Saturday, June 06, 2015

Tumblrgem: NSFW

I'm not sure anyone actually asked for this, but here's a Lady GaGa discography via tattoos in gay porn. (Nobody has yet had the Tony Bennet collaboration etched across their butts)

http://yung-ninetales.tumblr.com/post/120799848508/lady-gagas-discography-in-gay-porn-tattoos


What the pop papers said: Shampoo wash Heavenly

From 1992, Shampoo - still in the bit between being fanzine writers and bona fide pop stars - take aim at Heavenly in the NME:

If you're too young to recall 1992: 'Having a go at Sarah Records' was a way of having one foot in the Pop Establishment while making it look like you were an outsider. Shampoo would go on to, erm, help promote the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie.


Taylor Swift goes into reverse

So apparently, when faced with paparazzi and not in the mood, Taylor Swift does this:

There's two problems with this approach: firstly, as the video shows, the paps don't exactly stop taking photos. Secondly, it just means your arse is getting all the attention.

On the other hand, maybe she's just thinking of releasing a cover of this come December:


Friday, June 05, 2015

Noel Gallagher seems to think we want an Oasis reunion

If you were told that Noel Gallagher was issuing demands about the possibility of an Oasis reunion, you'd probably assume he was making threats - "give me a knighthood or I swear we'll do a four-night residency at the Albert Hall", that sort of thing.

Instead, it seems like he's convinced it's a thing people want and is trying to negotiate on that basis:

Tell [McCartney] if he writes our comeback single, it's on. Tell him to write an Oasis track and then we'll talk. I'll just put that out there.
Apparently having pretty much written the entire Oasis back catalogue isn't enough; Noel wants McCartney to actually write a song for Oasis instead of just doing all the groundwork.

Coming tomorrow: Gallagher says that if Ringo Starr agrees to do the clean-up, he'll take a dump on your living room carpet.


Mark Kozelek: Don't mess with Laura Snapes

Mark Kozelek has, sadly, form for coming across like a boor, and he's not learning from his mistakes. This week, he turned his creepy ire on Laura Snapes, who had the temerity to talk to people about him:

Last Monday (1 June), Sun Kil Moon played at the Barbican in London. During the encore, Kozelek introduced a snippet of a new song he had apparently been writing. I wasn’t there, but a friend/colleague was, and phoned me after the gig. I’ve since heard the audio and it made me feel sick. “There’s this girl named Laura Snapes, she’s a journalist. She’s out to do a story on me, has been contacting a lot of people that know me,” he told the sold-out, 1,900-capacity room. Then he started repeating the line: “Laura Snapes totally wants to fuck me / get in line, bitch … Laura Snapes totally wants to have my babies.” The audience clapped and cheered. He played another song, then said he’d only been kidding around before: I was “cute”, “sweet”, “a good kid”. “She’s written some nice things about me.” Then he sang it a few more times before chiding himself. “Better stop before I make Pitchfork headlines for myself again.”
There is, of course, no line of people wanting to have sex with Mark Kozelek, apart from in his head. Kozelek is just an asshat. Snapes would be justified in throwing something heavy at his head; instead, she marvellously takes him down using his own work:
Kozelek trades in sucker-punches. He impugns online “bitching and whining”, but hides behind one-way email exchanges, balks at the idea of his peers speaking about him and issues tirades (and sometimes, sexual advances) from the cowardly remove of the stage, with the get-out clause that it’s a performance. He can use sexually violent language to reduce female critics to the status of groupies, knowing that while male musicians’ misogynist acts are examined for nuance and defended as traits of “difficult” artists, women and those who call them out are treated as hysterics who don’t understand art. “The world don’t owe us shit, I learned that real fuckin’ young,” he sings on Universal Themes’ Little Rascals. If anything remains to separate Kozelek from his work, it’s that his music preaches that the least we owe one another is decency.


Charlotte Church gently pats critics on the head

Whenever a well-off person says they'd rather pay more tax and see better public services, there's an immediate clamour of "why don't you just write a cheque to HMRC, then?"

