Support Act gets massive helping hand + all the biggest industry headlines from the week
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29.11.2021

Support Act gets massive helping hand + all the biggest industry headlines from the week

music industry news
(Image: Jessie McCall)
Words by Christie Eliezer

Plus Adele's dominance on the charts becomes obvious, Triple J experiences major reshuffle, and more!

Been out of the loop with everything that’s been going on in the music industry recently? We don’t blame you. Here’s a wrap-up of all the biggest Aussie music industry news stories from the past fortnight.

The top headlines:

  • The push in NSW for musicians to get a 250 dollar minimum wage each at publicly funded live performances was green-lighted in Parliament.
  • UNIFIED Music Group’s Red Hill Entertainment partnered with Collarts to create job pathways for the next generation of industry pros.
  • This year’s Ausmusic T-Shirt Day raised a record $539,732, a 65 per cent jump on 2020.

Keep your eyes peeled on our Industry News page to stay updated on all the latest headlines.

T-Shirts And Roadie Live Tapes Helping Support Act

The music industry continues to help Support Act’s good work for those doing it tough.

This year’s Ausmusic T-Shirt Day raised a record $539,732, a 65 per cent jump on 2020.

Support Act’s website will remain open for a few more weeks to get to “at least $550,000 by the time we call time on this year’s event”. By last Friday (November 26) it reached $545,898.

Among the 1,983 contributors were ARIA/PPCA, APRA AMCOS, Cold Chisel, Spotify, UNIFIED, CrewCare, Roland, Red Bull, Sounds Australia, Amazon Music, Country Music Association, Marshall Amplification, Sound Merch, Sony Music, Jands, Oztix, Atomic 212, Mushroom Group, YouTube Music, Bendigo Bank, Perth Festival, The Angels, Sennheiser Australia, Native Tongue, Play On Victoria, and Moshtix.

In the meantime, the Australian Road Crew Association (ARCA) has been creating a storm with its Desk Tape series of historic live shows recorded from the desk by a crew member.

It’s raised 50 thousand dollars for Support Act’s Roadies Fund. So far 21 acts approved the monthly releases. They include Crowded House, Men At Work, Australian Crawl, Neil Finn, Goanna, Redgum, The Models (whose tape went into the charts), Russell Morris, Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons, and v.Spy v. Spy whose 1984 set at the Prince of Wales is out in December.

However some major acts and their managers have chosen to be precious. Shameless.

Due to feedback from customers, ARCA is expanding its CD and vinyl output with discussions with a retail chain.

Finally, Melbourne band Close Counters raised one thousand dollars for Support Act from their single ‘In Need Of Love’ and ‘Wherever You Go’, which got UK airplay. “Sublime, sun-drenched” commented XLR8R while Clash magazine described it as wicked and “a potent jazz-leaning collaborative”.

NSW Parliament Backs Muso Minimum Wage

The push in NSW for musicians to get a 250 dollar minimum wage each at publicly funded live performances, as reported in Mixdown, was green-lighted in Parliament.

The motion, moved by Shadow Minister for Music and the Night Time Economy, John Graham, was passed by Legislative Council at a midnight session. Government voted against it.

Musical Chairs At Triple J

As 2021 winds up, there are moves at triple j.

Avani Dias, host of Hack for two years, is moving to Delhi as ABC’s new South Asia correspondent, and replaced by the breakfast shift’s Dave Marchese aka D-BOY.

At Hack, the five-time Walkley nominated Dias fronted investigations like Tinder as a predator’s playground and dangers of TikTok data mining.

Nat Tencic, who helmed sex and relationships show The Hook Up for four years, departs to work on consent education resources and pursue other opportunities in podcasting.

Her replacement is Perth-hailed Dee Salmin of podcast and meme page The No Chill Girl fame, who produced The Hook Up for the last 18 months and was at ABC South West WA.

After 8 years, future pop and electronic show Something More has come to an end. Host Tim Shiel remains on air on Double J Arvos.

