Night & Day supporters urge Manchester City Council to rethink as noise dispute heads to court
Key figures from the Manchester music community have again urged the city's council to withdraw the noise abatement notice it issued against the Night & Day Café as the legal dispute that could result in the closure of the key music venue heads to court this week.

Night & Day revealed last month that it is continuing to fight the noise abatement notice which was served against it by Manchester City Council last year. The notice was issued following complaints from one person who moved into a flat next to the venue during the COVID lockdowns. That person complained about the noise coming from the Night & Day Café once the lockdowns were over and the venue was open again.

While it's always annoying when people move into a part of a city that is famous for its nightlife, and then complain about the nightlife, things are doubly annoying in the case of the Night & Day's noise abatement notice. When the building where the complainant lives was most recently redeveloped, the property developers seemingly did not consider or mitigate future noise issues, despite that being a requirement of the planning permission provided by the local council.

"After receiving a copy of the MCC planning file for the redevelopment where the complainant lives, we were shocked and appalled to find that a crucial acoustic report had not been provided, nor acoustic works completed to the development before it was occupied", the venue said in a recent statement.

So, basically, the council foresaw the future noise problems the redevelopment could create, addressed it in its planning requirements, and then failed to enforce those requirements.

The operators of the venue confirmed in their statement that they have brought all this to the attention of council leaders and "feel strongly that Night & Day has been mistreated and that this is the council's problem to resolve", but the local authority still refuses to retract the notice.

Unless the venue can now successfully appeal the notice in court, it will likely be forced to alter its operations in a way that will make the whole business unviable. Hence the threat of closure.

Making the whole thing even more annoying, Night & Day is widely regarded as one of the cultural institutions that sparked the revival of Manchester's city centre that began in the late 1990s, transforming it into a place where people now desire to live.

In an article this weekend, The Observer notes: "In 1990, the year before Night & Day opened, only 500 people lived in Manchester city centre. In 2025, its population is expected to hit 100,000 - 75% of whom will have moved in since 2015".

The city's Northern Quarter, where Night & Day is based, "was dangerous and dilapidated in the early 90s" but "is now one of the most sought-after urban living areas in Britain. A penthouse apartment in the warehouse next door [to the venue] costs £440,000. Several other flats are advertised on the same street for upwards of £300,000 - far out of reach for many locals. The success of the area is thanks, its supporters say, to pioneers like Night & Day's founder Jan Oldenburg".

Night & Day has the support of some key advisors to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, the regional government entity headed up by mayor Andy Burnham, and which has various responsibilities across the ten metropolitan boroughs of Greater Manchester, of which Manchester City Council is one. Both Sacha Lord - night time economy advisor to the GMCA - and Jay Taylor - Chair of the Greater Manchester Music Commission, a body set up by Burnham - urged Manchester City Council to reconsider its position on Night & Day via the article in The Observer this weekend.

Lord said he'd struggle to find a grassroots venue more important to Greater Manchester than Night & Day and urged the council to find a "common sense approach". Meanwhile, Taylor said that the closure of Night & Day would be "devastating" for the region, adding: "With regards to the council, they should admit the mistakes that were made when that development went in and remove that noise abatement order, and then make good on that problem - which was a developmental problem, not a problem with the business that exists next door".

Also quoted in The Observer article is Elbow's Guy Garvey, who says that the dispute risks making the Northern Quarter like one of those "boroughs in London where only rich people can afford to live. Yes, they're quiet and it's all very Mary Poppins, but that's not Manchester, that's not Manchester city centre, and that's the death of culture".

Meanwhile Jeremy Pritchard from Everything Everything adds: "If Manchester cannot protect the Night & Day, it isn't a music city".

The City Council continues to insist it isn't seeking to force the closure of Night & Day, telling The Observer: "It must be made explicitly clear from the outset that the council has never threatened to close down this venue, nor is there any legislation which would allow a noise abatement notice to be used to close a premises".

Which may be technically true, except - Night & Day's supporters would point out - the council is creating a set of circumstances where closure may be inevitable.

