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![]() INTRODUCING LEYLINE PUBLICITY Leyline Promotions - better known as one of the capital’s leading independent promoters (The Remix, Kill All Hippies, Insomniacs Ball, Twisted Licks, Breaking Ground) - have created a new publicity department headed up by Nick Bateson and Adrian Leigh. The pair have worked on major campaigns including a-ha, Glade Festival, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Standon Calling Festival and Hervé amongst others. In addition to their wealth of experience in the live arena, Leyline Publicity now specialise in bespoke PR services including online and offline music and lifestyle press, radio plugging, brand development, digital marketing and blogging. For further information please contact: [email protected] or [email protected] t: 020 7575 3285 -- ADVERTISE WITH CMU - classifieds £120 per week, job ads £100 per week, banner ads £150 per week, leader box £200 per week - call 020 7099 9050 or email [email protected] for information or to book. back to top |
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BEATLES RE-RELEASES TO COINCIDE WITH ROCK BAND LAUNCH The albums have been re-mastered, though will come with the original artwork, and a documentary video which I don't think appeared on the original releases, though I never put my vinyl copy of the 'White Album' in my PC to check, so it might have been there I suppose. As well as the re-mastered albums there'll be two new Beatles box sets. The much anticipated digital release of all things Beatles is not yet on the agenda. I do hope the British music industry gets their copyright extension, otherwise half the Beatles catalogue might go out of copyright before Apple Corps, EMI and the download stores of this world agree on how to the Fab Four's songs legitimately into the interspace. -------------------------------------------------- BRAGG CRITICISES FAC CRITICS OVER COPYRIGHT EXTENSION As previously reported, copyright extension is very much on the agenda in Europe at the moment, and various EU political bodies have approved proposals for a term increase. Part of the proposal is that a system is put in place which means musicians benefit more from the copyrights that exist in the music they created once the initial fifty years are up. Of course if an artist has signed ownership of their recordings to a record company, as is, or certainly was, the norm for new bands, and if those bands haven't recouped on their original record contract, or they're a session musician who never had a contractual royalty to start with, then they don't earn much from the music the songs they were involved in generate. They do, despite what many people say, earn something - all artists and musicians earn a statutory cut of broadcast royalties oblivious of their record contract - but it's not much. Anyway, the plan is that after fifty years, and during any subsequent part of the copyright term, artists and musicians would earn an extra automatic royalty from their music, increasing their total income. A system for that has been agreed by various music business bodies in the UK, and across Europe, and that system is part of the current proposals. However, the British government, while supporting extension in theory, last month held up the current proposals by arguing they didn't do enough to benefit musicians over record companies during any extended copyright period. Other countries disagreed, and as such the whole term proposal document has been held up. Some fear it now won't get through the system before the European elections this summer, holding everything up for months, possibly years. The Musicians Union and collecting society PPL, both of whom represent musicians, criticised the UK government for holding up the proposals in that way. But then the FAC issued a statement saying they backed the government in its bid to secure artists a better deal, even if it delayed the actual introduction of a term extension. Record labels would presumably prefer a term extension that doesn't involve them giving up too much of their extra revenue, while the FAC goes as far as suggesting that at fifty years the whole copyright in a track should return to the artist. All of which brings much new debate to the table. Some key players at other trade bodies worry such new debate could scupper the current term extension proposals, putting them back to square one. Anyway, here's what Bragg says in his letter to Music Week: "The Featured Artists Coalition has been founded to give artists a voice in the important decisions that are being made about the ownership and exploitation of copyright within our industry. With regard to the issue of term extension currently being addressed by the European Union, we believe that after 50 years of ownership by the record companies, the recordings that we made - and ultimately paid for [because the