John Hughes weekend: Career Opportunities

1991, and John Hughes is about to leave forever the arena of teen movies in order to concentrate on writing family films instead. But there's one last teen movie left in him - Career Opportunities. Also known as One Wild Night. The plot revolves around people being locked in a superstore overnight - the very night that burglars choose to break in.

Yes.

The strapline is "Maximum comedy at minimum wage", in a bid to make it even less attractive.

However, Betty Boo pops up on the soundtrack, so it's not all bad:


Buy
Career Opportunities DVD - not apparently in print at the moment
CBetty Boo - The Very Best of...

[Part of the John Hughes weekend]

Artistdirect crawls away from NASDAQ

Claiming it no longer has the ability to cope with the "demands" of SEC filings, ArtistDirect is pulling itself off the NASDAQ exchange.

Although the company bears the name of the quite useful music website, it also runs Peer Media Technologies. The people behind MediaSentry and MediaDefender. So, having poured investment into creating ways for major labels to try and use legal routes to close down peer-to-peer networks, it's MediaSentry itself which has ended up in trouble. Whoever would have predicted that, eh?

Punkobit: Willy DeVille

Willy DeVille, founder of Mink DeVille, has died from pancreatic cancer.

Although the band which bore his made-up name might be his most visible memorial, DeVille created more than just punk in his career. After the band ended in 1985, he went solo and explored a range of genres, including Zydeco and cajun ballads. His work on the soundtrack of The Princess Bride won him an Oscar nomination in 1987.

Mink DeVille formed in 1974, getting a slot as house band at CBGBs shortly after Billy Borsay had changed his name to Willy DeVille. The arrangement lasted for three years and cemented the band's reputation as being at the heart of the US punk scene, despite DeVille's belief that his music had little in common with the CBGBs crowd.

A slew of albums for Capitol, starting with Cabretta, built on the band's reputation and saw them win a support slot on a Costello & Nick Lowe tour of the US. A spell with Atlantic would follow, but by 1985 DeVille was keen to explore other musical avenues and the band didn't so much split as disappear when the name was dropped. DeVille had, though, revived the name in the last few years, appearing as Willy DeVille and Mink DeVille Band.

Willy DeVille was 55; he is survived by a wife and a son.

John Hughes weekend: Home Alone 2: Lost In New York

Not, perhaps, the greatest moment in Hughes' career - although it made such an impression on the bloke who steered our horse-and-cart ride round Central Park that he went out of his way to point out where in the park they filmed a scene. And it did include this sublime piece of music: Darlene Love, backed by the E Street Band, All Alone On Christmas:



Buy
Darlene Love: So In Love anthology

[Part of John Hughes weekend]

Folding magazines: Bearded cut

Sad to hear that independently-minded music magazine Bearded is closing. Partly because it's wobbly financially; partly because Gareth Main is finding it more stress than fun now, and partly, as he tells Stack, because labels were getting grumpy at bad reviews. Or "honest" reviews, as they're sometimes called.

[via @sweepingnation]

John Hughes weekend: She's Having A Baby

Set here, with scary, space-stalery precision, and filmed at the same time as Planes, Trains, She's Having A Baby might well be Hughes' lost classic.

It's also the soundtrack which perhaps best showcases Hughes' range - XTC, Love and Rockets, Kate Bush rubbing shoulders with classic motown; Kirsty MacColl covering The Smiths and even some Dr Calculus, Stephen Tin Tin Duffy's side project.

And this: Gene Loves Jezebel's Desire:



Buy
The Best Of Gene Loves Jezebel
She's Having A Baby DVD
She's Having A Baby Soundtrack

[Part of John Hughes weekend]

More upset for Guy Hands

As if it wasn't hard enough trying to keep EMI afloat with nothing more than a promise to do something sometime from Chris Martin, things are looking grim for Guy Hands on a personal front now.

The New York Times is reporting that HMRC is taking a close look at his claims to be a Guernsey resident for tax purposes:

[H]is lawyers hope to make the case that not only are the funds of his company, Terra Firma Capital Partners, administered in Guernsey and all the main investment decisions taken here, but Mr. Hands also has publicly vowed not to set foot again in Britain for the immediate future. If so, that should establish beyond a doubt that he is a resident of Guernsey.

