Celebrities Category
Celebrity news & gossip from the world’s showbiz and glamour magazines (OK!, Hello, National Enquirer and more). We read them so you don’t have to, picking the best bits from the showbiz world’s maw and spitting it back at them. Expect lots of sarcasm.
The Beatles Tour De Force: Ron Howard Pipes Them Live and Direct To The Masses
MOSTLY, The Beatles are not a live band.
Sure, they cut their teeth around Britain and Germany for years, before blowing everyone’s brains out in Australia, Japan and America, but when people think of the Fabs, it is all about the studio.
We’ve seen endless documentaries with George Martin talking about ‘the boys’ and the madcap studio ideas they had (Lennon wanted to be swung from the ceiling, trying to recreate the sound of a thousand monks of a hillside, slice tapes and throwing them in the air to stick them back together again, and all that great stuff), but on film, their live prowess has been somewhat neglected.
Liverpool Empire 1965
And now, Ron Howard – a long term Beatle nut and Academy Award-winning director, has been tasked to direct and produce an authorised, as-yet-untitled documentary about the touring years of the Fab Four.
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The BBC Defends Black Music Critcism… And Quite Right Too
RECENTLY, the BBC rated the most influential artists in Radio 1Xtra’s Power List. The “UK’s leading black music station” (their words) gave the top honour to Ed Sheeran, who you might recognise as being absolutely not-black and not really making black music.
Wiley, number 16 in the poll, went nuts, accusing Auntie Beeb of representing a “backwards” music industry in Britain. “We influence a man and all of a sudden it turns he has influenced us… Lol,” he wrote.
That’s called Columbusing.
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Kidrock: The Best, Worst And Most Confusing Youthful Hits And Misses
WHEN you think of children being in bands, you immediately think of the Jackson 5 or Hanson. They’re slick, pro-outfits that have been tutored and taught within an inch of their lives.
That’s not to say they’re bad in any way, but they’re basically making music by adults, aimed at kids. The youthful joy is there, but what about the abandon and awkwardness which makes children such a fascinating prospect?
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Your favourite rock star is probably about to die
WE’RE getting to a special time in rock ‘n’ roll where the pantheon of Peter Pans is looking more mortal than ever. The music of the babyboomers is finally creaking with age.
Lennon, Joplin, Redding and Gaye all had the decency to die young, thereby making them immortal. The babyboomers did not feel worried. We’re the rock ‘n’ roll generation! That’s exactly the kind of exciting thing that happens to us! I HOPE I DIE BEFORE I GET OLD, MAN! Just like Keith Moon! Just like Brian Jones!
All the while, the rest of rock ‘n’ roll survived and got old. Just For Men, Facelifts and increasingly younger partners plastered over the cracks in the wall.
Then everyone started dying of old age.
Initially, Syd Barrett and Arthur Lee left and the babyboomers (and their kids) all felt bad, but brushed it all off with “well, they had a pretty crazy life! It was always going to catch up with them at some point! Shine on you crazy diamonds!”
And now everyone is dropping like flies. The sheer volume of dying rockstars over the past decade has been astonishing. Not a week goes by without someone tweeting RIP to one of their favourite musicians dying. They’re all in the 60s and 70s now. They’re old. There’s no escaping it.
This week, Ramones drummer Tommy Ramone shrugged off his mortal coil, leaving zero original Ramones left. Even punk is getting old. No-one is safe.
Of course, there’s a good number of rockstar legends knocking around the circuit, such as Mick ‘n’ Keef, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, but there’s something gnawing at the back of fans’ brains about their idols.
They’re nearly dead.
This weekend, fans in the UK watched Neil Young roll back the years. The sad fact is, that is statistically likely to be the last time they see him in person. Neil Young may have said that it is better to burn out than fade away, but fade away he will – he’s not got long left.
The babyboomers are going to watch every single one of their idols die. The Woodstock Generation… the Mods… the dadrockers… for the first time in their lives, they’re faced with the very real possibility of every single thing they like turning into compost before their eyes. And with them will go their own youth.
We’re in the middle of rock music’s retirement, with only bands like The Black Keys, Jack White and Arctic Monkeys still clinging on to the old fashioned idea of ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ to be played in huge stadiums, revering the blues.
