Joe Kavanagh's Music News

The Brit Awards dominated last week's European music news headlines, with last Tuesday's event offering up the usual array of preened performances, pretentiousness and perfunctory prattology, as artists from around the globe descended on London for an evening of backslapping and debauchery. Lady Gaga emerged as the biggest winner on the night, taking home awards for Best International Album, Best International Female Solo Artist and Best International Breakthrough Act. Financially speaking however, the US artist offered further evidence of why she allegedly lost over $4 million on her American tour, despite playing to packed houses throughout the lower 48 states. After initially ordering a highly-elaborate stage-show inspired by the city of London, the Poker Face singer decided to alter her demands at the last minute, in the wake of the suicide of UK fashion designed Alexander McQueen. A source quoted in British tabloid, the Daily Mirror, claimed: "Lady Gaga wanted her stage show to be as big and as theatrical as her Grammys one, an idea which the Brits bosses loved. The plan was for a London-themed backdrop with models of all the major monuments. Gaga would arrive onstage on a pimped-up green Rolls-Royce and sing 'Poker Face' and 'Telephone'. But the Rolls-Royce is now gathering dust backstage after she changed her mind and ditched the plans." Gaga eventually did stage a subtle tribute to McQueen, as part of her performance, after some discussion within her camp, as the source explained: "Her aides persuaded her that it would appear crass. So on Monday morning she changed everything yet again and promised to stump up the bill for the new stage which is easily in the £100,000s." She continued to hemorrhage cash later in the week, as her tour opened in the UK with a dramatically different, but equally exuberant set of stage props, bells and whistles costing her yet more moolah. Say what you like about the girl, but she sure knows how to put on a show and her live performances make Liberace's act look like a subway busker...

Liam Gallagher also made headlines on the gala night, when he took to the stage to accept the award for Best Brits Album of the Past 30 Years, which was awarded to Oasis, for their sophomore effort, What's The Story Morning Glory? Aware that the show was going out on live television, Gallagher provided a brief, expletive-laden speech, thanking all of the band members except his brother Noel, whom he fell out with in the lead-up to Oasis' demise. The younger Gallagher sibling then proceeded to throw the award and his microphone into the audience before swaggering off the stage to a smattering of cheers and boos. Host for the evening, comedian Peter Kay, summed up the moment perfectly, saying: "What a knob head." The comment by the comedian drew a testy response from Gallagher the following day, when he wrote on his Twitter account: "Listen up fat f*** as a real northerner I was brought up 2 say s*** 2 people's faces not behind their back. Live forever LG." Given that Peter Kay comes from Bolton, the son of a Bolton father, north of England and a mother who comes from County Tyrone, in the north of Ireland, I put it to Liam Gallagher that the comedian is about as northern as anyone this side of Santa Claus. The Bolton funnyman responded to Gallagher's jibes with a post on his official website, stating: "Congratulations to all the winners, including Noel Gallagher who sadly didn't get a mention (and who thankfully isn't a knobhead)."...

Staying on the subject of the Gallaghers momentarily, Simon Cowell announced last week that he is considering Noel Gallagher as his own replacement for judging duties on American Idol, when he relinquishes his responsibilities at the end of the upcoming season. The acerbic music mogul claims that he has no intention of offering the job to Howard Stern, despite all of the rumors to the contrary, but claims that Gallagher's renowned wit and musical talent make him a perfect candidate for the job. The only concern Cowell claims to have regarding Gallagher is whether or not US audiences would be able to understand his thick Mancunian accent - and that's thick as in heavy, not as in his brother...

The UK's Press Complaints Commission (PCC) last week refused to take further action against journalist Jan Moir, and the Daily Mail, in rejecting a complaint lodged by the partner of Boyzone's Stephen Gately, who died of natural causes last October. Andrew Cowles' was one of the record 25,000 grievances lodged with the PCC, after Moir caused uproar in a pair of articles headlined: "Why there was nothing 'natural' about Stephen Gately's death?" and "The truth about my views on the tragic death of Stephen Gately". The PCC admitted that it was "uncomfortable with the tenor of the columnist's remarks" but it could not condone taking action against the columnist's views, as such a move could potentially open the door to more draconian forms of censorship. It also observed that Moir's actions were mitigated by an apology which she offered in the second article and that the Mail had also published an article by Janet Street-Porter, which excoriated Moir for her views. Lead singer of Boyzone Ronan Keating, is still doing the rounds, talking about how much Gately's death has affected him. Last week, Germany's Hello! magazine became the latest publication which Keating talked to regarding his grief over the death of his band mate, saying: "When my mother was diagnosed with cancer we knew she wouldn't live for very much longer. The doctors gave her three months. But when you know that a beloved person is terminally ill, you can prepare yourself for it. But when Steo died it tore me apart. Friday night I had talked to him and Saturday morning he was dead. I still think he will call me or suddenly stand in front of my door. I'm still numb." While I am genuinely sorry for his troubles, whatever happened to the notion of suffering in silence or grieving privately? So what if the more schadenfreude-driven elements of this ridiculously celebrity-obsessed media keep asking him about it? As a wise man once told me: "No is an answer too." ...

