In a bid to turn you into a beast, slathering for the new Goldfrapp album, Amazon are offering a free download of Rocket (Richard X One Zero Remix)

I'm fully expecting to see a forthcoming episode of The Apprentice where Alan Sugar puts his hapless contestants in charge of running EMI for two days. Surely, surely, that would be the only explanation for the insane decision coming from the crumbling edifice?
EMI is in talks to mortgage its back catalogue of music recordings in a last-ditch attempt to solve its mounting cash crisis.

The group is offering rival labels the chance to manage its North American catalogue business, which includes tracks by The Beatles and Blondie, for a five-year period.
Managing and monetising back catalogue is what your business is, Hands. And that would be your biggest market. What would you have left to 'save' by doing this? It's a bit like McDonalds saying 'tell you what, we'll hand that selling burgers and chips business over to someone else to ensure that we're able to continue the vital work of distributing drinking straws and tiny packets of ketchup around the country'.

Admittedly, the idea that no other company in the world could treat the EMI catalogue business as badly as Terra Firma does must make the idea seem appealing, but since all you're doing is replacing an 'in distress' flag with a 'surrender' flag, what's the point?

Still, at least the Terra Firma guys would take care who they passed the business off to. I mean, at least by flogging off the catalogue, you're keeping it out the hands of your rivals, right?
Talks on a deal began in recent weeks with Universal Music, but have since moved on to include Sony and Warner Music.
Righto. So - in order to save your company - you're planning on handing over one of the few profitable parts to your competitors?

Guy, I know you've proved adept at running the toilets on the German motorway network, but if you'd take the advice of someone who did Economics A-Level, shoveling money from your bank into the accounts of the people you're in competition with might be a bit of a rotten idea? Because when you're all trying to sign the next New Beatles, or new N-Dubz, or whatever, they're going to be able to offer more cash. Because they'll have the money you should have earned.

Thanks to H who, in the comments on yesterday's story about Graham Coxon sending a internet posse over to Queen Margot after the blog gave him a snarky review.

As H points out, Coxon eventually turned up and gracefully held up his hands:
i want to say sorry if any comments on my forum upset or angered you. i do think what you have said here is a bit childish, felt a bit slighted, thought it a bit of a random pop- and a bit cruel but..y'know...i'll survive. i do take offense to the part about handling drink..a bit glib, a bit patronising and considering how alcoholism has affected my life and many of those i know and love..i was rather hurt.....alcoholism- i was born with that...and well my middle name i am with you on but..i was born with that aswell i'm afraid.

i agree with rather alot of what you said here tho..apart from the plonker part. i did actually wear a beautiful 1950s gloverall duffel coat to the documentary premier.. you really should have got a still of that..would have proved your point somewhat.

i do think pretentiousness is a good thing all being said...but really dont think i am pretentious. and as for my mild turrets (fidgeting, shuffling, scratching..)...born with that too....

but sorry for the disrespectful language...it was ugly and i am not in the habit of it... i know not if we have ever met...but you would know that anyway if we had. sorry anyway if you were bothered by repercussions concerning your blur documentary/me blog.
Coxon doesn't mention the bit about encouraging his fans to go and post responses, but, in a later post, admits over-reaction:
a kick in the pants is sometimes required and deserved. my language on reflection was unacceptable and i apologise absolutely!

i should have had the intelligence to laugh it off as the joke it was... i fear i was over sensitive the evening i saw your comments which i now see as pretty harmless... and quite accurate. ouch!
He should have shrugged it off - or waited before responding - but who hasn't jumped on the internet and hit a 'post' button they could barely see through a red mist. Having the grace to admit a wrong and apologise does, at least, make Coxon look a little less bad than some other men who would suggest that anal rape is a good corrective for negative opinions.

What interests those people who have 'fanned' No Rock up on Facebook the most?

1. Liveblog: The Brits 2010
2. Noel Gallagher puts in planning permission for a shed
3. Bookmarks: Victor Keegan on the music industry
4. Lady GaGa countersues her ex-producer
5 Lady Starlight claims Lady GaGa was all her idea
6. Kasabian blame the internet for ruining music
7. NME Awards 2010
8. Spotify overheats; falls off internet
9. Bob Geldof not happy at suggestions aid might have fallen into wrong hands
10. Wiseguy Ticket people facing charges

These releases were deemed 'interesting' by our secret panel of experts:


Goldheart Assembly - Wolves And Thieves

Download Wolves And Thieves



Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip - The Logic Of Chance

Download The Logic Of Chance



White Stripes - Under Great White Northern Lights

Download The White Stripe's not entirely vital tour album



Hazell Dean - Heart First

Download All The Hits And More



The Lotus Eaters - No Sense Of Sin

Download Silentspace

There's been surprisingly little in the way of reviews of the Chapterhouse gig at La Scala on Thursday, but there is a smattering of YouTube videoage. So let's pretend we were at the gig, but squinting and with half-chewed Milky Ways in our ears.

