It started shortly after last week’s Weekly went out. Reports started coming in that a man had killed himself on stage at a Swell Season gig in California. Hours later it was confirmed that, in an entirely separate turn of events, Ou Est Le Swimming Pool frontman Charles Haddon had committed suicide shortly after playing at the Pukkelpop festival in Belgium.

Add to that one pop type accused of punching his girlfriend, another convicted of sexual assault and one further death at Pukkelpop and by Monday morning you’ve got the most depressing edition of the CMU Daily ever.

Haddon’s suicide was probably the most depressing story of them all – it was an incident that was utterly devastating for all involved. Eddy Temple-Morris writes about this in his CMU column this week, and expresses things far better than I could. But there is something about Haddon’s death I do want to comment on: the way it was reported. And the way news stories can develop on the internet when few real facts are to hand.

When the first whispers of news started coming back from Belgium on Friday afternoon, it was claimed that another member of the band, Joe Hutchinson, had died. It was also noted that during the band’s set he had injured a woman in the audience when a stage dive went wrong. But once it was established that Hutchinson was still alive, this piece of information was dropped from most reports (including ours).

However, on Tuesday an Australian news outlet again reported this original rumour, but with one important difference: it was now Haddon who had injured the audience member. That report also included claims that Haddon had been overheard saying that he feared he’d crippled her, and that a “furious argument” with bandmates had occurred backstage after the show. Then there was the revelation that the woman is expected to fully recover from her injuries.

By Wednesday, this story had worked its way back to the UK and it was being reported widely that “new details have emerged” about Haddon’s death. Now, suddenly, this footnote to the original reports was being delivered as something separate, a story in its own right, a new ‘fact’ that could be used to aid speculation about what had caused Haddon to take his own life. Even though the fact was very possibly wrong and the speculation definitely baseless. Worse still, the speculation was soon reported as fact.

By Thursday one report distilled all this down to one sentence, telling us that the “inconsolable” Haddon cut the band’s set short after the stage dive incident and then killed himself. This is something that really doesn’t sit comfortably with me.

I understand that it’s natural to be curious about what happened, and it’s natural to connect events together to create a picture of what may have occurred. That’s how the human brain works.

Maybe it was Charlie, not Joe, who stage dived. Maybe he was genuinely fearful that the woman he landed on was permanently injured. Maybe instead of finding out, he went and killed himself. But maybe the two events were unrelated. Maybe, by suggesting a connection, someone’s more long standing pain and mental distress was completely belittled, condensing something awful down to nothing more than someone acting on a whim.

I’m not saying this news shouldn’t be reported. We report on rumours and speculation all the time. But if it is, such information needs to be treated very carefully. It needs to be acknowledged that the decision to end your own life is something complex and difficult for others to understand, and that rumours of events immediately before such shocking actions do not hold all the answers. In fact they almost certainly don’t. Claiming to have the story all sewn up in five days without having any of the real facts to hand helps no one.

This is taken from my editorial in the 27 Aug 2010 edition of CMU Weekly, which you can read in full here.

Okay, you might say this case is different. This is a singing competition. This is the ‘X-Factor’. This is a search for Great Britain’s next big vocal talent, and if the programme’s makers are applying Auto-tune to people’s voices, how are we to know who is genuinely the best singer?

Well, firstly, let’s not even pretend that ‘X-Factor’ is a singing competition. If it was, such a large proportion of the show wouldn’t be devoted to humiliating deluded people. People whose comically warped opinion of their own singing ability has already been spotted by the show’s production team in the early stages of the auditions (the ones before they actually get in front of Simon and co). This whole section of the series is about laughing at idiots, with the occasional break for a sob story or an introduction to a ‘possible future star’.

All of which makes it ludicrous that anyone would complain about Auto-tune software being used to make the good people sound better and the bad people sound worse. If everyone was portrayed as being as close to average as they probably are, it would make for some pretty dull television and everyone would complain that it was boring. And the last thing ‘X-Factor’ wants to be is boring.

Last Saturday a record 11.1 million people tuned in to watch the first episode of the new series. Some of them then accused the show of using Auto-tune. And the show’s makers readily admitted it, issuing a statement saying: “The judges make their decisions at the auditions stage based on what they hear on the day, live in the arena. The footage and sound is then edited and dubbed into a finished programme, to deliver the most entertaining experience possible for viewers. When it gets to the live shows, it will be all live”.

