Tag Archives: Australia

A to Z of Making It, Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Music

The Evolution of Burnside

I’m listening to an album from a band called Burnside. The album is called Evolution and it was released in December, 2012. I really like it and I recommend it.

I need to know more. So I go straight to Google. I type in Burnside.

I get all these results about Uniting Care, the city of Burnside, the Burnside Public School and all these other results that do not deal with music. Not a good start.

So I change the search words to “Burnside Band” and the website, http://www.burnsideband.com is the first one that comes up. That is better. However I would have expected the Facebook and Twitter accounts to come up as well.

So I change the search words to be, “Burnside Band Facebook” and it comes up, however it is not the first one. Anyway, I go onto the Facebook page, and I see that they have an album launch happening soon. I am confused. The album came out in December 2012. An album launch six months later is a bit weird. 

This is why the idea of the album fails in this day and age, especially if you are a band starting off. Evolution is a great album, one of the best I have heard in the last few years, and it is in my top 10 of releases for 2012. So how does a band, that recorded a great album get it out to the people, without disappearing.

The answer is the fans. The fans need to be sharing the songs on their Facebook accounts, on their twitter accounts or blogs. Once upon a time there was an old way. Bands and new music where broken by radio and the press. Theses outlets are obsolete today. The fans are the new way. They are the new press. They are the new radio.

Burnside have over 7000 likes on Facebook. It’s time to mobilise these fans. The fans need to share. The band needs to record themselves playing some of the songs acoustically and put them on YouTube and then get fans to share those YouTube clips. It’s not about the sales anymore, it’s about remaining relevant and in the public eye. That is the battle.

Burnside are from an area called Penrith, Australia, which is about 70 minutes away from where I live. This is typical of Australia, where talented bands fail to escape the local area. I only live 90 minutes away and I have never heard of them. They formed in 2009, however the members Grant O’Hara (Vocals, Guitar, Bass), Sheldon Wharton (Vocals, Guitar, Bass) and David Rice (Guitar, Bass) have been in other bands prior.

Their bio has them comparing themselves to Birds of Tokyo. Why? They are way better than Birds of Tokyo. Silverchair is also mentioned. Evolution is an album that Silverchair wished they could make. Foo Fighters is another reference. Foo Fighters are renowned for releasing albums with four to five great songs and the remainder is seen as pure filler. Evolution is an album that has no filler.

Be sure to check out Remember When.  If you like Everything from Lifehouse, you would like this song.

The combination of The Battle moving into With A Gun is brilliant.  The strings over the distorted guitars sounds grand.

Lost The Will is modern rock in the vein of Shinedown.

Will I Find You There reminds me of The Calling.  The Last Time is the best song that Daughtry hasn’t written.

What You’ve Become merges brilliant piano playing with distorted guitars.  Its melodic and haunting at the same time.

Through My Veins, has that AC/DC, Long Way To The Top vibe.

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Music

Bon Jovi struggling to sell tickets

It looks like the wheels are falling off. This is what happens when you go back to the same markets over and over again, with super high ticket prices. I just went onto Showbiz today and I could still purchase 4 Platinum Tickets for the Bon Jovi Australian Shows in December. This was unthinkable, once upon a time.

A lot of Bon Jovi fans got burnt at the Telstra Pre sale debacle. Bon Jovi’s Facebook page, the Bang Tango Facebook page and the Dainty Touring page had over 2,500 combined comments from disgruntled fans. Think about those numbers for a second. If all those fans purchased 4 tickets each, that is 10,000 ticket sales.

A lot of people are now waiting for the General Public Release via Ticketek on the May 20, 2013.

A lot of people don’t even know that the Showbiz pre-sale. It’s not even advertised on the Bon Jovi Facebook page, however the Telstra pre sale was.

Furthermore, Bon Jovi can’t even sell out a hometown gig. Tickets to the U.S. New Jersey shows are up on Goldstar, https://www.goldstar.com/e/69879 as inventory that no one wants.

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Music, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Bon Jovi Telstra PreSales Meltdown – Australian Tour

It’s a meltdown of incompetence. Bon Jovi pre-sales went on sale today via Telstra and Bang Tango, the new player to rival Ticketek. Guess what, it is an epic fail. It’s as bad as John Carter. This is what happens when greed comes into the picture. The fans get treated like dirt.

