Industrial Strength: July 24
8,000 AUSSIES HEAD TO TOMORROWLAND
Australian music fans, especially EDM ones, have a global reputation for travelling great distances to see shows.
They’re certainly on the move for Tomorrowland, which is run over two weekends in Boom, Belgium.
The first just took place (July 20-22) with the next on July 27-29. They draw an aggregated 400,000 people.
Over 8,000 were Aussies, say, organisers, 4,000 each weekend, more than from the UK, Europe, India and China.
ARTS SA MOVES FOUR ARTS GROUPS TO SKILLS DEPT.
In a major shake-up of the arts in South Australia, the state government has moved a number of major arts groups out of Arts SA and into the department of industry and skills.
Making the move are the Music Development Office, including the St Paul’s Creative Centre, and the Jam Factory, as well as the South Australian Film Corporation and the Adelaide Film Festival (including Hybrid World Adelaide).
The whole idea is to ensure that the creative industries “remain prominent in the new economy in SA.”
It will allow them to be more commercial and increase opportunities to grow their businesses, create more jobs and innovation, and deliver stronger content.
MASHD N KUTCHER VIDEO HITS 1.6M VIEWS
The video of Brisbane duo Mashd N Kutcher pranking a German audience with a “Helloooo, Frank Walker from National Tiiiiles” ad soundbite hit 1.9 billion views on the weekend/
Walker, director of National Tiles, was on Ten’s The Project last week explaining that his exuberant approach on the ad had not been tailored.
“I get really excited when our buyers come back from overseas with these fantastic deals and I just get in the recording booths and the passion just takes over!” he said.
He added: “I greet my wife every night like that… Hello sweetheart!”
Watching the Mashd N Kutcher spoof video, Turner said his response was to jump up onstage with them because “they made me feel young”.
Would he be up for a Mashd N Kutcher for collaboration?
“If I could sell some tiles, I’d do anything.”
CMC ROCKS QLD DATE ANNOUNCED
After setting a new attendance record of 20,000 this year, CMC Rocks Queensland announced that in 2019, it will stage between Thursday, March 14 and Sunday, March 17.
It will return to Willowbank in Ipswich.
According to promoters, the festival injected more than $12 million into the Queensland economy, double that of 2017.
Next year the program will be extended exclusively for campers.
Festivities, begin at 1pm on Thursday at the Jack Daniel’s White Rabbit Saloon and continue through to 2am the next morning.
The festival Main Stage will open at 11:45am on Friday, to get the official celebrations started.
MAD ABOUT HARRY
The first entertainment show to be protected from scalpers under Victoria’s new Major Events Act will be Harry Potter And The Cursed Child which starts its season from mid-January.
Under the rules, which expanded to music and entertainment from just sports, resold tickets cannot be over 10% of the original price.
Such is the early demand for the show that UK producer Sonia Freidman said 1600 Asian customers would be flying in each week to catch the show.
‘GONG GUITARIST MAKES WORLD RECORD
Wollongong musician Scott Burford is awaiting confirmation from the Guinness Book of World Records peeps – once he wakes from what we gather will be a deep sleep – after setting a new world record.
He played guitar for 125 hours straight for longest marathon on a guitar, breaking the official world record of 114 hours and six minutes, and an unverified record of 124 hours and 30 minutes set by a Canadian guitarist earlier this year.
Seated in the glass window of the Engadine music shop, he was routinely checked by a paramedic and nurse, and had local players urge him on by jamming with him.
He chose from 500 songs, with rules that a song could only be repeated every four hours.
“This has been one of the best week’s of my life playing music,” he said at the end, looking at his cracked fingers which he said he applied super-glue on to stop the skin from falling off.
The 49-year old’s marathon was to raise money for MMAD (Musicians Making A Difference) which empowers young people suffering through emotional abuse, neglect and disadvantage through music, dance and mentoring.
WANGARATTA JAZZ & BLUES BUILDS ON REBIRTH
After a successful rebirth in 2017 with new venues, partnerships, precinct layout and programming team, the 2018 instalment of Wangaratta Jazz & Blues is set to be bigger, says festival chair Mark Bolsius.
It will be held for the 29th time from November 2—4 in country Victoria. It draws about 25,000 a year.
