Seb Coe and chums wants musicians to work for free

Apparently there's to be a sport contest, The Olympics, in London next month. I think some of the newspapers might have mentioned it.

Anyway, it's not just about sponsors logos and running. The organisers, LOCOG, thought it would be nice to have some bands playing music to lift the audience's spirits during the dull bits (which would presumably be the sporting bits.)

Trouble is, they don't really want to pay. Music Week reports:

Horace Trubridge, MU Assistant General Secretary said: “LOCOG is saying this is ok because the bands are going to be amateur musicians, but that is simply not true. If it was school bands then it might be a different thing but unsigned bands are not amateurs - in many cases they expect, and get, paid for performing live and LOCOG is exploiting them under the guise of an unsigned band competition.

“LOCOG has repeatedly told us that all professional musicians will be paid, and this is yet another example of them breaking their word. If they want musicians to entertain thousands of people then they should pay for it. It is difficult enough to earn a decent living as a professional musician these days – where does this idea come from that musicians should be happy to work for free? Who else would be?

“This competition aside, the MU has been gathering countless recent examples of LOCOG directly approaching professional musicians to play for free. We are asking the Government and the Mayor of London to condemn LOCOG’s actions and we are also calling on musicians who have been asked to work for free at the Olympics to refuse to play.”

Ah, but we're all supposed to work for free for the Olympics, aren't we? Despite there being supposedly half a billion to spare, according to fundamentally-flawed Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt, there's a grim determination for the event to not pay for staff if it can possibly get away with it.

As far as I can tell, though, McDonalds haven't been invited by LOCOG to give their burgers away for free. Funny that.

You can't touch me, I'm part of the union

We're slightly bemused by the founding of a group designed to allow groups to come together to fight for better digital deals: isn't this what the Musician's Union should be doing?

And if the new group creams off the "top" acts like Radiohead, Robbie Williams and The Verve, does that really make the group a leftward leaning social good, or is it merely an attempt to secure for the already rich an even larger slice of the money? It's interesting they've chosen the name of the Featured Artist's Coalition - already excluding the session musicians, then.

The sense that the organisation is more about the already-successful than an initiative to put together a group that is aimed at all musicians getting a better deal is in the press release:

To date, over 60 artists have joined the Coalition by signing its founding Charter. These range from established artists like Radiohead, The Verve, Craig David, Robbie Williams and the Kaiser Chiefs through to newer acts like Kate Nash, The Futureheads and Sia. To read the Featured Artists’ Coalition’s Charter or to see a video of some of the artists who are part of the Coalition, visit www.featuredartistscoalition.com.

Newer artists like The Futureheads? The band who formed in 2000? And Sia, whose first record came out in 1997?

Sia is the FAC's touchstone, though - she's wheeled out for the BBC to knock down suggestions that this is a cartel rather than a union:

Does Williams, who famously proclaimed that he was rich beyond his "wildest dreams" when he signed to EMI for £80m in 2002, really need any help?

"Robbie Williams' deal was done when CD sales really meant something," Mr [Tim] Clark says. "Those sorts of deals are just not possible any longer."

The coalition is "not about Robbie Williams", he says, instead pointing to former Zero 7 singer Sia, whom his company has managed for the last eight years.

Tim Clark, of course, also manages Robbie Williams - it's questionable if Sia would have been invited to sign up for the launch had she not been so well connected.

It could be that I'm being unfair - Billy Bragg and Radiohead are both involved, so there is some signs of conscience there - but had some actual newer artists been invovled, and smaller acts not signed to powerhouse management organisations, it might have been easier to judge if this is being done in the spirit of Tollpuddle or the top table.

Musician's retirement home faces closure

The Musician's Benevolent Fund has announced plans to close Ivor Newton House, the only residential care home for musicians in the UK. It means that residents, some nearing 100, are going to be forced to move out of their current home.

The Musicians Union is organising a petition calling on the MBF to overturn the plans to shutter the building; the MBF claim it isn't "viable" to not turf out octogenarians and nonagenarians and sell the lucrative property in Bromley.

But here's a thought: if the MBF can't see a way of making it viable, why don't all those richer, older celebrities like Cliff Richard dig into their pockets and keep the place afloat? After all, Cliff and his chums are always stressing that they've been seeking to get mechanical copyright extended not to line their own pockets, but to help out less-well-off musicians. Why, here's a chance for them to demonstrate that in action. They could even pledge to sign over any earnings from copyright being extended past fifty years straight to the MBF, on the proviso that services like Ivor Norman House remain being offered. Wouldn't that make everyone happy?

Local music forever. Yeah, right

Leaving aside for a moment the question of why a campaign about The Entire Nation's local radio is tacked on the end of a MediaGuardian report about BBC London, we're not sure if we should cheer or sob, forever, until leopards form in our ducts at the Music Business Forum's sudden realisation that most "local" radio isn't local at all.

The Forum - the BPI, the MU and another thirteen bodies - have suddenly realised that crappy, standardised chart networks have swallowed virtually every radio station in the land, and that the interesting little pools where new talent used to be able to take their first steps have dried up. The indie BPI, AIM, are quoted as saying

"we want to make sure local radio stations are required to carry local music, just as TV stations have to broadcast local news",

which is wrong for a start - only one channel (ITV) is obliged to carry 'local' news anyway, and if the government attempted to enforce Channel 5 or, god forbid, Granada Men and Motors to carry local news, the proposal would be shot out the water. More to the point, what would count as local music?

Would Liverpool's Radio City be able to claim it'd kept its end up by playing a Beatles track every hour? Really, the fact there's fifteen organisations here and they've all sat by for the last thirty years watching local stations being bought up, allowed to change their formats more and more towards being "Rosie Ribbons, 24 hours a day", and not saying a word sticks in the craw a little. You wanted a station in Liverpool playing new Liverpool music? Where were you when Crash got fucked over, bought out and turned into a lite dance station?