This all sounds desperately negative, but if you want to cherish these acts, do it now. Watch their final flings and roll around in nostalgia because, like it or not, the people who invented the teenager, the people that shaped what popular music could achieve, are all this close to joining the choir invisible.
Magazine will beatify these men and women, but soon, they’ll stop being in the present, and soon become very much of the past. And that, for the true spirit of rock ‘n’ roll, is incredibly exciting indeed.
The Real Problem With Musician’s Tax Avoidance
THERE’S quite the kerfuffle in musicville, after it turned out that a number of wealthy musicians were ferreting their money away in tax avoidance schemes.
Lazy people are vomiting into their hands about how awful it all is, while even lazier fans of said bands are saying “CUH! LIKE YOU WOULDN’T AVOID TAX IF YOU COULD!”, despite the fact most people can’t, don’t and wouldn’t.
All four members of Arctic Monkeys, George Michael, Gary Barlow, Katie Melua have been named as hiding their millions from HMRC.
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Posted: 12th, July 2014 | In: Celebrities, Music | Comment (1)
The Ultimate Tour De France Playlist
WITH the Tour De France in full swing, nearly killing riders with wet cobbles and craft ale enthusiasts thrilling at the warring riders like teenage Hollyoaks fans, it got us thinking about cycling music.
Of course, the great music to cycle to is anything Kosmiche from Germany. Neu! albums are pretty much designed to sound like streamlined engineering, powered by human muscle.
However, we’re not talking about the things you’d listen to while powering your pedals (besides, you might not want to ride around with earbuds in, for fear of being hit by a combine harvester or something), but rather, the songs dedicated to those that cycle and the magnificent machines themselves!
There’s surprisingly few songs about bikes (seeing as they’ve been around for so much longer than cars and planes, which have endless ditties in their honour), but we’ve waded through them, missed off ‘Daisy Bell’ and the terrible Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Katie Melua numbers, and found some gems!
Have a listen and do add your own in the comments.
Tomorrow ‘My White Bicycle’
Ace British psychedelic band, Tomorrow, made one album and saw their guitarist running off to form Yes. However, while they were around, they made this tribute to the free bicycle movement that took place in Holland in the ’60s. Please note the cute bell ringing sound effect.
Kraftwerk ‘Tour De France’
The greatest tribute to cycling comes from Kraftwerk, and Ralf und Florian are total and utter cycling nuts. During one Manchester show at the Velodrome, when they played ‘Tour De France’, the Team GB cyclists appeared and everyone got a bit emotional.
Pink Floyd ‘Bike’
The Syd-era of The Floyd loved whimsy with an edge. They took mundane things and made them B-movie. ‘Gnome’ should be nice and it isn’t and, likewise, ‘Bike’ is a pleasant ditty with a knife between its teeth. Please don’t ride a bike with a machete in your gob, thanks.
Tom Waits ‘Broken Bicycles’
Rainsoaked Tom wouldn’t write a song about a perfectly functional working bicycle he’d just bought for loads of money from Evans, which leaves us with this dollop of pathos.
Junior Reid ‘Poor Man Transportation’
Junior Reid is one of the finest voices in reggae and provides this lovely paean to the prole’s best vehicle.
Vivian Stanshall ‘Terry Keeps His Clips On’
When Stanshall wasn’t causing mayhem in the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, he was… well… causing havoc all by himself. And here, we have the wonderful nonsense of ‘Terry Keeps His Clips On’.
Deerhoof ‘Midnight Bicycle Mystery’
One of the more unusual bike songs, but that’s Deerhoof in a nutshell. They’re mental. And we should cheer from the rooftops about bands like this because we need their shade in the light of commercial rock.
Ballboy ‘Olympic Cyclist’
This song does exactly what it says on the tin and is wonderful for it.
Livingston Taylor ‘Bicycle’
This is the most straightforward bicycle song in music history, even down to the cutely dull description of what his helmet is made of.
The Bouncing Souls ‘BMX Song’
Bicycle songs aren’t all commuting and aerodynamism – The Bouncing Souls were all about popping wheelies and buying bikes that are less practical and more fun.
