Saturday, March 01, 2014

One Direction want you to put Twitter down

Liam Payne is fretting about connected kids:

The 'Story of My Life' hitmakers are all avid users of social networking sites such as Twitter and Instagram but Liam Payne thinks their younger fans shouldn't be using them and that they should be focusing on having fun instead.

He said: ''When I think about it, I do start to worry about this whole social media thing. It does make me uncomfortable; kids should be out, living their lives, getting out and enjoying themselves.''
I imagine if I got 37,000 tweets every ten seconds saying "LIAM OMIGOD FOLLOW ME PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE", I'd probably want Twitter to be banned for anyone yet to reach puberty, too.


Two turntables and a singing microphone toy: Beck v Bieber

Some excellent pomposity-puncturing work over at CBC, where they offer you the chance to see if you can tell the difference between Beck and Justin Bieber lyrics.

They reckon it's harder than you might think.

It might just be the last of Beck's dignity ebbing away, that sound you hear.


Friday, February 28, 2014

Gatecrasher close gates on repayments

The collapse of megaclub company Gatecrasher is going to leave 230 creditors with losses, after the company was taken into a totally legal flatpack insolvency. The Birmingham Post explains:

A progress report into the ‘pre-pack’ administration of the Birmingham-based nightclub group reveals that 233 creditors have been left out of pocket to the tune of £2,081,840.

The report, by administrators Duff and Phelps, said: “Based upon the current information available, there will be insufficient realisations to enable a distribution to the non-preferential unsecured creditors of the companies.”

The cash blow for creditors comes six months after Broad Street-based Gatecrasher went bust when its owners piled up multi-million pound debts.
[...]
A statement last year from Gatecrasher managing director Simon Raine said: “Substantial external equity funding is in place to allow the immediate progression of Gatecrasher’s expansion plans.

“Critically we have a new direction and will return to producing the global events and festivals that originally made the brand a worldwide clubbing phenomenon.”

But an unnamed creditor owed several thousands of pounds told the Post: “Some of the DJs, for example, are owed thousands. They kept saying ‘the cheque is in the post’ but it never arrived.

“Loads of people have been affected by this. I definitely would not work for these people again – the thing that is really annoying is that they can just walk away from their obligations, leaving all those people out of pocket.

“And the sad thing is that the law is on their side. Millions have been written off and it makes you sick.”
There's a support group for those who've lost out on Facebook; Birmingham University's Guild of Students are advising their members to avoid working with the "new" Gatecrasher.


Thursday, February 27, 2014

You, YouTube & The Music revisited

Robin Carmody just pointed out that out of three great music moments in a 2006 post, the only one remaining active was a Jam appearance which is such awful quality it's unlikely even Weller could identify himself in the clip.

This calls for a revisit.

So... here's a rebuilt version, this time with embeds.

First, here's Britney Spears doing Toxic on Blue Peter:


Some classic 'point camera at TV' work there.

As a bonus, here's Britney doing I Was Born To Make You Happy on BP:


Next up, Stevie Wonder doing Superstition. On Sesame Street:


And, finally, once again, it's The Jam on Tiswas. Think of it as a Public Information Film about the risks of video tape degradation:


Dollywood meets Pilton Pop


NME Awards 2014: On the other hand...

While that last post and list of winners suggests the NME Awards had all the attractiveness of pork chops poorly cooked six weeks past expiration dates, they did at least provide an excuse for this to happen:



Yes, that's Metronomy with Mutya Keisha Siobhan doing Love Letters last night. It doesn't quite hang together as well as you might have hoped, but it's nice it happened at all.


NME Awards 2014: Did they mention the Arctic Monkeys?

Well, now this week's NME Arctic Monkeys propaganda-style cover makes sense. How could they treat Alex Turner's toe-curling performance at the Brits as anything other than triumphant, knowing there were six million NME Awards in the cupboard with his name on, to be distributed this week.

Here's that list of NME Awards winners in full:

Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys
Lily Allen
Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys

Lily Allen? Oh, yes. The best solo artist. According to the NME. You might recall her work in the time period that voting covered was Hard Out Here, and a cover of a sodding Keane tune to sell some soft furnishing.

To be fair, she was in a category where she was up against McCartney, Kanye West and Bowie, so it was a bit of a Hobson's choice category - there wasn't really any way you could vote for anyone new or fresh.

