It's probably a good thing we're getting an early look at how tabloids will take to Beth Ditto, as her band's profile is definitely going to skyrocket. The Live In Liverpool CD/DVD is out, the band is MTV's featured artist this week, and they knocked Letterman's socks off last Wednesday. Not that I'd want them to go away (seeing as how they're great and all), but I'm not sure I'm ready to find out what Access Hollywood thinks of her.

Beth Ditto is a Cover Girl: Really Mean or Did Miss Thing Finally Make The Bigtime? [Willamette Week]
The Gossip - "Standing in the Way of Control" live [YouTube]

"Seemingly in a bid to get some media coverage, she said: 'Call me when 'X-Ray Specs' reunite cos I couldn't care less about Led Zeppelin...Robert who?'"

Well I guess that bid worked. Lady, you can bash homosexuals and the svelte all you like, and I like Poly Styrene as much as anyone. But a man's gotta draw a line at badmouthing Led Zeppelin. It will not stand, Beth.

Beth Ditto: "I Couldn't Care Less About Led Zeppelin" [Gigwise]

The curvaceous rocker insisted that the US clothing size - the equivalent of a UK size four - encourages women to aspire to be "nothing".

She told Annie Mac's Radio 1 show: "It's so obvious but so deep about our culture and what (it) says about women and their worth in their world (that) to be a size zero... is your ultimate goal.

"The biggest thing in your world is to be a nothing. That is so intense... how about getting rid of zero at all and putting a number onto it instead, even if it's a small number?"

You know, I expect this kind of...logic when I'm watching Meet The Press, but I generally expect more from our mid-level indie rock frontwomen who have been given far too much rope by the cruel British press. Maybe I'm just too idealistic. (Also I don't know what it says about us that we've posted that NME cover more than that damn Zac Efron RS pic.)

Beth Ditto Campaigns To Ban Size Zero [Digital Spy]

Although, since this interview is for The Advocate, I have to ask about your recent comments to the British magazine NME where you blamed gay men for perpetuating the "size zero." What kind of reaction did you get to that?



I got a little bit of a reaction. Although I think what's so funny to me — not "funny ha ha," but "funny strange" is that comment was paraphrased to the max. I know that in America not that many people are familiar with the NME, but everyone in Britain knows that the NME is the enemy. There's a reason why it's called "the N-M-E."



Its coverage is known to be sensationalistic.



Absolutely sensationalistic. Absolutely known for paraphrasing. What I said - and you can still disagree - it was in a list of things that I thought could be blamed [for the size zero] before women were blamed. Like I said, I'm a radical feminist, and first and foremost, I'm a woman. That's something I'm perceived as by the whole world, and I get the options handed down to me that are handed down because I'm a woman. I didn't create those standards that I'm supposed to adhere to — those were created for me, and it started before I was born.



That being said, it was a list of things, and half of the list was left out. I mean, one of the things I said which was a very specific thing was gay men in the fashion industry are responsible, not gay men as a whole. But I think it was good, at least, because it got people talking about shit. I don't blame any one thing, and I would never say "Gay men are to blame for the size zero." That's absolute bullshit, there's lots of things to blame.

Well it's nice to know she's now only blaming a miniscule cross-section of gay men, rather than simply blasting the fashion industry as a whole, for fostering fucked-up body issues. Progress! While I have no doubt that Beth likely was misrepresented by the hacks at the NME, and while I'm sure not all gay men in the fashion industry have womens' best interests at heart, it still feels like an oddly absolutist stance. At least she's not trying to pretend she never said anything of the sort, no sir. Right?

But if the NME is so known for paraphrasing, misquoting, taking things out of context, and otherwise mangling words for their own "sensationalistic" ends, didn't Ditto feel any qualms about helping them pander so darn sensationalistically with a nudie cover and an interview that she had to know, based on the above comments, would be manipulated and misrepresented? Or did she only decide/realize the NME was a buncha big meanies after the Internet blowback? Or is she just an attention whore? (I know my pick.) I'm also pretty sure my honorary vagina shriveled up and fell off when I read someone who rolls around with Perez Hilton repeatedly referring to herself as a "radical queer" with (presumably) a straight face. (No pun intended.) Oh the immigrant-raping/devil-cock quote was a paraphrase, but I was totally only saying what she really meant.

Beth Ditto [The Advocate via Gigwise]

Well, a nation of Anglophiles certainly agrees with Ditto and Molony, idealizing Great Britain as a place where men in eyeliner dance in the streets to Cure songs with friendly chimney sweeps. But c'mon, America's just a big island at heart, and living here can be as claustrophobic as a Lollapalooza porta-potty; this country's roll call of weirdos and mavericks may be a little earthier, but it's just as long as England's. Molony's argument also ignores the fact that the U.K. is now just as much of a polyglot culture as the U.S.; it's not a good look that most of her examples of Britain's "viva la difference" are melodramatic/morose white guys. (Plus I'm sure you're just as likely to get your ass kicked in a British school for acting like Morrissey as you would here.)

You have to wonder if Ditto would be so quick to sing the island's praises as a haven for society's misshapes if its press corps wasn't hugging her to its ample bosom. Like, say, giving her an advice column. In the Guardian. Speaking of which, as a bonus beat, here's Ditto giving all of you shy, retiring wallflowers in these United States advice on how to assert yourself:

My transformation wasn't easy - it took a long time to differentiate between self assertion and bad manners. But, eventually, I made it. In my most unprofessional opinion, these are the baby steps you need to take if you're just a girl who can't say no:

1. The first step on the path to self assertion is to realise that when someone says no to you, turning down one of your requests, it isn't actually an insult. I knew that if I wanted to stop being a pushover I had to get comfortable with small rejections myself. That took some work, but because of it I can now say no to other people with a clear conscience. If you can't hear the word without taking it personally, then you can't expect other people to accept your own refusals with good grace.

