The Cult eject fan for using phones

The suspicion that it must be like going back in time to see The Cult live in 2013 doesn't exactly vanish when you discover that Ian Astbury had someone ejected for texting during a set in Fort Lauderdale. Boca mag was there:

[A]s the band tore through some of its greatest hits during the second set, things got personal. Astbury went off on someone near the front of the stage who was texting one minute and, apparently, shouting at the singer the next. In between songs, Astbury took large swigs from his water bottle and spit it at the person in question. Not once, not twice, but three times.

“You’re ignorant—and you’re rude,” Astbury shouted into the mic. “I call it like I see it ... If you can’t handle it, go home. This is a Cult concert!”

Ironically, given that Astbury had also been moaning about people videoing the band on their phones, the moment where this screen-jabber was plucked from the crowd by security was, erm, filmed on a phone. It's probably the most entertaining thing that's happened at a Cult gig in recent years:

It is terribly rude to the people around you to hog the front row while not really being interested in what's going on upon the stage; equally, though, if you're an entertainer and your audience are choosing to play Candy Crush instead... it doesn't make it sound like you're very compelling.

Ian Astbury: Everyone is a robot EXCEPT ME If destroyed still true

Bloody hell, Ian Astbury's pissed off. If he's not raging at people not letting him do stuff, he's shaking his bony little fist at people who do let him do stuff.

Right now, he's angry that nobody stopped him from having a go at being in "The Doors":

"There wasn't a single American singer who stepped up to the plate and said: 'I want to do this. I'm an American artist – I demand to do this," He tells the HeraldSun. "Not Eddie Vedder, not Dave Grohl, not Trent Reznor, not Perry Farrell. Not Scott Weiland. Not one of them stepped up and fought for it. When The Doors needed that generation to surround them and support them, the cupboard was bare."

Trent Reznor turned down the chance to lead the freshly disinterred corpse of what was left of The Doors? Hard to believe, isn't it?

It doesn't, of course, occur to Astbury that there's a possibility some singers might have loved The Doors so much they felt that pretending to be Jim Morrison would be a bad thing to do. Or that Vedder, Grohl, Reznor and Farrell are from the generation-two-along from Jim and thus don't really have any sense that they 'owe' a few older guys anything when they started up their nostalgia trip pension fund.

Or perhaps they could just spot a shitty stick when they're being handed it.

Every time you share a download, Ian Astbury cries

You know the thing about sharing? Sharing is selfish. Don't take my word for it, Ian Astbury says so:

"Whoever was irresponsible enough to decide that music was worth nothing and decide to give away the music, that was a very selfish move," he said.

Yes, curse you, the marketplace.

Astbury, bless him, is getting on a bit and doesn't really understand what he's talking about - confusing the value of music with the price of a recorded audio track.

But do share with us... sorry, not share, sell us your explanation of your thoughts:

"When I look at a 17-year-old kid who's starting out in a band and is hearing, 'You know what kid? Your music's worth nothing.' I think that is disgusting."

Ian, sweetheart - a seventeen year-old will have spent most of their music-consuming life living in a digital world. Most seventeen year-olds will have downloaded, ripped, shared. They come from the new musical world, and they will know how it works, its opportunities and shortcomings.

You're talking as if people in bands emerge from pods, rather than grow out of people who love music. The only way it would be news to someone starting out in a band that some files get shared, and some get shared for no immediate return would be if they were fifty and having a mid-life crisis. After returning from a island they've been stranded on.

Seventeen year-olds don't need to be told about what the digital world means. It's the world they live in, Astbury. It's the world they helped forge.

Ian isn't done, though. He rails against Radiohead, too:

"I thought it was irresponsible what Radiohead did. People watch what they do and they copy it.

How irresponsible to try and find a way of selling music that works. People might try to do the same sort of thing.

"I don't see U2 giving their music away for free. They're smart boys."

Actually, Radiohead didn't give away In Rainbows for free, they... oh, what's the point? Anyone who thinks that U2 are "smart" rather than simply "a multinational corporation who, though in decline, are still large enough to operate in a different way" doesn't really have much of a grip on what he's talking about.

In short: Ian Astbury said "waaah, waah, things have changed and I'm too conservative to operate well in a world where there's fewer big bands getting all the money at the expense of everybody else."

Led Zep tour prospects brighten, darken simultaneously

A Led Zep tour next year seems to be almost certain; the bad news for the band's fanbase is that we know this because Ian Astbury reckons The Cult will be opening for them.

That's handy - gives you a bit longer to sort out the babysitter and get the car parked, doesn't it?

Not quite the Doors use Scallions to replace Astbury

With Ian Astbury off the scene - you'll recall he's gone of to work on his own musical legacy - Riders on The Storm were desperate to get a singer to fulfil their previously-booked tributes-to-themselves Doors dates.

So desperate, in fact, they've signed Brett Scallions from Fuel.

So long, I'm off to rejoin a Cult

Ian Astbury, who, lest we forget, has been spending the last four years pretending to be Jim Morrison in The Doors, has had enough. He's heading back off to restart The Cult. There's a statement:

"I have decided to move on and focus on my own music and legacy. I have learned a great deal from the both of them, and it certainly has expanded my abilities as a performer.

"This has been a difficult decision to make but I feel I would be holding them back as well as myself if I did not depart at this time."

I'm sorry, Ian, did you just say you were going to focus on your legacy, like you're Billie Holiday or Malcolm X?

And you've got to love the idea that the continued presence of Ian Astbury might "hold back" Riders On The Storm (they can't actually call themselves The Doors) more than, say, the fact that the whole point of the band existing vanished when a guy ODed in the bath back when Elsie Tanner was a lass.