Live Music Digest – w/c October 8th 2012
Welcome to our weekly digest of live music news and events in industry, academia and more.
Click to jump to:-
This week’s blog post
One from the archives
Live Music News
Live Music Features
Live Music Exchange Events
Other Live Music-related Events
This week’s blog:
Live Music 101 #3 – Why Concert Promoters Matter – Matt Brennan and Emma Webster
In the third of our series on the theories that underpin our research into live music, Matt Brennan and Emma Webster attempt to define the promoter and how they operate, in an extract from ‘Why Concert Promoters Matter’, originally published in Scottish Music Review in 2011.
The authors analyse existing accounts of live music promoters and offer their own analysis of what a promoter is and does, concluding that promoters may use one or more of three basic models of promotion within rock and pop: ‘independent’, ‘artist-affiliated’, and ‘venue’.
One from the archives:
To mark the start of BBC Radio 4’s new series on the genesis of classic live albums – For One Night Only – we head back to the Live Music Exchange blog archives with Adam Behr’s piece ‘Live Albums to Albums Live, in which he examines the growing trend of bands performing their classic albums live.
Live Music News:
Glastonbury tickets have sold out in a record time of just 1 hour and 40 minutes after thousands of fans flooded the website and phone lines.
Association Of Independent Festivals publishes anti-touting Fair Ticketing Charter: A plethora of festival promoters, booking agents, artist management agencies and other music companies have all put their names today to a declaration by the Association Of Independent Festivals against the secondary ticketing market, ie the resale of tickets for profit, generally online, utilising auction sites like eBay or specific ticket resale websites like Viagogo and Seatwave. Several acts, including Orbital, Gotye and, despite their recent problems with paperless tickets, Radiohead have also put their names to the Charter.
Award season is upon us, with the Live Music Business Awards 2012 due to take place this Wednesday 10th October.
Public voting is also open for UK Festival Awards 2012, while both the Welsh Music Prize 2012 and Theatre Awards UK 2012 shortlists are revealed. Meanwhile, Donna Summer is up for a place in the Hall of Fame, where for the first time ever, the public will get to vote alongside the music professionals.
Revealed: The true value of ‘360’ deals to labels: Revenues generated outside of CD, DVD and digital services (i.e. from music synchronisation, ‘360’ artist deals, concerts, music-related TV production, broadcasting and public performance) grew strongly for labels in 2011 to £205.3m, accounting for a fifth (20.5%) of record industry trade turnover.
Squeeze are to sell post-gig recordings of each set via a ‘pop-up shop’.
Live Nation boss to brief Liberty Media investors following rumours that shareholders Liberty would like to take complete ownership of Live Nation.
Redbox Enters Ticketing Game: Famous in the USA for its DVD rental kiosks, Redbox announces that it is entering the ticketing game, beginning in the Philadelphia market with kiosks and online sales. Regardless of the ticket price, Redbox Tickets will be sold at face value or below, with a $1 handling fee per ticket for Redbox.
ENO announces a ‘dress down’ scheme to encourage younger audiences, kicked off by Blur’s Damon Albarn, composer of ‘Doctor Dee’.
Fixed bases for National Eisteddfod under discussion: it could move between two permanent bases in addition to visiting temporary venues as part of proposals to modernise the event.
Russian National Orchestra and London Philharmon
The Royal Opera House has revealed its second worldwide cinema season, which will include three ballet and six opera screenings at over 900 sites across 32 countries across the season.
Promotion of the UK’s first City of Culture has been thrown into disarray after Derry City Council seized part-control of the company charged with running the year-long event.
Arena music venue ‘crucial’ for Bristol enterprise zone: A 12,0000-seater music venue on the Temple Meads Enterprise Zone in Bristol is possible by 2016, the council says.
Kent County Council budget cuts to sports and arts revealed: Funding for sports, music tuition and Margate’s Turner Contemporary could be cut under Kent County Council’s (KCC) planned budget, it has been revealed.
Glasgow backs Govanhill Big Noise project: Glasgow City Council has confirmed its support for a Sistema Big Noise children’s orchestra – similar to the one in Stirling’s Raploch area – is to be set up in the city.
Continuing with the charitable theme, Reading and Leeds bands are to auction off their music gear, while The Maccabees, Noah And The Whale, Richard Hawley are confirmed for the Mencap Little Noise Sessions.
TicketMaster turns tickets pink for October’s National Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Emeli Sandé to host songwriting workshop at Royal Albert Hall for children from the boroughs of Hackney and Lewisham, a month prior to her own performance at the prestigious London venue.
Half of this year’s 12 X Factor finalists were approached instead of applying for auditions, while in other news, X Factor bosses have been accused of interfering with the judging process after a producer was seen talking to Louis Walsh during last night’s elimination performances.
Simon Cowell’s ‘DJ Idol’ show is scrapped, allegedly after a fall-out between the production companies.
Top of the Pops tour is cancelled due to low ticket sales.
Disco Inferno actors ‘will not recoup earnings’ : Actors owed thousands of pounds for their work on the cancelled musical Disco Inferno are “unlikely” to see any of the money, the accountant handling liquidation of the show’s production company has admitted.
