Friday 26 May 2017, 10:53 | By

Indie Music Cup charity five-a-side football tournament returns for 2017

Business News Education & Events

Indie Music Cup

The UK music industry’s charity five-a-side football tournament, The Indie Music Cup, is back for the third year on 10 Jun. This year the event is raising money for Syria Relief, specifically to support a ‘safe school’ in the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta, where the education system has all but collapsed.

The event has significantly expanded this year, with the number of teams doubling to 32. Among the mixed gender teams entering are NTS, Eat Your Own Ears, Rough Trade shops, Domino, Heavenly Records, Boiler Room Ladies, Resident Advisor, Dekmantel, Spotify, Secretly Canadian, Mixmag and She Said So.

There will also be a soundsystem throughout the day courtesy of RSH Audio, an Indie Label Market, food and drink, plus an after party at the Lion & Lamb in Hoxton.

For more information on how to attend, and how to donate, go to www.indiemusiccup.co.uk

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Friday 26 May 2017, 10:49 | By

Roy Orbison reworked by Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Artist News Releases

Roy Orbison

Following on from the success of two Royal Philharmonic Orchestra albums providing new orchestral backing to Elvis vocals, Sony will released a similar reworking of Roy Orbison songs, ‘A Love So Beautiful’, on 3 Nov. As well as the orchestra, Orbison’s three sons – Alex, Wesley and Roy Jr – and his ten month old grandson Roy III, perform on a number of tracks.

Orbison’s youngest son Alex, also president of Roy’s Boys, the company set up to administer the late musician’s catalogue, says in a statement: “If ever there were a singer whose body of work benefits from a collaboration with the Royal Philharmonic it would be Roy Orbison”.

“During the course of his career and after his passing it was constantly noted that his transcendent vocal ability made him something of an anomaly in the world of pop and rock and that, in another life, he would have taken the classical music/opera world by storm”, he continues. “Soon, we’ll all be able to experience that ‘life’ with the release of this project. It’s more than an album release, it’s the fulfilment of a prophecy in a very tangible way”.

Also out this year is the first ever officially sanctioned book about Orbison, ‘The Authorised Roy Orbison’. The book was written by Orbison’s sons with journalist Jeff Slate.

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Friday 26 May 2017, 10:44 | By

Deerhoof to release new album as part of five LP subscription

Artist News Releases

Deerhoof

Deerhoof have announced that they will release five new albums in the latter half of this year, making them available in physical form via a subscription.

The series will technically only feature one Deerhoof album though, the other four divided between various side-projects. The first two of these releases are available now, each split between two projects.

On one you’ll find drummer Greg Saunier’s project with Death Grips’ Zach Hill, Nervous Cop, plus Les Bon Hommes, Saunier’s band with William Kuehn of Rainer Maria and Deerhoof’s live sound engineer Deron Pulley.

The other features Oneone – Deerhoof frontwoman Satomi Matsuzaki’s project with Tenniscoats’ Saya – backed by guitarist John Dieterich’s new band Murmurer.

Next up, in August, you’ll get that new Deerhoof album, which requires much less explanation.

Then finally it’s back to those side projects. Though they haven’t provided any details on those, other than that it’ll be another block of two releases and they’ll be available in October.

You can already buy all four elements of the first two split albums digitally from Bandcamp, all proceeds from which will be donated to US political action group Brand New Congress.

If you want the Deerhoof album in August, you need to sign up for that subscription, which will get you all five releases on vinyl in a wooden box. The box is limited to 777 copies, so you’d best move quickly.

There will then be a standard, standalone release of the new Deerhoof album at a later date.

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Friday 26 May 2017, 10:40 | By

One Liners: Liam Gallagher, Ice Cube, International Music Summit, more

Artist News Business News Deals Education & Events Gigs & Festivals Industry People Labels & Publishers Media One Liners Releases

Liam Gallagher

Other notable announcements and developments today…

• Ice Cube has signed with Universal’s Interscope which, among other things, will put out a 25th anniversary edition of his second solo album ‘Death Certificate’. Interscope boss John Janick is “THRILLED”.

• Danish pop duo Kill J have signed a new record deal with Nettwerk Records. This is excellent news indeed.

• Eric Prydz has launched a new label, Pryda Presents. The company’s first release will be ‘Feel’ by Cristoph. Second will be a single from Prydz alterego Tonja Holma.

• Universal Music’s catalogue division in the US has appointed Andre Torres to a new urban-focused VP role. Torres was previously a magazine publisher and was most recently with lyrics website Genius.

• The dance music focused International Music Summit is taking place in Ibiza this week, and in amongst the proceedings organisers have published their annual IMS Business Report of the electronic music sector. The report reckons that the global electronic music industry is now worth $7.4 billion a year, up 3%. You can download all the stats here.

• The Radio Academy’s annual Radio Festival event, which was originally due to take place last Tuesday, will now take place on 21 Jun. The London-based event was postponed in the wake of the Manchester Arena bombing, out of respect for the victims and because it was felt some attendees would be required to work with such a major news story underway.

• All We Are have released new single, ‘Animal’. Their new album, ‘Sunny Hills’, is due out on 9 Jun.

• Liam Gallagher has announced that he will donate all proceeds from a solo show in Manchester on 30 May to the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund. That performance will be followed by shows in London, Dublin and Glasgow. Gallagher’s first solo single, ‘Wall Of Glass’, is out on 1 Jun.

• Check out new music covered in CMU Daily this week in our Spotify playlist here.

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Friday 26 May 2017, 10:35 | By

Beef Of The Week #356: Katy Perry v Taylor Swift

And Finally Artist News Beef Of The Week

Katy Perry

Taylor Swift has a beef with Katy Perry. Katy Perry wants to end that beef. And that’s this week’s beef, people: Katy Perry’s beef with Taylor Swift over Taylor Swift’s beef with Katy Perry, and Katy Perry wanting to end that latter beef. It’s simple, really. Quite the battle.

Right, so, you all remember Taylor Swift’s 2014 single ‘Bad Blood’. When it originally came out, everyone assumed it was about Harry Styles. Because everyone always assumes that all of Taylor Swift’s songs are about her ex-boyfriends, rumoured or otherwise. ‘Welcome To New York’, for example, is about a relationship she had with the head of the New York tourist board, Fred Dixon.

I should probably say at this point, there is no truth in the rumour that Taylor Swift had a relationship with Fred Dixon. In fact, there wasn’t even a rumour. I made it up for a joke that quite possibly fell flat, and now I’m concerned he might not take it all in the spirit it was intended. Let’s just leave Fred out of this. He didn’t ask to be brought into this story. He does important work, and I don’t feel that should be belittled by lies and tittle tattle.

That said, he did run to Swift’s defence when a New York advertising campaign was criticised for using ‘Welcome To New York’ even though she isn’t a native of the city. Would he have done that if they weren’t seeing each other? Yes, of course he would. Stop this.

Anyway, what was I actually talking about? Oh yeah, how every song Taylor Swift writes is then combed for clues as to whom it might be about. ‘Bad Blood’ wasn’t, it turned out, about Harry Styles at all. It was about Katy Perry.

Or, rather, it was about another female musician who had “basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour [of mine]”, Swift told Rolling Stone. TMZ then filled in the blanks to make it one of those classic female popstar v female popstar feuds that the media likes to manufacture. Except on this occasion there was an actual feud.

For her part, Perry took part in the feud by occasionally tweeting thinly veiled insults and then trademarking some of the lyrics of ‘Bad Blood’ by making them the name of one of her many fragrances.

Now Perry wants out. This nonsense has gone on long enough. She just wants to make up and go back to it all being ‘mad love’. Or perhaps another combination of words that Perry owns. She said as much to James Corden on his ‘Carpool Karaoke’ thing.

“It’s about backing dancers, it’s so crazy”, she said of the two popstars’ ‘bad blood’. The story begins, says Perry, when three of her backing dancers asked if they could go on the road with Swift while her career was on a temporary hiatus.

