Industrial Strength: September 5
YOUTUBE UNVEILS NEW LOGO, LOOK, FEATURES
With YouTube now meaning a lot of different things to different people in its 1.5 billion community, the time has come for it to unveil a new logo, look and features.
The logo takes the emphasis away from Tube to the play button. The media typeface comes from 1903. The variable speed playback, popular desktop is now also on mobile.
The company is also testing mobile’s mini-player – it allows users to continue watching the video they have in progress while also browsing for the next clip – for desktop web browsers.
Mobile browsing also has a new approach. A swipe to the left cues up a new video based on its recommendation algorithms. A swipe to the right finds a past offering.
MUSIC TASMANIA GETS FUNDING
Music Tasmania has received funding of $110,000 per annum in 2018 and 2019 from the Tasmanian Government.
The music association shared almost $2.3 million through Arts Tasmania’s Organisations Investment Program 2018.
BIG PINEAPPLE MUSIC SITE APPLIES TO EXPAND
The Big Pineapple on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast – with sell-outs for its Pineapple Music Festival in May (13,000 attended and 2500 camped, generating between $6 million and $7 million to the region) and Midnight Oil’s October 14 show – is looking at expanding its site for a greater festival experience and to tap more into the tourism trade.
Brad Rankin and Peter Kendall who’ve owned the 16,000 festival and concert space since 2011, have applied to the Sunshine Coast Regional Council with a new master plan for the.170 hectare site.
It includes more camping, a 120-room hotel and log cabins, a food and tourism hub, a winery or brewery and a Tree Top Challenge adventure course.
Frontier Touring has already said Big Pineapple is a successful music site it would like to book more acts into.
The masterplan is at the website.
BRISBANE’S CROWBAR ADDS NEW CHURCH SPACE
Brisbane live music venue Crowbar in Fortitude Valley – which has showcased 3000 acts since opening in 2012 – has a new creative space called Church.
Dedicated to hosting exhibitions, functions and private events, it will be run by curator and event manager Megan Starr-Thomas, formerly known for her work with The Brisbane Collective.
It launches tomorrow (Wednesday September 6) with the ’No Pits, Just Pits’ exhibition by photographer Matt Walter (nee Warrell) from 6 pm. It runs 12pm – 5pm to September 10.
EVENTBRITE CONCLUDES TICKETFLY BUY
Eventbrite’s US$200 million acquisition of Ticketfly from Pandora has concluded, three months after it was announced.
The two merged companies will generate $4 billion worth of global ticket sales a year, selling 200 million tickets per annum, and occupying the ticketing’s middle market of indie promoters, festivals and music venues in 180 countries.
IGNATIUS JONES GETTING LIFETIME AT EVENTS AWARDS
Vivid Sydney Creative Director Ignatius Jones is to receive Lifetime Achievement Award at the Event Awards this month on the Sunshine Coast.
Jones, who fronted the outrageous punk-cabaret band Jimmy & The Boys, went on to work on some big spectacles.
He was a major creative force behind the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games Opening and Closing Ceremonies, first Artistic Director of the Sydney New Year’s Eve bash, the Opening Ceremony of Shanghai 2010 World Expo and the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
He was also Artistic Director of the Sydney Mardi Gras Parade from 2011 – 2016 and became Vivid’s Creative Director in 2011.
…WHILE FESTIVALS GATHER IN CORNER FOR WINS
National finalists for the Event Awards are Blues on Broadbeach, Bluesfest Byron Bay, Splendour in The Grass, Vivid Sydney, White Night Melbourne 2017, Djäpana: Sunset Dreaming at the Sydney Opera House, and White Night Ballarat 2017
Among the 24 state finalists are WOMADelaide (SA), Kaleidoscope 2016 (WA), Ten Days on the Island (Tas) and Summerset Arts (WA).
QMUSIC ANNOUNCES NEW ‘INDUSTRY CONNECT’ PROGRAM
QMusic announced a new series of ‘Industry Connect’ workshops throughout Queensland.
Highlights from the Brisbane program are:
- Why Should I Give You Money: with Emma Calverley (Executive Director Operations and Marketing, Partnerships Australia) Tina Hill (Senior Investment Manager, Arts Queensland) and Elliot Chapple (General Manager, Pozible)
- Building A Team vs DIY: with Alex Henriksson (Matt Corby’s producer and co-writer) and David Dean (Turn it Up/Hostile Entertainment).
