Music Blogs

Last week, two of the main artists featured in this blog were Amy Winehouse and Kanye West. Well, what little difference a week makes! Both are still in the news, seven days later.

So last week Kanye made headlines for showing up almost two hours late for his Bonnaroo gig--and consequently getting Bonna-booed by angry audience members. And this week, Kanye is making headlines for doing what every tough, fiery-tempered rapper does when dissed...um, he's blogging. And he's typing almost entirely in ALL CAPS! Ooh, watch out!

Yes, Kanye is mad, and he's not going to take it anymore."This Bonnaroo thing is the worst insult I've ever had in my life. This is the most offended I've ever been...this is the maddest I ever will be," he spewed this week on his official website, kanyeuniversity.com.

(Hmmmm. You'd think he would have been more offended/mad about his mother Donda's botched/fatal surgery, or when he was completely shut out at last year's VMAs, or when Evel Knievel sued him, or when his engagement was called off, or when he went on that Hurricane Katrina telethon and made those anti-Bush comments, one when that woman beat him with a shovel in his bizarre "Flashing Lights" music video, etc...but hey, everyone has their own breaking point, we suppose. Anyway, after this grammatically and typographically correct opening statement, Kanye apparently hit the capslock button on his Macbook Air and went positively ballistic. And we quote (FYI, all caplocked expletives have been excised for easily offended readers' protection, not to mention to save space...although Kanye's spelling errors have been left totally intact, just for personality's sake):

"NEVER SAY I DIDN'T GIVE MY ALL! NEVER SAY I DIDN'T GIVE MY ALL! THIS SHOWS NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY TO BE GOOD AT SOMETHING THERE WILL BE PEOPLE THERE TO LIE ABOUT YOU AND BRING YOU DOWN! LIKE WAYNE SAYS PLEASE DON'T SHOOT ME DOWN CAUSE I'M FLYING! I'M HURT BY THIS ONE. ALL I CARE ABOUT ARE THE FANS. JUST SAY THIS OUT LOUD IN A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE, "KANYE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT GIVING A GOOD PERFORMANCE." CAN ANYONE HONESTLY SAY THAT ?????????  HAS ANYONE EVEN TAKEN THE TIME TO AT LEAST DO THE MATH??? BONNAROO SHOULD HAVE RELEASED A STATEMENT IN MY DEFENSE BUT SINCE THEY HAVEN'T LET'S BREAK DOWN THE WALLS ON THIS TRUMAN SHOW AND LET YOU KNOW WHAT REALLY OCCURRED!!! FOR OVER A MONTH WE WENT BACK AND FORTH ON WETHER OR NOT WE COULD EVEN FIT MY STAGE AT THE FESTIVAL. ONE DAY THEY WOULD SAY YES... WE'D SEND THEM OUR SPECS THEN THEY THEY'D SAY OK... THEN THEY WOULD SEND SPECS BACK THAT DIDN'T FIT THE STAGE. WE WERE OBVIOUSLY DEALING WITH IDIOTS WHO DIDN'T REALLY HAVE THE CAPACITY TO REALLY PUT ON THIS SHOW PROPERLY. THEY TRIED 2 GIVE ME A TIME SLOT WERE IT WAS STILL LIGHT OUTSIDE ... I HAVE A LIGHT SHOW, IT'S NOT CALLED GLOW IN THE DARK FOR NO REASON SQUID BRAINS! MY PEOPLE WORKED OUT A COMPROMISED STAGE PLOT AND A 3AM TIME SLOT AND I AGREED. FAST FOWARD TO THE DAY OF THE SHOW. MY PRODUCTION MANAGER TRIED TO LOAD IN FOR 24 HOURS BEFORE I WENT ON STAGE BUT THE FESTIVAL WOULDN'T ALLOW US TO DO ANYTHING UNTILL PEARL JAM LEFT THE STAGE. PEARL JAM ENDED ONE HOUR LATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AT THAT POINT WE'RE RACING AGAINST THE SUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AT 4:20AM DON COMES BACK 2 THE BUS AND TELLS ME, "IT WOULD TAKE 45 MORE MINUTES TO PUT ALL YOUR PYRO IN!" I SAY I HAVE TO GET OUT THERE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE."

But wait, there's more! This is regarding all the liquid on the Bonnaroo stage, the residue of angry concertgoers' beer-tossing protests:

"I STEPPED ON THE FRONT PART OF MY STAGE AND THERE WAS SO MUCH LIQUID ON THE STAGE I COULDN'T MOVE WITHOUT SLIPPING. I HAD TO ADJUST MY WHOLE PERFORMANCE STYLE BECAUSE OF IT. A FEW MORE SONGS IN AND THE SONG WAS ON IT'S WAY UP.. I CUT A FEW SONGS FROM THE SET BECAUSE I WANTED PEOPLE 2 EXPERIENCE STRONGER WHILE THERE WAS STILL SOME DARKNESS TO PERFORM IT IN. I'VE STRUGGLED WITH STRONGER FROM IT'S CONCEPTION. REMEMBER LAST SUMMER WHEN I CANCELED SOME TV APPEARANCES. IT WAS BECAUSE I DIDN'T WANT TO PERFORM STRONGER IN THE DAYTIME. ANYONE WHO CAME TO THE GLOW TOUR CAN UNDERSTAND WHY I WANTED PEOPLE TO SEE IT PROPERLY. IT BROKE MY HEART THAT I COULDN'T GIVE THESE FANS STRONGER IN IT'S GREATEST FORM... BY THE TIME I GOT TO STRONGER IT WAS DAYTIME AND IT BROKE MY HEART. I'M SORRY TO EVERYONE THAT I DIDN'T HAVE THE ABILITY 2 GIVE THE PERFORMANCE I WANTED TO. I'M SORRY... SOMETIMES I GO 2, 3 DAYS W/O SLEEP WORKING ON MY PERFORMANCE... I HAVE TO ICE MY KNEES AFTER EVERY SHOW AND THEY HURT WHEN I WALK THROUGH THE AIRPORT... HAVING AN EXPENSIVE STAGE CUTS MY PAYDAY IN HALF... CALL ME WHAT YOU WANT BUT NEVER SAY I DIDN'T GIVE MY ALL!!!

