Errors Sunday: Mr. Milk

Another clip of Errors doing their thing: Mr. Milk:



[Part of Errors Sunday]

Festival death

Bad news from Rock Ness: the BBC is reporting that a 19 year-old has died on-site. This is the second year running that someone has died at the festival; last year a man was found dead in his car.

Just in time for the new Big Brother series

We might have thought that going on Celebrity Big Brother would be enough to torpedo The Ordinary Boy's career, but here we are, two years on, and they're still turning up in the newspapers. Admittedly, only because Preston is supposedly seeing someone else, and we think it's now sixteen full months since anyone played an Ordinary Boys song anywhere in the world, but, still, it's more than Ultrasound get, isn't it?

Embed and breakfast man: Collecting the Errors

As Errors prepare for the release of new album It's Not Something But It Is Like Whatever.

First up, this is the promo clip for Terror Tricks:



More videos across the day
Mr Milk

Amy Winehouse: Drugs and playground racism

The News of the World has come into possession of another slew of photos of Amy Winehouse relaxing at home. Much of it, of course, is what you'd expect - what the snootier papers call "drug paraphernalia"; Winehouse and Blake Fielder-Civil swapping pills like Lady and The Tramp with the meatball; photos with large captions along the lines of

Foil used for taking drugs

The new element, and one which is going to make even Winehouse's biggest supporters feel a bit queasy, is some knockabout racism:

Amy, 24, and a pal called Sarah giggle as they sing a string of racist lines set to the tune of kiddies' favourite ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes'.

Blake pretends NOT to record the unfolding events and eggs them on, saying: "Can we have a singsong of it?"

Sarah is at first reluctant but soon warms to the action as Amy enthusiastically sings:

"Blacks, Pakis, Gooks and Nips, Gooks and Nips!

"And deaf and dumb and blind and gay!"

She repeats the first line over again and on the word "Nips" Amy pulls her eyes into slits then pushes her boobs up in a gesture to her nipples.

It's hardly evidence of planning genocide - more on a par with what Beatlesgot up to when they thought nobody was listening, for "a laugh" more than from deep political conviction; the thin sliver of ill-advised humour being impossible to discern once it finds itself in the public domain. It doesn't make it any less nasty, brutish and thoughtless, though. And managing to cram in some lazy disability and queer bashing shows a special commitment to pissing your career away.

This week just gone

Over the last month, these have been the ten individual stories which got the most page impressions, although we're not going to suggest that means they were the most popular or that they were all unique visitors; it's not like we're Guido Fawkes or anything:

1. Jury to watch R Kelly's "child porn video"
2. When Lily Allen's misbehaviour was limited to changing on trains
3. McFly strip naked; people largely uninterested
4. RIP Joaquin Tavares
5. Beth Ditto, naked and puzzled on the NME front page
6. NME relaunches all over again
7. There's still residual interest in Heather Mills nude
8. Mariah Carey hits the Playboy cover
9. Robbie Williams is "fat", apparently
10. Von Sudenfed / Mark E Smth video YouTube delights

We plugged this lot:


Johnny Foreigner - Waited Up 'Til It Was Light


Ladytron - Velocifero


The Silver Jews - Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea


Shearwater - Rook


The Notwist - The Devil, You And Me


Johnny Truant - No Tears For The Creatures


Rudimentary Peni - No More Pain Hardcore experts hail this 'their best since the 80s'


Sarandon - Kill Twee Pop!


Gemma Ray - The Leader


Aimee Mann - ---- Smilers


Broadway Calls - Broadway Calls


Pogues Box Set


Bukia - Nina Del Fuego

Alabama shake down their own drummer

Popular imagination insists the drummer is usually the weakest intellect in any given band. Alabama have just given lie to that myth, as the rest of the band have managed to overpay their drummer, Mark Herndon a fifth of a million bucks more than what they now think was his due. The rest of the band are now suing to get the cash back.

Their case is that he got his cut of the merchandising money from their 2003 before accountants realised that, erm, there wasn't any money made on merchandise. Given that the payment would have suggested that Alabama made $800,000 in profits on flogging tshirts and whatever other stuff they stuck their logo on, you'd have thought they might have had a pretty large clue about that at the time.

