WE ARE ALL BUT PLAYTHINGS OF THE GODS: It's understandable that MisTeeq are more than a little pissed off at Posh Spice, since it's the rubbishness of Victoria Beckham's solo career that has lead to the collapse of the label they shared, Telstar, and left MisTeeq unlikely to get the royalties they've earned on the recent sales, which are likely to be gobbled up by the cost of receivership. But blaming it all on Victoria is a bit rich - isn't the real problem that people at Telstar bet everyone's futures on the belief that Victoria was going to sell shedloads of records? If your daddy blows the family fortune hunting a heffalump, you don't blame the heffalump for not existing, do you?

HOW SMART ARE YOU?: Last night was BBC One's now seemingly annual IQ quiz (didn't Lorraine Heggasy describe this as the sort of thing you could only once?) - and let's not even get started on how thrown together it seemed this year (look, it seemed to me to be a picture of a bottle of water - and you fill a GLASS with WATER, so it should be that you fill a SHOPPING TROLLEY with SHOPPING, okay?) or how culturally specific it was (questions about Mel Smith?) or even mention that they went to all the trouble of digging out Robin Nedwell's instantly forgotten idiot-thinks-he's-got-a-huge-IQ sitcom The Climber and then showed about three seconds from it, but let's just ask the big question: What the hell was Natalie Appleton doing on a programme designed to take the temperature of British intelligence?

It was clear just how far out of her depth she was when Anne Robinson turned to her, following some banter with redhead team about how they were all natural, not dyed, red, and asked: "What about you Natalie - are you an authentic blonde?"

Natalie didn't understand the question.

VAST HIT LONDONN: The VAST tour, which is mainly concentrating on the States, has got a gig pencilled in for London, England. They'll (he'll?) be at the Camden underworld on June 11th. Luckily, that's before the football starts, so, you know, no difficult choices between seeing a brilliant band live or the Faroe Isles playing Latvia or something.



The US dates remaining are: Tonight - La Crosse WI - Warehouse Nightclub; 05/25 - Toledo OH - Headliners; 05/26 - Flint MI - Machine Shop; 05/27 - Milwaukee WI - Rave Ballroom; 05/28 - Cleveland OH - Agora; 05/29 - Detroit MI - I-Rock; 06/02 - Buffalo NY - The Continental; 06/04 - Boston MA - Axis; 06/07 - New Haven CT - Toads.

EURO2004: THERE IS NO BLOODY ESCAPE: If you're hoping to use gig-going as a handy way of tryin to avoid the European Football Championship, don't count on it. Clearly, music is planning on signing up to the 'nothing moves without a reference to the championship' law for the month. Even David Bowie, who should be so far above this sort of thing, taking the trouble to stick a massive screen in the venue for his Prague concert so that footie heads don't have to choose between Czech Republic versus Germany and seeing David Fucking Bowie. This is a bit of stupid pandering - first of all, shouldn't Bowie say "Look, pal, this is your chance to see the guy who sang Space Oddity, Ashes to Ashes and Absolute Beginners live and in the flesh - if yuo think watching a match on the telly is more important, sell your ticket on to someone else"? Secondly, what if the Czechs play badly? He's going to be coming on going "Prague! Are you ready to rock?" and the audience will be sobbing like babies. For God's sake man, tell them to video the bloody football and watch it later if it's so important...

GARY CHERONE IS THE TROTSKY OF THE VAN HALEN REVOLUTION: Van Halen are desperately loading up Photoshop to remove all traces of Gary Cherone from their history. Cherone, of course, took up vocals for the band when they decided their business was still unfinished towards the end of 90s - he survived for two years before the Halens had one of those awkward conversations where nobody looks at anyone else. Now, though, the band are pushing the former Extreme singer out of their history, leaving all the material from the Cherone-fronted Van Halen III off their latest 'best-of' collection.



Bet Extreme wishes it would be quite so easy for them.

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS LOVE: That's the opinion of Wynonna Judd; indeed, she says so in the title of her 2003 album:



And what's the best way to ensure there's love delivered in the world? Why, playing a gig at the Pentagon, of course, to show your "appreciation" for the miitary, and their acts of spreading love round the world. Why, it's only last week the Pentagon's troops couldn't hold themselves back from popping into a wedding in Iraq, the sloppy old romantics leaving the newlyweds out of the forty-odd people they killed.

