Everyone knows Morrissey. He’s that loveable vegan from Manchester who complains about everything and then goes in to a big vegetable huff when things go pear-shaped.

Only a couple of weeks ago, he collapsed at a gig in Swindon. Perhaps he saw what the people there looked like and wanted out. Pronto.

In the latest shenanigan involving the former Smiths front man, he got pelted with a plastic cup of water in Liverpool. Now he didn’t fall over, his feeble vegan body did manage to withstand the force of the close range throw. Still, he did get soaked worse than a potato patch and stormed off the stage. Interested in seeing the video? Of course you are. It’s right after the jump.

We’ve been to many gigs and a cup of water isn’t that big a deal. Prior to most gigs we drink many plastic pints of fizzy lager and often need a mid-gig wee. Going to the toilet is a bit of a pain so we just use the cup and lob it away. And we’ve been accused of not having green credentials. So it could have been worse, a lot worse.

You do have to remember where he was performing, though. The clip appears to show Morrissey interacting with the Liverpudlian crowd. That was already a stupid thing to do, as any jewellery he was wearing could have gone walkabouts, or his wallet pinched.

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Remember the other week when we brought you the wonderful music of The Candle Thieves via our MySpace Trawl feature? Of course you ruddy do!

It appears the band have been able to use all sorts of pretty colours and sellotape them together to create a video for The Sunshine Song. Don’t go thinking its a botched job down on a hand held camera for £20.

Oh no, what we have is a wonderfully crafted video which perfectly reflects the sound of the song. Thank God for that, the last thing we wanted to see was the duo standing on a building looking moody in the rain.

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Hollywood Records is a label imprint for the Walt Disney Company.

Therefore they have a truly horrible roster of ’stars’ like Hayden Panettiere and Vanessa Hudgens. Although I will pretty much listen to any tween piece of crap, some of this stuff is truly bone-chilling. The label pretty much makes its money solely on the premise that if teenagers like to see rubbish actors in movies, they will LOVE hearing them sing. Unfortunately for us, this appears to be true. Basically, being an artist on Hollywood records is like being a chef at McDonalds.

Prime examples after the jump…

Jesse McCartney – It’s Over

6,474,564 views

Jesse McCartney is the latest in a line of snivelling little girl singers, lisping his way through ballads about the kind of impossibly complex love and heartbreak only a 21-year-old whose voice hasn’t yet properly broken could ever hope to fathom. In this video he mopes around (as usual), enlisting the help of some deeply uninvested producers and one of Justin Timberlake’s set designers. The song sounds like something he found whilst digging though Babyface’s trash.

Hayden Panettiere - Wake Up Call

4,893,437 views

This is one of the most awful songs I have ever heard and I can honestly say I would rather be forced to watch someone murder and eat my family than have to listen to it again. Who the fuck wrote in a RAP!? I think the gist of the song is if your boyfriend stops paying attention to you you should have sex with someone else to remind that he loves you. If this doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry, that just means you’re not a cretin.

Jonas Brothers – Burnin’ Up

15,186,494 views

The Jonas Brothers halfheartedly pretend to be interested in women and some paid actresses halfheartedly return the favour. Confused man-children with bad hair.

Vanessa Hudgens – Sneakernight

35,933,696 views

This song is pretty catchy, but whilst watching the video all I could think was ‘Heh heh heh. I’ve seen your minge.’

Insane Clown Posse – Down With The Clown (no seriously.)

17,467 views

WOOO! RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE! ANARCHY!

Corbin Bleu – Deal With It

1,382,976 views

Things that are probably less painful than this video:
Vivisection sans anaesthetic
Childbirth
Having a 300 pound woman repeatedly stamp on your testicles
Licking the crotch of one of Paris Hilton’s thongs and then having to deal with whatever diseases you contract.

Miley Cyrus – 7 Things
92,930,397 views

One of the only Hollywood Records artists I have nothing bad to say about because this song is awesome and so is Miley Cyrus. At 16 she’s already had three ‘erotic pic’ phone leaks and enjoys dating older men and perceived racial slurs. Someone for the kids to look up to, truly.

This was a guest blog by Amy Green from Interpol Groupies Wear Black. She means it, man.

