Venuewatch: Fox Boulder

The bad news: Boulder's Fox Theatre is closing.

The good news: it's only going to be shut for the summer, as it rebuilds itself. But not too much:

As many of the University of Colorado students vacate Boulder during the summer, this time offers the best opportunity to replace the aging roof, said Emily Kessler, marketing assistant for the Fox and the Boulder Theater.

“It's not a remodel. The Fox isn't going to be a new venue,” Kessler said. “Our roof just leaks when it rains. It's just really old and the summer time is a little bit slower and CU is gone.”

At the moment, the planned reopening is August 19th with Sharon Von Etten - who is an artist who demands a new roof, don't you think?

The British music industry discovers what victory tastes like

How has the battle against The Pirate Bay gone? The BPI's expensive legal blockade might not be a roaring success, according to TorrentFreak:

Yesterday, The Pirate Bay had 12 million more visitors than it has ever had, providing a golden opportunity to educate users on how to circumvent blocks. “We should write a thank you letter to the BPI,” a site insider told TorrentFreak.

Great news, then: in effect, the BPI have spent a small fortune on giving the Pirate Bay a luxurious advertising campaign.

I was amused to spot on Saturday that the BPI share a doorway with the Diana, Princess of Wales memorial fund - the charity which lost a fortune pursuing a pointless battle against a manufacturer of tacky plates. You have to wonder if the two organisations swap legal advice when they bump into each other in the corridors.

Viagogo head behind the Toblerone Curtain

Viagogo, the closest you can get to touting without being a tout company, have fled the UK to set up shop in the more relaxed legal atmosphere of Switzerland. Music Week discovered this:

Speaking to Music Week, a Viagogo representative said that although the firm was now not bound by British law, it would stick to its customer guarantee which "goes far beyond any UK trading regulations".

According to filings with Companies House, Viagogo UK changed its name to Consolidated Information Services Ltd. last month, before liquidating its assets.

Meanwhile, it set up a new company in mainland Europe - Viagogo AG, based in Switzerland.

The company would now appear to be bound by Swiss law and EU law, but not regulations in the UK.

But, hey, if Viagogo say you don't need to worry about any silly laws guaranteeing your rights, why would you worry, eh? It's not like they're the sort of company that would suddenly vanish from the UK and turn up wearing lederhosen claiming there's always been a cuckoo clock element to their business, is it?

Music Week suggests the move might be more about swerving the ban on selling Olympic tickets at a massive mark-up; personally, I'd avoid them unless you're after tickets for something in Lucerne.

[Thanks to @pedrodee]

Kerrang Awards: The shortlist

You've got to love the Kerrang Awards - the shortlist is packed with eyeliner and studded metal, but still manages to find space for The Muppets.

And, wonderfully, there's room on the villain of the year shortlist for Lou Reed. Clearly, Kerrang readers are not big fans of Welsh rugby. (Unless they're all still angry about the Lou Reed/Metallica collaboration, but surely not?)

We're wishing Enter Shikari luck in the best album category, and then going off to snicker that things are so bad in international heavy pop that 30 Seconds To Mars are not just treated seriously, but acclaimed.

The shortlist in full:

BEST BRITISH NEWCOMER
While She Sleeps
Yashin
Fearless Vampire Killers
Don Broco
Hawk Eyes

BEST INTERNATIONAL NEWCOMER
Motionless In White
Tonight Alive
Falling In Reverse
Of Mice & Men
Reckless Love

BEST SINGLE
You Me At Six (featuring Oli Sykes) - Bite My Tongue
You Me At Six - No One Does It Better
Young Guns - Bones
Black Veil Brides - Rebel Love Song
Falling In Reverse - The Drug In Me Is You

BEST VIDEO
Falling In Reverse - The Drug In Me Is You
Mastodon - Curl Of The Burl
Motionless In White - Immaculate Misconception
Paramore - Monster
Bring Me The Horizon - Alligator Blood

BEST ALBUM
You Me At Six - Sinners Never Sleep
Enter Shikari - A Flash Flood Of Colour
Young Guns - Bones
Black Veil Brides - Set The World On Fire
Mastodon - The Hunter

BEST LIVE BAND presented by Rock Of Ages
You Me At Six
Black Veil Brides
Asking Alexandria
Enter Shikari
My Chemical Romance

BEST BRITISH BAND presented by Fender
You Me At Six
Bullet For My Valentine
Asking Alexandria
Lostprophets
Iron Maiden

BEST INTERNATIONAL BAND
30 Seconds To Mars
My Chemical Romance
Evanescence
A Day To Remember
letlive.

