Bring Me The Horizon, and peel me a grape

What would the festival season be without a few squabbles round the back of the VIP area?

So lets drop by Spain's Resurrection Fest - imagine Download, if it was somewhere warm and less picky about the bill.

There, Ben Baker - once of Minor Threat and currently part of Bad Religion - spotted something backstage.

I'm going to stop these people every time I see them today and tell them how much their band sucks

A photo posted by Brian Baker (@brianbakers) on Jul 7, 2016 at 4:05am PDT

There is something quite cute about Bring Me The Horizon deciding that they're important enough to not need to show passes, but being self-aware enough to know that most people couldn't pick them out of a police line-up, even if the rest of the line-up consisted of drawings of Andrea Leadsom.

They, though, weren't happy. Brooklyn Vegan reports they responded grumpily:

Matt commented on the Instagram:
Hahah I can’t imagine being as old as you are and still acting like a 14 year old girl. Saw you at least 10 times and you didn’t bat an eye lid. You got bigger things to worry about nowadays anyway, like ya pension, or cold weather. Dickhead.

Oli added, “Yeah we are not your enemy, winter is your enemy.”

Here's a pro-tip: if you're going to attack someone for being old, probably don't do it in a way that allows your target to smile patronisingly at you, pat you on the head, and say "oh, you poor child":

It seems you’ve missed the point entirely. The issue here is entitlement. My post was a comment on your collective delusion that working local crew at a thirty band festival should be required to memorize your faces to spare you the indignity of breaking stride on the way to your backstage oasis or even worse, the humiliation of carrying credentials. Your literal display of arrogance (and the hilariously unrecognized irony within it) was what I was sharing with my followers. I honestly don’t know if your music is bad or good – it’s not for old people! I meant that you suck as humans. Sorry for the confusion.

We can help you on the music point, Brian. It's not for any people.

Kasabian defenders even more lumpen than Kasabian themselves

Billy Bragg - in common with (checking list) Most People Ever - doesn't have much time for Kasabian. He took time out of his busy schedule to chuckle aloud:

He explained: "They have an import role to play. They are there to remind us how true Spinal Tap was. I'm not a fan, but if you read their interviews as if it was dialogue from Spinal Tap, it's very entertaining. Especially the stuff Sergio Pizzorno says, he's Nigel Tufnel. Particularly with the album title, '48:13.'

"I'm guessing that's how long the record is. Someone sent them a CD that just said 'Kasabian', and they didn't know what else to put on it, 'cos they hadn't bothered to think up any fucking titles, so they just put the time on and Serge said, 'that is fucking genius.'"

Oh, if only Bill knew that they started with the length and worked their way backwards from there.

Still, not everyone was going to take that lying down. The Drummer From The Raptors took to Facebook to defend Kasabian against this assault:

Writing on Facebook, Luke asked: "Why are you such a cunt?"

I'll say this for Kasabian fans, they have a love of language and a deftness of touch you don't often see since the Algonquin Round Table stopped meeting.

Kiss unhappy at induction process

Next month, Kiss get inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame - they're told about the fire escape procedure, get to meet their line managers and get given a swipe card that lets them get into the stationery cupboard.

But they're not happy.

They're annoyed that only some Kiss people are being allowed in:

“We have continuing issues with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, starting with the fact that they chose to only induct the original lineup when that’s hardly the case with other bands,” [Paul Stanley] said from Los Angeles.

“In the Grateful Dead’s case, (they) also inducted a writer who never played an instrument,” said Stanley, referring to Robert Hunter’s inclusion when the band was inducted in 1994. “Or they’ve inducted rap artists, or they’ve inducted people who have been in the band for seven years as opposed to ... 25 years or 20 years — whatever their criteria of this week is.”

It does seem, on the face of it, to be unfair. But on the other hand, it's a pop museum and a band who are mostly known these days for squeezing every merchandise cent they can from their fanbase. I suspect the human rights agencies won't be taking many calls on this one.

Coyne calls Beck a dick; Beck's kind of a dick about it

Beck and The Flaming Lips went out on tour together, and Beck thought they were having a good time. But then... well, then things turned sour:

The 'Loser' singer hired The Flaming Lips to support him on tour in 2002 but frontman Wayne Coye criticised him after the gigs, describing him as a ''d**k'', which led Beck to believe he wasn't liked in the industry.

He said: ''I really don't know [why he said that]. I was very surprised, because I have a videotape of the last night where they were saying, 'I love you, this tour has changed our lives, you're a brother', so it really messed my head up. I went around for a year thinking people hated me.''

For a year. Based on one word in one interview from one man.