label's cash investment is recouped from the artist's sales] - should become our property. We want the slate to be wiped clean for those who didn't recoup and we want our fellow performers, the session musicians, to start getting some royalties too". On criticism of the FAC's late in the day remarks, he continues: "The industry is pushing the line that if the legislation fails to pass on its first reading this week, then that will be that, everything will be lost and there will be no extension at all. This kind of scare-mongering doesn't wash, neither with artists nor with government officials. This issue will have to be resolved sooner or later because there cannot, in a digital age, be such a huge anomaly in the term of copyright in recordings between the USA and the EU". -------------------------------------------------- WHO DID IT THEN? RIHANNA'S DAD SPEAKS Fenty told US Weekly: "So what happened? Somebody else did this to Rihanna then? Who did it? That's the question now. If he's not guilty, who did it? He should say 'guilty' and let the court be [lenient on] him and try himself to the mercy of the court, see if he gets a fine... Now he's going to go beyond that and it could go longer, it can be even worse. It can be worse for him in the long run". He added: "I just would like to see justice go in the right direction. I don't want his career to be damaged - it's damaged already. I think he's a talented guy, but everybody should have to pay. When you do the crime, you do the time. I don't want to see him locked up for a long time - I just want him to acknowledge and get some help". Having pleaded not guilty, Brown is now set to return to court for a preliminary hearing on 29 Apr. -------------------------------------------------- MADONNA DONATES MONEY TO EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS LOVE SUES FOR STOLEN CASH Love's lawyer Rhonda J Holmes told the New York Post: "I have never seen such greed and moral turpitude. This case is going to make Bernard Madoff look warm and fuzzy. We will be filing civil cases ... within the next 30 days. There are many, many millions missing. We've only been able to track down $30 million, but there is more. And then there is the real estate. There is now a web of homes which were bought, flipped and used to launder money - up to $500 million worth". And if you're wondering how much money is left, the answer would seem to be none. "Courtney noticed the money was gone when there wasn't any left", continued Holmes. "It's no secret she struggled with substance-abuse issues, but in the last year she's taken a more serious approach to sobriety and started noticing things were wrong. She hired private investigators, accountants and me. When Mr. Cobain died in 1994, he left his enormously wealthy estate behind for the benefit of his mother, two sisters, a brother, his wife and young daughter. Many of those [involved with] the estate's coffers mismanaged, stole and outright looted it shamelessly". DYLAN REALISTIC ABOUT OBAMA The singer said of the new US Commander In Chief: "He'll be the best president he can be. Most of those guys come into office with the best of intentions and leave as beaten men. Johnson would be a good example of that... Nixon, Clinton in a way, Truman, all the rest of them going back. You know, it's like they all fly too close to the sun and get burned". METAL HAMMER GOLDEN GODS NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED Here are the nominations for the eight fan-voted categories in full: Best UK Band: Iron Maiden, The Answer, Dragonforce, Saxon, Gallows, Motorhead Best Live Band: Slipknot, Devildriver, Clutch, Deathstars, Skindred, Down Best International Band: Slipknot, Amon Amarth, Deathstars, Dimmu Borgir, Metallica, Lamb of God Best New Band: Black Tide, Five Finger Death Punch, Sylosis, Malefice, Trigger The Bloodshed, Alestorm Shredder(s): Mick Thompson & Jim Root (Slipknot), Olavi Mikkonen & Johan Söderberg (Amon Amarth), Mark Morton & Willie Alder (Lamb of Good), Eric Petersen & Alex Skolnick (Testament), Herman Li & Sam Totman (Dragonforce), Mike Akerfeldt (Opeth) Breakthrough Artist: All That Remains, Amon Amarth, Gojira, Bring Me The Horizon, Airbourne, Underoath Best Underground Band: Architects, Annotations Of An Autopsy, Kylesa, Beneath The Massacre, Legion Of The Damned, Behemoth Best Metal Label: Roadrunner, Metal Blade, Rising Records, Nuclear Blast, SPV / Steamhammer, Spinefarm On the night, there will also be a further nine awards selected by the Metal Hammer editorial team, including Best Album, Riff Lord and, of course, the Golden God Award. Chris Ingham, organiser of this year's awards told CMU: "With Metal Hammer readers pitting the viking helmets of Amon Amarth against the masks of Slipknot, we've witnessed a truly phenomenal year for heavy metal music. With Iron Maiden and Metallica ripping up venues across the globe, heavy metal is bigger