Ticketmaster can't hear you if you ask for a refund

Over on Consumerist: an until-now happy customer of Ticketmaster who, when trying to find out details about a canceled event, finds that TM company TicketsNow disconnect the call everytime he mentions the word "refund".

Britney Spears lawyers manage to insult Stalin's victims, judge's intelligence

I suppose the one piece of judgement shown by Britney Spears' lawyers is that they stopped short of reaching for the Nazis and merely suggested that Spears had been treated like a 'gulag victim' by the US courts:

In newly released court papers, Jon Eardley likened her plight to that of forced labourers in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's literary masterpiece.

Mr Eardley was voicing his objections to the court-ordered conservatorship that currently governs the pop singer's life.

"It is worth noting that there has not even been a 'show trial' for Miss Spears," Mr Eardley said, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Perhaps, Mr Eardley, but then again, Spears wasn't thrown into the back of a van marked "Meat", driven thousands of miles from her home and family, thrown into a freezing prison cell and made to join work groups despite being fed only the meanest of rations. The courts had stepped in because it appeared that Spears could not be trusted to exercise the most basic degree of judgement - which is a charge that could be leveled at a lawyer who can't tell the difference between one of the most shameful periods of human rights abuses of the last century with having your Dad look after your money while you're not well.

A bit of a Relief

So, not only did last night's Comic Relief raise the sort of sums that only Fred Goodwin could dream of, but actually managed to be consistently entertaining throughout. Normally, by pub-chucking-out-time, they're scrabbling about to give you "another chance to see" stuff that had already played out earlier; this year, they had so much stuff they hadn't even got round to The Apprentice firing by midnight. Even the French and Saunders bit was funny, and that's something you've not been able to say for the best part of a decade and a half.

There was the puzzle of Patrick Kielty - did they call him up and offer him the chance to do a single link while David Tennant and Davina McCall were busy doing Mastermind, or did he just show up and they reckoned that "since you're here, you might as well..."?

What really detains us, though, is that strange edition of Top Of The Pops which filled the gap that normally would have had an episode of QI in. Incidentally, how do they think poor Huw Edwards feels, getting ready to read the news, hearing everyone on BBC One telling the massive audience to turn over and not watch him. I bet he has to wipe a little tear each time it happens.

Now, although it was coming from the Comic Relief studio and there were a couple of extra nods to the event - superimposing red noses on the chart rundown, for example - this was, to all intents and purposes, like Top Of The Pops had never been canceled. Even down to that Top Ten and having the number one act live in the studio. Sure, there was a bit of smudging the boundaries, but even the shoe-horning of Oasis and U2 was for their latest singles rather than, say, something that people might actually want to hear. It was all a little bizarre having, in the midst of 'very special episodes of', to get 'more or less a bog-standard edition of' a programme that doesn't even exist any more. If nothing else, it showed there's still an enormous amount of affection for the old warhorse both amongst bands and at the BBC.

Perhaps if someone could come up with a chart that actually reflected the new music scene, there might be a second life for the programme...

Barbara Dickson hurt not to be asked back

This year, Scotland is holding a huge series of homecoming events, which the Scottish parliament seems to think will underline how talented the nation is, but in effect just points up how many people can't wait to flee as soon as they get a bit of success.

Someone, though, forgot to invite Barbara Dickson:

She said: "Homecoming? I've never been asked to come home. I wasn't invited to participate in anything to do with launching that. I never even got an invitation to the opening of the parliament."

How surprising that they would have even thought of opening a parliament without inviting the woman who did Pearls A Singer. Oh, hang on, that was Elkie, wasn't it?

Dickson also tuts over the state of Scotland's music:

"In Scotland, it's vital that young folk are playing the fiddle and the box and that people sing. It keeps the music alive. The country needs its culture."

Dickson was talking from her home in Lincolnshire.

That sound? It's just weeping

Boston Public Health Commission has carried out a snap survey of local teenagers' reactions to Chris Brown's attack on Rihanna. If the Commission had been hoping to release a positive-sounding press release about how far we've come in public attitudes to domestic violence, they would be disappointed:

“Somehow young people have gotten the message that this is just part of a relationship,” said anti-violence advocate Deborah Collins-Gousby.

Of the 200 Boston youths (ages 12 to 19) surveyed last month, 51 percent said Chris Brown was responsible for the incident, 46 percent said Rihanna was responsible and 52 percent said both were to blame; 52 percent said the media was treating Brown unfairly; 44 percent said fighting was a normal part of a relationship; and a “significant” number said “Rihanna was destroying Chris Brown’s career.” Women blamed Rihanna as much as men did.

