Where Worlds Collide

Panic Room’s new album Satellite is now available for pre-order.

As it says:

“Satellite” will be available from all good retailers and on-line stores as a single 11-track album towards the end of the year, but you can pre-order the Special Edition now! This edition is a deluxe version with expanded lyric booklet plus a bonus disc featuring 4 new songs recorded at the ‘Satellite’ sessions, but not included on the standard edition of the album.

Having heard several of the songs from Swansea’s finest played live on the band’s last tour, it’s something to be ordered without hesitation.

Jon Edwards has posted the track listing for Satellite on the Panic Room web forum - several of the songs they’ve been playing live are relegated to the bonus disk. Which says something for the quality of the material on the main album.

On the latest blog on Helienne Lindvall’s Behind the Music, commenter “Rockard” completely nails the true agenda of the major record labels:

The market for songs is the same as any other market. Price is determined by the interplay of supply and demand. Songs could be sold at a higher price previously because their supply was restricted by the record companies and radio stations. You could only access them by buying an album, listening to the radio or going to a concert.

The ability to download and stream music along with the wider access that musicians can get for their songs means that effectively the supply curve has shifted to the left. Since this has happened, their whole strategy has been to try and shift that curve rightwards again by freezing the competition. The competition here isn’t just illegal sites but independent bands distributing their music online.

These record companies are not the artists’ friend. They are not music lovers. Their profits are maintained as much by who they don’t sign as by who they do. It should be no surprise that established artists support the anti piracy stance of the big companies as they also profit from the current barrier to entry.

There is no chance of a return to the old model so they need to be working on a new business model. Optimistically I see more live music and greater market segmentation, i.e alternative artists.

Yes, this is what I have been saying for years. I’ve always believed that the major labels hatred of downloading and filesharing had less to do with stopping people pirating U2 and Metallica, and more to do with stopping people discovering new music that they don’t own.

I’m back from four days of superb music, amidst a bit of mud, at the Cambridge Rock Festival.

This is one of the many smaller festivals up and down the country, which contrasts with the big corporate festivals like Glastonbury and Reading. It started out as a beer festival with a few bands, but gradually the music side of things grew more important, eventually resulting in a name change from the old name of “Rockinbeerfest”.

The music is very much aimed at an older classic rock audience, with a bill made up of a mix of 70s veterans and younger progressive rock or blues artists. It’s like travelling to an alternative universe where punk never happened, and musical ability never went out of fashion. This year they’ve moved to a new location. Rather than having the main stage in the converted cowshed in Godmanchester, we’d moved to the Haggis Farm Polo club just outside Cambridge.

Last year I just went on the Sunday, but this year I decided to make a full weekend of it. This was the first time I’ve camped at a festival (or indeed camped anywhere) since the Reading Festival back in 1983. I camped with group of fellow Mostly Autumn and Breathing Space fans that included Colin and Helen, Chriz (the cider monster), Andy Goodall, Roger Ashworth and Doogie Walsh.

Let’s get the one negative out of the way first. There was nothing anyone could have done about the torrential downpours on the Thursday night, which caused one of the stages to be shut down because the backstage area was flooded, and as the contractor supplying the power have stated, water and electricity don’t mix. But I have to say the bands, audiences and festival as a whole were badly let down by the contractor providing the PA. We had long delays over the weekend, band after band complaining about lack of monitors, and things finally came to a head on Sunday.

The good points apart from the music were excellent food, some great real ales, and a fantastic vibe. With just a couple of thousand in attendance it felt more like a weekend-long private party than a festival. It was lovely to see Mostly Autumn stick around for the whole weekend; plenty of opportunities to chat with them, and even watch some of the other acts with members of the band.

Johannes James of Kyrbgrinder

I missed the first act on Friday, so my day kicked off with a great set from Northsydes. They sounded a bit like Led Zeppelin fronted by Janis Joplin, and what impressed me was the way all four members made an equal contribution; powerful vocals, tight drumming, some great guitar work and wonderful bass grooves. I was also very impressed with Kyrbgrinder playing on the smaller Radio Caroline stage. They’re fronted by Threshold’s drummer Johannes James. There are not many people who can sing while playing prog-metal lead drums at the same time. And he’s such a charismatic frontman you barely notice the other two guys on stage. They were possibly the find of the festival for me.

Heather Findlay of Mostly Autumn

I know I’m biased, but Mostly Autumn were the band of the day for me. After a considerable delay due to technical problems they delivered a very powerful 90-minute set in adverse circumstances, despite being forced to stop playing in the middle of “Simple Ways” when something broke. The setlist was pretty close to the one they would have played last year had they had they been able to play a full set, with a very powerful “Unoriginal Sin” and a magnificent “Carpe Diem”, and a lump-in-the throat “Heroes” to finish. With regular drummer Gavin Griffiths have another commitment this weekend, it was hats off to Robbie Baxter, normally part of the road crew, for filling in on drums for such a high-profile gig, and doing an admirable job.