“There were three backing dancers that went on tour with [Swift], and they asked me beforehand if they could go. I was like, ‘Yeah, of course. I’m not on the record cycle, get the work, she’s great. But I will be on record cycle probably in about year. So be sure to put a 30 day contingency in your contract, so you can get out and join me when I say I’m going back on [a promotional cycle]'”.

“So that year came up, and I texted all of them and I said, ‘Look, just FYI, I’m about to start [promoting again]’. They said they were going to go and talk to [Swift’s] management about it”.

Which all sounds fine, huh? Except Swift’s management apparently just fired the dancers there and then. Bloody management, always fucking everything up. Perry, realising that this wasn’t going to look good, attempted to speak to Swift about it directly. That also did not go well, as all the events described above (except maybe the stuff about Fred Dixon) will attest.

“I tried to talk to her about it and she wouldn’t speak to me”, says Perry of her attempts to smooth things over. “I do the right thing any time that it feels like a fumble. It was a full shutdown. And then she writes a song about me and I’m like, ‘OK, cool, cool, cool. That’s how you wanna deal with it?’ Karma”.

Karma? Not sure where that comes into it exactly. Unless it’s another Perry Perfume. Whatever, she wants done with it now. “I’m ready for that BS to be done”, Perry told Corden. “Now, there is the law of cause and effect. You do something, there’s going to be a reaction, and trust me daddy, there’s going to be a reaction. It’s all about karma, right?”

The perfume? The good news is that Swift doesn’t even have to write a song in order to end all this. Corden asked if Perry would simply accept a text message stating that “beef is off the grill”.

“Yes”, replied Perry. “100%”.

Swift will probably still write a song to formally end the beefing though. Taylor Swift only communicates in song. She’s like a walking musical, except there’s been some sort of employment dispute with the dancers.

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Friday 26 May 2017, 09:08 | By

Vigsy’s Club Tip: We ❤ MCR

Club Tip CMU Approved

Marcus Intalex

We are all feeling for Manchester this week. It’s very likely to be a subdued weekend in the city, with some nights cancelled in the wake of this week’s events.

As we think about those directly affected by Monday night’s hideous atrocity, we must also try to carry on, or else these evil people win by creating fear as we simply go about our everyday lives. It’s not to belittle the recent events or the people affected, but to stand up and show that we are not prepared to live in fear.

So I’m taking the tip to MCR in solidarity with our Mancunian brothers and sisters. We are thinking of you all. Love conquers fear and hate. Here are three nights that will be going on in the city over the weekend.

Soul:ution MCR at Soup Kitchen
Marcus Intalex heads to the Soup Kitchen taking Manchester’s longest running drum n bass night to a new food and arts venue in the Northern Quarter.
Saturday 27 May, Soup Kitchen, 31-33 Spear Street, Manchester, M1 1DF, 11pm-4am, £10. More info here.

Craig Charles Funk & Soul Club at Band On The Wall
Craig Charles will be manning the decks, along with a live performance from Manchester band The Exacters. Increased security means tickets must be bought in advance for this one.
Saturday 27 May, 25 Swan St, The Northern Quarter, Manchester, M4 5JZ, 9pm-3am, £18.70. More info here.

Soundwave Festival Launch Party at Hidden
High Hoops and So Flute join forces for the first time, taking over Hidden, to throw a Soundwave launch party.
Saturday 27 May, 17 DownTex Mill, Mary Street, Manchester, M3 1DZ, 10.55pm-4am, £10-12. More info here.

For those of you further afield wishing to support those directly affected by this week’s events in Manchester, you can find out more about the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund that has been launched in partnership with the British Red Cross here.

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Thursday 25 May 2017, 10:07 | By

Ariana Grande shows cancelled following Monday’s bomb attack

Artist News Business News Gigs & Festivals Labels & Publishers Live Business Top Stories

Ariana Grande

A representative for Ariana Grande yesterday confirmed that a number of upcoming dates on the singer’s European tour were being cancelled following the bomb attack at her show in Manchester on Monday night that killed 22 people.

The cancellations were not unexpected, though London’s The O2 – where Grande was due to play this week – had previously said it was still waiting for confirmation one way or another. Those with tickets for the London shows should now contact their point of purchase for a refund.

The official statement from Grande’s team said: “Due to the tragic events in Manchester, the ‘Dangerous Woman’ tour with Ariana Grande has been suspended until we can further assess the situation and pay our proper respects to those lost. The O2 shows this week have been cancelled as well as all shows through 5 Jun in Switzerland”.

It added: “We ask at this time that we all continue to support the city of Manchester and all those families affected by this cowardice and senseless act of violence. Our way of life has once again been threatened but we will overcome this together. Thank you”.

Grande’s manager Scooter Braun also put out a personal statement about this week’s events on Twitter overnight. He wrote: “Tonight I got home and took my parents out to dinner. Korean BBQ. We drank and ate and laughed with the tables next to us. I experienced joy for the first time in days. And I remembered… we are free. We are all different but we are free to enjoy each other’s company”.

“I will honour those that are lost by living each day full: full of fun, full of laughter, full of joy. I welcome the differences of my neighbour. The wish of terrorism is to take away that feeling of freedom and joy. No. That is my answer. No. We can’t allow it. Fear cannot rule the day. More people die each year from car crashes then terrorism. Yet I will get in my car. I will choose to live [rather] than to be afraid”.

“So… Manchester I stand with you. Jakarta I stand with you. Children of Syria I stand with you. We will honour you by not giving in to the darkness. And I will honour all of you by laughing, loving and living. Living full for every wonderful innocent child whose life was taken to soon. So if you think you scared us, if you think your coward[ly] act made us change how we live… sorry. All you did was make us appreciate every day”.

He concluded: “Am I angry? Hell yes. But how will we respond? With everything you think you took from us… love and joy and life”.

Earlier in the week the boss of Grande’s record label, Universal Music’s Lucian Grainge, also addressed Monday night’s events in an internal memo to staff. He wrote: “Once again, we try to make sense of a senseless act of violence. Today, our emotions are raw. We are deeply saddened by the awful events last night in Manchester. We extend our thoughts and prayers to all of those affected. And we grieve for all of those lost there, offering our deepest condolences to their families and loved ones”.

Confirming that no Universal employees or members of Grande’s team had been physically injured in the attack, he went on: “The fact that such an unspeakable act can be committed at a place where innocent people – including so many young people – come together peacefully to enjoy music reflects a level of evil beyond comprehension”.

He continued: “This hits home for us as a music company – because so many of us, myself included, spend so much time out seeing our artists perform, let alone attending concerts as fans. That’s why we’ve chosen music as our career – or rather music has chosen us. Today is a day of remembrance, a day to pause and reflect, with thoughts for yesterday’s tragedy”.

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Thursday 25 May 2017, 10:05 | By

File-sharing hub ExtraTorrent is still offline

Business News Digital

ExtraTorrent

Last week another file-sharing hub went offline and, according to Torrentfreak, reports of a speedy revival appearing online almost immediately are somewhat misleading.

ExtraTorrent had, by all accounts, become the world’s second largest torrent site after the good old Pirate Bay, providing users with so called magnet links and torrent files that in turn provide access to digital content, much of it unlicensed.

The site went offline last week with little explanation. Unlike the other big file-sharing hub of recent years, KickassTorrents, which went offline as a result of action taken by the US government on copyright infringement grounds, it seems that the operator of ExtraTorrent shut down his site voluntarily. Though possibly under pressure from the authorities or fearing that said authorities were about to swoop.

As is often the case when key piracy operations go offline, a number of sites soon sprung up claiming to be clones of the now defunct ExtraTorrent site. At least one – Extratorrent.cd – claimed it was being run by former admins at ExtraTorrent who were attempting to restore the platform to its former glory.

But, as it also often the case, the ‘clones’ are actually pulling in their file-sharing links from elsewhere – principally The Pirate Bay – rather than having access to the old ExtraTorrent database. They are simply using the old ExtraTorrent name and logo.

