What the pop papers say: Missing by Moyles

Week three of the car-crash that is Free NME looking for an identity, and it manages to make last week's Robert Pattinson cover look like a wise choice. For staring out of the front page this time round, it's Chris Moyles.

Now, a Chris Moyles cover by itself doesn't have to be bad, if it was leading into a piece about Chris Moyles written out of curiosity. Instead, it just waves off four pages of fawning.

Moyles kicks off by announcing he's a feminist; he underpins this by listing the women he works with and muttering about tax on sanitary products. They ask about the whole "offering to fuck Charlotte Church now she's 16" thing - Moyles' defence is that he "said it once. I moved on." And how does NME counter this? Er, by just moving on to the next thing.

The next thing is his homophobia and racism. Unbelievably, Moyles uses the human shield defence - "one of my best friends is transgender".

Does the NME point out that this justification - don't judge me on what I do, judge me on who I know - is incredibly weak? No. Just write it down, type it up, print it out, move it on.

His continuing beef with Radio 1 is given paragraphs of space - which could have made for some interesting commentary; Moyles at Radio X suggests a man who's still obsessed with his Radio Ex, using the platform to try and convince Radio 1 that he's having a great time and he's really glad that they split up. Is there any attempt to quiz him on his obsession with Ben Cooper? Nope.

His tax arrangements? Mentioned just to allow Moyles to trot out a "I didn't break the law, and I paid it anyway" line before moving on. Yes, given the chance to ask him about his second hand car business, the NME blinks. Any opportunity to explore the question is gone.

Even on the reformatting of XFM as Radio X, which you think the NME would have once cared about, is treated in a way that will have Global Radio PR purring:

Don't expect to come to Moyles to find obscure new grime artists or cutting-edge psych-rock bands. Radio X has retained new-music champion John Kennedy's late-night X-Posure show for that. Moyles is here for the express purpose of entertaining people as they battle hangovers, get ready for another mind-numbing day in the office or peel out of bed before going to college.

That radio station which was supposed to be the home of alternative music on British radio? Don't worry, they've kept a tiny rump of that late at night - presumably when the 'real' audience is out building up those hangovers for the morning.

Back when Radio One was shunting John Peel ever further into the night, NME called the BBC on the bullshit claim that you can support new music best by putting it where nobody is listening.

Why on earth would NME give such a free pass to the new Radio X?

Clearly, in part, because the idea of taking something that used to be a distinctive, alternative voice for new music and pissing it down to yet another chart-and-chat platform might resonate with NME. The token music piece this week is a very, very, very short feature on Wolf Alice. They're dubbed "the best new band in Britain". The NME first wrote about Wolf Alice three years ago. The proper NME did. If they're pretending that Wolf Alice are a discovery now, no wonder they'd think John Kennedy is more than enough of that cutting-edge stuff.

The more prosaic reason for the free passes handed to Moyles and Radio X is probably the two page advert that appears immediately before the interview.

One other sign that the NME has lost its mojo quite badly - the person who used to maintain Wikipedia's list of NME covers hasn't bothered to update the list with the new ones. You can see why.

Temple cast out: Eddy Temple Morris quits XFM

As XFM continues its dwindling days while Capital preps Radio X, station stalwart Eddy Temple Morris has quit and taken his Remix show elsewhere.

His farewell comes via Facebook:

For reasons that are personal, and shall remain private, I've made a very hard decision to resign from the radio station I love.

The Remix has been on Xfm for over 15 years and while I look for a new and more appropriate spiritual home for the show, Soho Radio - the excellent London based internet radio station - have very kindly offered to host the show in the meantime.

You might want to read between the lines:

Right now I'd say to all the doom and gloom brigade that new music and the way it's consumed is at such an interesting and exciting place now. It's a time for positivity and forward thinking, not fear and regret. The landscape is changing so fast. I can see a new level playing field emerging, where record labels aren't beholden to FM radio any more.

The last Remix show on Xfm, show number 797, will be a pre-recorded Best Remixes of The Millennium special broadcast tonight, September 4th. Show 798 will be broadcast live on Soho Radio next week in exactly the same slot. Friday 10pm till midnight on www.sohoradiolondon.com

X axed: XFM to shed last vestiges of what it was

A grim additional email from Popbitch this morning, which builds on yesterday's story that XFM was about to be rebranded Capital Rocks.

