Issue 19 Volume 1
May 2009
May 2009Front Page
|
|
|
||||
| |
|||||
|
Issue 19 Volume 1
May 2009 |
|||||
|
Front Page |
|||||
|
BUSINESS VERSUS MUSIC By David James The tension that perpetually exists between music and business seems to be, if not inevitable, at least near impossible to avoid. Much of the difficulty is attributable to what is required to be good at each endeavour. There is often considerable creativity in business, but success is fairly straightforward: find what makes you money and keep doing it until the competition forces you to change. At the moment, much is being made of how important innovation is in business, but this is not really the pursuit of different ways of doing things. It is either a way to protect the existing ways of doing business, or it is itself a way of repeating a formula, a repeated way of altering the way business is conducted.
Americana By Neala Hickey When I told a friend I wanted to go to the Southern states of America, he snorted as if that space was a cultural vacuum where only fundamental nuts, lynching mobs and mangroves preside. It’s possible I suppose - Louis Theroux is pretty convincing, but not convincing enough. I’ve always had an all too clichéd image of sitting on my back porch listening to music, somewhere deep in the southern countryside. But then a thought occurs; what music would I be listening to? If anything proves that there is more to this part of the world than fire breathing fundamentalism, three eyed inbreeds (apparently) and racists stuck back in ‘36, it’s the conglomeration of musical styles which span from Louisiana and the Gulf, across to Texas, up to Virginia, Mississippi and Tennessee. These were my musings after leaving Sydney’s Metro having witnessed Old Crow Medicine Show force an audience of grown men and women to put their arms around one another and sway jubilantly back and forth, strangers, no less, who unified to belt out OCMS’s most famous song, Wagon Wheel. ...continued
By Megan Albany I love my records because they were a part of my growing up years. If there was a fire, my record collection would be the first thing I’d take. I would take a lot of things…I would take my photos but most of all I would take my records. Music is in everyone’s life. Every generation has their own music they like. Music of the ‘60s and ‘70s to me was just good to listen to. You could understand every word they said and dance to it. I was born in ’47 and that was when big bands were coming into vogue. People like Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman were at their peak. It was just after the Second World War and people were so happy that they could dance and forget about things. ...continued REVIEW THE REVIEWERReviewer: Eamonn
Kelly By Kay Sen-poin We all of us indulge in insiders’ shorthand; a sort of SMS of the enlightened, lol ;-D So, is it unfair to censure someone else’s use of their own inner circle’s “SMS” lingo in a review of the reviewer that is every bit as full of implicities as is the review under consideration? It is well to remember the old adage (are there any new ones?) that a fool can raise in a matter of a few words a difficulty a wise woman may spend the rest of her life attempting to answer — and still fail. (Remember that the next time someone says to you, “That’s a very good question. I will have to think about it.”) What has this preamble got to do with a review of a review? That’s a very good question. I shall have to think about it.
|
LIFE AFTER IDOL Daniel Mifsud By Megan Albany
Well it's that time of the year again, when thousands of young hopefuls line up to be insulted, abused and occasionally praised by judges on the reality TV show Australian Idol. But even if they get through the grueling Idol auditions and make it into the top twenty or even the top ten, is it worth all that effort if they don't actually win? The Dues recently caught up with Idol contestant Daniel Mifsud, who came sixth in the 2007 series of Australian Idol, to find out if his profile is continuing to build now that the hype from his series is over.
MEET THE MAN BEHIND THE FESTIVAL SONG By Megan Albany
After producing the JJJ hit, The Festival Song, Melbourne-based producer Steve Mowat, aka DJ Matik, is now enjoying the opportunities that come from going from being an unknown producer to having an impressive rung on the board. The song, produced for up and coming hip hop artist Perry Chapman aka Pez, impressively became the most downloaded song in the history of Triple J’s website. The Dues recently caught up with Mowat to find out how his star first began to rise. Send us your email, notes, memos, random thoughts, trenchant complaints. Tell us about your adventures, strugggles, disasters, disappointments and successes as a musician. We give preference to letters of 200 words or less, but try your luck anyway. We may edit your letters for reasons of space, or possibly because we're just a bunch of interfering bastards. Despite that, we welcome your feedback, comments and observations. You can use a pseudonym if you wish, but please include your real name, suburb/town and, if you are writing from outside Victoria, your state/country. Email us at musosunion@aol.com.