The people who spotted the vocal manipulation had not done so because they were specialists in audio production, but because it was plainly obvious. If you actually listen to the vocals that were edited on last weekend’s programme, the tweaks were applied so heavy-handedly (distorting, rather than tuning), and seemingly at random, that you can’t help thinking someone involved in the show wanted people to notice. Either that, or they’ve got someone new in to do their sound editing, and s/he’s incredibly rubbish.

As a result of this, the show has been in the news all week, which is good news for the programme, its producers, its sponsors and its broadcaster ITV. ‘X-Factor’ traditionally keeps itself in the news by feeding stories to the tabloids about how the judges all hate each other and Louis Walsh could leave at any moment. But people are wise to that now. And anyway, simply turning up the Auto-tune a little has resulted in far more coverage than Louis’ fake tantrums ever could.

The only really interesting part of this story reveals itself if you turn your attention to ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, which is, of course, made by the same production team. The most successful thing that has ever happened on that show, or to any of its contestants (or to any contestant on a Cowell-owned franchise) is Susan Boyle’s first audition in front of the celebrity panel in 2009. She went on to be one of 2009’s most successful artists – worldwide – all because of that short audition peice, which became an internet phenomenon, thanks to YouTube and some high profile tweets. And this was an audition video that – rumours now has it – was very probably Auto-tuned.

But, hey, you’ll have to go a long way to find a mainstream artist whose voice isn’t Auto-tuned, even if just a little, these days. By manipulating contestants’ voices, ‘X-Factor’ is just preparing us for the reality of what’s to come. Really, instead of banning the software, which they claim to have now done, the show’s makers should have come out this week and said: “We’re going to Auto-tune the shit out of every single voice on the show from now on, because of your ridiculous high expectations. Now shut up and take it”. And then found a sound engineer who could use the technology without making it quite so bleedin obvious.

This was the ‘Beef Of The Week’ in the 27 Aug 2010 edition of CMU Weekly, which you can read right here.

Okay, maybe ‘news’ isn’t the right term for all of it. Or even much of it. 76% seems to have involved Justin Bieber in some way, while one of the week’s major stories was whether or not Guns N Roses are still playing their upcoming UK tour dates – most importantly, Reading and Leeds at the end of the month.

That particular story all started with a tweet, as things generally do these days. A message appeared on Axl Rose’s page on the social networking site informing fans that all future dates were off. Such is Axl’s reputation for being a bit flaky, half the world had reported it as fact before anyone thought to check it out. On closer inspection, it was the singer’s first tweet for three months, and was posted via Twitter’s mobile website, rather than the Twitter For iPhone app, which Axl generally uses.

A spokesperson for Reading and Leeds quickly announced that everything was fine and that Axl’s account had been hacked. Oh, those pesky hackers, I reckon we’ll see more of them in this week’s Weekly, too. So, end of story, time to get on with our lives.

Except the story has continued to bob up again and again all week. By Thursday, it was Reading and Leeds boss Melvin Benn who was giving the statements. He’d spoken to Guns N Roses’ booking agent, who had spoken to Axl, who had said everything was still on. But that tweet remains online, and neither Guns N Roses nor any of their ‘people’ have made any direct statement, which is why the story just won’t go away.

The band played their last gig last Friday, headlining the Rock N Rev festival in South Dakota, the band’s only US date this year, following tours of South America and Europe. Next up is the band’s UK tour and more mainland European dates, which are set to begin on 27 Aug at the Reading festival, before taking in arenas across Ireland, the UK and mainland Europe through to a show in Barcelona on 23 Oct.

The fact that the band have completed all but two dates of their 2009/2010 tour schedule (and those were both due to problems with the stage in South America) does suggest that Benn is right and everything is fine. But there’s still that reputation Axl’s got himself in recent years.
Back in 2002, when the new Guns N Roses first went out on tour, Axl’s failure to turn up to a number of early shows resulted in rioting, leading to the rest of the tour being cancelled. Then, in 2006, Axl cancelled the final dates of a US tour to work on completing the ‘Chinese Democracy’ album, at the same time as firing the band’s manager, Merck Mercuriadis. By this point, the band had nonetheless played numerous shows successfully, but that’s not the kind of thing people get remembered for. Especially when they’re Axl Rose.

So, wow, look at that. All this because of one tweet, eighteen words long, which probably was put there by a hacker. But Axl really does know how to start up a fuss, even if he does it unintentionally. Any other band would have deleted the tweet and issued a statement clearing the whole thing up. Other bands wouldn’t assume that some festival in the UK could put everyone straight. But I guess that’s why other bands aren’t as entertaining as Guns N Roses.

