No, wait – Jessica Simpson’s first love is cacky reality TV shows that exploit her personal relationships with others, isn’t it? OK, well in that case Jessica Simpson has gone back to her second love – music.

And not just any music, either – Jessica Simpson has gone country, and she’s marked the occasion with a concert at a festival in Wisconsin. But sadly, Jessica Simpson’s country concert didn’t go down well with the locals, who booed and jeered her for not being country enough. Now, if she’d have smashed her teeth up real bad and had sex with a blood relative beforehand, it would have been a different story altogether.

Country music is a sound that’s easy to imitate but almost impossible to live by. Any old fool can go a bit cross-eyed, write a song about CB radios and score a lucky hit from it, but country fans are a difficult bunch to fool, as Jessica Simpson is only starting to find out.

After her reality TV show died, her acting career was killed stone dead by Blonde Ambition and her sideline as a professional meat eater was derided by Pamela Anderson, Jessica Simpson only had two career options left open to her – pornography and country music.

It was a tricky decision to make – one is a degrading, soul-destroying job that’d leave her health and morale in tatters and shove her down to one of the lowest rungs of society alongside lepers and prostitutes, and the other one is pornography – but Jessica Simpson bit the bullet and chose country music anyway.

But what Jessica Simpson doesn’t know is that country music isn’t a career choice – it’s something you reach only after you’ve lived a life of waitress choking and deep ingrained alcoholism and sexual battery against children.

And that lack of country experience came to the fore on Saturday, when Jessica Simpson road-tested her new country direction at the Country Thunder USA Festival in Randall, Wisconsin.

Not realising that anyone who’d attend something called the Country Thunder USA Festival would be able to sniff out a fake quicker than they could blast a varmint’s face off with their pappy’s six-shooter during a drunken bar brawl, Jessica Simpson debuted her own songs alongside covers of Shania Twain and Willie Nelson and, well, got crucified for it. Access Hollywood reports:

“I just don’t hear the country in her,” said Adam Matos, from Arlington Heights, Ill. “I don’t hear the twang. She’s not good enough to be here.” Mike Rodriguez of Lake Geneva, Wisc., seconded that opinion. “Just because she’s dating Tony Romo it doesn’t make her country,” he said. “She doesn’t fit in with country, and I’ll have to drink a lot of beer to sit through her concert.”

Not that Jessica Simpson should worry too much – her first country single Come On Over has already done inexplicably well in the American music charts, and her single looks set to do the same when it’s released in September – but she probably could have done with a better live debut.

Anyway, even if Jessica Simpson’s country direction fails miserably, it’s not the end of the world. There are still hundreds of musical bandwagons that she can shamelessly jump on – like nu-rave, for example, or sub-Saharan bikutsi folk music. The world’s still her oyster.

Or there’s the pornography option, which admittedly does seem more and more of an inevitability these days.

There are all sorts of festivals to cater for all sorts of musical tastes in all four corners of the world. The main ones kick off at this time of year and hecklerspray is here to tell you all you need to know about each festival, who the essential people are to see and which act to avoid so you can queue up for the overflowing poo-filled portaloos.

Donning our best ’see you Jimmy’ hat and kilt, its time for T In The Park -  Scotland’s best music festival. And in the eyes of some people this year, a better festival than Glastonbury!

Celebrating its 15th anniversary, the festival has continued to grow and sell out due to its popularity. It’s not just the inhabitants of bonny Scotland that spend three days camping out, mind! Even people south of the border make the long journey up to Kinross due to the diverse nature of the bill.

To the poor Englishman however, anyone travelling to Scotland will probably find the thick accents something of a comical challenge to understand. We recommend bringing your best phrase book to try and translate what has been said.

However, it’s not just T In The Park happening this weekend. In Ireland, Oxygen festival is also taking place and the two festivals share the majority of the bill with a few minor alterations. So we will tell you the bands/artists you should be seeing and avoiding if you are attending either of these fine festivals. For the purposes of this, we will go off line up at T In The Park:

Friday – Go Go Go!

The Music – We heard nothing by this lot for ages, so a return on the live circuit can only mean new material.

