Industrial Strength: October 25
KATE CEBERANO RECEIVES ORDER OF AUSTRALIA MEDAL
Kate Ceberano received her Order Of Australia medal last Friday at Melbourne’s Government House from Governor Linda Dessau. The medal came during her 35th year in the business. The 3CD 54-track Anthology album debuted at #9 on the ARIA chart. She’s currently on tour with Paul Grabowsky on the Love Songs show, interpreting some great love songs from the past 50 years.
AC/DC STRIKE SYNC CHARTS IN US
In Australia, the refrain “Ah ah ah ah ahahahah, Thunder! Thunder!” might be used by Colonial First State to soothe retirees about fearing the end of their working life. In America though, Apple used AC/DC’s Thunderstruck to launch its iPhone 7 last month with a Morning Ride campaign.
Thunderstruck is sitting at #2 on the latest Billboard/Clio TV Commercials chart. As a result of the ad, the track has gained 8.5 million US streams, 39,000 downloads (up 167% from the month before pre-ad) and 13,000 Shazam tags, It’s also gone to #8 on the Rock Digital Songs chart.
5 SECONDS OF SUMMER WIN UK TEEN AWARD
Sydney based 5 Seconds of Summer won Best International Group at the BBC Radio 1’s Teen Awards, held in London on the weekend. Held for the seventh time, other winners included Taylor Swift (most entertaining celeb), Adele (best British solo artist), and The Vamps (best British group) while Shawn Mendes took best international solo artist and best single for Stitches.
QMF SETS UP $15K CAROL LLOYD AWARD
The Queensland Music Festival has set up an annual $15,000 Carol Lloyd Award. It can be used to make an album of original songs or an EP plus touring six dates, three of which have to be in Queensland. The award is supported by the Queensland Government, APRA AMCOS, and Hutchinson Builders.
The award was announced at last week’s Goodbye Ruby Tuesday, the star-studded sold out benefit concert for Lloyd, who is in the final stage of terminal pulmonary fibrosis. QMF Artistic Director Kate Noonan described her as “a pioneer, there’s no one like her, she paved the way for female performers like me.” The flame haired Lloyd burst onto the scene in the ‘70s as Australia’s “first rock chick” with Railroad Gin before going solo. She signed a worldwide publishing deal with EMI and had two hits in 27 countries.
Determined to the end, at the benefit at the QPAC in Brisbane (the building was bathed in red lighting), Lloyd threw off her pain for a few minutes at least joined the stars for the finale of the night’s theme, The Rolling Stones’ Ruby Tuesday.
CMA AWARDS ON FOXTEL
Foxtel’s Country Music Channel (CMC) will broadcast the 50th annual CMA (Country Music Association) awards live from Nashville. Screening time is 11 am on Thursday November 3.
Hosted by Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood, performers include Keith Urban, Garth Brooks with Trisha Yearwood, Luke Bryan, Florida Georgia Line, Tim McGraw, Eric Church and Kelsea Ballerini, Dolly Parton gets a lifetime achievement trophy.
Urban is up for Entertainer of the Year against Chris Stapleton, Brooks, Bryan and Underwood.
HILLTOP HOODS HEADLINE CLIPSAL CONCERT
The Hilltop Hoods headline the Friday March 3 Clipsal 500 After-Race Concert in Adelaide, with The Funkoars, Seth Sentry and NZ’s rising R&B singer Aaradhna. It’s their third time at the Clipsal, which they say “indicates how part of the culture Australian hip hop is.”
It will be the multi-platinum act’s only hometown Adelaide show next year. Through 2017 they plan to be touring the world.
FUNDING FOR QLD ARTISTS WITH DISABILITY
The $10,000 Access Arts Achievement Award provides funding for Queensland artists, arts workers and producers with disability working in any art form to create, develop, present, produce, exhibit and/or tour their work. Now in its third year, the award will continue for a further three years made possible by a donation from Access Arts life member, singer-song-writer Peter Vance. Go to the Access Arts website.
NEW STUDIO FOR NZ
The University of Otago is closing its music studios on Albany Street and announced plans to set up a new $15 million facility in another site, on the campus, yet to be decided. A working party is currently finalising designs for the project, which includes a recording studio and music production sections.
