Gordon in the morning: Myths of the near future

Back in March, James Murdoch - one of Gordon's bosses - gave a speech in which he stoutly defended the sacrosanct nature of copyright:

Murdoch, who stressed that future growth would come from original content production, took the toughest line on piracy.

"We need enforcement mechanisms and we need governments to play ball … There is no difference with going into a store and stealing Pringles or a handbag and taking this stuff. It's a basic condition for investment and economic growth and there should be the same level of property rights whether it's a house or a movie," he said.

"The idea that there's a new consumer class and you have to be consumer-friendly when they're stealing stuff. No. There should be the same level of sanctity as there is around property. Content is no different. They're not crazy kids. No. Punish them."

Borrowing content is like stealing Pringles or a handbag. People who do it must be punished.

Bear that in mind, then, as you read Gordon's story about The Klaxons this morning:

KLAXONS found a drastic cure for their writers' block - a mind-bending psychedelic session.

They got their juices flowing by drinking a powerful hallucinogenic Amazonian potion under the eyes of a shaman - a spiritual healer.

If that sounds familiar, it might be because it's the focus of the band's big interview with NME this week.

Familiar down to the quotes:

Jamie said: "Everybody goes to these sessions with questions.

"Mine was 'How do I write this new album?'

"And it gave me the answer. 'You don't need anything. Just go and do it.' So we did."

Just as the NME reported.

It is possible that The Sun has licensed the content from IPC to reuse - although you'd normally expect to see an acknowledgment if that's happened. But it can't be that Gordon's just lifted the whole thing without permission or even a mention of the NME, can it? Because that would be like stealing a handbag stuffed full of Pringles, wouldn't it? And whatever would James Murdoch (a fully licensed copy of Rupert) say about that?

"Quite avant-garde"

Our buttocks tighten whenever we hear the word "supergroup" being muttered, even when it's one featuring Tim Burgess, Jamie HinceReynolds and Carl Barat.

It's going to happen, though, Tim has said so:

"The idea is to actually record something proper over the summer when we get a chance.

"Myself, Carl and Jamie from Klaxons actually went out for a bit of a band meeting and I think that we are all free in August - but I've just heard the news yesterday that Carl got quite sick so hopefully he'll be recovered by then."

As a general rule of thumb, however gorgeous the resulting band might look in the video, any band meeting which starts with members trying to synchronise diaries so they might turn up in the same place at the same time is a sign that the results of their labours might not be so much fun for the audience as for the artists.

"I just want it to be very serious you know, which would kinda be conflicting in the way that people have seen us in the past, but I think it might be quite avant-garde to be honest."

... so maybe not being fun won't be a problem?

Let's hope that it's not so avant-garde that they don't make a strongly homoerotic video.

The band is currently labouring under the name The Chavs, which you really hope they have another think over.

Gordon in the morning: Yes, yes, Virgin, tee-hee

Gordon giggles with delight this morning, as Russell Brand may-or-may-not have had sex with an air hostess who works for Branson's airline:

Now Brand beds a Virgin

Do you see what he did there?

Actually, what has he done there? Just because you work for Virgin doesn't make you a Virgin, either in fact or in title. Gordon's not a News International, is he? If you had a relationship with a burger bar manager, you wouldn't think "well, now I've had sex with a McDonalds", would you?

Mind you, at least you can see what he was trying to get at, which is more than you can say for the headline on the report about the NME Awards:

Klaxons gong-goed in States

What? What does that even think it's meant to mean?

Smart then manages to miss what you'd thought would have been the most important part of the evening for him - when Ronson joined the stage invasion and fell over, he said "this'll be in The Sun tomorrow, won't it?" Somehow, Gordon managed to miss it.

NME Awards 2008: Oh, the Arctic Monkeys won.

The NME awards have been doled out tonight, mostly going to the Arctic Monkeys, as seems to be the way, once again proving that the alternative to the Brits works by, erm, giving the same prizes to the same people.

And they had the Klaxons playing as well.

The backstage blogging from the site is a little toe-curling:

Big Gig VIP Party: Too cool for school

Imagine a backstage party so cool that the hottest model in London and one of the coolest bands from Scotland gets turned away from.

The party is so full that Agyness Deyn and Franz Ferdinand are still queuing to get in.