Jon Bon Jovi is safe and tucked away in his ivory tower, certain that he will be getting his guaranteed fee for touring Australia. How the tickets are sold to his fans, doesn’t concern him at the least. So if you are a fan of Bon Jovi and you want to get tickets and if you paid monies to be a Backstage JBJ member, you had first dibs. Then Showbiz was next, selling VIP packages from a thousand plus bucks. Now it is Telstra’s turn to sell the next lot of pre sales. What a disaster? Facebook and Twitter is melting down with anger. Check out the comments below from Facebook.

· Typical Telstra and their fantastic service

· Keeps saying bad request – how funny! The biggest communications company in Australia and they can’t even get that right! Ha ha ha!

· Typical Telstra lets u down

· Well done Telstra, and Bang tango, web site crash 2 min in!!!

· Thanks Telstra you’re a freakin joke! You got everyone to register and can’t get the server to handle the traffic… You’re a joke. Absolute disgrace. I call for a waving of the proposed $15 fee for using your service. Thanks Telstra for wasting my time.

· Would love to get my tickets but the site has majorly crashed and apparently something has gone majorly wrong. Good on you Telstra. Artist should always stick with ticketek

· absolute joke bang tango…..could of told us we’d need an account with you before the morning. Thought I’d only need my Telstra stuff…no wonder it’s not coping. been waiting since I got on at 9am this morning.

· only getting a white screen via Telstra/Bang tango – frustrating

· Bon Jovi PLEASE take notice of these comments and allow us all to be able to buy tickets from a reliable ticket provider. ticketek in Australia is probably the best and although it is hard to get onto for peak ticket sales it doesn’t usually crash as it restricts the amount of people that can log in at once to avoid the site crashing. that would be a whole lot better than the site we have to get tickets from that crashed and still won’t load over 1.5 hours later

· I was on before the sale went on watched the countdown.. expected the buy button to load… and nothing. Beyond a joke. Had to reload and nothing now. Sometimes I get the page … then can’t do anything. Silly presale. Did they not realise the overload.

· Telstra you SUCK! The servers crashed and no one can get on

· I’ve got a code… 1 laptop 1 iPad and 1 iPhone and it says ” we are signing you up” please wait… Yep been waiting 18 mins already

· Telstra you are a joke how can you expect to compete for our business when you can’t even handle a large amount of people logging into the system.

· Sorry JBJ, poor choice pairing with Telstra Bang Tango. Massive pre-sale fail when you get your code early, but can’t register with the site til the sale starts; then server crashes.

· Why on earth run a pre-sale if your website can’t cope with the number of people who will be trying to purchase tickets!! This is crazy, an absolute joke and disappointment. I can’t get to the ticketing part and that’s it. Telstra… Will you be giving freebies away to all is fans who relied on your pre-sale and haven’t succeeded??

· You would think they could do each state on different days so at least all of Aus isn’t trying to get on at the same time!

· Extremely disappointed and annoyed! Pre-sale Telstra tickets for valued Telstra customers??? I’m not feeling valued at all after taking the morning off work to purchase 2 great tickets for the Adelaide concert and not being able to even log onto the page. Waited so long for you guys to come back to Adelaide too. Very disappointed

· TYPICAL TELSTRA! Couldn’t organise a thing! Site in meltdown since 9.00am! So annoyed!

· No use promoting this pre-sales. Thousands of people in Australia have not been able to access. Been trying for last hour when the pre-sale opened. Nothing. All from our biggest IT Internet provider in the country

· BANG TANGO and TELSTRA You SUCK!!! I don’t even know why I bothered. ALWAYS stick to the trustworthy companies like TICKETEK! Telstra can’t even handle phone and Internet. Should of known they wouldn’t be able to handle something big like this! SEE YOU MONDAY TICKETEK!

· Technology is a joke! Back to the old line up days I say ; )

· Maybe each state should have had a different day or time to log in!

· This is a joke. Surely you would be aware that Bon Jovi has a HUGE fan base here in Aus, and you would have been prepared for a massive amount of activity on your website. To be promoted by a telecommunications company and STILL not be able to handle the volume is shameful. SHAME TELSTRA, SHAME!!!!

· ok, so here’s the thing. I don’t know why I’m bothering. Etihad SUX, Telstra SUX, Bang Tango SUX, prices SUCK, no seating plan SUX, extra charges SUCK!!!

· typical internet ticketing site crash. Should go back to the old school over the counter style.

· I HATE YOU TICKET SITE, my daughter is late for school, my soon has missed his swimming lesson, I am about to have a heart failure and I’ve just thrown my phone at the wall. All for nothing. Why isn’t it loading, I hit the button on for different computers/phone at 9 am on the dot. I deserve these tickets!!! As do everyone else…

· And Bon Jovi you should tell your marketing mob to do more research next time and not partner with the likes of Telstra in future.

