Paul McCartney is bringing a new album out. There’s a phrase that hasn’t caused too much excitement since Wings were knee-high to a grasshopper. Unless, of course, you’re a bloated Beatle fanatic who is unable to hear any criticism against any of the Fabs. Ever.

Unless it’s Ringo.

The fact remains, Macca is going to stick a new LP out on 7th February and he’s doing a whole bunch of cover versions because, sadly for him, he’s run out of ideas. The last vague hit he had was ‘Dance Tonight’ and that was thoroughly poo.

Apparently, this new album will be a “deeply personal journey” which will see Macca covering old-timey American songs that inspired him and bandmate John Lennon when they wrote their own tunes.

In a statement (because new albums definitely need ‘a statement’), Sir Paulio said:

“When I kind of got into songwriting, I realized how well structured these songs were, and I think I took a lot of my lessons from them”

“I always thought artists like Fred Astaire were very cool. Writers like Harold Arlen, Cole Porter, all of those guys – I just thought the songs were magical. And then, as I got to be a songwriter I thought it’s beautiful, the way they made those songs.”

Well duh.

McCartney will be teaming up with jazzist Diana Krall and producer Tommy LiPuma who got the recovering mop top to record his vocals in a booth without instruments for the first time in his musical career.

“It was very spontaneous, kind of organic, which then reminded me of the way we’d work with the Beatles. We’d bring a song in, kick it around, when we found a way to do it we’d say ‘Okay, let’s do a take now’ and by the time everyone kind of had an idea of what they were doing, we’d learnt the song. So that’s what we did, we did the take live in the studio.”

So how’s he been doing it since The Beatles? Being lazy and accepting that the first version is the one that gets used because everyone surrounding him is constantly telling him how bloody wonderful he is?

Not that Paul will be short of sycophants on this new album as he’s drafted in Stevie Wonder and Eric Clapton to tickle his ego. That said, Stevie and Clapton probably won’t be in the same room together, especially if Mr Wonder recalls Clapton once shouting from the stage of a show:

“Do we have any foreigners in the audience tonight? If so, please put up your hands. Wogs I mean, I’m looking at you… Where are you? I’m sorry but some fucking wog… Arab grabbed my wife’s bum, you know? Surely got to be said, yeah this is what all the fucking foreigners and wogs over here are like, just disgusting, that’s just the truth, yeah. So where are you? Well wherever you all are, I think you should all just leave. Not just leave the hall, leave our country.”

“Get the foreigners out. Get the wogs out. Get the coons out. Keep Britain white. I used to be into dope, now I’m into racism. It’s much heavier, man. Fucking wogs, man. Fucking Saudis taking over London. Bastard wogs… Enoch for Prime Minister! Throw the wogs out! Keep Britain white!”

Ebony and ivory, live together in perfect harmony. Side-by-side on my piano, keyboard…

The McCartney family have done alright for themselves haven’t they? Weird that those related to a Beatle should make it completely off their own bat, eh? No help from famous papa there at all! Nope. Never.

Anyway, the child that has done the best is Sir Paul McCartney’s daughter Stella. She likes making clothes that you can’t afford.

Now, she’s created a perfume in tribute to her mother, Linda, which is an absolute godsend for people who like to make snide jokes about the deceased.

So, what’s this perfume called then?

Well, it’s called L.I.L.Y. It will be launched at some point between this precise moment and the end of time. Yes, that’s quite vague, but in all honesty, if you cared enough about it, you’d piss-off and read a beauty blog with its tips about cigarette pants, the various fruit-shapes of women and which concealer makes you look less minging.

The name stands for Linda I Love You, which, if you didn’t know, was a nickname given to Linda by Sir Macca.

You’re probably wondering what the perfume smells of, aren’t you?

Well, if it’s a proper tribute to Linda McCartney, it should smell of sprout farts, keyboards, seal tears, mullets, out of tune backing vocals and soya sausages.

Right? Wrong! Apparently, it smells like lily of the valley as well as having hints of truffle and oak moss. And sprout farts.

Perfumer Jacques Cavallier says:

“The truffle was unusual, but I said OK to Stella. I actually told the suppliers we were working with that the extract was for a restaurant! I didn’t want to let people know what we were doing.”

HAHAHAHA! Jacques Cavallier is soooooo funny isn’t he?! WHAT A CAD! Perfumers really are the funniest, wittiest people on Earth aren’t they?