BLUESOBIT: Arnold 'Gatemouth' Moore, the first blues singer to appear at Carnege Hall, has died at the age of 90. Born in Kansas in 1913, Moore moved to Kansas City at the age of 16 and started a career singing in dance bands. Moore survived the Natchez Rhythm Club Fire, an infamous event which claimed the lives of most of his colleagues in Walter Barnes' orchestra. Towards the end of the Second World War, Moore's first recordings for local labels brought him to the attention of natonal labels - including National Records, who brought him to New York and Chicago for the sessions where he was to record I Ain't Mad At You, Pretty Baby, Did You Ever Love A Woman? and Christmas Blues, Moore's first major successes. He moved to King Records, but during 1947 started a new career as a reverened. He didn't abandon music, however, working as a gospel artist and dj. In 1977, Johnny Otis persuaded Moore to make a brief return to the blues for a Blues Spectrum album.

MISHEARINGS CHANGE THE COURSE OF HISTORY: We were slightly disappointed when Paddy McAloon confessed that, actually, the name Prefab Sprout hadn't been created when he misheard Nancy Sinatra singing about "peppered sprout", so we feel a bit better discovering that Herman's Hermits should never have been called Herman's Hermits at all - Peter Noone, who's back and touring again, took his nickname from Bullwinkle and Rocky. Only he misheard the name Sherman. Or so he's claiming now. But how can we be sure it's not just more pretty lies?

MORE UNLIKELY RECORD LABEL BOSSES: We're not quite sure how swimsuit model and guest actor from 'Just Shoot Me' Lunden De'Leon actually came to be head of her own indie label, but she's certainly got the art of gushing press release down already:



"With Lunden's popularity, it was only natural for her to be named "One of the Most Beautiful Women in the World" by an online poll, Voted "One of the Top Rising Female Stars" by International Black Women Magazine and "The First Black Actress to Star in an Online Series" for her role in the internet television series "Sitcom".

Yes, only natural. But she's picked up some knowledge about the industry she's now cutting a swathe through:

"Since starting my label, I have a greater respect for labels like Def Jam, Bad Boy, No Limit and a number of other successful indie labels." ... I just shan't name any of the others. (Although, of course, Def Jam is part of Universal...)

Since you ask, she appears to have one artist, D H Peligro. No, us neither.

OUT OF EVIL COMMETH GOOD: We've not had many good words to say about Henry Rollins - a lot of fitting ones, but not many of them good. So it's nice to be able to say something positive about his plans for a record label - he's planning a series of reissues of classic, hard-to-find stuff. First up is early Trouble Funk. Doesn't mean we'll forgive him for what trailed in his wake - especially Fred Durst - but it's a first step towards reparations.

OH GOD HELP US ALL: The wheeling out of an all-out assault to try and relaunch Girls Aloud is almost upon us - we're promised the Girls will have a brand new direction, new look and new sound when they return on May 28th. We'll believe it when we see it. Although we hope they do have a new look - "My pimp went to Top Shop" is so passe.

WHAT YOU DO TO ME: BB King is having sleepless nights over his upcoming meeting with the King of Sweden. He's due to meet King Carl XVI next week to pick up the Polar Music Prize, but he's fretting already. It's not his first brush with royalty, mind: He recalls:

"I did meet the queen of England once and I shiver every time I think about it now."

Yeah, it's daunting, but if you pull the Duke of Edinburgh's car keys out of the dish, you've got to follow it through, haven't you?

NOW I'M ALL GROWN UP: Avril Lavigne reckons that she's matured and so have her fans:

"That's important to me ... writing about things I'm going through at the age I'm at. My fans are pretty much like my age."

Oh, yeah? What sort of twenty year old would go down the Mall to see a free performance from a teenscenster, Avril?

SMELL LIKE DIDDY: Puff Daddy has decided it's time to branch out one more time, adding a bottle of stink to his many businesses. Curiously, despite already having fifty-six names to choose from, it's not going to be marketed as Sean Combs or P Diddy or Puff Daddy, but it'll go under his trouser-making name, Sean John. The bad boy image is a bit undermined since he's hooking up with Estee Lauder to do the tricky bits. But god, do those Lauder folk know how to grease:

"Sean Combs is the Great Gatsby of our time" says Estee man John Demsey.

We're sure he meant it as a compliment, although if we recall Eng Lit classes, wasn't The Great Gatsby a man driven to do anything to gain money and social status, gathering all his wealth from criminal activities, and pretty much a vulgarian? It does sound like Sean Combs to us, but that seems an odd judgement from someone who's just gone into business with the fellow.

