Everytime I turned on the radio, there was somebody else, singing a song about the two of us

Courtney Love believes that most of the songs written in the 1990s were about Courtney Love:

“I remember I used to date this movie star in the ‘90s and we were listening to KROQ,” she continued. “Of six songs in a row, five of them were about me. I told him that, and he was, ‘No, they aren’t!’ I was, ‘Yeah, they are. I dated every one of those guys, dude.’ He was like, ‘You’re such a slut!’”

You'd hope at this point that Courtney kicked the "movie star" in the nuts at the suggestion that having had a lot of songs written about her was "slutty"; the only thing you can really say it proves is that Love has a type.

But this is the 1990s, which wasn't the happiest of times for Courtney, so it's possible she's misremembering the story, or - perhaps more plausibly - that she's remembering something she thought happened. It's possible she was playing a Hole CD when this happened rather than listening to the radio.

Ryan Jarman defends Courtney Love

Ryan Jarman launches into a spirited defence of Courtney Love in a blog for the NME freesheet.

There are a lot of grounds to call out people who attack Love - some are motivated by sexism; some forget that she has had a stack of challenges to deal with; just waving Celebrity Skin should be enough. Jarman's case, though, seems to rest on her being a chum:

I stayed at her place for a bit and it was such a fun time because Courtney is a total star and when you live with her she absolutely shows you that proper side of being famous. It's kind of trippy and amazing. To a newer generation of people, she still wields a lot of power because of who she was when they were growing up. She still conducts herself in the same way - she hasn't mellowed in any way. Absolutely, she is exactly as you'd expect and the way she presents herself in the public eye is not put on whatsoever.

That's lovely, but... it's not really a defence, is it? 'Don't slag her off because she's the same behind closed doors' would only work if the Love-Haters suggested she was fake, and I don't think even Courtney's strongest detractor has ever accused her of putting on an act. Indeed, many pops at her are motivated by concern that she doesn't change her behaviour when she's in public. Courtney Love has never been a woman with an Outdoor Voice.

The trouble with Jarman's defence of Courtney is that it simply ignores the missteps Love has made. Those - the throwing of bottles; the battles with Courtney Love the band; beating up David Gedge at Reading because he'd worked with Albini; tussling through the courts with the rest of Nirvana; the list goes on - are fair grounds to question some of her decisions. And those fair grounds have, over the years, become fairgrounds on which more extreme whack-a-Hole games have been established.

If you want to say 'it's gone too far' or 'she doesn't deserve all this', that's fine. But to do that effectively, you have to understand where it began.

If you love Courtney Love for who she is, and what she is, you have to understand that she's always been uncompromising.

And you have to understand that not being willing to compromise isn't going to endear you to a lot of people.

Ryan Jarman knows Courtney Love. I'm not convinced he knows people, though.

A Courtney Love lawsuit

There was a time not so very long ago when you'd barely get through a week without hearing of Courtney Love being in some sort of legal skirmish.

More recently, there's been no need for the permanent lawyers parking slot outside her home. Which makes today's lawsuit against Love sound like some sort of revival event.

Writer Anthony Bozza has brought an action claiming that he's been unpaid for work on Love's yet-to-be-published "auto"biography:

In the suit, Bozza states that his collaboration agreement with Love guaranteed him a minimum of $200,000 from advances Love received, as well as his expenses, regardless of whether the book came out. Bozza says he has spent around $10,000 on getting his interviews with Love transcribed, an expense he claims she has not reimbursed. Furthermore, he would receive royalties up to a maximum of $300,000. So far, Love has paid Bozza only $100,000, he claims, despite already receiving $400,000 of a $1.2 million publishing advance.

Ten grand might sound like a lot for transcription services, but let's not forget that Love can ramble when she gets going.

Courtney Love cleared in the case nobody was calling Twibel

There's a lot of guff being wafted around the decision in the libel action bought against Courtney Love by her former attorney Rhonda Holmes. The LA Times both claims this to be a the case people were calling "Twibel" (they weren't) and that it's somehow a landmark.

But, really, it's not that much of a landmark:

A jury of six men and six women listened to eight days of testimony and statements, then deliberated for just three hours. They determined that although Love's statement had a natural tendency to injure Holmes' business, they did not believe she knew the statement was false.