We’re giving up. There’s no point carrying on with talent like that elsewhere. We’re off to make a perfume that smells like Ringo Starr (drumstools and spaghetti hoops).

Sir Paul McCartney, of forgotten ’70s beat group Wings, has for some peculiar reason, had his phone hacked by ‘so-called journalists’ and he’s gone grassing everyone up to the police. Including us. We got a letter informing us we’d be under investigation.

Even though we only have one PAYG mobile phone (the one with Snake II on), we do use it to get into people’s voicemails. We’ve got a great story about the not very famous comedian David Schneider, but that’s for another time.

Anyway, Macca is not pleased that we’ve been in his messages, very much in the same way his former wife, Heather Mills, was hopping mad (fnarr) that she’d had her voicemails hacked into and, of course, John Lennon’s chest was very much breached by Mark Chapman with his best gun.

Sir Paul says:

“I am going to talk to the police because apparently I have been hacked. I don’t know much about it because they won’t tell anyone except the person themselves.”

“I do think it’s a horrendous violation of privacy. I do think it has been going on for a long time and I do think more people than we know knew about it.”

Of course, these incredibly famous people aren’t bothered about us. They only want to sue famous people. The Muccas are subsequently going after CNN suet head, Piers Morgan, who edited the Mirror from 1995 to 2004. He’s getting all this lovely stick, thereby allowing us to get off scot-free.

Naturally, Piers denies any involvement in phone hacking, despite the fact he once wrote:

‘At one stage I was played a tape of a message Paul had left for Heather on her mobile phone. It was heartbreaking.’

‘The couple had clearly had a tiff, Heather had fled to India, and Paul was pleading with her to come back.

‘He sounded lonely, miserable and desperate, and even sang ‘We Can Work It Out ‘ into the answerphone.’

Aaaw! Bless Sir Paul. Although, he really should’ve crooned one of his more erratic hits. Any of these would have been great.

Still, funny how everyone is taking phone hacking seriously, given that everyone thought Heather Mills was mental for saying such a thing all those years ago.

You fickle ogres.

Meanwhile, Ringo wonders why no-one ever wants to hack his phone and has been seen handing out his phone number to strangers and telling them his pin-code for his voicemail.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!

Paul McCartney is all set to headline the opening ceremony of London 2012 Olympic Games alongside other British music stars who probably aren’t nearly as good. Unless they get Girls Aloud on which would be amazing.

The Beatle has told organisers of London 2012 he is “up for” playing at the opener, but which songs he will play is yet to be seen. Or organised at all probably. And Ringo Starr won’t be there, which is simultaneously a shame and of little consequence.

But which songs should Macca consider? Sure, he’s got a massive back catalogue to play with, but there’s some cheeky tracks that are less famous that he should really think about including.

A source says:

“The hope was to have the cream of British music all in the line-up but it now looks like Paul will be joined on stage by some younger stars.

“But of all the people you want, McCartney is number one. He is the ultimate showman and guaranteed to get the Olympics off to a great start.”

He’s not the only McCartney taking part. His daughter, Stella, is designing the kit for the British Olympic team too! That’s nice isn’t it? Not really. We couldn’t care less. And isn’t Heather Mills practising her skiing for the Olympics or something?

Anyway, forget all that. Which songs should Macca play to surprise everyone?

Check My Machine

One of Macca’s weirdest little indulgent moments, but oddly fantastic (why hasn’t someone done a mash-up with this and Carly Simon’s ‘Why?’). Imagine if Sir Paul walked on-stage, performed this, flicked a peace-sign and just buggered off. It would be astonishing.

Give Ireland Back To The Irish

Paul could see such a gigantic worldwide audience as a platform for his own political views and this would be a hilarious thing to perform in the middle of London with Boris Johnson and David Cameron looking on. He should sport an IRA balaclava for maximum impact also.

Temporary Secretary

Just listen to this synth based gonzo pop track and just imagine the look on the face of Sebastian Coe as it thunders out of the speakers at the Olympic stadium. It could well be the most amazing moment in British history.

Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?

Coming in a under 2 minutes, Macca could get his paycheck and slope off for an afternoon off if he performed this. Anyone who complains should be met with “Well, I said I’d do a Beatles tune didn’t I?”

Something from his ‘Fireman’ alter ego

Sound collages and nonsense. Exactly what our Olympics need.

Coming Up

Sir Paul should actually clone himself so he can recreate the video for ‘Coming Up’, complete with his amazing impression of the keyboard player from Sparks.

