| CMU Daily - on the inside 3 Oct 2002 |
|
In today's CMU Daily:
• Williams Signs Big Time To EMI,
• Troubles At Post-Mobo Bash,
• EMAP Get Terrestrial Music Channel,
• Review: Thunderball - Scorpio Rising,
• MTV Plan Fanning Doc,
• Activists Claim They Got Snoop Dropped From The Muppets,
• Review: UMEK - Tikonal,
• Adam Ant Faces Rehab Order,
• No Split In The Cornershop,
• Hearsay Solo Careers - What's The Odds?,
• Bowie's Triumphant Homecoming,
• Madchester Goes To NYC
------------------------------------------------
Who said: “I am the best Keith-Moon-type drummer in the world?”
Answer tomorrow
------------------------------------------------
WILLIAMS SIGNS BIG TIME TO EMI
Rumours hey. Firstly no one wanted him. Then he didn’t want to sign with anyone, word was he was going it alone. Now it’s been announced Robbie Williams will re-sign to existing label EMI for what is being muted as the biggest most expensive record contract in British history which, given that Mr Williams doesn’t immediately fall out of fashion, could be worth £50 million over six albums. The new contract is likely to give Williams more artistic control and a commitment by the label to help him truly break the US – despite some small successes in the States only 692,000 of his 20 million worldwide record sales have come from America and Robbie is known to be keen to become a major star there.
In a statement issued to the London Stock Exchange yesterday EMI said it would benefit from some of Williams' non-recording activities, including touring, publishing, and merchandising. Alain Levy, chairman/CEO of EMI Recorded Music, commented: "We are delighted to have signed a new deal on terms which are good for both parties and to be working with him for many years to come."
------------------------------------------------
TROUBLES AT POST-MOBO BASH
The Sun has reported that a woman was allegedly raped and a man assaulted at a MOBO after-show party aboard the Sunborn Yacht Hotel anchored in the Royal Victoria Docks, east London, in the early hours of yesterday morning. Speaking to the paper Dani Behr, who presented an award at the event, said party-goers started to panic as a "mob of around 200 people, most of them wannabe gangsters, tried to gain entry” to the party.
Police were called and armed officers were subsequently brought in after a live bullet was found on the floor of the luxury yacht. Security staff told police a man had been assaulted in the bar, while a woman later told police she had been raped in the toilets.
------------------------------------------------
EMAP GET TERRESTRIAL MUSIC CHANNEL
EMAP will continue its assault on MTV’s dominance in music television with a new channel to air on the BBC’s new terrestrial digital TV platform. The media group announced it had won the place on the BBC’s digital venture yesterday.
EMAP has already challenged MTV’s supremacy in music TV with its jukebox TV channels which air on digital cable and satellite services. Beginning life with The Box, there are now six of the jukebox channels where viewers can phone in to request songs off a genre specific playlist posted on teletext. All but the original service are based on one of EMAP’s magazine or radio brands (Smash Hits, Kiss, Kerrang, Q, Magic). The new channel will be called Big City, and will be based on the Big City formula used on the group’s Northern radio stations, like Key 103 in Manchester and Radio City in Liverpool.
EMAP was actually originally part of a rival bid for the terrestrial digital TV licence, but some hard lobbying won them apart in the successful BBC project. It is quite a victory for EMAP, especially as MTV enjoyed the status as the only music channel on the short lived ITV Digital platform. The channel also faces new competition on the satellite platform from Sky’s planned three music stations, rumoured to involve Pop Idol supremo Simon Fuller.
------------------------------------------------
SLIM SHADY ON FORTHCOMING SOUNDTRACK
Eminem has been talking about the soundtrack to his debut film ‘8 Mile’ and how he had to assume yet another mind to write the tracks: “The '8 Mile' soundtrack was different because it forced me to step into Rabbit, the character I play in the film, and write from his point of view," Eminem told reporters. "It was a challenge." The soundtrack is quite a star studded affair with rappers Jay-Z, Nas, Xzibit, Rakim, and Gang Starr all appearing, alongside Shady Records artists D12, 50 Cent and Obie Trice and appearances from Macy Gray, the Outsidaz's Young Zee, and Boomkat, the group featuring ‘8 Mile’ co-star Taryn Manning. UK release date is yet to be confirmed.
