Thursday 27 September 2012, 11:17 | By CMU Editorial

Usher postpones Euro Euphoria Tour

Gigs & Festivals

A very un-euphoric bulletin on Usher Raymond IV’s European ‘Euphoria’ tour now, as the R&B star sets back all dates to 2013 to honour “personal and professional commitments”. Essentially, he’d rather spend time just now with his young children and as a guest ‘coach’ on the US version of ‘The Voice’ than, for example, on stage at Sheffield’s Motorpoint Arena.

Usher devotes his in-absentia love and regret to fans via his official site, UsherWorld (which I wish was a theme park), writing: “The feeling of euphoria that I get when performing for you is indescribable. I love each and every one of you and thank you for being there every step of the way. I truly appreciate and am grateful for your support while I take this time to focus on my children and continue to evolve with my fans. Evolve or evaporate”.

Slow Club to play Christmas live dates

Gigs & Festivals

I can’t think of any band I’d rather see live at Christmas time than former “fat toddlers from Rotheram” Slow Club, which is fortunate, because they’re going to be touring in mid-December.

And those tour dates are:

14 Dec: Glasgow, Oran Mor
15 Dec: Manchester, Gorilla
16 Dec: Sheffield, Social Club
17Dec: London, Koko

Meanwhile, in extra irrelevant and inexplicable Slow Club news, this is what happened when co-vocalist Rebecca interviewed ex ‘Fame Academy’ prefect Lemar:

Festival line-up additions – 27 Sep 2012

Business News Festival Line-Up Update Gigs & Festivals

BEARDED THEORY, Kedleston Hall Park, Derby, 17-19 May: Maroon Town, Buster Shuffle, Left Step Band, Port Erin, The Membranes, Tornado Town House Band the Boot Hill All Stars, Bootscraper, The Bakseats, Frenzy, Sunday Driver. www.beardedtheory.co.uk

DAMNATION FESTIVAL, Leeds University Union, Leeds, 3 Nov: Electric Wizard, My Dying Bride, Pig Destroyer, Belphegor, Amenra, Primordial, Extreme Noise Terror, Textures, Devil Sold His Soul, Aura Noir, Gama Bomb, 40 Watt Sun, Maybeshewill, Bossk, Vreid, Hawk Eyes, Winterfylleth, Wodensthrone, Witchsorrow, Hang The Bastard, The Atrocity Exhibit, Hawk Eyes, Ravens Creed. www.damnationfestival.co.uk

EASTERN PROMISE, Platform, Easterhouse, Glasgow, 5-6 Oct: Lightships, Adrian Crowley, Matthew Bourne, Alexander Tucker, Land Observations, Feel Right, The Monochrome Set, Sexual Objects, Richard Youngs, Plank! www.platform-online.co.uk

European creative industry groups issue declaration on private copying remuneration

Business News Labels & Publishers Legal

Pan-European indie labels trade body IMPALA and the International Federation Of Musicians are among a number of creative industry trade bodies to sign a declaration calling on political leaders in Europe to ensure ‘private copying remuneration’ remains part of the copyright system in European countries where a private copy right exists.

As previously reported, in most European countries copyright law allows users of content to make private copies for personal use without permission from the copyright owner – so if a music fan buys a CD, they can legitimately rip it to their PC, transfer the files to their smartphone, and burn a back-up CDR for the car. Or, as is becoming more relevant in this domain of late, upload copies of their digital music files to a digital locker like those operated by Google, Amazon and Apple, and re-access their files via any net-connected device.

The private-copy right principle emerged in the mid-20th century when home recording devices became widely available. In most countries where the right was introduced, copyright owners were compensated by some kind of ‘remuneration’ system, which usually involved a levy being applied to blank recording media like cassettes and CDRs, which would be somehow passed back to the creative communities whose work was being copied.

Of course those systems have become redundant as sales of cassettes and CDRs have slumped. The challenge has been to decide what new devices to apply levies to, and around the world different countries where remuneration exists have tackled this in different ways. The obvious thing is to add the levy to MP3 players, though the technology companies which make such devices have tried to resist such a move where they can. And their arguments possibly get stronger as MP3 players become redundant, replaced by smartphones, because phone makers will say that a sizable number of consumers will never use their mobiles to make copies of music.

All of which is why European Commissioner Michel Barnier has appointed a mediator to discuss the matter with all stakeholders in Europe, and propose some long-term solutions. Which is why IMPALA, FIM et al have issued a statement on the matter now, fearing that the big technology companies will use Barnier’s review to try and get the levies axed completely.

Their statement said: “Rightsholders have always been and remain willing to discuss ways of making the system work better for everyone. This compensation for hundreds of thousands of creators across Europe has not hampered device sales in countries where it is applied. Our members do not understand the heavy lobbying of electronics manufacturers to abolish this remuneration system, which, although perhaps not entirely perfect (and we, the undersigned, are open to discussions on how to improve it), clearly achieves its objectives. Consumers are able to copy legally onto and between their different devices and creators are remunerated for such uses”.

“The undersigned organisations, representing authors, performers and producers of musical, audiovisual, literary and visual arts works, declare the following… Rightsholders have a right to authorise all reproduction of their works but have accepted reasonable exceptions to this right in the interest of the public and practicality provided they received remuneration for such acts. Rightsholders deserve to be fairly and proportionally remunerated for their work and all uses thereof. Private copying generates an essential part of rightsholders’ remuneration. Remuneration payable on the copying media and devices is the best way of linking the act of making private copies to the payment of remuneration to rightsholders. The current remuneration system, as applied in most European countries, is not intrusive and preserves the privacy of consumers”.

Of course, as also previously reported, in the UK there is no private copy right, so no such remuneration system exists, even though millions of consumers have made private copies of music for years. Though the European review is still relevant here. Two government reviews in the last decade have said a private copy right should be introduced in the UK, but without remuneration. In theory the government is meant to be looking into putting that recommendation into action, and the music industry is getting ready to lobby for a levy (or something similar).

Arguably the strongest argument for the UK copyright system providing remuneration to rights owners for private copying is the requirement to be harmonised with the rest of Europe, so those in the British industry who plan to lobby for a levy system if and when private copying is allowed here need the concept of remuneration to remain at a European level.