Taken from the 20 Aug 2010 edition of CMU Weekly, which you can read here.

Having made her television acting debut in a 1993 episode of ‘Seinfeld’, Jennifer Coolidge has gone on to become a regular face in US TV and film, appearing in movies such as ‘Legally Blonde’, Christopher Guest’s improvised mockumentaries ‘Best In Show’, ‘A Mighty Wind’, and ‘For Your Consideration’, Werner Herzog’s remake of ‘Bad Lieutenant’, and the ‘American Pie’ series, in which she played the role she is most recognised for, Stifler’s Mom.

Prior to moving into screen acting, Coolidge made her name as a member of LA-based improv group The Groundlings, which also launched the careers of such familiar faces as Will Ferrell, Lisa Kudrow and Conan O’Brien. So, she is not without experience of live comedy performance. But now in her late 40s and with continued success on screens big and small, now still seems like an unusual time to move into stand-up.

“It’s just a strange experiment”, she explained on the phone from LA. Last summer while on holiday in Cape Cod, she decided to try performing some stories and ideas she’d been working on. “I was reading out of a notebook on stage, and it wasn’t that interesting”, she continued. “But afterwards I got a phone call to come and do it somewhere else, and then another place and another. I don’t know why, it’s just stories strung together about my experiences in Hollywood, boyfriends, being single, sex”.

The calls kept coming and she continued to accept the offers. Almost by accident, it seems, she became a stand-up comedian.

“I don’t think I would have pursued it if people hadn’t kept asking me”, she admitted. “Because the first times I did it, it wasn’t very good. In the beginning I had no idea, I could barely look up from my notebook, but I kept getting offers and next thing I know I started going round the United States”.

She quickly found that it was something she really enjoyed, a significant change from her normal life. The travelling, she conceded, can be very hard going, especially as she often goes straight from a gig to an airport to a film studio. But the whole experience has been eye-opening.

“It’s fun leaving Hollywood”, she said. “My life changed drastically since I started doing this. It’s incredibly refreshing because I wasn’t just meeting people in ‘the business’. When you’re an LA actress it can be quite an isolated life, you just hang out with your own kind. Now after shows I’m hanging out with out with firemen and all kinds of different people”.

She added, “I’ve been doing mostly television and movie jobs for the last twenty years and, except for the Christopher Guest stuff, you show up and do someone else’s thing. It’s nice to be able to say what you think and express your own opinion”.

That first show was just a year ago, and when we spoke Coolidge was preparing for her first trip to the Edinburgh Festival, with a full month-long run of shows ahead of her. Was this a daunting prospect, I wondered.

“Edinburgh could be really daunting, yeah”, she said in the most undaunted voice imaginable. “I would love for it to be well-received, but it’s not like I’ve been working on this for 25 years and it’s been my life’s goal. I’ve always wanted to go to Edinburgh, it sounds like a really fun time. If it goes terribly, there’s still some fun to be had, the show is only an hour of my day, after all”.

“Why, do you think I should be daunted?” She asked, after a pause.

In all honesty, the answer was no. Throughout our conversation, Coolidge was disarmingly friendly and engaging, it’s hard to imagine any audience not instantly warming to her. But with such a wide range of comedy movies under her belt, what kind of audience does she find she attracts, and does she meet their expectations?

“I don’t know what people would expect”, she confessed. “I have done the show in certain cities where people have thought I’d be doing scenes from ‘Legally Blonde’, and are shocked that the show is a bit filthy”.

As for who she attracts, she continued, “The show’s audience is an incredibly strange mixture. Young guys show up for ‘American Pie’, then the female factor is there for ‘Legally Blonde’, there’s an older group – people above 30 all know the Christopher Guest films – and then there’s sort of a black audience because of ‘Pootie Tang’”.

Speaking of expectations, finally I ask what she hopes for from her first jaunt to the Fringe. “I’m gonna crash all the shows”, she announced excitedly. “I have other friends over there, plus there’s a million acts I don’t know”.

“How many shows are there?” She quickly shot back. Roughly 2000, I estimate. “Wow”, Coolidge says. “I hope I get to see all 2000!”

Taken from ThreeWeeks in Edinburgh 2010. View this interview on the ThreeWeeks website here or check out the online version of the entire paper here.