IS IT SIMPERING OR IS IT SIMPSON?: We suppose the one piece of positivity in Simon Cowell's denunciation of Jessica Simpson's career is that it's the first time we've heard him admit that there's something he doesn't actually know:

"The odd thing about the music industry is that here's a girl who's career wasn't exactly on fire and then she goes on television, pretends that she thinks that CHICKEN OF THE SEA is actually chicken and on the back of that sells two million records. It's weird, isn't it?"

Cowell believes that Simpson's inability to tell tuna from chicken was - shockingly - staged. Reality television faking its big moments? Surely not...

RADIOHEAD PLAY WET WET WET: Of course, the more accurate headline would be 'Radiohead cover The Troggs'- because they're joining up with Bill Nighy for a live version of Love Is All Around as part of a huge and special charity do at the Oxford Playhouse. It's all in aid of Helen House, the first children's hospice in the UK.

FRED DURST'S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: It's been a while since Fred updated his blog - you know how it is with these fads, everyone signs up for a Blog, posts the first few dozen things that come into their heads, and then lose interest. So, we're forced to scrape the left hand nav bar of his site for today's thought:

"i love my son, daughter, music and films the most. i also love skateboarding and the culture of the skateboarder's whole existance.

WAR! uh! WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?: Well, it'll keep Madonna out of your hair. It's probably no surprise that someone who's scared of ramblers has decided to axe her Israel gigs, but it's a pity she's doing it for the wrong reasons: "the political climate has made it difficult to plan such a huge undertaking" rather than "it's not really going to be big or clever to go and play in the capital of a country which is currently driving tanks through people's houses while there are still people in them."

DIDO "AMAZED" BY FAME: She says "It still amazes me what's happened. I can't really take it in, and I think there are so many ways that I still feel like I've got so much to learn. I've got an endless, endless life of learning about music, and that fascinates me." It amazes you, does it? Yes, we find ourselves scarcely able to believe it, too. If ever you're looking for a reason to hate Eminem, forget the racism allegations and the homophobic japes (all in character, of course) - if it wasn't for him, Dido would be wiping down tables in a BHS restaurant right now.

She apparently believes her live shows album is "more bombastic... sorta more extreme... there's extreme noise and extreme acoustic." Right, we're trying picturing her as Einsturzende Neubauten but somehow, it's just not working for us.

Can you spot the difference?

D PEARCE DISAPPEARS: So, that new Radio One schedule in full, then. Dave Pearce is kicked off daytime, with his empire now consisting of just the Sunday night Dance Anthems slot; an extra hour is stuck on the end of Sara Cox's show (currently being kept running by Scott Mills), and now Zane Lowe will be kicking off at 7.00 "to act as a bridge to the rest of the schedule". We're not quite sure how that's going to work, as he's now going to be followed by specialist stuff - how exactly does Zane's nosiy indie fest form a bridge between Sara Cox and Bobby Friction & Nihal's Asian beats show? Anyway, the 9 pm slot will be Lamacq Live on Mondays (surviving for now), The Lock Up on Tuesdays, Bobby Friction Wednesdays, Annie Mac with a new show on Thursdays ("Annie is a brand new DJ coming straight from The Zane Lowe show. She is going to present a snapshot of everything that is new and exciting in the dance world"). Peel gets his worst slot ever, between 11 and 1, Tuesdays to Thursdays. And we remember how happy he was when he was moved from 10 to 8 about ten years ago, confiding he got knackered by the end of the evening shows. From a listener point of view, though, it's not as bad as it could be - after all, there's the same amount of show, and most people use listen again for the Peel show these days, don't they?

It's a pity that Parfitt didn't have the courage to carry his plan through to the logical conclusion - if Zane is meant to bring audiences through from daytime to night-time, what's the point in him starting after everyone from daytime has switched off and gone to watch The Simpsons? He needs to be on at Six. Then, bring Peel back to 8 o'clock, and put the specialist strand at ten - it's a great move to put these into a more mainstream time slot, but we're not convinced they're the right ones.

Annie Nightingale is given a much better slot - Radio One's other great survivor swaps the four am on Sunday, desperately-trying-to-pretend-that-after-clubbers-are-tuning in, for 1 in the morning on Fridays. Mary Anne Hobbs Breezeblock shuffles to the same time on Tuesday morning (why do Radio One seem to under-rate her programme so much?).

The interesting thing is 3 am, Monday to Thursday, which is set aside for an hour of "experimental" with a vague promise to be "dedicated to showcasing the new and unusual from the worlds of music, comedy and art." It would be being overkind to suggest that it's a curate's egg of a schedule, but it's not quite the stinker it could have been.

