Industrial Strength: Spotify & SoundCloud hiring, number crunching, musical chairs & more
VICTORIAN MANAGERS TO GET WELLBEING SKILLS
The Association of Artist Managers Australia (AAM), with the support of the Victorian government through Creative Victoria, announced a world first professional development program for music managers.
Gimme Shelter is designed to equip 15 Vic music managers with certified training over three months to build workplace skills, resilience and long term strategies for the mental health and well being for music managers, and their artists.
It incorporates an immersive 2-day retreat, a guided mentorship with a psychologist to develop some further skills and understanding and funded accredited training.
Martin Foley, Vic minister for creative industries said, “The Victorian government is proud to support this initiative through our Music Works program.
“Music is so important to our community and to our culture, yet we know that people working in the industry experience a significantly higher rate of mental health challenges than the broader community.
“This initiative is one of the ways we are addressing these issues and ensuring our musicians and those behind them have the support they need to keep doing what they do best.”
AAM executive director Leanne de Souza revealed Gimme Shelter was designed with mental health professionals.
She pointed out, “A key challenge articulated by our professional members is how best to navigate the challenges to keeping themselves, and their artists, resilient for long term success in the face of innumerable financial, creative and psycho-social challenges.”
SUNSHINE COAST CONFERENCE ‘TURN UP’ DATES
The sixth edition of Sunshine Coast music industry conference/showcase Turn Up will be held at The Playhouse at Solbar, Maroochydore on Thursday, October 17 and Friday 18.
The first day sees the conference programs run from 4:45pm until 10:45pm with showcase acts, a keynote, panels, networking and an after party.
The second day of celebration will kick off with a music industry breakfast with a speaker and showcase performer @ Solbar from 8:30 pm, followed by master classes throughout the day, with a showcase gig on Friday evening at Solbar.
Speakers are currently being locked in. A new website is launched at www.turnupevent.com.
SPOTIFY, SOUNDCLOUD, EXPANDING AUSSIE PRESENCE
Spotify and SoundCloud are expanding their Aussie presence.
Spotify is looking for a broadly experienced editor/music programmer to join their Music Culture & Editorial team in Sydney
SoundCloud has advertised in the UK for a senior manager for international major label showcases based in London covering the UK, EU territories and Australia.
NEW HOME FOR MELBOURNE FRINGE
The historic Trades Hall in Carlton will become the new of the Melbourne Fringe Festival – and become a year-long hub for independent artists and audiences.
The Victorian Labor government has tipped in $150,000 through the Creative Spaces program to facilitate the move, alongside contributions from the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust and private donors.
A quarter of the Fringe’s events (there were 450 last year) between September 19—29 will be held at the Trades Hall’s Old Ballroom and Annexe.
The festival runs over 170 venues and drew 350,000 last year.
For the rest of the year, Trades Hall will be an affordable venue for music, dance, comedy and other performances as well as a space to pioneer new creative work.
It will also host events, workshops, masterclasses, forums, meetings, residencies and other activities supporting the independent arts community.
MUSIC SALES, EXAMINATION BOARD, STRIKE A PACT
Music Sales’ G. Schirmer Australia and the Australian Music Examination Board (AMEB) struck a global deal which will see G. Schirmer represent AMEB’s catalogue of copyrights and master recordings created by AMEB for its music tuition and examinations.
G. Schirmer Australia represents in Australia and New Zealand the classical repertoire of the Music Sales Group.
Jane English, Music Sales Australia’s managing ]director, says: “Music Sales and the AMEB have enjoyed a close relationship as licensor and licensee of print music rights into the AMEB’s physical and online publications for its music syllabus and examinations.
“It was evident to the AMEB’s CEO, Bernard Depasquale, that the AMEB was sitting on hundreds of sound recordings of original arrangements and PD works that should have a life of their own, especially for synch activity.
“So, the Music Sales global network has been appointed to do just that.”