2. Make your new-found love of "no" known! Let your closest friends know that you are on the lookout for a new outlook. That way they can keep an eye on your progress and alert you when you fall back into your pushover ways.

3. Remember that an honest "no" is actually far more considerate than a lying "yes". How many times have you ended up avoiding a phone call from a friend because you agreed to help them, say, move house, when in all sincerity it was your only day off that week and you just couldn't face it? Even worse, how many times have you ended up helping them, but feeling completely resentful?

4. Let 'em down easy. Saying no doesn't have to be harsh. Soften the blow by prefacing what you're about to say with "I hate to put you out" or "I really hope you'll understand" - just something to let them know you have their feelings in mind. After that, be firm. If you really don't want to do something, it's not fair to suggest that there's room for negotiation.

And finally, remember that there's nothing better than emerging from that stifling, bitter, pushover cocoon into a world where you can express yourself freely and call your own shots. So brace yourself - and enjoy!

Beth Ditto's Black Sheep Nation [Guardian]
What would Beth Ditto do? [Guardian]

I know lots of writers are on this board. If so, please e-mail me.

jgla✧✧✧@u✧✧.c✧✧
thx

— yussel, Thursday, 26 July 2007 23:54 (Yesterday) Link

not sure why it did that weird thing to e-mails.

it's

jglazer at urb dot com

— yussel, Thursday, 26 July 2007 23:54 (Yesterday) Link

btw- this is because i'm looking to purchase an interview for publication.

— yussel, Friday, 27 July 2007 00:37 (12 hours ago) Link

Whether these I Love Music posts are more hijinx from our friends at Urb or just some message board goof makin' a funny, the Ditto/Perez cover has to be leading to a punchline. I'm totally ready to get pantsed on this one when the next issue hits the stands and Matthew Dear or Doc Severinsen is on the cover. Or there's an exclusive 6,000 word interview with Ditto by Norman Mailer. Because otherwise, if that actually is Glazer, what the hell kinda dog and pony show are they operating at Urb HQ? They do remember the words are supposed to come first, right? Especially with photos that ugly.

Posted Thursday, July 26, 2007 @ 08:57 by steph
HATERS!!! don't u wish u were on a cover! Get over yourself!! I LOVE PEREZ AND DITTO!!! RED COVER FOR SURE!!!!!!!!

Posted Thursday, July 26, 2007 @ 09:44 by L Perez and Beth are great. You are all just jealous because you aren't on a magazine cover.

Posted Thursday, July 26, 2007 @ 09:47 by s
i would have to say that i love perez but i really don't care for either picture. Perez you kinda look funny in both, agree with the orange comments, sorry! But keep on dishing the scoop like you do, love ya

Posted Thursday, July 26, 2007 @ 10:07 by kit
Perez,you rock!! Congrats on your 1st cover.I vote silver cause the red is too much.Im not a Beth Ditto fan but Perez is awesome!

Posted Thursday, July 26, 2007 @ 10:13 by Lindsay Lohan
Incredible that one of those things will make a cover! don´t forget to put your magazine backward in the stands. What a awful pair of fatsos!

Now Lindsay, that's not very nice.

Like I said, it's probably Urb's editorial department having a little LOL OMG WTF at our expense. In which case, kudos. Caught me with my righteous indignation around my ankles. But Beth, what are you doing hanging with this smug, leathery, frosted goiter of a human being in the first place? I'm worried about you, but more than that, I'm worried about the type of people you are choosing to associate yourself with now that you're a minor indie rock celebrity. I mean, this isn't the healthy, brassy Beth Ditto I used to see buying bagels at the hippie coffee shop in downtown Olympia:

Dr. Harvell proscribes a good week's worth of sleep and plenty of orange juice. Oh, and also to stop hanging around with bloated ticks like Perez Hilton.

And now back to my hobbit hole until next Wednesday.

Help choose URB's next cover! [Urb Blogs]

In America, where we saw the Gossip play one of the best shows of '06 to a half-empty club, Ditto is free from having to think about how she is viewed by large groups of the unwashed when she strips down to her underwear as if she was at an Olympia house party after Ladyfest. In England, the Gossip is turning out to be a regular little rock phenomenon, and so Ditto finds herself with the option of posing in the raw, back fat and all, on the cover of the country's most well-known (if little respected) music weekly. Ideally right-thinkin' folks should be thrilled by this turn of events, given the increasingly pneumatic norm of sexiness being peddled by pop culture, a kind of uniform female beauty that would bring a tear to Henry Ford's eye. Yet there's a weird and sordid "two steps back" feeling about it all, as if Ditto stuffing her junk in society's face has been instantaneously co-opted by a magazine getting off on the freakshow factor—copies to be sold, controversy to be manufactured, or hell, the creation of a potential new trend! Nu-fat? Fat-rock? They'll think of something—of an outspoken "big girl" who happens to be the frontwoman of a band on the rise.

But maybe more worrying than who's zooming who on the exploitation front is the incoherent and kinda pathetic way that post-riot grrl Ditto flip-flops in the accompanying interview about the complicity of the fashion industry and the media in fostering eating disorders, impossible beauty standards, and all sorts of other bad shit. Not to sound all nostalgic for the black and white ideologies of the pre-Misshapes days, but does someone wanna photocopy their old Bikini Kill zines and FedEx them to England? Meanwhile, at least until this particular blip in the media cycle fizzles out, we can, uh, look forward to lengthy and pointless comments box/message board debates about whether being fat is a "choice" and what constitutes being "unhealthy," endless junior high zingers, and the sinking feeling that, no matter where you come down on this "issue," hardcore feminism is a weird 20th-century aberration we'll someday tell our confused grandchildren about.