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Usually when we’re told that a band sounds like Radiohead we run a mile, because it usually means that they sound like Athlete.

But curiosity got the better of us when we caught wind of Animal Kingdom, and we’re pretty glad it did. We don’t know very much about them but, based on their single Chalk Stars, Animal Kingdom might just be worth keeping your eyes peeled for. It’s all shimmering melancholy and yearning vocals, and we’d be more inclined to compare it to something like Sigur Ros or Amiina than Radiohead.

The Chalk Stars video is after the jump, and you’d be a fool not to watch it…

Oh, and they’ve got a website, too – www.weareanimalkingdom.com. Hurry.

The nominations for this year’s Mercury Music Prize are out, and it looks like it’ll be a bumper year.

Among the Mercury Prize nominees are: A girl who looks a bit like Lily Allen! A ginger girl who barely sells any records! Some people who really want to be Oasis! Another ginger girl who looks like she’s about four years old! Some miserable Scottish people! A genuine hecklerspray reader who we really want to win! And a bunch of other clowns that nobody has heard of!

No doubt you’ll be hearing more from us on the Mercury Prize soon, but until then you could do a lot worse than to watch our pal Eleanor Conway interview the nominees in this spiffy little video…

Still sobbing uncontrollably like a girl about the death of Michael Jackson?

If you’re in the minority that still hasn’t returned to work due to the tragic news, we have something to help knock back those salty tears.

At present, all music channels and radio stations are being ruined by the decaying king of pop. You can’t turn to any station without hearing Thriller, Bad, Man In The Kids Bedrooms’ or Earth Song being pumped out. It basically means that we’re in some sort of time warp and a dead man is getting richer. Why not move things forward with a moving tribute? In particular, this moving tribute.

This isn’t the first time that Kunt and the Gang has graced hecklerspray. We love him so much, that we’ve already featured him in our MySpace Trawl feature. Despite lyrics that would upset your gran, there is still some genuine love displayed. You just have to interpret them in your own way.

In the past, Carol Vorderman and Barry George have had songs penned about their ups and downs. Michael Jackson is simply the latest subject. Hopefully people will love this so much that it’ll enter the charts and shove one of Michael Jackson’s songs out of the way. It’s not the 80s or 90s remember.

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It’s just weeks until London’s premier festival, Lovebox, takes centre stage and to celebrate we’ve got three pairs of weekend tickets up for grabs!

Why is this a good thing? Because a) the likes of Duran Duran, Doves, Groove Armada, VV Brown, The New York Dolls, Gang Of Four, Bombay Bicycle Club, Florence And The Machine and N*E*R*D are playing and b) we want to give you tickets to see all of them, for free.

If you can get to London’s Victoria Park on the 18th and 19th July and like winning brilliant competition prizes, then you’re strongly advised to read on…

To win a pair of these staggeringly good Lovebox tickets, all you need to do is watch the video of Lovebox headliners Duran Duran below and answer a simple question:

QUESTION: Is Simon Le Bon’s hair too big?

To stand a chance of winning, email your answer to Hello[at]hecklerspray.com with the subject line ‘Yes, it’s obviously far too big‘. The competition closes at midnight on July 9 when three winners will be chosen at random. UK readers only please.

For more information on the festival go to: www.lovebox.net/home Tickets are available from www.lovebox.net as well as from Ticketmaster or by calling 08448472436.

Tickets can be purchased in person from Stargreen Box Office, 20/21a Argyll Street, London, W1F 7TT.

Ticket prices: £42.50 + Booking Fee per day ticket. £75.00 + Booking Fee per weekend ticket.

It started with individual Pixies wandering around the venue prior to the show. This surpassed the already high expectations for the intimate gig: pressing the flesh is one thing, but crowdsourcing a setlist is quite another. Yet that’s what Pixies did: they invited the audience to request their favourite songs, and we met them all in the process.

Naturally we threw a curve ball at Kim Deal, having requested ‘Ana’: “But we don’t know how to play it! Seriously. You could put a gun to Joey’s head and he still wouldn’t know his way around that one…”

So instead, we opted for the best Pixies song out there: No. 13 Baby, which they played early on, followed by classics like Hey, Tame, Debaser and Bone Machine. Kim was cajoled by Black Francis into performing Into The White and Gigantic, despite telling us that she wanted a lazy night (giving us an impromptu performance of the River Euphrates backing vocals in the process – her reason for wanting to dodge that song in the set). It goes without saying that it was an awesome performance, and great to see Pixies at close quarters.