We're given to understand that the lawsuit is also looking to recoup, like, money for all the time they wasted hanging about while, you know, he spent time carrying his shit and shit out to the van.

Off the road: Pump prices hit touring bands

The saviour of the music industry, for about a year or so now, has largely been thought to be touring. If people won't pay for records, runs the logic, they'll pay for live shows. The logic of tours-to-promote-albums has been inverted.

Live music. That'll save us all.

Trouble is, though, the rise in the price of oil looks set to bugger that plan, too. Michelle Shocked has told Hypebot that she's feeling the pinch:

I always thought that commuting to work by airplane was excessive, but Southwest and JetBlue fares just made it too tempting...It's possible that summer traffic is responsible, but in general I'm assuming that when the fall comes around the prices won't go back down to their 'cheaper to fly than drive' rates...I thought about converting my tour bus to biodiesel, but in the end I just donated it to the church for a building fundraiser.

I've had to develop orbit rhythm sections for the regions of the country.

And that's Michelle Shocked. Imagine what the rapidly increasing price of diesel means for the economics of a multi-trailer, multi-winnebagoed tour across a continent.

And that's before you factor in fans having to decide if they're going to drive halfway across a state or a country to get to a massive venue to see a band, nevermind find the price of the tickets out of a squeezed pocket book. The big tours are going to have do some serious work with spreadsheets to make themselves retain profitability in the next few months.

No money shifting CDs

The physical music market has lost a major company this week, with the announcement that Handleman will handle CDs no longer. They're the US company whose main interest in the music industry was shipping products to WalMart stores. Their official announcement makes it clear that they don't see much profit in the business in future:

As to the timing of our decision, we took into consideration a number of factors, including indications from existing customers of their reluctance to maintain long-term relationships with multiple music distributors in a shrinking market, a growing question in our minds whether our key music suppliers would provide trade terms sufficient for us to support our customers for the peak holiday shipment season, and uncertainty whether our credit agreements would permit sufficient liquidity to operate normally through the upcoming Christmas season if our suppliers did not return to historical trade terms.

"Taking all these factors into consideration, we determined that exiting the North American music business now, in the transactions announced today, was in the best interest of our customers, vendors, employees, shareholders and other stakeholders. We regret the impact of this decision on many of our employees, and will do our best to assist them at this difficult time. We also will work with our valued customers and vendors to achieve a smooth, seamless and timely transition."

The bad news is for the 260 people who will be entering the US job market at a time when it's nowhere near its strongest.

The glimmer of hope, though, is Handleman's suggestion that the market isn't quite dead, but can no longer support "multiple" distributors.

The worry for the industry as whole, though, is the hint that the major labels are no longer in a position to offer stock on credit - even to its largest customers - in anything like enough quantities to allow it to function.

The conclusion is not that there is no market for records; but that the market is small, shrinking, and might become a specialist niche. After years of the big retailers crushing out the small, specialist stores, we could be about to see a major reverse.

Something new from Radiohead

We realise that probably every website, blog and game-and-watch is already featuring this, but just in case:



Radiohead, unveiling a new song Super Colider, live in Dublin last night.

Bob Dylan: He's in The Times, a-raging

In a bid to promote his London art show, Bob Dylan's been in town, talking to the Times.

He doesn't like the music industry:

"The music world's a made-up bunch of hypocritical rubbish. I know from publishing a memoir that the book people are a whole lot saner. And the art world? From the small steps I've taken in it, I'd say, yeah, the people are honest, upfront and deliver what they say. Basically, they are who they say they are. They don't pretend. And having been in the music world most of my life [he laughs again], I can tell you it's not that way. Let's just say it's less...dignified.”

Yes, publishing's much better, with the over-bidding for unsalebale memoirs, the ghost-written, disposable guff from X Factorites and sportocelebs, the sexing-up of covers and thinning out of considered works. Given that most of the big publishers are part of entertainment industry megaliths like most of the large record labels, why does Dylan think its any different there?

And the art world? If you're placing your faith in the honesty of people who sell art, you're setting yourself up for a major disappointment.

Darkness at 3AM: From the party frontline

The 3AM Girls seem more surprised that Pete Doherty didn't go to Carl Barat's birthday party than he blew out his own solo gig. Mind you, nobody would be surprised that Doherty was a no-show for a gig these days, would they?

