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Lesley Sampson - mother of George Sampson, of course - has been charged with flytipping after, it is alleged, she dumped sixteen bags of his fanmail outside his house.
Lesley has denied the charge; the case has been adjourned.
Hey, women - do you want to hang out with Johnny Borrell?
Oh.
Well, for the sake of argument, let's say you did. It's not as easy as you might think. Oh, no no:
Borrell's brother Willy tells Britain's The Sun newspaper, "Johnny basically says, 'Go and find me a girl. But she has to be hot and have at least five GCSEs'"
There's a lovely piece by The Wall Street Journal's Numbers Guy, Carl Bialik, which explores the claims for Michael Jackson's albums:
For many years, Mr. Jackson's lifetime sales tally typically was reported at 200 million albums world-wide. But in late 2006, news articles began putting the number at 750 million, a figure that became part of the popular lore as Mr. Jackson was attempting a comeback. In the last few weeks, it has popped up in obituaries and retrospectives.
Lau Ho Hoi, who works for a construction firm in Hong Kong and posts on a popular U.K. online music forum, gained attention on the music blog Hitsville last week for his posts from 2004 compiling Mr. Jackson's sales by country. In an updated analysis, he calculated that the pop star sold 131.5 million albums world-wide, and 65.6 million singles. The total doesn't include digital downloads, which have taken off for Mr. Jackson since his death.
Guillaume Vieira, an engineer in Paris, has compiled his own totals for his Web site, Fan of Music. By his count, Michael Jackson had sold 205.5 million albums before his death, plus many millions more in singles and downloads.
Tito Jackson has been talking about the death of his much, much more successful brother. He might want to think about the metaphors he chooses in future:
Tito said he first heard that Michael had died from his sister Janet, as he was driving to the hospital in LA on the 25th June.
"I said, 'No, Janet, what's wrong?' She finally made me pull over and said Michael had passed away. I couldn't believe it. It just killed me. I just sat in the car and cried."
Tito added that he and his siblings had been concerned for some time over Michael's use of painkillers.
"I never saw him on drugs. Not once. He deliberately did it away from us. He didn't want his family to know anything about that part of him."
Oh, @iamdiddy, tell us what you're doing, for WE MUST KNOW. Are you eating breakfast? Are you watching television? Are you on your way to somewhere you might eat breakfast?
Makin history! What are you doin?
In a world not exactly desperately waiting for a new Strokes album, news reaches us that causes a wobble:
Good morning,
I wanted to let you know that Julian Casablancas is readying his solo debut, Phrazes for the Young, scheduled for release this fall on Cult Records/RCA. Casablancas plans to announce a special series of U.S. dates shortly, to be followed by a solo tour later in the year.
Ofcom have just published their weekly 'most complained about programmes chart' - you'd have to guess they have Eight Out Of Ten Cats built into the template - which reveals the regulator received ten complaints about the Michael Jackson memorial. Sadly, Ofcom doesn't reveal at this stage what the nature of the complaints were, so we don't know yet if it was people angry that they were left feeling a bit vomity by it all.
I've tried to work it out, but can't really see why a photo of Cheryl Cole wearing a summer dress at an airport has earned this headline:
Cheryl's a trolley dolly
Hubby ASHLEY arrives later in the week for a pre-season tour with Chelsea.
Seeing this picture of his wife looking so hot so many miles away is not going to make the wait go any quicker for the footballing fella.
LILY ALLEN looks typically sloshed in the new video for her single 22.
Peering into a nightclub mirror with her make-up smeared and hair ruffled, the singer looks like she's enjoyed one of her now-trademark booze benders.
It's a bit disappointing that Dinosaur Jr have done their bit to prop up Playboy by doing something for Playboy.com. It's part of the site's bid to find something that it can charge for, what with so much porn being available for free on the net.
At least they're treating the whole procedure with only half an arse - the idea is for bands to cover other bands, and Dinosaur Jr are offering Just Like Heaven. In other words, the same bloody song they covered two decades ago.
In other words, it's like this exclusive:
A heavy-handed sentence for leaking Guns N Roses' album 'Chinese Democracy' has been handed to Kevin Cogill, as the RIAA would hope for:
A federal judge has sentenced a man who pleaded guilty to leaking part of the Guns N' Roses album "Chinese Democracy" to a year's probation.
