RIP

Farewell to Ray Dolby,the billionaire audio engineer and the  inventor of the Dolby Noise Reduction (NR) system. he has died at the age of 80. 

Jackie Lomax, former front man with Merseybeat band The Undertakers and the first artist signed to the Beatle's Apple label, has died aged 69.

Prince Jazzbo, the Jamaican reggae singer who pioneered 'toasting' - the genre that influenced rapping and hip hop. Jazzbo hs died aged just 62 from lung cancer. He ran his own Ujama label and had a string of hits including Crab walking, Penny Reel and Croaking Lizard.

Eamonn O'Connnor, Managing Director of Ticketmaster Ireland has died aged 51 after a short illness.

Roger Pope, the drummer who played on six of Elton John's albums, worked with artists such as Hall &Oates, Al Stewart, Buddy Guy, Chris Darrow and Cliff Richard, and had his own band HookFoot, has died aged 66.

And farewell to Pat Fear (52) the American punk rock musician with White Flag, Lorne Black, the American bassist with Great White, Gia Maione Prima the jazz singer and wife of singer Louis Prima, Lindsay Cooper (62), the British rock and jazz bassoonist and oboist  with Henry Cow and Comus, Mac Curtis (74) the American rockabilly singer and Jimmy Ponder, the American jazz guitarist.

And farewell to Allan Dann, Peermusic's long standing Business Affairs & International Copyrights Manager, who had been at the company for a remarkable 44 years and who recently died. 

Artist manager, former ITB agent and founder of Brighton Rock Music Pete Fountain has died aged 61. His family have requested anyone wishing to pay tribute to Fountain make a donation to one of three charities close to his heart, either the Sussex Wildlife Trust, Free Tibet or The Badger Trust.


Charity night in tribute to Jon Brookes
Liam Gallagher, The Chemical Brothers and members of The Vaccines and New Order will all play at a charity night dedicated to late Charlatans drummer Jon Brookes at the Royal Albert Hall on 18 Oct. proceeds will go to The Brain Tumour Charity. 

Warehouse death and illnesses blamed on drugs

Police investigating the death of a man who died at a Warehouse Project night in Manchester on Friday 27th September are said to be considering the theory that a "bad batch of drugs" could be the cause. Five other clubbers were also hospitalised after taking a drug, thought to be ecstasy.

It has previously been confirmed that two deaths at the Electric Zoo festival in New York last month were drug-related. As previously reported, the third day of the EDM festival was cancelled after the deaths. The New York City medical examiner’s office confirmed that both Olivia Rotondo and Jeffrey Russ, both in their early 20s, died from overdoses of MDMA combined with hyperthermia on the second day of the event.

SFX pitched at $1.1 billion

SFX, which has been on an recent acquisition spree, mainly buying up EDM live enterprises, has filed papers confirming plans to raise up to $200 million by selling off a slice of the company via the NASDAQ stock exchange - valuing the company at $1.1 billion.  The company recently noted that drug related incidents at EDM events could have negative impact on commercial dance music enterprises, especially where brand partnerships are a key revenue stream. 

New research points to the future of radio

New research  that analyses internet radio listening in the US (including traditional radio services online, Pandora-style 'interactive radio' and Spotify-like on-demand streaming services) has given the results of a survey 3000 web users, concluding that internet radio was now the third most popular way that people discover new music (ahead of YouTube and social media), that 32% of internet radio listeners were listening to "a lot" more online radio content now than a year ago, and that 26% said that they were listening to online radio services during time when previously they wouldn't have listened to any audio at all. And it's interactive radio services like Pandora, iHeartRadio and, now, iTunes Radio, still dominate in the US market. While 53% of Americans now use some kind of internet radio service, according to the survey, 39% are using interactive radio, 27% streaming traditional radio online, and 18% accessing fully on-demand music services.

The reserach was commissioned by the Streaming Audio Task Force, which includes Pandora, Spotify and radio-station aggregator app TuneIn.

Stewart launches new bank at the Reeperbahn festival

Dave Stewart used his keynote speech 'Where is the Money' at the Reeperbahn festival and conference in Hamburg to launch plans for a new bank, to be called First Artist Bank, which will offer services designed to ensure fellow musicians "don't sign stupid deals".  Stewart said the inspiration for the bank, of which he will be co-chairman, is Farmers Bank in the US. His project partner and co-chairman of First Artist Bank is Michael Philipp, the former chairman and CEO of Credit Suisse Europe, Middle East and Africa and a former senior executive at Deutsche Bank and the new bank will "supply funding and management of digital assets and intellectual property, as well as advice". Stewart said The bank will empower artists in music, film, television and theatre adding "It's a global creative community bank."