Okay, I was expecting the theatre to be there, I’m not generally in the habit of wandering into damp, smelly tunnels in the hope of finding entertainment. No matter what you’ve heard. I was there because the Old Vic has commandeered part of the space deep underneath the train station for a series of events this year.

Last week saw two performances of graphic novel writer Alan Moore’s new spoken word album, ‘Unearthing’, with musical backing provided by Crook&Flail (aka Adam ‘Doseone’ Drucker and Fog’s Andrew Broder).

On paper, it doesn’t sound like much: Alan Moore delivers a biography of one of his friends, writer Steve Moore (no relation), set to abstract electronic music with accompanying photographs by Mitch Jenkins projected on a screen behind the stage. In fact, it sounds quite pretentious. And maybe it was a little, but that was easily diffused by Moore’s fantastic writing and unforced humour, all delivered in his distinct Northampton accent.

The story, told over the course of three hours (with two fifteen minute intervals), was far more grand, epic even, than you could possibly expect of a biography of a comic writer who has lived in the same house in Shooter’s Hill – “where Kent begins and London disappears” – for his entire life, save for a misjudged period of three months. It goes back through the history of the area, treating it as much as a character as anyone or anything else in the story, and through the eventual meeting of his parents before getting on to his travels through the words of comics and the occult.

As Moore spoke, Drucker and Broder’s soundtrack (played with the help of Jeff ‘Jel’ Logan), swooped and swelled behind him, rising up to add to the drama, or falling completely away to punctuate the story. Jenkins’ photography and graphical interpretations added yet more tone and colour, though the focus was always the words.

In fact, perhaps the most impressive thing was the delivery of the words. In three hours, Moore never fluffed one of them. Never stumbled, coughed or even, as far as I could hear, breathed. It was a completely hypnotic, gripping and intense show; that intensity ramped up by the fact that we were sitting in a damp, dark tunnel with rusted corrugated iron hanging from the ceiling and the entire space often shaken around us by the deep rumble of overhead trains. Simply stunning.

Taken from my editorial in this edition of CMU Weekly.

Here are some of the bands who didn’t make it into the final story:

Coldplay + Goldfrapp = Coldfrapp
David Guetta + Jet = David Jetta
KT Tunstall + Katy Perry = KT Perry
The 69 Eyes + M83 = The 152 Eyes
Sigur Rós + Joss Stone = Sigur Joss

And here are the ones that did…

EMI to merge bands in new bid to cut costs
Following the news yesterday that all of EMI’s attempts to mortgage its recordings catalogue in the US market had failed, one last bold plan has emerged from the London-based major’s existing management that they hope can stop Citigroup from seizing control of the company when loan repayments become due in May.

It seems increasingly likely that the only way that EMI will now be able to meet its commitments to Citigroup is if it can convince investors in its parent company Terra Firma to cough up more cash. In a bid to get that support, a new internal report has proposed a radical way to enable further cost savings at the already cut-back major, principally by encouraging bands signed to the label to merge their activities, reducing upfront investment costs and financial risks.

The ‘April Report’, a name seemingly referencing the fact the major only has one month to save itself, was distributed yesterday to Terra Firma investors, senior EMI staff and key artist managers, and claims that so called ‘band mergers’ could be the solution to the major’s woes, enabling the record company to better service what some execs see as an overly expansive roster of artists by pooling marketing efforts into combined releases.

The report outlines some of the first band mergers likely to take place as part of the new arrangement, some of which seem to have already been run by affected artists and managers. If the proposals go ahead, Hot Chip will be partnered with Coldplay, and, despite having only just released their latest album ‘One Life Stand’, could be in the studio with their new bandmates and producer Brian Eno as soon as June. The new album from the combined band, working title Coldchip, should be out before Christmas.

While some merged bands will actually collaborate in the studio, other mergers will see American and British artists combined, with the singers performing under a combined brand name, but only in their home territory. This has echoes with the 1960s system where different artists on opposite sides of the Atlantic would release the same songs. It’s thought Katy Perry and Kylie Minogue, or Katy Minogue moving forward, might be the test project in this regard, with Katy representing the combined band brand in the US, and Kylie in the UK and Australia. There are, of course, also carbon footprint benefits to this particular idea.

But possibly the most surprising of the band merger proposals is that artists already involved in multiple projects with the label will have to pick one brand to perform under. This would affect the projects of former Blur members, whose new work would all be released under the Blur name. This would include all Damon Albarn projects, including Gorillaz, and Graham Coxon’s solo work.