Allrighty, then. Kanye has spoken. Let's hope getting all that off his puffed-up chest helped with his anger management. (Hopefully his two wins at this week's BET Awards helped, too.) And let's hope that things go more smoothly for everyone involved when Kanye graces the (hopefully liquid-free) Lollapalooza and the Virgin Mobile Festival stages in August.

Oh, if only Amy Winehouse blogged so eloquently and passionately whenever she was in the news. Of course, if she did, she'd have pretty bad carpal tunnel syndrome by now. And gawd knows she doesn't need any more health problems. She's already reportedly suffering from a nasty skin infection called impetigo, and she was hospitalized last week after a fainting spell...and now this week, her father Mitch told the press that her crack and cigarette smoking have so damaged her lungs that she is at risk for emphysema and even death if she doesn't clean up soon. Mitch Winehouse was quoted in the Sunday Mirror as saying his daughter had only "70 percent lung capacity"--bad news for any singer known for having a big, booming soul voice like Amy's--and that she will have to wear an oxygen mask unless she stops smoking drugs. He also claimed she has an irregular heartbeat. "The doctors have told her if she goes back to smoking drugs, it won't just ruin her voice, it will kill her," he stated. "There are nodules around the chest and dark marks."

Amy's spokeswoman, Tracey Miller, refuted Mitch's claims, saying: "She is not diagnosed with full-blown emphysema, but instead has early signs of what could lead to emphysema." Hmmmm. You know, that still doesn't sound too good to us, really...but we guess this means there's still some hope for Amy and her addled organs. Hopefully she'll have more than 70 percent lung capacity to draw from when she attempts to belt it out at Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday concert in London this week.

Another British singer often in trouble with the law, and with drugs, is gender-bending Culture Club frontman Boy George. The '80s icon had planned a U.S. tour for July 2008--which was to include a free concert for the NYC Department Of Sanitation to thank them for their kindness when he performed court-ordered community service in his 2006 New York drug case. But now--much like Amy Winehouse around Grammy time earlier this year--Boy George has been denied a U.S. visa. So his Sanitation Department concert, along with the rest of his tour, has been trashed, so to speak. George didn't quite spew Kanye-strength venom when he heard this news, but he did issue the following irate statement: "I am getting my life together and was really looking forward to performing in concert for all my loyal fans. I love America and I am really sad that it appears that I am not allowed to visit a place I have called home at various times in my life."

Guess immigration officials really did want to hurt George.

On a semi-related note, troubled country singer Mindy McCready--who is on probation for her own 2004 drug charge--was arrested and charged with probation violation this week, for supposedly falsifying her community service records. And another, albeit much less troubled country star, Tim McGraw, threw his own Kanye-style onstage tempter tantrum at his concert (albeit with much better justification) in Auburn, Washington, when he reportedly witnessed a male audience member attack a female fan. "Get rid of this guy!" Tim heroically shouted, threatening the errant concertgoer with a macho cocked fist as the wrongdoer was dragged away by security guards.

So, will Tim blog about this incident? And will he do so in all caps? Probably not, but stay tuned...

And finally, on the subject of men harassing women, a Nashville clubber was charged with disorderly conduct and public intoxication after he reportedly accosted Cher at the Tootsie's Orchid Lounge. Police say Calvin Hutton Houghland was asked to leave Tootsie's after repeatedly hassling Cher--and though Calvin initially complied with security's request, he returned to the club a short time later and grabbed the one-named diva by her famously nipped-in waist. Cher actually declined to prosecute following this incident, but oddly, Calvin asked to be arrested. He then promptly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, failed a self-requested sobriety test.

We bet if Calvin could turn back time, he'd behave differently.

And thus concludes another confusing, bemusing, and occasionally amusing week in news. Come back next Friday for more updates--and until then, goodnight, and good music.

THIS WEEK'S TOP 10 STORIES:

1) Capital Punishment - Kanye West strikes back at his Bobbaroo bullies, via an aggressively all-capped blog.

2) Amy's Smokin' Performance - If she doesn't lay off the pipe, she may permanently damage her vocal pipes.

3) Boy George's Sanitation Department Concert Plans Trashed - U.S. immigration officials deny him a tour visa.

4) Tim McGraw Doesn't Like It, Doesn't Love It, Wants No More Of It - He throws an onstage fit after a concertgoer misbehaves.

5) Cher-ing Is Not Caring - A man harasses Cher, gets arrested.

6) McCready Acts Seedy - Mindy is arrested for allegedly falsifying documents.

7) American Bridal - Idol album Ruben Studdard and his girlfriend take out a marriage license.

8) Coldplay On A Hot Streak - The Brits break an iTunes records and sell 721,000 albums in one week.

9) Back In The Day - Morris Day & The Time are reuniting for their first album in 18 years.

10) Slash Hits The Skid - The GNR/Velvet Revolver axeman has recruited ex-Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach for a "top-secret" project.