The tour, by the way, happened in 2002.

He then continues to pick away at it:

He added in an interview with MOJO Magazine: ''Wayne probably sensed I'm the kind of guy who cares what people think, that I don't come off as some asshole rock-star type.

''What he didn't know was that I was really sick during the tour, I had some condition and I barely had the strength to pick up a guitar.

''So after the shows, I had to go to my bunk and sleep. One show, I got food poisoning so I delayed it half an hour, which he probably thought was theatrical. But we had a good time! I was hoping afterwards that we'd do a record together.''

You know what, Beck? It's probably this sort of churning over something which happened a spaniel's lifetime ago that made Coyne think you were a dick in the first place.

Coming tomorrow: Beck on why that third-grade teacher who said he was disruptive had failed to take account of the weather conditions on the day.

Nothing Compares 2 Feud: Apparently the O'Connor-Cyrus thing is going to roll on a while

While most of the attention has been on Miliband v Dacre, the musical differences between Miley Cyrus and Sinead O'Connor have been bubbling away no less vociferously.

The latest front in the battle has been Sinead's appearance on The Late Late Show on RTE:

Of Cyrus, she said: "I'm not dismissing the records, they are great records. Miley's records are great records. What I feel is that the industry of music does exploit people who are possibly a little too young to know what they are doing.

"I'm asking whether it's appropriate for 20-year-old women to lick sledgehammers for videos in songs which have no lyrical reference to any such thing in them. It's an exploitation of someone too young to understand the dangers."

This does raise the astonishing possibility that if Miley had included an appropriate lyrical reference, Sinead wouldn't have minded the sequences. "Sure, if there had been a line 'lick my hammer till it drips/swing it hard/tweak my nips', then I'd not have been bothered."

At a stretch, given the song is called Wrecking Ball, under Sinead's apparent rule that pop videos must always be like a giddy version of Catchphrase, with the lyrics depicted on screen, the bit of Miley naked on the demolition tool would be alright.

The real shame about the whole fight? It started when Miley announced she'd taken inspiration from Sinead's Nothing Compares 2U video. (By the way, there's nothing in the lyrics of that song about ramming your face close up into somebody else's and blubbing, so maybe that was wrong, too?

The thing about that, though, is that the Nothing Compares video was hardly original in the first place, given its obvious debt to this:

If Miley had merely said she'd been told she was ripping off Godley and Creme's idea, all this unpleasantness could have been avoided.

Jay-Z and Robert DeNiro are still in high school, apparently

Jay-Z and Robert DeNiro have had a falling-out. Apparently, it's a respect thing.

Apparently:

The actor allegedly confronted Jay Z about the incident during Leonardo DiCaprio's birthday party in the Big Apple last November (12), with a source telling the New York Post at the time, "Bob wasn't in any mood to make polite conversation. He told Jay that if somebody calls you six times, you call them back. It doesn't matter who you are, that is just rude."

Now, I know this makes them sound like they're fifteen year-old girls, but there's also more than an element of 'aftermath of a terrible date' to this whole affair.

I wonder if DeNiro would have been more forgiving after just five blankings. Perhaps it's when you need to start a second hand to keep track of these terrible, terrible snubs that it has gone too far.

You know what could only serve to make this more pathetic? If Jay-Z reacted by suggesting that maybe Bobby did something he shouldn't, only he doesn't want to talk about it:

He explained, "It doesn't matter who you are, everybody has to be respectful and everybody has to be a human being, you know? No one's above (manners)... We're all human beings and we all have to be respectful to one another and that's just standard. That's how I carry on with anybody."

Perhaps DeNiro was terribly rude for calling back six times when it was obvious that Jay-Z was busy with something else. Or perhaps DeNiro scoffed at Jay-Z's plan for prom theme. We may never know.

Gordon in the morning: Of course Robbie has responded

After yesterday's whining from Liam Gallagher because Robbie Williams can still draw an audience, today Williams has launched a counter slavo.

It's like a few weeks ago when Nigel Lawson popped up to share his opinions on something. He was very angry but... it was like listening to someone having an argument down the street and round the corner. As is this spat.

Still, kudos to Robbie for focusing where it hurts most - the music:

Robbie said: “The interviews are better than the records at the minute. I really enjoy the interviews. Liam is like an episode of Star Stories.” He then laid into some of the songs on new Beady Eye album BE, saying: “The production is really good. There are a couple of tunes that would have been f***ing amazing if they had a chorus.

“Flick Of The Finger, nearly a great tune. Start Anew, if that had a chorus, but there is no chorus.”

