Oh My Girl: story suddenly loses impetus halfway through

The story of Oh My Girl being detained at LAX sounds, at first, like something gone terribly awry:

The eight members were travelling to America for an album cover shoot but were detained for 15 hours in customs.

A statement from the group's record company, WM Entertainment, said authorities held them after going through their costumes and props.

"They seem to have mistaken them as sex workers," said a spokesman.

That's quite a terrible thing to have happened, and to be held for 15 hours because border guards thought photoshop props were somehow sex toys (what sort of photoshoot was this?) is outrageous.

But... just as you're about to be outraged, there's this:

The record company also said there might have been an issue with the type of visa the band members presented.

Oh. So it's not so much "immigration mistakes pop group for sex workers" as "band management screws up visa application, attempts to spin story to deflect attention", then.

Angry nuns against Katy Perry

The story of a group of nuns in LA who have sold their convent to a restauranteur, at the same time as the Church has sold it to somebody else, would be entertaining enough without the added extra that the Church has flogged the building to Katy Perry.

The nuns have now gone to court in a bid to stop Perry getting her hands on their private quarters.

Venuewatch: Gibson Ampitheatre

This summer, the Gibson (né Universal) Ampitheatre in LA ends its lease, and closes. NPR reports:

The mid-sized space with was loved by everyone from head bangers to heads of state for its intimate setting with superior sound. Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Madonna, Kanye West, the Grateful Dead and many other major artists performed there.

Other headliners included Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.

"Head bangers to heads of state". Nice work.

So, when the doors shut this summer, and after the bulldozers have moved in, what shall we get in return?

The closure makes way for the "Wizarding World of Harry Potter," an attraction that's part of a major theme park and studio expansion by property owner NBCUniversal.

Really? Is that a good idea in the longer term? Isn't this a bit like building WillowWorld or The Black Hole Experience?

Gordon in the morning: Gordon drops Cowell in it

One Direction, you'll recall, won some prizes at the VMA awards. What happened next, Gordon Smart?

EVERYONE has an uncle who sorts out a crafty underage bottle of beer at family occasions.

ONE Direction’s late-night sneaky uncle Simon Cowell did the business for them at the MTV Video Music Awards as they picked up THREE Moonman statuettes.

They were each given a bottle of champagne by their label boss at the LA event — despite being under the state’s minimum drinking age of 21.

Ha ha! What a wag, eh?

Although, of course, that does mean that Cowell has committed a crime. Handy of Gordon to point it out in a newspaper, eh?

So, how serious is the trouble that Cowell is in? He's violated California Business and Professions Code Section 25658

Except as otherwise provided in subdivision (c), every person who sells, furnishes, gives, or causes to be sold, furnished, or given away any alcoholic beverage to any person under 21 years of age is guilty of a misdemeanor.

He furnished. He gave. Five times.

Except as otherwise provided in paragraph (2) or (3), or Section 25667, any person who violates this section shall be punished by a fine of two hundred fifty dollars ($250), no part of which shall be suspended, or the person shall be required to perform not less than 24 hours or more than 32 hours of community service during hours when the person is not employed and is not attending school, or a combination of a fine and community service as determined by the court. A second or subsequent violation of subdivision (b), where prosecution of the previous violation was not barred pursuant to Section 25667, shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars ($500), or the person shall be required to perform not less than 36 hours or more than 48 hours of community service during hours when the person is not employed and is not attending school, or a combination of a fine and community service as determined by the court. It is the intent of the Legislature that the community service requirements prescribed in this section require service at an alcohol or drug treatment program or facility or at a county coroner's office, if available, in the area where the violation occurred or where the person resides.

Now, five bottles of champagne. I make that five offences in total. If justice is to be served, Simon Cowell should be sluicing down an awful lot of coroner's slabs in the near future, right?

String Cheese Incident outplays Ticketmaster

String Cheese Incident have a long history of battling Ticketmaster, having taken legal action against the company back in 2003 when the corporation tried to stop the band selling tickets direct to their fans.

That case had lead to a truce, but one which expired in 2009; now, once again, Ticketmaster is trying to force a claim that it has sole rights to sell tickets to events at some venues.

So what did The String Cheese Incident do?

They came up with an elegant workaround. The New York Times reports:

One Friday afternoon recently, about 50 fans and friends of the band String Cheese Incident took $20,000 in cash to the Greek Theater in Los Angeles to take a small stand against the system — in this case, Ticketmaster.

