Blog: No Rock And Roll Fun

There's a lot of love online right now for Bert Weedon, who died yesterday. Although a formidable musician with a body of recorded work which would put Aesop's ant to shame, Weedon's greatest gift to music must surely be the Play In A Day books. The name was an inspired and forgivable piece of marketing bluster - you weren't going to be able to play in a date; not like Bert, and not to any recognisable standard. But the books would give you enough basic skills to encourage you to keep going and - as the [...]

Levon Helm, who drummed and sang with The Band, has died : "He passed away peacefully at 1:30 this afternoon surrounded by his friends and bandmates," Helm's longtime guitarist Larry Campbell tells Rolling Stone. "All his friends were there, and it seemed like Levon was waiting for them. Ten minutes after they left we sat there and he just faded away. He did it with dignity. It was even two days ago they thought it would happen within hours, but he held on. It seems like he was Levon up to the end, doing it the way [...]

The Press Assocation is reporting the death of Bert Weedon. -- Visit No Rock & Roll Fun to comment, complain and kvetch

Clearly the cupboard is empty at The Sun today. As it continues to grind out extracts from the book about Cowell that nobody cares about ("that everyone's talking about"), the rest of the paper seems to be scrabbling about to try and find anything to fill the yawning holes. Like this : Ghostly vampire shock for George Michael Not just a vampire shock, but a ghostly one. For George Michael. Has David Austin turned up again? Not quite... POP legend George Michael's street is haunted by a VAMPIRE, it was claimed [...]

The Sun has been dribbling out extracts from the Simon Cowell book all week - the suspicion that Sun staff might struggle with the reading borne out by the fact that it appears to take two people to copy chunks out and pretend it is interesting. They've bought a second book, too, a muck-rakey story about Jessie J. As a result, today's front page is especially unedifying: Jessie gay Simon NOT gay Voice star 'is a secret lesbian' Cowell: I'm totally straight POP beauty Jessie J is 100 per cent lesbian, an explosive book claims. Yes, [...]

Dick Clark with his 1990 Grammy image: Alan Light CC-BY Dick Clark has died . Clark is a strange figure - a massive, massive star in the US who barely registers in the UK, which feels like a category of celebrity which could happen these days. Mind you, his lack of interest in Britain might have been based on a fundamental misunderstanding : That started in radio and I learned it from Godfrey. Just be yourself. I'm of English heritage, the English are not known for a great sense [...]

Like his chum Bono, Bob Geldof isn't just interested in equality and aid; He's also fascinated with making a quick buck out of property . He's turned up to push a thing called Progressive Property - shill is such an ugly word, isn't it, so let's use that. He shills in the least attractive way possible, by claiming that land-grabbing is exactly what Gandi would do. PlanetyPropetyBlog raises an eyebrow: They're a bit like ... Gandhi (I swear, I'm not making this up!)... who, as we all know, was famous for preaching the redeeming qualities [...]

How can you tell when you're just running a pap snap for the sake of it, and not because there's even a slither of a story attached? Yes, having to change the colour of your headline in a bid to add some sort of interest. That'd be a clue. -- Visit No Rock & Roll Fun to comment, complain and kvetch

John Lydon is livid - livid - with the re-release of God Save The Queen. Livid, I tells you : In a statement, Lydon said of the re-release: "It is certainly not my personal plan or aim. I am proud of what The Sex Pistols achieved and always will be but this campaign totally undermines what The Sex Pistols stood for. "This is not my campaign. I am pleased that the Sex Pistols recordings are being put out there for a new generation, however, I wish for no part in the circus that [...]

Fresh from an appearance on Conan O'Brien: -- Visit No Rock & Roll Fun to comment, complain and kvetch

I'm not sure Gordon's story about Tulisa in a shop makes any sense. Tulisa is, supposedly, buying some wine. But - because she looks so young - she is challenged for proof of age. She said: "I didn't have my ID so he wouldn't give it to me. "There were all these mags with me on the front cover so I pulled out one, slapped it on the desk and said 'Look, there's my ID. "Can I have the wine?' He gave it to me." There's a problem here, though. [...]

There's a lot of excitement at the idea of Tupac's "guest appearance" with Dr Dre a short while ago at Coachella. Isn't this just what they used to do to get Laurence Olivier onstage at Time: The Musical back in 1985? Slightly better technology, maybe, but it was duff when Cliff Richard and Dave Clarke invented the idea; now it's just an expensively duff idea. Still, given this slow moving of technology from the West End to hip-hop, expect a flying car onstage at Coachella sometime around 2025. -- Visit No [...]

Noel Gallagher had some bother at Coachella on account of his stash : "They [Coachella security] pulled out my sleeping tablets and asked me to explain them. "There were about 30 little yellow and white tablets. "I said, 'In all seriousness Chuck, or whatever your name is, do you not think these would at least be down my sock? They are sleeping tablets. " 'What do you want me to do? Take one before I go on stage to prove what they are?' " Smart - who is in Coachella for [...]

Paul Hickey, long-time manager, and former partner of, Andy Bell, has died . Hickey had been unwell for some time; he was 62. He recently published a memoir of his years with Bell and Erasure . -- Visit No Rock & Roll Fun to comment, complain and kvetch

After going on Twitter and bellowing that Dave Grohl had tried to get off with Frances Bean Cobain, Courtney Love appears to have sobered up : Courtney Love apologized to Frances Bean Cobain via Twitter early this morning. "Bean, sorry I believed the gossip," she wrote. "Mommy loves you." Oddly, Love seems to have neglected to apologise to Dave Grohl - which is odd, considering that the original claim marked Bean out as a victim of a predatory older male. It's like driving a car into someone, and apologising to the fender. [...]

Andrew Love, fifty per cent of the Memphis Horns, has died . Born in Memphis in 1941, like many of his generation and background, Love's induction into live performance came in church. He left to study in Oklahoma, but returned to Tennessee upon graduation and took a session job with Stax records. It was here he met Wayne Jackson - the other fifty per cent of the Memphis Horns - and together they would provide a Southern brass kick to almost countless recordings. You can hear their work here: Al Bell of Stax [...]

Another knock for CDs: Best Buy has announced plans to close 50 big-box stores in the US in favour of opening 100 Best Buy Mobile shops. The closing stores have massive racks of CDs. The opening ones, not so much. -- Visit No Rock & Roll Fun to comment, complain and kvetch

Last night, Guns N Roses were officially inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Some of the band turned up, but Axl didn't. How did that go down? Boos rang out from some of the 6,000 in attendance early in the evening when Billie Joe Armstrong, lead singer of Green Day, asked the crowd "who was missing" as members of Guns N' Roses were up on stage accepting their award. I imagine if there'd been a moment when Axl had been wondering if he'd done the right thing when he [...]

The most-read 2012 stories this far are: 1. Noel Gallagher remembers how it was all better under Thatcher 2. Gordon Smart helps promote the Tulisa sex tape 3. MySpace sort-of returns from the wilderness 4. Brits 2012 Liveblog with... sorry, have to stop you there 5. Frank Skinner says the Brits aren't as good as in the past. Like when he presented it. 6. Some thoughts on Whitney Houston 7. Spotify claim they're about to crush iTunes [...]

In the NME last week, Pete Doherty made some large claims about the night that Mark Blanco died . It was a bit odd that the paper didn't attempt to push him a bit - particularly, on the idea that the Met Police has a video which shows Blanco falling to his death which clears him. It was even more surprising that, having gifted a large chunk of space for Pete to put his case, the NME didn't bother to contact either the Met or the Blanco family to put a counterpoint. You know, [...]