Many hundreds of people have found their way to this blog by searching for Lily Allen, so on behalf of those people and myself I would like to say to Lily that we are all thinking of her at this sad time. Lily suffered her second miscarriage, this was at quite a late stage in the pregnancy. Hopefully the paparazzi won’t be hounding her for a while. You can read the report on the BBC Newsbeat site.
Gaga in disguise with glasses!
Apparently an US university has now dedicated a course to none other than Lady Gaga. The University of South Carolina now lets you enrol on a sociology course which is dedicated to the life, work, music and rise to fame of Gaga. The lecturer Professor Mathieu Deflem is a fan, as you might have guessed. The Professor is also partial to Frank Zappa, Prince, Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, Status Quo and Ritchie Blackmore. the course also has its own blog, click here to see it. Read the BBC report here.
Now these next pictures completely passed me by, but Rihanna did a rather titillating photo shoot for the Russian GQ earlier this year. What do you think?
A collection of randomness awaits you in today’s post. Starting with a rather bizarre picture that was sent to me last week. Now obviously I read a lot of conspiracy theories (I don’t believe most of them though) and I have also read Ira Levin‘s ‘The Boys From Brazil‘ So from all that wealth of knowledge I have gleaned that most of the top Nazis from the 2nd World War disappeared to South America after the war, possibly including Adolf Hitler himself. Personally I never believed that at all and I believe that the picture below, which was taken on a London Bus recently clearly proves that Hitler is not in South America, but that he is in fact residing in Shepherds Bush in London. Is that Eva Braun with him or is it his Mother?
Hitler Hiels a bus!
OK so like I’ve said loads of times this is a music blog so here is a song that mentions Mr Hitler. It’s one of my favourite songs and this is undeniably a great excuse to play it, please enjoy the Clash with “White Man In The Hammersmith Palais”
Some rather sad news now, Sony is finally retiring the Walkman after 30 years of sterling service, I owned one in the early 80s although I can only imagine that a Walkman in a cupboard must feel like Woody in Toy Story when Buzz Lightyear arrives. In this case of course Buzz Lightyear represents the MP3 player or iPod. I read a brilliant post about the demise of the Walkman on the Barely Awake In Frog Pajamas blog. Click here to check it out, you’ll find some top tunes there too! You can also read about it in the Guardians Music Blog.
RIP - the Sony Walkman
What better song to play at the Walkman wake than “C30, C60, C90 Go” by Bow Wow Wow which includes wonderful lyrics such as “C30 C60 C90 Go, off the radio I get a constant flow, hit it, pause it, record it and play, turn it, rewind, and rub it away”
Did you know that Tina Turner once advertised Pearl Drops, way back in 1972? She should have sponsored fright wigs, especially at Halloween!
It’s not too late to save the 100 Club, just click here and contribute, I have! There has been live music at the venue since 1942 when it opened as the Feldman Swing Club. In 1976 it hosted the International Punk Festival which featured the Sex Pistols, Siouxse and the Banshees, Buzzcocks, the Damned and the Clash. More recently bands such as Gallows and the Automatic have released tracks recorded at their gigs at the 100 Club. Click here to see a comprehensive list of acts that have played the club. Watch the Jam performing at the 100 Club in 1977 below.
Sir Elton found writing pop songs a real pig these days, so he decided to leave to those X Factor muppets
Sir Elton John has said that he will no longer be releasing singles, he says that he is not able to compete in the singles Pop Charts with the likes of JLS and Lady Gaga. He says he will continue with what he calls fun side projects, like with the Scissor Sisters. He will also explore elements of his own musical heroes, like his current release with Leon Russell. Click here to read details of the story, which is taken from a GQ interview, on the BBC site.
This is a post for those regular readers that prefer looking at pictures! 🙂
Before she was famous the one time Ms Germanotta appeared in a public service film about sexual harassment. Clearly in those days she had no hype nor outrageous dress sense and indeed no “Paparazzi” either!
She is not the only star that has an old film in their closet. Check out this one from David Bowie, where as David Jones he represents the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-haired Men in an interview with Cliff Michelmore.
To accompany that here is a little compilation of Bowie’s hairstyles from the 60s through to 1990.