- Getting It Out There: with Stacey Piggott (Secret Service).
The workshops are in partnership with Queensland Government, Sunshine Coast Council, Sunshine Coast Creative Alliance, Cairns Council and Close Contact.
They will be held at The Edge, SLQ (Brisbane), The Farmhouse (Gold Coast), The Old Ambulance Station (Sunshine Coast) and Tanks Arts Centre (Cairns).
Yesterday, QMusic announced its four Industry Connect bursary winners to attend BIGSOUND as Drew Brauer from Cairns, Kerry Raywood (Pink Matter) from Brisbane, Briannah Dennis (The Dennis Sisters) from the Sunshine Coast and Kirsty Abrahams from the Gold Coast.
These were made possible by QMusic’s donor community The Saints.
NEIL FINN: INSTANT SILENCE GONNA GET YOU
“For a long time, I’ve wanted to do a record in one crack and get it out in a week… Then I thought, ‘Well if we’re going to do that, let’s not make it a little acoustic thing that’s easy to record in one session. Let’s make it the most sophisticated record I’ve ever made.”
So an album completed the Friday before was ready for streaming on September 1, and on physical format by September 15.
Throughout August, Finn and friends created the Out Of Silence album over four lots of streams, culminating the four hour sour session.
Among those in the choir on the lead-off single More Than One Of You are Tiny Ruins, Lawrence Arabia and Don McGlashan while Tim Finn was featured on the second stream after warming up on some Finn Brothers songs.
RECLAIM STREETS THROW FESTIVAL FOR MARRIAGE EQUALITY
Reclaim the Streets is staging a free music festival for marriage equality. Signed, Sealed, Delivered kicks off at 1 pm at Sydney’s Prince Alfred Park on Saturday September 23., with bands and DJs
At 2pm, participants will be invited attend a mass vote-in at the Strawberry Hills Post Office across the road from the park. The purpose of the event is encourage marriage equality supporters to get out early, and cast their votes.
Reclaim the Streets has a history of throwing events in support of Sydney’s LGBTIQ+ community, including the Keep Newtown Weird & Safe marches which took place earlier this year and last, in response to homophobic violence in Newtown.
MACKLEMORE FOR NRL GRAND FINAL
No sooner than Macklemore was announced for this year’s NRL Telstra Premiership Grand Final pre-game show at ANZ Stadium on October 1 that the usual assortment of sports commentators and columnists started to belly-ache that tit should have been an Aussie band and not this imported hip hopper singing about love and respect.
What they probably don’t know is that in an NRL first, the act was chosen after a focus group involving fans. Macklemore was one of the leading choices in a vote by fans on whom they wanted most to perform prior to the Grand Final.
ALICE SPRINGS GRANTS FOR INNOVATIVE IDEAS
Arts NT is inviting organisations and community groups to apply for grants to run innovative services and programs for vulnerable young people in Alice Springs for the rest of 2017 and through the summer holidays to January 31.
The grants, which close on Sunday September 10, are designed to encourage innovation and creative thinking about how to constructively engage young people during holiday times and outside school hours.
Funding for an individual activity or short series of activities ranges from $1000 to $20,000, while on-going activities can apply for up to $80,000.
COURTNEY BARNETT/ KURT VILE RELEASE NEW MUSIC
After announcing a collaboration earlier this year, Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile have shared their first music together, a track called Over Everything.
The album, Lotta Sea Lice, will be released in October 13, via Matador, Marathon, Milk and Mom + Pop.
Aside from their songs, covers include Belly’s Untogether and Jen Cloher’s Fear Is Like A Forest. Barnett has recorded a version of Vile’s Peeping Tomboy.
The two will tour the US together in October and November.
TWO ARRESTED OVER FESTIVAL THREATS
Dutch police arrested two men after a show in Rotterdam by Los Angeles band Allah-Las was cancelled at the last minute after a tip off by Spanish authorities about a terrorist threat.
But one, driving a van around outside the venue on the night of the concert, was released. A second is still in custody.
Allah-Las say they’ve got disgruntled emails from Muslims around the world offended by the name (“which wasn’t our intention” while a promoter in Turkey refused to book them because of the name.
