Nonclassical // Executive Director (London)

Free Trade Agency // Office Co-Ordinator (London)

AEG Presents // Senior Marketing Manager – Festivals (London)

Ninja Tune // Social Media Coordinator (London)

Ambassador Theatre Group // Ticketing Operations Specialist (London)

Lex Records // Worldwide Retail Operations Manager (London)

EmuBands // Artist Relations Assistant (Glasgow/Hybrid)

Today's music business news

TOP STORY

Easy Life concede defeat in easyGroup battle, will change name

Easy Life have conceded defeat in their legal battle with easyJet owner easyGroup. The band announced last night that they will change their name after a couple of final shows with their current moniker this week.

In an update posted to their website, the band said: “This all came to a head last night, and having explored literally every possible avenue, we have realised that there are no good options available to us, and we need to change our name to move forward”.

The band revealed last week that easyGroup had taken legal action against them, accusing them of infringing its easyLife and easyJet trademarks. In fact, the company went so far as to call them “thieves”, saying in a statement that it has "a long established record of legally stopping thieves from using our brands”.

The band denied that they had been attempting to trade off an association with the easyGroup brands with their name. However, in its lawsuit, easyGroup highlighted a poster the band used for their Life's A Beach tour in 2021 and 2022, which featured an image of an easyJet plane, but with the easyJet logo reworked to say Easy Life.

In last night’s statement, the band continued: “Sadly, it seems that justice is only available to those who can afford it. We simply don’t have the funds to access a fair trial in the high court. Not to mention the fact that this would likely rattle on through to 2025, and with this hanging over us we wouldn’t be able to release any music in the meantime. Our careers, and indeed our lives, would be on hold”.

“We’re not a nameless company; as you’ve seen, it’s our own personal names on the paperwork”, they went on. “This means that should we lose, the costs will be recouped from us personally. They could take everything; material possessions, our livelihoods, our homes”.

So, the band have announced that they will play two final shows as Easy Life this week. First at Leicester’s Academy venue tomorrow, and then at Koko in London on Friday.

However, they note that, despite agreeing to change their name, this is not the end of their legal battle. They state: “Even though we aren’t able to fight this, we now need to go into a period of legal mediation with easyGroup about what happens next. We’re really hoping they might be gracious about this”.

“Perhaps our case will help provoke a dialogue around legal reform and justice being available to all”, they conclude. “However, I fear such conversations will fall on deaf ears”.

Tickets for this week’s farewell shows are on sale now. The band have not indicated when they might announce their new name.

ONE LINERS

Rudy Perez, E-Positive, Killer Mike + more

DEALS

Warner Music has acquired Indian artist management and live events company E-Positive, which - among other things - manages Darshan Raval, one of the top five most streamed artists in India. The business will remain a standalone company led by its founder, Naushad Khan, who says: “I’ve worked towards developing a legacy for over ten years and carved the journey of each one of my artists. I’m delighted that we’ve found a new home at Warner Music India. The team there will help us grow in the international market and will help our artists connect with more fans from around the world. We’re looking forward to the next chapter of E-Positive".

Reservoir has announced it has signed a publishing deal for the future works of songwriter Rudy Perez and also acquired his full back catalogue. “I’m THRILLED to be a part of the Reservoir family”, he says. “I look forward to collaborating on new projects with their entire team as I embark on the next phase of my career”.

Cooking Vinyl has signed singer-songwriter Katherine Priddy. Manager John Fell says of Priddy's new record deal: "Signing with such a prestigious label like Cooking Vinyl is a real testament to all the hard work that she has put into the project as well as highlighting her potential to grow into an internationally renowned artist. We are both incredibly proud and excited to work with the Cooking Vinyl team on the next stage of Katherine’s career”.

