Be Excellent To Each Other

Lemmy, so Facebook says.

There was that thing at Glasto this year where he played entirely the wrote song for a while, so I guess he wasn't well.

@DavPaz - Yes I believe so, nothing on the official news yet that I can see though.

It's confirmed.

Meadowlark Lemon of the Harlem Globetrotters has slammed his last dunk.

Gutted

Pavel Srnicek - 1998 - 2000 Wednesday goalkeeper

Gosh. He was a young goalie wasn't he?

David Bowie now.

Aye, there was speculation it was a hoax, but his son has seemingly confirmed it:
https://twitter.com/ManMadeMoon/status/ ... 3648212992

Very sorry and sad to say it's true. I'll be offline for a while. Love to all. pic.twitter.com/Kh2fq3tf9m

— Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) January 11, 2016

Well, that sucks

I might have to get his back catalogue..

I've got his entire back catalogue. I think there was a year or so that I listened to nothing but Bowie, and it was amazing as there is so much variety and scope that it doesn't feel like a single artist (though you an very much argue that it encompasses various acts).

I'm not sure I ever really understand why everyone rushes to listen to or buy music from a recently deceased artist if they normally wouldn't. Not that there's anything 'wrong' with it, just that my instinct is to do the opposite as it makes me feel too sad. The same is true of an actor that I might really respect the work of: I have to avoid their films for a while as otherwise I feel too sad at the loss of their talent.

we just about managed Aladdin last week or so, for example.

I like his stuff, I just don't own any

That's a shame. He did turn out some pap over the years but given the depth and breadth of his work that's only to be expected I suppose. (And the bad stuff is massively outweighed by the good and the fantastic.)

Cancer seems to be killing a lot of people. I'm not a fan. Someone needs to work out a cure for that shit.

It's a common reaction. I used to work for HMV and artist death was a big money-maker. I've known more than one manager to get quite over-excited at potential sales when a musician or actor death had hit the headlines. I understand the wish for branch sales against targets, but the excitement bordering on glee was quite nauseating.

That is a bit odd..

When I worked in a record shop, the hardest part when George Harrison died was spending a day explaining to almost every customer that Traveling Wilburys had been unavailable for years and we weren't able to get them copies.

It's not, really. It's perfectly understandable if your wish to surpass sales targets as a manager who is proud of their job is important to you. However, when those sales are driven by an outside factor then the amount that can be attributed to you and your staff is questionable, apart from the merchandising aspect by making potential sales targets prominent. However, unlike a sunny day that sells strawberries, it sits a bit distastefully when the outside event is death.

I wouldn't begrudge the manager making sales (in a way they are making readily available the items that the customer wants) but trying to gee up staff with motivators such as 'right! David Bowie is dead: let's push all those CDs to the front of the store and bring out copies of The Labyrinth and try and find that old Bowie standee in the back office, and let's really PUSH those Bowie sales today and make the most of this opportunity' really made me feel a bit awkward.

I think from many consumers' points of view it just reminds them that they should listen more often, then there is a period of 5-10 days where it's blaring out of cars and open bedroom windows, then everyone forgets again and the sales fade down.

The news has made me put on his new record, Darkstar, this morning. It's fucking weird as shit - I love it.

Me too. Shame he had to die for me to bother listening to it because it's really good.

Properly gutted about Bowie, I'm not usually that upset when famous people die but for me this is like when John Peel died. Someone I somehow thought would always be about, doing their thing and now they're not.

I added it to my library on release but I hadn't got around to it yet.

I find websites publishing obituaries surrounded by adverts pretty distasteful. Why not just turn ads off for that one article?

That's a personal peeve of mine, too. I find it terribly distasteful.

Still, it makes some cunt money eh?

Without it, the 'Malgorithms' box in 'Private Eye' would be empty.

Where do you draw the line? What about news stories involving people being murdered or beat up? Isn't that equally 'bad' conceptually? People die, that needs reported, and the people who report it need to make money so they can carry on reporting stuff.

I was talking about exactly that. Murders, deaths etc should not be used to make some one money.

