Celebrities Category
Celebrity news & gossip from the world’s showbiz and glamour magazines (OK!, Hello, National Enquirer and more). We read them so you don’t have to, picking the best bits from the showbiz world’s maw and spitting it back at them. Expect lots of sarcasm.
The Roots Of Ska: From Tennessee, Through Jamaica To The Best of British
: It’s the Blue Beat style as demonstrated by Prince Buster (25) at a reception at the May Fair hotel in London. Blue Beat music is based on a West Indian blues style known as ‘Ska Blues’. Buster is here for radio and TV appearances and has brought a Blue Beat hat (a trilby) as gift for Prince Charles. Date: 27/02/1964
SKA music gets into your bones.
In is essay The Chop On The Upbeat, John Jeremiah Sullivan looks at the birth of ska, the music that make you dance – and that anyone can dance well to:
Once, writing about Bunny [Wailer], I spent the better part of a week getting completely out of my mind and surfing through songs, trying to pinpoint the emergence, from the chrysalis, of the ska sound. I wanted to be able to hold the evolution of it in my head, just for a minute, to say how it happened, session by session. You can’t really do it. Even when you know everything, I mean. There were too many active participants, too many shared influences, you’re inside an echo chamber with two hundred people shouting. Also there’s a weird fuzzy period between the rhythmic shot over the bow of “Easy Snappin’” (1957? 1958?—we’re not even sure) and 1960–61, when a little cluster of very ska–like songs gets recorded, in not entirely certain order.
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Posted: 27th, February 2014 | In: Flashback, Music | Comment
Katy Perry: Now Single, Blasphemous And Hating Religionists For Allah Pendants
TOUGH week for Katy Perry. First off, and most pertinent to her well being, she’s split up with fellow superstar John Mayer. She’ll be upset by that no doubt, but alas, she should be aware that the whole of religion is pretty pissed off with her too.
You see, Katy’s new video for Dark Horse has been criticised by religious groups for being blasphemous!
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Listen To 13 Of The Absolute Worst Songs Of The 1960s
I HESITATED using the word “worst” since many of these are novelty songs, which are intentionally strange or humorous rather than attempting to be a genuinely serious musical composition. However, that doesn’t erase the fact that they, like all the songs in this list, are simply unlistenable, intolerable, and unbearable. These songs are so bad you will be tempted to escape and click your “back” button. But I encourage you to see it through – press on, and see what sort of stuff you’re made of.
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Posted: 26th, February 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comments (13)
Hard Rock Musicians Are All Women-Hating Wife Killers In Waiting – Even Worse Than Hip Hop Crims
WHEN someone in Hip Hop does something bad, it gets blanket coverage. Papers will run stories about artists big in the rap game, but not exactly household names. Worse still for those that are well known. They’re hauled over coals and every two-bit writer starts penning opinion pieces on whether or not Hip Hop is inherently bad, while offering mealy-mouthed “hey, some of my best friends are rap albums!” by way of cred-seeking.
Hip Hop’s cousin, Heavy Metal (or Hard Rock, or whatever) is usually the only one willing to give rappers a day off. When Metal is tacked to a crime, people start writing worthless pieces about devil worshipping and using disenfranchised lyrics as proof that rock bands actually want their fans to commit crimes.
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Daily Mail’s Jobsite Refuses To Find Work For ‘Incomprehensible’ Piers Morgan (The Paper’s Columnist)
PIERS Morgan, removed from his chatshow slot by CNN, is the subject of a tweet by Jobsite:
Jobsite is owned by DMG media – owners of the,yep, Daily Mail, where Morgan is employed to write about his fabulous life.
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Posted: 25th, February 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Suggestorama: Help CNN Find A New Role For Piers Morgan
PIERS Morgan’s CNN TV show is to end.
Three years after taking over for Larry King, ratings for Piers Morgan Live have not matched rivals such as Fox News and MSNBC causing network president Jeffrey Zucker to decide to pull the plug on the British journalist….
‘It’s been a painful period and lately we have taken a bath in the ratings,’ Morgan told The New York Times.
Plans for a replacement are underway, but Morgan and the network are in talks about him remaining on the air in a different role.
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Posted: 25th, February 2014 | In: Celebrities, TV & Radio | Comments (2)
The Worst Celebrity Statues, EVER!
RECENTLY, you may have seen the terrible depiction of Kurt Cobain in statue form, in Aberdeen (the American one, not the Scottish one). The statue, below, features Cobain looking like a wino busker, crying.
Actually crying. Because Kurt was so sensitive. Maaaaaaaan.