Elsewhere Field Fisher Waterhouse lawyer Dr Philipp Plog looked at the future of music on the internet in a session called "When The Levies Break" - asking of copyright levies needed to be reformed in the age of streaming with an excellent  panel with Markus Scheufele from the German telecoms industry, (Referent Urheberrecht, BITKOM) Belgian collection society representative Cees van Rij (Media&Online Manager, SABAM) and from the German independent record labels, Reinher Karl (Justiziar, VUT, DE). Former MTV VJ and now author Steve Blame hosted an impressive panel for his 'Blame n Fame' closing session with Justin Sullivan (Artist, New Model Army), Kevin Godley (Artist / Producer) and Rembert Stiewe (Managing Director, Glitterhouse Records), a panel of Jörg Jelden (Initiator “Agenturen der Zukunft”, BathenJelden), Jeremy Tai Abbett (Creative Evangelist, Google,) and Nina Rieke (Executive Strategy Director, DDB Tribal) joined host Svenja Teichmann (CEO, Crowdmedia) to look at the future of  the agency world is changing and the communications and a very impressive panel of festival bosses with Folkert Koopmans (Managing Director, FKP Scorpio), Eric van Eerdenburg (Managing Director, Lowlands Festival), Baris Basaran (Booker, Pozitif Live), Christof Huber (General Secretary, Yourope and Open Air St Gallen) and Michal Kascak (Managing Director, Pohoda Festival) joined moderator Greg Parmley to look back at the 2013 festival season with particular interest in Basaran's comments that although riots and civil disorder had meant many shows and festivals had to be cancelled in Turkey this summer, a number of artists and agents had paid back 100% of their fees to local promoters.

Musical highlights included new British singer/songwriter Lewis Watson, Birth of Joy from the Netherlands, a Polish showcase featuring OCN, Rebeka, Uniqplan and Iza Lach, a Latvian/Lithuanian showcase with Colours of Bubbles, Alise Joste, GJan and Instrumenti, showcases from 65daysofstatic (UK) The Staves (UK), James Vincent McMorrow (Eire), Funeral Suits (Eire), Black Lizard (Finland) and a private show from platinum album seller James Blunt.

http://www.reeperbahnfestival.com/en/campus/news/

Hard Rock won't Call back

Hard Rock International has confirmed that Hard Rock Calling, won't take place in 2014. Held since  2006 the show was promoted as an alliance between the retro-rock café and Live Nation, and was originally based in Hyde Park, but moved this summer to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Following Hard Rock's announcement, Live Nation issued a statement confirming that it is now seeking a new partner for its 'Calling' festival brand. In a Facebook post the live giant wrote: "Live Nation Entertainment notes today's announcement by Hard Rock International, regarding their decision not to sponsor a rock music event in London in 2014. Following record ticket-demand and audience numbers at festivals this year, Live Nation is exploring new sponsorship partnerships for its highly successful 'Calling' franchise".

Juggalos jiggled by unpaid bills

Insane Clown Posse's annual Gathering Of The Juggalos festival is reportedly struggling financially. According to The Southern, a number of creditors are complaining that they have not been paid in relation to services provided for this year's edition of the festival, while others who have received cheques say that they've bounced. Debts are thought to reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Following reports, the duo's label, Psychopathic Records, issued a statement to The Associated Press saying: "Putting on a five day music festival this ambitious is a very time consuming and expensive process. Unfortunately, in our attempt to provide the best possible event for our fans, expenses exceeded estimates and expectations, which we had not previously planned for. The company putting on the event, Juggalo Gathering Inc, has no intention of turning its back on these financial obligations and is in the process of preparing a plan to take care of all vendors. We thank all of our vendors for their understanding". 

Eurovision hopes rule change will stem vote rigging

Organisers of the Eurovision Song Contest have announced a change to rules to make judging panels more transparent and try and stem the obvious vote rigging between 'blocks'. Under the new rules, the names of the members of each jury in the voting countries will be announced on 1 May and the scoring of each jury member will be made public after the Eurovision final. Eurovision's Executive Supervisor Jon Ola Sand said: "Tighter rules and increased openness are important for the Eurovision Song Contest to build on its success. To make sure participants, viewers and fans know that we have done and will always do our utmost to secure a fair result. These changes show that the Eurovision Song Contest is an ever evolving tradition, which continues to adapt to the spirit of time". The next Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Denmark on 6, 8 and 10 May next year.

Owzat! Couple settle cricket touting claim

A Marlow based pilot and his wife have settled a potential civil court case action with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) for 'industrial scale' touting. Nick Hubscher and his wife Judith were accused of using multiple false names and addresses to buy and 'unlawfully traffic' 800 tickets to England's cricket test matches against Australia at the Oval, Old Trafford and Chester-le-Street in Country Durham. The ECB brought a £50,000 claim after an investigation by the Durham Country Cricket Club and the couple offered no defence, settling for an undisclosed sum. 

