Meredith Music Festival 2016 review

Making her entrance wearing a giant vulva on her head, Peaches rocked the crowd as she did the foundations of gender norms and expectations at Meredith Music Festival.
                 

The Canadian electronic music artist put on a wild, over-the-top, politically charged performance on Saturday night.

The sexually explicit show could be passed off as smutty titillation but her message means she is no novelty act.

Gender-bending, bondage-clad back-up dancers simulated sex acts as she sang about female objectification, vaginoplasty and sexual freedom.

It cumulated with her climbing inside a massive inflatable condom as she sang Dick in Air: "We've been shaking our tits for years, so let's switch positions. No inhibitions."

The music at this year's Meredith – held at a farm between Geelong and Ballarat since 1991 – was varied but almost always good.

On Friday night, Prince collaborator and percussionist Sheila E had the crowd in a frenzy as she belted out the late purple one's hits. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and Kelela were also standouts of the night.

Over in the camping grounds, four friends – some in sailor hats – were rowing to an imaginary location in a inflatable boat on top of a Kombi van.

Just before close on Sunday afternoon, as always, was the Meredith Gift – also known as the world's greatest nude footrace – which sees festival-goers compete in a naked sprint.

Special guest MC comedian Judith Lucy asked competitors to do yoga poses before each heat, including the downward dog, to cheers from the crowd.

There were disappointingly no tumbles this year, but there was some blood and a girl with a strap-on who skipped and waved pom poms as she made her way around the track. She came last, but all agreed she was the winner.

Music industry worth $1b to WA economy

The Western Australian music industry is pumping nearly $1 billion into the state's economy, a study has revealed, strengthening calls for more government support.    

Researchers at Edith Cowan University found the sector contributed $985 million in 2014 and employed almost 3,000 people as WA hosted more than 350 live music events each week.

It also found contemporary music made up 49 per cent of ticket sales in Western Australia, compared with festivals at 13 per cent, musical theatre at 9 per cent and classical music and opera at 5 per cent.

The billion dollar figure did not take into account any cash sales, but it was double what industry group WA Music (WAM) chief executive Mike Harris had anticipated.

'It's still pretty good in WA'

Until now the sector has largely relied on anecdotal evidence when fighting for funding.

WAM president Al Taylor said the new research allowed the group to mount a stronger argument for private sponsorship and government funding, to put music on a more even playing field with the likes of theatre and ballet.

Perth-based singer, songwriter and member of the four-piece Little Lord Street Band, James Rogers, believed the local music scene was healthy despite a decline in arts funding around the country.

Arts Minister John Day said it was important for the State Government to take a balanced approach to arts funding.

"There are those art forms that have been around for, in some cases, hundreds of years and they're a very important part of our heritage," Mr Day said.

How listening to music could help you beat insomnia

In our hectic world, a good night’s sleep is worth its weight in gold when it comes to improving physical and mental well-being. Much more than a basic method of energy conservation, sleep is a state during which muscle and bone are generated and repaired, and memories and learning systems are updated. Sleep also allows the body and brain to clear out the toxic byproducts of the day’s waking activity that might otherwise build up and cause harm. In short, good sleep is a cornerstone of human health.
                 

Insomnia can be devastating, and has been linked to cognitive deficiencies – such as memory lapses, psychological problems including mood and anxiety disorders, and long-term health concerns including obesity and dementia. The most severe cases of chronic insomnia can even increase the risk of mortality.

Music for sleep?

Research has shown that listening to “self-selected” music – music of your choice – can actually shorten stage two sleep cycles. This means people reach restful REM sleep – the restorative part of our sleep – more quickly.

In the study, students who listened to 45 minutes of music before bedtime for three weeks saw a cumulative positive effect on multiple measures of sleep efficiency with similar effects reported in older citizens in Singapore. Following all this evidence, the NHS now recommends “listening to soft music” before bedtime as a method to prevent insomnia.

Face the music

We also found out a lot about the reasons why people are turning to music in the first place. And they are varied. In our research, people highlighted the importance of music for blocking disruptive external (such as traffic) and internal (like tinnitus) sounds, for filling uncomfortable silences, and providing a sense of companionship and security.

This suggests that a one size fits all approach to music for sleep is unlikely to suit all insomniacs, because people are tuning into so many different types of music for so many different reasons.

Pandora's enhanced streaming opens new front in music wars

Record labels are clinging to $US9.99 a month subscriptions for on-demand music. Pandora Media, the internet radio company, last week signed deals with Sony Music, Warner Music and others to offer this for the first time - priced at the same rate charged by Apple, Spotify and others. But in a break from the new normal, the labels will also back a $4.99 a month service offering streaming radio with more listener control (such as pausing or skipping tracks) and offline streaming.
             

Labels had been wary about enabling cheaper options lest they once again cannibalise existing revenues. But all sides need to increase the size of the pie, seeking a big untapped audience willing to pay less than $120 a year.

Pandora has 78m active users but growth has stalled. Adding the $9.99 service, for which Pandora takes 30-35 per cent, is unlikely to solve that. But it may help deter users in search of a premium service from switching to rivals. Pandora reckons it can have a $1.3bn subscription business in five years, which would require almost 11m users to upgrade. The company has data to inform that estimate, but does not explain why those of its customers with the propensity to pay have not already taken up the on-demand services available from rivals.

The big question is how replicable is the newly enhanced internet radio product, which will continue to support the bulk of revenues. Pandora has played catch-up in on-demand.

Gympie Music Muster 2016

MOOROOKA’S Jill Beth is one to watch in the Australian music scene.
         

The talented 31-year-old starlet is set to play at the Gympie Music Muster this week before heading off to Nashville, Tennessee, to work on her music. Beth said the muster was a great event to be part of.

“It doesn’t matter that you’re not the big superstar, they treat all the artists really respectfully, and the audience is so into it and just happy to soak it up,” she said.

Beth said music had always been part of her life and she came from a family where singing and dancing at all hours was “a pretty normal thing”.

And despite the muster, she said her style was not “straight up country”. “I have influences of Americana and alternative country but I also love a really great pop song, so you’ll definitely hear elements of all of that in my music,” she said.

Inspired by artists she grew up listening to such as James Taylor, Jackson Brown and The Eagles, and modern-day artists including John Mayer and Casey Musgrave, Beth said she would love for music to be a fulltime career.