Mercury Music Prize 2015

It's interesting to note that the Mercury has reached a point where it's not got a sponsor as such, any more, and is "in association with BBC Music". It's a fair enough way to spend a small slice of licence fee (probably a better return on investment than the BBC Music Awards) but must be strange that the second highest profile music award in the UK can't attract an above the line sponsor.

Anyway, this year's winner is Benjamin Clementine's At Least For Now. It might be coincidence, but a lot of the BBC Four coverage found space to celebrate the 'curse of the Mercury' winners - Speech Debelle, Roni Size, Ms Dynamite - and in a way that challenged the 'last seen leaving the ceremony with a cheque for £20k, and disappeared' narrative. Perhaps a partnership with a cultural organisation like the BBC rather than the marketing department of a bank is allowing the Mercury to at last be comfortable about not caring about sales, and focus on the value of the recordings.

Benjamin was so warm in his victory, too - first inviting all the other shortlisted artists on stage; then dedicating his win to the victims of the Paris Attacks, before being overcome with emotion. Genuinely, you feel that the prize couldn't have gone to a nicer man.

Eurovision 2016: First homophobic artist selected

For some reason, every round of Eurovision seems to come with some far-right tosspot or another being selected to go and do a song. This time round, it's Germany who have put forward a homophobic anti-semite to sing for them.

Xavier Naidoo, an R&B singer of mixed Indian, African and German heritage, was named by the ARD public broadcaster as Germany’s entry for the 2016 Eurovision contest in Stockholm.
But the choice was criticised by politicians and activists who said his lyrics suggest homosexuals are paedophiles and contain anti-Semitic slurs.

Xavier appeared at a Far Right rally for Germans who believe that somehow Germany is shaped like the Hitler vision of Germany, and that the Weimar German constitution remains in force. (If they really believed this, they'd be trying to pay for bread with pianos.)

Oddly, not everyone has suggested that it's a terrible idea:

“I am sure Xavier will be a worthy representative at the Eurovision,” Nicole, a German singer who won the contest in 1982, said.

“I like his music a lot and I find it great that an established artist has the courage to compete on the international stage.”

Nicole's Eurovision winner was, obviously, a Little Peace. Which turns out to have meant a little piece of Poland.

I wish I was on Ken Bruce (With rotation on Jo Whiley)

Sandi Thom's heart-string-tugging video complaining that she wasn't on Radio 2 got a bit overshadowed by events last weekend.

To be fair, 'Sandi Thom posts self-pitying video to Facebook' is the sort of story which would have been overshadowed by reports of a fifteen-minute delay to services on the Cambridge guided busway, so it's not surprising her pleas for fairness didn't get full attention as stories started to come in from Paris.

Thom has, in case you missed it, pulled a Status Quo, assuming she had some sort of divine right to be on Radio 2's playlist with her new single. Her birthright denied her, she has elected to stop making music (or, in other words, bring her life into line with the position we'd assumed she'd reached several years back):

“I am done with this industry. I am fucking sick and tired of having to sit on the edge of my seat waiting for these people to come back and tell me their verdict of whether this song is going to be a success,” she said in the video, which was later taken down from the social network.

"Honest to God I'm fucking sick to death of the bullshit this industry pulls on people like me and I've had it. Enough. I'm done.

"Fuck you Radio 2. Fuck you Bauer network and fuck the lot of you."

The suggestion that maybe she might try to make a better single next time seems to have passed her by.

Are Radio 2 being unfair? Not really; Thom hasn't released a single since 2013; she hasn't scraped the top 40 singles since 2006; and nobody's bothered to update the list of her albums on Wikipedia since 2012. It's not really Radio 2 saying that the new record won't be a success; it's the form book.

What's especially toothsome about this whole thing is that Thom was launched - well, relaunched - as a vanguard of How The Internet Changes Things, with those live stream sessions in her basement online years back. I say "her basement" - notably, the basement was constructed on the same backlot they used to fake the moon landings. But to go from sitting on MySpace disrupting the music industry to swearing on Facebook because the music industry has disrupted you back is the circle of life.

As you'd expect, Thom has received a backlash, some of which has been bullying and unfair, some of it fair comment. Thom seems vaguely surprised there was any response at all. She told The National:

“A lot of the people commenting were men and a lot of them, which is sad to me, were Scottish.

I'm not sure Thom really would prefer it if people who didn't like her came exclusively from Wales.

“It has been mad. I had to tell myself not to take a lot of it personally. I have been here before and I didn’t do anything to deserve it – it just feels like ‘round two, ding ding’. It’s tough for my family – my mum has really struggled with reading some of the things about me.

That must be hard, and - this being the internet - a lot of people went too far, too harshly, and too quickly. But...

Thom, who plays in London tonight, added: “I’m pretty outspoken, I don’t tend to teeter round the edges and smile in all the right places. It’s easier to say nothing than it is to speak out.

You can't, surely, put a video out telling the BBC, the commercial networks and "the lot of you" to get fucked, and praise yourself for being blunt speaking and unafraid to take a stand, while also complaining that people take a stand back at you, can you?

“I was called a brat – I’ve worked my arse off for years and these people don’t appreciate that. They don’t know about my life and how hard I’ve worked.