Announced on the day but not presented at the Awards ceremony:

BEST TV SHOW
The Big Bang Theory
The Walking Dead
Game Of Thrones
American Horror Story
Misfits

BEST VIDEO GAME
Skyrim
FIFA 12
Mass Effect 3
Gears Of War 3
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

BEST FILM
The Hunger Games
The Woman In Black
The Inbetweeners
The Muppets
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

BEST COMEDIAN
Greg Davies
Russell Howard
Tim Minchin
Noel Fielding
Bill Bailey

TWEETER OF THE YEAR
Danny Worsnop, Asking Alexandria
Jono Yates, Blitz Kids
Sean Smith, The Blackout
Hayley Williams, Paramore
Mark Hoppus, Blink-182

HOTTEST FEMALE
Hayley Williams, Paramore
Tay Jardine, We Are The In Crowd
Amy Lee, Evanescence
Lzzy Hale, Halestorm
Jenna McDougall, Tonight Alive

HOTTEST MALE
Ben Bruce, Asking Alexandria
Andy Biersack, Black Veil Brides
Ashley Purdy, Black Veil Brides
Alex Gaskarth, All Time Low
Matt Bellamy, Muse

VILLAIN OF THE YEAR
Justin Bieber
Simon Cowell
Ronnie Radke, Falling In Reverse
Lou Reed
One Direction

HERO OF THE YEAR
Ronnie Radke - Falling In Reverse
M. Shadows - Avenged Sevenfold
Jared Leto - 30 Seconds To Mars
Mario Balotelli - Manchester City
Rou Reynolds - Enter Shikari

BEST FESTIVAL
Download
Hevy Music Festival
Reading and Leeds
Slam Dunk
Hit The Deck

Gordon in the morning: He shoots, he scores

There's a strange, stumpy review of the Rufus Wainwright gig at the Lyceum today:

RUFUS Wainwright’s new album is called Out Of The Game.

Is this going to be a tortuous football reference?

Appropriate then that while the rest of Britain was glued to the Manchester derby, fans at London’s Lyceum were watching an artist who’s nearly as flamboyant as Mario Balotelli himself.

Psst, Gordon: Rufus isn't in the closet. You don't have to use "flamboyant" as code.

Rufus belted out the Mark Ronson-produced album’s best tracks, including Montauk – a song for his daughter.

Hold on - did he only do the best tracks that Mark Ronson had produced on the album, or had Ronson produced the album from which Rufus performed the best tracks? And is Montauk a song for Wainwright's daughter, or Ronson's?

Perhaps the review was written with one eye on the football.

Bookmarks: My Bloody Valentine

From Vox, via Rock's Back Pages and Guardian Music, enjoy again Stephen Dalton's 1992 meeting with My Bloody Valentine:

Fixing a price tag upwards of £250,000 on the long-overdue Loveless, the music press predicted bankruptcy for MBV's label, Creation, and hot water for Kevin if he didn't deliver something with platinum potential. Judging by the album's critical reception, the future of both band and label seems assured.

When the buzzing hordes of acolytes from post-Valentines bands Ride, Lush, Chapterhouse and Slowdive dissipate from the dressing room in Reading, Kevin is finally willing to nail those rumours.

"Creation are no closer than any other label to going bankrupt," he offers ambivalently, confirming the astronomical figure quoted above but stressing this also covered two expensive EPs, three videos and the band's living costs over three years. "They paid for everything bit by bit so they'd eaten up the cost as they went along. They felt strained, but nothing special: they would spend easily as much on two or three smaller bands."