Kim Dotcom previews Megabox

Digital MegaUpload Timeline

Hey, if the all new MySpace can have a video giving some idea (well, not much, bit a little) of what you might be able to do with it, why not Megabox too?

MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom’s new service has done exactly that, though its video has more people sitting at computers looking like they’re working hard and 100% less Justin Timberlake. It does, however, show artists including Radiohead, David Bowie, Rihanna, Blur, Foo Fighters, Arctic Monkeys and of course Dotcom himself (his track ‘Party Amplifier also soundtracks the video) listed on the site. Whether any of those other than Dotcom is actively signed up to use Megabox is another matter. I doubt it.

As previously reported, Megabox is basically a direct-to-fan platform for artists, though with the innovation that users can choose to give away tracks and earn off ads or other revenue-generating schemes instead (which isn’t 100% innovative actually, but will be the big selling point it seems). Dotcom says artists will be given over 90% of revenues linked to their music.

Watch the video here:

New Ke$ha song inspired by ghost sex

And Finally

One of the songs on Ke$ha’s forthcoming new album, ‘Warrior’, was inspired by the times she has had sex with a ghost. Well, that’s what she says, and I see no reason why she’d lie about such a thing. Yes, Ke$ha has had ghost sex (twice) and you’re just going to have to deal with that.

The singer told Ryan Seacrest: “It’s about experiences with the supernatural… but in a sexy way. Well, I don’t know his name! He was a ghost. It was just like… I had a couple experiences with the supernatural. I’m very open to it”.

So there you go. The album is due out 3 Dec, and here’s new single ‘Die Young’, which may or may not be about ghosts too:

Editor’s Letter: A cruel summer for festivals

Editor's Letter

I think it’s fair to say, 2012 has been a tough year for UK festivals. Bad weather, the Olympics, the recession, increased competition from festivals on mainland Europe, a lack of new bands hitting headliner status and the BBC putting on a big fat free event in London have all been blamed for adding to the strain. And the fact that there are just so many festivals to choose from shouldn’t be overlooked either.

A few music events (particularly smaller ones) dropping off the calendar each year has become a given in recent years, but this year there has been a seemingly endless stream of festival failures and misfortunes. Big Chill, Sonisphere, Rough Beats, Cloud 9, Golden Down, MFEST, Hit Factory Live and the Underage Festival all pulled the plug before their 2012 editions took place, for a variety of different reasons and some with very little notice. Bloc and Creamfields, meanwhile, both cancelled in mid flow – the former due to overcrowding and the latter because of flooding.

Bloc, too, is one of the festival companies to fall into administration this year due to debts racked up, joining All Tomorrow’s Parties, and this week Guilfest and Vince Power’s entire festival company, in that unenviable club.

And those last two, Guilfest and Music Festivals plc, both of which went into administration within 24 hours of each other this week, are perhaps the sharpest indicators of just how badly the festivals market has been hit this year. Guilfest has been a mainstay of the British festival scene for 21 years, starting out as a one day event in 1992, and arguably paving the way for the more recent boom in ‘family-friendly’ events. But one year of bad weather has left the event with debts of £300,000 it can’t repay, and founder Tony Scott has told the BBC that the only chance of bringing it back again will be to find someone with “deeper pockets” to take it over.

Music Festivals plc, meanwhile, was launched and floated on the AIM stock market just over a year ago with great fanfare, expecting strong returns from its two main festival brands – Hop Farm in Kent and Benicassim in Spain. But by May, the company’s boss, former Mean Fiddler chief Vince Power, was forced to admit to shareholders that the market was slow and things weren’t going quite as planned. In July he had to loan the company £750,000 in order to keep it afloat. And in August the company’s shares had dropped to 3p each, from 65p with the company first floated in June 2011. By the time trading was suspended last week, they’d fallen to 2p – giving the company a valuation of £200,000.

Some of the events listed above will still return next year of course, but undoubtedly the 2013 festival calendar will look very different to that of 2012. And behind the scenes, things will likely remain challenging, even if the sun decides to shine a bit more, and without the distraction of the Olympics and the accompanying competition of Radio 1’s Hackney Weekend.

Some of this year’s problems will also add extra pressure on your average festival promoter next year, especially the smaller ones. Back in July, Music Glue’s Mark Meharry predicted the Bloc debacle alone would have major implications, telling CMU: “There is going to be a significant knock-on effect [from this] and it will affect the entire live industry. Online payment gateways started getting really nervous [about live events] when Michael Jackson died, because of the scale of the risks involved with online ticketing [when events are cancelled last minute]. They began to clamp down on the risks and have recently forced ticketing companies to guarantee that funds for high-risk events are not passed to the event organisers until after the event happens”.

Which is a nightmare for smaller festival promoters, who need to access ticket money upfront for cash flow. Meharry noted that some ticketing firms handed over the money anyway, taking on the risk attached with paying such advances. While other ticketing providers let the promoters themselves take the credit card payments – by setting up ‘merchant accounts’ with their banks – so the money went straight to the festival organiser.

But: “If Bloc do not refund the money to customers in a timely manner, the payment gateway will be forced by the credit card companies to refund every customer in full and the shockwave through the financial services industry will impact all of us. In plain English, going forward this convenient loophole will close and the festival merchant accounts will be immediately frozen by payment gateways; the money tap will stop and festivals will not receive ticket revenue until after the event”.

And, of course, earlier this month Bloc’s organisers admitted that ticketbuyers’ best chance of getting their money back would indeed be to make claims through their credit card providers. Whether the impact will be as severe as Meharry predicted remains to be seen, but for smaller festival promoters losing access to upfront funds would be disastrous, and immediately give an advantage to the major players which have access to other monies or decent banking facilities.

But, for all this doom and gloom, is there a positive to be found out of all this? We Got Tickets’ Dave Newton told The Guardian this week: “Over the last three or four years there has been a growing sense that the [festival] market has become too crowded. There is a bit of auto-correction going on. Prices have accelerated too much. People are being asked to pay £100 for a ticket that five years ago would have cost £35”.

Although many factors have combined to cause the particularly high number of problems for festivals this year, some sort of collapse in the market has seemed inevitable for some time. Since the mid-90s there’s been an explosion in the number of festivals.

