What Was Said For a business that has been watching its own erosion for a decade, the music world’s biggest surprise this year was that the old major record labels are still worth a good deal of money. The labels have taken their knocks. Sales of recorded music are half of what they were in [...]
Morning Coffee with David Farrell, February 6
What Was Said
His measured, amelodic cadences may leave nonbelievers wondering why this guy creates such a fuss among fans and songwriting connoisseurs. But the approach suits songs of moral complexity, a pile-up of poignant images and punch lines that conflate mortality, romance, tragedy and comedy… Though (Leonard) Cohen’s age and subject matter might suggest otherwise, “Old Ideas” is not another of the dreaded winter-of-my-years albums that have become a cottage industry in music in recent decades. The notion of staring into the abyss with a certain age-appropriate steeliness and poignance helped Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan revive their careers on pivotal ‘90s albums. But since then, albums about the “dying of the light” by late-period icons have become a cliché. Not so with Cohen, who’s still feisty after all these years, his entanglements with love and aging documented with wicked wit and an attitude that is anything but sentimental. – Greg Kot in the Chicago Tribune
I was in Amsterdam and convinced a friend to drive me to Rotterdam, where (Feist) was playing. He dropped me off and I go inside this crazy bar. It’s jammed; people are hanging from the railing of a stairway, just to get a chance to see her. It was just her and this massive, hollow-bodied guitar and some delay pedals. It was just a marvel. I was mesmerized. Afterwards, I couldn’t even talk. I went after her and I said: `I gotta sign you. I’ve got to have you in America. Please.’
`She was like, `Oh, I don’t know if I want to be on a major label, you’re part of Interscope.’ But I explained Cherrytree to her, and, bless her heart, she believed in it. She said: `I get it. You want to be a mom ‘n’ pop store inside a department store.’ For many years, I used that as the sort of focus on how to shape Cherrytree. I wanted to be a boutique shop with access to the mall. — Cherrytree Records chief Martin Kierszenbaum
> TORONTO: British impresario and manager Harvey Goldsmith has been added to the already bulging Slacker CMW list of top draw speakers. Goldsmith produced 1985’s Live Aid and 1978’s The Concert for Kampuchea into historic events, and was largely responsible for the Led Zeppelin reunion concert at the O2 Arena in 2007. Other speakers include Slash, Burton Cummings and Jeff Beck. The complete list of speakers and a full agenda can be found here and here.
> TORONTO: MuchFACT (A Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent) has announced 54 award recipients from a Feb. 2 and 3 Jury meeting. All told, 332 music and viral videos, EPKs and website applications were considered and a total of $545,444 was awarded to the following:
Music Videos
Tory Lanez for Beautiful Place
The Envy for Music to My Ears
Jaydahmann for Go Crazy
Cookie Duster for Stand Up Two Feet
Victoria Duffield for Break My Heart
Metric for Youth Without Youth
The Airplane Boys for Still Young
Carly Rae Jepsen for Curiosity
Faber Drive for Do It In Hollywood
Sum 41 for Blood In My Eyes
Peter Jackson ft. Karl Wolf for #1 Fan
Sese for PGK ft. Emerson Brooks
Dragonette for Let It Go
Keshia Chante for I Miss You
Tyler Medeiros for Radio ft. Flo Rida
Spesh K for Hip Hop Since
Tona ft. Kardinal Offishall for Timing
Hello Beautiful for Tick Tock
The Extremities for Dial Tones ft. Ghettosocks, Ambition and LushLife
Kreesha Turner for Love Again
City and Colour for The Grand Optimist
George Nozuka for Don’t Go
Maestro for Reach for the Sky ft. Classified
Viral Videos
Nash for Broken Down Satellites
Chasing Amee for Witches
Saidah Baba Talibah for Revolution
The Playdates for Safe and Sound
Zeus for Are You Gonna Waste My Time?
Jeff Spec for Specnology
Mackenzie for Dirty Little Mouth
Lake Forest for Silver Skies, The Revolution Sessions
PJ for Addicted
Crystalyne for Weapon
Scatterheart for The Human Heart Is An Awesome Machine
Lokz for Point of No Return
Talwst for I’d Die
Dan Mangan for Post-War Blues
Sarah Slean for The Devil and the Dove
Lioness for The Night
Low Level Flight for Tsk Tsk
Stylust Beats for Soundbwoy
Parlovr for Holding On to Something
EPKs
Alex Cuba
Mic Boogie
Bahamas
Websites
The Barr Brothers
Ayah
The Danger Bees
Divine Industries
Paper Bag Records
Marianas Trench
Endast
Trish
Joel Plaskett Emergency
The next deadline for submitting applications to MuchFACT and PromoFACT is Thursday, Feb. 23. Applications can be submitted at www.muchfact.ca.
