now and the scheduled appearance she'll pull out, although 'exhaustion' from press revelations about drug-taking is expected to be the cause. Organisers of the event said they were delighted Amy has agreed to be briefly listed on the bill again: "Last year's non-appearance really got people noticing T in the Park; we're delighted that Amy has agreed once again to make a vague promise about overcoming the recent negative press coverage to consider a date and look forward to announcing just who will be filling her slot at a press conference nearer the time."