It happened when Charlotte Church made a call for a more redistributive tax system. But Church is smarter than those who would honk at her. She sighed, and took to Twitter to roll her eyes at them:

I'm disappointed at the vitriol directed my way, if I gave 70% of my earnings to HMRC voluntarily, not only would it not last long as our public services cost 100s of billions to fund but I doubt it would encourage the richest in this country to get a conscience and follow suit. I have no ulterior motives. The injustice and inequality in society that is pushed further by this government makes me as angry as the hulk!
You'd have to be something of an idiot to think you could patronise Charlotte Church.

I think that proves my point.


Thursday, June 04, 2015

Ariana Grande against rabies controls

Clearly, Ariana Grande never saw mid-80s Saturday night drama The Mad Death, otherwise she might not be quite so blasé about trying to bring her dogs to Britain.

Not that we're suggesting Grande's dogs would necessarily be rabid, but after P&O refused to let her take the dogs on a ferry, she certainly was. A hapless P&O official tried to explain to her that without the proper paperwork, her dogs wouldn't be able to get into the UK, and... well, Grande isn't used to hearing no, it turns out:

"I begged him to let me go through, he laughed at me and said no again... I kept telling him and showing him again that the dogs were fully vaccinated and were 100% vaccinated in order to enter the UK and then, I screamed!!!," she wrote.

"I had done every ridiculous task he demanded of me... and at this point he said he would call the police and have me arrested if I tried to go through... I told him to call them and to arrest me, because that was the only way I was not getting on the ferry."
Grande doesn't seem to understand how boarding ferries even works from this, but it gets worse for Ariana, as having challenged them to arrest her, they took her at her word. Suddenly, Ariana is getting what she asked for, and she still isn't happy:
She said that after running back on to the tour bus with the dogs, "suddenly, the bus driver appeared and said that there were men outside the bus to arrest me"

"I collected myself, took a deep breath and ran out yelling: 'Take me away with the dogs and I will sue you for abuse and harassment'... I told them that they were wrong, they were targeting Americans, they were abusing their authority... they laughed....

"At this point, one man in a yellow jacket said to me, 'If you take the dogs, when you arrive in Dover, they will be killed!' ... I actually thought I disengaged from my body as tears started streaming down my face, and I felt as if I were losing my mind!!! I told him that they would have to kill me first and we would see what the US embassy would say about that."
"Mr Ambassador? Sorry to disturb you in the middle of the night, sir, but the British Customs people have shot and killed Ariana Grande. Yes, sir, it's a Code Streisand. Shall I do a quick find-and-replace on that statement we prepared the last time Mariah Carey visited?"

Fortunately, a vet was found in Calais who was able to process the proper paperwork, and the American embassy didn't have to face such a nightmare scenario; Grande and her dogs were reunited, and nobody at all had to face this sort of thing:
The most shocking aspect of this horrifying affair? Ariana Grande was catching a ferry.


Akon will power Africa

It's been a while since we've heard from Akon, who once cut a swathe through this blog, upsetting Buddhists, not quite landing a show on Capital Radio, not quite doing a duet with Michael Jackson and throwing people off stage. Oh, and dry-humping a teenage girl on stage and then blaming the parents for letting her go out dressed like that.

However, he's back to delight us again, and this time he's bringing solar energy to Africa. Good Magazine reports:

[T]he singer announced that he would be launching a Solar Academy in Bamako, Mali. The Academy will train local African engineers and entrepreneurs in order to teach them how to produce solar power. The initiative, called “Akon Lighting Africa,” aims to bring solar power to over 600 million Africans.

Lighting Africa noted that solar power electricity and micro-grids are already “really taking off in rural Africa.” The continent, their statement argues, has over 120 days of sun a year, making it that much easier to harness solar power. Akon’s goals are two-fold: both to provide clean alternative energy and great, meaningful jobs. The Academy will help empower people all across educational levels to build the electricity that’s going to light their homes."
It's a good thing to do, of course.

But 'Akon Lighting Africa' is a little at odds with the stated aims - if this is about empowering local people (both literally and figuratively) why does the branding laud Akon?

Still, good luck, Akon. Let's hope its more successful than his last high-profile business venture, Fantrace. That social networking site sank without fans. Or, indeed, trace.