Blog: No Rock And Roll Fun

Dave Lamb (out of Brown Bird, not Come Dine With Me) is dangerously anaemic. Which would be bad, but for a jobbing band in a country without adequate healthcare for its citizenry, is a bit of a nightmare. Brown Bird are asking for your help : On Friday night, May 10th, Dave was admitted to a hospital in Houston, TX with complaints of fatigue and shortness of breath. After an initial blood test, we were told he was severely anemic, with dangerously low red blood cell levels. Dave had been fighting and been treated [...]

At last. Someone's suggesting that maybe The Rolling Stones glory days are behind them by quite a distance: “I think there’s a point when you’ve got to say, ‘Enough’s enough’. I just think they’re old, they’re old f*rts. I just think they ain’t rock ’n’ roll any more." It's a good point - although arguably they might very well be rock and roll, and it's just rock that has got old and slow and tired. Tell us, Gordon, who is this young buck calling for the old guard to roll over and let the [...]

The new bunch of Rajar figures out today are showing there's been a drop in the Radio One breakfast show audience. That, presumably, the network was expecting with the departure of Chris Moyles. The size of the drop, though, might come as something of a shock - a million have gone elsewhere. In effect, the audience has reverted back to where it was before Moyles took over, as MediaGuardian explains: The 28-year-old presenter, who took over from Moyles last September, shipped 900,000 listeners compared to the final three months of 2012 and [...]

Bloody hell, this pre-pubic punnage is harder work than going up the Shard by stairs: In other news, how is The Saturdays' attempts to break America through the medium of reality TV series going? THE Saturdays’ TV show following the girls trying to crack America has been canned — leaving their hopes of US stardom in tatters. The singers failed to secure a second series of Chasing The Saturdays during talks with execs at channel E! in LA. Insiders said bosses pulled the plug [...]

I think this is the first time Wickes has ever won a Sony Award, isn't it - for a sponsorship thingy with Absolute Radio. And great to see Cerys Matthews getting recognition for her radio work. Here's all the winners : Breakfast Show of the Year (10 million plus) – Today Programme (BBC News for BBC Radio 4) Breakfast Show of the Year (under 10 million) – Sam & Amy (Gem 106) Best Music Programme – The Dermot O'Leary Show (Ora Et Labora for BBC Radio 2) [...]

1990s pop star Robbie Williams - check your grandma's Wikipedia edits if you don't recognise the name - has finally joined Status Quo and Cliff Richard in the day room to moan about the young people at Radio One : He branded the Breakfast Show host a “b******” for not playing his tracks – because the singer’s too old. During his set at London’s Grosvenor House, Robbie said: “I did the Brits and started singing, ‘Hey-ho, here we go’ to a bunch of industry people and they were all just like, ‘F*** off, you’re fat [...]

As you'll know, JLS have split into a million pieces. And now America is calling. Gordon reports that Aston is getting ready : FORMER JLS singer prepares to launch his new career in the United States by... Learning all the State capitals? Converting pounds into dollars? Investigating taking citizenship? No, silly. That isn't how you prepare to launch a career in America. FORMER JLS singer prepares to launch his new career in the United States by eating a super-sized candyfloss Yes, that's right. Perhaps Homeland Security have introduced a [...]

Back in March, writing about the IFPI's response to the EU study finding that unlicenced filesharing might lead to a small rise in sales , I asked if it could possibly be true that Nielsen counted plugging in an iPhone to recharge as a visit to iTunes. The IFPI were polite, but fundamentally unhelpful when I asked them about what they were basing this claim on; happily, Nielsen were a bit more forthcoming and confirmed that iTunes data does include plugging in the phone: After some internal research, I can confirm that IFPI's description of [...]

Nerdy chart: Browsers used by No Rock visitors, this month: 1. Firefox 2. Chrome 3. Safari 4. Internet Explorer 5. Opera 6. In-app Safari 7. Blackberry 8. Amazon Silk 9. Playstation 3 10. Seamonkey These were the interesting releases: Savages - Silence Yourself Download Silence Yourself Little Boots - Nocturnes Download Nocturnes [...]

