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All your Industry news and gossip...
Tour Rumours
Pete Yorn is about to be announced for a promo tour in September. Maybe he can meet up with the Vines. At last week’s APRA awards in Sydney, during Craig Nicholl’s video link up "thanks" for his win in the Breakthrough Songwriter category, he held up a copy of ‘Day I Forgot’ and mumbled "Pete Yorn... check this album out... great songwriter." Also negotiating: Elton John, guitarist Eric Bibb for spring, the Bangles for the end of 2003, and folk maestro Richard Thompson and Ricky Martin for early next year. Foo Fighters are heading back this year. Rumours are Metallica are being courted to headline Big Day Out 2004. Frontier Touring has shifted its ‘Countdown Revolution’ tour back to early 2004, to get more overseas acts. By the way, after ‘Countdown The Musical’ as a stage show, ‘Countdown The Movie’ goes into production in Melbourne in August.
Street Talks At Seminar
dB Magazine’s very own music editor and resident sex symbol Andrew Street and Lauren McEnemy of the ‘Advertiser’ will speak at the ‘Almost Famous - Music Media & Marketing Voodoo’ free seminar which hits Adelaide on Tuesday 17 June at the Enigma Bar, 173 Hindley Street West. They join Phil Tripp of Sydney events management company IMMEDIA! who conceptualised the idea. It runs 6pm to 9pm but seminars held in the other states proved so successful it’s best to arrive at 5.30pm. IMMEDIA! is able to produce the series for free as an educational and networking initiative for all levels of the music industry through the support of Apple Computer.
Triple J Listeners React
Last week’s replacement of Arnold Frolows after 18 years, with Richard Kingsmill in the music director’s chair seems to have the thumbs-up from Triple J listeners - according to comments in forums on websites as ABC Online and Rocknerd (which in April demanded Frolows’ resignation). Frolows, rightly or wrongly, was blamed for appearances of the likes of Eminem on the playlist, trying to keep a balance between old and new listeners, and regional and metropolitan listeners. Most thought Kingsmill is the right choice. There were fears his administrative duties would take him away from his programs. Speculation in the industry is that J will go the dance/ rap road to entice more younger listeners from Nova and reposition itself before the launch of Radio FBi. Certainly one of Kingsmill’s first duties (and newly appointed GM Linda Bracken) must be to eject sloppy presenters who ask questions on air like "are Kelley and Kim Deal sisters?" Frolows is now in charge of archiving J’s programs.
Radio Licenses Decisions
We should know by mid-June whether we’re going to get that new commercial FM license for Adelaide, as well as those for Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The Australian Broadcasting Authority has received seven submissions on whether to defer. The issue is, has the market changed enough since the ABA first announced those licenses in 1999 to warrant a delay? ABA figures show that in 2001-2, commercial radio station profits fell 21.5% to $108.6 million with revenue down 2.1% to $730.6 million. APN News & Media, which co-owns the Australian Radio Network, cited predictions by UK media economists Case Associates that a new license in Sydney from 2004 would slash radio industry profitability by 41% between 2002 and 2007, and see at least one station collapse. In Melbourne, total profitability would fall by 34% and two stations would make substantial losses. DMG, frothing at the mouth to get its mitts on new licences, has threatened to sue the ABA, saying it had put in $1 billion in setting itself up in Australia, and a delay would screw its plans.
APRA, BDO Remember Jessica
Announced at last week’s APRA awards was the Jessica Michalik Contemporary Music Endowment. It is a joint undertaking by APRA and Big Day Out to provide a promising Australian songwriter or band a development grant of $10,000 which will be funded on an ongoing basis by the BDO and administered by APRA. The recipient must be between the ages of 18 to 25 to be eligible for the fund." The recipient will be announced biannually in conjunction with the APRA Professional Development Awards (PDA’s) with the first to be named next year.
Gill’s Grant
Merri-May Gill was the sole SA act to get one of the 23 contemporary music touring grants handed out in Canberra. Gill will get $8,670 for the solo act to play ten venues in regional and remote SA and Vic, with the 90-minute show which received a five star review at last year’s Edinburgh fringe.
Lifelines:
Born: daughter Jade, to Channel [V] program director Mary Richardson and husband Ben.
Born: son Jack Henry Oliver, to Triple M Sydney breakfast presenter Amanda Keller and husband Harley Oliver.
Marrying: Country singer Wynonna Judd and her bodyguard DR Roach this Thanksgiving.
Split: Petrol Records head Chris Murphy and Mimi Macpherson, after two years.
Divorcing: Rod Stewart and Rachel Hunter, after a four year separation.
Ill: Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready admits he’s been suffering from the debilitating stomach disorder Crohn’s Disease for 15 years.
Arrested: Scott Weiland of new ex-Guns N’Roses offshoot band ReLoad, for possession of coke and heroin, after being picked up for driving without lights.
Charged: Rapper Busta Rhymes with assault and battery. Celine Giguere claims that last December when the rapper got up and did an impromptu show in a Massachusetts venue, she started fondling him. He allegedly pushed her against a table and told her, "If you ever touch me again, I will fucking kill you."