There's nothing different about this from the finding in hundreds of similar cases; the only vaguely noteworthy thing about it is Courtney Love winning a case against her. That it concerns a Twitter message might make it, at best, a footnote.

But nothing has changed here; there are no sudden clarification of legal issues. It's a bog standard libel action that has failed on the same test used by juries to settle generations of perceived slights.

Courtney Love: America's Sally Bercow

Courtney Love's attempted to argue that, because the internet is effectively people screaming unsubstantiated obscenities into one another's iPads, she shouldn't be put on trial for alledgely defaming her former lawyer Rhonda Holmes on Twitter.

The judge didn't buy it:

Judge Michael Johnson agreed with [Holmes], saying, "Ms. Love has a big following and they all hang on everything she does and says and Tweets."

Which manages to be both terrible news for Love, and also the most generous thing anyone has said about her in a very long time.

The defamation trial will now happen in January.

Our legal experts reassure us you can say what you like about anyone on MySpace, as it's probably nobody will ever find out.

The Money Will Roll Right In: Nirvana - The Musical

In the midst of his testimony over at the Britney Spears trial, Sam Lufti appeared to suggest on oath that there's plans for a Nirvana version of Mama Mia.

It might sound unlikely, but for two things.

One, Lufti currently represents Courtney Love.

And, two, the fact that an idea is a bad one won't stop it if it can make a lot of money.

Rumours that Ben Elton is already trying to think up ways to wrap a cheery family evening around a full cast bellowing of Rape Me could not be confirmed at this time.

Twittergem: Courtney Love

Courtney Love finally uses social networking for something other than yelling at her daughter and claiming that Trent Reznor has stolen the lead from her roof:

@LanaDelRey@bryanadamsBryan has anyone told Lana what Heartshaped box is about?

— Courtney Love Cobain (@Courtney) July 30, 2012

@LanaDelReyso umm next time you sing it,think about myvagina will you? lolxc

— Courtney Love Cobain (@Courtney) July 30, 2012

Courtney Love loses Kurt Cobain's face

Courtney Love has left the management of End Of Music, which controls the exploitation of Kurt Cobain's image, in return for a massive loan from Frances Bean Cobain's trust fund.

You know, this sort of seven-figure deal over who signs-off the crappy tshirt designs was probably what Kurt was hoping would be the final outcome when he went off to the conservatory that day.

Courtney Love realises she might have been wrong

After going on Twitter and bellowing that Dave Grohl had tried to get off with Frances Bean Cobain, Courtney Love appears to have sobered up:

Courtney Love apologized to Frances Bean Cobain via Twitter early this morning.

"Bean, sorry I believed the gossip," she wrote. "Mommy loves you."

Oddly, Love seems to have neglected to apologise to Dave Grohl - which is odd, considering that the original claim marked Bean out as a victim of a predatory older male. It's like driving a car into someone, and apologising to the fender.

Courtney Love makes the most sensible decision of recent years

When she found out The Current Version Of Hole were booked to play not just the same festival as Limp Bizkit, but straight before Limp Bikzit, Courtney did the the sane thing and pulled out.

Courtney Love overshares again

Nobody would wish Courtney had remained in thrall to her appetites, but unfortunately getting herself straight hasn't stopped her from telling us things we don't, really, wish to know:

After I stopped doing drugs I started to fuck like a bunny! Before that I suffered from years of celibacy. I was on this whole Morrissey kick, no masturbation, no romance, no nothing! The store was completely closed. My self-imposed chastity was only scheduled to last for two years, but it went on for three years, eight months and six days.



If you're interested in getting to know Courtney a little better, you might want to check your bank balance:

Actually, these days I’m only interested in plutocrats. Like really, really rich guys. I’m determined to land one sooner or later. My favorite book these days is something called The Official Filthy Rich Handbook, which I study like the Talmud. The thing is, I think I can be a real asset to a wealthy man. I’ve always been a great girlfriend, but until recently I’ve struggled to stay single, because I had never been without a boyfriend before. It’s just my nature to couple up.

You know, I never was so thankful that I don't have a whole lot of money.

I collect, I reject: Courtney Love's clobber

Good news for people making wrong soup: Courtney Love is selling off her unwanted clothes.

