Move over Golden Globes, Lana Del Rey's horrible performance on Saturday Night Live (watch below) is the hot topic of the weekend. We know what Juliette Lewis, Brian Williams, and Bob Lefsetz (most random list ever) think. What's on your mind?

Continue reading "open thread: Lana Del Rey on SNL"

Industry analyst Bob Lefsetz reports today on the signing of Internet sensation Rebecca Black to Universal Records...

Universal Republic, to be exact. Home of Chumbawamba as well as the distributor of Big Machine, home of Taylor Swift.

Actually, this is a joint venture between Republic and Big Machine. In other words, Scott Borchetta is going to Taylorize Rebecca.

First move?

Rebecca's gonna move into Scott Swift's house. Environment is everything. Scott's been there and done that, he knows how to get Rebecca on the right path.

Then there's the credibility tour. Taking a page out of Taylor's book, Rebecca's going to go on a radio station jaunt, just her and her guitar, proving to PDs that she can actually sing and play.

Meanwhile, the best songwriters known to man are concocting cuts that will truly catapult Rebecca into the stratosphere.

Dr. Luke has been saving a track for the right artist. Ke$ha has already recorded backgrounds, she was the lead singer, but the track was too good for her marginal talent, Rebecca's now got the slot. And rumor has it Weezy is going to rap in the break...

...Unlike Justin Bieber, Rebecca's voice is not going to drop, there are no issues of puberty. However she will not be getting breast implants immediately, they're going to wait to see if she fills out before any plastic surgery is done. Britney Spears is Rebecca's mentor. Having made a full emotional recovery, Britney wants to insure that Rebecca doesn't make the same mistakes she did...

In related news, Britney Spears is back and scheduled to play Nassau Coliseum and the Izod Center in August (that's actually true), and Rebecca Black is the new owner of funny website Funny or Die (or so they claim). Happy Friday!

Continue reading "Rebecca Black signs to Universal, buys Funny or Die..."

Maybe you heard about or saw record exec Steve Stoute's letter in the NY Times on Sunday. In it, he slams the Grammys for giving awards to bands nobody ever heard of and brought up the "coincidence" of Arcade Fire performing right before and after they won Album of the Year.

Arcade Fire's manager has responded, in the form of a letter to industry analyst Bob Lefsetz, and this is what he said:

Bob

Arcade Fire had the final slot on the Grammys as the ratings are low at the end of the broadcast. It really is that simple. We were one of the least known acts on the bill for a network audience. Don't you think I wanted a better slot for the band?
The reason we got a second song was also simple. No big plot. We had no guarantee of air time, but it was simply to play out the end credits of the show, if we're even had that much. The show never runs like clockwork to an exact time so the end is always loose. As it happened, the broadcast was covered by sponsors messages and the end credits.
For the Grammys international broadcast our main performance, along with that of Mumford and Sons and the Avett Brothers was completely cut from the show. Our end title performance was bastardised because they cut out ads/sponsor messages completely. It was a bit of a farce. You'd think we'd be given a little more after the fact.

Arcade Fire deserved the win this year. They made the best album. If the award was names "Album Sales Of The Year" award, there would be no discussion. Stoutes letter was nice piece of self publicity. Did he see Kanye's tweets when we won and the praise he gave us?? He needs to tune in. Eminem made a big selling album but it was far from being his best work. Katy Perry made a big pop record that simply didn't have weight or credibility. Gaga's repackage, great album but it was a repackage of the main release. I think everyone felt it was going to be Lady Antebellum's moment having won 5 out of 6 awards to that point. We all felt that way too.

I'm proud of this band and what they have achieved. We didn't lobby any organisation for this nor did the band play the game. We paid our own overhead to do the event, thus the lack of on stage gimmicks. No label picked up the tab.

Arcade Fire are now one of the biggest live acts in the world. It's not all about record sales. It's about making great records and it's about building a loyal fan base. Ther band make great albums, they're not a radio driven singles band. On top of that, they own their own masters and copyrights and are in complete control of their own destiny. Things couldn't be better.

Excuse any typos as I'm on my blackberry

Best regards
Scott Rodger

Steve Stoute's NY Times letter is below...

Continue reading "a letter from Arcade Fire's manager (in reaction to Steve Stoute's Open Letter to The Grammys)"

Bob Lefsetz writes...

Seeing the decline in recorded music revenues, ticket prices soared. We can blame Live Nation, but let's first and foremost blame the acts. Who not only priced tickets exorbitantly, but scalped their own tickets. They were greedy.

What's the end result?

The club business has been devastated. Live music is about the special event, one doesn't go regularly. It's about paying top buck for a name brand. Take a chance? At these prices!

