Wednesday 28 July 2010, 11:51 | By CMU Editorial

Festival line-up update – 28 Jul 2010

Artist News Festival Line-Up Update Gigs & Festivals

THE BIG CHILL, Eastnor Castle, Herefordshire, 5-8 Aug: We Were Promised Jetpacks, Fiction, Goldhawks and The Boy Who Trapped The Sun have all been confirmed to play Sailor Jerry’s Ink City at next week’s Big Chill. www.bigchill.net

FREEZE FESTIVAL, Battersea Power Station, London, 29-31 Oct: Hadouken! and Roni Size head up the first acts announced to play at this year’s Freeze Festival, along with MC Jakes, Krafty Kuts, MC Dynamite, Jaguar Skills, Scratch Perverts, Bedouin Soundclash and Skindred. www.thefreezefestival.com

Jail-breaking iPhones is not copyright infringement

Digital

The US Copyright Office has deemed that ‘jail-breaking’ an iPhone does not infringe Apple’s copyright. So that’s nice. The Office, part of the Library Of Congress, made the ruling in one of its regular reviews of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act after taking evidence from both Apple and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

For all their fluffiness, Apple are the biggest control freaks of the IT industry, and with their smartphone that control freakishness reached new heights, with anyone making an app for use on the iPhone needing the IT giant’s approval before it can be made available to owners of the device. Apple would argue they act this way to ensure a good user experience, and to safeguard the security of the phone users’ personal data. But some critics say there are commercial motives as well.

But, of course, it is possible to hack an iPhone so that apps not approved by Apple can be used (or so the phone will work with mobile networks other than those approved by Apple). The hacking process in this case often being referred to as ‘jail-breaking’. The IT giant told the Library Of Congress it considered such hacking to be a sort of copyright infringement, but the Congressional office did not concur.

For everyday iPhone users the ruling will make little difference. Apple stress that jail-breaking may cause the phone to actually break, and that it usually invalidates any warranty, so there are still risks to going the hack route. And anyway, Apple were unlikely to actually sue any phone owners who chose to jail-break.

But the clarification from the Copyright Office does mean that those companies providing unapproved apps for use on hacked iPhones, and those companies who help with the jail-break process, can operate safe in the knowledge they won’t be sued by Apple for encouraging others to infringe (which they might have been had jail-breaking been classified as infringement).

Terry Gilliam to direct Arcade Fire webcast

Digital

Former Monty Python star turned movie director Terry Gilliam will direct an upcoming Arcade Fire webcast, according to Associated Press.

The first in a series of live webcasts on Vevo and YouTube sponsored by American Express, called ‘Unstaged’, it will see the band playing live at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on 3am UK time on 6 Aug (10pm EDT on 5 Aug in the States).

The show will be online at www.youtube.com/arcadefirevevo

Bon Jovi deny photo shame

And Finally

A rep for Jon Bon Jovi has denied that the rock star was “terrified” that photos of him cavorting with nude women taken in the mid-eighties would make it into the public domain. The photographs, taken by rock snapper Ross Marino during Bon Jovi’s 1985 US tour, were originally intended as publicity shots, but later deemed to be too raunchy.

The pictures have now seen the light of day 25 years later as former Bon Jovi tour manager Rich Bozzett has published them in a new memoir of his experiences with the band, called ‘Sex, Drugs And Bon Jovi’.

Bozzett claims that he stole the negatives and kept them locked up in a safety deposit box, while the musician panicked that someone might see them. In the book he writes that, when it was realised that the pictures were missing “a panic-stricken Jon Bon Jovi immediately called up Doc [McGhee, the band’s then manager] to tell him that we needed to track down the pictures as soon as possible”.

Asked about Bozzett’s claims, a spokesperson pointed out that the former roadie might just be trying to make his book seem more interesting than it actually is, and that to suggest that a young rock star would be embarrassed by such pictures (particularly in the 80s) was just silly. They said: “This is an outtake of a photo shoot. Everyone should be so lucky at 22 years old. Rich is remembered as a nice-enough guy who was eventually in over his head as the band’s success grew. As far as his attempt to cash in on alleged experiences he had 25 years ago? No comment”.