Some are only previously owned by her; others are expressly described as having been worn by her.

I'll say this for her: she has excellent shoes.

Gordon in the morning: You can say anything about Courtney Love

Gordon picks up some claims from a bloke with a book to sell:

SINGER COURTNEY LOVE wanted to snort the ashes of husband KURT COBAIN, a new book claims.

Author NICK STRAUSS says Love had the idea shortly after the NIRVANA frontman was cremated following his shotgun suicide.

He alleges Love, 46, who has battled drugs, offered him a bag of ashes at her Los Angeles home and told him: "Say Hi to Kurt. Too bad you don't do coke, otherwise I'd suggest taking a straw to it."

Is it just me, or does this sound less like an actual invite to snort Kurt's ashes, and more like a slightly macabre joke?

The worst thing, though, is that even if it happened, this sounds like a bit of a weak anecdote to make the key plank of a book about Courtney Love. This is Courtney Love, dammit, who runs up and down the street naked save for a duck costume, and who seizes every new form of electronic communication to spread claims and libels. And the best you have is a weak joke about how ashes look like coke?

The Tories love Courtney Love

I don't think I've ever picked up a Guido story on No Rock before, but this one is too good to miss: The Tories' big tent has now expanded to include Courtney Love,:

newly elected as Oxford University Conservative Association’s ’Non-Executive Officer for Rock and Roll’

Like Hank Hill's observation that Christian Rock doesn't make rock music better, it just makes Christianity worse, this is probably a move which reflects more badly on Love than it does for the teeny tiny Tory types.

Still, I guess embracing an out-of-control type famed for her drug use and violent outbursts is a step forward for Conservative students compared with how they were last time round, spending their days calling for Nelson Mandela to be hanged and embracing UNITA.

[Thanks to @jimwaterson for the tip]

Courtney Love tweets into court

In a few day's time, Courtney Love's tweets about Dawn Simorangkir are going to court, as the fashion designer sues for defamation.

Love suggested via Twitter that far from owing money Simorangkir was seeking, it was her who should have been showered in thanks and cash:

"She has received a VAST amount of money from me over 40,000 dollars and I do not make people famous and get raped TOO!" Love wrote.

Of course, being Love, this isn't just about Twitter, as she spewed this sort of thing all over the internet.

Her team have got a defence, though:

Love's attorneys have their own witnesses, including a medical expert who plans to testify that even if Love's statements were untrue, her mental state was not "subjectively malicious" enough to justify the defamation lawsuit.

That claim -- something akin to an insanity defence for social media -- suggests that Twitter was so appealing and addictive for Love that she had no appreciation for how the comments she posted would be received by others.

Karl T, who pointed this out to us, observes:

Love's defence, that Twitter is just so darn fun that she's unable to prevent herself from broadcasting whatever passes through her brain is an interesting one, to say the least.

In other news, shouting at dustbins and picking fights with the radiator people are protected under the 1st amendment.

It's going to be a tricky one for Love to pretend that she had no idea what people would make of her Tweets, as surely she'd already got into enough trouble tweeting about the people ripping them off to know exactly what they'd go down like.

Courtney Love remains Courtney Love

Of course Courtney Love greeted her New York Times interviewer naked and drunk. Of course she did. The only real mystery in the event is why Rolling Stone wrote about it thus:

She may have tried to remake her image in recent years, but Courtney Love's interview with New York Times reporter Eric Wilson lived "right up to my worst reputation," as she put it.

Rolling Stone thinks Love has been trying to remake her image in recent years? Really? With the endless rants about houses bought in Curt's name, and fuck this and screw that, and Ryan Adams stole something and the people she doesn't get on with are all wrong and evil and Activision never got permission to do that thing they did and so she's going to sue them just as soon as her daughter comes back?

It's like saying that Burma has been doing its best to be a model democracy, so it's a bit surprising the election results came out the way they did, surely?

Embed and breakfast man: Lois Maffeo

A weekend of embedded videos which will continue with sound only, I suspect, as we dip into the career of Lois Maffeo. Lois, as she was often professionally known:



That's her first sort-of solo debut, Press Play And Record, although she'd been making excellent music for years before that came out in 1992. At the start of the 1990s, she was in Courtney Love. The band, of course, the one that makes (her ex-roommate) Courtney Love the person fume and rage about who has the rights to a made-up name.