With money advanced by the band, each person had enough to buy eight tickets at $49.95 apiece for the group’s show in July. Once all tickets were in hand, almost 400 of them, they were carried back to String Cheese headquarters in Colorado and put on sale again through the group’s Web site — for $49.95.

Yes, the band are scalping their own tickets, at a loss. They're taking a hit, but making a rather elegant point in the process.

Hanson worth more than Bobby Womack

There had been a planned minifestival in LA, but the Sunset Junction Neighbourhood Alliance couldn't get permits and had to cancel. Which means the event went into bankruptcy. Which means the money they were going to pay acts is now in the public domain:

Butthole Surfers $24,000.00
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah $22,000.00
Hanson $20,000.00
k.d. lang $20,000.00
Ozomatli $20,000.00
Bobby Womack $15,000.00
Gayngs $13,000.00
Peaches $12,800.00
Lil' Jon $10,000.00
Tapes 'n Tapes $10,000.00
Art Brut $8000.00
Arthur Adams $6000.00
Charles Bradley $5500.00
Dum Dum Girls $5000.00
Helmet $5000.00
Rooney $5000.00
The Growlers $5000.00
The Melvins $3300.00
Butch Walker & the Black Widows $3000.00
EC Twins $3000.00
The Original Vandellas $2500.00
Kim Weston $2250.00
Brenda Holloway $1500.00
DJ Trent Cantrelle $1500.00
Morgan Page $1500.00
Natalia Kills $1500.00
The Hundred Days $1250.00
400 Blows $1000.00
Cary Brothers $1000.00
Madi Diaz $1000.00
Soft Pack $1000.00
The Rescues $1000.00
DJ Swedish Egil $800.00
DJ Lazr Tag $750.00
DJ Reflect $750.00
He's My Brother She's My Sister $750.00
Lemon Love $750.00
The Stripminers $750.00
Chris Pierce $650.00
Arm The Animals $550.00
DJ David Palmer $500.00
DJ Drew $500.00
DJ Fashen $500.00
LA Derby Dolls $500.00
Lady Danville $500.00
Nick Waterhouse $500.00
Shadow Shadow Shade $500.00
Sunny War $500.00
The Belle Brigade $500.00
The Fling $500.00
Vanaprasta $500.00
Vaud And The Villains $500.00
Art vs Science $480.00
DJ Derterous $450.00
30 Years After $350.00
Carina Round $350.00
Jim Bianco $350.00
Milo Greene $350.00
Barrio Tiger $250.00
Cinderella Motel $250.00
Greylag $250.00
Hands $250.00
Holly Conlan $250.00
Lesands $250.00
Nicole Eva Emery $250.00
Olin & The Moon $250.00
The Bitter Branches $250.00
The Steelwells $250.00
The Three Degrees $250.00
Ruby Summer $200.00
The Damselles & The TC4 $200.00
Buddy $150.00
Erin McLaughlin $150.00
Yellow Red Sparks $150.00

Apart from how much it costs to get Hanson, I think the biggest surprise there is what a song you can pick The Three Degrees up for.

[via Hypebot]

Gordon in the morning: Take That at the airport

It happens a lot in airports, and the more you travel, the more likely is that it'll happen to you, sooner or later. An immigration officer thinks there's something odd about your paperwork, and gives you a bit of a closer questioning.

That's all that seems to have happened to Howard Donald and Mark Owen when LA immigration sought confirmation that the pair were there for leisure and not work.

To The Sun, though, this is:

Take That stars in US customs shock

Apart from this not being a shock, how shoddy is reporting that doesn't know the difference between customs and immigration? Clearly, this piece must have been filed by some greenhorn reporters who aren't that worldly.

By PETE SAMSON, US Editor, and GORDON SMART, Showbiz Editor

Yes, it turns out that Pete and Gordon have collaborated on this. There's nothing in the story at all - just an everyday, but irritating, occurrence. It's like running a story about there not being any chocolate powder when someone tries to buy a cappuccino.

I wonder what Gordon actually contributed to this story to get a joint by-line? My guess is this bit:

Bandmates GARY BARLOW and JASON ORANGE, both 40, were not on the trip.

Also not on the plane: Lulu; any of Westlife; ex-King Constantine of Greece. The passenger manifest can confirm this.

