Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported on Live Nation’s purchase of a majority stake in Coran Capshaw’s $100 million fan/merch business Music Today, which Capshaw started six years ago and which operates out of a former factory in Crozet.Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported on Live Nation’s purchase of a majority stake in Coran Capshaw’s $100 million fan/merch business Music Today, which Capshaw started six years ago and which operates out of a former factory in Crozet. Music Today runs fan clubs, websites, online stores and other services for hundreds of acts, including the Rolling Stones, Kenny Chesney and Eminem. It employs a couple of hundred people locally.
Live Nation, which was formerly known as Clear Channel Entertainment, is looking to focus on its already existent live-music promotion business by bundling concert tickets, fan club memberships and merchandise sales, and facilitating meetings between fans and, possibly, artists. Already a minority stakeholder in Music Today at the time of the sale, Live Nation liked Capshaw’s very smart idea of selling memberships to music fans who then get the inside track on exclusive merchandise and availability of premium concert tickets prior to the sale to the general public. Capshaw apparently will continue to run the company (that’s what they all say when a big sale is first announced). Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and the jury is still out on whether the greater presence of a Clear Channel-related company into local business (and the local music business in particular) will be a good thing or a bad thing. Music Today could not be reached for comment by press time.
Classical music aficionados need look no further for summer offerings than 35 minutes west. The ninth annual Staunton Music Festival gets under way this week, and the three-week event is a truly adventurous undertaking. Founder Carson Schmidt, a Staunton resident who is on faculty at Sarah Lawrence College, says that the festival started small, but has really flourished. Last year, with an audience that doubled in size, was a real watershed. He says that, once Blackfriars Playhouse was built, the town became a natural host, but Schmidt also gives kudos to the community, which he says has definitely supported the festival. Events are held at various locations around town, and there will be one performance here in Charlottesville.
Opening night, August 13, will feature a piano recital of a new, commissioned piece by James Madison University Professor John Hilliard. It begins as a piece for one hand that expands to 10 hands. The festival always tries to include opera, and this year two short operas will be staged at The Blackfriars: Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and a new multimedia piece by UVA music professor Matthew Burtner, which will include voice, dance, electronic music and a video element. Also new this year, and the finale of the festival, September 2 and 3, is a night of North Indian classical music featuring the sarod—an event which also includes a dinner of Indian food. Saturday night’s performance will present Western classical music inspired by Indian music. If you are at all intrigued, check out the website, www.stauntonmusicfestival.com, or you can attend a sampling of the festival’s chamber music here at the UVA Art Museum on Friday night, August 18.
Also this week, two up-and-coming indie rock acts take the stage at Starr Hill. On Sunday night, our own Brian Kingston will be playing downstairs in anticipation of the new record due next spring. And on Wednesday, August 9, Brent Gorton brings his group, The Tender Breasts, down from Albany, New York. Influenced by The Beatles and other British Invasion bands, Gorton says the band is much more garage-y live, and likens the sound to The Velvet Underground. After playing with hired guns for a couple years, Gorton asked his girlfriend, Kellie, to take up the bass, and a female friend, Brock, to fill in on drums. Brock’s kit consists of a rack tom, floor tom and snare, (no cymbals), so the comparison to the Velvets is fairly apt.
The band was originally slated to play Starr Hill with The Cheap Seats from Richmond, but the Seats had to pull out and left the gig in Gorton’s hands. You can find Gorton’s lone indie release on cdbaby.com.
Release Of The Week: In the ongoing search for new tunes, I am asking our featured artists about new records they are listening to (CD or download). Gorton says: “ Believe it or not, I get most of my records from the library, because our library has a really great selection. I have been listening to and really liking The Zombies lately. I think that they have just great, great singles. And, although not apropos to our music, I just discovered James Brown Live at The Apollo 1962.”