Live Music Exchange Digest – w/c 26th November 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-Related Events
This Week’s Blog Post:
Live Music 101 #4: Venue Typologies: An Overview – Emma Webster
Our research into live music has thrown up a number of venue typologies. This entry in our Live Music 101 series aims to critically evaluate what is on offer, drawing on industrial, sociological, and architectural perspectives; the post includes previously unpublished work by Simon Frith.
One from the Archives:
A Great Adventure – Robert Kronenburg
Keeping with the theme of typologies, we revisit Robert Kronenburg’s introduction to his work on venues as he contemplates the task ahead as he starts a British Academy/Leverhulme funded project to write the history of popular music performance architecture, which will build on the typology of contemporary popular music performance venues that he has already developed.
Mumford & Sons fans stung by fake Portsmouth tickets: Concertgoers were turned away from a Mumford & Sons gig in Portsmouth after being found to have fake tickets.
Court ruling raises questions over future of ticket resale websites: Rugby Football Union defeats Viagogo in the supreme court over ownership of ticketing rights, policy and pricing. The ruling could force the disclosure of the names of people using the website to sell tickets on for profit. Viagogo has, however, dismissed the court victory over as “hollow”, saying that its rugby ticket business “is now bigger and better than ever”. It has also extended its partnership with Gigwise.com, acting as the sole ticketing partner for Gigwise’s music content, for a third year.
More developments online as LiveNation.com relaunch brings social media functions and newly launched website UK Gigs Online aims to connect local artists with promoters and venues in order to streamline the ecosystem of gig promotion and ticketing.
The Guardian has also introduced an interactive live music map on its website, to encourage user participation via social media and ticketing technology provider Ticketscript has added a new Facebook authentication option to its Ticketshop service, and integrated with Apple’s Passbook – a feature on the iOS mobile operating system.
Isle Of Wight Festival survives licence review: The Isle Of Wight Festival will go ahead in 2013 after a two day licensing committee review resulted in the event’s current licence being upheld. A review was called for by local aerospace firm GKN following the problems that occurred this year when bad weather caused problems for those trying to access the festival site by car, resulting in traffic tailbacks across the island’s road system. In other IOW news, the Stone Roses have been announced as the headliners for next year’s festival.
Guildford has high hopes for new music festival: Two companies have expressed an interest in running a music festival in Surrey in 2013 after the company which ran Guilfest went into liquidation.
Acts announced for first major UK jazz festival in over 20 years: The first major UK festival of its kind in over 20 years, the Jazz FM-presented Love Supreme Jazz Festival has revealed the first acts of its line-up for the July event.
Zeitgeist Agency takes over Reading and Leeds PR: Promoters of the Reading and Leeds Festivals have announced the appointment of a new PR agency for their events from next year, in the form of The Zeitgeist Agency.
Royal Opera House seeks new boss to replace Tony Hall, who has been appointed as the new Director General of the BBC.
The BBC has also been drawn into the ongoing row about ‘button pushing’ and the use of pre-recorded mixes by top DJs in live-sets. Calvin Harris has said that he is considering legal action, claiming that a story mis-represented his views on the matter.
Newcastle Council cuts all funding to arts venues: Newcastle City Council is planning to cut all funding to arts organisations in the city with its leader warning that it is possible that councils across the country may “go bust”.
Newcastle City Hall: petition launched to protect venue: The 85-year-old venue is currently “under review” after the council announced plans to cut £90m from its budget and axe 1,300 jobs. Members of the North East Music History are calling for the city hall’s “rich musical history” to be recognised.
Get It Loud gigs silenced by cuts: Lancaster’s highly successful, award winning Get It Loud in Libraries series has had its funding cut by the county council.
Culture Secretary backs charitable giving report: Maria Miller has spoken on the launch of a new report commissioned by the DCMS to say that arts organisations fall short in their efforts to secure legacy giving. The report was produced to raise awareness of a change in tax arrangements that came into force this April: that anyone who leaves 10% of their estate to charity will be rewarded by a 10% cut in inheritance tax.
Failing UK nightclubs set for revival with £5m monthly investment: The co-founder of the fund says that the secret to getting customers back into clubs is allegedly to “provide something people are prepared to pay for, like getting one of The X Factor contestants to come and do a live act”.
Live music czar says Walk of Fame ‘will encourage visitors to visit Camden and boost our local economy’: Camden has been chosen as it is seen as the ‘world’s centre for music’; the first discs are due to appear next year.
Victorian music hall awarded £1.8m Lottery money: Performing arts centre Hoxton Hall has received a grant of around £1.8 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund for its restoration project.
Brunton in Musselburgh reopens after £3.7m revamp: The Brunton in Musselburgh has reopened its main hall after a £3.7 million upgrade to create a flexible performance space.
Liverpool venue The Masque to join MAMA Group: The Masque, a live music venue in Liverpool, is to be revamped and taken over by MAMA Group.
