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RAPPER HELPS RESTRAIN TERRORIST? Conflicting reports suggest that Roth wasn't actually involved, and that it was his guitarist Chris Llewellyn who was first to tackle the man and was subsequently assisted by fellow passengers. MTV, say that Roth's rep indicated that he was present, though it was Llewellyn who the was more involved in the incident. They say the bassist stayed behind at the airport to talk to the FBI whilst Roth rushed off for his TV appearance. -------------------------------------------------- WINEHOUSE IS TERROR TARGET, SAYS THE SUN -------------------------------------------------- GABRIEL HASN'T RULED OUT GENESIS REUNION Gabriel last performed with Geneis in the mid-70s and was replaced, of course, as vocalist by then drummer Phil Collins - something we may never be able to forgive him for. However, if Gabriel rejoined and forced Collins to don a gorilla suit and go back to playing drums, that might go some way to setting things right. Anyway, Gabriel told Mojo: "In principle I have no real objection to playing with Genesis at some point in the future". -------------------------------------------------- PAGE MANAGER ON LED ZEP TOUR Explaining Page's reasons for continuing with plans to tour with John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham but without Plant, Mensch told 6Music: "That's what Jimmy does. That's his job, his hobby. People don't really understand it. Jimmy Page has been playing guitar professionally since he was 16 years old. Jimmy Page likes being a musician. He doesn't want to be a race car driver or a solicitor. So they did the show with Robert Plant; they had a really good time rehearsing, the three of them, before Robert showed up. And they decided that if they could find a singer that they thought would fit their bill, whatever their bill was at this stage in their career, that they'd make a record and go on tour". He refused to talk about who the singer might be, however; there's been speculation that a number of vocalists including Steven Tyler and Chris Cornell have been approached. He continued: "I can't comment on any rumours right now. It's gonna be a long and difficult process. And we're not soliciting people. So don't call me about it!" -------------------------------------------------- JACKSON TAKES HOME IN LA Sources say he's relocated in order to be closer to Hollywood and the entertainment industry, to the betterment of his career, which, I think we're all agreed, has stalled somewhat of late. WEST SURGEON JAILED FOR DUI Adams pleaded no contest to the DUI charge last year following an incident when he was spotted driving the wrong way down a motorway in California. He was sentenced to a year inside by Solano County Court Commissioner Ray Wieser. There was much criticism of Adams, who was already a TV personality in California, following the sudden death of Donda West the day after he had operated on her in 2007. The autopsy report said West died because of heart disease coupled with complications from the surgery. While in theory that cleared Adams of malpractice, he says the public criticism that continued as a result of West's death more or less ruined his cosmetic surgery business. ITALIAN INDUSTRY VETERAN DIES Born in Sicily in 1921, he joined the management team of the Curci music publishing company in 1950 following his marriage to one Clotilde Curci, and worked at the company's offices in Milan's Galleria del Corso, an Italian equivalent of New York's Tin Pan Alley. During his time with Curci, he discovered a number of high profile artists, including Domenico Modugno, famous for the song 'Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu' (you'll know it as 'Volare') which won the first ever grammy for Record Oof The Year back in 1958. In 1960, Gramitto Ricci founded Carosello Records, which became an important indie label in Italy. He retired from Curci in 1998. BEYONCE, KEYS AND HUDSON UP FOR NAACP AWARDS -------------------------------------------------- RONSON, ETC, UP FOR GUILD AWARDS COMMERCIAL RADIO CHART GOES COMPLETELY DIGITAL The Hit40UK Chart Show is actually the most listened to chart countdown on British radio, though has always had less prominence in the record industry because it combined commercial radio airplay statistics with actual record sales data, similar to the big US music charts. Although, in theory, the airplay element meant this chart should, to an extent, predict what will be the big selling hits of the next few weeks (because airplay will precede record sales), most label execs were most interested in the main UK Top 40 - ie the one aired by Radio 1 - which is based exclusively on record sales, physical and digital since 2005. Arguably, the airplay element of the Network Chart became less interesting once most local pop stations fell into the ownership of three or four major firms, who instigated network-wide playlists. Whereas the original Network Chart reflected what tracks many different heads of music based at stations all over the country were rating, the airplay elements of the chart eventually became dominated by the playlists created by a small group of London based network music chiefs. In 2002, as single sales