Saturday, August 25, 2012

Reading Button, Leeds Button

In a rare foray into providing news you can use, here's the times when Reading & Leeds coverage will be on the BBC Red Button this weekend, and then highlights through the week:

Freesat/Sky/Virgin Media:
Sat 25th August, 7:00pm-2:00am
Sun 26th August, 4:00pm-2:00am
Mon 27th August, 6:00am-Saturday 1st September, 4:00am

Freeview:
Sat 25th August, 9:30pm-2:00am
Sun 26th August, 4:00pm-2:00am
Mon 27th August, 6:00am-9:50pm
Tue 28th August, 4:10am-10:20am
Wed 29th August, 4:10am-2:50pm & 6:10pm-7:20pm
Thu 30th August, 4:10am-9:50pm
Fri 31st August, 4:10am-6:50am & 11:40pm-4:00am


Listen with No Rock: The Blue Aeroplanes

In case you missed it: The Blue Aeroplanes did a live session for Marc Riley earlier this week. You've got 26 days left in which to hear it.

And, yes, they started with ... And Stones.


Gordon in the morning: The stink eye from Ol' Blue Eyes

Frank Sinatra might have been a better judge of character than we thought. Gordon says he had no time for Bono:

BONO admits he annoyed Frank Sinatra so much on a video shoot for their 1993 cover of I’ve Got You Under My Skin that the crooner stormed out.
Not, unfortunately, to put in a call to his friends in legitimate business.

As ever, though, this story turns out to be not quite what Gordon sets up:
The U2 frontman said: “We turned up at a bar to do the shoot but our cameras didn’t work – twice.

Frank was known as ‘One Take Frank’ so when we asked him to do it again he bellowed: ‘What’s going on?!’

He said we were amateurs – and disappeared.”
So rather than Bono annoying Frank, it was a failure of technology.

Still, I like to think that Sinatra was annoyed by Bono as well. Because, after all, who wouldn't be?


Friday, August 24, 2012

It was all about voices, not personalities. Or names.

You'd have to have sympathy for Mark Linsey. The BBC's Executive Editor for entertainment commissioning couldn't remember the name of the winner of The Voice when asked at the Edinburgh TV Festival.

Leanne Mitchell, apparently.

That's showbusiness. (I bet nobody can remember anyone who won episodes of that, either.)


Ironically, Newt Gingrich chooses to not face up to the challenge of his rivals

Newt Gingrich has thrown in the legal towel following his unapproved use of Eye Of The Tiger at pep rallies. The Hollywood Reporter, erm, reports:

Sullivan sued Gingrich in January for using his co-written Grammy-winning song as entrance music at various conferences and campaign rallies.

In March and April, when Gingrich's campaign still had some life, the Republican fought back with tough-talking motions in court. Gingrich questioned the jurisdiction, brought up the statute of limitations, pointed to the First Amendment, nodded to the song's other co-writer who stated he was "not on board" the lawsuit, and most importantly, spoke about the blanket license he had gotten from ASCAP that purportedly covered public performance uses associated with political campaigns.
As ever, though, Gringrich blew hard and then caved. Terms haven't yet been made public.


Gordon in the morning: Red fawn

Gordon knows the action is elsewhere in The Sun this morning, with the paper running the Harry butt photos on the grounds that its readers "have the right" to see them.

It seems incapable of explaining why, though - there's nothing illegal happening in the photos; that young men party and sometimes remove their clothes is hardly a matter of public concern; there's no evidence of a security breach. Even the fact that the pictures have been seen elsewhere is a weak point - given the only news value is that there are photos of a naked prince in circulation, the very fact that all the readers will have seen them strips them of any news value.

Still, it leaves Gordon with nowhere to go; he's dragged out a photo of Tom Cruise's son djing, and gives it a bit of a fawning:

Teenager Connor jetted in from America to play a set at Chinawhite last night.
Usually a nightclub appearance on the decks is how Z-listers end up scraping a living.
And how Djs earn a living, too. Don't forget that.
So it’s a curious choice for Connor who has starred in big-budget Hollywood flicks including Seven Pounds, alongside Will Smith, and as a rebel warrior in Red Dawn.
Actually - as Gordon will be well aware, as he clearly did what I've just done and lobbed the name into IMDB - that isn't an extract of a blockbuster CV; it is his CV.
Be interesting to know if he opened his set with the Top Gun theme tune.
He didn't.