Is this the NME or the Daily Star? And if they're queuing to get in, how have they been turned away?

Those prize winners in full, then:

Best band: Arctic Monkeys
Best track: Fluorescent Adolescent
Best video: Teddy Picker

Best album: Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future
Best solo artist: Kate Nash
Best new band: The Enemy
Best live band: Muse (Muse could probably win this even if they didn't play any gigs for the year)
Godlike Genius: Morrissey scribbled out and replaced by Manics
Hero: Pete Doherty (it's not actually clear for what, although having the chutzpah to flog that bloody journal to publishers might count)
Villain: George W Bush (Like the US electorate, the NME voters turn on him when it's too late to make a difference)
Worst band: The Hoosiers
Worst album: Blackout - Britney Spears
Best international band: The Killers (really? Really?)
Best music DVD: Nirvana - Unplugged In New York
Best live event: Reading / Leeds Festivals (Is it really fair that two separate events have their votes added together? Since it's unlikely anyone attended both - apart from those involved - shouldn't you vote for one or the other?
Best TV show: The Mighty Boosh
Best film: Control
Best website: Facebook (But that's a cop-out, isn't it? It's not like Facebook has any content, it's like being asked to vote for your favourite radio show and choosing Radio 4.)
Best dressed: Noel Fielding (Fair enough. He puts in the hours on it.)
Worst dressed: Amy Winehouse
There are too many awards, aren't there? Way, way too many
Sexiest man: Noel Fielding (Oh, hang on now... he's alright, but not when he turns in profile. You still might, but surely the sexiest man has to work right round the sextant?)
Sexiest woman: Kylie Minogue
Radar award: Glasvegas (this is the NME staff's brightest hope prize)
Best dancefloor filler: The Wombats - Let's all dance to Joy Division
Too, too many categories. It's like prize giving day at the world's most egalitarian schools.
Best album design: The Good The Bad And The Queen (Because Damon Albarn has to win something, just in case)
Best band blog: Radiohead
Best music blog: The Modern Age

Under my day-glo Umbrella... ella... ellaq

Actually, you know, I kind of like the idea of the Klaxons doing a collaboration with Rhianna for the Brits. Even although it signals that the organisers are worried that they can't trust the audience to watch three minutes of the Klaxons without someone with a higher profile on stage.

[Thanks to Michael M for the link]

XFM debut album shortlist listed

The not-entirely-neccessary Debut Album Award being punted by XFM has revealed the shortlist voted for by listeners:

Air Traffic - Fractured Life
the Enemy - We’ll Live and Die in These Towns
Frank Turner - Sleep is for the Week
Kate Nash - Made of Bricks
Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future
the Maccabees - Colour it in
the Pigeon Detectives - Wait for Me
the Twang - Love it When I Feel Like This
the View - Hats Off to the Buskers
the Wombats - Proudly Present… a Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation

Is it just us, or has music actually felt a lot more exciting this year than that list would suggest?

XFM flatter their listener's choice, for all the world like a guest at an ambassador's party:

"We've always known that Xfm listeners have excellent taste and here is more proof," said Xfm music chief Mike Walsh.

"This is a very strong list of 10 great British debut albums and Xfm is proud to have been associated with all of them. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the judges decide is the overall winner, it will not be an easy call".

... although clearly, it's either going to be Kate Nash or the Klaxons. After all, they're not going to all the time and money and expense to give it to, say, The Wombats, garnering a small mention on page thirteen of the broadsheets when they could give the prize to Nash, and get at least a photo on the entertainment pages of the tabloids.

The Klaxons honk about the Pistols

With the NMRE bravely continuing with its misguided campaign to "right" history by sending the Sex Pistols to the lower-end of the Top 30, they've now pulled The Klaxons in to overstate the importance of the band:

Jamie Reynolds [...] declared he would do all he could to get 'God Save The Queen' back into the charts.

"The Sex Pistols are probably the most important band that existed so I'm happy to support NME's campaign in any way I can. I will certainly be buying several copies," he declared.

He added: "It wasn't even the music necessarily, it was the thought that went into the Sex Pistols that was important. But buying the single will at least be the first step to realising that for anyone who doesn't know the band's history or legacy."