Seriously, though, lads: It's reached the stage now like the sixth of seventh time Ken Barlow and Mike Baldwin went at on Corrie. It's starting to look less like a feud, and more like codependency.

Kelly Osbourne still going on about Lady GaGa

There's no way that Kelly Osbourne is secretly thrilled that she had a spat with Lady GaGa about two years ago.

You might recall Kelly, whose job now appears to be commentating on people walking up to a door, was angry because Lady GaGa didn't walk up to the door on Grammys night back in 2012.

Of course, you don't recall that, because why would you? Which is why Kelly is desperately still banging on about how terrible it was for her, and the opprobrium she received merely for complaining that GaGa didn't walk up a red carpet before an event. So bad, she's still not over it, apparently.

Blur/Oasis: If they bury that hatchet any deeper, even Tony Robinson won't be able to reach it

Well, it's a happy ending of sorts: A Blur/Oasis crossover edition marking the end of the Britpop wars:

Former Britpop rivals Noel Gallagher and Damon Albarn have buried the hatchet and performed together at a charity concert.

Oasis guitarist Gallagher joined Blur singer Albarn and his bandmate Graham Coxon at a Teenage Cancer Trust gig at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

At long last, they've buried the hatchet.

Except... hadn't they already done that?

According to The Onion's AV Club, the pair buried the hatchet last May, when Albarn offered Noel the chance to sing along with soem Burundian drummers:

Blur's Damon Albarn, Oasis' Noel Gallagher bury the Britpop hatchet, finally

Albarn says he'd be happy to collaborate with the onetime brains behind Oasis who's since gone solo. "Well, why not?" Albarn says. "He should come on the Africa Express train [an Albarn-formed music collective] in September." Self-serving, sure, but a nice sentiment all the same.

Bit harsh to call Noel Gallagher "onetime brains". I'm sure he's used them on at least three occasions.

But hang on, surely the hatchet was buried before that? In February of 2012, when Albarn announced the cessation of hostilities at a post-Brits party:

Gallagher, 44, kissed both hands of Albarn, 43, before planting a smacker on his lips in front of shocked guests including Professor Green, Cesc Fabregas, Adam Deacon and Coldplay's Chris Martin.

Albarn, who had earlier collected the lifetime achievement award with his Blur bandmates, said: "It's funny to think Blur were last here 17 years ago when we were big rivals. Isn't it funny how we've both mellowed after all these years? We've buried the hatchet."

No, hold on. It was back in October 2011, wasn't it? The hatchet was buried back then, when Noel was generous in a Shortlist interview:

"Funnily enough, when I was out last night, I bumped into him," Gallagher told ShortList of Albarn. "I literally haven't seen the guy for 15 f**king years and I bump into him in some club.

"We both went, 'Hey! F**king hell!' and then he said, 'Come on, let's go for a beer'. So, we're sitting there, having a beer, just going, 'What the f**k was all that about 15 years ago? That was mental'.

"Then he said, 'It was a great time, though', and I was like, 'Yeah, it was a f**king good laugh'. It was cool, man."

In fact, Blur and Oasis have been burying the hatchet now for the best part of a decade. Here's The Guardian in 2004:

Just over nine years later, it looks as though Blur frontman Damon Albarn and Oasis songwriter Noel Gallagher will finally bury the hatchet - both have signed up to perform on the new Band Aid charity record, due to be released in time for Christmas.

The Britpop feud might have been a great marketing scam. But, boy, the hatchet-burying is proving to be something of a strong pension scheme.

Azealia Banks believes the Stone Roses are out to get her

See, this is what happens when you give in to the temptation of cash and reunite: you go from being mystical and magical and wind up as a punchline in somebody else's comedy spat. The Stone Roses are being accused by Azealia Banks of sabotaging her set at some random music festival in Australia. Rolling Stone reports:

"Big apologies on behalf of the stone roses to my fans at the festival today," Banks tweeted in the opening shot of her rant. "My ex tour manager made a pact with the stone roses saying they'd sabotage my set because I fired him.. And they decided to check their equipment behind me during my set. Fuck those old saggy white n***as stone roses. I wish them nothing but excrement and death."

I'm not entirely clear what would have been in this deal for the Roses, to be honest. They've never noticaebly been fond of music industry managers, so it seems to be an extraordinary favour to do for somebody.

Aha! But Banks tries to frame the claims as being part of some sort of misogynistic-racist plot:

"Wow! I must really fucking be a superstar... You've got an established band trying to sabotage my lil rap bitch shine," she wrote. "Wow a bunch of old white men trying to bully a young black girl.... What the fuck else is new in this world ???"