They're also surprised at Peaches Geldof kissing a girl, seeing this as something interesting rather than a slightly desperate attempt to generate column inches:

It's bad news for Peaches Geldof's bloke, The Horrors star Farris Rotter.

She's been getting off with someone else - and it's another woman.

It might be bad news. On the other hand, Rotter has always struck us as the sort of bloke who probably thinks that might be his fantasy.

It turns out, by the way, that bisexuality has only just been invented. It's not anything to do with physical desire or ages-old sexuality, it's:

taking a leaf out of Lindsay Lohan's book

Which does make it sound a lot less sexy.

Gordon in the morning: Attacking the monarchy

Great excitement over at Bizarre this morning, with Gordon having a pop at Beatrice, daughter of the parasite and the scrounger ( © Socialist Worker 1986). While Smart might not have quite raised himself to such Republican levels as that, he isn't going to bend the knee before royalty:

IT’S not often you’ll hear me giving the clipboard-wielding idiots who stand at the front doors of nightclubs a pat on the back.

But for the first time I am saluting this vile species for dishing out a regal snub to spoiled royal PRINCESS BEATRICE.

God, these are confusing times, aren't they? On one side, The Sun and some bouncers; on the other, a minor member of the royal family. How would you choose who to side with?

Luckily, nobody comes out of it looking good. Gordon launches into some lazy royal-bashing (is Beatrice really "spoiled" or just privileged? And Smart calls her "ruddy-faced" which would be rude even if it was true.)

On the other hand, Beatrice herself - allegedly - did pull the gold-plated equivalent of 'don't you know who I am's?:

She declared: “Don’t you know who I am? Do you know I’m royalty?”

Oddly, though, while Smart acknowledges she's doing a job of a work right now, he's haughty about that:

Beatrice has had her first taste of the big wide world this summer, working as a personal shopper in Selfridges.

It’s hardly shovelling peas in a factory or waiting tables for £3-an-hour.

Yes, but it's the same job that your paper was suggesting somehow was beneath her the other day (working as "SHOP ASSISTANT", screeched the standfirst.) And Gordon then trips over himself by pointing out that "wages are no problem for Bea-list though." So, she doesn't need the money, but is working anyway. Gordon, you cant simulataneously decry someone for laying about doing nothing and doing a job that isn't hard enough, can you?

The other funny thing is Gordon's fuming when faced with someone who has inherited their position and wealth only finds an outlet for Bea. Paris Hilton, Peaches Geldof - and, we'd guess, James Murdoch - tend not to get a rough ride for making the most of the accidents of their birth. Funny that.

Meanwhile, Gordon is worried about Madonna, and how much flesh she shows:

I TUNED in to Channel 4 to see MADONNA’s new video on Thursday night.

And for the first time I felt a bit guilty watching a 49-year-old woman prancing around in her undercrackers.

We're assuming he's just written this badly, and didn't actually mean to give the impression that he frequently watches women just this side of fifty jumping about in their knickers, although we can't be sure of that.

Clearly, Madonna must have aged quite a bit in the last month, at the start of May, Gordon had no problems with it at all:

Madonna wows with sexy show

Or perhaps he felt dirty then, too, and just didn't want to mention it.

UPDATE: And, lest we forget, back in April, for the last Madonna video, Gordon was so priapic he could have been typing with his manhood:

POP royalty MADONNA has proved she’s still the Queen when it comes to getting tongues wagging.

Here are stills from the video for new single 4 Minutes, where Her Madgesty sports slinky knee-high leather boots for a series of raunchy dance routines with JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE.

In the vid, Madonna strips down to her bra and canoodles with Justin in the back of a car.

But of course, she wasn't quite so old two months ago.

Shiny new band: Dream Bitches

Not that new, perhaps - the press release uses the phrase "sophomore album", which would be a clue - but we've not come across them before. The press release also drops the names Breeders and Tegan and Sara. To be fair, they seem to be caught in something of a struggle between their rockier Breeders side and their poppier Tegan and Sara side - you might have hoped for a little more synthesis by the second album. But they're certainly worth a listen, especially on their cover of Belle and Sebastian's Me And The Major [mp3 link] which manages to inject, rather successfully, an element of Billy Joel's We Didn't Start The Fire to proceedings.