But this is, sadly, irrelevant. The guy who plays the drums night after night after night on a cabaret cruise liner is also working really hard in music, but that doesn't mean that Chris Evans should have him on the programme to drum. And if you're putting so much effort in, and not getting anywhere... well, it's harsh, but maybe you're wasting that effort?

“I don’t know how many people have messaged me privately and said they agree, but they won’t say it publicly. Everybody shoots the messenger.”

This is a lovely - the implication that there might be thousand upon thousand of secret Thom supporters, quivering in seclusion; uncountable even to Thom such are their numbers.

It might have been better if she'd not accidentally implied that she'd shot the people who had contacted her via Messenger, but let's set that aside and just breathe in that claim:

Everybody shoots the messenger.

This is often true; but it's a phrase usually used when a person has attempted to reveal something unpleasant but important. Thom seems to think that "waaah waaah Radio 2 won't play my song" is a communication on a par with the dangers of thalidomide, or the risk of global warming, or bullying in the Tory Party, or sexual misconduct in the Liberal Democrats.

She seems to be saying that the people who responded to her video by comparing her to Les from Creme Brulee are punishing her because the truth that Jeremy Vine won't be cueing her up to lead into a discussion of the Autumn Spending Review is a truth too harsh for us to look at directly.

Maybe time will prove her right.

(It won't.)

Folding magazines: Three titles shutter

None music magazines, although all had connections (greater or lesser) with music - Details, FHM and Zoo have all run out of time today.

Bauer is officially only suspending FHM and Zoo, although it's pretty clear that they're not coming back in any meaningful form. FHM long ago lost its ability to write about music in an interesting way; Zoo never had it.

Meanwhile, in the US, Conde Nast has decided that maintaining Details and GQ is one aftershave-and-cufflink title too many, so it won't sweat the Details any longer. Around the turn of the century, Details would do a regular music issue, and ran a series of sampler CDs, but recently it's been focusing more firmly on the 'men who have an ironing board' market.

He probably did think the song was about him, and correctly so

Carly Simon has surprised nobody by confirming that, in part, You're So Vain is about Warren Beatty:

The singer, 70, tells PEOPLE that the second verse of her famous song refers to none other than Warren Beatty.

"I have confirmed that the second verse is Warren," she tells PEOPLE in an interview pegged to her much-anticipated memoir, Boys in the Trees, to be released later this month.

Nobody surprised, perhaps, apart from the poor sap who paid a fortune in an auction to be told the secret of the song. He might want a refund now.

This isn't a post about the Bataclan

This isn't a post about the Bataclan.

This isn't a post about the Bataclan, because there shouldn't need to be one.

This isn't a post about the Bataclan, because what do you say?

This isn't a post about the Bataclan, because anything you could say is redundant.

This isn't a post about the Bataclan, because why would you need to write a blogpost to say that shooting people in a venue is cruel and evil.

This isn't a post about the Bataclan, because we're humans, and it should be taken as read that our hearts weight heavy, our senses appalled, that we embrace all who lost dear friends and sweet relatives that night.

This isn't a post about the Bataclan, because there is nothing we can say to take away the pain,, to unwind what happened.

This isn't a post about the Bataclan, because they wanted us to focus on what they did; how easily, how lazily they attacked the softest of targets.

This isn't a post about the Bataclan, because they want it to be.

This isn't a post about the Bataclan, because it's a post about the future, about saying 'fuck you' to people who want to steal away our experiences.

This isn't a post about the Bataclan, because it's an affirmation of life, of love, of enjoyment, of going to places in the dark to watch bands, of helping the people next to you when the audience surge lifts them off their feet or when a too-drunk man tries to get through to the front; of being giddy with the joy of getting lost in the moment, in the crowd, in the music, in the dark.

This isn't a post about the Bataclan. This is a post about love.

What now for McBusted?

Ah, the sweet joy of BBC News innocently exploring how Charlie Simpson decided to rejoin Busted without once including the phrase "it can be embarrassing to have all your credit cards declined while trying to buy a donut". But that's almost certainly closer to the answer than the "offical" explanation:

On all that Newsbeat interview where he said he would never get back with Busted, Simpson said: "I reckon I said it 20 more times than that, privately and publicly, and I meant it every single time.

"But as I say I have changed my mind and that has been down to the circumstances changing. I never thought we would get to a point where we were in a studio writing music we all got behind creatively and that was a huge shock to me.

"also, it was nice to be in a room where there was heating. I'd forgotten central heating."

I'm probably being unfair. I'm sure the desire to pick up artistically from where that Thunderbirds movie theme left off was the overwhelming desire.

The big question, though, is where does this leave McBusted? Because there was a project which had "we wouldn't be doing this if we didn't have to" scrawled all over it, and now they don't.

Someone is trying to sell a CD/Vinyl Fightstar release for £65 on ebay. It's signed, so that's probably knocked a few quid off the asking price, but still doesn't seem to be priced to move. (It claims it's the first ever vinyl/CD release, but I'm sure Peel played one of those in the 1990s).

An old friend reappears

Ah, it's been a while since we've sighted someone saying "hey, why does everyone think Morrissey's glum, he's actually very funny" as if that's not the whole point of Morrissey - in effect the "why does everyone focus on how wet the sea is, because if you taste it, it's actually quite salty" of music.