You can see the photos here

Simon Cowell pining for Cheryl, say Jedward

And Finally

Simon Cowell will never marry his fiancée Mezhgan Hussainy because he’s hoping that he can bag Cheryl Cole instead, now that she’s back on the market. So say John and Edward Grimes, aka Jedward, anyway. And why would they lie?

Apparently speaking in unison, the pair said: “Simon Cowell isn’t getting married any more because Cheryl Cole is back on the scene. Cheryl Cole is ready to mingle with Simon Cowell”.

I don’t even know what that means. Mingle?

Approved: Rica Minami

CMU Approved

I think the main thing I love about Western-influenced Japanese music is that it contains so many familiar sounds, but those sounds are played with subtle differences that give everything a fresh feel. Often it can just be a closer attention to detail, sometimes it’s simply a lack of hipster self-consciousness. I’m never sure if this is an intentional spin or a just down to the fact that people on the opposite sides of the planet hear things differently. Whatever, I like it.

The other thing you often find with Japanese artists is that they can take various influences and mix them up in ways that Western artists just couldn’t pull off. Rica Minami, though she has been based in London for several years now, is one such musician. Jazz, math-rock drumming and gentle pop all slip together in her songs completely naturally. Often, the songs sound like they were written to be much heavier and then stripped down completely – a perfect example of this being ‘Kingyo’, which has a breakdown in the middle that you can see creating a frantic mosh pit, if it wasn’t played softly on piano rather than thrashed out on a guitar.

She has various live dates coming up, including a performance at Bincho in Soho tonight.

www.myspace.com/ricaminami

Q&A: Dandy Warhols

Artist Interviews

Starting out in 1993, The Dandy Warhols released their debut album, ‘Dandys Rule OK?’, on Tim Kerr Records in 1995, and soon went on to sign with EMI’s Capitol Records. Their first release for the label was ‘The Dandy Warhols Come Down’ in 1997, a release that created enough of global buzz around the band for them to appear on the cover of the very first edition of CMU in May 1998 (in the days when CMU had a cover). The band have just released a new compilation, ‘Best Of The Capitol Years: 1995 – 2007’, featuring tracks from all four of their releases for the label. To celebrate, we caught up with frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor to ask the Same Six.

Q1 How did you start out making music?
I began with piano and violin at about four years old. There wasn’t really anything else that got to me like music did. I grew up riding dirt bikes and shooting BB guns and shit, but music was my thing. My only thing. I began playing drums at nine and played in symphonic bands, jazz bands and marching bands throughout the rest of my schooling. I took up guitar when I was about fifteen and found it easier to write songs on that than the piano, but I didn’t actually play guitar in a band until the Warhols.

Q2 What inspired your latest album?
Albums for us are just collections of music that has happened since the last album. I have never just sat down and written an album, the individual songs are what require a direct subject matter or inspiration. Each one, of course, is different, but mostly I write songs to deal with frustration or unhappiness, and if you were to really analyse my lyrics you would probably find that nearly all of that frustration and unhappiness is caused by other people. I guess in that way you could say that other people inspire my records… but mostly in a bad way, really.

Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
I usually lay down the basic chord changes, or we lay down the basic instruments together. This is then followed by an eternity of overdubbing as many different sounds and instruments as we can think of, followed by a long and drawn out editing process, followed by mixing the final mix. The whole thing tends to take us a couple years and I’m not sure it’s the best way to go about it, but whatever. As Brent [De Boer, drums] and Zia [McCabe, keyboards] write more songs I’m sure the methods will change.

Q4 Which artists influence your work?
I can never really tell. We’re so inundated with music that I think it would be impossible to know. Usually this type of question is just an excuse to put in print a lot of bands that one thinks are cool at the time. You know, like Coldplay saying they were influenced by The Clash and Joy Division when really they sound a hell of a lot more like they’re influenced by Scott Walker and James Angell.

Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
I try not to talk during music. I learned very early in life that music is too distracting for me to keep a train of thought going. I think this is why I have such terrible social skills. Music is virtually everywhere. It is in greater abundance and more accessible than water which is the fundamental building block of life. Weird.

Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
Oh, I guess the same as ever: make it awesome, play some great shows, have fun on tour, have great parties, read some good books and continue to write one sentence movie reviews on our website so that our people and fans can waste less time and money on poorly constructed entertainment. God knows there’s just so dang much of it out there.

MORE>> www.dandywarhols.com

Single Review: !!! – AM/FM? (Warp)

Single Reviews

A driving anthem in a vein more suited to Hunter S Thomson than Bruce Springsteen, the twitching, swirling and (obviously) booty shaking ‘AM/FM?’ marks a welcome and rather sublime return for !!!

The first track from their upcoming album ‘Strange Weather, Isn’t It?’ writhes in like the mature sugarfree Red Bull to !!!’s intensely syrup-packed 2007 album ‘Myth Takes’. This is no bad thing. Much of their signature busy-busy basslines have been sidelined, and the synapse pestering pumped up funk of before is slightly more muted. There’s still that twinge of hedonism, but this time the coyly insistent vocals and swirling grooves of the track leave a little more to the imagination.

Beguiling, hypnotic, and absurdly head-nod-inducing ‘AM/FM?’ travels through the airways and onto the dance-floor in one irresistible oscillation. EG

Buy from iTunes
Buy from Amazon

Death toll rises from Love Parade stampede

Business News Gigs & Festivals Live Business Top Stories

The death toll of the Love Parade stampede rose to 20 last night as a 21 year old woman died from injuries she suffered during the tragic incident. Authorities confirmed yesterday that they had now identified the other nineteen festival-goers who died on Saturday. Meanwhile the number injured during the crowd surge was pegged at 512.

As previously reported, tragedy struck at the legendary free dance music event, this year taking place in Duisburg, when a crowd surge occurred at the only public entry point to the festival site. The entrance, which forced hundreds of thousands of revellers through a relatively narrow tunnel, had been seriously crowded for hours before the incident occurred.

It is not exactly clear what caused the crowd to surge when it did, though some have speculated that one festival-goer may have fallen onto other people while trying to climb the wall of a ramp on the festival side of the tunnel, causing panic and then a stampede. It is likely those who died fell during the panic and were trampled by the rest of the crowd.

A criminal investigation is under way to try to ascertain what really happened. Officials undertaking that investigation yesterday seized various documents from the offices of the event’s organisers, presumably to review what plans were made for controlling and protecting the safety of the hundreds of thousands of people who attended the event. It was confirmed charges of negligent homicide could be made as a result of the investigation, though it is not yet clear who might be held responsible for the tragedy.

City officials and the local police force could also both be held liable for the incident. A police union has already blamed organisers and city council men, while reports suggest city officials have also been busy distancing themselves from any liability. Possibly as a result of that, city mayor Adolf Sauerland received an unfriendly welcome from local residents when he visited the site of the crowd surge yesterday. Such an unfriendly welcome, in fact, some media are reporting security around the mayor has been stepped up.

Meanwhile, flags across Germany flew at half-mast yesterday while a shrine of flowers, candles and cards were placed around the tunnel where the crush occurred. A service of remembrance is also being planned by city officials. As previously reported, organisers of the Love Parade have announced they are bringing the two decade old event to an end following this weekend’s tragedy.

Elvis funeral preparation tools removed from sale

N-Dubz drummer in court over alleged sexual assault

Legal

Aaron Fagan, the drummer for N-Dubz’s live shows, appeared in court last week in relation to accusations that he sexually assaulted two students at Strathclyde University last October. Fagan was in Glasgow with his bandmates for the MOBO Awards, and the group seemingly held their after show party at the university’s students’ union. He denies the charges.