The bill includes electrifying UK blues guitarist Matt Schofield, US ‘sonic explorers’ FORQ, German jazz-hip-hop piano group Trio ELF, and, in a return to Wangaratta since 2010, the Netherlands’ Yuri Honing Quartet.
There are 300 musicians in over 80 concerts across eight concert locations, journeying from the UK, US, France, Japan, Indonesia, the Czech Republic, India, The Netherlands, Germany, Sri Lanka and Canada.
There’s also the world premiere of a new work by the Australian Art Orchestra—a contemplation of the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day in music by Andrea Keller, Peter Knight and Tilman Robinson.
WOMEN IN MEDIA FINALISTS
Among women in the music and radio industries who are finalists in B&T’s Women In Media awards are:
Journalist/Producer
Deborah Clay – Australian Radio Network
Rachael Hocking – NITV
Rae Johnston – Gizmodo Australia
Marketing
Sasha Mackie – Foxtel
Serena Leith – Spotify
Uma Oldham – SBS
Mentor
Amanda Lee – Southern Cross Austereo
Deborah Clay – Australian Radio Network
Rising Star
Ingrid Kesa – VICE Australia
Rachael Hocking – NITV
Strategy
Hannah Barnes – Foxtel
Mandi Wicks – SBS
Nicole Milward – JOY
Media Sales/Account Management
Carla Mathisen – Southern Cross Austereo
JAZZ FANS LEAVE BEQUEST
The sale of a Middle Park house left by Melbourne jazz-loving couple Tess Hill and Bill Hawtin to create scholarships for disadvantaged jazz and architecture students at Monash University, has sold for $1.9 million.
It went for $400,000 over the expected price.
Associate Professor Robert Burke from the Sir Zelman School of Music said Hawtin was a “great lover of jazz” who worked in jazz circles and on radio at a community level, and wanted to help disadvantaged students live their dream to play jazz.
AUSSIES ABROAD #1: ELECTRIC FIELD, SA ACTS HEAD TO EDINBURGH
Electro-soul duo Electric Field are among Adelaide Fringe acts heading over to the Edinburgh Fringe under the Made in Adelaide banner.
18 companies and associations are making the trek, funded by Arts SA.
Other music acts include Ukulele Death Squad and cabaret acts Michael Griffiths (Songs By Kylie), Anya Anastasia and Hans (recently on America’s Got Talent)
AUSSIES ABROAD #2: XTORTYA HEAD TO CHINA
Australian band XtortYa are currently playing through China on their first trip.
The five shows began on July 19 in Beijing and wind up on July 28 in Shenzhen.
XtortYa, long-time Perfect Pitch Publishing writer/performers, don’t get much interest from local promoters but they have toured three times through Europe and the UK, and twice in the US.
Their new album is near completion and set for late 2018 release.
BEGGARS GROUP POSTS PROFIT OF £8.24M
London-based Beggars Group, one of the largest independent groups, announced that in 2017 its annual revenue grew 2.6% to £72.43 million while its total operating profit was £8.24 million.
Gross profit (£22.8m) rose in 2016, but rises in distribution expenses and administrative expenses meant that total operating profit was down on the £12.56m recorded in 2016.
CBAA CONFERENCE GETS PRISON RADIO KEYNOTE
The Community Broadcasting Association of Australia’s conference in November on the Gold Coast will have a keynote on prison radio.
Phil Maguire, CEO of Prison Radio Association UK will talk about how the association set up the world’s first and only national radio station for prisoners, and how its transformed lives and reduced crime.
Delegates also get the lowdown on what’s happening in Australian prison radio programming in a workshop which looks at formats, experiences and the future in our local sector.
JIMMY BARNES PREPS WORKING CLASS BOY – THE SOUNDTRACKS
With Jimmy Barnes’ life story now a film hitting cinemas on August 23, Bloodlines issues Working Class Boy – The Soundtracks, on August 17.
Album 1 is captured at the State Theatre on April 12 last year with 12 songs, 13 spoken word pieces and two instrumentals.
Album 2 is a recording of 8 songs created live with a full band on a soundstage for the movie.
It includes a truly memorable collaboration with Richard Tognetti and the Australian Chamber Orchestra on the Randy Newman song Texas Girl At the Funeral of Her Father.