And now we've got Sarah McLachlan admitting that Lilith Fair tickets are "pretty soft" (the story is everywhere, but it originated on "Billboard": Sarah McLachlan says Lilith sales "pretty soft")

What Sarah says seems reasonable, that only 300 seats or so out of 16,000 are $250, and that there are 9,000 that are $25, until you click through and try to buy some.

At the local L.A. date at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre/Irvine Meadows, the first Ticketmaster choice is:

'Lilith Universe' - Diamond Package

The price? $750 a ticket.

Then we've got:

'Lilith Spirit' - Gold Spirit

The price is: $450 a ticket.

Then there's 'Lilith Spirit' - Silver Package. Prices there are $300 a ticket.

And then, fourth choice down, we come to "NEW FULL PRICE TICKET". Where the options are: $252, $101, $71.50, $41.50 and $31.50.

But it gets even worse. After that, there's a line for "Citi Cardmember Preferred Tickets". And then, at the very bottom, we've got "Lawn 4 Pack Offer". Those are only $14.25 apiece, but after service charges, aren't you just better off buying the ultimate DVD, which you can watch again and again in the privacy of your own home. up close and personal?

In other words, first and foremost, we've got a perception problem. No matter how many super-expensive seats there are, perception is you just can't get a good one unless you pay up, demoralizing potential attendees.

Furthermore, no one on the bill is "hot". There's no GaGa that makes people NEED to go. [Bob Lefsetz]

Lilith Fair 2010, back from a 10+ year hiatus, kicks off June 27th and runs into August. The maxi pad-sponsored tour comes to the NYC area for a July 31st show at PNC Bank Arts Center. Acts at that date include Cat Power, Chairlift, Carly Simon, Sarah McLachlan, Selena Gomez, Missy Higgins, Jill Hennessy, Indigo Girls, Sara Bareilles, Priscilla Renea and a "special guest" (other acts not playing NJ include Loretta Lynn, Metric, Gossip, Beth Orton, La Roux Erykah Badu and Tegan and Sara). Tickets are currently on sale with "no service fee."

The tour recently canceled its July 8th stop in Arizona for undisclosed reasons, but there's speculation that it's in protest of the state's controversial new immigration law.

"The GoGo's are encouraging Lilith to move this date to another state in protest of the new immigration law. We are NOT supporting the state government," [GoGo's Belinda Carlisle] wrote on her Facebook account a few weeks ago. "I don't mix business and politics but I'm afraid I have to this time."

Carlisle eventually deleted the post, but The Go-Go's released a press statement last week informing fans the show was cancelled and tickets could be refunded. But they also said the band had not been told why the show was cancelled. [ChartAttack]

Full tour schedule is below...

Continue reading "maxipad-sponsored Lilith Fair tour dates & soft ticket sales (happening in NJ, but not NYC or Arizona...)"

"I've got it." [Bob Lefsetz]

"When country music superstar Keith Urban announced his latest project -- a charity benefit to raise money for the Country Music Hall of Fame -- Nashville's music community was quick to sing his praises.

"To have someone of Keith's stature step up and do this today -- and who all he's bringing to play in October -- is overwhelming to us," Vince Gill told reporters at the time

The benefit -- "We're All for the Hall," as it was known -- was advertised as "all tickets just $25."

But even before tickets went on sale to the general public, they showed up on scalping web sites like Ticketmaster's TicketsNow -- listed, in some cases, for hundreds of dollars each.

"When you have a highly desirable product with incredible demand, all kinds of shenanigans go on," said music industry analyst Bob Lefsetz, who writes The Lefsetz Letter blog." [NewsChannel5]

Moby @ Issue Project Room benefit 4/24 (more by Toby Tenenbaum)

How's it going?
The album just came out and it would be #1 euro charts if not for michael jackson re-releases.
So that's good.
But here's something funny: the best selling itunes track is 'shot in the back of the head'.
Why is that funny?
Because its the track we've been giving away for free for the last 2 months and that we're still givng away for free.
Odd.
How are you?
Moby [via Bob Lefsetz]

The free track impressed some people, but not Billboard (or more specifically Glenn Coolfer Peoples) who doesn't think people should jump to conclusions about what caused that track to sell well, or even if maybe it sold less than it would have had it not been free (to people that knew about it).

Moby is currently on tour in Europe. This fall, he'll be touring North America behind the new album, Wait for Me (which is out now). That includes a Monday, September 21st show at Irving Plaza. Tickets go on Live Nation and Radio presale July 16th at 10am. General sale starts July 17th at 10am. Two videos from his new record, with all tour dates (with more TBA), below...

Continue reading "Moby - new album, free track theories & 2009 tour dates"

As previously reported, Amanda Palmer is hard at work preparing her own high-school musical...