Festival Republic’s Melvin Benn told The Stool Pigeon earlier this year: “Through the 70s and 80s there were just two festivals: Reading and Glastonbury. Then, during the mid- to late-90s, there was quite an explosion. That is clearly retracting now. Will we go back to the 70s or 80s model? I don’t think so. Festivals have become so much part of youth culture. My feeling is in ten years’ time we will be looking at something not that dissimilar to 1997 or 1998 where there were a dozen big festivals and a number of smaller ones”.

This thought was very possibly rattling around in Benn’s head when he decided to cancel this year’s Big Chill back in January. Having originally blamed a clash with the Olympics, he admitted in July that the festival brand his company acquired in 2009 just didn’t stand out enough in the crowded marketplace any more, saying that he was not “absolutely certain where I wanted to take the festival and what I was doing with it”.

Indeed, even before Festival Republic took it on, it was always slightly telling that, for a number of years, The Big Chill always seemed to offer fantastic deals whenever other boutique festivals went under (“bring your ticket for that cancelled event and get in here extra cheap”), which always made you wonder just how much spare capacity the event had in order to absorb so many extra punters. And of course, Benn himself got ownership of the brand because the Big Chill company went under in 2009.

Back in the day, The Big Chill was a totally unique event within the festival market – a complete revelation when it first arrived – and a very welcome alternative. But it had lost that position sometime before Benn took over, as the number of festivals in general, and even just of the Big Chill model, boomed.

So, if the real problem all along was market saturation, then a few liquidations is the solution. Which sounds harsh, and is upsetting when some of the festivals we really love hit the wall, but that’s the capitalist world we’ve all chosen to live in for you. And in some of the gaps left behind, totally new, totally different festivals will emerge from the brains of the next generation of promoters, delivering new revelations. And that, I think, is the silver lining here.

Andy Malt
Editor, CMU

Approved: Cold Cave – A Little Death To Laugh

CMU Approved

‘Darkwave’ poseur Wesley Eisold credits dead French poet Tristan Corbiere as the muse for Cold Cave’s new track ‘A Little Death To Laugh’, his first studio contrivance since 2011’s ‘Cherish The Light Years’.

Much the same as that LP; it’s a spiny, jutting structure hinging on the chill precipice of Eisold’s voice; which stabs at the spaces between his 1980s-era idols (Smith, Gahan to name two) in a guiltless funereal eulogy.

Traditionally Eisold’s solo concern, an all-new fleshier Cold Cave (as now counts Samhain’s London May, AFI’s Hunter Burgan, LCD Soundystem/Melvins’ David Scott Stone and Blood Brothers’ Cody Votolato) will release ‘A Little Death To Laugh’ as part of a seven-inch single that’s available to order now.

But if you don’t have the $10 to do that, you can always just listen to it over and over via YouTube:

Guilfest goes into administration

Business News Live Business Top Stories

Surrey-based festival Guilfest announced yesterday that it had gone into administration, following poor ticket sales for this year’s event. The news came just a day after Vince Power’s ‘Music Festivals plc – which owns the Hop Farm and Benicassim festivals, amongst others – also called into the administrators.

In a statement on the Guilfest Facebook page, parent company Scotty Events said: “Scotty Events Ltd regret to announce that Guilfest has ceased to trade due to poor ticket sales at this year’s event in July. We assess that this was down to the worst weather conditions we have experienced in history of the festival, combined with intense competition presented this year from other events. On-going matters now lie in the hands of the insolvency practitioner Leigh Adams LLP”.

Guilfest was launched in 1992 and, though reasonably small with a 20,000 capacity, has become a key fixture on the UK festival calendar – arguably being the first specific ‘family-friendly’ festival to hit the market.

Speaking to the BBC, founder Tony Scott said that poor ticket sales this year – due in part to locals holding off buying tickets in order to see how the weather turned out – had left the festival with debts of £300,000.

Scott said: “It rained on the Saturday and Sunday in 2011, but this year I’ve never known anything like it. It was a quagmire by Saturday and [by] Sunday it had turned into sticky bog. [Plus] there was a lot of competition this year. The Olympics were on, a lot of people were going to that. Farnborough Air Show was on the same weekend as us for the first time this year. There was Tom Jones playing up the road at Sandown Park, Bruce Springsteen was playing in London, and there was an awful lot going on around our weekend, as well as the bad weather”.

He added: “I’d love to see Guilfest keep going, but I think it’s got to be somebody with deeper pockets … to make sure it goes through”.

Appeal courts back McGraw in Curb dispute

Business News Labels & Publishers Legal

An appeals court in Nashville has upheld the 2011 court ruling that said that country star Tim McGraw had fulfilled his contractual obligations to his long-term label partners Curb Records, and was now free to work with other labels.

As previously reported, the nearly two decade relationship between McGraw and Curb ended in legal action in May 2011, with both sides suing the other. At the centre of the litigation was whether McGraw’s album ‘Emotional Traffic’ fulfilled his contractual commitments to the label regards new recordings, whether he was due an advance on it, and whether he was now out of contract with the record company.

In a complicated claim, Curb said the songs on ‘Emotional Traffic’ were not sufficiently new (the company said recordings started in 2008, he claims the studio work took place in 2009/10), and that McGraw therefore remained tied to the label when it came to recordings. McGraw’s lengthy countersuit said the new album was in line with his contract, and that he now considered himself to be a free agent label-wise.

Last November a court sided with McGraw in the squabble, but Curb appealed. But now an appeals court has upheld the original ruling. Which is probably just as well, as since the first hearing McGraw has entered into a new record deal with Big Machine.

Confirming the latest court ruling on the matter, a legal rep for the singer told Billboard this week: “The Court Of Appeals has affirmed the [original judge’s] ruling that Tim McGraw is now finished with being an artist on Curb Records. He’s now a Big Machine artist and he is no longer a Curb artist”.

When McGraw signed to Big Machine earlier this year, Curb issued a statement insisting the singer was still on its roster, and said that the courts would ultimately rule that it would actually own copyrights in any new recordings made under the Big Machine deal. Though this week’s appeal decision does not seem to concur with that view.

According to Billboard, Curb could still appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court, though could not then proceed to the federal courts on this issue, meaning just one more route of appeal remains.