than ever, and we are selling more copies of Metal Hammer than ever before. The growing legion of metal fans in the UK and further afield will unite to honour the true pioneers of our genre". -------------------------------------------------- NEW INDIE IDLE SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED Here are the bands going through: Personal Space Invaders KATY PERRY WANTS CALVIN HARRIS Anyway, apparently Perry broached the subject in an email in which she compared Harris to Phil Spector. Though I think she probably meant in terms of his production, not that she was suggested he might (or might not) like pointing guns at women. This was a friendly email, as far as I know. Anyway, speaking to BBC Newsbeat, Calvin saids: "There are some murmurings about Katy Perry. But you can never tell with Americans whether it'll happen or not. She sent me a big long email comparing me to Phil Spector which I found incredible but you've got to laugh haven't you? So that was great and we're possibly doing something. I'm a massive fan of Katy Perry. Huge. She wants to do like a fun album, like a dance album but obviously still pop. I kind of fit that bill so I guess that's why she thought of me. It'd be that kind of thing". As for his own forthcoming album, he commented on rumours that it is heavily influenced by Balearic dance. "In the run up to making it I did spend a lot of time on YouTube researching Ibizan lost trance classics and taking it all in", he said. "Not necessarily ripping any of them off but just getting yourself in that zone. I was aware that it would be frowned upon that if I was to make a record that sounded like that and that was it. So I thought combine it with something which sounds a bit like Snow Patrol - maybe that will work. I kind of like the unexpected. I tend to [describe it as] a cross between Snow Patrol, Grandaddy and Faithless". GOSSIP SET DATE FOR MANLY ALBUM -------------------------------------------------- EMINEM DISSES AMY, ETC IN NEW SINGLE GORILLAZ ANNOUNCE DOCUMENTARY Entitled 'Bananaz', the film follows the recording of the debut Gorillaz album in 2000, and shows that normally trustworthy people like D12, De La Soul, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien and Dan the Automator were also in on the joke. I feel cheated. The film premieres on the Babelgum website on 20 Apr, but you can catch a brief clip of it right now, here: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/puffbox/tagpuff/7987542.stm MADNESS TO DO FREE CAMDEN GIGS -------------------------------------------------- DAVID BYRNE DOES FREE SHOW FANS WARNED TO BE WARY OF FAKE TICKETS The BBC quote councillor Paul Gittings, lead for environment and sustainability, as saying: "People should take care to only buy from the official website and beware fakes. The difficulty we have is that some of these websites are very impressive indeed and designed to entice and attract consumers into using them. The whole appearance and layout of these sites makes them look official and genuine. Many of these websites are simply online ticket touts, resellers of tickets, who are working on the customer's desperation by promising tickets for a sold out event". -------------------------------------------------- ISLE OF WIGHT FESTIVAL, Seaclose Park, Newport, 12-14 Jun: Ladyhawke, Alesha Dixon, Noisettes and Beverley Knight have all been confirmed to play the Big Top on the Friday. Eddi Reader and Pixie Lott are also to perform alongside Bananarama. www.isleofwightfestival.com DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL. Donington Park, Castle Donington, 12-14 Jun: Fightstar, Bring Me The Horizon, Staind, Stone Gods, The Answer, Static X and Shinedown are amongst the latest acts to be confirmed for this year's heavy metal major. Volbeat, Facecage, Sevendust, Go:Audio and Auger Bane have also been confirmed. www.downloadfestival.co.uk WIRELESS FESTIVAL, Hyde Park, London, 4-5 Jul: Digitalism, Does It Offend You Yeah?, Delphic and Filthy Dukes have been confirmed for both days at Hyde Park. Q Tip, Flo Rida, Kid Cudi and Daniel Merriweather have also been announced to play on the Sunday, joining Kanye West, Young Jeezy and Mr Hudson. www.wirelessfestival.co.uk T IN THE PARK, Balado, Kinross-shire, 10-12 Jul: Edwyn Collins, Regina Spektor, The Courteeners and Daniel Merriweather are the latest acts confirmed to play the King Tut's Wah Wah Tent. Crystal Castles, The Hours, Twin Atlantic and Little Boots have also been confirmed to play the Futures Stage. www.tinthepark.com LOOP FESTIVAL, various venues, Brighton, 11-12 Jul: Datarock, Joakim, Hatcham Social, Fanfarlo and Fujiya and Miyagi are the latest acts confirmed for this year's Loop festival. www.loopbrighton.com SECRET GARDEN PARTY, Cambridgeshire, 23-26 Jul: The Holloways, Those Dancing Days, VV Brown, Rodrigo Y Gabriella, Chairlift and Baxter Dury have all been announced to play this year's