------------------------------------------------
REVIEW: Thunderball - Scorpio Rising (Eighteenth Street Lounge)
Thunderball are a Washington DC based 7 piece fronted by Sid Barcelona and Steve Raskin. Signed to the same label that houses the Thievery Corporation and Blue States, this album is something of an indie-dance cross over, offering everything from weak d n b to straight jazz downtempo. The first release will be the 'Stereo Tonic' which sounds something like the Stereo MCs (albeit with anglophile lyrics). Elsewhere the rap based 'Heart of the Hustler' fares well, the bleepy downtempo of 'Vibrations' is worth checking out, and the more relaxed roller 'Solar' and the chilled trumpet excursion of 'Angela's Lament' are worthy of mention. All in all a reasonable outing, but diluted down a little too far for my liking, though this is no doubt a clever tactic to increase appeal to many more million US citizens. PV
Release date: 14 Oct
Press contact: Trailer Media [all]
------------------------------------------------
MTV PLAN FANNING DOC
Shawn Fanning, the man who took on the majors big time when he first founded Napster, will be the subject of a new MTV biopic. The cable network has hired filmmaker Alex Winter (best known as Bill in the ‘Excellent Adventure’, but subsequently director of ‘Freaked’ and ‘Fever’) to write and direct the piece for MTV Original Movies.
Fanning famously created the Napster software program in his college dorm room, and in doing so starting an online revolution, a major internet company and one of the biggest legal suits in the history of the music industry. Fanning will collaborate with Winter on the screenplay, and the film’s soundtrack will be released on Fanning’s as yet unnamed new record label.
Talking about the project, MTV VP of original movies Maggie Malina told reporters: "We really want to take a look at what it was like to live and breathe that roller coaster ride with Napster while indicating what happened in his past and future - not just for him, but for everyone who loves music. We really want to capture the adventuresome and pioneering spirit he brought to Napster in a way that is not the ordinary biopic. That's why Alex is great for it -- because he brings the creative artistic vision of how to tell this story."
------------------------------------------------
ACTIVISTS CLAIM THEY GOT SNOOP DROPPED FROM THE MUPPETS
An Islamic activist group in the US is claiming responsibility for having Snoop Dog’s cameo appearance on the forthcoming ‘It's a Very Muppet Christmas Movie’ removed. While the Jim Henson Company has admitted Snoop recorded a scene for the TV special which has subsequently been cut they claim it is for timing reasons, and that the Snoop scene didn’t “add anything to the story line”. But the LA-based Project Islamic Hope is claiming its threat to boycott NBC if they screened the Snoop cameo was behind the decision: "Snoop has openly advocated the use of drugs, he financially supported a pornographic video and he writes and performs music that is both sexually explicit and violent," Imam Najee Ali, the group’s director told reporters. "This is not the image that our children should be exposed to in a Muppets show."
The group announced its planned boycott on the Larry Elder Show four days before an official announcement by the Henson group, and they quickly won the support of conservative television host Bill O'Reilly. But the Muppet producers claim the press release announcing the decision to cut Snoop actually went out before the initial protest. "They're embarrassed that they had to cave in to public pressure," Ali reasoned. "No corporation wants to be perceived as weak, they want to be perceived as strong ... and not giving in to threats from protesters. Our actions, as well as Mr. O'Reilly's ... we were the catalyst." A representative for Snoop Dogg declined to comment.
