Labelobit: Miriam Bienstock

Miriam Bienstock, one of the co-founders of Atlantic Records, has died.

In the early days of the label, Ahmet Ertegun scouted talent; Bienstock's then-husband Herb Abramson looked after the recording. Miriam did everything else, as the New York Times explains:

“I must tell you, Miriam was an important person in keeping discipline at Atlantic Records, and keeping everything on the up-and-up,” Mr. Ertegun, who died in 2006, said in an interview with Billboard magazine in 1997. “She ran the office, and none of us was inclined to run the office. She is unheralded, unrecognized, but if we hadn’t had her in those developing years, the company would have folded. She also had very good taste in music.”

Bienstock sold out of Atlantic in 1964; before the label was absorbed by Warners. Before this, she'd divorced Herb and remarried Freddy Bienstock. Post-Atlantic, she turned her attention to theatre and investing.

Miriam Bienstock was 92; she died March 21st in Manhattan.

Snapchat gets into music

So if I were to say to you that Snapchat was thinking about getting into the music business, you'd probably do what I did.

Nod your head, and think of something akin to its photo product, where the photo "disappears" after you've shared it. (Of course, it doesn't, because nothing digital leaves no trace, but in theory, anyway.) And you could picture that appealing to record labels, with their constant fear of pirates, pirates everywhere and limited understanding of the digital world.

But you'd be wrong. I was wrong. Snapchat's ambitions are more Empire-building than a mere app:

Mobile messaging service Snapchat could be formulating plans to launch its own music label, according to information in leaked Sony emails.

Reported correspondence between Sony's president of global digital business, Dennis Kooker, reveal that Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel has dreams of being a curator.

While a music service isn't on the cards, a record label "so [Spiegal] could focus on the artists that he wants to use the platform to promote," could well be.

Yeah. Snapchat don't want to launch a service, they want to launch a label.

What a terrible idea. But perhaps, at last, Spiegel has found a way to create something digital that will vanish almost instantly, leaving no trace at all.

Does anyone have the energy for a Morrissey story?

The ongoing spat between Morrissey and Harvest Records has taken another shall-we-call-it-lurch-towards-the-edge, as Harvest Records have yanked World Peace Is None Of You Business off the digital market:

According to a source familiar with the situation, "Morrissey has not been dropped by [Harvest Records, a subsidiary of Capitol Music Group, itself a subsidiary of Universal Music Group] but out of deference to his request they have reluctantly removed his album from all services."

Billboard thinks this shouldn't be too frustrating to Mozzer fans:

Since its release the album has sold 25,000 units -- 15,000 CDs, 3,000 LPs and 8,000 digital downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan. With those kind of sales numbers for the physical formats, Billboard speculates that Harvest probably built about 50,000 physical units for the U.S. market. That means there is still plenty of World Peace stock left for Morrissey fans to track down, if they're so inclined.

Bless Billboard, convinced that people's response when discovering they can't download a record from iTunes or stream on Spotify is to pull on a coat, get out the car and drive to town to look for a CD. That's quite sweet.

With the record vanishing, now would be the perfect time to announce a European tour, right?

No, really; he has announced a European tour. Apparently including the O2 Arena. Good luck getting that venue meat-free, Morrissey.

Morrissey 'parts company' with his label

It's been a great summer for Morrissey, right? The new album was given massive support, and garnered a lot of applause (although the record itself wasn't really a leap forward). Even the NME, forever outside the circle now, had to swallow it and produce an entire issue inspired by the release, in a "lots of interviews with people who were involved apart from Morrissey" style.

He must be thrilled.

His label must be delighted.

Oh... hang on:

Three weeks after the release of Morrissey's World Peace Is None Of Your Business (#2 UK, #14 US), Capitol Records/Harvest have ended their relationship with Morrissey, as directed by label boss Steve Barnett.

Morrissey is once again in search of a record label.

Got to love that line; painting Morrissey as very much the Littlest Hobo of indie pop.

It seems there's been a falling out. Morrissey appears to believe that the label hadn't made enough of a splash:

I am indebted to three sources that have placed their own well-crafted videos on You Tube for the song World peace is none of your business. The three individual sources are named as Sharon Jheeta, Héctor González and wpeace123456. These videos fully understand the intent of the song, and I am relieved that these films exist. Yes, a similar document ought to have been harvested by the record label, but please understand that the pop or rock industry can be as dedicated to perpetuating public deception as the world of politics itself. God bless social media!

Liberty, equality and fraternity are the essence of the song; no monarchic rule, no political hierarchies, no bought-and-paid-for government thugs, security forces no longer beyond prosecution, and an end to megalomania, repression and corruption. Meat consumption is climate change, and if ever there were a self-evident lost cause it is the British so-called "royal family". Societies have never been so nervous; Pan Am Flight 103 differs not a jot from Malaysian Flight 17. The United Nations failure to imprison Tony Blair and George W. Bush for war crimes against Iraq has told us all that there can never be enough bloodshed, and the world is suffering its worst nervous breakdown. Do not feel powerless!

