Industrial Strength: June 27
UNEARTHED HIGH RETURNS
For the tenth year, triple j Unearthed is seeking Australia’s best high school music act. Past winners have been Stonefield, Gretta Ray (pictured above), Japanese Wallpaper, Mosquito Coast and Asta with finalists including Montaigne and Hockey Dad.
Last year’s winner Gretta Ray appeared on the Breakfast show yesterday and recalls, “It’s very weird that it was a year ago, it just really feels like that was the fastest year that has ever happened – it’s been a whirlwind of a year since… it was a very exciting period of time in my life.”
Bands, solo acts, producers and MCs from all over the country are invited to enter Unearthed High.
Upload an original piece of music to triplejunearthed.com and tell them which high school you attend. Entries close at midnight on Monday July 31.
Winner gets flown to triple j in Sydney to record, mix or master their music, which will be played on triple j and triple j Unearthed. They’ll also receive music industry advice and triple j will visit their school.
The best Unearthed High entry from an Indigenous artist, as well as being eligible for the major prize, will win ongoing mentoring from the Association of Artist Managers (AAM) and a songwriting workshop at their school by the APRA AMCOS Songmakers program.
RECORD CROWD FOR MELBOURNE COMMUNITY CUP
The 24th Melbourne Reclink Community Cup drew a record crowd last Sunday (June 25) to its new site Victoria Park in Collingwood.
The muso team, the Rockdogs, won the game, with the final score Rockdogs 9-6-61 v the 3PBS/RRR squad Megahertz’ 7-7-49.
Rockdogs’Ross (Rosco) Elliot won the Steve Connolly Medal for beston ground.
The day raised over $100,000 for the Reclink charity. Specific figures were not immediately available. Organisers had also teamed with Uber to give new riders a free ride of up to $20, with $10 donated to Reclink.
National days for the Cup are:
Adelaide – Norwood Oval – Sunday July 16
Brisbane – Leyshon Park – Sunday July 30
Sydney – Henson Park – Sunday August 6
Hobart – Queenborough Oval – Sunday August 20
Perth – Fremantle Oval – Sunday September 3
ADELAIDE SALTY OVER MACCA SNUB
Adelaide has been pulling out all the stops to get Sir Paul McCartney to include it in his tour schedule. We’ve had indignant squawking on talk back radio, SA-born TV person David Koch threatening to boycott the show, petitions (including a change.org one by record store Crackle and Pop), a poll, even exhortations from Lord Mayor Martin Haese that Macca should get back to where he once belonged (and gee, didn’t 300,000 of us, virtually the city’s population, turn out in 1964 to see you when you came out with that other band?).
Promoter Michael Gudinski has already said there’s no date available, and the venue which would suit, the Adelaide Oval, is already booked for the cricket. Undaunted, the Lord Mayor wants a pow-wow with the Frontier Touring head to see if they could sort something out.
NSW FINDS EIGHT NEW ARTS SPACES IN GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY
Eight sites across Western Sydney have been selected to share funding of over $400,000 to create hubs for arts/music, screen and digital projects and organisations.
These include the Blue Mountains, Camden, Fairfield, Cumberland, Liverpool, Parramatta and Penrith which will provide space for studios, artists’ residencies and rehearsal spaces
The full plans are outlined on the Create NSW website.
Its CEO Michael Brealey said, “Western Sydney is home to an incredible range of exciting artists, but the search for physical space remains a challenge.
“This Initiative is a response to this challenge which aims to harness and promote our talent by creating innovative partnerships with property owners that make existing spaces work harder and smarter.
“We want the region to be recognised as the true creative hub that it is.”
KATY PERRY MAKES DIAMOND HISTORY
Katy Perry has made history again. Her Roar has become her third track to be certified diamond for US sales of 10 million. It follows Dark Horse and Firework.
Perry’s label, Capitol Music Group says she’s the first artist in history to earn three Diamond Song certifications.