· Bang tango website sux

· yeah Telstra a great way of saying thanks by charging an extra $15 per ticket booking fee NO THANKS!!

· STUPID website crashed as soon as ticket sale opened!!!!!!!

· 13 mins trying on pc and phone, won’t even open the page!

· This is pathetic ….. Been trying to log on for over 20 minutes – why was Telstra not prepared for this ???? So annoying

· Seriously Telstra I re arranged my whole morning to get tickets. Not happy

· better off standing in line, at least then when you get frustrated you can punch some wanker in the head!!!

· The only ethical thing they can do is cancel the pre-sale until tomorrow.

· … tried both mobile and computer, nothing. If your site can’t handle heavy traffic, don’t advertise lies! We got left in the rain with nothing! Been trying to refresh browser and on mobile phone to bang tango for half an hr. now! That’s very bad PR!

· there was no problems when it was done with VISA presale through ticketek 4 years ago. why change. U SUX Telstra/Bang tango!

· So heart broken, my girlfriend is a die-hard fan I MEAN HUUUGE FAN she runs a small business & has 2 kids all I wanted was to surprise her, she works so hard & Telstra’s fail means I can’t do something simple like jump online to buy a ticket, even their instructions were pathetic. so disappointed

· I’ve now got the bang tango page to load but it still won’t let you get into the ticket section

· They should provide discount tickets due to the shocking delays!

· Good luck to everyone, I hope your able to secure tickets. The VIP backstage tickets sold out super-fast too. rumour has it Telstra website has the mapping .

· Still no seating plan available. I’d like to know what my money gets me.

· Terrible and didn’t load, jumped on to Bon jovi backstage and got great seats in no time!

· This ain’t no Bed of Roses grrrrrrr!!!

· Any official word on what they are going to do? Surely they can stop, fix and give us a new time – they can’t expect us to sit here and wait

· This is the biggest failure I have ever seen Bon Jovi Just leave it up to the professionals Ticketek in future

· Still having problems, had 3 devices going (phone, iPad, lap top) 10 mins prior to sale, and none could connect… Bang tango was a blank screen the whole time!

· Yup still crashed bang tango is saying on fb they r trying to fix it, it’s almost 10 here in brissy and I’ve been on since it started at 9 not loading

· You shouldn’t have to pay to join the fab club and purchase tickets!! Especially when they r the price they r!!

· Bang tango site fail, not impressed

· Bang tango I hate you!!!! I might just cry! It’s crashed!!!?

· just got 2 tickets thru bj backstage, but u need to be a member ($60) and get charged a conversion fee of $16 each ticket, and can only get 2 tickets. I got Sydney section 110-1, not great but OK. I hope you all get tickets soon guys. SEE YOU THERE

Even though I had my code, I didn’t even attempt to go on and purchase tickets. I understand the frustrations fans are feeling at this point in time. This is where Jon Bon Jovi should be stepping up and offering a solution. All of the above posts are from Bon Jovi’s Facebook page, without a single comment from Bon Jovi or the Facebook admin. It’s ridiculous.

Also here are the prices. Cheap tickets is what the media outlets report. I say yeah right. There is nothing cheap about this Bon Jovi experience. It’s a farce. The media doesn’t report with any integrity anymore. The cheapest tickets are $35 from Ticketek and $32 from Telstra Pre Sales, to sit on top of the stadium roof, with your view hindered. Then they have a limit of two Bronze tickets, so if you want to take a family of 4 or 5 you are stuck. Nice one.

Brisbane / Sydney*
Gold Reserve $155.00
Silver Reserve $99.00
Bronze Reserve $35.00
Platinum Reserve $199.00
Diamond Reserve $250.00
GA Standing – Rear Field $125.00 (Sydney Only)

Perth*
Gold Reserve $199.00
Silver Reserve $129.00
Bronze Reserve $35.00
Platinum Reserve $249.00
Diamond Reserve $299.00

Ticket limit: Bronze Reserved limited to 2 per transaction
*A one-off service/delivery fee from $5.85 per transaction applies. A credit/debit card processing fee from 1.95% will apply. Ticket orders are subject to credit/debit card approval and customer account verification.

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Music

Kings Of Chaos

What kind of a world do we live in where a supergroup cover band trumps all of the established artists. That is what Kings Of Chaos did on Day 1 at the Stone Music Festival.

All the buzz on social media clearly states that Kings of Chaos outperformed everyone there and could have headlined, but were robbed time-wise. So who is Kings of Chaos you say?

