The biggest music event of the week was not that Coldplay downplay, but rather the release of Grand Theft Auto IV.
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Further evidence that the record industry is in need of a radical pick-me-up came when the Recording Industry Association of America released its stats for 2007.

The good news: digital formats now account for nearly a quarter of all US music sales, with a headline figure of 809.9 million paid-for song downloads, a whopping 38 per cent increase on 2006.

The bad news: CD sales continue to slip and slide, down 17.5 per cent on 2006’s figures.

The really bad news: while sales volumes may be up, revenue is down 11.8 per cent on the previous year. That means less money in the pot, less money to invest in new bands and less money to pay the wages.

Judging by recent business deals, music and media companies see plenty of potential in music blogs.
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New additions to the Soundtrack ‘08 (just a pity the sponsors 86′d the idea of calling it Story, Bud) festival in Dublin’s POD complex include De La Soul (Tripod, May 31 - see video below), Noah & The Whale (Crawdaddy, May 26) and The Ruby Suns (Crawdaddy, May 30)

Per Billboard magazine, Jack Johnson is the greenest pop star on the planet thanks to such measures as insulating his new solar-powered recording studio with used denim.

Are the reunited Yazoo really worth €67.50? That’s the price to see them at Dublin’s Olympia on June 2.

First update, Hercules & Love Affair. Thanks to Catherine for pointing me towards the official explanation as to why the price of tickets for this show were slashed by 30 per cent:

We are delighted to confirm that Hercules & Love Affair have confirmed an Irish date this summer at The Academy Dublin on June 1st as part of Heineken Music. MCD welcome Heineken involvement, a leader in sponsorship of Live Music events they have confirmed that their involvement will result in the ticket price for Hercules & Love Affair to be reduced to 30.00 euro including booking fee

Heineken Music? They’re the ones sponsoring the Nick Cave gig, aren’t they? The gig with the hefty €49.50 tickets for a sponsored event. Obviously, their “involvment” didn’t lead to cheaper tickets there. And there are still tickets on sale. Hey, maybe they’ll slash the price of tickets for that one too!

Second update, Tom Waits. Thanks to Jackie for pointing me towards this news story. Love the line about “Hot Press have learned”. Yeah, they read this blog. Only took them a week to get the story up there, though. Still, better than their yarn about how having The Kooks on the cover led to the band having a smash album. Shame that both The Ticket and Day & Night had the band on the cover a fortnight before that. Wonder why the “EMI source” forgot about those covers, eh?

When it comes to interviews, most musicians don’t have a lot to say for themselves. There are exceptions, but they are exceptions for a reason. These are the musicians who have been through the mill, musicians who have genuinely fascinating points to make, musicians who actually enjoy answering questions which have nothing to do with what their producer or engineer did in the studio.

When faced with a tape recorder, however, most musicians, even those with fantastic albums to talk about, let the cliches roll. New bands are the worst offenders. They have absolutely nothing of interest to say because, in most cases, they have done absolutely nothing of interest. They’ve made a CD. Anyone can make a CD. Hell, I could make a CD. Actually, hang on, apparently I’ve made a few CDs.

The real stories are the ones behind the music, which is why the most interesting interviewees are the tone-deaf, sneaky, conniving, slippery people who pull the strings. Give me an hour’s face-to-face with Malcolm McLaren or Walter Yetnikoff any day over the boys in any band. Both chaps may have egos the size of the Grand Canyon and a tendency to be grouchy and unpredictable, but both always have great stories to tell when they get warmed up.

Back in 2004, Yetnikoff was in Dublin plugging his amazing book “Howing At The Moon” and I interviewed him for the paper. Full interview follows for those who’ve asked about it.
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Three of the four major music labels, Universal Music, Sony-BMG and Warner Music, have jumped into bed with MySpace to turn MySpace Music into “an one-stop source for all music, in all its various digital incarnations”. The odd ones out, EMI, will “probably” sign up shortly, meaning all four catalogues will be available via the new service.

Per the New York Times:

Visitors to the site will be able to listen to free streaming music, paid for with advertising, and share customized playlists with their friends. They will also be able to download tracks to play on their mobile devices, putting the new site in competition with similar services like Apple, Amazon and eMusic.

Questions: so what does this deal mean for acts who currently use MySpace but who are not signed to any of the Big Four labels? Will they be able to make use of this “one-stop source” or are MySpace and MySpace Music to be two seperate entities? Are MySpace’s terms and conditions of use going to become more major label-friendly?

You don’t get to be the biggest beasts in the jungle by doing stupid deals. U2’s deal with Live Nation is further proof of just why the band continue to be the smartest operators in the business. Lets be straight here, this isn’t about the music - U2 have not released an album which was remotely groundbreaking in years - it’s about the business and no-one can touch them in this regard. From taking a percentage of their record label in lieu of unpaid royalties to a timely hook-up with Apple, U2 have always been bright boys when it comes to the business of being in a band.
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To most readers, Bebo is a social networking site hugely popular among Irish teens and school-goers.

To musician and activist Billy Bragg, however, Bebo is a company who’ve become successful by using the creative blood, sweat and tears of musicians such as him to attract new members and advertisers.
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It has been a bonanza week for music business legal eagles in the US.

First came the news that Smashing Pumpkins are taking former label Virgin to court.

The reason for Billy Corgan and co’s breach-of- contract suit? A claim that Virgin has endangered the band’s reputation by involving them in sales promotions with Amazon and Pepsi.

Corgan described it as “a frustrating situation” for the band “to be treated so poorly by a label where we had so much success”.

The other music business plaintiffs this week are US performing rights body ASCAP, who have sent in the heavies to tackle 29 clubs and venues who are playing music in public without a licence.

The body claims “it reached out to the owners of the establishments repeatedly over a significant period of time before taking legal action”.

