ON THE RECORD:with JIM CARROLL
You can’t argue with the cash register. Those in the music business who still think the live side of the house is going to save us all may have to do a bit of a rethink on the back of new ticket-sales data.
According to trade magazine Pollstarthis week, there has been a 17 per cent drop in money generated by the 100 biggest tours trucking around the US in 2009-2010.
Add in the amount of US shows that Christina Aguilera, The Eagles, Rihanna, Limp Bizkit and many more have cancelled due to “unforeseen circumstances” and you can see there’s trouble at the mill.
Over here, we’ve also seen a slew of slow-selling and poor-performing shows all year long. Gigs that would have sold out in the blink of an eye in the good times (Green Day, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Oxegen, and so on) just don’t do the same business or generate the same heat as before.
It’s abundantly clear that people are not buying tickets because they think the shows are too expensive. Yes, they’re also fed up of heritage acts coming around again every season, but the ticket price is a big bone of contention.
Cutting ticket prices, though, will involve reducing artist fees, and we can expect resistance. As revenue from recorded music has nosedived, acts and their agents have done the dog with live fees to compensate, which has meant a steady rise in ticket prices.
It will be interesting to see if promoters start to get tough with acts on fees. After all, paying big money for a band who only pull in a half-full house is not a great business plan.
New Music
GYPSY THE CAT
Kicking off a New Music duo special, Xavier Bacash and Lionel Towers moved from Melbourne to London where their folky electropop owes as much to Jeff Buckley as it does to MGMT. Latest single Time to Wander is delightful. myspace.com/ gypsyandthecat
THE DARLING SINS
Wexford-based Leni Morrison and Joe Harpur’s chance meeting at a gig in Dublin was the starting point for a bunch of raw, hugely promising slow-motion, blues tunes with plenty of crunch in the mix, such as Pebbles and Magic in Our Air. breakingtunes.com/ thedarlingsins
KISSES
LA duo Jesse Kivel and fashion blogger Zinzi Edmundson make bitter-sweet, breezy disco-pop tunes – try Bermuda or new single People Can Do the Most Amazing Things. myspace.com/blowkissess
#Nowplaying
Jay-Z 99 Problems (Roc-A-Fella)One of many smash hits from Jigga's exceptional performance at Punchestown last week.
Brokenchord Blue Star EP (Black Acre)Beautifully melancholic, dubby, hazy electronica from the teenage Lithuanian producer
Buddy Miles Them Changes (Miracle)Even the artwork on this stomping 1970 album from the Band of Gypsys powerhouse drummer is a wow.
Solar Bears She Was Coloured In (Planet Mu)Forthcoming debut album from Dublin/Wicklow duo John Kowalski and Rian Trench, who specialise in shimmering dayglo pastoral soundscapes.
Hamper McBee The Good Old Fashioned Way (Twos Fews)"An album of recordings done in the 1970s in rural Virginia, all a-cappella songs probably tracable back to Irish sean nós" – selected by Will Oldham