Turns out the thought isn't extinct, though. NME has one in the wild this week:

http://wilderdevotee.tumblr.com/post/132927388884/theres-some-morrissey-stuff-thats-genuinely

Nick McCabe is literally a NIMBY

Nick McCabe, out of Verve and The Verve, has recently moved to Shropshire. He's not entirely happy, though, as builders are trying to smash into his view:

The site, between the Beechfields estate and the A41 Newport Bypass, is one of 100 areas supposed to be protected from development by Telford & Wrekin Council.

But that has not stopped developers Redrow from consulting the estate’s residents on a scheme for two, three and four bedroom houses.

McCabe is worried:

“When I was growing up I would be climbing trees and playing outside with friends, rather than sat at home watching TV and that is what I want for my son,” said Mr McCabe, 44

When you were a kid, Nick, there were only three channels and little choice but to go outside. It's not entirely clear that a field out the back is the thing that will swing the difference between playing on an X Box or not.

Busta Rhymes admits his crimes

Busta Rhymes has pleaded guilty to the most dull crime in the world, that of throwing a protein drink at a gym employee who wouldn't let him film his workouts. The case didn't come before a jury, because, jesus, who could give a hoot about it, seriously?:

On August 5th, Rhymes threw a protein shake at a Steel Gym employee who ran the gym's front desk, a culmination of two days of arguments between Rhymes and the victim. After the rapper wasn't allowed to bring in a videographer to tape his workouts, Rhymes returned the following day and once again got into a heated disagreement with the employee. After purchasing the beverage – later confirmed to be a chocolate-flavored Muscle Milk – the rapper splashed water in the employee's face, who responded by throwing water back in Rhymes' direction.

The Muscle Milk ended up being thrown at the gym bloke, giving him a tiny cut.

Rhymes will attend anger management classes as part of a plea deal. Let's hope he doesn't try to take a videographer to film his anger managing. And the incident won't appear on Rhymes' record:

"The criminal charges, especially charging him with a felony, was a bunch of bull," Rhymes' lawyer Scott Leemon told the New York Times. "Busta and I are glad the district attorney's office agreed to drop all the criminal charges."

Hmm. Sounds like someone else could do with some help to manage their anger.

Ozzy Osbourne apologises for pissing on the Alamo

Perhaps the most creative thing Ozzy has ever done in his career advertising butter substitutes and staggering around a house in perpetual confusion like some sort of highly-drugged performing bear is pissing on the Alamo.

Now, he's said sorry for doing that. Although he's not doing it through contrition, but to help promote a godawful history programme he's doing for The History Channel:

Osbourne told 'The Pulse of Radio' "Anything past World War II, I'm clueless. I'm kind of up on World War II 'cause I was born a couple of years after. So I know quite a lot about World War II and Hitler and the Nazis and all that."

"But anything from before or after I don't know anything about. So we're going to Mount Rushmore, we're going to the abandoned silos where you guys, America used to have their Minutemen missiles and all that. It's quite educational for me, actually."

This is bollocksy stuff - you don't really need to understand the history of a national monument to decide not to piss all over it. Museums and visitor attractions, it's fairly safe to assume, aren't really set up on a dual mission - there's no sign outside Mesa Verde saying "understand the Ancestral Puebloans a little better, or take a dump if you've never heard of them".

More to the point, given how wasted Osbourne was during those years, even if he'd been at an animatronic reconstruction of the Yalta Conference, it's likely he'd still have whizzed all over it, despite remembering when Nazis weren't quite history.

Osbourne has yet to apologise for I Can't Believe It's Not Butter.

SXSW killer gets life

A jury has found Rashad Owens guilty of capital murder.

Owens drove his car into crowds at last year's SXSW, killing four and injuring dozens. His defence team argued that he hadn't intended to kill, but had merely panicked after being chased by police, but jurors were convinced by prosecution arguments that, had this been true, he would have stopped when he started hitting people. Owens had actually sped up once he hit the crowd.

He will spend life in prison without the possibility of parole.

There's a new Coldplay album, everyone

At first, I assumed this from the BBC website was an early review of A Head Full Of Dreams:

- but then I realised that there's going to be a lot more boring songs on the album than that.

There was a useful capsule review on Twitter, though:

You guys Noel Gallagher is on the new Coldplay album. This tweet is our review.

— Norman Records (@normanrecords) November 6, 2015

Horrifying as this news is, it makes a bit of sense and you can't help wishing that maybe Coldplay and Oasis had merged back in the early days of the century, so we could have concentrated on avoiding just one lumbering beast.

Could the prospect be made any less appealing, though, than this hooking up of Gallagher with Coldplay? Oh, yes. Yes, it can:

Coldplay have explained how Guns N' Roses influenced their new track 'Adventure Of A Lifetime'.

Now, you're probably thinking what I did - "presumably like Guns N Roses they realised they'd reached the end of what their basic talents would allow, and decided to try and disguise it with overblown pomposity?" - but that's not quite it:

Martin continued: "I’d been begging Jonny [Buckland] our guitarist for years to make a riff that I like as much as 'Sweet Child O' Mine' by Guns N' Roses, then he showed me that one, and I was like, 'That's it!' So those elements all came together, and we just wanted to kind of embrace our love of joyful music and sort of let it free."