According to the BBC, one of the drummer’s accusers told the court that she had been leaving the students’ union when she and a friend were approached by the musician.

The alleged victim said: “He asked if I wanted to go to an N-Dubz after party. He then put his arms over our shoulders and started leading us up the stairway. As we were climbing the stairs he took his hand away from my neck and put it on my bottom and started grabbing at it. We carried on climbing the stairs and he hit my friend on the bum, too. He then moved round behind me and with both arms reaching round from behind, started to grab my breasts”.

But Fagan’s lawyer Euan Cameron put forward a different version of events, accusing the woman of approaching the musician and asking to be let into the party. He said that while his client initially agreed, when he and the girls reached the door of the party venue, another of the band’s reps refused the girls entry, calling them “mingers”. Cameron said: “Having thought that you had secured an invite to the N-Dubz party, [you] were now left looking foolish and were upset and so you told lies to a door steward you met on the way out, is that not the case?” The student denied that version of events.

The trial is due to continue this week. Fagan isn’t the only member of the N-Dubz live show entourage to be accused of sexual assault in the last year. Last November the main three members of the group had to distance themselves from Junior Edwards, their live DJ, after he was accused of rape at a party following the Naughty Reunion event at Butlin’s holiday camp in Skegness, where the urban trio had performed.

Dre sued over unpaid studio fees

Legal

Dr Dre is facing a $1.2 million lawsuit, and all for failing to pay studio hire fees. Allegedly.

The Paramount Recording Studios in California filed the million dollar lawsuit with the LA courts last week, claiming Dre has reneged on contractual commitments to pay them for use of one of their facilities between April 2009 and last month.

Reports suggest Dre has used the studios for over a decade, so it’s not clear why there is suddenly a problem over fees.

Manics announce new album details

Releases

The Manic Street Preachers have got a new album coming out. It will be their tenth and it will be called ‘Postcards From A Young Man’ and it will be released on 20 Sep. Ian McCulloch from Echo And The Bunnymen guests on one track and former Guns N Roses man Duff McKagan does a bit of guitar stuff somewhere on the album, too. The first single, ‘(It’s Not War) – Just The End Of Love’, will be out on 13 Sep.

James Dean Bradfield recently said that the album would see them in full pop mode, telling the NME: “We’re going for big radio hits on this one. It isn’t a follow-up to [2009’s] ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’. It’s one last shot at mass communication”.

Here’s the tracklist for the album:

(It’s Not War) – Just The End Of Love
Postcards From A Young Man
Some Kind of Nothingness
The Descent – (Pages 1 & 2)
Hazleton Avenue
Auto-Intoxication
Golden Platitudes
I Think I’ve Found It
A Billion Balconies Facing The Sun
All We Make Is Entertainment
The Future Has Been Here 4 Ever
Don’t Be Evil

Corgan blacks out at gig, tweets about it

Artist News Gigs & Festivals

Smashing Pumpkin man Billy Corgan collapsed on stage during a gig in Florida last week, though he isn’t entirely sure what caused him to black out. After falling over during the show, Corgan tweeted later that night: “That wasn’t a stage move or clumsiness; that was me blacking out and wiping out”, before adding: “I have no memory of falling against the drum riser and my guitar cabinet, but I can tell you I’ve got quite a good bruise [and] am moving slow”.

Zach Hill announces second solo album

Releases

Zach Hill, drummer with noise rock types Hella, has announced that his second solo album, ‘Face Tat’, will be released through Sargeant House on 19 Oct. As with his debut, it will feature collaborations with all manner of other artists, this time including Devendra Bandhart plus members of No Age, Deerhoof and Prefuse 73.

Talking words about the album, Hill said: “There’s an emphasis on experimenting with ‘destroying’ sounds, so that the source of the melody, rhythms, vocals, etc, is not recognisable or traceable, and then building these things into abstract forms of pop music with conventional structures. Some of the most melodic aspects to this recording are coming from things like the sound of urinating on a stack of Rolling Stone magazines (I have a subscription), kicking in the screen of a computer, arguments on the street, etc”.