Chemical Brothers – Alongside the arse-grinding music the two non-related blokes perform are fancy visuals to make you gawp in awe.

Friday – Avoid Like The Plague:

Alphabeat – Yes, we’ve all had their bubblegum songs trapped in our heads but that doesn’t make it popular does it?

Scouting For Girls – We can vomit up more melodies then they seem to be able to produce.

Saturday – Go go go!

Eddy Grant – You’re never short of a good singalong with Eddy. His electric avenue sounds fun too.

Rage Against The Machine – Feeling angry and pent up with frustration inside? You are? Brilliant! Go to the main stage and smash your fellow gig goer around to this lot, then!

Saturday – Avoid Like The Plague:

The Kooks – As enjoyable as spending £7 on a organic goose burger and, ten minutes later, shitting out your large intestine.

Will Young – *Insert your own reason here, we’ve got to many.*

Sunday – Go go go!

Aphex Twin – Live shows are rare as rocking horse shit and not to be missed. Depending on his move, machine gun gabba or acid house could be coming your way.

British Sea Power – Gigs can often end in injury for fans and band members. Crazy stage sets also make the experience a lot more enjoyable.

Sunday – Avoid Like The Plague:

Bowling For Soup – Horrid American gash pop guitar music that appeals to teenagers who think this will make them rebellious.

Amy Winehouse – Forget any possibility of decent performance. She’ll either be off smacking punters at the barrier, screaming for her Blake or falling over on stage.

There are all sorts of festivals to cater for all sorts of musical tastes in all four corners of the world. The main ones kick off at this time of year and hecklerspray is here to tell you all you need to know about each festival, who the essential people are to see and which act to avoid so you can queue up for the overflowing poo-filled portaloos.

Here it comes again, the daddy of the UK festival and the creation of one mad farmer that has spawned hundreds of crap clones – Glastonbury. Known to typically piss it down whenever it's held, this doesn’t stop thousands of people gathering in fields fill of cowshit to enjoy music from all over the world.

Unlike other festivals like T in the Park, V, Oxygen and Leeds/Reading, Glastonbury tends to have a more unique bill. Most bands who have albums to promote will be playing at all of the above in the attempt to get you to buy a copy and not nick off it the web.

For the first time in years, you can still reportedly buy tickets for this coming weekend. It’s a first for Glastonbury as most of the time, the tickets fly quicker then one of Naomi Campbell’s punches. A whole host of reasons have been blamed. People are reportedly sick of the weather and don’t want to spend their weekend covered in mud and having unplanned wrestling fights with people who are off their tits on ketamine. But the more popular excuse is the choice of headliner!

Apparently, everyone believes Glastonbury is a rock festival and anyone who doesn’t have a guitar isn’t allowed to come and play. The brains of Oasis, Noel Gallagher, believes that because Jay-Z is a hip-hop artist, he shouldn’t be allowed to headline. Maybe his band of no-hopers would have been asked if they’d made a decent album since Definitely Maybe and hadn’t ballsed up their previous appearances over petty arguments.

Noel probably forgets that the rock vibe of the festival transferred over from a folk festival from when it was initially started out. Maybe the future of hip-hop scares him. But as we’ve mentioned, there is plenty of talent for people to watch this weekend. Be it an established band or something new and a bit unique.

Friday – Go go go!

Foals – Because they hail from Brighton, this apparently makes them 10% trendier then us, which isn’t hard. Soon to be massive, they’ve done well to make it on to the Other Stage.

Glasvegas –They will be your new favorite band by the end of the year.

Friday – Avoid Like The Plague:

Pete Doherty – We’ll be amazed if he either a) turns up as scheduled or b) does his set without some sort of narcotic in his system.

The Hoosiers – When they come on, it may be time to go to the toilet. However, don’t go and queue at the bog, piss in your empty bottle and throw it at this poor excuse for a band.

Saturday – Go go go!

Massive Attack – Groundbreaking band who created an entire genre. Expect them to showcase new material from an overdue album. Bootlegs on Youtube sound promising.

Jay-Z – Tons of people have slagged him off, but no-one knows what he’s going to bring to the festival. At least give him a chance. And his wife is hot.