------------------------------------------------
REVIEW: Umek - Tikonal (Novamute)
Didn't Aphex Twin release this eight years ago? Uros Umek, the ‘Slovenian Superstar DJ’ (that's descriptive! Pete Tong or Chris Moyles?) gives us four tracks' worth of plonky techno boredom. Note to self - just because a press release claims an artist has collaborated with Laibach, this is not an indication of quality. LA
Release date: 14 Oct
Press Contact: Mute IH [CR, RR, NP, NR] Pomona [CR, RR]
------------------------------------------------
ADAM ANT FACES REHAB ORDER
Adam Ant has been placed under a 12 month community rehabilitation order at the Old Bailey following that incident in a North London pub earlier this year. He will also have to pay £500 to the musician he injured when he hit out at locals at a Kentish Town establishment after they made fun of his appearance. Judge Jeremy Roberts made the Community Rehabilitation Order after saying he accepted the singer had suffered a temporary spell of mental illness: "The psychiatrists are agreed that you were suffering a temporary episode of a recognised mental disorder which could have substantially impaired the responsibility for what you did. Happily, you have now recovered from that episode." But he said he had to be sure such an incident would not happen again and that was why he was making the order.
------------------------------------------------
NO SPLIT IN THE CORNERSHOP
The NME has denied a story in the Sun that Cornershop’s Tjinder Singh was planning to quit making music. Although they have parted company with label WIIIJA, Singh and band mate Ben Ayres told NME: "Tjinder certainly does believe continuing in the music industry, even more so as 'the climate has changed from 'Opportunity Knocks' to Lets Knock Up Some Opportunity. At the moment Tjinder is working with reggae group The Nazarites & The Guig (Paul McGuigan, former Oasis bassist), light & film pioneers The Light Surgeons, turntablist Danny Breaks, Ed O.G., Rowetta & Bez, Mani, Jeffrey Lewis (NYC), a gospel trio, Everett True, and Otis Clay again."
------------------------------------------------
HEARSAY SOLO CAREERS - WHAT'S THE ODDS?
With everyone in the music industry now saying that Hearsay were always doomed to fail, bets are on for which of the five Popstars will pursue and succeed in a solo career. Myleene Klass is the bookies favourite to succeed, though her mother has told journalists she may consider a classical career. "They have only just split up so they haven't got thoughts about what to do next on their minds, but she trained classically so that may be on the cards," her mother told a local newspaper. As for the other band members – Coral currently has the odds of a solo career as: Suzanne - 6/1, Noel - 10/1, Danny - 12/1, Johnny - 14/1
------------------------------------------------
BOWIE‘S TRIUMPHANT HOMECOMING
David Bowie played an excellent greatest hits show at London's Carling Apollo last night, the venue where he killed off Ziggy Stardust in 1973. He kicked off the show with Life On Mars, proceeded with classics Ashes To Ashes, China Girl, Breaking Glass and Absolute Beginners, alongside tracks from his new Mercury Music Prize nominated album. Joking about the collection of songs, he said: "It's an interesting selection of songs tonight - going back from today through the naughties, nineties, eighties and seventies, sixties, fifties, forties, thirties, back to the naughties then into minus numbers." The gig was one of Carling’s popular homecoming gigs where big artists play one of the smaller venues where they began their career.
------------------------------------------------
MADCHESTER GOES TO NYC
Northwest based independent record labels are taking part in a ten day mini-festival in New York later this month to promote their artists to a US audience. Supported by the Cultural Industries Development Service the programme, under the name 'Liverpool & Manchester Transatlantic Express', will feature: Grand Central Records (Mark Rae + Veba), Fluid Records (Evolution / Fluid jimmy Van Em, John Cusick), Faith and Hope Records (Mint Royale), Paper Recordings (DJ Ben Davis), Probe Records (Marlowe), Invicta Hi-Fi (Ladytron), AirDog Records. More details at www.c-b-e.co.uk
------------------------------------------------
Answer to Wednesday’s pop quiz:
Can you name twelve Eastenders actors who have released singles?