He continued: “Lyrically, many of the songs started from me writing down a lot of out-of-context sentences I’d hear in passing or from personal exchanges that I found really visual, stimulating or to which I felt a connection. I like the idea of making these very real but obscure moments that are otherwise unknown or gone forever into their own weird little worlds”.

The names of the songs are these:

Memo To The Man
The Primitives Talk
Ex-Ravers
The Sacto Smile
Green Bricks
House Of Hits
Jackers
Burner In The Video
Dizzy From The Twins
Gross Sales
Total Recall
Face Tat
Second Life

Seefeel announce first new album for fourteen years

Releases

Shoegaze and electronica blenders Seefeel will release their first album since 1996’s ‘(CH-VOX)’ later this year, with the first single from it, ‘Faults’, on 20 Sep via Warp.

The band reformed in 2008 to play a one-off show in Paris as part of Warp’s 20th anniversary celebrations, with former Boredoms drummer Iida Kazuhisa (aka E-da) and bassist Shigeru Ishihara (aka DJ Scotch Egg) replacing Justin Fletcher and Daren Seymour. It was after this show that they decided to work on new material.

Guitarist Mark Clifford explained: “We always said that we wouldn’t record a new Seefeel record unless we could present something that we felt was new. When [1993 debut album] ‘Quique’ was re-issued a couple of years back myself and Sarah [Peacock, vocals and guitar] did some interviews together and we talked about recording new material. We exchanged a few ideas which were OK and things slowly got into gear, but it was being asked to do the Warp20 show in Paris that really forced us to step up a couple of notches and since then, with the addition of E-da and Shige, things have developed and grown”.

Warp co-founder Steve Beckett added: “Seefeel were the first band that Warp signed who had guitars – they were brave to sign to us, because they became the ‘older siblings’ in the family and took all the flak by breaking the unwritten rules of an (up until then) purely dance label. After 1995’s ‘Succour’ [their only album for Warp until now] they stopped performing live, but we always kept in touch and then for the first Warp20 show in Paris we asked if they would play”.

He continued: “They came back six months later – not just with a record, but a great record. This band needs to be heard, they need to be seen, so that’s why we got involved again. Family members might leave for a long time but they always come home”.

The band will perform live at London’s ICA on 16 Sep ahead of the single release. The album’s release date has not yet been confirmed.

School Of Seven Bells guitarist Benjamin Curtis selected ‘Plainsong’ from Seefeel’s 1993 debut album ‘Quique’ for his CMU Weekly Powers Of Ten playlist, saying: “It’s one of the best things Seefeel ever did, and that’s saying a lot, because they’re great”.

Listen to the full playlist here: www.completemusicupdate.com/playlists/schoolofsevenbells.html

Yuck announce more tour dates

Gigs & Festivals

Everyone’s talking about Yuck at the moment, which must be why they are touring so much. The band will be back on the road again in September and October, including dates supporting Modest Mouse. Ahead of that, they will be supporting The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart at Heaven in London this Thursday, as well as playing various festival dates. The band’s debut album is due for release in October.

Tour dates:

29 Jul: London, Heaven (Supporting The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart)
31 Jul: Field Day
27 Aug: Leeds Festival
28 Aug: Reading Festival
31 Aug: Newcastle, Academy (supporting Modest Mouse)
1 Sep: Liverpool, Academy (supporting Modest Mouse)
8 Sep: London, Troxy (supporting Modest Mouse)
11 Sep: Bestival
14 Sep: London, White Heat
2 Oct: Oxford, The Cellar
6 Oct: Brighton, The Hope
8 Oct: Bristol, Cooler
9 Oct: Nottingham, Stealth
10 Oct: Wolverhampton, Little Civic
11 Oct: Glasgow, Captain’s Rest
12 Oct: Newcastle, Head Of Steam
14 Oct: Sheffield, Harley
15 Oct: Manchester, Band On The Wall
16 Oct: Leeds, Nation Of Shopkeepers

Albarn accepts blame for Gorillaz Glastonbury reviews

Artist News Gigs & Festivals

Damon Albarn has said he accepts responsibility for the poor reception that Gorillaz received from some fans and critics after the band’s headline slot at Glastonbury last month.