PHILIP FOXMAN WINS AWARD
Former Supernaut bassist and songwriter Philip Foxman was among the winners of the Australian Writers’ Guild’s 50th AWGIE Awards in Sydney.
His production with Danny Ginges, Atomic, which was written during a spell in New York, was a win in the Music Theatre category.
Atomic is about Hungarian born physicist and inventor Leo Szilard who helped build the atomic bomb for the Americans.
While virtually all the acceptance speeches at the AWGIEs were about the importance of telling Australian stories, Ginges and Foxman could recount how they took an American story to the Americans.
Foxman is working on a movie script in which one of the characters came from the world of Supernaut’s I Like It Both Ways. Last year after the Molly tele-series, the band was one of three acts whose music started to sell again.
This led to sell-out reunion shows along the East Coast.
PAULINI PLEADS GUILTY
There were no bodyguards in sight when Paulini Curuenavuli swept into to the Mount Druitt Local Court in western Sydney and pleaded guilty to bribing a Roads and Maritime Services employee for an unrestricted driver’s licence for $850.
She will be sentenced in mid-December, with a seven year jail sentence a maximum possibility.
The court heard that since getting her learner’s licence in 2002, she notched up eleven offences including driving unaccompanied, driving while suspended and driving without displaying her learner plates.
RICKIE LEE RETURNS AFTER THREE YEAR HIATUS
Rickie Lee is back with her first single Not Too Late after a three year hiatus. Much of it was spent writing in Los Angeles. She returned in April and took part in a songwriting camp where the acoustic-textured Not Too Late was written with Neil Ormandy and Steve Solomon, the duo behind James Arthur’s Say You Won’t Let Go.
The singer says the song came out of the three talking about their personal stories of loss grief, heartbreak and addiction.
“Essentially, it’s about redemption and it never being too late to right our wrongs and start again,” she says.
She kept the vocal from the original demo because “I wanted people to hear the pain in these lyrics and feel where this song is coming from.”
TROYE SIVAN JOINS LGBTIMOVIE
Two Australian born entertainers – Troye Sivan from Perth, and Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ Flea who came into the world in Melbourne – have joined the cast of Joel Edgerton’s Boy Erased in minor roles.
It is about the young son (played by Lucas Hedges of Manchester by the Sea) of a Baptist minister who is outed by his parents (Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman) and forced into gay conversion.
TWO COMMUITY STATIONS LOSE LICENSES
In the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s review of 150 community radio licenses in the last financial year, 148 got their boxes ticked.
Alas, two were deemed not adhering to the rules.
So say goodnight Gracie to Radio Hawksburn (NSW) for not involving enough community participation despite long time pressure from ACMA (licence expires October 3), and to Mt. Isa Christian station 4MIG for not having enough resources to meet its community’s needs (plug pulled on September 11).
WA GOVT. PUSH TO INCREASE CREATIVE JOBS
WA Premier Mark McGowan, Culture and the Arts Minister David Templeman and Planning Minister Rita Saffioti recently joined key representatives from the creative industries to strengthen working relationships between industry and government to create jobs.
The feedback from the creatives will provide important feedback on the McGowan Government’s key election commitments, and outcomes will feed into future decision making.
Since 2008, employment in the creative industries in Australia has grown by 14%, matched by a revenue growth of 13%.
Premier McGowan said, “The creative industries represent a key area for economic growth and job creation in Western Australia.
“Our plan for the arts in WA will support new and emerging artists in a variety of fields and leverage our State’s rich artistic culture, which will contribute to job creation both directly and indirectly through tourism, hospitality, festivals and events.”
The Government will invest in a number of projects as part of its Local Projects, Local Jobs program. One of these included a $120,000 grant to community radio station RTRFM.
Australia’s creative industries are expected to grow at a faster rate than GDP over the next five years, and by 2022, creative industry revenue in Australia is forecast to account for $115 billion.
In WA, the creative industries experienced the equal highest annual State employment growth between 2006 and 2011, alongside Victoria at 3.2%.
Pointed out the Government, “This was the equivalent employment growth to that of the overall WA economy for this period – demonstrating the potential of the creative industries to contribute to increased economic diversification in this State.”
