Label:Life

EMI wishes to clarify the nature of the false allegations made against EMI in connection with EMI’s suit against Avatar Records for non-payment of amounts due. Neither Avatar nor any other person has alleged that EMI has misstated its revenues from sales and in fact EMI has never misreported its sales in its accounts or elsewhere.

The allegations relate only to the behavior of certain independent marketing consultants in respect of the manipulation of the US chart position of a limited set of recordings, as determined by the Nielsen SoundScan. EMI categorically denies these allegations. www.mi2n.com

The Meteors are Pete Simensky and John Howarth. Both accomplished musicians with a pedigree that goes back to the 60’s.

The Meteors [Not to be confused with the Psychobilly band of the same name -ED] was formed in 1963 and supported the Rolling Stones and many other name bands until the late sixties. Disillusioned with the lack of success the band split and Pete joined the Manchester Playboys and toured Germany with Graham Sclater – now MD of Tabitha Music – his current music publisher, where they achieved a number of chart successes.

In 2001, Pete and John decided to work together again and revive the Meteors. This resulted in a number of gigs and recording sessions where they recorded some of their new material.

Within a few months they signed to Tabitha Music and their first batch of songs were recorded in a series of live “unplugged sessions” around Manchester.

The result is their first album for a long time “Up close and personal,” a selection of those unplugged sessions. The first release is the three-track CD single, TAB CDS 111, comprising of “It may be love, Nothing at all” and “A thousand times.” tabithamusic.com

Solar Flare Records and Martingale Records announce the license agreement of Pilot Radio’s acclaimed cd ‘ANTIQUES’ for release in France.The agreement was inked March 14th.

Martingale Records founder Jean-Philippe BEraud has scheduled the street date in France to be May 19th. ‘I wanted ANTIQUES to be my label’s first release because I believe Martingale and Pilot Radio could grow together, and I am looking forward to develop the band on a long term basis’.
International interest in Antiques continues, with interested record labels in Spain and Denmark, following the first licensing in the Philippines to Universal Records.
Bob Wilkinson, founder of Solar Flare Records, ‘We are ecstatic to see this much interest in Pilot Radio and we are confident that the release in France will further the appeal of this artists’ music on an international level.’
Pilot Radio is currently writing new material and preparing to go back in the studio to record their third album. www.solarflarerecords.com. www.pilot-radio.com. www.martingale-music.com

[04/13/04] 3mv directors Dave Trafford and Max Kenny have this afternoon confirmed that the company has ceased trading.

In a statement issued just after 5pm, the pair said they are taking advice from David Rubin and Partners and that a creditors meeting has been scheduled for April 30.

Trafford says, “3mv is a victim of the diminishing margins in sales and distribution. The market has grown tougher and the business model that has previously worked for us is viable no longer.

“Our situation has been compounded by the loss of a number of key clients in the last year. It’s a very sad day for Max and myself, the whole team at 3mv, our roster and the independent sector as a whole.” www.musicweek.com

The Napster brand, once synonymous with internet piracy in the music industry, is to launch its new legal incarnation in Ireland before the end of the summer.

Chris Gorog, chief executive of Roxio Inc, the California based company which bought the assets of Napster, including the brand and its file sharing technology, out of bankruptcy, made the announcement at a discussion forum on the music industry in Dublin this morning. [more @ www.rte.ie]

Online music and video download services will be slow to take off in Europe unless problems with cumbersome technology are resolved, the European Commission warned in a report on Monday.

In taking a stand on the technical snags holding back widespread consumer adoption of such services, the Commission has addressed a major gripe among tech-savvy consumers.

But, critics point out, it has missed an opportunity to tackle an even bigger obstacle—the tangles of red tape that have so far prevented companies from launching Europe-wide media download services. [more @ www.forbes.com]

GarageBand.com plans to revive a large archive of independent bands’ songs stored on MP3.com, tunes that were feared lost following the recent sale of some of that site’s assets to CNET Networks Inc.

The move means that about 250,000 bands that had music on MP3.com can easily reincarnate their music Web sites at closely held GarageBand, at www.mp3isback.com. GarageBand, which provides free and paid services to promote bands online, already had about 100,000 bands on its site before reviving the MP3.com archive, and is bulking up its roster just as CNET plans to start a rival music-download site.

“We’re basically slightly beating them to the punch by resurrecting the [former MP3.com] archive,” said Ali Partovi, chief executive of GarageBand.
[more @ www.wsj.com]

The legal debate surrounding peer-to-peer file-swapping sites has shifted up a gear in the past few months, beginning with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filing hundreds of lawsuits against serial downloaders, who they claim are costing the industry millions. But the crusade against copyright infringement has met more than a few stumbling blocks. [more @ www.theregister.co.uk]

Artists and independent labels now have one-stop access to all the major digital music services. INgrooves, the world’s largest digital record label, has released a proprietary software program, INgrooves Digital Music Access™ (“IN-DMA”), which will allow artists and labels, primarily in the Dance & Electronic genre, to view and manage their music for sale on all the digital services.

The development of IN-DMA was led by INgrooves’ CTO, David Kent. David is the former Director of New Technology at the original Napster where he worked with Shawn Fanning to enhance the scalability of the revolutionary file-sharing technology that changed the landscape of the music industry. [more @ www.biz.yahoo.com]

David Bowie, in conjunction with Audi of America and Sony Media Software, is taking the mash-up phenomenon into the mainstream. Fans are invited to download the star’s music and remix it into their own creation as part of a competition.

Participants can get Acid Xpress, a free version of Sony’s Acid Pro music creation software, at www.neverfollow.com. That dedicated Web site also is where fans can download one-minute segments of Bowie’s songs from his newest album, “Reality,” along with older material.

Audi of America is using a mash-up of Bowie’s “Never Get Old” and “Rebel Rebel” as the music for its current ad, tying it into the automotive company’s sponsorship of the artist’s tour. www.music.sympatico.ca