Thursday, August 23, 2012

Gordon in the morning: The Zayn vanishes

Not entirely sure why this story falls under the remit of Colin Robertson, TV editor, rather than Gordon himself, but - brace yourself - Zayn Malik has quit Twitter.

Apparently he was upset that he was being given grief because he's in some sort of relationship with Perrie Edwards out of Little Mix - I imagine tweets along the lines of 'What, won't Cowell let you date outside the church' were being fired in his direction.

That this is something of a non-story is more or less proven by one of the reactive tweets that Robertson has diligently harvested and reproduced:

Shocked supporter VaynZayn wrote on Twitter: “I feel like Zayn’s just broken up with me. Our non-existent twitter relationship is over."
Shocked? Really, Colin? You can't hear a rather sharp eyeroll and a 'nothing to see' when you come across it?


Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Gordon in the morning: Consumed by a Jaguar

Lan Del Ray is being paid to promote the new Jaguar F-Class (I think that must clear up any lingering confusion about what market segment she's been targeted at). It's not clear what Gordon is getting out of handing over a swathe of space for marketing blurb:

IF you had to choose a singer to be the face of a fancy new sports car, Lana Del Rey would definitely be up there.

The gorgeous, pouting star has signed a six-figure deal with Jaguar to launch their amazing new F-Type. At the very least she’s getting one for her garage too.
[...]
Adrian Hallmark, Jaguar’s global brand director, said: “Jaguar’s allure is in large part due to its unique blend of authenticity and modernity, two values we believe are shared with Lana in her professional achievements.”
Whatever you might think about Del Ray, would you really think of her as the go-to guy for authenticity? Did Jaguar do a quick google before drawing up the contract?


Tuesday, August 21, 2012

An appeal to Todd Akin

Maureen Herman was the bassist with Babes In Toyland. She's lived through a lot since then; today, she's written an open letter to Todd 'legitimate rape' Akin explaining why his remarks are dangerous, and how they disrespect her, and her daughter, a child of rape. If you read only one thing on Akin's crass ignorance - hell, if you read only one thing, period, you should make it this.


Gordon in the morning: Won't someone think of the children, again?

As he brings news that they're going to clamber onto the showbiz wagon (weren't they already there?) Gordon Smart quotes an "insider" on the progress of the Jackson children:

["T"]hey find school tough.

“Kids can be really cruel."
Yes, it's the kids. Not the tabloids who keep dragging the Jackson brood into the spotlight, running their text messages and laundering their family troubles in plain sight. It's the school kids who might mention this who are really cruel.


Monday, August 20, 2012

This isn't news, Matt Bellamy

Matt Bellamy has revealed that a big influence on the new Muse album is U2. Whoever would have thought?

Frontman Matt Bellamy told Classic Rock magazine: ''We toured with U2 last year in South America. And there's definitely a little bit of influence come on to this album, a little bit of [1991 album] 'Achtung Baby' here and there.''
Muse have been pushing stadium-shaped vacant bombast for years; surely the U2 influence has always been obvious?


Gordon in the morning: Diplocarpon rosae

So far, the Stone Roses reunion has benefited from attendees having turned up convinced they'd be seeing something historic and important. How did it go when they moved into the festival circuit, where the audience are coming in treating them as just one band amongst many?

Didn't go that well:

THE Stone Roses’ incredible run of amazing live shows hit some dodgy ground at V Stafford.

Ian Brown was getting all Bruce Lee with the crowd after a pint of lager clocked him early on.

Then they started Love Spreads four times before they got it right.

John Squire broke a string during a guitar solo and Ian started moaning about the sound.
It's a lot harder when you're not being kept aloft on a sea of goodwill, isn't it?