Eminem and Lady Gaga have two each.
SYDNEY CLUB CLOSES EARLY AFTER OVERDOSES
The operators of an unidentified Darling Harbour nightclub closed early in the early hours of Sunday morning after five patrons were taken to hospital with suspected overdoses.
Police want to interview them when they are well enough to determine what exactly it is that they took.
As reported in this column, a spate of overdoses have been reported in Melbourne’s nightclub precincts while there were arrests after Perth police raided a number of venues.
CAPITOL REVIVES PRIORITY RECORDS
Capitol Music Group has relaunched its ground-breaking Priority Records imprint. Set up in 1985, it was a pioneering distributor of early West Coast gangsta rap, launching NWA for starters.
It will now be used to launch new hip hop acts, under Los Angeles radio veteran William “Fuzzy” West and A&R executive Serge Durand.
NT SONG OF YEAR GETS SET WITH FINALISTS
Rising Northern Territory acts At The Dakota, Lonely Boys, Saltwater Band and Tom E. Lewis are among the finalists for next week’s NT Song of the Year. They are held at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory Amphitheatre on Saturday July 8.
This year drew 350 entries, said Music NT Executive Director, Mark Smith.
He added, “The judges’ comments reflected how much the standard has grown over the last few years and the successful tracks reflect what is so good about the NT music scene.”
QLD PROMOTER GOES INTO LIQUIDATION
Queensland-based promoter Southern Stars Touring went into liquidation, with David Lewis Clout and Patricia Talty from David Cloutt & Associates appointed as liquidators.
Documents filed with the Australian Securities and Investment Commission show the company, which registered last year and toured The Beach Boys & The Temptations together for six shows in February (Sydney, Hobart and the rest in regional NSW) had debts of $700,000 and assets of just $14,000.
Creditors included broadcasters, hotels, and pro-audio companies.
THE CHURCH HEAD BACK TO USA
The Church return to the U.S. for a limited 9-date run this summer beginning on June 28 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The tour will make stops in Cincinnati, Nashville, Chicago, Richmond, Ardmore and Pawling in New York on July 9.
The band will also perform at this year’s edition of Summerfest in Milwaukee.
More touring plans are to be unveiled shortly. The past several years have been successful for the band with shows at Primavera Sound, SXSW, three North American tours and their first European tour in almost a decade.
The Church have been putting the final touches on their 26th studio album.
First track out is Another Century, written by the current lineup (SteveKilbey, Peter Koppes, Tim Powles, and Powderfinger’s Ian Haug) and produced by the band along with Ted Howard.
“Another Century is a romantic melodic stab of omnichord and guitars and quite unlike any past The Church song,” singer and bassist Steve Kilbey remarked.
“The lyrics fell out of the sky very quickly and the music is dreamy and evocative of past futures.”
FUND RAISER FOR PERTH DRUMMER PECKO
The Perth music community is rallying around veteran drummer John ‘Pecko’ Petkovich who has been diagnosed with cancer.
17 acts – like V Capri, Ice Tiger, Dave Hole, Jets and Bakery – along with production crew, associations, clubs and others will stage the benefit on Saturday July 15 at The Charles Hotel in North Perth.
THE VOICE SETS FOR GRAND FINAL
After scoring 947,000 overnight metro viewers last Sunday, The Voice is now streaking towards its Grand Final this Sunday.
Its finale figures have been steadily going south these past years, so it’d be interesting to see if there is a turn-around.
Nine Network is bringing out the firepower, with appearances by Katy Perry, Niall Horan and Noah Cyrus.
The finalists are Judah Kelly (Team Delta), Lucy Sugerman (Team Seal), Fasika Ayallew (Team Kelly) and Hoseah Partsch (Team George).
It also means that those entertaining one-liners between Seal and Boy George are ending, at least for the season.
