DOMMIN SIGNS WITH ROADRUNNER -- Over a year ago, we'd written about San Fernando Valley area goth/rock band Dommin (click here to read) and mentioned that they'd be liked by, "Fans of Type O Negative, Life Of Agony (basically any of the mid-‘90s Roadrunner Records artists)..."

Well, it looks like the folks at Roadrunner agree, because they signed the band last week!

Roadrunner will do well with these guys. Lukas Banker, who has produced music for Five Finger Death Punch, Junkie XL, Ill Nino and Still Remains, is also handling management for Dommin.

Congrats fellas!!

KIDDO (unsigned, unpublished) -- REALLY diggin' this girl's music. Kiddo is a NYC-based artist who splits her time between NY, Miami and Copenhagen. A classically-trained pianist, Kiddo writes her own lyrics and melodies and her music is in the vein of Sneaker Pimps/Portishead/Massive Attack -- sexy, sensual vocals over loops, beats and electronic elements. Kiddo is working with Boots on material as we type this (You may remember Boots' former band The Getaway People). It's early days for Kiddo but we'll be keeping an eye on her (and helping to spread the word!)

TALENTFILTER ARTIST MEIKO SIGNS WITH MYSPACE RECORDS/DGC!

Los Angeles-based artist Meiko, the first musician we'd blogged about on TALENTfilter (all the way back in February 2007), has signed with MySpace Records/DGC, who will release her debut album later this summer in partnership with Lucky Ear Music (Meiko's own indie label). The much-buzzed-about singer-songwriter’s recent self-release was a #1 folk album on iTunes, with over 200,000 song downloads, regular airplay on tastemaker KCRW-FM, and had key placements in prime-time TV shows including the Emmy Award-winning "Grey's Anatomy."

Meiko was the focus of intense label interest with most of the US-based majors for the past 12 months and finally signed with Luke Wood (Interscope/DGC Records) and Jon Pikus (Senior Director of A&R, MySpace Records). Meiko's attorney Howard Sadowsky handled the negotiating.

In a blog posting on MySpace page, Meiko writes, "I went with these guys because I felt most comfortable with the people there, and also... I feel like I will be given the creative freedom I need to flourish. My reasoning for going with a label instead of staying independent was pretty simple by the end of it all... I wanna get my music to as many people that will listen. Having a label backing me will give me a better chance to reach the headphones of that girl in a tiny town (like me back when)..."

Meiko's self-titled debut will be released through Lucky Ear/MySpace/DGC. The album will be remixed and remastered, and will include re-recorded versions of fan favorites along with a brand-new track, "Boys With Girlfriends".

Meiko is still available for publishing, but we're pretty sure she'll be holding out on doing a pub deal for a while...

Congrats to Meiko and the team!

HELP STOP 'THE MAN' FROM SHUTTING DOWN THE KNITTING FACTORY IN HOLLYWOOD...

This letter was forwarded to us by an industry friend...check it out. If you're in Los Angeles on Thursday, July 17 and you're free at 10AM, do the right thing and help the cause:


Dear Friends of The Knitting Factory,

I’m writing this letter to garner support for an upcoming public hearing by the LADBS (Los Angeles Bldg. and Safety) against our venue on Thursday July 17th 2008.

The Los Angeles Building Department is aggressively trying to revoke our CUP (Conditional Use Permit), for those of you who don’t know, a CUP is the conditions that all Restaurants, bars, clubs etc must run under in order to keep their doors open, if you lose your CUP, you are essential closed for business.

After eight years in a crime riddled Hollywood corridor, the LADBS and vice, states that our venue is a “nuisance” and we do not comply under “upscale restaurant guidelines” (nonsense, food is always served and continues service and will someone please define “upscale” for me). They are also trying to say we do a steady stream of Erotica here, which is absurd, as we’ve only had 3 Adult Entertainment parties over 8 years and 10,000 shows.

Bar owners beware; the city is on a major crack down for what they deem CUP violations.

Knitting Factory was lured to this location and has served as the anchor tenant to re vamp this neighborhood. Suddenly, as the neighborhood has pushed the drug dealers out, the rents up, built condos and turned our complex from an Entertainment Center to a retail center, we are no longer wanted. When we moved into this location the crime statistics where 3 times higher than the city average, the corner of Hollywood and Sycamore sat only 1 block North of the 18th street Gang. In 2004, this corner was used as the first corner to install cameras as a test to stop crime.

We’ve endured tremendous hardship from 2004 to 2007 in this complex, whilst LA Fitness, DSW, Longs and Fresh and Easy were built around us (joy and thrill to be in a mall) and Galaxy Movie Theatre, Hollywood Ent. Museum, Tower Records all went out of business. We still have “no” visible signage from Hollywood Boulevard except for a banner hanging at the back of the plaza. CIM, the landlord, claims that our cueing is a problem to some of the retail outlets; of course there wasn’t a complaint while the jack hammers blasted for 3 years and our parking structure shut down for 26 weeks. Still, we are jammed to the back of the plaza, with no access to the Sycamore door (by law) and no where to line up our patrons.

Our Public Hearing is scheduled for Thursday July 17th at 10am @ 200 N. Spring St, room 1020. Zoning Administration. I would greatly appreciate anyone willing to get up on our behalf, just show up and be a part of this fiasco, or at least send in a letter to me, supporting the need for Knitting Factory as a live Music venue in the Hollywood corridor.

