since you are a loyal reader of superstarcastic.com and keep dog-eared copies of our writings underneath your pillows just in case of sudden insomnia, you will definitely recall the review of the psychedelic furs show in boston that our beloved editor christine posted a few weeks back. i thought it was a good show recap of some classic acts and i am sure that you found it amusing and witty, as i did.
well, not everyone found it amusing and witty, my friends. and one of the folks who didn’t was the lead singer of the furs, the very talented and not-drug-taking richard butler himself. my business partner commissar dave and i received a call yesterday from the frostily polite manager of the psychedelic furs (a band who doesn’t do drugs), who informed us that richard butler (completely sober man that he is) read the review and appreciated it not so much. in fact, we were told that our drug allegations were slanderous and defamatory. his manager said that butler was surfing the web with his 9 year old daughter, came upon the superstarcastic review and was embarrassed and angered by what they read.
before i go any further with this sordid tale of hurt feelers, may i briefly interrupt myself to make one thing very, very clear - you should never, under any circumstances, ever allow your 9 year old child near superstarcastic. i repeat, SUPERSTARCASTIC IS NOT FOR CHILDREN. sheesh. the mere thought of little munchkins getting their malleable minds twisted and scarred by our rapier snark and communist sensibilities terrifies me.
but now back to my ridiculously awesome story. i really wish i was saying this about a shitty band like panic!%#$ at the disco (who unlike richard butler probably does drugs) and not the psychedelic furs, a band i like a lot. but what can you do…i hope it’s just their management company being dorks. anyway, i asked for the band manager to send me the request for an apology in writing and i told him that i would post it on the site, so here you go:
Hi Joie,
I recently read Christine’s review of the Psychedelic Furs/Fixx/Alarm show in Boston.
Although, we welcome reviewers giving their opinion about the performance, I was deeply troubled by some outrageous (and slanderous) insinuations that were made concerning Richard Butler. No matter how a reviewer may feel about the show, making false personal accusations, as she did, is completely unacceptable and certainly beneath any standard that readers have become accustomed to.
I feel that Christine owes Mr. Butler an apology, and hope that we can keep the reporting at a higher level of integrity and truthfulness in the future.
Best,
Rob Dillman
Arcadia Group Management
Los Angeles, CA
and there you have it, folks. i am pretty amazed on multiple levels by the whole thing. i really don’t see how sentences like “made me start to suspect that he was coked up beyond belief” and “I started to wonder if he was doing lines onstage” can be taken as personal accusations but hey, i guess some folks are sensitive like that. and i fail to see how OPINIONS can be truthful or not. and he’s obviously not familiar with you, the readers of superstarcastic, if he’s talking about you all having some kind of STANDARDS for the love of pete. and also, it’s called libel when it’s in print, not slander.
but whatevs. on the record here - we have never seen richard butler do coke. we have never done coke with richard butler. we have never met anyone who has done coke with richard butler. we are not accusing richard butler of being a cokehead. we think richard butler is a saintly man who loves puppies and rainbows and long walks on the beach. to show how sorry we are, we are having christine immediately killed for disrupting richard butler’s serenity. and if that’s not an apology, dear mr. butler (who is completely sober, by the way), i don’t know what is.
ps just kidding, christine. kisses.
20 Comments »
** ducks and runs for cover **
SUPERSTARCASTIC IS NOT FOR CHILDREN
Well, hell, I think we got us a new motto!
LOVE the saint icon. that is going into a shrine, pronto.
Richard Butler: Googles himself frequently while his children are present?
THAT IS SPECULATION. Please do not throw around baseless accusations like that. It’s…what’s the letter say…”completely unacceptable and certainly beneath any standard that readers have become accustomed to.” yeah, that.
Hence the question mark at the end, like Fox News!
George W. Bush: deserves rectal polyps?
“…and hope that we can keep the reporting at a higher level of integrity and truthfulness in the future.”