I'm not quite sure how 51 per cent can blame Brown, 46 per cent can blame Rihanna and then another 52 per cent can blame both of them. But since the responses defy all understanding, there's no reason why they shouldn't also defy mathematical logic too.

Ofcom remembers it's a regulator; Global not happy

GWR Bristol, part of the clumsy Global Radio behemoth, has been warned by Ofcom for not actually playing the music it promised to. Ofcom sampled the station and wasn't happy:

This Spot Sampling report arose after Ofcom received complaints that GWR FM is not delivering the music proposition set out in its Format, which is to play ‘contemporary and chart’ music.

After listening to three days of GWR FM’s music output, we found that the overall mix of music being aired by the station was too old for it to be consistent with the Format’s Character of Service.

GWR FM is not operating within its Format and a Yellow Card warning has been issued.

Ofcom was quite fair to GWR - it didn't count The Time Tunnel in its calculations but still found that more than half the music played on the station is over two years old. And it didn't do anything more than issue a warning: play what you were promising to when you were given a licence allowing you access to the finite FM spectrum.

Matter closed?

Oh, no: Global are having a hissy fit and stamping their pretty, London-based feet:

“GWR Bristol was asked to supply music logs to Ofcom by today, Friday 13 March. The requested information was supplied by yesterday, 12 March. Ofcom’s decision was made without reference to either the station, or by talking to its owners, Global Radio.

“This is an extraordinary way for a regulator to behave by issuing a judgement before a deadline has passed. We do not accept this finding, and are considering our position.”

But Ofcom didn't issue a judgement, they issued a warning that if things don't improve, they might issue a judgement. And they didn't really need to wait for the logs - perhaps Global don't realise that their programmes are on the radio and you can find out what they're doing by listening to them.

There is a wider background to this, though, as Global rebrand as many of their stations Heart as they can get away with. Ofcom isn't bothered about the change of name, but is keeping a close eye on Global trying to change Top 40 stations into oldies stations by stealth. Something which it has form for, as Ofcom points out:

This warning concerns GWR Bristol, but we received similar complaints about a number of Global stations and we advise the licensee to take this finding into account for programming across all its CHR stations. Ofcom has had conversations with the licensee about content on its CHR stations in the past.

Of course, if Global really wants to change its format, it can simply hand back the licenses and reapply.

[Story discovered on Mr Trick's Twitter]

Gordon in the morning: Hail Jackson

So, yes, that carefully phrased wording of Jackson's swansong?. Gordon reveals the words "in London" did mean these are simply the last dates in London:

After testing the water in London at the O2 and being astonished by the unprecedented response, promoters will take his swan song around the world.

New York, Las Vegas, Mumbai and Paris are all likely venues, with Jacko ready to dominate the pop calendar for the next three years.

The thought of Jackson "dominating the pop calendar" for three long years really does suck the joy out of the future, doesn't it?

But in what way is the response unprecedented? Concerts selling out isn't unprecedented, is it? Man announces gigs. People buy tickets.

Gordon, can you find someone to stress just how unprecedented this is?

After the mad ticket rush yesterday, AEG Live promoter Randy Phillips said: “That wasn’t anticipated.

“We never thought it would be 50 shows and, frankly, based on the queues on Ticketmaster, plus the 300,000 registrants we still haven’t issued codes to, we could spend two years here."

It wasn't anticipated? So you went ahead and booked for fifty nights expecting nobody would turn up and were surprised that people arrived waving cheques and postal orders?

And the protestations of "we never thought it would be fifty shows" would be a little more believable if all the pre-launch stories in the papers hadn't, erm, predicted fifty shows.

Still, don't expect anything in the way of critical thinking from Gordon. Oh, no, you can already sense the Sun gearing up to appoint itself the official Jackson paper during the gigs:

I expected Jackomania, but this is off the scale.

Did you see the King Of Pop on tour in the 1980s or 1990s? Email me on biz@the-sun.co.uk and we might contact you for a bit of Jacko reminiscing.

Did you read the Sun's coverage of Michael Jackson's trials in the early 2000s or the child-dangling incident? Keep quiet about it, don't spoil it for them.

Gordo also offers his readers a surprising opportunity of a lifetime:

Click here to enter your vote and help decide the set list for Michael Jackson's forthcoming concerts.