From Guns N Roses / Velvet Revolver there is Matt Sorum on drums and Duff McKagan on bass. Gilby Clarke from the GNR Use Your Illusion period is also on rhythm guitar. Steve Stevens from Billy Idol is on lead guitar. Vocals are provided by Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple, Black Country Communion), Joe Elliot (Def Leppard) and the hyperactive Sebastian Bach (Skid Row).

Look at the set list;
Welcome To The Jungle
Youth Gone Wild
Highway Star
Burn
Rebel Yell
Pour Some Sugar On Me
Paradise City

It’s a greatest hits package from the Seventies and Eighties. All of the songs have bona fide credentials for working in the live arena.

That is the key. Writing a great song is one thing, however writing a great song that works in the live arena is another.

People go to the rock n roll show to let their hair down, get up on their feet and allow the music to lift them to a higher place. This is what Kings Of Chaos delivered. A high energy rock n roll set that covered the classics.

What a perfect opener! Welcome to the jungle, we got fun and games. Every band that wants to perform live, needs to have an opening song like this.

Remember when the Circus used to come to town and the Ring Master is there pushing it, Step Right Up, Welcome To The Show.

Kings Of Chaos knew as soon as they played this song, the audience was theirs. They had them in their palm of their hands, ready to take them on the ride. They put out the welcome mat and the fans stepped right up. The band is having a blast and the fans can see it. It’s all about having a good time and music is the leader.

I don’t believe that Kings Of Chaos will do any original songs, however as a Super Group Cover/Tribute Band, how cool is that? What a game changer to the Tribute scenes around the world?

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Music, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Stone Music Festival – Day 2

It’s over. Done and dusted. The people have spoken and the organisers are counting their losses. Will there be another Stone Music Festival in 2014? In the current format, I don’t think so. In a different format, maybe. Will the people trust the Stone Music Festival brand after the debacle? I don’t think so. Furthermore, the Stone Music Festival, was created to celebrate the movie Stone, and the work of its director. Somehow, that all got forgotten, and in my view, this was just a marketing gimmick from the organisers to push sales. It was never their intention to honour the movie.

Here is a summary of comments doing the rounds on social media..

Would’ve been good to have had the second stage inside the stadium so while changeover was happening on the main stage the indie artists could play! That way they get to play to a massive number of people & get their music heard and we don’t have to lose our seats every time we go out to the second stage!!

I agree with putting both stages together …… as one act finishes another act starts on the 2nd stage. Unfortunately we didn’t see the independent artists …..cause we knew we would lose our seats. Congratulations though…..Looking forward to SMF 2014 !

You never got to see the ‘indie bands’ if you wanted to see the ‘Main stage’ acts.

Access to toilets, food and bar facilities were a pain in the ass as you missed the show. And yet band like the Choirboys were delegated a spot outside of the arena, during Aerosmith??? Come on people, FFS, next year pay me to schedule and organise it, think I have a better clue than the pros…

That was a stupid decision, have the two stages so far apart. What was Andrew McManus thinking when this was in the planning stages?

The music saved the day for sure and I had a fantastic time, hopefully if there is another next year the organizers will take on board all of the issues that have been so well highlighted on here, my suggestions as well as the obvious re ticketing issues such as not sending them out on time would be to make the tickets a reasonable price from the start so that you don’t have to give so many away at the end and annoy people who purchased in the beginning. Keep the website updated as not everyone finds you on Facebook where the information is more up to speed though still not 100%, minimise the blocking of views of the stage by camera people, open the indoor merchandise when the gates open especially if it is raining, better signage to explain where the second stage is, sort out sound issues, always reply to people on Facebook asking for help and advice instead of asking them to Post Messages (PM)to you and then you don’t respond with an answer on the page so that everyone can see it and you don’t have the same questions to answer repeatedly.

If you are doing a festival, you need to have information up to date and concise. You need to do it on a grand scale, not on a one on one basis. Stone Music Festival needed to have a team of social media strategists and marketeers. That is how it is done. Connecting with the fans. It’s from the bottom up these days. They should have started promoting this event last year, not in February for an April show.

Flew up from Melbourne just to see Billy. Scored sears to Saturday night…..so I know can say that I have seen Aerosmith and the god that is EVH play. Was pleasantly surprised by all the acts before Billy on the Sunday night, but the absolute highlight for me was sitting front row to my idol BJ. Best 90 minute set of the weekend for me !!!

Billy Joel and Icehouse were amazing!

Brilliant!!!!!!!! Had the best weekend….worth the trip from Qld!!!! Thanks for bringing us so much talent in one rockin weekend!!!

