Industrial Strength: Ian James named Adjunct Professor; 500,000 Aussie Avicii fans can’t be wrong; Outkast for Splendour?
Mushroom’s Ian James made Adjunct Professor
Mushroom Music Publishing Managing Director Ian James will take up a new role as Adjunct Professor in Victoria University’s College of Business in Melbourne. James was instrumental in the creation and development of the College’s Bachelor of Business (Music Industry), for which he was also a guest lecturer. Mushroom Music has provided internships for its students and currently has four full-time staffers who were its graduates.
Certifications: Avicii’s Wake Me Up goes 8 x Platinum
In the latest certifications, Avicii’s Wake Me Up went 8 x Platinum, totalling more than half a million sales. Eminem & Rihanna’s Monster and Redfoo’s Let’s Get Ridiculous picked up their fourth Platinum. Avicii’s Hey Brother and Lana Del Rey’s Young And Beautiful and OneRepublic’s Something I Need have gone 3 x Platinum. Pharrell Williams’ Happy went double-Platinum. Picking up their first Platinums were Australian DJ Joel Fletcher and NZ hip-hopper Savage’s remix of his 2005 song Swing. In the wake of London Grammar’s promo visit, their single Strong has gone Top 10 and picked up Gold, as did their album If You Wait. The Spark by Afrojack also went Gold as did Flume & Chet Faker’s Drop The Game and The Preatures’ Is This How You Feel? As for albums, The Twelfth Man’s Willy Nilly – The Biggest Hits went Platinum, and triple j’s Like a Version Vol. 9 is Gold (The Gavin Ryan Report).
Australian Musician title returns
The Australian Music Association’s is bringing back its flagship title Australian Musician in March as an online publication. The long running title covering the local musical instrument industry, finished in late 2012 as a color glossy print version. The AMA says it always planned to revive it utilising new technology and social media. Australianmusician.com.au features its original team, of AMA CEO Rob Walker as managing editor and long time editor Greg Phillips. “This time around, we can focus our energies totally on Australian Musician’s web presence via quality interviews in both text and video form, keeping the public up to date with the gear that is actually available to them in stores locally and most importantly concentrating on Australian artists,” said Phillips.
Australiana gets first digital release
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of its release, Universal Music is issuing the first single digital release of Australiana by Austen Tayshus on iTunes. It gets released on January 24, to coincide with the Australia Day long weekend. Performed by Austen Tayshus (aka Sandy Gutman) and written by Billy Birmingham (The 12th Man), Australiana is based in a backyard BBQ. It struck a chord with its puns as “how much can a koala bear?”, “Nulla bores me” and “where can Marsu pee, Al?” In 1983, Australiana was #1 on the ARIA chart for eight weeks. It broke all kinds of records for an Australian single – first spoken word record to get to #1 on the charts, the first spoken word recording to receive a high rotation airplay on FM radio. It took the highest Australian gross for an Australian single.
Jazz pianist Mike Nock honoured by Australia Council
Sydney based jazz pianist, composer and bandleader Mike Nock has been awarded the 2014 Don Banks Music Award by the Australia Council for the Arts. Its CEO Tony Grybowski said Nock has had a huge impact on many musicians, both in Australia and internationally. The Council and the jazz and wider music community pay tribute at a ceremony prior to Nock’s gig at the Seymour Centre’s Sound Lounge on Saturday February 1.
SWIPE
Did Big Day Out pull out of the Claremont Showgrounds and head to Joondalup for its February 2 WA stop because of a hiring fee dispute? Or, as grounds operator RAS say, was it a security issue?
BDO’s other new venues for its 2014 run has caused good reaction. The move in Auckland to Western Springs Stadium not only drew one of its best crowds for years (41,000) but a positive social media response for its large spaces and trees shade. Promoter Campbell Smith groaned he wished he’d made the move from Mt Smart Stadium ten years ago. Over on the Gold Coast where the festival tried out the Metricon Stadium, among the 35,000 fans who attended were other promoters checking out to see if the venue could be used for Soundwave and Stereosonic.
Which Australian celebrity couple who keep insisting they’re not married yet are supposed to have tied the knot secretly already in America? One name insists to this column he attended the ceremony.
Which pub owner was so enraged when a keyboard player turned up for a gig drunk that he reportedly punched him and attacked his instrument?
Another festival hit hard times, this time Beerfestabull in Bundaberg, Queensland, which lost $50,000. Michelle Esposito of Brisbane entertainment agency The Gig Factory told the Bundaberg NewsMail that one of her bands, Chisel Revived, is owed $3,000. She said that the organizer told her the only way they could get their money back would be to play at a Beerfestabull being planned in Melbourne for August. She’s nixed that idea.