Many apparently powerless causes have succeeded in shifting political stupidity and greed. You are intellectual sanity. It is possible for nonviolent change; there are more people than there are aging despots; there are more people than there are world leaders. In truth, the world is leaderless. Please stop watching Fox News; anti-monarchial Britain has given up on the BBC – we know that every slot is paid for. We know that the number 1 position on the pop charts is "bought"; this is not 1955.

Thank you to all of my friends in Israel, Chile, Sweden, Poland, Argentina, Hungary, Romania, Finland and Italy who bought World peace is none of your business. It is 30 years on since The Smiths album entered the UK chart at number 2 with zero airplay and zero promotion, and the struggle for the airwaves remains difficult. Yet, I am writing this to you now, and you are reading it.

In answer to many people who have asked, I should like to finally make it clear that I have not received any television invitations – worldwide! – to either discuss World peace is none of your business, or even to sing any songs from the album.

Thank you for reading this. We have our first World peace is none of your business concert booked in Lisbon (Portugal) on October 6th.

All we have is each other.

for the animals, for intellectual sanity ...

Pssst, Mozzer. If you're going to point to the number two position for your album as a good thing in one part of True To You, you might not want to insist that every position in the charts on the charts is bought.

But then, there's no coherent logic to this post at all - indeed, had Courtney Love published it, the internet would be rolling round snurkling at the crazy rant. But because Mozzer is a bloke, it even gets a respectful write-up on the BBC, despite how Britain (or maybe just the anti-Monarchial bit of Britain) has given up on them.

Where do you even start? The suggestion that The Smiths got zero promotion - true, if you ignore night-time Radio One, and the four music weeklies (still a big deal at the time); the offensive attempt to try and draw a line from 'not having a video made for me' with the murders of Lockerbie and Ukraine. The almost touching belief that he and Fox News would share an audience.

Maybe the standout moment is the 'it's not 1955' bit - it's not, Morrissey, which is why nobody much cares what the number one (or number two) album record is in the charts; much less how the piddly sales figure was arrived at.

And, oh, the Partridgesque "I wanna be on the telly" cry at the end - having suggested that television is just death-wank designed to keep the supine in their place, how painful to then complain that you don't get asked on. (The tendency of Morrissey to speechify along these lines might be the reason interns are not often sent to dig out his phone number; a history of saying awkward things, and then complaining when those things included are in the interview might also be an explanation.)

Perhaps all these things will be ironed out in the next episode. Until then, though...

Give people what they want in lethal doses: Jade Tree comes to Bandcamp

Jade Tree records - Milemarker, Girls Against Boys, Denali and many others - has been not-quite-shuttered for the last few years. It was in a status of more or less silent running.

Now, though, the label is shaking itself back to full activity, starting with putting their full back catalogue onto Bandcamp for sale or streaming.

There's a promise of a ramped-up release schedule for the coming months, and the label's Darren Walters says he's in love again. He's keen for it not be thought of as a comeback, but it's clearly a new, happy chapter.

Kylie Minogue discovers nobody on The Voice sells any records

Apparently Kylie has left Parlophone after Kiss Me Once struggled to sell more than 60,000 copies.

Or, possibly, Parlophone has left Kylie. For the same reason, though.

Nitro scooped up onto Bicycle

I'm not sure it's entirely "punk" to be doing company take-overs, but Bicycle Music Company has acquired Nitro, adding The Offspring and The Damned catalogue to an already hefty collection of everything from Phil Ochs to Tone Loc.

Re-Creation

Alan McGee is, reckons Louder Than War, thinking of bringing back Creation:

Rumours have increased in the last hour though as Gun Club Cemetery (who we featured as a New Band of the Day yesterday, interviewing Alex Lowe) tweeting they have signed to Creation.

It’s rumour at the moment with the only signs the legendary label, once home to Oasis, Super Furry Animals and others, is back in business coming from the band and their manager.

A revival of Creation? Wasn't that what we were all praying for? Admittedly, we were praying for it at the time it was still going and mostly just churning out Oasis records and hanging out with Tony Blair, not recently.

There is a pressing problem, though: if you look at the back of any Creation re-release, it states clearly that Creation is wholly-owned by Sony.

Admittedly, they don't really care for it overmuch - never mind that the Creation Soup albums are out of print, Amazon have lazily lobbed all the Ride re-releases into the store under the impression that each record is called, erm, The Catalogue:

But own it they do - McGee got, apparently, £30million for the bit Sony didn't own when things were wound up, and although the soundtrack to Creation biopic Upside Down was supposedly released on a revival of Creation last year, it was really just Sony being adorable and pretending, like when Kelloggs put a 1950s version of Snap, Crackle and Pop on the cereal packet to frighten kids.

