INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH MUSIC INDUSTRY NEWS & GOSSIP
with Christie Eliezer * Stuff for this column to be emailed to <celiezer@netspace.net.au> by Friday 5pm
ADAM LAMBERT HITS FEDERATION SQUARE Adam Lambert hit Federation Square on the weekend, playing a set before 600 people as part of Channel [V]’s Guerilla Gig series. It will be screened on the network this Thursday on-air and online.
NEW RECORD LABEL #1: BREAKAWAY RECORDINGS Shock veteran Ian Bennett has set up Breakaway Recordings. He says, “The death of the music business is grossly exaggerated. I’m talking to smaller labels all over the world who are absolutely thriving – and they’ve all got great new artists just waiting to be heard.” 2IC at the label is Jonny O’Hara who worked at JB Hi Fi and runs regular club nights in Melbourne. Breakaway’s first release is Ozomatli Presents Ozokidz, “a kids’ album that will also appeal to adults who listen to really good music” next month. The LA band is back in November for Harvest. Contact is info@breakawayrecordings.com.au. Bennett was 20 years at Shock: as its highly respected International A&R, he signed José González, Millencolin (both who had two gold albums), Veruca Salt, Alexisonfire, and City And Colour as well as labels Fat Wreck Chords, Burning Heart, Sugar Hill, Eagle Rock, Vanguard, V2 and Epitaph.
NEW RECORD LABEL #2: DARKBEAT RECORDINGS Melbourne club night promoter Darkbeat launched Darkbeat Recordings. Darkbeat founder Daniel Banko says, “We will be focusing on delivering the freshest and most cutting edge sounds which we are renowned for, however never straying too far from that old school party vibe that punters can expect at any Darkbeat party.” First release is a mix compilation.
NEW RECORD LABEL #3: ARTERY RECORDINGS US management firm The Artery Foundation, which recently launched an Aussie office under Matt Leost, has set up local operations for its Artery Recordings. It will be run by Andrew Perumalla ex-Taperjean Records, who also bring in The Mission In Motion, For All Eternity, We Rob Banks and Storm The Sky to Artery Foundation’s management division. He is contactable at andrew.p@thearteryfoundation.com. Artery Recordings acts include Vanna, Chelsea Grin and For The Fallen Dreams. It is distributed by Shock.
WARNER CHANGES IN MELBOURNE After integrating Roadrunner Records into Warner Music, there have been changes at Warner’s Melbourne office. Roadrunner GM Ben Ralph also becomes GM of Warner Music Victoria. Also joining from Roadrunner is Hayley Wilson as Marketing Manager Warner Music, Thom Gwynne as Junior Digital Manager and Janine Morcos who joins the Warner promotion team as Media Manager Vic and will work alongside Karen McLellan (Promotions Manager Vic) and Lucy Buckeridge, who assumes the role Media and Artist Relations Manager for the state. Warner Music also welcomes Mark Wilson who has joined the Warner A&R team and will be based in the Melbourne office. The Warner Melbourne office is also home to Simon McLaughlin (National Account Manager), Dave Laing (Creative A&R: Commercial Marketing) and Dave Jiannis (Epitaph).
THINGS WE HEAR
VENUES #6: THE PALAIS HOLDS OPEN MIC
* Bruce Springsteen told local promoters he can tour here in March. * Led Zeppelin’s 2003 concert footage DVD has been certified platinum 13 times after selling over 1.3 million copies in the U.S. * Ten’s new Broadway-orientated reality show I Will Survive has failed to grab viewers, debuting with 506,000 and dropping to 427,000. Hopefully Ten will stick with it: based on Priscilla: Queen Of The Desert, it’s full of personality and colour. Unlike Everybody Dance Now, axed after three episodes for low ratings, which was too complex for its own good and with dull visuals. * Rihanna flew five fans to her home in Barbados and cooked them dinner, as a thank you to all her fans who made her a success. * Kirin J Callinan has been working in the studio with Kim Moyes of The Presets before he heads to New York to play CMJ. * The ex-wife of a Melbourne musician cost herself $4 million by not agreeing to the divorce settlement he offered. Even worse, the Family Court ordered her to pay the man’s $220,000 legal costs. * More than 10,000 tickets sold in just two hours for Mumford & Sons’ Gentlemen Of The Road festival in Dungog in October. * Seems The Bamboos will make their set at Sydney’s Homebake festival special by bringing on guests who appeared on the Medicine Man album. * Kim Kardashian’s ex, Kris Humphries, served a subpoena on her new boyfriend Kanye West by putting it in a Nordstrom box and sending it to her house, knowing she wouldn’t resist opening it! * Following New Zealand and Japan, Canada has become the third country to approve of Universal Music’s proposed £1.2bn acquisition of EMI.