The band remains a powerhouse, and is very tight, despite one or two slips, notably the UK Surf version of Wave of Mutilation, which they had to restart after Kim forgot her way around it. The audience, which included Kevin ‘My Bloody Valentine’ Shields, helped her out: “It starts in F!”

All in all we’re honoured to have been invited to what was essentially a private party (replete with free bar) for Vaughan Oliver’s stunning artwork, where Pixies showed up and did their friend a favour by playing an on-demand set.

They really seem to be enjoying themselves these days. David Lovering showed us a trick involving rubber bands and talked to us about John Bonham. Joey Santiago made our spines shiver when he played that note in Hey. Black Francis kept us amused with tales of Kim being kicked off RockBand when playing Pixies songs. And Kim grinned from ear to ear the whole night.

It was a blast.

Check out a fan’s video of Gigantic:

You can also check out David Emery’s Flickr slideshow of Pixies at Village Underground.

Regular readers may have noticed that, when it comes to competition prizes, sometimes we’re a bit on the rubbishy side.

No, no, it’s OK, we are. Or at least we were, because now we’re going to offer you possibly the biggest prize in hecklerspray history – a bundle of CDs, DVDs, T-shirts and goodness knows what else worth somewhere in the region of £200.

It’s all thanks to the wonderful people at EMI and their wonderful new website. If you want to win, then you’d better watch the video after the jump, hadn’t you…

To win this slightly gigantic packet of EMI goodies, all you need to do is watch the video below and answer the following question:

What colour top hat is the man wearing in the Blondie video?

To stand a chance, email your answer, along with a contact address, to Hello[at]hecklerspray.com with the subject line ‘Give me EMI stuff now‘. The competition closes at midnight on Tuesday May 12 when a winner will be chosen at random. UK readers only please.

Good luck and stuff, yeah?

Don’t know what a donk is? If you’ve never come across one before then you may be set for an experience which is actually worse than chipping your own teeth out with a screwdriver.

It’s a fast paced annoying beat that is placed over a song and it doesn’t matter if the two are perfectly matched to a tee. Or are as mismatched as a blind man attempting to drive a car.

It now seems that Susan Boyle’s Britain’s Got Talent performance has been given the rubbish donk treatment.

It’s at the very start of a ten-minute mix that is supposedly done by The Streets. We’re not sure how true that it is due to the crap songs contained on the ten-minute mix but regardless of Mike Skinner’s name shoved on it, annoying children will be playing this on the bus tomorrow. All for your amusement of rubbish mobile phone speakers.

You only need to hear the first two minutes for some Susan Boyle donk action. That’s if the association with The Streets hasn’t put you off already.

The Camden Crawl is excellent – it’s just like Glastonbury, except you’ve never heard of any of the bands and it’s in Camden, so you run the very real risk of tripping over Amy Winehouse’s comatose body at some point.

However, if you’d like to win a pair of all access tickets to this month’s Camden Crawl, plus tickets to the afterparty party plus the chance to watch a Camdem Crawl act being filmed for an exclusive MTV session at the MTV studios, then you need to watch this video and do exactly what it tells you to do. And if you don’t want any of that, then watch the video anyway – there really are a lot of very silly haircuts to look at.

Over the last few days, what with Celine Dion ploughing through 6.5 million gallons of water in a year and Sharon Stone blaming the Chinese earthquake on karma, we’ve thought a lot about how much celebrities care.

And they care a lot. Celebrities, because they are celebrities, feel suffering much more strongly than anyone else. And there’s only one outlet for this profound level of caring – the all-star charity song. We all know the big ones – like We Are The World and Do They Know It’s Christmas – but there are plenty of other less well-known ones out there as well.

Like What More Can I Give by Michael Jackson And Friends, a song written about South Africa, recorded after 9/11 and never properly released because its video was apparently shot by a director of gay porn. Anastacia, Nick Carter, Usher, Ricky Martin, ‘N Sync, Hanson – they all appear on What More Can I Give, though we’d expect none of them would want to discuss it if you asked them about it now.