> TORONTO: Albert Zgarka and Tom Treumuth have re-branded FrostByte Entertainment as FrostByte Media Inc. The year-old full service record label is now extending its range of services to include worldwide physical and digital distribution via eOne and its international partners, as well as management, production and engineering, songwriting collaboration, video production, sponsorships, and film/TV licensing. Zgarka is CEO and Treumuth is VP A/R and CEO of Hypnotic Int. – Source: Marketwire
> TORONTO: After several years of lagging behind the UK, Europe and the US, Canada’s licensing agencies are fast-tracking new music streaming services, in large part spurred by the fact that new revenue streams are needed to offset declining CD sales and the slimmer margins offered through music downloads. Astral Radio plans to become the first terrestrial broadcaster to offer a variety of on-demand music and video services in the coming months, Shaw Media is already offering a large menu of music via Galaxie Mobile, CBC has announced its intention to launch a new platform to offer a variety of TV and Radio programming online, and newcomer Mediazoic recently reached agreement with the AVLA licensing body that enables it to legally stream music from literally thousands of record labels including EMI, Sony, Universal Music and Warner Music.
As a service to our readers, here’s a rundown of some of the key services available today:
AccuRadio.com — An independent, US-based multichannel Internet radio site reaching over 400,000 listeners/month with over 300 genre-specific channels covering everything from Jazz to Classical, Hiptronica to Gospel, Oldies to Canadian, Comedy to Broadway and all on offer absolutely free.
Galaxie Mobile — Canadian service offering commercial-free interactive mobile streaming music service for Apple and Android devices. The Galaxie app offers 45 commercial-free music channels. Enjoy a free 7-day trial. The in-app subscription $4.99/month; $9.99 for three months or $39.99/year. Wireless cariers so far include Shaw,
Grooveshark.com — Global with (unverified) 7 million+ tracks. Streaming through Grooveshark’s webs site, with adds is Free. Grooveshark VIP, with desktop and mobile apps, no ads, customization options–$3/month or $30/year.
Rdio — Availability in Canada and the US. Library, approximately 7 million tracks. Cost: Unlimited, with desktop players, mobile apps, and music downloads–$9.99/month.
iMatch — Apple’s cloud music service costs $27.99/year. The service lets you upload your iTunes library to iCloud and will match where possible any tracks not purchased through the Apple store in a DRM-free high-quality bit rate.
Mediazoic — Canadian service offering curated music streams free of charge. The individual channels or “curated radio stations” are created by music conniseurs such as Alan Cross and Karen Bliss and Danny Brooks, as well as music related entities such as True North Records and showcase club Hugh’s Room.
Rara.com — Unverified catalogue of 10M+ tracks from major and leading indie labels with multi-functional options, works on Android and Apple. Cost: 99 cents/month for first 3 months, add free; $1.99 web + Mobile. After that, it’s $4.99/month for online (web) access. Android smartphone users can download the rara.com app and stream music for $1.99 per month for the first three months, and then $9.99 per month after that (which includes web access, too).
Sky.fm – Pick from a variety of ‘radio’ stations in a variety of genres.
Slacker Radio — Canada and US, unlimited streaming is free. Slacker Radio Plus, no ads, no skips, mobile app caching for online-to-offline continuity is $4-$5 (monthly or annual billing). Library approximately 2.4 million tracks.
International
> NEW YORK: Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) has entered into an agreement to administer songwriter Irving Berlin’s music publishing catalogue for the world outside of North America. Earlier last month, the Irving Berlin Music Company re-signed its ongoing representation agreement with the Imagem Music Group/Rodgers & Hammerstein for international brand management and grand rights exploitation, and music publishing in North America. [Irvingberlin.com, facebook/irving berlin]
Talent & Touring
> Vancouver indie band Octoberman is following up the release of last year’s Sweater EP with a fourth album entitled Waiting In the Well sometime in March. Listen to the new single Dressed Up (Saved On Vinyl/Outside) on SoundCloud here.
> The rapper K’Naan has threatened to take legal action against the Mitt Romney campaign for using the song “Wavin’ Flag” during his victory speech after the Florida primary last week. To add salt to the wound, K’Naan has stated the song is available for use President Obama. “If I had been asked, I would certainly not have granted it,” K’Naan said in a statement released on Wednesday. “I would happily grant the Obama campaign use of my song without prejudice.”
