Quote of the day

"They were sueing me for having subliminal messages, backwards-tracking stuff. It takes me all my time to do it the RIGHT way. I mean, it wouldn't be a very good career move if everyone who bought my records killed themselves, would it?"

Ozzy Osbourne talking about 'Suicide Solution' in Sunday's Observer Music Monthly.

Just a shame he had to go and spoil it by vehemently denying he is "turning into one of those fuckers, green people you know, going around Hyde Park, saying 'Stop the war'". The article wasn't actually much cop - not least because Barbara Ellen seems determined to portray him as misunderstood, as really being a deep thinker. What's wrong with just accepting he's an entertaining idiot?

Much better was the feature commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the Summer of Love, packed with short interviews with the main players from the Haight Ashbury scene in San Francisco. Better still Nik Cohn's extraordinary article in praise of Cambodian rock and of the talented musicians who perished under Pol Pot's rule. You can hear what he's talking about if you go to Khmer Rocks or this fansite for singer Ros Sereysothea.

Also worth mentioning that among the tracks Record Doctor Paul Mardles prescribed to the Patient, ex Arsenal striker and rubbish pundit Ian Wright, was Slint's 'Good Morning Captain' - and he loved it: "That's how it should be, letting yourself go, to the extent that he's fucking screaming". Bizarre.