Ringmaster Festival cancelled

The team at Worcestershire's Ringmaster Festival have belatedly cancelled their inaugural event, blaming "financial implications". In a statement issued just ten days before the 27-28 September scheduled show, which would have featured Maximo Park, Swim Deep, Hadouken! and the Mystery Jets, organisers say "as the festival entered the final stages it found itself in a financial position and as a result was no longer able to guarantee the appropriate monies owed to the bands and other parties at this stage. It is after careful consideration that Ringmaster has decided to unfortunately cancel this year's event" adding "Ringmaster would like to thank everyone that has supported, been involved with and help spread the name over the past few months and would like to offer everyone their sincere apologies, in what has become a horrendous and saddening situation". http://www.ringmasterfestival.co.uk/

Pandora looks to raise new funding

VentureBeat reports that Pandora Media, the music streaming service, has decided to sell 10 million shares of its common stock which is expected to bring in $230.8 million (assuming a share price of $23.99). The stock sale will also include 4 million shares from CrossCapital Inc., the largest stakeholder in Pandora.  The company recently announced the appointment of Brian McAndrews to the role of President and CEO.

Cher says "nyet" to Sochi

Cher has said that she has refused the opportunity to perform at the upcoming Winter Olympics, due to host nation Russia's controversial anti-gay laws. The country's 'gay propaganda' laws make it illegal to 'promote' homosexuality to minors. Madonna and Lady Gaga are both accused of having contravened the laws when performing in Russia last year. It has also been said by one of the key writers and proponents of the law, Vitaly Milonov, that gay athletes and attendees of the Winter Games could face arrest if they are open about their sexuality.  The 22nd Winter Olympics, are scheduled to take place 7th to 23rd February 2014, in Sochi, with some events held in the resort town of Krasnaya Polyana.

The Revolving Door

PledgeMusic has announced John Lenac as Head Of Business Development. He joins from TechIt Media Group, where he was CEO, having previously held various music industry positions over two decades.

Kobalt Label Services has announced the appointment of Vincent Clery-Melin as MD of AWAL, the distribution and marketing services firm Kobalt acquired in 2011.  Kobalt Music Group has announced the appointment ppointment of Sue Drew to the LA-based role of GM of Creative & Acquisitions for the US.

Mike Weatherley, the MP for Hove, and organiser of the annual 'Rock The House' music competition has been appointed as the Prime Minister's adviser on intellectual property, with a particular focus on "enforcement issues relating to the creative industries". Mike comes from a strong professional background in Intellectual Property for both music and film. Before his election to Parliament in 2010, Mike was the Vice President (Europe) for the Motion Picture Licensing Company and previously worked for music industry producer Pete Waterman.

Secondary ticketing company Seatwave has a new boss, with former Shazam Chairman Ajay Chowdhury becoming CEO. He replaces the company's founder Joe Cohen in the top job. Cohen had previously announced that he was taking a non-executive role at the firm at the start of the year

Pandora has announced the appointment of Brian McAndrews, a former Microsoft exec, to the role of President and CEO, replacing Joe Kennedy, who announced he was stepping down in March.

Kylie Minogue will be one of the new judges on the BBC's 'The Voice'. her sister Danii was a previous X-Factor judge on ITV and she tweeted  “Big love and congratulations to my sister. #TheVoice coach Minogue style in action soon!” But there's more ..,,,  'The Voice UK' presenters Reggie Yates and Holly Willoughby have announced they are following the lead of judges /Jessie J and Danny O'Donoghue and leaving the show. They will be replaced by 'Big Brother' presenter Emma Willis and Former JLS star Marvin Humes.

DJ Tim Westwood who has now left the BBC, has revealed that he is heading to Choice FM, having been given a gig by Global Radio chief Richard Park, the first man to hire the hip hop DJ.

With Columbus Nova Technology Partners becoming a "significant shareholder" in Rhapsody, CNTP's Jason Epstein and Andrew Intrater join the Rhapsody board as part of the finance vehicle's investment. Incumbent CEO Jon Irwin is stepping down, but will continue to advise the company, and CFO Adi Dehejia is out too along with 30 other staff members at the digital music platform.

Semetric has announced a number of new hires all involved in selling and further developing the firm's artist analytics platform Musicmetric Pro. Amongst the hires are former EMI and Clear Channel exec Emily Tabak as Director Of Marketing and former West One Music Group exec Rachel Menzies as Director Of Sales, while on the development side Andrew Sommerville becomes Director Of Data Science, Raymond Ottrun becomes Software Engineer and Andy Sykes becomes System Operations Manager.

The Radio Academy has confirmed the appointment of a new CEO, Paul Robinson, who worked at various local radio stations at the start of his career before taking management roles at what was then Talk Radio and the BBC. 