First up, here's Pearl:



And then Falling Down:



Woooo-hooo, oooo, ooo...

[Buy: Whirlpool: The Original Recordings]

Front Line Assembly have announced, sort of, their album plans - Improvised Electronic Device is going to turn up later this Spring. With a special guest:
l Jourgensen has collaborated with Front Line Assembly on the track "Stupidity" providing lyrics and vocals. Al Jourgensen also arranged and mixed the track in his studio
He also made the tea, and washed the antimacassars after the recording session.

Obviously, given that tomorrow is the first day of Spring, "later this Spring" could be any time in the next three months.

I'm a little surprised at the NME report from Austin this evening:
Muse win over industry crowd at SXSW
Do Muse - who are more established than the Church Of England - really need to "win over" an "industry audience"? If the "industry" still needs to be "convinced" by Muse, hasn't it gone beyond the point of no return?

Currently available on eBay: Pink's breath. In a bottle.

Handy, I guess, if you're pretty good at magic and want to use the breath, along with certain roots and the heart of a koala to create a Pink of your very own.

Even the seller admits that, you know, this might look a little odd:
PINK'S BREATH IN A BOTTLE

YES WEIRD BUT TRUE
To be fair, at no point does the seller imply it's Pink's entire breath. Just some of it.
This was captured by my 10 year old at her Melbourne concert .on the 14th of August 2009

My Daughter is such a huge Fan That she Thought of this on her own and got close enough for her to breath in the bottle ,

She has kept This bottle since the concert BUT She now wants to save any from this bottle money to try and meet Pink One Day So thats why she has decided to sell it.
If I was Pink, I'd be worried what this kid was planning to capture on the next meeting - kidneys? arms? Is she attempting to create Pink in kit form?
My Daughter Has asked that it go to someone that will Tresure it and Respect it for What it REALLY IS
Yeah, she doesn't want it to go to any old Joe who'd simply flog it on eBay for a... oh, hang on a minute.

So, how can we be sure that this bottle really contains Pink's breath, and isn't merely a bottle with ordinary air - air expired by non-famous people - collected within?
She has also Taken Pics with the Ticket So you Know she was really at the concert
Strictly speaking, having a ticket doesn't actually prove you were anywhere - I know a bloke who has a ticket for the maiden voyage of the Titanic, but I don't think that suggests he's over ninety and escaped a watery grave. And simply being at a concert doesn't mean the bottle was close enough to Pink's lungs on an expiration heave.
The bottle has never been opened since as there is no way in the world she would EVER allow it .
... because one whiff would tell you it's full of Corey Hart's butt and not Pink's lips.

The bids currently stand at $31. Think of it as an investment.

Suzy Norman, who blogs at Queen Margot And The Supperclub, suggested that Graham Coxon might not come over well in No Distance Left To Run:
I couldn't help thinking I was watching a plasticine plonker, with wire glasses trying to remember where he'd put his oversized duffle coat as he was running late for new Nick Park audition where he hopes to play Wallace's nephew who's just been cycling around Europe on a monocycle but now needs a place to stay for a week before he goes on spiritual retreat in Gumberland; a sort of autobiographical role, made specially for him.
Now, some people might be a little upset by that sort of criticism. Others might take it on the chin. A few might, however, respond to being called a pranny by... well, behaving like a pranny.

Disappointingly, Coxon falls into that last group. a comment on QM&TSC explains what happened next:
The worst thing about the whole Graham Coxon thing?

Graham Leslie Coxon posted your blog link on his own forum, Graham said you needed it up the arse and that you were a cunt. It’s all down to him. So you see, the poor kiddies in forum land were just taking his lead when they decided to harass you.

Graham goes by the name Tin Hat in his forum and everyone there knows its HIM and they hang off his every illegibly typed word.
It's all a bit of a shame - that Coxon overreacts to a bad review; that he'd suggest that anal sex is somehow a corrective for a bad review; that he'd call someone he's never met a cunt. Some celebrities are starting to complain about the acrid nature of comments they have to deal with online; if the sort of semi-famous types who you think would know better are pitching in, what hope is there?

Wrangling, tussling, duelling lawsuits flying between Lady GaGa and former producer Rob Fusari:
March 20 (Bloomberg) -- Lady Gaga sued her former music producer Rob Fusari saying he shouldn’t get any share of fees he says he’s entitled to after claiming he discovered her, dated her and helped develop her sound and style.
Hang about... did Bloomberg just say he's claiming fees in part for having dated Lady GaGa? Is this a normal transaction? "I must make it clear that I am taking you out for a pizza and will, later, twiddle your nipples for a couple of minutes before a moment of disappointing splooge, but it is on the strict understanding that should you become subsequently rich, I will issue a charge of fifty thousand dollars for the evening."