Former Happy Mondays front man Shaun Ryder claims that he is having difficulty remembering lyrics, now that he has made the decision to reform another of his former bands, Black Grape. Speaking to UK tabloid the Daily Star, regarding his efforts to overcome his memory problems, the legendary hell raiser claimed: "I've got an autocue so I don't sing the wrong lyrics at the wrong gigs. It's not cheating as everyone uses one." Yeah, every newscaster maybe. I can't say that I've seen too many front men in rock bands using autocues. Mind you, with the amount of crack cocaine, heroine and alcohol that Shaun Ryder has consumed during the course of his career, I'm amazed that he can remember where he lives, not to mind the middle-eight from a song he last belted out almost two decades ago. Good luck to him...

Just when everyone thought that Ron Wood was finally beginning to get his act together, word emerged last week that the Rolling Stones guitarist has reunited with his 20-year-old former lover, Ekaterina Ivanova. Not only that but Wood now looks set to compound his embarrassing behavior, with sources close to him telling the UK media that he will soon enter the recording studio with his young lover, as he intends to help her record her debut album. Despite the fact that she has absolutely no musical talent. Despite the fact that she referred to him as an evil goblin king in the multitude of interviews that she gave to the media during the course of their break-up. Despite the fact that everyone in Ireland and the UK who watched Ivanova's brief stay on Celebrity Big Brother recently (she was the first person voted out by the public) could plainly see that Ron Wood is not with this girl for her nice personality. Or intelligence. A source close to the situation was quoted as saying: "Katia is an ambitious girl and she and Ronnie have discussed her going into music. Ronnie knows the business better than most and there's talk of him writing some material for her. Ronnie's at his happiest making music. If that also involves Katia, all the better for him." Ron Wood seems to fall off the wagon more times than a cowboy stunt man...

Elton John raised a few eyebrows with comments he made in a recently published interview that he gave to US publication, Parade magazine, in which he opined about Jesus' sexuality. The camp ivory-tinkler declared: "I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems. On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don't know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East - you're as good as dead." In all fairness, you don't have to go as far as the Middle East if you want to catch a beating just for being gay and as for John's contention that Jesus was gay simply because he understood human problems and advocated love and forgiveness? I'm not sure what scientific method he utilized to arrive at that deduction but there are scholars out there that have dedicated their entire lives to studying Jesus and they couldn't even hazard a guess at what the man looked like, not to mind what his sexual orientation was. John also shed light on his fear that he runs the risk of being murdered simply because he is famous, claiming: "Princess Diana, Gianni Versace, John Lennon, Michael Jackson, all dead. Two of them shot outside their houses. None of this would have happened if they hadn't been famous." It's not just the famous who have a monopoly on strangers trying to murder them, just look at Afghanistan and Iraq. There are people over there trying to kill each other every day and I'm reasonably sure that they have no idea who the individual in their crosshairs is...

Paul McCartney was amongst the plethora of musicians who announced their shock at the decision of EMI to sell Abbey Road Studios, in an effort to raise funds for the cash-strapped label. The north-west London studio was made world famous by the Beatles album of the same name, which was recorded there and featured an iconic shot of the band strolling along a zebra-crossing. It has since hosted such acts as Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson and a multitude of other stars that have passed through its doors, making it perhaps the most famous recording studio in the world. Speaking to the BBC last week, McCartney stated: "There are a few people who have been associated with the studio for a long time who were talking about mounting some bid to save it. I sympathize with them. I hope they can do something, it'd be great." Given that he is reputedly worth over $1 billion, if Macca really cared all that much about the place he could shell out the reported asking price of $20 million without even noticing a dent in his bank account and then just turn it into a reserve for chinchillas or something. After all, the man gave Heather Mills almost $50 million in a divorce settlement and I bet she didn't leave him with as many fond memories as that studio did. Also, there's a troubling rumor circulating, which claims that Andrew Lloyd Weber intends to purchase to studio, which can only mean that he is going to use it to work on more twee musicals. If that's the case then I would vote to send in Lee "Scratch" Perry with a box of matches and a gallon of gasoline because in the words of Buffalo Rockers, Every Time I Die: "It is better to destroy than create what is meaningless."