But others are not so sure. Tax experts point to the fact that his wife, who owns their stately home in the Kent countryside southeast of London, runs a hotel business that is based in Britain. Three of his four children still go to British schools and the majority of Terra Firma employees, about 60 in number, are based in its London office.

While the lawyers argue about if it's legal or not, the "is it moral" question is much more easily settled, don't you think?

John Hughes weekend: Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Ah, back when I was a student I once wrote an essay on the construction of Planes, Trains And Automobiles. I think that was why I flunked my second year human biology module.

John Candy. Steve Martin. A slim, but winning plot. And they had Balaam And The Angel on the soundtrack - I'll Show You Something Special is on YouTube, in a continuing-with-sound-only fashion.

There was also a good slice of Steve Earle, working with John Mandoukos as The Dukes. They did this:



Buy
Balaam And The Angel - The Chapter 22 Years
Steve Earle & The Dukes - The Hard Way
Planes, Trains & Automobiles DVD

[Part of the John Hughes weekend]

Unwanted formats: CMX, anybody?

Given the way new formats have been launched and failed like flying ants emerging into the daylight inside an aviary, you'd have thought that anyone at a record company meeting who suggested launching yet another mystifyingly-named, undemanded format would find themselves shoving their office gonks and mugs into a binliner rather than being given a budget and small team.

Not so, though, as the majors have cooked up a new, exciting, new, exciting, new, exciting format that will - they believe - stop the decline of album sales:

Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI are putting the finishing touches to an album format that will give music fans a computerised version of the sleeve notes that come as standard with a CD, including lyrics and artwork, and videos.

They're calling it CMX. Perhaps to persuade confused grandparents to buy one when the little 'uns have asked for a BMX. Or perhaps because they're hoping it'll be as successful as the MSX computers were back in the 80s.

One senior record label insider said: “Apple at first told us that they were not interested, but now they have decided to do their own, in case ours catches on.

“Ours will be a file that you click on, it opens and it would have a totally brand-new look, with a launch page and all the different options. When you click on it you’re not just going to get the ten tracks, you’re going to get the artwork, the video and mobile products.”

Thank god for that - I would have hated it if it didn't have mobile products.

Is it just me, or does that "senior record label insider" sound like he or she has been to a couple of meetings where someone's stood up and run through a Powerpoint, and everybody has come away really excited but nobody quite understands what it is. "There's this thing with a brand new look and all the different options"? That could be anything, couldn't it?

The main weakness - beside the utter pointlessness of the idea - is that people aren't buying albums online because they can get the tracks they want without having to buy tracks they don't like. It's like the major labels have seen people getting upset at finding flaming brown paper bags of shit left on their doorstep, and decided that people might enjoy it a bit more if, before it was set alight, the shit was put into a gift bag with a ribbon on it.

Embed and breakfast man: The John Hughes weekend

As a tribute to John Hughes - a man who knew how to pull together a soundtrack - let's spend the weekend in 80s teen movie heaven, plucking gems from the Hughes oeuvre.

There is, I'll tell you now, hugely unlikely to be anything from Beethovens 5th.

Let's start with the Psychedelic Furs, who found that being adopted for a title of Hughes movie gave them their biggest ever hit. Albeit, as Andy Kershaw pointed out at the time, with "one of their old ones, with the drums turned up."

This would be your Pretty In Pink, then:


And this would be the song underneath the title:


Buy
Pretty In Pink DVD
Psychedelic Furs 5 album box set [for £12]

More Hughes-related music across the weekend
Planes Trains & Automobiles represented by Steve Earle & The Dukes
She's Having A Baby represented by Gene Loves Jezebel
Home Alone 2: Lost In New York represented by Darlene Love
Career Opportunities represented by Betty Boo
Sixteen Candles represented by Altered Images, The Vapors and Nick Heyward

Gordon in the morning: Enjoy him while he's free

Announcing his plans to charge people for The Sun, Murdoch conceded that he'd have to use heavyweight legal frighteners to stop 'his' stories appearing elsewhere. Has he even read his own papers in the last couple of years?

