Glastonbury 2008: Candi Staton
Or "Canadace Station", as she seems to have been dubbed on YouTube:
[Part of Glastonbury 2008 videos]
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Or "Canadace Station", as she seems to have been dubbed on YouTube:
[Part of Glastonbury 2008 videos]
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BBDO say their joke is a repeat, but then Glastonbury is about the classics, isn't it?
Gowherehiphop catches Lupe Fiasco's slightly-more-political-than-Borrell-at-Hyde-Park speech:
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Given the between songs stuff which the BBC have left in during the Winehouse set, you have to wonder what the hell they've been axing when you get a very obvious jump cut from song to song.
Much of the between tracks bits we've seen have been attempts to raise the status of jailed thug Blake to some sort of national hero - when the audience tried to object, Winehouse lectured them about "being rude". We're treated to a rambling reminiscence about how they met - "he hit me over the head with a cricket bat" she reveals, before realising that with his reputation, it's probably best to point out that this wasn't literal.
She's almost gone over a couple of times, too - once neatly saved by a backing dancer. You wonder if they're actually trained doctors, too; the insurance bill would be greatly reduced if the help is on stage rather than in the wings.
And is it worth it, this performance? Not really. Even if you didn't care for what she did, you couldn't deny that she did it well, but this version of her is more a demonstration of what she had. A Joe Longthorne version of Amy Winehouse. Sure, it's unquestionably a bloody impressive for a woman who was at death's door (or at least up the same street) this time last week - but that makes it sadder. Do we really need a spectacle of a woman apparently risking her life, and certainly teetering on the edge of disaster, to warm us up for Jay-Z?
She's dancing like a nervous geologist passing a particularly persistent parasite, too.
Winehouse has kicked off BBC Two's coverage for the evening, where things are helmed by Laverne and Radcliffe and, erm, an introduction where Andrew Marr suggests we take lots of underpants to Pilton.
Back over on BBC Three, earlier, we leaped into the middle of what we thought at first was an interview with someone from a previous series of Big Brother. Suddenly, we realised it wasn't - quite - but instead was Will Young. Even Young might have been surprised at how much screen time he got, indulging with Bowman in the creation of what a straight man might imagine a gay man's fantasy world to be. Something about Jay-Z being supported by Dale Winton, since you ask.
More surprising, though, was Zane Lowe's fawning in the face of Will, praising him as a "credible artist". It turns out that they were waiting for Hot Chip to take the stage, and so we were watching a bobbing boat clinging to a giant Will Young flotation device. We say this often, we say this each year, but: why not just slap on some recorded music in the lulls between live stuff?
Damn, though: it's spooky how close to Edwyn Collins Reggie Youngblood sometimes sounds.
[Parts of this post have been made possible through the generous assistance of the Mr Copper Foundation; part of Glastonbury 2008]
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A brief glimpse of a smiling John Peel, and then we're in to a slice of Placebo's 1998 Glastonbury set that, clearly, has been lifted from someone's Brian Molko VHS stash - though it how survived from the endless freeze-framing, we'll never know.
[Part of Glastonbury 1998]
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Now, that's horrifying: the Press Red service crashes while loading - Neon Neon are just kicking off I Told Her In Alderaan on the right hand side, but the television is locked on Crowded House on the left. It must be what middle age feels like - desperate to hang out on the young people's side, but being forced to languish in the middle of the road.
By the time the system has been rebooted, Neon Neon are just shooting themselves in the foot by bringing on Har Mar Superstar. NB, Neon Neon: this is not what most people mean by the phrase "very special guest". It's interesting to see that Har Mar has given up on the seedy porn look in favour of something a little more owner-of-a-failing-sports-bar-in-the-midwest.
There's little escape; demands of the tennis mean the other channel choices are blank until darkness falls on SE11, so it's this, or Crowded House. When, by the way, did Joe Longthorne take over as the lead singer with Crowded House? It would make some sort of sense to sign Longthorne up as replacement for lost lead singers, now I come to think of it - the man of a million voices could fit right in any group as a replacement without much disruption. Especially if the original lead sounded like Shirley Bassey to a greater or lesser extent.
