Elton John: Non-PC

Oh it’s ridiculous. So ridiculous. I fucking hate PC. You can’t say anything about anything anymore. I’m not really for censorship at any level. I think you should be able to say what you think but I’m afraid I’m a bit of a lightning rod for that and I’ve got myself into trouble and I can’t anymore. People just will attack you, it’s crazy. If Miley actually does go ahead and does it naked in front of all those people, that’s one of the greatest performance art things that’s happened since the 2000s, or since Marina Abramovic. It's the sort of thing that would have happened back in the late 60s when there was so much bravado around. I hate censorship in any form. Jason Sellards from the Scissor Sisters, when they did Nightwork, they had the very famous Warhol picture of the guy with the crack up his tight trousers and I said, ‘It’s a fucking great cover but it will hurt your album sales,’ and it did. It shouldn’t but it does. It drives me crazy. I’m not a conservative guy at all when it comes to things like that, I think people should have freedom of speech. It’s like when Pisschrist first came to England or the Chris Ofili dung in the Brooklyn Museum. Fuck off! This is an artist saying something. Ai Weiwei’s exhibition at the Royal Academy? It’s a wonderful pouring out of the soul. He’s been persecuted, he’s been imprisoned, not allowed to sleep. They’re my heroes. The people who’ve pushed the envelope.

Noisey interview.

Sir Reg comes over rather well, though he seems to be putting on an 'I'm yer cool gay uncle' act to be down with the Vice Squad.

Oh, and the 'very famous Warhol picture' is actually by Robert Mapplethorpe, dear.

Jake Shears: Snip!

Hi,
I'm Jake Shears and I'm still kinda edgy.

[World falls asleep again...]

Scissor Sisters: 2001-2012?

Scissor Sisters have announced they are splitting up "going on hiatus".
In a statement the New York band said; "This is due to musical differences - ie no-one liked our recent music."

Scissor Sisters: Shit

Hard to think of a shitter record ever made.
But they sent lame videos to the gay media, so it's a thing, right?

Pride: Snip!

Do you remember the good old days when anyone gave a fuck about the Scissor Sisters?
Next stop G-A-Y...

Thought For The Day: Babydaddy

"I’d love to be a role model for gay men who feel they don’t fit in to what it means to be gay. You don’t need a perfect body and hair and love dance music and go out all night and do drugs. I’m a pretty decent guy. I’m the most level-headed in the band by default because everyone else is fucking insane.”

Scissor Sisters' Babydaddy talking to GT.
Is it just me, or is he bitching the guy on his left?

Liam Fox: Musical

"I have a massive record collection," he booms proudly in an East Kilbride baritone. "I play music all the time ... I love it! The Scissor Sisters made the best album of the year, and David Bowie is my favourite singer. I would say that my favourite album of all time is Bowie's Station to Station."

There is nothing effeminate about the stocky, strait-laced Fox. But the music that he likes, from Roxy Music to Soft Cell to Prince to Kate Bush, is not exactly what one would call rugged. "The first music that I got into was glam rock," says Fox. "And I think Ultravox and Visage are great. I love Everything But the Girl's album The Language of Life and The Hounds of Love by Kate Bush. I've been waiting over a decade for the new Kate Bush album to come out and now it's nearly arrived - that's a definite buying event to look forward to!"

From The Guardian, April 2005.
I think that's finally sorted out the whole "Is Liam Fox gay?" thing once and for all.
So let us hear no more about it.
Good day.

PS Bored? There's literally seconds of fun to be had with the Liam Fox adviser business card generator.

Festival News 2: Lovebox

Now I don't care about you, but the only UK music festival that tempts Fagburn is Lovebox in July.
As with last year, Sunday is Bummers' Day (unofficial) - with a line-up specially tailored to please The Gays.
Scissor Sisters are headlining.
Yup, I've got really tired of them and their One Big Office Party live schtick, too.
But there's also 2 Many DJs, Marc Almond, Robyn, the gals from Horse Meat Disco, and loads of gayers running around mashed on drugs.
Yay!
But why oh why oh why have Lovebox booked The Drums to play, not on Bummers' Sunday, but on the painfully straight Saturday with Snoop fucking Dogg???
FFS!

In Praise Of... Alexis Petridis

I don't care about you, but I think Alexis Petridis is the most consistently entertaining music writer on the "proper" papers.
He also allows us to continue today's Scissor Sister's theme with a cute interview with Jake and Ana in The Guardian's Film And Music section, where Jake suggests that their new album, Night Music, is an imagining of what gay club music would be like in the late 80s if Aids had never happened.
It would probably have sounded like Italo Disco - which is how late 80s Hi Nrg was rebranded to hipsters a decade or two after it happened.
A few pages on Petridis reviews the four new anthologies in the Disco Discharge anthology series. They get five stars each, natch.
Every reviewer always raves about these compilations. Even if - or maybe it's because - they wouldn't know a great Disco record if it bit them on the bum.
It's the inversion of the little musical hegemony Petridis starts off his review by mentioning; when mainstream America collectively concluded that "Disco Sucks".
These days olde school Disco's cool, and few music journalists dare to differ. Isn't it funny how things turn out?
Petridis always writes well about the influence of yer actual gay culture, and with more knowledge, insight and empathy than many gay journalists.
Though when he writes about the 12" version of Boys Town Gang's Cruisin The Sreets - "in which police officers punish a couple of cottagers by forcing them at gunpoint to take part in an orgy with a passing prostitute..." - he tries to show how down he is with The Gays, but ends up falling flat on his face.
His confusing of "cottaging" with "cruising" is as big a clanger as writing that the movie Top Gun starred Tom Cottage.

Scissor Sisters 2 - "The horror! The horror!"

I remember walking past the Brighton Dome one evening in August 2004.
Scissor Sisters were putting on a special show there, so they could film it for a DVD.
They were riding high with their first album which was everywhere that summer. I loved the way the Sisters still seemed cool, even though they'd gone mass.
You could dance to one of their ATOC tracks at The Cock on a Friday night, then hear them on Radio 2 the morning after.
I saw a group of fans outside the Dome. Everyone had been told to dress up wild for the cameras.
This group looked like an office party. Dressing "wild" meant a few feather boas from Claire's Accesories. They looked like the kind of joyless jokers you'd see trotting off to see Rocky Horror at the Theatre Royal. The "Have fun or bust" brigade.
I realised right there and then that the Scissor Sisters had blown it. They'd finally crossed that cultural Rubicon and become naff.
I wonder if they can get their groove back.

Scissor Sisters: Butt Seriously...

Lovingly cut-and-pasted from Digital Spy...
'Scissor Sisters guitarist Del Marquis has defended the band's suggestive new LP cover, branding it "really classic-looking".
The artwork for the band's upcoming Night Work album features a provocative close-up of a clenched man's bottom - belonging to Broadway dancer Peter Reed and snapped by late American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in 1980.
I knew that it would invoke different responses from different people," Marquis told Digital Spy. "We're a love/hate band - people seem to either vehemently despise us or love us with all their hearts - and I see that cover provoking a similar response.
The way someone reacts to it will tell you a lot about that person. People could view it with reactionary homophobia, or they could view it as camp, or high art, or something beautiful. It reminds me of the back of Sticky Fingers actually - it's a really classic-looking album cover."
Marquis also admitted that he is enjoying seeing the controversial image enlarged for the album's advertising campaign.
"The cover's been blown up on billboards all over town and it's really exciting for me to be driving through religiously conservative neighbourhoods and seeing this giant gorgeous clenched man's ass!" he said.'