Sure, Gordon and his team are great at securing stories nobody else has - interviews with Kasabian, set-up stories with minor celebs (which will stop happening when the audience isn't there any more and Uncle Rupert threatens to sue anybody who repeats word of the publicity stunt). But much of Gordon's content relies on recycling other people's exclusives.

Sometimes the recycling is explicit, in the case of this morning's topless Sharon Stone photos, bought-in from Paris Match (Gordon now apparently completely over that outrage that celebrities might remove their clothes for attention, then).

More often, it's not - like the other day when Smart lifted a chunk of City Life's interview with Ian Brown without mentioning its source. This more humdrum role of Bizarre - an aggregator of other people's news - led to this in this week's Holy Moly mailout:

Bit off-topic, but quite pertinent.

Rupert Murdoch has announced that he is going to start charging for his stable's online news services (Sun, News of the World, Times etc) and has accepted that there "could be a need for furious litigation to prevent stories and photographs being copied elsewhere". This will undoubtedly be a success, and will see others follow suit (the Daily Mail would salivate at the thought of being able to charge for its annoyingly good showbiz section).

This is all well and good (I make no bones about the fact that I usually take Gordon Smart's lead on the biggest story of the day and run it on HM), but let's hope the respect of copyright and content ownership is reciprocal. Will these papers return the favour and put an end to ripping stories from UK and US celebrity blogs and running them as their own without the merest hint of a link or credit back to the originators?

It works both ways, Rupert - and you have the deepest pockets in the world. x

It does raise a fascinating question - if Gordon's bulging archive goes behind a turnstile, will The Sun have to spend a fortune weeding out the - ahem - borrowed material?

Still, kudos to Rupert - he really did manage to distract everyone's attention from that pesky £2billion loss, didn't he?

The RAJARS: Not so much audience figures as a referendum

Most people see the Rajar figures as a guide - however wonky - to audience listening patterns for UK radio.

Not the Daily Mail, though. Like that bloke in Contact who can discern patterns in white noise coming from space, the Mail is able to look at the Rajar states and spy crowds of outraged middle Englanders who are waving angry pitchforks:

Radio 2 breakfast show host Terry Wogan also saw his listening figures soar, and extended his lead over foul-mouthed breakfast rival Chris Moyles.

The implication is that people are turning to twinkling Tel, having had their ears scorched by Moyles. The difficult detail that Moyles' audience is also rising seems to have somehow fallen off the final copy.

The real meat of the Mail's piece, though, is that the audience drop somehow proves that They Were Right About Those Andrew Sachs calls:

Listeners are deserting Jonathan Ross's Radio 2 show in droves following the Andrew Sachs phone scandal.

The controversial presenter has seen ratings for his Saturday morning show slump in the past three months.

The presenter's average weekly audience between March and June has been 2.85million.

This is a slump, is it?

That is 180,000 below the average of 3.03million for the first three months of this year

Slightly fewer people listening to the radio on Saturday mornings in the spring than in the winter. Whoever would have thought?

And since the higher audience you're comparing with there was, erm, after Ross had returned from the post-Sachs ban, that's it's a pretty weak contention to link that fall with the phone calls. Have you got anything else?

...and 540,000 down on the 3.39million from the first quarter of 2008.

Half a million lost listeners - well, that does sound a little more slumpy. But can you really put that down to desertion following the Sachs thing?

There could be other reasons - a general shift in audience to other things, loss of listeners during the period when Ross wasn't on - but more importantly, if the Mail is really trying to prove the impact of upsetting Andrew Sachs, why is comparing the audience in January-March 2008 with today? Wouldn't a comparison of the audience before the Brand-Ross calls - immediately before, rather than half a year before - be a bit more instructive?

Gordon in the morning: A fair swap for a Ginster's pasty

Wow. Whatever will we do when we have to scrape together the cash to pay for Gordon Smart and his good works?

After all, I'm sure most of the world would rather starve than miss out on the story that Fearne Cotton is no longer dating Jesse Jenkins.

Just imagine, Rupert - if you could get a pound from everyone who cares about that, you'd possibly have had enough to pay someone to have at least airbrushed out the bit about Shakira that must have been on the cover of wherever this picture came from:

You really can see why Rupert thinks Bizarre is just like the Wall Street Journal, can't you?