APPOINTMENTS

Warner Music has appointed Carletta Higginson as its Chief Digital Officer. She joins from YouTube. “This is a very exciting time to be in music with many new avenues opening up”, she says. “I’ve worked closely with the outstanding team at WMG for many years, and I’m very happy to be joining everyone at WMG to help chart the future together”. Higginson takes over from Oana Ruxandra, who announced earlier this month that she was standing down as the major’s Chief Digital Officer & EVP Business Development.

RELEASES

Killer Mike has teamed up with Robert Glasper for a new version of his song ‘Motherless’. “Two years ago I was asked to get on ‘Black Superhero’ by Robert Glasper”, says the rapper. “The song was incredible and he'd go on to win a Grammy for the album. My only regret was that we weren't in the same room together when we made it. So when talks of him remixing ‘Motherless’ came up it was a no-brainer, only this time we wanted to be in the studio together”.

Chvrches frontwoman Lauren Mayberry has released new solo single ‘Shame’. “I had the idea for a while of a song that had the tagline of ‘what a shame’, but in a sarcastic way”, she says. “And the word ‘shame’ having a double meaning - the shame you feel and internalise, but what a shame you feel like that and can’t change it”.

Bombay Bicycle Club have teamed up with Chaka Khan for new single ‘Tekken 2’. "After [frontman] Jack [Steadman] invited me and then sent the song, I loved it, the ethereal part drew me in", says Khan. "The band has such innovative and passionate energy, truly great musicians. Absolute vibes”. The bands new album ‘My Big Day’ is out on 20 Oct.

Blossoms have released new single ‘To Do List (After The Breakup)’, featuring Findlay.

Griff has announced that she will release new EP ‘Vert1go Vol 1’ on 20 Oct. Out now is first single ‘Vertigo’.

El Perro del Mar has signed to City Slang and announced that she will release new album ‘Big Anonymous’ on 16 Feb 2024. Out now is new single ‘In Silence’. “As the feelings of grief and loss wear off, you enter another realm of guilt”, she says of the song. “The guilt of not mourning enough, of going on living though someone’s gone. This song is about the ghost not accepting that it’s dead”.

Bar Italia have released new single ‘Jelsy’. Their new album ‘The Twits’ is out on 2 Nov, and the band have just announced an exhibition of their own drawings, made during the writing of the LP, at London’s Frieze Gallery on 27 Oct.

GIGS & TOURS

Barry Manilow has announced that he will play a one-off show at Manchester’s Co-op Live venue on 24 May 2024. Tickets go on general sale on Friday.

Lola Young has announced a three night residency at Signature Brew Haggerston in London from 14-16 Nov. Tickets go on sale this Friday.

DEALS

Fred Again signs Universal publishing deal

Universal Music Publishing has signed a new worldwide publishing deal with Fred Again.

The producer and his manager Alex Gibson say in a joint statement: “We are so excited to be working with Universal Music Publishing. Pete Simmons is one of the most exceptional A&Rs in the world, a brilliant creative collaborator and most of all a 12/10 friend. Jody Gerson runs a brilliant company and we can’t wait to work closely with her and her team.”

The there mentioned Gerson, CEO of Universal Music Publishing, adds: “All of us at UMPG are huge fans of Fred. I look forward to all he will accomplish globally as an artist, DJ, writer and producer. Additionally, I’ve been so impressed with Fred and Alex’s commitment to increasing the number of women working in music. They enthusiastically partnered with She Is The Music on our UK mentorship programme for female producers and it was a big success”.

Meanwhile, Pete Simmons, who also got a mention up there you might have noticed, says: “The reason why I wanted to get into A&R was so I could work alongside my favourite artists and songwriters. With Fred, we have both of those things and I am lucky to call him my friend. I have watched the world realise his extraordinary talents as a songwriter, a producer and now an artist, and he’s just warming up”.

CONFERENCES & EVENTS

DDEX to put the spotlight on music recognition technology at summit next month

DDEX - the global organisation that develops and oversees standards for metadata in the digital music supply chain - will present a Music Recognition Technology Summit in the US next month.