Gordon in the morning: Mythic creature

Er...

TOPLESS Kate Moss is a dishy fish in a pair of shimmering golden trousers which make her look like a mermaid.

How would a mermaid wear trousers, exactly, Gordon?

The Four Nations

The grim attempts to force us to have fun connected to the Olympics grind on. (I've checked, by the way, it really is the Olympics we're hosting and, sadly, not the Laffalympics - the hope that we might get to see Yogi Bear and Muttley racing each other to climb to the top of Big Ben was the one piece of hope to which I was clinging.)

So, as part of the kick-off, there's going to be big concert with a band representing each of the home nations. The line-up has just been announced:

The gig will feature acts from all four nations of the UK, with Duran Duran representing England and Snow Patrol appearing for Northern Ireland.

Stereophonics will represent Wales and Paolo Nutini will play for Scotland.

Holy plodding ponies; if Damian Green's two-hour waits at Heathrow don't put people off coming to the UK, this is going to.

Three of the grimmest acts ever to find their way into the back of a Transit Van and Duran, who are great but hardly a shining example of 21st Century English music.

Let's hope the sportspeople aren't being picked on the same basis, otherwise Team GB is going to consistent solely of badminton players and Daley Thompson.

Pirates repelled

The BPI has won a historic High Court judgement forcing UK ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay.

This isn't great news - the idea of access to any website being blocked on the say-so of a cartel run by three-and-a-half multinational organisations would always be an affront to natural justice - but, obviously, the BPI are delighted:

BPI's chief executive Geoff Taylor said: "The High Court has confirmed that The Pirate Bay infringes copyright on a massive scale.

"Its operators line their pockets by commercially exploiting music and other creative works without paying a penny to the people who created them.

"This is wrong - musicians, sound engineers and video editors deserve to be paid for their work just like everyone else."

Geoff Taylor must know, in his heart, that this isn't a win, though. It's not even locking a stable door after the horses have bolted; it's turning up at stables that have long since been turned into holiday homes and putting up a 'No bolting' sign.

Not a single extra penny will find its way to a sound engineer as a result of this; the only people making money are lawyers. So much effort still being poured into a policy that failed in the early days of the century.

My Bloody Valentine: New album this year

This is actually exciting: Kevin Shields has told Uncut there's going to be an LP and a couple of EPs from My Bloody Valentine.

This year.

For definite.

It's not exactly totally new material - just stuff that Shields found while remastering the albums we all know and treat like pieces of the true cross. He's finished them - or will finish them - and they'll get a proper release.












Unless he changes his mind.

Gordon in the morning: Mark Owen gets the electricians in

Apparently, Mark Owen is taking a new direction for his solo career. Gordon insists it will "surprise" fans.

Really? It's not just that he's looked around, found out what sells and is going to try and pour himself into an uncomfortable modish mould, is it?

A source said: “Mark’s excited about his new sound, it has a modern edge. People might not even think it’s him."

Ah, yes, "a source" - but don't worry, we know Gordon will have diligently worked behind the scenes to make sure this secret source was correct and not just made up a quote to fit the story.

You might wonder what value there is in a man whose main selling point is who he is making a record that people won't know it's him (he's working with Starsmith, by the way).

But then it turns out his main selling point isn't who he is, says "the source":

“His label are keen to get the stuff out – especially as Gary being on X Factor will shift the focus back on Take That.”

Good god, that's grim: "Mark, one of the people you work with is going to be on television; we really need to rush out a song in which you sound like Ellie Goulding to take advantage of that."

Still, Gordon's excited, as he sniffs a hint of one of his beloved chart battles:

With Robbie Williams working on solo material, too, there could be a TT chart battle.

So, that's a chart battle being predicted although at the moment, there's no release dates, not even a hint of anything near ready for release.

Both singers are expecting nippers so might not strike up a cash wager.

Maybe the winner could take ownership of a game of Hungry Hippos.

What? Is that a barbed comment about the pair of them putting on weight? Or is it just as random as it sounds?