The following headline set from the John Lees Barclay James Harvest was good too - vastly superior to the disappointing Les Holroyd version of the band I saw a couple of years ago. It may have meandered at the beginning, but as it went on, and the sound mix improved, it built in intensity, and I left the main arena with “Hymn” still playing in my head. While I don’t know that much of their back catalogue, they played a lot of the standards I recognised, like “Poor Man’s Moody Blues” and “Child of the Universe”, and it was great to hear plenty of real live Mellotron. And who was that girl dancing next to me, and singing along to “Mockingbird”? Sure I’ve seen her before somewhere…

I spent much of Saturday moving from stage to stage. Since most of the bands were unknown to me, I probably managed to miss some great bands while watching someone else on another stage. I spent quite a bit of time in the smaller CRS tent, rocking out to the very metal Crimes of Passion, and also saw most of Manning’s set, very very prog, with no fewer than three keyboard players. On the main stage there were some great sets by Deborah Bonham and Never the Bride. The latter gave us one of the quotes of the weekend, when Nikki Lamborn told the sound crew “Stop playing with their knobs”. 70s Veterans Stray also delivered an entertaining set, featuring some serious Stratocaster abuse. That’s no way to treat an expensive musical instrument!

The delays and technical problems which had affected Mostly Autumn the previous night were worse, when we waited, and waited for the mighty Uriah Heep. Finally they rolled the intro tape, the band came out, and… nothing happened. They stood around looking embarrassed, before shuffling off stage again. It would be another half an hour before their set finally started, and like Mostly Autumn the night before rewarded the crowd’s patience with a blistering set, mixing 70s classics with selections from their recent album “Wake the Sleeper”. Their classic Hammond-drenched hard rock sound and remarkable energy levels for a band of their age made them the band of the day without question. Saying that, the following set by headliners The Quireboys went down well, a great party band to finish off the night. Or rather, morning, because it was gone 3am by the time the music finished.

Bryan, Paul and Olivia of Breathing Space

After some excellent glam-metal from Morph to rock away the hangovers, the first ‘big’ band on Sunday’s bill was Breathing Space. They’d gone down well last year with a ballad-heavy set, but this year’s CRF witnessed a transformed band. They played a far rockier set, drawing heavily from the new album “Below the Radar”, Now with Bryan Josh standing in on guitar they delivered the best live performance I’ve seen them do all year, tight, energetic and highly emotional. Set closer “Questioning Eyes” really brought a lump to the throat. The huge crowd round the merch stand as soon as they’d finished said it all.

Touchstone too have come on in leaps and bounds since their appearance a year ago, playing another a really tight and high energy set drawn largely from their recent album “Wintercoast”. The transformation of this band since I first saw them support The Reasoning in Crewe a couple of years ago is nothing short of phenomenal, especially singer Kim Servoir’s growing confidence as a frontwoman. This band are going places.

I’d been very much looking forward to seeing Karnataka. But as soon as I saw Ian Jones near the bar, the expression on his face told me something was wrong. He told me that the band would not be playing due to problems with the PA. It eventually transpired that Asia and Focus had demanded that they use their own PA and crew (and given the problems Mostly Autumn and Uriah Heep had suffered, I can hardly blame them). The changeover meant that the main stage needed to be shut down for two hours, and two bands had to be dropped, one of them being Karnataka. Bluesman Simon McBride moved to the blues tent, but unfortunately Karnataka’s stage gear was more than the smaller stage PA and mixing desk could have coped with. So I got to meet the band, who were all very disappointed not to be playing, but didn’t get to see them perform.

Asia’s Geoff Downes

The weekend ended with Focus and Asia. Focus took a long time to get going, with a couple of false starts while Thijs van Leer vainly tried to get his monitor to work, but ended with rousing versions of their hits, “Sylvia” and a manic “Hocus Pocus”, with Thijs conducting the audience for the falsetto parts. The prog behemoth of Asia closed proceedings, with OTT amounts of drums and keyboards, and a rocking set drawn from “Asia” and “Alpha” plus a version of ELP’s “Fanfare for the Common Man”. Steve Howe doesn’t half look old now, but he can still cut in on the guitar.

A great festival which survived the best attempts of the weather and the PA company to ruin things. There were many great bands, some very familiar to me, others completely new. But ultimately any festival is about more than just the bands; those people who came just to see one band are really missing the point of what festivals are about. Assuming they fix the problems with the PA, I’ll be back next year for more.