But let's face it, these awards are the NME's chance to show it knows what's going on, and on the awards page on the website there's this:

Yeah, the NME is still trying to sell Christmas subscriptions at the end of February.

Here's the actual list of winners in full:
Godlike Genius
Blondie

Songwriters' Songwriter
Paul McCartney

Award For Innovation
Damon Albarn

Teenage Cancer Trust Outstanding Contribution to Music Award
Belle & Sebastian

Best British Band supported by Windows Phone
Arctic Monkeys

Best International Band supported by Austin, Texas
Haim

Best Solo Artist
Lily Allen

Best New Band supported by Mossimo
Drenge

Best Live Band supported by Gig Buddy
Arctic Monkeys

Best Album supported by PS4 InFAMOUS Second Son
Arctic Monkeys, 'AM'

Best Track supported by Blackstar Amps
Disclosure, 'White Noise'

Best Music Video supported by Domino's
Eagulls, 'Nerve Endings'

Best Festival
Glastonbury

Best TV Show
Breaking Bad

Best Music Film
Made Of Stone

Philip Hall Radar Award supported by Monster Headphones
Fat White Family

Best Reissue
The Clash, 'Sound System'

Best Band Blog Or Twitter
Alana Haim, Haim

Best Book
Morrissey, Autobiography

Best Small Festival
Swn


Wednesday, February 26, 2014

What the pop papers say: Turner over, it's done

For the last few weeks I've been telling people that the NME had turned a corner, and that it was packing something of a punch in a way that it hadn't for years.

And then it does this.

Genuinely, despite having watched the Brits and liveblogged them, I had no idea what speech they were talking about. After all, the speech that actually did create a minor stir was Kate Moss-as-David Bowie mutter about Scottish independence; if anyone did mention Turner after the event was over it was 'what the hell was he babbling about' and by the following morning even that had been forgotten. To claim that people are still talking about it a week later is a bit of a stretch.

And the cover itself?

Oh, my.

But the Neneh Cherry piece inside? That's worth reading. To be fair, you probably wouldn't want to have put Cherry on the front page, either, but at least you'd be showcasing what's great about the magazine at the moment.


Ruslana: from Eurovision to minister

So, as part of the turmoil in Ukraine, it looks like Ruslana might end up as a minister in the new government.

Not unprecedented for a Eurovision star to go on to join government, of course; Dana went on to become President of Ireland; Nana Mouskouri became an MEP and Bardo were junior ministers in the Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries during Thatcher's second term.


Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Jonathan Davis wants you to wake up, Sheeple

Can you not see, people? Obama is controlling Miley Cyrus' butt. Jonathan Davis says so:

And what's really going on, according to the Korn singer, is that President Obama is using Miley Cyrus to distract America while be becomes a tyrannical dictator. As evidence, Davis points to January 2012, when Obama signed a law that let the government hold citizens indefinitely without trial while everyone else was reading about Miley Cyrus and a penis cake.
Given that Miley Cyrus is in the newspapers every day, and mostly either waggling her arse, or eating a cake made out of penises, or kissing a animatronic Katy Perry, Obama wouldn't really have to worry about creating a distracting sideshow. There's always going to be one along sooner or later.
On February 17, Jonathan Davis appeared on the conspiracy program "The Alex Jones Show."
He hold the host "It seems really sad that everybody's so asleep and oblivious to the fact that the country uses the media to capture people's attention or take away from the fact that what's going on with our country. It really freaked me out when the whole Miley Cyrus thing was going on, and when that went down, [President] Barack [Obama] passed that new law that he can imprison anyone he wants and he doesn't have to charge them and he can keep them as long as he wants.
So what does Davis think is going on? He explained "Basically, all our liberties are being taken away one by one, and finally, I feel like it's time... I've gotta do something and try and get as many people as we can to wake up and see what's really going on."
Although Obama first signed an NDAA which allowed this to happen in December 2011. Perhaps Davis had been distracted by the Katy Perry/Russell Brand divorce.