He told the BBC: “We were yet to change the dynamic entirely from the cartoon band [with us] acting purely as a film orchestra into something that had more of a human element to it. Basically, the difference between that and the next gig we did at Roskilde, which was the same sized audience, same age demographic, was I just communicated with the audience more”.

He rambled on: “I introduced Bobby Womack, introduced Lou Reed, introduced anyone. I didn’t take for granted that if these people were going to be at the front then there had to be some kind of human interaction. It evolved into something with more human interaction. I know what people were reacting to”.

Lebron Brothers to headline Carnaval del Pueblo

Artist News Gigs & Festivals

Salsa legends The Lebron Brothers will headline this Sunday’s Carnaval del Pueblo, Europe’s largest Latin music festival, in south London’s Burgess Park. Having been at the forefront of Latin music for over 40 years, the band have announced that this will be their final UK performance, and possibly their final show outside America.

Spread over four stages and kicked off with a three mile carnival procession, the event is also completely free to get into, which is nice.

More info at www.carnavaldelpueblo.co.uk

Festival line-up update – 27 Jul 2010

Artist News Festival Line-Up Update Gigs & Festivals

BELLADRUM TARTAN HEART FESTIVAL, Beauly, Inverness-shire, 6-7 Aug: I Am Arrows head up the final batch of acts confirmed to play at Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival, along with King Creosote, Wilder, Sorren Maclean Band, Abigail Grey and Tiffany Page. www.tartanheartfestival.co.uk

HEADSTOCK, Newstead & Annesley Country Park, East Midlands, 11 Sep: Ash have been added as a headliner to this summer’s Headstock, with The Beat, Field Music, Edward II and The Penguin Café Orchestra also added to the line-up. www.headstockfestival.com

Decca appointments

Business News Industry People Labels & Publishers

Universal UK has announced that Simon Gavin, currently the boss of A&M UK, will move to a new role within the major’s Decca division. He will become MD of the snappily titled Decca Affiliated Labels unit, which will see him overseeing and signing new talent to imprints like Verve, Blue Thumb and Impulse. He will continue to be the A&R contact for Duffy, his big signing to A&M, though her records will continue to be released with an A&M logo on them rather than the Decca symbol.

Elsewhere in the Decca empire, current MD Dickon Stainer will take on the new role of President of the Decca Records Group, while the division’s current General Manager, Mark Wilkinson, will become MD of the Decca Records label, if you follow. Which is more than I do, to be honest.

Universal UK top man David Joseph said all this: “I am immensely proud of what Dickon and his team have already achieved at Decca, creating a company which never thinks of itself as niche or specialist but instead demonstrates a breadth of vision and confidence which is unrivalled in the UK business. With Dickon, Mark and Simon in their new roles, I am certain Decca will grow further to sit alongside Universal Music UK’s other frontline music companies”.

Jesse Rose to fight leaks with new record label

Business News Legal

Berlin-based producer and DJ Jesse Rose has announced he is launching a new label that will quietly release special one-off singles, his aim seemingly being to stop the new tracks from leaking ahead of release by not sending out any advance copies to journalists or DJs.

The lack of media hyping also means fans will have to be clued in to know about new releases, which Rose hopes will reduce the amount of piracy that goes on, and will make fans of his artists feel special. Or something like that. It’s not entirely clear if this new label – called Play It Down – has been solely set up to cut out DJs and reviewers, or whether that is just a strategy it has decided to adopt.

The first release on the label is a single from house producer Oliver $, entitled ‘Shaka Lao’, which is out this week. Releases from Zombie Disco Squad and SLG are also lined up.
Rose already owns two other labels, Made To Play and Front Room Recordings.