Brazil might have a better idea for collecting royalties

Cory Doctrow, writing on Boing Boing, has welcomed the news that the Brazilian Senate is proposing an overhaul on how royalties are collected and distributed.

It's following on from a six month investigation into the affairs of the local copyright collection societies which found 15 directors suspected of fraud and crime. Now, naturally, nobody would suggest that similar misdeeds are taking place at ASCAP or PRS, but the organisations do share a lot of similarities in their organisations and ways of sharing up the royalty cake.

Doctrow hopes that this might be a first step to inventing a better way of using the acres of data to ensure that everyone gets their fair share.

Bookmarks - Poly Styrene

Louder Than War is marking the first anniversary of the loss of Poly Styrene with a tribute from John Robb:

Not only have we been robbed of a great talent but also of personal friend whose phone calls would cover everything from music, punk rock, spirituality, Hare Krishna, politics and life with the perceptive smarts that were ingrained in her wonderful lyrics and songs.

The Lives of the Saint Etienne

To build their Facebook timeline into a full-on history, Saint Etienne are inviting fans to email them with photos, memorabilia, memories, cuttings and stuff like that:

Would you like to contribute your memories of seeing, listening or reading about the group to the Timeline, and share your experiences with other fans? These could be photos of Saint Etienne shows, ticket stubs, early vinyl, magazine cuttings, or memorabilia - absolutely anything to do with the group. The more unique, the more other fans will appreciate it.

We'll pick our favourites and put them into the Timeline, giving you full accreditation and telling the story on your behalf. If you submit something that really makes us smile, there are a few prizes that Sarah, Pete and Bob have been keeping in their lock-up.

Please email all content (photos, clippings, videos, stories) you'd like submitted to the timeline to saint.etienne@umusic.com

If the prizes are really good, you could then submit those again to the timeline, and might win more prizes, in an ever-growing circle until you get to keep Bob Stanley in your spare bedroom. [NB: This might not form part of the actual terms and conditions.]

The Wanted seem surprised that celebrities aren't interested

Christina Aguilera is far, far too grand to talk backstage to The Wanted.

This has surprised and upset The Wanted:

Speaking on Now FM, Max George said that she refused to talk to them backstage after the show.
He said: 'She was a bit scary to be honest.'
Bandmate Tom Parker then said: 'She's a total b****!
'She might not be a b**** in real life but to us she was a b****. She just sat there and didn't speak to us. Wouldn't even look at us.'

To be fair to Aguilera, this was backstage at a taping of the American version of The Voice, where the backstage area must be crawling with ordinary-looking singers on the edges of the tolerably good.

It's hugely unlikely she would have recognised them; chances are she just thought they were contestants trying to influence her.

More depressing, though, is the way the band fawned over Chris Brown:

The Wanted also met Chris Brown on the show and said they hoped to go into the studio with him too.
Siva added: 'We've talked to Chris Brown as well, which would be really good. We talked to Chris actually when we were on The Voice and he said he was down as well.'

Perhaps Aguilera saw you getting on so well with a man who beats up women and decided she didn't want to rub shoulders with people whose standards are so low?

George Martin pinpoints "the worst thing music has ever faced"

Music has faced some terrible things in its time.

The second act of Peter Andre's career.

Paul Weller chumming up with Noel Gallagher.

The invention of the banjo.

But now, according to George Martin, it is facing its biggest challenge yet.

Er, the takeover of EMI:

Sir George has claimed the deals will hand both Sony and Universal a “virtual monopoly”.

“I am saddened that great companies have been swallowed up by the giants, and the domination of the recording and music publishing industry by Sony and Universal can only lead to a virtual monopoly in the European market. Is this what the people want?” he asked. “I always thought that democracy ensured a level playing field for our music industry, but I am wrong.”

Given that the majors act as a cartel anyway, and that there's precious little difference between having three clown cars drive over your foot, compared with having four, it's hard to see what difference it makes.

If Martin had piped up years ago - earlier on in the consolidation process - maybe he'd be a voice worth listening to; perhaps when Sony swallowed BMG, or more usefully when Polygram and MCA became one.