Making a "final plea" to the council this weekend, the Music Venue Trust wrote on Twitter: "⁩Your noise abatement action is going to close ⁦Night & Day if you win. You shouldn't even be in court. Don't throw away Manchester's music heritage. Don't throw culture under the bulldozer of development".

We await to see how this week's court hearing goes.

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Sony Music UK reportedly reviewing security protocols following Headie One brawl
Sony Music is reportedly reviewing the security protocols at its London HQ near Kings Cross following an altercation last week between rapper Headie One and another musician. Or at least so reports the Mail On Sunday.

According to the tabloid, a fight broke out between the rapper and a rival artist following a chance encounter in the cafe at the major's newish London base last Wednesday.

The Mail reports: "Police were called after plates were thrown amid a clash between top ten selling rapper Headie One and another musician visiting the building for a meeting. Some employees were forced to hide under tables, but nobody was hurt".

It then quotes one Sony staff member as saying: "When it all kicked off in the canteen, some people ran, and others hid. These two people clearly hate one another but for it to take place while you're eating your lunch was shocking. There was food everywhere, as well as blood. It was terrifying".

The fight - which the Mail speculates is linked to gang rivalry - resulted in both artists being removed from the premises by security.

As well as confirming the review of security protocols, a spokesperson for the music firm said: "Sony Music takes the safety of its staff very seriously. This is now a police matter so we cannot comment further".

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Utopia confirms rejig and downsizing
The recently expansive and acquisitive Utopia Music last week confirmed a structural rejig which will also result in a downsizing of the group's total workforce.

The business will now have two main divisions. Utopia Music Tech will be led by Roberto Neri and brings together many of the firm's high profile acquisitions, including Sentric Music, Absolute Label Services, Proper Music and Cinram Novum. Utopia Royalty Platform will be headed up by CEO Markku Mäkeläinen and includes the company's data operations and research unit.

The downsizing will seemingly occur in the latter division, with a memo to staff last week confirming a plan to reduce workforce costs by about 20%.

According to Music Week, Mäkeläinen wrote in the memo that: "As we have grown via acquisitions tremendously quickly, we need to realise synergies, remove overlaps to make the Royalty Platform division leaner, and improve the velocity of our value creation".

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Utopia told reporters: "Like many growth companies in today's macroeconomic environment, Utopia is making changes to its internal structure to optimise the business. We've grown rapidly in two years, organically and through fifteen acquisitions. Now, we're realising cost synergies across these acquisitions and focusing on sustainable growth".

"These changes enable us to better serve the music industry and deliver fair pay for every play", they went on. "Unfortunately, that means saying goodbye to some of our colleagues as part of this process. This isn't a decision that was taken lightly and we greatly value the contribution of all our employees to Utopia's journey so far".

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Local council calls for reduced noise levels and improved crowd control at next year's Glastonbury Festival
The Glastonbury Festival has been asked to reduce noise levels and improve crowd control at next year's event, after a report from the local Mendip District Council - which licenses the festival - said that this year's edition had been "well planned and managed" but that "improvements are necessary".

According to an ITV News report last week, at a recent council meeting local residents said that noise levels on the festival site were higher this year than in the past, with the local authority stating that - next year - organisers will need to "address excessive loudness and low-frequency noise" through monitoring and time restrictions.

Meanwhile, concerns were also raised about crowd management at the festival. Chris Inchley, who chaired the recent meeting, reportedly said: "Talking to people who actually went to the festival, one comment made by many people was about the actual number of people on the site, especially on the Sunday. They said they felt rather unsafe with the volume of people".

His fellow councillor Heather Shearer stressed that the festival site is definitely large enough to accommodate all the ticket-holders, but added that more needed to be done to control crowds in particular areas of said site in order to prevent crushes.

"It is recognised as something that the festival organisers need to be thinking about", she went on. "Because it's such a massive site, it's clearly big enough for the people if it goes to the pinnacle of its numbers. The issue is really about crowd dynamics - about the pinch points when they move".

Although they had representatives at the meeting, organisers of the festival are yet to formally respond to the council's comments and concerns, but are expected to do so in writing in the next couple of months.

