Industrial Strength: August 1
A.B. ORIGINAL LEAD NATIONAL INDIGENOUS AWARDS FINALISTS
Following their blitzkrieg of the AIR independent awards last week, A.B. Original lead the nominations for the National Indigenous Music Awards (NIMAs) with four gongs.
They are up for Artist of the Year, Album of the Year for Reclaim Australia and Song of the Year and Film Clip of the Year for January 26.
The awards are held on August 12 under the stars at the Darwin Amphitheatre.
Following up with three nominations is Troy Cassar-Daley, for Artist of the Year, Album of the Year and Song of the Year for Things I Carry Around.
Sydney singer songwriter Leah Flanagan, 20-year old Yirrmal, Arnhem Land rock band Lonely Boys and Groote Eylandt, NT-based Emily Wurramara received two each.
In a reflection of the diversity and growth of the indigenous music sector in the past 12 months, New Talent of the Year has no less than five possibilities. They are Wurramaral, Yirrmal, Central Australian guitarist Apakatjah, pop-electronic Electric Fields and Queensland folk-indie rock singer songwriter Tia Gostelow.
Previous recipients of the category were Gawurra, Thelma Plum and The Medics.
Other nominees for this year’s awards are Dan Sultan, Busby Marou and Arnhem Land’s Lorrpu who is descended from music royalty of the Gulf Country.
Performing on the night are A.B. Original with Sultan, Paul Kelly, Numbulwar Red Flag Dancers, Flanagan, Gawurra, Electric Fields, Apakatjah and Wurramara.
The NIMAs also acknowledge the massive contribution of Dr. G. Yunupingu, who won 14 of its awards including last year’s Artist of the Year.
CRA REBRANDS TO RADIO ALIVE
Commercial radio sector trade body Commercial Radio Australia has rebranded to now be known as Radio Alive.
The move is to send a message to advertisers and listeners that radio is not a traditional analogue medium, but a dynamic sector that incorporates broadcasting, online, social, mobile apps, podcasting and live events.
Radio Alive has appointed Joy agency to run the campaign, which officially launches at its annual conference which is now renamed Radio Alive 2017 and held in Melbourne on October 13.
FRANCE’S DOWNLOADS DROP SO MUCH ‘FREE’ STREAMS WILL EARN MORE!
Revenues generated by France’s recorded music market dropped by 2.3% year-on-year in the first half of 2017, mostly due to the falling sales of downloads (down 20.5%) and physical (down 18.5%).
Music Business Worldwide makes the point that revenues from downloads are sinking so dramatically that they are neck and neck from revenues from ad-funded streamers as YouTube and Vevo and ‘free’ tiers of Spotify and Deezer.
In the first half of 2017, hip hop and R&B was most popular with streaming customers, while pop was tops with those still buying CDs and vinyl.
SUNSHINE COAST CONFERENCE TURNS UP HEAVYWEIGHT SPEAKERS
US artist manager and festival promoter Ted Gardner and Woodford Folk Festival Director Bill Hauritz are two main features of the Turn Up Sunshine Coast Music Industry Conference in October.
A keynote speaker is yet to be revealed.
Gardner (Tool, Lollapalooza, Jane’s Addiction, The Verve) will be interviewed by Turn Up patron Dennis Dunstan, himself former manager of Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks, Men at Work and Air Supply.
The Hauritz In Conversation session will be conducted by conference Program Director Eloise Gallagher on how to transform a local festival into an internationally acclaimed cultural event.
Also to be announced are speakers for the “Perception Is Everything – The Importance Of Brand Building” and “How Music Can Shape The Culture Of A City At The Conference” sessions.
Turn Up is on Thursday Oct 19 at The Lind Theatre in Nambour from 4:45 pm until 10:10 pm.
LEVI’S CAMPAIGN AIMS AT MEN THROUGH MUSIC INDUSTRY
Levi’s Australia and New Zealand’s first campaign in seven years targeting males is using the glamour of the music industry.
The ’Live in Music’ campaign, through Sydney based agency Monster Children Creative, 12 real figures from the Australia and New Zealand music industry “who authentically wear our product in their every-day lives,” says the brand’s Marketing Manager Nicky Rowsell.
They include singer Steve Smythe, FBi radio presenter Marty Doyle, sound engineer Gareth Stuckey, photographer Maclay Heriot and creative director Timothy Lovett.
There’s a hero film and separate shorts on the 12, on the work they do in bringing a concert, tour or album to life. The campaign was shot in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland.
