Mark Ronson and The Business INTL just premiered their new video for single “Somebody To Love Me” the album Record Collection. The song features the harmonies of Boy George and Andrew Wyatt from Miike Snow along with the song writing skills of Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters, Cathy Dennis (Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head), Anthony Rossomando of Dirty Pretty Things/Klaxons and Andrew Wyatt again.
The video was directed by Saam Farahmand, using home videos of the Culture Club giving it a double layer of interest. By the way, Boy George is telling reporters that Culture Club will be reuniting in 2012.
Oh no! The Sun reports: *Boy George was jailed for 15 months today after handcuffing a male escort to a wall and beating him with a metal chain. Sentencing the musician Judge David Radford told the singer (real name George O’Dowd) that he was guilty of “gratuitous violence”. Blank faced O’Dowd glanced briefly at family members in the public gallery, who gasped as his jail term was read out. Passing sentence, Judge Radford said: “In my view, there can be no doubt that your premeditated callous and humiliating handcuffing and detention of Mr. Carlsen shocked, degraded and traumatized him. He was deprived of his liberty and human dignity without warning or proper explanation to him of its purpose, length or purported justification. You assaulted the victim of this offense whom you had invited into your home by handcuffing him to your bed and inflicting on him additional wholly gratuitous violence beyond that needed merely to secure physical restraint”.*
Here’s his official statement: *”I was really hoping that the issue would be resolved and that some kind soul at the US Visa Office would realize that if the police in the UK placed no restrictions on my movements, that should have been good enough for them. I am very sorry that I will not see all my American fans this year, but I wish them a happy and healthy Fourth of July. I include the Visa Office in those good wishes and realize they are doing a very difficult job and I just got unlucky.”* MP3 below.
Today’s press release explains: *Boy George will help celebrate New York City’s Department of Sanitation Family Day this summer! George will be playing a free concert as a big thank you for the kindness shown to him by the DSNY. On August 17th he will play all his Culture Club hits and more for a crowd of over 5,000 NYC Sanitation workers and their families at DSNY Family Day. “New York’s Strongest are delighted that Boy George will join us at our Family Day outing in August and perform some of his fabulous hits for our hard working men and women and their families. Keeping New York City safe and clean is a daunting challenge – as Boy George well knows – and we welcome his generous offer to entertain those who have made our City the cleanest it has been in more than 30 years” said First Deputy Commissioner Michael A. Bimonte.*
7/10 – Belly Up, Aspen CO 7/11 – House Of Blues, Las Vegas NV 7/12 – Viejas Casino, Alpine CA 7/13 – Grove, Anaheim CA 7/15 – El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles CA 7/16 – El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles CA 7/18 – Grand Ballroom, San Francisco CA 7/25 – Cinema Club, Pompano Beach FL 7/26 – Hard Rock, Orlando FL 8/1 – Keswick Theatre, Glenside PA 8/7 – House Of Blues, Chicago IL 8/10 – Kool Haus, Toronto ON 8/12 – Metropolis, Montreal QC 8/14 – Terminal 5, New York NY
Boy George has slammed the performance of Culture Club’s new vocalist. The 80s star pronounced Sam Butcher’s performance as “dreadful” and “terrible”, after seeing a video of the reformed version of his old band on MySpace.
Speaking to BBC NEWS, George declared: “I wanted to like it but I couldn’t.
They’re my songs, they’re my heart, they’re my life. “To me, the mark of a good band is when someone else can’t successfully sing their songs, and he can’t sing my songs.”