Before that, she'd arrived in Olympia and become a one-woman radio cult with a show on KAOS; it seems like you couldn't help but be well-connected in Olympia at the time and her cross-collaborations would give Pete Frame cold sweats trying to keep track of.

She writes a mean song. This is going to be a brilliant weekend, I think, even if the 'videos' are just pictures filling the hole in the screen.

Buy
Infinity Plus [download version]
Butterfly Kiss
Bet The Sky

Lois online
K Records artist page
YouTube playlist by GrrlBandGeek (which this weekend's features will be drawing heavily, but not exhaustively, upon)
Lois Maffeo's writing for The Stranger

More across the weekend
Courtney Love - 2nd Most Beautiful Girl In The World
Strumpet live
I Hate The Sun live
Roman Holiday - Lumihoops
Tentacles - The Touch
The Go Team - My Head Hurts
Cradle Robbers - Sotto Voce

Gordon in the morning: Making movies

In a wonderful piece of misguided stunt casting, Robert Pattinson has been lined up (apparently) to be Kurt Cobain in the biopic of his life. What an insane suggestion. Who would be so bats as to think that works?

R-Patz has been in regular contact with Kurt's widow COURTNEY LOVE, who has been handed a key role in the production by bosses at Universal Pictures.

The HOLE singer wanted R-Patz as Kurt and SCARLETT JOHANSSON to portray her. My graphics team have mocked up Rob and Scarlett as the hellraising pair.

Maybe there is more to Pattinson than mumbling and taking his shirt off, but it seems hard to believe it. Perhaps Love has added the direction 'Kurt squints a little'.

For once, I think Gordon's analysis might be spot-on:

I have to say, the 14-year-old in me was a little bit sick when I found out a Twilight vampire was playing a rock idol.

But at least it's an improvement on the man lined up to play Kurt in the West End - Footballers' Wives star GARY LUCY.

It's a bit like the Comic Strip's Strike, only with Alexei Sayle's miner encouraging the drafting in of the likes of Meryl Streep.

[UPDATE: Thank you to the young person who pointed out that I'd mistakenly called Robert Pattinson Robin. I'm afraid the other error contained in this article - the suggestion that Pattinson is an actor capable of portraying Kurt Cobain is beyond my powers to update.]

Love at the Union

If you're following No Rock through the various distributed outlets these days, you might not get to see the comments. Which would mean you'll have missed Jim W's account of Courtney at the Oxford Union. Which would be a shame.

Courtney Love: Part of the union

Here's a funny thing. When someone like Courtney Love turns up to address the Oxford Union, the press dutifully treat it as if it somehow confers a confirmation of intellectual rigour on the guest. The BBC do it tonight:

Love, singer in rock band Hole, followed in the footsteps of Michael Jackson and former US president Bill Clinton by speaking at the forum.

Michael Jackson might just give a hint that sometimes having an act which pins you in the tradition of a bear riding a bicycle can be enough to get you in. They've also had Gerard Way, Sally Gunnell and Kermit The Frog.

As bookings go, it's a bit like being invited to talk to Clive James. While you might find yourself sat in a library talking about Heidegger, you're just as likely to be sat doing a pretend satellite link-up with a humorous singer.

Courtney, though, clearly feels she's been called in for her brain and not her likelihood to fall in the trifle, and - at least on reports so far - managed to come across like a teenage girl trying to impress the technical college lads with the breadth of her knowledge.

From a personal perspective, though, what really matters is the likely effect on Milton Keynes house prices. It's not good news:

Love, who went to Summerhill boarding school in Suffolk and later lived in Liverpool, described herself as "Amglish".

"This is where I want to live, either Oxfordshire or Buckinghamshire," she said.

Try Bedfordshire, Courtney. Or Northamptonshire. Leicestershire, maybe?

In other Courtney Love news, the other half of Frances Bean's trustees, Laird Norton Tyee Trust Company have subpoenaed the records of the trust fund. They appear to be investigating if Love has "misappropriated" funds.

Well, she did seem quite convinced that someone was dipping into the money.

Nobody, as yet, has made any formal allegations, and Love has not been accused of any wrongdoing.