"Why don't you write something I like as much as Sweet Child O' Mine" shows a surprising level of self-awareness on Martin's part, assuming that he realises he's admitting that nothing Coldplay have yet recorded is as good as that. (To be fair, he could also ask Buckland why he doesn't do something as good as Matchstalk Men And Matchstalk Cats And Dogs for the same reason.)

So, a bright new Coldplay album out at the start of December. Start practising your "oh, this gift is just what I wanted" faces, gang.

Punkobit: Brandon Carlisle

Brandon Carlisle, drummer with Teenage Bottlerocket, has died.

His twin and co-Bottlerocket Ray Carlisle announced on Facebook:

With a heavy heart I regret to inform everyone that my twin brother Brandon Carlisle didn't make it. This is the saddest day of my life. I'm having a difficult time accepting the reality of all of this. We lost Brandon. I don't even know what to write. I feel so sad. I'm going to come up with something better to say when I'm more collected. I will let everyone know when and where the funeral will be. The amount of support Brandon has gotten during the last 72 hours has been crazy! Thank you to everyone for the kind words and prayers for my brother and for my family. So many good vibes were sent our way and it really helped all of us through everything. I can't stop crying.

Brandon had been found in a coma by his roommate on Tuesday; a crowdsourced medical bills page had been established.

Teenage Bottlerocket formed in Laramie, Wyoming in 2001. Ray recalled the band's early days in an interview with Vanyaland earlier this year:

My brother Brandon and I were in a band called Homeless Wonders and we started out sort of sounding like Screeching Weasel, then we got into ska music so we were writing songs that sounded like Less Than Jake and Slapstick and when the band broke up we were doing something in the veil of Fugazi and At The Drive-In. We sort of saw the scene follow that and we got mixed up as far as writing music was concerned because we were mixed up thinking that showing off how good you were at your instrument and using words in your lyrics that people didn’t understand. A lot of things started to be prevalent in the scene and we thought it was OK to that too.

When we started Teenage Bottlerocket, we were just like “Screw that, we’re gonna wear leather jackets, we’re putting our Chuck Taylors back on and we’re writing songs that are meaningful to us and it’s gonna sound like this.” We stuck to a three chord format and since it was a new band at the time we knew we had the opportunity to sound like whatever the hell we wanted to sound like. Especially in Colorado and Wyoming, we came out in a time where people we like “Oh my god, you guys sound like that, what’s this?”. The older people like Chad Price in All and our friends in The Nobodys down in Colorado Springs, they all paid attention right away. They were all like “Holy crap, we really love this new 7″, this new band you have is sensational.” A lot of those older guys encouraged us to keep on going and it meant the world to us that people like Chad Price liked our band. Like you said, I think Teenage Bottlerocket came across at a time where whole Ramones three chord thing was done. That kind of helps inspire the songs as well.

The band has released six albums and toured with NOFX and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. They were also part of last year's Warped Tour - something that the earlier version of the band might have raised a surprised eyebrow at.

Brandon had another band, That Guy, for whom he sang.

Downloadable:Ash

The lovely Ash boys are currently offering one of those tracks-for-emails deals whereby you drop off an email, and they give you a small acoustic collection from their new album.

Stone Roses drag out new announcement like they dragged out that second album

Mysterious (not that mysterious) posters have appeared around Manchester, causing Stone Roses fans to forget how bad Ian Brown's voice is live all over again. Look-In ("NME") reports:

Fans of The Stone Roses are speculating this morning about activity from the band after a series of posters carrying the band's lemon logo appeared around Manchester.

Images of the lemon, which has appeared on the band's posters and album artwork in the past, have appeared around Manchester with sightings confirmed at Close barber's shop on Greater Ancoats Street and the Vinyl Revival record store on Hilton Street.

Eagle eyed fans have spotted that there are 16 lemons on each poster and are speculating that this means an announcement about 2016 is imminent.

Well, yes. Of course it's going to be about 2016, unless they're going to haul ass in a very non-Stone Roses way.

The posters appear in several shops in the Northern Quarter area of the city. One shop keeper told Manchester Evening News that he had been "sworn to secrecy about an announcement due in the next 24 hours".

Telling the MEN that there's an announcement coming in 24 hours isn't really suggesting you've got the hang of this "sworn to secrecy" business.

Of course, last time round, it was Gordon Smart who got most excited. Is he excited now?

Gordon Smart, editor of the Scottish Sun, has also speculated that two gigs at Manchester City's Etihad Stadium could be in the pipeline. "I've felt a disturbance in the force @thestonerosesofficial blue seats, two nights, baggy jeans and a beanie hat...", he wrote on Instagram.

So two nights at Man City's ground, then? That's probably ruined all the speculation, hasn't it?

Touting is okay if you're a business, right?

The business of "secondary ticketing" - which might look like touting to you or I, except it's done by men in suits sitting in offices rather than shady looking blokes outside stations bellowing "One Direction BIIIIII OR SELLLL" - is being investigated by the government right now.

The Line of Best Fit has everything you need to know, including the depressing likely outcome:

Unfortunately, it looks like a lot of major businesses and MPs are already attempting to sweep the consulation under the carpet, thus removing the public's right to share their opinion. Sajid Javid - the UK's Business Secretary, no less - even describes touts as "classic entrepreneurs".