Of course, most people’s memories of Kurt where a little more fun and energetic, rather than the maudlin monstrosity that is roundly being mocked by the whole internet.
Of course, Kurt Cobain isn’t the only famous person to get a statue of themselves. Crucially, he’s not the only famous person to have a UTTERLY DREADFUL statue cluttering up the world.
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Posted: 24th, February 2014 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
The Rise And Fall of Benny Hill
Benny Hill posing with dancers for the first ever ‘The Benny Hill Show’, broadcast in January 1955 for the BBC.
Benny Hill wanted his women to be more naive than he was, women who would look up to him. He also said it was fellatio he wanted, or masturbation. “But Bob, I get a thrill when they’re kneeling there, between my knees and they’re looking up at me. And I want them to call me Mr Hill, not Benny. ‘Is that all right for you , Mr Hill?’ That’s lovely, that is, I really like that,” I asked him why and he said, “well, it’s respectful.” – Bob Monkhouse (from Mark Lewisohn’s Benny Hill biography – ‘Funny, Peculiar’).
ON the morning of 19th April 1992, which was Easter Sunday morning that year, and just two hours after he had been speaking to a television producer about the possibility of yet another come-back, 75 year-old Frankie Howerd collapsed and died of heart failure.
Benny Hill, who was seven years younger than Howerd, was quoted in the press as being “very upset” and was reported as saying, “We were great, great friends”. Indeed they had been friends but he hadn’t given a quote about his fellow comedian, he hadn’t been asked for one – he couldn’t have been – because he was already dead.
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Posted: 24th, February 2014 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
Your Guidebook to Creating a Proper Heavy Metal Album Cover
A PRIME reason for heavy metal’s success is that it is a culture unto itself. Fads come and go, but a culture has staying power. It comes with its own dress code, etiquette and idolatry. A small but important part of that culture is the album cover – the visual representation of the music, the heart of the heavy metal universe. If you’re a metal band, it’s imperative you get this facet right. So, let’s tour through some metal covers from the 1980s, a time when heavy metal was king, and learn from their successes and failures.
LESSON 1: THE 6 REQUIREMENTS
Iron Angel – Hellish Crossfire (1985)
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Posted: 24th, February 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comment
The Sun Continues To Be Amazed That Women Have Sex
THE Sun continues to be amazed that single, successful women have sex. But it realises that women who do have sex (as is alleged) would prefer to remain anonymous. Men, on the other hand ,would like everyone know who they’ve shagged.
Both scoops are from today’s pisspoor Sun on Sunday.
(Bring back the News of The World. We miss it.)
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Posted: 23rd, February 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Good News: The Dying Record Industry Continues To Fleece Music Lovers And Acts For Mega Bucks
IDIOTS keep saying the music industry is dying. Of course it isn’t. Have you seen how much money they spent on The Brits? If they’re skint, award shows would be held in a pub function room with darts trophies handed to the three remaining artists who have been daft enough to sign to a record company.
No, the record industry is doing just fine.
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Posted: 23rd, February 2014 | In: Money, Music, Reviews | Comment
Groucho Marx Versus Albert Hall: The 1955 Face-Off
ALBERT Hall was born in Kansas…on a farm. He was not born in London. He is not to be confused with the concert Hall.
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Posted: 23rd, February 2014 | In: Celebrities, Flashback, TV & Radio | Comment
1972: Little Richard And ‘Screaming’ Lord Sutch Play Football At Wembley Stadium
FLASHBACK to August 3, 1972: Little Richard, the American rock singer, is seen with a football for a change. He and ‘screaming’ Lord Sutch, who is carrying a parrot at the Stadium in Wembley.
Posted: 22nd, February 2014 | In: Celebrities, Flashback, Music, Photojournalism | Comment
These TV Adverts For David Bowie’s 1974 Diamond Dogs Tour And Live Album Are Terrible
Rock star David Bowie, his wife Angie and their son Zowie. Date: 01/02/1974
IT’S 1974, and all the cool kids are buying David Live, David Bowie’s first live album, recored at Philadelphia’s Tower Theatre.
Well, they would buy it once they’re pocket had been emptied by this TV advert:
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Posted: 22nd, February 2014 | In: Celebrities, Flashback, Music | Comment
Their Golden Years? Five Films About Your Greatest Heroes Growing Old
WITH J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars Episode VII in the pipeline comes the news that Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher will reprise their iconic roles in the George Lucas franchise for the first time in over thirty years, since 1983’s Return of the Jedi.
What impacts have time and ageing had upon courageous Empire-busting rebels Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Princess Leia?