Wilson and Jardine pissed off that Love now plans to tour with his alternative Beach Boys

Artist News

Founding members of The Beach Boys Al Jardine and Brian Wilson are seemingly pissed off that fellow founder member Mike Love plans to continue touring using the moniker, but without the other originals.

Love, of course, has always continued to tour as The Beach Boys with a newer and occasionally changing line-up of bandmates, he owning the rights to the name. But this year, to mark the band’s 50th anniversary, he has toured once again with Jardine and Wilson, both of whom have had rocky relationships with Love over the years.

But with the 50th anniversary stint now nearly done, Love will return to the road with his usual Beach Boys show, despite both Jardine and Wilson seemingly keen to do more with the band. But Love says: “The 50th anniversary tour was designed to go for a year and then end. You’ve got to be careful not to get overexposed … There are promoters who are interested but they’ve said, ‘Give it a rest for a year'”.

But, according to The Guardian, Jardine is now asking fans to sign a petition to try to force Love to tour with the him and Wilson, ie the surviving original members of the outfit. Love’s other Beach Boys is a “money-saving, stripped-down version”, he said.

And even Wilson, who has traditionally been the hold-out who has stopped previous original line-up reunion plans from coming to fruition, seems annoyed he is being deprived the chance to continue touring under the Beach Boys name.

He told CNN: “I’m disappointed and can’t understand why Mike doesn’t want to tour with Al and me. After all, we are the real Beach Boys”.

So, despite all the recent chumminess, could the Beach Boys be heading for another public falling out and/or legal battle? Hey, let’s hope so.

LMFAO not splitting, just spring cleaning their brains

Artist News

LMFAO aren’t splitting up after all, according to the duo’s Sky Blu, they’re just working on other projects in order to “free up our minds and stuff” before returning for more party rocking.

Sky Blu told MTV: “We’ve been working as LMFAO for so long and, you know, we’ve been working on a lot of other projects as well. And so I feel like … we need to kind of realise these other projects we’ve been working on. And it’ll free up our minds and stuff, [enabling us] to take on another LMFAO project [in the future], because the next one we do, it’s got to be that like [an] amazing, amazing crazy album, and stuff like that. It’s kind of like, let us get our wind up, let us kind of show the world who we are as individuals, and then we come together stronger than ever”.

So, it’s OK, you can stop your crying now. Or start. Whatever.

Trent Reznor allies with Columbia, names new How To Destroy Angels EP

Business News Deals Labels & Publishers

Trent Reznor has “formally partnered” with Sony’s Columbia in the US for a “series of releases” by How To Destroy Angels, his collaboration with wife Mariqueen Maandig, Atticus Ross and Rob Sheridan. The band will issue six track EP ‘An Omen’ on 12 Nov, and are also preparing an LP for release in early 2013.

So that’s all very nice, but what of renowned DIY advocate Reznor’s opting to associate with a major? “Regarding our decision to sign with Columbia”, he notes via a statement on the HTDA Facebook page, “it really comes down to us experimenting and trying new things to see what best serves our needs. Complete independent releasing has its great points, but also comes with shortcomings”.

A surprising compromise, perhaps, given his past criticism of the majors and various spats with former label Universal Music (not to mentioned his very public feud with the albeit independent TVT Records in the early 90s), which at one point included him encouraging fans to either steal his music, or at least not buy it. And HTDA’s new releases will represent Reznor’s first since 2007 (when Nine Inch Nails declined to renew their contract with Universal’s Interscope) not exclusively credited to his own independent label, The Null Corporation.

Though, given Reznor’s usual candidness regards his business ventures, it will be interesting to see how this major-label partnership experiment turns out.

Coldplay to release live album and DVD

Releases

Coldplay have announced that they will release a live album and concert film, ‘Live 2012’, on 19 Nov. New single ‘Hurts Like Heaven’ will also be released on the same day.

Says Chris Martin: “The ‘Mylo Xyloto’ tour has been the most fun we’ve ever had as a band. It’s felt very uplifting right from the start; partly because we are proud of the music, the LED wristbands, the pyrotechnics, the lasers and all of that stuff, but mainly because of the amazing audiences that we’ve been playing for. Over the years, our crowd has become more and more a part of the concert itself. They’re loud, diverse, full of soul, and make the songs sound much better than we can on our own. We wanted to try to bottle the incredible feeling that they give us, and hence our concert film”.

The film is directed by Paul Dugdale, who was also responsible for Adele’s ‘Live At The Royal Albert Hall and The Prodigy’s ‘Worlds On Fire’, and includes footage from various concerts from June 2011 onwards, including the Stade de France in Paris, the Bell Centre in Montreal and the Pyramid Stage at last year’s Glastonbury festival.

Dugdale explains: “We wanted to make a film that was as intimate as it was epic, punctuating Coldplay’s colour-drenched performance with candid portraits of the band. The set is curated from several concerts around the globe, using the 75,000-capacity Stade de France as the backbone. It’s a 90 minute kaleidoscope of emotions. My main objective as a filmmaker was to make the viewers’ eyes widen and their hearts beat faster”.

Watch the trailer for the film here:

Lana Del Rey details deluxe LP

Releases

Lana Del Rey has gifted us all with further specifics about that ‘Paradise Edition’ reissue of her debut album ‘Born To Die’ she was gushing over in late July, you know the one.

We now know the titles of its seven bonus tracks, and they are (in order of appearance) ‘Ride’, ‘American’, ‘Cola’, ‘Body Electric’, ‘Blue Velvet’, ‘Gods & Monsters’, ‘Yayo’ and ‘Bel Air’. The divine suite is released on 12 Nov as either a standard CD/vinyl LP, or as a super-deluxe boxset also featuring remixes, a ‘Blue Velvet’ seven-inch and a DVD of Del Rey’s various ‘Born To Die’ videos.

You can hear ‘Blue Velvet’ via the promo for Lana’s Lynchian new H&M campaign, and/or a montage of all seven bonus tracks via this trailer.

‘Ride’, a studio collaboration with Rick Rubin and Del Rey’s ‘Video Games’ writing partner Justin Parker, will be available as a single on 11 Nov . Why not listen to it now, ideally while looking at a photo of Lana on a tire swing:

Willie Nelson to publish new memoir

Artist News

Harper Collins has confirmed it will publish Willie Nelson’s new memoir, ‘Roll Me Up And Smoke Me When I Die’. Featuring artwork by Nelson’s son Micah and a forward by Texan musician Kinky Friedman, the weed-themed chronicle and “road journal” is set for release on 13 Nov. Perhaps Rusty Fleming could buy Fiona Apple a copy for Christmas.