Aussie choreographers continue to make their mark with international stars. Tasmania born Lockhart Brownlie has finished as a dancer with Taylor Swift and contacted by Katy Perry to return for another world tour. In the meantime, Ashley Evans and Antony Ginandjar, who danced with Ke$sha, scored the choreography routine design for Britney Spears’ two-year Las Vegas residency. They sent a tape to her creative director when he mounted a search for choreographer directors, and were rewarded with a skype call from True Brit herself.
Outkast are doing 40 festivals around the world as part of their reunion. The Australian stop is wildly rumoured to be Splendour In The Grass.
The music community came together to celebrate the 70th birthday in Brisbane of Ritchie Yorke, one of the first of Australian music journalists to gain an international reputation. In the ‘60s, he was in the inner sanctum of John Lennon & Yoko Ono and Led Zeppelin, filing exclusives for the likes of Rolling Stone. He was senior music writer for the Brisbane Sunday Mail from 1987-2007. For the Yorke bash, at the Old Museum, Ty Noonan put together a band which included his mum, opera singer Maggie Noonan, Normie Rowe, Railroad Gin’s Carol Lloyd, Tim Freedman, Ian Haug. Matt Corby, Gary Burrows of The Rustlers and Nik & Ange Phillips. Messages came from Yoko Ono, Alice Cooper, Mike Myers, Sony Music prez Denis Handlin, Canadian rockabilly pioneer Ronnie Hawkins and Chinese star Li Jie among others. The night was filmed by Norm Wilkinson of Visionquest for a documentary. At the end of the night Yorke and partner Minnie dropped a bombshell, revealing they secretly married last July.
Original AC/DC singer Dave Evans is featured in a US B-movie The Haunting Of Booger County, a paranormal flick by newcomer director Eric Williams.
A survey by the Townsville Bulletin found that 42.9% of respondents said they support the $300 million construction of a new sports and entertainment stadium in the city. It will create 700 jobs during construction and inject $540 million into the region’s economy.
Live acts are among the winners of the South Australia’s push to ignite Adelaide’s bar scene by making it easier to set up small venues. 30 of them are expected to launch this year, many to use live entertainment.
UK Music is to launch a new app called Music Inc. that lets players take on the role of a modern day music manager. They will select the act, create their image, find songwriters and producers, and do the books.
LIFELINES
Engaged (?): speculation ran rampant about Jessica Mauboy and Darwin football player boyfriend of five years, Themeli Magripilis, after she posting a photo on social media of herself wearing a ring on her wedding finger.
Born: daughter to London-based Aussie singer songwriter Peter Andre and girlfriend Emily MacDonagh.
In Court: Gold Coast IT student David Matthew O’Brien, 22, pleaded guilty in the Southport Magistrates Court to 13 counts of fraud. He sold non-existent tickets online to Pink’s sold out Brisbane shows and the Soundwave festival. O’Brien of Griffith University told the judge he did it because his Centrelink payments were not enough. He was sentenced to two years’ probation and 200 hours community service, and must repay his victims $4185 in six months.
In Court: 2DAY FM presenter, singer and actress Sophie Monk asked for further charges against her alleged cyber stalker, James McCabe, 30. She alleges that he’s continued to pester her despite earlier charges where he is alleged to have posted 150 sexually explicit and threatening posts on Twitter.
INSIDE TRACK
Liam Finn returns after three years
Liam Finn will release his first album in three years, The Nihilist, on April 4 in Australia via Create/Control. Lead off single Snug As Fuck can be heard here. Finn, who can play 67 instruments, teams up against with collaborator Eliza Jane Barnes (vocals), his brother Elroy (drums) and NZ songwriter Jol Mulholland (bass). Sessions, in a Brooklyn studio overlooking the Manhattan skyline, were held entirely between the hours of sunset and sunrise. Finn explained, “As soon as I found my own space to bunker down, the songs started taking shape,” he says. “There was a surreal feeling created through the energy of where I was and looking over at Manhattan and seeing it as a subconscious dimension, an entity in itself where every story under the sun was happening all at once. Any fantasy or fear you have in your own mind is probably playing out in reality in Manhattan at any one time.”
Buried In Verona hit back at detractors with Faceless
Sydney metal band Buried In Verona release their fourth studio album, Faceless, on March 7 via UNFD. The video of Splintered from late last year will be book-ended by the video for Illuminate out tomorrow (Thursday) on UNFD’s YouTube account. The two videos are Part I and II of a story that watches a group of Faceless characters brutally beat and torture the band and their people, depicting what happens when people fight back. BIV have been polarising since the release of their ARIA-nominated Top 20-debut Notorious album in 2012. Since then they’ve toured internationally, landed US management and had their music issued worldwide. “Most of the time it doesn’t bother us,” says vocalist Brett Anderson. “But when people say that our fans are fucked or that they are lame, that’s when it really gets to us. We aren’t going to change the way we are, and we hope our fans never change the way they are to appease people who like to talk shit. This record is as much a ’fuck you’ to our detractors, as it is a message to people to keep being themselves no matter what.”