You're all invited to be the first visitors to LP33!

Okay, here we go...feel free to get hooked like me: http://beta.lp33.tv
User: beta
Password: beta

I expect this site to officially launch next week. But we can snoop around already.

So much new talent. So inspiring! Enjoy...

No Led Zepelin tourdates! And why old rockers should not hit on young girls!

I just saw an article on Robert Plant. On how he denies that there will be Led Zeppelin tour dates even though some people are already selling (fake) tickets for these events.

Anyway, I looked at his picture and thought 'Oh yuk, that's that old rocker that once hit on me at the Countdown studios in Holland'. I was so grossed out at the time. All I kept thinking was 'this guy could be my dad, maybe even my granddad'. I knew he'd been in some legendary band, but wasn't even sure which one it was. I've just never been into Led Zeppelin or any of these other old rock bands.

It's funny actually, how often you meet famous people when you're in the public eye yourself without you recognizing them. I remember the first time Bryan Adams came up to me backstage at the MTV Awards and said 'Hi, I'm Bryan'. I just went 'Okay, hi Bryan' and walked on. It was much later when it dawned on me who just shook my hand.

And the same thing with this Robert Plant guy. It's only now that I look at him again that I realize where I met him before.

But anyway, old rockers should not be hitting on young girls...full stop! It's disgusting. Just because someone has made good music doesn't make him any less of a dirty old man.

Oh, and when I'm talking of dirty old men, I don't actually mean Bryan Adams. He is a total gentleman. He just ended up in this story somehow ; )

Already getting hooked on LP33.TV

Sorry people, no time to blog. I'm too bussy surfing the BETA site of LP33. As soon as I've been given the green light to share the password with you all, I will do so. But be warned...once you start surfing the site you can't stop! I have already 'discovered' so many exciting new artists. I feel like a kid in a candy store. This is just too cool!!!!!!

LP33 TV to launch soon!

There is a great new site/service to be launched for musicians and music fans alike. It's called LP33 TV and the following clip will explain-in short- what they are all about. In a way, it's what MySpace should have been. I'm not saying that I don't like MySpace, but it's rather limited compared to what these guys offer to new artists (And with the hordes of small labels and new artists leaving MySpace and MySpace music, I am not alone in saying that)

If only services like these had existed when I was a young girl...I wouldn't have had to stand outside record company buildings with my tape in hand, demanding to see an A&R person. I used to find the record company addresses on the back of record sleeves (really showing my age here) and kept taking the ferry to England from Holland & stayed at youth hostels whilst I attempted to get seen by someone at these labels.

It took me years of being laughed at, running out of money and returning to Holland again and again. I was always told to just leave my tape at reception and that they would pass it on to A&R which I always refused. I knew that they had to see 'the whole package' to understand what I was all about.

When I was finally let in to a record company building I was forced to sing right there and then in the offices by Tom Watkins, who was the manager of the Pet Shop Boys, Bros and later East 17. By lack of a microphone, I just sang into an empty coke bottle & was signed on the spot (this was before I joined MTV), which just proves that perseverance does pay off.

So what I am trying to say is that I understand what it feels like to be a young artist who wants to show the world what you can do & how frustrated it is to not always get the platform that you want. Well...this is that platform! LP33.tv

Katy Brand, funnny music clips

For those of you outside of the UK, I don't think you will have seen these before....They are clips from the Katy Brand's big ass show. There's tons of them on Utube, but these were my favorites. Be warned...it's all rather silly : )

The return of a legend, Grooverider is free!!!!

Dego from 4Hero and I had been writing backwards and forwards to each other through MySpace about the fate of Grooverider. Dego kept posting the words 'Free Grooverider' on MySpace and, seeing as I had been wondering about how Grooverider was doing (see an older posting), I contacted Dego and we started talking about what we could possibly do for 'the Rider'.

Lucky enough, we didn't need to do anything anymore as Grooverider got his well-deserved pardon earlier this month during Ramadan.

See this from Music News.com:

Grooverider is back in the UK after serving seven months of a four year sentence in a Dubai prison. The 'Rider, real name Raymond Bingham, was arrested in November 2007 at Dubai airport on charges of possession of 2.16 grams of cannabis.

In February, he was sentenced to four years in prison. After his lawyer, Mohammad Al-Reda, was unable to get the charges dropped during an appeal, Grooverider’s only hope of returning to England was during the religious festival of Ramadan, when 700 Emirati and ex-pat prisoners are traditionally pardoned.

