Still available as free download: the new Prodigy single!

Invaders must die is the name of the new album from the Prodigy and the title track will be available as a free download from their site for a few more days. Don't miss it!

I have to admit, for a while I felt like Liam had 'lost himself' somehow and I wasn't as crazy about the stuff he had done in the last few years (I also have to admit that I haven't heard everything he has done in these last years. Maybe I missed a gem somewhere)

But anyway, if he did lose himself for while, he's back now! And so are the Prodigy! What a top tune. Can't wait to hear to hear the whole album. This is what they are all about. Gritty, dark, intense dance music that just blows your head off. And I can already imagine them onstage with this track.

Having seen thousands of live performances over the years, I think that Prodigy are the best live act ever!!!!! And- of course- also the best dance act ever!!! (anyone disagree with me on that one?)

Good to have you back, old Braintree posse.



Obviously, I have many good memories of the Prodigy as I used to spend a lot of time with them. I'll share some of my favorites in the coming days.

The fake 'hotel names' of superstars.

Ever wondered what fake names the stars use when they check into hotels? These, apparently, are some of them (keep in mind that these get updated regularly)

• Britney Spears: Alotta Warmheart


• Jennifer Aniston: Mrs. Smith


• Johnny Depp: Mr. Donkey Ass


• Brad & Angelina: Bruce and Jasminde Pilaf


• Angelina (when traveling alone): Mrs. Lollipop

Doing this may be handy, but sometimes it can cause problems too.

Like what happened to me after another MTV Award show. As usual I had ended up partying in a hotel room with the Prodigy and 3D from Massive Attack. The sun was starting to come up and I really needed to sleep. I was done!

So I asked John, the Prodigy's tour manager, to get me a cab and get me back to my hotel. When he asked me which hotel I was in I realized that I had no idea whatsoever. He named every hotel in town to me, but still I had no idea. He then started to call every hotel and found out that everybody at the Award show had been checked in under fake names, including myself & I just didn't know what my fake name was. He must have tried for about an hour (bless him) before he gave up. I had no mobile on me and no other numbers to call, so I was stranded.

As usual, the Prodigy crew rescued me (they saved me once before when I was lost in some lava fields in Iceland. Back then, the boys all bumped up rooms and gave me one of theirs. They even bought me a new flight ticket back to the UK)

Anyway, this time their manager, Mike Champion, gave me his suite and he shared a room with John.

Later on that day when I walked out of the hotel I was lucky enough to bump into some other MTV people who brought me back to my own hotel.

So there you go. It's good if people can't figure out where you are, but when you can't even figure out where you are, this fake name business gets rather annoying.

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 ; )

Madonna throwing a wobbler!

Madonna recently performed at the BBC Radio One's 'Big Weekend', where she was one of the headliners of the 2-day free festival. Anyway, she acted like a bit of a diva, apparently. Whilst all the other artists were happy with the dressing rooms provided, Lady Madonna demanded not only separate dressing rooms stage side, she also demanded a complete compound for herself and her 70 people strong entourage.

She was said to have needed special Kabbalah water for all her hanger-ons, fresh fruit, tons of white roses & a private helicopter. Once the entourage arrived it turned out they had no interest in the fresh fruit or the Kabbalah water and headed straight for the alcohol and fried snacks that the other artists were having.




I have met Madonna two times over the years and I have seen her act not only like a diva, but also like a bit of a 3-year-old. I honestly have never seen another adult throw a wobbler the way like Madonna can (no wait...that's not true...Mark Wahlberg can also throw wonderfully immature wobblers...but he actually ends up destroying things in the process)

So, the first time I got introduced to Madonna I had wanted to say how much I admired and respected her, but she was so unfriendly to me that I just didn't bother. I was most disappointed.

The second time I met Madonna we were in a rather unusual place. It was 2 o'clock in the morning and we were at a candlelit dinner at Donatella Versace's house. I had no idea that that was where I was going, had I known I would not have changed back into my 'everyday clothes' after the MTV Award (I hate being uncomfortable and don't keep designer dresses on any longer than I need to)

I was with the Prodigy and thought that we were going back to the hotel or to some club or something. As we got out of the tourbus I did notice all the paparazzi, but still didn't think too much of it. It was only once I fell into a human statue inside (I was a tat drunk and there were all these half-naked painted people dotted all over the place) that I realized we weren't at the hotel.

