- Jackson’s 50 gig fury. Pop star says 40 more than he knew of
- WEMI: Making sense of a merger between EMI and WMG
- Neil Young hums ‘long may you spend’
- Jagger offers £100,000 for ice cream truck. Giuseppe says ‘no’
- Listeners streaming to hear radio on the web
- Paul Quarrington pulls a tulip from his snout
- All You Need Is Love, Abbey Road as downloads, Sept. 9
- First, John, then Jason, and now Deb Bonham
- Amy Nelson makes the Big Dog semi-finals
- CTV splashes cash for its Fall season
- Shania Twain Centre a party for too few
- Space Shuttle Endeavour takes Lennie Gallant aboard
- East Coast Countdown with audio link
- John Lydon’s pimping butter these days
- Brian Eno weighs in on the value of music as art
- Steve Earl pays tribute to Townes Van Zandt
- Has Pink Floyd got EMI up against the wall over money?
- Millenials texting, not tweeting
- Google barges in to Amazon territory
- Survey shows Americans in travel denial
- CBS News feeds going straight online
- A bitter reality: 11 contestants commit suicide
JACKSON’S 50 GIG FURY: Michael Jackson has told fans he is fuming with concert promoters for booking 50 shows in London. The Thriller star told fans outside his LA dance studio he wanted to take his live extravaganza across the globe – and only perform a handful of gigs at the O2.But he didn’t get his wish, and a deal was struck for Jacko’s monster 50-date residency after the initial block of 10 he’d agreed to sold out. Sun UK writer Tim Nixon reports that Jackson claims he only learned of the extra 40 bookings when he awoke to the news one morning.
WEMI: MAKING SENSE OF A MERGER: Amanda Andrews writes in London’s Telegraph newspaper today that EMI and Warner Music should “simply bite the bullet and merge.” Her rationale is that scale matters, particularly when it comes to negotiating with online goliaths such as YouTube and iTunes. Summing up, Andrews writes: “EMI and Warner Music should try to find a way round their differences. It is no secret the music industry has changed. Regulation is unlikely to prove problematic this time around and the growing force of the internet means the record labels must band together to combat it. While the music industry does work together to some extent, another large player would create a much-needed force at a time when many are questioning the viability of labels.”
NEIL YOUNG HUMS ‘LONG MAY YOU SPEND’: On the heels of releasing part one of his voluminous memories of all things Neil, the lanky, sartorially challenged activist and musician is now trumpeting a 50% clearance sale on summer t-shirts at his online shop. Sadly, no such luck on picking up the multi-disc Archive set on the cheap. The pre-order cost for the deluxe 10 disc DVD set is US$310, the even more deluxe Blu-ray set rings in at $324 and the more humble regular 8-CD set comes in at an almost affordable $85.
SIR MICK AND THE ICE CREAM VAN: Folklore has it that Sir Mick is tighter than a camel’s arse in a sandstorm. But the wrinkly Stones frontman was scrambling for his wallet when he fell in love with a refurbished vintage ice-cream van recently. UK scandal tab The Sun reports “Sir Mick’s big bottom lip hit the floor whe he clocked a beautifully restored 1954 Morris J-type van from which the owner was flogging traditional ice cream on Wandsworth Common near his home in south west London.” The owner, devoted “Giuseppe Della Camera, spent ten years and £35,000 restoring the rusting banger to perfection after he spotted it on a farm where it was used as a chicken shed — probably home to a Little Red Rooster or two. And all the blood, sweat and tears he invested into the restoration stopped him accepting a whopping £100,000 offer for his wheels.” The kicker: Giuseppe turned down Mick’s bid because he had promised daughter Alessia, 12, that he would one day drive her to her wedding in it.
LISTENERS STREAMING TO WEB RADIO: Jacobs Media’s online survey of 21,000 members of Rock radio station databases found that streaming is on the rise, with the percentage of respondents who have never streamed radio online at 34% down from 50% when the surveys began, in ’05. 39% of respondents in the new survey said they stream radio at least weekly, up from 32% a year ago and part of a “steady rise” since 2005. The most popular Internet-only stream isPandora, which was mentioned by 20% of respondents.
PORKBELLY FUTURES: Paul Quarrington is recovering from a respiratory infection brought on by a severe allergy to…tulips. The Star’s Greq Quill interviews the musician turned novelist, playwright and screenwriter and found him not to be…err, petulant. In fact, Quarrington is on the road to recovery and starting to work on a new album with his roots ensemble known as Porkbelly Futures. Read more here
FINALLY, APPLE BITES: “All You Need Is Love” will be the first Beatles song to be released as a download, and “Abbey Road†is scheduled to be the first Beatles album to be released digitally. Both to become available on Sept. 9, The Wrap reports today.