Wow - despite the Mirror having the finalised set list earlier in the week?

To be fair to Gordon, nowhere does he say that the massive form you can fill in to select song titles from a randomly-truncated list of Jackson's back catalogue will actually have any bearing on the songs played at the gigs, just that you're picking the songs "you'd like to hear".

There is no way you can simply write in demands for him to cover Billy Idol songs, either, which is surely missing a trick.

Elsewhere, Gordon reports on Ricky Wilson's evening:

THE KAISER CHIEFS are not known for riotous laddish antics and I certainly wouldn’t have predicted this.

On Wednesday I’m told some of the Leeds lads were spotted on a boys’ night out at a seedy London strip club where punters splash out £20 per dance on strippers.

Paying money to see women take their clothes off. That is seedy, isn't it, Gordon? Especially since the link to Page Three on your pages gives breasts for free.

Revlon ask if Rihanna is "appropriate" for Cover Girl

How charming the Revlon cosmetics company is. In a bid to try and push its grease-and-water concoctions a little ahead in the market, they're carrying out a survey which appears to be trying to test if the whole Rihanna-being-beaten-up story has harmed their rivals, Cover Girl:

[Their online survey] then questions people if they are aware of the person in the commercial (without saying Rihanna's name), if they've heard about her in the news lately, if they have an opinion about the person and if they feel the person is "an appropriate spokesperson" for the product.

Sure, it's all business, and all business is dirty. But you'd have to ask never mind if Rihanna is appropriate for CoverGirl; the pertinent question is what self-respecting woman or bloke would use cosmetics made by a company seeking to make marketing hay from a woman being beaten up by her partner?

Cornell bites back with vague New Testament references

Yesterday, Trent Reznor was less-than-flattering about Chris Cornell's new album.

Cornell wasn't going to take that lolling about like a barely-coherent buffoon. Or at least he'd try not to not to, shooting this back:

“What do you think Jesus would twitter,” Cornell asks. ” ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’ or ‘Has anyone seen Judas? He was here a minute ago.’ ”

It's almost certain that Jesus would be posting sarcastic tweets to defend an indefensible record. What's less clear is why Cornell believes that Reznor is one of his disciples.

YouTube vs the PRS: Feargal Sharkey pipes up

Go on: guess whose side Feargal has come out on in the battle between YouTube and the PRS?

Why, yes, the plucky little PRS:

Sharkey accused Google, which owns YouTube, of blocking the videos in order to force the PRS to lower its price.

Sharkey said Google was a "large company thinking they're in a position to bully around a little society that represents 60,000 songwriters".

But is it really bullying, Sharkey? The PRS threatens that if YouTube don't settle, they won't be able to show any videos in the UK. So YouTube stops showing videos in the UK. It's not entirely clear how if - as the PRS and Sharkey believe - the musicians are doing YouTube a favour by allowing their music to appear on the network, that YouTube can be "bullying" them by removing the videos.

Unless, of course, it's in the interests of musicians and songwriters to have access to YouTube - but that would imply that the favour runs in the opposite direction.

"Quite frankly I'd hoped that by this point in the week Google would have reflected on the mistake they'd made and were willing to move away from the position they'd taken," Sharkey said.

"But quite clearly they're still in the mood to bully our songwriters, our musicians, and that's not acceptable."

Yeah, Google - stop bullying songwriters by not playing their videos for your own benefit.

Sharkey also charged Google with attempting to "hold them hostage and demand that they start to underwrite their business model".

"That is totally inappropriate and in fact mildly offensive," he said.

Sharkey isn't an idiot; he's a smart man, and as such must know that he's talking rubbish. If he really does believe that Google are rolling in cash after the costs of hosting and playing pop videos, then he probably shouldn't be in such a key position in the UK music industry.

Everyone should share in what's available, but nobody gains anything by pretending you've found a pot of gold when you're looking at some loose change.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: CNN on line two

Surely, with CNN's website calling on Gennaro Castaldo's knowledge-synapse, it can now only be a matter of days until he is fully deployed as Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room's very own Global Tune Expert.

It's the phenomenon of a washed-out old corpse booking a big London tent for fifty nights that has brought CNN to Castaldo's door. What does all this Jackson activity mean?

Gennaro Castaldo, spokesman for UK music retailer HMV, said Jackson was already reaping the benefits of hosting the concerts.

"Sales of Michael's albums are starting to show a discernible increase, albeit from a relatively low sales base at this early stage. However, if demand is picking up now, imagine what it will be like in July, when Michael actually kicks off his live performances."