The Romney campaign responded that it used the song under a blanket license from American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, which monitors the use of popular music on the radio and in public to ensure royalties are paid to songwriters. “The song was used through our regular blanket license, but we respect K’Naan’s statement and will not use his music again,” Andrea Saul, a campaign spokeswoman, said in an e-mail to the NYTs.
> Separately, Canadian rapper Drake is on record as being a huge Obama fan, to the extent of making it well known he wants to play President but just hasn’t had the right script sent to him. At a recent interview at Sundance, Drake told reporters that he’s “been reading scripts for awhile” but “wants to do something great…I hope somebody makes a movie about Obama’s life soon because I could play him,” said Drake. “That’s the goal. I watch all the addresses. Anytime I see him on TV, I don’t change the channel; I definitely pay attention and listen to the inflections of his voice. If you ask anyone who knows me, I’m pretty good at impressions.”
> The 2nd annual Edmonton Music Awards includes multiple noms for Tupelo Honey, Colleen Brown, White Lightening, Ann Vriend, Ten Second Epic and Boogie Patrol. The complete EMA noms list can be found here.
> Starting at the end of March, the Cancer Bats will be hitting the road to build anticipation for their upcoming album Dead Set on Living, trekking across the western Canada with Touché Amoré for a tour set to end just two days before their next album’s release. Complete tour itinerary here.
> London ON sextet Two Crown King has produced some pretty original material that has been made available free and as song downloads via iTunes. The latest is a six minute rap entitled Ben’s Song, about the loss of a friend to brain cancer. All proceeds from the track benefit The Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation. You can listen to the track and make a purchase here and read more about the band and the song here.
> Some compare him to a low-fi version of Radiohead but whatever he is, Hamilton ON’s Drew Smith has scored himself a moment of fame with his latest viral video for “Smoke and Mirrors.” Out-sourcing the video element for the song to India, what he got back is a sandalwood laced send-up of Bollywood. Over the past 5 days the video has notched up 140,000+ views and can be viewed here and a free download of the song is available here.
Broadcast & Media
> The BlackBerry Music Store has finally launched in Canada. Here’s the link for the Music Store app.
> The U of Windsor’s CJAM99 FM is offering a creative and comprehensive package of programming to celebrate Black History Month. You can view the schedule and link to an audio stream here.
> Heritage Minister James Moore quietly slapped down the increasingly agenda-driven political aim of Quebecor Media CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau to shut down the CBC. The most recent controversy deals with a campaign to smear the public broadcaster as a purveyor of porn. “I know you’re in the business of just going after the CBC, but I can’t comment on something I haven’t seen,” he told a Sun TV reporter and then, off camera, pointed out that Sun papers run bikini girls and suggested the reporter was being used as a “pawn” by Peladeau. Sun TV’s response to this outrage was to have loony commentator Ezra Levant call for the Minister’s resignation.
Obits
John Levy, the first prominent African-American personal manager in the jazz or pop music field, whose clients included Nancy Wilson and Ramsey Lewis, has died at age 99.
David Peaston, an American R&B and gospel singer who in 1990 won a Soul Train Music Award for best R&B/Soul or Rap Artist and mostly known for the singles, Two Wrongs (Don’t Make It Right) and Can I?. Peaston died from complications of diabetes, aged 54.
Donald Cortez “Don” Cornelius, an American TV show host and producer/creator of the nationally syndicated dance/music franchise Soul Train, from a gun shot wound at the age of 76
Careers
VP, Finance, Warner Music Group, LA
Job Description
Warner Music Group Description: With its broad roster of new stars and legendary artists, Warner Music Group is home to a collection of the best-known record labels in the music industry including Asylum, Atlantic, Cordless, East West, Elektra, Nonesuch, Reprise, Rhino, Roadrunner, Rykodisc, Sire, Warner Bros. and Word, as well as Warner/Chappell Music, one of the world’s leading music publishers, with a catalog of more than one million copyrights worldwide.
Department Description: The department provides financial reporting, accounting, planning, budgeting, and financial compliance and auditing for the company.
High Level Job Description: Position will partner with the business unit Chief Financial Officer and their Finance team to assist with a broad range of Finance activities.
Required Competencies/Skills: Strong accounting and finance background with a minimum of seven years of experience. Strong analytical skills, very proficient in systems and excel. The right person for this position must be able to work well under pressure and have the ability to meet deadlines and pay close attention to detail. The position also requires someone who is highly organized with a strong ability to multi-task, a self-starter, but someone who takes direction, works well with change and is a team player.
Special Requirements/Preferences: CPA desired but not required
