FYI daily news roundup of webmail and the web

• Lieber & Stoller:  their story about their songs
• Garth Brooks to hang his hat in Vegas
• Anvil launches  DVD doc with  London signing sessions
• k.d. lang to appear on Prairie Home Companion
• Music Nova Scotia launches enhanced website
  
• Online long-form video grabs viewers 35-plus
• Neil Young Blu-ray disc set exceeds Warner’s expectation
• Steven Brown in as CEO at Cinram
• Jim Cuddy talks about Canadian fans
• Summer tours can be family affairs
• Britney’s Circus tour, by the numbers
• Island Records: a label of love
  

HOUND DOG - The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller with David Ritz (Simon & Schuster) . For much of their career, Jerry Leiber (words) and Mike Stoller (music) specialized in coming up with songs that sounded almost unwritten, as if they had popped into being straight out of the oral blues tradition. This is the illusion they managed to pull off with “Searchin’,” “Ruby Baby,” “Kansas City” and many others. From an early age they loved the blues, and their main goal was to create what they considered to be authentic black music. In “Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography,” Leiber bluntly describes their mind-set: “We were two guys looking to write songs for black artists with black feelings rendered in black vernacular.”

In the 1950s and ’60s, they wrote hits for black artists like Willie Mae (Big Mama) Thornton, the Coasters, the Drifters and Ben E. King, but their songs also did the job for white performers like Elvis Presley and Dion. Considered disposable when they first came out, Leiber-Stoller songs have proved hardy, having been recorded or performed by a variety of singers and groups, including James Brown, Perry Como, the Beatles, Little Richard, Peggy Lee, Hank Snow, Frank Sinatra, Joni Mitchell, Danzig, Loudon Wainwright III, Donna Summer and Bjork.

“Hound Dog” tells the Leiber-Stoller story in a straightforward, conversational manner. NYT Book Reviews

A HATTER IN VEGAS: The Las Vegas Review Journal is reporting that Country superstar Garth Brooks gave a surprise concert in Vegas at Steve Wynn’s Encore Theatre last Monday. According to the paper, Brooks is holding contract talks with Wynn that could have him playing multiple dates at the casino. The stumbling block is said to be ticket prices. According to reports, the casino wants to charge in the vicinity of $300, a figure the superstar thinks too high. Brroks was charging about $20 a ticket when he retired nine years ago in

ANVIL AUTOGRAPHS: Following news that Anvil will open a pair of major shows for AC/DC in the US, and the strong probability the band will be added at a mega-outdoor AC/DC show outside of Moncton , NB, Anvil is to launch the DVD of their rockumentary ‘Anvil! The Story of Anvil’ with a signing session in London next week. Robb Reiner and Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow from the band will appear at HMV’s flagship store on London’s Oxford Street next Tuesday (June 16), the day after the film is released. Reiner and Kudlow formed the band nearly 40 years ago, and ‘Anvil! The Story of Anvil’ charts the band as they make their 13th studio album in a bid to finally hit the bigtime.

MNS’S NEW WEBSITE: Music Nova Scotia is pleased to officially launch our new website at musicnovascotia.ca. After several months of planning and development, the website has re-launched with improved functionality and offers members the opportunity to promote their music, products and services. The website is managed internally, allowing MNS staff to make daily updates that tie in with the MNS’s Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LastFM profiles.

k.d. AT THE GREEK: k.d. lang will be among the special guests on this week’s episode of A Prairie Home Companion, airing a live broadcast performance from the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on hundreds of public radio stations across the US this weekend. Joining k.d. and the show’s host, Garrison Keillor, as special guests are Sheryl Crow and Martin Sheen. The episode will also feature the Royal Academy of Radio Actors; Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and sound effects man Fred Newman; singer Heather Masse; the Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band; and The News from Lake Wobegon.

LONG FORM VIDEO: According to Nielsen Online, YouTube continued to rank as the No. 1 video Web brand with 5.5 billion total streams in April. Meanwhile, Hulu continued its growth, increasing 490% in total streams year-over-year, from 63.2 million in April 2008 to 373.3 million in April 2009, making it the fastest growing brand among the top 10. In April, people between the ages of 35 and 49, were the fastest growing demographic in time spent viewing per viewer, increasing 29% during the past six months. This was 13% points higher than the growth of time spent viewing per viewer for the overall market, which increased 16% over the same 6-month period. In April 2009, three of the top five sites-Hulu, ABC.com and NBC.com-ranked by time spent viewing among people 35 to 49 were sites with long-form video. Compared to six months ago, only one of the top five was a long-form video viewing destination.

ROCKIN’ IN BLU-RAY: The Blu-ray edition of Neil Young’s  Archives, Volume 1: 1963-1972′, released on June 2, has already sold out of its initial shipment, according to Young’s producer Larry Johnson. No sales figures are given by Warner Music for the 10-disc set.

