Blog: No Rock And Roll Fun

If I'm reading this story from CNN correctly, it looks like 50 Cent is using the starving of Kenya and Somalia to boost his businesses: Jackson has pledged to provide one billion meals for the hungry, and is donating a meal from every sale of a new energy drink, Street King, according to the World Food Programme. Using people in need of food to flog cans of pointless "energy drink"? Perhaps it's an art statement. -- Visit No Rock & Roll Fun to comment, complain and kvetch

Gordon's story about Paul McCartney's invovlement in the next series of Mad Men is a little confused. First, he's writing music: Paul McCartney writes for hit telly series But then, he's not actually writing, just licensing tracks: The show's producers felt his new album mainly of American classics, Kisses On The Bottom, would be perfect for the show and moved swiftly to sign a deal. But even that makes no sense - why would a series that pays attention to period detail the way Sun photographers pay attention to the cast of [...]

Oh, dear, major labels - don't you realise that copyright theft is a SERIOUS CRIME? Do we need to send Britney Spears over to remind you that illegally streaming a football game at a VEVO party is no different from stealing a CD from a store? Tut. Tut. Tut. TechCrunch's Jason Kincaid saw ESPN streaming from an unlicensed feed: My hunch is that the team hooked up a computer to the TVs throughout the venue so that they could accomplish this synchronized star-caressing — then, rather than rework their entire setup just [...]

Gordon has got hold of MIA's backstage rider. You'd better strap yourself in : CRACKPOT singer M.I.A has one of the weirdest gig riders I've seen. That's setting the bar high. Cher wanted a room for her wigs; Iggy Pop insisted on a copy of USA Today with a story about morbidly obese people in it. And, hey, Gordon, you must have heard of some pretty extreme demands before, too, yeah? One of the backstage demands for her 2011 tour tops Mariah Carey's request for bendy straws and Duran Duran's lavish demands for rare French [...]

iLike - once the thundering coming big beast of online music - closed down on Tuesday . No, hardly anyone else noticed, either. Why did it die? Hypebot has this: "It's sad to see a social music site that once boasted 60 million users (more than Spotify, or Pinterest), reduced to nothing," Partovi told Geek Wire. Rupert Murdoch squandered a lot of tech assets under his management, the fall of iLike is just scratching the surface. Given how much money Rupert makes off spreading the evil cancer of Fox 'News,' I think he [...]

What do you do when Bono and U2 grimly refuse you the rights to use a song, forcing you to pull out of a film festival? This: Moral: There is always a way round the self-importance of Bono. [Thanks to Michael M for the tip] -- Visit No Rock & Roll Fun to comment, complain and kvetch

It turns out this morning that Gordon doesn't even recognise a photo of himself: Gordon, you've confused yourself with Keith Lemon - it's easy to tell the difference: Keith Lemon is a made-up character, with a childish obsession with women's bodies and a pathetic tendency to fawn around celebrities, whereas Gordon Smart uses his real name. -- Visit No Rock & Roll Fun to comment, complain and kvetch

The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing had been enjoying some success with their Now That's What I Call Steampunk album. Enough success, indeed, to bring down the ire of EMI upon their behatted heads. As Steampunk Chronicle, erm, chronicles it: It seems that EMI records have taken offense with Now That's What I Call Steampunk, Vol.1, the 2010 release by British steamrockers The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing. EMI has copyright on the name "Now That's What I Call Music" and has also released other compilations under the [...]

A man who makes crisp adverts has made a crisp advert , reports Gordon Smart. -- Visit No Rock & Roll Fun to comment, complain and kvetch

The shortlist for the Juno awards has been revealed . The fan's choice category looks more like a 'can you think of a Canadian act' round in Pointless. I'm surprised Rush aren't on there: JUNO FAN CHOICE AWARD Arcade Fire Avril Lavigne City and Colour Deadmau5 Drake Ginette Reno Hedley Justin Bieber Michael Bublé Nickelback SINGLE OF THE [...]