American Idol label partnership up for renewal

Business News Labels & Publishers Media

Word has it Sony Music’s contract with the ‘American Idol’ franchise is up for renewal and show creator Simon Fuller – who still has an executive producer role on the programme – is in talks with other majors, in particular Universal, about doing a deal for future show winners.

The record sales of recent American idols haven’t been quite as good as back in the show’s hey day, though with all that free telly exposure, a relationship with the programme will still be attractive to both current partners Sony and their competitors.

More Gtunes speculation – now they’re talking to Harry

Digital

Google has accelerated talks regarding the launch of its much talked about download store, according to the New York Post. The paper’s main proof of this seems to be sources who say that the web firm is in talks with the Harry Fox Agency, the US equivalent of MCPS in the digital domain.

As previously reported, speculation has been rife for months (well, years actually, but more so in recent months) that the web firm is about to launch one of those iTunes-killing music services. Up until now Google’s music dabblings have been based around its existing search service, and have piggy backed on other music platforms like MySpace Music for actual audio content. It is thought the net giant is now planning a proper download and streaming service, presumably tapping into all that consumer data they have on us Gmail users.

As also previously reported, last week commentators noted that Google had hired the services of legal lady Elizabeth Moody, who specialises in negotiating licensing deals between digital firms and record companies.

Univision fined for payola

Media

American media regulator the FCC and the US Justice Department have fined Univision Media a million dollars after finding the company guilty of participating in payola, the practice whereby radio chiefs accept bribes from record labels to play their music, a big no no under US broadcasting rules.

Univision, which specialises in Latin American content, operates a radio business and used to have a record company too. Both divisions were found guilty of payola – ie the radio bosses were accepting bribes, and label execs were making them – with execs at the Univision record labels mainly bribing programmers at Univision radio stations, which does seem a bit crazy. The actual fine works out at half a million for the radio firm and half a million for the music company. The latter fine will have to be paid even though Univision sold its record labels to Universal in 2008.

Payola traditionally involved labels paying radio station execs cash bribes, though most recent cases have seen radio execs getting extravagant gifts instead. That said, some of the Univision bribery did involve hard cash. Although applying the highest possible fines, the FCC conceded that this latest case of payola activity was undertaken by a small number of individuals within Univision’s music and radio divisions, and was not sanctioned by bosses at a group level.

The Univision radio company also had to agree to sign up to a code of conduct regarding accepting gifts and prizes off music companies, similar to those instigated during the last major American payola crack down, instigated by then New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

Orion not interested in being Smooth, thank you very much

Media

Local radio firm Orion Media has denied those previously reported claims in the Sunday Telegraph that they had approached the Guardian Media Group about buying its radio division, which owns the Smooth, Real and Rock Radio networks.

Orion boss Phil Riley told Media Week yesterday: “It’s completely utterly wrong and absolutely not true. I speak to every person in radio every week, but I have not tabled an offer to GMG. That is categorically not true”. So, that’s that cleared up. The Telegraph also said UTV Radio was interested in GMG’s radio assets. They haven’t commented on the reports.

Total Rock World Album Chart – w/c 26 Jul 2010

Artist News

It’s this week’s Total Rock World Album Chart, as counted down on Total Rock last weekend – www.totalrock.com. New entries and re-entries marked with a *.