Julie Doiron ‘When The Breaks Get Wet’
A lovely, plaintive song which paints a picture of riding through drizzle. A wonderful snapshot.
Dukes of the Stratosphear ‘Bike Ride To The Moon’
Neo-psychists, Dukes of the Stratosphear were XTC in disguise where they got to play with the dressing up box. Here, they ape Floyd and take a bike ride to the moon. Worth checking those guys out.
Posted: 12th, July 2014 | In: Music, Sports | Comment (1)
Jimmy Savile Was ‘A Trans-Dimensional Sorcerer Who Harvested Occult Energies’
JIMMY Savile, the dead knight of the realm and the papal church accused of being the world’s worst ever sex attacker, the man who knew Charles and Diana’s greatest secret, who invited us to sing-along to the jingle-jangle son, who blow cigar smoke at children trapped in a lift, was a wizard.
Posted: 11th, July 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comments (2)
Steven Spielberg Attacked For Hunting Big Game And Smirking
KILL an animal on the web and you get hunted down by the police. Kill an endangered species and pose with the carcass and you get something worse: you get shamed on Facebook.
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Posted: 11th, July 2014 | In: Celebrities, Reviews | Comment (1)
Insane Clown Posse’s FBI lawsuit is laughed out of town
THE Insane Clown Posse are an odd bunch. For starters, they think magnets are powered by witchcraft or something. And their fans? Well, their fans are VERY devoted (seriously – they make fans of The Smiths look like rational, reasonable people without a worrying neediness that burps out of their every pore).
As such, the ICP and their Juggalos are well known.
They’re so well known that the FBI started sniffing around them. Were Juggalos violent and mental and doing all manner of criminal stuff. Probably, but only as much as any group of people who come under any bracket are able or willing to engage in criminal activity.
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See Andre 3000 as Jimi Hendrix in All Is By My Side Trailer
ROCK biopics are always fun, even if they’re not always good. There’s been mixed movies, from The Runaways to The Doors, from Ray to What We Do Is Secret. Even the crappy ones are still worth a look because, even if the storytelling and acting is lousy, at least the music will be great.
And so, we’re looking down the barrel of a Jimi Hendrix biopic and there’s a lot riding on it.
Why? Well, Hendrix was a smooth, fascinating character with a preposterous talent and a gentle soul – that’s not easy to capture. Moreover, Outkast’s brilliant Andre 3000/Benjamin is playing the title role. There’s no-one on Earth who wants this to fail.
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REVEALED: The Music Behind The Worst Album Art In The World
LESS than ten years ago, bad album covers suddenly became a “thing”. Sure, there had always been people like me: longtime vinyl enthusiasts who cherished these unholy creations; but, it took the Internet to really generate a widespread appreciation for the “bad album cover”.
So, as the years went on, and collectors far and wide shared their vinyl oddities, a few particularly bad ones rose to the top. To say they went viral would be a stretch; however, it’s safe to say certain albums gained notoriety. Unfortunately, we only had the covers to mock. The actual recordings remained a mystery. You could only imagine what they sounded like, since the owners of these rare gems generally didn’t share the recordings.
But now we have YouTube, where no stone in the vast pop culture landscape gets unturned, no matter how obscure. At last we can not only look, but also listen. So, come along and take a tour through some well-known bad album covers and get a taste for the music they hold. Be prepared: it’s often breathtakingly disappointing….
Jake Bugg Hates Music Festivals – Doesn’t Mind Sexism
EVEN though you may have guessed it from his permanently surly face (he’s too cool to smile), Jake Bugg has said he hates music festivals.
And who can blame him? It is filled with people who like watching white men with dreadful haircuts play backward facing dadrock who are too cool to sm… wait a minute!
The pint-sized miserablist said:
“I hate music festivals so much, but obviously to be this high up on the line-up and to be playing [at Glastonbury] is a privilege,” he told NME. “But the actual experience of festivals I could really do without.”
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Watch Robbie Williams Break A Fan’s Arm In Newcastle
IT is always nice to watch someone successful make a fool of themselves. It isn’t their fault we’re all pathetically jealous, but they’ve got such nice and unusual lives, it is pleasing to find out their stuttering bozos like the rest of us.