Saturday – Avoid Like The Plague:

Black Kids – One of those bands who are meant to be cutting edge but are just a bit of a let down. Why they need two synth players is beyond us. They're not producing the sounds of Glastonbury legends Orbital on them that’s for sure.

Cerys Matthews – She was that jungle women whose career in Catatonia bombed after that song about two characters from the X-Files. Has she released anything since all the Australian insects?

Sunday – Go go go!

UNKLE – Live sets are rare and always an experience. Because it’s a festival gig, expect a lot of possible guests to collaborate.

Martina Topley Bird – Amazing voice, but hasn’t been noticed because she doesn’t fall out of London clubs with her tits hanging out. An undiscovered talent.

Sunday – Avoid Like The Plague:

Mark Ronson – Learn to play your own fucking songs and stop being such a smug twat.

The Verve – Headlining ten years later than expected, it’s a gig for balding men to go all Britpop on everyone’s ass. New song Love Is Noise is gash.

There’s so much more we’d recommend without bleating on, but we’re sure you’ll encounter Ethiopian free style Jazz on your own. Or with a drunk hippie.

There are all sorts of festivals to cater for all sorts of musical tastes in all four corners of the world. The main ones kick off at this time of year and hecklerspray is here to tell you all you need to know about each festival, who the essential people are to see and which act to avoid so you can queue up for the overflowing shit-filled portaloos.

As the sun sneaks out from behind one of his many clouds, the hot weather looks like it may arrive for one of the festivals that kick starts them all. Download is the chance for 75,000 people to gather together and rock out to leather clad men drenched in tattoos and piercings. Sounds like a bit ropey if you ask us.

Download festival means one thing: it’s the only weekend of the year when parents of angry teenagers can drop off their sprogs so they can all share a common love of hating the world together. Of course it may mean forking out over £300 for little Jimmy’s ticket, food supplies, tent, waterproof clothing and suncream but it means mum and dad can have Saturday and Sunday free of Norwegian mega death metal.

For the kids, it will be an opportunity to meet fellow angst ridden emo lovers. This gives the ideal opportunity for everyone to compare their generic star tattoos, lip piercings and why My Chemical Romance means so much to them.

Because the festival attracts a younger audience, expect a quick queue at the bar. Hopefully the Download staff will stick to alcohol laws and won’t serve beer to sixteen year old children. Though we’re sure that some young rascals will get their mucky paws on a few pints of cider and vomit up their £6 gravy and chips.

The Mr Whippy van will have to call in extra supplies of cotton candy to cope with the demand as children look for a sugary high as opposed to the one they’d get when they’d smoke cannabis cut with Oxo cubes.

Think of this festival as a massive childminding event where the entertainment isn’t a Punch and Judy show, but the screaming’s of some pissed up rock band. You’ll be lucky to see a synthesiser. Held over three says, Download offers the best new rock talent and aging crippled artists who won’t go away.

Friday – Go go go!

Kiss – You know that porn film which had Gene Simmons in it? Well boys and girls, this is what he does as a ‘proper’ job. No, he doesn’t paint faces for a living! He rocks out, probably with his cock out.

Rolo Tomassi – We love these young guns from Sheffield. They will surprise you with how loud and crazy they can be.

Friday – Avoid Like The Plague:

Motörhead - They have one song that everyone knows and that’s about it. They’ll only play it at the end of the set to make you wait.

Kid Rock – He’s an American Badass apparently. But we think of him as just an arsehole. Once upon a time he married Pamela Anderson. Go ask him about it, he probably tell you all about it.

Saturday – Go go go!

Ash – They may be cracking at the seams, but they’re always up for a song and a dance. Something which comes with bucket loads of sweat.

Biffy Clyro – Scottish rockers who don’t fall into the trap of being the same thrash metal track thirty-two times over. Ask nicely, and they may sing their version of Rhinna’s umbrella song.

Saturday – Avoid Like The Plague:

Pendulum – For fuck’s sake, are they booked to play at every festival this year? Just like 50 Cent playing Leeds in 2004, Pendulum are Download’s random booking.