Reports Torrentfreak: “Aside from its appearance, Extratorrent.cd has absolutely nothing to do with ET. The site is an imposter operated by the same people who also launched Kickass.cd when KAT went offline last summer. In fact, the content on both sites doesn’t come from the defunct sites they try to replace, but from The Pirate Bay. ExtraTorrent.cd is nothing more than a Pirate Bay mirror with an ExtraTorrent skin”.

Torrentfreak adds that some ex-admins of ExtraTorrent are considering trying to relaunch the piracy site in some form or another, but there would be various challenges to tackle before they could do that.

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Thursday 25 May 2017, 10:01 | By

Live recordings platform Nugs.net announces tie up with MQA

Business News Deals Digital

MQA

The latest company to announce a deal with high res audio firm MQA is Nugs.net, a San Francisco-based online platform selling live recordings from mainly rock acts. The site already offers customers high quality audio files like FLAC, but will now also offer MQA files for download. Recordings of concerts from Metallica and Bruce Springsteen will be the first available in the format.

Confirming the deal, Nugs.net CEO Brad Serling said: “Our pursuit of the highest fidelity in our listeners’ playback experience led us to MQA. We were intrigued when we first read about the format and were THRILLED with the results when the MQA folks first encoded some of our live recordings”.

Meanwhile MQA boss Mike Jbara added: “Nugs.net connects with true music fans like nobody else. Live recordings amplify MQA’s mission perfectly and we are very grateful for this exciting partnership. Watch this space!”

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Thursday 25 May 2017, 09:59 | By

Jon Webster steps down as MMF President

Business News Industry People Management & Funding

Jon Webster

Jon Webster has announced that he is standing down as President of the UK’s Music Managers Forum. He took on the role after stepping down as the trade body’s CEO at the start of 2016. Webster plans to pursue a number of projects following his departure, including completing his book about the time he spent at Virgin Records, the record company he joined in 1981, and where he become Managing Director in 1988.

The MMF grew significantly in both size and influence while Webster was its CEO, expanding its educational activities and events programme, and more proactively speaking out on behalf of the UK’s artist management community. New CEO Annabella Coldrick has continued that expansion since taking over in January 2016.

Coldrick paid tribute to her predecessor yesterday, telling reporters: “Much of the MMF’s current success and vitality must be attributed to Jon. The organisation now represents more than 500 artist managers around the UK, and has gained a hard-fought reputation as a body that stands up for artist rights and promotes greater education and transparency throughout the music business. No one has battled harder than Jon to get us to this position and to galvanise the management community – and while we sadly accept his decision to step down, the MMF remains as committed as ever to build on his years of work”.

Webster himself said this morning: “This process began in 2015 when I told the board I wanted to stop being CEO. All organisations need change to evolve and my involvement was coming to an end. Annabella was recruited as CEO and has proved to be the exact person that we needed to take the MMF forward in an increasingly policy led environment. I am very proud of what we have achieved in the last ten years, although there is still much to do, particularly in the area of transparency and fairness for artists and managers”.

On future projects, he added: “I am not retiring but want to concentrate on writing my memoir about my time at Virgin before taking a long hard look at the world and deciding what lies ahead. I am very happy to leave the MMF in the capable hands of the team and the board. I will try to be available if a temporary extra pair of hands is ever needed as the MMF holds a significant place in my heart”.

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Thursday 25 May 2017, 09:51 | By

CMU@TGE 2017: When Music Gets Synchronised – TV and beyond

Business News Labels & Publishers Media The Great Escape 2017

Nicky Bignell

Look out for reports on all the key sessions at the CMU Insights conferences at The Great Escape over the next few weeks. Plus, from next Monday, we’ll be publishing a series of CMU Trends reports providing more in depth versions of the insight presentations CMU Insights delivered during TGE this year – go premium to access CMU Trends. Today, the new complexities around TV sync licensing as broadcasters evolve their businesses.

In theory the licensing of music for use in television programmes is pretty simple in that – outside the US – TV sync usually goes through the collective licensing system, with the collecting societies offering broadcasters and producers blanket licences. There are forms to fill out and money to be paid, but access to music isn’t usually a problem.

Though as the media business changes, not everything is covered by those blanket licences and new complexities are now emerging. Complications can occur when commercial media make content as part of brand partnerships, working more closely with brands than in the past. And there are licensing challenges when broadcasters look to put their content onto social media platforms, something they increasingly have to do in order to reach young consumers. These new complexities make using so called production or library music more attractive, reducing the opportunities for commercially released music to be synced.

These challenges were confirmed by The Box Plus Network’s Director Of Commercial & Business Affairs Stacey Mitsopulos and the BBC’s Head Of Music Licensing Nicky Bignell (pictured) when they joined CMU’s Chris Cooke and Sentric Music’s Simon Pursehouse as part of the CMU Insights Royalties Conference at The Great Escape.

The Box Plus Network operates seven music TV channels which offer a mix of curated music videos and original programming. The company has deals with collecting society PPL to cover the use of recordings in its programmes, and VPL which covers the use of music videos. On the song rights side it has licences with mechanical rights society MCPS to cover the synchronisation of music into its programmes, and with the performing rights focused PRS to cover the subsequent broadcast of those videos or shows.

The BBC has similar agreements with the various UK societies covering its large network of TV and radio stations. And while there will always be tensions between licensees and the collecting societies over rates and such like, both Mitsopulos and Bignell are fans of the blanket licence approach.

Says Bignell: “We pay a lot of money for our blanket licences but we’ve always felt that a single blanket licence is the way to go. We have so many channels and, of course, as well as TV we’ve got radio – ten network radio stations, and 40 or 50 regional and local radio stations as well. We use something like 250,000 separate pieces of music every week on the BBC. We couldn’t do it without the blanket licence”.

But both Mitsopulos and Bignell noted the limitations of the blanket licences. Mitsopulos observed: “If you’re creating the content and broadcasting the content, that’s fine. But if you are creating content that is going out elsewhere – such as some of our brand partnership work – then extra licensing will be required, which makes using library music an attractive option. We can’t give our partners like Netflix and Schwartzkopf content with the commercial music in it, unless they’ve cleared it themselves”.

The BBC also has similar issues, for example with the programmes it sells internationally, and the co-productions it does with broadcasters elsewhere in the world. “We don’t just make programmes that we broadcast in the UK”, said Bignell. “We make programmes and we sell them abroad through BBC Worldwide, to generate extra revenue to fund future programme making. And with a lot of our big dramas, these days we can’t afford to make them ourselves, so we have to have co-production money. And these things can all pose additional issues with music and music clearances”.

So while in the UK the BBC would generally rely on library music for creative rather than commercial reasons, with global projects – especially where the US is involved – going that route may be attractive to avoid having to clear lots of individual tracks, either to save money, or simply to save time where you have a production needing a fast turn around.

That is also true where content is going on third party platforms online where the blankets don’t apply. At the BBC, this has probably the biggest impact on BBC Three, the youth-focused channel that is now online-only, and which sees social media platforms as being key to reaching its audience. “Since BBC Three has gone online, lots of the people, the kids that are watching that content, do it via social media”, explained Bignell. “We have problems with the licences for social media, so all the content that BBC Three makes for social has just library music in it”.

Mitsopulos agreed that there were extra challenges using commercially-released music online. “Our licences from PRS and PPL allow us to do certain things online”, she said. “But it’s like ‘two minutes of this, not more than 30 seconds of that’. Sometimes it’s just easier to find some library music and put it in there”.

“With YouTube, we put artists’ performances that we have recorded for our programmes on there”, she continued. While Box, having recorded the performance, controls the recording in that case, the separate song rights still need to cleared. “But YouTube has negotiated deals with the collecting societies and the assumption is that we fall under those. Facebook on the other hand is a different matter”.

Ah yes, Facebook. Which is busy vying for YouTube’s position as music industry enemy number one as it pushes video content ever more to the fore, but without any licences for the music those videos routinely contain.