Robbie Williams gave a glimpse into how ordinary he can be while embarrassingly breaking a fan’s arm after he fell off the stage during his gig at Newcastle.
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Katie Price Tells Rolf Harris To Reach For The Sky
THIS week Katie Price was on the radio. She told us:
“I have to confess if there is anything perfect about me, it’s my feet.”
When you look down Katie, those aren’t your feet. Altghough if they are, is this all a peecursor to ‘Feet Sock’ and ‘Feet Stockings’, dressing your feet in go-ahead alternative to bras?
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Posted: 5th, July 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comment
‘Sexless’ Rolph Harris Smiles And Shows No Remorse As He Is Jailed
A GRINNING Rolf Harris arrived at Southwark Crown Court, London, by car with a large man in bad suit, three other large men in bad clothes, his daughter Bindi and his neice Jenny.
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Posted: 4th, July 2014 | In: Celebrities, Reviews | Comment
Feast And Famine: Marilyn Monroe Was Not Some Porky Lardbucket, She Was Tiny
HALF the time we’re told that the entire country is becoming obese, waddling around with dripping rolls of fat hanging from our frames, the other half the time we’re being screamed at for our unhealthy obsession with being thin. And in that latter conversation we’re also always being told that being thin is very unusual and women of the past were never like that. I mean, look at Marilyn Monroe! Hips and tits on ‘er and she was even an actress!
Today it’s Hannah Betts in the Torygraph whining about it:
Chillingly, a US size 000 measures up to a UK size 0, five sizes smaller than a UK size 10, itself on the smallish side in a culture in which the average British woman is a size 16, and the public’s ideal physique a size 12 (according to YouGov). A US size zero measures 25 inches around the waist; a triple zero, a meagre 23 inches.
It can be difficult to visualise the bodies behind such unvital statistics. My eight-year-old nephew, so lean that he can fit into his baby pyjamas, has a waist of 23.5 inches; his lithe nine-year-old sister, measures 24 inches. The girths of these adult women are smaller, despite their being significantly taller, in a way that seems hardly possible. The average triple zero poster girl stands at 5ft 7in. To be so narrow-framed at this scale is to be emaciated.
A petite therapist friend puts matters into perspective. “I am the smallest person in the world and my childlike waist is about 28 inches,” she says. “I have bought UK size 6 clothes from Topshop’s petite range, which is horrifyingly too small, making me wonder if they require ribs to be removed, or whether it is actual children who wear them. I am truly shocked.”
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Posted: 4th, July 2014 | In: Celebrities, Money | Comment
One Dimensional Lindsay Lohan to Sue GTA For Turning Her Into A 2D Cartoon Character
YOU might think GTA V is the greatest thing since sliced ham, but the game’s Lacey Jonas character has got Lindsay Lohan in a spin alright.
Lacey is a blond celebrity who lives at the Chateau Marment on West Hollywood who is trying to escape the paparazzi all the time and isn’t exactly a virtuous human.
Lindsay Lohan, meanwhile is… well… draw your own conclusions because we don’t want to get involved with her lawyers. Her lawyers a like those badass TV ones. Our lawyers are like Lionel Hutz.
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Posted: 4th, July 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Oh. A Superhero Film Written by Arctic Monkeys and Miles Kane
HERE’S a thing.
Arctic Monkeys frontdude Alex Turner, and Rascals pal Miles Kane, have stopped work on their Last Shadow Puppets careers to concentrate on… wait for it… a superhero film.
This is a joke, right?
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X Factor Judge Cheryl Cole Survives Alleged Criminal Singer
AFTER the succesful prosecutions of showboi types Rolf Harris, Stewart Hall, Max Clifford but not Jimmy Savile, the Sun seeks to highlight entertiainers who might be engaging in criminality.
The paper leads with news that an alleged rapist has appered before some of our most wholesome TV judges:
A CONTESTANT on The X Factor successfully auditioned in front of Simon Cowell — while on bail over an alleged rape. Show boss Simon and the other judges were unaware the 24-year-old singer who wowed them was under investigation by police.