1. Nick Berry (‘Every Loser Wins’), 2. Anita Dobson (‘Anyone Can Fall In Love’), 3. Letitia Dean and 4. Paul Medford (‘Something Outa Nothing’), 5. Michelle Gayle (‘Sweetness’), 6. Barbara Windsor (‘Ten Gallon Hat’), 7. Mike Reid (‘Swinging On A Star), 8. Martine McCutcheon (‘Perfect Moment’), 9. Sean Maguire (‘Someone To Love’), 10. Michelle Collins (‘Sunburn’), 11. Sid Owen and 12. Patsy Palmer (‘Better Believe It’). Who said: “I am the best Keith-Moon-type drummer in the world?”
Answer tomorrow
------------------------------------------------
WILLIAMS SIGNS BIG TIME TO EMI
Rumours hey. Firstly no one wanted him. Then he didn’t want to sign with anyone, word was he was going it alone. Now it’s been announced Robbie Williams will re-sign to existing label EMI for what is being muted as the biggest most expensive record contract in British history which, given that Mr Williams doesn’t immediately fall out of fashion, could be worth £50 million over six albums. The new contract is likely to give Williams more artistic control and a commitment by the label to help him truly break the US – despite some small successes in the States only 692,000 of his 20 million worldwide record sales have come from America and Robbie is known to be keen to become a major star there.
In a statement issued to the London Stock Exchange yesterday EMI said it would benefit from some of Williams' non-recording activities, including touring, publishing, and merchandising. Alain Levy, chairman/CEO of EMI Recorded Music, commented: "We are delighted to have signed a new deal on terms which are good for both parties and to be working with him for many years to come."
------------------------------------------------
TROUBLES AT POST-MOBO BASH
The Sun has reported that a woman was allegedly raped and a man assaulted at a MOBO after-show party aboard the Sunborn Yacht Hotel anchored in the Royal Victoria Docks, east London, in the early hours of yesterday morning. Speaking to the paper Dani Behr, who presented an award at the event, said party-goers started to panic as a "mob of around 200 people, most of them wannabe gangsters, tried to gain entry” to the party.
Police were called and armed officers were subsequently brought in after a live bullet was found on the floor of the luxury yacht. Security staff told police a man had been assaulted in the bar, while a woman later told police she had been raped in the toilets.
------------------------------------------------
EMAP GET TERRESTRIAL MUSIC CHANNEL
EMAP will continue its assault on MTV’s dominance in music television with a new channel to air on the BBC’s new terrestrial digital TV platform. The media group announced it had won the place on the BBC’s digital venture yesterday.
EMAP has already challenged MTV’s supremacy in music TV with its jukebox TV channels which air on digital cable and satellite services. Beginning life with The Box, there are now six of the jukebox channels where viewers can phone in to request songs off a genre specific playlist posted on teletext. All but the original service are based on one of EMAP’s magazine or radio brands (Smash Hits, Kiss, Kerrang, Q, Magic). The new channel will be called Big City, and will be based on the Big City formula used on the group’s Northern radio stations, like Key 103 in Manchester and Radio City in Liverpool.
EMAP was actually originally part of a rival bid for the terrestrial digital TV licence, but some hard lobbying won them apart in the successful BBC project. It is quite a victory for EMAP, especially as MTV enjoyed the status as the only music channel on the short lived ITV Digital platform. The channel also faces new competition on the satellite platform from Sky’s planned three music stations, rumoured to involve Pop Idol supremo Simon Fuller.
------------------------------------------------
SLIM SHADY ON FORTHCOMING SOUNDTRACK
Eminem has been talking about the soundtrack to his debut film ‘8 Mile’ and how he had to assume yet another mind to write the tracks: “The '8 Mile' soundtrack was different because it forced me to step into Rabbit, the character I play in the film, and write from his point of view," Eminem told reporters. "It was a challenge." The soundtrack is quite a star studded affair with rappers Jay-Z, Nas, Xzibit, Rakim, and Gang Starr all appearing, alongside Shady Records artists D12, 50 Cent and Obie Trice and appearances from Macy Gray, the Outsidaz's Young Zee, and Boomkat, the group featuring ‘8 Mile’ co-star Taryn Manning. UK release date is yet to be confirmed.
