Drumobit: Peter Jones

Crowded House have announced the death of their drummer, Peter Jones:

We are in mourning today for the death of Peter Jones. We remember him as a warm hearted, funny and talented man, who was a valuable member of Crowded House. He played with style and spirit. We salute him and send our love and best thoughts to his family and friends.

Liverpool-born Jones joined Crowded House in 1994 after original drummer Paul Hester quit mid-tour. Peter stayed with the band until the end in 1996, although Hester returned for some of the final gigs. Jones wasn't part of the reunion version of Crowded House.

Jones played with various other Australian acts, and worked on the side as a teacher.

Peter Jones was 45; he had been ill with brain cancer for some time.

Glaston the box: Day two

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]

Something to listen to: Radio stuff

These are all BBC Radio Listen again links, so will decay a week after original TX:

Jon Ronson On... goes to Glastonbury, and asks Melvin Benn about being owned by Clear Channel. Benn points out that it's now LiveNation - but doesn't mention the board-level crossover of the companies - and shrugs that "we're all tainted"

Arcade Fire live at Maida Vale from Radcliffe & Maconie's Thursday night show; it starts an hour in and there's no unpleasantness like the camera smashing on last night's Jonathan Ross show

Crowded House acoustic on Danny Baker, crammed in between extra news bulletins about cars not exploding

There's some universal sign language for that...

Neil Finn had to backtrack quickly during Crowded House's set at Hyde Park Calling.

He harangued a bloke he saw on the corner of the stage:

"Where has your friend gone? Are you here as a decoy to make sure no one storms the stage, because you have done it already?"

That doesn't even remotely make sense anyway. But to make it worse, he was actually slagging off the man with the thankless task of translating Crowded House lyrics into sign language.

Oops.

To be fair, when he realised what he'd done, he did apologise. Apparently he was short tempered after having to throw out a load of bloody labradors some idiot had allowed in backstage.

Try to catch a deluge from a melting cap

The line-up for the Australian leg of Live Earth has been formally announced - no Midnight Oil, which may be a surprise:

CROWDED HOUSE
JACK JOHNSON
WOLFMOTHER
JOHN BUTLER TRIO
MISSY HIGGINS
ESKIMO JOE
SNEAKY SOUND SYSTEM
PAUL KELLY
GHOSTWRITERS
TONI COLLETTE & THE FINISH
BLUE KING BROWN

It's not... well, exactly glittering, is it? Perhaps they're holding back some surprises.

Marr's been hired more times than a 1950s cab

A decade or so back, Select magazine ran a graphic attempting to prove that without Johnny Marr and his connection to so many projects, music would implode or something. Since then, it seems, Marr has been attempting to correct the image that he's six degrees from every band by working directly with everyone.

He's just hooked up with Crowded House.