Duffy, back on BBC Three proper, is trying to show why everyone's excited by her; still can't see it, though. It's worth noting, however, that she is dressed like the set-up to a punchline on a dirty seaside postcard.
[Part of Glastonbury 2008]
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In the ever-present, always-on world, it's no surprise that this weekend's performances are hitting the net almost as soon as they happen. Last night's MGMT, for example, is already up:
More YouTubeage from 2008 to come
Candi Staton - You've Got The Love
Amy Winehouse fightstar
Jimmy Cliff - Wild World
Noah And The Whale - Five Years Time
Band Of Horses - Older
Update:
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Guardian blogger Alex Hoban gives Beth Ditto a gift, a dissertation about Beth Ditto:
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TimS has posted a snapshot of a flipchart with the latest Glasto stats on: 342 crimes, 33 transfers to hospitals, 1 arrested tent thief and "crime virtually zero" (although what the tent thief was doing isn't clear, then.)
Hey, you sass that Norman Cook? There's a man who knows where his towel is. Photo by Whiper under a creative commons license.
Meanwhile, it seems that Adam Buxton hasn't completed the BBC training video on location filming and this is as close as anyone got to Shakin Stevens and survived.
[Part of Glastonbury 2008]
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Metronomy are having a lovely time at Glastonbury, although Gigwise shows they might be enjoying the grumbling as much as the fun:
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It's not just because it was hell on earth that 98 seems like the pivotal Glastonbury - there were signs all over that things were shifting. The sense of being isolated from the rest of the world was vanishing quickly, as mobile recharging stands and cashpoints were popping up all over. Down in the market area, slick corporate booths flogging phones sat alongside the blankets and patchouli-scented headscarves. Robbie Williams knew it was the place to reboot a stalled career. And it was the year where the TV coverage started to ramp up. In 1999, the BBC would be covering Glastonbury like a heavy-handed Tory council CCTV initiative.
There were gaps in 98, though - so, sorry, there doesn't seem to be an Ultrasound or Kenickie as the second stage didn't seem to get any daylight acts recorded. There is, however, footage of Catatonia, so hopefully this'll do:
[Part of Glastonbury 1998]
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Bjork - the planned headliner for Vince Power and Geoff Oakes Go Wild In The Country Knebworth fest - has pulled out with a week to go.
If that sounds last minute, according to her explanation, it sums up the festival's approach:
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Effectively, the Sun's coverage is hanging this morning on triumphantly blowing the Doherty isn't coming story out the water:
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You could hear the sigh of relief releasing itself from Television Centre a country mile away, as it became increasingly clear that Mandela's 90th Birthday Party was going to have to shift from being solely a celebration of his life to having a political angle as Zimbabwe became harder and harder to ignore. Sure, nobody would suggest that calling for fair elections in Harare should be balanced with getting a spokesperson in to insist that there should be more repression, not less, but having got boiled over Live Earth and Live 8, you imagine that BBC management must have been relieved to not worry about another knees-up turning a little bit op-ed.
As it turned out, though, they needn't have worried, as it fell to Johnny Borrell to be the voice of the world's conscience. "All we are saying is democracy for Zimbabwe" he pleaded. Or would have done, had he not stumbled over the 'democracy' - a bit like Mugabe, really.
Winehouse did make it out of hospital - although, as she apparently substituted "free Blakey my fella" for "free Nelson Mandela" during the finale, perhaps it would have been better if she hadn't done. Unless morality has shifted so badly that we're suggesting political activism and boorish barroom brawls are now indistinguishable. (Mind you, we've only got the Sun's word for it that she sang those words.)
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The Lightning Seeds 98 set marked another piece of Glastonbury's legendary piss-poor planning. On the first night, England were due to play Colombia in World Cup Match, upon which hung the chances of the team's progression to be crushingly defeated in the middle stages of the contest. Perhaps hoping that the various attractions of the festival might keep people away from the prospect of Jimmy Hill in his lucky St Georges bow tie - on a big screen, mother - the decision was taken to show the match only in the cinema field.