In August, Grooverider heard his name was on a list of potentials, but it wasn’t until Monday 1st September that he heard he was being released.

Grooverider finally returned home on September 4 and we can now all breathe a collective sigh of relief.

To celebrate, Lock N Load Events have teamed up with Groove Connection and Alchemy to put on the party of the year with a stellar line up selected by the main man himself!

Joining Grooverider at KOKO on his return to clubland will be an all-star supporting cast of friends and special guests. First up is of course the long-awaited 2 hour B2B set between Grooverider and partner Fabio. Alongside them will be Shy FX, Dillinja, Bailey, Mickey Finn and Jumping Jack Frost, with MC’s GQ and Fats on the mic, with more DJs to be announced.

This party is going to blow up big time! Get down there if you can. It's on Saturday the 11th of October at Koko. Good to have the Rider back!

George Michael's drug problems

George Michael says he is 'sorry for screwing up again' after being arrested the other day at a public toilet. Well, I'm sorry too now that I've heard that he was actually arrested for being in possession of crack cocaine. That is just bad, bad news. Crack is so bloody nasty. It breaks my heart to think of George Michael, who's such an amazingly talented man, smoking the crack pipe.

If he doesn't sort his life out soon he will end up in the gutters one day. If you've ever witnessed anyone with a crack habit you'll know what I am talking about. This is not a fun, little, social, occasional drug (even though it may start out as that). It is nasty, evil stuff. If this continues he will lose his fortune, his health, his sanity, his talent....

So, even though I am not religious, I will be praying for George Michael. I hope he'll get the help he needs and kicks this nasty habit.

George Michael arrested at a public toilet yet again!

George Michael recently said he wanted to give up touring to go and live a 'quieter life'. So is this what he had in mind as a quieter life? Being picked up (by police and not some handsome stranger) at another public toilet whilst in the possession of drugs?

Georgy-boy, what are you doing? Can't you give up that thrill of getting caught? Surely you can get meet cute strangers at other locations? Like your house(s)? What's up with these lavatories? Why, why why?????

I was once sitting at a dinner table with George Michael and his partner Kenny Goss. George Michael was lovely, but rather odd-looking. At first I thought that he was a fake, to be honest. He is so tiny! I had no idea. He was so small and tanned to the point where it looked bizarre.

I was rather drunk and had joined the table with Louis, who was the promoter for the Prodigy. This, by the way, was soon after George Michael's first 'public toilet arrest'. Remember that? When he was done for lewd conduct? Well, I nearly died of embarrassment when Louis stuffed his cheeks full of ice cubes and then turned to George, saying: 'George, George...do you like it with ice?'

George and his partner were not drunk like we were that night and just smiled at us politely. God, it was embarrassing!

Oh well...I can laugh about it now ; )

Weekly music news

Here's an extra dose of weekly pop news for ya from NME.

Van Morrison bans alcohol at gig

Now this is ridiculous...Van Morrison has banned his fans from drinking alcohol at his gigs. So already, people can't smoke at these places anymore, now they can't drink alcohol, what's next? How bloody boring!

I mean, it's understandable that you may want to ban real drunken people from coming in in the first place or throwing someone out if they behave in a way that is too disruptive to others. But telling the whole audience to not have one drink? Not even a 'civilized' glass of wine? Come on! And it's not like Van's audience would consist of hordes of teenagers. Most will be middle-aged. You can't tell these people what to do on their night out. Especially as they will have paid between 40 to 105 Pounds per ticket!

Van Morrison battled alcohol addiction in the 70s and 80s and is now teetotal. He told bosses at the Brighton Dome (the venue he played last night) not to sell any alcohol before or during his performance because it might disturb his singing, but he insists his decision is not an attempt to impose his lifestyle on his audience. Yeah, right!

The 63-year-old star is notoriously temperamental, and has previously said he finds it annoying when his fans walk around during his shows because he thinks they should be 'savouring the experience of seeing him live'.

What a prima donna! What will he do next? Throw people out of they dare to whisper something to each other during his performance?

Understandably many concert-goers are furious with the demands. One disgruntled fan said: 'Having a drink at a live show is part of the concert-going experience. It is a real shame Van has decided to make this decision.'

Morrison is also due to play alcohol-free shows at the Liverpool Philharmonic and Birmingham Symphony Halls next month.

