Gordon in the morning: People watching

Gordon reports from GAY this morning:

LAWSON made themselves as useful as The Village People during their gig at London’s G-A-Y club night on Saturday.

The ladband got kitted out in security bibs and mucked in by collecting tickets, mixing drinks and frisking punters.

Eh? Making themselves as useful as the Village People? Is Gordon confusing The Village People with The Wombles?

The teaser text tries to make more sense of the Village People comparison:

Boyband Lawson are the only Village in the G-A-Y

LADS take a turn as the YMCA icons, even wearing dayglo bibs, during their gig at the famous London club night

Ah, yes. You can see the similarities:

This is Lawson from Saturday night...

... and this is The Village People.

It might be the other way round, it's virtually impossible to tell the difference.

Village People are trying to shake down Jamie Oliver

Jamie Oliver's amusing promo for his American Road Trip series has upset The Village People. The trail featured Oliver dressed up in the same fancy dress used by the band, and this, they reckon, is a copyright infringement:

Anyone who thinks the Village People are little more than a fun-at-the-time 1970s disco band with hits including YMCA and In The Navy needs to think again. According to John Giacobbi, the British lawyer pursuing Channel 4 on their behalf, "the Village People are still a huge, multimillion-dollar global business."

The name and costumes are trademarked in the US, and hundreds of commercial requests are dealt with every year, said Giacobbi. There was, he said, no such request from Channel 4.

How on earth did 'dressing like a policeman or builder' ever get a trademark approval? It's fancy dress. I know 'copyright, trademark and patent law in the US is fundamentally broken' is hardly a new insight, but even so...

Channel 4 don't seem overly worried by the threats, anyway. Presumably they're happy that there's always the defence of parody to fall back on.

Thatcher-off: Number five

Into the top half of the chart battle between music as Thatcher found it, and as she left it, and our international panel of experts suggest that it was a little bit better in 1979. But what of number five?

Number 5, April 1979: The Village People - In The Navy



They. Want. You. Oh my goodness. They. Want. You. What am i going to do in a submarine? Gay, splashy, men-in-uniforms. Did we mention gay? Oh, yes, it's cheesy, but something of a tribute to the state of British society that something so clearly camp could win the heart of the nation. Politicalfact: Under Thatcher's Clause 28, teachers caught humming Village People songs were sacked on the spot, with no right of appeal or pensions.

Number 5, November 1990: Paul Gascoigne & Lindisfine - The Fog On The Tyne



There are nowhere near enough conceits that allow you weigh the relative merits of a gay pop act against a footballer-turned-lets-be-kind-and-say-singer. Still, the success of Gazza at least proves that Thatcher didn't quite get round to killing everyone who lived in the North of England, which is something to consider if you're thinking of writing a book which re-evaluates her impact on British society. Although this was enough to make most of North-East England die of shame. Politicalfact: After this record was released, Newcastle council voted in favour of filling in the Tyne out of shame; the plan was only abandoned when people from Gateshead got excited about being able to stroll across the river.

1979 wins by a wide mile.

Pre-Thatcher, 4; Post-Thatcher, 2.

Cop in hospital

Victor Willis, who was the policeman in the Village People (and also "the one who wasn't) has put his tour on hold as his vocal cords are suffering from nodules:

He developed hoarsness after several 2007 performances, forcing him to cancel European and Canadian concert dates this year.

That would be police hoarsness, then.

Sorry.

YMCA: putting it straight

In a desperate bid to try and change the course of history, Victor Willis is trying to dampen down the surprisingly popular belief that the Village People were the gayest thing ever. Although since he says he left the band because the others were too gay and flamboyant, even he may recognise that he's going to have an uphill task.

But he's trying, anyway, with a claim that YMCA isn't about having sex with men:

Willis, best-known for portraying the cop and the naval admiral in the '70s disco group, also reveals "Y.M.C.A." was written in Vancouver and was never meant to refer to gay cruising, says his publicist Alice Wolf.

Wolf says the group was on tour when Willis wrote the lyrics at the behest of the band's French producer, Jacques Morali, who wrote the music. But Willis never intended the homosexual innuendo that many fans read into the song.

"Victor Willis wrote about the YMCA and having fun there, but the type of fun he was talking about was straight fun," insists Wolf, adding that Willis has nothing against homosexuality.

"When he says, 'Hang out with all the boys'... he's talking about the boys, the fellas.... But it's one of those ambiguous songs that was taken that way because of the gay association with Village People."

See? He meant fellas, for god's sake, not chaps. Why on earth would people assume that just because a bunch of guys dressed up as fetish types and started singing about "doing whatever you feel" and "ways to have a good time" that it was somehow gay.

Oddly, Ray Simpson - who is still with the band - doesn't seem totally swayed by Willis' arguments:

All I can say is: for every story, there's another story

In tomorrow's papers: Tom Robinson insists Glad To Be Gay was merely a 1970s reworking of Whistle A Happy Tune.

Okay, Enrique, but I'm not wearing the moustache

We're warming to Enrique Inglesias - apparently, he likes to listen to the Village People when he makes sweet, sweet love:

"Village People are one of my favourite bands.

"It's not a joke! I'm surprised you think it's a joke.

"I like their originality. I really do."

And while he chose Marvin Gaye, Josh Groban or even Enigma as mood music to make love to, when asked if he also adds the Village People to the list, he said: "Yes, to Macho Man."

And his latest single features him playing table tennis on it. What more could you want?

Village People cop cops it again

The troubled life of Victor Willis hasn't settled yet: he's been arrested following claims he attacked a woman with a knife:

The singer, who uses the nickname Macho Man, has been accused of attacking his girlfriend.

The woman told police that Willis, 55, had choked her and threatened her with a knife.

Willis had announced he'd quit drinking following his spot of trouble with the law last year.