Murdoch can't count on the Jackson family bailing him out, either: Jackson's kids are being banned from the internet. This is somehow going to protect them from finding out the grisly details of their father's death. I understand the RIAA is now looking to introduce legislation to save us all from the horror of finding out these details by putting a massive block on all the internet. "It's better we don't know."

Michael Jackson name to be stuck on shitty old tat; sold big

At the record company meeting, on their hands - at last! - a dead star
But, Mr. Morrissey, it's not just the record companies who adore a corpse. It's everyone who scrambles to peel off the dead guy's face and stick on things.

Now Michael Jackson is dead, the estate is planning to brand the arse out of him. MTV reports:

A wide-ranging deal with merchandising powerhouse Bravado highlights plans to produce a wide variety of Jackson-related memorabilia, from photo books and trading cards to lithographs, buttons, live recordings on USB drives, online games and denim and high-end clothing. There are also proposals for digital clothing, tattoos and accessories for VR worlds like Second Life and Stardoll, embossed wine decanters, theme packs for the Xbox and wallpaper and screensavers for cell phones.

Virtual Michael Jackson clothes? Clothes that don't exist endorsed by a man who vanished inside himself? And people will pay for this?

It's one detail, though, that shows that exactly how much thought and care has been put into this. That embossed wine decanter.

A Michael Jackson embossed wine decanter.

Presumably it looks like a coke can and the embossing reads Jesus Juice, does it?

Digital figures all a bit confused

Even the MediaGuardian seems a bit confused as to if the 6Music and BBC Radio 7 audience figures are terrible - which the three month drop suggests - or great, as the year-on-year growth would say.

Really, it might just say that Rajar isn't any good at counting digital audiences.

In other Rajar news, Moyles is still adding listeners, but not as quickly as Wogan, in the battle for the title 'The most-listened to breakfast show by a man substantially older than his target audience'.

Warners figures

Hypebot has got the details on Warners losses for the quarter, and the position isn't pretty:

Total revenue decreased 9.3% and operating income from continuing operations declined 51%. Total losses from continuing operations swelled to $37 million from $9 in the prior year quarter.

Twelve million dollars a month? It's hard to see how Warners could even manage to be spending that, much less losing it.

But don't worry, Warners have a cunning plan:

WMG improved its financial position during the quarter with a $1.1 billion offering of secured notes which the company used to pay off previous loans. But the new new notes carry a hefty 9.5% interest rate and come due in just 7 years

So it seems that Warners is adopting the survival tactics of a desperate single parent on a sink estate, and turning to a loan-sharkey solution. We give it three quarters until they're trying to flog off their telly down the pub.

Saint Etienne have all the accessories required for that Big Match atmosphere

Set your alarm clocks and other devices to remind you at 3pm on Monday when the hugely limited edition Subbuteo edition of Fox Base Alpha. There's only a thousand, so get in early, or you'll have to wait until you can buy it on eBay to put in a drawer alongside your 1981-82 Subbuteo catalogue.

[While you're waiting: Saint Etienne videos]

Croonobit: Renato Pagliari

No, no; you're thinking of Joe Dolce. Renato Pagliari was one half of Renee and Renato, who had a Christmas number one in 1982 with Save Your Love.

The most fascinating part of the story is that the writer of the song, Johnny Edward, spotted Renato on New Faces in 1975. "He'd be perfect for singing this" thought Johnny. It took seven years, then, for the partnership to come to fruition.

There was never a follow-up hit, but Renato kept singing. Lately, at his son's restaurant, which is also called Renato's.

Gordon in the morning: Next door to Uri Gellar Doesn't Call Anymore House

Katie Holmes, according to Gordon, is a little bit broody:

ACTRESS KATIE HOLMES wants to star in a box-office smash before having another kid, she has reportedly told pals.

Or possibly not broody. Katie Holmes telling Tom Cruise "yes, we can have another baby, but I just want to have another multi-million dollar opening weekend first" is a bit like me saying that I'm not going to consider buying new curtains until, well, I've had a multi-million dollar opening weekend.

