"SAYING YES IS NOT WHAT DOCTORS DO": MURRAY TRIAL UPDATE
After a three day break, partly because a key expert's father died, partly because the defence wanted to investigate new tests on the contents of Michael Jackson's stomach when he died, the Conrad Murray trial resumed yesterday.

Murray is accused of causing Jackson's death by negligently administering the drug propofol. And yesterday the prosecution's final witness, a leading expert on the drug that killed the late king of pop, spoke in no uncertain terms about just how negligent - in his opinion - Murray had been.

Dr Steven Shafer of Columbia University told jurors more about the surgical anaesthetic propofol, and showed them a video listing various safety measures usually used when administering the drug, none of which Murray employed when giving Jackson the drug in his home. According to the Telegraph, Shafer told the court: "The worst disasters occur in sedation and they occur when people cut corners - [and this case] virtually none of the safeguards were in place".

Shafer said the amount of propofol Murray bought for Jackson was an "extraordinary amount" to give to just one person, that the lack of medical equipment on hand to monitor the patient was incredibly risky, and the fact that Murray had failed to properly document his administration of the powerful drug was an "unconscionable violation" of Jackson's rights.

Murray, of course, insists that Jackson was already using the drug as a cure for insomnia when he was hired by AEG Live to be the singer's personal physician, and that he was trying to wean his patient off it. But Shafer said that was no excuse. A doctor is not a supplier bound to give his or her client everything that is requested the professor added, concluding: "Saying yes is not what doctors do - a competent doctor would know you do not do this".

The defence contends that Jackson self-administered the fatal shot of propofol, but various prosecution witnesses have testified that this theory seems unlikely, and even if it was the case the doctor would still be liable, because various other negligent acts - not least giving Jackson access to the drug - were also directly linked to the singer's demise.

Shafter's testimony will finish later today, with the defence expected to start their arguments tomorrow. They will call fifteen witnesses, including police, character witnesses and AEG Live exec Randy Phillips.

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DAILY MAIL PAYS "SUBSTANTIAL" DAMAGES TO FORMER SUSAN BOYLE MANAGER
Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers has been forced to pay "substantial" damages to Susan Boyle's former manager Osmond Kilkenny. The tabloid was found to have falsely suggested that Kilkenny had inaccurately reported the singer's income to her in an article titled 'Family at war over SuBo's millions' in March last year.

Kilkenny's solicitor Nicholas Armstrong told the High Court in London yesterday that the allegations made by the Mail were "an unwarranted slur on his character and professional reputation".

In an apology published on the Daily Mail's website yesterday, the newspaper said: "We did not intend to suggest that he was likely to manage Miss Boyle's finances dishonestly and accept this is untrue. We apologise to Mr Kilkenny for this suggestion".

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RIHANNA AND LACHAPELLE SETTLE
Rihanna has reach a settlement with photographer David LaChapelle after he sued the singer for plagiarising a shoot he did for Vogue in 2002 in her 'S&M' music video, directed by Melina Matsoukas.

As previously reported, in July a New York judge threw out LaChapelle's claims of trade-dress infringement, unfair competition and unjust enrichment, but said there was a strong enough case for copyright infringement for that part of his lawsuit to proceed to court.

Commenting on the case, LaChappelle said: "It's not personal, it's strictly business. Musicians commonly pay to sample music or use someone's beats and there should be no difference when sampling an artist's visuals".

Of course the case will now be never heard in court, and LaChappelle's claims of copyright infringement will not be assessed. What sort of financial settlement was agreed is not known,
though the photographer's PR rep told the New York Post: "David is happy with the settlement".

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VINYL SALES IN 2011 PASS 2010 TOTAL
Vinyl sales in 2011 have already passed the total for the whole of 2010. Over 240,000 vinyl albums have been sold so far this year, compared to 234,000 for the whole of last year, according to the Official Charts Company.