If Martin really wanted to "democracy" to save EMI, perhaps he should have been a little less quiet as the music industry started to be dominated by global conglomerates whose power and reach tended to go beyond or around that of nation states.

Or he could have suggested that the IFPI and RIAA appeared to be little more than a large company's club which forced the music industry to be run for their convenience rather than the good of the artists or the music fan.

But it looks almost as if Martin's worry is that democracy is taking away EMI, rather than any genuine concerns about plurality in the record business.

But it couldn't be that, could it?

[Tahnks to Michael M]

This week just gone

The most-read stories published in April 2012:

1. The illustrated Friends
2. Joni Mitchell retires and fights the nano-bugs
3. The illustrated Friends: Charles Hawtrey
4. Capital Radio still pouting over One Direction
5. Krissi Murison quits NME
6. Courtney Love apologises. A bit
7. John Lydon would like you to look at this single, but not buy it
8. Man stabbed at Jessie J/Blackberry aftershow
9. Gordon Smart warns George Michael his house is full of vampire ghosts
10. RIP: Dick Clark

The interesting releases:


Death Grip - The Money Store

Download The Money Store



Actress - RIP

Download RIP



Frames - In Via

Download In Via



Rufus Wainwright - Out Of The Game

Download Out Of The Game



Billy Bragg & Wilco - Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions

Download Mermaid Avenue



Feeder - Generation Freakshow

Download Generation Freakshow

Gordon in the morning: Olly Murs' guide to girls

Another staggering piece of high-quality journalism from Gordon Smart this morning:

[Olly Murs] admitted he only used to head to malls with pals to get girls’ numbers.

He said: “I used to go after them and try to chat them up.

“Once I walked home from one and we had seven or eight numbers up our arms.”

Plus five pairs of tight trousers...

Young man goes to public place to talk to women - you can see why Gordon would make room for such a story, can't you?

Not entirely sure about the five pairs of tight trousers - I'm presuming that's a reference to erections in a family newspaper, but why five? Has Gordon conjured this image up so clearly in his head he's been able to count the numbers of swelling groins? Or does he know that Olly has four friends? All rather curious.

Saxobit: Thomas Marth

Long-standing Las Vegas musician Thomas Marth has died.

Marth is probably best known for his work with The Killers - he played on Sam's Town and Day And Age, and was a part of the expanded touring line-up for the band. In Vegas, he played with a number of acts, including The Big Friendly Corporation - a family concern which also had his sister and brother.

Reports suggest Marth took his own life; he was 33.

A snippet from Jack White's interview on Today

- has Meg heard the album?
- I don't know... she doesn't often answer the phone. I don't know if she's heard it; I'd have to fly to Detroit to ask her.

George Galloway springs Pete Burns

Apparently George Galloway keeps in touch with his reality TV chums - he says he got Pete Burns released from a police cell. The Telegraph reports:

“I got him out of jail,” he says. “I had to go to a police station and pay a sum of money, of surety, to get him out of the cells.”

Pete Burns' spokesman (I suspect this might be Pete Burns pretending to be his own staff) confirms to the Telegraph that Galloway did help during an incident, but insists that no charges had been laid.

Which does raise the question: what sort of surety would Galloway be paying to spring someone who hasn't been charged with anything? My - admittedly limited - understanding of the law is that although you can be released on bail while an investigation continues, such a bail release wouldn't require a cash sum to be laid down.

Gordon in the morning: No flipping

A dispatch from Kasabian's US tour bus? With Gordon Smart's very own byline on it?

Surely this must be a deeply serious story. Brace yourselves, Britain:

WHAT is the most vital thing on Kasabian’s tour bus? The band’s instruments? Their supply of Pot Noodle snacks?

Neither. Frontman Tom Meighan explains: “The televison remote control is the most important thing. If that gets lost, everyone s**** it.

“I just watched Fargo this morning – bit of an intense film for that time of day.

“We’ve got satellite TV on the bus so we can watch footie on Fox Soccer.”