University Campus Suffolk’s union to close Kai Bar: The 300 capacity venue, which also hosts live gigs, is to be closed after posting continued “significant losses” since it opened two years ago.
Oceana nightclub in Kingston has licence revoked: A nightclub in south-west London where a man was stabbed to death has been shut down by police because of a “culture of criminality”.
Sadler’s Wells theatre steps up security ahead of performances by Israeli dance troupe: A UK-based campaign, Don’t Dance with Israeli Apartheid, has so far interrupted 11 of the dance troupe’s UK shows since it began touring in August.
US Visa services: UK Music and MU meeting at Embassy. A delegation headed by UK Music, which included representatives from the MU and UK music industry, together with the MP Kerry McCarthy, met recently at the U.S. Embassy to discuss opportunities to improve visa services for musicians, managers and their support staff who wish to travel to the United States.
Musicians in court battle over National Insurance: Musicians Benevolent Fund is calling for HMRC to take a more flexible approach to freelance performers
Party teams target Oxford student noise: A team set up to tackle the problem of student noise has been operating in Oxford. The city’s Party Patrol scheme, which cost £12,000, began in May and is aimed to reduce problems among the city’s student population of 32,000.
Lords leap into action on arts in the EBacc: Government shows no signs of changing its view of the arts as an add-on to Secondary education.
Olympic Opening Ceremony organiser, Danny Boyle, uses award speech to plead for arts education: Boyle urged the audience to lobby for the inclusion of arts subjects in the English Baccalaureate.
Meanwhile, The Stage has claimed that ‘performing arts teaches a lot more than how to perform‘, including discipline, determination, and self control.
Frank Barsalona, music agent who revolutionized concert business, dead at 74.
Jazz bassist Marcus Miller’s tour bus in fatal crash: Grammy-winning jazz bassist Marcus Miller and 10 members of his band have been injured and their driver killed in a tour bus crash in Switzerland.
Russian court rejects complaint over Madonna gay rights comments: Nine claimants argued Madonna’s performance in St Petersburg would adversely affect Russia’s birthrate.
Jailed Pussy Riot member moves to single cell: Maria Alyokhina made the request because of ‘tensions with other inmates’, according to Russian prison service.
A row has also erupted over the band’s legal team following an interview with the freed member. Yekaterina Samutsevich claims the original lawyers cared more about fame than clients, leading to a trade of accusations.
Glitz of Eurovision proves too costly for some in age of austerity: Portugal and Poland drop out because winning would be disaster.
MusicFest Vancouver confirms 2013 festival suspended: The ten-day August event, which features jazz, folk, classical and world music at numerous venues, has an accumulated deficit of more than $150,000. The financial troubles are attributed to insufficient ticket income, corporate and government support.
Mamma Mia! in Mandarin heralds theatre’s cultural revolution in China: A Sino-European consultancy has launched offering Western producers a “one-stop-shop” to take their shows to China.
South Korea eyes ‘Gangnam style’ tourism boost: Authorities are now planning to mark the success of the K-pop singer with a music-themed tourist attraction, in the Gangnam area.
Rolling Stones tickets remain unsold after price hike: Hundreds of tickets for the Rolling Stones 50th anniversary gigs remained unsold on Sunday night as touts were accused of pricing fans out of the market.
Bon Jovi Announce 2013 Tour Dates, Fan-Friendly Ticket Prices: Bon Jovi’s “Because We Can” tour will hit the road in February with recession-friendly prices.
Björk has laser throat surgery, says it “rocks”: Björk has had an operation to fix vocal that caused her to cancel a series of live and festival appearances in April. She says her voice is now healthier than ever, and that “surgery rocks”.
Protest Prompts Chris Brown to Cancel Guyana Show: Women’s rights groups object, citing 2009 Rihanna assault.
A$AP Rocky concert cancelled following bomb scare: New York rapper vents his anger on Twitter after Toronto show is postponed for a second time.
Coldplay announce plans for three year break during Australia gig: Chris Martin tells Brisbane audience that band won’t play any big shows for foreseeable future
Rihanna’s press fiasco aboard the 777 tour plane: Promotional trip descends into chaos, with singer locking herself in ‘panic room’ as press corps become unruly.
Paul Weller to tour forests: Third time for singer to work with Forestry Commission after headlining in 2004 and 2009.
Fiona Apple cancels shows to be with dog: Singer has posted a four page letter to her website explaining her reasons for calling off a number of shows in Brazil and Mexico so that she can spend time with her ailing dog.
Nikki Sixx memoir ‘Heroin Diaries’ inspires Broadway show: A stage show based on Nikki Sixx’s memoir underway, the Motley Crue bassist has revealed.
Stallone’s Rocky the Musical opens: A musical version of boxing movie Rocky, backed by the film’s star Sylvester Stallone, has opened in Germany.
Burgled quartet get their music back: The Brodsky Quartet, whose cars were burgled last week in Haarlem leaving them without music or anything to wear, have been told by Dutch police that their property has been recovered.