It might have just about worked, too, had the start of World Cup Grandstand (as it still was then, correctly) not dovetailed with the Lightning Seeds finishing their set on the Pyramid Stage with a rousing Three Lions. Stood in the cinema field, you could hear thousands of voices raised insisting there'd be no more years of hurt before the Seeds went off the stage and their audience turned to traipse towards the cinema stage. Up some narrow, already muddy lanes.
Luckily, realising they had unleashed a health and safety nightmare, the organisers suddenly decided to patch the match through to the screens at the side of the stage.
Then it started pissing down anyway, so all but the strongest gave up before the half-time business.
In order to avoid health and safety nightmares here, and because live Three Lions was so ropey it doesn't seem to have made it onto YouTube, here's them doing The Life Of Riley instead:
[Part of Glastonbury 1998]
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Joe Lean has, the NME tells us, compared himself to Hitler during the Jing Jang Jong's set. Not, unfortunately, in the sense that he's about to escape justice, but simply because he looked a bit like him in a video:
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Were The Feeling doing I Thought It Was Over live? Really live? It didn't sound like it was coming from a stage in a unseasonally autumnal field.
BBC Three is currently being anchored by Edith Bowman and Zane Lowe - Lowe, surely, must be wondering if he's ever going to get any work from the BBC besides festivals and the Evening Session slot by now. Clearly, the City Of Domes that is modern Radio One means he can't do that forever, and it looks like he's attempting to slightly reposition himself enough to open some other lines of employment. Calmer, controlled, almost suave. But he's never going to get a National Lottery themed gameshow, is he?
Bowman is laughing like a tractor sinking into a slurry tank; Rufus Hound is filling up acres of air time with those pointless roving reports that they seem to think are integral to the programme - Hound does 'em well, but it doesn't alter the fact the reason why most of us are watching on TV is we don't want to spend time with the sort of eccentrically-behatted types who clutter up the campsites like a wacky invading army, so we really don't want to hear what they have to say. Especially when, as the woman who was just on, it's "I have a different outfit each day, pink yesterday, multi-colour today... these are my friends from London, but I see them most weekends despite coming from..." Where? Wales? Scotland? Spain? Nope... "... Kent." Not all the way from Kent to London, a distance of less than no miles.
Lupe Fiasco has, somewhat optimistically, encouraged people to sing along "if you know the words." The audience tried, but thought the words were "polite cheer".
Edith and Zane are trying to talk up the Jay-Z set - "word has definitely got to him about the reaction to his set" suggests Zane, letting us into the secret we wouldn't have heard unless we had ears or eyes of some sort.
Editors were pretty good - you can see why people peg them as a bit like Coldplay - they even have the same wet beards, but it's like comparing a microwave curry with the proper deal in a restuarant. Yes, there's a sense of the flavours being similar, but only one offers a real experience of textures, and surprises, and satisfaction.
This year's entertainment value has been increased greatly by adding the Guardian's Great Lyrics booklets, allowing countless rounds of 'One song to the tune of another'.
[Part of Glastonbury 2008]
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At the moment, it's one-nil to the stay-at-homes. Our Man In Newcastle relishes being in Newcastle:
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It's a tradition (= we did it last year and so will do it again this year) for us to remind ourselves of a gentler, happier Glastonbury ten years ago through the medium of video while the new event is pouring out of Somerset.
Except, of course, ten years ago wasn't happy. It was bloody miserable; we know, because - while Blur were doing this set - we were stood watching them. Except, we weren't standing. We were treading water, to try and stop the top of our boots disappearing under the churning mud. It looks so much better from here:
More videos - and embittered reminiscence, no doubt - as the weekend continues
Lightning Seeds - The Life Of Riley
Catatonia - Road Rage
Placebo - Lady Of The Flowers
Portishead - Western Eyes
Underworld - Born Slippy
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Or, things you don't want to read in the subject lines of your inbox:
We know, we know: you're sick of bloody Glastonbury and if you were that bothered you'd have gone down to Somerset.
