iTunes Under Attack

If it didn’t already have MySpaceMusic after its arse, iTunes was under more attack last week. A Norway consumer plans to take Apple to court over what it calls unfair barriers to playing music on devices other than Apple’s iPod. Meantime, iTunes’ operations VP Eddy Cue warned Apple would rather close iTunes than wear the National Music Publishers Association request for 66% increase for sales of digital music from 9 cents to 15 cents a track. iTunes won’t raise its 99 cents per track nor will it pass the higher charges to consumers, he said. Last Thursday, the Washington, D.C.-based Copyright Royalty Board rejected the royalty hike.

Peppermint Blue Gets Warner Stake

We hear Warner Music International in America has taken a financial stake in Aussie record label, touring and management company Peppermint Blue. It is home to Rogue Traders, Anthony Callea, Amy Pearson, TV Rock, Seany B, Sundance Kids, Androids and Hiptones.

Lynchmada Gets The Truth

Gold Coast metal band Lynchmada (pictured) has signed with Truth Inc Records, with a release planned for next year.

Little Scout Get National Agent

Brisbane’s Little Scout (pictured) have joined Sydney-based national booking agent Select Music. They are handled by Rob G at Select Music (02) 8577 6977 and . For management queries contact Matthew Kennedy at

Stripe Radio Launches

Stripe Radio, the country’s first mobile radio subscription service, launched last week with 30 channels. For $7.95 a month, subscribers can hear everything from hip hop to Oz indies to Japanese pop to US ‘60s psychedelia. There’ll be 40 channels by Christmas. One channel only plays tracks less than a month old. Founder Glenn Wheatley intended it to be a satellite radio network. There were no proper satellites and he considered building one at a cost of millions.

Amorosi Goes Platinum

Vanessa Amorosi’s Perfect is certified platinum (sales of 70,000). Together with Sweet About Me (Gabriella Cilmi), Untouched (The Veronicas) and Black And Gold (Sam Sparro), Perfect is only the fourth Australian single to reach the milestone this year. Her album Somewhere In The Real World went gold.

Things We Hear

Steve Pavlovic, head of Modular Records, and nightclub czar Justin Hemmes are among nominees for the GQ Australia Men Of The Year Awards, along with unshaven ad man Todd Sampson, businessman Sean Ashby and ex-swimming champ Michael Klim.

AC/DC’s plans to sell their new album Black Ice in America only through the Wal-Mart chain has backfired. Other retailers are merely buying their copies from Argentina for cheaper and selling them.

Next year’s APRA awards will be held in Melbourne on Tuesday 23 June, at Peninsula at Central Pier, Docklands.

While Robbie Williams is writing songs about UFOs, a British Robbie tribute act called JK wants to bring his show to Oz.

After returning to the spotlight via Dancing With The Stars, Toni Pearen is making a comeback album.

The Abba-related movie Mamma Mia! drew 12 million people and grossed £62m in the UK since its release in July, and helped UK cinema enjoy its best summer of attendances in recent years.

ARIA Fine Arts Winners

Winners at the ARIA Fine Arts awards held in Sydney were Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu’s Gurrumul (best world music album), Melbourne pianist Andrea Keller’s Footprints (jazz), Richard Tognetti’s Bach Sonatas For Violin and Keyboard (classical) and Chris Lilley’s 4-CD set of Summer Heights High (soundtrack).

Beaudesert Workshop

Q Music, APRA and Beaudesert music association Beau Jam hold a free workshop at The Centre in Beaudesert on Sunday November 9.It runs from 10am-5pm, finishing with a musicians’ showcase of local artists. To book your space, contact or John at For further information contact Q Music on (07) 3257 0013 or John Robinson on (07)55441176

Music/Theatre Audition

CQ (Central Queensland) University is holding auditions for its Bachelor of Music (Specialisation) and Bachelor of Theatre (Specialisation) degrees in Mackay and Rockhampton. It offers substantial cross-disciplinary performance opportunities with 6 stage productions a year using new performance technologies.