Why? Try and watch What More Can I Give all the way to the end and you’ll see why. It’s hard, we know – you’ll suffer through more fist-pumping oversincerity than you can possibly imagine – but it’s absolutely worth it, just to see the bit where Usher and Celine Dion give heartfelt spoken-word messages. Not about 9/11, you understand. About Michael Jackson. Incredible.

Remember when Sarah Silverman's video I'm Fucking Matt Damon came out and it was funny?

Yeah, seems so long ago, doesn't it. That was before I'm Fucking Seth Rogen came out and was less funny, and long before Jimmy Kimmel's I'm Fucking Ben Affleck came out and was about as funny as exploding mumps. Now the trend's been ridden so far into the dirt that people would generally rather watch a video of a kitten being stomped on than another I'm Fucking… parody. So, hey, here's a video called I'm Fucking Obama.

Yes. We know. But, mercy of mercies, I'm Fucking Obama actually made us smile. Once. So watch it. But, please, nobody make any more. We'd hate to have to kill you. 

Alesha Dixon, remember her? Yes you do, she was the girl from Mis-Teeq who shouted everything like Pat Butcher impersonating a small dog. You know, the one whose husband had an affair with Javine off Eurovision.

OK, perhaps you know Alesha Dixon as the woman who won Strictly Come Dancing last year, beating such luminaries as That Woman Who Used To Be In EastEnders and A Bald Snooker Player. During Strictly Come Dancing, Bruce Forsyth repeatedly told Alesha that she was 'Europe's Beyonce.' And now that Alesha's got a new single coming out, entitled For You I Will perhaps it's time to see how true that prediction is. And we've got a teaser of the For You I Will video first. Lucky us!

But what's For You I Will by Alesha Dixon like? It's actually kind of alright, in a 'don't offend the grannies who watched Strictly Come Dancing' kind of way. It's a bit James Bond-y, Alesha looks pretty in the video, some of the instruments are made of bits of cars and – thankfully – there's no UK Garage-style rapping in it. But the video does cut off after one minute and 40 seconds, so maybe the second verse is a nang dubplate ragga freestyle remix. Or something. 

Let us know what you think of For You I Will by Alesha Dixon – out on iTunes on Monday – below, won't you.

Yes, we know we've already used the video to Ringo Starr's new single Liverpool 8 in another post, but it's so awful we've become obsessed with it. Actually obsessed, like that bloke from Zodiac.

Seriously, just watch Liverpool 8. It's so completely, utterly, unspeakably terrible that we're not even sure a human being could be responsible for it, let alone Ringo Starr. Everything about Liverpool 8 is horrific, from the tune to the vocals to the preposterously banal lyrics. Liverpool 8 is so bad that past civilisations would have put Ringo Starr to death for making it.

You get a sense of just how woeful Liverpool 8's going to be from the moment that Ringo blathers "I was a sailor first/ I sailed the sea," just to clarify what sailors actually do for those who maybe thought they varnished fossils for a living.

And then it gets worse. Liverpool 8, you see, is basically The History Of The Beatles By Ringo Starr. And what insights do we get from one of the two remaining people on Earth with first-hand experience of what it was like to be in the biggest band in history? "We were number one/ Man it was fun," that's what. So that's that cleared up for eternity, then.

Liverpool 8 might make Octopus's Garden look like Dostoevsky, but once you've listened to it 20 times in a row just to get a handle on precisely how moronic it is, something odd happens. Liverpool 8 stops being horrible and becomes… well, not good – we aren't idiots – but touching.

It's like listening to a song by Forrest Gump looking back on his life – yes, it's so simplistic that a six-year-old would be kept back a few years at school for writing it, but the knowledge that Ringo Starr probably spent months coming up with the line "The red lights were on/ with George and Paul and my friend John", coupled with the unintentionally plaintive way he sings it, makes it all a little bit heartbreaking.

Then you realise that Liverpool 8's main sentiment is "Hey Liverpool, I fucked you over but look at me! I'm Ringo Starr! Woo-hooo!" and it dawns on you that Ringo Starr is probably a bit of a dick.

But, hey, fun while it lasted, right?