CINRAM HAS NEW CEO: Cinram International Income Fund has named Steven G. Brown chief executive officer of the disc replicator. Brown will take over as the company’s chief on June 15, Cinram said in a statement yesterday. Brown had previously worked in the automobile-supply industry in both Europe and North America. Brown succeeds David Rubenstein, who stepped down as CEO on March 31 after more than 15 years with the Toronto-based company. The new CEO will be charged with reversing declining sales trends caused largely by falling DVD demand in the U.S. Cinram said last month that its first-quarter loss widened after the company made 18% fewer DVDs than a year earlier. Cinram, which was founded in 1969, went public in 1986. It converted to an income trust four years ago

JIM CUDDY ON BEING CANADIAN: “It’s not a given that because you’re appreciated by Canadian audiences you will then be appreciated by American audiences,”Blue Rodeo’s JIm Cuddy explains in a recent Guelph Mercury feature. “It’s not like either of those bands — Tragically Hip or us — haven’t had opportunities. I mean, they’ve been on Saturday Night Live, we’ve been on The Tonight Show (and David Letterman). We’ve had lots of opportunities to be ‘presented’ to the American audience. And, y’know, it’s not something they ‘get’ in the same way Canadian audiences do. I think a character like (Hip frontman) Gord Downie is immediately recognizable to Canadian audiences. They understand how committed he is, and yet how ironic. Everybody understands that character, everybody has a friend like Gord — the crazy poet guy — but I don’t think that’s automatically translatable in the States.

“It’s the same thing with our band: we have two singers — that’s never been a problem in Canada — with two different styles, we range from ballads to rockers and it’s no big deal. Canadian audiences can understand that naturally. With American audiences it’s a lot of, ‘Well, I think one guy should sing!’ and ‘Are you a rock a band or a country band — what are ya?’ So I think it’s a very different country down there — a big, huge country that requires a very simple definition for the things they like: what is this thing, and can you describe it in two or three sentences?”

MY SUMMER TOUR: Steve Earle is going fly-fishing. Lyle Lovett will squeeze in some horseback-riding. And Dave Matthews plans to hit some swimming holes with his three kids. Despite the clichés about groupies and all-night bacchanals on the road, many veteran acts seem to be more excited about the comfort of food, family and a well-appointed tour bus on their summer concert tours over the next few months.

Country star Taylor Swift has been spending her summers on tour since age 16, when she began her career opening for acts such as Rascal Flatts and Kenny Chesney. Now 19 years old, the singer is on her first headlining tour, which has some trappings of sleepaway camp. Lately her band and crew have been building bonfires in the parking lot after shows using a portable fire pit-”one of those things you can buy at Home Depot or Lowe’s,” Ms. Swift says. Inside a circle of tour buses, they toast s’mores and dance. The party typically starts mellow with music by John Mayer, she says, “then we bust out the Michael Jackson.”  Wall Street Journal

BRITNEY’S CIRCUS BY THE #S: Hard to believe but it’s been 10 years since ‘Baby One More Time’ blanketed the radio waves and it took this long before Britney Spears packed up her things and decided to tour the world.Here’s a break down of the numbers involved in Britney’s Circus tour:

35 – Number of transport trucks used
225 – Number of touring crew members.
150 – Number of additional local crew members hired in each city.
300,000 – Weight (in pounds) of the production.
9 – Number of hydraulic elevator shafts located on the stage
4,000 – Number of road cases used for equipment.
1200 – Meals prepared & served to the crew and local staff per day.
360° – View the LED video screens provide the audience of the stage.
240 – Number of moving lights on stage.
10,000 – Amps of power generated by the tour in one show.
30 – Number in millions of $ it costs to run The Circus production.
44 – Total number of band members, dancers, & performers on tour.
500 – Number of rehearsal hours that each dancer had to go through.
15 – Number of Big Apple Circus Performers on Tour.
6 – Number of countries  performers are from.
20 – Wardrobe cases for Britney, her band, and dancers.
11 – Number of hair, make-up and costumers on tour.
360 – Total number of tour costumes.
9 – Number of Britney’s costume changes during each show.
15-45 – Number of seconds it takes to make one wardrobe change.
10 – Number in million of fans who have seen a Britney concert

THE ISLAND YEARS: Vivien Goldman writing in the New Statesman: “The pattern of working with inspiring artists and label-makers persisted while I worked briefly in the Island press office in the early Seventies, promoting the then little-known Marley and the Wailers, Burning Spear and those young lions of Ladbroke Grove, Aswad. We distributed records from hot new labels such as Richard Branson’s haut-hippie Virgin; folky Witchseason, which boasted Fairport Convention, Nick Drake and John Martyn; and EG, home to Roxy Music.

Musicians were always wafting about the Edwardian stucco villa, a former laundry in Chis­wick, west London. The canteen was decorated with cheese plants and a fussball table, and the air was often scented with Jamaican greenery – and I don’t mean Blue Mountain coffee. For years, Island was the epicentre of music industry cool. As the label’s reach broadened, it pushed Kid Creole and the Coconuts, the Slits, African artists such as Sunny Ade and Angélique Kidjo, and the hip-hoppers Eric B and Rakim. Throughout, the central ethos remained unchanged: a commitment to personality, artist development and quality.

After Marley played his last concert in London in 1980, (Chris) Blackwell was taken by the company’s PR guru, Rob Partridge, to a south London pub to see a young Irish band named U2. It would be unlikely to happen with today’s corporations, but Blackwell stuck with them until 1984, when The Unforgettable Fire propelled the group to global stardom. U2 returned the favour when the label was near collapse in 1986 by deferring millions in back royalties and fronting some more cash besides. As Babylon fulfils Bob Marley’s prediction by falling about our earphones, what price artist/label loyalty now? Is it a gesture from a simpler time? Would Lily Allen ever bail out MySpace?” Full story here