“For a while we were doing live sessions on Facebook which were super cool”, said Mitsolpulos. “Every Friday at 1pm we had a different artist, it was live and it was great. The labels were like ‘oh, we’re not getting paid by Facebook, but that’s fine because this is good promo for the artist’. But the publishers were saying, ‘we don’t care about the promo, nobody knows who the songwriter is'”.

“With a pop artist, the songwriter is often somebody else, and so the publishers took issue with the fact that they weren’t getting paid by Facebook”, she continued. “They started sending takedown notices to everybody and now you won’t see much [professionally produced] music content on Facebook, unless the production company or broadcaster has gone to the music publishers separately and said: ‘we want to play this song, here’s £2000′”.

Of course, while songwriters and publishers should be paid when their music is exploited, the licensing issues around Facebook are denying artists access to what could be their most valuable promotional platform. And in some cases – as Bignell discussed – those issues push back down the supply chain, so that TV content goes with library music to simplify any subsequent online distribution, denying artists both exposure and potential sync income.

Though Mitsopulos noted that recent hires at Facebook indicated that licensing deals were now being negotiated with the record companies and music publishers. However, doing those deals will likely be made more difficult by the fact that the social network has gone without licences for so long. “They should have just done it eight years ago”, she said.

Check out all the reports and resources CMU has published around this year’s CMU Insights @ The Great Escape conferences here.

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Thursday 25 May 2017, 09:46 | By

Daphni announces Fabriclive mix

Artist News Releases

Dan Snaith / Daphni / Caribou

Daphni – aka the other alter ego of Dan Snaith, who you’ll also know as Caribou – has announced that he will release a Fabriclive mix later this summer. It stands out among other instalments of the mix series in that it features only music produced by himself – with 23 original tracks and four remixes of other artists.

On his actual mix, he says: “I embarked on it thinking that I could have a mix with lots of exclusive new stuff that would make it unique/justify its existence but as I worked on it I became more and more intent upon making it all my own tracks. A lot of these tracks were recorded in situ in the mix itself – I’d put one track in place and instead of searching through existing music to find the track to follow it I’d just make an entirely new one”.

“You’d expect a DJ mix where someone made each track to follow the previous one to be very homogenous”, he goes on. “To seem like it was planned out and build in a controlled way. I think the result is almost exactly the opposite! The tracks on here pull from very diverse ends of the spectrum of music that I like/make. In the end, I just sort of charged ahead following my nose as to where the mix should head next. I hope that some of that sense of intuition translates to those listening to the finished mix”.

One of those tracks, ‘Face To Face’, is available on Bandcamp now. The full mix is due out on 21 Jul:

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Thursday 25 May 2017, 09:43 | By

BadBadNotGood announce LateNightTales compilation

Artist News Releases

BadBadNotGood

BadBadNotGood have announced that they will curate the next LateNightTales compilation, due for release on 28 Jul. As well as a range of tracks that have influenced them, it will feature their own cover of Andy Shauf’s ‘To You’. Meanwhile, the traditional spoken word closing track will be delivered by Lydia Lunch.

“We were really excited to have the chance to put together a LateNightTales compilation”, say the band. “We decided to use it as a vehicle to show everyone all the amazing music we have gotten to experience by touring and meeting new people. Every track on this comp was either shown to us by an incredible person or made by one of our friends. We also included a little cover of a song by one of our favourite current musicians, Andy Shauf”.

“These artists, as well as many, many others, have influenced us to create and kept our deep love of music alive”, they continue. “This mix will keep you company on a quiet night by yourself or with friends. You can check it out on the plane, the bus, a long walk, or any situation where you want a soundtrack for reflection and meditation”.

Listen to ‘To You’ here:

Here’s the full tracklist:

01. Boards Of Canada – Olson
02. Erasmo Carlos – Vida Antiga
03. Gene Williams – Don’t Let Your Love Fade Away
04. The Chosen Few – People Make The World Go Round
05. Esther Phillips – Home Is Where the Hatred Is
06. Delegation – Oh Honey
07. Velly Joonas – Käes On Aeg
08. Stereolab – The Flower Called Nowhere
09. Kiki Gyan – Disco Dancer
10. Admas – Anchi Bale Game
11. Francis Bebey – Sanza Nocturne
12. Thundercat – For Love I Come
13. River Tiber feat Daniel Caesar – West
14. Charlotte Day Wilson – Work
15. The Beach Boys – Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)
16. Donnie & Joe Emerson – Baby
17. Les Prospection – Lido
18. Grady Tate – And I Love Her
19. BadBadNotGood – To You
20. Steve Kuhn – The Meaning Of Love
21. Lydia Lunch – You, Me and Jim Beam

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Thursday 25 May 2017, 09:39 | By

Enter Shikari announce UK tour

Artist News Gigs & Festivals

Enter Shikari

Enter Shikari have announced their biggest UK tour to date, kicking off in November. Support on the tour will come from Lower Than Atlantis and the excellent Astroid Boys.

As previously reported, earlier this week the band released their new single, ‘Supercharge’, a collaboration with rapper Big Narstie:

Tour dates:

16 Nov: Liverpool, Arena
17 Nov: Cardiff, Motorpoint Arena
18 Nov: Nottingham, Motorpoint Arena
19 Nov: Newcastle, Metro Radio Arena
21 Nov: Manchester, Victoria Warehouse
22 Nov: Brighton Centre
24 Nov: Birmingham, Barclaycard Arena
25 Nov: London, Alexandra Palace

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Thursday 25 May 2017, 09:37 | By

One Liners: PRS, Alt-J, The Kills, more

Artist News Business News Industry People Labels & Publishers One Liners Releases

Alt-J

Other notable announcements and developments today…

• Collecting society PRS For Music held its AGM yesterday, which included a big fat vote for some new directors. The result of that is that Imogen Heap and John Truelove are now writer directors, while Jo Smith, Stuart Hornall and Roberto Neri are publisher directors.

• Here’s ‘Adeline’, the third single from Alt-J’s new album ‘Relaxer’.

• The Kills have announced that they will release an acoustic EP, titled ‘Non-Electric’, on 2 Jun. It will feature this cover of Rihanna’s ‘Desperado’.

• Shabazz Palaces have released another new track, ‘Since CAYA’.

• Lapalux has released new single ‘Flickering’, featuring JFDR.

• Pixx has released new single ‘Waterslides’. Her debut album, ‘The Age Of Anxiety’, is out on 2 Jun.

• Denai Moore has released the video for new single ‘Does It Get Easier?’

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Thursday 25 May 2017, 09:34 | By

Sampling is becoming harder to do, says DJ Shadow

And Finally Artist News

DJ Shadow

DJ Shadow is an artist who built a career by masterfully using samples of other work to create new pieces of music. However, he says that increased litigiousness and greed have now forced him to progressively move away from that manner of working.

“I’ve always believed in clearing samples, however I believe it needs to be done on a musicologist basis”, he tells The Guardian. Which is to say, each sample should be valued “based on the space that it occupies and the number of seconds that it plays over the course of the track, in relation to other elements that come and go”. Using that approach, you can then say, for example, “this sample is worth 16.7% of the composition”.

“Now, if that could be done, then I would clear everything”, he says. “But the problem is, you go to the first person – they want 75%, whether they deserve it or not. You go to the next person they want 70% – whoops – you can’t cut a pie that many times, there isn’t enough pie to go around”.

“In a strange sense I feel like music has never been worth less as a commodity, and yet sampling has never been more risky”, he concludes. “We work in a hyper-capitalist time, where you grab what you can, get everything you can, doesn’t matter whether it’s right or wrong, it doesn’t matter whether it’s valid, it doesn’t matter whether it’s deserved”.

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Thursday 25 May 2017, 08:29 | By

Approved: Fishbach

CMU Approved

Fishbach

Fishbach, aka musician Flora Fischbach, released her debut album ‘À Ta Merci’ in France earlier this year to much acclaim. She’s now beginning to gain ground in the UK too, following her debut release on these shores, the ‘Un Autra Que Moi’ EP.

