Us apologise after misidentifying Kanye West as the loudest clown in town. A bit.

At the end of last week, Shirley Manson did a massive post to Facebook saying... well, this:

Dear He who shall remain nameless,

It is with great sadness that I read your email today.

Clearly you have forgotten or are just generally unaware, that in business it is always wise to be kind and respectful in your day to day dealings with other people. Especially those you have never met.

You just never know when you might meet that person who has been at the receiving end of your disrespect for indeed you may have to come on bended knee to that person later on down the line because they hold on to something of value that you need to get your greasy hands on.

What alarms me more than anything about your nasty little barbs is that you are in the business of representing artists interests and yet you are clearly unaware that not all musicians are obsessed with the charts or being famous.

That some of us do not value ourselves by the number of mainstream "hits" we have enjoyed .

That some of us just enjoy making music and having a long lifespan of a career without having to dance as fast as we can, or be the loudest clown in town or be having to hitch ourselves to the latest ,greatest, freshest sound in order to remain "on top" .

There are some of us who just like to live the way WE see fit. Make the music WE feel passionate about. Music that feels authentic to who we are and where we are in our lives.

There are even some of us who do not believe that being famous is the holy grail or the answer to a beautiful, meaningful and rewarding life.

Clearly you are unable to wrap your head around the idea that some musicians actually prefer NOT having to perform on Children's TV shows. Who do NOT want to be gossiped about in the popularity contest columns. Who most definitively do NOT want to be chased by paparazzi and who do NOT want to put their family name to some shitty , poorly made product in order to build a "brand" and who most definately do NOT want to go out every night, dressed up to the nines to the opening of an envelope.

SO allow me to make my choices as I see fit without having to endure your childish and un-evolved criticism.

As you so rightly pointed out, there are plenty of talented people in the world who will sell their grannies to serve your desires.

So now then sir, that all said,
Go F#CK yourself.

The "nameless" bit in the opening line is so frustrating if you're trying to stir up a beef, so a lot of publications - the charge led by Us - assumed that it must be Kanye West. After all, Shirl had a pop at West recently, and... well, if a gossip magazine can't think about more than one thing at a time, the same must be true of everyone, right?

Trouble is, it wasn't about Kanye. So Shirley took to Facebook again:

I would just like to state for the record that my post from a few days ago which has been heisted today by US Weekly and then consequently glommed onto by a variety of so called news sources had absolutely NOTHING to do with Kanye West whatsoever.

It was directed towards a completely unknown industry insider who had in my opinion been rather offensive in his dealings with me last week.

I take great exception to US Weekly rushing to assume who this aforementioned post was directed towards. Instead of doing their due diligence which in my opinion is their journalistic duty, they have instead made lazy, potentially libelous assumptions which I find completely offensive and entirely inaccurate.

Modern journalism in most cases these days, barely resembles the craft that was once practiced with such care, skill and integrity. Instead we are stuck with provocative scandal mongers who will stoop at nothing in an effort to drive people to their web sites.

Ignore all the stupidity and get on with your lives my friends.

I fully intend to do the same.
Be well.
Sx

(You know that somewhere there's a man reading that going 'calling me a loud clown is one thing, but now you've called me an 'unknown' - well, that's going too far, young lady. That's going too far.')

So Us have backed down:

UPDATE: An earlier version of this story stated — erroneously — that Manson had written her Facebook post specifically about Kanye West. A rep for the singer reached out to Us Weekly to clarify that the anonymous subject of Manson’s note was not, in fact, the rapper. Us regrets the error.

They regret the error.

Though not enough to bother changing the headline on the story:

Shirley Manson Trashes Unnamed Enemy as the "Loudest Clown in Town" -- Is She Talking About Kanye West?

No. No, she isn't. In the first paragraph under this headline, you apologise for saying that she was.

An error, of course, they regret.

Although not enough to actually change this image caption either:

Shirley Manson ripped Kanye West yet again on Facebook, calling Kim Kardashian's husband "the loudest clown in town" -- find out what set her off here.

That's quite a piece of work there, then, Us:

From the top, then:
Headline: Implies it might be Kanye West
Image: Says it is Kanye West
First para: Says it isn't Kanye West.

Good work, everyone.

Comes With Music comes with a long delay in the US

Nokia doesn't seem to be rushing to bring Comes With Music to the US: it's putting back a planned launch to 2010.

Forbes is suggesting that Nokia has been underwhelmed by take-up of the service in established markets; network operators don't seem to be that keen on offering CWM, either.

Throbbing Gristle plotting whistle-stop tour

Lucky, lucky, bloody Americans: Throbbing Gristle are doing a US tour.