You can find their doings over on their MySpace; there's an album, Coke and Spiriters (bad, bad pun) available on eMusic.

Further mp3 action: Bad Luck Bill and Mother's Day.

Scouts don't live up to promise

They're going to play the existing dates next month, but after that, the members of I Was A Cub Scout will be saying they were I Was A Cub Scout:

"Hello friends, here goes. Tonight (June 5) we have decided that I Was A Cub Scout has and must now come to a close. We have had countless problems over the past year or so and with yet more occurring we it best to end on what would seem like a decent note.

"We will be honouring all of our UK shows of which we have confirmed, with the iTunes festival at KOKO with Death Cab For Cutie on July 14 being our last.

"We will speak more of it all soon, but for now we must tour. It is a very sad day for us."

It's thought that there was some sort of an argument over a woggle.

Not Busted

Ki McPhail and Owen Doyle, the two members of the Busted who were dropped before the band found what we must call fame have had their claims for money for songs they say they co-wrote rejected by the High Court.

Busted are delighted:

In a statement after winning the case, ex-Busted members James Bourne and Matt Willis said: "This was an opportunistic attempt by Doyle and McPhail to cash in on our success.

"Their claims were a complete fabrication and we are delighted that the judge has seen through this and totally dismissed them.

"Our position has been completely vindicated and our achievements with Busted remain untarnished."

Well, assuming you can view what you did with Busted as an untarnished achievement in the first place. If a court rejects claims that you had help hitting someone over the head with a spade, it doesn't mean the attack makes you a humanitarian.

Also, we're not entirely sure that the Judge did quite go as far as their post-court statement seems to suggest, as Newsbeat points out:

He said who wrote the songs was irrelevant to his decision because there had never been any contract or partnership between the four.

He dismissed the claims for money; he didn't address their claims to have written the songs.

Luke Pritchard: Ladies' man, he bets

Yesterday, we had Michael Eavis sounding like a bad throwback to a 70s sitcom. Today, Luke Pritchard from The Kooks offers what sounds like a tribute to 1970s jazz mags:

"She didn't show up but I heard Carmen Electra was coming to our show," he said. "Can you imagine fucking Carmen Electra? How cool would that be?"

When asked if he would genuinely be interested in having sex with Electra, Pritchard said, "Of course, man! We all would have [hooked up with her on the night of the gig]! Anyone would have!

"When you're in a big band, you can go anywhere and do whatever you want. I'd like to fuck Carmen Electra!"

Doubtless his fans would rush to point out that his tongue was in his cheek as much as his cock was his hand, but we're not so sure. Not to mention that if his band was so big he can behave like he's Vladimir Putin, how come Carmen Electra didn't show up in the first place?

The attitude isn't, sadly, surprising, but the lack of understanding that some things that are greeted with rounds of applause in the van between gigs probably shouldn't be raised in interviews is.

[Thanks to Peter D for the tip]

Darkness at 3AM: Following Beth Ditto into Evans

We're trying to work out - once again - what goes on in Beth Ditto's head. Having had a strop at Top Shop for their "limited" fashion sizes, 3AM are now reporting that she's going to be working with Evans:

We're told: "She wants to show the world that big girls can have fun with fashion - and stick two fingers up to the size-zero brigade."

But isn't signing a deal with a shop that serves only larger sizes also working with a chain that does "limited" fashion sizes? And since they're part of a broader retail group, complicit in the attitude that people with smaller bodies and people with larger bodies really ought to be forced to shop in different places?

The 3AM Girls, of course, have nothing to offer on this ethical point, instead using one of their favourite final lines:

You go, girl!

It's awful when people say that - especially English people, who really don't take comfortably to pretending to be Tyra Banks. But it's even worse when it's used in print. What do they mean, exactly? It's a press equivalent of ending a sentence in conversation by making a honking noise and balancing a ball on your nose.
And - seriously - is this the best picture they could find to illustrate the story? Really?

The hidden subtext is 'just send money'

Pete Wentz has just turned 29 - thereby making him twice the age of his oldest fans - but doesn't like the gifting involved:

"The truth is I hate my birthday. I don't like it at all. It's because I realized I'm bad at receiving presents."