Philip Davies is also expressing his opinions:

He says of secondary ticketing regulations: "Needless intervention is not the answer and will only serve to drive many consumers away from safe online platforms and into the arms of street touts."

Davies, you might remember, is the hooting arse-arrangement who most recently filibustered to stop carers being able to park free at hospitals, so it's perhaps unsurprising that someone incapable of compassion is going to bring much to the table in the way of common sense.

TLOBF also report on another shady bit of activity:

StubHub is also resorting to unscrupulous practices. They've created Fan Freedom UK to lobby for further reforms - and, apparently, "analysis of their Twitter shows that over 90% of their followers are fake".

Now, Fan Freedom started out as US thing - hilariously, they've allowed their domain name to lapse in the last couple of days, but archive.org has a grab, and they're still active on Facebook. They have a discussion policy which includes a ban of spam, which is ironic for an organisation which is basically one huge advert. They have a Change.org petition, which - while acknowledging their origins as floating on a sea of StubHub cash, starts by enthusing over their supporters:

Fan Freedom is supported by more than 150,000 live event fans, and is backed by leading consumer and business organizations such as the American Conservative Union, National Consumers League, Consumer Action, the Institute for Liberty, and the League of Fans.

Yes, that's right. Almost as if they forgot the whole "we're the voice of the fans" schtick, they start their list of supporters with a right-wing lobbying organisation.

What of the British cousin? They actually have managed to keep control of their own website, so that's a plus.

Fan Freedom UK is an organisation dedicated to fighting for the consumer rights of fans, specifically around ticketing issues. As part of this, we represent all kinds of people who enjoy live entertainment – from fans who sit in the rain week in and week out to watch their team, to music fans who stay out until the early hours to enjoy the bands they love.

From the fans who get up in the middle of the night to check their money is still there, to the fans who spend a lot of time talking to accountants and lobbyists to protect the money they love.

Like their American model, though, they don't do very much to hide the fact that they're actually a bunch of lobbyists - there's a proud "supported by Parliament Street" banner on their site, and Parliament Street are a swivel-eyed right-wing thinky tank:

We are a think tank rooted in the values of freedom. We think beyond the current policy agenda and look towards the debates that are likely to be formed by the next generation in government. We don’t have a corporate view beyond our values.

They're chaired by Craig Rimmer, who, his bio proudly proclaims:

He was Head of Information at Conservative Central Office during William Hague’s leadership.

You'll remember amongst the "information" that came out of the Tory party during what I suppose we could loosely describe as Hague's leadership was the claim that voting for Tony Blair would result in the abandonment of the pound. This was only a marginally less credible claim about losing pounds than those of Marjorie Dawes.

So, somehow, on both sides of the Atlantic, the authentic voice of people who go to gigs seems to be being filtered through extremely well-paid lobbyists, all of whom are hell-bent on right-wing, state-shrinking policies.

If these "voices" get their way, it's not going to make secondary ticketing any better. We're more likely to end up with only secondary agencies being allowed to buy tickets directly. To save us from the touts, of course.

Stop this bollocks from happening by adding your actual voice to the consultation. Don't let right wing thinky tanks steal your front row slot.

This week just gone

The most-read October things:

1. The Mercury Prize shortlist
2. Ugly Kid Joe have returned
3. What the pop papers say: NME bigs Moyles
4. Lauren Mayberry doesn't want your proposals
5. Joe Elliott doesn't like streaming
6. RIP: Carey Lander
7. The iPod is 14
8. RIP: Joe Moss
9. Gene Simmons doesn't like the modern world
10. RIP: Jim Diamond

These were the interesting releases from the Friday before:


Mogwai - Central Belters

Download Central Belters



Julien Baker - Sprained Ankle

Download Sprained Ankle



Various - Liverpool International Festival Of Psychedelia Presents Pyzk



Joanna Newsom - Divers

Download Divers



Tracey Thorn - Solo

Download Solo



Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars

Download Thank Your Lucky Stars

Justin Bieber mops, then mopes

Terrible scenes from Oslo, where a Justin Bieber gig ends early after, um, fans wouldn't let him mop up some water:

Justin Bieber left fans in Oslo disappointed when he stormed off stage after performing just one song, due to a spilled water incident.

After the water was spilt, the singer bent down in an attempt at cleaning it up.

He asked fans to leave him alone, but video shows girls in the front rows filming him and grabbing at his clothes as he tried to mop the water up.

The failure to allow him to demonstrate his mopping skills frustrated wee Justin, who flounced offstage and didn't come back.

Later, he issued a statement via Instagram (Instagram!) where he looked like he might take responsibility for his actions but... well, obviously it was the fault of the people at the front:

Sadly it's Been a rough week for me, long days no sleep, while having to be "on" as they would say for cameras fans etc. In no way did I mean to come across mean, but chose to end the show as the people in the front row would not listen. Hopefully people will understand where I am coming from. I don't always handle things the right way but I'm human and I'm working on getting better at responding not reacting. Unfortunately people were affected by this as am I. For the people in the back I am so sorry and for anyone I may have disappointed im sorry. Sorry for wasting the tv people's time I'll be sure to make it up to you next time on tour.. With love Justin.

Man, all he wanted to do was mop the floor, but people wouldn't let him mop the floor. This might be the first time in history a child has thrown a tantrum because they weren't allowed to clean up their own mess.