Celebrities without make-up

Yay! This I like. Because it shows that we're all human and celebrity's (most of them) aren't any more beautiful than 'normal people'. It's all down to make-up, stylists, lighting, photoshop, etc. So ladies...just watch this and feel instantly better about yourself.

John Mayer strips for Heidi Klum

It doesn't look like John Mayer is too down in the dumps about his split with Jennifer Aniston. He reportedly pulled down his trousers in a Soho nightclub and danced around for his friend Heidi Klum, who laughed hysterically at his striptease. According to Heidi it was just two old friends having a laugh. I hope Heidi's hubby Seal is an easy going fellow & doesn't get too bothered about other men pulling their pants down in front of his wife ; )

Giant Jr. versus Eartha Kitt, I want to be evil

This is a huge club track in the UK right now. The marvelous 'I want to be evil' from Giant Jr. I'm not quite sure who Giant Jr. actually is/are. Does anyone have any information or pictures of them apart from barbie and ken dolls?

There's some great mixes of this track floating around too. Enjoy!

Buskers to be playing new Oasis tracks

Oasis are using buskers to showcase their new album in New York after they were forced to cancel a concert.

The gig was called off as Noel Gallagher continues to recover from injuries caused after a fan attacked him on stage in Canada.

The street performances will take place at locations including Grand Central Station, and will be filmed.

No word on whether the band will come and watch these buskers though and no word on the date yet either (at least not one I found)

Is Noel Gallagher psychic?

Noel Gallagher has said that he felt that something bad was going to happen before their Canadian V-Festival gig. That was, of course, the gig where he was pushed off stage and ended up in hospital after falling on some speakers.

Noel said "I'll have to stop this prophesising. I knew something was going to happen last night. I said I had a bad feeling, didn't I!?" (this from their 'Tales from the middle of nowhere' blog)

Next week's NME magazine, by the way, will feature all things Oasis (btw, if swearing offends you, do not watch this clip!)

The lovely James Morrison and I agree...Madonna is rude!

James Morrison says that he was stunned when the pop legend snubbed him whilst meeting in an American recording studio.

He revealed: "I was recording in a studio in Los Angeles and Madonna came in to speak to a producer and someone asked if I wanted to meet her. I'm not her biggest fan but thought I'd say hello so I went over and said, 'Hello, I'm James, nice to meet you,' and put my hand out to shake hands. She just looked at it and said, 'And what do you do?' I told her I was a singer and she just stared at me and didn't say anything. "It was really uncomfortable. Then she just ignored me.

F**k her, though, it's just a matter of common courtesy. It doesn't matter what someone does for a living. She's just rude. There's no excuse for it."

Oh, I love that boy. He is so talented and so down-to-earth. If Madonna only knew that she just snubbed one of the most talented young singers in the world today, I'm sure she'd regret it. Stupid woman. I told you she was rude.

Anyway, James Morrison begins a six-date UK tour on November 16 in Norwich in support of his new album, 'Songs For You, Truths For Me', which is released later this month.

New Kids on the Block live performance at HMV

I love the fact that the old boybands have been enjoying such great come-backs. Of course, Take That have done amazingly well & The New Kids on the Block are not doing too bad either. I have met both bands (repeatedly) over the years and they were all just wonderful.

NKOTB were commenting about how shocked they have been by the reaction from younger kids to their new music. They had expected, for instance, that mainly the old fans would come and see them perform & they could not believe how many young screaming fans they encountered.

I once stood on a stage with the boys somewhere in Germany and experienced first-hand what it looks like to see thousands of hysterical fans in front of you. It is freaky! I remember one girl was screaming and pulling her own hair out of her head & tons of girls in the crowd were both screaming and crying at the same time.

I saw girls jumping in front of and on top of their driving car, I saw girls trying to climb up the drainpipes to get to their hotel rooms, I saw untold amounts of hyperventilating and collapsed girls at their gigs, it was total insanity.

Marky Mark (Mark Wahlberg) was supporting the band at that time and one time when we were in his hotel room he said 'You want to see something funny? Come...'

I followed him to the large window, he opened the curtains & there were thousands of fans outside looking up at him. He then grabbed me, pushed me up to the window and pretended to be kissing me. The crowd went nuts!!!!

We quickly closed the curtain again and laughed about it.

Anyway...I'm happy the 'boys' are enjoying renewed success. Oh, and clever use of sunglasses during this gig. That way no one can see their wrinkles ; )

I'd like to add one more thing to my last posting...

