Ramping Up Festival Safety, Post-Astroworld: Concert Pros Consider Measures to Avert Future Disasters

Post Malone has disputed claims made by a songwriter who is suing him over his 2019 hit ‘Circles’.Tyler Armes filed a federal lawsuit in California in April 2020, listing Post (real name Austin Post), Post’s producer Frank Dukes and Universal Music Group as defendants, and claims he is seeking co-writer and co-producer credits, as well as prospective and retroactive royalties and other money owed from the ‘Hollywood’s Bleeding’ track.On the same day, Post filed his own suit, with the rapper asking a New York Federal Judge to rule that Armes has no claim to the song’s copyright and did not participate in writing it.“It is an age-old story in the music business that when a song earns the type of runaway success that ‘Circles’ has garnered, and individuals will come out of the woodwork falsely claim to take credit for the song, and demand unwarranted and unearned windfall profits from the song,” reads Malone’s complaint.In a new court filing (via Rolling Stone), Post claims that Armes did not contribute anything “original” to the song, just “an admittedly extremely commonplace guitar chord progression,” and potentially a “fragment of a guitar melody that Armes claims he sung to Post”. Armes claims he was initially offered five per cent of the song’s royalties for his work on ‘Circles’, but that was removed when he tried to negotiate a bigger cut.Post’s new court documents read: “Armes admitted that his contributions did not even rise to the level of originality, which is also required in addition to the fixation requirement.

BandLab NME Awards 2022 award winners Bring Me The Horizon are due to stage their own festival in Malta in May – an event they’ve said will be “like Fyre Festival but with better sandwiches”.The Sheffield band were speaking to NME from the winner’s room after picking up the trophy for Best Band From The UK Supported By Pizza Express.Bring Me’s Malta festival, announced last November, will take place from May 26-30 and feature a full live show and an exclusive retrospective set from the band.Discussing what to expect from the event, drummer Mat Nicholls promised “bingo with Jordan Fish [BMTH keys player]. It’s called ‘Bringo’.”“It’s like Fyre Festival but with better sandwiches,” frontman Oli Sykes added.The festival’s line-up, handpicked by the band, includes Bullet For My Valentine, Beartooth, PVRIS, Motionless In White, Spiritbox, Nova Twins and Wargasm.There will also be a host of club nights, pool party takeovers and boat parties.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentLinking to Paris-based Nadia Turincev (“Raw,” “Mimosas”) and her producer partner Omar El Kadi to develop and produce two new Swiss films, Geneva-based Akka Films is also ramping up TV production, with Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond, writer-directors of the acclaimed “My Little Sister,” Switzerland’s Oscar submission, teaming to create a new TV series . Headed by Nicolas Wadimoff and Philippe Coeytaux, Akka is readying with Turincev and El Kadi “O Jacaré,” the third feature from Swiss-Portuguese filmmaker Basil Da Cunha whose debut, “After the Night” played the Cannes Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight in 2013. Its follow-up, “O film do mundo,” screened in main competition at Locarno in 2019.

A court hearing about last year's deadly Astroworld music festival was held on Tuesday and featured discussions related to the issues of media publicity, a gag order and a concern over a lack diversity among attorneys representing those killed or injured. The hearing was the first time lawyers handling the nearly 500 lawsuits filed after 10 people died and hundreds of others were injured during a massive crowd surge at the Nov.

HOUSTON -- Issues related to media publicity and a gag order as well as a concern over a lack diversity among attorneys representing those killed or injured during last year’s deadly Astroworld music festival were discussed during a court hearing on Tuesday.The hearing was the first time lawyers handling the nearly 500 lawsuits filed after 10 people died and hundreds of others were injured during a massive crowd surge at the Nov. 5 concert headlined by rapper Travis Scott had met in court after the cases were consolidated before one judge.After being appointed last month by a judicial panel overseen by the Texas Supreme Court to handle all pretrial matters in the lawsuits, state District Judge Kristen Hawkins issued a gag order in the case.During Tuesday’s hearing, Hawkins clarified her order, saying lawyers could tell the media about factual issues that happen in court, but she didn’t want attorneys to make their cases in the court of public opinion and possibly influence the jury pool.“This case should be tried in the courtroom and not on social media or with press releases or other statements to the media,” Hawkins said.Brent Coon, an attorney who is representing about 1,500 concertgoers and is asking for $10 billion in damages, said after the hearing he understands the judge’s goal of “let’s keep who’s pointing the finger at who, let that be courtroom issues and jury issues ultimately.”“But this is a case of public import for all the reasons that are obvious,” Coon said.Most of Wednesday’s court hearing was spent discussing how the cases would proceed, the creation of a leadership structure that would speak on behalf of attorneys for each side, how disputes over evidence or other matters would be handled.

Salt rims at the ready - Escape To Freight Island is launching a month-long Margarita Festival, which is kicking off today.

Despite a new rule about theatrical releases in France and filmmaker Andrew Dominik really hoping “Blonde” would debut at the event, it appears 2022 will be another year where Netflix skips the Cannes Film Festival. According to Variety, Netflix isn’t expected to debut any new films at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Former Dillinger Escape Plan frontman Greg Puciato announced earlier this week that he will release his new solo album, ‘Mirrorcell’, this summer. Along with that news comes first single ‘Lowered’, featuring Reba Meyers of Code Orange.“When Reba came to the studio we had, like, zero vocals for that song”, he says of the new track.

Roskilde has announced more additions to its 2022 line-up, including The Strokes, Post Malone, Megan Thee Stallion and The Smile.Also joining the bill are TLC, Kacey Musgraves, Little Simz, Ashnikko, Rae Sremmurd, Polo G, Jimmy Eat World, Turnstile, Zulu, Lorraine James and Robert Plant & Alison Krauss. All 92 new additions have been added to the festival poster – see that further below.The Danish festival returns from June 25-July 2 this year after both its 2020 and 2021 editions were cancelled due to the COVID pandemic.Dua Lipa and Tyler, the Creator were previously announced to headline this year’s edition.

Kerry Chater, the bassist and co-founder of ’60s hitmakers Gary Puckett & the Union Gap who went on to score multiple country hits as a songwriter, has died. He was 77.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentFremantle has sold out most major territories worldwide on the Martin Freeman-led BBC One smash hit “The Responder,” consolidating the acclaimed crime drama’s contention, even at this early stage, to become one of Europe’s top series of 2022. Banner deals take in France (Canal Plus), Italy (Disney Plus), Germany’s (Magenta TV). Spain (Movistar Plus) and Russia & CIS (Viasat), all leading pay/SVOD operators.

EXCLUSIVE: Joe Pickett, the Michael Dorman-fronted drama series, is returning for season two.

During a recent concert in Atlanta, Billie Eilish stopped the show to ask a fan if they needed an inhaler after spotting their visible struggle to breathe from the stage. If this sparks memories of the tragedy of Travis Scott’s Astroworld, well, it did for the 20-year-old pop singer too.