AUSTRALIAN TELECAST FOR JUNIOR EUROVISION
The 2017 Junior Eurovision Song Contest will be telecast in Australia for the first time in its 14 year history, through ABC TV’s school-age children and family channel ABC ME which has a weekly viewing audience of 1.7 million.
The channel’s presenter Grace Koh will attend the event – staged on Sunday November 26 at the Tbilisi Sports Palace, Georgia – and send through daily updates in the run-up.
She will be joined by Pip Rasmussen and Tim Mathews for the Australian broadcast on Monday November 27at 7.30 pm on ABC ME, the ABC ME app and ABC iview. The production partner is Blink TV.
The Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in Lisbon, Portugal in May 2018, will continue to be broadcast on SBS.
ENTRIES OPEN FOR DOLPHIN AWARDS
Entries have opened for NSW’s North Coast Entertainment Industry Association (NCEIA)’s Dolphin Awards on October 24.
They are open to all original recording artists, songwriters and composers and video producers living in the (02) 66 telephone area code.
Entries close on Friday September 8 at 9pm. For details visit nceia.org.au.
The NCEIA was set up in 1991 by local musicians to promote and celebrate the region’s music and performing arts industry.
MORE WORKSHOPS ADDED FOR CBAA CONF.
The Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA) has added two more workshops for its two-day conference.
Talking ’Digital Transformation will look at its impact on the operations of community radio stations and their relationship with their listeners, as well as the opportunities digital brings on content and multi-platform presence.
All You Need Is An Idea! National Features & Documentary Series is an annual showcase of new work from emerging producers. They go on to get mentorship and national distribution.
Previously announced workshops cover connecting with local businesses, content strategy, recruiting for your board, tech boot camp and tips on gaining grants.
PRAYING TO WIN
The success of Kesha’s single Praying must also be of delight to Sydney band All Our Exes Live In Texas who feature in the track.
In Australia, Praying has been three weeks in the ARIA Top 50, this week moving up to #16.
In America, Nielsen Music noted that the track is in the Hot 100 (at #40), Digital Song Sales, Pop and Adult Pop Songs charts. Last week alone it cleared 8.4 million US streams.
FOXTEL ARTS GETS THUMBS-UP
At the subscription television ASTRA Industry Awards, Foxtel Arts received the Channel Achievement Award for its “exceptional showcase of the arts, artists and their creative achievements.”
MTV Australia won two creative campaigns – in advertising for MTV Fit Sessions and in social media for Are Millennials F*cked?.
RONNIE JAMES DIO TOURING…SORT OF
We had Elvis Presley singing along on screen with a band as part of a tour.
Next year we get heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio, who joined the big jam session in the sky in 2010, performing here as a hologram with a Dio tribute band furiously headbanging behind him (or in front of him, whatever).
We’re not sure when the Dio caravan arrives but Australia is listed in a poster of world destinations.
TICKETMASTER DEAL ON HOLD AT QUARRY
WA’s City of Cambridge council meeting which was to award the ticketing service contract for its Quarry amphitheatre to Ticketmaster has put a freeze on it for the time being.
It’s looking instead to ask for a bid from New York’s Metropolitan Opera’s non-profit ticketing service Tessitura, which councillors reckon will be cheaper for those who use the venue than the $7 per transaction Ticketmaster has been charging on some occasions.
This year marks the 30th year that the Quarry Amphitheatre has been operating as a performance venue. A documentary has been produced of its history.
In June, City of Cambridge stopped a move to place the venue on State Register of Heritage Places. Doing so, it argued, would prevent them from adding seating capacity in the future from the current 556.
AUSTRALIAN FEMALE COMPOSERS TAKE CENTRE STAGE
Women make up 26% of Australia’s composers, sound artists and improvising performers. The Women in the Creative Arts conference at the Australian National University (August 10—12) takes a closer look at the sector from various vantage points.
Themes to be discussed from feminine identity in Australian pop music to gender parity in creative arts to the orchestral repertoire of women composers to developing the next generation to studies of feminism in various songs and films to the trial of a smartphone choir app in development.
Prof Cat Hope of Monash University presents one keynote, “Stepping Aside: Gender equality and privilege in Australian music culture” and Prof. Liza Lim of Sydney University on “Luck, Grief, Hospitality – re-routing power relationships in music”.
It’s a long way from the early 1900s when a women wanting to compose music was a sign of her mental illness, and she had to fake her sex to get her work published.
Full schedule and more information at the website.