Blogger Kevin Cogill (KOH'gill) will also serve two months of home confinement, subject his computers to government scrutiny, and record a public service announcement for the Industry Association of America [sic].
What is it that keeps Trent Reznor going? A face in his head, that's what:
Now when I’m offstage, I’m not same guy onstage but it’s driven by the same place. I’d never want to be Gene Simmons, an old man who puts on makeup to entertain kids, like a clown going to work ... In my paranoia, I fear that if I don’t stop this, it could become that. Because it’s nice to get a paycheck, and now the only way to get a paycheck is to play live, so it’s all those things swirling around in my head.
It’s a kind of Mafia-type run business .. They have systematically taken advantage of artists over the years from The Beatles onwards. You [the artists] do all the work, they loan you money to make records, then you pay them back and they own everything. To see that system collapse is an exciting thing. There isn’t a clear answer on what the right thing to do is right now, and as a musician you’re up against a pretty difficult scenario: most kids feel it’s OK to steal music, and do freely ... The good news is that people are excited and interested in music ...
As an artist it’s your job to capitalize on that. It means generally swallowing a bitter pill and saying, ‘Hey, people don’t want to buy music, so let me give it to you. I’ll find another way to make money but I want you on my side and hearing my music. So let’s get rid of this walled garden of having to pay to hear it, here it is, give it to your friends. Hey, try to come to our show if you can, or you can buy this T-shirt of ours if you like, and that will help us out. Or, here’s a nice version of our album that we put in a cool package for a premium price and we’re only selling a couple thousands of them.’
Billy Corgan is, you'll be vaguely aware, pushing grimly onwards with the Smashing Pumpkins, despite being the only original Pumpkin left.
There's been some mutterings that, perhaps, he shouldn't be pretending to be a band when it's just him and some hired hands.
Never one to let a muttering be unmet by a densely-argued essay, Corgan has tried to explain why he is right and everyone else is wrong and If Destroyed Still True:
The idea of identity is a strange one to tackle. For many years, I treated the idea of the band named The Smashing Pumpkins as an existential concept that exsisted away from my being and body. It was sort of 'over there', if you will. Jimmy leaving in 1996 made me deal quite heavily with the concept of loyalty to the 2 members who were left (James and D'arcy) as our relationships at that time were quickly drifting apart. And so on, and so forth, thru the different people coming and going. In the center of any of it has been for me, speaking personally, my music. Yes, MY music. The music that came out of this being and body. I've called the umbrella the songs came out under different names but to me I guess there really wasn't a whole lot of difference. As they say, a song is a song.
What the future holds is unknown to me. I am 100pct committed to the future of SP. I can tell you that. 100pct!! I've never been happier about being in SP, or a part of SP, than I am now. The music I am making sounds like The Smashing Pumpkins. It doesn't sound like solo work, I can assure you of that. But only when you hear the music can you decide for yourself. I'm not worried, because I know most of you are rooting for me to get it right. I want to get it right, but not for you, for me. Its been a long journey to get back to where I started. There have been many sad days along the road, but honestly, these are really happy days.
We've all seen over the past 2 weeks what happens when a man loses touch with his hope, his spirit, and his music. The path I am on is one of feeling reborn by my love for my music. I wasn't really deep down sure I could get back here, but I am here.
I will never say to you what people say to me all the time, which is that 'I am the band'. I am not 'the band', I am just the leader of the band. I only want people around me who respect me and my music. I think that is a healthy thing to want, and is consistent with the ideas of holistic living. What would you say about me if I worked with people who didn't care about me or my music? Isn't that a form of selling out?
There is a lot of discomfort as we watch our world change quite quickly before our eyes. Familiarity breeds a sort of security, but it also breeds contempt. If you know anything about me, you should know you won't catch me. Smashing Pumpkins is not a concept 'over there' anymore. Its where it has always been. Right HERE.
Little Man Tate have decided the world has won, and will wrap up their activities with a farewell date in Sheffield this October. Here's what they said:
The land of LMT has been quiet for some time now and I suppose now is as good a time as any to break the sad news that we've decided to call it a day as Little Man Tate and bring to an end what has been an amazing 4 years of tours around the world, singles in the hit parade and some of the best times of our lives.