"I'm really bad at receiving presents so I get really nervous around my birthday and I really don't want people to give me presents."

He hates his birthday because he is nervous about getting gifts? What, is he so inept the idea of unwrapping a box of his sponsor's male grooming products sends him into a fit of the vapours?

Perhaps he just knows that his Mum will send him off to write thank you notes straight after.

He does seem to enjoy presents, though:

"My wife gave me a motorcycle for Christmas, and that was pretty awesome. I haven¹t learned how to ride it really that well. For our wedding she gave me a Mickey Mouse Rolex, which was really hard to track down. So that¹s pretty cool."

We imagine he hasn't learned how to use the watch really that well yet, either, but we love the idea of him and Ashlee, poring over the instruction book, trying to work out how you can tell if Spongebob Squarepants is on.

What's the big idea?

Given that the tempo of Nude hardly lent itself to remixing, and with a suspicion that Radiohead were doing the competition as a bit of a pisstake, James Houston set about making a remix that:

grouped together a collection of old redundant hardware, and placed them in a situation where they're trying their best to do something that they're not exactly designed to do, and not quite getting there.

[Via Codepope on Twitter]

Gordon in the morning: Faustian pacts and angry lesbians

Perhaps its Euro 2008 or something, but today, again, the actually-kind-of-interesting story which leads Bizarre in the Sun has been pushed down the page of the online edition to make space for a bunch of stories about footballers - or, more accurately, photos of people who have sex with footballers wearing bikinis. Or, in the case of Wayne Rooney, a photoshopped image of what he'd look like in a mankini for a joke, like:

WAYNE ROONEY’s pals plan to make him wear a MANKINI as a stag party stunt.

The group think it will be the “right kind of gag” after fianceé COLEEN MCLOUGHLIN banned them from more saucy fun and games.

They will squeeze the Manchester United star into a £9.95 copy from cult comedy Borat at their villa in Ibiza.

Yes, if I'd not wanted sex-games, I'd be relieved that all his male friends are going to do is strip all his clothes off and then squeeze his cock and balls into a tight little swimsuit.

Incidentally, in what way was Borat a cult comedy? The comedy is debatable, but a movie which took getting on for three hundred million dollars at the cinema is hardly a cult, is it?

Still, while Gordon on the web is padded out with this sort of lame fare, the newspaper versions chooses to lead with the more obviously headline worthy regrets of Nick Godwyn. Who he? He's the bloke who signed up Amy Winehouse to Simon Fuller's management company in the first place:

“What is happening now is not very pleasant for anybody to watch. I feel she seems to be sad.

“People talk about wasted talent, but I don’t look at it like that. If Amy never made another record again it would be sad, but it’s less about the music for me and more about ‘this is a human being that maybe isn’t very happy’.”

On the other hand, had she not had such a high profile, she might have easily still developed a crack habit unsurrounded by those with an emotional or financial interest in trying to keep her alive. A lot of people don't even have massive talent to wager on the outcome of their addictions.

The story on Gordon's page is a little undermined, though, by halfway through deciding it's going to be about Stevie Wonder instead.

Finally, given that Kate Moss has happily done more photoshoots naked than with clothes on, why on earth is Smart so excited at getting a photo where you can almost make out her nipples through her top?

Rush off

Rush were due to be playing Red Rocks tonight - one the truly astounding global venues. Mind you, it'll be even better tonight, as nature has decided it doesn't want it cluttered up by Canadian rockers, and sent weather to intervene.

We're stealing the bread out of Bono's mouth

Oh, if only downloading a few shady mp3s were enough to ensure Bono and his chums were going to run out of cash. Sadly, it's not true, but to listen to U2 manager Paul McGuinness banging on, you'd assume that was the case:

Speaking at the Music Matters confab in Hong Kong, McGuinness likened ISPs to "shoplifters" and accused them of "turning their heads" away from the music industry's troubles and "rigging the market."

"The recorded music industry is in a crisis, and there is crucial help available but not being provided by companies who should be providing that help -- not just because it is morally right, but because it is in their commercial interest," McGuinness said.