We All Stand Together

Big sporting events are often soundtracked by a notion of ‘togetherness’ and ‘oneness’. Paul could say… “Okay. You wanted ‘All You Need Is Love’, but that was kinda John’s song… so why not have this instead? And you’ll like it as well. That’s because I’m a Beatle and can do as I please. And yes. I am dressed up as Rupert Bear. What of it?”

Silly Love Songs

The thing that London 2012 really needs is some cod-disco and you damn well know it.

Say Say Say

Of course, Michael Jackson is dead. So who could sit in on MJ’s vocals? Tulisa from N Dubz? Jedward? If he does this, he could go straight into ‘The Girl Is Mine’ as well, and that’d be worth it just for the “I DON’T BELIEVE IT!” bit.

No Songs At All.

He’s a Beatle ferchrissakes! He can do whatever he pleases! So he shouldn’t do any songs at all and just make some mashed potatoes to irritate everyone!

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!

We despair about living in England. Out of every country in the world, we are the only nation that takes pride in former glories and absolutely nothing else. We’ve got nothing to look forward to. Nothing.

And when it comes to music, no band takes our regressive national pride to stalker-levels like The Beatles. It’s an actual fact that people in Liverpool aren’t christened in holy water. Instead, melted down Beatles records are used to make sure any young child gets a proper passage into the world we live in.

Even though the fab four haven’t made a record for decades (seriously! What’s George Harrison up to these days? Nothing. Lazy oaf!) it hasn’t stopped rock n’ roll granddad Paul McCartney from muscling in with his ideas on how an ageing band with no relevance on modern music can help creating an exciting opening Olympic ceremony. Where’s Mark Chapman when you need him?

When the Olympics do finally arrive, we can only assume that people in the North of England will be grumpy about the whole thing, even though the government want to promote this as a celebration of sport for the entire country, everything seems to be focussed on our nation’s capital.

London itself is pretty much dominated with ropey late night chicken places and people freaking out when a couple of snowflakes fall to the ground, grinding the transport system to a halt. Up in the grim north, nothing much is planned, mainly because people in the south are under the impression that electricity and colour haven’t reached cities such as Manchester, Newcastle and Leeds (although, in the case of the latter, it happens to be true).

Essentially when you dissect the Olympics, it’s just a massively expensive school sports day.

So what is Macca doing there? We don’t know what the Wingsman has planned, but if he really wants to involve all four members of The Beatles, it’ll prove challenging.

Only yesterday, we brought you news of a Japanese monster, forcefully destroying the peace and tranquillity of a pub in Dundee. So it’ll probably be a no-go in regards to propping up the corpse of John Lennon and strapping a guitar to him. Thinking about it further, local seagulls will probably peck his eyes out. Somebody said:

“Macca was just being coy about the details. He has been speaking to organisers and has said he’d love to be involved with the games in some way. The organisers want the music legend to appear alongside other big British acts. And they also want Ringo on stage as well to make it extra special.”

The involvement of Ringo sounds like a bit desperate to us. Sir Paul is probably trying to up his game because Glee are much, much better and more successful than anything The Beatles ever accomplished.

Maybe, just maybe, Macca will simply recreate this piece of Beatle-magic? Here’s hoping.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!

Yoko Ono’s not a very nice lady, is she? First she split up The Beatles, then she was responsible for a series of musical abortions with the Plastic Ono band and now she’s going out of her way to sully the memory of her late husband by trying to grind as many shekels out of him as possible.

According to Jam, Ono has threatened to sue the owner of a Dundee pub which is dedicated to the former Beatle. Indications suggest that the ”singer” has had her lawyers send a letter to Mike Craig, the owner of “Lennon’s Bar”, that accuses him of copyright infringement.

Craig claims to have spent thousands of pounds on Beatles memorabilia for his pub which was opened in tribute to a member of one of world music’s most important acts. However, the letter from Ono’s lawyers is demanding that he removes all the memorabilia and changes the venue’s name within 14 days or he will face legal action.

After all, no-one but Yoko is allowed to remember John Lennon because if people are allowed to remember him and his contribution to the world in their own way then she would disappear in a puff of smoke and our editor Mof Gimmers would have no-one to fake retweets of.

The owner of ‘Lennon’s’ said: “It’s ridiculous. The pub’s been called Lennon’s for about five years, but the signs will be removed this week.” Before probably muttering “evil witch” or words to that effect under his breath.

