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CMU’s One Liners: Chart After Parties, RATM Finsbury Park DVD, Skepta’s AIM award and other glorious moments of goodness

By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 18 August 2015

Other notable announcements and developments today…

• As if Friday becoming chart day in the UK wasn’t exciting enough – which, frankly, it wasn’t – now the Official Charts Company has teamed up with Coalition Talent and Renegade Music to stage Official Charts After Parties on Friday nights at students’ unions across the UK. Students still listening to the commercial radio chart on Sundays will have to organise their own after party.

• Syco Entertainment has promoted Tyler Brown to the new role of Head Of A&R for Syco Music. Guess how Syco Music President Sonny Takhar feels? Could it be “thrilled”?

• BMG UK has appointed Jamie Nelson to the role of Director of A&R for its recordings business, reporting into Korda Marshall. Nelson previously signed Jake Bugg to Universal. But we’ve forgiven him for that, and this new job is fully deserved. Plus Marshall managed to welcome Nelson to the company without using the word “thrilled” Consider this ‘appointment of the week’.

• “Micro-licensing solution” CueSongs, the licensing company launched by Ed Averdieck and Peter Gabriel in 2012, has appointed a new SVP Global Business Development, and it’s only bloody Paul Sampson, formerly VP Business Development at Music Dealers. Both Sampson and his new boss Christina Vaughan are “excited”. But not thrilled. Now I’m missing the word “thrilled”.

• The film of that time Rage Against The Machine played in London’s Finsbury Park, to celebrate the success of the Facebook campaign that stopped the evil and entitled Joe McElderry from getting the Christmas number one he evilly felt entitled to, will come out as a standalone DVD next month, having only been previously available in a RATM deluxe box set. ‘Live At Finsbury Park’ is out via Eagle Rock on 11 Sep.

• The resplendent Chilly Gonzales will tonight “join the dots between the seemingly polarised worlds of classical and pop” with a Radio 1 documentary called ‘Classical Connections With Chilly Gonzales’. I’m currently at the world’s greatest cultural festival where all sorts of dots are routinely joined, but will still be sitting down with my wireless set to tune into this. It’s on a 9pm.

• Mykki Blanco, via his super new !K7 joint venture Dogfood Music Group, is soon releasing a compilation called C-ORE featuring artists who have influenced him, and he has just posted a short film sort of guiding you through it. It “follows four vigilantes as they track down a wanted techno-junkie in the middle of developing a new way for users to experience old earth”. Go see.

• Nickelback have cancelled the final leg of their current world tour, including a stack of UK dates, on account of them hating Europe. No, it’s because Chad Kroeger is dead. No, no, it’s because Nickelback have, to date, been a mere figment of your imagination. No, no, no, it’s because Chad Kroeger’s got a sore throat. Well, he needs time to recover from surgery to his vocal cords. Which I bet made his throat sore.

• The National will play at the 500-capacity Troubadour nightclub in West Hollywood on 16 Oct to raise money for charity Cooperative For Education and its efforts to improve the education of girls in Guatemala. Tickets go on sale on Friday.

• If you’ve always thought Skepta’s outstanding contribution to music deserved capital letters, well, good news for you, because Skepta’s outstanding contribution to music is set to become an Outstanding Contribution To Music. Thank you AIM’s Independent Music Awards. Which take place on 8 Sep. Obviously. Outstanding.