We're not sure this actually was meant to make any sense - how can you support a campaign to "correct" a chart position if you don't "know the band's history or legacy"? "I'm righting a historical wrong I've never heard of", then?

The Sex Pistols aren't without a legacy, of course. They provided an image of punk - drooling, thoughtless, heartless, cartoony, without a sense of history - for the media; a stereotype which scrubbed all the subtlety, individuality, and awareness from the genre. The Sex Pistols legacy is Gizzard Puke and Matt Belgrano. The historical outrage is the way punk was hijacked by the trouser salesman and the realtor; not the awkward fact that they were outsold by Rod Stewart.

Live Music Awards also hung up on Winehouse

As if to prove that the Vodafone Live Music Awards are a buttock short of being half-arsed, not only did they throw it out on the same night as the MOBOs, but it got thrown completely into the shade by its urban rival.

The prize winners:

Best female live act: Amy Winehouse
Best male: Mika
Best production: Kylie Minogue Showgirl tour
Best live band: Arctic Monkeys
Breakthrough: Klaxons

Same winners as everyone else, then.

Amy was robbed, but Jo gets paid

Fascinating, just a few days after Jo Whiley was complaining about how "Amy Winehouse was robbed" at the Mercurys, to see her doing a voiceover on the Klaxons album adverts showing to turn a few quid out of the Mercury victory. We're glad that Jo was able to cope with her burning sense of injustice long enough to sign off on this one.

Jo Whiley: Amy was robbed

Jo Whiley has abandoned the strict impartiality required of her as presenter of the BBC coverage of the Mercury Prize - which is fair enough, as she'd earlier abandoned the required interviewing technique, too - and insisted that Amy Winehouse should have won the Mercury.

Why?

Erm, because Jo liked the album:

"Everyone was surprised. Amy was the favourite."

Er... Amy was the second favourite, Jo - remember that man from the bookmakers telling you on television that Bat For Lashes was the favourite?

"The Klaxons are lovely boys but Amy should have won.

"Back To Black is definitely my album of the past year - it's spellbinding. Her performance at the Mercury show was amazing. But it's not about how she performed, it's about the album."

We've not had a chance to look at the rules, but we're fairly sure that the prize is meant for the album decided by the judges to be the best of the year, rather than being an award for Jo Whiley's favourite.

We have a sneaking feeling that what probably happened in the judging stage was votes for Amy and votes for Bats For Lashes were cancelling each other out - the 'ooky female vocal' split - which let the Klaxons through. But we're getting tired at this insistence that, somehow, Winehouse had a moral right to the prize. Clearly, when the judges voted they didn't believe she did. When people bet on the likely winner, they didn't feel she had, either.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Sounding the Klaxon

Having more-or-less predicted the Klaxons' Mercury win (or, at least, having made such a vague 'rule nothing out' prediction beforehand that if anything up to and including Noel Edmonds winning had happened, he'd have sort-of-not-said-it-wouldn't happen), Gennaro Castaldo is now rushing forward with the news that winning awards sells albums:

HMV's Gennaro Castaldo said: ""While Klaxons are enjoying a significant boost to their album sales, they now also have a real opportunity to reach out beyond their established fanbase.

"Even if she didn't collect the prize many people felt she deserved, Amy Winehouse is also among the big winners - her acclaimed album 'Back To Black' now has the momentum to power towards the two million sales mark over the coming months."

Who are the "many people" who felt Winehouse deserved the prize? Has there been a popular uprising we've missed?

Elsewhere, The Klaxons are going to donate their winnings to a science-fiction charity. We don't know if that's a charity that helps victims of sci-fi (Babylon 5 shut-ins, people who can't cope with passers-by saying 'Alyson Hannigan would make a great Doctor Who, don't you think?') or a charity that works in a sci-fi way (helping close temporal folds, translating the Bible into Klingon). On the other hand, they might just give it to their Mums.

Back at HMV, they've had some uncharacteristically cheery news, as bad weather, Desperate Housewives boxsets and Harry Potter have helped lift their ailing sales a smidgen or two. Indeed, providing we don't have an Indian Summer, the company as a whole might just scrape ahead of dire predictions made for it at the start of its trading year.

Klaxons hijacked by Priscillas

The revival of vinyl, what we keep reading about in the newspapers, is bringing with it the revival of one of the sweet joys of pop: the mispressing.