The Offspring – Apparently we we’re wrong to label them one hit wonders. After Pretty Fly [For a White Guy] they’ve had more hits. How are they headlining?

Sunday – Go go go!

Lethal Bizzle – The guy’s amazing. His crossover blend of rock/hip-hop/electronica should appear to all. Even My Chemical Romance fans might crack a smile.

Exit Ten – One album done and many more to follow. A band to say you saw before they made it big and sold their souls to Simon Cowell.

Sunday – Avoid The Plague:

Fightstar – Get ready to piss in a bottle and launch it at Charley. The former Busted goon doesn’t really seem to fit in.

Jimmy Eat World – We don’t get them or understand their popularity.

The bulk of the chatter has been about what Angelina Jolie is keeping in her guts and the festival’s biggest two movies – Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull and Vicky Cristina Barcelona – are only gaining interest because people either like a) watching iconic action stars try to recapture past glories or b) watching Scarlett Johansson get off with Penelope Cruz.

And since Sean Penn is the festival’s jury president this year, everything else is probably going to be a barrage of humourless hand-wringing about starving Albanians. And if the thought of that has put you off, we’ve found a way to enjoy the Cannes Film Festival from home.

Actually, we’ve found two ways of enjoying the Cannes Film Festival from home. The first one is to watch the GMTV Cannes coverage while one of your friends whines in a French accent and resentfully jabs you in the kidneys with a lit cigarette every couple of minutes, and the second one involves Skype.

Because not everyone in the movie industry wants to go to a festival that mostly seems to be about Jack Black dicking around with some pandas, Skype is being used in Cannes’ American Pavilion to facilitate video calls with various absentee entertainment notables during important interviews and panel discussions. According to Julie Sisk, founder and director of the The American Pavilion:

“The film community is increasingly global, and Skype helps make certain that the Festival is as inclusive as possible of that entire community.”

So who’s scheduled to appear in these special Skype video conferences? James Cameron’s rumoured to be making an appearance, and so is Vince Pace, executive producer of that recent Miley Cyrus movie that did so well. Thank you Skype – now it’s possible to irritate grown men by asking them a barrage of questions exclusively about a 15-year-old girl’s naked body no matter where they are in the world.

And this year the Cannes Film Festival is going to be extra special because the head of the Cannes jury has been announced as Sean Penn. As one of the most respected actors and directors working in Hollywood today, Sean Penn's appointment will mean that the movie he awards his prize to will get an even bigger publicity boost than usual. It also means that anyone who's recently made a movie that's funny, uplifting, deft or about anything other than how terrible the Iraq war is should probably stay at home this year because they ain't winning jack.

2008 is going to be Sean Penn's special year for awards. That's not saying a lot because Sean Penn wins awards every year – in 2003 he won an Oscar for Mystic River, in 2006 he won the prestigious World's Most Gloomily Humourless Bastard award and he's the current California State champion for that Nintendo Wii game where you ride a cow around knocking over scarecrows.

But this year – this year is certainly different. Although nobody went to see it, the Sean Penn-directed Into The Wild has emerged as quite the Oscar front-runner, picking up Screen Actors Guild nominations and Critics Choice nominations for its visceral portrayal of an annoying boy dying in the snow really slowly.

And now Sean Penn gets to award awards to other films too, because he's just been named as the head of this year's Cannes jury. And, as expected, Sean Penn accepted his appointment with a statement so needlessly wordy it looks like he must have destroyed a thesaurus just writing it:

"It seems there has been a rejuvenation of cinema building worldwide; increasingly thoughtful, provocative, moving, and imaginative films by talented filmmakers: that a new generation of filmmaking may have begun. The Cannes Film Festival has long been the epicentre in the discovery of those new waves of filmmakers from all over the world. I very much look forward to participating in this year's festival as president of the jury."

So what can we expect from Sean Penn's tenure as president of the jury at this year's Cannes Festival? Hard to say at the moment, but knowing that Penn likes brooding, intense, heavy-handed dramas with serious messages, we wouldn't be surprised if he opts for Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach. That came out this year, right?

Read more: 

Sean Penn to head Cannes Film Festival jury – Reuters