Ono is famously litigious in her pursuit of a quick dollar. She has been involved in several legal disputes in relation to her late husband, in an effort to maintain her own ailing relevance. In 2006, she filed a £5.35m lawsuit against EMI and its subsidiary Capitol Records for “wilfully and knowingly under-reporting royalties.” She needs to be kept in hemp.

In 2008, meanwhile, it was reported that she sued the singer Lennon Murphyfor using the name Lennon as a performance name. Although the money-grabbing hippy later revealed that she had not sued the singer, her legal team did object after Murphy applied to the US trademark office for exclusive rights to the name Lennon for musical performances. Clearly those rights should be deferred to a dead man.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!

Don’t mess with a Beatle. Even the most irritating of Beatles will be favoured over other humans, simply because they’re responsible for those tunes you like. Unbelievably, Heather Mills swiped the crown of most loathed Beatlespouse from Yoko Ono, who seemed to have it in the bag for life.

See, while Yoko initially got heat because everyone was kinda racist toward her, she eventually settled into the world’s ire by simply being a pretentious artist (and no-one likes anyone from the artworld).

Then, along came Heather Mills and, thanks in part to having one leg which made for excruciatingly easy and tiresome jokes from the stand-up universe, became so hated that the National Grids managed to power our homes just on our collective irritation. Then she divorced daft, wacky ol’ Macca and the seething bubbled over into all-out hate. This ensured that any mishap that befell her would be met with titters.

So what’s happened now? Well, while she’s been training to participate in the 2014 Paralympic Winter Games, silly ol’ Heather has broken her shoulder in a skiing accident. As Sonny Bono’s Ghost will testify, people tend to laugh at skiing accidents. Even fatal ones.

That’s because only posh people go skiing, so if you have a dreadful accident, everyone can dismiss it as hilarious, even if you’ve already tragically lost your leg. We, the people, are a cruel and unforgiving bunch. Deal with it, slebs.

According to an Austrian newspaper called Kleine Zeitung, Heather was whisked off to Lienz Hospital by a helicopter, where the pilot probably whistled the guitar solo to Maybe I’m Amazed at her, just for giggles.

At the hospital, Mills roughed it like us plebs by having her bed cordoned off for privacy.

The result of all this will, naturally, be that Heather will appear on various chatshows talking about how people ‘don’t believe’ that people with disabilities can do things like sports, despite the fact everyone absolutely does believe that people with disabilities can do great things. Look at how everybody loves Tanni Grey-Thompson… look at how much she doesn’t constantly whine and bitch to everyone ALL THE SHITTING TIME.

Anyway, the incredibly wealthy Heather Mills will be rubbing her shoulder for a while and we probably won’t hear the end of it.

Inspirational.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!

John Lennon, one quarter of The Beatles and writer of stone cold classic tracks like ‘It’s So Hard’, ‘Meat City’ and ‘My Mummy’s Dead’, got bumped off this Earth in one of the most oddest of fashions.

How many people’s ghosts can say ‘Well, I got shot dead by a man who asked for my autograph hours before I departed this shitty little planet.’? Not many.

And now, if you’re wealthy and fond of macabre artefacts, you can buy an album covered in murderer’s fingerprints. Yesireebob! An American dealer is selling the copy of John Lennon’s ‘Double Fantasy’ LP which he signed for Mark Chapman the day he thought he should kill a really famous person.

It was just before Christmas in 1980 that Chapman was photographed approaching Lennon to get him to stick his autograph on the Double Fantasy album. Then, later in the day, Chapman shot Lennon outside his home. That’s not a very nice thing to do (even if it did spare us from any potential embarrassing ’80s output from Lennon. Yeah, we’re being a bit selfish on that one).

The dealer, who is selling this grisly piece of pop culture said that the LP was found by a maintenance man in a planter and handed over to police. Officials later returned it to the owner, “with a letter of extreme gratitude from the district attorney”.

A spokesman for the seller says:

“The album is the most extraordinary artefact in rock’n'roll history. I have never come across a piece with such provenance. Police reports, fingerprint documentation, letters from the [district attorney], it goes on and on.”

The original owner sold the LP for $150,000 (£94,000) in 1999, and now, it’s looking like it could fetch up to $850,000 (£535,000).

The chap who is selling the album is keeping his identity secret.