It's not going to be called Capital Rocks - presumably because it's not a fucking paving company operating out of Bexleyheath - but it is going to have a new name:

Starting on 21st September, it's going to be Radio X.

There are already a bunch of Radio Xes, of course, most notably in Grand Theft Auto.

But as Popbitch continues, the change of name isn't as bad as it could have been:

One of the ideas floated (but thankfully dropped) was to give the station a "no females" policy, with "Man Size Music" suggested as the new slogan.

Yes, the brains that run Capital did really think that adopting the much-maligned strategy used by Nestle to turn the Yorkie bar from a relatively unpleasant hunk of inedible chocolate into a flashpoint in the gender wars was the way to rebrand its alt rock station.

Mind you, when you read this bit...:

With Chris Moyles at breakfast, followed by Vernon Kay. Jonny Vaughn gets the nod for drivetime. And Ricky "The Voice" Wilson is in for a weekend show.

... you do have to ask yourself how far the "no females" policy was actually abandoned. It doesn't sound like that page of the flipchart was ripped up, does it?

Collateral damage

Presumably because it would incompatible to edit The Scottish Sun and present a show on XFM, Gordon Smart is ending his radio programme.

It never got any clearer how being the editor of The Sun's showbiz section and doing a stint on what still pretends to be an alternative radio station made sense, but let's just move on and pretend it never happened, eh?

Gordon in the morning: Brand new show

Talking of radio stations and the decline from offering an alternative to thinking that just not playing N-Dubz is enough, news from XFM. Gordon Smart - himself a presenter on the station, although he doesn't mention that conflict of interest - brings news of a short series:

THE women in RUSSELL BRAND’s LA yoga class can look forward to a well-earned breather next month.

Bizarre’s four-time Shagger Of The Year is making a return to UK radio with his old on-air sparring partner NOEL GALLAGHER.

The Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid of radio are reuniting with the original team behind the Russell Brand Show.

Although Brand and Gallagher have done the odd radio show together in the past, I'm not sure I'd claim that their pairing was quite as iconic as Butch and Sundance.

Still, Gordon's excited:

Russell told me: “I miss radio. It was lovely when we did the show. It will be great to get the old team back together.”

It was the very show that landed JONATHAN ROSS and Russell in hot water over the Sachsgate business.

You can bet your boots the Ofcom boys will be tuning in and stroking their chins in anticipation of some bad behaviour. Good luck to them — the radio hasn’t been the same without their carry-on.

Yeah, stupid old Ofcom and their rules on taste and decency which forced Brand's Radio Two show off the air.

Remind me, what line was The Sun taking that line at the time, when the paper complained about the programme's 'obscene bullying', "disgusting stupidity", "a childish act of verbal violence" and "foul-mouthed insults".

It turns out what The Sun meant all along was that radio wasn't the same without all that, and you should ignore those "chin-stroking" moralists.

Funny, that.

Gordon in the morning: Noel Gallagher is kind of a dick

Obviously, we'd all have been a lot happier if Captain Beaky And The Beady Eyes hadn't turned up to do an Oasis cover in the middle of the Olympic Closing Ceremony, but given it was going to happen anyway, Noel Gallagher was kind of a dick about the whole thing. Gordon's copied down the story from Danny Wallace's XFM show:

The former Oasis star only gave his blessing for a re-worked version of Wonderwall to be included at 10pm on the Friday night before the big London gig on Sunday.
[...]
[Noel said] “I took it to Friday night at 10pm before I said yes and they were s******* it. Not Beady Eye but the organisers.”

Ha ha, that will have shown Liam, erm, something, right? Never mind it's dicking round the hundreds of people trying to pull together the show. Do they give hollow gold medals for pyrrhic victories?

We are now, by the way, firmly in the bit where Noel is desperately trying to stress that he was asked, you know, but turned it down:

Noel said: “I asked who else is playing and they said, ‘I can’t tell you. You’ve got to sign a confidentiality agreement’. It’s like it’s the Iran nuclear programme or something.

Noel struggling with the concept of surprise a little, there.

The latest reason for not bothering is they wanted him to mime, apparently:

“But if you’re in a stadium with 80,000 people and you’re pretending... I said I could play live and one of the organisers said, ‘It’s a big gig’ and I was like, ‘Really? I do this for a living’.

