Befanged, alt.lifestyle tourist, Avril Lavigne, long ago decided that being a skatergirl wasn’t for her because acne, greasy hair and ill-fitting jeans wasn’t at all attractive. And so, she promptly went mental, spat at some photographers and became airbrushed.

Losing her raison d’être, she tottered off into some pop-twilight, only getting column inches for her clearly tedious private life.

Things livened up briefly when she got into a bar-room brawl with some women, which left her bozo hunk of a fella – Brody Jenner (how is that not a girl’s name?) – with a bit gash on his face. No, we’re not talking about him fellating Lavigne. Alas, now, she’s got nothing as the pair have decided to wave ta-ta to their relationship.

A source confirms to E! News (the people who did an amazingly lousy job of covering the Golden Globes) that the cod-rocker and Jenner have split, after courting for almost two years.

The funny thing is, is that shortly after this pair got together, they got tattoos of each other’s names on their pale, healthless skin. It’d be fun watching Lavigne trying to bite said branding off with her weird, pointed teeth.

Alas, the only person Avril has in her life now is her stalker. That’s it. There’s not only someone sad enough to stalk a barely famous person, but now, he’s the leading man in her desperate life.

In fairness, this could get really good for us leeches who write about celeb-misery.

See, when Tatu stopped being famous, they paraded around their videos naked and had photoshoots while naked and pregnant. The more desperate they became, the more outlandish their neediness was.

And so, we hope the same for Avril Lavigne. We fully expect to see some kind of leaked nude (she’s been holding that particular top-trump since she first appeared on the pop radar) and potentially some kind of drink-induced nervous breakdown, before finding solace in rehab (America’s confession booth).

Countdown to Avrilageddon starts…

…NOW!

(Just don’t tell her that Taylor Momsen has already beaten her to every attention seeking trick that a supposedly alt.girl can do, okay?)

Blink 182′s (pronounced ‘blink one hundred and eighty-two, or, if you prefer ‘oh god, it’s that dreadful puke mongers again!’) Travis Barker has decided to let the world know that he’s considering undergoing hypnotherapy to overcome his fear of flying.

Why does he have a fear of flying? Is it because he thinks that, if God intended man to fly, he would have given us wings or at the very least, put grass in the clouds?

Nope. It’s because a plane crash nearly killed him in 2008. You have to assume that the plane has heard Blink 182′s terrible take on punk rock and decided that enough was enough, aiming to either kill Barker or, at the least, maim him.

Now, Barker is brilliantly hindered, professionally speaking.

Talking at a Rolling Stone magazine reporter, he said:

”Unfortunately I can’t do as much touring as I would like because I don’t fly. It’s an obstacle. I’m working on it though. I’m trying to get hypnotised, trying to talk to a doctor who retrains your brain. Maybe he’ll help me fly again one day”

Sadly, you can’t retrain something that isn’t really there. It’s very much like trying to train gravel. However, all is not lost.

“I run every day now. I never ran before. In the hospital, I promised myself that if I ever walked again, that I would eat well and swim every day.”

“I’ve been vegan since I got out of the hospital… and before the plane crash, I was battling a painkiller addiction. For years.

“I can proudly say I didn’t even take any pain medication after I got out of the hospital. They told me I’d be on some of the medicine for the rest of my life, but I got off all of them. They made me a completely different person.”

You know what this all sounds like? It sounds like someone has the perfect sob story for a reality TV show. Maybe Travis should do the right thing and fulfil his musical promise and enter X Factor USA 2012?

With that aspirationally bleak back-story, he’s guaranteed a fourth place finish at least!

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So, this week marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Nirvana’s Nevermind LP. As such, it’s pretty much being regarded as grunge’s 20th birthday too, although, most of you will regard the start of the scene to be a much earlier date.

We even wrote about it, not that you cared. See? We can still bitch and whine like a first-rate grunge kid. YOU JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND US!

Anyway, to celebrate this occasion, there’ll be a special airing of the full Paramount Theatre show in Seattle filmed back in 1991. You can watch it streamed live today!