On Fox Soccer? I'm sure Meighan actually named the channel, as - since we know - Rupert Murdoch's newspapers do not push his other business interests. He said that on oath yesterday, and Rupert Murdoch would never tell a lie.

Obviously, Gordon wouldn't have snuck a little reference to one of News Corp's other businesses onto the page the very day after Murdoch had said that, because how would that help?

But: seriously - lost remote controls and 'what I watched on television'? I think Meighan would probably have judged that a little dull for his own Twitter stream, never mind a national sort-of-newspaper.

Gordon in the morning: Song for whoever

Presumably assuming we don't understand that most chart pop hits are now made like Per Una trousersuits, sitched together to a basic design and then offered up to someone in the hope they'll fit, Rita Ora turns up to insist that she was given the chance to do the new Cheryl Cole song first:

She decided the house track — which is written and produced by Calvin Harris — was too dance orientated. She said: “I heard Call My Name quite a while ago because I was offered it.

“I turned it down. I do like the song but I didn’t want to sing it ’cos it’s not really me.

“I don’t want to go down the dance route that a lot of other pop stars are doing.

“I prefer to have my own sound and do my own thing.”

That would be the "doing your own thing" which, er, involves auditioning songs written for whoever fancies doing them.

Sinead O'Connor axes tour

Sinead O'Connor has pulled most of her outstanding dates for the year:

With enormous regret I must announce that I have to cancel all touring for the year as am very unwell due to bipolar disorder. As you all know I had a very serious breakdown between December and March and I had been advised by my doctor not to go on tour but didn't want to 'fail' or let anyone down as the tour was already booked to coincide with album release. So very stupidly I ignored his advice to my great detriment, attempting to be stronger than I actually am. I apologize sincerely for any difficulties this may cause. While touring will be cancelled I do hope and plan to appear at the Curtis Mayfield tribute in The Lincoln Centre in July."

Gordon in the morning: A man who uses the word 'ogle'

Ogle, ogle, ogle. Oy, oy, oy. This morning, Gordon runs a photo of Gerard Butler at a basketball match:

GERARD Butler made no attempt to hide his admiration for the LA Lakers cheerleaders.

In the photo, Butler is smiling, and looking forward; in the foreground there's a cheerleader. For comparison, there's a similar photo of David Beckham not looking in the direction of a cheerleader.

The fact that both these are snaps and, for all we know, Butler might have been looking past the cheerleader to someone selling snowcones and smiling at those, while Beckham could have just had a quick glance upwards to try and cope with his excitement.

Butler doesn't even seem to be looking at a cheerleader. It's a single moment in time being spun.

But bachelor Gerard, who sat courtside at the Staples Center in LA on Sunday, won’t get in any trouble at home for having a good old ogle.

Ogle. Yes, really. Ogle.

Given the Sun is, basically, some writing wrapped around soft porn, isn't having a go at a man for - possibly - looking at a cheerleader a bit of a stretch anyway?

Wyclef Jean: What if you threw a gig for stoners and they were, like, whatever or whatever?

4/20 is, according to Wikipedia, a secular holiday in America - it's not, it's just a day when people who haven't quite got over being pleased with themselves at smoking dope gather to be pleased with themselves in public. It's pretending to be part of a counterculture from firmly within mainstream culture.

To mark the day, Colorado University in Boulder booked Wyclef Jean to do a gig. Although the stressed that he wasn't to mark the day:

From item twelve in the contract ("The Agency Shall" section):

"The Agency shall ensure that Attraction avoids making direct referrences to marijuana and other illegal drugs or make 4/20 related remarks as this is a University sponsored event."

It's like booking Perry Como to do a Christmas Eve set and making him sign a waiver barring him from mentioning Holidays, Jesus or gifts.

So, how did it go, then? Not well, as Jean played to a mostly empty room.

Westword was speculating there were 400 people in the 11,000-capacity venue; even if that number doubled as the evening went on, with Jean getting a flat-fee of $80,000 for the event, that'd make it a $100-a-head event.