Castaldo said sales of his "King Of Pop" album released in August had increased four-fold, while sales of "Thriller" had nearly doubled.

To be fair to Castaldo, he did attempt to point out that "four-fold increase" could mean "sixteen copies compared to four last week", but his excitement at the prospect of possibly selling even more records in July seems to have swept CNN along.

Sadly, Castaldo doesn't explain who he thinks will be buying the records in large quantities this summer - anyone who wasn't excited enough by the coverage of the launch who somehow is excited enough by the actual gig, presumably? "The blanketing of Jackson's ungodly face-hole in March wasn't enough to remind me of his existence, but the dull thud of someone playing Say Say Say quite near the Thames somehow did, and so I shall now buy a record"

Darkness at 3AM: The Razorlight truce is over

The 3AM Girls surprise the world with something that almost smacks of reporting. Although, to be honest, getting Andy Burrows to withdraw his soft statement on leaving Razorlight probably took little more work than tapping him on the shoulder and pressing play and record:

Speaking for the first time about the rift, Andy tells us: "It was hell. I'm so glad I'm out of it.

"I hated being in the band. Johnny and I didn't get on. Now I've got my freedom.

"He never wanted people to know that we both wrote songs and I couldn't be in control. I'm happy again. Don't get me wrong - I had some fond memories. We achieved some great things together and had amazing experiences. But now at least I'm happy.

"I'm drumming for We Are Scientists, working on my own material and doing stuff for other bands."

It's almost as if Borrell is some sort of control-freak or something, isn't it? Just imagine...

Vaseline reapplied

More forthcoming-record-news-excitement: SubPop are re-releasing Enter The Vaselines in May, in a luxury double-CD package. Which can sometime mean a disc full of old rubbish, but this being The Vaselines, has got a pretty delicious sounding listing:

1. Son of A Gun (demo)
2. Rosary Job (demo)
3. Red Poppy (demo)
4. Son of A Gun (live in Bristol)
5. Rosary Job (live in Bristol)
6. Red Poppy (live in Bristol)
7. Rory Rides Me Raw (live in Bristol)
8. You Think You’re a Man (live in Bristol)
9. Dying for It (live in London)
10. Monsterpussy (live in London)
11. Let’s Get Ugly (live in London)
12. Molly’s Lips (live in London)
13. The Day I Was a Horse (live in London)
14. The Day I Was A Horse (Again) (live in London)
15. Sex Sux (Amen) (live in London)
16. I Didn’t Know I Loved You (‘Til I Saw You Rock ‘n’ Roll) (live in London)
17. Teenage Superstars (live in London)

There's a pre-release gig at the Forum on March 28th as well.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Live from Croydon

After a refit - basically burning the Zavvi sign and slapping a picture of a dog up in its place - the old Virgin Megastore in Croydon reopens as an HMV. Gennaro Castaldo, director of the thoughts department at HMV, is delighted:

Gennaro Castaldo, chief press officer at HMV, said that although the stores were within a short distance of each other he was confident they could both thrive and develop their own identities.

Mr Castaldo added: "Croydon is such a large shopping area with a large flow of people coming in."

Although when the store was a Zavvi, both shops really did have different identities, and that didn't work out well, did it?

Gordon in the morning: My word is my Bond girl

Hey, journalists? Got a column to fill, and a deadline to meet? Why not think of the most buzzed-over female celebrity of the moment and write a column claiming she's going to be the next Bond girl?

Here's an example of that in action: Freida Pinto, out of Slumdog Millionaire. She's popular right now, and so clearly, she's bound to be the next Bond girl. Right, Gordon?

SLUMDOG Millionaire beauty FREIDA PINTO could become the new Bond girl — after being invited to a screen test for the next spy adventure.

See? It's easy.

Gordon seems to get a little bit confused between 'actors' and 'characters' in his excitement:

Freida could follow in the footsteps of Bond babes such as Plenty O’Toole in 1971 classic Diamonds Are Forever.

But why mention Plenty O'Toole anyway? Could it be simply to try and make sense of the headline?

Diamonds Are Freida

How out-of-control would your tongue have to be before you could pronounce 'Freida' to sound a bit like 'Forever'?

I'm sure Gordon's got really strong reasons for believing his story, and hasn't just extrapolated a star based on the rumours that Danny Boyle is going to direct the next Bond movie.