May 7th: May 9th: Be worried, Monday Night Football. You're next. -- Visit No Rock & Roll Fun to comment, complain and kvetch

The decision by the RIAA to include streaming in gold and platinum certification is interesting, but not for the reasons the RIAA think. Music Week explains how it'll work: After a year-long project by the RIAA, the organisation will now recognise the non-sales format (in audio and/or video) for the first time ever in its 55-year history that will go towards amounts calculated for G&P’s Digital Single Award certification. Within the new approach includes the formula of 100 streams being equivalent to one download. Fifty-six certifications were given following the [...]

Steve Brookstein, who you'll remember as a handy punchline from The X Factors (I think he was the one with the dancing dog act), has decided the world needs his take on sexual politics. Kent Labour Students tweeted a complaint about a card Tesco sells , which uses sexual harassment as the set-up for a joke: Ha-ha, because who wouldn't want to be groped at work, eh? Tesco replied in a fabulous, missing-the-point entirely way: @ kentlabstudents The subject matter is [...]

Liam Gallagher has got a problem : Liam said: “This tramp kept hassling me at my house. “I know he’s been a problem for other people round our way. He was ringing on our buzzer early in the morning and kept asking if I would pay for his pay-as-you-go phone. Proper mad. “The final straw was when he started messing with my recycling bins. I’m a bit anal about my recycling and he ended up shoving his crutches in my bin. “I came out and squared up to him and he [...]

Daybreak trumpeted the "takeover" of their Twitter feed this morning. Little Mix were coming, and they were going to answer questions... ... it just looks like someone forgot to post any of the answers to the feed. Whoops. -- Visit No Rock & Roll Fun to comment, complain and kvetch

Although Google have rushed to remove it from the Chrome store, for a while there, you could grab a tool which would allow you to download mp3 files direct from the Spotify servers . The tool has been yanked from the store, but is still floating about on the web; Spotify say they're aware of "the issue" and are working on a fix. Although you'd still be able to hijack the audio as it passes to your speakers, whatever fix you put in place. [Thanks to Michael M] -- [...]

Strange times at Venue Cymru, as Andy Bellis turns up, hands his tickets in, and... doesn't get to see the band. Here's what happened to him , from his Facebook status: We go to a Vaccines gig in Llandudno tonight, queue up for a good half hour and give our tickets at the door. Yes it seems pretty normal that, no? So we're pulled aside to get searched and all that and the security guy asks if I know the lead singer and could I name their 2 albums and some songs. I couldn't [...]

It turns out that ITV's Vicious isn't the most tragic flatshare sitcom currently in progress. There's this one, too : Macaulay Culkin has moved in with Pete Doherty. The 32-year-old actor and the former Libertines rocker first met when they made the ketamine-influenced movie, 'The Wrong Ferrari', together a few years ago and struck up a friendship. Well, there's nothing there that could possibly go wrong, is there? -- Visit No Rock & Roll Fun to comment, complain and kvetch

There's a great post on Richard Williams' blog about his role in Abba's rise to world domination. It even has a walk-on part for The Human League, in the Melody Maker offices: “Sorry, Ian,” I said, “but I really have to listen to this — it’s the new Abba single.” A look of horror crossed his face. The two people with him swung round in amazement. They were Phil Oakey and Joanne Catherall from the Human League, then at the very beginning of their journey to pop stardom. -- [...]

Sorry, what was that, ContactMusic ? Nick Cannon and Mariah Carey renewed their vows in Disneyland because they like to ''dress up''. Let's just raise an eyebrow and move on, shall we? -- Visit No Rock & Roll Fun to comment, complain and kvetch

Perhaps leaving people standing around like chumps for two hours is just now a standard part of the Justin Bieber show ? -- Visit No Rock & Roll Fun to comment, complain and kvetch