Gordon in the morning: Seasick and buried

If only I had a range of made-up prizes to share out, like Gordon's 'Shagger Of The Year' prize, I'd be reaching into my sack to give Bizarre one today, for giving an unlikely lead story to Seasick Steve. It's unexpected, and it's quite a nice piece:

The former hobo told me: “I didn’t even know what the Brits was. My record label had to explain it to me. I thought they were joking."

That's a wonderful quote. They can add it to the press releases, right after someone from the BPI tries to claim that the Brits are one of the most impressive global events of the year.

Nice work, everybody. And putting a bloke with a beard and a check shirt at the heart of your double-page spread is surprising and uplifting.

What a pity, though, that the online edition of Bizarre has the story buried away at the bottom of the page, making vital space for stories about Caprice in her pants and Lady GaGa in her pants.

There is some breaking news, though: Universal have sent an executive out to have a word with Amy Winehouse. Sorry, I say "executive" - according to Richard White, he's actually a "bigwig":

AMY WINEHOUSE’s record label yesterday flew a bigwig to her holiday resort for a heated showdown.

Universal’s commercial director Brian Rose was dispatched to St Lucia to “drive some common sense” into the singer.

A heated showdown, eh? Is that one that you pop into a microwave for thirty seconds before using it?

For those who haven't been keeping up, there's a recap of Amy's behaviour:

The 25-year-old has been snapped crawling under tables begging for alcohol from other guests after staff at the swish Caribbean resort refused to serve her.

Guests also said the Rehab star has been blowing as much as £8,000 on food and drink for people she barely knows.

Actually, if she's been taking drinks off people, and buying drinks for people, doesn't that make her more or less square with the other guests?

So, Universal is putting its foot down, is it?

Universal last night confirmed Mr Rose had flown to St Lucia but insisted the meeting was to discuss future projects.

Well, yes - but that could take the form 'when are you going to stop crawling under tables and start making us some more money', couldn't it?

I think we know how this story ends, though, don't we?:

CHERYL COLE was looking as good as ever at London’s Zuma restaurant, where she was discussing plans with American music execs to crack the US.

We have that she was doing this on good authority because, erm, of some eavesdropping:

A fellow diner at the Japanese hotspot said: “They told her she’s in big demand.”

... before explaining that he'd dropped a bread roll on the floor, and that was the only reason he was crawling around under the table listening, you understand.

Cheryl Cole is in big demand in America, is she? Can we have some calibration for this - is it more or less than the demand for a revival of Melrose Place, for example?

American Idol straps on waterskis, looks for marine mammals

Is American Idol entering its decline phase? Although the return was the most-watched programme so far this year on US TV, it hasn't had a starting audience this low since 2004. Even the defence of the audience size isn't that spirited:

A spokesman for the show said it was not surprising for the popularity of a show, even one as big as American Idol, to fall after eight seasons.

He added that a bigger chunk of the audience had started recording the two-hour programme.

But isn't one of the attractions for broadcasters of this sort of programme that it has to be watched more-or-less live, that it's appointment television like what they used to have in the old days? Do advertisers want to know that more and more viewers will be spooling through the adverts?

Could it just be that a simple-minded programme is now creatively running dry?

Viewers watched hopefuls auditioning in Phoenix, Arizona. They included a contestant wearing only a swimsuit who earned the nickname Bikini Girl.

An astonishingly sharp and inspired nickname. Bikini Girl - because she's a woman, and she's in a bikini. When you have it explained to you, it's quite clever, isn't it?

Virgin Megastores shrink in US

With Zavvi closing swathes of the former UK Virgin Megastore chain, it's perhaps unsurprising that the American Virgin Megastores are struggling as well. In the dying moments of 2008, two of the three LA branches were being wound down; today the company announced that it would close the flagship Times Square store by the summer.

Razorlight buys I Heart NY tshirts

I really want to believe that this paragraph on NME.com is a knowing parody of Razorlight's strange worldview of America:

Johnny Borrell and company will drop 'Slipway Fires' Stateside in March 2009.

Surely, surely, that's NME taking the piss out of Borrell?

Whale meat later: Noah cancels US plans

Noah and The Whale have put off their US tour plans:

Some of the most dedicated, blog-aware North American friends of Noah and the Whale have correctly identified North American tour dates circulating on the internet.

It is with no little remorse and disappointment that we are compelled to cancel these dates. These words are being typed in the studio as we make progress on the next Noah and the Whale album. Between commitments in hereto-neglected Europe, we have made the sad but important decision to take time to develop these recordings over the winter months.

Despite this unavoidable necessity we would like to apologise to all the wonderful friends we made on our most recent American adventure, to anyone who has bought tickets or was preparing to do so.