“[He] doesn’t want to be named because he received death threats,”

Not from Chapman though because he’s serving a sentence of 20 years to life and is continually denied parole year on year. Of course, if you want in on Lennon’s death (let’s face, everyone does these days), but can’t afford over a half a million quid to buy one of Lennon’s weakest albums, you should be aware that we’re selling a t-shirt regarding Mark Chapman, to be worn the next time you go watching The Bootleg Beatles.

What do you mean it’s in bad taste? Worse taste than Apple Corps butchering of ‘Real Love’? Give us a break!

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!

John Lennon wrote some great songs didn’t he? He’s responsible for more great songs than your average band manages in a lifetime twice as long as Lennon’s musical career. As it would have been Lennon’s birthday this weekend, everyone has been heaping praise on The Beatles’ number one corpse.

However, we don’t much care for eyeless fawning at hecklerspray and knowing damn well that all musicians deserve to be treated with utter contempt, we’d like to put forward the reasons why John Lennon, when he was in the mood, was one of the worst song-writers on the planet.

And he was y’know?

Of course, there’s some of you out there who will be appalled at the very notion of such a list. Sure, everyone is entitled to make a few duff records now and again… but with Lennon, it’s worth reminding ourselves of just how utterly awful he could be.

Seriously. Don’t canonise him. He made some absolute howlers. And, for once, this is a Worst Lennon/Beatle list that won’t include Revolution #9.

Why? Mainly because it’s a boring choice and furthermore, Revolution #9 is really funny. It’s a lovely artefact of what happens when the lunatics take over the asylum.

Anyway, here’s a bunch of really crappy John Lennon songs.

Dear Yoko

‘Dear Yoko’ is, no questions, the worst thing Lennon ever committed his voice to. It’s saccharine and topplingly woeful. This is from 1980′s ‘Double Fantasy’ album which is dreadful start-to-finish and perhaps a beacon of what would have come should Lennon have survived Mark Chapman’s murderous afternoon. It’s listening to this that, pop-culturally at least, we can be grateful that Lennon is no longer with us.

Imagine

A terrible record. Lennon preaches about imagining no possession and being a dreamer. Fair enough, if you’re a multi-millionaire who has piss-all else to do in a day. Life in the late ’60s and early ’70s wasn’t that great for people, so mewing at them with sixth form philosophies is a bit rich. It’s like a fat man telling you to eat healthily. Of course, this is not a new theory and has been wheeled out time and time again against Lennon, but y’know, that’s for a very good reason.

Luck Of The Irish

One of the posterboys for why musicians and politics shouldn’t mix. Lennon creates a half-baked protest song which naively suggests that certain Irish people might wish they were English. It’s around this time that (allegedly) Lennon gave a load of money to the IRA, which is nice. Some of his ‘world peace’ vision may well have contributed to a nail-bomb that killed someone completely innocent. Give peace a chance, eh John?

Do You Want To Dance?

Here’s an idea. When you’ve completely run out of ideas, why not do a covers LP? Hey! Why not take a stone-cold classic and do a cod-reggae version of it? That’s a good idea isn’t it? No? WELL WHY DID NO-ONE TELL JOHN PISSING LENNON THEN?

Woman Is The Nigger Of The World

Ah! Lennon drops the N-bomb to shock us all and junk! Yeah man! RIGHT ON! Wimmins Lib! You tit.

Come Together

A Beatle classic that remains as one of the most underwhelming album openers ever cut to wax. It’s slow, plodding and despite a couple of evocative lyrics in there, is incredibly dull indeed. Michael Jackson tackled it and couldn’t even spice it up.

(Just Like) Starting Over

Listening to this track is amazing painful. A happy John Lennon is not necessarily a talented one. The backing vocals in this song sound like the house band on an Eighties chat show. You can feasibly imagine Tom O’Connor tapping along on his driving wheel to this and imagining it as the theme-tune to his comeback show. Awful.

Watching The Wheels

“People say I’m crazy… doing what I’m doing…“. Nope. People say “Shit. He’s lost it.” Hokey ‘Oooh! People don’t understand me! I’m a bit of a maverick see?’ shows that Lennon is completely divorced from reality. Throughout the ’70s, men started staying home more often and baking bread after the fall-out of hippiedom, but here we find Lennon under the illusion that he’s the only man in the world who decided to take a step-back from the rat-race. Songwriting so stationary that you could hang your coat on it.