So, she wishes "nothing but excrement and death" on the Roses. Which, funnily enough, is pretty much what the reviews for The Second Coming described it as.

When is a surge not a surge?

The NME breathlessly runs up with the news that homophobia pays:

The ongoing fued between Azealia Banks and Angel Haze – which then became a row with Perez Hilton – over the weekend has sparked a sales surge for Banks.

Really? Has she sold double the number of records? Treble?

Er, no:

According to Billboard, Banks' '1991' EP saw a sales increase of 18 per cent over the last week, which equates to around 1000 copies sold in the US.

That's not an extra 1000 sales, it's a rise to 1,000 sales. Roughly 200 more CDs across the whole of the US. Compared with a week when there was a national holiday.

But what of downloads?

Sales of her single '212' rose by 3 per cent to 3,000 downloads.

So that's fewer than 100 extra sales.

So the "sales surge" turns out to be 300 extra sales in a nation of over 300 million.

"Tiresome spat doesn't inhibit minor uptick in sales" doesn't have quite the same grab to it, does it?

Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie stay up too late, have tantrums

It must be galling to discover your star has faded so far that you can only fill tour venues by teaming up with other bands, so it's perhaps not surprising that Marilyn Manson is on a foul mood on his trek around the US opening for Rob Zombie.

On Friday, it all boiled over. AllMichigan reports:

"I'm going to kick his ass," said Manson, near the end of a set that lasted about 80 minutes.

Manson made the threat after he told the crowd he wished he could've been able to perform more songs.

I've never been a big fan of Zombie's, but "cutting short the number of songs Marilyn Manson playes" sounds like something from a Nobel Prize citation.

Zombie, of course, laughed it off.

No, no, he didn't:

"Some tours just don't go (expletive) together," yelled Zombie, after he told the crowd Manson didn't even attempt to "kick his ass" during intermission.

Zombie also said he was tired of Manson's "rock star (expletive)" and said something about hoping Manson enjoyed the show because it could be his last.

Apparently there was some sort of show-down after the gig; probably once they had their cocoa and went to bed everything calmed down a bit.

And the promoters? They must be delighted - far easier to sell a pantomime than two fading goths.

Madonna cares not for Elton John's opinions

Madonna has apparently shrugged off criticism from Elton John.

Too right, Madonna - who cares what a once-mighty pop star who has been in something of a creative decline since the 1980s has to say about anything? It's best to not waste your time on such opinions.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Sorry, for some reason this post started to vanish as we were typing it. We regret the technical problems, and hope to return to normal service shortly.]

Gordon in the morning: Wanted - a different direction

The Wanted, who are very much the Spandaus to One Direction's Duran, are desperately trying to put a brave face on their position by insisting that the comparison - that comparison - is odious:

Max, who kicks off an Australian tour with his five-piece group today, said: “If you had to tick all the boxes of what’s a boyband, I don’t think we’d fit.

“We’re not the most attractive bunch that has ever been in the pop world. We don’t dance. But we can all play instruments, which is what is good about us. We don’t want to be the stereotypical boyband.”

Oh, yes, that's very true that. Here's a picture of the band onstage at T In The Park:

You'll notice they're playing all their own instruments, if you stretch the definition of the band to include all the people who have come on stage to play their instruments while they, er, dance at the front of the stage.

But very different from One Direction. Very different indeed. More like Busted, right?

Billy Corgan has apparently been having a spat with OK Go

Apparently Billy Corgan has moved to stop the idea that he was caught in some sort of deadly feud with OK Go:

Corgan wants to put an end to the spat before it escalates and has taken to his Twitter.com page to insist he is a big fan of the band's work.
He writes, "I don't mind OK Go having a go at me if it gets their music heard. It will never be a fight because I think they are a great band."

No, I wasn't aware that this Godzuki-meets-Kid-Kong scrap was raging. Luckily, Contact Music is on hand to explain what it was all about:

Billy Corgan has moved to end a feud with members of Ok Go after accusing the band of using "gimmicks" to sell records.

It's right that Corgan backs down here, then. If there's one thing you cannot accuse OK Go of ever having done, it is selling records.

Maroon 5 now at war with Fox News

Parody news channel Fox News has gone to war with Maroon 5.

Fox quite likes using Maroon 5's music in the gaps between its swivel-eyed skrikecasts; Adam Levine has asked them to stop.