The audition is held on Sunday Oct 12 between 11am to 7pm at Queensland Ballet, West End, Thomas Dixon Centre, Corner Drake & Montague Road. A free jazz workshop is held at the Brisbane Jazz Club on Monday Oct 13 between 7pm to 9.30pm. For an audition application and further information contact Kim Mackenzie on 07 4940 7801 or

Campus Duke-Out!

The Qld state final of the National Campus Band Competition is held on Thursday Oct 9 from 6 pm at Gardens Point Guild Bar (City Campus), 2 George St. Bands are Da Karpo (Southern Cross), Skara Brae (Griffith Gold Coast), Sunflower  (QUT), and The Banawalla Moons (JCU). See www.aaca.net.au  

And Before New Order…

In a book based on his diary entries, one time Joy Division and New Order manager Rob Gretton reveals that New Order were almost named the Radical Jesuits, Arab Legion, Voices Crying, Dharma Bums and Man Ray. Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures was nearly titled Convulsive Therapy, and when they went on tour with Buzzcocks, they threw eggs at them and released mice onstage. Gretton died in 1999, the book is titled 1 Top Class Manager.

Acts Sing For O’Donnell

EMI threw a bash at the Hopetoun in Sydney for former managing director John O’Donnell. Bob Evans, Tim Rogers and Paul Kelly played sets. Then to close Kelly invited Rogers, Evans and Daniel Johns on for a run through of Neil Young’s Long May You Run.

Lifelines

Marrying: Melissa Etheridge and Tammy Lynn Michaels ahead of California’s vote next month on whether to strip same-sex couples of the right to marry.

Hospitalised: E Street Band guitarist Nils Lofgren underwent replacement surgery on both his hips after years of “leaping off drum risers and trying to break stage floors with pounding legs.”

Hospitalised: The Knack’s Doug Fieger, who had surgery for brain tumors in mid-2006, is back on chemotherapy as the cancer has spread – and he accepts it could be terminal.

Released: former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker from hospital after suffering severe burns in a plane crash in Columbia.

In Court: Singer Cosima DeVito and ex-managers Ted Gardner and Con Nellis go to the NSW Supreme Court on November 10 after three years of court appointed mediation failed.

In Court:  A Jamaican judge cleared reggae muso Beenie Man of tax evasion, saying the government didn’t inform him of his legal rights.

Fined: Madonna £135,000 for late-running show at London’s Wembley. She went on late, and many fans missed the last train.

Died: Belgian avant-garde jazz-rock pianist Marc Moulin, 66, throat cancer. His 1975 album Sam Suffy was one of the first examples of sampling.

Died: Brisbane R&B singer Levi Kereama, 23, who sang in the act Lethbridge with his brothers, plunged to his death from a Brisbane hotel room in an apparent suicide. He had been suffering depression, and had just played at the Parklife festival. He appeared in the 2003 series of Australian Idol and released some singles the year after.

Austrade Seminar: Turning Japanese

Austrade continues its series of interactive masterclasses for the music industry on how to get your music into Japan. It will cover how to develop your strategy, who wields the power, how to get to them, opportunities in touring and recording, and the costs involved.  Speakers are Steve McClure, former Billboard Asia bureau chief; Shin Fukuzumi, ipublicist and A&R at indie label P-Vine Records which has released Australian acts Jeff Lang, The Fumes and Marshall & The Fro; Jon Lynch, president of magazines Juice and Club Juice; and Austrade’s Cindy Lineburg and Tomoko Ichikawa. It’s held Thursday Oct 30 for cost of $50 at the Austrade office. Register at www.australianmusicoffice.com or call Austrade on 13 28 78.

“Stone” Revived

At the relaunch of Rolling Stone, Neil Finn flew over from NZ just to sing Guiding Star on piano, the song he wrote for the CD put together by Rick Grossman for the Buttery rehab centre near Byron Bay. Also playing on the night were Powderfinger, The Living End (bonzer version of Friday On My Mind) and Ashley Mannix. Warner president Ed St John, Eleven’s president John Watson and former EMI managing director John O’Donnell spoke – as folks who had written for and/or edited the magazine in their early days.

Contact

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