Obviously, that would have been arranged by Obama too. Or the people controlling him.
Davis told Jones "I mean, I've said it before. I think he's an illuminati puppet. It just doesn't make sense, the whole thing. The guy comes from out of nowhere, he gets made president, all this stuff starts happening. I don't know... It just didn't make sense to me. And to top top it off, I'm not really a political person, I don't know much about it, I'm just worried about my privacy and my children's privacy. This being America, we're supposed to be the 'land of the free,' and it's becoming a police state."
Except Obama didn't come out of "nowhere". Perhaps if you'd not been so distracted making your terrible music, Jonathan, you'd have spotted him climbing up the ranks.

But hang on... how do we know that Davis isn't PART OF THE CONSPIRACY? What if he's just talking about penis cakes and doing shows about vomit to MISDIRECT US TOTALLY? How do we know that he's not just letting ALEX JONES SECRETLY PULL ALL OF THE STRINGS? HOW? H
Unfortunately, the rest of this post has been lost. If you'd like to read the rest of it, please ring up the Pentagon and say 'I know'. You can use any number to ring the Pentagon; they'll be monitoring them all.


LCD Soundsystem are playing in my transit system

James Murphy wants to bring a bit of music to city life. Specifically, New York City, and more specifically, he wants to upgrade the beep of subway gates into something more edifying:

What i propose to do is to create a series of 3 to 5 note sequences, all unique, one for each station in the subway system. These sequences will be part of an intersecting larger piece of music, which would run from station to station, and cross one another as, say, the 4, 5, 6 line (one musical piece) intersects with the L, N, R, Q and W (another musical piece) at Union Square. At each turnstile in Union Square, as you tap your new tap and ride card, a pleasant bell tone will sound, in one of a set of possible notes, all related to that station's note sequence. The effect would be that at the busiest times, like rush hour, what was once cacophony would now be music.
It won't stop the subway being a place of eye-darting fear and urine stenches, but it might just help.

On the other hand, you might arrive at your destination unable to get the subway music out of your head. That could be worse.


Monday, February 24, 2014

Simon Bates eased out by Smooth

With so many clouds hanging over former Radio One DJs, it's rare to hear of one being dropped simply because there's no place for him at his current station any more.

But that's what's happened to Simon Bates, leaving Smooth not because of Yewtree or pretending to be a car salesperson:

"Andrew Castle, Kate Garraway, Tina Hobley and Myleene Klass joining Smooth tell you just how seriously Global takes the launch of Smooth, and the focus and investment we're putting behind this brand," said [ Ashley] Tabor.

"It's a further demonstration of our core strategy of 'national brands delivered locally', and it's very important to us. As Smooth becomes one of the country's biggest commercial radio brands, we're investing to make it bigger and better for our listeners and advertisers."
Yes, nothing says 'we're taking this radio station seriously' like putting a tennis player and one of Holby City in roles previously done by radio presenters.


Insurance salesman joins radio station

Iggy Pop, who used to sell insurance on the television until he was replaced by some talking dogs, has got a new job, presenting a programme on 6Music:


Miley Cyrus is on tour

That she kissed Katy Perry [warning: shit website where videos autoplay] comes as no surprise.

But... bringing on the Flaming Lips and doing Yoshimi twice?

That's perhaps a little more surprising. And probably doing as much to take the shine off the Flaming Lips as her tired 'look at me' Perry kissage undermines bisexuality everywhere.


Sunday, February 23, 2014

Battle rages over Nicki Minaj's head

Really, the greatest thing about hairpiece maker Terrence Davidson launching a lawsuit against Nicki Minaj is that it's not everyday you get to see this headline:

Wig Designer Sues Pop Star


This week just gone

What Facebookers have found most interesting this year:

1. MTV sees women at gigs; provides 'how to get off with women at gigs' advice
2. Alfie Boe will humiliate you, laugh about it later
3. Brits 2014: The Liveblog
4. Panic! As PATD make venue collapse
5. Small royalty cheques checked
6. Cliff, Tom and Mozzer
7. Are you Eminem?
8. That last Mark & Lard show in full
9. INXS singer ends up sleeping in a car
10. Robbie Williams: 49% gay, 100% wrong

Interesting releases this week:


Guided By Voices - Motivational Jumpsuit


Download Motivational Jumpsuit



Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire


Download Burn Your Fire



Dawn Landes - Bluebird


Download Bluebird



Suzy Bogguss - Lucky


Download Lucky



Baader Meinhof - Baader Meinhof


Download Baader Meinhof