boutique bash. www.secretgardenparty.com BELLADRUM TARTAN HEART FESTIVAL, Italian Gardens, Inverness-shire, Scotland, 7-8 Aug: Editors and Ocean Colour Scene have been confirmed as headliners for this year's Scottish festival. The Saw Doctors and Shed Seven have also been added to the bill. www.tartanheartfestival.co.uk FIELD DAY, Victoria Park, Hackney, London, 8 Aug: Santigold has been confirmed to play an exclusive show at the festival, along with The Horrors, Mystery Jets and Juana Molina. www.fielddayfestivals.com ALBUM REVIEW: Jeffrey Lewis And The Junkyard - 'Em Are I (Rough Trade) Buy from iTunes BASCA APPOINT NEW PR CHIEF VIRGIN APPOINT A HEAD OF MUSIC OK, let's try again. ISP and cable telly company Virgin Media have created the role of Head Of Music and have appointed Richard Wheeler, formerly Head Of Music & Film Partnerships at Orange, and prior to that a digital VP at Sanctuary, to the job. He'll be responsible for developing new music services across Virgin's mobile, internet and cable TV platforms. Confirming the appointment, Virgin Media's Director Of Broadband Jon James told reporters: "It's a time of great change and opportunity in the music business and Virgin Media is uniquely well-placed to bring innovative new services to consumers, thanks to our fibre optic network. Virgin Media has a strong brand heritage in music and, coupled with Richard's outstanding wealth of experience and in-depth understanding of the needs of artists, labels and consumers, we'll continue to build our presence in music". Relationships between music companies and the ISPs remain a little tense at the moment of course, because while the former recognise that the latter's big subscription-paying customer base is an obvious target for new revenue-generating digital music services, they still believe the net firms are failing to fulfil their ethical duty of taking a more proactive role in policing online piracy. Virgin Media have a slightly better relationship than others, and were the first to agree to send out warning letters to suspected file-sharers. Also they, like BSkyB, have existing credentials as content providers, and therefore are more logical partners for new music services. However, no ISP is in favour of what some record label execs secretly desire - an introduction of the infamous three-strike file-sharer disconnection system - and disagreements over that issue will always have some impact on major music/ISP partnerships. Not that that doesn't mean more tactical alliances can't be struck in the meantime. And the fact Virgin have decided to create the Head Of Music role, and appoint a former label exec into it, has to be a good starting point. -------------------------------------------------- There has been much chatter in the blogosphere that, despite the accompanying discounts on some tracks, if the labels hike up the price of the average download to $1.29 they'll be shooting themselves in the foot, driving people to free but illegal music sources instead. Others reckon it will have a serious impact of Apple's market share unless similar price increases are replicated at other download stores - and some conspiracy theorists reckon that that's the majors' agenda, force variable pricing on iTunes as part of their DRM-free deal, and in doing so giving Amazon MP3 et al an advantage so to reduce Apple's hold on the digital music market, a digital dominance the majors have never really liked. Anyway, commenting on the price increases at iTunes, Danny Stein at eMusic told reporters yesterday: "While I am CEO, I promise that eMusic will never sell single MP3 downloads for more than 99 cents". That said, eMusic's per download rate has always been quite a bit less than iTunes, because customers pay a monthly fee for a set number of download credits which, if they use them all, and on the biggest packages, can mean the per track rate is less than 30 cents. The logic is that because eMusic customers commit to buying a certain number of tracks a month they should enjoy a preferential rate. Many of the indie labels who have been long time supporters of eMusic agree with that logic, though some notable indies have in the past withdrawn from the service when the per-track unit prices have been cut, even slightly. back to top And the new marketing recruit is Lindsay Nuttall, currently head of marketing for BBC2, BBC4 and the Beebs' factual programming, and prior to that the marketer at Channel 4 responsible for all the marketing hoo haa that surrounded 'Skins'. Yes, that was her fault. Still, we all know about 'Skins' don't we, even if we don't watch it, so I'd say it's a good hire for MySpace. Perhaps she'll stop MySpace emailing me suggesting that I enter a competition to win a band to play at my school - a misplaced bit of promo that led me to this hellish 'MySpace customer communications are shit' escapade... www.stuffbyme.co.uk/post/Complaining-to-MySpace-its-not-easy.aspx