Industrial Strength: August 21

NEWS

Independent label owners to get business advice

Owners of independent labels in Australia and New Zealand now have a five-stage program on how to grow their business. Called Release, it incorporates two residential labs to be held near Sydney. The first is held November 26 to 29, under music industry lawyer David Vodicka. He will work with business advisers includingSebastian Chase, Colin Daniels and Nicole Duckworth. Label owners will be given practical advice on each of their business models, and of the different models in existence. It is based on the successful program for artist managers called Control. Those who went through the Control program “report that it’s not only changed their businesses for the better, but their lives as well,” said Denise Foley, chair of AMIN (the Australian Music Industry Network) which is presenting Release. AMIN is the national network of state music industry associations – Music NSW, Music NT, Music SA, Music Tasmania, Music Victoria, Q Music and the West Australian Music Industry Association (WAM).

Release is looking for applications from indie label owners. Forms and guidelines are at amin.org.au as well as those of support organisations the Australian Independent Record Labels Association or AIR and Independent Music New Zealand or IMNZ. Applications close September 23. Release is funded by the Australian Government and the New Zealand Music Commission.

IFPI welcomes Australia’s simulcasts decision

London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has welcomed the Australian High Court’s decision over simulcasts. The Court rejected commercial radio’s argument over the four year legal battle that simulcasts were “broadcasts” which radio already pays fees for, and insisted that radio pay out extra fees for online streaming. Frances Moore, IFPI’s chief executive, declared, “It is a well-established principle in most countries that broadcasters should pay a fair rate for the recorded music they use to attract audiences and drive advertising revenues. This principle should hold true when they use simulcasting technology to reach an audience online.”

Dead Daisies strike hard in the U.S.

Global hard rock supergroup The Dead Daisies – formed in Australia by guitarist David Lowy and singers Jon Stevens with past members of Guns N’Roses and Whitesnake – are creating waves in America. Currently touring on the Uproar festival, their debut single Lock ’N’ Load (co-written with Slash) has been added to 20 radio networks across the U.S and getting enthusiastic support from Nights With Alice Cooper which is syndicated to 100 rock stations in the U.S. and Canada. Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx also made it the Sixx Pick on hisSixx Sense radio show. The video is also on heavy rotation on MUCH MUSIC which goes to 30 million households in North America. The self-titled debut album was released Stateside through Caroline on August 13.

The Seed announces over $60,000 worth of grants

The music industry’s Seed Fund has announced $60,117 worth of grants to emerging music and social arts proponents.

The biggest share of $20,000 goes to young managers. This year’s recipients are Laura Wallbridge of Walls and Bridges for campaigns behind Gossling’s debut album and Guineafowl’s sophomore EP and set them up to showcase internationally. Both Anthony Zaccaria andCharles Wall can now employ assistants to work on releases by their respective acts, Loon Lake and Fractures, and Bobby Alu. Mike Solo, founder of Bird’s Robe Collective, can work on expanding global opportunities for The Red Paintings and sleepmakeswaves, and the Australian EP release of Dumbsaint.

In addition, the Publicise It category allows Jesse Barbera to engageAdam Christou from Remote Control to work on the release ofJeremy Neale’s A Stranger Affair EP, and Meesha Astill to bring inMonique Rothstein of Positive Feedback to work the release of Rainy Day Women’s debut album.

Grants for professional development will see Peter Clark teach, study and perform alongside the Berlin Philharmonic’s principal violist Màtè Szücs, and Adriano Cappelletta to be mentored by Australian guitarist Simon Rudston-Brown. Steve Allingham will travel to Cuba to study Afro Cuban drumming with Yaroldy Abreu of Chucho Valdés & The Afro-Cuban Messengers, and Saritah Newman will develop beatmaking and production skills under Mohamad Kombra fromDiafrix.

In a team-up with Darwin label Skinnyfish, the fees of four indigenous acts from remote communities will be paid to play at festivals in their homelands.

A partnership with Northern Territory music association MusicNT will see up to $5,000 paid for major music executives to travel to Alice Springs to mentor local musicians. Similarly, an alliance between The Seed, APRA/AMCOS, The Australia Council, The Federal Office of the Arts and Skinnyfish Music will see urban music industry executives travel to remote community bands and festivals to check out the talent there as part of Song Cycles Inbound project.

The Art on the Street category, a partnership with the Next Wave Festival, will allow Adelaide-based arts collective b.o.m.b. map, draw and photograph the environment of Melbourne to create an evolving picture.