John Peel legacy lives on in Festival of New Music: Festival bearing late DJ’s name to take place in venues throught Norwich, as it is announced that Billy Bragg will give the second John Peel lecture at this year’s Radio Festival in November.
Slipknot announced as final Download festival headliner
Robbie Williams is to play London’s O2 Arena on three consecutive nights: 22-24 November.
Example cancels tour dates as a bout of achilles tendinitis has grown worse with more touring disruption internationally as George Michael pulls out of an Australian tour citing ‘major anxiety’ and Art Garfunkel cancels the rest of his tour due to lingering vocal cord problems.
Meanwhile the fallout from the Beach Boys split on tour continues with Mike Love denying that he fired Brian Wilson and other band members, stating that the reconfiguration was for logistical reasons and that the 50th Anniversary tour was only ever meant to be for a ‘limited run’.
In technology-related news, Last Dinosaurs play a ‘gig’ in The Fly Magazine thanks to augmented reality platform Aurasma.
Global Citizen Festival aims to be the ‘largest syndicated charity broadcast’ ever, and will be streamed live simultaneously on Vevo, YouTube, AOL/Huffington Post, Yahoo, VH1.com and NYTimes.com, while AXS TV Palladia, Globo Brazil and Fuse will carry the concert live on television.
Facebook now has 1 billion members
Supergrass blue plaque for Oxford venue where band began: Indie band Supergrass have unveiled a blue plaque at the Jericho Tavern in Oxford, where they were first signed.
Baroness bus crash: Band ‘well on way’ to recovery
Tilly and Jollie take part in Open Mic UK (video): Two teenagers from Witney, Oxfordshire, are taking music from their bedroom to the live stage as they compete in a national competition.
AEG withdraw Jackson insurance claim
Nicaraguan music promoter Henry Farinas guilty of money laundering
Kabul rocks to alternative music with ‘Sound Central’ (video)
And finally . . .
Deadmau5 calls Forbes Highest Paid DJs list “bullshit” and has accused Forbes of making him and his fellow superstar DJ gang look like “overpaid dicks”.
Coachella offered to go 100% vegetarian for 50% Smiths reunion, although Johnny Marr’s manager Joe Moss has denied rumours that The Smiths have agreed to reunite for next year’s Glastonbury festival.
Jack White ends gig early and orders pizza, less than an hour after he had taken to the stage.
Live Music Features:
Looking back at the birth of The Beatles: The Promoter: Promoter Sam Leach staged more than 40 Beatles gigs in 1961 and ’62. He also wanted to manage the group – but says they chose Brian Epstein over him after a mix-up with a newspaper advert for a gig in Aldershot meant only 18 people turned up. To accompany this, here is some archive Pathé newsreel footage of a 1963 Beatles gig in Manchester.
Does anyone like modern classical music? There is to be a year-long festival of contemporary music at London’s Southbank Centre, but will the public go?
Is the teen rebel a dying breed? Adolescents are increasingly turning their noses up at drugs, booze and fags, with consumption by young people the lowest at almost any time since we started measuring these things.
Theatre tickets: who can afford them? Rising ticket prices mean an evening out for two at a West End show in London is now beyond the reach of all but the affluent.
Pianist Angelo Villani: ‘It’s easy to lose sight of sharing moods and emotions’. An injury derailed the promising career of pianist Angelo Villani. Here, he explains how he fought his way back to health and why being out of the public eye has made him a better musician.
Stars lend their voices to London Requiem (video): Barbara Windsor and Matt Lucas are two of the stars who have lent their voices to a new piece of music dedicated to London.
Live Music Exchange Events:
Live Music Exchange, Cardiff
Saturday 10th November 2012
ATRiuM, University of Glamorgan, Cardiff
A conference with a difference, the Live Music Exchange gathers together leading academics with people working directly (and indirectly) with live music, to exchange ideas about how to encourage and assist a vibrant and sustainable live music ecology.
Panels on: Live music policy, skills & training and more, plus round-table discussions.
Keynote Speaker: Professor George McKay (Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Salford and AHRC Leadership Fellow, Connected Communities Programme)
Panellists include: Fiona Stewart (Green Man Festival), Simon Dancey (British Council), Huw Williams (founder Welsh Music Foundations), Arts Council Wales, John Rostron (SWN Festival), and many more.
See here for the latest programme.
Please get in touch with contact@livemusicexchange.org for further details.
Other Live Music-related Events:
Live UK Summit: Radisson Blu Portman Hotel, Portman Square, London. Tuesday 9th – Wednesday 10th October 2012.
‘Musical Chairs’ with the Musicians’ Union as part of the City Showcase 2012. 9th – 13th October 2012, London.
PoP Moves Conference: Blast from the Past: Histories and Memories in Popular Performance: University of Chichester, UK, Saturday 13th October 2012.
Why 1973? Towards an Understanding of the ‘Legendary’ Status of the Glasgow Apollo (1973-85). 16th October, 5.00 – 7.00pm, UWS Space, CCA Glasgow.
MU events at the SWN festival: Thursday 18th and Friday 19th October 2012 at St David’s Hall, Cardiff.
National Rural Touring Forum AGM and members meeting: Thursday 25th October, The Public in West Bromwich
Generator’s Music Futures Conference: Live Theatre, Broad Chair, Newcastle, Thursday 22nd November, 10am – 6pm
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