Somewhat oddly, just reloading the Bizarre page, the 'story' has vanished from its top left position, being replaced with that tiresome Noel Gallagher environment story.

Kittin, Hacker reunited: Two become Two

It's been eight years, give or take, since Miss Kittin and The Hacker's first album, First Album. Now, they're back with album number two, Two.

They're celebrating by giving stuff away - both K and H have made mp3 mixtapes up, and - at least for the time being - there's this video of Suspicious Minds. Yes, yes, a Presley cover. But, oh, what a Presley cover:



Two is out on May 19th.

Mick Jagger has had sex with himself, effectively

MTV Brazil is encouraging safer sex by running an advertising campaign which seems to imply that whoever you have sex with will have had sex with Mick Jagger at some point, or words to that effect.

It's kind of like rock family trees, but with "shagged" replacing "drummed for version #3 of the band".

I'm not quite sure the chain manages to prove that all sex is, in effect, a circle jerk for Jagger - Eminem shagged Geri Halliwell? Johnny Thunders shagged the hole (sic) world? Something very odd about someone having sex with a tree that became the bed on which David Bowie shagged Mick Jagger?

The message is "always use condoms", although if you are going to have sex with a tree, be aware that condoms can't save you from splinters, even if they can help prevent unplanned saplings.

Noel Gallagher is just so cool about not being cool

You'd have thought that if you wanted to shut Chris Martin up about the environment, you'd ask him about his SUV or private plane. Not if youre Noel Gallagher, though:

"He said: 'Why do you think it's cool not to care?' and I said, 'Well, I don't think it's cool, I don't think I'm being cool.'

"I actually couldn't give a fuck about what's going on outside my family: me, my missus, my two kids and my mam, and her parents... that's it, for me.

"Other than that, it's not my problem, but that's not to say you shouldn't care about it!

"Each to their own and I'm glad there's people like that. But I just like to look after my own."

Happily, Noel doesn't live in the same planet as anybody else, and his family will somehow not be affected by the changing climate. For some reason. Perhaps his guitar will somehow deflect... something...
... live in the forest... forage for food... he's not just showing off like a teenage kid affecting not to be bovvered, no...

Aretha: Titfer ye lots

I'm not entirely sure this isn't a story that has been doing the rounds for a while, but Aretha Franklin's inauguration hat is selling by the bucketload. Which is appropriate, since it looked it a little like a bucket, only with a big bow on.

The hat that is being sold isn't actually the same hat, because like the Mastermind chair they didn't want to turn it into a commercial item. But the designer Luke Song has made a hat quite a lot like Aretha's, which seems to be a questionable workaround - "it would be tacky to sell hats that were like Aretha's, so we'll only sells hates that are a bit like Aretha's instead." It neither preserves the uniqueness of the actual hat, nor satisfies the desires of those who wish to own one.

Fifty nights? Seriously?

Michael Jackson has stretched his planned dates at the Millennium Dome to a cash sapping fifty nights, spread over several months.

Fifty gigs? I know Jacko is strapped for cash, but isn't this just looking needy?

Apart from any other consideration, those people who bought tickets yesterday spent hours wrestling Ticketmaster in the belief they were buying a pass to some of Michael Jackson's farewell shows. Now, it turns out that he's going to be doing more after them than he's played in about two decades.

And - in order for him to get some proper rest between songs - the run doesn't end until Janaury 2010. That's longer than most West End musicals manage. Sure, the first couple of dates might seem a bit special, but by next Winter "Michael Jackson playing a gig" is going to become such a commonplace it's going to be on a par with Gordon Brown trying to put on a brave face as economic indicators hang a "twinned with Harare" sign outside the Bank Of England.

One other thing: there's been a lot of suggestion (especially with the This is IT branding) that what's being offered is Jackson's swansong.

“Michael is said to be ‘thrilled’ by the response and wanted as many fans to share the experience with him as possible,” the Website adds. “This will be the last chance to see the King of Pop in London, this really is it!”

The presence of the words "in London" suggests that there's every chance, if he makes it unscathed through this fifty gigs, he'll be popping up in Vegas, or New York, or maybe even Winchester just as soon as he manages to run up eyewatering debts again.

So, that's Jackson: The last chance to see him in Winchester. Coming 2011.

Nobiz Zoe

Not only are we pinching James P's email, but we've even lifted his headline for the news that Zoe Griffin has quit the Sunday Mirror:

No word on where she's going; Maybe to pursue a career in an area of the media where there's less chance of being physically assaulted by an Osbourne. Which I think leaves 'Speaking Clock' and 'Putting Up the Small-Ad Postcards in Somerfield'.