Conor Oberst to play solo shows

Gigs & Festivals

Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst is to take a solo European tour, it’s been announced, including a couple of “unique and intimate” dates in London and Dublin. He’ll play a set featuring tracks from across his back catalogue, first at the London Barbican on 4 Feb, and also at Dublin’s National Concert Hall on 5 Feb.

Details and tickets via this link.

Jessie Ware to tour in 2013

Gigs & Festivals

Personable pop babe Jessie Ware, who’s touring anyway this November, is now set to double her live presence via a second series of dates in March 2013.

As was decreed last week, she’ll also release her fifth ‘Devotion’ single ‘Night Light’ on 22 Oct. This is officially its video:

6 Mar: Cambridge, Junction 1
7 Mar: Manchester, Ritz
8 Mar: Glasgow, ABC
9 Mar: Birmingham, Institute
11 Mar: Oxford, Academy
12 Mar: Bristol, Academy
13 Mar: London, Shepherd’s Bush Empire

Errors share live dates, new music

Gigs & Festivals

Glaswegian synth trio Errors have new mini LP ‘New Relics’ to promote – it being released on 1 Oct – and to that end have arranged to tour that same month. They’ll also play Norwich’s Sound & Vision Festival and Cardiff’s SWN on 11 and 20 Oct respectively, so that’s nice.

And the dates of the tour proper are:

6 Oct: Stirling, Tolbooth
10 Oct: Manchester, Soup Kitchen
12 Oct: Newcastle, Hoults Yard
13 Oct: Edinburgh, Electric Circus
17 Oct: Nottingham, Bodega
18 Oct: London, Heaven
19 Oct: Bristol, The Cooler

‘New Relics’, by the way, will be available via Rock Action Records in all standard formats, plus as a limited edition VHS tape. Yesterday, Errors stashed videos for its eight tracks across various music websites, so screen a couple of the ones I’ve watched so far – ‘Hemlock’ and ‘Pegasus’ – now, or spin the ‘web wheel’ to cycle between videos via Drowned In Sound.

LA billionaire interested in AEG

Business News Live Business

According to Reuters, Patrick Soon-Shiong, an LA-based billionaire surgeon, who amassed his fortune by building and selling two pharmaceutical companies, is reportedly interested in bidding for live entertainment major AEG, which current owner Anschutz basically put up for sale last week.

Named by Forbes as LA’s richest man, Soon- Shiong could actually afford to buy AEG himself, his fortune being valued at just over the expected $7 billion asking price, though he will obviously lead a consortium of financiers, with Reuters naming financial services firm Guggenheim Partners as a possible partner on any deal.

It will be AEG’s various sporting interests, especially in the US, that will be of most interest to Soon-Shiong, who has already pumped some of his fortune into buying basketball and baseball teams. Which might be a worry to those on the live music side of the AEG business, though Anschutz has said it is only interested in bidders who are committed to keeping their entertainment group intact as one entity, incorporating sports, music and venues.

MySpace owners discuss upcoming relaunch

Digital

The owners of MySpace have been talking about their all new look website, a sneak preview of which was posted online earlier this week. Chris and Tim Vanderhook of Specific Media, which bought MySpace from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp last year, joined up with their business partner in the social network, Justin Timberlake, to brief both employees and journalists about their latest plans on Monday.

And while it’s quite hard to work out what exactly the all-new MySpace will do from the video preview (even if it does look a lot sleeker than any previous incarnation), in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Tim Vanderhook said that their plan remained to target primarily musicians and other creatives when their new site launches, hoping to become a social network for creators and performers to connect to fans.

He told the magazine: “In a single sentence, it’s a social network for the creative community to connect to their fans. We’re going after artists, right after this we’ll be talking to various artists to come on the platform. We want to give them a chance to help build it with us. We’re really far along, but we really want that last 20% to be crafted by more people like Justin that actually know the tools and things that they need”.

The Vanderbooks have always honed in on the MySpace Music of old – which for a time became the default destination for fans looking to connect with artists – as being the element of their acquisition worth having. Of course MySpace has long since ceased to be the primary home for artists looking to connect to fans, most acts having left their MySpace pages to rot for some time now (if they haven’t deleted them, or set them up as a signpost to other social networks).

It will be interesting to see if MySpace has any hope in persuading decent talent away from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, where acts most routinely connect with their fans these days. Many would say MySpace don’t have a chance, though the growing popularity of Tumblr amongst artists shows that musicians, like their fans, remain pretty fickle when it comes to social media. Whether the fickleness that helped cause MySpace v1’s collapse could help fuel MySpace v2’s rise, well, that would be interesting.

But there’s still a big hill to climb, even though, as Timberlake reportedly joked at Specific’s staff briefing this week, “I know some artists”.

So much work ahead, in finishing the platform, signing up talent and wooing back the punters. Though that relatively brief video preview got people talking in a way few probably expected, so I guess for now the Vanderhooks and their mate Justin will be happy.

Commenting on the video, Chris Vanderhook said: “Today is the launch of MySpace, and what we want people to see first is the actual design and the product. That’s why that video is really important. I think that’s necessary for people to be able to consider MySpace and to prove a point that we wanted to put out there. But we want people signing up, we want people to request an invite, it will be very soon”.

Chapel Club ask fans to create remixes and sell them

Digital

Chapel Club have announced an interesting project to promote their second album, ‘Good Together’. The band are giving away the individual multi-track parts for the record’s title track and asking fans to remix it.

So far, so tediously predictable. However, once remixes have been created, the band are encouraging their creators to commercially release them through digital music services and keep 100% of any profits they make. As well as this, the band have teamed up with Peter Gabriel’s Cue Songs to help remixers to line up sync opportunities for their tracks – again keeping any revenue for themselves.

What the results of this project will be isn’t clear, though it’s possible that some of the tracks that come out of it could end up being reasonably popular – and with the financial incentive, the initiative could even pick up some known producers. Whether the world will welcome hundreds of remixes of the same track remains to be seen, though during the mash-up boom, some artists did certainly benefit from releasing a capellas which ended up on many a bedroom mix.