As previously reported, the Entertainment Retailers Associations and the OCC previously announced in July that sales were up 55% for the first half of this year, with 168,296 vinyl records sold in the first six months of 2011, compared with 108,307 during the same period in 2010. Radiohead's 'The King Of Limbs', which is the best selling vinyl record of the year so far, accounted for over 20,000 of those sales.

With the latest set of stats, the OCC says 2011 is set to be the best year for vinyl since 2005, when sales reached 351,000. But what are the top ten best selling vinyl albums of the year? That's what you want to know, right? Well look, here's that very list:

1 Radiohead - The King Of Limbs
2 Adele - 21
3 Beady Eye - Different Gear Still Speeding
4 Arctic Monkeys - Suck It And See
5 PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
6 Bon Iver - Bon Iver
7 Alex Turner - Submarine
8 Kate Bush - Director's Cut
9 Elbow - Build A Rocket Boys!
10 Nirvana - Nevermind

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WESTLIFE TO SPLIT
Westlife have announced that they are to split up. Though not before they've released a greatest hits compilation and gone on a farewell tour of UK arenas. So at least there's that.

In a statement, the group said: "After fourteen years, 26 top ten hits including fourteen number one singles, eleven top five albums, seven of which hit the top spot and have collectively sold over 44 million copies around the world, ten sell out tours" - sorry, we will get to the actual statement soon - "and countless memories that we will forever cherish, we today announce our plan to go our separate ways after a greatest hits collection this Christmas and a farewell tour next year".

They insisted that the decision was "entirely amicable", adding "after spending all of our adult life together so far, we want to have a well-earned break and look at new ventures".

Which is fair enough. After all, surely these guys have taken the whole Westlife project as far as they ever could creatively speaking. In fact, I seem to remember they passed that milestone back in 1998, as the group themselves noted in their concluding statement: "We never imagined when we started out in 1998 that fourteen years later we would still be recording, touring and having hits together".

'Greatest Hits' will be released on 21 Nov, preceded by new single 'Lighthouse' on 13 Nov. And here are the tour dates, tickets for which go on sale at 9am on 21 Oct:

14 May: Newcastle, Metro Radio Arena
15 May: Liverpool, Echo Arena
17 May: Cardiff, Motorpoint Arena
19 May: Sheffield, Motorpoint Arena
20 May: Birmingham, LG Arena
22 May: Nottingham, Capital FM Arena
23 May: London, O2 Arena
26 May: Manchester, MEN Arena
27 May: Glasgow, SECC

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FRANKMUSIK DROPPED
Frankmusik has revealed that he has been dropped by Universal/Island after his second album, 'Do It In The AM' and its two singles failed to break into the top 40. He tweeted yesterday: "[This is] the awkward moment when you have to change your status to 'unsigned'. Sad day".

On the up side, he still seems to be in demand to produce other people's work - he recently produced Erasure's comeback album 'Tomorrow's World' and supported them on their US tour.

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DIRTY PROJECTORS RECORDING NEW ALBUM
Dirty Projectors main man David Longstreth has revealed that he is working on the follow-up to 2009's 'Bitte Orca'. Planned for a spring release, the record is being written and recorded in an abandoned house in the New York State countryside.

Longstreth told Spin: "It's pretty close to complete. Right now we're just making a shitload of music. It's not very focused around the idea of an album per se, it's just about making a lot of tunes. That sounds like we're unfocused, but we're trying to get the album out by next spring".

Explaining the setting for making the record, he said: "It's this couple's house that lived here back in the 90s. It's a strange place because it's fully furnished but it hasn't been lived in for fifteen years. The first four months of the year, I was building fires in the wood stove and using New York Times papers from 1994 as kindling. It was weird to read some of the articles from back then before I burned them ... The house has this weird feeling about it. The house is basically part of the woods. This spring, a flood of ladybugs invaded the house and now in the attic there's this weird flying bug thing".