Gordon in the morning: Up in the air

"Posh avoids 11 hour flight sat next to Jordan" screams the front of Bizarre this morning, apparently written by someone who doesn't really know how the plane is laid out when you turn left. Or possibly someone who thinks Victoria Beckham crams herself into coach.

Gordon insists it was close, though:

THERE'S been one of those scary near-misses involving two planes - and VICTORIA BECKHAM had a very lucky escape.

She nearly spent an 11-hour flight to LA sharing the benefits of Virgin Atlantic Upper Class with somebody she can't stand - KATIE PRICE.

Except - as is usually the case with people who fly a lot and have sufficient funds - it turns out Beckham had booked herself on all the flights leaving for LA yesterday, so there wasn't even much chance she'd be on the same flight as Jordan, much less sat next to her.

Two women fly to the same place at different times on the same day. Not quite such a great story, is it?

Michael Jackson: Finally, someone pays

AEG and the Michael Jackson estate are busily trying to make their grudging, belated, inadequate payment towards the massive costs of the Jacko back catalogue relaunch party ("memorial event") appear as an act of unprecedented generosity:

AEG President Timothy J. Leiweke and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Friday in a joint statement that $1 million will be provided to the city's general fund, and the rest of the money will go to the Los Angeles Police Foundation for crime-fighting equipment.

"It was important to us that all parties agreed that this was not an obligation but a choice we believed was important to make at a time when thousands of city employees are being reduced," Leiweke said in the release.

The 'rest of the money' is $300,000. In total, the payment from AEG and the estate doesn't even cover the overtime the residents of LA had to pay police to look after the concert; and it's barely a smidge of the profits made from people buying Jackson records when he died.

Perhaps now AEG have had a chance to choose to do the right thing, it's time for them to be asked to make up the rest of the costs?

Roger Waters sorry about defacing a memorial

Fair play to Roger Waters, he's been quick to apologise after his hapless advertisers slapped an advert over the top of Elliott Smith's memorial:

“I didn’t want to disrespect Elliott Smith’s fans, and I’ve instructed [the team] to remove the wheat paste immediately. It was a random pasting in the normal course of this, and I want to make it public that we had no intent to offend or cover up something precious.”

Well done, Roger. It was an accident, you've cleared up the error and...

Oh... what did you say to the LA Times?

“It’s not like this was some pristine monument and Roger Waters is the Big Bad Wolf who covered it up.”

So, you'd almost managed to make good but then had to go and issue a defensive sneer. That's probably worse than the original accident.

Also to the point, shouldn't a multi-millionaire like Waters be paying for his advertising, rather than slapping wheatpaste posters up all over town?

Taxpayers against the corpse of Jacko

Jose F. Vallejos is a taxpayer in Los Angeles. He was less than delighted to discover that his city was being left to pick up the tab for policing the Michael Jackson memorial.

So he's suing Jackson's estate to have the costs returned to the public purse.

Imagine if the UK Taxpayer's Alliance did useful things like that, instead of spending their time trying to get tax relief on their activities.

Fading bruise

Bruise Violet have announced details of their farewell show. It's 18th December at Chuco’s Justice Center in Inglewood - handy for Los Angeles readers of No Rock. Of which there are (checks details) plans to recruit a couple soon.

For the rest of us, we'll just have to pretend:

A Singer Must Die, but not yet: Weiland is grounded

Scott Weiland managed to take his flight out the air last night: He suffered a seizure en-route from LAX to MIA, forcing the scheduled American Airlines plane to make a non-scheduled stop at Dallas Fort Worth. Weiland went to hospital; he's fine now. It doesn't say in any of the reports, but we're betting the rest of the passengers mumbled complaints just nosily enough to avoid seeming too harsh-hearted.

Ghoul has gawper-peepshow plans rejected; now left with expensive house

Oh, if only Sarah Beeney had been on hand filming as Christian Audigier rushed to buy the house in which Michael Jackson was hooked to his final drip. You can hear her saying "buying the house and turning it into a museum to fleece cash from the more heartless of ghouls is a high-risk investment. Without planning, this could wind up being a rushed purchase, over-price, with no hope of making the money back."

And so it has proved to be, as the local council has refused permission to turn the building into a public space. Still, I bet Audigier has a plan B, right? The student letting market always seem to be a solid fall-back to judge by Homes Under The Hammer.