What also disgusted me was the reaction of the press, going on about 'Britney's great come-back'. Okay, compared to the bald, psychopathic Britney that we saw a while ago...she seems to have come a long way. But she really didn't do anything that made this a great come-back. She didn't perform, she just showed up, looking pretty and said a few words on stage.

I just think that the press wanted to have an excuse to place her back on a pedestal, so that they can all knock her back off it again soon. There is no fun in continuing to kick someone when they are down, but now Britney is 'back up again'. So the witch hunt can start all over again soon. I can already hear the cheering crowds!

Do you think poor Britney is aware of this? Or does she honestly think that the whole world loves her again? Does she think the wolves have gone now? If her own demons haven't, the wolves will be out waiting until all her sadness, pain and confusion start to show again.

What a load of toss the MTV video Awards were...

I mean, come on...Britney winning 3 awards for 'Piece of me'? Since when was that such an amazing video or track? What's going on here? Was she only willing to come if she received x-amount of awards? Did the public honestly vote for her?

Also, what's up with her thanking God and her amazing family? And mentioning her children, who 'inspire me every day'. Come on! Your mom is obviously quite a mean lady, spilling the beans on you the way she did. You see your children, what is it, once every two weeks? So how do they inspire you 'every day'? And didn't you once wear this 'promise ring' as some kind of commitment in the eyes of God to stay a virgin until marriage? Well, according to your own mother, you lied to the world and , I guess also, to God (that's why I don't think young kids should make promises like that as they are bound to fail)

I think Britney should focus on sorting her personal life out before sorting out her career. It all just seemed so warped to me.

And why was Russell Brand forced to apologize to the Jonas Brothers after joking about the 'promise rings' that they now wear too? Please! After the news that Britney's virginity was a facade, surely we can now laugh at other young popstars who say they will stay a virgin until marriage? It's all just part of their squeaky clean image, but it's a load of crap. If they haven't lost their virginity yet, they soon will with all these groupies going after them. And then? They can't suddenly go...oh, sorry everybody...but one of us had sex last night...can we hand these rings in now?

Oh, this American hypocrisy! It's just too bloody much for me!

Spiral tribe& rave culture documentary

I loved the illegal parties back then and now loved this look-back at that era. Thanks to Gabor for putting me on to this one...

World Traveller Adventures.Spiral Tribe
Uploaded by o-tec

Elton John, Lily Allen catfight

I blogged months ago that Elton John had invited troubled star Lily Allen to his mansion to recoup and, I guess, kick the habbit.

Well, I can't see that happen anymore. Looks like they do not particularly like each other these days. Guess it's down to the fact that Lily would not stop drinking the free champagne at the Award Ceremony. Has Elton given up hope for her?

Akon punches female fan

He may be a great artist, but Akon does not come across as a particarly nice person. In this following clip he throws one woman off the stage and punches a second. What a gentleman!

He should take a look at how Wyclef does his 'crowd surfing'. He simply climbs on the shoulders of his (very funny) security guard and gets carried around the crowd like that. No one gets hurt!!!!


http://view.break.com/566370 - Watch more free videos

Nneka music clip: The uncomfortable truth

How annoying! I wanted to post the clip for 'Heartbeat' from Nigerian singer Nneka. But they won't allow me to embed it. So I guess you'll have to go to Utube for that one (bastards!)

Anyway, her music is brilliant! It reminds me of Tricky's early Maxinquaye days, mixed with some Lauren Hill. This particular track is actually more Lauren Hill than 'Heartbeat'. And even though this is not my favorite.....this lady rocks!

Lynn Spears' book: Britney drinking at 13, lost virginity at 14 & on drugs at 15

All this according to the tell-all book by mum Lynne Spears.

Lynne has made some sensational revelations in her book due to release on September 16.

In her book ‘Through the Storm’, Lynne revealed that the 26-year-old singer began drinking at the age of 13, lost her virginity at 14, and then started taking drugs at 15.

The Toxic singer allegedly had her first drink after joining Disney’s squeaky-clean Mickey Mouse Club. Lynne also claims that the 14-year-old Britney then had sex with an 18-year-old high schooler in her home town of Kentwood, Louisiana soon after she quit the TV show.

She said that she regrets handing over control of Britney’s career to managers and allowing her daughter to be promoted as a sex object in raunchy videos at such a young age.

As Britney pursued her career, Lynne let her 16-year-old daughter sleep with Justin Timberlake, despite claiming she was a virgin. “Lynne thought Britney was in love and Justin was good for her,” the Sun quoted a source, as saying.

