I read an anti-iTunes rant by a member of a band who objects to people cherry-picking their favourite tracks as he says the band view each of their albums as marking a specific point in their development, their history, and should be treated with the requisite respect. I'm paraphrasing here as I'm unable to re-read the original article through tears of laughter. Thanks to Angus Young of AC/DC for proving that satire's not dead.

...is on Radio 4's Saturday Live this morning.

I know it's not a patch on Diagnosis Murder, but they do seem to like it round these parts...

If, when it's available, I decide to slip 79p to iTunes for Hey Bulldog, how is the money split up?

How much do iTunes get?

Macca? Ringo?

Lennon's offspring?

Does the Epstein family get anything?

Does Michael Jackson? Or did he have to sell up?

Writer/Director of Withnail, Bruce Robinson, said that as a method of seeking inspiration, he would make short work of a bottle or so of Rioja or similar on rising at 8AM. Bottle killed within maybe 20 minutes, he would proceed to write down the 100 thoughts that boiled out of his brain and then lay down his weary, and no doubt confused, frame for the rest of the morning. Later - and waking with a rotten bloody headache to boot, I'd have thought - he would review what he'd done, and if he was lucky there might, in amongst the drunken dross, be an unbidden pearl.
Ever suffered for your art? Found a shortcut to the muse? Or know of someone who has?

Inspired by Con Coleman's recent three-word album reviews, and applying the same principle to groups.

Who are "Steptoe Freak Show"?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/bruce/tomy/media/Coverdale_210x130.jpg

Don't know if this news has appeared here or in the magazine or is common knowledge, but All You Need Is Love starts on More4 at 0:55 on Saturday morning.

"And as I watched him on the stage my hands were clenched in fists of rage".

Don McLean wants a fight?

How scary is that?

I see that while Robert Plant has been been playing hard to get, he has affected the frilly dress-shirt look. Admittedly most of the buttons appear to have been sliced off during the ironing process, but it's a dress shirt all the same. Old Robert seems to be a down-to-earth sort of fellow, who wouldn't be too bothered about stylists, so he probably came up with this idea himself, d'you think?

How about Macca and the recent basketball boots and suit outfit? Maybe one of Stella's?

Or David Bowie and his mad and baggy Japanese trousers from, oh, far too many years ago? You remember, surely? My thoughts are that Dave came up with this one himself. After all, an artist is an artist.

Look, I'm sorry there are no evidential pictures inserted into this post, but if I don't get myself downstairs pretty sharpish I'm going to be on the receiving end of a snippy letter from Fiona Shackleton.

But if anyone can find a snap of Rod Stewart on Parkinson some years ago - when he was promoting The Cheap and Lazy Slaughter of the Great American Songbook - he's dressed in some sort of yacht captains outfit with piping and braid and all...Now, there's the work of a stylist, and not necessarily a good one.

Any more for any more?

...about YouTube, one of the wonderful things, is that I've no idea how I ended up here, but I'm so glad that I did:

I'll start:

I don't like The Wire.

I feel better already. You have a go.

...on Saturday night.

Heard Mott's Roll Away The Stone on radio at lunchtime and it reminded me that the spoken word exchange in the middle was altered a year or two ago. Thirty-plus-years-on, a late substitute appears in place of the original female voice. But does anybody know why?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7419969.stm

Apropos of recent comments on the podcast, I was watching Fox News the other morning, and when I switched to BBC Breakfast was struck by the gaping maw between the two (apart from the obvious: Fox - serried ranks of neo-con Nazi bastards. BBC - unreconstructed, red-brick-university pinkos). The people on Fox were confident, strident even, forthright, unhesitating, articulate, bright, confident and, yes, professional. Whereas the BBC should be ashamed of themselves for foisting on an ungrateful nation the TV version of Woman's Weekly, That's Life without the 'jokes', presented by the fourth form C stream. Blank-eyed presenters in lip-sticked death-masks, and cardboard cut-outs sporting photocopier-salesman-chic nodding at each other (and then at us), fidgeting, greeting each other every five minutes or so with peculiar, stilted expressions like "A very good morning....to you...., and to you at home," (nod), and "Thank you very much...."(turns to co-presenter)"....indeed".
For more evidence, compare and contrast the ace house band on the Letterman Show with the long-ceased-to-be-amusing turn that's on with Jonathan Ross.

...the back door, nailed to a post, and a pair of blue tits have recently moved into it. They're new, they're a bit shy, we respect each others space in the garden and sometimes we move indoors if they appear spooked, you know, until they get used to us. But tonight I stood as one with blue tit, me with glass of wine, he/she with gob-full of foliage, me on kitchen step, bird on birdbox step, right up until the end of Tomorrow Never Knows, when blue tit tipped his head and popped indoors with the bedding. Directly after this, a blackbird was clearly heard singing along to Rory Gallagher's Jacknife Beat. And Archie reckons all of the threads have been exhausted. Pah!