So then these two videos got me thinking that I ought to add a few pictures of music stars as young people or kids. Can you guess who these ones are? What do you think of them?
Today saw the sad news that Ari Up of the Slits has died aged just 48 from a serious illness. The news was first announced on John Lydon‘s website, he is married to Ari’s mother Nora. Her real name was Arianna Forster and she started the Slits aged just 14 in 1976. The band released two albums; ‘Cut’ in 1979 (one of my favourite albums) and ‘Return Of The Giant Slits’ in 1981. The band split up shortly after that although they did recently reform. Their drummer has been playing with Lydon’s reformed Public Image Limited (aka PIL). Ari released a solo album in 2005, entitled ‘Dread More Dan Dread’. Read the NME report here. She will be sadly missed. Ari Up RIP.
In some less important news the current wave of public sector strikes in France have meant the cancellation of a series of gigs in the country by Lady Gaga. There were concerns that the trucks with all the equipment, instruments and costumes would not be able to get to their destinations owing to many roads being blockaded by strikers. Ticket holders are being offered refunds and Gaga has apologised to her fans. The BBC story is here.
Clearly the costume truck hadn't arrived!
Finally a rather strange bit of news, well I think so anyway, Liverpool FC flew to their Europa League match in Naples in a plane piloted by Bruce Dickinson off of Iron Maiden! Appropriately enough the scousers skill and talent has “Run To The Hills” this season. It didn’t bring the Reds a great deal of luck, they only managed a nil-nil draw. Read the story on the BBC.
Maybe they should have renamed it Red Force One for the flight
Yet another smorgasbord of random stuff today, starting with a link to a rather spiffing website; Animated Albums. Most of them are quite subtle and many are very funny, especially a few of the Morrissey ones. I’d love to know what you think of them.
The NME has a report that Slash is moving into making horror movies. The former Guns ‘n’ Roses and Velvet Revolver Axe Hero is moving into Axeman territory. He says he wants to make horror movies as scary and thrilling as those of the 70s and 80s. I guess working with Axl Rose must have been like being in a horror movie at times. I hope he succeeds. Read the story here.
Slash has tea with Ozzy, that's not very rock n roll is it? But wait, who's that in the maids outfit? It's certainly not Sharon is it!
As part of the celebrations for what would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday his widow Yoko Ono has done a number of things to mark the occasion. Firstly courting controversy among some Beatles purists by allowing Lady Gaga to pose next to Lennon’s white piano. She also held two concerts in LA billed as We Are Plastic Ono Band and including appearances by the following; Perry Farrell off of Jane’s Addiction, Japanese electronic auteur Cornelius, Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto, Tune-Yards, RZA off of the Wu-Tang Clan, Iggy Pop, Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Mike Watt, Nels Cline, Sean Lennon, Carrie Fisher, Joseph Gordon-Levitt,Vincent Gallo and of course Lady Gaga. Yoko was joined by Gaga for a number of songs, including a version of Lennon’s “Give Peace A Chance”. Read the NME report here
Lady Gaga decided to try microphone swallowing before she committed to sword swallowing
Well I know it’s been a long while since my last post, but nowhere near as long as the seven years since the Dame’s last album. I have been able to console myself a bit this week though with the reissue of “Station To Station” which also includes the excellent and popularly bootlegged Nassau Coliseum gig from 1976. This is all from his Thin White Duke period, which was all rather dark and European. In addition Bowie gets his first NME cover for a long while with the strap line that he is apparently now more influential than ever. Personally ever since I first saw Lady Gaga I felt there was more of a Bowie influence than the easier Madonna option used by the tabloids. There is also the news that he will be publishing a book, not an autobiography but a collection of pictures from his own archives accompanied by some insightful witticisms into his life. It will be called ‘Bowie: Object’ and is supposedly the first in a series, but let’s wait and see shall we. The “Outside” album was supposed to be the first in a series of three, but remains a series of one!
The Station To Station cover with a still from Nic Roeg's 'The Man Who Fell To Earth'
So all in all a lot of Bowie activity, but we’d still like a new album sometime soon Dave!
The NME also included a ’50 things you should know about David Bowie‘ article, which you can click here to read. Why not take a guess at the one from the 50 that I didn’t know before
The cover of the Wembley Empire Pool bootleg - I was at that very gig!