AUSTRALIA AMONG FIRST TO GET HOMEPOD
Australia will be among the first countries to get Apple’s voice controlled home speaker HomePod system in December.
We’ll be alongside the US and UK as Apple Music takes on Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home. It works with an Apple Music subscription for access to over 40 million songs.
By saying “Siri”, users can select songs, adjust the volume and ask questions about the song of the record. Six microphones allow them to do this even if the music is up real loud.
BRIGGS TO CO-WRITE MATT GROENING SERIES
Victorian rapper Briggs is as known for his political work with A.B. Original as for a love of the animated adult comedy fantasies of Matt Groening’s The Simpsons and Futurama.
So you can imagine the sheer joy he felt when he was signed up to be part of the writing team of Groening’s new Netflix series Disenchantment.
It is set in the ruined medieval kingdom Dreamland and following the adventures of an alcoholic princess, a feisty elf companion and a demon.
Ultimately,” says Groening, “Disenchantment will be about life and death, love and sex, and how to keep laughing in a world full of suffering and idiots, despite what the elders and wizards and other jerks tell you.”
Netflix has commissioned two seasons, of 10 episodes each.
SHAND WINS ARTS JOURNO AWARD
The inaugural Walkley Award for Arts Journalism went to John Shand, long time music writer for the Sydney Morning Herald and supporter of the jazz scene.
Shand won the honour for his piece The Role of Music in a Post-Truth World, first delivered at the Jackie Orszaczky Music Lecture, which stressed that the honesty of music had to be paramount.
Shand is also a drummer, playwright and author of a number of music books.. His play Guilt opens in the US next year.
SPLENDOUR DONATES TO THE HOMELESS
Posts on social media expressed their dismay at the tents, chairs, sheets, sleeping bags, mattresses, cooking equipment and general waste left behind by grubs after the Splendour In Grass festival.
But volunteers from Social Futures and Connecting Home Program and OTCP picked up the mostly brand-new stuff from the North Byron Parklands site. They will be cleaned and given to the homeless in the area, in Lismore and Casino.
Connecting Home has supported 800 young people in the last 12 months.
TASMANIAN ARTS/CHARITY HAS A WIN
Regional Tasmanian arts organisation Big hART which also serves as a charity for the socially disadvantaged, won the island state’s Telstra Business of the Year and best charity gongs.
The Burnie-based not-for-profit association, now goes into the national finals. CEO Scott Rankin hopes that after 25 years of existing on grants, the exposure might bring a major sponsor on board.
UK CRITICS FLIP OVER EARLY AUSSIE ELECTRO TRACKS
A 2CD compilation of post-punk electronic tracks called Closed Circuits: Australian Alternative Electronic Music of the ‘70s and ‘80s Vol. 1 through Festival /Warner is getting rave reviews in the UK.
Compiled by music author David Nichols, it gathers late ‘70s tracks where the machines and DIY took over. There were the innovators as Whirlywirld, Essendon Airport, Voigt/465, The Metronomes, Primitive Calculators and Scattered Order, and the more mainstream versions like The Machinations, The Models, The Reels and The Dugites.
Uncut gave it a 9/10 in a half page review, Prog Rock called the tracks “subversive synth pop and abrasive futurism from Australia’s unheralded alternative electronic music scene from the 70s and 80s”, Electricity Club opted for “a really fascinating compilation and fills in many of the historical gaps” adding “The quality of music production here is higher than many of its UK counterparts, especially from a vocal point of view.”
Mojo stated, “While great fun, the enlightening Closed Circuits invites further scrutiny of a hitherto largely overlooked musical world.”
So why is the scene drawing so much hoopla from the Poms? Nichols tells Industrial Strength, “It was a time where new technology was reasonably affordable (so synthesisers were fairly cheap and easy to use, for the first time) and it was a fertile scene with a lot of crossover between the art, pop and live music scenes that meant a lot of ideas about sound and style were floating around.”
And more significant, “It was a time when, the synthesiser being a keyboard instrument, a lot of women were able to put all those dreary teenage piano lessons to good use – the strong involvement of women gave the whole thing a vigour that a lot of the tired guitar-rock scene of (say) 1980 didn’t necessarily have. This also makes that scene seem more contemporary than other scenes from the time.”
ADELAIDE MUSIC STORE GOES INTO ADMINISTATION
After almost 50 years in operation, Adelaide music store John Reynolds Music City in Waymouth Street has gone into administration, closing its doors last Saturday for good. Owner John Reynolds blames competition from online stores, especially in the last 18 months, and that today’s pop songs don’t inspire kids to pick up instruments.
