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This is my last week for State of Affairs as we hand the writing duties for this column to both Priyam Chovhan and Ruby Niemann. On this week’s column though, we see a new artist on the ARIA singles chart finally, the Australian list for Europe’s answer to SXSW, The Great Escape grows, and Bigsound announces that registrations and applications are open for bands. Exciting stuff for conference loving musicians everywhere
NOT UNKNOWN ANYMORE
New Zealand-ish (as they also have American members) lo-fi pop trio Unknown Mortal Orchestra has been one of the latest of bands from our region to join The Great Escape festival over the weekend of 16th-18th May in Brighton in the UK. The festival is known as Europe's equivalent to SXSW. Other Australian acts that have been announced for the conference have been Hungary Kids Of Hungary, Caitlin Park, Lawrence Arabia, Neighbourhood Youth Sleepmakeswaves, Snakadaktal, Stonefield and Velociraptor.
OPPORTUNITIES: BIGSOUND
Moving onto conferences closer to home, the Australian musical chat-fest that is Bigsound is asking for registrations. Bigsound registrations and applications for showcases are now currently open. Last year saw more than 900 delegates attend the conference with 120 bands showcasing across 12 venues in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley. Artists are encouraged to apply here.
FRESHLY INKED: STAFFORD BROTHERS
DJ Duo the Stafford Brothers have signed a deal with Cash Money Records. The duo came to the label through a dance music joint venture with fellow record company CHM and is currently preparing a tour on the Future Music Festival. Their new single 'Hello' featuring Lil’ Wayne and Christina Aguilera was recently released through the label as well.
FRESHLY INKED: THE STEVENS
Melbourne pop four piece The Stevens are the latest signing to Chapter Records. The band who have been together for a few years, are planning a new album to be released on the label as a follow up to their self-titled EP. Originally released on CDR, the EP will be released as a 7 inch vinyl in addition to the album.
FRESHLY INKED: JAMIE CULLUM
Jamie Cullum has announced that he has signed to Island Records, coinciding with a new release of 'Love For Sale', a cover Cole Porter's original. Island will look after the release of his fifth album tone released later this year.
TROPSCORE WINNERS
Award winning composer and musician for instrumental group Coda, Jared Underwood, has won the 2013 Tropscore competition, which compliments the film festival Tropfest by celebrating scores of the short film entrants. The winning score to the short film, The Exchange was performed live at The Domain in Sydney at the opening of Tropfest on Sunday. Composers Henrique Dib and Xianzhou Lin received runner up prizes.
In a first for the Tropscore competition, a junior prize was awarded to 13-year-old Jackson Hurwood. Hurwood has performed with his band at the St Kilda Festival in Melbourne twice and won the Australian Children’s Music Foundation National Songwriting Contest last year.
APPOINTMENTS TO SOUNDS AUSTRALIA
Glen Dickie who has been associated with Stage Mothers (founders of The Aussie BBQ held at SXSW) has been recently appointed as Export Music Producer at Sounds Australia. Other movements at the organisation include Alicia Kish, formerly of Ivy League Records to take on the role of Associate Producer and Millie Millgate has been promoted to Executive Producer of Sounds Australia. All this movement comes after the appointment of Dr Ianto Ware a few weeks ago to head up the role for National Live Music Coordinator of Sounds Australia.
AMPED UP
In anticipation to the announcement of the AMP prize, the PPCA have announced that an industry lunch will not only include said announcement, but also a conversation with Daniel Glass, founder of label Glassnote Entertainment Group. The lunch is a strict invite only affair but apparently you can get tickets for $149 if you want to. Confusion reigns - figure how that all works out if you can.
STREAMING DOES NOT = BROADCAST
And while we are reporting things to do with the PPCA, they have claimed a victory for artists in Australia's Federal Court by winning a declaration that Internet simulcasts of radio programs fall outside the definition of a “broadcast” under the Copyright Act. This means that existing licences for terrestrial broadcasts do not cover commercial radio broadcasts online. Commercial broadcasters will now rightfully have to pay extra royalties for music that is streamed online.
ILUKA WINS FIRST BREAK
Sydney artist Iluka has been announced as the winner of First Break, the commercial radio industry’s Australian music initiative. She will receive airplay support for two single releases and support for touring and marketing over the next twelve months. In addition to this she'll receive joint financing by commercial radio and the Mushroom Group to build a 'long term partnership' with her over the time period (whether or not this means a recording contract or not remains to be seen).
ANNANDALE HOTEL TO STAY OPEN FOR NOW
In an update in our news from last week stating that the Annandale Hotel was in dire straits, being in perilous danger of receivership, but news has now emerged that owners of the Annandale Hotel, Matt and Dan Rule will instead step away from the venue they built as receivers were appointed today. Receivers Ferrier Hodgson have now been appointed and taken control of the venue. It is their intention to keep live music going as the ongoing issues are sorted out.
EG TO BE MADE AN EXAMPLE OF
themusic.com.au have reported that The Age's long running entertainment and music supplement, EG will be finishing up. In the very reductive Fairfax environment, this could mean more writers spending more time writing advertorial, but what we can say was actually reported is that the last edition of EG in its current format will run in next Friday’s newspaper, before its replacement appears in the 1 March issue. The supplement, which has looked very thin as of late, has been around for decades and has it's own EG awards celebrating Melbourne's music scene.
ARIA CHART WATCH
English indie outfit Foals have had a bit of success off the back of their Big Day Out tour to see their third album Holy Fire debut at #1 the ARIA Albums Chart this week. In addition to this, Bullet For My Valentine debuted at #4 with Temper Temper and Tim McGraw at #10 ten with Two Lanes Of Freedom. Tegan & Sara debuted strongly at #14 with Heartthrob.
Other debuts in the ARIA Album Chart included The Bronx’sThe Bronx IV at #37 and Russell Morris’sSharkmouth at #47.
In the ARIA Singles Chart, Pink jumps five spots into the top spot with 'Just Give Me A Reason' and steal away Macklemore & Ryan Lewis grip on the #1 spot for eleven week run. Further down, Flux Pavilion featuring Childish Gambino’s'Do Or Die' has entered at #48. Another significant movement seen on the chart is the re-entry of Gotye's mammoth hit 'Somebody That I Used To Know' off the back of his three Grammy awards, back in at #26.
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