And finally I must mention an excellent blog I discovered recently, it’s called ‘Pushing Ahead Of The Dame’ and is undertaking the gargantuan task of analysing every song Bowie has ever written or recorded. Click here to check it out, it’s also been added to my BlogRoll
Hello good people of the blogosphere. The regular readers amongst you may have noticed that I have been posting for a couple of weeks, that is largely because I have been on holiday in Spain. A rather lovely place nestled about halfway between Alicante and Valencia. It is called Javea and is also spelt as Xabia in Spanish, the strange thing is though that it is pronounced with an ‘H’ as in Havea. one of the reasons that I loved the place is that it is not over developed and there are hardly any English Pubs. Is there anyone out there who actually likes the idea of English pubs when abroad? Most of the UK Travel Guides give barely a mention of Javea, possibly because it is quite a popular resort with the Spanish, so maybe it is wise to keep it a secret. Catwoman and I stayed in a villa that we rented at ‘mates rates’ from friends, from there we could walk into town within 25 minutes and the drive took 5 to 10 minutes. It was great to be sitting by the pool or on the beach with the temperature in the 90s whilst the UK was very cold and wet. It was really wet when we arrived back at Leeds/ Bradford airport last night anyway.
I won’t bore you with all the details of the holiday but I will give a special mention to a couple of bars we visited;
Siesta – appropriately named as they let you hire large sun beds with canopies, you almost feel like you’re staying in one of Gaddafi’s tents. Great cocktails, great staff and some excellent chilled sounds.
Jalousie Cocktail Bar – we never sampled their proper cocktails, but the non-alcoholic ones were delicious as were their milkshakes.
Atalaya – probably one of the most chilled bars in town, you can relax in comfy sofas and look out over the sea and the beach while you drink and eat. The staff were great here too.
Obviously I need to bring this back around to music so here are a few things that happened in the music world while I was away. I haven’t done much research on these, they were in the UK newspapers that I bought or I picked them up from an occasional visit to the BBC site or just spotting other people’s newspaper headlines. I must say though that most of the news revolved around the Pope’s visit, so I’m damned glad I was out of the country.
I wonder what Morrissey thought of it?
Lady Gaga – the lady did wonders for my viewing figures while I was away, just over 30,000 in two weeks including a one day record of more than 6,000. She won 8 of her 13 nominations at the MTV awards and to celebrate she wore a meat dress. I guess she was putting her ‘steak’ in the ground or maybe she was bringing home the ‘bacon’ or giving the ‘cold shoulder’ or simply just ‘hamming it up’. Anyway it appears to have provoked a lot of debate about what meant, frankly though who gives a toss about its meaning? She is a wonderfully talented fruitloop and therefore fully qualified to grab attention in such a way and long may she continue! The BBC report includes a number of interpretations which are quite amusing in their seriousness, click here to read it.
George Michael jailed (and transferred) for driving under the influence (of dope in this case). He started off in Pentonville and was then transferred to a ‘softer’ prison. Pete Doherty and Boy George have both previously spent time in Pentonville. I have so far received many George Michael jokes as I suspect has everyone, but I won’t print those here. However the picture below is a superbly intelligent piece of graffiti. It shows the shop front of the Snappy Snaps shop that George hit with his car.
Apparently Susan Boyle and Michelle McManus were booked to sing for the Pope, although apparently he was already on his way out of the building when Susan was singing. That’s bloody rude isn’t it? Still at least he has now left the shores of our little third world country. Presumably he’s back in the Vatican now drafting a letter telling all those kiddy fiddler priests that they have been jolly naughty and not to do it again or they will be grounded for a week!
Alphonsus Cassell aka Arrow of “Hot Hot Hot” fame has died from brain cancer at his home in Montserrat. Now I reckon a Facebook campaign to get the song to number one should be kicked off, what do you think? Here he is singing the song at a benefit for Haiti in April this year.