Morrissey book shelved

Morrissey's much vaunted autobiography will not be in bookshops next week - it seems the truculent singer as pulled out of a deal with Penguin Books due to a 'content disagreement'.  No preview copies were printed, no ISBN number had been allocated - and no comment was made by either side

UK to support global music sales push

The UK Government is going to make grants available for Indie record labels  to boost sales over seas. Millions of pounds of funding will be available to push British success - in 2012 the UK had 13.3% of the global music market.  

Early Beatles Recordings Released

Previously unreleased recordings and studio banter from the Beatles are being released. The recordings, mad by the BBC in 1963 and 1964 include 37 performances and 23 recordings of conversations between the Fab Four. The new album is called On Air - Live at The BBC Volume 2. 

And in the UK vinyl sales have more than doubled according to Amazon. The Online retailer highlighted vinyl releases such as Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, Adele's 21, David Bowie's new album The Next Day and Back to Black from Amy Winehouse as key drivers. Independent record stores have reported a similar 44% rise in vinyl sales which now total 12 million units annually.

Warners and Clear Channel agree new radio royalties deal

Warner Music and Clear Channel yesterday announced a new alliance which sees the mini-major agree to a deal with the US radio giant similar to that previously entered into with some key independents, whereby the media firm will pay royalties for music used on its AM and FM services in return for better royalty rates on its rapidly expanding digital platform iHeartRadio.

The Revolving Door

HMV has appointed a new marketing boss in the form of Patrizia Leighton, who previously worked for the Warner Home Entertainment Group and at the Virgin Megastores.

Syco Entertainment's Head Of Digital Theo Luke is moving to Twitter, where he will lead the social network's strategic advertising programme Amplify in the UK and EMEA.

Vevo has announced Jonathan Carson as its new Chief Revenue Officer. Based in New York, he will report directly to CEO Rio Caraeff. In this role, Carson will oversee all advertising sales and sponsorships.

Universal Music's international division has appointed Andrew Daw as its new Senior Vice President of Universal Strategic Marketing, which will see him manage the major's non-classical catalogue and audiovisual releases and catalogue licensing globally.

Simon Presswell has been appointed MD of Tickermaster's UK business.

Veteran manager Simon Napier-Bell and Dutch music entrepreneur Bjorn de Water have formed a new consultancy service called Snap-B Music.

BMI, the US collection society for the  music publishing sector has announced that its SVP Of Repertoire And Licensing, Michael O'Neill, will become the next CEO.

Bauer Media last week announced several appointments across its network of UK local radio stations. The main development is the renaming of Programme Controllers at local stations to Content Controller. Some Programme Controllers - Euan McMorrow (Radio Aire), John Harding (Viking FM), Chris Rick (Rock FM) and Keith Clarkson (Radio Borders) - will simply take on the new job title, while other people have been promoted into the role. That includes James Lett at Hallam FM in Sheffield, Nathan Thomson at Radio City in Liverpool, Mike Richardson at West FM in Ayrshire, Davey Walker at Clyde1 in Glasgow, and Mark Cliffe at Metro and TFM in the North East.

RIP

Grammy-winning singer songwriter JJ Cale has died, aged 74, in a hospital in the La Jolla neighbourhood of San Diego after suffering a heart attack. His songs included Cocaine and After Midnight covered by Eric Clapton and Lynryd Skyndryd's Call Me The Breeze.

Charlatans drummer Jon Brookes has died. He was just 44. Brookes suffered a seizure on stage during a US tour in 2010, and was later diagnosed with a brain tumour. He made his live return at the final date of the band's UK tour the following month, but had been receiving ongoing treatment.

Sid Bernstein, perhaps best known as the promoter who put on The Beatles' legendary Shea Stadium show, died yesterday. He was 95. As well as The Beatles, Bernstein promoted many other artists, including Abba, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Duke Ellington, Bobby Darrin and Judy Garland, as well as managing The Rascals.

Veteran British radio DJ David Jacobs had died aged 87. Jacobs, the original host of classic music TV programme 'Jukebox Jury' in the 1960s and an original 'Top Of The Pops' presenter, only stepped down from his weekly Radio 2 show 'The David Jacobs Collection' last month because of ill-health. He will be much missed.

Fritz Rau, the legendary German music promoter, recognised as one of the founding fathers of the European live music business, and who worked with the likes of Miles Davis, Eric Clapton, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix, has died aged 83.

Judge urges Pod and FRD to settle Electric Picnic case

In Ireland, Mr Justice Peter Kelly has adjourned a case between Pod Music Ltd, the company run by John Reynolds, funder of the 35,000 Electric Picnic, and Festival Republic Dublin, urging both sides to resolve their differences out of court. Reynolds had claimed that he was being excluded from key decisions and "unexplained payments" now that FDR own 71% of the organising company.