In other news:
I suspect we're only a couple of years away from the OED adding "not now in polite use" into the entry for boffin. There are many ways you can describe a pretty good mathematician; telling the Sun chose two words which sound - at best - double-edged.



Sunday, August 19, 2012

Coleman returns

So, the missing Jaz Coleman has returned, apparently unaware that his 'working retreat' to the Sahara had led to reports of his disappearance.

He also claims that he knows nothing about the slagging of the Mission and Cult:

Yet mystery still surrounds the message on Facebook regarding The Cult and The Mission Shows of which Coleman claims no knowledge. 'Looks like this has caused a right ding dong and feel its impossible to continue this tour under the circumstances'. His comments were to wish both The Cult and The Mission the best of luck on the tour, and to find out who has been impersonating him.
A right old ding dong? Was Coleman spending time in the desert or the 19th Century? My guess is that the person who "impersonated" him will turn out to be the same person who hacked Grant Shapps' YouTube account that time. Or at least have a similar relationship to the "victim".


Peter Gabriel on Pussy Riot

There's been a lot written about Pussy Riot; one of the best pieces came from Peter Gabriel in yesterday's Times. Unfortunately, of course, The Times is locked behind a paywall so, ironically, it's difficult to share Gabriel's words on freedom of speech. I hope he'll not mind if I share his words here:

OK, here we go again — another cause celeb with a bunch of overpaid, underinformed musicians banging on about a part of the world they don’t really understand. A punk group playing rude, subversive music in a cathedral — it has outrage, blasphemy and sacrilege all wrapped up in one fell swoop.

At first glance the campaign to free Pussy Riot looks like another bandwagon for the Save the World gang to jump on. There’s a lot worse stuff to worry about than a Russian punk group when even President Putin, on his visit to the UK this month, called for the courts to be lenient in sentencing them. Although presumably he filed that under “notes to self”.

A number of musicians, myself included, have spoken out against the threat of many years in jail for these three young women. Pussy Riot have become a focal point for the protest movement and the campaign is warming up. By supporting Pussy Riot — and gay rights — Madonna found herself criticised by none other than Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister who, in an extraordinarily personal attack, accused her of being an old whore who should take her cross off or put her pants back on.

When it comes to religion, I do believe that we need to respect each other’s faiths and most musicians supporting Pussy Riot would not have chosen the cathedral as a place of protest. However there are certain fundamentals on which democracy and freedom have been built and one of those is the separation of Church and State. So when an archbishop, the head of your Church, publicly backs a very repressive head of state who so obviously now follows a doctrine very different from the Christian one, something is clearly amiss.

I am told by those who know Pussy Riot that the three girls on trial are all believers and quite serious about their faith. This might put their action in a different context, more similar perhaps to Martin Luther’s hammering protests against the sale of indulgences by the Pope on the door of his church, or Christ causing havoc by throwing over the tables of the moneylenders in the temple.

Going back to the days of Mikhail Gorbachev with all the hope for the reforms of perestroika and glasnost and then Boris Yeltsin leading the country to economic collapse, Russian morale had sunk very, very low. The West made the decision not to offer help or to get seriously involved, and perhaps we are now reaping the result of that decision.

When Vladimir Putin first came to power, he was a genuinely popular hero, bringing back services, prosperity and pride and many were willing to overlook the negatives. But each term of office has exposed more of what is rotten and seen the erosion of more and more human rights. The clampdown continues and so does the fall from grace. Recently we witnessed the previously unimaginable sight of Mr Putin being booed at a judo match.

But on the street, older Russians are saying that they have not seen such use of force — such brutality, bullying and threats of violence — since the bad days of Stalin. Russia is now regularly described as a gangster state: in which protesters are routinely imprisoned and beaten; in which investigative journalists are murdered; in which the tax authorities have been known to sell an individual’s tax returns to gangs so they can be a little more precise in their extortion demands; in which a young lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, hired to investigate corruption, is murdered.

It is a country that has continued to supply arms to the Assad regime while it slaughters its own citizens; where once again there are only two sides to choose from, with two shirts, one saying “Foreign Agent” the other saying “Agent of the State”.