Sacha Baron Cohen is chosen to play Freddie Mercury in the Queen biopic. The film will apparently focus on the years leading up to what many see as the pinnacle of Queen’s career, their appearance at Live Aid in 1985. Personally I think that is a great choice, I reckon Mr Cohen will really do the role justice, what do you folks think? Here are Queen at Live Aid with, appropriately for this post, “Radio Ga Ga”
I want to finish with the stupendous new song from Cee Lo Green off of Gnarls Barkley, it’s called “Fuck You” and I love it. there will be a more radio friendly version available soon, called “Forget You”
Off to the NME/ Radio tent to kick off our third day at the Reading Festival, where we saw the Joy Formidable and they were indeed a formidable joy, if you’ve not heard them you really should check them out. After that it was back to the BBC Introducing Stage to see another band from Wakefield (remember the Penguins from yesterdays post?) These guys were called the Runaround Kids and I felt that they had a bit of the Undertones about them, the vocalist also has a similar style to Luke from Reading band Steal The Smile. Next up it was Local Natives from Los Angeles and this was their first Reading appearance. I am pretty damned sure that it won’t be the last for these purveyors of great summer pop harmonies. We trundled back to the BBC Introducing Stage again after that for another local band; the Peers. Very much a local band done good, they are a really tight band and seemed incredibly well rehearsed.Los Campesinos have as many personnel as Arcade Fire and are not dissimilar in sound, a very good band indeed.
After our earlier experience in the Comedy Tent (aka Alternative Stage) we returned to see two comics in a row. First up was Charlie Baker from Devon and bears a striking resemblance to Jack Black and he uses this as part of his act, genuinely a funny guy. Secondly we saw Robin Ince; a great ‘leftie’ comedian. We actually hit the comedy tent to get out of the rain, but in spite of that Baker and Ince were bloody hilarious.
The Festival Republic Stage was the next to be graced with our presence, we went there because neither Nick or I could be bothered with Limp Bizkit on the Main Stage. At this point let me tell you Nick’s Limp Bizkit joke; “Do you know that you can now put Viagra in your tea to stop your biscuit going limp?” Boom! Boom! Anyway back to the Festival Republic Stage, the band are from Philadelphia and are called Free Energy. Sadly it was a small crowd, but these guys could work a crowd of almost any size I reckon. The lead singer was very Jaggeresque and came across like Bobby Gillespie with more funk than Primal Scream. In a nutshell an archetypal classic rock band, truly fucking amazing.
Back to the Introducing Stage yet again for the Brilliant Things. The singer appeared to have dressed for the prom or was perhaps a fan of Stevie Nicks‘ (off of Fleetwood Mac) sartorial style. Thanks to Mr H for pointing out that latter suggestion. None of that was meant as negative though, the Brilliant Things are clearly a very good band. Kele off of Bloc Party was next in the NME/ Radio 1 Tent. Electro funk and dance styles really suit him, although I’m not sure the pyjamas did though. But nonetheless he played a storming set and worked his audience really well. Exit International were then on the Introducing Stage. They played screaming hard rock with perhaps too much emphasis on the screaming. It makes you wonder though exactly how the fuck three people can make such noise.
Weezer would easily win the best crowd interaction and comedy awards for the festival if such awards exist. The singer wore a cat hat given to him by someone in the crowd for most of their set. His energy was truly phenomenal and he even found time to fall in the mud while dressed as Lady Gaga. That was during their excellent MGMT cover which had a touch of Gaga thrown in. I am looking forward to seeing them again someday too. Paramore were next, they were very good and had a strong fan base in the crowd. Personally I thought they would have fitted better if they had been on before Weezer. Hayley’s voice was a little too low in the mix for the first couple of songs. The crowd really loved them.
Finally it was time for the last headline band of this years festival and most of us in the crowd had been in position since just before Weezer’s set, those at the front had been there even longer. Yes the stage was set for the return of Blink 182. I had never seen them live before, although I had seen Mark Hoppus with +44 (Travis had a broken arm that tour so didn’t appear, I never had the chance to see Tom Delonge’s Angels And Airwaves. But however good these Blink offshoots were they were surely nowhere near as good as the sum of the original parts. Their stage set, including some strange rabbit animations and a brilliant light show was excellent, but it was the power and camaraderie of the band that really shone through. They played a blistering set, just allowing a few moments of quite amusing toilet humour style banter between songs, including a great dig at Jedward. the crowd were really fired up and everyone I spoke to really loved it.