The old studios were built in 1968 by the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, initially to record orchestras. A $1 million mixing desk, built by Peter Gabriel’s Solid State Logic company was installed five years ago.
MONIQUE BRUMBY GETS THE OLD BAND BACK TOGETHER…
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of her 1996 debut album Thylacine, singer songwriter Monique Brumby got the original band back together to play the album in its entirety at Music Hall in Melbourne last Saturday. They hadn’t played together for 15 years but Rob Craw and Phil Wales (guitars), Maryanne Windows (bass) and Carl Manuel (drums) nailed the record. Also performing were album producer David Bridie on an array of keyboards, Helen Mountfort who did the strings arrangements for the album and played cello on the night, with guitarist Shannon Bourne and drummer Chris Broomhead from her current outfit.
It was one of those nights where the sell-out crowd – some travelled from afar as Queensland, NSW and Tasmania – was both in tears and in raptures, and a standing ovation was inevitable. The encore, featuring Brumby, Bridie and Mountfort, was a sublime Bring It On Home. Brumby told this column later “the night was the highlight of my career.” It was filmed for possible release. We hope the footage includes the moment a sound monitor went on the blink and Brumby did a foot-tapping solo to entertain them.
…SO DOES BRIAN CADD
Also getting the old band back together was Brian Cadd for his first solo album in eleven years, Bulletproof. The album includes his songs that were covered by other artists as The Pointer Sisters, Joe Cocker and John Farnham and orphans, which were sitting around for ages. He felt that his ‘70s outfit The Bootleg Family Band was the best to give the record a hard rollicking sound. “It turns out that 2016 is my 50th year in the business, and I also turn 70 years young – a good time to release an album called Bulletproof,” he says.
MUSIC IN MIX FOR NEW SBS CHANNEL
SBS’s new youth-skewed SBS Viceland channel, launching November 15 at 4 pm, will include a number of music shows.
SBS PopAsia offers the latest hits from Asia (including K-Pop, J-Pop and C-Pop), Noisey picks a culture and its artists from the global scene each episode. In addition, rapper Action Bronson hosts F*ck, That’s Delicious, a look at food for millennials from the world over.
TASSIE ARTISTS GET FELLOWSHIPS
Arts Tasmania announced the recipients of its $5,000 Professional Development Fellowship. All three are from Hobart.
Rosemary Antonini goes to the UK to attend the 2017 British Orchestras Conference and undertake activities with various orchestras. Kylie Johnson will work with London not-for-profit organisation to research new models and network with artists and arts administrators.
Singer, actor and voice teacher Fiona Stewart will attend a specialist voice-training workshop with two teachers in Puducherry, India.
MERGER FOR TWO EVENTS GROUPS?
There is talk that two Queensland music and culture events organisers face a merger. Connecting Southern Gold Coast stages the Coolie Rocks On (which recently drew 90,000 and added $33.3 million to the local economy), plus the Swell and Bleach festivals. Surfers Paradise Alliance also attracts tourists to the region, with events as the Elvis-inspired Viva Surfers Paradise, Oceanway Ride and the Australian Street Entertainment Championships.
A report by the Gold Coast Bulletin suggests that there is grumbling in some quarters in the Gold Coast Council, which partially funds the two associations, that they need to be streamlined as a third association, the Broadbeach Alliance, has been more successful with its events.
These include QPOW on Broadbeach, Blues on Broadbeach, Broadbeach Country, Broadbeach Jazz Weekend, Opera in the Park and Broadbeach Christmas Carols. Blues On Broadbeach, for instance, drew 125,000 people and injected $20 million to the local economy and 100,000 visitor nights. The younger sister country festival is up to the 30,000 attendance mark.
A study of Surfers’ night time economy by the Surfers Paradise Alliance puts its total value at $3.6 billion, with an add-on value of $1.6 billion, and the direct and indirect employment of 19,038 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions.
ABC RADIO APP CONNECTS TO CARS
Connected cat users can access content from triple j and Double J as well as RN, ABC Classics FM and local metro or regional stations. They do this by using their Apple or Android smartphones to connect to their car’s infotainment system. The ABC Radio app will next year be developed to provide an even more tailored and personalised audio experience.