Luckily, it's possible to have some fun without catching trench foot or having Michael Eavis bark 'you ARE having fun' at you. Because this weekend, UNKLE are starting a sort of scavenger hunt, where you can start to collect a mini album from across four websites. The tracks go together to make up a whole piece, and they themselves are a bit of the forthcoming UNKLE album proper. There's a press release which explains it all:
Guess who's not going to turn up at Glastonbury? Or, indeed, anywhere else much.
Okay, Amy Winehouse was a good guess, but it's not right (at least, not yet) - this time, it's Pete Doherty who has pulled out. And cancelled the Babyshambles tour, and possibly even fired his tour manager.
But we bet Gordon Smart still believes in his story about a Barat-Doherty reunion during the weekend.
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Boris Johnson isn't: He's in Glastonbury, hanging out with very dubious company indeed.
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This year, it seems, is to be the year when on-site unofficial coverage of Glastonbury is going to become familiar - for the last couple of festivals, there have been a couple of blogs attempting to report from the mud, but this year it's looking like that there's going to be a constant stream of coverage.
DJSemtex blogged before leaving:
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It's not enough that Glastonbury has embraced commercialism whole-heartedly, as every other company in the world jostles for a piece of Glasto-related coverage.
A bank rushes out a press release to somehow link Glastonbury with pension planning:
"Some people think she's just a pair of tits", you know. Yes, Gordon Smart surpasses himself by running a photo of Dolly Parton that looks like something you would have seen in a swingers' magazine.
He pushes his point home home in the story:
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Mark from the Wichita Recordings blog is travelling down with a "random posse" and hoping that the site makes its magic happen:
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This is the scene from Glastonbury now - or at 10.17 this evening, anyway - as captured by the BBC webcam. They've made a widget so you can poke it wherever you like, too.
The BBC are predicting that it's going to rain heavily tomorrow; Weather.co.uk suggest rain tonight, tomorrow and on Saturday. But Gigwise found someone prepared to buck the gloomy predictions:
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Current TV take a break from the usual gap-year-meets-Damien-Day fare to make room for this:
The Ting Tings talking about things.
This is New Wave Nigel, one of the characters you could collect at American branches of McDonalds as an American Idol themed toy with the Happy Meals.
Why, yes, there is a passing resemblance to Devo, what with the hat and all. And, since you mention it, Devo have noticed, too. And they're not Happy:
After the claims that Coldplay might have borrowed one of the songs on their new album, former Macca PR bloke turned Coldplay spokesperson Murray Chalmers issued a strident denial:
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Perhaps the decision to pre-announce Franz Ferdinand's 'surprise' appearance at Glastonbury tomorrow night is intended to try and shift some of those last few thousand tickets. But you can't help wondering if a surprise is slightly diminished by, erm, not being a surprise at all.
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As inevitable now as the pictures of mud-covered teenagers, this is our annual post which gathers together the weekend posts marking Glastonbury.
You can read all the posts by checking the glastonbury 2008 tag.
Tuesday 24th
3,000 openings: charities pay price of Glasto overstock
Wednesday 25th
Guardian download freebie album
Thursday 26th
Glastonbury aflame
Franz Ferdinand: Surprise! Oh, not any more
Online: Webcams, weather and wellies
Blogs: Jews, lesbians and not going
Friday 27th
Paper round: Dolly's breasts, local heroes and missing 100,000
Online: PR jostles for coverage
Blogs: Memories of Eminem and promise of Tweets
Boris and Billy: together at last
No show Doherty
Blog round-up: Staying, and staying together
On TV: Does Zane Lowe have a plan B? Or a plan A-and-a-half?
Web round-up: For the love of pies
Saturday 28th
Paper round: Martha's wellies, and 2009's headliner revealed
Web round-up: Eavis fibs, Shaky disappoints
Flickr dip: Cook and crime
Blogs: A present for Beth Ditto
On TV: Crowded House, Neon Neon, Duffy
On TV: Amy staggers and Will Young appears
Blog round-up: The hitherto-unseen fire risk
Sunday 29th
Flickr dip: Duffy, positions for watching and complaints
Paper round: Winehouse lashes out, get lashed
Winehouse video
Web round-up: Jay-Z fights himself
Monday 30th
Morning-after round-up: Jay-Z and James Blunt
This year's festival video
Lest we forget
Glastonbury 2007
Glastonbury 2005
Glastonbury 2004
Britain could be about to follow South Korea and offer a proper, licensed peer-to-peer network, as a result of government banging together heads of record companies and ISPs:
While Gordon Smart was struggling to make something out of 'couple do different jobs; go to different places' this morning, he could have actually asked his colleagues on the Times' law desk if they had something a bit meatier.