And yet, as in many other parts of the world, there are very brave young people willing to risk their freedom, along with all the accompanying threats to family, for a better, freer and more open Russia.

The Russians are a very smart, able and independent people who will, for sure, determine who governs them and how they do it. We outsiders (and musicians) are now being asked to help them to throw off the heavy blanket of silence, to let a little light into Russia’s darkest corners.

Turning away doesn’t seem like the right thing to do.
[Thanks to Michael M]


X Factor scrapes into the next round

According to TV Scoops, the X Factor's return performed a bit like the average X Factor winner - did alright, can hold its head up, but doesn't really look to have much of a stellar future ahead of it:


The share was also the lowest since 2006, apparently, so it wasn't just that some of the audience stayed outdoors barbecuing their children; those people who were indoors were tempted away by Indiana Jones And The Destruction Of Franchise Goodwill on BBC One.

UPDATE: The MediaGuardian figures are little brighter for ITV:
The X Factor's peak of 9.9 million represented a 46% share of viewers, while the 8.7 million for the whole 75-minute show, 42% of viewers, gave it double the audience share of any other programme.


This week just gone

The most-read stories over the last seven days:

1. The Olympics - not so much closed, as buried
2. Madonna cares not for Elton John's opinions
3. No, seriously, why do people think Tatu are gay?
4. When John Lennon was imagining not having any possessions, how hard was he imagining?
5. Marilyn Manson tries to make people look at him by writing swears on his face
6. Nick Grimshaw: His name shall not be sung
7. In full: The last Mark & Lard show
8. Nick Mason defends Ed Sheeran's pisspoor Olympics peformance
9. Charlotte Church goes to GAY in latex
10. Hyde Park: Blur's gig largely unheard by the audience

These releases were worth having a look at:


Dead Can Dance - Anastasis


Download Anastasis



Edgar Summertyme - Sense Of Harmony


Download Just Tell Me That You Want Me



Various - Just Tell Me That You Want Me: A Tribute To Fleetwood Mac


Download Just Tell Me That You Want Me



Public Service Broadcasting - The War Room


Download The War Room



Ian Dury & The Blockheads - Live At Rockpalast 1978


Download Live At Rockpalast



Gentle Giant - I Lost My Head


Download Gentle Giant


Saturday, August 18, 2012

Gordon in the morning: That's enough Ed

There's a really strange bit leading off Bizarre this morning, built around a letter Nick Mason has written defending the Ed Sheeran Floyd cover at the Olympic Closing Ceremony.

Gordon thinks this is one in the eye for Floyd fans who were unimpressed:

So-called Floyd fans had even turned on Ed’s teenage fans, who thought he was playing a new song at the event.

But all the abuse looks ridiculous now that the man himself has given Ed a pat on the back for his efforts on the prog-rockers’ hit Wish You Were Here. The drummer, who performed the song with Ed, Mike Rutherford from Genesis and Richard Jones of The Feeling, has sent the Suffolk star a life-affirming letter.

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/4493570/Pink-Floyds-Nick-Mason-defends-Ed-Sheeran-after-fans-confuse-his-cover-of-Wish-You-Were-Here-as-a-new-song-from-singer.html#ixzz23t9dCb3x
In Gordon's mind, then, there are Pink Floyd fans who thought that Mason playing the song onstage, with Sheeran, wasn't any sign that he was happy for it to happen, but will accept it now there's a signed document.

Smart also has a bemusing reference to Mother Teresa:
IF Mother Teresa had been on Twitter, some halfwit would give her a hard time about having crap sandals.
So he appears to be comparing 'doing a cover song badly' with 'working tirelessly in the slums of Calcutta with the poor'; and, to be honest, I think most people would have been too busy asking the nun why she forced people to convert to Catholicism before helping them rather than worrying about sandals.

Perhaps most befuddling of all, though, is this:
Let's not even bother with the misspelling of "no" - so many people from Wapping are spending so much time with police and solicitors these days it's a miracle there's anyone left around to do any publishing at all - and just try and work out what the headline is supposed to mean. Isn't the point of the story that Mason hopes Sheeran fans will investigate the Floyd back catalogue, which would surely mean that we do need education? Or is ed-ucation meant to be taking a lesson from Ed? The pun would work, but would be meaningless.

