Holy Fuck banned from the listings

Like most people, I like to spend Sunday lunchtime catching up with recent judgements from the Advertising Standards Authority, and discovered last month they upheld a complaint about an advert in The Guardian Guide which included Holy Fuck in the listings:

The ASA noted that the word "HOLYFUCK" was the name of the advertised band and we also noted that the Guide was targeted at older teens and adults. However, we considered that, because it was placed in an entertainment listings supplement to a national newspaper, the ad was likely to be seen by a wide variety of readers including children. We considered, in that context, that the name "HOLYFUCK" was likely to cause serious or widespread offence to some readers.

Effectively, it's made it impossible to promote a Holy Fuck gig with advertising anywhere in the UK. Blimey. Or, indeed, holy fuck.

It Hugs Back with an EuroRail pass

Some splendid news - the Holy Fuck European tour has suddenly gotten about three thousand times more alluring with the addition of the lovely It Hugs Back onto the bill.

This would be their tour dates:
Monday 20th April - Nijmegen, Holland @ Doornroosje
Tuesday 21st April - Amsterdam, Holland @ Melkweg
Wednesday 22nd April - Groningen, Holland @ Vera
Friday 24th April - Brussels, Belgium @ AB Club
Saturday 25th April - Koln, Germany @ Gebaude 9
Sunday 26th April - Hamburg, Germany @ Molotow
Monday 27th April - Berlin, Germany @ Magnet
Tuesday 28th April - Munchen, Germany @ Ampere
Wednesday 29th April - Schorndorf, Germany @ Manufaktur
Thursday 30th April - Vienna, Austria @ Wuk Foyer
Friday 1st May - Rorschach, Switzerland @ Mariaberg
Saturday 2nd May - Strasbourg, France @ La Laiterie
Monday 4th May - Heidelberg, Germany @ Karlstorbahnhof
Tuesday 5th May - Nancy, France @ L'aute Canal
Wednesday 6th May - Paris, France @ Point FMR
Friday 8th May - Oxford, England @ Academy
Saturday 9th May - Canterbury, England @ The Farmhouse
Sunday 10th May - Manchester, England @ Academy 3
Monday 11th May - Glasgow, Scotland @ Oran Mor
Tuesday 12th May - Birmingham, England @ Academy 2
Wednesday 13th May - Liverpool, England @ Academy 2
Thursday 14th May - London, England @ The Scala

Maybe calling yourself Holy Fuck isn't quite so clever after all

Canada's Conservative Government has announced that it's pulling funding from two programmes which helped local bands sell their music internationally. One of the reasons given is that some of the bands using the funding are rude:

"the money was going to fringe arts groups that, in many cases, would be at best, unrepresentative, and at worst, offensive"

Yes, it turns out that funding Holy Fuck was all the excuse the government needed to axe the money for everyone: why should tax money be used to fling Canadian filth at the world's pop kids, ran the justification. Holy Fuck, though, are reluctant to carry the can:

"I guess more than anything it's a little bit annoying that we've been made the scapegoat when you consider how much money we receive relative to the budget for the entire program," [bassist Matt] McQuaid said.

"So all of these other larger groups who need money more than we do to travel abroad - like ballet and symphonies - we become the scapegoat for the cutting in their funding."

Well, yes, it's clearly a trumped-up excuse - if the real worry was that the music being promoted through the scheme was profane, you could just introduce a box on the application form which asked "will you have the f-word, or the c-word, or the k-word on your records?". But on the other hand, you don't call your band Holy Fuck because you think it's a quiet name that will let people focus on your music instead. It's a childish, look-at-us name; in this case, it's clearly worked in attracting attention. It's a bit much to moan that an attempt to be outrageous has wound up with people being outraged.

Glastonbloggy: Dissertations and diversions

Guardian blogger Alex Hoban gives Beth Ditto a gift, a dissertation about Beth Ditto:

So, when my Glastonbury work brief included the task of interviewing Beth, I knew this was my best chance of getting one over a friend of mine who'd been honoured enough to present her Julian Barnes-based disseration to the man himself at what I imagine was a cranium-crumblingly dull literary conference.

And it happened, just as I imagined. Entering her dressing room she fanned herself forward in a breezy floral dress like a new Aphrodite against which beauty must be measured. Many platitudes were exchanged as I handed her the chalice of my endeavours and, visibly enthused by the whole situation, she promised to read it and get back in touch to let me know what she thought.

A big important book all about how important Beth Ditto. However did he know?

Holy Fuck are going in prepared:

We’re warming up tonight with a show at Proud Galleries in Camden. There’s currently a Sid Vicious photo exhibit here, so as a tribute I will be getting fucked up and miming all my bass parts while Mat our sound engineer does the real work from behind my amp. Has the makings of the best Holy Fuck show of all time.

Tomorrow we head to the Glastonbury Festival where we’re playing the John Peel Stage. Hopefully the hippies are kinder to Jay-Z than they were to Kanye. And hopefully we don’t drown in the mud as it’s already been raining and continues to do so today. Brian is set as he has his Canadian-branded wellies.

Let's hope his wellingtons find favour - Fashionologie takes Daisy Lowe to task for a "no-no":

This year's Glastonbury Festival just kicked into gear today, and what do you know . . . Daisy Lowe popped up goofing off for the cameras in a slouchy black top, PVC pants, and muddy wellies. Considering that the fashion flock watches Glastonbury to see what Kate pops up wearing, it's not so smart for an up-and-coming model like Daisy to follow Kate's suit — at the same event — a year later.

On the other hand, wearing wipe-clean trousers makes sense when you're kneedeep in mud, surely?