Got a
problem or question relating to the music biz? Ask Uncle Terry. Email Uncle Terry on musosunion@aol.com. Please provide your name and suburb (& state/country, if you're not a Victorian yokel...) Dear Uncle Terry, We did some gigs for a guy and he hasn’t paid us. We gave him a booking agreement but he didn’t sign it, all we have are emails from him giving details of the places and times. How do you chase money when there isn’t any contract? Shane Dear Shane, Firstly please understand that Uncle Terry is not a lawyer and you should check the disclaimer at the head of his column. The assumption in your letter that there “isn’t any contract” may well be incorrect. The conclusion you have drawn is based on a common misconception that a contract is a piece of paper that has been signed. What a contract actually is, is an agreement between two or more parties. If there is a piece of paper, it is really just evidence of the existence of the contract. For a contract to exist basically someone has to have made an offer, someone else has to have accepted the offer and there has to be something of value involved (typically but not necessarily money). There are also a few other requirements such as that the thing being agreed to is legal and actually possible to do.
New book from The Dues Publishing Following the resounding success of its first foray into e-publishing (see The Dues August 2006 issue), The Dues Publishing presents the second in its series of short e-works on natural history, biography and philosophy for the lazy and stupid. This month, TDP™ is proud to bring you: Adolphus
Figges: A Life in the Okinawa Cinema TDP All rights reserved 2009 (Click here to download PDF file)
FROM THE EDITOR Recession, recession, recession. It’s the bad news we had to have – in order to keep news journalists in business that is. So what does it all mean for you, the humble working, or not working musician. Well all that super you’ve been putting aside will have diminished somewhat.... What’s that you say - you haven’t been putting super aside? Ok... well then those shares and that property portfolio will definitely have been affected... None of those either hey. Well then I guess you’d better be careful you don’t lose your job security... Don’t bother, I figured that one out for myself. Well I guess then dear musician you’re doing pretty well. In fact, you can probably take advantage of cheaper fuel prices, sales and an in-flux of ex-stockbroking music students wanting to learn to sing and play the blues. Not that I’m suggesting you take advantage of others pain, but the good thing for musicians is that when people are suffering that’s generally when they need entertaining the most. Enter stage right and cue music. Disclaimer:
|
Europe
alright, Oz same plight By comparison, Oz has 50 years and zip for session musos when they are forced to sign away their recently granted “rights” (which is usually!). Blocking
the ‘Tube
Part 14 of a series by Today, as promised last time, we are going to look at promotion. Let’s start by teasing out what the word actually means. This is necessary since it is often thrown around by musicians with a very vague meaning which adds up to “something that gets lots of people to my gig even if they have never heard of me”. This wouldn’t be promotion, it would be a miracle! The word is a noun from the verb to “promote” which, in turn derives from the Latin pro meaning “forward” and movere meaning to “move”. Promote means, therefore, to forward the movement of something in a desired direction and, by extension, to further the growth or advancement of something. Promotion is starting to sound like anything that makes something go “further” than it otherwise would have! This might not seem to have got us very far but if you burrow underneath the words there is some very useful stuff emerging here. Promotion now appears to require two things, something that can be promoted and a direction it needs to go in or at least a direction you want it to go in. If this is so, then without a clear understanding of both of them we would be wasting our time, so let’s focus on these two.
by WARNING, WARNING, ERROR, ERROR!!!!  OK, housekeeping dealt with! Welcome back harmony aficionados. Your homework from last time was to work out the notes in all 12 of the “eleventh” chords. Remember from last time that the eleventh chord ’s symbol is the note name of the tonic plus the numeral “11”. The note name indicates, as always, the 1st, 3rd, 5th of the major scale built on the note indicated by the note name. The “11” indicates the 11th degree of that scale (remember 11 is the same as 4) AND all odd numbers below 11. (Yes I know 1, 3 and 5 get indicated twice but what’s wrong with a little superfluity!) Also remember that this chord, being an “extended dominant” chord has a flattened 7th. Here’s the full rule on extended dominants from last time: “Extended dominant chords include ALL of the odd numbered notes in the major scale built on the chord name up to the numeral indicated AND the seventh is flattened.” |