The Paramount concert, transferred from 16mm film, is the only known Nirvana concert shot to film and will also be aired for a special showing this Halloween on Monday, October 31st.

Of course, a DVD/Blu-Ray of the show is available to buy which is all Hi Def and that nonsense. As we didn’t get offered a free promotional copy, we’re loathed to talk about it in too much detail.

Anyway. You want to watch a Nirvana show on your computer?

Well, it’ll be available to watch in its entirety on Vevo, 27th September from 5pm in the UK for a 24 hour period only.

Sort it. Click here.

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At hecklerspray, we like to take real celebrity news and mangle it until it barely resembles the original source material and then watch on and laugh as people take our word as gospel. Sometimes though, there are so many possible corruptions of a story that we’re forced to decide on just one. The others that are rejected instantly go into a state of depressive rage and begin to tear away at the backs of our minds until we eventually self-harm.

In an effort to stop that happening, this story contains 3 mini stories. Think of it as your favourite sitcom doing a clip show because they’ve run out of ideas or, if you will, the last two seasons of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. This is slightly different of course, we have too many ideas.

The fact of the matter is that Green Day front-berk Billie Joe Armstrong was thrown off an internal American flight because his trousers were hanging too low and he questioned the Flight Attendant who told him to pull them up. In all honesty, that’s kind of fair enough. It is every 39 year old’s right to wear his trousers round his thighs if he wants. You’re only as old as you feel and Billie Joe obviously feels 13.

However, what if there were other reasons he was thrown off? Here’s five possible suggestions:

Using His Guy-Liner As A Weapon

Billie Joe’s love of male eyeliner (hilariously marketed as guy-liner) is obvious to anyone that isn’t a simpering teenager who wishes that he was either sleeping with them or sleeping with their mum. Being a man approaching 40, Billie Joe’s love of makeup doesn’t seem to be passing. Perhaps the Flight Attendant pointed out that he looked like an emo child with millions of dollars to blow on makeup pencil sharpeners.

We know that if we were in the same position, we’d threaten to stab someone who pointed out how silly we looked.

Doing “A Depardieu”

It’s obvious by Billie Joe’s eyeliner that he just desperately wants to be cool. In fact, he wants to be cool so desperately that he is willing to relieve himself in full view of his fellow passengers in an effort to mimic the effortlessly cool (and slightly eccentric) Gerard Depardieu. Pissing in full sight of an assembled group of people would also enhance the singer’s ailing cool credentials and make him seem more ‘punk’, something he hasn’t been called in the best part of fifteen years.

Musical Terrorism

Billie Joe isn’t the real guilty party here but then, it’s not unusual to see someone punished for a crime that isn’t really their fault. Green Day themselves have morphed from a popular exponent of a musical sub-culture into a popularity-driven hype machine punctuated by changing musical tastes amongst teenagers and studio executives alike. Reprise Records (Green Day’s label) have changed and have dragged Green Day along with them.

This seems to have left the band desperate to appeal to ‘old school’ Green Day fans and teenagers in heart grenade hoodies who believe that 21st Century Breakdown is “deep and really speaks to them”. In becoming a pop band, Green Day have stretched themselves too thin.

If Billie Joe was thrown off the plane and arrested for musical terrorism then he would be nothing more than an accessory to the crime.

You remember The Offspring, don’t you? They’re the ones that did that song about being ‘pretty fly’ despite being a white person. It’s a song which is basically about not mimicking black people. It’s one of those songs that has gone down in history as being the intellectual equivalent to ‘The Bad Touch’ by The Bloodhound Gang.

Well, if you were excited when that came out you’ll be delighted to hear that they’ve confirmed they are putting the finishing touches to the follow-up to 2008’s ‘Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace.’ Our source for this claimed that it was the ‘much-anticipated’ follow-up but even we’re not that sarcastic.

Singer Dexter Holland and guitarist Noodles told a very, very strangely set up podcast that the band have already finished the guitar and drum parts for the twelve tracks on the record and they are now working on the lyrics.