I am going to be performing in an original play with music titled "WITH THE NEEDLE THAT SINGS IN HER HEART" at lexington high school. the show is inspired by the album "in the aeroplane over the sea" by neutral milk hotel and is being written (and we're almost done!) by me, the cast and my former drama director and mentor, steven bogart.

performances are May 7, 8 and 9 at the LHS theater. doors at 7:30. show at 8. $5 for students. $10 for the general public. come. come come come.

Tickets for With the Needle That Sings in her Heart are on sale now. Palmer has been posting frequent updates on her blog and Twitter account about the production of the show and other tidbits, such as this description:

using "in the aeroplane over the sea" by neutral milk hotel as an inspiration, the kids (a cast of 20) have been putting together a play through improvisation. the process started about a month ago and i've been in the last two weeks of rehearsals helping shape the plot and characters and create the musical accompaniment, mostly songs from the record played live. often with me playing the instruments, but the whole cast and some extra musicians will be presenting the music....

Palmer's next live show is at Coachella on April 18th. She also has a show scheduled at NYC's Highline Ballroom on Friday, June 5th (tickets on sale April 17th).

As Pitchfork recently reported. Amanda is also making a public effort to get dropped from her Roadrunner Records contract. She even sings a song about it to the tune of "Moon River". Check out the video below. In a letter to Bob Lefsetz she wrote:

my label-dropping game has become very fun. please pray for me.

it's a lesson in how the future of music is working - fans are literally (and i mean that....literally) lining up at the signing table after shows and HANDING me cash, saying "thank you".

i had to EXPLAIN to the so-called "head of digital media" of roadrunner australia WHAT TWITTER WAS. and his brush-off that "it hasn't caught on here yet" was ABSURD because the next day i twittered that i was doing an impromptu gathering in a public park and 12 hours later, 150 underage fans - who couldn't attend the show - showed up to get their records signed.

no manager knew! i didn't even warn or tell her! no agents! no security! no venue! we were in a fucking public park!
life is becoming awesome.

Cellist Zoe Keating, who toured Australia with Palmer in early March, will be performing with Palmer at Coachella. The pair recently covered Muse's "Time Is Running Out" live (video below).

Palmer is also releasing a Who Killed Amanda Palmer book -- "a fine art hardback book of "photographic evidence" with contributions from celebrated blogger and photographer Kyle Cassidy, Beth Hommel, Tegan Rain (of Tegan and Sara) and many others. Fictional stories to accompany the photographs have been penned by best-selling author Neil Gaiman." That book will be available for pre-order on Palmer's website starting Monday, April 20th at noon (cover art above).

Full With the Needle That Sings in her Heart press release, plus Palmer singing an impromptu song with John Wesley Harding at SXSW and other videos, and all tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Amanda Palmer - wants out of Roadrunner, playing NYC, writing a play, releasing a book, likes Twitter & other news"

"Yeah, we're getting really good at mergers and acquisitions at this point, so we've had a lot of companies that we've acquired and had to integrate. But we're working on our ability to do this much quicker. We have to keep some of these systems distributed; sometimes you just can't directly integrate them. You've got to keep running them to better integrate them into the overall enterprise."
[Joe Manna, CIO of Live Nation]

"Mr. Billy Corgan was busy in Washington today, first appearing before the House Committee on the Judiciary in a hearing on the Performance Rights Act, then delivering a letter in support of the controversial Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger. You can read Billy's words to the committee here, but essentially Corgan told congressional leaders that radio should pay performers, not just songwriters, for tracks played." [Stereogum]

"Bono said he had no opinion on the mega-merger." [Chicago Sun Times]

"I had a long conversation with a promoter who told me that with regard to a show he was promoting, Ticketmaster was guaranteeing the secondary market for the act." [Bob Lefsetz]

"In a meeting last May with more than 100 ticket brokers, Ticketmaster's then-chief executive, Sean Moriarty, acknowledged that the ticketing giant had used TicketExchange to sell 160 Neil Diamond tickets over two shows at marked-up prices." [Wall Street Journal]

"No Doubt is sticking it to Ticketmaster by selling 10% of the tickets for its North American Tour directly to fans. The goal, according to Jim Guerinot, No Doubt's manager, is for fan club members to buy tickets instead of 2nd party distributors such as TicketNow, the legal scalping division of Ticketmaster. This is the same problem Bruce Springsteen and his fans have been pissed about for weeks." [New York Press]

"AEG CEO Tim Leiweke slammed the proposed Live Nation, Ticketmaster merger, saying that it is 'not good for the industry.'" [The Busines Insider]

"Come on! Only Gene Simmons got into this business for the money. The rest of you were enraptured by the music. Can't you get the public on the same page? Can't you turn everybody into a club rat? Can't we get everybody to go out and see live music on a regular basis? Or do we have to wait until the labels fail, independent promoters are broken and every ticket is sold on TicketsNow and StubHub?" [Bob Lefsetz]

Continue reading "Bono, Billy Corgan, No Doubt, Bob Lefsetz, AEG, others chime in on Live Nation & Ticketmaster"

The Walkmen @ Masonic Temple in December (more by Natasha Ryan)

"We live in scary times. Sure, we might wonder how that inane Southern California woman is going to feed fourteen mouths, but what about the family whose breadwinners lost their jobs, and now have not only no money to pay the mortgage, but feed their kids?