The Palais in Hepburn Springs is on Sunday launching the first of The Palais Youth Open Mic sessions. Venue owner Korrina Glen, who says, “Youth in our community are not given the opportunity to perform in public as much as they should,” can be contacted on 0438 001 288 for spots at the Open Mic.
VENUES #1: PALACE SOLD
On the eve of a tour and a return to the recording studio, Ne Obliviscaris’s drummer Dan Presland has returned after six months. His replacement Nelson Barnes continues with The Schoenberg Automaton. “In the end, the decision to bring Dan back was less to do with Nelson and more to do with the fact that we never really wanted to part ways with Dan in the first place and have such great chemistry working together,” the band said.
The Palace on Bourke St in the city has been sold two months after it was put on the market by its financially troubled owners. The rumoured price tag is $11.5 million and rumoured buyer is an Asian business consortium.
VENUES #2: PUBLIC BAR WELCOMED BACK Live music fans welcomed back the Public Bar of St Kilda’s Prince of Wales at a seven-hour concert last Sunday. It was the initiative of the venue and the St Kilda Rock Chronicle website, whose Michelle Harrington challenged fans to actively support local venues. Julian Gerner, of the Melbourne Pub Group which spent $250,000 on upgrading the venue, told The Age that he had high hopes that the Public Bar could run free live music seven nights a week but wasn’t so sure about the larger Bandroom upstairs. ‘’The truth is it hasn’t been successful as a live music venue for the best part of a decade. We’ve got a new booker and we’re going to give it a really good shot to make it work, but if it doesn’t, we’ll just have to try something else.’’
VENUES #3: ASTOR THEATRE SAVED Businessman Ralph Taranto is buying the Astor Theatre from St Michael’s Grammar School for a rumoured $3 million, and will start badly-needed renovations as soon as he takes over the key in October. Taranto owns the Brighton Bay Cinema and refurbished the former George Cinema on Fitzroy St, St Kilda. He plans to ready the theatre for the St Kilda Festival in May.
VENUES #4: WODONGA WELCOMES THE CUBE Wodonga’s new state of art performing arts centre The Cube has opened. With the $12.2 million Federal, state and local government funding, the 410-seater at Hovell St will host theatre productions, concerts, film screenings, conferences and community events. An outdoor courtyard holds 1,500.
VENUES #5: BAKINI INTRODUCES JAZZ Bakini Bar (568 St Kilda Road) has opened up to jazz performances, with guitarist Albare launching the Spring Jazz Sessions on Monday.
TAYLOR SETS NEW DIGITAL SALES RECORD Taylor Swift has set the record for the biggest digital sales week for a female artists with single We Are Never Getting Back Together. It sold 623,000 digital copies in its first week, after she used her app to notify one million fans to buy it. It’s also the second biggest digital seller of all time, after Flo Rida’s Right Round which sold 636,000 in February 2009. A report by Strategy Analytics predicted digital music’s share will overtake physical in 2015.
ESPY METAL The metal show at the Espy this Friday August 31 is significant for two reasons. It is Pegazus’ 18th anniversary show. It is also the last performance for some time by White Widdow whose singer Jules Millis heads off back to Europe for a Sept/Oct tour with UK glam metallers Tigertailz as their new singer.
ALLANS BILLY HYDE IN RECEIVERSHIP Instrument retailer Allans Music Billy Hyde went into administration after its major shareholder private investment company Revere Capital, owed $27 million by the chain’s parent company Australian Music Group Holdings, pulled the plug. Unsecured creditors are owed $13.5 million, employee entitlements are $3 million. Administrators Ferrier Hodgson, who hope to sell the business, say gift vouchers and deposits will not be honoured.
PRESLAND RETURNS TO NE OBLIVISCARIS
LINKIN PARK’S HYBRID THEORY HITS 10 MILLION Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory from 2000 last week hit ten million sales in the US. It’s the 20th album to do so since SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991. Earlier this year, Usher’s Confessions hit that milestone. Since 1991, the three biggest sellers were Metallica’s Metallica (15.8m), Shania Twain’s Come On Over (15.5m) and Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill (14.8m). Hybrid Theory reached #2 in the U.S. It is the fourth ten million seller not to go #1: Twain’s Come On Over stopped at #2, Bob Marley’s Legend (11.1m) reached #18 and Backstreet Boys’ self-titled debut (10.1m) was #4.