Most of the millions who watched the event will never hear Noel's wheezy "yeah, they wanted me to do it, but I didn't" pleading, you know.

Gordon in the morning: Pushing the Panther

What, exactly, is the link between Gordon Smart and unbroadcast comedy pilot Walk Like A Panther? He seldom misses a chance to go on about it; yesterday he had Sean Pertwee on his XFM show and got him to talk about his role in the programme; this generated a story which has gone into the paper today:

KASABIAN frontman Tom Meighan was so nervous making his acting debut he was sick before filming.
Speaking on my Xfm show yesterday, Sean Pertwee, his co-star in new comedy drama Walk Like A Panther, said:

"You have to admire Tom. It was intimidating for him joining experienced actors on a film set. He was great though."

Smart gives an awful lot of time and space to a programme that hasn't even been picked up by a broadcaster, doesn't he?

The piece ends on this optimistic note:

To hear Smart On Sunday again, download the free podcast on iTunes.

"Again"?

6Music: Economist bitch-slapped by reader using facts

Clearly, the Economist doesn't bring its usual considered approach when it talks about pop music. The magazine covered the 6Music closure this week:

In 2002 the BBC introduced 1Xtra, a digital urban-music station that bore a suspicious similarity to Xfm, a commercial outfit. It followed up by launching 6 Music, an alternative-rock station, and the Asian Network. The stations received plenty of promotion on the corporation’s television channels.

Oh really, asked qwertymartin:

Why let mere facts trouble you?

Absolute Radio plays "roughly the same kind of music" as 6 Music? In the last 30 days 6 Music shared 11% of its playlist with Absolute: http://comparemyradio.com/compare/Absolute_Radio/BBC_6_Music

"Suspicious similarity" between 1Xtra and XFM? In the last 30 days 1Xtra shared 0% of its playlist with XFM: http://comparemyradio.com/compare/BBC_1_Xtra/XFM_London

The only things that are rough and suspicious here are this article's interpretation of reality.

You can just about understand why a superficial listen might think Absolute and 6Music is "roughly the same" - guitars, isn't it? - but how on earth could you think that 1Xtra and XFM are similar? Unless you think "there's some music and then some talking" qualifies? Or is it because they both have X in their name?

[with thanks to @alanconnor]

Xfm announces "best song ever"

If you approach this with the understanding that Xfm believes there are only four songs that have ever been written which exceed Sex On Fire in terms of quality, you'll perhaps not be surprised to discover that they believe The Killers' Mr Brightside to be, definitively, the very best song ever.

Actually, that's not as surprising as Ian Brown's FEAR coming in at number 11. That's not even the eleventh best song with a video featuring a bicycle being ridden backwards in it.

Xfm tries to get it right; gets it wrong

Actually, we're being unfair. Johnny Borrell presenting a programme on Xfm isn't wrong for the station. Indeed, set against the confused attempts by a mainstream station to try and give itself a veneer of the supposed alternative station in Global's not-very-diverse radio portfolio, putting Borrell on is a radical move. That's what makes it so heartbreaking.

"Xfm are the only station who would let me play Buju Banton next to Allen Ginsberg within the same show. It's going to be one hour each night of the songs they don't play on the radio," said Borrell.

He's right, you know. Of course, any number of radio stations - Radio 1, 2, 3 and 6; NME Radio probably - would have shows with that sort of playlist. But none in their right mind would take Borrell on to play them, for fear of becoming the butt of gags.

Not Xfm, mind, who seem to genuinely believe that Borrell is veiwed as one part Andy Kershaw to two parts Richey Manic:

Paul Jackson, group programme director of Xfm, alongside sister Global Radio stations 95.8 Capital FM and the Hit Music Network, said Borrell was a "creative genius and a great storyteller".

He added: "We've always loved Razorlight at Xfm and we're looking forward to seeing what Johnny does with the show and which tracks he chooses."

Well, at least there's going to be one listener. And Johnny will probably get his mum to tape it for him to listen to when he gets home.

George Lamb's anti-Travellers 'joke' doesn't bother Ofcom

Ho-ho: Although George Lamb compared travellers to "asbestos", Ofcom have accepted his apology for this little exchange:

George Lamb: “He's now said ‘I'll give my land to travellers before I give it to Trump’

Marc Hughes: Did he say that? Brilliant

George Lamb: And you ain't moving travellers off basically. Travellers is [sic] like asbestos basically. The whole gaff is getting condemned."