It's all rather strange. But I bet Mother Theresa would be able to make sense of it all.


Venuewatch: The Birkbeck Taven

Leyton's Birkbeck Tavern is sitting under the threat of closure, which would result in another small live venue vanishing to make room for flats.

How much of a loss would it be? Here's the Morning Star's James Eagle enthusing over the Whats Cookin' nights, some of which take place at the pub:

"Over the last few years, in London and doubtless beyond, a few venues have been reviving the spirit of the old folk clubs - and rehabilitating the reputation of pub gigs after years of tribute acts and ageing blues bands - with nights that are intimate, welcoming, run for love not profit and, above all, uproarious fun.

What's Cookin' is one such, a labour of love run from a variety of frills-free pubs around the no-nonsense east London suburb of Leytonstone. The music it's dedicated to - country, blues, bluegrass and old-time rock'n'roll - isn't going to grace NME, but it will win the hearts of any doubter who drops in.

The "come in for free, pay what you like" ethos hasn't stopped acts like Billy Childish, Damien Jurado, Emily Barker, Pete Molinari, the Singing Adams or the Southern Tenant Folk Union from turning up to deliver shows that are still talked about."
(If we could just have a sidebar here, the fact that a venue can be pulling in acts like Billy Childish and Pete Molinari and yet be invisible to the NME might explain some of the problems that other venerable institution is having.)

There's a petition online to save the Birkbeck To be honest it should probably have skipped the bit about John Lennon, but is still deserving of your support.


Friday, August 17, 2012

RIAA feeling the pinch

As the major labels slide towards the exit, times are getting tougher for their cartel organisation. TorrentFreak has looked at the RIAA's finances:

In its most recent filing the RIAA lists 72 people on the payroll compared to 117 two years earlier. In total these employees earned $12.7 million of which nearly 25% went into the pockets of the top two executives.

The top earner in the year ending March 2011 was Mitch Bainwol (CEO) with $1.75 million a year with a working week of 50 hours. Current CEO Cary Sherman (then President) came in second with $1.37 million.

Other high income employees were Neil Turkewitz (EVP International), Steve Marks (General Counsel) and Mitch Glazier (Public Policy & Industry Relations) with $696,036, $675,528 and $599,661 respectively.
They're still doing nicely; and the cash paid to lobbyists is still high - USD2.3million spunked away on trying to distort the legislative process.

But the good times are coming to an end as the money dries up:
The total revenue in the latest filing is $29.1 million, down from $51.35 million two years earlier.
Given the main business of the RIAA has been to stop piracy, and its success has been markedly poor, is it any wonder that the cash is draining away?


Alanis Morissette isn't that ironic

The Guardian asks Alanis Morissette how she feels being at the heart of comedy 'some of the things in Ironic aren't actually irony' trope:

I wouldn't say [I'm] bored, I would say interested because I love to get to the underbelly of why things bug people so much. People must be very at odds with the idea of being profoundly stupid. I mean, malapropisms; big fucking deal. It's kind of like in traffic when you're yelling at someone for cutting you off and you're cutting someone off too.
Hang about, Alanis, that sounds like one of those things in the song that you describe as ironic but isn't... I fear you might be making the world collapse in on itself.


Dave Mustaine fingers Obama for mass shootings

Dave Mustaine might seem like a gun-cocked nutcase, but, hey, you wouldn't be accusing Obama of the Aurora shootings without evidence, would you?

“Back in my country, my president is trying to pass a gun ban, so he's staging all of these murders,” Mustaine told the crowd [at a Megadeath gig in Singapore]. “Like the 'Fast And Furious' thing down at the border and Aurora, Colorado, all the people that were killed there and now the beautiful people at the Sikh temple."

"I don't know where I'm going to live if America keeps going the way it's going because it looks like it's turning into Nazi America."
See? He's got the evidence of, um, some sort of vague feeling, right, that's there's a Nazi-style conspiracy.