Ed Sheeran 2.0

To be honest, if he can work out how not to fall over, George Stephanopoulos (who used to be Big Bird's imaginary friend in Sesame Street) could make a living as an Ed Sheeran tribute act. Or the other way round.

Protecting the cash cows

Lest we forget that most large-scale music enterprises are fundamentally no different from other large businesses, The Guardian explores the world of gig insurance:

The amounts of money at risk can be phenomenal. “For a stadium show, it could be anything up to two million quid,” says Enthoven. But it is not just the income from ticket sales at risk. “For an act like One Direction, they possibly make more money from merchandise than they do for the tickets,” suggests Twomey. So that has to be factored into their policies, which are often taken out at the earliest stages in planning a tour and will only run for as long as the tour lasts. “They are not annual policies, like car insurance, where you rack up year after year of no claims,” says Howell. “It is very specific to the life and health of the individual or the band members that you are insuring.”

A policy is generally worked out as a percentage of what the act will make at the end – typically 1.5%-2%, a figure that has not really changed in decades. “If more acts cancelled shows time after time, the premium rates would go up,” says Phil Middleton, general manager at ATC Management whose artists include Radiohead, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Catfish and the Bottlemen.

This suggests, then, that the number of gigs which get pulled is roughly the same as it ever was, even if the value of those cancellations has skyrocketed.

It does make you wonder, though, how the music industry hasn't managed to improve its cancellation rate over the years - it's almost as if they know what breaks musicians, but are prepared to take the risk.

And, of course, if there's ability to insure against your musician breaking, you're going to take a few more risks with them.

You might wonder whose interest the insurance is in.

[Thanks to @zaichishka]

The iPod turns 14

14 years ago Steve Jobs announced the iPod, and this is how people reacted: https://t.co/uPimSbiC6j (via reddit) pic.twitter.com/8WuBYps6Mh

— Max Roser (@MaxCRoser) October 25, 2015

I love the idea that just possibly Steve Jobs read the post and went "hey, a glorified consumer gimmicks firm... that could just work..."

But that's not all. There's also this tweet in reply to that tweet:

@MaxCRoser Providing people with the ability to listen to music all day was one of the most socially idiotic things anyone has done.

— Dick Winchester (@DickWinchester) October 25, 2015

We already had the ability to listen to music all day before the iPod, didn't we? Unless there was some limit to how long you were allowed to have a radio switched on for, or the unspooling of a tape wasn't just a mechanical fault but a government-mandated event designed to cause a gap in music consumption.

I presume that Dick's real beef is that people listen to music with earphones - similar to one of Joe Elliott's moans. But, again, that's not exactly an invention of Apple (although you wouldn't put it past them to try and snaffle a patent on it).

This week just gone

What were you looking for? Some search terms found in our logs:

Amy Winehouse bondage
"carla bruni is being mocked mercilessly across france after having recorded arguably the most dreadful david bowie cover of all time."
whatever happened to fred durst
anmeldung charts bookmark-button fish raised
scores from your barclaycard online account brand verity
ready brek logo
industrial disease solicitors tuebrook
i hate mumford and sons
girl agree for fuck asshole yes or not
fun with grandpa

So remember: that's No Rock and Roll Fun for all your Ready Brek logo needs.





Last week's interesting releases:


Luke Haines - British Nuclear Bunkers

Download British Nuclear Bunkers



Alela Diane & Ryan Francesconi - Cold Moon

Download Cold Moon



!!! - As If

Download As If



Deerhunter - Fading Frontier

Download Fading Frontier



John Cooper Clarke - Anthologia

Download Anthologia



Demi Lovato - Confident

Download Confident

Joe Elliott doesn't like streaming services

Streaming services, amirite? They're like the work of a demon. A minor demon, perhaps, but a demon nevertheless. Tell us why, Joe:

"I signed up for the Apple one, Beats. It's kind of semi-evil, because whoever owns Spotify is worth more than 50 times than Mick Jagger, who's been in this business for 50 years. And that's just not right.

Mick Jagger, according to The Richest, is worth 360 Million Dollars. So to be worth fifty times that, you would have to be an eighteen-fold billionaire. 18 billion is roughly the GDP of Honduras.

Just to be clear: Daniel Ek is not Honduras. In fact, according to Time, he's worth 300 Million Dollars, which puts him behind Mick Jagger in terms of wealth.

Obviously, the point Joe was trying to make was that it seems absurd that a person who works in the tech industry is worth a lot of money compared with someone who works in the music industry for fifty years.

Although that doesn't make sense generally: it's not like the tech industry away from music is known for being a place where the bosses take home tiny pay packets.

It also doesn't make any sense in this specific case. First of all, it could be possible that Mick Jagger had just invested incredibly badly, or had been generous with his money.

Secondly, although Mick has been in the industry fifty years, Ek's not exactly a newcomer - he started when he was 14, so nearly twenty years, and he made a fortune selling his first advertising business. So it's not like he's built his money up entirely from not making Mick Jagger even richer.

Also: both these people have obscene amounts of money. Even if Daniel Ek was fifty times richer than Jagger, that would mean Jagger had six million dollars. You can buy a bionic man with that.

But you had a point, Joe, to make:

Because when you read stories about Lady Gaga getting 127 dollars for 60 trillion plays, or whatever, you're thinking, this is bullshit.