There was a time when Glastonbury regularly ran into issues with its local council, sometimes resulting in fears that the event might not even be granted its licence. However, in more recent times the festival has generally enjoyed a much more positive relationship with the local authority.

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Charles Koppelman dies
Veteran US music publishing and record label exec Charles Koppelman has died, aged 82.

In a statement on Facebook, his daughter, Jenny Koppelman Hutt, said: "With a very heavy heart, we want to share that our beloved father, pop-pop and best friend Charles Koppelman passed away peacefully earlier today surrounded by his entire family. His larger than life presence will be with us forever".

Originally a singer in the group The Ivy Three, Koppelman was hired by Don Kirshner to be a songwriter at his Aldon Music company. Drawn more to the business side of things, he shifted roles after Aldon was sold to Columbia Pictures in 1963, becoming Director of Screen Gems/Columbia Music - the company formed by the merger.

Two years label, Koppelman left to form his own company, Koppelman/Rubin Associates, alongside his former Ivy Three bandmate Don Rubin. One of their earliest signings was The Lovin Spoonful.

In the early 1970s, he moved to CBS Records, where he held a number of roles and signed acts including Billy Joel, Journey and Phoebe Snow. He eventually became General Manager Of Worldwide Publishing for the company. Then in 1975, he founded The Entertainment Company with Marty Bandier, working with artists including Diana Ross, Dolly Parton and Cher.

A decade later, in 1986, Koppelman and Bandier founded SBK Entertainment World, in order to buy a catalogue of 250,000 songs owned by CBS. Then in 1989, they sold that company to EMI for $300 million. The pair were given their own label, SBK records, while Koppelman became Chair of EMI Music Publishing, and Bandier was named Vice Chair. Koppelman later also became CEO Of EMI Records Group North America.

In later years, he worked outside of the music industry, taking roles at Steve Madden Ltd and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

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Fame and Flashdance singer Irene Cara dies
Singer Irene Cara has died, aged 63. She was best known for singing the title songs to the movies 'Fame' and 'Flashdance', and also played the lead role of Coco Hernandez in 'Fame'.

Her publicist, Judith Moose, said in a statement: "It is with profound sadness that on behalf of her family I announce the passing of Irene Cara. The Academy Award winning actress, singer, songwriter, and producer passed away in her Florida home. Her cause of death is currently unknown and will be released when information is available".

"Irene's family has requested privacy as they process their grief", she added. "She was a beautifully gifted soul whose legacy will live forever through her music and films. Funeral services are pending and a memorial for her fans will be planned at a future date".

The formal announcement issued, Moose added on Twitter: "This is the absolute worst part of being a publicist. I can't believe I've had to write this, let alone release the news. Please share your thoughts and memories of Irene. I'll be reading each and every one of them and know she'll be smiling from Heaven. She adored her fans".

Born in 1959 in the Bronx area of New York City, Cara began her career as a child actor on Spanish language TV. She also recorded music and appeared in musicals on and off Broadway.

In 1979, she was cast as a dancer in the Alan Parker directed film 'Fame'. However, when the film's makers heard her singing voice, the lead role of Coco Hernandez was re-written for her to play. She performed the title track, 'Fame', and several other songs on the film's soundtrack, including 'Out Here On My Own', which was also released as a single.

Her next big hit didn't come until 1983, when she released the title track for the movie 'Flashdance' - 'Flashdance... What A Feeling' - which she co-wrote with Giorgio Moroder and Keith Forsey. The track won her an Oscar, a Grammy, a Golden Globe and two American Music Awards. She also later re-recorded the song for 1997 film 'The Full Monty'.

Moose said that Cara had been working on new projects at the time of her death, which the publicist said will be completely posthumously.

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Babymetal announce 'silent mosh pits' at Japanese shows
Babymetal have announced that they will be including quiet areas at the Japan shows that kick off their world tour for people uncomfortable with the more raucous side of metal audiences. What they're slightly clunkily referring to as their "silent mosh'sh pit", they say, "is a designated area for those who have small children [or] who are not confident in their physical strength".