Just as the world was starting to go 'actually, it was just a quick flip of the bird', there's been an attempt to try and keep the story going by the revelation that MIA might be personally liable: According to TMZ however, MIA signed a contract with the NFL pledging to compensate the league for any fine imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). It is claimed that in ensuring MIA signed the agreement, the NFL hopes to dissuade future performers from similar acts in the future. The NFL apparently signed a similar deal [...]

Not Madonna, who managed to be upstaged by MIA's finger. Not MIA, who clearly thought she was subverting something; a bit like a seaside donkey pooping on the prom forgetting he's still carrying a tourist from the ghost train to the gift shop. No, Gordon reveals the real winner of Superbowl Sunday : Rock hero Justin Hawkins from The Darkness was given a 90-second slot during half time in a Samsung advert for the new Galaxy phone. He appeared on screen in a pink and white jumpsuit. As his guitar dropped [...]

Last night, while America recharged its glasses and flushed its toilets, Madonna popped up to do something from the new album at the Superbowl. How did it go down? The LA Times' Randall Roberts was left breathless with the audacity: Think about it. In less than 10 minutes, America watched marching warriors pulling a massive chariot; faux trumpeters announcing the arrival of Madonna; a man name Redfoo with a ridiculously large afro fronting a duo called LMFAO; a polyglot British-Sri Lankan rapper slyly flipping the bird at the camera; a cartoonish [...]

Here's some oddness: Gordon has got hold of both Noel's interview with the Mail On Sunday yesterday, and the blog entry where Noel tries to fix some of the damage . Let's first see what Noel had to say: There is a headline that implies that I am of the opinion that the years spent under the rule of that soon to be dead granny, Maggie Thatcher, was good for the soul. I've read the story and I must say it's very misleading; any great working class art, fashion, youth culture etc came to [...]

I've not written about Lana Del Ray much, mainly because I've struggled with the idea that there's anything much that needs to be said - the whole thing just feels a little too frictionless; all backstory and no plot. Noticeable without being noteworthy. And, apart from a moment when I had to scrape my eyebrows off the ceiling at Prospect magazine, of all places, both throwing in the "gangsta Nancy Sinatra" quote and getting it wrong (it's not a self-description), much of what has been written about her has suffered from the same difficulty finding any point on which to [...]

Noel Gallagher pops up in the Mail On Sunday today, giving an interview that will probably excite Mail On Sunday readers : 'It was all better under Thatcher': Noel Gallagher on Britain's glory days, turning his back on drugs and the end of Oasis Mail readers - who probably believe that Gallagher is some sort of role model to young people - will dance with delight; they might even see this as some sort of rock capitulation. Instead, it's a very rich man sounding like a very rich man. There was a slim hope that [...]

Top ten - seriously - snow-related stories of all time: 1. One of Snow Patrol gets arrested 2. Gary Lighbody announces an extra band 3. A snow day edition of What The Pop Papers Say - presumably written on a day when it had snowed. 4. Gennaro Castaldo predicts Snow Patrol's first number one with Chasing Cars (It got to six.) 5. Young Jeezy's snowman tshirt creates drug panic 6. On a snowy day, Gordon Smart is reduced to running old snaps of [...]

I'm struggling to think of under what circumstances 'giving his job to Adam Lambert' could be considered a tribute to Freddie Mercury . -- Visit No Rock & Roll Fun to comment, complain and kvetch

It's good that - in the face of the sort of bad publicity even Mel Gibson couldn't generate - the Susan G Komen Foundation have reversed their original decision to punish Planned Parenthood for helping people in difficult situations. Amongst those who sounded their outrage at a cancer charity behaving like right-wing politicians were The Decemberists : The Decemberists are deeply troubled by Komen for the Cure's recent decision to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood, a vital resource in the battle against breast cancer. Providing cancer screenings to low income women is integral to [...]

Something for datalovers: a list of every Canadian music act to appear on Saturday Night Live , produced by CBC. The main lessons? They should have done this list before December, so it didn't end with Michael Buble. And there have been many more Canadians making the trip to New York in recent years. -- Visit No Rock & Roll Fun to comment, complain and kvetch