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Music

The deal that got away

What was your worst financial decision?
It wasn’t really a decision so much as a deal I couldn’t do. It was about 1978 and I asked my bank manager for a £4,000 loan to sign the publishing rights for the songs of an unknown group called U2. He looked at me as if I were joking and turned me down. The rights to U2’s songs must be worth trillions now.

Umm, yes…..

No, this is good, read it

Elton John on the keyboard geniuses who blew his mind: ‘With Zoot, you were in for a party’

It’s much better than that headline makes it sound. Worth reading properly and dipping into the linked samples they have. More than anything it’s about being a musician and realising that others may or may not be better but they’re different and you cannot do that.

As we all know I’m not too hot on The G and as we might not know Elton’s never really struck me. But this is *good*.

My word, what can The Guardian mean here?

The Australian punk band has been praised by Billy Corgan and Karen O for their explosive live act and uncompromising politics.

Uncompromising politics, eh?

Social commentary is never far from Taylor’s lyrics, which could just as easily contain brutal ragers about life under oppressive systems (Capital)

“They also champion safe spaces and advocate for Palestine at every performance

no classism and racism

“The security guard might live on a farm in Kentucky and shoot animals and eat them – he might not know about, like, identity politics,” she says. “I don’t want them to feel ashamed. I want to use our opportunity to say, ‘Hey, this is something we care about. Maybe it’s something that you could start looking into.’”

Same o, same o then.

Yes, yes, we know

Walk on the Wild Side, Grandad, Tuba Smarties, Herbie Flowers played on the first and wrote the other two.

I’ve always liked this:

But as long as there are ambitious tuba players – and brass bands – they’ll be playing this for centuries:

Vale

This is one of those things that has always confused me

I knew that Bobby Gillespie had been a drummer for Jesus and Mary Chain:

Naturally, the Mary Chain would have a standing drummer (a position that rotated so much – including a stint by Bobby Gillespie – this joint memoir should come with an “other guys” spreadsheet).

And it’s a nice little trick that the drummer here is standing:

And I like the song, the album etc. But the confusion. Drummers are supposed to have a sense of beat, of timing. But by the way he dances Gillespie doesn’t have that. Which is just so terribly confusing to me….

Just one of those things

Liam Gallagher has hit back at claims that Oasis are set to reunite because they are “broke” following his brother Noel’s £20 million divorce last year.

The band’s former lead vocalist took to X, formerly Twitter, to tell users that “your attitude stinks” after they posted that the brothers would only be reforming the band because they needed money.

He responded after one user posted: “It’s better off left it the 90s … they must be skint.” Another was told the same after claiming that “cash is drying up”.

I spent the 90s pretty much unplugged from British culture – and music. First Russia, then the US. So I missed all that excitement.

I’ve heard some of the music at least since. Some of it I’d even voluntarily listen to. Not a lot, but some.

Still, if the brothers can cash in 25 years later – and it will obvs be cash in as their audience is now itself 25 years richer – good luck to ’em.

Ooooh, the decline of Britain

They toured the UK in 1962 and returned in 1968. During this visit they were filmed for the BBC and had a two-week residency at the Batley Variety Club in West Yorkshire.

“They” is Louis Armstrong and his All Stars.

You’d not even manage to get Acker Bilk’s coffin to visit Batley these days…..

And this is rather sterling work, no?

The church played a fundamental part in family life. At the age of five, she joined the junior choir. She began to enter — and win — talent contests at a local masonic temple from the age of nine, having learnt songs from listening to records at a local “jukebox joint” where youngsters would congregate on Saturday afternoons. She saved all the money from her talent show prizes and put it towards the house that she was able to buy for her parents when she was 17.

It’s basic politics, innit?

US authorities have launched a legal effort to break up Ticketmaster after botched ticket sales for artists including Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen fuelled accusations of anti-competitive behaviour.

The US Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation accusing the group of illegally inflating ticket prices at the expense of both artists and fans.

It’s possible, of course it’s possible. So is another explanation possible. Lots of people want to see the shows, more than there are shows to see. Supply isn’t matching demand.

The way to check this. What are the margins like at Tickemaster? What are they like at other ticketing agencies? What are they like for the venues and tha artists?