Britney was once caught with cocaine and cannabis on a private jet, when she was 16.

Oh, and the final word on the 2008 MTV Awards...Britney will apparently be opening the ceremony, but will not perform after last year's fiasco.

The truth of reality TV shows (How we put together the German superstar girl band 'No Angels')

I've recently started a MySpace page, only because someone else was going around pretending to be me on MySpace. So now I have my own really bad MySpace page as I have no idea how to make it look nice (anyone wants to help spice it up a bit?)

Anyhow, it's a nice tool for catching up again with people from 'my old life'. People like the 'No Angels' girls. This was the band that we put together on the first Popstars series in Germany in 2000/2001.

So, let me tell how they were chosen.... At the end of all the auditions, the jury and the production team gets together and discusses their points of view. Throughout the series there had been people who would have been booted off by the judges, but the production team demanded that they stayed on as they made 'good television' for whatever reason (being funny, being overly emotional, etc.) But, at the end of the series, it was all about who would make the best band.

We (Rainer Moslener& I as part of the jury, the record label & the production company/future management company) shuffled around with photographs of the girls and there were several possible routes to take. The record company and some of the people in production were leaning towards a very 'safe' formula. They simply wanted the prettiest 'girly-girls' to form a band. I disagreed. Passionately!

My very first choice for the band was Lucy, who is everything but a pretty 'girly-girl'. She is brash, she is wild, she's 'in ya face' and she is an extremely hard working woman. I was convinced that she would set the pace for the band & that she would give it a feel all of its own.

Lucky enough, Rainer backed me up. But we were pretty much on our own on this one. We also both strongly believed in Nadja, even though we realized that her voice was not that well suited for straight-forward pop music. It is almost 'too soulful' for that. Still, her voice had been able to bring us all to tears before, so for us she was a definite 'yes!' The fact that she was a struggling single mother made us even more determined to give her a chance.

There was one girl (Called Curley, if I remembered right?) who I had really wanted in the band. And guess why we didn't pick her? Was it lack of talent or charisma? No. We didn't pick her because she was too tall. It was an awful reason for someone to miss this chance of a lifetime and she deserved that chance, for sure. But next to the girls that we had already chosen, she looked weird. It is something that none of us normally think about, but when you put a boy of girl band together, they have to look 'right' when you put them all next to each other & having one person being much taller just looks 'wrong'. It really does.

So we couldn't have her in the band. And it broke my heart to tell her that. I never actually had the guts to tell her the real reason why she wasn't picked. It was just such a crap reason for losing out on a chance like this.

One other girl (who did make it into the band), almost did not get picked because she used to pull weird faces whenever the camera was pointed at her. She would scrunge her nose up and it just made her look all 'piggy'. Still, Rainer and I argued that this was something that was easy to work on and we made sure she got into the band after all.

One of the girls was picked only because the was a 'steady worker'. Someone to complete the overall picture (5 looked nicer as a line-up than 4, we thought)

And that was that.

What I am trying to explain with this is the randomness of these processes. It could have gone so many different ways and so many line-ups were possible.

I did feel very hurt when I saw the girls back months after we had formed the band. Rainer and I had been the people who had battled for this particular line-up, but we were bad-mouthed a lot afterwards by people around the girls. So when I saw the girls at their 'Dome' performance, they were kind of cold towards me & once again my heart broke. I had felt like a mother to these girls and this band and now they acted (almost) like I was a stranger.

Even so, I couldn't contain my pride when I saw the whole stadium chant along to 'Daylight'. With tears running down my face, I knew we had made the right choice and I felt blessed to have been able to impact 5 people's lifes in such a profound way.

Getting nostalgic about the nineties

In my last post I mentioned that more and more people seem to be getting nostalgic about the nineties these days...well, may I just join in with that for a moment? With two equally crap videos that accompanied some amazing bits of dance music history. I would add 'Strings of life' to this too, but did that even have a video?

I used to get quite epileptic from the 'Stakker humanoid' clip, but still continued to watch it anyhow.

So, let's go back in time: LFO followed by Humanoid. And you just try and wipe that grin of your face whilst listening to it ; )

I know I can't....

Today's interview on Holland's 'Kink FM'

It seems that more and more people are starting to get nostalgic about the nineties these days. And the radio stations are looking back at the era as well. The very cool 'Kink FM' are having a nineties week this week and interviewed me for it. You'll only understand the interview if you speak Dutch though...

KinkFMinterview.mp3