WTF does Mr. Butler’s manger think this place called “the internet” is? its a place where people come together to share porno & bitch about music + movies?!
its always NOT safe for a run-away 9 year old daughter, or your mother whose over 45.
If you can’t stnad the Blogging, stay out of the Blog-o-sphere.
…By the way, I LOVE the Richard Butler picture. I hope that it gets distributed FAR & WIDE on the Internet. So that all might know that Richard Butler DEFINETLY DOES NOT DO COCAINE.
I think, in an effort to balance the universe, we need to accuse a cocaine addict of being clean.
There fore I’m proud to announce that -Amy Winehouse-
Does not use narcotics of any kind….
Go kids….go find Amy….love her good.
Damn it, i prefer the bands i listen to be heavily intoxicated… that’s one more band ruined by rehab
Will they do a cover of happiness pie? Wait, no that WAS about taking drugs. a happy drug. I used to like my bands heavily intoxicated but the typical choice of drugs these days doesn’t do much for the music. Then they go forward with the anti psychotics and depressants, and the next thing you know we’ll see Johnny Rotten doing a song with Toby Keith. So give me the scientologists (and I am under the conviction we convert Billy (of SP) to this) along with the gender and social misfits who used to do drugs, cut themselves to feel reality kick in and are now so painfully sober or just quit smoking, just entered into menopause and want to rip part every little smiling face that comes their way, got caught picking up a same gendered cop and suddenly release a sex tape of themselves boinking a super model or Clay Aiken, which makes me wish I was queer, so I could get chicks but not Clay.. though maybe Beckham, just leave the skank behind. Yes, we need more suicidal rockers and rollers, and Willie Nelson.
And for people to stop billing the old rockers like the Stones as family entertainment, yeah, CS Blues is fun for the whole family, much like Superstarcastic. I never much cared for the stones, but I am always down with rolling.
Don’t have time or the finances to screw up your kids on your own, send them here for the low budget cost of an ISP or a trip to the library, that’ll provide years of therapy in their future! More so than that one time I caught grandma tipping the paper boy.
hahahaha wait, so he was ok with my shitty album review but took offense to christine’s show review? what gives? i wasn’t any less slanderous, was i?
damn, christine. my hero.
Apparently it’s ok to flat out say his album is shitty, but casually wondering if he’s dancing with the white lady?? Blasphemy!!
Not to get all “exZAKtly’s old man” on everyone, but damn…this country’s going straight to hell in a handbasket.
I need to steal someone’s nine year old so we can google me together. Nothing says I love you, sweet child of mine, like a cozy megalomaniacal googling.
Apparently, the ‘presidential gas’ is no mere political commentary…it could be a metaphor for Saint Richard himself…
Theory (obviously not fact, because we all know that richard butler does not do drugs):
Richard Butler was hard up for cocaine, all his sources were dry.. out of deperation he went online and googled “richard butler wants cocaine” … first thing that came up.. superstarcastic.com… google it… it actually is the first thing. Upset that superstarcastic had no cocaine, and doesn’t have anything to do with cocaine he became upset and called his manager.
I always appreciate the wickedness of the the superstarcastic wit, but I kinda agree that just
“making up” that anyone is either high or drunk and putting that story out to the public is a bit unfair.
I saw the same show in Boston, and thought it was pretty great actually!!!!!
I kinda agree that just
“making up” that anyone is either high or drunk and putting that story out to the public is a bit unfair.
Valid point, but you’ll note that Christine never said that Richard Butler was on cocaine at that show. She said he seemed to be, and that she suspected that he was. Big difference, and far from the “slander” that the dude’s manager amusingly alleges.
Yes, well then it “seemed to be” unfair. I felt it was a bit much myself.
[...] for my experience: like you (thank you, by the way, for allowing us to set the record straight) I do not snort coke. I have, however, done the following: Known someone who went through treatment [...]
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Comment by hotshotrobot — July 24, 2007 @ 11:11 am
Write it down, kids:
Richard Butler: Does not do cocaine.
Dr. Roxo the Birthday Clown: totally does cocaine.