The record features three tracks from the album, including the EP’s title track, plus new song ‘Night Bird (Petit Monstre)’. On it her synth-pop sound veers between lo-fi and grand production, inviting intimacy or entirely enveloping the listener, depending on what the song requires.

With an urgency and forcefulness in her delivery that makes her music impossible to ignore, it seems unlikely that she will fade into the background any time soon.

Listen to ‘Night Bird (Petit Monstre)’ here:

Stay up to date with all of the artists featured in the CMU Approved column by subscribing to our Spotify playlist.

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Wednesday 24 May 2017, 11:03 | By

Live music industry comments on Manchester Arena attack

Business News Live Business Top Stories

Manchester Arena

As more information emerged yesterday about the bomb attack on the Manchester Arena on Monday night, representatives of the UK live industry expressed their shock and sadness over the incident. They also sought to reassure music fans about security at their concerts and festivals, and asked customers to comply with any existing and new security measures.

As previously reported, 22 people were killed by the home made bomb that was detonated in the foyer of the Arena at the conclusion of an Ariana Grande show taking place there on Monday evening. A further 59 people were injured and taken to hospital. Because of Grande’s young fanbase, a significant number of children and teenagers were caught up in the incident, with twelve of the 59 injured under the age of sixteen. Children were also among those who died, some of whom have now been named.

The bomber has been identified by police as a 22 year old man who was born in Manchester and studied at the city’s Salford University. Home Secretary Amber Rudd has said that he was known to security services before the attack, and had probably not acted alone in planning Monday’s bombing. The UK’s international terrorism threat level has now been raised to ‘critical’ as the investigation into Monday’s attack continues.

The live music industry has long known that its venues and events could be targets for those considering terrorist attacks, and even more so since the attack on the Bataclan venue in Paris in November 2015. Security measures are therefore already in place, and even more so at bigger entertainment complexes, though venues and promoters will no doubt be reviewing policies, and consulting with local police forces, in the wake of Monday’s attack.

Commenting yesterday, the Chair of the UK’s Concert Promoters Association, Phil Bowdery, said: “We are deeply shocked and saddened by last night’s senseless attack at the Ariana Grande concert. This is heartbreaking news and our thoughts and love are with everyone in Manchester at this time – in particular those that lost their lives or were affected by this devastating incident and their families and friends”.

He continued: “All members of the Concert Promoters Association will continue to work with venues, police, stewarding companies and the relevant authorities and it is our understanding that outside of the Manchester Arena and the Ariana Grande tour, all other planned concerts and events will go ahead, as advertised, unless ticketholders are directly advised to the contrary. Fans should check with venues direct for specific updates”.

Concluding, he said: “In light of this attack on our concert going community, we ask for the support and understanding of our patrons with regard to any security measures which are in place for the safety of the public, and urge everyone to be vigilant and report any suspicious behaviour. Our deepest sympathies and condolences are with all those affected by this horrific incident”.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Association Of Independent Festivals said: “Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with all those affected by the horrific incident following the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester last night. In the aftermath of this dreadful attack, audiences attending festivals this season may understandably have some concerns. We must emphasise the excellent security record of festivals in the UK. AIF members are experts in organising safe and secure events for between 800 and 60,000 people and a highly effective private security industry has developed around our events”.

They went on: “In addition, organisers have a constant dialogue with law enforcement and other relevant agencies at a local, regional and national levels and there is increasingly more intelligence sharing between these agencies and organisers through initiatives such as Operation Gothic and the Project Argus training events. Security measures at festivals are reviewed constantly and the top priority of festival and concert promoters is always the safety and security of audiences. If additional measures need to be introduced at festivals, we are confident that they will be”.

A handful of concerts around the UK were cancelled in the wake of Monday’s attack, in part out of respect for the victims, though moving forward many promoters and artists have expressed a commitment to ensure that as many shows as possible go ahead unless police advise otherwise.

That includes this weekend’s three city Dot To Dot Festival, which is due to take place in Manchester on Friday. Organisers said yesterday: “We are shocked and saddened by the terrible tragedy in Manchester. Our thoughts go out to all those affected. From ongoing discussions with venues and relevant authorities, and in solidarity with the resilience of the amazing people of Manchester and the power of live music, Dot To Dot Festival will be going ahead this Friday”.

They continued: “Dot To Dot is a festival about bringing people together and enjoying a day out watching live music. We have taken stock and thought deeply about whether it’s appropriate for us to go ahead in the light of what’s happened – and we have decided we will hold the event. We can’t forget what’s happened, but we don’t want to let fear and hate stop us. In relation to security at venues, Dot To Dot will continue to work closely with all venues and relevant authorities to ensure the safety of all our visitors”.

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Wednesday 24 May 2017, 11:01 | By

KickassTorrents founder granted bail

Business News Digital Legal

KickassTorrents

The founder of file-sharing platform KickassTorrents – Artem Vaulin – has been released on bail nearly a year after he was arrested in Poland.

As previously reported, the US authorities moved to shut down the popular file-sharing service last July. At the same time Ukrainian Vaulin was arrested in Poland and the Americans began extradition proceedings in a bid to force the Kickass man to face criminal copyright infringement charges in a US court.

Previous attempts by Vaulin to secure bail had been unsuccessful, even after he spent some time in hospital being treated for severe back pain. But, according to The Verge, which has interviewed Vaulin, bail was finally granted last Thursday, despite a court initially refusing bail once again earlier in the same week.

According to his lawyers, the former Kickass chief was ordered to post bail of $108,000 and to give up his passport. He will now have to stay in Poland until the ongoing extradition process has gone through all its motions.

Welcoming the latest development, the US lawyer representing Vaulin Stateside, Ira Rothken, said: “We are pleased that the Polish court allowed Artem Vaulin to be free on bail. This will allow Artem to care for his health, be with his family, and assist in his legal defence”.

At stage one of the extradition process in March the Polish court considering the case gave the green light for Vaulin to be extradited to the US. Though a second court has to also consider the application and the country’s Minister Of Justice must also sign-off on any extradition. Vaulin could also appeal to Poland’s Supreme Court, so there are still plenty of stages to come in the extradition process.

Meanwhile, back in the US, Rothken is still trying to have the case against his client dismissed on the basis that KickassTorrents could only be accused of so called secondary or contributory infringement, which – he argues – is not a matter for criminal law. That argument is based on the fact KickassTorrents only facilitated the infringement of others, rather than being directly involved in the distribution of infringing content.

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Wednesday 24 May 2017, 10:58 | By

Preliminary injunction extends ban on release of unofficial Prince recordings

Artist News Business News Labels & Publishers Legal

Prince

A US court has told producer Ian Boxill that he is barred from releasing any of the tracks he collaborated on with Prince until his legal battle with the late musician’s estate has been fully resolved.

As previously reported, last month producer Boxill announced that he was planning to put out a six track EP of previously unreleased Prince tracks, via a label services company called Rogue Music Alliance, to coincide with the first anniversary of the musician’s death. The new tracks were seemingly the output of some collaborations the producer worked on with Prince between 2006 and 2008, which Boxill has since completed.

The Prince estate was not impressed with Boxill’s plan and went legal in a bid to stop the release. A judge initially issued a temporary restraining order that stopped Boxill’s release plans, which was subsequently extended until Monday of this week. Now a preliminary injunction has been issued that means Boxill is barred from making public any of his collaborations with Prince until the conclusion of the estate’s legal action.

The estate argues that Boxill’s attempts to release the tracks he made with Prince breaches an agreement he signed at the time the two men collaborated. Specifically, according to Courthouse News, a confidentiality agreement that states that recordings from Boxill’s work with Prince “shall remain [Paisley Park Enterprises’] sole and exclusive property, shall not be used by [Boxill] in any way whatsoever, and shall be returned to Paisley immediately upon request”.

Paisley Park Enterprises, of course, is Prince’s company, which filed the lawsuit against Boxill alongside estate administrators Comercia Bank. The preliminary injunction bans both Boxill and his business partners Rogue Music Alliance from distributing Prince recordings, and from using the Prince trademark.