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LOU REED AND METALLICA STREAM ALBUM
Lou Reed and Metallica have put their entire collaborative album, 'Lulu', up online for all to hear. Well, they're saying it's just 30 second clips of all the tracks on the album, which was meant to run to 90 minutes, but who uses Soundcloud to just post previews of tracks? No one. Is it not more likely that someone with ears at the record label listened to the full 90 minute epic, made a few cuts here and there, and the five minutes now streaming is what's left? (For the record, they are saying they've posted the same 30 second clips used by an unnamed online retailer because they wanted fans to have access to better quality previews, but that's just as stupid).

Anyway, should you be too busy to listen to the album, The Daily Swarm has done a track by track review written in suitably painful prose: www.thedailyswarm.com/headlines/reviewing-30-second-samples-loutallicas-lulu-painfully-possible/

If you've got five minutes to spare, have a listen to the full album here: soundcloud.com/loureedmetallica/sets/lulu-30-second-samples

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FRED FALKE ANNOUNCES DEBUT ALBUM
It's taken him a long time but French producer Fred Falke has announced that he will finally release his debut album, entitled 'Part IV', through Kris Menace's Work It Baby label on 5 Dec.

Says Falke of the record: "So much of modern music takes the ideas in the 70s and 80s and uses them in a very superficial way. I hope I have managed to create something that re-asserts the musicality of this era within the context of modern music and modern production methods".

As well as new tracks, the album will also feature some older productions, such as opener '808pm On The Beach', which you can hear below.

Here's the full tracklist:

808pm At The Beach
Back to Stay
Last Wave
Electricity
Omega Man
Bare Knuckle
Aurora
Chicago
Wait For Love
Look Into Your Eyes
Love Theme
Memories

soundcloud.com/fredfalke/fred-falke-808pm-at-the-beach

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THE WAR ON DRUGS TO TOUR
The War On Drugs are set to bring their melodious sonic battle to our shores next year, touring a clutch of UK venues in honour of their current album, 'Slave Ambient'.

And what's more, they'll be packaging up the hale and hearty sounds of album standout 'Come To The City' as a single, to be released on 5 Dec. Screen the song's accompanying video here: vimeo.com/27539531

And by yet another stroke of The War On Drugs-related luck, you can still download the track for free. So don't delay in doing so here: www.scjag.com/mp3/sc/cometothecity.mp3

Tour dates:

23 Feb: Liverpool, The Kazimier
24 Feb: Dublin, Whelan's
26 Feb: Glasgow, Stereo
27 Feb: Manchester, Sound Control
28 Feb: London, Electric Ballroom
29 Feb: Brighton, Concorde 2
1 Mar: Bristol, Thekla

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THE TWILIGHT SAD TO TOUR
Scotland's finest players of bleak, visceral dark-rock, The Twilight Sad, have announced a tour in support of their new single, 'Sick'. The band are due to release their latest LP, 'No One Can Ever Know', next February.

Whilst you listen to the Andrew Weatherall-produced track - stereogum.com/848871/the-twilight-sad-sick-stereogum-premiere/mp3s/ - why not peruse these here dates:

13 Nov: Dundee, Doghouse
14 Nov: Aberdeen, Café Drummonds
15 Nov: Inverness, Ironworks
16 Nov: Edinburgh, Bongo Club
18 Nov: Glasgow, Sleazy's
19 Nov: Preston, Mad Ferret
20 Nov: York, Duchess
21 Nov: London, Borderline
22 Nov: Oxford, Jericho
24 Nov: Leicester, Firebug
25 Nov: Stirling, Tolbooth

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JEFF MANGUM CURATED ATP FESTIVAL POSTPONED TO MARCH
ATP has announced that its festival curated by Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum, due to take place in December, is being postponed until March "due to a set of extremely unfortunate and unforeseen circumstances".

In an email to ticketholders, ATP boss Barry Hogan said: "Having to reschedule an event like this is no small decision and we realise that many of you will be extremely disappointed, as are we. We try to put the community of ATP attendees first in every decision we make and hope that you will understand when we say that if the postponement was in any way avoidable, then we would not be rescheduling - disappointing the community that makes our events what they are is something we find very painful".