BROUS TOURING UK, EUROPE
LIFELINES Engaged: Avril Lavigne and Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger. They started dating six months ago when he worked on a track from her fifth album. Married: Rufus Wainwright and German-born theater producer Jorn Weisbrodt, in New York. They have a daughter, Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen, with Lorca “daughter of Leonard” Cohen. The 250 guests included Yoko Ono and Carrie Fisher aka Star Wars’ Princess Leia. Recovering: 360 after eye surgery due to hereditary condition Keratoconus. Hospitalised: Wynonna Judd’s husband and drummer, Scott Moser, had his left leg amputated following a horrific motorcycle crash. Injured: Burglar Jonathan Kirby, 56, who broke into LL Cool J’s LA mansion was given a broken nose and jaw by Mr. Mama Said Knock You Out. In Court: 23 of the 421 people busted for drugs at Splendour In The Grass appeared at the Byron Bay Local Court were hit with fines ranging from $100 to $450. A 21-year-old from Queensland said he needed the four joints and five pills he was caught with to “get in the mood for The Beautiful Girls.” In Court: Sam Aniello Castellano, 23, of Anglesea, jailed for 15 months for detonating two homemade soda bombs at last year’s St Kilda Festival “for a bit of fun”, injuring five people, two seriously from shrapnel from the bombs. In Court: Christopher Vacic, 20, a security guard at Sydney’s Ivy nightclub pleaded not guilty in Downing Centre District Court to punching Nicholas Barsoum on August 28 last year. He said he fell on the man, who was brawling with another guard, to restrain him. In Court: A 19-year-old man who pleaded guilty in Mackay Magistrate’s Court to pulling a knife on a nightclub bouncer and threatened to stab him in the temple, was placed on probation and was banned from all licensed premises in the Mackay CBD for six months. Suing: A 39-year-old woman who slipped in vomit at a Whitesnake gig in Wales is suing the local council. Died: US singer Scott McKenzie, 73, who sang the ‘60s flower power anthem If You’re Going To San Francisco (Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair) and co-wrote the Beach Boys’ Kokomo, after a battle with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a disease which affects the nervous system.
UNIVERSAL SIGNS VERONICAS’ PUBLISHING Universal Music Publishing Australia has signed The Veronicas to a publishing deal for Australia and New Zealand. Its director of A&R, Heath Johns, says, “Jess and Lisa are incredibly savvy operators. They have achieved enduring global success with The Veronicas in a notoriously fickle pop landscape – all without the aid of a television show which is becoming increasingly rare.” Their third album Life On Mars is set for release.
FOUR FOR SOYAs Four Victorians are finalists in the Music category of the Qantas Spirit of Youth Awards for creatives under 30 - Hayden Calnin, Forces, Joanna Syme and Courtney Barnett. Daniel Johns is on board to support the program alongside Sydney producer Lee Groves. The winner gets $5,000 cash, a trip to the CMJ Music Marathon New York in October, and mentoring by Groves.
OXYGEN COLLEGE OPEN DAY
Melbourne pop singer Brous, who makes her Meredith Music Festival debut this year, is also taking her live show for the first time to the UK and Europe next month. She will join Swedish troubadour Jens Lekman, whose single Erica America she sang on (and received rave reviews from Pitchfork and Spin). Before her international dates, Brous opens for UK’s Patrick Wolf’s Oz tour. Brous is one of the collaborators on Henry Wagons’ September 28-due solo album, and also on Key Of Sea 2 collaborating with Kurdish refugee Onur.
Oxygen College, one of Victoria’s most prestigious audio colleges, opens their doors to prospective students this weekend. On Friday August 31 from 6pm ‘til 8pm and Saturday September 1 from 10am ‘til 3pm, head along to see what is on offer at Oxygen College. More than just an audio technology college, you’ll have the chance to see their numerous facilities with the latest in audio and studio equipment, hear testimonials in their tutoring expertise and learn about the array of their industry connections. More info can be found at oxygencollege.com.au.
MORE ON MUSE’S 2013 TOUR
AMOROSI QUITS UNIVERSAL
Muse’s 2013 tour will be outdoor shows, Matt Bellamy told triple j. “[We’re not sure] whether that means playing in parks or stadiums – but that would be awesome. You guys have football stadiums there, so we could bring the show that we’ve been doing in Europe across to Australia for the first time”.