What a great close to a great festival. although when I first saw the line up back in March I thought I’d be disappointed, I even thought this might be my last Reading. Well I wasn’t and it won’t be! Roll on Reading 2011. Who will the headliners be? I don’t know but my guess at the moment is that it could be Linkin Park and maybe Green Day. I’d be happy with either of those. Who would you like to see there next year?
A few trinkets of music news for you today. Firstly Wyclef Jean off of the Fugees seems likely to run for the presidency of Haiti in November. He has until 7th August to register. Although he now lives in Brooklyn he has always been fiercely proud of his Haitian roots. He was very prominent in supporting his fellow countrymen following the devastating earthquake in January. Personally I hope that he runs and wins the election, I suspect that he will be a breath of fresh air to politics. Read the story on the BBC by clicking here
The dress code in the Haitian Parliament was clearly far more relaxed than in Britain
It got me thinking about who we’d like to see enter politics from the music world. Clearly Bono would like to be considered, but whilst I am a U2 fan, Bono can be bloody annoying at times. I can think of a number of dead stars who might have made an interesting career in politics; John Lennon, Bob Marley and obviously Screaming Lord Sutch, who did partake very regularly in UK elections. He was also the longest-serving party leader in British politics I believe. He created and led the Monster Raving Looney Party for many years. Alice Cooper famously stood against Nixon as an independent candidate in the 1972 US elections. I think of living stars Paul Weller, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young and Jackson Browne would be good. What do you think?
In other news Lady GaGa has been nominated for a record 13 MTV Video Music Awards, next in line Eminem has just 8 nominations. GaGa is never short of a good quote and she didn’t let us down here either, having said that she was pleased that her number of nominations was an unlucky 13 she went on to say “God put me on Earth for three reasons – to make loud music, gay videos and make a damn ruckus!” I love that one! Read the story here on the BBC site, the awards themselves take place on 12th September in LA.
Sometimes GaGa just couldn’t be bothered with all the fancy dresses or maybe she was covering the Cranberries song “Linger(ie)”
In a separate story Lady GaGa has admitted to Vanity Fair magazine that she is an occasional user of cocaine. She also pointed out that she did not want her fans to take the drug. Maybe I’m a bit simple here, but if you don’t want the more gullible of your fans to do the drugs you do, then maybe not telling them might help! The BBC has the lowdown on that story, click here
Lady GaGa was so rich she could now afford to employ her own commode-bearer
Is it just me or does this little piece of news seem a little weird to you as well? Lady GaGa has become the first living person to have more than 10 million FaceBook fans. But even stranger for me is that she is only in sixth place overall. The top 5 are Texas Hold ’em Poker, Michael Jackson, Mafia Wars, Facebook and the US TV show Family Guy. She recently overtook Barack Obama who languishes on a measly 9.8 million. I’m really pleased that Farmville doesn’t get a mention though. You can click here to read the story on the BBC’s Newsbeat.
Actual proof that Elmo is in fact a skinned Ewok
Whilst we’re talking strange here is another great story from Newsbeat; Elmo off of Sesame Street sings Beyonce and Alicia Keys whilst being interviewed by the delightful Natalie Jamieson. Click here to read it. I think I prefer his Beyonce to his Alicia. Does anyone really say Hubba Hubba anymore? Apart from Elmo obviously. Did you know that before he got his big break providing vocal arrangements and backing vocals for David Bowie on the ‘Young Americans’ album a certain Mr Luther Vandross wrote and sang for Sesame Street?
'Nuff Said!
And finally on this tour of some slightly odd stories we move on to Justin Bieber. The young Canadian’s Twitter page has been the subject of what I think is an excellent prank. With no restriction on the eligible countries his ‘fans’ were asked to vote for a country he should visit. Imageboard (wtf?) website 4Chan nominated North Korea and in the past couple of days the land of Kim Jong Il has moved from 24th place to 1st. Voting closes on July 7th, so come on, you know what to do, get on over and vote for North Korea!
There have also been some altogether more nasty hacks on his videos and such. These caused his YouTube videos to link to porn sites and spurred completely unfounded rumours that he was dead and that his Mum would be posing for Playboy. Click here for the story on the Beeb
Kim Jong Il (will he ever be known as Kim Jong Well?) contemplates the visit of Mr Bieber
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 