Category: News + comment

  • Fes Festival 2015

    Fes Festival 2015

    I just had to let you know about a remarkable music festival coming up in May and a fantastic way to travel there. The Festival of World Sacred Music runs 22-28 May in the beautiful north African city of Fes, Morocco. It really does sound an amazing week of open air concerts and more. Every evening,…

  • CMJ discounts & TGE line-up announced

    CMJ discounts & TGE line-up announced

    CMJ hits New York in October and there are some great discounts available through until Monday. Right now you can get 30% off badges for CMJ Music Marathon 2014. And the discounts are even deeper for school-going types, with student badges at over 50% off and group rates starting at only $130. Badges will allow you…

  • Ticket scam warning

    Ticket scam warning

    It’s a universal problem, but with the announcement of the East Coast Live and McBusted concerts coming to Ipswich,  music fans are being warned by Suffolk Trading Standards not to fall victim to fake ticketing sites for summer concerts and festivals. Later this year, Ipswich Chantry Park will host the East Coast Live music festival,…

  • Jitterbug Vipers on NPR

    Jitterbug Vipers on NPR

    The wonderful Jitterbug Vipers today got a great boost in their quest for world domination in the form of an hour-long feature on NPR which is going out across the USA. The studio session and interview were recorded a few months ago in New York. They were guests on Sound Travels with Michael Feinstein. In Sarah’s conversation…

  • Google’s history of music – big data fun

    Google’s history of music – big data fun

    So here you have it. The history of popular music complete precise and probably flawed. It gives a pretty convincing overall picture, clearly showing the massive revolution of the 1960s in which jazz almost died as Pop and Rock burst onto the scene. But where is the data from? Well, from the likes of you…

  • The Joy of Music

    The Joy of Music

    Every now and again I get a track, an album or a video come in that brings a smile to my face. It really doesn’t matter what the genre is, whether its a cover tune or sometimes, whether it’s even in tune! Here’s one that I was sent a few weeks ago that I had…

  • How people discover music today

    How people discover music today

    EMI, which was recently sold to Universal, is conducting some serious market research into how, when and why people purchase music. Contrary to a lot of expectations their research with 16,000 people in the USA aged over 25 shows that despite all the digital discovery options and awfully clever digital music startups, traditional radio, TV…

  • iTunes11: Is Apple just setting the stage?

    iTunes11: Is Apple just setting the stage?

    iTunes 11 was released yesterday and I rather suspect that it may be more significant for what’s not yet visible than for the new look it has taken on in the latest version. The visible changes with 11 initially had me panicking about familiar workflows in checking out music and in keeping track of music…

  • Canadians love their music

    Canadians love their music

    A vast majority of Canadians – 85 percent – say that music plays an important part in their lives, and a full 90 percent agree that it is the musician who should receive most of the proceeds from an original song, according to a new national survey conducted by Léger Marketing on behalf of SOCAN…