Without dragging this on too much, it's something that we have sat down and discussed at length for a while now and we have decided that after a good innings, we've achieved what we set out to do and it's time we moved on to other things. We're all still good mates and we'll carry on supporting each other whatever we decide to go on and do from here. What we do know is that you, the fans, made it all possible for us and we'll never forget the loyalty you've showed us over the years and the unbelievably joyous atmospheres you've managed to create from as far away as Tokyo to our beloved streets of Sheffield. We're going to do one last gig in Sheffield in October so we can get the chance to bid farewell to you all and to say ta for all the good times. It's been an amazing journey since the summer of 2005 and one we'll never forget so, signing off for one last time, see you all in a couple of months.
Bad news from Borders, with the UK version of the CD and book store announcing store closures:
Borders announced yesterday that leases for five stores, Blanchardstown in Dublin, Llantrisant, London Colney, Oxford Street, and Swindon have been sold to the fashion retailer, New Look. It is unclear when the stores will finally close or how many staff will be affected.
If Pirate Bay is so bad the music industry must crush it for telling people they can find records on torrents, where does that leave @diditleak, a twitter stream of breaking leaking record news?
Presumably the BPI-RIAA won't be keen to close this one down, given that the early leaks of most of the records there point fingers not at EVIL FANS but, erm, the people who work for labels doing the leaking.
Diamond Geezer heads down to Greenwich on what would have been the first night of Jackson at the O2:
Many of the crowd had come dressed in at least one item of MJ apparel. Black hats were especially popular, although I looked around in vain for the street vendor knocking them off at a fiver a time. One or two wore white gloves, a couple sported rather more sparkly gems than is socially acceptable, and there was even one red satin tour jacket circa 1984. But the main item signifying membership of the Jackson cabal was the commemorative t-shirt. Be it respectful, exuberant or a bit cheap - the message was more important than the material. My favourite was the plain white t-shirt with the slogan "I HATE MARTIN BASHIR". Martin, thankfully, had had the sense not to turn up.
The signs you have seen, child, are those of Chris Moyles entering his DLT-pomp stage:
Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles has accused the BBC of making dull programmes because it does not want to upset listeners.
He says that radio shows are "so formulaic [that] anyone different, like me or Jonathan (Ross), stands out".
But, he told the Radio Times: "The reality is you can't keep everyone happy all the time."
"The BBC is in a very weird state where they just don't want to upset anybody," said Moyles.
"Everything now needs to be signed, sealed and approved 18 times."
"We're not trying to change the world, but because radio is so dull, so boring and so formulaic, and anyone different - me or Jonathan - stands out.
"So the BBC is throwing down rules and regulations on you and then the newspapers are saying certain things and you're just trying to juggle everything while keeping everyone happy at the same time. "
Amy Winehouse has come back home - good news for News International, who can gather infomration about her so much more cheaply now she's just a taxi drive away.
And how is she, as she gets off an international flight, Gordon?
The boozy songbird looked freckled but fragile after jetting into Gatwick airport from St Lucia.
A source said: "At one point Amy had toyed with the idea of permanently relocating to St Lucia but that's no longer the case."
Much more delay and all the focus will be on her hell-raising rather than her music. And we wouldn't want that, would we... ?
[Paul Karslake] The painter said: "I don't hate the bloke, but I am very annoyed with him.
"Ron's a vampire, all those Rolling Stones guys are. They stay up all night and sleep all day."
A survey has discovered that the number of people willing to tell strangers they share unlicensed music has decreased a little in the last twelve months.
The MusicAlly survey has been called good news for executives in some places over the last few hours, and perhaps it is: at last, something they can point to to pretend that the last ten years and millions of dollars spent fighting filesharing has been a success.
It's not really such good news, of course - MusicAlly don't know where they've all gone:
MusicAlly's MD Paul Brindley told us more research was needed to find out where they were going, pointing to the rise in popularity of Bluetooth device-to-device transfers and instant messaging.
"More fans are regularly sharing burned CDs and bluetoothing tracks to each other than file-sharing tracks," says MusicAlly.
But there are other forms of instant gratification than acquiring a recording. An earlier MusicAlly survey, conducted in January, highlighted the importance of YouTube as a music source: 31 per cent of the yoof demographic listen to streaming music, compared to 18 per cent of the general population.
Here's an interesting approach to the drop in sales of physical music - Rough Trade is going to take space inside some branches of Top Shop to sell CDs and such:
Stephen Godfroy, director of Rough Trade Retail Group, said, of the decision:
“[it] supports Rough Trade’s belief that the CD format is as popular as ever [and] that it is largely the poor high street retail of CDs that is to blame for declining sales on this format."