This week’s court ruling states that “on balance, the [relevant] factors weigh in favour of granting plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction. However, the scope of a preliminary injunction should not be greater than necessary to protect the movant until the dispute can be resolved on the merits”.

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Wednesday 24 May 2017, 10:56 | By

Vivendi has no imminent plans to float Universal Music, but won’t rule it out

Business News Labels & Publishers

Universal Music

When senior execs at Universal Music owner Vivendi suddenly started discussing a possible valuation for its big music asset at a shareholders meeting last month – a valuation of up to 20 billion euros being referenced – speculation predictably followed that that probably meant the French entertainment conglom was looking to sell the music major, or more likely a slice of it.

The Vivendi top guard have, in the past, resisted calls from some shareholders to sell or float some of the Universal Music Group. However, Vivendi CEO Arnaud de Puyfontaine has now told the Wall Street Journal that, while there are no imminent plans to IPO the music firm, his company could as yet float a minority stake in Universal.

“This is not a sacred cow”, de Puyfontaine stated, regarding whether or not his company would sell some or all of its music business. Of course, any such moves now could be seen as an effort to capitalise on the wider record industry’s return to growth, and the potential to spin that to Vivendi’s advantage within investment circles. “I remember the people a few years ago who explained to us that music was a dying business and would never recover”, de Puyfontaine added. “I have a good memory, and facts are proving them wrong”.

Of course, the record industry has a long way to go to return to the revenue levels it enjoyed during the CD boom of the 1990s, and recent revenue increases have been mainly fuelled by the mega-bucks flowing in to the music industry each month from the entirely loss-making streaming sector. But if you are willing to believe that Spotify et al can reach the kind of scale they need to become profitable, there is room for some optimism. And the majors have, to date, been the biggest beneficiaries of the streaming boom, Universal in particular.

Though, even if Vivendi thought it could convince the investment community that the future of recorded music is looking bright – maximising the value of the 15% stake in Universal it would likely look to offload – there may be other reasons why the media conglom would have second thoughts about that plan.

Vivendi – and especially Chairman and key shareholder Vincent Bolloré – is keen to encourage more synergies between the group’s various businesses, including its TV and movie division Canal+, digital platform DailyMotion and the firm’s growing interests in ticketing. And also with the Havas advertising business that Bolloré also controls, and which he is busy trying to basically merge with Vivendi. Floating a minority stake in Universal Music wouldn’t necessarily stop any of that for happening, though it could be a distraction that gets in the way of Bolloré’s grand vision.

Sources say that any IPO wasn’t on the agenda when Bolloré last met with Universal Music overlord Lucian Grainge. Speculation will no doubt continue, even more so given de Puyfontaine’s albeit non-committal statements.

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Wednesday 24 May 2017, 10:54 | By

Bucks Music moves to support Floor Sixx talent development venture

Business News Deals Labels & Publishers

Bucks Music Group

The Bucks Music Group has signed a sponsorship deal with Floor Sixx, a new artist development and music education company led by Sian Anderson and Jason Black.

Floor Sixx says that it “celebrates the best underground music across a range of genres by releasing exclusive singles” via its channels on various digital music platforms, while revenues from those releases help fund the Floor Sixx Music Academy, which seeks to mentor aspiring artists and future music industry talent.

Under the new sponsorship deal, Bucks Music will handle the admin and licensing of works published by the music publishing side of the Floor Sixx operation, as well as providing funding via which the new company can sign songwriting talent, the first deal from which is with London MC Capo Lee.

Anderson says she is “super excited” about the deal with Bucks, adding: “This is a huge move for us, Bucks really see our vision and we’re all really excited about having Capo Lee as our first project, he’s a brilliant artist”.

While Bucks A&R Harri Davies adds: “From the very beginning we have loved and shared Sian and Jason’s unique vision for the Floor Sixx brand. We are very happy to be working together with them as creatives and the next wave of talent they are bringing through the Floor Sixx platform”.

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Wednesday 24 May 2017, 10:52 | By

Festival Republic to begin offering drug testing services

Business News Live Business

Festival Republic

Live Nation’s Festival Republic is to introduce drug testing services at a number of its festivals this year, boss man Melvin Benn has revealed. The programme allows festival-goers to find out exactly what drugs they have bought, and if and how they might be safe to consume.

Speaking to the Press Association, Benn explained: “We talked about it during the summer of last year and the reality is that I took a decision that unless and until the National Police Chiefs’ Council supported the principle of it, it was difficult for us to move forward on it … It’s taken a long time and it won’t be at every festival, but where we think there is a need to do it, we will be doing it”.

Benn said that he expects testing to be available at “between six and ten festivals this year”. The service will be provided by The Loop, which will test illegal substances handed over by festival-goers. They will then report back on what substances are in the drugs, before destroying whatever they were given to test.

The scheme was launched last year at the Secret Garden Party, where 200 people had their drugs tested. “It’s really exciting that police are prioritising health and safety over criminal justice at festivals”, said The Loop founder Fiona Measham of Festival Republic’s plans to allow drug testing.

Measham says that she expects to see The Loop’s testing to be available at around ten UK festivals this year. Of those operated by Festival Republic, Benn has said that he feels “pretty certain” that Leeds Festival will offer the service, but Download will not.

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Wednesday 24 May 2017, 10:46 | By

Bahamian businesses also out of pocket following collapse of Fyre Festival

Business News Live Business

Fyre Festival

As the lawsuits continue to pile up against the disastrous Fyre Festival that never happened, The Tribune newspaper in the Bahamas has interviewed a number of local suppliers hired by the luxury event – due to take place in the island of Great Exuma – who have been left out of pocket by the whole debacle.

Angry ticketholders and US-based suppliers are amongst those who have gone legal against the company behind the Fyre Festival, and its co-founders Ja Rule and Billy McFarland.

In the wake of the multi-million dollars being claimed in each of those lawsuits, the figures owed to various businesses in the Bahamas who worked on the event may seem modest, though as The Tribune notes, unpaid bills of six figures “are extremely significant in an island economy of Exuma’s size, particularly for Bahamian-owned small and medium-sized businesses, as this could prove the difference between their survival and closure”.

Among those out of pocket are Maryann Rolle, owner of the Exuma Point Restaurant & Bar, who tells the paper she is owed $134,000 for catering services. She says: “They used me to the fullest. I was [providing] up to 1000 meals a day, 500 in the morning and 500 in the evening. They were very demanding. The event fell through but I never heard a word from them. They could have at least called and said something. They went away and never even looked back. We allowed crooks into this country. I only hope to God that this whole thing gets sorted out because people need their money”.

The boss of a local construction firm, Brian Lloyd, is also owed over $100,000. “I had about 130 people working with me, doing all sorts of things like installing carpet, beds and tents, sometimes working from 8am until 4am the next morning”, he said. “The first few days, when we started, we got paid for about three days. After that we worked two more weeks and didn’t get paid. We were supposed to get paid that Friday, but everything got shut down and we were left cleaning up afterwards”.

Given the impact on local businesses, the President of the Exuma Chamber Of Commerce, Pedro Rolle, has called for a government investigation into the collapse of the festival. “I think it needs investigating”, he told The Tribune. “There are some untold stories with regard to this. We just know something wasn’t right, and we believe influence was somehow brought to bear on the Ministry Of Tourism. Why were they going ahead given that there were so many unanswered questions? They did it for no reason at all. It doesn’t make sense”.

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Wednesday 24 May 2017, 10:44 | By

CMU@TGE 2017: Tackling Addiction In The Music Community – Simon Mason

Artist News Business News The Great Escape 2017

Simon Mason

Look out for reports on all the key sessions at the CMU Insights conferences at The Great Escape over the next few weeks. Plus, from next Monday, we’ll be publishing a series of CMU Trends reports providing more in depth versions of the insight presentations CMU Insights delivered during TGE this year – go premium to access CMU Trends. Today, we look at the first of a series of sessions on addiction in the music community, and our interview with musician and writer Simon Mason.