Have we missed any? Feel free to inform us of other Lennon turkeys in the comments. Or, if you prefer, you can simply say “OH YEAH? AND WHAT HAVE YOU EVER DONE FOR THE WORLD?” It’s entirely up to you.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group

The day John Lennon died, the world lost one of its greatest talents. However, it also cemented a legacy as well, because, shortly before Lennon died, he was making records so bad that people started to doubt the assumed wisdom that ears were an evolutionary advantage.

Basically, John Lennon’s death ensured that his quality output would always outnumber his criminal records (something which cannot be said for Paul McCartney).

However, the collective we can’t help but wonder what Lennon would have done had he lived. Would he have had another creative spurt which would turn music on its head? Would he have let Jools Holland play that awful boogie-woogie piano on his TV appearances? Yoko Ono has a theory and it involves him pissing about on the internet.

For reasons unclear, Ono has said that John Lennon would have approved of the internet. Of course, the internet would have gone ahead with or without the Beatle seal of approval, but y’know, he would have loved it all the same.

Whether he’d have massive hissy fits over illegal downloads and keep The Beatles’ back catalogue from appearing on Spotify and iTunes is a different matter altogether.

He definitely would have sat around watching loads of porn though, that we can be pretty certain of.

Ono said on The Andrew Marr Show:

“I think he would have been going very strong and creative still.

“I think he would have been very interested in playing [on] the computer because he always jumped on some new media and that is a very interesting new media.”

Playing on the computer? That prompts the image of a dribbling Lennon in a poindexter hat, haplessly poking at buttons and gurgling with glee at the flashing pop-adverts.

Anyway, seeing as we’re based on the internet and Yoko reckons that Lennon would approve of the online world, we’ll take that to mean this:

HECKLERSPRAY: Approved by John Lennon.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group

10 - If you have Chrome, you MUST watch this Arcade Fire thing. Breathtaking – Thewildernessdowntown

9 - Italian Spider-Man is best Spider-Man…

8 - 35 ways to improve your life immeasurably – Buzzfeed

7 - This new toilet design will never ever get abused, ever. Honest - Geekologie

6 - Oh Yoko Ono, don’t ever stop being you. Alright, stop being you a bit – Bestweekever

5 – Lindsay Lohan talks about herself. In a magazine. For once - AmyGrindhouse

4 - We know what you’re thinking: But what about the world testicle-cooking championship? – Asylum

3 - Who wants to see a man pretending to have sex with oblivious strangers? - Nothingtoxic

2 - Are you a dreadful bastard? Then why not try dog yoga? – Urlesque

1 – Question: is this the most awful man in the world? Answer: quite possibly, yes – AV Club

Did you know that you are legally obliged, when working for Hecklerspray, to attend Bootleg Beatles concerts in a t-shirt that says ‘I’m a Bootleg Mark Chapman’? It’s true. That’s the initiation process they make you go through. If you’re trolling people online, you have to have the nerve to do it in real life in front of mental Beatlefans.

Which clumsily brings us the news of Mark Chapman – he’s the man who shot John Lennon dead – and his parole.

Frequently, Mark Chapman asks to be released from the Attica prison in New York and he’s constantly knocked back… and he’s due a hearing soon.

Understandably, Yoko Ono has once again written to the parole board at the prison opposing the release of Chapman.

Chapman is scheduled to be interviewed by the board next week (August 9th onward) with regard to gaining release. Of course, he is serving 20 years to life for shooting Lennon outside the Dakota Building New York in December 1980.

Ono’s lawyer Peter Shukat confirmed that a letter had been sent to the board, but refused to say whether it was the same one she has routinely submitted every two years since 2000.

The circumstances of the day Chapman shot Lennon make for eerie reading, as he re-enacted scenes from Catcher in the Rye around New York.

He then got Lennon’s autograph on the copy of (the then) new LP, Double Fantasy. Chapman said of the event:

“I waited until he came back. He knew where the ducks went in winter, and I needed to know this” (a reference to The Catcher in the Rye). Chapman shot Lennon five times, before taking out his copy of Catcher in the Rye and read it until the police arrived.

Chapman stated, “I’m sure the large part of me is Holden Caulfield, who is the main person in the book. The small part of me must be the Devil.”

Brrr.

Ono has consistently stated that, away from her personal feelings toward Chapman, she also feels that he should remain in prison for his own safety.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter

Separating the sweet, juicy flesh from the stone and skin of upcoming major label releases.

This week, your Mango has something for everybody.

Are your life goals summed up by the phrase “All I wanna do is have some fun“? We’ve got Sheryl Crow.