The Klaxons has discovered the b-side of It's Not Over Yet has, instead of a frankly pointless "unique etching" got a "mystery track" on it.

It turns out that it's actually the b-side of No Rock favourites The Priscilla's forthcoming Superstar single. Hopefully, that'll come complete with the proper b-side and not a "unique etching".

[Thanks to Donald Guff for the tip]

Klaxons sound

It must have seemed like a spectacular idea - leaping from the stage into the audience. Unfortunately, Jamie Reynolds snapped his ankle and the band wound up having to cancel their Sunday night gig in France.

I blame Heroes myself. It's like when kids threw themselves off of roofs like lemmings during the heady days of the Six Million Dollar Man.

It's not nice to taunt the 3AM Girls, Alex

It's all fun and games making things up and enjoying seeing the 3AM Girls write them down, but now everyone is going to be awaiting the Arctic Monkey/Klaxon/Lily Allen/Dizee Rascal supergroup Alex Turner has promised:

Alex told us backstage at Glastonbury: "It's definitely happening. We're recording an album. It will be out before you know it."

Alex worked with Dizzee on his fab album Maths And English. And Dizzee teamed up with Lily on his hit Wannabe. The three roped in James [Righton] during a fancy-dress do in the VIP bar.

An insider tells us: "Their fans won't know what's hit them."

You have to love that "insider" comment - it's only one step away from an insider said "with eight legs between them, that's forty toes." An insider inside what? A non-existent record? Did they have to phone up a studio that hasn't been built and keep asking to speak to someone who hasn't been employed yet?

Tabloid round-up: The last knockings

Someone - oddly, there's no byline - seems to have spent Glastonbury following Kate Moss and Pete Doherty around, detailing their doings - being blocked from going to watch the Arctic Monkeys at the side of the stage (the paper suggests this was 'keeping out the riff-raff', but they let The View get a good view); checking their faces were "straight"; locking Babyshambles out their bus so they could have what the paper is too coy to call sex; and having some sort of falling-out with the Klaxons.

Apparently, Jacqui Doherty was there to watch - the band, rather than the sex and fighting, we presume, and she was pressed for her views on her son:

“Pete’s not ready to give up yet. He will have to hit rock bottom before he can rise up again.”

Ooh, that's good news, Jacqui - it sounds like you might get a second book out of him.

Still, that's not the big news from Somerset, it seems. Oh no, it's apparently that it was the year of the catsuit. There were a whole two of them:

WHAT kind of idiot wears a catsuit to Glasto? Well, PIXIE GELDOF and LOVEFOXXX of CSS, it seems.

Pixie is young enough to get away with her skintight togs, but how she managed to go to the muddy loos in that thing is beyond me.

Meanwhile, trendy Brazilian singer Lovefoxxx’s get-up was even more complex.

We love that slightly sneery "trendy Brazilian singer", as if someone running a non-story as an excuse to run a photo of Bob Geldof's daughter in a one-piece is able to take moral high ground.

Trouble is, Geldof wasn't even wearing a catsuit - all catsuits are one-pieces, but not all one-pieces are catsuits.

Oddly, the Sun misses the biggest story of the weekend. As the Mirror reports, Shirley Bassey's appearance was nearly her last, as her helicopter home was forced to make an emergency landing in Surrey as it lost power:

It touched down at 8pm amid howling winds and rain in the grounds of Collingwood College in Camberley, Surrey.

The shaken pilot emerged to ask locals: "Where am I?"

"He apologised for scaring them before admitting: "That was terrifying.

"I was losing power and the mist was so thick I couldn't see where I was going.

"I've got a special passenger. We have had an almighty let off. Thank God."

Locals then watched gobsmacked as Dame Shirley Bassey clambered from the chopper in wellingtons.

She said: "We are so sorry to have bothered you. May I please use someone's toilet? And a cup of tea would go down a treat."

Can someone be double-dame'ed?

Less successfully, the 3AM Girls abandon gossip-hounding for reviewing:

KAISER Chiefs frontman Ricky Wilson took the Glasto crowd to a whole new high with his energetic performance.

The loveable rocker karate kicked and strutted through hits including I Predict A Riot. The highlight was Oh My God when the crowd was jumping with him.

Top marks!