[Part of Glastonbury 2008]

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet

Alexis Petridis takes a corner of G2 to tell bands who think calling themselves 'fuck' something to, well, fuck off and die:

Cower before our fearless individuality and unique disregard for conventional mores! Look on in awe as we épater la bourgeoisie with our sweary name! Alas, if the idea was to strike a unique note, you have to say it falls a bit flat. Said three bands join a burgeoning list of artists who seem to have had exactly the same idea about fearless individuality, cocking a snook at herd-like mentalities etc: Fuck, Fuckbomb, Fuckpony, Fuckhead, Fuckface, Fuckmouth, FuckEmos, Fuck Vegas, Fuck on the Beach, Fuck the Facts, Mister Fuck, Swamp Fuck, the Fucking Champs, the Fucking Wrath, the Fuckmasters, the Fuckerettes, the Fuck You Ups, the Exploding Fuck Dolls, the Fuckin' Shit Biscuits and - a personal favourite - the Guadeloupe-based rapper who clearly couldn't decide whether he wanted to sound shocking or sweetly endearing and attempted to split the difference by calling himself Fuckly.

Radioheadaches

Much disgruntlement all round at the Radiohead online remix contest, with people complaining to Wired that 'snotfair:

Had Radiohead allowed just enough time (say, one full weekend) for a reasonable amount of mixes (say 100) to come in, without opening the contest for voting... and THEN, once all the mixes were in, allowed people to listen through and vote for the ones they liked, maybe allowing a full week or two for this to take place, then perhaps it would be fair.

As it is, the contest favors those who submitted early (Holy Fuck submitted third, Dreamtrak 1st), and those who have a huge network to rely on (Spor's myspace page has 40,000 friends and over 1,000,000 hits... for Christ's sake even Thomas Dolby couldn't beat his ambition), oh and it also favors people like Naomi Elizabeth who have disgusting vapid remixes, yet show their exposed breasts on their MySpace pages [not really] and post their widgets in as many online crevices as possible. I'm almost positive that some of these folks have random IP address generators. I saw one guy (The Abrasion mix, at number 4) submit very late in the mix and then a day later he had 9000 votes... he hardly has any friends on myspace.. how does one rally 9000 votes in one day?

We'd suggest there's a certain loss of innocence on display here - "you can rig online polls" and "people who are already popular online find it easy to get their friends and fans to vote for them elsewhere" are hardly revelations that are going to have Huw Edwards rejigging the running order of the News At Ten, although there probably is a fair point to be made about allowing voting before everyone submitted - a distortion favouring first movers that, for example, BBC One's I'd Do Anything has fixed for its Nancy Hunt. But even without having got there quickly, it's still likely that Holy Fuck would have got more votes than Joe Q Peppercorn of Boise, Idaho, because Holy Fuck are Holy Fuck and JPQ is but a single man. Even had Radiohead had a pro and an amateur category, there would still have been a problem. This is how bridges nearly get named after Stephen Colbert, after all.

One way round it would have been to invite voters to participate Am I Hot Or Not style, listening to a randomly assigned remix without knowing who made it until after giving a score from 1 to 10. Too late now, though.

Interestingly, Radiohead have extended the deadline for voting. And perhaps, had they not charged people for the remix stems - and thus levied a fee on entering a competition that would never be fair - nobody would be upset at all.

Holy Fuck do over Radiohead

The highlight of the Radiohead Nude remix contest so far: Holy Fuck's workover [MP3]

Rachel Ray: at least it's not Toploader

Rachel Ray's decision to hold an indie-meets-food event as part of SXSW hasn't exactly delighted all the world's music bloggers: there's a sense that a daytime TV celebrity cook shouldn't be turning up on the fringes of alt-rockery holding gigs.

Ray says she's not bothered:

I'm not aware about what blogs were saying about me," Ray told MTV News on Tuesday. "To be honest, I have five jobs, so I'm aware of what I have to do for them when we get up in the morning. But I don't see why we'd be out of place down there, when we're just fans of music who decided to put on a show. I guess if they don't like good music, and they don't like good food, they don't have to go."

To be fair to Ray, she's got a point - it's not like SXSW is exactly free from commercial influence anyway, and the appearance of Holy Fuck on the bill suggests that someone in the Ray organisation is happy to embrace something more than just the most Jay-Leno-friendly bands for the event.

We suspect, though, it's not Ray's personal choice, as her "I love indie, honestly" defence sounds a little like your younger brother trying to impress a girl rather than heartfelt love of Holy Fuck:

"My husband and I listened to a bunch of discs and picked our favorites," Ray explained. "We also have Sirius, so we're always listening to the Left of Center program, which is how we heard the Raveonettes. With a band like [Holy F---], I have to say that it was the name that got us listening. But we're glad we did. They're pretty good.

"And I don't understand why that's so surprising. I find it weird that they find it weird. People think I'm like this food robot or something, but music is a huge part of my life," she continued. "I'm a huge fan of rock music in general — all kinds. I like indie stuff, my favorite band is the Foo Fighters. When I first met my husband, he told me what he made for dinner the night before, and I thought, 'OK, well, he can cook.' And then he told me he had a band and I was like, 'Aw, jeez. I hope they're good,' because I couldn't deal with someone who didn't play good music."

"I've got quite eclectic taste, I have a satellite radio and a Foo Fighters album." So, maybe she'd have been more at home backstage at the Brits than down in Austin for SXSW, but still: indie survived Cookin: Jamie Oliver's Music To Cook By; it'll survive 30 minutes with Rachel Ray.