Last Sunday, Seal was critiquing George’s contestant Sarah Stone, saying “I think you made the most of a not particularly good song” referring to Lorde’s Green Light.
“Well she sang it better than Seal!” sneered George, to which Seal responded, “Perhaps, because Seal doesn’t sing bad songs!”
EXPANDED GST KICKS IN
From July 1, the 10% GST will be broadened to all digital products, such as smartphone apps, songs, podcasts, e-books and games purchased by Australians from overseas services.
It’s also referred to as the Netflix Tax because the service’s Australian subscription price points will also go up correspondingly.
PAUL KELLY ALBUM SET FOR MID-AUGUST
As indicated by its lead-off single Firewood and Candles, Paul Kelly’s Life is Fine album (out August 11) returns to the upbeat ‘80s rock feeling of his work with The Messengers like Gossip and So Much Water So Close To Home.
“I was aware of that as we were making it,” Kelly says. “The guitar riff at the start of Firewood and Candles is like a Sunnyboys song.
“Those kind of guitar lines, nothing fancy but really strong, are like the ones Steve Connolly used to play with The Messengers. I can see a lot of parallels to those records I was making then.’’
The band featured on Life Is Fine is a similar cast of players to the one that made the 2014 Merri Soul Sessions album withVika and Linda Bullalongside Kelly on vocals, Ashley Naylor on guitar, Bill McDonald on bass, Cameron Bruce on keys and Peter Luscombe on drums.
“It’s a band with lots of strong opinions,’’ Kelly says. “I guess our one rule is to try every idea. By playing it you find out pretty quickly whether things are working or not.”
AND A FEW OTHER THINGS …
Cold Chisel and Spiderbait are playing the inaugural Newcastle 500 Supercars race on Saturday November 25 – Chisel’s first gig in the city in six years.
For the Aussies who plan their trips to Europe around festivals, Glastonbury might not take a year off in 2018 to rest the land “if a certain band reforms”.
How the cosmic wheels of destiny turn. Thirty years ago, Iva Davies was on a Qantas flight over the red desert when ping! A lightbulb went off over his head. He was inspired to write the song Great Southern Land, the title an update of the European name for the continent, Southern Land. Years on, Great Southern Land is one of the names to be chosen by 60,000 suggestions by 45,000 Aussies for the airline’s eight new long-haul Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners.
More new boutique festivals are to be announced, reported The Australian’s Spin Doctor column. Michael Chugg and manager and record producer Nash Chambers are behind a new Americana event called Rhythmicana Fest in regional NSW. Meantime promoter Glenn Wright, who found success with his meeting of the tribes in Mullumbimby and Bellingen is taking his next one outside NSW, to the goldfields of Victoria.
Newcastle rock-folk singer-songwriter James Bennett has returned from the US following recording sessions there with LA producer. Scott Campbell The album Run With The Hunted is due out July 28, with new stream-of-consciousness style single Fake Feathers which clocked over 12,000 Spotify streams in its first week on sale.
UK production company Keo Films (Struggle Street, War on Waste) is closing down its Sydney office at the end of the year.
One of the highlights of the Adelaide Cabaret show was The Sound of Falling Stars, a music and voice tribute to late music celebrities by singer Cameron Goodall and director Robyn Archer. Everyone from Elvis to Bon to the Buckleys got a call-out. There are suggestions the show should be taken to America.
Illawarra artists and musicians with a flair for justice are being encouraged to submit original works to the Law Society of NSW’s Just Art and Just Music competitions. Deadline is July 31, the comp includes a charity concert to raise funds for indigenous youth initiative Bara Barang, full details at www.lawsociety.com.au.
One of those rumoured to be in the teams to replace Hamish & Andy is hit105 Brisbane’s Abby Coleman – who when approached by the Sunday Mail responded she would “never say never”, but she can’t see herself leaving Brisbane anytime soon.
A new gym in Mackay, F45 Training, is offering live DJs each Saturday.
Jobs