------------------------------------------------
REVIEW: Thunderball - Scorpio Rising (Eighteenth Street Lounge)
Thunderball are a Washington DC based 7 piece fronted by Sid Barcelona and Steve Raskin. Signed to the same label that houses the Thievery Corporation and Blue States, this album is something of an indie-dance cross over, offering everything from weak d n b to straight jazz downtempo. The first release will be the 'Stereo Tonic' which sounds something like the Stereo MCs (albeit with anglophile lyrics). Elsewhere the rap based 'Heart of the Hustler' fares well, the bleepy downtempo of 'Vibrations' is worth checking out, and the more relaxed roller 'Solar' and the chilled trumpet excursion of 'Angela's Lament' are worthy of mention. All in all a reasonable outing, but diluted down a little too far for my liking, though this is no doubt a clever tactic to increase appeal to many more million US citizens. PV
Release date: 14 Oct
Press contact: Trailer Media [all]
------------------------------------------------
MTV PLAN FANNING DOC
Shawn Fanning, the man who took on the majors big time when he first founded Napster, will be the subject of a new MTV biopic. The cable network has hired filmmaker Alex Winter (best known as Bill in the ‘Excellent Adventure’, but subsequently director of ‘Freaked’ and ‘Fever’) to write and direct the piece for MTV Original Movies.
Fanning famously created the Napster software program in his college dorm room, and in doing so starting an online revolution, a major internet company and one of the biggest legal suits in the history of the music industry. Fanning will collaborate with Winter on the screenplay, and the film’s soundtrack will be released on Fanning’s as yet unnamed new record label.
Talking about the project, MTV VP of original movies Maggie Malina told reporters: "We really want to take a look at what it was like to live and breathe that roller coaster ride with Napster while indicating what happened in his past and future - not just for him, but for everyone who loves music. We really want to capture the adventuresome and pioneering spirit he brought to Napster in a way that is not the ordinary biopic. That's why Alex is great for it -- because he brings the creative artistic vision of how to tell this story."
------------------------------------------------
ACTIVISTS CLAIM THEY GOT SNOOP DROPPED FROM THE MUPPETS
An Islamic activist group in the US is claiming responsibility for having Snoop Dog’s cameo appearance on the forthcoming ‘It's a Very Muppet Christmas Movie’ removed. While the Jim Henson Company has admitted Snoop recorded a scene for the TV special which has subsequently been cut they claim it is for timing reasons, and that the Snoop scene didn’t “add anything to the story line”. But the LA-based Project Islamic Hope is claiming its threat to boycott NBC if they screened the Snoop cameo was behind the decision: "Snoop has openly advocated the use of drugs, he financially supported a pornographic video and he writes and performs music that is both sexually explicit and violent," Imam Najee Ali, the group’s director told reporters. "This is not the image that our children should be exposed to in a Muppets show."
The group announced its planned boycott on the Larry Elder Show four days before an official announcement by the Henson group, and they quickly won the support of conservative television host Bill O'Reilly. But the Muppet producers claim the press release announcing the decision to cut Snoop actually went out before the initial protest. "They're embarrassed that they had to cave in to public pressure," Ali reasoned. "No corporation wants to be perceived as weak, they want to be perceived as strong ... and not giving in to threats from protesters. Our actions, as well as Mr. O'Reilly's ... we were the catalyst." A representative for Snoop Dogg declined to comment.
------------------------------------------------
REVIEW: Umek - Tikonal (Novamute)
Didn't Aphex Twin release this eight years ago? Uros Umek, the ‘Slovenian Superstar DJ’ (that's descriptive! Pete Tong or Chris Moyles?) gives us four tracks' worth of plonky techno boredom. Note to self - just because a press release claims an artist has collaborated with Laibach, this is not an indication of quality. LA
Release date: 14 Oct
Press Contact: Mute IH [CR, RR, NP, NR] Pomona [CR, RR]
------------------------------------------------
ADAM ANT FACES REHAB ORDER
Adam Ant has been placed under a 12 month community rehabilitation order at the Old Bailey following that incident in a North London pub earlier this year. He will also have to pay £500 to the musician he injured when he hit out at locals at a Kentish Town establishment after they made fun of his appearance. Judge Jeremy Roberts made the Community Rehabilitation Order after saying he accepted the singer had suffered a temporary spell of mental illness: "The psychiatrists are agreed that you were suffering a temporary episode of a recognised mental disorder which could have substantially impaired the responsibility for what you did. Happily, you have now recovered from that episode." But he said he had to be sure such an incident would not happen again and that was why he was making the order.