Are you disturbed by rock music, but find it kind of enticing when performed on a violin? Check out the new release by David Garrett. You weirdo.

Are you, or do you wish to be, a black man? Well, there’s Rick Ross for you, sunshine.

Are you a 7-year old, or the state-assigned carer thereof? Why, we have just what you need, from the Kidz Bop Kids.

See? That covers everybody. You hear us? EVERYBODY.

Firstly, 100 Miles From Memphis, Sheryl Crow. It seems that albums about the sweaty, smelly city of Memphis are just like hiccups: when you hear one, you know that more are one their way pretty soon.

So, a couple of weeks ago we had Memphis Blues by Cyndi Lauper. And now we have Sheryl Crow’s latest album, a collection of songs allegedly inspired by her upbringing in proximity to that city (actually, 100 miles away: remember, this is America, where in some of the flyover states folk think that a drive 250 miles to get to their neighbour’s and back is a kind of luxury).

‘How about the music?‘ we can hear you cry. Well, we can only suggest you go and check it out. See, we are not fans of Sheryl Crow’s distinctive voice. To be more specific, we are not fans of Sheryl Crow’s whiny, nasal, I’m-trying-to-pass-a-briefcase-out-through-my-sphincter-and-it’s-kind-of-painful, voice.

The songs are good. Great melodies, lyrics with some meaning, and well-arranged with nice, tastefully used horns and whatnot. But over it all is the voice of Sheryl Crow. Think of it this way: Carl Orff‘s Carmina Burana is a wonderful, stirring piece of choral music. Now imagine it being sung by a choir consisting of Janet Street-Porter, Yoko Ono, and Gilbert Gottfried. Yes? You with us?

Here’s the album’s thought:

Okay, Sheryl Crow has an album out themed around Memphis. That means blues and such, right? Let’s stick it on and…Hey, hang on a moment. Have I bought one of her old albums just repackaged as a new one?

I dislike change. What worked once will always work again. Where is 100 Miles From Memphis, please.

Secondly, Rock Symphonies, David Garrett. Oh, it would be so easy to mock David Garrett and his latest album of rock-with-some-violins nonsense.

Which is a bit like if we were writing for a new-Jewish-music website and wrote “Oh, it would be so easy to mock Adolf Hitler and his slightly out-there views on certain ethnic groups“.

And that is our – perhaps religiously offensive – way of saying that David Garrett’s music is a very bad thing which requires a coalition of the willing to man-up and destroy it. Wipe it out. Make sure that our children, and our children’s children, will not grow up in a world where they can hear Walk This Way performed pretty much as the original but with a violin squawking the vocal parts.

In a world where they believe that Smells Like Teen Spirit is an attempt at writing a piece of music for the bit in an action movie where the muscular hero is jogging to a mailbox to post an almost-late tax return form.

In a world where Master Of Puppets has mutated from an emotional, metal-driven diatribe about the effects of drugs into the soundtrack to that part of an episode of The Bill where they’re chasing a shoplifter through a shopping mall.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter

For a song that sounds like the call-waiting music you’d hear if you were phoning Satan, John Lennon’s Imagine is still bewilderingly controversial.

Recently a 15-second clip of Imagine was used in a weird creationist documentary by the man who played the teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and it caused Yoko Ono to hit the roof. Yoko sued the makers of the movie for copyright infringement, but it looks like she’s been unsuccessful.

Yoko Ono has now dropped the lawsuit against the movie, presumably because the use of Imagine was covered under ‘fair use’ rules. So it looks like it’s one-nil to the creationists! You see, they’re always right! Apart from, you know, all their basic religious tenants and stuff! But still! Party time!

There’s just something about Imagine by John Lennon that has caused it to remain in the public consciousness for so long. Maybe it’s the fact that the lyrics seem to have been copied from a motivational fridge magnet, or the way that the piano sounds like it’s being played by a depressed man trying to gently headbutt himself into unconsciousness. We just don’t know.

But still, the song’s power to invoke a furore is still there – not so long ago a school banned Imagine in case the students all decided to gang up and, um, imagine they didn’t have any stuff. Or something. And now Imagine is back in the news, and it’s all the fault of the sodding creationists.

In a documentary called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed from earlier this year – in which the actor Ben Stein asks why scientists aren’t allowed to believe that God magicked everything together a couple of hundred years ago anymore – a 15-second clip of Imagine was used.