Depasquale, comments, “We hope to see the many recordings that AMEB has produced over the years appear in interesting settings all around the world.
“This is a great example of how the digital world provides niche opportunities for music and musicians.”
MUSICAL CHAIRS
Deezer appointed Laurence Miall-D’Aout as chief commercial officer to oversee its B2B activities around the world, including local and global partnerships, business development, advertising sales and public relations.
Next Wave festival’s creative producer since 2016, Erica McCalman, is exiting at the end of March. She joined in 2013 as associate producer.
Dave Howard takes over as CD of Hot 100/Mix FM Darwin on March 25, replacing Dave Daily who is shifting to Townsville.
Multi-talented musician and songwriter Briggs has his own
Beats 1 radio show, The New Australia, to highlight the Australian hip hop scene.
DADAA, the association which provides access to arts and culture for people with disability or a lived experience of mental illness, added Perth Festival’s outgoing artistic director Wendy Martin and associate professor Justin Brown from Edith Cowan University to its board.
Sydney Conservatorium of Music announced Prof. Neal Peres Da Costa as associate dean of research.
Jonathan Prince, who joined Spotify as global head of communications and public policy in September 2014, has left the company.
China’s music app owner Tencent Music’s Group vice president Andy Ng stepped down for “personal reasons”.
BMG TRUMPETS GLOBA; PUBLISHING WITH CAGE THE ELEPHANT
BMG signed a global publishing deal with Nashville-based rock band Cage The Elephant.
The band releases its fifth studio album Social Cues next month.
EDEN JAMES: GREECE IS THE WORD
Australia’s Eden James is planning a trip to Greece this year. There’s been a resurgence of interest in his music, and he’s getting requests for interviews.
Last week he had a video interview with a Greek radio DJ where the conversation ranged from Iggy Pop and David Bowie’s collaborative period in Berlin, his various backing band incarnations and the differences between London and New York music scenes.
James, who lives in New York was back in Australia for the summer.
His latest single ‘Dangerous Game’, out on March 15, looks at the topic: “Have you ever met someone who had such a hold over you it was dangerous?
“Someone who manipulated you so easily because you were spellbound by them? This is that story.”
MURIEL’S WEDDING DRESSES UP
To coincide with its Melbourne run from this month at Her Majesty’s Theatre and the Sydney season at Lyric Theatre in late June, Global Creatures’ Muriel’s Wedding The Musical, has entered a partnership with Dress for Success.
The not-for-profit organisation serves over 3,000 unemployed women a year who do not have the money or the social capital to invest in a job search and find work.
The programs provide donated work clothing, style mentoring, job-search skills, career coaching and networking at no cost to the women using the services.
Muriel’s Wedding The Musical will support by holding clothing drives and host ‘Empower Hour’ speaker sessions with company members.
CHILDREN’S FILM FESTIVAL EXPANDS TO SYDNEY
The Children’s International Film Festival (CHIFF) returns to Melbourne and makes its debut in Sydney May 24—June 10.
Catering for children aged 4-16, the festival program includes workshops, visiting international guests and family films handpicked from world-class film festivals of different languages.
INFO SESSIONS FOR UMBRELLA SOUNDS
With Adelaide’s Umbrella: Winter City Sounds set for July 12—28, and showcase registrations opening on March 16, Music SA is holding info sessions. See their website.
Starting 2019 off with a bang, Music SA is partnering with Adelaide Fringe to create a new registration process that will make participation and ticketing much easier.
Interested musicians, venue managers, promoters and event managers are encouraged to attend one of the information sessions to be held on Tuesday March 19 (6-8pm) and Wednesday March 20 (10am-2pm) at St Paul’s Creative Centre.
Last year, Umbrella presented 383 events across 147 venues in Adelaide and suburbs.
Nearly 60 per cent of events were free and 1,800 musicians were engaged with the festival.
NUMBER CRUNCHING
$2.8 million funding for the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia to improve the quality and reliability of news content available.