But hey, it is and they do and that's why this world is so fucking shit.

I had this in mind when making my point.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016- ... es-aged-69

It is a games website. Yes, Bowie had some loose ties to games, but they are clearly just writing that because it is the thing that everyone is talking about today. It is extremely cynical.

I'd be more annoyed that, as is standard for any news story these days, over 50% of the 'news' article is embedded tweets from people unconnected to the writer of the article. That's not news - That's a picture or c/p of a tweet.

BBC News (the only place to get your news apparently, as they're never trying to sell you something at the same time) are among the worst at this.

On the other hand these websites are commercial entities, and since precious few people are prepared to pay for online content, they have to survive through advertising revenues or 'advertorials' or whatever.

So yes the Bowie article on Eurogamer is perhaps somewhat cynical, and it can seem inappropriate or distasteful for advertisements to appear alongside some articles or are a bad match for the article (as previously mentioned, Private Eye cover this with their malgorithms), but in the case of advertisements it's generally 100% automated anyway - there are no human beings keeping an eye on this stuff, because human beings need to be paid.

It's hard to moan about this stuff when all the evidence points towards almost everyone wanting all their online content to be free to them, but it still has to be paid for somewhere along the line.

Following Lemmy, very sorry to hear of Bowie's passing as well - we're losing all the original thinkers and greats, difficult to see how they're going to be replaced. RIP sir; Life On Mars: what an absolutely seminal track, still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end even after all these years. I won't pretend to have been a mega-fan or anything but he truly was incomparable and the real measure of his influence, across multiple musical genres and eras, can hardly be over-stated. Ashes to Ashes indeed...

As for the whole adverts thing, I must agree it's not in very good taste but on the other hand, that's the world we live in, shit needs to be paid for. I suppose it's not massively different to ITV having advert breaks in their news bulletins; no-one seems to get too uptight about that. Even the BBC frequently "advertise" stuff (despite taking their licence fee to boot).

The fact that news articles about bad stuff have adverts on them is the reason the world is so shit? I hate adverts on web pages as much as the next man but I'd stop short of literally blaming them for all the worlds ills.

On a more serious note, what you're proposing just isn't workable. Websites need to make money and one of the only ways is advertising. For a news website especially if they stripped adverts from all pages that talked about 'bad stuff' they'd go bankrupt pretty quickly. Or they'd just end up skewing all their content towards happy shiny stuff just so they could keep the lights on which would be idiotic and do nothing for the quality of their coverage.

Genuinely gutted that David Bowie has died.

Just watched the video to 'Lazarus' now... mind blowing. Creative genius right until the end.

BBC 1 Directors office today

Culture Editor: We should do a Bowie special. Big loss today.

Director: Be serious. We can't do a memorial for every Tom dick or Harry who pegs it. It's not budgeted for. The archive will take tons of people to trawl through as we didn't even have an obit ready. We'd need a known lead presenter who'll no doubt demand premium pay. Plus all the six music people we'd need, a studio, local reporters in key locations. That's just the cost aspects. And it will fuck up the existing scheduling. That's pain in the Arse enough when we have to deal with a disaster. Sorry guys, nice idea but there are no circumstances we'll ever make it fly.

Scheduling Director: Okies. We'll run with Inside Out with Matthew Wright as planned.

Director: Bowie special. You've got unlimited budget.

Alan Rickman :-(

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/ja ... CMP=twt_gu

Oh no, that is a great loss

Also 69, also cancer. Fuck.

Why can't some horrible people start dying off instead.

Oh fufuxache!

Rickman? That's just... annoying.

OH GO FUCK YOURSELF 2016

Robert Mugabe is 91. Just saying, Mr G Reaper... just saying.

Stolen for Twitter, ta.

Donald Trump is also 69…

We can but hope.

Is 69 the new 27?

Title of your sex tape

Yippee ki yay mother fucker.

Eagles Guitarist has died as well as drummer with Mott The Hoople. Both founding members of tgeircresoectivexbsbds. I'd find links but I'm too exhausted.

"their respective bands"