Elsewhere, Pete Samson's byline appears on the 'exclusive' on photos from what I see we're now supposed to be calling "Michael Jackson's death mansion".

You'd have thought when the realtor was showing him round, that might have set a few alarm bells ringing:
- Uh... this name plaque on the front door?
- Yes, Mr. Jackson?
- It says Michael Jackson Death Mansion
- It is a charming name, isn't it?

It's not entirely clear how this exclusive is different from the News Of The World world exclusive on Sunday. Oddly, the NOTW still hasn't run its photo online. It does seem to realise it no longer has any physical copy sales to protect, as it's removed the "buy the paper to see the picture" line at the bottom of the piece.

NME exhibits brave editorial independence

Surely, it can only be brave, editorial independence that has led to this week's edition of the NME running a three-out-of-ten, rip-to-shreds review of The Twang's Jewelery Corner on the left side of a double-page, bang opposite a full-page HMV advert pushing The Twang's Jewelery Corner.

Nothing says Merry Christmas like... Bob Dylan?

It sounds like some sort of joke dreamed up by a sketch show nearing its deadline, but no: Bob Dylan really is making a Christmas album.

Bob Dylan.

Something to listen to: No Age

No Age, no pay: Sub Pop are streaming No Age's Losing Feeling ep, due this October. For nothing.

Since nobody would cash-in on The Beatles name, this can't be what it looks like

There's nothing in any way tawdry about the Ben Sherman Beatles shirts on sale:

The Beatles Collection of four t-shirts, four button down shirts and a Harrington jacket, a style made popular by in the 1960s and 70s by mods, will be available globally next February in Ben Sherman outlets and in major retailers stocking the brand.

The 60’s inspired range will be adorned with images of Beatles memorabilia, album covers and pop art images of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

Ah yes. Beatles-themed mod-style jackets. I look forward to the Sex Pistols flares and Disco-themed bondage pants which will presumably follow in a similar 'it was all roughly the same period' style.

The licence of the Beatles brand is held by Apple Corps. Caroline Mickler Limited is implementing its brand licensing strategy in the UK.

“Ben Sherman and The Beatles are a perfect match, combining a genuine British heritage with powerful, worldwide brand recognition,” says Caroline Mickler.

I'm not sure Caroline Mickler actually got to the end of that thought - is "a genuine British heritage" meant to mean The Beatles or Ben Sherman? And is "powerful, worldwide brand recognition" meant to mean The Beatles or Ben Sherman? Do both Dollhouse phrases actually both refer to The Beatles and Mickler just never got as far as saying "... with a company that makes expensive tshirts."

Radiohead download now

The Harry Patch track is available to download from the Radiohead website; it costs a pound, but the proceeds are going to the British Legion.

It's a bloody good track, by the way.

Natasha Hamilton shutters H

Natasha Hamilton out-of-Atomic-Kitten's H nightclub has achieved a notable first: it's become the first nightclub in the UK to be closed twice because of violence.

The club, in Victoria Street, was closed down last September after a stabbing inside. According to the Echo, the latest incident was equally, if not more, grisly:

Two door staff suffered knife wounds, one to his chest and another to his hand, while a third man also suffered stab injuries after trouble spilled outside.

Merseyside Police said a customer was armed with a knife inside H Bar, although this is disputed by the club management.

A man was also kicked unconscious and was found in the street with a switch blade by his side.

You've got to love the idea that management are objecting to the idea that there was guy inside the club. "Sure, there are people bleeding all over the place, but there wasn't a guy with a knife inside."

Natasha has now decided that maybe running a nightclub which attracts the stabby set might not be such a good idea, and is going to close H and open it as something else:

Her manager Martin O’Shea told the ECHO: “H Bar is finished. Natasha can’t be associated with a place that is mentioned in the same breath as stabbings and gangsters."

Although, erm, it was being mentioned in the same breath as stabbings and gangsters back in September last year, and it reopened that time.

Radiohead on Radio 4

In, ooh, just under an hour - at 8.50 - Today on BBC Radio 4 will be premiering a new Radiohead song, Harry Patch (In Memory Of).