Admittedly, there'd be no reason why a clean-cut actor couldn't go on stage and make a convincing job of playing Kurt Cobain.

But Gary Lucy is hardly an actor, is he?
The star said: "Playing Kurt Cobain would be far removed from the glitz and glamour of doing Dancing On Ice."
You think, Gary?

To be honest, the bemused reaction of Stephin Merritt while being told that a snatch of 6Music had blasted out on Radio 4 probably sums up the event - it's one of those things that happens from time to time. Like the time the newsreader had a "migraine" and abandoned the 7pm bulletin a couple of sentences in between A Bit Of Fry And Laurie and The Archers.

Still, the official explanation of what happened is worth a closer look:
Diana Speed, the Radio 4 announcer on duty at the time of the takeover, apologised on-air for the interruption and has passed me this official account from her log of events:

R4 Network lost for 2'23" when 6MUSIC was transmitted on our six platforms on the Network Switcher. This was due to a mistake in monitoring when the Control Room did the switch for 6MUSIC from Western House to Manchester at 1900 and instead placed 6MUSIC on our output.I was unaware of loss of network because we monitor desk output in Con and that was going out as normal. Apology was made at the end of the programme.
Except... 6Music didn't crash Radio 4 at 7pm - which would have seen the pips and start of the news replaced with the 6Music running order and Marc Riley pretending to be somebody else. But the recording of the crash shows that both programmes were under way. Curious.

Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen marks the death of Alex Chilton on the floor of Congress:



[via @andrew_mueller]

Very interesting piece in today's Guardian about OK Go, whose latest video, for new single This Too Shall Pass, has been watched over 8m times on YouTube, but has not sold them very many records. This, I guess, is an obvious downside to viral marketing and internet buzz and the world in which we live where The Kids don't expect to have to pay for anything. Anyway, it really does need seeing, if you are among the tiny handful who have not yet seen it. The key fact I learned from the piece was that EMI did not want YouTube viewers to be able to "embed" the video, as I have done, and thus share it around. So OK Go parted company with EMI. As the writer says, "It's clear EMI has no idea how to promote bands in the internet age, but also scary that bands like OK Go might be ill-equipped to survive in places that aren't the internet."

I have been a feminist for many years. I grew up, as all teenage boys do, as a qualified sexist, albeit one in thrall to the female gender. But as the 80s progressed, so did I, and I came out the other end a reasonably clear-thinking cheerleader for sexual equality. (In my weaker moments, I confess to being a self-hating man, but mainly when men seem to be at the root of so many of the world's problems, which they just are.) Anyway, I was introduced to feminist writing in the 80s - Marilyn French, Germaine Greer, the novel Praxis by Fay Weldon had quite an effect on me, as I remember - and have ever since dipped in and out of contemporary feminist theory: Susan Faludi, Susan Sontag, Naomi Wolf, Laura Mulvey and Natasha Walter. (I met Andrea Dworkin once, in a BBC radio green room back in the early 90s, and I was in awe of her in her big dungarees.)

Anyway, I've just finished Natasha Walter's new book Living Dolls: The Return Of Sexism, which makes a bonfire of her optimistic The New Feminism, published in 1998, during the first wave of Blairite hope - soon to be dashed. In Living Dolls, Walter, incidentally the mother of a young daughter, takes stock of where the new feminism is at. ("I am ready to admit," she writes in her introduction, "that I was entirely wrong." How's that for honesty?)

Casting an eye around the girls' section of Hamley's toy shop, she concludes, "Everything was pink, from the sugar-almond pink of Barbie, to the strawberry tint of Disney's Sleeping Beauty ... a pink nail bar ... a pink boutique stand ... pink 'manicure bedrooms' and pink 'salon spaces' ..." She also gasps with due horror at Nuts and Zoo, attending a last-days-of-Rome "Babes On The Bed" competition at Mayhem nightclub in Southend, sponsored by Nuts ("This Cara Brett," shouts the DJ, "She's on the cover of Nuts this week! So buy her, take her home and have a wank!") - from her account, the whole wretched circus is just as demeaning to the boys/men depicted as to the girls/women queuing up to stick their arses in the air in regulation "red hotpants and crop-top with Nuts logo". Nobody comes out of it too well. Walter takes a look at the booming sex industry and questions the "empowerment" myth of lap- and pole-dancing.