slumped (pre the rise of legit downloading) and radio airplay data became less interesting, EMAP Radio (now Bauer) dumped the Network Chart and launched its own countdown under its Smash Hits brand which also incorporated public voting - both in terms of what songs had been most requested on EMAP's jukebox TV channels and by actual phone and SMS voting. But with the singles market revolutionised following the arrival of the iTunes Music Store in 2004, retail stats are interesting once more, albeit predominantly digital sales stats. Hence the decision of Hit40UK makers Global Radio to drop both physical sales and airplay data from their chart, and compile it instead using just download sales figures. Global's Paul Jackson told reporters: "Downloads have now become the driving force for record sales, as the statistics clearly show. It makes complete sense that the UK's most listened-to chart show reflects the changes in how people are listening to music". It's not clear how the new look Hit40UK will differ from The Existing UK Download Chart already compiled by the Official Charts Company, and published on the Radio 1 website each Wednesday, though this week's chart hasn't been posted on the BBC website yet, so perhaps it will replace it. -------------------------------------------------- REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL FROM THE BPI AND ERA First, album sales in the UK were actually up for the last quarter of 2008 compared to 2007, by 0.9%, mainly because of the high numbers shifted of new albums from some of the country's biggest artists, including Snow Patrol, Oasis, Girls Aloud and Take That. Second, the albums market for the whole of 2008, although in decline compared to 2007, slumped less than some expected. I'm not which "some", but the BPI reckon a double digit decline had been predicted in some quarters, meaning the 3.2% slump is, in fact, nothing to worry about by comparison. Of course you don't have to be a spin-doctor to present stats from the digital sector, where download sales continue to grow. Even digital album sales are starting to generate respectable numbers, the download sector having been previously dominated by single-track sales. Digital album sales boomed 65% in 2008, with 10 million sold, while the continued growth of single track downloads meant the overall singles market grew by 33% with 115 million singles sold. Pessimists would point out that digital revenues - even if you count the growing licensing revenues from online streaming and subscription services like YouTube and Napster - are still not compensating for the overall slump in physical CD sales income, while profit margins in both the physical and digital domains are falling as prices are cut both online and on the high street. Still, the BPI rightly point out that the continued boom in digital sales means that the high profile collapse of Woolworths (which has now completely disappeared from the high street), the liquidation of CD distributors eUK and Pinnacle, and the ongoing administration of the former Virgin Megastore, Zavvi, all of which happened in the last two months of 2008, shouldn't be taken as an indication the music business is at death's door. While the collapse of traditional record retailers and distributors is sad, it is not a sign that people are not buying music any more, they're just buying it from different places. Also noting movements by government and the internet industry to better combat online piracy, and the high number of UK nominations at this year's Grammy Awards in the US (including a clean sweep in the Record Of The Year category) as reasons to be cheerful, BPI boss Geoff Taylor told CMU: "Every business and consumer in the UK is having a tough time, and these difficult trading conditions make the resilience of the UK's music market all the more notable. During a recession, people look for purchases that are excellent value for money and bring a lot of enjoyment, and music does just this". He continued: "A strong release schedule and a digital retail market that continues to diversify and grow helped the business confront the challenges of unlawful P2P and disruption to retail supply to deliver what are, in context, encouraging sales figures in 2008. The challenge for music companies in 2009 is to ensure that artist investment continues to remain profitable, as the way consumers discover and enjoy music continues to go through a period of unprecedented change". Despite the Woolies, eUK, Pinnacle and Zavvi situations, even the Entertainment Retailer's Association, representing music, DVD and video game sellers, were able to find a positive spin for their start-of-the-year press release. Their reason to be cheerful involved combining music, DVD and game sales for the year, because by doing so you found that total units shifted were up 4% to 485.8 million. ERA add that downloads, Blu-ray discs and the popularity of Nintendo's Wii all helped boost sales in the respective music, DVD and gaming sectors last year. ERA Director General Kim Bayley told CMU: "Against a dismal economic background and faced with the loss of the industry's biggest wholesaler, Entertainment UK, right in the middle of the vital pre-Christmas sales period, entertainment retailers