They did: Frances Gibb and Adam Sherwin were reporting that Fiona Shackleton has been set up to represent Madonna if and when something decree-related happens. Shackleton, of course, took one for the Macca team when Heather Mills poured water over during the McCartney divorce sideshow, we think to indicate how terrible it was being portrayed as bit unpredictable by the media. It's not known if Guy Ritchie has an arsenal of water pistols, but chances are.
Fire! FIRE! Run for your lives... Glastonbury's aflame.
Oh, hang on... it's not: there's just a small fire in a scrap metal yard a mile from the site. It might mean the traffic has a bit of trouble, but then it's a festival in the country. The traffic is always bad.
GCap must have their own entrance to Ofcom, they're carpeted there so often. After a run of misudgements and accidents - the Easter Bunny saying "motherfucker" at breakfast, that sort of thing - they've now been hit with a massive fine for cheating their audiences.
The Secret Sound contest was deliberately fudged so that contestants with the wrong answer were put on the air, so that the competition could carry on rolling along, with listeners spending their cash on the premium-rate entry line. The competition ran across the One network - which shows one of the advantages of networking 'local' programming: it allows you to rip off people right across the country with one central con, instead of having to arrange thirty smaller cons in each licence area.
Seriously, though, you wonder if networking isn't partly to blame: if the team putting together the competition lived and worked amongst their audience, they might be less keen to agree to a scheme to cheat them. Either because they'd have a stronger sense of community and responsibility, or because they know the people they anger drink in the same pubs, send their kids to the same schools and shop in the same branches of Tesco as they use. It's easy to see people as saps to be shaken hard for cash when they're not your neighbours.
GCap didn't help themselves by not being entirely helpful when their duplicity was revealed:
Rav Singh has been banging away at the "Madonna marriage crisis" for a couple of weeks now, but clearly Gordon has been waiting until there was some, erm, facts to run with.
Or there was space amongst pictures of ladies in bikinis.
His big revelation? That Madonna and Guy are sleeping in separate rooms.
Yes, yes, they said that ages ago. But Gordon has 'discovered' they're doing it on trips away, too. He's so excited, as well as his photobyline:
Be Your Own Pet have quit the Warped tour:
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The Cancer Bats - no, you haven't missed anything - proudly tell their fans via their MySpace that they're in with a sniff of a major award:
The Reverend Al Green is on his way to the UK. Not quite yet, to be clear, but he'll be heading here come October:
Tuesday 28th October - Birmingham NIA Arena
Thursday 30th October - Glasgow Clyde Auditorium
Monday 3rd November - Manchester Evening News Arena
Wednesday 5th November - London Royal Albert Hall
Thursday 6th November - London Hammersmith Apollo
Kanye's Boonaroon experience wasn't a happy one. Now, he's extending the pain by posting a blog entry about it:
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Poor old Emil Koverot. The guitarist with black metal band Bloodsrit had been offered a teaching job at his local school in Västervik, Sweden, only to find that he got sacked before he started as the school suddenly decided that his musical career might be incompatible with the whole shaping-young-minds-thing.
Koverot has done what any self-respecting metaller would do: He's resorted to sacrifice and slaughter to avenge the dishonour. Or, rather, he might, if his appeal to the local ombudsman fails.
He sees himself as the latest in a long line of musicians kept down by The Man:
We were thinking the other day that most of the first wave of fans of Dadrock are probably actual Dads now. But still, the Dadrock keeps coming, as Oasis unveil plans for a new album. And they're going dance:
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To celebrate their involvement in Glastonbury, the Guardian's music site are making available a free album's worth of downloads, including the mighty Operator Please and Neon Neon. And CSS.