After a six year relationship, Vanessa Amorosi has left Universal Music Australia. It comes just as she rumouredly heads towards a different music direction. Her Perfect remains in the radio charts 122 weeks after release. We hear she was dissatisfied with the label for well over a year.
Q&A LAURA IMBRUGLIA VS COURTNEY BARNETT Johnny Cash has a box-set called Love God Murder. Which is your favourite subject of these three, when it comes to country songs? Murder for sure. Every time. If Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn were both hanging over a cliff and you had to let go of one to save the other, who would you save and why? Well, I knew Dolly first and I’ve seen her live. I only discovered Loretta last year, but maybe her songs are a little better. Loretta has lived longer, but her first guitar was also a Harmony, like my guitar. I enjoy Dolly’s wordsof-wisdom twitter posts, but Dolly had that awful early 80s period of country-pop disco music. Maybe I’d drop Dolly. I feel like there’s a lot more I need to get to know about Loretta. Oh the shame. Let’s play an imaginary country song title game. Fill in the blanks. I’m Sorry I ____ The _______ (But Let’s _____ The ______ ______ ______) Nobody Touched My ____ Til I ____ On The ____ I’m Sorry I KISSED The MAYOR (But Let’s RAID The CITY HALL TONIGHT) Nobody Touched My HEART Til I CRIED On The TRAIN.
Local legends Laura Imbruglia and Courtney Barnett are taking to The Tote stage with their bands to present a few of their favourite country tracks. We got them to have a chat with each other in the lead-up. LAURA ASKS COURTNEY:
When did you start getting into country music? What was the first country song to blow your mind? About a year-and-a-half ago. I became friends with a band called The Merri Creek Pickers, and they introduced me Beat Magazine Page 44
to some of the best music ever made. At the time they were all obsessed with New Riders Of The Purple Sage and they did a mad cover of Somebody Robbed The Glendale Train. If you were stuck on an island with a country artist who you had to reproduce with for the good of all mankind, who would you like that artist to be and why? George Jones. But only if Tammy Wynette was there as well. What song are you most looking forward to singing at the show? A Girl Named Sue. It’s pretty much a rap song.
COURTNEY ASKS LAURA:
What happened to country music? (Know what I’m sayin’?) I assume you mean how come it’s all auto-tuned and gross these days, right? I have pondered this a little bit and never come to a resolution. I guess the bigger question is what happened to popular music in general? It’s predominantly auto-tuned and gross. Blame technology and bad taste. I try not to get too sad about it, ‘cos there is a wealth of great old country music out there just waiting to be listened to, unmuddied by computers set on fixing all imperfections. What are your all-time top five country songs about booze?
WATCH INTERVIEWS, CHATS & AWKWARD SILENCES..... WWW.BEAT.COM.AU/TV
There Stands The Glass, Webb Pierce The Bottle Let Me Down, Merle Haggard Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ On Your Mind), Loretta Lynn You’re Still On My Mind, The Byrds He Turned The Water Into Wine, Johnny Cash. (It’s about booze, right!?) Would you rather: Slim Dusty singing Dusty Springfield, or Arthur Conan Hartnell acting out Doc Watson songs? Who’s Arthur Conan Hartnell? I’m gonna go for Dusty on Dusty! I reckon that’d be weird and awesome. What film is this from: “But I have to say my all-time favourite book is Johnny Cash’s autobiography, Cash by Johnny Cash”? Why, that’s a Rob Gordon quote from High Fidelity, of course! The movie that made me want to immediately work in a record store and purchase Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde! (Two goals I totally achieved). Why is country music called country music? I guess because it came from the country? It’s not really a metropolitan kind of genre. I guess that’s what makes our show so exciting! Live country music with all the benefits of inner-city life just a stone’s throw away (trams, soy milk, late-night kebabs etc). What are your all-time top five country songs about lyin’ and a-cheatin’? You’ve Just Stepped In (From Stepping Out On Me), Loretta Lynn While You’re Cheatin’ On Me, The Louvin Brothers Cold, Cold Hands, Lawton Williams Make Believe, Kitty Wells & Red Foley Your Cheatin’ Heart, Hank Williams. LAURA IMBRUGLIA and COURTNEY BARNETT play The Tote this Saturday September 1. Tickets $10 on the door.