Over to you, BBC:

The BBC stated that George Lamb’s show is an established feature of the 6Music schedule and the show has a “loyal following of listeners who understand and enjoy its somewhat quirky format and direction”.

Well, yes. But you could say the same about the Daily Mail.

Still, Lamb apologised, and Ofcom will consider the matter closed.

Also in the latest regulatory round-up: Alex Zane's date rape joke was up for consideration. This is where XFM attempted a pastiche of Mike Sarne's Code Of Love called Won't Take No For An Answer. Ofcom could see what they were trying to do:

It is clear from the introduction to the song that the programme was aiming to make a pastiche of Sarne’s original song. The presenters were attempting to satirise what used to be acceptable in the 1960’s but would now be considered totally inappropriate by today’s standards. If was therefore always possible that the result could be offensive and therefore the context that such material was presented would be particularly important.

However, the extract from Sarne’s song played by the presenters bore little relation to the pastiche they attempted. The subject matter and tone of “Code of Love” were vastly different to the presenters’ own song (which was supposedly inspired by the former). In Ofcom’s view, the presenters’ song was likely to have been perceived by listeners as recounting a physical and sexual assault. As such, the actions of the man in this song shared little resemblance to those of the suitor in the “Code of Love” extract played by the broadcaster. Ofcom also noted that the subject matter of the presenters’ song was portrayed as a light-hearted joke and the material was transmitted at breakfast-time, when children may be in the audience.

XFM had taken action before Ofcom started investigating, which helped matters - although it might have been a bit more convincing had it not offered up a justification in saying that the network wasn't "aimed at a conservative audience". What does that mean? There's meant to be something progressive in snickering at jokes about a bloke taking a woman down "where there ain’t no big lights" and ripping her underwear?

Viking FM somehow slipped up and invited a tea-time audience to call in with "stories about dogging" - Bauer apologised. And Northern Media Group's Northern Ireland radio stations and Your Radio in Scotland both invited listeners to text in to a pre-recorded programme, offering the excuse that it made the programme "more interesting" and "more interactive" respectively. More interactive? How is spending money sending a text to an empty studio more interactive? Was the station hoping to generate some sort of faith, where people communicated with an entity they knew in their hearts was a fiction? Ofcom was having none of it, and have issued a statement that this sort of thing will be cracked down on. In future.

Oasis get XFM into trouble

It's a bumper Christmas special sized Ofcom complaints bulletin this month, kicking off with TalkSport's £20,000 fine for James Whale endorsing Boris Johnson for London mayor. It would have been more but Ofcom were worried that a larger fine might make it difficult for TalkSport to make the kind of programmes its known for - which, you might think, would be reason alone to fine at least into six figures.

Then, XFM gets rapped after its Scottish service broadcast a live Oasis gig at 8pm:

On reviewing a recording of the material provided by GCap Media Ltd. (“GCap”), which controls and provides compliance for the station, Ofcom noted that the programme contained the word “cunt”, as well as several instances of the word “fucking”.

XFM apologised and has bollocked the producer responsible, but did try a half-hearted defence:

GCap asked Ofcom to note, however, that listeners to Xfm Scotland expected edgier content and that very few children would be listening to the station at that time.

Why would someone seeking "edgy" content be listening to an Oasis gig?

More trouble for Global over at soon-to-be-sister station Heart, which got carried away promoting Mama Mia! The Musical at the same time as taking sponsorship money from the filmmakers:

Heart said that it is a music and entertainment station primarily targeted at women in their thirties and that it aims to provide them with interesting and relevant lifestyle features. The broadcaster believed that the launch of ‘Mamma Mia! The Movie’ was “a massive showbiz event which presented an outstanding opportunity to engage with the lives and lifestyles of [Heart’s] target audience.” It added that not only was it editorially justified for Heart to have provided extensive coverage of the event, but its audience would have expected it.

Good lord - if you were running a radio station during a commercial downturn, would you really want to portray your target market as a bunch of people whose week would be wrecked if they didn't keep getting reminded about Meryl Streep lipsynching to Super Trooper?