have delivered remarkably positive results. Consumers are sending us a strong message that the best insurance against recession is hit product delivered on a wide range of formats". PREP ON NEXT RAVONETTES ALBUM GOING WELL In a message to fans, multi-instrumentalist Sune Wagner wrote: "Had a great creative talk with Sharin [Foo, vocals] today and we're so ready to make the best album to date! It'll be released in September and we wanna do a proper studio album with a genius producer. There's only so much you can do in your living room and let's face it, whenever you pull out one of your favorite albums, it'll stand the test of time because of a timeless sound, excellent production and songwriting. Now's the right time for us to step it up..." On the upcoming US tour dates, he added: "This will be the last we'll tour for a while because we wanna spend all our time on the next album. We're excited about the future". BONNAROO RELEASE LIVE RACONTEURS TRACKS The Raconteurs tracks set to be made available are 'Consoler Of The Lonely', 'Old Enough', 'Blue Veins' and 'Top Yourself'. One of the tracks will be available to all, the other three to signed up members of the Bonnaroo community site, which is free to join. -------------------------------------------------- THE BOXER REBELLION RETURN The band, you may remember, were tipped for big things following the release of 'Exits', but during a tour with The Killers, frontman Nathan Nicholson became seriously ill and had to be put on a life support machine, leaving the band on hiatus. Now they're back, they're being tipped highly once again, not least by iTunes, who have made new single, 'Evacuate', the first ever global Single Of The Week, which will see it made available for free in every iTunes store worldwide next week. 'Union' will be released digitally via iTunes on Sunday, with a physical release set to follow at a later date (although that later date has not yet been announced). 'Exits' will be re-released with new artwork on the same day. You can stream 'Union' in full on the band's MySpace page now. Check it out here. The tracklisting for the album is as follows: Flashing Red Light Means Go -------------------------------------------------- NEW EMINEM TRACK CIRCULATING U2 MUSICAL COMING SOON He told Q magazine: "We've written a lot of the songs at this point. It's in a pretty good state, and I hope it'll open this year. We're not sure where in the world, but most likely it will be in New York. I think the musical had its heyday back in the '40s, '50s, '60s era.... we've always harboured this sneaky ambition that maybe one day we might try our hand in that area". SOULFLY LIVE EP RELEASE TO COINCIDE WITH TOUR Those tour dates are as follows: 1 Feb: Portsmouth, Pyramid Centre TICKETS FOR UNDERAGE FESTIVAL GO ON SALE No acts have yet been confirmed for this year's event, but last year saw sets from the likes of Dizzee Rascal, Glasvegas, Foals and Those Dancing Days. Tickets cost just £23, though, which is pretty good during these recession-style times. Recessions hit the kids, right? For more info, go to: www.underagefestivals.com ALBUM REVIEW: Shrag - Shrag (Where It's At Is Where You Are) DUPRI TO LEAVE ISLAND DEF JAM It's not clear what Dupri's departure will mean for the TAG Records venture, a joint venture between Island Def Jam and the TAG body spray brand, launched last year and designed as a platform through which to foster marketing partnerships between Island's urban artists and TAG products. Dupri headed up that venture. It also remains to be seen if Dupri has another major label post to go to, and whether he'll take his own label So So Def with him. -------------------------------------------------- CONSOLIDATED LAUNCH INDEPENDENT DIGITAL STORAGE SERVICE The service, which Consolidated call the Digital Archive Service, enables a label to store all its digital assets with the firm, who would in turn make the assets available to any distributors or aggregators, or back to the label, as and when required. It means digital assets are held by an independent party, so that if any one distributor goes out of business it is easy to provide a replacement distributor with everything they need to quickly take over distributing a label's digital product. The service is designed to be very affordable for indie labels, with the cost being set at just a pound per track stored per year. Eric Namour, COO at Consolidated, told CMU: "CI's mission is to provide independent access to the digital music marketplace. Our new Digital Archive Service provides the foundation that underpins this and means that no label need ever be at the mercy of a third party when it comes to managing its digital assets". Beggars Group's Simon Wheeler, who is also chair of the New Media Committee of the Association Of Independent Music, added: "It has always been of critical importance to Beggars that we maintain independent control over our digital assets, and this is even more important now that digital makes up an increasing proportion of our overall business. The Experience of many independent labels, including Rough Trade within the Beggars Group, in the wake of Pinnacle going into administration, shows that a digital archive service is an invaluable way to