No one seems to care about those people. Everyone's too selfish. I've got mine, fuck you. But what if you suddenly don't have yours anymore?

You used to sell ten million records, now you can't even sell two. Those damn pirates! But those pirates are real people. Who overpaid to hear one good track on a CD. They've got no sympathy for you. And they may overpay to see superstars once, but not forever. The Stones don't sell out anymore. Nor does Springsteen, not even Madonna. The printed grosses are high, but that's because of the inflated ticket prices.

Is the concert industry headed for a fall? Just like the recorded music industry?" [Bob Lefsetz]

In related news, Live Nation and Ticketmaster announced plans to merge.

Most of the bands in this post recently announced a tour, or an update to their previously announced tour, and did not include a NYC-area date. All of them below...

Continue reading "TOUR DATES: Kings of Leon, Walkmen, Coldplay, Bloc Party, Black Mountain, Jason Isbell, Dr Dog, Little Ones & more"

"You had to put tickets on sale for JULY? What's the reason? I don't even know what I'm doing in FEBRUARY, never mind JULY! But you had to take all that money out of the marketplace, you had to earn all that interest. And to think you built your reputation as a man of the people... Bruce, when you were growing up in Asbury Park did you buy tickets for a gig SEVEN MONTHS AWAY? Did you even have the MONEY FOR IT!" [Bob Lefsetz]

The Noise Pop Festival returns in 2008 from February 26 to March 2. Over six nights, Noise Pop 16 will take over the best-loved venues in San Francisco, to host unforgettable performances by Magnetic Fields, The Mountain Goats, The Gutter Twins, Cursive and dozens of other important indie rock, electronic, punk and cutting edge musical artists, transforming the city into an almost week-long celebration of the finest that the underground and not-so-underground has to offer, nationally and locally.

Kelly Stoltz, Tilly & The Wall, Capgun Coup, Fleet Foxes, Fu Manchu, Saviours, Man/Miracle and Blitzen Trapper are also confirmed.

Not confirmed at all is this letter Bob Lefsetz sent out from someone he purposely left anonymous....

Zeppelin just confirmed for Bonnaroo. They can't officially announce until after the London gig so pass it on! Also Metallica is confirmed on the bill too!

In related news, Led Zeppelin denies that they're going on tour with the Cult (thx Hiro).

Like Bonnaroo, the new Vineland Music Festival in NJ will offer 3 days of music and camping (but much closer to home - my home anyway). I hope Led Zeppelin plays that too.

Magnetic Fields are also playing four NYC shows and have a new album coming out soon. The Mountain Goats just played NYU and also have a new album coming out soon. Robert Plant has a new album out, and it's selling really well.

....An act’s worth depends on its fanbase. You have to nurture it, respect people, make them feel they’re along for the ride with you. At these prices, people feel like they’re being held up at gunpoint. And, NOT EVERY NEIL YOUNG FAN RAPED AND PILLAGED AND IS NOW RICH!

Only Neil is rich. But obviously, he needs more.

Bob Dylan is a famous breadhead, but he doesn’t charge these prices, not even close. WITH Elvis Costello, the top ticket is $65.50 in Portland. And Dylan is coming off a number one album and critical kudos. For that price, you may not care that he mangles the old material. You’re privileged just to be there. And maybe, you’ll enjoy it too. (In truth, that’s Portland MAINE, not Oregon, but even in Chicago, Dylan and Costello are only charging $87, while Neil Young is charging $157! At the SAME THEATRE!)...[Bob Lefsetz]

Neil Young added a third NYC show today. The first two sold out quickly - even at these prices.

I actually never even heard of Cartel until all this caffeinated-carbonated-beverage-band-in-a-bubble hoopla. I also sort of tried to ignore it until just now - that's when I posted the fact that this event is happening right here in NYC next month, and for free. then the first commenter asked, "Why is Cartel plaing inside a stupid bubble?". That in turn reminded me of a letter that the singer of Cartel wrote to Bob Lefsetz......

Continue reading "A letter from Cartel's "Bubble Boy" (to Bob Lefsetz)"