ANOTHER BONHAM OF NOTE: Warner Music is servicing Deborah Bonham’s single “Love Lies†to radio stations across Canada today. The song is taken from the Brit-rock singer-songwriter’s American album Duchess. And if you are wondering about the surname, Deb’s sister to the late ‘Bonzo’ Bonham, most famously the pugilist behind the skins in Zep. Her album comes adorned with rock blue-blood names. Her ace band is made up of former Humble Pie drummer Jerry Shirley, bassist Ian Rowley, keyboardist Gerard Louis and guitarist Peter Bullick. Former Free and Bad Company vocalist Paul Rodgers and John Bonham’s son Jason make cameo appearances.
BIG DOG PRIZE: Amy Nelson has been declared the winner at the first semi-finals show for Big Dog 92-7′s “The Next Big Thing” country talent competition in Regina SK. The finals take place June 28 with one person taking home the prize package valued at $20k that includes $5k in cash and an all-expenses-paid trip to the CCMAs in Vancouver later this year.
CTV FALL PREVIEW: CTV, Canada’s #1 network, and A, now Canada’s third-ranked private network, revealed their Fall programming lineup and schedule today. The announcement was made by Susanne Boyce, President, Creative, Content and Channels, CTV Inc. “In yet another tumultuous year, we’ve remained focused on creativity,†said Susanne Boyce, President, Creative, Content and Channels, CTV Inc. “Staying #1 requires stability, flexibility and surprise. Strategic moves last year resulted in this past season’s biggest hits, while /A\ became a destination network with remarkable growth. We remain committed to producing original Canadian programming that stands shoulder to shoulder with the best on our schedule.†Full release and schedule can be viewed here
SHANIA CENTRE A PARTY FOR TOO FEW: An effort by city hall to re-structure some of its departments has led to a debate over whether Timmins should consider selling off the Shania Twain Centre as it is attracting less than 25,000 visitors a year and costing the city more than $300k in annual subsidies. The Timmins Times reports that Councilor Gary Scripnick remarked in council that leisure facilities are expected to “be a burden on the taxpayer†but added he wouldn’t be against selling the centre if Shania Twain herself was interested in buying it. He suggested that Twain and her entertainment contacts would have the expertise to make the eight-year old centre work. Separately, the footloose country superstar is known to have mended fences with her longtime mentor Mary Bailey, found herself a new beau and started work on a new album. She was spotted working with a trio in an LA studio last month. Bailey and Twain became estranged some say during Twain’s marriage to her reclusive ex- Mutt Lange.
SPACE SHUTTLE HAS LENNIE GALLANT ABOARD: Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette returns to the International Space Station aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour with a copy of Lennie Gallant’s most recent album, aptly titled When We Get There. Ms Payette chose the album for the astronaut crew of Mission STS-127 to enjoy while on their 16 day mission, which will include five spacewalks. Gallant’s music has been heard around the world and will now orbit the earth. Gallant released seven albums (six in English and one in French) which have won him a clutch of noms and a few wall hangings. The South Shore resident of Nova Scotia plans to release his eighth album, If We Had A Fire, sometime this summer. One can understand why Ms Payette might have thought twice about carrying this one aboard with her.
THE EAST COAST COUNTDOWN FOR MAY 31 – June 6
#10 Brite Vu – “Crash”
#9 Joel Plaskett – “Through & Through & Through”
#8 Molly Thomason – “Kiss Me”
#7 Hey! Rosetta – “Red Heart”
#6 Big Ideas – “Blind Eyes”
#5 mcg – “An Apology”
#4 The Novaks – There Goes the Night”
#3 Matt Mays & El Torpedo – “Shining Eyes”
#2 Pink Thunder – “Real Loud”
#1 Andrew Hunter – “The Feel Good Song”
Audio feed available here
PUNK SELLS OUT: Billboard reports that the Sex Pistols frontman, now known as John Lydon, is now the star in a popular U.K. TV commercial for the butter brand Country Life. Dressed in country-gent tweeds, the one-time scourge of polite society is seen watching traditional English folk dancers, running from cows and declaring, “It’s not about Great Britain — it’s about great butter!” with the gusto he once reserved for sneering “I am an anti-Christ/I am an anarchist.” On other British channels, punk forefather Iggy Pop stars in ads for the online car insurance brand Swiftcover in which the shirtless Stooges frontman declares: “You think I’m selling car insurance? I’m not — I‘m selling time!” Full story here
BRIAN ENO ON MUSIC AS ART: “The record business is in the doldrums because sales are plummeting,” Brian Eno writes in a recent edition of Prospect magazine. “Digital technology has made music easier to make and copy, with the result that recorded music is about as readily available as water, and not a whole lot more exciting. This seems like bad news, until you pick up a copy of Time Out. Then you realise that the live music scene is exploding, for, unable to make a living from records sales, more and more bands are playing live. That experience can’t be put onto a memory card—and people are willing to pay for it, and to pay quite a lot. Concert attendances are at an all-time high: recordings are increasingly ads for live shows, and live shows have become once again the real thing, the unduplicable.” Full read here
STEVE EARLE PAYS TRIBUTE TO TOWNES VAN ZANDT: As Steve Earle tells it, he was just 17 when he met an artist and performer who would mould the shape of his career. The teenage Earle was singing at a club in Houston, Texas, when he was teasingly heckled by an older man in the audience who asked him to play the song Wabash Cannonball, and told him he wasn’t much of a country singer if he couldn’t.