Royal Variety Performance marks 100th anniversary: The Royal Variety Performance has marked its 100th anniversary with a show in front of The Queen at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
Hawick project revives holy music from the Middle Ages: Medieval music which has not been heard for hundreds of years has been performed in the Borders.
Tribute gig to a gig: The Complete Last Waltz Recreates the Band’s Farewell Concert in San Francisco.
And finally:
Wayne Coyne invites fan who missed flight due to bomb-scare to take acid with him and Yoko Ono: The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne has accepted a fan’s request to take acid with him and Yoko Ono after he missed his flight due to the bomb-scare caused by the singer earlier this month.
Two conductors get sent home for turning up drunk: In the past week, two conductors were escorted off the premises at major institutions after arriving for rehearsal in no fit state to work.
For those about to rock, turn the amp off and go home: Chris Beanland argues that noise complaints are threatening the future of live music in the UK.
Forget piracy. The music industry’s biggest money-loser is an inability to connect with older people that used to spend money on music, and don’t anymore. Singer songwriter Mike Doughty states the case for rock venues paying more attention to older audiences.
Powered by pure passion – the music venue that runs on love alone: Tom Lamont in The Observer looks at how venues run on a shoestring budget survive.
Flagging up the night-time economy: Town and city centres after dark have long been perceived as places of contention, places to control and regulate, but more recently they are being viewed as drivers of positive change, says Martin Blackwell.
Where are all the female musicians? Most top orchestras have many more men than women in their ranks. Miranda Kiek looks at what could be done to improve the mix.
Mixing teenagers and orchestral music: Matt Carwardine-Palmer looks at First Time Live Youth and its plans to change the way orchestral concerts are perceived by young people.
Was Will Gompertz right when he said the arts had been subsidised to ‘no great effect’?: A report on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme argued that Arts Council England’s mantra of ‘great art for everyone’ was unachievable. Is that too bleak a view?
American Orchestras – Make No Little Plans: Musician and educator Stanford Thompson on the way forward for troubled orchestras in the US.
What will become of Covent Garden after Tony Hall?: Norman Lebrecht on the future of the Royal Opera House.
Deadhead – The Afterlife: Nick Paumgarten on the vast recorded legacy of the Grateful Dead, and the ironies of a group of known for ragged improvisation and perceived in a cloud of anarchy fronting what may have been the most technically sophisticated sound operation in the music business.
Getting into backstage work in the arts: Simon Lovelace, founder of technical crew training company Crew Class, offers tips for a career in backstage technical work.
Meet the Musicians Part One – Christmas Party Etiquette: Violinist Fiona Brice on the dos and don’ts of interacting with musicians at corporate Christmas parties.
Featured Artists Coalition and Music Managers’ Forum 2012 Artist and Managers Awards: The Troxy, London, Limehouse, 27th November
Association of British Orchestras – Introduction to Marketing: This course is suitable for people who are expected to ‘do’ marketing as part of their job, but haven’t received any formal training, for those who want to get into marketing and for those who are currently doing it and want a better grasp of the bigger picture.
27th November, 10am – 5.30pm. 32 Rose Street, London WC2E 9ET
Generator Music Clinic Newcastle: One-to-one sessions with music business advisors who can advise on all aspects of the industry – records, publishing, legal, marketing, live, finance, digital, and general business development.
Dance City, Temple Street, Newcastle, Thursday 29th November, 10am-5pm.
Festival Awards UK 2012 at the Roundhouse, London, on Monday 3rd December 2012. Voting now open.
UMT Academy Masterclass #005: Training for or DJs, Producers and Singers with special guest, Raj Panni (Coldcut)
Wednesday 19th December, 6 – 8pm
Loft Music Studios
4th Floor, British India House,
15 Carliol Square (Above Metro Repro)
NE1 6UF
Royal Musical Association Research Students’ Conference: Call for papers and works. Thursday 3rd to Saturday 5th January 2013, University of Southampton.
MIDEM: An international yearly event, dedicated to the opinion leaders and decision makers of the music industry.
Palais Des Festivals, Cannes, France. 26th – 29th January 2013
Rhythm Changes Jazz Research Seminar will be held on Friday 8th February, 4-6pm at the University of Salford.
The Tipping Point Masterclass Day: High profile music industry guests and associations come together to discuss music industry trends, the issues facing emerging artists and future models DIY artists should embrace to get ahead in 2013.
Tickets: £6
The Roundhouse, Chalk Farm Road, London, NW1 . 11am – 5:30pm, Saturday 16th February 2013.
The Clore Leadership Programme – Emerging Leaders Course. Sunday 17th – Friday 22nd March 2013 at Craxton Wood Hotel, Chester.
—
Feel free to forward – or to unsubscribe contact@livemusicexchange.org
Get the latest blog posts straight away from our Facebook page
Join LMExchange on Twitter to get live music news