The whole band enjoys an ongoing love affair with the US. The autumn tour was one of the most intense and heartening experiences of our lives and we were bristling with seasonal anticipation at the prospect of old faces and venues, not to mention new American audiences and experiences too. But there is simply not enough time in the world and we are sure that this next record will justify this difficult call.

With new songs to disseminate and even more America-famished, we will cross the pond to tour across the continent from March 2009. This is a promise, a published, globally-viewable promise.

Once again we want to express our most sincere gratitude for everyone who has seen us play, said they would see us play, or said two good words about the band. Noah and the Whale will be back and we will be back many times.

That's the second band this week electing to stay in the studio instead of going out to tour.

Whale away

Noah and the Whale are off to the United States, for what they point out, politely but firmly, isn't their first tour of the America:

September 16- Union Pool- Brooklyn, NY
September 18- Sidewalk Cafe- New York, NY
September 19- Virgin Union Square (12:30 PM)- New York, NY**
September 19- Mercury Lounge- New York, NY
September 20- TOAD- Boston, MA**
September 22- The Saints- Montreal**
September 23- Horseshoe Tavern- Toronto, ONT**
September 25- Av-Aerie (ALL AGES)- Chicago, IL
September 26- Reckless Records (6 PM)- Chicago, IL**
September 26- Empty Bottle- Chicago, IL
September 29- Chop Suey- Seattle, WA**
September 30- Doug Fir Lounge- Portland, OR**
October 02- Amoeba Music (6PM)- San Francisco, CA**
October 02- Pop Scene @ 330 Ritch- San Francisco, CA
October 04- Detour Festival- Los Angeles, CA
October 06- Spaceland- Los Angeles, CA**

Those double asterisks? They're free shows, they are.

Gedge takes along the Earlimart

More 'maybe it's time to go and live in the US' fodder: Earlimart have been confirmed as support for the Wedding Present's US and Canada dates. Which are these:

September 18 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah
September 19 – Los Angeles, CA @ Troubadour
September 21 – San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
September 23 – Eugene, OR @ John Henrys
September 24 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos
September 25 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
September 26 – Vancouver, Canada @ Media Club

Foreigner affairs

Good news for Americans who refuse to buy CDs unless they have that FBI warning on the sleeve: Johnny Foreigner is getting a US release for Waited Up Til It Was Dark. Not til October, mind.

Meanwhile, enjoy some video fun with the JFs.

Going well for the Ting Tings

America seems to be taking the Ting Tings to its heart: they've just announced they're extending their tour. (NB: Dates below are in American format - i.e. wrong)

06/21/08 Philadelphia, PA Popped
07/22/08 Washington, DC 9:30 Club
07/25/08 Providence, RI Club Hell
07/26/08 Albany, NY Valentine's
07/27/08 Brooklyn, NY McCarren Park Pool w/MGMT & Black Moth Super Rainbow
07/30/08 Kansas City, MO City Market w/Gnarls Barkley & Black Lips
07/31/08 St. Louis, MO The Bluebird
08/02/08 Chicago, IL Lollapalooza
08/04/08 Minneapolis, MN Varsity
08/06/08 Los Angeles, CA El Rey Theatre

All their other dates are sold out. Bouncers, generally, won't take kindly to you trying to sneak in by guessing a name that might be on the list and then saying "no, that's not my name..." and then trying again.

Fuse tries again

Fuse, Cablevision's struggling attempt to take on MTV, is getting a fifteen million dollar push to try and at least ensure some Americans have heard of it. We suspect this will be the last time Cablevision will bother if they don't see results this time.

The signs aren't encouraging, though:

One of the print ads, “Music is rebellion,” shows a bright red cartoon fist clenching a microphone and was made by the artist Shepard Fairey, who is known for his “Obama Progress” poster. Another ad in the series, “Music is aphrodisiac,” is done in the style of the painter Marc Chagall and shows a floating man admiring a woman whose body forms the shape of a guitar.

A woman shaped like a string instument? Wow, that's a cutting-edge idea that wasn't first done by Man Ray in 1924, isn't it?

The problem is that, at a time when media is being driven in a direction of personalisation, nichedom and slapping a "My" on everything, Fuse seem to be trying to head in the opposite direction:

Guy Barnett, co-founder of the Brooklyn Brothers [Fuse's current advertising agency], said that the new campaign was meant to turn Fuse into a brand that everyone could relate to.

Isn't the idea of a music channel that everyone could watch missing the point more than a little?

“We wanted to create a lot of work, so that if rebellion wasn’t your thing, therapy might be,” he said. “We wanted something that would strike a chord with everyone, that’s why there is such a diversity of art.”

How the channel might be able to deliver that promise, though, isn't clear - perhaps a splitscreen with Steve Earle in one corner and Loudon Wainwright in the other?