Mason is the author of ‘Too High, Too Far, Too Soon’, a book about his experiences within the 1990s Britpop scene. Already addicted to drugs by the time he entered that world, Mason soon became a drug dealer to several bands within it, finding himself on tour with them in order to procure supplies. Now clean, more recently he has toured with bands, including The Libertines on their reunion tour, to help keep them off the drugs.

Speaking during the CMU Insights Drugs Conference, Mason began by describing how he became involved in the Britpop scene in the first place. “I became immersed in that cultural phenomenon as someone who thought they were a musician, who wanted to be a musician, but was actually a drug addict”, he said.

“My entry into the world of backstage, and that kind of stuff, was via Glastonbury and other festivals”, he continued. “Prior to Britpop I’d managed to get a job for an organisation that I’d better not mention. It involved having an access all areas pass and joining the dots between what people were looking for backstage but were unable or effectively too scared to go looking for outside the confines of the backstage”.

He routinely found himself being asked to find drugs, and as a drug user himself he knew where to get them. “I became the guy that knew the guy”, he said. “And then I became the guy”.

Of his view of that time, and whether he felt he was doing harm by providing the drugs, he explained: “I was a drug dealer and a drug addict, and I didn’t choose to see any damage. I saw and heard incredible music being made, incredible performances. I saw a lot of people having a really good time. Part of that was staying awake for a long time, sitting around in fields, or at festivals, or at gigs. And at the time generally feeling like we were a tribe, a disparate tribe. Electronic music and indie music – it didn’t matter anymore. It became this big melting pot, and part of what was melting in the pot was a lot of drugs”.

“There was a darker underbelly to that though”, he admits. “No one had previously taken drugs on the scale of what we were taking at that point. What happened in the late 80s and 90s was unprecedented and probably still is. It happened on an industrial scale. It became really easy to hide in that industry”.

As he became ever more involved, he missed the warning signs. “I remember coming back off tour with a band that I’d been ‘helping’ for three weeks and I got home and I collapsed”, he recalled. His GP advised him to rest. “I said: ‘Why would I want to do that when I’ve got another tour to go on?’ It didn’t occur to me that how I was living my life was damaging. It just seemed like what everyone was doing”.

Eventually Mason became addicted to heroin, which he discovered was frowned upon even by many in the music scene at the time. “I was at Knebworth for that legendary Oasis gig”, he said. “I arrived there and I soon discovered that I had left my stash of heroin back in London. So, I needed to trawl through the backstage area trying to find someone that I knew that had a heroin habit. Instead, I was met with this sea of disgust from people”.

“I had all these people with cocaine falling out of their nose at Knebworth talking absolute shit to each other, calling me a junkie”, he went on. “And I’m thinking ‘hang on’, even in my own drug-addled state, I knew there was a discrepancy there, there was some sort of duality, hypocrisy. But of course I paid no attention to it”.

Nonetheless, his position as a celebrity drug dealer quickly started to slip. “By 1997, I was homeless, I was living on the street. The phone had stopped ringing. All those wonderful people that I’d always known weren’t really my mates but used to come and visit my house a lot because they wanted drugs – guess what? – they weren’t there anymore”.

It took time, and a number of attempts, to overcome his own addiction challenges, but Mason has now been clean for more than ten years, and in 2013 published the memoir about his experiences in the music industry.

“People say ‘it must have been really cathartic [to write the book]'”, he said. “The honest truth is that I don’t think it was cathartic. I’d sat in enough self-help groups and been to rehab seven times. I’d been through that process. The truth was that, it’s a good story. Someone had read some of the ramblings that went on to become this book and they said, ‘You’ve got a voice and this needs to be heard because ultimately it’s a story of hope'”.

“Sadly the perception of addiction and musicians is quite warped”, he continued. “There’s a lot of disinformation flying about. The public perception of alcoholics and drug addicts is that you’re always going to be one and you’re never going to sort it out. I don’t know how but I survived and there’s a message of hope at the end [of my story]. I’d like to think it’s not prescriptive. I don’t tell people how to recover, I just talk about my experience”.

After it had been published, Mason said he began to start receiving messages from people who told him the book had helped them. “The best one I got was: ‘You don’t know who I am, you’ll never meet me, I just wanna let you know that if someone as fucked up as you can get clean then anyone can, thanks!'”

Soon, he began getting requests to work with musicians who were struggling with addiction, in something a turnaround from his former involvement in the music community. This, he believes, was partly the result of music industry veterans reading the book because they were worried that they might be mentioned in it.

“Everyone’s fear was that this was some sort of shabby kiss and tell footballer’s wives book”, he said. “And it’s nothing of the sort. So I think a lot of people read it out of curiosity. Some of those people are still in management and they’re still managing artists that have problems. So I got asked to go and meet some musicians, fairly high profile ones, to see if I could help them”.

Of his approach to this work, he explained: “For me personally, I’ve always found the most potent source of help is to be shown how to live differently, rather than just being told how to live differently. By living differently, I mean living with some sobriety, or not smoking crack all day, or drinking. That’s kind of what happened”.

“I’ve got varying degrees of success with the people I helped who were already at a point where they were ready to change some of their behaviour”, he added. “Not so much success with the people that felt that I’d been imposed upon them by their management and who couldn’t wait for me to just piss off and leave them alone”.

Still, his experiences give him a better insight to offer that help when someone is ready for it, he said. “If there’s a better example of poacher turned gamekeeper, I’d like to hear it. Because I understand. I understand the music industry from top to bottom. I understand addiction from top to bottom. I was a using addict for 20 years. At the end of this month I’ll be eleven years clean and sober. I get it. And I like helping people”.

The other result of his recovery is that Mason has returned to music, and begun to find some success with it. Initially he formed a band called The Should Be Deads with a number of other people he was in a twelve-step programme with, performing covers at charity shows.

“We rolled that for about seven years, and it was great, fantastic”, he said. “But I realised that it wasn’t quite scratching the itch for me creatively. I came off a job with a band I was on tour with, The Libertines, last year, and Peter [Doherty] very kindly said: ‘Look, why don’t you open the show for me on this solo tour, read some of your book, play some of your songs?'”

That resulted in Mason gaining a record deal and forming his new band The Hightown Pirates. “That sort of fairy tale stuff that I thought I wanted back in my days of being a drug addict never happened back then”, he said. “And if it had happened [and the money had flowed in] I’d have been dead. I did a pretty good job of killing myself on the giro. So thank the universe that it didn’t happen then”.

“I was one of those people who believed that creativity only came from being under the influence of something”, he went on. “But my experience is that, with the album we’ve just made, and the shows that we’ve just started doing, they just could not have happened when I was taking drugs. It’s kind of like ‘Si And The Family Unstoned’. We’ve made this album and from the early reviews – people have said it sounds full of joy. We’ve got a horn section, it’s this massive sounding thing, and it’s the sound of redemption. It’s the sound of hope”.

Check out all the reports and resources CMU has published around this year’s CMU Insights @ The Great Escape conferences here. The Hightown Pirates’ debut album ‘Dry And High’ is released on 16 Jun. Find out more about the band here.

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Wednesday 24 May 2017, 10:41 | By

One liners: Warner/Chappell, Enter Shikari, Death Grips, more

Artist News Business News Industry People Labels & Publishers One Liners Releases

Enter Shikari

Other notable announcements and developments today…

• Kurt Deutsch is now SVP Theatrical & Catalogue Development for Warner’s music publishing business, Warner/Chappell, based out of New York. He joins from the theatre-focused indie label he co-founded, Sh-K-Boom Records, where he remains President.

• Enter Shikari have released a new track, ‘Supercharge’, featuring Big Narstie.

• Death Grips have announced that they will be releasing a new album at some point in the future. When, they are not clear. However, here is a new 20 minute megamix.

• Sløtface have released the video for ‘Magazine’. The track is the first single from their debut album, ‘Try Not To Freak Out’, which is due out on 15 Sep.