That’s how you write an album, isn’t it? You just record some music and then see what fits in. Maybe they’ll do another song about wanting to ‘hit something’ like 2003′s ‘Hit That’ from the album Splinter.

Speaking on a podcast, with special guest competitive eating champion Takeru Kobayashi (no… seriously), The Offspring’s creative powerhouses mull over a number of subjects but apparently didn’t get time to contemplate why they haven’t released a decent record since 1997′s Ixnay on the Hombre.

Holland said:

“So as you guys at home can probably tell we’ve been totally fucking off on not working on the record.”

Actually Dexter, no-one was that bothered but thanks for keeping us informed. The frontman insisted that the band have been working their behinds off in the studio every day ‘laying down tracks’ but are now taking their time to shoehorn some lyrics into the songs.

The Offspring admit that their latest, hotly-unanticipated release won’t be out this year but have been careful to suggest that the fans of the defunct genre won’t be waiting too long for their inevitable disappointment.

Guitarist Noodles stated:

“No. I don’t think so (come out this year)… prove me wrong, dude! Who knows at this point? It’s definitely not gonna be a Chinese Democracy situation. It’s not… you know, we’re gonna finish it, we’re getting close, you see the light at the end of the tunnel. You know… we’re not gonna go in and scrap and re-write these songs, these songs are good. So don’t worry about that.”

He seems certain, doesn’t he? All those ellipses don’t denote hesitation… or do they?

Actually, we are quite worried. Some of us in the hecklerspray bedsit have fond memories of The Offspring back in the day when they were quite good and quite fun. Given The Offspring’s last two or three studio offerings, fans of the band should be really, really concerned that Noodles thinks these songs are ‘good’. He’s clearly not the best judge. Especially given how strikingly awful Chinese Democracy turned out to be.

If you can’t control yourself and have already piddled your pants with excitement at the prospect of more Orange County surf pop-punk from the men who brought you that other song about getting a job or something like that then go and listen to 1994′s Smash and wonder why they can’t just do that again.

For a while, Avril Lavigne was one of the most famous people on Earth. She was a very marketable mix of Alanis Morrisette and Nu Metal and everyone wanted her to hurry up with the ageing process so they could stop feeling guilty for fancying her.

And her fangs.

Like Hubba Bubba, she quickly lost her flavour, spat at some photographers and started wearing dolly bird make-up… yet somehow, she still has something of a career. So while she toured herself to her dwindling audience, she figured she’d throw a cover version into her set. A Coldplay song no less. This is where one brave soul rushed the stage to try and stop this unfurling horror.

The rest of the press are saying this stage-invader must be ‘demented’ or ‘crazed’, but for our money, this was a brave, honourable soul who was trying to stop one of the most awful things humanity has ever witnessed from happening.

Sadly, they failed.

Lavigne and her band where about to launch into a version of Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ when the superhuman dash to the aid of our ears, stopping the song and prompting Avril into a piercing scream.

Sadly, security arrived and removed our hero, leaving the singer to perform the worst cover version ever.

Here’s a video of the incident which sadly, ends in a song and not Avril Lavigne being bundled into the back of a car with duct tape wrapped around her head.

Oh well.

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During the summer if the heat gets too much, rather that buy a fan, consider inviting much-lauded Australian noise-merchants Parkway Drive over to play a quick set. We’ve never been cooled down by the breeze coming from speakers twenty metres away every time the bass drum is kicked.

Their career-spanning set got a reaction worthy of a headliner from the young audience. They alternated between punk-paced metal noise and sludgy breakdowns which conveniently let the old-timers do some slow-motion moshing.

There are few bands dividing people in the metal scene quite like Sheffield’s Bring Me The Horizon. Examine any left-of-centre genre and you’ll always find the band that makes people sneer.

They have a pretty singer (if you like that kind of thing), they arrived later than most, and they don’t smash musical boundaries. These are red rags to music snobs. Music snobs are useful. They trawl through bands so you don’t have to and they have great taste but they’re too busy stroking their beards to actually jump up and down and have fun.