Ofcom asked them to tone it down in future:

In conclusion, Ofcom accepts that there was some editorial justification for references to ‘Mama Mia! The Movie’ in Heart’s programming during this period. However, in this case, the sheer volume, nature and tone of references resulted in the references appearing to be contrived and in some places, gratuitous. This resulted in the station giving undue prominence to the film and also promoting it as a product. Ofcom considered that the station output went beyond informing listeners about the recent release of a film that was likely to interest them. This resulted in breaches of the Code.

I'm not sure what the sanction will be - possibly every member of the audience has to be given a bottle of Lambrini or something.

6Music's Nemone came to grief during an interview with Doug Stanhope, who called two of Sarah Palin's children "retards":

Doug Stanhope: [Ms Palin] is a 44 year-old mother of five, two of which are retarded.

Nemone Metaxus: These are your, [laughs] obviously, your views…

Doug Stanhope: One’s got Down’s Syndrome and the other volunteered for Iraq . So that’s two retards out of five.... Oh nothing. They give me nothing, nothing but blank looks.

Nemone Metaxus: Doug this is your opinion, your opinion of what’s happening back home, so obviously, if something kicks off in America …

Doug Stanhope: For Pete’s sake, don’t stare at me like that. The woman has a baby with Down’s Syndrome; how can America get behind her when even God obviously hates her. [laughs]

Nemone Metaxus: I think we’ll leave that to you. That’s obviously what you think about I’m sure there are some….

Doug Stanhope: So that’s some of the stuff we’ve been dealing with.

The only way you could make this more unpleasant would be to suggest there was something 'edgy' about calling people with Down's "retards":

The broadcaster pointed out that BBC 6 Music is aimed at an adult audience and that Friday’s edition of Nemone in particular, regularly features guests with edgier, more adult orientated material.

What does that mean? It's okay to call people retards providing the audience is over 18? Surely the point is that this is offensive - in the thoughtless, cruel sense of the word - rather than a naughty swearword?

I think Ofcom might have issued its first ever sarcastic response in this case:

Ofcom acknowledges that BBC 6 Music attracts a predominantly adult audience and that regular listeners who are familiar with the irreverent style of its presenters and guests may not necessarily find the use of words such as “retard” offensive.

... "I mean" said Ofcom, "if people are tuning in for the George Lamb show it's not like they're going to be that sophisticated in their tastes, is it?"

Finally, perhaps in the interests of political balance, Guardian Media Group's 96.3 Rock Radio had its own jaw-dropping moment:

Donald Macleod, a Scottish music industry entrepreneur and newspaper columnist, presents a show on weekdays from 18:00 to 22:00 .

During the broadcast in question, the presenter said the following when introducing the song ‘Black Hole Sun’ by Soundgarden:

“Barack Obama’s favourite song. Your Mum’s got a big black hole, son” .

Don, in his offensive, insisted that he didn't mean this to sound racist and explained that he'd been "under some pressure within the studio". And he does seem pretty angry with himself that something so unpleasant slipped out.

Oddly, nobody seems concerned that it was also unpleasantly sexist, too. Perhaps that's something for another time.

Retuning to the Global name massacre

We've had an email from James P which adds some further commentary to the renaming of most Global stations as Heart:

After dropping local daytime presenters, Global have decided to rename 29 of the local stations they bought. In a move which I believe is known as 'Breaking out the turd-polish', the stations will all be given the 'Heart' brand. This includes Chiltern Radio, which itself had only just been rebranded a few months ago (it was 'Chiltern FM' before that 'Haven't You Heard' campaign was rolled out and every station's logo was redesigned to look like a German alcopop). I remember when Channel 5 came along and a team of engineers toured certain regions, retuning people's TV sets. Presumably a similar team will soon be on hand to replace car-stickers and fuzzy bugs in the areas affected.

The article also mentions "The new Heart network of stations will retain their own breakfast and drivetime shows, but much of the rest of the content will be syndicated" - What it doesn't mention is that in some cases (including my local station's), the 'Drivetime' show has now been stretched to fill five long hours from 2-7pm. It's making for disturbing listening, with the young chap presenting clearly struggling to find enough to say. The other day I tuned in to hear him giving a running commentary of his eating of a Twix. I tuned back out on hearing the line "Ooh, there's a bit of chocolate stuck to the roof of my mouth..."

My favourite part of the [MediaGuardian] article is the bit that refers to 'the two-strong Xfm network'. I suppose technically it's a network...