The heckler turned out to be Townes Van Zandt, a legendary Texan singer-songwriter who Earle already admired. Earle was unable to comply with his request, but instead performed a word-perfect version of a tricky, complex Van Zandt song, Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold. This playful exchange made them firm friends. And now Earle has gone one step further on the tribute album Townes he has made for the country legend he so admires. Full read here
PINK FLOYD TALKS MONEY WITH EMI: Despite recent news that Pink Floyd has filed a lawsuit against its record company EMI over allegedly miscalculating royalty payments, Elio Leoni-Sceti, EMI’s chief executive, said the music group is in active discussions with the band about using its catalogue for popular computer games. Full read here
TEXT, NOT TWITTER: Millennials — 18- to-26-year-olds — don’t see value in Twitter, although they spend hours daily texting friends and communicating on social networks in real time, according to a study released Monday from the Participatory Marketing Network (PMN). The study suggests that only 22% of Millennials use Twitter, the real-time microblogging site that allows posts of up to 140 characters. Of those young people who use Twitter, 85% said they follow friends, 54% follow celebrities, 29% follow family, and 29% follow companies. That’s not great news for marketers and companies trying to reach this demographic through the site. Full story here
GOOGLE STEPS ON AMAZON: Google will begin selling ebooks this year. Industry watchers believe the decision strengthens Google’s position to compete better with Amazon. Google had announced a partnership with Sony in March that made 500,000 public domain book titles available to U.S. consumers for free. The out-of-copyright books were published in 1923 or earlier. The agreement made available more than 600,000 titles from its eBook Store, which overshadowed announcements for the closed-format titles that consumers can only read on Amazon’s Kindle. Now Google says it will offer current titles in an electronic format online. Full story here
TRAVEL ADVISORY: The Harris Poll of 2,401 U.S. adults surveyed online between April 13 and 21, shows that 35% of Americans are not planning on taking any leisure trips this summer. 77% are anticipating that they will not travel on business in the next four months. But not everyone is planning to stay home… 65% of adults are planning a vacation this summer, including 17% who are anticipating making three or more trips this summer.
Other findings include:
* Nearly three in ten adults plan on decreasing the number of leisure trips they make by car
* One-third say they will take fewer plane trips for leisure
* Another third will cut the number of weekend trips they take
* Slightly more than one-third will reduce the duration of their vacations
* Nearly half plan to reduce the amount of money they spend on vacation
Companies are also altering their summer travel plans due to economic conditions. 22% of adults say their employer has reduced or eliminated all non-essential travel and 15% work for companies which are encouraging the use of technology (e.g. teleconferencing, video conferencing) to reduce or eliminate travel. For further info. visit Harris Interactive here
CBS ADDS WEB NEWS FEED: Silicon Alley Insider reports CBS News has announced a landmark deal with Web startup Ustream to stream all of its Evening News broadcasts and breaking news reports live over the Web. This is the first such deal signed by any major media company’s broadcast news division. It is a non-exclusive ad-revenue sharing agreement. According to Ustream CEO and co-founder Brad Hunstable, the deal is considered a “validation” for both Ustream and the live-streaming industry as a whole.
The idea here is to make CBS News’s Ustream feed the place people go for premium news coverage when a story breaks. During a major breaking news event, Hunstable says, “Twitter will be going crazy with everyone that wants to talk about it and the only place to watch will be on Ustream.”
For its part, CBS was intrigued by the idea of offering live video on the Web, as well as its desire to reach a younger audience demographic. The media giant decided to go with Ustream over competitors Livestream.com and Justin.TV because of its technology and how “responsive” it has been to issues like pirated content. Full story here
CELEBRITY SUICIDES: Susan Boyle should consider herself lucky that when she was rushed to the hospital a day after the “Britain’s Got Talent” finale, it was only for exhaustion. Hollywood webzine The Wrap reports that at least 11 reality-show participants have taken their own lives — and two more who have tried to — in tragedies that appear to be linked to their experience on television shows. Full story here
