The Secret Sisters

Those in attendance last night at The Music Box in Hollywood caught a special performance from new Beladroit/Universal Republic artist The Secret Sisters.  The performance was filmed in HD for an upcoming PBS special, T Bone Burnett presents The Secret Sisters.  The story of Laura and Lydia Rogers, who hail from Mussel Shoals Alabama and whose music is heavily influenced by American folk, country and roots music, is one that has grown rapidly in the last year. Two influential fans of the duo, T Bone Burnett and Jack White, have gotten heavily involved in the project, with the latter releasing their debut single just last month on his Third Man Records label, while in addition to acting as executive producer on the upcoming full-length, Burnett will release the album via his Universal imprint Beladroit… There were a number of familiar faces out to witness the event, which also featured special guest performances from Jakob Dylan and Elvis Costello. Making our way through the lobby we remarked to producer Josh Abraham and songstress Bonnie McKee, what an eery resemblance the remodeled Music Box had to The Haunted Mansion, before heading to the balcony where we joined Prospect Park’s Laurel Stearns and Scott Austin of Authentik Artists among others. Also on hand last night was Universal Music Publishing’s Tom Sturgis, Warner Brother Record’s Perry Watts-Russell and the sister’s own “Colonel” Tom Parker, manager Andrew Brightman, who has shepherded the project from humble beginnings to an impressive launch. One thing’s for sure, this duo won’t remain a secret much longer…

Streaming Live

Apple has announced that it will be streaming its big event tomorrow, which is being dubbed a music event, as many predict that in addition to announcing new iPod and Apple TV products, the iTunes store will be getting a major revamp that will likely include a longer song sampling time and other social features. Sorry, probably no iTunes cloud-streaming service. And .99 TV show rentals?  Looks like uncle Rupert is the swing-vote… Tune in to see.

Australia's Music Industry in Flux

While some detractors talk disparagingly about Australia as being just like Southern California but with funny accents, there is no disputing that the ties run deep across the Pacific, especially when it comes to music. Turn on JJJ radio and you are likely to hear WAVVES; open the local free entertainment weekly mag and there are full-page adverts for upcoming live dates by Silversun Pickups along with a feature on Autolux and a large interview with Best Coast - the latter can also be heard on the airwaves with local Melbourne community alternative station RRR-FM featuring Crazy for You as their “album of the week”. Even L.A. newbies Foster the People are popping up on JJJ with their single “Pumped Up Kicks”. And you could be mistaken in thinking you were in West Hollywood with the list of recent and upcoming tours including Ben Kweller & Delta Spirit, New Pornographers, Low, Jonneine Zapata, Band of Skulls, Passion Pit and Broken Social Scene.

This is not to say that there isn’t a healthy local music community here, as witnessed by the emergence of Tame Impala in 2010 and the release of excellent records by the likes of Sally Seltmann and SXSW buzz act The Middle East, but dark clouds are appearing on the horizon. The global slump in music sales is hitting hard in Australia too. Recent weeks have seen two of the country’s major independent companies, Shock Records (who handles everything from Vagrant and Epitaph to Rough Trade), and Stomp (distributor for Sub Pop and others) facing liquidation and being taken over due to crippling debts, possibly even taking some of the distributed labels and artists’ money with them. Domestic CD prices in Australia are around $24 retail (in U.S. dollars that’s about 21 bucks!!!), and when compared with cheaper direct imports from retailers like Amazon, that makes difficult conditions for the indies. More consumer dollars seem to be going towards the slew of foreign touring artists and the large major label-funded companies (Modular, Dew Process, etc), with indies willing to invest in local talent becoming scarce.

Though it is not all grim news. A bright spot is the re-emergence of New Zealand’s premiere independent Flying Nun – with original founder Roger Shepherd reclaiming the label from Warner Music, there are plans to relaunch with a choice selection of new artists (NZ act Die! Die! Die! being one of the first) and a welcome revamp and reissue of their legendary catalog of releases by The Chills, The Clean and more.  There are also a host of companies developing a hybrid of great international catalog combined with some of the best local releases. These include Remote Control, who along with achieving great success with the Beggars set of labels (including chart topping releases by the White Stripes and The xx album that is steadily heading towards gold status), also handle the marketing for a host of up-and-coming local acts such as Parades, who are also signed through their inhouse Dot Dash label. And plowing the same territory from Sydney are both Spunk, who handles a lot of the Merge catalog including Arcade Fire and Australian newcomer Bearhug, and Popfrenzy - home to Best Coast, HEALTH and The Drums as well as Antipodean acts like Songs and Surf City.

- Cool Hand Luke

Nite Jewel Record Release Show For New Album 'Am I Real?' @ Troubadour

Mon. Aug. 30th - Rachel Goodrich @ Bardot (view) (listen)

Tues. Aug. 31st – Telegram @ Spaceland  (view) (listen)

Wed. Sept. 1st – Tape Deck Mountain @ Bootleg Theater (view) (listen)

Thurs. Sept. 2nd – Nite Jewel @ Troubadour (view) (listen)

Fri. Sept. 3rd – KISSES @ Echoplex  (view) (listen)

Sat. Sept. 4th – FYF Fest @ L.A. Historic State Park  (view) (listen)

On the Weasel Short List...

While hordes of music fans and industry folks were occupying the main room of the House of Blues-Sunset last night (8/26) for the Slash Tribute Event, which was also part of this weekend’s Sunset Strip Music Festival, there was also a private industry showcase happening at the Foundation Room for Parade of Lights. The Las Vegas-based group had packed the room with industry folks including several labels. Meanwhile, we were pleasantly surprised to see returning A&R veteran/Columbia Records exec Mark Williams, who commented on the A&R presence with…”it’s just like hot-tub time machine.” Meanwhile, POL rocked through an impressive short set with new songs. The group had perked numerous label reps with their release last year, but the band went on hiatus after members were hired to join/tour with bands Hello Goodbye and 30 Seconds to Mars, while drummer Anthony Improgo continued his stint as a formal member of now defunct Metro Station. Keep your eyes on this one…

News Corp Integrates FAN with MySpace

As the clock was ticking on News Corp.’s $900 million ad-deal with Google, which was announced in August of 2006 and had MySpace as the primary revenue generator, many were wondering how the struggling social network would replace the significant loss when the deal expired this summer, and who would a new deal be with; Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Yahoo! Inc.?  The answer has come this week, with News Corp.’s decision to integrate the team and technology from its own Fox Audience Network (FAN) with MySpace. FAN, already the monetization division for MySpace, IGN and various other News Corp. digital properties, also happened to lose its president Adam Bain this week to Twitter, who has hired the executive to act as the company’s new president of global revenue. The timing of Bain’s departure and the decision to unite FAN with MySpace rather than an outside ad partner, has many wondering what that spells for the social network as it is gearing up for a major relaunch this fall. Adding further curiosity, is that only a few months ago it was reported that FAN was on the block, which further fueled persistent rumors of an impending sale of MySpace…

**UPDATE: Bloomberg reports that MySpace is extending their ad deal with Google by one month. Read full article here