Warmest,
Morgan

PS
Please forward to anyone you think might be amendable to our cause.

Mr. Morgan Margolis | Knitting Factory Concert House
VP, National Operations | morgan@knittingfactory.com
Boise, Los Angeles, New York, Spokane

TALENTFILTER ACT SIGNS PUBLISHING / LABEL DEAL! Music Week in the UK reports that Los Angeles' Iglu & Hartly have signed a publishing deal with EMI. According to the article, the very next day Mercury Records signed them to their label.

Congrats, fellas! Crazy that it took industry execs from across the pond to get stuff done, but I guess that's par for the course, huh!

MUSIC BUSINESS BITS & BOBS...

From the world of music publishing: Katie Welle, most recently A&R at Epic (and responsible for bring rapper Yung Berg to the label), has segued to Sony/ATV Music Publishing ...Michael Pizzuto exits Stage Three Music Publishing and has joined the team at The Bicycle Music Company as a Creative Music Consultant ...Diana Turk has left Right Bank Music and starts at Primary Wave Music Publishing next week...

In label signing news: Jason Reeves has signed to Warner Bros. Records ...30 year-old singer Rachael Yamagata, signed to Arista six years ago, has also reportedly signed with Warner Bros. The Devil Wears Prada (the band) have signed with Ferret Music ...Brooklyn hardcore outfit Tombs have signed with Relapse... Oakland band The Matches have reportedly fulfilled their commitment to Epitaph and are 'exploring opportunities with other labels...

In TALENTfilter Artist Update news: Westchester, NY's Goot (first tipped to you in February 2007) has songs featured in the final four episodes of this season's "The Real World" on MTV ...he's now got 1.8 million MySpace plays ...he's still unsigned and unpublished. ...Meiko, also first tipped back in February '07, is in the studio with producer Greg Collins (Gwen Stefani, U2) working on new material ...high-profile drummer Matt Chamberlain (Fiona Apple, Tori Amos) has recorded drum tracks, and Bryan Cook (Aimee Mann, Melissa Etheridge) is mixing - expect to hear a label announcement in the weeks to come...
...Check out the piece that HITS did on one of our longtime faves, Joe Purdy...

HOLLY CONLAN (unsigned, unpublished) -- Keep an eye on this one. Holly's Bird EP was self-released in March, but we expect big things coming soon - including some nice real estate in the iTunes store (props, as always, to the music staff at iTunes for spotlighting great independent talent). Holly is based in L.A. and plays out regularly - usually at the Hotel Cafe where you can catch her slangin' dranks on the nights she not touring or on the stage. Peep her MySpace page -- her songs "OK" and "You Are Goodbye" are pretty fantastic.

MICHELLE FEATHERSTONE (unsigned, unpublished) - Featherstone, a British songstress now residing in Los Angeles, currently has some prime brickage on the iTunes Music front page. This unsigned singer/songwriter has had more sync licenses than ANY artist on your label. Seriously, go check out the song placement list on her website -- you'll shit yourself. And why a music publisher has yet to scoop this lovely lady up for her songwriting skills, we'll never know.

TALENTFILTER ARTIST UPDATE -- Figured it was high time to catch you up on the happs of some of our favorite TALENTfilter artists...

L.A. indie-popsters Colorforms, who recently signed with the boutique label Orphan Records, finally realized that The Colorforms Corporation might have a lil' issue with their band name. So they've changed it to Obi Best. Peep their MySpace page to hear a few new songs...

Jessie Baylin, now signed to Verve Forecast, will see a release of her debut Firesight full-length on June 24. Los Angelenos should go check her out at the Hotel Cafe that night to help us celebrate the album release!

Andrew Paul Woodworth, whose Eddy Ate Dynamite album was recently released in Europe through Rodeostar Records, posted a pretty funny EPK on YouTube... Chaggadout here:
Eddy Ate Dynamite is still available to be licensed outside of mainland Europe. Check out the video for his remake of the Beastie Boys' "Fight For Your Right" here:

Ingrid Michaelson is out on a headlining tour of the U.S. through mid-July. She'll then jump onto the road as the opener for the Dave Matthews Band. No biggie.

NON-COMMVENTION - A SUCCESS! -- First off, kudos to WXPN Philadelphia's Dan Reed, Bruce Warren, Roger LaMay, and Jim McGuinn for being fantastic hosts - this was a really enjoyable conference. Gotta say, the Non-Comm and AAA radio programmers are some of the nicest folks in the biz - no one is 'too cool for the room' - and they're all REAL music fans! So refreshing, considering we're come from the Alternative world where EVERYONE is too cool for the room. Anywhoo -- to check out some photos, check out the piece that Media Sponsor FMQB posted on their website.

Some of our highlights included daytime performances by Nicole Atkins (we had no idea she has such a great voice not ever seeing her live before - her album leaves a little to be desired, though, perhaps something a bit grittier next time around?) and of course one of our regular faves, Ingrid Michaelson. The nighttime shows were all pretty great too -- our faves included The Hold Steady, Dr. John, L.A. kids Carney, Back Door Slam (can't BELIEVE how YOUNG these dudes are!) and Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings.

The daytime panels were ...well ...panels. Always entertaining, but not much is REALLY learned from them.

Overall, a great experience and we're definitely gonna go back for next year's event!