LATEST SXSW SPEAKERS
Among the latest speakers for South By Southwest are a keynote on America’s inequality by The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates along with entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban, ABC News co-anchor and author of 10% Happier Dan Harris, songwriter and producer Savan Kotecha, Chief Scientist of Google Cloud Fei-Fei Li, The Daily Show correspondent Hasan Minhaj, CBS’s This Morning co-host and 60 Minutes correspondent Charlie Rose, O’Reilly Media founder Tim O’Reilly and Teen Vogue editor-in-chief Elaine Welteroth.
20 EVENTS FOR ROCKIN’ FOR WEST PAPUA
In a second year, the Australian punk community is holding 20 shows around the world for Rockin’ For West Papua, to make a noise about the genocide plight of the West Papuan people.
Between October 6-8 there are shows in Australia and abroad – including Radio Birdman guitarist Chris Masuak headlining a show in Sydney.
Full list of dates so far at www.freewestpapua.org. If you want to get involved, email Ash Brennan at [email protected]. The group says that having its posters defaced and their cars attacked in Perth by Indonesian students merely strengthens their resolve.
AND A FEW OTHER THINGS…
Liam Payne admits he’s smoking again after vowing to give up after Bear was born as “Everyone has their vices”.
The accused killer of WA’s DJ Suave (aka Jaime Rodolpho Fernandez) pleaded not guilty in the Stirling Gardens Magistrates Court via video link from prison. Victor Amaya next faces court on October 23.
The reason Lorde did an interpretive dance on the MTV Video Music Awards was that she was suffering from the flu. Two days later, her voice returned and she did a secret show in the garden of the Houdini Estate in the Hollywood Hills.
Aussie prog-metal band Ne Obliviscaris head off to North America playing 26 cities, starting on November 1 in San Francisco and winding up on December 4 in Santa Ana, California. They drop their Urn album on October 27 via Season Of Mist.
One of the interesting additions on singer songwriter Ben Salter’s new album Back Yourself is the opening track Where Corals Lie. It is a version of a piece by English classical composer Edward Elgar, which was itself an adaptation of a poem by minor English poet Richard Garnett. It was originally performed in 1899.
After a quick visit back to these shores, New York-based Australian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Cameron Avery dropped the animated video for his track Watch Me Take It Away before heading off this week on his second North American tour.
Congrats to Creina Chapman, Head of Regulatory Affairs and Corporate Communications at Southern Cross Austereo and Greg Baxter, partner at financial and corporate communications strategists Newgate, on their nuptials in Sydney. The couple is dubbed “Chapter” by friends.
The Melbourne Herald Sun reported that entertainment lawyer Darren Sanicki filed legal papers against Channel 9 and The Footy Show (the AFL) version, accusing them of using the theme song he co-wrote More Than A Game without his permission for almost 20 years. He is seeking compensation for loss, including missed licence fees, and damages, with the case going to the Federal Court next month. It was sung by Chris Doheny who issued it as a single through Image in 1994 and made the charts.
So what did Darwin nightclub Monsoons do when regular patron Billy Provost turned up with a tattoo of its entry stamp on his behind? Gave him a VIP free entry for life – although the club hastily adds it’s a one-off and others thinking of getting free entry via a club logo tattoo shouldn’t think of it.
The Los Angeles house that Iggy Azalea shared with former fiancé Nick Young finally sold for US $3.2 million, a loss since he bought it in 2014 from Selena Gomez for $3.5 million. The Ig allegedly caught him cheating at the house with other women.
Sticking with real estate, the Sydney Morning Herald reckons that the $13 million buyer of former fashion industry boss Robby Ingham and his wife Sarah’s mansion in Tamarama for $13 million – a new record for the area – was DJ Annie aka Annie Conley, daughter of the late aviation pioneer and philanthropist John Conley.
New York-based Greta Gortler of The Universal Thump is back in Sydney working on the music for new musical The Red Tree which plays the National Theatre of Parramatta October 19 to 28. Based on the book by Shaun Tan, others involved are playwright Hilary Bell, director Neil Gooding and young actor-singer. Nicola Bowman.
Police were called to US rapper Bow Wow’s Tamworth show after an 18-year old in the audience allegedly hit a female and was flung out of the venue. He and his 22 year old brother allegedly gave the blueys grief when they rumbled and were both arrested and face Tamworth Local Court on September 18.