Well, yes, there were stories five years ago that GaGag got USD127 for a million streams - it's funny that Elliott was spot-on with the amount there, when so many of his other figures are grossly overestimated in favour of his argument, but then I think we all know people in our own jobs who do that.

But why was GaGa doing so poorly out of streaming? Not because of the semi-evil streaming services, but because of the fully evil record labels:

[In] some explosive comments made by Gaga's ex-manager Troy Carter. Carter states that Gaga's label, Universal Music, cheated the artist out of streaming royalties due to her from Spotify and other streaming services during the height of her pop popularity.

Carter, who is no longer handling Gaga's career but is active as a music and technology entrepreneur and investor, said, "We've always gotten screwed from record royalties ... So when you look at it, the live business and the merchandise business have always been the bigger piece of the pie. And with record labels, I think it's more of just chickens coming home to roost. Well, let's rephrase that: labels made a significant amount of money off of Spotify that didn't match up to the artist royalty statements ..."

How evil of Spotify to, erm, not be party to the main point where artists are getting ripped off.

Anything else, Joe? Do you perhaps have an "I can remember when it was all trees round here" argument to offer?

And when you get on Spotify, it's very insular. Which the whole industry has become. Everybody is on headphones now. It's just Zombieland, and we're all guilty of it. I do it too, but only when it's necessary, like on an airplane.

Yes. People listening to music on headphones. In the old days, people used to go to their bedrooms to be insular and listen to music. How can Spotify have ruined that by, erm, inventing headphones or something or... what?

Rob Halford loves a guy in a uniform

Rob Halford just did an interview with OC Weekly where they asked him, effectively, why he fancied squaddies. Like the Prime Minister at PMQs, he felt obligated to start by paying his respects to people in the services:

"Oh my god, this could be a book. There are two sides of this question to me. One of it is based on all of the things people in the military represent, which is the simple fact of keeping us safe in this troubled world. It's also the mindset of the military which has these virtues that mean a lot to me as a person and believing in the cause, in this case a United States Marine, or a Sailor or a Green Beret. There is something very potent and personal and very deep about that conviction, discipline and dedication which I love about their service. That's not just America, but anywhere in the world, really."

Not entirely sure pro-democracy Chinese or anyone else living in a military dictatorship would agree, but that's not really the question's point, is it?

What happens next is almost balletic as Rob trips and turns and jumps and skips to do the second half of his answer. As you read this, remember that all he actually is trying to say is "I have a type":

'm going to stop there, and go into a completely different direction and tell you that as a gay man, the United States Marine Corps has been very attractive to me. There is something very sensual about that branch of the military and ... this is great because I don't really know where my mind is going.

The fact that there are now gay men and women who can openly serve their country is a wonderful thing.

I think the Marine Corps also has a sense of masculinity. There was a U.S. president that said something about the USMC that really encapsulated these types of guys. I can't remember what it was. I think it's also possible it has to do with my own struggles as a gay man. Being a masculine gay guy, and please don't take that the wrong way either. I love all of my gay friends no matter how they appear, I'm trying to use that as an open reference. In my own journey as a gay guy in a straight band and a gay guy in a straight world and a metal world, I found the connection again through the Marine Corps.

Rob, it's okay to have a type. You really don't have to start invoking former Presidents of the United States because you fancy that sort of man. It's really alright.

Oh, you're back: Ugly Kid Joe

The trouble with the constant now is the sudden reunions of bands which you'd assumed understood that dying of shame was meant to be a once-and-for-all deal. Good god, Ugly Kid Joe have just released a new album. It's 2015, people. 2015. Ugly Kid Joe.

Pandora pony up for pre-72 recordings

Before 1972, recorded music in America wasn't "protected" by copyright. Some streaming services have been taking advantage of this to stream vintage tracks without feeling the need to pay for the rights.

The RIAA wasn't happy about this, and so threatened Pandora with court to demand payment.

Before it came to this, Pandora was bullish:

In response, Pandora issued a statement to The Hollywood Reporter: "Pandora is confident in its legal position and looks forward to a quick resolution of this matter."

The resolution was pretty quick, but, erm not in Pandora's favour:

Pandora Media Inc. will pay $90 million to record labels to settle a dispute over oldies, the Internet radio giant said Thursday.

The agreement with the group of labels -- composed of Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Capitol Records and ABKCO Music & Records -- resolves yet another major battle over royalties for recordings made before 1972.

So, are Pandora upset? Apparently not. Oh, no. This is, honestly, the outcome they were hoping for:

Pandora Chief Executive Brian McAndrews, in statement, said the company was "excited" to have the dispute resolved. "We pursued this settlement in order to move the conversation forward and continue to foster a better, collaborative relationship with the labels," he said.

Yeah. Thank god, eh? All they wanted to was make a massive payment and knock a fifth off their share price. That was all Pandora ever wanted. All they asked for. They're excited. Real excited.

Managerobit: Joe Moss

Joe Moss, manager of Marion, has died.

Alright, he managed The Smiths too. That might be more culturally significant.