------------------------------------------------
NO SPLIT IN THE CORNERSHOP
The NME has denied a story in the Sun that Cornershop’s Tjinder Singh was planning to quit making music. Although they have parted company with label WIIIJA, Singh and band mate Ben Ayres told NME: "Tjinder certainly does believe continuing in the music industry, even more so as 'the climate has changed from 'Opportunity Knocks' to Lets Knock Up Some Opportunity. At the moment Tjinder is working with reggae group The Nazarites & The Guig (Paul McGuigan, former Oasis bassist), light & film pioneers The Light Surgeons, turntablist Danny Breaks, Ed O.G., Rowetta & Bez, Mani, Jeffrey Lewis (NYC), a gospel trio, Everett True, and Otis Clay again."
------------------------------------------------
HEARSAY SOLO CAREERS - WHAT'S THE ODDS?
With everyone in the music industry now saying that Hearsay were always doomed to fail, bets are on for which of the five Popstars will pursue and succeed in a solo career. Myleene Klass is the bookies favourite to succeed, though her mother has told journalists she may consider a classical career. "They have only just split up so they haven't got thoughts about what to do next on their minds, but she trained classically so that may be on the cards," her mother told a local newspaper. As for the other band members – Coral currently has the odds of a solo career as: Suzanne - 6/1, Noel - 10/1, Danny - 12/1, Johnny - 14/1
------------------------------------------------
BOWIE‘S TRIUMPHANT HOMECOMING
David Bowie played an excellent greatest hits show at London's Carling Apollo last night, the venue where he killed off Ziggy Stardust in 1973. He kicked off the show with Life On Mars, proceeded with classics Ashes To Ashes, China Girl, Breaking Glass and Absolute Beginners, alongside tracks from his new Mercury Music Prize nominated album. Joking about the collection of songs, he said: "It's an interesting selection of songs tonight - going back from today through the naughties, nineties, eighties and seventies, sixties, fifties, forties, thirties, back to the naughties then into minus numbers." The gig was one of Carling’s popular homecoming gigs where big artists play one of the smaller venues where they began their career.
------------------------------------------------
MADCHESTER GOES TO NYC
Northwest based independent record labels are taking part in a ten day mini-festival in New York later this month to promote their artists to a US audience. Supported by the Cultural Industries Development Service the programme, under the name 'Liverpool & Manchester Transatlantic Express', will feature: Grand Central Records (Mark Rae + Veba), Fluid Records (Evolution / Fluid jimmy Van Em, John Cusick), Faith and Hope Records (Mint Royale), Paper Recordings (DJ Ben Davis), Probe Records (Marlowe), Invicta Hi-Fi (Ladytron), AirDog Records. More details at www.c-b-e.co.uk
------------------------------------------------
Answer to Wednesday’s pop quiz:
Can you name twelve Eastenders actors who have released singles?
1. Nick Berry (‘Every Loser Wins’), 2. Anita Dobson (‘Anyone Can Fall In Love’), 3. Letitia Dean and 4. Paul Medford (‘Something Outa Nothing’), 5. Michelle Gayle (‘Sweetness’), 6. Barbara Windsor (‘Ten Gallon Hat’), 7. Mike Reid (‘Swinging On A Star), 8. Martine McCutcheon (‘Perfect Moment’), 9. Sean Maguire (‘Someone To Love’), 10. Michelle Collins (‘Sunburn’), 11. Sid Owen and 12. Patsy Palmer (‘Better Believe It’).