Well, that's one in the eye for those of us who think that the music industry never moves on. They've stopped calling filesharers shoplifters, and started calling the ISPs shoplifters instead.

Not that it even makes sense - surely, since the ISPs don't end up with anything, they're more like the people who distract your attention so that a pickpocket can come round and steal your purse. If you accept they have a role at all.

We're not entirely sure why it's in ISP's "commercial interests" to bear the costs of enforcing other people's copyright, or, indeed, why they have a moral right to do so. It does seem that record labels only decided this ethical angle a couple of years ago at most, but if it was such a compellingly obvious point, wouldn't they have mentioned it back a decade ago?

McGuinness said ISPs were unwilling to act against piracy and had ignored music-industry proposals -- even though they were not being asked to police the Internet.

The stressing that they're not asking ISPs to "police" the internet is true, and a key part of the industry trying to pretend they're only making a reasonable request. Trouble is, they're expecting the ISPs to be the rest of the criminal justice system, from magistrate through to probation officer, and carry all the costs and risks of the operation.

R Kelly trial: PI claims witnesses solicited bribes

Jack Palladino, who is some sort of top-drawer celebrity private investigator - turned up in Chicago today for his part of the R Kelly trial. He'd had a meeting with prosecution witness Lisa Van Allen - last week, she told the court that he'd taken the opportunity to threaten her; today, he suggested that, actually, what happened was the she and her fiance had attempted to blackmail R Kelly using him as the go-between.

Although, apparently, not by actually directly asking for money. Because that would have been tacky, and this whole story is about class:

According to Palladino, Brown solicited the bribe by mentioning a $300,000 book deal Van Allen potentially had to tell the story of her life with Kelly.

"I didn't believe there was a book deal. The $300,000 was a coded way to get money from my client," Palladino said. The investigator said he unequivocally told Brown that Kelly would not pay them anything.

On cross-examination, prosecutor Bob Heilingoetter noted that neither Brown or Van Allen had ever explicity asked for money.

"I'm trying to figure out where this extortion is, except somewhere between your ears," Heilingoetter said.

But Palladino testified the two repeatedly said they wanted to do what was best for their family and urged the investigator to talk to Kelly.

Interesting note: Palladino got paid fifteen grand just for flying to Atlanta and having the conversation with the pair. It might have been cheaper for Kelly to have paid off the blackmailers. If that is what they were.

Well, yes, actually that would be pretty Rotten

It's only a legal complaint, and so might never have happened, but a lawsuit has been filed against John Lydon. The claim centres on an allegation that he punched a woman in the face when he discovered that his hotel room didn't have a connecting door to an assistant called Rambo.

Lydon hasn't made any comment - publicly, at least - on the allegations; it's fair to remember that rich men as often attract false charges on account of being rich. The complainant is also suing the company, claiming they'd been warned Rotten could be violent but had only warned their staff to not touch Rotten's hair.

All your promo CDs are belong to us

BBC News online has a considered piece on the court case brought by Universal against an eBay trader who sells promo copies of albums - old ones, like, not unreleased records:

In legal documents filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California, UMG's lawyers allege that "[Mr] Augusto's unauthorised distribution of the UMG promo CDs violated UMG's exclusive right to distribute its copyrighted works".

Among the promotional items listed as sold by Mr Augusto, according to the legal brief, are titles of CD singles by Nelly Furtado and rap group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.

We're alarmed by this case - not merely because the only reason music journalists eat is because they flog their unwanted promos down the second hand store, and the suggestion that promotional copies remain the property of record labels threatens that.

No, our concern is the wording of that complaint: Universal aren't objecting to the sale of promo CDs, they're objecting to the violation of its exclusive right to distribute its copyrighted works at all.

In other words, this case looks like something of a stalking horse to try and outlaw the sale of second hand records altogether - after all, if those little stickers saying "Promo copy only - not for resale" are upheld in court, then what about the small print on the CD case that forbids unauthorised sale? Wouldn't someone flogging their own copy of an album on eBay also be "violating UMG's exclusive right to distribute its copyrighted works"?

As large artists choose to seek contracts elsewhere, and new artists increasingly bypass the majors, the big four are going to come to rely more and more on catalogue. They've already moaned in the past about how second-hand sales stops them making any money - sorry, the artists, it's always the artists, making any money. Could they be gearing up for a wider action?