Before we even start, let's not forget that Dave Mustaine is, like Donald Trump and many other people who would object strongly to be called racists, is a birther. Although Mustaine claims that despite pushing the line that Obama isn't American, he isn't a birther any more than he's a racist:
Megadeth guitarist Dave Mustaine said in an interview with a Canadian television show “The Hour” that he “has a lot of questions about him [President Obama], but certainly not where he was born. I know he was born somewhere else than America.”

“Well, then you’re a birther,” said host George Stroumboulopoulos, who had asked Mustaine directly whether he was one.

“No I’m not calling a question to it, I just, you know, what’s the point?” Mustaine said, who then proceeded to say that Obama had been “invisible” until he became President.
Mustaine has such a lose grip on reality, it's possible when he says Obama was invisible before he became president, he might mean that literally. It's not known if Mustaine believes that Obama has magikal powers to make himself vanish, or is in possession of some sort advanced technology cloaking device.

Seriously, if Obama had been invisible, how would people have spotted him at Jeremiah Wright's church?

So, Mustaine is in Singapore telling his fans about how America is going all Nazi-like. Singapore. A country which, according to Amnesty, "continue[s] to threaten and punish government critics, using sweeping criminal and civil defamation laws." It's a bit like going to Wisconsin and trying to tell them that your home makes a lot of cheese.

But, despite the fact Mustaine's political worldview seems to be drawn entirely from Astons shown on Fox News, let's do him the honour of taking his central challenge seriously.
[M]y president is trying to pass a gun ban, so he's staging all of these murders
The logical conclusion of this claim would be that the NRA is a front for the Democratic party - pushing for lax gun law to create a climate in which it's easy for even people like Dave Mustaine to buy guns, making these staged murders seem plausible.

If Obama wanted to bring in draconian gun laws, why would he need to stage anything? In 2010, there were 8,775 firearm murders in the US. That'd be all you really need to stand up and say 'maybe we should take some guns out the equation', right?

Maybe Mustaine thinks that Obama spent the first year of his administration setting up all those killings, right, Dave?

Still, maybe these were staged murders. So in the wake of Aurora, Obama was sweeping around calling for the Nazi-style ripping of guns from the cold, dead hearts of NRA members, was he?

Here he is using Aurora as a pretext for a house-to-house search of every building in America, removing all firearms and disarming the US populace forever:
"I, like most Americans, believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual the right to bear arms," Obama told the National Urban League convention in New Orleans. "I think we recognize the traditions of gun ownership that passed on from generation to generation. That hunting and shooting are part of a cherished national heritage."

Obama continued: "But I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals. That they belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities. I believe the majority of gun owners would agree we should do everything possible to prevent criminals and fugitives from purchasing weapons, and we should check someone's criminal record before they can check out a gun seller."
Maybe it's just me, but that doesn't sound especially Nazi-like.

In effect, then, Dave Mustaine believes that Obama has staged at least three mass-killings in order to enforce a draconian vague sense that perhaps background checks could be a little tighter and, you know, that perhaps it's not a good idea to let criminals own guns.

That would be on a par with staging a car crash outside a Tony Carvery so that you can surreptitiously take an extra Yorkshire Pudding from the buffet without anyone noticing.

It's not even as if you need to make shit up about Obama being involved in extrajudicial killings - he's got a list he uses for that.

Perhaps the last word, though, belongs to Carli Richards. She was in the cinema the night of the shooting, and has the wounds to prove it. What does she make of Mustaine's views?
“Everybody is emotional at this time and needs to blame somebody, I guess,” Richards told the gossip website. “I don't think they realize the consequences of not being responsible for your own actions and James Holmes needs to be held accountable for his, to whatever way the justice system deems fit."


Thursday, August 16, 2012

Numbers Mortifying Endlessly

The January - June 2012 circulation figures for NME have been announced today (difficult period, what with the handover of the editor and everything). They're neither surprising nor encouraging, an average circulation of 23,924 per issue.