£51,000 paid for a demo of David Bowie’s ‘Starman’.
0 amount of complaints from residents about Mona Foma festival’s arrival in Hobart.
200 creative companies ask the European Union to pass copyright changes.
2 times Ozzy Osbourne died in ambulance on the way to hospital, for an illness that saw him cancel Australian shows.
95th Top 40 hit for Drake in the US Hot 100 with ‘Girls Need Love’.
TAP MUSIC EXPANDS
UK’s Tap Music, which has an office in Sydney, has launched a new electronic division with management company The Weird & The Wonderful.
The latter has a 20-strong roster including DJs and producers Maya Jane Coles, KDA and Catz N Dogz.
Tap’s roster includes Lana Del Rey, Dua Lipa and Ellie Goulding.
TASMANIA’S FIRST TECHNO FESTIVAL…
Tasmania’s first pure techno festival Obsidian Music & Arts was held on the weekend and drew a crowd of a few hundred.
Tassie acts included Allan Pillai and Liam Spicer (both of whom have been running techno nights in clubs) as well as those from around Australia and from the UK and Russia.
…AND SYDNEY CABARET FOR WINTER
The inaugural Sydney Cabaret Festival makes its bow July 5—14, with Trevor Ashley as artistic director and Tony-winning Jennifer Holliday as the headliner.
AND A FEW OTHER THINGS…
In Melbourne, the famed Pinocchio’s is returning to Toorak while the Gold Coast’s NightQuarter, which closed due to escalating rent, is about to officially announce it is returning at another site with help from the Queensland government.
Leaving Neverland’ director Dan Reed wants to make a sequel featuring more alleged victims. In the meantime, New Zealand media reported that the Cotton On chain pulled Jackson shirts from shelves in the wake of the documentary’s screening. When Leaving Neverland screened in NZ, the first episode was watched by nearly three-quarters of a million – but 60% (or 432,000) switched off before the end.
No, Lady Gaga is not pregnant, and not to Bradley Cooper, and, no, R. Kelly didn’t make a suicide pact call from his home.
It was Kylie Minogue’s first Australian open-air concert, at Perth’s Sir James Mitchell Park before 13,000, and of course, the heavens opened up. “It never rains in Perth does it,” La Minogue quipped.
Adelaide’s arts sector which celebrates Mad March, is talking of working with the state’s sports sector to entice the
Commonwealth Games there.
Faithless recall how late Prodigy frontman Keith Flint once “drove motorbike into a wall at 100mph” and got back on stage.
Looked like he really needed to relax: the boss of a Gold Coast communications company pleaded guilty to bashing an Uber driver for refusing to drive him an hour to a spiritual retreat.
Alfonso Ribeiro dropped the lawsuit against Fortnite for allegedly stealing the Carlton dance from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
The Adelaide Advertiser reported that one of the artists at the Adelaide Fringe: was left with a broken jaw and eye socket after being punched unconscious after an argument with someone about his pink costume.
NZ’s The Beths who pulled out of the Smith Street Band’s tour this month – which has now been cancelled – will now return in October.
‘90s Perth band Flanders are reforming for this year’s In The Pines fundraiser for RTRFM and a headline show (their first since 2001) at the Norwood in Fremantle on April 12.
Tasmanian blues act The Sheyana Band are looking at touring abroad, taking in the UK, Europe and Sri Lanka.
In the US, Amazon’s voice service Alexa can now buy Ticketmaster tickets through an Amazon Echo or Echo Dot. Unfortunately, it will not be introduced in Australia yet.
Five young men have been granted bail in Melbourne Magistrates Court after being charged over the fatal shooting of a man following an alleged dispute over DJ equipment advertised on Gumtree.
The Age reported that Duane Hutchings died from a gunshot wound to the head on February 9 after six men allegedly stormed into an Oakleigh East unit to confront a woman about the equipment, which the men believed wasn’t returned after it was hired out.
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