In Court: The owner of a Bahamas-based porn music site with a name similar to Goo Goo Dolls was ordered to relinquish the name to the band.
Suing: Michael Jackson’s former financial advisers are suing him, claiming he’s only paid them $3 million of their $15 million bill. They say the singer is broke. ‘Forbes’ magazine, which estimated Jackson earned $50 million a year at his peak, reckons he has debts of $200 million but is valued at $350 million.
Died: Mark McCormack, founder and CEO of International Management Group, 72, heart attack.
Dowse Makes His Mark
Phil Dowse, former Adelaide based programme director with Austereo, has made his mark on the UK and European radio market in the eight months he has been based there. Last September he was appointed CEO of ESPi, the international division of Australian owned radio consulting firm ESP. Since then, his clients have been doing well. 98FM Dublin reached #1 in that market, the UKRD network achieved its best ratings results, Galaxy 102 Manchester got its highest breakfast results, BIG.FM Germany went up 20% in its target audience, and Radio Beat in Prague had its best ratings yet. Little wonder, then, Dowse was asked to give a presentation at a UK Radio Academy conference. In the most recent issue of Europe’s ‘Music And Media’ (sister publication to USA’s Billboard magazine) he contributes a full page article on Breakfast Radio. "It doesn’t matter from which side of the globe you come from," Dowse says, "embracing innovative approaches, creativity and understanding the need to stand-out traverses any boundaries."
Bids For Community TV
Five groups have expressed interest in operating a year-long community television broadcasting trial in Adelaide on Channel 31. These were C31 Adelaide Ltd, Adelaide Community & Educational Television Inc, Australian College of Entertainment Ltd, Adelaide One Television Inc, and The Adelaide CTV Consortium. The Australian College of Entertainment is based in Sydney and has also put up its hands for community TV licenses in Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. It wants to showcase local talent in current affairs, documentaries and lifestyle programs. The college was founded by Glenn Stapleton, and past students have included Natalie Imbruglia, Bec Cartwright and Kathleen de Leon of Hi-Five. The 31 service will operate under the open narrowcasting television ‘class licence’ for community and educational non-profit purposes.
Kazaa Tops The Pops
Another Australian has topped the UK charts, but record companies aren’t pleased. Sydney-based free download service Kazaa remained the most popular music site in the UK, according to internet measurement firm Neilsen/NetRatings. It had an audience of 1.3 million in the UK alone in April. But doing well are sites which sell CDs rather than digital downloads. CD-Wow was second with 739,000 visitors and HMV was #4 with 552,000 visitors. Paid-for music sites are still struggling against both free download sites and CD sellers. But they are gaining popularity. OD2.com got 523,000 visitors in April, and Emusic.com 165,000 UK users in the first three months of the year. A new website which claims to have found a legal loophole that allows it to sell music without direct consent is proving the latest in a long line of challenges to the music biz’s dominance of the distribution of music.
Rumour Of The Week
Are Warner Music Group and BMG Entertainment talking about a merger? It would save them up to US$400 million a year in operational costs, and make them a very powerful corporation indeed. A few years ago, the two tried to merge with EMI but were nixed by European anti-trust watchdogs. This time they hope to get around it by having Warner sell its music publishing arm for US$1.2 billion.
Tantrum Of The Week
S Club 5 stormed out of a BBC interview when asked why their manager/creator Simon Fuller was worth $150 million and they were only on a weekly wage.
Tell-All On Elvis’ Manager
You thought Elvis Presley had a weirdo life? A new book on his manager, out in America in mid-July called ‘The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story Of Colonel Tom Parker And Elvis Presley’ calls him "a conman, illegal immigrant and wanted murderer". According to author Alanna Nash, who in 1995 wrote about El’s bodyguards The Memphis Mafia, said that he was born Cronelis van Kuijk in Holland. There he bludgeoned a woman to death, and fled to the US the next day. He entered the country illegally, and joined the US Army as "Tom Parker". The book claims he deserted the army, suffered a nervous breakdown, and was discharged for psychosis, psychogenic depression and emotional instability.
Gold Stripes
The White Stripes’ fourth album ‘Elephant’ has gone gold in Australia in its first month of release, selling over 35,000 copies after debuting at #4. This week the album is at #13 on the ARIA chart. The album is now well on its way to going platinum, say Remote Control Records. The album has sold a million copies worldwide, and entered the UK charts at #1.
Coldplay Win Novello
Coldplay were named songwriters of the year for their ‘A Rush Of Blood To The Head’ at Britain’s Ivor Novello Awards, which recognises the best in British songwriting and composing. Coldplay couldn’t be there, but Chris Martin sent a message saying "Even our grandparents would be impressed with us winning this." Other winners were U2 (outstanding song collection), Avril Lavigne’s Complicated (international hit of the year), David Gray’s The Other Song (best song musically and lyrically), UB 40 (international achievement), The Streets (contemporary song honour) Bryan Ferry (outstanding contribution) and Brian Wilson (special international award).
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