Speaking about the project, Chapel Club frontman Lewis Bowman told CMU: “The track starts as a neat little electronic pop song before evolving into a hazy, pulsing piano house groove thing. We thought it made the most suitable candidate for a remix project because it’s ten minutes long with lots of parts to play with – and also because the extended end section began life as a kind of live, impromptu remix of our own”.

Find out more and download the stems in order to start creating your own remix at www.chapelclub.com

Planet Rock up for sale

Media

Digital rock station Planet Rock is reportedly up for sale. According to The Guardian, current owner Malcolm Bluemel, who acquired the station from what was then GCap Media in 2008, is already sounding out possible buyers.

Bluemel has invested £3 million of his own money into the venture since 2008, and the company is still making losses of up to £300,000 a year, despite having a RAJAR of about a million listeners, as the UK digital radio market continues to develop at a slow pace.

The Planet Rock chief also recently hit out at those listeners who criticised the station’s launch of a subscription-based premium online service, a bid to create a second revenue stream, adding: “I am not a fat cat. If I was I would have kept my money in my pocket, stayed at home with my wife and children and been £3 million better off”.

Speaking to The Guardian about the proposed sale, Bluemel said: “Digital radio has come of age and Planet Rock is at the forefront of that. I have put four and a half years of my life into this and £3 million of my own money. Some people might say that I was lucky to have it in the first place, but I am not going to walk away from that lightly”.

Global to shut regional DAB network, move stations to local networks

Media

Global Radio has announced it will not be renewing its licence to run the MXR regional DAB multiplex, which provided digital radio services to DAB devices in the North, the West Midlands and South Wales. The move will mean broadcasts on the multiplex will stop next summer.

Global ran the regional network with GMG Radio, which it has just acquired, and Arqiva, which has also decided to withdraw from the MXR venture. The decision could be seen as a further set back for DAB, which has taken sometime to gain momentum in the UK over FM services. As previously reported, some radio operators reckon DAB will never fully succeed, and should be abandoned.

Though Global insist that this move does not mean they are now of that mindset. Indeed, most of the areas served by the MXR network will also pick up broadcasts from the national and local DAB networks, and the radio major has just done a deal that means its stations will broadcast via Bauer Media’s local DAB multiplexes where MXR is being turned off.

A spokesperson told Radio Today: “The industry – commercial and BBC – has agreed that the best way forward for digital roll out, and to speed up coverage, is to focus on local and national multiplexes. Therefore there is reducing demand for carriage on regional multiplexes”.

With that in mind, Digital Radio UK says media regulator OfCom plans to use the spectrum freed up by the closing of MXR to enhance local DAB networks.

Muse’s Bond supremacy

And Finally

You know how it is, you write a song, you stick it on your new album, then you realise it would be great as the theme song for the new James Bond film, only to discover that Adele has already done one. It’s a story as old as time.

Speaking about ‘Supremacy’, the opening track from his band’s new album ‘The 2nd Law’, Muse drummer Dom Howard told the BBC: “It’s got a little whisper to the Bond vibe – it all goes a bit crazy ‘Live And Let Die’ in the middle. My view is they should use it for the next James Bond film, but I don’t know what’s going on with that. I heard Adele was doing it!”

How did this oversight come to pass? Well, the band have clearly been putting a lot of thought into their stage show of late, which possibly distracted them from wooing Bond producers.

Speaking about their upcoming live performances, Howard said: “On stage we’re going to have this huge upside-down pyramid which can turn itself inside out. It represents the power hierarchy turned on its head. I’m going to do some kung fu and fend off some businessmen, who are losing their minds as they realise they’ve lost everyone’s money”.

Yes, really. He also added that there would be “dancing aliens”.

Q&A: Kid Koala

Artist Interviews

As children, we all had things we wanted that we were unable to have. Sometimes as adults we go out and buy those things in an attempt to satisfy that unfulfilled urge, generally discovering that they weren’t that good anyway and, oh, we’re adults now. Well, not always.

As a teenager Kid Koala, aka producer and turntablist Eric San and one quarter of The Slew, coveted an E-mu SP-1200 sampler. 25 years later, suddenly reminded of this, he decided to go out and get one, resulting in his new album ’12 Bit Blues’.

Using the pads on the machine and a multi-track, San played each part into the sampler live, rather than using sequencing software, in an attempt to capture a similar rawness to that of old blues records, but in electronic form. With the album out this week via Ninja Tune, CMU’s Andy Malt caught up with Kid Koala to talk about the new album, his upcoming Vinyl Vaudeville Tour (which will be hitting the UK next month, including a show at London’s Islington Academy), and the many other projects he currently has in the works, including one with Mike Patton involving zombie and noodles.

AM: So, how old were you when you first coveted the SP1200? Were you already making music at that point, or did you see it as a way to start?
KK: I started playing piano when I was four years old. I didn’t learn about turntables and SP1200s until I was about twelve or thirteen. At the time the SP1200 was a state-of-the-art piece of music equipment and it was used to make many of the great hip hop records of that era. Of course by today’s standards it would be considered pretty low tech – kind of the DJ technology equivalent of rubbing two sticks together to start a fire. But there’s something in its basic design and simplicity that is wonderful to work with.

AM: Why did it take you so long to actually get around to picking one up? Was it exciting to have it in your hands finally?
KK: The Slew were in the studio mixing the ‘100%’ album with Mario Caldato of Beastie Boys producing fame. He was telling us old production stories and he thought that I would like working with the SP. “It’s got this great grittiness to it”, he told me. So when I got home from that session I started looking for a used SP1200 on Craigslist. I finally found one and set it up in the studio. It boots up using 3.5-inch floppy discs and takes several minutes to save sounds… just enough time to make some tea or write a haiku.

AM: Had you been able to buy the sampler when you originally wanted it, how do you think that would have affected the development of your style of music making?
KK: I have no idea. I’m always looking for a way to out think or out-manoeuvre the machines. So I probably would have figured out how to use these beat boxes to make ambient music by now.

AM: How soon after buying the SP1200 did you decide to make a complete album with it?
KK: Pretty much within three days I had chopped and performed all the skeletons for what was to become the ’12 Bit Blues’ album.