It was the most surreal thing you could ever imagine. There were all these super-famous people sitting at candlelit tables, waiting for their 5-course dinner (remember...it was 2 o'clock in the morning!)

I was seated at a table with George Michael and his partner, Donatelle and her partner and some of the Prodigy. Madonna was at the table next to ours together with Jean Paul Gaultier and a few other people. Damon Albarn was at the next table with the guys from Massive Attack, Beyonce was there, the Sugarbabes, oh was just one big crazy celeb feast. I can't even remember half the people there. And I felt totally out of place (not only because I was the only person there wearing a jumper ; )

So anyway, Madonna kept demanding everybody's attention as she kept jumping up and shouting 'Turn the music down, turn the music down, I want to do a speech!'

She did a few of those, one of which was a speech for her bodyguard who was having his birthday. She also had a huge cake brought out for him (I have the picture somewhere, I'll try and upload it in the coming days)

Later on, at the party, I was talking to William Orbit who had just produced her album at that time. Madonna interrupted our discussion by screaming at William. I mean, the woman was throwing a complete wobbler. I don't think anyone could make any sense out of what she was on about. She ended up marching off in a huff. William didn't bat an eyelid throughout the whole thing. When I asked him what on earth that was about, he said: 'Madonna has this weird habit of claiming all the men that she works with as her own. And she hates it when any of these men that are in her circle give attention to another woman'

How freaky is that? I wonder if she is being like that to Justin Timberlake now too. Or maybe she has stopped doing this now that she's with Guy Richie. I don't know.

But anyway, if you had been thinking that she is some kind of Kabbalah-reading, balanced yogi, like a female version of Sting, you are most definitely wrong.

Still, with all she has achieved she can be as crazy as she wants to be, as far as I'm concerned. She has earned the right to be an oddball. But just don't let her fool you that she is now some kind of wholesome earth-momma, because she was already pretending to be 'balanced' when I met her. But it's her obsessive compulsive drive to be the center of the Universe that has made her the successful artist that she is. So good luck to her.

Strange music, stranger man: Tricky

People often ask me if I ever had any famous boyfriends in my MTV days & generally I have to disappoint them as I always stayed clear of relationships with rock stars or other men who were in the limelight (too much ego and too many potential problems)

There was one exception though; I did have a relationship with Tricky for a while. Now, I’m sure that he seems like a strange choice to most people. Out of all the famous men out there, surely I could have picked someone better looking and appealing than Tricky? Yes, yes, yes, that’s surely true. Tricky does look like an alien and even after knowing him I sometimes wonder if he actually is one. He’s the strangest man I have ever met in my life & for a while he had me ‘hypnotized’ with his strangeness & I became quite besotted by him.

This is what happened. I had recently met Tricky as I interviewed him for the Partyzone. His album ‘Maxinquaye’ had just been released & was the breath of fresh air that I had been waiting for. I loved that album, as it had seemed to me that, at the time, no one was doing anything new in the dance music scene & this was finally something original. Up to that point I had been bored out of my skull with what was going on musically and was seriously considering packing in my job with MTV. So ‘Maxinquaye’ restored my faith in what was possible musically and re-ignited my passion for music.

A few months later I bumped into Tricky again. This time at a ‘Dazed and confused’ party. He pulled me aside from the dancefloor, sat me down and told me: ‘Listen, you’re not at all the way people think you are…’ And then went on telling me all about myself. He told me things that I had never shared with anyone, he told me about my fears, my hopes, my dreams…I mean, he knew everything, really weird specific stuff, like things that I did when I was a little girl. For instance, about how I used to pull the sheets up to right under my chin at night, so that I would wake up if a Vampire would try to bite me. And he knew that my wild confident persona was all just an act, that I was actually a lot more introvert and insecure than I pretended to be. And these were just two of the things he told me; the list went on and on. When I asked him how on earth he knew all of this, he just said ‘I’ve been observing you for a while’

I was in utter shock. On the one hand I felt flattered by the fact that someone bothered to look that deep into me and on the other hand I was just confused by it all. I didn’t quite know how to react when Tricky said: ‘Look, the real issue is this, you like me and I like you’
‘I do?’ was all I could answer. He really had me confused now. I had never even considered looking at him like that. ‘Yes’, he answered, ‘And so the question is, what are we going to do about that?’