Scottish XFM dances away

XFM in Scotland - which originally won its place on the FM airwaves as Beat 106, promising Scottish alt-rock - is to be turned into a Galaxy branded dance station after the completion of the GCap-Global merger:

In an email to staff Darren Henley, the managing director of the music brands Classic FM, Xfm and Choice FM, said the process would "take a month or two".

"In the meantime we will still be broadcasting as Xfm Scotland but inevitably our focus will move towards the launch of the new station as the weeks go by," said Henley.

"I know that there has been a lot of uncertainty and change over the past few months for everyone in Glasgow - and I really do appreciate the very professional way in which you have all carried on working so hard and your willingness to embrace change."

Although, presumably, the staff who present indie shows are now going to have to embrace the change of not actually having a job any more.

Global, of course, is thrilled at what it sees as a chance to sell more advertising - sorry, bring an experience of some sort... new... what is it, again?

The Global Radio executive director, Richard Park, said: "Central Scotland can prepare itself to receive Britain's fastest-growing radio station aimed at young people and the prospect of the output from the Glasgow studios is an exciting one."

The people in Central Scotland who already enjoy XFM, presumably, aren't important and won't be able to stand in the way of this "fast-growing station aimed at the young peoples".

Genius steals. But not all stealing is genius.

In the same way that stealing John McEnroe's headband wouldn't automatically mean you'd be good at tennis, there's a limit to the quality that you can thieve:

Chris Martin has said that a Blur song was the first inspiration for the band when they began recording their new album.

According to the singer, Sing from BLUR'S debut album LEISURE was a starting point for the writing of COLDPLAY album VIVA LA VIDA AND DEATH AND ALL HIS FRIENDS, reports Xfm.

"Sing was the first song we plagiarised for the new album", said Chris.

Happily for the EMI lawyers, though, Coldplay changed the song beyond recognition by making their version not very interesting.

They call them virals because you feel a bit queasy and probably shouldn't pass them on

We do like the XFM Scotland video for 'what happens when a song is played on XFM', but to be honest, it's because of the soundtrack - Black Kids I'm Not Going To Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You, which could make a reel of footage from a tax office look like the greatest place in the world to be.



The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice the red 'on-air' light isn't on in the studio. It would have been cooler if they'd done it while the song was really playing.

Of course, if GCap had its way, when music is played on XFM Scotland, this is what would be happening in Scotland, while the track plays out from London:

Xfm goes networked

The geniuses running XFM have decided that, in future, much more programming on the regional stations will be networked during the day.

Great news for the Manchester branch of the network, then - having managed to increase its share of all listening in its region from 1.2% to 2.30% in twelve months, it's now going to have dump lots of its programming to make way for stuff coming from London, whose share of all listening fell from 1.80% to 0.90% in the same period. Apparently this is somehow going to help "the financial viability" of the brand.

Xfm's respite might be temporary

Although reports yesterday suggested that GCap had decided to keep the provincial Xfm stations in its portfolio, apparently that's not the long term plan: we understand on Thursday management at the non-London branches of Xfm were told they were being kept for four months - through the festival season - before being auctioned off to the highest bidder come the autumn.

Xfm reprieved - sort of

Not that they haven't got a bloody clue what they're doing, but having put the non-London Xfm stations up for sale in February, GCap have now decided not to flog them off after all.

It's probably not actually that good news for music fans, as having seen the plans for making Galaxy a quasi-networked mush laid by GCap's new owners, it's likely that Xfm will be in for similar treatment. They'll probably be back on the market by Christmas. Or closed. Or rebranded and formatted.

Eavis dismisses Smart's stories as "malicious"

Gordon Smart has run two days running with pieces claiming Jay-Z is going to pull out of Glastonbury; today, Glastonbury has responded. Michael Eavis isn't happy:

Speaking to XFM, Eavis appeared to suggest that The Sun had got the story from the organisers of the Wireless Festival in London, where Jay-Z will headline the week after Glastonbury.

"The Sun was carrying a story that he was pulling out,” Eavis said.
“I'm not sure where they got from, probably from the people that were doing a show in London the following week [Wireless festival] because they were tying to sell tickets for their show.”

Of course, this whole story is helping take the focus off the broader question of how Glastonbury has managed to turn itself from a sell-out event to one desperately offering second chances to register. It's funny how everyone is blaming Jay-Z and nobody is pointing the finger at the Kings Of Bloody Leon, isn't it?