DANNI DOWN DUMPER: Latest casualty in the ongoing label clearouts is Dannii Minogue, who has been given the elbow by Warners.



Not that she's downheartened - she has simply thousands of songs ready to go, and hopes a less fussy ("smaller") label will pick her up. And, you know, maybe they should. We're not a big fan of the lesser Minogue, but we can't imagine that a properly run record label could actually lose money on her - she's a boutique market, for sure, but control the costs and she'd surely be able to pull in a few quid for a backer?

We love the quote in the Sun article from a "label insider":

"These are tough times for pop acts and I’ve a nasty feeling there is more of a clear-out to come."

Ooh, I wonder what gives them that feeling?

ITEM 372... ANOTHER SHIRT; BLACK, AGAIN: We've heard tales that at Einstein's autopsy, the gathered scientists scrummed around trying to grab bits of the great man's innards, like old ladies at a jumble sale. The image returns to haunt us with news that Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash's estate is sticking a load of their stuff up for auction. Amongst the stuff coming under the hammer at Sothebys' glorified boot sale are clothes, hats, insturments and notebooks.

It's probably the notebooks which are the greatest problem - it's understandable that the heirs might have no wish to hang on to some old boots and banjos, and auctioning them off is as good a way as any of dealing with them. But to fling unpublished lyrics and photos into the saleroom seems to be a bit of a betrayal - it sounds like a collection that, to do justice to one of the greatest musicians of our era, should be kept together and presented to an institution that would preserve it and make it available to everybody. Breaking it up and flogging it for rent money is a bit short-sighted. Maybe we should be offering thanks you can't put someone's musical stature up as a lot.

WHERE IS THE LOVE?: Not in Berlin, that's for sure, as this year's Love Parade has been cancelled. The annual traipsing of face-painted luvdup sorts through the streets of the German capital has been struggling for a couple of years - since it was stripped of its status as a political demonstration when, in 2001, Berlin council realised "let's put on jester's caps and go listen to rave music" wasn't actually a political platform (although it's a more plausible one than the UKIP has got). The upshot of that was the Parade organisers became responsible for cleaning up the Parade's own mess and, coupled with falling numbers, the inability to find sponsorship has lead to cancellation. Spin-off Love Parades will still take place in San Francisco (September 25th) and Tel Aviv (August 27th). Yes, that Tel Aviv.

NOT WHAT IT SAYS ON THE CAN: Napster are really, really, trying to pretend that they're still a peer to peer network, rather than a library: Brad Duea tells the BBC:

"Often, when people are describing peer-to-peer, they are really describing the desire to have the ability to share music, to look at other peoples' collections, to communicate. And we deliver that."

Erm, except the sharing piece of the equation - these files are .wma, and so have DRM tying them up as tightly as the girls from The 411 in their corsets. And, frankly, to pretend that what people liked about Napster was the ability to send instant messages to other Busted fans is just brazen. Sure, it was great being able to browse what other people had - because you could then download it from them. You can't do that any more.

DEAD CAT BOUNCE: Napster.co.uk has gone live - somehow, it's already managed to put together a top ten downloads chart, being headed, gormlessly, by Avril Lavigne. If you run a search on a band, and they don't have the band, the box claims they're "working on getting [band name] on Napster" and they seem to have got hopelessly muddled between Heavenly (the Oxford post-Tallulah Gosh cuties) and Heavenly (the rock band).

The little bit of history makes interesting reading, too:

In 1999, teenager Shawn Fanning's Napster software revolutionised the concept of distribution of music over the Internet. Due to the climate of the music industry at the time, Napster was shut down before a deal could be made to compensate the artists and songwriters who produced the music.

"Due to the climate of the music industry at the time...", eh?

Napster seems to want to take control of all the music - "all the non secure WMAs and MP3s you have" - on your computer, and they're trying to make out the secret advantage of Napster is that you can see what other people are listening to - back in old Napster, this was handy, as you were relying on other people having the tracks before you could download them; now all the music is held centrally, it's not entirely clear what the advantage of the community is, beyond creating some sort of chart. It's interesting, but no more interesting than reading music blogs or joining a YahooGroup, which can be done for free. The non-community version sells just the songs, not the neighbourhood. And here's the rub: A pound and ninepence for a single song. Everything except the rebellion and the value, then.

