Industrial Strength: Part 2

Image: Kings

KINGS SETS NEW NZ CHART MILESTONE

Auckland hip-hop artist Kings’ single Don’t Worry Bout It is now the longest running #1 song on the NZ Artist Top 20 Single Chart, with a 27 week stay at the top. Issued on Warner Music, it replaced Magnets by Disclosure ft. Lorde. Kings also won Breakthrough Artist at last year’s NZ Music Awards.

OZFLIX LAUNCHES ON AUSTRALIA DAY

New movie streaming service Ozflix will launch on Australia Day at 6:00pm, offering pay-per-view access to a large catalogue of Australian made films from major and independent studios and independent filmmakers, who will receive 50% of rental.

Ozflix is the brainchild of high profile producers Ron V Brown and Alan Finney, who have been working on the concept since 2011.

QUICKFLIX APPLIES TO ASX

Perth-based video streaming service Quickflix has applied to the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) to be delisted. This has been carried out in order to enable it to transfer its shares to new owner, US-based Karma Holdings, with which the company and its administrators completed its Deed of Company Arrangement on December 21.

FUNDING OPENS FOR ABORIGINAL REGIONAL ARTS

The NSW Government has opened funding for the NSW Aboriginal Regional Arts Fund until February 21. It offers up to $5,000 for individual artists and up to $20,000 for organisations for projects starting on July 1 that encourage Aboriginal people to explore and express their cultural identities.

Last year’s funding supported 15 projects, including a collaboration with the Slim Dusty Museum, and music, performances and artwork in Bathurst, Deniliquin and Walgett.

SEARCHING FOR YEAR’S FINEST NZ ALBUM

As the Australian Music Prize announced its shortlist of most creative Australian album in the past year, a similar search begins over the ditch in New Zealand for its creative long player. Independent Music NZ announced that the Taite Music Prize is returning for an eighth year. Held in Auckland in mid-April, it offers a cash prize of $10,000 from Recorded Music NZ while a Red Bull partnership further offers the winner recording time at Red Bull Studios and a year’s supply of Red Bull product.

Named after the late music journalist Dylan Taite, previous winners included Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Lawrence Arabia, Lorde, Ladi6, SJD, Jakob and Silicon.

TEEN WINS REGIONAL SONG CONTEST

The third Regional Song Contest (2016/7) was won by 16 year old Molly Millington from NSW Central Coast, who recorded her debut EP with singer-songwriter Shane Nicholson last year.

She performs at the Tamworth Country Music Festival on Friday January 27 in recognition of her win, joined by runner up, 14-year-old Luke Furbank from Bathurst (who won an acoustic guitar) and 2015 winner Tyler Shoobert from Binnaway (17) and 2015 runner up Georgie Taylor from Redland Bay, Qld (15).

Millington also received a Music Mentorship Package from contest organiser Al Buchan of fRETfEST.

ISSUES OVER CONSUMER COMPLAINTS

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has directed Melbourne-based internet service provider NetCube to comply with dealing with consumer complaints under its Telecommunications Consumer Protections Code (TCP Code). In an investigation between December 2015 and February 2016, ACMA found the company had not dealt promptly enough with complaints and in one case, chased payment from a consumer when the amount of the payment was still under dispute.

In 2011-12, TIO complaints reached record levels at 197,682. But in 2015-16 it received 112,518 complaints.

In the meantime, the Federal Court fined US-based video games website Steam $3 million for refusing refunds to Australian consumers. Justice James Edelman imposed the highest fine, 12 times more than what the website’s parent Valve Corporation had asked, for thinking it didn’t have to abide by Australian laws.

He said that Valve had “2.2 million Australian accounts which received 21,124 tickets in the relevant period containing the word “refund” from consumers with Australian IP addresses.”

VALE

Jeff Condron OBE was presenter and manager at 2MC and 2KA. Growing up in Port Macquarie on the NSW north coast, he became involved in radio and event management. He succumbed to bowel cancer at a nursing home.

AND A FEW OTHER THINGS…

Lorde is now a godmother, after her best friend of ten years gave birth to a son Oscar Robin. She’s back in the US finishing off her long awaited second album.

During his stay in Australia to play for rival radio stations, Ed Sheeran is completely taking over Seven’s Sunrise show on Wednesday February 8. Breakfast With Ed sees him play his new tracks and meet fans. We’re told the artist has got some surprises as well. Presumably the first is his being told the show starts at 5:30am.

Long time speculation that The X Factor isn’t returning in 2017 to Seven were fuelled when judge Guy Sebastian told the Melbourne Herald Sun: “I think the speculation is probably fairly accurate, it was a disappointing year.”

Tamworth is hoping that long-time Nashville resident Keith Urban will be in town for the country music festival. During his Australian tour, Urban mentioned to media that he wanted to take Nicole Kidman and their daughter to show them where his music career began, attending every year since he was nine to busk on the streets hoping to get noticed.

Meantime, Adam Harvey and Beccy Cole were spotted filming a video during the festival for their new album The Great Country Songbook, Volume II. Volume I went platinum.

Tim Finn’s musical Ladies In Black heads to Canberra, playing the Canberra Theatre Centre between March 27 and April 2. Finn provided the soundtrack to the production directed by Priscilla Queen of the Desert’s Simon Phillips and written by Carolyn Burns.

Foxtel is screening the fifth season of the almost-scrapped Nashville from February 12 (and ongoing Sundays) on the Showcase Channel. A lucky viewer won the competition to meet cast member Charles Esten (Deacon) at CMC Rocks.

Former AC/DC singer Dave Evans has recorded an EP called Wild with Norwegian rock band Barbed Wire. The team-up began after they toured Norway and Sweden together and it turned out that Barbed Wires are highly inspired by AC/DC, Rose Tattoo and Evans himself. The EP, released through Nordic Records, also includes the track Sunset Strip which Evans wrote and was a live staple in early AC/DC live and was about to be recorded by them. However, Evans was replaced by Bon Scott, and the song was recorded with changes as Show Business.

In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, country music singer Adam Brand recalled when he was opening for Taylor Swift in America six years ago. “On the first show of the tour, there was a package of pumpkin bread with a handwritten note [from Swift], saying ‘welcome to the tour, I baked you some pumpkin bread’.”

Regurgitator’s Ben Ely did a “family” show last Friday at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) as part of the GOMA Turns 10 Summer Festival, with daughters Dee Dee, 12 and Anouk, 14 and dancer wife Hsin Juik. The family presented a musical written by the daughters, about a girl who creates her own universe in her bedroom. Meantime, one of the projects that The ‘Gurg are working on is an x-rated kiddies punk record. Last weekend, The ‘Gurg blew apart the Mona Foma festival in Tasmania with their performance of the first Velvet Underground album.

On the real estate front, the Daily Telegraph reported that singer-songwriter Matt Corby bought a five-acre property near Murwillumbah in far north-eastern NSW for $850,000 in November.

Also, multi-platinum country performer Lee Kernaghan and wife Robby have put their 3.12ha property in Springbrook, Qld, on the market after 15 years. It includes his “songwriting” cottage, where he wrote 100 songs, including Spirit of The Anzac.