NEW JUDGES FOR X FACTOR UK
“They are going to bring a whole new energy”: Simon Cowell told a media conference in London when he unveiled the new X Factor UK judging panel
They include husband and wife team Robbie Williams & Ayda Field and Louis Tomlinson.
He said, “We have tried to get Robbie on every show we’ve ever made I think for 18 years.”
They replace artist manager Louis Walsh, Nicole Scherzinger and Sharon Osbourne although Osbourne will pop back as an “impartial judge” for the live broadcasts.
VERONICAS-HEADLINED STREET PARTY SCRAPPED
The Darwin Cup Street Party on Litchfield Street on Saturday, August 4 with The Veronicas and Dr Elephant, is scrapped.
It was set up as a run-up to the Darwin Cup and promoted as an alternative to the high-end Darwin Cup Ball.
After the event was denied a liquor licence, organiser Russell Temple said on radio, “We’ll cancel the event immediately and lose the money on the artists that won’t come and that’s the way we’ll handle it.”
The NT News has suggested that the Liquor Commission was peeved when it saw ads for the street party before it had applied for a special licence.
AND A FEW OTHER THINGS …
Is Dua Lipa doing the next Bond theme?
Will recording the two new Abba songs extend to an album?
Tame Impala and Chinese-American ZHU’s collaboration from March has been made into a video, starring Willow Smith as the survivor of a car wreck, who runs for help only to be transported into a montage of happier memories.
Impala headlined the Citadel festival in the UK (marking their return to the UK after two years) and Float Fest in Texas, and over the next few months are topping the bill of California’s Treasure Island, and Desert Daze in Oregon.
“A health emergency” saw Lez Zeppelin postpone their August visit to 2019 last night.
Sheppard just came back from a holiday in PNG, Jimmy Barnes was in New York catching up with Jimmy Webb before they share the stage at two shows in Oz next month.
Here’s what not to do when you’re lining up outside a music festival and an uneventful drug search is being conducted. Don’t freak out and allegedly punch a cop in the face. Which is why a gent at Splendour now has a court date.
One of the biggest rock star welcome roars was for ABC-TV’s Tony Jones when he entered the tent for a Splendour version of his Q&A TV show. Jones asked the audience not to be hostile. “Even though you’re all probably young and communist,” he quipped.
Ticketing agency moshtix threw a marguerites cocktail party for clients at their rented pad at the festival.
Screaming Jets drummer Mark McLeod, was convicted and fined $2300 at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court over seven arrest warrants. Last November he failed to face court on charges of possessing methamphetamines and driving without a license. He got a serve from the beak: “It’s about time you started acting like an adult…you’ve been acting like a nine-year-old, not a 42-year-old.”
The five Helpmann wins by the Carole King musical Beautiful gave its Brisbane premiere a boost when it opened three days later. Its first night at Lyric Theatre, QPAC saw the crowd up on its feet and rave reviews the next morning. The Brisbane run finishes in early September before leaving the country. It’s spent 12 months in Oz, although we’re still not sure what happened to the Adelaide season.
Donald Trump’s visit to the UK certainly caused a stir, A Baby Trump mega—balloon made for the protest rallies in London made an appearance at a Pearl Jam concert, while Green Day’s 2004 song American Idiot shot back into the US Hot Rock Songs charts after a 322% rise in sales.
Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! is being staged as a musical for the first time in the US.
A woman faces 9 years jail for hacking Selema Gomez’s email.
A Chris Cornell statue is to be erected in Seattle.
Just before his keynote at Indie-Con this week in Adelaide, Dave Faulkner opened up in the Advertiser on how he lost a million dollars from suing their former Australian label Big Time Records over alleged unpaid royalties in the Federal Court. The record company immediately went into liquidation, leaving the Hoodoo Gurus out of pocket, in unpaid royalties and legal costs. The Gurus are still chasing royalties from their first US record label.
After hiring out a London park so 200 fans could celebrate his birthday in 2016, this year Stormzy is taking a bunch of them to Spain.
The NSW mid-north coast town of Dorrigo is celebrating the 100th birthday of Australian performer Buddy Williams with a two-day festival in spring.
Jobs