Bless them; this is the sort of thing you read in thank-you letters stuck on Tesco walls after they've hosted a school trip: "We saw the men making the bread. My favourite bit was when they sliced the loaf. It was exciting!"

There's a special section on the festival on the Mirror website, where you can still read their cast-iron prediction of a Libertines reunion:

We can exclusively reveal that the turbulent couple will be playing a momentous acoustic set on the Saturday.

Perhaps it was just very, very secret.

Chavtastic

Last night in London, something between a sprawling mess and a glorious coming-together: Carl Barat, Gary Powell, Jamie Reynolds, Steffan Halperin and Tim Burgess in a possible one-off supergroup extravaganza, The Chavs.

It's like a Travelling Wilburys for the living.

Where your booking fee goes

At least when you fork out your hard-earned quids in booking fees to the likes of SeeTickets, you at least have the comfort of knowing you're investing in a top-quality service provided by an international company with a fine reputation. (The dodgy misuse of Glastonbury registrant's data aside, of course.)

Or maybe not. The Klaxons have had to apologise to fans who were locked out of last night's Manchester gig after Ticketline and SeeTickets screwed up and sent the wrong tickets out:

"We would like to apologise to any genuine ticket holders who did not get in. If anyone had a valid ticket for either show but was not let in, we ask that in the first instance they should contact the ticket agent from who they bought tickets with ticket numbers and booking reference. The ticket agent will then be able to check if tickets were sent out and how they slipped through the net."

Actually, shouldn't SeeTickets and/or Ticketline have details of what they sent to who? Shouldn't they be the ones who are contacting their customers and sorting out their mess, rather than the other way round?

Klaxons blast away Lily Allen

Last night a Studio B audience in New York got a bit of surprise when, in place of a short-notice cancelling Lily Allen, they got the Klaxons instead.

Websters have confirmed this will appear in the next edition as the very definition of a narrow escape.

Klaxons no-glow

We were amused by a piece on Channel 4 a week or so ago on NuRave, where an intense young woman, surrounded by a crowd who looked as if they'd dressed expecting to be going on black and white telly, explained the difference between NuRave and Old Rave was that Nu Ravers care a lot more about how they look.

At least the first wave of rave had the excuse that they were off their cakes on cake and x to worry too much about what they'd started out wearing; to wear a smiley headscarf as a neckerchief and claim that you've thought out your outfit raises a cry for help to the level of an incessant, clanging bell.

Now, though, the Klaxons are confessing that NuRavers are actually following something they made up for a laugh (making NuRave the Scientology of musical genres), and asking people to stop turning up with glowsticks:

“We kept getting asked to explain it,” Jamie Reynolds explained Popworld Pulp magazine, “And it’s like, ‘Look, the whole idea of new rave was to take the piss out of the media by making them talk about something that didn’t exist, just for our own amusement.’ And they’d say, ‘I appreciate that, but can you tell me more about new rave?’”

We're clearing next Friday afternoon for the arrival of the New Wave of New Rave. Anyone want to join us?

More little Gallaghers

Happy news - if can pull your thoughts away from the moment of conception - from Noel Gallagher: He's about to become a father again with the news that Sara MacDonald is three months pregnant. Cue Victoria McDonald shoehorning in an Oasis pun so lame and pointless, we wonder if she was doing it for a joke:

[I]t was the lack of champagne or vodka in her glass which gave the game away. The pair have been dating for seven years. Most of that time they have been living the life of Riley, partying hard and travelling All Around The World.

She might have just got away with it if she'd not put it at the end of an equally meaningless sentence. (Is it even true? Doesn't Noel's ambit consist mainly of the posher parts of London?)

Meanwhile, Noel - presumably mellowed by fatherhood - has withdrawn his criticism of the Klaxons. It turns out he quite likes them:

"They think I hate them, so you can right this wrong for me. I like Golden Skans. "I don't know much about them, except I was with KASABIAN at Ibiza Rocks last summer, fucking it off, and got dragged in to see them and I was like 'What the fuck was all that about?' "We were happily breezing away on the dancefloor and the next thing they were on, so I wasn't ready for it. But I do like that tune."

Poor Noel, his head turned by Kasabian - who knows what they were busily talking about? Politics? The... then on came... Klaxon... Ibiza... zeeba... zebras first, I think...