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Wednesday 24 May 2017, 10:38 | By

Travis Scott breaks personal best for Goosebumps performances

And Finally Artist News Gigs & Festivals

Travis Scott

If you go to see Travis Scott perform live at the moment, it seems likely that you’ll get to see him perform your favourite track. So long as that favourite is ‘Goosebumps’. Having set what he believed to be a record for the most performances of the same song in a single concert earlier this month, he’s gone and done it again.

As previously reported, Scott recently performed ‘Goosebumps’ fourteen times in a row at a show in Detroit. That’s two more than Kanye West and Jay-Z, who he was aiming to beat, and who played ‘Niggas In Paris’ from their ‘Watch The Throne’ album twelve times at a 2012 show in Paris.

At a show in Cleveland on Sunday, Scott played the song fifteen times in a row, beating his personal best. Although newly uploaded fan-shot footage shows that he was not performing the track in full, so I’m not sure it counts.

Whether or not it counts is a moot point though, because it turns out that West and Jay-Z didn’t actually hold the record Scott was attempting to break in the first place – ie most performances of one song in one sitting. And neither does Scott himself now. The National, as you should all have remembered, performed their song ‘Sorrow’ over 100 times in one sitting back in 2013. It took them six hours. They also released it as a live album.

If Scott really wants to break this record, he’ll pass it at some point in 2020 at the rate he’s currently going – ie increasing the length of this ‘Goosebumps’ interlude by one more performance each week. Plus he’ll need to start performing more than 20 seconds of the track at a time. Not really worth it, is it?

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Wednesday 24 May 2017, 09:31 | By

Approved: Yungblud

CMU Approved

Yungblud

There’s been a lot of talk over the last year or so about young people needing to become more involved in politics, particularly so since the announcement of the snap general election we’ve got coming up.

Well, the good news is that – while people in their 30s have been busy tweeting at other people in their 30s that The Kids should be getting more political – said Kids have been busy getting on with it themselves. Look, here’s one in the form of nineteen year old singer-songwriter Yungblud.

Having apparently gone down a storm at The Great Escape last week, musician Dominic Harrison has released one single to date, ‘King Charles’. The song shows two things. First, that he’s got some clear ideas on the politics of the day – “It’s real, real scary being under 21”, he sings at one point. Secondly, and possibly more importantly, he knows how to write a good song.

The anger and wry humour in the lyrics of ‘King Charles’ are one of the song’s hooks, but the urgency of its performance, the infectious bassline, and the soaring backing vocals all make it a track you’ll be hitting repeat on.

Listen to ‘King Charles’ here:

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Tuesday 23 May 2017, 10:35 | By

22 dead in bomb blast at Ariana Grande show in Manchester

Artist News Business News Live Business Top Stories

Manchester Arena

A suicide bomb attack at the conclusion of an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester last night has left at least 22 people dead and 59 injured. Police have said that the bomb was detonated by a man who also died in the blast.

The blast occurred in the foyer area of the Manchester Arena just before 10.35pm, shortly after Grande had left the stage. Eye-witnesses interviewed by the BBC have spoken of a blast and flash of fire, causing glass to shatter and the whole building to shake.

One man, who had just arrived at the arena to pick up his wife and daughter, spoke about how the blast threw him about 30 feet, from one set of doors to another. “When I got up I saw bodies lying on the ground”, he added. “My first thought was to go into the arena to try to find my family”.

Panic ensued as audience members rushed to exit the building in the wake of the blast. The Manchester Arena has a capacity of 21,000 and, with Grande playing there last night, there was a particularly high number of teenagers and children in the audience. Emergency services told reporters that they had taken 59 casualties from the incident to local hospitals, while treating others onsite, including for “shrapnel-like injuries”.

The Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, Ian Hopkins, said in a statement: “This has been the most horrific incident we have had to face in Greater Manchester and one that we all hoped we would never see. Families and many young people were out to enjoy a concert at the Manchester Arena and have lost their lives. Our thoughts are with those 22 victims that we now know have died, the 59 people who have been injured and their loved ones. We continue to do all we can to support them”.

On the investigation his force has now launched, he added: “We have been treating this as a terrorist incident and we believe, at this stage, the attack last night was conducted by one man. The priority is to establish whether he was acting alone or as part of a network. The attacker, I can confirm, died at the arena. We believe the attacker was carrying an improvised explosive device which he detonated causing this atrocity. We would ask people not to speculate on his details or to share names”.

Hopkins added: “There is a complex and wide ranging investigation underway. Our priority is to work with the National Counter Terrorist Policing Network and UK intelligence services to establish more details about the individual who carried out this attack. We have received tremendous support from across the police services and partner agencies throughout the night”.

Both the music and political communities expressed their shock and condolences last night and this morning, the latter group confirming that general election campaigning would be suspended for today following the attack.

The recently elected mayor of Greater Manchester, former MP Andy Burnham, told reporters: “It is hard to believe what has happened here in the last few hours and to put into words the shock, anger and hurt that we feel today. These were children, young people and their families that those responsible chose to terrorise and kill. This was an evil act”.

He added: “Our first thoughts are with the families of those killed and injured and we will do whatever we can to support them. We are grieving today but we are strong. Today it will be business as usual as far as possible in our great city. I want to thank the hundreds of police, fire and ambulance staff who worked through the night in the most difficult circumstances imaginable”.

Grande wrote on Twitter after the attack: “Broken. From the bottom of my heart, I am so so sorry. I don’t have words”. Her management subsequently issued a statement stating that “words cannot express our sorrow for the victims and families harmed in this senseless attack”.

The statement went on: “We mourn the lives of children and loved ones taken by this cowardly act. We are thankful for the selfless service tonight of Manchester’s first responders who rushed towards danger to help save lives. We ask all of you to hold the victims, their families, and all those affected in your hearts and prayers”.

Among the music industry organisations to comment this morning was cross-sector trade group UK Music. Its new CEO Michael Dugher said: “Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected by this horrific attack. It is even more distressing that children and teenagers have been targeted. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to our brave emergency services and the venue staff. We know venues take security very seriously and do all they can to minimise risks, including training staff how to deal with major incidents. As a result of police investigations there will no doubt be a further review of these measures”.

The live music industry has long known that its venues and events could be targets for those considering terrorist attacks, and even more so since the attack on the Bataclan venue in Paris in November 2015. Security measures are therefore already in place, and even more so at bigger venues, though those will no doubt be heightened in the wake of last night’s bombing.

Despite that knowledge, and seeing regular reports of terrorist attacks around the world, incidents like this one – on home turf, in a popular venue, at a setting as familiar as a pop concert – seem particularly shocking from a UK and music community perspective. Supporting those directly affected is obviously everyone’s top priority, beyond which the music community, like the people of Manchester, will endeavour to continue as normal.

As Dugher concluded in his statement: “Music has the power to bring people together and is so often a celebration of peace and love. We will not let terrorism and the politics of violence, hatred and division conquer that spirit”.

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Tuesday 23 May 2017, 10:33 | By

Paypal sues Pandora over logo

Business News Digital Legal

Pandora

Paypal is suing Pandora over the new logo the streaming service unveiled back in October last year. The online payments company says that similarities to its own logo, especially on its smartphone app, are causing confusion for customers.

According to the New York Post, a lawsuit filed by Paypal in New York last week claims that the similarity between the two company’s smartphone app icons “has interfered dramatically with PayPal users’ experience”.

As part of the legal filing, the company has included 20 tweets from apparently confused customers, including one who wrote: “I was a little confused when I opened PayPal and Barenaked Ladies started playing”.

Pandora’s logo “not only resembles, but openly mimics the PayPal logo”, says the lawsuit. And Pandora must be aware of the similarities, it adds, because “the PayPal logo is on the checkout page of Pandora.com”.

It goes on: “Even the slightest delay in locating and using PayPal’s payments platform causes customers inconvenience, and degrades PayPal’s standing with customers and merchants”.

Paypal says that it has attempted to resolve this issue with Pandora directly, but unsuccessfully, and is now seeking unspecified damages and a court ruling to stop Pandora from using its current logo.

Pandora has not yet commented on the case.

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