Richard Gottehrer, our creative mastermind, Orchard co-founder and my favorite person to drink Negronis with, just added Dum Dum Girls to his production credits. RCRD LBL summarizes it best:

Richard Gottehrer–co-writer of “My Boyfriend’s Back” and “I Want Candy,” co-founder of Sire Records with Seymour Stein, and producer of albums by Blondie, The Go-Gos and many others–produced the upcoming Dum Dum Girls LP, I Will Be. That’s pretty much the ultimate co-sign for a girl group-inspired garage-rock band. And judging from “Jail La La,” which is out as a single on February 16 before the album drops on March 30 (both through Sub Pop), the man’s magic touch has hardly faded.

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Wakey!Wakey!’s breakout LP, Almost Everything I Wish I’d Said the Last Time I Saw You, may not hit stores until next week, but the band debuted their catchy new single, “Twenty-Two,” on AOL Spinner yesterday.  The Almost Everything… standout, like the album, is full of lush chamber pop melodies courtesy of bandleader Mike Grubbs, who One Tree Hill fans will recognize as the multi-talented bartender at the show’s music venue, The TRIC.  When Grubbs isn’t filming The CW’s OTH, he’s offering Grammy predictions to CBS – no, really!  He also had a part in another huge web premiere yesterday – check out the official Apple iPad promo spot here, where Wakey!Wakey!’s “Almost Everything” comes in at the 5:10 mark!

The “Twenty-Two” single is now available on iTunes, with “Almost Everything” as its b-side.  Purchase the pair of buzz-worthy tracks here.

Listen to “Twenty-Two” on AOL Spinner:
http://bit.ly/dqHD0W

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A few years ago, saxophonist and flutist Ted Nash received a commission from Jazz at Lincoln Center, in cahoots with the Museum of Modern Art. The result was Portrait in Seven Shades, a program that premiered at Frederick P. Rose Hall. A companion studio album is due out a week from today. (It’s available for preorder through Amazon, where you can preview tracks.)

A few recent spins of the album — Jazz at Lincoln Center’s first release in conjunction with the Orchard, and its first new release of any sort in nearly four years — reconfirmed my enthusiasm for the music. Nash, whose solo career, while always mindful of traditions, reaches well outside a “traditional” nexus, features the orchestra in its most flattering light. The playing is strong, the writing robust. I imagine it will go over just as well next week (Feb. 4 to 6) as it did two years ago.

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King Khan might rightfully be accused of attempting to earn the title of hardest working performer in show business. Following a year that saw the release of three albums and several tours of the US, Europe, and beyond with multiple musical outlets, Khan is bringing the celebrated psychedelic soul big band explosion King Khan and The Shrines back to North America. The three week run of dates, which starts in Atlanta and culminates at Coachella on April 18th, marks their first jaunt in the States since last year’s tour in support of the domestic release of the band’s classic What Is?! album on Vice Records.
 
Those who have seen the band know what to expect- and are most likely planning to attend. To the uninitiated: a sweat soaked stage being rocked into a psychedelic oblivion as a sonic pastiche of horns, drums, bass, guitar, and organ weave a gritty soul canvas for Khan to splatter with his infectious persona. Other acts at Coachella be cautioned: the Rock Messiah will be performing in your midst and he intends to take no prisoners.

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Legendary blues record label Blue Horizon, which launched Fleetwood Mac’s career, is to be resurrected.

It is being revived by music industry veterans Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer, who founded the Sire label and signed Madonna and The Ramones.

They will now look for new artists to sign to Blue Horizon, which will start as a digital-only venture.

Asked if record labels were outdated, Mr Gottehrer said it would be “quite different” from a traditional label.

“We’re introducing the label into the world as it is, not as it was.

“And we’re thinking ahead, about the world as it will be.”

Mr Gottehrer produced the debut albums by Blondie and The Go Gos and now runs digital music distributor The Orchard.

The original Blue Horizon existed for just five years from 1966 and released songs such as Fleetwood Mac’s Albatross.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8480225.stm

Industry vets Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer were reunited at the MIDEM conference in Cannes, where they announced the revival of the Blue Horizon label.

The pair behind Blue Horizon’s U.S. label partner, Sire Records, has decided to revive the U.K. label, which released blues artists such as Otis Spann and bands including Fleetwood Mac and Chicken Shack in the ’60s.

The revived Blue Horizon will be based in the New York City office of the Orchard, of which Gottehrer is founder and chief creative officer.

Blue Horizon, which was distributed by CBS under exclusive contract, was in operation until the ’70s. The label’s repertoire is released by Sony Music Entertainment and the new label will not have access to the old catalog.

Stein, VP of Warner Bros. Records, joined Gottehrer in Cannes for the Jan. 25 announcement. Gottehrer told Billboard.biz the label will look for new talent to distribute through the Orchard, while Warner Music Group will have the opportunity to participate in releases.

“In Europe and the U.K. it has a great deal more significance than it would in the United States,” Gottehrer tells Billboard.biz of the Blue Horizon label.

“The continent [Europe] and England is where we started the success of Sire,” he adds.

Physical product will be released “where necessary” but the label will initially focus on digital releases, on a global basis. It has not announced any band signings yet.

“The real reason for doing this is both Seymour and I want to get back to functioning in a creative way [together] and discovering and working with artists,” says Gottehrer, although he added that “we both work at great companies” (Warner Music Group and the Orchard).

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Los Angeles quintet Local Natives announced today that fans can now pre-order an exclusive deluxe package of their critically acclaimed debut Gorilla Manor on the band’s website.  The digital pre-order includes instant gratification downloads of album standouts “Camera Talk” and “Sun Hands,” along with a demo recording of Talking Heads cover “Warning Sign,” plus a live video and mp3 courtesy of KEXP, and (yes, there’s more) a live video of “Wide Eyes” from a Paris performance.  Fans can listen to and watch all of the content on the band’s website.  A pre-order of the CD or vinyl from Insound also includes the bonus “Sun Hands” seven inch, complete with an exclusive b-side.

Pre-Order Gorilla Manor Here:
http://www.thelocalnatives.com/

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Now, when a blogger writer posts a review or a write-up on an album or track, they can include a SoundCloud player so readers can listen to the music they are writing about!

In a savvy move, SoundCloud are to partner with music portal The Hype Machine to let labels and artists service music bloggers – a key component of the music scene now – with new and pre-release tracks.

The Hype Machine is going to be able to aggregate the output of blogs, but more importantly the bloggers get official releases without having to be forced to release an MP3 into the wild. In addition labels/artists can track listens and pull analytics on who and how the content is being consumed, as tracks get released. Since labels and bloggers haven’t traditionally got on, this move is potentially a lot more productive for both sides.

Bloggers will be able to embed a range of players from the Berlin-based SoundCloud allowing them to promote the music of their favourite artists using the tracks that were originally uploaded.

Domino are the first label to sign up as well as artists including Massive Attack, Marina and the Diamonds, and Delphic.

The Hype Machine aggregates thousands of handpicked music blogs across the web and is really fun to visit because of is incredible ability to curate music genres. You should try it, it’s great.

Source:http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/01/25/soundcloud-teams-up-with-hype-machine-to-service-music-bloggers-better/

Making its rounds at independent film festivals, Copyright Criminals is a documentary film that examines the boundaries between artistic expression and today’s copyright laws. The film features some of hip hop’s most influential figures as it asks the heated question among musicians and lawyers, “who owns this sound?”

Copyright Criminals offers an intriguing look into beat and melody sampling, and traces hip-hop from its birth place on the streets of 1970’s New York to the multibillion-dollar industry it’s become today.

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