The event will explore the many different ways that music recognition technology is now used, by labels, publishers and collecting societies; by digital platforms and media companies; and by consumers and music fans.

That includes the industry tracking music usage, whether for marketing or royalty collecting purposes, as well as digital platforms using MRT as a key component of their rights management systems, and fans just wanting to know what that track on that advert is.

An official blurb for the event states: "The MRT Summit will look beyond the proprietary applications of the individual companies providing MRT services and will focus on the operational challenges in recognising, tracking, and reporting musical works and sound recordings from the point of production to their consumption by whatever means".

Mark Isherwood of the DDEX Secretariat tells CMU: “Although recognition technology has been around for decades, it is only recently that deployment of these technologies has really exploded in the music industry, generating a real need for standardisation of the many data communication exchanges that need to take place for the efficient operation of these services”.

“This is why the DDEX Music Recognition Technology Summit is so important at this time", he adds, "to help the industry start to develop common solutions to these communication challenges”.

DDEX’s Music Recognition Technology Summit takes place on 16 Nov near Washington DC, in-person tickets are $100 while online attendance is free - info here.

DIGITAL

Google restores functionality to smart speakers after new ruling in Sonos patent dispute

Google has restored some features and functionality to its Google Nest smart speakers following a win in the US courts last week as part of a long-running legal battle with Sonos.

That legal battle centres on some pesky patents. Sonos accused Google of infringing two of its patents on its Google Nest and Chromecast Audio devices. Both patents related to "managing groups of multimedia players (eg 'smart speakers’) in a multiroom system".

In May, a jury sided with Sonos, awarding it $32.5 million in damages. However, Google sought to have that ruling overturned, criticising the way Sonos had filed and presented the patents it was seeking to enforce. The judge considering that argument, William Alsup, shared Google's concerns.

He wrote in a ruling last week: "Sonos filed the provisional application from which the patents in suit claim priority in 2006, but it did not file the applications for these patents and present the asserted claims for examination until 2019. By the time these patents issued in 2019 and 2020, the industry had already marched on and put the claimed invention into practice".

"It is wrong that our patent system was used in this way", he added in the conclusion to his ruling. “With its constitutional underpinnings, this system is intended to promote and protect innovation. Here, by contrast, it was used to punish an innovator and to enrich a pretender by delay and sleight of hand. It has taken a full trial to learn this sad fact, but, at long last, a measure of justice is done".

With all that in mind, Alsup ruled that the patents Sonos was enforcing were - in fact - "unenforceable", and therefore the ruling from May should be overturned.

Sonos, unsurprisingly, now plans to appeal, insisting that Alsup was "wrong on both the facts and law". But that hasn't stopped Google from undoing some changes it previously made to its products as a result of the Sonos legal action.

In a blog post, the tech giant wrote: "We recently made a change to speaker groups for Nest speakers, displays and Chromecast where certain devices can only belong to one speaker group at a time in the Google Home app”.

“A federal judge has found that two patents that Sonos accused our devices of infringing are invalid", it added. "In light of this legal decision we’re happy to share that we will be rolling back this change".

LIVE

Ticketmaster to run one month charity upsell scheme in support of the Music Venue Trust

The Music Venue Trust has announced its latest tie-up with Ticketmaster, which is set to invite ticket-buyers to donate to the organisation via a charity upsell option which will appear on the ticketing firm’s UK site for a month.

The fundraising scheme will kick off next week alongside MVT's Venues Day event, which is also sponsored by the Live Nation-owned ticketing company. Ticketmaster has pledged to match all donations received through the initiative and also confirmed that it will run the one month charity upsell scheme on an annual basis.

“This upsell provides a practical method for fans to support grassroots music venues and we are incredibly grateful to the Ticketmaster team for putting it in place”, says MVT CEO Mark Davyd. “Ticketmaster matching all fan donations is a powerful message for the whole industry about the support our sector needs and the will of the music community to provide it".