Zoe had billed herself as the "youngest, hottest" gossip columnist, which was untrue even before the younger Dan Wootton started at the News of the World. Seasoned readers of the Sunday Mirror had noticed that Zoe's profile had slipped somewhat recently, to the extent that she even had difficulty getting her resignation letter printed.

Trent tweets; NME reports; we blog

... and all because Chris Cornell's album is rotten:

“You know that feeling you get when somebody embarrasses themselves so badly YOU feel uncomfortable? Heard Chris Cornell's record? Jesus.”

Wonderfully, NME spins out the 140 word tweet into a full page, with a headline which tells you what the tweet said; a standfirst which tells you what the tweet said, an introductory paragraph which tells you what the tweet said, and the tweet itself.

There's no reason to not report interesting stuff found on Twitter. But the way you report on it might need a few tweaks.

"I bought my tickets off a man with no nose" "How do they smell?" "

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal revealed how Britney Spears and Neil Diamond appeared to be scalping their own tickets.

Today, sister paper The Times reveals that Michael Jackson has been doing the same thing - or, at least, the promoter of his shows:

The Times understands that outside the official sale of the tickets, AEG Live approached secondary ticketing companies — which allow people to resell tickets to sporting and music events — offering to provide them directly with between 500 and 1,000 tickets for each performance.

It is thought that AEG Live offered the tickets on the understanding that they were sold at about £500 each, with 80 per cent of the revenue returning to AEG Live and the secondary ticketing company taking the remaining 20 per cent.

Last night tickets for seats closest to the stage were on sale on Viagogo for thousands of pounds. Other seats in prime locations seemed to be on sale at surprisingly uniform rates, with many priced at £418 and £659.

AEG Live did not deny its links to Viagogo. The company previously said in a statement: “In an effort to ensure fans are able to purchase premium tickets and exchange tickets directly with other fans, AEG Live has entered into an agreement with Viagogo. The online site allows people to buy and sell live event tickets in a safe and guaranteed way.”

Is it just me, or does that statement totally miss the point - the question would seem to be 'have you deliberately started selling tickets on the secondary market, rather than sell them for face value', to which that is not an answer.

There is an argument that some, or perhaps all, tickets for popular events be sold through an auction; but surely the most important thing is that the process is transparent?

If AEG wants to charge £500 for a £50 ticket, why can't it be honest about it?

Will someone tell me why I keep adapting these damn cult movies into stage musicals

Here's more warm memories about to be squished up in the liquidiser of quick cash shakedowns: Heathers - The Musical:

The readings saw "Veronica Mars" star Kristen Bell playing the lead

Can it get any worse?

The film offered many over-top-moments as well as choice lines, something Fickman is eager to bring out musically.

" 'I love my dead gay son," [Developer Andy] Fickman quoted. "If you can get that into a song, then that is just perfect."

No it isn't, because if you put it into a song, it turns something that was simultaneously hypocritical and touching into just a campy laugh. In fact, putting songs into Heathers is a bit like doing The Sound Of Music without songs - a fundamental misunderstanding of what the story is about.

Illegal downloading isnt a crime, say FAC

Interesting noises coming from the meeting of the Featured Artists Coalition.

First, that it's a body which is determined to not be seen as a Trades Union. It's keen to stress it doesn't want to usurp the Musician's Union:

Writing on Comment is Free, Billy Bragg [...] stresses that the FAC is not a "pop stars" union, as the Musicians Union already fulfils that role, but "a campaigning organisation that seeks to achieve fair remuneration in exchange for widespread access".

It's not quite clear what the organisation is, if not a union. You might have thought that a group of workers drawn from a particular industry collectively bargaining for better pay and conditions would be exactly what a union is; perhaps as many of its members are self-employed, they'd rather be seen as a Guild?

Whatever it is, it's busily carving out a position for itself somewhere to the left of the groups which currently claim to speak for music - most notably by voting against the legal pursuit of alleged file-sharers:

Bragg told The Independent that most of the artists had voted against supporting any move towards criminally prosecuting ordinary members of the public for illegally downloaded music.

Bragg was speaking as a key member of the coalition, which was set up to give a collective voice to artists who want to fight for their rights in the digital world. It is pushing for a fairer deal for musicians at a time when they can use the internet to forge direct links with their fans. "What I said at the meeting was that the record industry in Britain is still going down the road of criminalising our audience for downloading illegal MP3s," he said.