Even dead, Michael Jackson is generating lawsuits over money

The LA City Attorney is currently buying pencils and post-it notes in order to find out how it is that AEG pocketed large sums of cash for boxes at the Jacko memorial, promising the cash would go to the LA Police Foundation, only for no large cheque to appear:

A rep for AEG told TMZ there were 18 suites that went for $5,000 a pop and AEG did indeed promise the money would be donated to the Police Foundation. The rep said AEG is still doing a final accounting of the event and "We have every intention of making this donation."

AEG says the city is trying to get way too much -- 7 figures -- out of them for the event. But the City Attorney believes AEG is on the hook for expenses including sanitation, transportation, street services and LAPD protection -- and that does indeed go into the 7 figures.

They were selling boxes? To a memorial? Classy.

Maybe they wanted to check Jackson was still dead

Interesting statistic tucked into the LA Times piece about how the coroner's office has been leaking Jacko information like a cryogenics facility in a powercut:

In the days before Michael Jackson’s death certificate was made public, only a few people had legitimate reason to view the file in the state's password-protected database.

Even after the document was released, access was supposed to be limited toauthorized staffers.

But by the first week in July, the pop star's records had been viewed more than 300 times, said Craig Harvey, the chief coroner's investigator.

Which isn't even near as the number of times people have run round the offices with his brain on their head, pretending to be Monty Burns pretending to be Davey Crockett.

[Spokesperson Ken] August said it was too early for him to say how many people inappropriately viewed Jackson's death certificate or where they worked, but said he had no indication of "widespread, inappropriate access."

Sure: in California, everyone's death certificate gets passed around like an especially piquant New Yorker cartoon.

AEG miss the point a little while LaToya cries moider

The city of LA has suggested that AEG might like to pay some of the costs associated with the Michael Jackson farewell promotional event.

AEG aren't rushing forward to help:

But AEG president Tim Leiweke said that AEG did pay for the memorial itself.

Leiweke seems to have been breathing too deeply from the fumes of Jackson overstatement, as he seems to feel that putting on an event is, somehow, an act of public generosity in its own right. In summary, AEG's position seems to be 'why should we pay for the crowd control? We already paid out to bring the crowds there in the first place'.

Meanwhile, LaToya Jacksons talks to the News Of The World (or possibly has a private conversation which the News Of The World paid money to get transcribed):

I will nail Michael Jackson's killers

Blimey. That's got to be up there with the death penalty as a cruel and unusual punishment, hasn't it?

Oh. As in "capture". I see.

Yes, "killers" - for LaToya believes that someone went out their way to kill Jackson. Presumably someone who couldn't wait another ten minutes or so for natural causes to do the work.

Jackson says she knows who did it - and yet, surprisingly, doesn't seem quick to share that vital piece of information:

"Michael WAS murdered," declared La Toya, 53. "And we don't think just one person was involved. Rather, it was a conspiracy of people. I feel it was all about money. Michael was worth well over a billion in music publishing assets and somebody killed him for that. He was worth more dead than alive."

Yes. Somebody - or bodies - who couldn't wait to get their hand on all that lovely, lovely debt that outweighed the value of his assets.

The Hooded Claw, speaking to the Sunday Mirror on condition of anonymity, explained that there wasn't a criminal mastermind alive who wouldn't kill to seize control of a complex of networks of companies that owned rights that had been used as collateral against unsustainable debts. "I mean, who wouldn't, right? And personally, I'd have made sure I killed him right before he did all those gigs to clear large chunks of the debt, rather than wait a few months, see the debt mountain reduced, and kill him when it would seem even more plausible that he just conked out from a year's worth of efforts in Greenwich."

Still, LaToya knows the names of people who were happy enough to conduct what would have been one of the most high-profile murders in history, despite the financial trail making them obvious suspects. And yet, rather than name them, she's just let them know she knows who they are, but isn't going to tell people yet. Has LaToya ever seen an episode of Columbo? Does she not realise that that sort of behaviour usually gets you wrapped in a carpet and dumped over the side of a boat bobbing about on Lake Michigan?

But to be fair, Columbo is a made-up story about murders. Which is totally different from this one. Because it doesn't have Peter Falk in it.