There are rules if you want to stand in this area, with a post on the band's Facebook page explaining that you should "refrain from activities such as shouting, cheering, talking loudly, or any other behaviour that may be an inconvenience to other customers". However, "singing/reacting at a level where only the person next to you can hear is acceptable".

While it might seem easy to mock the idea of people wanting to be quiet at a metal show, there are numerous reasons why people might be fans of the genre but still not massively enjoy having audience members shout and shove them around during a gig.

Being a child or fearing injury are two possible reasons identified by Babymetal and their management, but many neurodivergent people also find the more chaotic side of being in a metal audience difficult, despite enjoying the music. Having this area available opens up the opportunity to attend the Babymetal show to more people and allows fans to enjoy the band in whatever way they wish.

There will also be mandatory face mask rules in place - Japan still being cautious about the spread of COVID-19. Fans will be provided with special Babymetal branded masks upon entry. This is, they say, "the official dress code for the show and you will be required to wear it on top of your own mask upon entering the venue and throughout the entire show".

Wearing the masks "will be mandatory up to when you exit the venue after the performance has ended" and "those who do not comply to these rules will be asked to leave".

It is not clear if the silent mosh pit area or face mask rules will be in place at shows outside Japan. The tour will be in support of the band's new album, 'The Other One', which is set for release on 24 Mar. There will be four UK dates on the tour, which are as follows:

14 Apr: Leeds, First Direct Arena
15 Apr: London, Wembley Arena
16 Apr: Cardiff, Motorpoint Arena
18 Apr: Glasgow, Hydro Arena

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Bob Dylan says using auto-pen to sign books and prints was "an error in judgment"
Bob Dylan has said that allowing an 'auto-pen' machine to be used to scrawl his signature onto books and artwork prints was "an error in judgment".

This follows the admission last week from book publisher Simon & Schuster that the "hand signed" copies of Dylan's new book 'The Philosophy Of Modern Song' it had been selling for $599 were not, in fact, hand signed.

That admission in turn followed chatter online that the signatures appearing in the signed copies of 'The Philosophy Of Modern Song' were all very similar indeed, albeit with some slight variations having seemingly been built into the machine-based signing process.

The book firm initially denied that the hand signed books were not hand signed, later implying that it had not been aware that an auto-pen had been used. But once it became clear that technology had been employed, Simon & Schuster issued an apology and pledged to refund all the $599s that had been paid by Dylan's fans.

The man himself admitted in a statement this weekend that the auto-pen has been used to sign artwork prints as well a books. Explaining why, he wrote: "In 2019, I had a bad case of vertigo and it continued into the pandemic years. It takes a crew of five working in close quarters with me to help enable these signing sessions, and we could not find a safe and workable way to complete what I needed to do while the virus was raging".

"So, during the pandemic, it was impossible to sign anything and the vertigo didn't help", he went on. "With contractual deadlines looming, the idea of using an auto-pen was suggested to me, along with the assurance that this kind of thing is done 'all the time' in the art and literary worlds".

However, he then said: "Using a machine was an error in judgment and I want to rectify it immediately. I'm working with Simon & Schuster and my gallery partners to do just that".

We already know how Simon & Schuster is rectifying the situation, by refunding the money while allowing buyers to keep the book. Meanwhile Castle Galleries, which works with Dylan on his artworks, said in a statement on Facebook: "We were informed late yesterday that during the COVID-19 pandemic Bob Dylan used an autopen to sign several of his limited edition prints rather than his usual hand signature".

"These editions are: The Retrospectrum Collection prints and the Sunset, Monument Valley print which were released by us this year", it added. "We can confirm that all other editions were individually hand signed by Bob Dylan himself. We were entirely unaware of the use of autopen on these particular prints, and we sincerely apologise for the disappointment this may cause".

It then stated: "We will be reaching out to each and every one of our collectors who purchased any print from the above editions to offer a solution to fully rectify the matter. Details on how we intend to resolve this matter will follow shortly".

So there you go. I'm not sure how many Dylan fans really care whether the signature on their book or artwork was actually scrawled by the musician's own hand. But either way, both him and his business partners seem to be taking this all very seriously indeed.

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