… judges Simon, Cheryl Cole, Mel B and Louis Walsh had no idea he had been arrested and quizzed over a rape alleged to have happened last year.
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Posted: 3rd, July 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Rolf Harris: ‘When I Was 11 I Started Having Baths With My Mother’
ANYONE looking to analyse why Rolf Harris molests children can take a look at what he tiold the TV Times in 1974:
“I grew up in the belief that sex was dirty. It was spoken of only behind the boy’s lavatory at school or written with chalk on a wall. All the external freedom I had as a child couldn’t overcome it: inside me it was like a prison.
“I can remember getting a hiding from my mother when I was about four for doing a super drawing of a man with no clothes on – he was standing there absolutely naked and urinating – and my mother didn’t like it. I never saw my father naked although I used to try and see him when he was changing for a swim.
“When I was ten or 11 my mother decided I should see her naked to let me know it was all natural and everything – and we had baths together. But it was too late by then. It just used to embarrass me. Then my mum brought me a book about what any young boy should know and she stayed in the room while I tried to read it, but I was just too embarrassed and couldn’t wait to get out of that room.”
Posted: 2nd, July 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Death Metal Band Unfathomable Ruination To Play Until They Literally Run Out of Oxygen
ROCK music is in a weird place at the moment, but thank god for metal. Metal is single-handedly dragging rock music’s lifeless body through the streets, refusing to let it die.
Despite what the Arctic Monkeys say, with their meandering dadrock, metal is the only form of rock that is eschewing all the pouting and posing and charging headlong into everyone with a windmill attack.
And death metal band Unfathomable Ruination have got just the thing to prove how serious metal takes the cause.
They are going to play a gig in an air-tight, soundproof cube until they run out of oxygen. That’s right. They’re going to play until they can’t breathe anymore and their hearts start doing weird things.
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The Flying Circus Comes To Town: Monty Python’s Hidden Gems And Forgotten Sadism
The Flying Circus Comes To Town: Python’s hidden gems
THE Flying Circus is back in town, for one last hurrah – or rather a string of them – at London’s O2. The famous old sketches will be enacted again, and the audience will be word-perfect even is the performers aren’t.
The story can be found in a special programme here…
In honour of the reunion, but in the spirit of discovery, we offer a selection of the Pythons’ most obscure back pages….
The album that never was
Monty Python albums weren’t just a way of reliving the sketches in the days before video recorders; they were classics in their own right. Far from being mere cash-ins, they were actually superior to the TV shows, and played a crucial but unsung role in establishing the Monty Python phenomenon.
Back in the day, a generation of schoolboys learned French verbs and poetry by rote, then spent their spare time committing Monty Python sketches to memory in similar dead-parrot fashion, using the tie-in albums and books for homework. Meanwhile in America, where the shows were virtually unknown, the records (on the ‘progressive’ Charisma label) became an integral part of the post-Sixties ‘stoner’ culture. FM djs gave them airplay, and rock stars championed them at every opportunity. They were known as ‘The Pythons’, which sounded like a rock group, and before long they were de facto rock stars themselves, with sell-out live tours and screaming fans. There was even a live album, replete with extra swearing. (The albums were quite risqué, in marked contrast to the strict censorship of the BBC at the time.)
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Posted: 2nd, July 2014 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment
Juxtaposition Fail: Monty Python Suffer From Dementia
JUXTAPOSITION of the day: Monty Python and the “scandal of dementia patients ‘cut adrift’ after diagnosis” in the i:
Posted: 2nd, July 2014 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comment
The world needs a bar run by GWAR
GWAR, the greatest band in the whole universe, have had a rough time of it, with key members of the group shrugging off their mortal coil to join the choir invisible.
However, things must continue and they’ve had a truly magnificent idea – GWAR BAR!
Gwar are looking for $50,000 through their Indiegogo page to open their own “gourmet junk food’ restaurant, which will be called, tremendously, ‘Gwar-B-Q’.
And the fun doesn’t end there, as this video will show.
The band promise that their establishment will “change the dining experience in much the same way that Gwar changed the concert-going experience (well, maybe, without quite as much mess).”
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Posted: 1st, July 2014 | In: Music, The Consumer | Comment