From a blog which claims to be “First in Music Analysis, Lefsetz Letter we get this post about the concert business.

Maybe no one cares to the equivalent of a multiplatinum level anymore. Maybe the live business has to give that paradigm up. At least for a decade, until new acts are grown.

We want music that resonates. And we want music. Lady GaGa is outfits. Katy Perry is so second rate she’s third rate. The future looks more like the Kings Of Leon. A band that’s been around for years that finally breaks through. And doesn’t break the bank when it sets ticket prices.

Screw lawn tickets at a discount. That’s like listening to music on your neighbor’s stereo. How about getting a ticket for a developing artists show when you buy the ticket for a star. We’ve got to get people sampling, we’ve got to get people coming to the show on a regular basis.

Since the post doesn’t allow comments, I’ll respond here. Has it really not occurred to this guy to go out find music by himself rather than be a passive consumer of whatever is served up by the corporate biz? There’s plenty of great music out there. Every genre you can imagine and many more you can’t - you just have to look for it for yourself rather than wait to be spoon-fed.

Go and read a few music blogs; listen to last.fm, network online with other music fans. You might even make a few new friends that way. Once you’ve realised there’s more to music than the narrow commercial mainstream you can go to club venues and see great bands for a fraction of the one-gig-a-year price for some has-been at a corporate enormodome.

The Memories of Woodstock festival scheduled for next weekend in Shrewsbury has been cancelled. The promoter had put together a very strong bill for lovers of progressive and classic rock, including Asia, Uriah Heep, Barclay James Harvest, Jethro Tull, Mostly Autumn, Wishbone Ash, Jefferson Starship and Curved Air. Unfortunately the chosen weekend clashed with both the Cambridge Rock Festival and Fish’s fan convention in Leamington Spa.

Some people had doubts about the promoter after another event at the same venue headlined by Fairport Convention was cancelled at very short notice due to poor ticket sales. Things started looking dicey when a number of bands pulled out a couple of weeks ago, most citing “circumstances beyond our control”. Uriah Heep were a little more forthright.

Uriah Heep has withdrawn from headlining the Memories of Woodstock festival, 7 August 2009, after concerns emerged about the intent and the ability of the festival to deliver public safety, financial viability or the basic logistics needed to present a festival of lofty ambition.

We are advised that all ticket purchasers are entitled to a refund as the festival terms and conditions do not allow for changes of artists.

This led to a war of words in the press, with the promoter complaining about false accusations and threatening legal action. Since that quote is still on front page of Uriah Heep’s website, I can assume that no legal action has materialised, so it’s safe to reproduce it here.

Uriah Heep have since been added to the bill for the Cambridge Rock Festival, replacing Jefferson Starship, who’d also withdrawn from MoW, and whose UK visit was no longer financially viable for only one appearance.

On Friday, Jethro Tull and Mostly Autumn both pulled out. An email from Jethro Tull’s management circulated widely on the forums of various bands pulled no punches.

“Tull are now officially out of the MOW festival due to the promoter being 2 months late with the deposit (not to mention the balance)! Despite many extensions of payment dates from our end and the offer to reduce the artist fee this week, Brian Davies (promoter) has just told me that he cannot pay. I believe that it is due to terrible sales and his lack of financial planning.

Please can you pass this e-mail onto anyone that you think might benefit from knowing. He assures me that he will reimburse buyers back if they so wish. His phone number is on his New Dawn Events website.

We at the Tull camp are very angry at Brian Davies for stringing this along for so long. We are sorry for all those fans who were expecting a whole weekend of great bands, most of whom, have now pulled out for the same reasons”.

By now the writing was pretty much on the wall, so it was hardly surprising when this appeared on the New Dawn Events website

“Its with a very heavy and sad heart that due to certain people telling blatant lies these festivals have been cancelled. It is a sad case of affairs when people think of money before love and peace” - Brian Davies

It is with huge regret that we have to notify that the Memories of Woodstock event and Crathes Castle event are now Cancelled.

The Memories of Woodstock project was the brainchild of Mr Brian Davies who wanted to celebrate the 40 years anniversary of the best music festival in history. Unfortunately there are people in this world who do not share this vision.

Rumours that had been put out and circulating regarding this festival were completly fabricated and scurrilous which resulted in poor ticket sales and eventually led to the cancelling of this great event.

During the current economic climate we felt that we should give the public a festival that would give absolute value for money, however, it is obvious there are people out there who do not wish this to happen, but we will strive forward on a mission to give the public what they should always have and that is… “Great music at a great price with no hidden extras”.

I don’t think there are any winners in this sorry tale, with the possible exception of the Cambridge Rock Festival, who are now offering discounted entry for holders of MoW tickets.