Well, that was it. It was the start of our relationship. I fell for him in quite a bad way, probably because the guy was just so endlessly fascinating. His mind didn’t work like anyone else’s. Whatever was going on in the world, Tricky would see the issue from a completely different angle. I didn’t always agree with him, but I liked the fact that he made me question things that other people would take for granted. Being with Tricky was never dull as it really felt like being on a different planet. His life was utter chaos though. People would actually have to wake him, get him out of bed, drive him to the studio and stay with him until he started to get into the music, otherwise he would just walk back out again. And I remember packing his bag for him as he was walking out the door to go Norway or something, without even his passport on him. People were always looking for him & there was just this general sense of disorganization and the feeling of this dark past hanging over him. Still, in the midst of it all, there was always his inspiring creativity.

But what I didn’t know was that he was seeing Björk whilst he was also seeing me. They were already together when I first met him. When I finally did find out things had already gotten quite messy. Björk had apparently shouted out during a performance ‘Why won’t he love me?’ and was fuming with me and with Tricky. I never spoke to her about it, but it was obvious from that moment on that she hated me. And I can’t blame her. And things continued to get messy as Björk started to go out with Goldie who, at the time, wanted to kill Keith from the Prodigy, who I was hanging out with a lot, etc. It was all a bit of a crazy time. Tricky laughed it all off & didn’t see what the fuss was all about. He suggested that we would have an open relationship; free to see whomever we wanted. But that just wasn’t something I would ever be comfortable with. So that’s when I bailed out.

We did stay friends though and many months later he told me that he had not wanted to commit to me, as I had been too much of a stable influence on him. He was worried that without drama in his life he would not be able to create. He said that he needed to feed of this drama and that I was simply too ‘together’ for him. It reminded me of the time as a teenager when I got dumped by a guy for being too ‘proper’ & decided to see it as a compliment.

Now, looking back, I know that it was all the truth. I am too ‘together’ for a crazy, drama filled, rock & roll lifestyle. I opened the door, looked in, smiled at the interesting chaos and walked away. I’m just happy to be normal.

Faithless

Yes, they've done it again. Rollo, Sister Bliss and Maxi Jazz have produced another musical gem with 'To all new arrivals'. It really is a great album & something that is even playable in my serene jungle setting here in Belize (a lot of bands/acts that I used to listen to simply sound 'too urban' and chaotic here)


When Faithless released their first album 'Reverence' no one seemed to be particularly interested in them. I believe their label was even thinking of dropping them at the time (or am I getting confused with Moloko? I'd have to check with James now, I'm not 100% sure anymore)

Anyway, when James Hyman (my old Partyzone producer) and I first heard 'Reverence' we got incredibly excited. This was one of those albums that we phoned each other out of bed for. One of us would occasionally discover a track or an album at 2 or 3 in the morning and would instantly wake up the other as we knew that there weren't many other people who would freak out to the same level as we did about music, so this is something we shared with each other. We would virtually be screaming, jumping up and down and just generally be so excited that would not be able to go back to sleep. Being passionate about what we were doing with the Partyzone doesn't even do it justice, being obsessive about it is more accurate. We lived for this stuff. And we especially lived for 'discovering' gems like Faithless.

So we contacted the label, set up Faithless' first ever TV interview (on the Partyzone of course) and we even supported their first tour! And the rest, as they say, is history...

A few months later they flew James and myself out to Amsterdam to join them at one of their gigs as a 'thank you'.

To this day, my proudest achievement as a Veejay was playing a small part in the breakthrough of new artists to the mainstream. Acts like Faithless, Moloko, Prodigy, Tricky, Goldie, etc.