As recorded in The Severed Alliance - Johnny Rogan's Smiths bio; the one which had Morrissey wishing death upon the author - Moss decided to call it a day after The Smiths appeared on Top Of The Pops and did a frenzied date at the Haçienda on the same day:

Joe Moss was also entranced by The Smiths' performance, but a flash of self-awareness prompted him to ponder some searching questions. "I always thought Top Of The Pops was diabolical and there I was jumping for joy because we were on it. What had happened to my standards? And what would happen later?"
[...]
For Joe Moss, 24 November was also an epoch, but one in which he could no longer be a participant. Having promised to remain with The Smiths until they "made it", he realized that his bargain had been fulfilled. "The commitment I could offer them was short-term. I'd already said to Johnny 'when I do go, if any questions are asked I'll say I had to get out for personal reasons.' He said 'no, say a little more than that, otherwise they'll think it's personal between you and the band.'

Managing The Smiths wasn't always fun, it turns out:

"It might be exciting being in a band, but it's not exciting to manage them. When I left, I left on what was an absolute high. It was the only way to go. I ran down the street shouting 'it's too late to stop now.'"

Moss was 72; he was brought down by cancer.

Russell Simmons debit cards fall flat

Russell Simmons' post Def Jam career has seen him running a debit card service for people who can't access ordinary banks, Rushcard. The cards already have a faint whiff of exploitation about them - Time in 2013 pointed out that the fees piled up really quickly for users - and now the cards have locked themselves up. Users have found themselves unable to access any of the cash locked into the card for over a week.

Yes, that's right. The sort of people whose hand-to-mouth existence means they can't open everyday bank accounts have been unable to access their money for eight days.

They're blaming a problem with an upgrade to a computer system, which everyone believes because there's no way that they'd have been able to roll that back, right?

Russell Simmons, to be fair, hasn't vanished. But he's... well, he's not exactly helping, either:

Praying for this who have been and those who still are affected by the tech change at Rushcard

— Russell Simmons (@UncleRUSH) October 17, 2015

Oh yes. Praying. Nothing says "the company is just experiencing a mild technical problem" like the figurehead having to call in favours from God.

The company has promised a fee holiday until the end of February, although that will only become useful if people are able to access their funds before then.

Gene Simmons doesn't hold with all this modern stuff

Gene Simmons took time out from shouting at clouds to have a little rage at file sharing for killing rock. Let's hear him out, shall we?:

"The next KISS of the next BEATLES or whoever it is is not gonna come along, because there is no infrastructure. Here… Let's play a game. From 1958 until 1988 is thirty years. What have we got? Well, let's see… We have Elvis Presley, THE BEATLES, THE [ROLLING] STONES, Jimi Hendrix… the biggest bands of all time. And then in disco, you had Madonna, Donna Summer… all that. The biggest of all. And then in pop, you had Michael Jackson, THE JACKSON 5… all that stuff… and U2. And in heavy metal, you had METALLICA and IRON MAIDEN and all that stuff. Okay. And Prince and all that… From 1988 until today… give me the new BEATLES and the new STONES. Give me just one. You can't. Rock is dead. And the reason for that? Downloading and filesharing. When you stop charging for things, it becomes worthless. And there's gonna have to be a business model that's gonna have to change.

I suppose it's hard to argue that if you don't charge for something, it becomes worthless in a strict financial sense, but I'd have really liked to have heard from Simmons how filesharing stopped bands generating during the 1990s, before it became a thing. Maybe it's just such an evil force that it travels out in time in all directions.

Or, perhaps, rock started to look tired because people who had made some records ten, twenty, thirty years previously stuck around flogging branded merchandise off their reputation and strangled a lot of the creativity in the scene. What do you think, Gene?

Or, maybe, if you're looking for a 21st Century Madonna, and don't immediately think Beyonce, you're just too far from what's going on. Maybe discounting the whole R&B scene, maybe not thinking Kanye or Jay-Z are as culturally relevant as deep-reaching... maybe the problem is that you don't really recognise what the heirs of Presley look like, Gene.

'Cause there are great bands out there, but there's no support system." He continued: "You know, there's a ten-thousand-hour principle [the principle which holds that 10,000 hours of 'deliberate practice' are needed to become world-class in any field]. There's a book about that. Before THE BEATLES went into the studio to become THE BEATLES, they played clubs for ten thousand hours. That's years. You have to do something for thousands and thousands of hours before you get any good on it.

You're right, Gene, there is a book about the 10,000 hours theory. There's also - far more significantly - a study into it. It's bollocks.

Nowadays, instant gratification means you can hum in your shower, then wind up on 'The X Factor' and you're on television and you get a recording contract. But almost none of these singers who get recording contracts become huge. And that's because the taller the tree, the deeper the root that needs to be in the ground to hold up all that weight. So if you have a tree with no roots [makes falling hand motion]." Simmons added: "I love the new pop singers. I love Taylor Swift and Katy Perry. I've met them both. They're all great and talented… What's gonna happen when you're 40 and 50? Will it still work? That's the test of time."

What's beautiful here is Simmons suddenly realising that he's completely undermined his own argument by remembering Taylor Swift, so decides that she doesn't count as we don't known what she'll be doing in twenty years. Swift has been a jobbing musician for eleven years already, which means she's already been going for a year longer than The Beatles managed. Despite her career having happened entirely post-Napster.

But, still, always interesting to hear from you Gene. Good to know the opinions of the leader in the Branded Rock Merchandise Market.