Shantan Wantan Ichiban departs The Kick On to helm a new Friday night edition of House Party in 2022.

Retractable Roof For Stadium Australia?

The NSW government is considering a proposal to install a 120 million dollar retractable roof over Sydney’s largest stadium, the 80 thousand-seat Stadium Australia. It’s part of an 800 million dollar upgrade over five years to snare major sporting and entertainment events from other states.

Lifelines

Married: Amy Sheppard of the band Sheppard tied the knot with men’s performance and life coach Lachlan Stuart on a beach in the Whitsundays and performed a song she wrote for him.

Died: David Peach, 59, one-time volunteer at Radio Northern Beaches in Sydney (and CEO of mental wellbeing fund raising charity Black Dog Ride), weeks after being diagnosed with cancer.

Pop Up Venue The Village Green For Sydney

Event producers Architects of Entertainment have set up an outdoor venue in Tempe in Sydney’s inner-west for promoters and tour companies not wanting to miss out on summer.

They’ve got The Village Green at Tempe Recreation Reserve from Friday January 21 to Sunday February 27, which can hold almost three thousand patrons and comes with full infrastructure.

Architects of Entertainment’s Nathaniel Holmes and Haydn Johnston said “the Village Green is a direct response to the COVID restrictions affecting the live music and events industries.

“What we’ve created here in Tempe is an outdoor venue capable of accommodating crowd capacities that most indoor venues in Sydney are still unable to achieve.

“The city is more than ready for a return to live music and we’ve got the perfect spot for it.”

A greenfield venue surrounded by enormous fig trees and set on Cook’s River, the Village Green is 20 minutes from the CBD, 700 metres from Sydney International Airport, and easily accessed by train and bus, with rideshare drop off less than 300 metres from the venue’s entrance.

Red Hill Partners With Collarts

UNIFIED Music Group’s Red Hill Entertainment partnered with Collarts to create job pathways for the next generation of industry pros.

It gives Collarts students the opportunity of real-world work experience across Red Hill Entertainment’s music festivals UNIFY Forever, NYE On The Hill, and Land Of Plenty.

There are up to 60 roles available during the 2022 season, covering artist liaising, production crew and accreditation, content creation, digital marketing, and sponsorship.

Soundmerch Launches Record and Merch Store

Melbourne merch firm Soundmerch set up its first physical store at 64 Oxford St, Collingwood.

Since the business’ inception in 2007, its list of clients includes 150 artists and over 50 record labels across the globe.

Founder Tim Everist said the he focus of the business changed as more indie acts pushed their product online post-pandemic.

“We’re now selling more records than merch! We’ve seen an increase of 600 per cent in vinyl sales,” he said.

The store launches with an in-store signing by Amyl & The Sniffers and a live set by Maple Glider behind their new single.

In January, the store also becomes a gallery to host art exhibitions, and will be used for listening parties and album launches.

Soundmerch has teamed up with US-based Merchbar, which allows artists to include their merch on Spotify and Youtube and send daily sales info to ARIA to contribute to artist charting.

Adele Storms ARIA, UK Charts

On the weekend, Adele’s 30 debuted at number one on the ARIA charts, her third chart topping album in Australia. It follows 25 which occupied the top spot for eight weeks (Nov 2015) and 21 (May 2011), which spent 32 weeks in the top spot, the second most weeks at number one in ARIA Charts history.

Nine tracks from 30 are in the top 50. It dragged back 25 to number seven, 21 to number 10 and 19 to number 29.

In the UK, where it also debuted at number one, 30 broke a number of sales records. Its first week sales of 261,856 beat ABBA’s 203,909 for Voyage two weeks before.

It was the biggest weekly sales recording since Ed Sheeran’s ÷ had 206,411 in its third week at number one in March 2017.

Adele set a new record for four consecutive number one albums by a female. Physical sales for 30 made up nearly a third of the overall sales, and it was also the most-streamed album of the week with 55.7 million plays, a record weekly total for a female act.

Find out more on how to donate to Ausmusic T-Shirt Day here.