Anyway, enough about me, more about Lindsay. Confirming Nuttall's appointment, the MD of MySpace Europe, Rebekah Horne, told reporters: "Lindsay's impressive background in brand development and her experience with media companies such as the BBC and Channel 4 make her the perfect fit for this key strategic role". It's not clear if Nuttall will be involved in marketing the global launch of MySpace Music, which is still anticipated despite the somewhat lacklustre reception to the all new music service in the US. One would assume she would be - music still being the one area where MySpace still has the edge, just, on its social networking rivals. GLOBAL SELL DIGITAL ONE The two radio firms that made up GCap - GWR and Capital - were both early advocates of digital audio broadcasting, hence their combined ownership of the bulk of the national DAB network, which Global acquired as part of its GCap takeover last year. But with commercial radio struggling to make DAB services add up at the moment, ownership of a Digital One stake is a lot less attractive than it once was - especially since the collapse of the second national DAB network set up by Channel 4 whose demise, while meaning Digital One no longer has a big competitor, made everyone question the long term viability of the digital broadcasting system. Telecoms and broadcast facilities firm Arquiva, the minority shareholders in Digital One, will take over Global's 63% stake. They will pay a nominal fee for it, but give Global reduced rates for broadcasting its stations on the network moving forward. Arqiva's Director Of Radio, Paul Eaton, told reporters: "As an independent operator, Arqiva is in a good position to realise the full potential of the multiplex and encourage new services to launch on the DAB digital radio platform. We believe in the long term future of DAB, and this deal with Global extends both of our companies' commitments to digital radio well into the future". -------------------------------------------------- GLOBAL TO LAUNCH INTERNSHIP ACADEMY The Student Radio Conference reaches its finale today, and what a fine conference it's been this year - I hear the 'student radio and the music industry' session was especially good. Well chaired. Though I did manage to lose my coat. -------------------------------------------------- PRESS GAZETTE TO LEAVE THE PRESSES The Gazette, of course, has had a more interesting history in recent years that many of the newspapers it reports on. There was Piers Morgan and Matthew Freud's purchase of it, and there much hyped relaunch, then lots of squabbling over those annual awards, which some newspaper groups boycotted once Morgan and Freud were in charge. As the title floundered and the usually money-making awards struggled, the dynamic duo put the title into administration. Current owners Wilmington bought it from the administrators, initially relaunching the title, though they too instigated cut backs, making it a monthly magazine last Summer. The latest news means the operation will essentially cease, though some sort of website will remain. Now, some people say trade magazines which are online only are vastly superior to those that come out in print, though I've no idea what those people are talking about, and I'm not sure that will be the case here. There'll be no news, and it sounds like the Gazette website will become primarily a commercial directory that exists mainly to plug the awards. But it's still not entirely clear what will happen, so don't quote me on that. -------------------------------------------------- GUARDIAN LAUNCH US MEDIA PODCAST Matt Wells, GNM's Head of Audio, told CMU: "Media Talk USA will adopt the same tone and approach as the original Media Talk podcast, dealing with serious subjects in an engaging and entertaining way - this time from a US perspective. I hope the new podcast will become popular among both American and British audiences, as developments in the media across the Atlantic are so often indicative of things to come in the UK and Europe". For more info, and to download a preview of the podcast, go to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/mediatalkusa 1. [2] Elliot Minor - Discover Everything Everything - Photoshop Handsome GARETH GATES IS A DAD -------------------------------------------------- JAMIE CULLUM TO MARRY -------------------------------------------------- FLOWERS BLAMES COBAIN FOR KILLERS' FAILURE Speaking to The Daily Star, Flowers said: "I don't mean it in a bad way, but I think Kurt Cobain and grunge took the fun out of rock 'n roll. Everything's changing, though, and it's starting to become a lot more playful and brighter". Yeah, that's right, 15 years after Kurt Cobain died, music is finally starting to change. Or maybe Kurt Cobain just highlighted that it's possible to record more than one good album. |
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