They were distributing 27,650 issues a week in the second half of last year; in January-June 2011, it was 29,020. That's 17.5% gone in a year.

Rumours suggest that a merger with The Dandy is being considered.


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

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

The former Oasis star only gave his blessing for a re-worked version of Wonderwall to be included at 10pm on the Friday night before the big London gig on Sunday.
[...]
[Noel said] “I took it to Friday night at 10pm before I said yes and they were s******* it. Not Beady Eye but the organisers.”
Ha ha, that will have shown Liam, erm, something, right? Never mind it's dicking round the hundreds of people trying to pull together the show. Do they give hollow gold medals for pyrrhic victories?

We are now, by the way, firmly in the bit where Noel is desperately trying to stress that he was asked, you know, but turned it down:
Noel said: “I asked who else is playing and they said, ‘I can’t tell you. You’ve got to sign a confidentiality agreement’. It’s like it’s the Iran nuclear programme or something.
Noel struggling with the concept of surprise a little, there.

The latest reason for not bothering is they wanted him to mime, apparently:
“But if you’re in a stadium with 80,000 people and you’re pretending... I said I could play live and one of the organisers said, ‘It’s a big gig’ and I was like, ‘Really? I do this for a living’.
Most of the millions who watched the event will never hear Noel's wheezy "yeah, they wanted me to do it, but I didn't" pleading, you know.


Rihanna reaches number one. Actually, she's sold a few more copies than that.

A notable week this week, as Rihanna claims a record she'd probably rather not have: The first album to reach number one in the UK with sales below 10,000 copies.

Rather than wonder if their pricing and product is correct, the record labels want to simply fudge the way the chart works to stop it being embarrassing when Rihanna is compared with, say, Ed Sheeran's sales:

But with streaming services like Spotify luring digital buyers from iTunes, record companies believe that album “plays” should be included in the charts.
How would that work, actually? There was a statistic a while back which suggested the average number of plays for each CD purchased in the US was less than one, which would suggest that the 9,000-odd physical sales should count as something less than that if plays were being considered, which doesn't make sense.

How about accepting that the album was never anything more than a side-effect of how much you could fit on a disc, and perhaps dropping the album chart altogether? Add those 9,000 sales to the single sales for each of the individual tracks?


Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Fifteen million pounds buys a lot of imagination

Ding ding ding dingy ding
Imagine no possessions

A rare opportunity to purchase a luxuriously finished family home, formerly owned by John Lennon, set in about 1.5 acres of exquisite gardens within the renowned St George’s Hill Estate.
I wonder if you can?
Kenwood is situated at the heart of the exclusive St George’s Hill Estate, acknowledged as one of the UK’s premier private residential addresses. The house occupies a superb plateau position set around St George’s Hill’s renowned golf course, tennis club and leisure amenities.
No need for greed or hunger
Kenwood overlooks magnificent landscaped gardens and grounds and enjoys uninterrupted views of the Surrey Hills. At the bottom of the garden there is a wonderful addition in the form of an indoor swimming pool complex offering a heated pool, shower and changing facilities along with further sauna.
A brotherhood of man
The mature landscaped gardens and grounds feature attractive York stone, split level entertaining terraces, low box hedging, specimen plants and herbaceous borders extending to approximately 1.5 acres (0.6 ha).
Imagine all the people sharing all the world
This unique house boasts substantial entertaining and family accommodation incorporating many original features alongside a luxury finish.

6 bedrooms
6 reception rooms
6 bathrooms
1110.41 sqm
Garden
Land
Secondary accommodation
Swimming Pool
Private Parking
1.50 acres (0.6 hectares)
Freehold
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one...
Knight Frank is selling Lennon's old ascetic home.


Gordon in the morning: When life gives you Lemons

It might be hard to believe, but I'm given to understand that the NHS has failed to put A&E teams around the country on stand-by, despite Keith Lemon "guest editing" Gordon Smart's column this morning. And yet, surely, there will be an influx of split sides, right?