It hasn’t been a good year for the 73-year old. Earlier this year he almost lost an arm in a forklift accident and has needed five rounds of surgery.
CHANGE FOR ART FUND LAUNCHED
The Goods Coffee Shop in Alice Springs has launched the Change For Art Fund to help local artists with projects, living costs, mentorship or paying for resources.
The name of the fund is apt: the shop’s owners, artists themselves, saved up $1000 from tips and customer donations.
ELTON PICKS BUSBY MAROU
Elton John has picked Queensland duo Busby Marou as opening act for his regional Once In A Lifetime stadium run in September in Mackay, Wollongong and Cairns. The two Hobart shows will not have an opening act.
“Good news is sticking to us like glue,” they said, citing an album that debuted at #1 on the ARIA chart in February, and which set up extensive touring after.
VALE
In 1971, John Butler set up a family business Butlers Events and Staging in Arncliffe, Sydney, to offer stages, scaffolding and grandstand seating for events including music festivals and major tours. His son Tony took over the business while John retired to Bathurst. Last year, ExpoNet bought the business. John Butler was 84 when he passed.
John Thompson was one of the original 2SM Good Guys before moving to 2UE, 2WS and Melbourne’s 3AK. He then relocated to the UK where after a period of freelancing, joined the BBC Worldwide Service.
AND A FEW OTHER THINGS…
Radio Adelaide has launched a fund raising campaign to raise $150,000,which will allow it to operate at least for another two years. The station had a shortfall of $400,000 last year, part of it due to relocation costs.
The original lineup of Brisbane-based The Butterfly Effect, fronted by Clint Boge, are fluttering back on tour next March.
First Delta Goodrem, now Lorde. New Zealand’s Broadcasting Standards Authority received a complaint that Lorde was encouraging reckless driving in her Green Light video by poking her head out of a moving car window while driving and then dancing on its roof (don’t try this at home, kids). The BSA dismissed the complaint, saying both actions were “symbolic of the song’s themes of freedom and escape.” So there.
The NSW Government announced that Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum’s new home in the west is on the former David Jones car park, across the Parramatta River from Riverside Theatres. The deal with Parramatta Council for the site cost $140 million, in addition to the estimated $1 billion relocation costs.
Perth MC Banks ruptured his ear drum, forcing him to postpone a national tour scheduled to start this month.
Shannon Noll’s keyboard player Michael Tan and drummer Pete Skelton were slightly injured after someone threw a lit firecracker onto the stage during a show last Friday in in South West Rocks, NSW. Tan tried to stomp it out, but it blew, causing a hole in his shoe and minor burns which necessitated a visit to Kempsey District Hospital.. Skelton was hit by flaying shrapnel and lost some hearing. Both rejoined Noll and the rest of the band the next night. The Mid North Coast blueys are investigating.
According to the Black Sorrows, “some low-life creeps” broke into leader Joe Camilleri’s car in Parkville and took off with a Victor Rubin hand-painted saxophones, a unique Nash guitar, small amp, pedals, CDs and a unique ring. Check out their Facebook page for more info.
NZ’s Ladyhawke and her wife Madeleine Sami are expecting, with the singer songwriter posting a selfie on social media with a baby bump.
The 26-year old drunk who urinated on a woman’s leg and ankle during a Spiderbait concert in a Melbourne club in February was given a conviction by the Melbourne Magistrates Court. Joel Ryan Morrison was also put on a 12-month good behaviour bond and must pay $800 to a charity. We presume that’ll stop him from drinking 10 cans of beers before turning up at a gig in the future.
Julia Jacklin couldn’t make it to the APRA professional development award ceremony as she was overseas. So she sent her mum who, when collecting the $15,000 cheque, remarked, “I make a lot of Julia’s clothes, so maybe now she’ll be able to afford to buy some of her own.”
Sunshine Coast-based songwriter, producer, video director and dancer Eden Mulholland celebrated his ambitious Fusillade project by releasing 28 new tracks and with videos for each of them. That’s seven videos each week through the month of July. These ranged from bedroom-produced demo’s from the Motocade archives to first attempt at violins, mandolins, and mellotron to a song written for a cookery show.
Heavy metal music journalist turned rugby scribe Steve Mascord has released a book Touchstones: Rugby League, Rock ’n’ Roll, The Road And Me on his adventures in both scenes as well as his journey to find his biological family.
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