Moral: probably don't bother holding a big event on a day when everyone is getting out their faces. They should probably have spent the fee they gave Jean on Curly-Wurlys and crisps.

One Direction: Capital Radio really are big babies

Back when the Brits happened, and One Direction got confused and thanked Radio One for a prize voted for by Capital FM listeners, Capital vowed that One Direction were dead to them.

At the time, I raised a curious eyebrow. Would a pop radio station really be so bitter as to not play songs by one of the biggest bands for their target audience?

Turns out, yes. Capital really are holding a grudge, regardless of how self-damaging it might be, and how petty it makes them seem:

Figures from Compare My Radio provided to Radio Today show that in the period between 1st January and 21st February this year, 95.8 Capital FM in London played ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ 50 times and follow-up single ‘One Thing’ twice. That works out on average at one play of the band every day. Between 22 February and 18 April the station hasn’t played a single One Direction track, according to the monitoring by Compare My Radio which takes information from ‘Now Playing’ feeds.

When the group’s album became the first ever debut release by a British act to go straight in at the top the US charts, news bulletins on Capital didn’t mention it – despite many of their rival stations highlighting one of the biggest UK music successes in America since The Beatles.

All because One Direction aren't the fizziest drinks in the cupboard. There are Jewish grandmothers suggesting that Capital might need to stop playing the victim so much.

Gordon in the morning: Any umbrellas to fix today?

Really, Gordon? Five years on the best joke you can come up with to promote Rihanna's show on Sky Living ("welcome Rihanna's move to Britain") is a joke about Umbrellas?

Well... not quite:

The singer — famous for her skimpy outfits — filmed two episodes earlier this year and is due back next month.

Rihanna has won 18 American Music Awards, two Brits, three MOBOs and five Grammys. She's sold over 25 million albums and 60 million singles. In what way is she "famous for her skimpy outfits"?

One Direction fans are passionate about One Direction, or nearest equivalent

Oh, how much do One Direction fans love One Direction?

With a fierce and burning passion that can only be sparked by the band.

Or, erm, anyone who looks a bit like they might be in the band:

New Zealand teenage girls turned out in their thousands over the weekend hoping for a glimpse of British-Irish boy band One Direction but it seems not all knew who they were screaming for.

A radio producer wearing a beanie, dark glasses and a scarf, was mobbed when he left an Auckland hotel after interviewing the stars with young girls believing he was a member of the five-piece band.

Guy Parsons, 23, is older and taller than members of One Direction but still fooled the hysterical young girls who chased him down the street.

This could be a risk when you construct a band out of unthreatening bloke-types; it becomes impossible to recognise them out of context.

Interestingly, even when they had their error pointed out, some fans didn't care:

"I said 'I've got you, I'm not one of them', but they still wanted photos," Parsons told the Sunday Star-Times, adding he enjoyed his brief moment of fame.

There's a lot of critical theory which would tell you that boybands just fill a hole which gives young girls something to direct their passion at; this would seem to support that.

One Direction fans: incredibly passionate; just not that fussy.

This week just gone

The most-read April 2012 stories so far:

1. The illustrated Friends
2. Joni Mitchell fights the bugs
3. Courtney Love apologises to Frances Bean for being rude about Dave Grohl
4. Man stabbed at Jessie J/Blackberry party
5. Krissi Murison jumps the NME ship
6. John Lydon draws attention to record he doesn't want you to buy
7. Gordon Smart reveals George Michael is haunted by a vampire ghost
8. Mail takes NME pro-Doherty piece, turns it into anti-Doherty piece
9. RIP: Dick Clark
10. Cowell's One Direction fans threaten the original One Direction

This week's interesting releases:


Loudon Wainwright III - Older Than My Old Man Now

Download Older Than My Old Man Now



Battles - Drop Gloss

Download Drop Gloss



Human Don't Be Angry - Human Don't Be Angry

Download Human Don't Be Angry



Spritiualized - Sweet Heart Sweet Light

Download MTV Unplugged



Sheena Easton - The Collection

Download The Collection



Crass - Ten Notes On A Summer's Day