Rock Camp may be just the ticket for kids seeking to emulate such teen acts as Tiny Masters 0f Today.

At Rock Camp, 11- to 18- year-olds learn about songwriting, recording and performance, as well as how to promote and sell their music, all with the help of experienced instructors.

Camp attendees also have the opportunity to form a band to perform a gig at the end-of-camp concerts.

Rock Camp will be taking place in three different locations around Dublin from late June to early August.

More information and full details on how to apply here.

Per the Boston Herald, the band’s tour-bus caught fire in front of their hotel in the city on Friday night. No-one was injured in the blaze.

According to a fire report, a generator located within the bus’ ventilation/air-conditioning unit caught fire and spread throughout the bus, damaging the unit and burning the interior. The fire was put out about 5:00 a.m. Damages are estimated to be $50,000.

And, as if that wasn’t enough run-ins for Irish rock with fire engines, there was a fire at The Village venue in Dublin on Saturday night, leading to the evacuation of 800 people from the building.

Mary Carolan caught this one. The big boys in the Irish record business - EMI Music, Warner Music, Universal Music and Sony-BMG - are gunning for Eircom and it’s a battle about to feature in a Commercial Court room near you. The case is the first in Ireland taken by labels aimed at internet service providers, rather than individual downloaders.

The companies want orders - under the Copyright and Related Rights Acts 2000 - restraining Eircom from infringing copyright in the sound recordings owned by, or exclusively licensed to them, by making available (through Eircom’s internet service facilities) copies of those recordings to the public without the companies’ consent.

The record companies are also challenging Eircom’s refusal to use filtering technology or other measures to voluntary block, or filter, material from its network that is being used to download music in violation of the companies’ copyright and/or licensing rights.

Eircom’s retort?

Eircom’s lawyers said the company was not on notice of specific illegal activity that infringed the rights of the companies and had no legal obligation to monitor traffic on its network.

Interestingly, this case is being taken by the four labels rather than the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA), the lobby group for Irish record labels.

Any legal eagles who want to break this one down for us?

UPDATES Here are the links to further analysis of this move by Daithí and Jason.

Most of the reaction to date about next week’s Irish launch of the much vaunted iPhone has focused on the handset price and the hefty tariffs that 02 plans to charge for it.
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They’re going to rock this town, rock it inside out. The Stray Cats play Dublin’s Vicar Street on September 14 as part of their farewell tour. Plenty of time between now and then to get your quiff in order.

Bands seeking cash should check out Music Network’s Performance and Touring funds. Closing date for applications is June 9

MTVs Spanking New Music Tour comes to Dublin’s Academy in May with shows from The Zutons, One Night Only and The Script on May 6 and CSS, The Futureheads and MGMT on May 7.

There is no such thing as a quiet week for those keeping tabs on how the record industry is coping with the ups and downs of digital music.
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Una has a link to a new Eyebrowy video plugging this dodgy competition.

In case anyone has forgotten, here’s the post where we went through the competition, step by step, and pointed out a couple of very iffy aspects to the whole thing.

There has been a huge response to this post, although most of the comments have come via email rather than the blog. Obviously, some people are reluctant to publicly criticise an event which stars such luminaries as Universal Music, Hot Press and Phantom FM. We, though, have no such scruples.

Kudos to the Meteor Ireland Music Awards organisers for deciding to honour music promoter Jim Aiken at tonight’s event, with a posthumous Industry Award.

Aiken was the former schoolteacher who put this country on the international touring map, bringing in such acts as Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and Garth Brooks.

One of most experienced and respected promoter in Europe, Aiken died in February 2007 after a short illness.

His family will presented with the award at the show at Dublin’s RDS tonight.

Lets forget about the press release for a moment and take a closer look at Vodafone’s new Bright New Sounds yoke.
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Bet you didn’t know that there’s a new Lenny Kravitz album in the shops. No, I didn’t know either until I walked into HMV the other day. It’s called “It Is Time For A Love Revolution”. Nice pic of Lenny on the cover. Lenny once sat beside me on a bench in Central Park. True story.

Question - do people still buy Lenny Kravitz albums? I mean, if you have one Lenny album already and you have the hits, do you really need another one? Apparently, he has sold over 20 million albums worldwide. That’s a lot of Lenny.

A couple of weeks ago, I was discussing with someone why the new Paddy Casey album had under-performed. Their take on things was interesting. Why would you bother with a new Paddy Casey album, they figured, when you already had one lying around the house? After all, there was very little change in sound or tempo between the last one and the new one. There were certainly fewer radio-friendly hits on the album and radio is still a must if you want to flog albums in this country.

But, most of all, there was no buzz about the damn thing. Paddy hadn’t become the all-conquering hero who had broken America or Europe or even the Isle of Man. He was still the dude who had shifted thousands of albums in his own land. When your own audience says “whatever” and moves onto Tom Baxter, things are fairly bad.

Every major record label has its Lennys and Paddys. They’re the ones who sold copious volumes of albums in the past and who will continue to sell Greatest Hits collections in the future until the cows come home. But the new albums, the ones which the artist has spent a year or more slaving over? They’ll appear, they’ll get a bit of a push and they’ll quietly go back into the warehouse. They’ll sell to the die-hards and that will be that. Maybe there will be a surprise hit, but most times, the radio DJ will reach for one of the boom tunes of old when they want a bit of Lenny or Paddy on their playlist.

But that will not stop Lenny and Paddy. They will keep on keeping on. As long as there are record stores or download outlets, there will be new Lenny and Paddy records. For years to come, Lenny and Paddy will stlll be with us, chugging along. They’re the real winners from the major label poker game because they’ve already got the hits to sustain them into old age under their oxters, hits they managed to achieve with thanks to major label muscle.