Noting the challenges currently being faced by the grassroots venues that MVT supports, he adds: “127 grassroots music venues have closed in the last twelve months - more than one is permanently closing every week. We believe that live music fans understand exactly how vital these venues are to the future of our whole music ecosystem and how much financial difficulty they are currently facing".

“Ticketmaster has been a long-term and committed partner of MVT", he continues, "and their core support has been vital in developing us as the authentic voice of grassroots venues, artists and fans".

MEDIA

Shaun Keaveny to host new daily podcast from Global and Radio X

Shaun Keaveny has teamed up with Global and its Radio X station to launch a new daily show available via the broadcaster's Global Player and any old podcast platform that you might insist on using.

Called Shaun Keaveny’s Daily Grind, the official blurb states: "It's a show of contradictions, it's about anything and everything but it's definitely also a show about nothing. It's a bit like a daily radio show but it's a podcast. It’s disorientating, but it’s also reassuring! The Daily Grind is a comforting accompaniment to help you through the week, as Shaun Keaveny returns to the studio in this daily podcast".

Prior to his long stint at BBC Radio 6 Music, Keaveny presented shows on Radio X forerunner Xfm. And since leaving the BBC in 2021, he has popped up on a number of stations and podcasts. In the new show, he will seemingly chat about current events and listener emails, as well as being joined by guests like Dave Gorman, Harriet Kemsley, Suzi Ruffell, Josh Pugh and Rachel Fairburn.

The launch of Keavney’s show follows the arrival of a daily on-demand-only version of John Kennedy’s Radio X show, which started popping up on the Global Player last month.

A short Daily Grind promo was posted yesterday with the first edition of the new show due to go live next Monday at 5pm.

AND FINALLY

Matty Healy says he was just doing his job by protesting Malaysian anti-LGBTQ+ laws

The 1975’s Matty Healy has spoken about his on stage protest against Malaysia’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws earlier this year, which saw the band banned from the country and the remainder of the festival they were playing cancelled.

He told the audience at a show in Texas that the backlash that followed was largely the result of “incredibly stupid people on the internet”.

Healy also argued that kissing bassist Ross McDonald on stage at Kuala Lumpar’s Good Vibes festival was “not a stunt simply meant to provoke the [Malaysian] government”, but rather “an ongoing part of The 1975 [stage show] which has been performed many times prior”.

The band were headlining the first night of that event in July and had reportedly made assurances that they would abide by local rules during their set. However, early in the performance, Healy embarked on a rant about the country’s laws against homosexuality, before kissing McDonald on the mouth.

Organisers cut the set short soon afterwards, but the outburst resulted in the remaining two days of the festival being cancelled by the government, and The 1975 hastily leaving the country. Subsequently, the band were sued by artists and vendors who were affected by the cancellation, and the festival itself indicated that it planned to take legal action.

Healy said at the Texas show that he’d been told not to talk about the incident. However, he nevertheless mused: “Unfortunately there’s so many incredibly stupid people on the internet that I’ve just cracked. Everyone keeps telling me you can’t talk about Malaysia, don’t talk about what happened in Malaysia, so I’m gonna talk about it at length”.

And he did. He said that the Malaysian government “had full knowledge of the band with its well-publicised political views and its routine stage show”, and that the “festival organisers’ familiarity with the band was the basis of our invitation”.

“To eliminate any routine part of the show in an effort to appease the Malaysian authorities’ bigoted views of LGBTQ people would be a passive endorsement of those politics”, he said. “As liberals are so fond of saying ‘silence causes violence, use your platform’, so we did that”.

However, he said, it was the reaction of liberal people “which was the most puzzling thing”, adding: “If you truly believe that artists have a responsibility to uphold their liberal virtues by using their massive platforms, then those artists should be judged by the danger and inconvenience that they face for doing so, not by the rewards they receive for parroting consensus”.

Of course, this all ignored the fact that some of Healy’s strongest critics were actually Malaysian LGBTQ+ people, who argued that he had potentially set back years of work to improve things for the community.