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Posted: 22nd, February 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts | Comments (2)
1943: Tallulah Bankhead Flashes The Crew And Hitchcock Calls The Hairdressers
FLASHBACK to October 6 1943: Actress Tallulah Bankhead, who won the Drama Critics Award in 1948 for her performance in the Thornton Wilder Pulitzer prize play, Skin of Our Teeth, has returned to Hollywood after an absence of 11 years. She will have the role of Mrs. Porter in Lifeboat, a Twentieth Century-Fox picture, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. He read her 90 pages of the script over the phone to New York, and then she headed Westward. Miss Bankhead and Mr. Hitchcock dining in Hollywood, Los Angeles.
Alfred Hitchcock would later note on Tallulah Bankhead flashing the crew: “I don’t know if this is a matter for the costume department or hairdressing.”
Posted: 22nd, February 2014 | In: Celebrities, Flashback, Photojournalism | Comment
The Ukraine Will Be Saved By Tweets From Kasabian
YOU will no doubt have seen the state of the Ukraine at the moment. Some of the images that have come from that corner of the world have been powerful, depressing, exciting and downright upsetting.
Kiev was ablaze and government snipers picked off Ukrainians at random and the whole bloody, gory thing was enough to make you hide under your bedsheets and cry forever.
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Posted: 21st, February 2014 | In: Celebrities, Reviews | Comment
Five Reasons Why Miley Cyrus Stuffs A Thong In Her Mouth And Simulates Oral Sex On A Bill Clinton Impersonator
QUESTIONS everyone born in the 1990s is asking:
Why does Miley Cyrus, in her current show, “stuff a thong in her mouth and simulate oral sex on a Bill Clinton impersonator”?
Is it because:
a) Bill Clinton was unable to be there in person.
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Posted: 21st, February 2014 | In: Celebrities, Politicians | Comment
1964: Beatle Cult Hater Lord Willis Listens To The Yardbirds In His Back Garden
FLASHBACK: 17/05/1964. Music – Lord Willis listens to the Yardbirds in his back garden – 1964
Lord Willis, who recently attacked ‘The Beatle Cult’ in a House of Lords speech is pictured with his daughter Sally, as they listen to the Yardbirds in the back garden of his home in Shepherd’s Green, Chislehurst, Kent. The Yardbirds, a pop-group of five ex-public school boys from the Richmond area of Surrey, had unexpectedly visited Lord Willis to explain ‘what pop music is all about’. Lord Willis, the scriptwriter who created television’s ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ invited them into the garden where he was sunning himself. After a discussion, he then asked them to play. The group, who favour hairstyles short and long, are left to right: Eric Clapton, 19, Paul Samwell Smith, 21, Keith Relf, 21, Jim McCarty, 20 and Christopher Dreja, 18.
Posted: 21st, February 2014 | In: Flashback, Music, Photojournalism | Comment
A Mighty Histotry Of The Famous And Infamous Who Took A Tumble In Public
A BIG (helping) hand please for the fall guys…
A month of extreme weather and Winter Olympics has brought the downfall of members of the public…
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Posted: 21st, February 2014 | In: Celebrities, Flashback, Key Posts, Royal Family, Sports | Comment
Portals of Light, Portals of Dark: The Yin and Yang of Contact (1997) and Event Horizon (1997)
EVERY now and then, Hollywood comes up with a good concept, and then competing studios rush to ruthlessly exploit it. Remember the summer of 1998, and dueling asteroid pictures Armageddon and Deep Impact?
Or 1988, the year of the “body switch” movie like Big, Vice Versa and 18 Again?
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Posted: 20th, February 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts | Comments (4)
Scotland + Political Hot Potato = David Bowie Winning Kate Moss At The Brits
LAST night, at the spectacularly dreadful Brit Awards, David Bowie won some award and sent Kate Moss to do his acceptance speech. In it, he signed off with “stay with us Scotland.”
Of course, what’s funny about that is, is that Bowie lives in New York, because obviously, Bowie cares so much for the unity of Britain, that he’s buggered off to live in America. He obviously missed the letter England wrote him, which said “stay with us, David.’
Naturally, Bowie’s flippant gesture has made a load of people really angry.
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Posted: 20th, February 2014 | In: Celebrities | Comments (2)
Mr Porter Fail: How Annette Bening Ruined Warren Beatty’s Reputation For Dating Beautiful Women
READING the Mr Porter mail-out magazine Ronan Fitzgerald @rmkf spotted a segment on Warren Beatty. As he says, “Pretty harsh on Annette Bening”:
Posted: 20th, February 2014 | In: Celebrities, Fashion | Comment