The Seed was set up in 2005 by John Butler and Daniella Caruanafrom the royalties of John Butler Trio with various music industry executives. Then known as JB Seed, Butler says the plan always was to become a wider music industry initiative .Butler and Caruana remain its directors, Stacia Goninon its manager and Carlo Santoneof Blue King Brown heads its Steering Committee. To donate clickhere.

New venue for Big Day Out …

Adelaide City Council has approved Big Day Out’s application to move to Bonython Park next year to accommodate larger crowds. The festival has been at the the Royal Adelaide Showground in Wayville for the past 19 years.

…and Feast

Feast, Adelaide’s Queer Cultural Festival, this week announced a new festival home. The event, November 9 to 24, will be held at a new home, The ANZ Cluster. Based in the Lion Arts Centre, the space will include the Lion Arts Centre Courtyard (Courtyard Cluster), Fowlers Live (The Blender), Nexus Cabaret (Queer Nexus), The Mercury Cinema and The University of South Australia (The Tank). Introduced this year is a new DJ party. Bedlam.

NUMBER CRUNCHING

Five years since two Australian albums debuted the ARIA chart at #1 and #2. It happened this week with Sydney indie dance trio RÜFÜS’Atlas at top spot and Brisbane’s Dead Letter Circus runner-up withThe Catalyst Fire. It’s the first time an album with the title Atlas went to #1. It is the 163rd #1 by an Australian act, and the 323rd by a group. RÜFÜS are the 86th Australian act to go #1 since The Seekers in 1968) and the 51st Australian group.

£43.5 million (A$74.94 million) generated by The Beatles in annual turnover via their company Apple Corps Ltd in the last financial year. Aside from music and merchandising royalties, the Fab Four each received £2,037,500 in dividends, £1,936,500 in promotional activity fees and £1,175,375 in name and likeness payments.

20,000 attended the Broadbeach Jazz Festival, Qld, over three days.

$5 million –$8m what Southern Cross Media reckons cost it in profits due to “scandals” as Kyle and a British nurse (The Australian).

16^th Australian chart entry for Katy Perry with single Roar this week.

50,000 expected to attend the Gympie Muster in Queensland this weekend.

US$390 million, claimed debt for Michael Jackson at the time of his death by accountant William R. Ackerman during his “wrongful death” case.

US$6.8 million spent by Britney Spears on Britney Spears last year, including a $500 manicure and $3,400 on Christmas lights.

1 in three Australians don’t know how to change their mobile phone ring when they update their phones, says a report by online retailer Kogan.com. Samsung are more likely to change out of all brands, Android users 43% more likely to change their ringtone than iPhone users.

LIFELINES

Split: singer Samantha Jade and Swedish music producer Christian Nilsson (Westlife, Backstreet Boys, Glee). They met when she was recording in Sweden, then became a live-in couple in LA and Sydney.

In Court: the NSW Court of Appeal declared that US rapper Flo Ridaand VIP Entertainment and Concepts do not have to pay Newcastle’s Fat As Butter promoter Mothership Music the $380,400 in damages and $37,745 in legal fees ordered so by the NSW District Court. There’s long been a dispute as to why he refused at the last minute to appear at the festival in 2011. Mothership told the audience he had slept in, the rapper maintained dissatisfaction with his accommodation and transport. The crux of the appeal was that an earlier judge had set a precedence when he agreed that the rapper could be served his papers via Facebook. The appeals judges said that was unsatisfactory: “The evidence did not establish, other than by mere assertion, that the Facebook page was in fact that of Flo Rida and did not prove that a posting on it was likely to come to his attention in a timely fashion’’.

Jailed: two men who threw a couch over the internal balcony of a Tamworth nightclub and hit a woman below, got two years. Tamworth Local Court heard Luke Ledingham, 32, of Lennox Head, came up with the idea, and sentenced him without parole. Joshua Timoteo, 27, of Varsity Lakes in Qld, has a non-parole period of 22 months. Brooke Dewberry, 43, sustained head and neck injuries which lead to hospitalisation in Tamworth and Newcastle.

Charged: a 24-year old clubber in a Townsville nightclub goes before the Townsville Magistrates Court on August 30 on charges that he threw a glass at the back of a policeman’s head. According to police, nightclub staff pointed out the alleged offender, who was found in a sleeping position on a couch.