1. Ozzy Osbourne – Scream (Sony) (pictured)
2. AC/DC – Iron Man 2 (Sony)
3. Train – Save Me, San Francisco (Sony/Columbia)
4. Muse – The Resistance (Warner Bros)
5. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – Mojo (Warner Bros)
6. Rolling Stones – Exile On Main Street (Universal)
7. Nickelback – Dark Horse (Warner/Roadrunner)
8. Slash – Slash (Warner/Roadrunner)
9. Godsmack – The Oracle (Universal/Republic)
10. Guns N Roses – Greatest Hits (Universal/Geffen)
11. Bullet For My Valentine – Fever (Sony)
12. Shinedown – The Sound Of Madness (Warner/Atlantic)
13. Paramore – Brand New Eyes (Warner/Atlantic)*
14. Korn – Korn III – Remember Who You Are (Warner/Roadrunner)*
15. Kiss – Sonic Boom (Warner/Roadrunner)
16. Foo Fighters – Greatest Hits (Roswell)
17. Journey – Greatest Hits (Sony)
18. Queen – Absolute Greatest (EMI)*
19. Daughtry – Leave This Town (Sony/RCA)*
20. Creedence Clearwater Revival – Best Of (Fantasy)*

“Rod is rubbish”: Mick Hucknall attempts to appease Faces fans

And Finally

Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall, who is currently standing in for Rod Stewart as frontman of The Faces, who reunited this year, has attempted to calm fans who would rather see the band with their original singer. He did this by announcing that he is much better at singing and Rod would just ruin it. Well, maybe I’m paraphrasing a little. But that is what he said.

Hucknall reportedly told the Daily Express: “It’s a shame that Rod can’t do it but then Rod isn’t the Rod of 1973. Those songs, the keys are so high and it’s pretty intense staying at that kind of pitch for the whole night”

Approved: Young Empires

CMU Approved

Canadian pop trio Young Empires formed in Toronto late last year and nine months later are starting to turn an increasing number of heads with a handful of impressive demos, which have been distributed liberally around the blogosphere. One in particular, ‘Rain Of Gold’, is rising up the Hype Machine charts. They’re also one of the bands that everyone who attended this year’s NXNE festival in Canada seems to have come home flapping their mouths off about.

Although I labelled them pop back there, they refer to their sound as ‘world beat haute rock’, which apparently means house beats with pop synths and the odd African or Middle Eastern flourish thrown in there for good measure. This inevitably means that I want to mention Yeasayer, though the connection is loose at best. Maybe Fool’s Gold would be better, and there’s also a touch of Empire Of The Sun in there, too. I don’t know, why don’t you try and work it out for yourself, as they’re touring the UK this week and next, starting tonight at the White Heat night at Madame JoJo’s in Soho.

www.myspace.com/youngempires

Q&A: Tiësto

Artist Interviews

Dutch DJ and producer Tiësto released his debut album, ‘In My Memory’, in 2001, subsequently topping DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs poll three times consecutively from 2002 to 2004 before becoming the first DJ to play live at the Olympics, when he performed at the 2008 opening ceremony. His fourth album ‘Kaleidoscope’ was released in October last year, and he is all set to play a headline show in London’s Victoria Park on Friday, 30 Jul. Ahead of that, we caught up with Tiësto to ask the Same Six.

Q1 How did you start out making music?
I was interested in music from an early age. I would listen to a radio show called the Soul Show, and to Ben Liebrand’s mix show, where he would remix different tracks, and one day I just decided that I wanted to give it a try. I started to buy records and put together mixes, making them the way I thought they should sound.

Q2 What inspired your latest album?
The starting point was to work with different artists that I liked. I was listening to a lot of indie-rock, electro, techno and house and drew inspiration from this.

Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
I usually start things off by producing and coming up with the main idea of the song, building things as I go. If it’s a vocal track, than I add the vocals after I have built the basis of the song. When it came to working with the different artists on ‘Kaleidoscope’, it worked in a similar way. I would start things off, and then we would exchange it back and forth til it was finished. I like a song that has strong emotion to it. I also love a great arrangement; how a song builds, then crescendos is always important in my favorite tracks.

Q4 Which artists influence your work?
I was influenced by a broad range of music in my youth. Sven Väth has been a big influence for me throughout my career. U2 have been a big influence on my live shows. I have so many different inspirations, it’s hard to choose.

Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
As with all music just approach it with an open mind. I hope they like it.

Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
I always start every new project with the same mindset, to progress as an artist and take my sound in a new and interesting direction.

MORE>> www.tiesto.com

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