future proof your business". -------------------------------------------------- BACS REMIND SOUNDTRACK COMPOSERS TO ENTER THE IVORS TORY SAYS LET CHANNEL 4 MAKE ITS OWN SHOWS ITV simply want to reduce their public service obligations, while Channel 4 want help finding new sources of income, to supplement revenue from advertising and sponsorship. C4 bosses would most like a cut of the licence fee income, though the BBC are very very against that, and it's not a proposal favoured by OfCom either. The Beeb have suggested ways it could use its licence-fee-funded resources to help commercial public service broadcasters reduce their costs, and has also reluctantly suggested C4 could, perhaps, have a stake in its commercial division BBC Worldwide. Conservative culture man Jeremy Hunt, asked about the issue on Radio 4's 'The Media Show', said he thought Channel 4 should be allowed to make its own programmes, or take a stake in the programme concepts it premieres, in order to bring in new revenues. Unlike the BBC and ITV, Channel 4 doesn't make any of its own programming, buying everything in from independent TV production firms. That means that it has never built up it's own programme archive that it could now be using to generate new revenues, nor do Channel 4 automatically benefit from any brand extensions of TV shows it airs (eg the book, the song, the t-shirt, the ringtone). Hunt admitted his proposals would be unpopular with the indie TV producers, for some of whom Channel 4 is an important client, but he said getting involved in the programme making business would help C4 find new income to fill the gap left by declining advertising and sponsorship revenues. Hunt: "Channel 4 have a model whereby when they have a success, like 'Secret Millionaire', they get no benefit even if that programme is sold throughout the world and makes millions of pounds. Channel 4 needs to find a model whereby they can benefit financially when they have a success, I think we need to look at the terms of trade in as far as they effect Channel 4". -------------------------------------------------- NME CONFIRM NEW NEW MUSIC MAN Hodgson graduated from Goldsmiths College in 2005 and initially went to work with good old Vice magazine, though has since freelanced from the likes of The Observer, i-D and the NME while keeping his hand in with Vice by being involved in the launch of their online TV station. He has been filling in as the NME's new music man since Alex Miller left the mag last month, and was confirmed as a permanent replacement yesterday. NME Editor Conor McNicholas said this: "Jamie is one of the most exciting young music journalists in the country. He's already a great writer, is fizzing with ideas for the magazine and NME.COM and is very well respected across the industry. I'm delighted to have Jamie on board". -------------------------------------------------- FRANZ FERDINAND TO SOUNDTRACK ROSS'S RETURN The band will perform their new single, 'Ulysses' and join other guests, who will include comedian Lee Evans, national treasure Stephen Fry and one other as-yet-unnamed star. The show will air on 23 Jan, with Ross also returning to his show on Radio 2 on 24 Jan and Film 2009 will start on 26 Jan. Following the announcement of the show's line-up, Ross said via his Twitter account: "[I] was planning on being all mysterious about who was guesting on first show, then my office release it to the press. Bwah". He added that he would ask fellow Twitterer Stephen Fry if he would like to post micro-blog posts during the show. TORY NOT IMPRESSED WITH LILY'S DRUG COMMENTS Allen complained about how the media sensationalised the use of the drug, pointing out, rightly really, that no one ever reports on the fact many cocaine users take the drug a few times a week without it having any major damaging effect on their lives. She told the mag: "I know lots of people who take cocaine three nights a week and get up and go to work. But we never hear that side of the story. I wish people wouldn't sensationalise it. Some people are just bad at taking drugs". She did admit that when she first took the drug as a child she did it because she was "lonely" and "everybody else was doing it", and that she didn't especially enjoy The Experience. But, she added, she, like many others, managed to play with cannabis without becoming a hopeless junkie. Grieve isn't impressed with Allen's remarks, telling the Daily Mail the singer is "naïve" to assume "there isn't human misery and suffering" linked to drugs, which I don't think she did really, she was just saying drugs and misery don't always go hand in hand. Still, Grieve still reckons Allen's remarks were "dangerous and stupid". David Raynes, head of the National Drugs Prevention Alliance, seems to agree, telling the tab: "When someone like Lily Allen makes these remarks she is only harming young people who will at some point in their lives have to make a decision about taking drugs. We already have a major drug culture in the UK and she is affecting that". Drugs or no drugs, Grieve and Raynes really ought to watch themselves with their Lily dissing - she'll be publishing their mobile numbers on Facebook if they're not careful. |
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