Didn’t get to go to Saturday gig, but saw Sunday that was freakin awesome! Billy Joel was brilliant, Diesel was fantastic, god you can play the guitar and the rest of the artist were great too! Had a fantastic night!

It was absolutely awesome. Billy Joel stole the show .

Loved it, Billy Joel, Icehouse & Diesel were amazing!

Both days were amazing!! Thank you for one of the best weekends of my life 🙂 Please do it again next year

I didn’t want it to end. Billy Joel rocked the Harbour City better than ever. Thank you!

Did billy Joel do a sound check , worst feedback ever

Good time? It was fantastic! Two days of rock music and so many legendary acts in on place. It was amazing. it was a rock-fest of epic proportions. something I will never forget being a part of. Loved it! Better publicity in other states would have been good.

Definitely a great weekend and well worth it despite all the complainers.

Billy Joel still has it. There is something different to bands who paid their dues. Billy Joel played the club circuit as an unsigned artists for a long time before he was picked up by a label. Then once he was picked, the hard work still continued and his brand grew. Young artists these days, don’t have that drive in them anymore. There is the expectation that if they write a good song, they deserve to be paid forever on that one good song.

You cancelled Lifehouse to save $$ for your failing festival!! SMF can go to hell!!!!!!!!

Not sure if there will be another stone fest as I imagine the promoters would have lost huge $$$ with the small crowds and big costs but we can hope!!

So I am looking at all these pics and I’m thinking…. One of the biggest arenas in the country and they are playing to a quarter of it??? Where are the people???? If it was such a success, why is there not 50,000+ there???

$5.80 warm bucket of chips!!!
$80 badly stitched hoodie!!!
$259 concert ticket!!!! (What a rip!!!!!)

Hats off to the organisers of stone music festival, they will received the award for the most poorly organised concert in modern history.
I received 3 lots of tickets because they couldn’t decide whether to stand, sit, stand, stuff it let’s do both. Then to us poor suckers that brought our tickets early, were punished by paying $50 more per ticket, when I emailed promoters regarding compensation for this I was promised a complimentary ticket to be sent. After sending countless emails over 2 weeks, (and not getting 1 reply), surprise, surprise didn’t receive any ticket or email!!!!! LIARS!!!!
To top it off, The Stone Run, which was the reason for the whole concert in the first place. Was just removed from their website and other advertising thinking that nobody would notice. Ticketek here promised to refund the brought tickets for this, and again still waiting, it’s been 3 weeks, have send emailed of course, with no reply!!!!!
Then I could go on and on. but will end a on lighter note to say that Living End were awesome and really rocked!!!!!!

And that is all she wrote.

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Music

PPCA (Phonographic Performance Company of Australia)states its an important win for artists

There is an article over at Computerworld about how the Federal Court of Australia “ruled that Internet simulcasts of radio programs are not broadcasts under the Copyright Act and therefore are not covered by existing licences granted to commercial radio stations.” 

The Federal Court believes that the a radio program transmitted from a “terrestrial transmitter is a different broadcasting service from the delivery of the same radio program using the internet.”

This is typical of the record labels still keeping one foot in the past and not moving with the present.  It is clear that the recording business survives by sales of recorded music.  Since recorded music revenues are not what they used to be compared to the glory years of the 90’s when everybody was re-purchasing their scratched LP’s or chewed up tapes onto CD, the labels have tried every lobbying/bribery trick in the book to get legislation passed that gives them back the control that the Internet has taken away.

Could this the labels secretly trying to kill off radio simulcasting so that the streaming services are all that remain, like Spotify, which the labels have a stake in.  As the Australian Copyright Council said, the decision “leaves open the possibility for new licences to be negotiated for content that is streamed by way of radio simulcast on the Internet.”

Based on the labels past experience, the labels will insist on a super high licence fees as they hate the current statutory cap on commercial radio who need to pay just one percent of their gross income.  Therefore i am sure the radio’s wont pay this new excessive rate and hence the labels will kill this promotional outlet.

“This is an important win for artists and labels whose music is used widely on the internet to help drive profits for Australia’s radio industry,” said PPCA CEO, Dan Rosen.

I wonder how many artists where signed up for this action.  I wonder how much of the new fees would go back to artists as the labels are renowned for their creative accounting practices.   And what artists are we talking about here, as most independent artists don’t get played on mainstream radio.

To me Radio should be the last thing up and coming artists should strive for.  PSY was broken by YouTube without any mainstream publicity.  He dropped Gangnam Style without publicity and the online world built it into the monster it became.  The mainstream channels just picked up the crumbs.

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