Gordon in the morning: Oh, look, it's women kissing

Someone - Gordon says "a movie website" but it sounds more like two blokes who don't get out much down the pub - has come up with a list of "top lesbian kisses". Obviously not actual lesbians actually kissing, but people pretending to be lesbians pretending to kiss.

Buffy top girlie kiss

Since Buffy doesn't actually develop an interest in women until season eight, a comic book embrace coming at the top of the poll might seem a little surprising. But it turns out Gordon doesn't mean Buffy - as usual, he's confusing the actor and the character:

BUFFY star SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR's snog with SELMA BLAIR has been voted the hottest ever lesbian kiss on film.

And that would be bisexuals kissing, if you wanted to get technical.

Never mind, because the whole article is really building up to the photo caption:

Lez be friends ... Selma Blair and Sarah Michelle Gellar in Cruel Intentions

Lez be friends? Does Gordon realise that's one of the phrases which Alan Partridge throws at his lady lesbian guests in Knowing Me, Knowing You, as a demonstration of how cruel and ignorant he is?

Oh... and you remember Gordon tutting at people who take their clothes off in order to buttress their fame? Apparently it's not bad when Victoria Beckham does it for a pants advert, either

Cobain continues being rude after his death

A lovely idea of an unofficial park remembering Kurt Cobain has run in to trouble, as the man behind it, Tori Kovach, has selected eight Cobain quotes he'd like to display in the park. And one of them has a rude word in.

The Associated Press explains:

Aberdeen city officials are upset about the quote that says, "Drugs are bad for you. They will f--- you up." The marker contains the full F-word.

There's an interesting philosophical digression here, as to if it's accurate to say the quote says something, and then not publish what the quote actually says. But let's leave that aside.

The council will decide if such profanity should be allowed to be seen in cold, hard granite, or if it should have them removed and invite passers-by to add the fuck back in.

Local drug dealers are also said to be upset. One told us: "Hey, how am I meant to be selling my shit down here with a big sign saying they fuck you up? It's like forcing McDonalds to put a sign up saying 'will make you fat', or Pizza Hut stick a label on their boxes saying 'won't actually fill the hole in your life, you know'. Couldn't they at least tone it down? 'Some drugs might be bad for you. They might mess you up, if you're not careful and buy from an undesirable source, like that Sammy The Fish down on the Civic Square, because I know for a fact what he says is E is actually ex-lax cut with Vim.' Something like that, I could maybe live with."

AOL: Round and round goes the downward spiral

It's taken them a while, but AOL have broken off from sitting with their heads in their hands sobbing gently to launch a UK version of Spinner. I don't know if they didn't realise they could just do one version as it's on the internet, but it's done now.

Spinner.com launched in 2007 with one simple idea - that it was all about the music. Since then, it's become one of the most popular music sites in the US, and has launched international editions in Spain, Poland and Canada. Now it's the UK's turn.

I'm not quite sure why Poland got their site before the UK did. Oddly, spinnermusic.pl takes you back to the front of Spinner US, and you have to go to pl.spinner.com in order to get the Polish content. Which is splashing Michael Jackson and a lot of metal right now.

UK Editor Stephen Dowling's introduction is a little toe-curling in places - "hey, my crazy tastes must put a strain on my iTunes Genius function". But it seems heartfelt, and - hey - it's all about the music:

Spinner.com launched in 2007 with one simple idea - that it was all about the music.

Or, as the press release puts it:

“The vision for Spinner UK is to create a destination for passionate music fans beyond the Top 40, with a global pool of bloggers contributing music news across the world.”

The front page on launch day has items about Slipknot, Michael Jackson, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Snoop Dogg and Green Day. So not very far beyond the top 40, then.

Wyclef Jean was overawed by Michael Jackson

I think the subtext here is that we're meant to read the words "even I, the mighty Wyclef Jean, out the Fugees and so on, felt this way" at the start of every sentence:

"When I knew he was coming, I went to the bathroom, put some water on my face and I was rehearsing how I would be talking to Mike," he said. "When I was in the presence of Michael Jackson, I go to shake his hand — and my whole voice box goes out. This is the kind of effect that this man had on me!"

That must have been an awkward meeting - one man unable to get his voicebox to work, the other having trouble keeping his nose in place.