Although it’s not clear if the band mergers proposal was included in the previously reported business plan prepared for Terra Firma investors by former EMI CEO Elio Leoni-Sceti, who quit last month, the proposal is now being spearheaded by the company’s Executive Chairman Charles Allen.

He provides the introduction to the April Report, and writes: “While it is no secret that EMI has had its fair share of problems in recent years, I genuinely believe that this measure will secure the company’s short term and long term future. I realise that many music fans will see it as a controversial move, but they must realise that it is a necessary one. Record companies need to keep their costs to an absolute minimum to stay in business, and when innovative solutions like this present themselves, we’d be fools not embrace them”.

Although most affected artists are yet to comment on the report, a source close to Hot Chip’s management last night confirmed that they had been consulted about the proposal the band merge with Coldplay. The source said: “We had our reservations about the Coldchip proposals, but, while driven by commercial necessity, they actually pose some interesting creative challenges that artists will find exciting. The Hot Chip boys are actually looking forward to working with some brand new bandmates. We’re not 100% sure how it’s all going to work yet, but given Coldplay’s huge global fanbase, it’s also a great opportunity for the guys”.

Other mergers proposed in the report include a new band called The Stones consisting of Angus, Julia and Joss Stone, and, perhaps most interestingly artistically speaking, an album by a combined Massive Attack and Liars, whose new moniker may be Massive Liars.

EMI are yet to comment on the leaked report.

See the story on the CMU News-Blog here and in CMU Daily here.

The track itself features vocals from Riz MC and Envy, whose relationship seems to be falling apart, resulting in the finest suggestion that someone should cut down on their pie intake ever committed to music. The vocals and visuals combine perfectly to make one of the best music videos you will see this year. I recommend switching it to high definition and playing it on the biggest screen you can find before emailing it to everyone you know.

Via Robert Popper

And there have been a lot of emotionally charged calls for the BBC to save 6music. But I am a cold and unemotional creature. I was quite happy for Abbey Road to be turned into a kebab shop and I don’t think any band should reform ever. If something’s done with and served its purpose, it should be allowed to die. But 6music is not done with, and it’s still very much in the process of serving its purpose. So, for that matter, is the Asian Network, which is also earmarked for closure.

The BBC tell us that it wants to make cuts in order to focus more on “high quality programming”. Which sounds nice, but actually says very little. You might as well say you want to make programmes that feel more sticky. Plus, you could just as easily find money for more high quality programming by cutting the budgets and number of staff on things like Chris Moyles’ Radio 1 show, which have far too much of both. It makes no sense to completely cut services that are both high quality and incredibly important to their listeners, who are underserved elsewhere in broadcast media.

Also, we’re told that the BBC needs to give its commercial rivals a chance. If that’s the case, why aren’t they closing down Radio 1? And since when is competition a bad thing? Yes, the BBC receives its funds in an unusual way, but that doesn’t mean commercial services can’t produce better material than they can. If the entire BBC shut down tomorrow, would Sky suddenly start making programmes that were actually watchable? Somehow, I don’t think the BBC’s existence is what’s holding Sky back in that area.

And who exactly are these rivals who would thrive if 6music closes? Xfm and NME Radio are cited by some, but these stations do not serve the same audience. Because they’re funded by advertising, they have to go for the more lucrative youth market, with 6music’s listeners more likely to be in the thirty-something bracket. In fact, even Xfm’s Eddy Temple-Morris has called for 6 to be saved (see here).

While it’s true that the BBC could make significant savings in a variety of areas, and use the licence fee more efficiently, the cuts put forward just do not, er, cut it. But all is not lost, the BBC Trust still have to approve these proposals. You should tell them why they shouldn’t, and you can do that right here.

Okay, lengthy rant over, sorry. You can follow CMU’s coverage of this story as it develops here.

This is my editorial from this week’s CMU Weekly, which you can read here. I wrote something similar for the Remix Update, which you can see here.

Here’s an interview he did with NME Radio’s Jon Hillcock earlier in the evening, when he was a bit more sober:

But, being able to drink dangerous quantities of alcohol is not Shane’s only talent. The group of musicians he managed to pull together for his cover of I Put A Spell On You, which includes Bobby Gillespie, Johnny Depp, Mick Jones, Glen Matlock and Paloma Faith, makes an impressive list. And the song itself is fantastic, as well. A charity single you could actually listen to? That doesn’t happen so often.

The single’s released on 8 Mar. You can pre-order it at 7Digital, here, or by texting SPELL (all in capitals) to 78789 (texts cost £1.50).