IS THIS JUST FANTASY?: Never mind the claims that the new Belle and Sebastian single is the "indie Bohemian Rhapsody", although we are sure it'll be just as over-rated, yea, even unto the point where you start to hate it because everyone signs up to the "it's quite good" line like front benchers falling behind the party line, nor that it's supported by a track created by "the band just jamming", what's really interesting about the release is it's coming weighted down with multimedia goodies - a video game, a remix, and other gubbins like that. A video game? It's like the Amish launching a Mr. Whippy machine - however benign the product, it's never going to feel quite right.

BRANDENOMICS: We don't have any real problem with EMAP stretching their brands over various platforms - or knocking up telly services out of magazine titles - it's just the way they go about it that drives us mad. Fr'example, does Q on the telly really come across as a moving, singing version of Q magazine? To us it seems like something else - Select trying to make a mix tape for a family car journey and remembering to include something for mother TV, perhaps. It's a problem at the heart of all EMAP's cross media adventures - Smash Hits does seem to have translated well, but only because Smash Hits (the magazine) had been detoothed and a gang of men in bright yellow suits had carefully removed anything that had even the merest hint of personality about it. Now, Kerrang is about to become a proper radio brand - it's got a proper frequency rather than just living in the digital universe, which means it's going have some investment made into it.

Kerrang TV does do a pretty good job of bringing the core Kerrang values to the screen - it's noisy, it's off-putting if you're not in the clique, it's full of the sort of sexy that would arouse a paranoid virgin and anger that strikes a chord with people whose only real beef with the world is that their Mam won't let them have two Orange top-up cards a week. And it's a success. However, while the niche market works on multichannel TV, a niche of grumpy fifteen year old boys and teenage girls who've not-quite discovered The Bell Jar isn't going to support an FM radio network. Even in Birmingham.

So Kerrang has been stretched - it's no longer playing the noises of suburban outsiders, but speaking to the "little bit of rock inside most of us." You can almost hear the panic in the voice of the marketing director, Lisa Blower:

"It's important that people realise that Kerrang! 105.2 is not a niche station. Our music will be a lot broader than some people think. Just because you wear a suit by day, you're not excluded from Kerrang!'s world. Kerrang! 105.2 is about music with attitude rather than straight age demographics."

You have to feel sorry for her - she's been given a station with a strong brand attached to it, and now she's caught trying to actually explain that the station is nothing like the brand, not at all. The way they've been trying to do this is with "retuning" sessions and - oh, help me, Lord - "rock aerobics" in Warwickshire offices. The most telling quote is this:

"We have had to design a creative [campaign] which will be considered cool by the Kerrang! aficionados whilst also being exciting but unthreatening to the wider audience."

Kerrang: Unthreatening. Something's gone awry there, hasn't it?

IT'S ALL A FIX. OR A CON. OR SOMETHING. IT'S SOMETHING BAD: More woe over at American Idol, where the AP attempted to vote in the final of the current series. Surprise, surprise, all they got was busy tones. They managed to connect just four of the hundred calls they tried to place. Of course, telephone voting is a tricky thing to organise - back when British Television first tried it, the BBC weren't allowed to display the numbers on screen for the first few weeks of Bob Says Opportunity Knocks, until British Telecom were satisified that the wave of viewers eager to vote for that bloke who did the animal impressions wouldn't cause the entire British phone network to collapse. If you wanted to dial in early on, you had to buy the Radio Times to get the numbers.

The trouble is that anything like American Idol is going to generate an enormous number of votes, but they'll all come in a small envelope of time - so investment in the infrastructure to cope is never going to happen. (See also: selling all the Glastonbury tickets at the same time). It all adds a random element to the polling which, frankly, is probably better than leaving it Simon Cowell and Joe Six-Pack. They could just as well spin a large wheel to decide the winner, which would be prettier, but wouldn't raise as much cash for the networks.

RICHARDS SHOPS: Keith Richards has pulled together the power of his own position, and strapped it to the can-do internet, to allow the Wingless Angels CD to become available again. A November 1995 side project, Richards produced the collection of tracks by the seven members of the Nyabinghi Rastafarian sect from Steer Town mainly drumming and chanting. We're guessing he's putting it out because he's relieved to find out that it wasn't all a dream, and if he ever turns up the tapes of the time Marc Bolan sang to him from the inside of a Charles and Diana Wedding Memorial teapot, he'll be issuing those, too.

ELTON REPAYS HISTORICAL DEBT: We have a sneaking regard for Elton John, when he's not singing at funerals, and so we're not going to be catty in any way about his million quid donation to the Royal College of Music, the place where he learned to play pianer as a wee nipper. Although the phrases "loose change" and "rather late in the day" do keep trying to force their way into the text.