Is McGee going to, then, buy back Creation? At the time Sony bought it it was apparently worth £60million - clearly the value would have sunk since then, and he could buy it back without the catalogue, but even so that seems like a lot of investment just to allow Gun Club Cemetery to put out a record with a word that meant something to their fathers' generation in the middle.

I imagine McGee could turn up at Sony's offices and resurrect the label from within its failing empire. But 'wholly owned subsidiary of an electronics manufacturer' wouldn't really be the Creation myth that anyone would expect to be played into, would it?

McGee could follow both Branson and Tony Wilson and, with his baby off working for the conglomerates, he could create a Creation form of V2 or Factory Too. This sort of thing always ends in disappointment, though.

Like the time Harry Corrbett had sold Sooty to his son, decided he didn't like retirement and started doing the odd show. Matthew sued his own dad's ass.

Because Matthew knew, once you've flogged your dream to the highest bidder, it's been flogged.

So there's ways Creation could come back. But the real question would have to be: why would you bother?

On the other hand: if he revived Elevation, that would be audacious.

Chicagobit: Carl Davis

Carl Davis, the man who created The Chicago Sound, has died.

Davis started out in music pulling together playlists for local radio DJs - a job nowadays done by computers. It's unlikely, though, that computers would go on to become a producer, found a label (Chi-Sound), or create a musical genre that defined a time and place.

Davis was also notable as one of the first African-American A&R director to work for a major label.

He produced this:

He was told it wouldn't be a hit. He stuck it out. He was right.

Carl Davis was 77; he died in Southern California on Thursday.

Bikini Kill: New thrill

This year, it's twenty-five years since Bikini Kill started.

How do you mark an occasion like that? Turns out by launching a record label of the same name:

As our 25th anniversary approaches, Bikini Kill has decided to start our own record label called Bikini Kill Records. The Bikini Kill back catalog is currently available digitally via bikinikill.com, eMusic & iTunes. The Frumpies and Casual Dots are also up for sale now. We are working towards reissuing the physical Bikini Kill records one at a time. There are brand new Bikini Kill T Shirts available from bikinikill.com at this time with more merch to come in the near future.

Bikini Kill's Self-Titled EP will come out in the fall of 2012 to commemorate the 20 year anniversary of its original release. We also plan to re-release our original demo tape, which contains songs that were previously unavailable and/or hard to find on vinyl & CD. We are currently going through our archive, which include photographs, practice tapes, live recordings, unreleased songs, films, video, writing, interviews, zines and flyers that we intend to feature on future releases and document on our website. Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive news about our progress.

Best. Jubilee. Ever.

Downloadable: Room40

Room40 are celebrating their ten years in the electronic music business by giving away a 40 track sampler.

The headline names are probably Xiu Xiu, Grouper and Tenniscoats, but there's obviously much more to explore, sample and delight. Happy birthday, Room40.

[via CollapseBoard]

Labelobit: Dick Griffey

The founder of Solar Records, Dick Griffey, has died.

Griffey had eeny-meeny-miney-moed his way into nightclub owner over medicine as a career and had quickly established an eye for talent. By the turn of the 1970s, he was booking world tours for stars of Stevie Wonder's pedigree, and it was his ear and contacts book which lead to him becoming talent booker on Soul Train.

Unencumbered by ITA-style conflict of interest worries, Soul Train spawned its own label. The imaginatively-titled Soul Train Records had some successes, most notably early Shalamar, but folded in 1977. Having helped create the label, Griffey took the leftovers and used them to found Solar (Sounds Of Los Angeles Records). Coming at the start of a mythical golden Soul-Disco age, the timing was right. Before eventually winding up as part of an EMI firesale which would see catalogue sold to Unidisc, Solar would provide a home for Shalamar, Midnight Star, Klymaxx and even the first recording featuring Snoop Doggy Dogg. It also turned out LA Reid, whose journey from musician to besuited industry paragon is a story all of its own.

Solar also counted amongst its rosta Carrie Lewis. Arguably, she was the main artist on the label; inarguably, she was the only one married to Griffey.

Dick Griffey died from complications following a multiple bypass. He was 66.

Labelobit: Bob Keane

Bob Keane, founder of Del-Fi Records, has died.

Born in 1922 as Robert Kuhn, his route to running his own label started early. At 17, he was being promoted as "the world's youngest band leader"; a break to serve during the war was followed by the first foray into running a label, in partnership with John Siamas. This label, Keen Records, took a young Sam Cooke from gospel band The Soul Stirrers and turned him into a crossover star, but disputes with Siamas led to Keane quitting.