This made Yoko Ono flip out. She hit Premise Media – the makers of the movie – with a copyright infringement lawsuit as hard as she could, either because she didn’t agree with the principles of the film the song was used in or because someone didn’t offer her a wheelbarrow full of cash for a song that she didn’t even write anyway first. Again, we just don’t know.

But, whatever the reason, Yoko Ono has decided to drop the lawsuit anyway, probably in the spirit of peace or something. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Executives at Premise Media Corp. acknowledged all along that they didn’t seek permission to use the song. But they argued that under “fair use” rules, they didn’t need to, since the film used only a brief portion of the song, to comment on. Anthony Falzone, a Stanford law professor who represents Premise, said he welcomed the plaintiffs’ decision to drop their lawsuits.

Sadly, though, this decision has come slightly to late for Expelled, because Premise were forced to drop Imagine from the DVD version in case the lawsuit went Yoko Ono’s way. So anyone buying a copy of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed won’t hear Imagine by John Lennon any more. It’s been replaced by the next-best alternative – Fuck You Like An Animal by W.A.S.P.

Actually, Premise may as well have left Imagine in, because nobody’s going to actually buy Expelled on DVD anyway – evolutionists will find the subject matter too offensive to invest in, and creationists all believe that using money to buy things is essentially witchcraft, a crime punishable by drowning.

It’s fair to say that John Lennon was a bit of a musical genius. He and Paul McCartney momentarily stopped nicking cars and Hobnobs from the corner shop to write a whole load of pop tunes. These songs captivated a city, a country and later the whole world.

However, every successful star has a downfall, and he had a couple. But unlike today’s woozy musicians, like the moon crater face bloke from Keane, the copious amounts of drugs he took didn’t knacker him up. Instead, it was a stumpy Japanese woman called Yoko Ono.

Once she got hold of him, he kind of went a bit soppy, writing billions of songs in her honour. His other silly mistake was getting naked on a 1968 Rolling Stone cover with her. Not a pleasant sight. After John Lennon got his brains splattered across New York, she disappeared for a while. But still reappeared now and then to tell us that she was married to a Beatle.

Now she’s back to defend peg-legged Heather Mills. Another ex-Beatle’s wife. But, while Linda McCartney left us nothing but a horrible line of frozen food meals, Paul McCartney’s latest divorcee hasn’t quite done anything on such a scale. Probably because she isn’t dead yet. Though she is quite well hated now by a) gold-diggers who didn’t get to Paul first and b) legions of deluded Beatles fans who worship the ground their hero walks on.

Does it matter if he puts out a totally strange and crap classical-sounding album? Of course not, these fans will lap it up. The same fans who undoubtedly know where their hero buys his burgers and jockstraps.  

The ongoing Heather Mills v Paul McCartney feud has been gripping the nation for months. We’ve even been told that Hollywood wants to make a five-hour epic movie starring the two. Heather’s story will be told as a poor pauper girl who one day meets Paul, the man of her dreams at a vegetarian cook-off competition.

After discussing the ins and outs of leaf and pinecone soup, the two marry, argue and then fight. But it’s no ordinary fight. Their anti-meat diet gives them super powers. Powers where they fight through distant galaxies – in the past, present and future.

Rat milk drinker Heather recently got a fair slice of her ex’s wealth in last month's divorce settlement. How does £24.3 million sound? Not bad by anyone’s standards, but Heather was still hopping mad. And, no, it wasn’t because some cruel bastard nicked her false leg.

With that sort of money at her disposal, she can now afford a leg for all occasions. White and pasty; tanned and gorgeous; or battered and bruised.  

The press have never been kind to poor Heather. Ever since the two announced their marriage, plenty of people, including Paul’s own daughter Stella, said it would never work out.

Everyone was right, and if we’d been bothered to put a bet on, we would have been rolling in the money. Just like Heather is now. So while everyone shakes their fist at Heather Mills in anger, an unlikely source has come to her aid. That’s right, the former squeeze of John Lennon, Yoko Ono. She told Now Magazine:

"It's not very easy for a woman to be associated with The Beatles. I think all the wives did suffer, but suffered quietly and endured."

How it would be hard is beyond us. If we happened to be attached to someone famous, we think we could cope. Of course, our egos would swell and we’d demand vintage 1989 Tango, but is that so much to ask?

As our other-halves made all the money, we’d sit buy and count it all up – before throwing it in the air and re-counting it again.

Read More -  Yoko Ono defends Heather Mills saying its hard to be married to a Beatle – Now Magazine