Teenagers however are not bound by such stupid rules.

This is the youngest audience hecklerspray has ever seen at a gig. There is barely a pint of lager within eyeshot, but sobriety is certainly no obstacle to enthusiasm. There’s so much energy, we felt a teacher-like impulse to tell them to stop running in the hallways. Say what you like about stumbling drunks but at least they have some in-built sense of personal space. We’ve never been bumped into by so many friendly, if uncoordinated,  people.

The energy wasn’t just in the crowd. Singer Oli Sykes ran about for almost the entire set and, is it just us, or has his voice, previously their weakest link, suddenly got stronger?

BMTH’s recent album has been widely considered a leap forward for them, and tonight their aural assault does justice to such acclaim. In fact it’s the songs from that album that sit head and shoulders above the rest with the more interesting structures that come when bands are ready to take a few risks.

They’re still not kicking down the doors of invention, and lyrically they still use imagery that we cringe at but they’re not talking to me, so probably care not whether I’m listening. Besides, we’re too old to even understand what they’re shouting about most of the time when they’re on stage anyway.

They’re already taken seriously Stateside and they’ll be picking up new converts at the festivals this summer so if you’re looking for shouty rock-action, fun awaits…

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Punk tart, Iggy Pop,  has revealed that he was approached to be a guest judge on American Idol, which of course, would have been an absolute hoot! Think about it. His boiled racehorse body and impossible teeth, glowering from behind a desk while someone sings ‘I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll at him.

Of course, there’ll be those amongst you who think that Ig sold out when he did those car insurance commercials. While they are undoubtedly bad, they’re nowhere near as awful as some of the bands he played with in the ’80s.

And so, prime Stooge to appear on a pop contest on television? What’s the kicker?

Well, Iggy appeared on American Idol, on-stage, gyrating and kicking out all kinds of jams while performing Wild One, which only served to show that an aged man still has more balls than 99% of most young stars and, most importantly, is completely unembarrassable. That’s why we love him, see?

And his new LP is going to be a softer, more gentler Ig (as seen on his last album when he decided to sing in French with a jazz backing), covering The Beatles and Fred Neil.

“There are no rock songs. I’ve been doing American and French (songs), mostly ballads”.

As for American Idol?

“I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the band they put together for me, and they were good to work with. It was a very specific participation, very limited, and I kind of liked it that way. I went and did my thing, basically. I don’t know what to say about it, exactly, except I didn’t know what to expect, I had a good time and actually enjoyed singing the song and enjoyed the audience.”

And it appears that the makers of the show approached Ig to be a judge on the programme.

“There were two phone calls…I wasn’t sure I was interested or available. They called me…I was curious and we spoke a couple times, and that was as far as that went.”

“I don’t think I could’ve done the right job for them on that particular show. I think Steven (Tyler) does a really, really good job of it.”

The simple fact of the matter is, beneath that swarthy veneer, is a man that is simply too nice to be a sneering critic on a talent show.

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Gigs are boring aren’t they? Middle aged blokes with backpacks on throwing their arms around and singing all the words to the b-sides planted squarely in the middle of a throng of disaffected teens who aren’t sure whether to look like disaffected teens or really let loose and throw their bap and go nuts.

Such is the world we find ourselves in where everyone is too jaded to have a real good time before bands who aren’t sure if they’re supposed to be aloof or act like they’re your best friend on twitter.

Mercifully, most of that went out of the window last night when Mazes and Sub Pop’s Dum Dum Girls took to the stage in Manchester last night, providing, somewhat surprisingly, one of the most fun gigs of 2011.

The first band on-stage were Milk Maid who were brilliantly lousy. The band clung to the backbeat with all the verve and panache of a drunk clutching at a rug so they don’t fall off the face of the Earth. Their songs were impressively dumb, cooing lines like “she was an American girl!” and “I don’t know what went wrong” like they were the first people to conjure the listless love song.

And while this all may seem like a cuss, it really isn’t. If this band ever get good at what they do and, indeed, ever stop their one-finger playing, then they’ll lose entirely that brilliant charm of a garage band showing off their amateurish enthusiasm for making a marvellously pathetic racket.