Taylor Horn - the latest in a very, very, very long line of lightly talented, fairly attractive women given the "next Britney Spears" label - has been thrown out of the UK after turning up at John Lennon Airport to do a promotional tour of the UK without the proper paperwork.
Apparently, it's racism run rampant:
Before preparing to leave Britain the Americans accused the government agency of “underhand” tactics and vowed to take legal action.
Their lawyer has lodged an appeal based on “race grounds”, claiming anti-American bias is behind their deportation.
Bad news for the cleaners at Wapping; it sounds like there might be a lot of eye-scales to clear up around Gordon's desk this morning:
Allen is just a Lil bit predictable
LILY Allen flouts ban on smoking, boasts about getting drunk & swears like trooper at T In Park
FANS were reeling yesterday after pop heart-throb DUNCAN JAMES admitted: "I'm bisexual."
Ominous noises from EMI, with Guy Hands scrabbling to keep the company afloat. He's put in three hundred million of his own money, but wants Citibank to write off half a billion of company debt.
Citibank, you'll recall, is in trouble of its own, having had to be bailed out by the US taxpayer for $300 billion. So, effectively, Guy Hands wants the US taxpayer to fund Terra Firma's disastrous stewardship of EMI.
Does this mean that Hands believes in taxpayers sharing the burden when times are tough? Not quite - sure, he'd like some tax dollars to keep his company afloat. But when the hat was passed around UK taxpayers to keep the state going, Hands took a different approach, pissing off the live as a tax exile in Guernsey when the 50p top tax rate came in.
Despite, erm, apparently being so rich he can afford to throw another £300million in to the black hole of EMI. God forbid any of that cash should find its way into the NHS or schools.
After Pete Doherty played the King Tuts tent at T in the Park, on came TV on the Radio. About half the audience made their excuses and left, which I think tells us something a bit grim about festival audiences.
NME is reporting that Blur might not turn up for their T in The Park headline slot tonight:
Festival chief Geoff Ellis made the announcement on the Main Stage at the Scottish festival this afternoon. He explained that guitarist Graham Coxon was in hospital and that the situation was being monitored.
Presumably, the Telegraph views the announcement that Blackberry have done a deal to allow its users to download music directly to their tiny handsets as "news" because it's taken so long.
Blackberrys - which are like smaller versions of the Amstrad em@iler - are popular with salespeople who mainly use them to wave around on newly-landed airplanes to demonstrate how important it is for them to be in touch with their head office. Research In Motion are hoping that this music business will attract a different sort of customer.
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.
I will nail Michael Jackson's killers
"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."
I'm not a crowd control expert, but is cancelling an entire festival because of one incident really the best move to make?
A teenager got stabbed in the leg at the Southwark Park Festival, and - rather like a grumpy primary school teacher - it's been decided that that one piece of trouble is going to spoil it for everyone, and the whole thing has been pulled. Alexander O'Neal and all.
It was police advice which led to the early closure. It sounds rather like the Metropolitan Police panicked somewhat. Perhaps it's a pity they didn't advise the G20 to call it a day once there was the first sign of trouble.
From earlier in the year, this is Teenage Fanclub doing Don't Look Back at the behest of The Breeders, at All Tomorrow's Parties:
[Part of Teenage Fanclub weekend]
The most-read stories in 2009 - thus far - have been:
1. Review: Lady GaGa at Glastonbury
2. Video: Neil Young at Glastonbury
3. Liveblog: Eurovision
4. NME awards shortlist
5. RIP: Kelly Groucutt
6. George Sampson wrecks the remains of his career
7. Review: Bruce Springsteen at Glastonbury
8. Downloadable: Glasvegas
9. Michael Jackson: Sunday papers scrabble for pieces
10. Liveblog: Morrissey on The One Show
The last time we did this, this was what we were about to suggest investigating:
Lets Wrestle - In The Court Of The Wrestling Lets
download Let's Wrestle
Nanci Griffith - The Loving Kind
download The Loving Kind
La Roux - La Roux
download La Roux
Wilco - Wilco
download Wilco
The Low Anthem - Oh My God, Charlie Darwin
download Oh My God, Charlie Darwin
Nouvelle Vague - 3
Robin Guthrie - Angle Falls
download Angel Royale