[Thanks to MC Glammer for the link]

Michael Eavis, the lovely kids and the black chap

Already firmly in his annual 'this year's Glastonbury was the best ever' mode - before a single drop of rain falls on a single tent - Michael Eavis has been justifying the bookings policy to the Associated Press. It might have been better if he hadn't:

"It's the best line-up we've ever had. It's absolute rubbish."

No, he wasn't suddenly changing his mind - he means that the criticism is rubbish. Although with the Kings of Leon as headliners, perhaps it was just a Freudian slip.

So, how can Michael know this is the best line-up ever? The kids, man, the kids:

"Everywhere I go kids come up to me in the street and say it's fantastic Jay-Z playing. Lovely kids in their teens. And I say 'Have you bought tickets?' and they say 'No, but we're all coming!'"

Now, this is the same Michael Eavis who has spent ten years of his life building fences and overseeing hideously complicated registration systems to keep out people without tickets suddenly gurgling with delight at the prospect of hordes of "lovely kids in their teens" turning up without tickets, lured in by Jay-Z.

But it gets worse:

"I was on the train and there was a fellow that was running the buffet car, a black chap, and he said 'We're so excited by the line-up this year. We're all coming down.' And it's fantastic to get more black people here. It'd be wonderful. That's more important than what Noel Gallagher says. These are the people that I meet out in the streets everyday, you know what I mean."

How fantastic to have black people like the chap on the buffet car coming, eh? While Eavis has a point that, Virgin rail employees' opinions probably outrank Noel Gallagher's, the whole tone of the quote demonstrates simultaneously how incredibly well-meaning Eavis, while being terribly, terribly wrong. It's like George Constanza trying to befriend his plumber so that he could claim some non-white pals.

Why would you need to make things up?

Given that the Osbourne's performance on this year's Brit awards was one of the most cheek-squishingly awful TV hosting exercises since Harold Wilson tried his hand at chartshows, it's incredible that the Daily Star felt the need to publish made-up stories about it. Their inventiveness has landed them in libel courts, and writing cheques out to Ozzy. They're giving the money to charity.

Mind you:

[Osbourne's solicitor, John] Kelly told the court the allegations were serious given that Osbourne had just completed a concert tour and he had "suffered considerable embarrassment and distress as a result of it".

Perhaps it was embarrassing, but given the level of embarrassment the programme itself generated ("PAUL MCCARTNEY... oh, no yet") it's hard to see how it could have been made any more distressing.

Joy over the Zune

The special-edition of the Zune, which comes preloaded with Unknown Pleasures is going to be limited to a run of just 500 and is coming with a bunch of self-congratulatory press flummery, captured by Listening Post:

Chris Stephenson, general manager of global marketing for Microsoft's Zune division, said the company's "involvement" (read: product tie-in) was "a way of saying 'Thank You' to the band for doing what they did" that was "not only a tribute to them but to an entire musical journey through Factory Records and the artists and movements it spawned."

In addition, he said, Microsoft meant the Joy Division Zune as "a tribute to deep respect (huh?) for graphic design that lives on through artists like Peter Saville, and to independent film-makers that believe in more than just commercial success" (which has also largely eluded the Zune). "Ultimately it's a tribute to the self-belief and self-expression that inspires true authentic art."

True authentic art. What better way to pay tribute to that than by throwing an advertising stunt for a multinational company's me-too audio product, eh?

Still, it's nice to know - in a very real way - this special Zune isn't just a thank you to the late Ian Curtis, but also to the Wendys and Northside. Maybe that was a hint that Redmond is preparing a Chicken Rhythms Zune for the Christmas market?

Darkness at 3AM: It's all about the hair

While Gordon's report from the Glamour awards noticed that Lily Allen was so drunk she was being, erm, helped by a bouncer, the 3AM Girls only seemed to spot that she had pink hair.

Perhaps the 3AM team missed the drunkeness as they were running round getting other "scoops" such as Kate Moss not turning up and the hilarious presentation of 'tv personality of the year' to Dannnii Minogue. No, really. It's not such an unusual prize, is it? After all, Dannii is on television, and does have... well, she is on television, anyway.