There is some White Denim on there, too, but these things happen even in the best-regulated households.
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Thom C drops us an email to alert us to Guido Fawkes' blog suddenly embedding music videos (don't worry, we're not going to retaliate by suddenly throwing adverts for Total Sport Film Politics all over the place.
Guido is championing Billy Ruffian, who have written a song in support of David Davis and his 42 day stunt. Sort-of.
Let's not quibble that they seem to have confused John Stuart Mill with Hayley Mills, and instead ponder why the song - sung from Davis' point of view:
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Never mind the Who / Torchwood / Sarah Jane Adventures triple crossover this weekend. This morning, it's Gordon In The Morning meets Gennaro Castaldo Watch.
Yes, Gordon's attempt to try and argue that Coldplay are cool was struggling:
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Ticketmaster has been spun off - or, perhaps, thrown out of - its parent company. It'll go independent in 2009, carrying three quarters of a billion dollars in debt.
It's not, perhaps, the best time to be trying to set up a debt-laden company that doesn't really do anything much beyond act as a middleman. Apparently they've got lots of ideas about how they can pay off the debt and thrive - we suspect the business plan includes the words "bigger booking fees".
It's not just the slightly-optimistic anonymous commenter who is applauding Boris Johnson's decision to drop the anti-racism from the anti-racist Rise festival; some of his political opponents do too.
Indeed, the BNP are claiming the idea for their own, reports the Guardian diary:
We don't think Jason Donovan should have sued the Face all those years ago, but even so, it's probably unfair on him that, fifteen years on, the case is reported as having been about being called gay. Today's G2, for example, notes:
How, you might wonder, are the slender ranks of those who still believe in Avril Lavigne managing to show their enthusiasm for her so much that her Girlfriend video has become the most-watched option on YouTube?
By rigging it: there's a page which happily refreshes the video page every fifteen seconds, with instructions to Avrilophiles to:
We could see the free Prince album giveaway - clearly, nobody much was going to pay for a Prince album, but might have been just curious enough to take a free copy with the Mail On Sunday.
But now, the Mail has done a deal to give away a free McFly album:
An email alerts us to the nifty deal done by IPC to get the NME picture galleries sponsored by RayBans.
RayBans used to be a cool youth brand twenty years ago, you know; now, they're riding off a fading reputation. Can't see any synergy between them and the NME there.
Still, there's nothing wrong with a bit of clearly-labelled sponsorship, so long as it's kept separate from the editorial and there's no suspicion that plugs are being scattered through the actual business of the paper, eh? The three plugs for the brand are entirely valid.
At least there's a faint stirring of conscience:
Twenty four hours before the hardcore start to pitch tents, there are still Glastonbury tickets left unsolde:
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With Amy Winehouse released under doctor's orders - and being snapped smoking a fag as she drove away from the hospital - it's better news to hear that Carl Barat has also been discharged:
We know that Ronnie Wood's reputation as an artist is that he's not that bad, in a helps-he's-famous way, but it doesn't help enough when you ask people to shell out cash for his work.
Wood was trying to flog a picture of himself and Rod Stewart on eBay, but has withdrawn the lot after it only managed about half the reserve. Mind you that was five hundred quid, so it's not like people were totally turning their noses up.
Perhaps if he'd only done Rod...
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Juliana Hatfield continues her exploration of her back catalogue - reaching Congratulations:
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Gordon Smart is currently on Today, trying to knock down the suggestion that female celebrities get a rougher ride than male celebrities. He offered the suggestion that he wrote about Pete Doherty as much as Amy Winehouse - although, if he was being honest, he'd have admitted that Doherty was covered more because of his connection with Kate Moss (and, recently, with Amy) than in his own right - Doherty was promoted to tabloid regular status because he was Moss' boyfriend, not because he was Barat's brother in arms.
Effectively, in the end, Gordon accepted the charges:
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From emphysema to "a little bit of emphysema" to not having emphysema at all: what an amazing recovery Amy Winehouse has made a wonderful improvement.
The latest intervention has come from her US publicist:
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