Who’s making out like a bandit? That’s the person earning from the monopoly…..Oh, Hello Ms Swift, how delightful to hear from you……

Imagine this, no, really

In the 1950s and 60s, his songs stunned and delighted listeners with their irreverence, wit and nihilism. Then he gave it all up to teach mathematics. Lehrer is still alive at 96 – so I went in search of answers

by Francis Beckett

He’s packaging the songs up into a musical and so on and on. Lots about Lehrer.

Except, well, manages to miss that he wrote for Sesame St too – some of their more famous songs too……

Dickie Betts

Dickey Betts, Allman Brothers Band co-founder and guitarist, dies aged 80
Rock & Roll Hall of Famer who wrote the band’s biggest hit, Ramblin’ Man, dies at home in Florida ‘surrounded by his whole family

Yep, it’s hackneyed now after so much play. But in their day they really were a cracking band:

Equalidee

There are more billionaires than ever before. The world has 2,781 people with fortunes exceeding $1bn (£800m), an increase of 141 on 2023, according to Forbes’ annual ranking of the world’s richest people – with Taylor Swift among those making the list.

The billionaires are also collectively worth more than ever, with combined assets estimated at $14.2tn – a $2tn increase on 2023 and more than the GDP of every country except the US and China.

Cool. So a 100% tax on anyone playing – or listening to – Ms Swift’s music is now justified, right? Because equalidee?

Whut?

The founder of troubled music rights firm Hipgnosis has fallen short of music industry standards when advising the London-listed fund, an external report has found.

Short of music industry standa……that pack of thievery, rip off and gangland excess?

Snigger

Bath Moles is closing because right now, in 2023, it simply isn’t possible to present original live music in a 220-capacity venue without losing money.

He’s right, and he’s also right that by ignoring what’s going on at the grassroots level the music industry is letting those roots rot. Without venues like Moles (and similar venues, such as Glasgow’s King Tuts and recently closed 13th Note) the British arena-fillers of recent years would never have become famous. No Moles no Radiohead, no Oasis, no Massive Attack, no Ed Sheeran, no Blur.

True, they all played the place. But that’s rather different from saying they’d not have existed if they’d not played that place. For a very large number of bands which have existed have not played that place. Like, say, Tears for Fears who played The Bell around the corner….

Bit of a whinge, this

And now, to make matters far worse, starting in 2024 Spotify will stop paying anything at all for roughly two-thirds of tracks on the platform. That is any track receiving fewer than 1,000 streams over the period of a year. Tracks falling under this arbitrary minimum will continue to accrue royalties – but those royalties will now be redirected upwards, often to bigger artists, rather than to their own rights holders.

OK, but 1,000 streams what are we talking about here?

What it won’t tell either artists or users in Spotify Wrapped is how much money was paid for all that streaming time. Short answer: not enough. If you want to do the maths, the maximum one can possibly earn in Spotify royalties is $0.003 a stream. It doesn’t add up to a living wage for most artists.

Three cents? Seems, umm, entirely reasonable to me actually. You?

Who wants a company – anyone in fact – to be chasing millions of under 3 cents amounts each reporting period? Note that Spotify doesn;t then keep that – it just pays it out to other people instead.

Err, yes?

Over half of employees, including white men, downplay parts of their identity to fit in better at work

Well now, Mick Jagger didn’t eat a mars bar with Marianne at work now, did he, on stage?

Lizzo? That Lizzo?

Lizzo has been sued by three former dancers who accused the Grammy winner of sexual harassment and allege the singer and her production company created a hostile work environment.

The civil lawsuit filed on Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court claims Lizzo pressured the dancers to engage with nude performers at a club in Amsterdam and shamed one of them for her weight gain before firing her.

Weight gain? Dear Lord…..

Oh, wonderful

To her credit, she never lost a sense of humour in her distress. When protesters hired a steamroller to crush piles of her albums outside her record company HQ in New York, she donned a wig and sunglasses and joined them, even giving an interview to a news crew in which she claimed to have come from Saratoga to add her patriotic voice to the protest.

Yes, that’s great. Sinead O’Connor.

Eh?

Welsh rapper dropped from festival for singing in English
Bilingual artist says he refused to change his set for the cultural event, which celebrates the Welsh language

I thought the point of rap was that it wasn’t singing?