Fox doesn't like being told what to do. (It can work out what the Republicans want it to do all by itself). So they've wittily shot back:

Fox News hosts Greg Gutfeld and Andy Levy both replied to the singer on Twitter, each mocking the "Dear Fox News" phrasing of Levine's tweet. "Dear Adam, that's not music," wrote Gutfeld. Levine elaborated slightly in his tweet, writing "Dear @AdamLevine, don't make crappy fucking music ever again. Thank you."

Ha-ha, that's telling him. Telling him that the music you play on network is rubbish, admittedly, but telling him all the same.

Metallica: Halifax threatens to not send in the cops

This is a bit of a complicated one.

Last year, the Black Eyed Peas and Alan Jackson played Halifax - we're talking Nova Scotia here, not the Yorkshire one. Ticket sales were disappointing (or, perhaps, expectations were unrealistic) and the promoter, Harold MacKay, is yet to pay back CAD400,000 advanced by the city. Harold had paid back a bit, but then his company went into insolvency.

This year, Harold's wife Michelle MacKay is trying to put on a Metallica concert in the city. Not so fast, says the city:

"The MacKay family has asked the municipality to provide services in support of the METALLICA concert. The municipality is not obliged to provide the services you have requested. If you and any member of your family wish to continue to do concert business with the municipality, the municipality expects that a payment plan to reimburse the public for concert debts will have to be negotiated."

The city won't let police, fire or even permits for the merchandise stall to be assigned to the event without seeing greenbacks. Canadian greenbacks.

It's possible that Metallica fans would prefer there to be no police involved, but the idea of not being able to buy a tshirt would be horrible. They'd be planning to wear that tshirt until the next time Metallica are in town.

How you show mutual respect

Trouble behind the scenes at The Voice?. No no no, reassures ContactMusic:

Christina Aguilera has put to rest rumours of a feud with Adam Levine by recording a track with his band Maroon 5.

The stars, both currently serving as judges on hit U.S. talent show The Voice, have ended speculation they don't get along by collaborating on new song Moves Like Jagger.

Oh, yes. It's scientifically impossible for two people who hate each other to appear on the same record. It has never, ever happened in the history of recorded sound.

If you've taped the Glee v Kings Of Leon match, look away now

It's hard to work up too much energy over the Kings Of Leon v Glee feud; it's a bit like Kasabian going to war with Tickle On The Tum, only with a bigger budget and Perez Hilton replacing Bill Oddie.

But apparently the great war - when Kings Of Leon refused Glee the permission to sell their songs to a large, seemingly endlessly gullible audience, and Ryan Murphy had a little stampy-foot hissy about it.

But it's all over now, as Ryan Murphy has been to NASA and discovered the world doesn't rotate round his late-period Dawson's Creek with singing show:

"I didn't speak with as much clarity as I would have liked," he said on the set of Glee Friday afternoon. "Who am I to say 'F--k you?' That's not what I meant. I completely understand when artists don't want a show or another artist to interpret their songs. In fact, I respect it. It's their personal work and I'd feel the same way. We get turned down all the time and I've don't fight it or even go back after a rejection."

So, much as the Tories tend to not quite apologise for getting things wrong, but blame us for a lack of comprehension, Murphy explains that when he said "fuck you", he wasn't being entirely clear.

That makes sense - a long, rambling statement like "fuck you" is difficult to grasp - even now, I'm not sure exactly what he could possibly have meant by it. If only he could have been a little clearer, perhaps by dropping one of the words in the phrase.

Still, it's peace of a sort - and who is the United Nations in this rapprochement?

Dave Grohl, apparently. He'd sided with the Kings Of Leon, and that seems to have been good enough for Murphy:

. "I've never felt that if you don't give Glee your music, there's something diabolical about you," says Murphy. "To the contrary: I support artists and what they choose to do... I think Kings of Leon are cool as shit. The Foo Fighters are brilliant. We'd love to do one if their songs, if they were ever interested. But if it's not their thing, then OK. I personally wish them luck will still listen to their music."

How big of him to promise to still listen to the Foos, even if they don't want their songs lip-synced.

Truly, the world has achieved a new level of reasonableness.

Gordon in the morning: Liam does something good

Liam Gallagher is arranging a benefit for Japan:

Liam and his BEADY EYE bandmates will headline a benefit gig at Brixton Academy on Mother's Day, Sunday April 3.

The singer has persuaded Modfather PAUL WELLER, GRAHAM COXON and THE CORAL to join the bill.

What a good-spirited and generous act. And there's no need to try and cram some sort of 'massive chart battle' overwork onto the story to make it interesting, is there, Gordon?

[A source said] "Graham has mentioned the gig to Damon Albarn. It could be the end of one of the most famous British rock 'n' roll feuds ever if he shows up."

Oh.