Tired of being number two in someone else's label, Keane launched his own imprint, Del-Fi. Eclectic and driven by a genuine love of music, Del-Fi would be the launch pad for both Richie Valens and Frank Zappa; its R&B subsidiary Bronco employed Barry White to talent-spot.

The Del-Fi story didn't end well: the label's biggest stars, The Bobby Fuller Four, came to abrupt halt when Bobby Fuller was found dead, and Del-Fi failed to survive the loss. Del-Fi folded, and Keane went through a period making a living in door-to-door sales.

Keane returned to music to manage the career of his sons, The Keane Brothers, during the 1970s and during the 1980s revived Del-Fi as a heritage label.

Bob Keane died on Saturday from renal failure resulting from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was 87.

Sub Pop, KEXP link up

Given that times are meant to be so hard for music businesses, it always comes as a surprise to hear that people are, of course, still launching labels.

Like SubPop, who have linked up with KEXP to launch an imprint dedicated to The Best Ambiance's mix of pop from various nations across Africa.

They've already signed an act, too - Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba. They played the G8, which I guess means they'd managed to become as important as Bono without a US record deal. They sound like this:

Labelobit: Shawn Patrick Kelley

Sorry to hear of the death of Shawn Patrick Kelley who, with Tommi Emmi founded Oregon's Cymbalism Recordings.

The label gave a home to a wide range of bands, including Emmi's own Plan 9, Pure Phase and Fused Forces.

Kelley, who was engaged, died early yesterday.

Please Rain Fall - please send stuff

If you must have a revolution, do it for fun.

Meet Please Rain Fall records, a new label which is probably closer to those flexi-and-fanzine labels of the 80s than anything else.

There's an ethos:

Please Rain Fall Records
Please Rain Fall Records is a CDR record label. But it is a little bit different. There is no charge for any of the releases. You will not see any paypal buttons or requests for credit card details. Just e-mail me with your address etc. and I will send you a copy of the CD. In return, you then send something back to me. This could be a mixtape, a drawing, a story, a picture.. anything really. Be creative. The label is an attempt to build a community of like-minded souls. You never know, we might have some fun along the way.

It won't impress Paul McGuiness, of course, in terms of its plans for marketing pushes into the Latin American market, or the five-year-growth piecharts. And PRF's Stephen is probably never going to make it onto the cover of Forbes. But don't let anyone tell you there aren't 'business' models for digital distribution - it's just sometimes the business might not measure its success in pounds and euro.

Gun shot

Sony records have killed the GUN records imprint, created by BMG and Bogdan Kopec and Wolfgang Funk back in 1992. The acts signed to the label will either shift to Sony sub labels Four Music or Columbia Germany.

MIDEM 2009: Placebo taken by Sam

After the digital stuff, MIDEM turns to the music, and amongst the early announcements is that Placebo are signing to PIAS for the next album. They could have had their pick of the majors - they say - but instead fell for PIAS small-scale, big-idea charms:

Placebo frontman Brian Molko said “We are delighted to be signing with [PIAS], one of the world’s most respected and successful independent music companies. We were very lucky to have so many great labels interested in signing us, it means a lot, especially after 12 years of releasing records!! But we now feel we have the right partner for Europe in these ever-changing times to continue this crazy adventure and to scale even dizzier heights with our new record".

Two exclamation marks and "scaling dizzy heights" in "ever-changing times" - let's hope that he's putting a bit more effort into the lyrics than he has into the press release.

Still, Meds was a splendid album, so let's hope a smaller, more loving environment might bring about something even better, so people stop going "what, really?" when you tell them you like Placebo.

Annie quits the Island

Another artist for the clumsily named "actually, what the hell am I paying a record label for" file, as Annie tells Island goodbye:

"I think it's a great label, but I never felt they were that positive to my ideas...so we decided that we're not gonna work together anymore. After Nick Gatfield, who was the head of Island left the label...a couple of months after I signed, things changed. I'm an artist with lots of ideas, plans...so I'm gonna do things my own way from now on."

As if no longer having the confidence of musicians wasn't bad enough, record companies are now being patronised by the departing artists doing the "it's not you, it's me - I've changed..." speech.

Mixed luck for Lil'types

Lil Kim has fallen out with her new record label, even before managing to record one album for them. Actually, it's the not recording an album that has got her into trouble - Brookland Media is suing for USD2.5million on account of her not delivering an album. Kim wants to rework her contract; her people suggest that suing is the label's way of pressurising her into sticking with the original deal.

Of course, neither side is particularly sympathetic, so let's instead spare a thought for the innocent victim: Atlantic, who won't be getting the two hundred grand from Brookland they were promised for releasing Kim from her deal with them. Not for now, any way.

Meanwhile, Lil' Wayne celebrated his birthday with a gift of a million dollars in a briefcase, that would seem to be a little tactless in the current economic climate were it not obviously a crappy stunt to try and make people interested in him. He probably wrapped it himself, too.