According to a Statista report this year, connected car penetration is due to grow by a million cars from 2.0% to 8.4% in 2020.
ABC Director of Radio, Michael Mason, said, “Around one-third of Australian radio listening happens in the car, so by entering the connected car space we’re meeting audiences where they want to be found.”
LIMITED TICKETS FOR CROWDED HOUSE OPERA HOUSE SHOWS
Due to global demand, a limited edition number of tickets were released for Crowded House’s Encore shows at the Sydney Opera House. These now total four dates, on Thursday November 24, Friday November 25, Saturday November 26 and Sunday November 27. They are presented by Live Nation and Destination NSW.
DEAD DAISIES DO USO SHOWS
Australian/US rock band The Dead Daisies this week play their first USO shows, in South Korea. They do three shows for troops and military families stationed at Camp Casey, K-16 Air Base and Osan Air Base. The band supports the USO’s Force Behind the Forces, an awareness campaign encouraging Americans to stand in support of service members and military families. Both the fathers of Marco Mendoza and John Corabi served in the armed forces.
COMMUNITY RADIO TRIO GET WALKLEY GRANT
Community radio broadcasters William Martin, Jim Beatson and Susan Forde of Byron Bay’s 99.9 Bay FM have been awarded a $15,000 Walkley Journalism Innovation Grant for their citizen journalism project. The three will put the money back into taking nationwide the project, which aims to reinvigorate local news and participatory democracy at a grassroots level by providing a model, tools, engagement and distribution for citizen journalism within the community broadcasting sector.
AND A FEW OTHER THINGS
While in Melbourne for the premiere of her Kinky Boots musical, Cyndi Lauper revealed she’d be back to tour in autumn.
Speaking of which Green Day’s American Idiot musical gets its Australian premiere at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) in Brisbane on February 23 with an all-Australian cast and crew.
Heater, the track that Flume donated to Keep Sydney Open, will emerge on a four-track vinyl EP out in November. Also on the EP is another collaboration with The Preatures’ Isabella Manfredi and the tracks v and Quirk.
American band The Calling’s debut tour in November is postponed until 2early 017, “due to unforeseen circumstances outside our control arising around visas.”
Justice Crew’s pre-concert ritual includes 1,000 push-ups and lots of coffee, according to band member Samson Smith.
Australian born songwriter and producer Mike Chapman (The Knack, Tina Turner, Suzi Quatro) is putting his 35-hectares estate near Noosa’s Main Beach for sale. Complete with its own lake and helipad, it last changed hands in 2007 for $8 million. Chapman, long based in London, says he hasn’t visited as much as he thought he would.
In the meantime, the people who bought Kim Dotcom’s rented New Zealand mansion Coatesville for $32.5 million in June, have revealed themselves to be Kiwi siblings Anna, Mat and Nick Mowbray who began the globally successful Zuru toy company. Based in Hong Kong they’ll use it as a retreat for themselves as well as for their 8,000 employees.
Q Music is advertising for a music pro to take on the role of Program Manager from mid-January. It entails delivering the association’s 2017-2020 industry and artist development program, conducted in Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Cairns. It includes workshops, masterclasses, artist showcases, community roundtables, conferences and networking events. QMusic’s website has full details, applications close November 4.
With a busy 2017 coming up, MusicNT and Corrugated Iron Youth Arts are seeking a Marketing and Communication guru
Speak Percussion have a new project called Fluorophone, a synesthetic display of light and sound that moves between noise, theatrical music and virtuosic instrumentalism, and in which light sources are the central musical instruments, from amplified strobe lights to LED’s, fluorescents and matchsticks. The Aussie premiere is at The Substation in Melbourne’s Newport on November 22 – 25.
Darwin duo VanderAa, whose Jungle Juice hit #1 on triple j’s Unearthed chart, have an offer behind the January release of an EP. Any act of kindness by music lovers – be it cleaning up a beach, donating blood, or volunteering for a cause – and they’ll trade you a digital download.
Bluesman Rag ’N’ Bone Man aka Rory Graham makes his first visit to Australia for Sony Music Entertainment Australia to promote his current single Human. It includes two media showcases in Melbourne and Sydney.