AM: What was the process you went through in creating the record?
KK: I like how many of my favourite blues records would drift tempo-wise. Those musicians would add bars or drop beats here and there. Maybe it was because they were stomping their feet and playing guitar and singing at the same time, but I always enjoyed that kind of looseness in many of those early recordings. So I decided not to bother with grids, or to use the sequencer on the machine. I would just punch all the pads in real time for the duration of each track and improvise little fills along the way. Then I’d layer in keyboards and combo organs on some tracks. I also have a record cutter in my studio, so I would cut some custom records with tones and chords and things, and I would scratch those into the mix afterward.

AM: Did you learn anything unexpected while making ’12 Bit Blues’?
KK: Vintage synth oscillators drift like crazy and do all kinds of surprising things when they’re played and not warmed up. I would usually keep the takes when some phantom sounds would spring from these machines. I figured it was like ghosts in the machines trying to have their say. I scoured many flea markets and picked up a lot of forgotten, obsolete music machines to make these tunes, stuff that had been uncalibrated and neglected for ages. There was an urgency when using this equipment that could stop working at any minute. It’s the sound of decades old equipment disintegrating before your ears. It can be beautiful and melancholy at the same time.

AM: How do you think your teenage self would feel about the music on ’12 Bit Blues’?
KK: Back then I spent most of my time practicing classical piano. But most of my DJing experiences involved playing records at dance parties at my high school. So I would probably be confused as to how one was supposed to dance to these downtempo 6/8 swaying blues beats.

AM: You’ve had some very interesting concepts for live shows in the past, but the Vinyl Vaudeville Tour sounds particularly interesting. What can people expect from the shows?
KK: Like the album, I kind of wanted to take a slightly old school approach to the performance. I’m bringing a crew of dancing girls and puppeteers with me on this tour. There will also be giant dancing robots and live performances of these blues tracks on SP1200s and turntables. We are also bringing a giant cardboard gramophone, based on the kit included with the ’12 Bit Blues’ album packaging, which we will assemble live on stage. Expect a spectacle, albeit a low tech one! It’s a Kid Koala show. I like to keep things silly and surprising.

AM: What other projects have you got in the works?
KK: We have started working on a follow up record from The Slew, I’m pretty excited about that – we had mosh pits going at all of those gigs last time! The new album from Deltron 3030 [San’s hip hop supergroup] is finished and we are planning to release it this autumn.

For the winter months, I’ll be continuing spot dates on the Space Cadet Quiet Time Headphone Tour in North America. I’m also working on a new graphic novel and soundtrack called ‘The Storyville Mosquito’ with musicians from The Preservation Hall Jazz Band in New Orleans.

And finally, I am developing a travelling puppet musical with turntable orchestra pit about zombies and ramen noodles featuring my friend Mike Patton who will voice the character of Satan. I just recorded some of the ‘Zombie Ramen’ soundtrack with James from Yo La Tengo in New York. It’s a very John Carpenter-style score and is quite a hoot!

I know all these projects sound very strange and random right now, but it will all make sense in about two years! Stay tuned.

Approved: Nadine Shah – Aching Bones

CMU Approved

Driven by a bassline that sounds like that of Massive Attack’s ‘Angel’ (if Massive Attack were Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds) the title track of Nadine Shah’s ‘Aching Bones’ EP grabs your attention from the start with the tense, percussive clang of a muted cymbal. It’s a dark, slow-marching track that presents unrequited love as something sinister, perhaps even dangerous.

Shah’s voice, both in tone and the way she approaches melody, mark her out as someone distinctive and to very much keep an eye on. The EP is out via Label Fandango on 19 Nov, and you can listen to ‘Aching Bones’ here now:

Lyor Cohen announces exit from Warner Music

Business News Industry People Labels & Publishers Top Stories

Lyor Cohen, currently CEO of Recorded Music at Warner, will leave the major at the end of the week, it was confirmed yesterday. Cohen joined the music company shortly after an Edgar Bronfman Jr-led consortium took the major into independent ownership away from the rest of Time Warner in 2004. He initially headed up the Warner record labels in North America, later expanding his role so to ultimately oversee the major’s recorded music operations worldwide.

Confirming his somewhat sudden departure, Cohen said in a statement yesterday: “To all the artists and employees who live and die for the music every day, and who personally sacrifice for the good of the creative process: ‘keep on keepin on’ in the tradition of a company that respects and honours the artistic community”.

While Len Blavatnik, whose Access Industries acquired Warner Music last year, said: “I personally want to thank Lyor for his dedication and contributions to Warner Music. He has been both a business partner and personal friend and I wish him only the best”.

Meanwhile Stephen Cooper, put in place as overall CEO of the Warner Music company by Access Industries after last year’s acquisition, added: “Lyor Cohen has built something very special here. While we understand his desire to move on to his next challenge, the enduring success of our recorded music division will serve as a great testament to the progress we’ve made during Lyor’s time at WMG. We are grateful for Lyor’s contributions, and we wish him the best. I’m confident that given the strength of our talented management team in Recorded Music, we’ll be able to drive further success”.

Needless to say, speculation as to what has led to Cohen’s exit from Warner is rife. Rumours of tensions between finance-focused Cooper and music industry veteran Cohen have generally been denied by senior insiders, who argue that the two men complemented each other well. Though it is possible there were differences of opinion regards long-term strategy, Cooper possibly having a much clearer personal vision for Warner Music now he has been in the CEO role for a year.

Other rumours suggest that the major simply couldn’t agree new terms with Cohen, whose original pay packet including generous stock options which would need to be revised when Warner went from public to private ownership. Billboard cites sources as saying that Cohen’s existing pay package was also rather generous by Access Industries standards, which would have made negotiations tricky, especially if the record industry veteran was seeking even more favourable terms.

There’s been speculation also overnight regarding where Cohen may go next, and who might replace him at Warner Music, outgoing EMI chief Roger Faxon being one name linked to the role. Though Faxon’s real experience, of course, lies in music publishing rather than recorded music, and at Warner the two sides of the business are still pretty autonomous from each other.