The Kooks: Have they ever heard themselves?

Kierkegaard, it was, who observed that "a man may accomplish many feats and comprehend a vast amount of knowledge and still have no understanding of himself", so perhaps we shouldn't be too hard on Luke Pritchard, a man who clearly has no understanding of himself or his band at all.

The Kooks are playing some gigs in the US, and Luke feels the hand of history on his shoulder:

"I'm a romantic ya know," coos the crooner, "and it's quite a romatic thing to come over from England like the Beatles or Stones and have that relationship with America and bring our music over there."

Obviously, the Kooks have travelled across from England, and, yes, The Beatles and the Stones did do the same, but we'd suggest that - unless we've missed scenes of screaming teenagers greeting them at the airports - there are few parallels beyond that.

But Luke hasn't finished. You might think they're stage school mass-market pop, but - oh, no, no:

"Playing live and playing on the record are two different things," he says. "When we play live we are not trying to re-create the record. We are more like a punk band when we play live, so you can expect absolute anarchy from the stage."

Again, let's be fair - when he says they're more like a punk band live, there's absolutely no way they could be any less like a punk band than their bland, please-like-me, lets-not-rock-the-boat records; but "absolute anarchy"? From The Kooks?

He means "not enought Take That"

Gary Barlow doesn't like American radio because it doesn't play enough Take That ("doesn't stimulate him"):

"The radio plays records too much in America. It's monotonous."

He means, I suspect, that they play the same record too often, rather than what he actually said, which would imply he switches on the radio and exclaims "I can't believe it - they're playing a record again. Why can't they just tap things together if they have to broadcast sounds?"

Success! Virgin Megastores grow

Here's a story that might take you by surprise: Virgin Megastores are doing quite nicely, thank you. Of course, they're now only found in the US, and much of the growth - sales 11.5% up year-on-year for 2007 - is going to be down not so much to the rude health of Virgin as the closure of Tower in December 2006. You might even wonder if, with the loss of their main competitor, the sales rise is a little disappointing.

And the sales rises are being driven by fashion, DVDs and computer games - the latter nearly doubling in value over the year.

Nevertheless: a music shop that is feeling confident in the current market. Even if the music is now tucked away in the corner. Good news.

Gordon in the morning: Kylie sniffs the Stars and Stripes

A perfectly workmanlike piece from the awkwardly-suited one today, reporting Kylie's latest attempt to crack America.

Supposedly, Robbie 'not that he'd be eaten up with jealousy or anything' Williams has been trying to warn her off:

A source revealed: “Kylie has spoken about it with Robbie. He told her he loves being largely unknown when he’s at home in the States, while cash rolls in from the rest of the world.

“Robbie thinks she should keep the US as a place she can go to escape the spotlight. But Kylie doesn’t agree and has decided on one final push.”

Unfortunately, merely typing the words 'Robbie Williams' distracts Smart, who spends the last quarter of the article running through the David Icke/UFOs stories again. In fact, he even forgets to reach any conclusion about Kylie at all.

Meanwhile, the quality of headlines hits a new low this morning. That picture of Paul McCartney and Nancy Shevell on the beach?

I do like divorcee by the seaside

It doesn't even scan.

Now that Heather Mills is firmly outside the McCartney organisation, the Sun has hardened its stance against her. Out goes "Mucca" and coy references to "her porn past", now she's:

ex-porn model Heather Mills

Clearly, being a porn model is a bad thing. Erm, unless you enter one the Sun's repeated 'become a Page 3 girl' competitions, in which case being a porn model is a desirable career move.

Gordon also throws in another Amy Winehouse story, suggesting she wants to move house for the third time in a year. Which, erm, is quite odd for a recluse, isn't it?

The smart before the hoarse

Assuming that (a) they're let in and (b) that Liam turns up, Oasis have signed up for a Canadian and Washington State tour. Ryan Adams and The Cardinals are opening, which is surely all wrong.

Still, the next time Noel goes on and on about Knebworth, we'll all be able to pipe up "yeah, and what about the Pengworth Saddledrome, eh?"

iTunes moves up to number two

Here's some figures which show why the majors are desperate to try and find someone, anyone, to take on iTunes with a serious proposition: Apple is now the second biggest music retailer in the US, bested only by WalMart, according to NPD Group. And that's without selling any CDs at all.

Equally alarming for the companies which cling to their old business models: 48% of American teenagers didn't buy a single, physical record in 2007.

The good news for musicians, though, is that Americans bought 6% more music last year than they did in 2006.

They said no, no, no

Regardless of it she's well enough or not, Amy Winehouse won't be at the Grammys: America has turned down her visa application.

Mark Ronson is going to be bored shitless at the awards, then.