Milk Maid bowed out, making way for Mazes who have a new LP out which is causing something of a stir to those that own ears and a sense of good times.

The band seem to have married something between Lindsay Buckingham’s ‘Holiday Road’, The Undertones at their most pop and the slacker agit-noise of Sonic Youth. Tracks like ‘Cenataph’, ‘Surf & Turf’ and ‘Bowie Knives’ stripped a layer of skin from inside the ear, while somehow managing to retain a catchier than cowpox brand of classic pop. While the American influence is clear, the British take on it seems to have almost invented a new genre of Bedsit Glam. Just what the doctor ordered.

The gangly fourpiece sloped away from the stage, grateful and warmly-received (leaving some to mutter ‘this feels like one of those gigs were you can say ‘I was there’ when they get really famous’) to pave the way for the frankly astonishing Dum Dum Girls.

The Dum Dums took to the barely-lit stage, dressed entirely in black with notable excellent choice in hosiery. And while most male critics find it impossible to comment on an all-girl group without passing judgement on their looks, this time ’round we’re… oh, who are we kidding? These ladies of the dead were smokin’ hot! Seriously. Like death pin-ups, they channelled the camp ghoulishness of Vampira and the purring lust of Catwoman and left the entire audience on the cusp of becoming dribbling creeps, already prepped to pen disturbing love-letters in their own blood.

All the while, the Dum Dums just stood there, monolith still, assaulting the room with a marriage of reverb and fuzz. Imagine the DIY Wall Of Sound of the Jesus And Mary Chain careering headlong into the terse, wiry snot-garage of The Cramps and you’re somewhere close to the astonishing racket served up and volleyed toward a crowd fast-becoming the worst kind of perverts you’re ever likely to see.

And amongst all this record-collector prick approved stuff, you find the rich harmonious pop of the Shangri-Las and C86 indie.

Behind those impenetrable glares, The Dum Dum Girls might just be the best pop-group in the universe, if pop went on a road trip in the dead of night with a trunk full of mascara and opiates.

And here endeth the latest, pathetic love-letter to The Dum Dum Girls.

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Punks are idiots. Phlegm soaked idiots at that. You see, they told us for years that there was ‘no future’ while sneakily getting one of the most lucrative pension plans in existence – and that is the one of coining it in from faux-rebellion.

You see, punk had a great get-out clause. Basically, that meant that any attempt to fleece you, the public, could be filed in the ‘Art School Prank’ column and the biggest slags of the lot, The Sex Pistols, are at it again.

Bizarrely, they’ve released a perfume.

That’s right. On the back of appearances on countless clips shows, an appearance on I’m A Celebrity… GET ME OUT OF HERE!, some Country Life butter commercials and the re-releasing of their sole LP in countless guises and tarted-up box sets, the Pistols are now putting their name on a unisex perfume.

The advertising gubbins says:

“Resisting tradition, fighting conformity and disregarding aromatic conventions it leaves a fresh, restless bite of lemon, sharpened and intensified by a defiant black pepper. Electrified by aldehydes, the fragrance exudes pure energy, pared down and pumped up by leather, shot through with heliotrope and brought back down to earth by a raunchy patchouli.”

“As well as a strong scent, the bottle also makes a bold impression, with its iconic graphic inspired by the front cover of the single ‘God Save the Queen’ released in 1977.”

Are you getting all this down? ‘Raunchy patchouli’ and ‘defiant black pepper’.  Jeez… stop us from laughing so we can ingest huge amounts of heroin before stabbing our wives to death.

Of course, if the Sex Pistols really meant it maaaaaaan, they should have released a bottle of vinegar and piss for you to wear on your scrawny neck, all mottled up with huge green snotty loogies. That’s the scent of most punks if you ever brave their grotty little bedsits.

If you’re a complete idiot, you can buy it here for £20.

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It’s that time of the year again when music lovers gather in a field to celebrate the thing they love: live music.

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.