"If we follow the music industry down that road, we will be doing nothing more than being part of a protectionist effort. It's like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube.

"Artists should own their own rights and they should decide when their music should be used for free, or when they should have payment."

There's much to worry about for the record labels there - most obviously the first empirical evidence that the artists in whose name these prosecutions are being carried out don't support the policy.

More subtly, there's that distinction Bragg has made between the people who make the music and the "music industry".

It's still far from clear what the FAC actually sees as the future, but it's becoming apparent that, unlike the RIAA and the PRS, they're not working from the assumption that the solution is to try and force the old business plans onto the new distribution channels.

The logical direction would seem to be for the FAC to create their own royalty collection agency, able to work above national boundaries and with digital distributors, and without the years of bureaucracy and overheads carried by the PRS.

Ringo Starr: Now I'm confused

In the first batch of weak ads marking the rebranding of Norwich Union to Snickers, Ringo Starr was featured, muttering that it was only by changing his name that he was able to unleash the power of fame. Or words to that effect. "Would any of this have happened", he asked, "if I was still Richard Starkey?"

In the new batch of even weaker ads, Ringo pops up, looking grim-faced, insisting that he doesn't want to be called by his stage name.

Eh? So he rebranded successfully to Ringo, and yet doesn't want to be known as Ringo, believing that his actual name is still Richard Starkey? So if his name is Richard, then his question in the original advert, 'would this have happened if I was called Richard' would be answered 'yes, because I am.'

And if he's Richard sometimes, and Ringo at others, isn't the message from this that you can be flexible with your name according to circumstances? And doesn't that mean that, actually, Norwich Union could still be Norwich Union when it's drumming for the Beatles, and Aviva when it's at home?

Or... did nobody really think the adverts through at all?

Vodaphone dump DRM

It's not just another staging post on the road to DRM-free music, but also a further blow to Windows Media Audio and Microsoft's attempts to lock in its unlovely format as music encoder of choice: Vodaphone is swapping from DRMed WMA files to unlocked mp3s for its mobile music store.

And in an even more surprising example of getting it right, if you've previously bought a DRMed song from the shop, you can swap it for a proper one, for free.

The irony, of course, is that if the original track didn't have DRM, you wouldn't be able to swap them. But then you wouldn't need to.

Jackson: You don't say say say

Panting breathlessly, the Mirror's Tom Bryant announces an exclusive:

The Daily Mirror has seen the setlist the King of Pop has handed to AEG Live, who run London’s O2 Arena where he will play a residency in July.

Yes, it turns out that Jackson's greatest hits show will feature Michael Jackson doing greatest hits.

Aware that this might be less-than-surprising, the paper then drags in Scott Mills, off the Lottery Draw show, to "comment" on each track. No, really. Not only does the paper think you might need someone to comment on Thriller, as if you've not heard it a billion times before, but they thought the best person to do so would be Scott Mills.

Prepare to cut-out-and-keep:

Billie Jean

- This has one of the best base lines I've ever heard in my life.

Wanna be startin' somethin

- Excellent opening of the classic Thriller album. Wicked choice.

Rock with you

- Slow funky classic that rates among his best.

The way you make me feel

- Best intro to a Jacko song (apart from Thriller!) Top one Michael.

Don't stop till you get enough

- The ultimate disco anthem. I can never get enough of this one.

I just can't stop loving you

- One for the ladies and romantics in the audience

Human Nature

- One of Thriller's slower moments but well worth including in the list

Smooth criminal

- One of my favourite Jacko videos and songs too

Girlfriend

- Very much a filler from Off The Wall. Not for me.

Man in the Mirror

- Loving it when the gospel kicks in. Lets hope he gets a full choir involved.

Beat it

- What an incredible guitar solo by Eddie Van Halen. Get him over to the UK!

One day in your life

- Early Jackson that was a bigger hit here than in the UK. Good one to get in.

Heal the World

- Michael's one-man Band Aid.

Remember the time

- Not his finest hour but will appeal to some I reckon.

You are not alone

- Written for Jacko by R Kelly but don't let that put you off. Still a popular one to have.

Thriller

- Possibly the best group dance routine ever. Let's see if he can do it all on stage again in the summer

Look, the Mirror says it's Scott Mills and it didn't just cut and paste comments off YouTube videos. It's not entirely clear where the "here" that Mills reckons One Day In Your Life was a bigger hit in that the UK. Or, indeed, why Mills seemed to be talking more about the videos or recorded versions than if they're going to work in a large tent.

