Dub dot dash

Shock! Horror! Evermore!
So, in a surprise win, Evermore take out the Apra Silver Scroll songwriting award for 2005. Oh hang on, that's not really a surprise, it's boring as fuck. Two thumbs up to their manager for sending out a press release at 4pm yesterday announcing the win several hours BEFORE the official ceremony. Noizyland notes that "The release gushed lyrically about the win, which came over other NZ luminaries such as Dave Dobbyn (fair enough) and The Finn Brothers (who, er, weren't actually nominated). Ah well.
Live performances this year saw Pitch Black perform Evermore's 'It's Too Late', Plan 9 did Pluto's 'Long White Cross', Jordan Luck & Brian Bell performed Dave Dobbyn's 'Welcome Home', Batucuda Sound Machine played The Mint Chick's 'Opium of the People', and The Checks put their spin on Goldenhorse's 'Out of the Moon'."

Still, selling 75,000 albums in Oz aint shabby, but not even gold status (sitting at less than 7,500 sales) in NZ? Guess we're sleeping on our own talent again... nah, my earlier verdict stands.

ADDED: Just noticed this in the Herald story... ""But when you look at some of the songs that have won in the past - there's some amazing songs - it's just a compliment to be nominated," [Evermore's Jon] Hume said.
UH OH, HANG ON - artists are responsible for entering their own songs into the Silver Scroll Awards - no-one nominated them.

Phil Collins is wack
Coolfer on day two of Future of Music Summit. Panel 05: I Am The DJ: Podcasting, Webcasting and Music... and Panel 07: Sampling and Shared Art...

"Producer Hank Shocklee of Public Enemy fame, a knowledgeable musician and an animated panelist, is perplexed by the fact that he doesn't know how much a sample costs. It depends on what part of the song and how long the sample, but the unpredictability is, in his opinion, prohibitive to the creative process. If he wants that Phil Collins” snare drum, he complained, he could either go into the studio and get those specific instruments or he could sample the sound. Kohn said to that, “Phil Collins spent a lot of time creating that sound.” “That snare sound he made isn't original, Shocklee replied....

Shocklee repeated many times that he believes artists who sample sounds shouldn't be held to the same costs and procedures as artists who take samples that represent the heart of the song. Shocklee produced Public Enemy's early, classic album by creating rhythms out of multiple samples, many of them unrecognizable. Those albums would not be made in today's licensing climate, a fact that Shocklee admitted today and has expressed publicly in the past. His position did not have the legal expertise of panelist Bob Kohn, for example, but he clearly represented a point of view that is common in the hip hop world..."