People of LA less than thrilled at paying for Jackson DVD shoot

I'm sure that when the Jackson memorial winds up on sell-through DVD, it'll be through "public demand" and not, in any way, part of a long-term plan on anyone's part to turn a profit from the event.

Meanwhile, the people of Los Angeles are starting to ask why their cash-strapped city underwrote a large chunk of the costs of staging the event:

“I admit I shed a tear with Mariah, Queen and Paris,” said Jody Greenblatt, a pharmaceutical executive who lives in Los Angeles. “But I cry more at the thought of teachers’ pink slips, forced furloughed days, unemployment rates sky high and a state bankrupt.”

And it's not just voters:

On Tuesday, the city attorney, Carmen Trutanich, took the highly unusual step of appearing during the public comment period of a City Council hearing to announce that his office was investigating how Los Angeles taxpayers came to foot a bill for police protection and other city functions at the service, at a time when the city and state are running out of money.

To make matters worse, it turns out the money that was spent wasn't actually used all that wisely:

On Wednesday, the city controller, Wendy Greuel, sent a stern letter to the Los Angeles emergency management department demanding to know why it had spent $48,826 on sandwiches from a deli 80 miles from Los Angeles to feed police officers. (Sandwiches from Subway would have cost $17,491.25, she pointed out.)

I know "busing-in officers" isn't unheard of; but busing-in sandwiches?

Art Brut settle in to LA life

It's not just Alexa Chung who is embarking on an exciting but time-limited new American career: Art Brut are setting up an LA residency - four nights at Spaceland in mid-June, added to previously announced spells in New York and Chicago.

Unlike Alexa, Art Brut's audience will actually have a clue who they are.

The Edge digs a trench

What's most surprising about the coverage of The Edge's alleged despoiling of the environment around his LA home is that people are surprised - after all, it's not like he's not got form for pushing on with redevelopments in the face of local objections. What with the Clarence Hotel being given a "futuristic" look and the hubristic U2 Tower in Dublin, it's not like The Edge has a reputation for being sensitive to the environment when there's a few quid to be made.

And, according to LA Weekly, he's got some grand plans for one of the nicer, wilder bits of the city:

Residents in the Coral and Latigo canyon areas of the Malibu hills are in an uproar over the Edge’s plan to build five homes across a proposed area of nearly 1,000 acres on two key sites, one bordered by the spectacular Latigo Canyon and the other at Serra Retreat.

They're not entirely surprised, though:

Among those most frustrated by the Edge’s plans is Candace Brown, a resident and longtime partner of Malibu mayoral candidate Councilman Jefferson Wagner. She accuses the U2 guitarist of spearheading an overly ostentatious and self-serving development that will upset the ecosystem and create an eyesore of, in her words, oversized “McMansions.”

“They evicted the archery club, which was an institution in Malibu,” says an exasperated Brown of the Edge and his project partners. She says that they also dug a 15-foot trench “the size of three football fields,” and that eyewitnesses have reported seeing wildlife, including deer and fox, trapped in the trench.

It's not believed, though, that The Edge is eating the trapped animals, nor smearing their blood over his face before dancing around under the moon, naked save for the skins of the captured wild creatures.

God alone knows why The Edge needs such a big trench. Perhaps he's burying his money. Or maybe he doesn't trust them modern flushing toilets.

It gets worse, though. Apparently he's going to have a crack at a job usually best reserved for faith - moving mountains:

One disgruntled neighbor, Jim Smith, a building contractor who has looked at the Edge’s plans, estimates that the proposed construction would affect the community for years to come. Smith says that an existing mountain on the property will, in effect, disappear, and that approximately 5,000 truckloads of earth removed from the site would be transported along a road not nearly large enough to handle the load.

The Edge "declined to comment" on the story to LA Weekly, but it's not just his environmental destruction which is upsetting the neighbourhood. He turns out to be a bit of an all-rounder when it comes to knobbish behaviour:

“There was one occasion when his enormous tour bus stopped dead on the road to my house, blocking it. Myself and several other cars had to wait behind it for some time until I became annoyed and approached the window of the bus. I asked the driver to move, though he said I’d have to wait, as he didn’t want to interrupt the Edge and Axl Rose [a fellow Malibu resident], who were in an intense discussion at the back of the bus.”

It's far from clear why The Edge would want to even get involved in building houses. He clearly doesn't need the money. Now, what would be the word for someone who just loves money so much he doesn't care what he has to do to get it?