Unless Warner is interested in pursuing the more integrated approach Faxon was trying to install at EMI before the company was put up for sale by its banker owners, though if the soon-to-be-former EMI man was given a cross-company role at Warner, then what would Cooper do? That said, with the bosses of each Warner label division now reporting into Cooper directly, it may be that the major will instigate a bit of a restructure at the top before filling the seat left empty by Cohen.

As for him, wonderers have been wondering whether a return to his former employer Universal Music could be on the cards, perhaps to oversee the newly acquired Capitol division in the US, though Cohen himself might see that as a step backwards.

A Sony Music role has also been mooted, Cohen having apparently overcome past tensions between him and the top guy there, his former boss at Universal Doug Morris, who wasn’t best pleased when Cohen jumped ship to Warner in 2004. Though at Sony too, the senior executive lounge is quite crowded, and taking a seat alongside the other division chiefs might seem like a backwards step.

Some new stand-alone venture might be more likely, and maybe even a return to artist management; either way, few expect Cohen to be away from the music business for too long.

Two more artists sue Sony over digital royalties

Business News Digital Royalties Timeline Labels & Publishers Legal

Sony Music can add two more digital royalty lawsuits to its pile, which is fun. Last week both REO Speedwagon and William ‘Boz’ Scaggs sued the major for a bigger cut of digital revenue.

As much previously reported, most traditional record contracts paid artists a much bigger share of so called licensing revenue than of monies generated by record sales. Since the digital revolution, the majors have treated download income as record sales and paid the lower royalty. But many artists argue that download revenues actually stem from licensing deals with the likes of iTunes, so where download income isn’t specifically mentioned in a record contract, it should be considered licensing revenue and the higher artist cut should be paid.

Numerous heritage artists now have lawsuits pending on this issue, some of them class actions. All are relying on a precedent possibly set in a legal dispute between some early Eminem collaborators and Universal Music. FBT Productions convinced a US court that they should be getting the higher licensing royalty on download sales of various Slim Shady tracks in which they have a stake. Universal insists that the ruling in that case does not apply to all pre-digital record contracts, though Rob Zombie, Chuck D, George Clinton, Peter Frampton, Sister Sledge, Kenny Rogers and James Taylor, among others, do not agree.

As also previously reported, Sony Music has actually been battling digital royalty litigation longer than Universal, the Allman Brothers and Cheap Trick having sued the major over the issue in 2006. That lawsuit initially ran out of steam, mainly because of legal technicalities, though negotiations continued behind closed doors and in March this year a deal was announced offering all of Sony’s heritage artists still on old record contracts a 3% increase in their download revenue share.

Linked to the Allman Brothers and Cheap Trick’s original class action, that deal still needs court approval and, ironically, last week, just as the lawyer representing both REO Speedwagon and Boz Scaggs filed his paperwork, lawyers working on the settlement deal were pushing a judge in New York to reach a decision on the 3% proposal. If that settlement gets court approval, any qualifying heritage Sony act will be able to take the 3% increase, or opt out to pursue their own action against the major.

As those artists already suing the various majors on this issue expect to get a much bigger increase in their digital royalties than 3% if they win, it will be interesting to see if any Sony acts take the carefully negotiated quick-fix settlement should it get court backing. REO Speedwagon and Boz Scaggs, presumably, are hoping for the bigger prize.

Fiona Apple and her jailer speak about drugs arrest

Legal

Fiona Apple has spoken about her arrest for cannabis possession last week at her first gig following the incident. As previously reported, the musician spent a night in a Texas jail before being released on a $10,000 bail after border patrol officials found cannabis on her tour bus. The brief incarceration caused a planned concert in Austin to be postponed.

Speaking about the incident at a show in Houston on Saturday, Apple said she was basically treated well during her very brief jail stint, but that she had issues with four specific prison guards. The implication of the singer’s on-stage ramble – subsequently posted to YouTube, obviously – was that she’d not reveal said guards’ misdemeanours providing they didn’t try to capitalise on having had a celebrity in their cells for a few moments of fame. Or something like that.

Said Apple: “Now, most of the people were very nice to me. [But] there are four of you out there, and I want you to know that I heard everything you did. I wrote it all down with your names, and everything you did and said stupidly thinking that I couldn’t hear or see you. I then ripped the paper up, but not before I encoded it and, I got two lock boxes. We’ll call them ‘holding cell one’ and ‘holding cell two’. In ‘holding cell one’ is the encoded version of the shit that you did that I know was inappropriate and probably illegal. In ‘holding cell two’ is the decoder”.

She continued: “I’m the only one who holds the key, and you and I will be intimate forever because I will hold that secret forever. Unless of course the ‘celebrity’ that you had so much interest in – but you wanted to accuse me of bringing up, while you laughed at me all night – [well if] you’re interested in being a celebrity, I’ll make you fucking famous any time you ask and I’ll open those boxes. So why don’t you stay in your fucking holding cell?”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, staff at the Hudspeth County Sheriff department weren’t very impressed with Apple’s on-stage threats, and have told reporters that the singer should either file a formal complaint or shut up, adding that staff at the unit weren’t in the business of scoring brief moments of fame by publicly bragging about their celebrity inmates.

In an open letter to Apple, the sheriff department’s Public Information Officer Rusty Fleming wrote: “First, honey, I’m already more famous than you, I don’t need your help. However, it would appear that you need mine. Have you ever heard of Snoop [Dogg], Willie [Nelson] or Armand Hammer? Maybe if you would read something besides your own press releases, you would have known BEFORE you got here, that if you come to Texas with dope, the cops will take your DOPE away and put YOU in jail”.

She added: “You and I only met briefly in the hallway, [so] I don’t [really] know you, but I’m sure you’re an awesome and talented young woman. [And] I’m sure that [your fans] would just as soon you get this all behind you and let you go back to what you do best – so my last piece of advice is simple ‘just shut-up and sing’. Sincerely, Rusty Fleming”.

Thursday 27 September 2012, 11:17 | By CMU Editorial

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Tuesday 25 September 2012, 11:42 | By Andy Malt

As children, we all had things we wanted that we were unable to have. Sometimes as adults we go out and buy those things in an attempt to satisfy that unfulfilled urge, generally discovering that they weren’t that good anyway and, oh, we’re adults now. Well, not always.

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Tuesday 25 September 2012, 11:41 | By Andy Malt

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