Michael Jackson is expected to repay the compliments by commenting on all of Scott Mills links today; he's going to do it on Twitter or something. "This prank phone call is spot-on - Scott is hilarious"

Gordon in the morning: Embracing Pete Doherty

Given that the Sun suggested he was an irredeemable, drug-addled reprobate, and that the paper hunted him for sport not so long back, the appearance of a large, fawning interview with Doherty in today's Bizarre column is either a heartwarming piece of rapprochement, or a puzzling embrace of monster and tormentor.

Naturally, Gordon's not going to fawn over Doherty without stressing how all that stuff you might have thought about him (because you read it in Gordon's pages) is wrong:

KATE MOSS’s controversial ex has said he is happy being single — and has pledged to keep his distance from women.

He said: “I’ve come into my own head a little bit really, being a bit more honest and open, rather than hiding in a crack pipe or wherever and just not turning up most of the time.”

Not that Smart is totally leaving himself open to having drug-flavoured egg on his cardigan should this turn out to be like the other times Pete "quit" drucks:

Pete insists he is now off the drugs — but I will need a bit more convincing.

Interestingly, though, Gordon offers no explanation as to why he doesn't believe the man he's interviewing, which you might have thought would have been at least polite.

Still, he does give Doherty a chance to talk about himself:

He combines popular culture with big philosophical ideas

Yes, Gordon. That's what he does.

such as this comparison of himself with Del Boy from Only Fools And Horses.

Pete concluded: “It’s like Trotters Independent Traders.

“For years they got by on three wheels and a lot of the fun was in the dream and scheme and the scrapes and near misses.

“But really and truly all Del ever wanted was actually to achieve something secretly, you know?”

Not quite sure where 'describing the plot of Only Fools And Horses badly' contains a big philosophical idea - or indeed anything that John Sullivan hadn't put in there in the first place. And Del didn't make any secret of wanting to achieve something did he? Isn't that the point of the schemes and the dream?

Gordon decides to have a go at combining popular culture and "big philosophical ideas" for himself:

This time next year, Pete...but not if the three wheels fall off again.

Well, at least he had a try.

Who's scalping who? Artists tout their own tickets

Something to remember the next time you see artists and promoters getting upset about people flogging tickets on at inflated prices: some artists are doing the scalping themselves:

Less than a minute after tickets for last August's Neil Diamond concerts at New York's Madison Square Garden went on sale, more than 100 seats were available for hundreds of dollars more than their normal face value on premium-ticket site TicketExchange.com. The seller? Neil Diamond.

Ticket reselling -- also known as scalping -- is an estimated $3 billion-a-year business in which professional brokers buy seats with the hope of flipping them to the public at a hefty markup.

In the case of the Neil Diamond concerts, however, the source of the higher-priced tickets was the singer, working with Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc., which owns TicketExchange, and concert promoter AEG Live. Ticketmaster's former and current chief executives, one of whom is Mr. Diamond's personal manager, have acknowledged the arrangement, as has a person familiar with AEG Live, which is owned by Denver-based Anschutz Corp.

So, it's absolutely fine for artists to deliberately hold tickets back, in order to flog them at artificially-inflated prices. But somehow, it's wrong for ordinary people to sell on tickets they no longer need at slightly higher price, and photographic IDs must be used when buying tickets to stop this practice.

The artists sales are done through Ticketmaster's official scalping site, with - as the Wall Street Journal points out - usually no indication that the sales are coming from 'official' sources rather than a selling-on by fans. Indeed, lengths seem to be traveled in order to make it look like it's coming from fans:

Tickets for a March 27 Britney Spears concert at Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh were priced earlier this week at $39.50 to $125 apiece on Ticketmaster.com. But some of those same classes of seats were being offered at the same time through the "TicketExchange Marketplace" for as much as $1,188.60. The link to the Marketplace page was marked, "Browse premium seats plus tickets posted by fans."

Ms. Spears' spokeswoman declined to comment.

The ticket listings are offered in small batches, each at a price, such as $1,164.01, that mimics prices set via online auctions. After inquiries from The Wall Street Journal, the "tickets posted by fans" message was removed from the TicketExchange Web site. Prices also fell, narrowing the gap between Ticketmaster and TicketExchange Marketplace.

That this is all unethical is beyond question; perhaps more pertinent is the question of if it's entirely legal?