The idea of giving a newspaper column to a one-note comedy character, with a prepubescent interest in giggling at women's breasts in lieu of a punchline was never going to be a good idea, and look what it's resulted in: He's invited Keith Lemon to do some pieces for him.

I think you can imagine what it's like.


Tuesday, August 14, 2012

George Michael: Olympic song was a treat

You know when George Michael went on the Closing Ceremony and did that dirgey new thing that's supposed to be his new single, when even Liam Gallagher swallowed it and just did the hits?

It turns out playing a song that is so anonymous is could actually be hacking the US Justice Department website right now was some sort of generous gesture.

E! has the explanation:

"Had a GREAT time at the closing! I hope you are not bothered by the press reports of my scandalous 'promotion' !!!" he tweeted.

Michael later added, "Please join me in telling them to f--k off! It was my one chance on tv to thank you all for your loyalty and prayers, and I took it. And I don't regret it."
It's nice that Michael wanted to thank people for their loyalty, although if he really wanted to thank his fans, he could have played a song that they wanted to hear. Okay, the chances of him doing Wham! Rap as a thank you might have been slim - that'd be the sort of thanks appropriate if someone had donated you a kidney or something - but, c'mon, how about Everything She Wants?

There's something a bit self-aware, I suppose, at Michael thinking he might not find himself on TV again any time soon. Doesn't really balance out the belief that there's a subset of The Largest TV Audience For Years that is People Who Are Loyal To George Michael to make that the right platform, mind.


Like no Breakfast Show ever

I'm not entirely sure that there's ever before been a point where 'BBC invite pitches to supply beds and jingles for Radio One programme' has ever constituted a general-interest news story before. Today it has, though. Mainly because nobody is going to have to find a rhyme for "Grimshaw":

In a document sent to music firms, the station said it was looking to commission a new theme different to previous shows.

It said the theme must "sound slickly produced and original" and feature "live instrumentation and an identifying motif (logo)".

The Radio 1 breakfast show with Nick Grimshaw begins on 24 September.

"The new breakfast show will sound young, exciting, big and confident," the document goes on.

"It needs to stand out and not sound like any previous BBC Radio 1 breakfast shows. Please steer clear of sung jingles and variants of breakfast themes and identities past and present."
Excuse me, I've got a thirty page document I have to remove all references to "Arnold the dog - but this time with lasers" from.


Hope they save the kittens from dying before I get old

As the Olympic closing ceremony limped on, NBC got bored and shoved on a comedy about sick and injured animals instead:

Now NBC is trying to explain its actions. An NBC spokesperson announced today that “As we previously announced, a special commercial free preview of ‘Animal Practice’ was scheduled towards the end of last night’s broadcast of the Olympics Closing Ceremony. Prior to the break, viewers were informed that the final act and wrap up of the Closing Ceremony would follow later that evening. “
To be fair, I suspect there must have been a few people at the BBC wondering if they should have just lobbed out Live At The Apollo in the slot it had been scheduled for...


Gordon in the morning: Gordon in the limelight

Rather than bothering with Bizarre this morning, instead here's a quick look at a story in MediaGuardian where the fallout from scuttlebutt about Louis Walsh continues.

Last year, The Sun had to apologise to Walsh after admitting its story claiming he was being "probed" over a "sex attack" was total bollocks. It continued to unravel, as the Sun's "source" and claimed victim Leonard Watters was sent to jail.

Walsh, though, still has a burning curiosity about how the story came to be published in The Sun, and on Friday, a Judge in the Irish Republic ordered the paper to hand over all its paperwork:

The judge ruled on Friday that Walsh was entitled to all documents associated with the investigation by the newspaper's crime writer Joanne McElgunn. He also directed that the newspaper should provide all documents identifying or referring to any payments made or offered by the newspaper to Watters and statements of McElgunn's expenses.

The documentation must include the booking of a hotel room for Watters, bank statements, text messages, emails and records of phone calls.

The orders, made by Mr Justice Iarfhlaith O'Neill, also apply to The Sun's editor, Dominic Mohan, its Irish editor Michael McNiff and the editor of its Bizarre column, Gordon Smart.
Still, I'm sure everything will be in order.