Then she moves in part two onto biological determinism, which is a much drier subject, but key, as Walter fears that "bad science" is leading us down a road where the inequality between men and women (in this country "childless women earn about 9% less than men, women with children earn about 22% less, even if they work full-time") is seemingly backed up by genetic orthodoxy based on often spurious studies at which bits of the brain are bigger in men and women. (She returns again and again with narrowed eyes to professor of developmental psychopathology Simon Baron-Cohen's book The Essential Difference, in which he confidently delineates between the "male brain" and the "female brain", and rewards owners of the latter with the following list of "suitable" careers: "counsellors, primary school teachers, nurses, carers, therapists, mediators or personnel staff", while men get to be "scientists, engineers, technicians, musicians, architects, taxonomists, bankers etc." - that's that sorted, then.) If we're not careful, she warns, the "domestic goddess" myth of cupcake-baking Nigella clones, coupled with "pink 'manicure bedroom'" conditioning, the glamourisation of prostitution in the media, and the Spearmint Rhino "bit of fun" defence might set the clock back on feminism a good 30 years, or more. (At best, she calls it "a stalled revolution.")

It's a complex picture she paints, but a recognisable one. I found the book thoroughly readable, and terrifying in places. I was lucky to come of age in the 1980s, when men were at least encouraged to examine their actions and their feelings towards women - the "New Man" might have been a myth, but you need ideals if you are to adjust your baser instincts. When I was a boy, porn was softer, and almost impossible to get your hands on, so I kept my innocence longer. Today, unreal images of sex bombard schoolchildren via mobiles, social networks and the internet, raising ludicrous expectations, sexualising kids way too early, and making life particularly tough for young girls, in my view. I don't know how modern parents deal with it all. Perhaps some of them don't.

If there is a flaw to Walter's book, it's the author's slightly woolly moments, where she is so afraid to be seen to criticise women who work in the sex industry, or dance for money, or spend too much time at work, or too much time at home, or bake cakes, she backs everything up with a caveat: "That's not to say that everyone who has chosen to go into glamour modelling is being exploited ... " that sort of thing. This is hardly the strident, fuck-you feminism of Germaine Greer in her pomp, but maybe it's a sign of the complicated times we now live in.

It reinforces my view that I am, at heart, a feminist. On part one of BBC4's Women documentary series last week, I think it was the imperious Marilyn French who defined a feminist as anyone who doesn't assume men to be superior to women. Reading about that Nuts night at Mayhem in Southend, I had a horrible feeling that we're all going to hell, male or female. ("One girl, who was a bit too fleshy around the middle and not fleshy enough around the chest, came in for boos rather than cheers. She looked tearful as she went back into the line.")

Oh, and yes I was a bit embarrassed to get the book out on the train because of that cover. I wanted to say, it's a book about sexism, it's not actually sexist!

Bob Geldof's furious attack on the quality of BBC journalism following the reports about how some Ethiopian famine relief might have found its way into the hands of civil war fighters gets a sharp slapdown from an unexpected source this morning. the Daily Mail must have decided they dislike Geldof even more than they hate the BBC:
Today, for the first time, the Band Aid man on the ground in Ethiopia speaks out exclusively to The Daily Mail, saying he believes it is possible that up to 20 per cent of donor's money went to fund the rebels.

Furthermore, he told me that he personally sympathised with the rebel cause he calls 'a liberating force', and travelled in convoys he suspected were transporting arms to them.

John James was Band Aid Field Director in Ethiopia from 1985-91 and was awarded an MBE for his charity work. He says: 'I would be surprised if it were any less than 10-20 per cent of funds were diverted to the rebels.

'Did I sympathise with the rebels? Yes. We would not have tolerated any direct assistance in the purchase of arms or condoned it, but just remember it was a highly complex situation.'

James, a farmer who is now 85 and living in Devon, adds: 'I think it is ridiculous for anybody to claim that not one penny of aid money was diverted.

'You couldn't help the hungry in the rebel-held areas without helping the rebels. You have to be realistic about that. It is probable that some money was diverted to buy arms. I believe a just use was made of the money. I think it fulfilled the interests of the donors.'
It's looking increasingly like Geldof's fixation on the one quote in the World Service programme that 95% of aid was misdirected in Tigray is the classic approach of finding one thing wrong, in an attempt to discredit the whole. The sort of tactic that people who don't believe in global warming use.

Vowel-free ecstasy, as RCRDLBL brings you MGMT. Flash Delirium's just turned up for downloading.

Whoever would have expected Dell to add to the quality of Friday morning? Their MotherboardTV has been out to give Vince Clarke the chance to enthuse over electrical things that make noise:

Perhaps aware that running a pointless JLS story every day is starting to make him look like a man with either a financial or recreational interest in their success, Gordon Smart gets a grip this morning.

and runs two non-stories about JLS instead.

First and foremost comes a good product. Requiring no admission fee, no college degree, no qualifications whatsoever, the music business is peopled by hucksters, who employ myriad scams to get you to pay attention to their wares. But it doesn’t work. Used to.  Back when there was limited distribution, when bribing a deejay to play your song got [...]