Tickets for the event will remain valid and organisers are hoping to secure as many of the artists on the original bill as possible for the new dates, with the new line-up due to be confirmed on 10 Nov. Gigs in London by The Magic Band and Superchunk in the run up to the original dates will still take place as planned, though others from Jeff Mangum, Panda Bear, Olivia Tremor Control and Thurston Moore are as yet unconfirmed.

As previously reported, earlier this year ATP announced it would no longer be putting on its traditional spring festivals at Butlins in Minehead due to cost issues, choosing instead to concentrate on its December holiday camp weekenders and other city-based events, such as I'll Be Your Mirror.

More information on the Jeff Mangum event is available at www.atpfestival.com/events/jeffmangum.php

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MERLIN ANNOUNCES YOUTUBE DEAL
YouTube has finally done a deal with Merlin, the digital rights body that represents many of the bigger independent labels.

The new arrangement means videos by or featuring the music of artists signed to Merlin affiliated labels can now be legitimately posted on the video sharing website, and that those labels and artists will receive royalties for their content.

Merlin, of course, collectively negotiates on behalf of the big indies in a bid to secure them deals more akin to those offered to the majors, who can exploit their substantial market share when negotiating such arrangements.

Confirming the new deal, Merlin boss Charles Caldas told CMU: "We are very pleased to reach an agreement which will allow YouTube's users to enjoy access to the many amazing artists that our labels represent".

YouTube's Head Of Global Partnerships, Chris Maxcy, added: "We're continually looking for new ways to connect independent artists with their fans and we're thrilled to have struck a deal with Merlin that will help us do just that, while compensating them for their efforts at the same time".

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MICROSOFT MAY BID FOR YAHOO! AGAIN
Microsoft is reportedly thinking of having another go at acquiring Yahoo!, having originally tried, unsuccessfully, to buy the company in 2008.

Bidders have been gathering for the flagging web company ever since it fired its CEO Carol Bartz back in September, a move that was seen by many as basically putting the firm up for sale. According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft is considering forming an alliance with investment firms Silver Lake Partners and the Canada Pension Plan Investment to make a $20 billion bid for the company. Among other things, owning Yahoo! would aid Microsoft's web search business Bing, which currently powers the Yahoo! search engine but, insiders say, at a loss because of the way the two companies' partnership is structured. If in common ownership the nature of that partnership would change.

There are, however, other potential bidders for the Yahoo! company, including AOL, Chinese internet group Alibaba and a possible private equity consortium led by Yahoo! co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang. It's thought Yahoo! will provide information about the company's finances to serious bidders in the next few days.

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BOINC REPORTEDLY SIGNS UP SONY AND WARNER
The previously reported Beyond Oblivion music service, now called Boinc, has deals in place with both Sony and Warner, according to Music Week. Talks are progressing with Universal and EMI and, for the UK, with PRS For Music on the publishing side.

With plans for the new service to go into beta by the start of 2012, it's also becoming clearer how Boinc will actually work - the whole thing originally sounding rather confusing when founder Adam Kidron arrived on the scene in spring 2010 with millions in start-up capital.

In essence Boinc is a rework of Nokia's Comes With Music venture that went so horribly wrong, though with many of the Nokia service's shortcomings addressed. The idea is that mobiles, tablets and PCs come with Boinc pre-installed. Through the Boinc player, users can download any song from the service's catalogue for free and listen to it as many times as they like.

There will also be a scan-and-match function, so users can automatically populate their Boinc library with any other music currently stored on their device (assuming it's in the Boinc catalogue) at the click of a button. The service will also alert users to other songs in the Boinc catalogue that relate to tracks they have already downloaded, based on artist, genre and recommendations made by other users, and there will also be a Pandora-style personalised radio option that utilises such information.

Like Comes With Music this will all be paid for by the device manufacturer, who will bundle a Boinc licence fee into the price of their phones, tablets or PCs. Also like Comes With Music, downloads into the Boinc player will be DRMed, so that they only play on the device that came with the software.

However, unlike the Nokia service, all sorts of devices will carry the Boinc application, and when any Bonic-powered device is synced with a user's account it will be updated with information about what tracks have been previously downloaded, plus other playlist information. There are also plans to sell the Boinc software direct to consumers as an app, so users can make their existing devices work with the new service. All of which makes Boinc much more compelling than ComesWithMusic.

The biggest challenge for Team Boinc though is getting the licences in place and persuading phone and PC manufacturers to pay to install the software. Content owners are paid on a per-play basis, though the amount they receive per play will vary slightly, because the amount of money handed to the music industry from each device is fixed, so the unit price per play presumably varies depending on how much any one user uses the service, all of which makes for a data mindfuck.

But Boinc seems confident its technology will report track plays and royalties due effectively, and argues that the overall revenue potential of any system that could become standard on mobile phones around the world - especially in the Asian market - is so big, it is worth accommodating a slightly different way of billing and reporting for digital music usage.

Although the Sony and Warner deals have not been officially confirmed, we expect a series of announcements about licensing arrangements and technology partners in the coming months.

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BBC APOLOGISES FOR EDITING KING OUT OF TOTP REPEATS
Former record industry executive and sometime pop star Jonathan King, who, of course, was convicted in 2001 of sexual assault on five teenage boys in the 1980s, has received an apology from the BBC after it cut one of his performances out of a repeat of 'Top Of The Pops'. BBC Four aired a 1976 edition of the legendary pop show, but removed King's performance of his version of 'It Only Takes A Minute', seemingly because producers feared viewers might be offended given the singer's subsequent crimes. But BBC Four bosses admitted it was the wrong decision after King complained.

King complained to BBC chief Mark Thompson, and then posted the Director General's response on his website. In it Thompson says: "The BBC's complaints process begins with a response from the relevant programme makers and I therefore asked my colleagues in BBC Four to address this matter. Their response is as follows: 'We are sorry that Mr King's appearance was edited out of this particular programme. We accept that this should not have happened and we would like to apologise for any upset this caused'. I want to join BBC Four in apologising for this incorrect decision".

Thompson added that the 'TOTP' edit had been instigated by BBC Four producers off their own back, and was not the result of any BBC policy on the matter. He said: "We can assure Mr King that there is no policy in place requiring any of his appearances, or those of anyone else, to be removed from repeats we show on the channel. We can also assure Mr King that his performance will not be edited out of any future repeat of this particular episode of 'Top Of The Pops'".

King said that the BBC had "adopted the Stalinist revision approach to history" by removing his 'TOTP' performance from the BBC Four broadcast, adding: "The principle of not altering history is a far bigger one than 'It Only Takes a Minute' - would they remove Hitler from retrospectives?" A comment which does seem to constitute Jonathan King comparing himself to Hitler, which doesn't seem entirely fair - I mean Hitler never released a record quite as nauseating as King's version of 'It Only Takes A Minute'.

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BRANDON FLOWERS STARS IN MORMONS ADVERT
The Killers' frontman Brandon Flowers has starred in a new advert for The Church Of Jesus Christ Of The Latter Day Saints, or the Mormons as its members are more commonly known. So, er, well, yeah, that's what he's done.

Claiming that it's very unusual for a musician aged 30 to have a wife and children, as he does (I'm not sure how accurate that is), Flowers says in the video: "There are a lot of connotations that come along with pop music or rock music. And it's usually very sex driven or money driven, and I realised very early on that that wasn't the road for me, and maybe because of the foundations that were laid down early on and my mom taking me to church I wanted to take a different road".

I'm not entirely sure what the point of the advert is. Possibly they wanted a big rockstar to come and say that being religious is cool. But then Flowers came along and said he's shunned coolness in favour of having a semi-normal life. Maybe it's supposed to say that you don't need to be cool, even if being cool is basically meant to be your job. Or something.

Watch the video here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PF0h7oqUEQ

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