The Mechanical Licensing Collective has partnered with the Recording Academy to host a dozen webinars across the country to educate chapter members of the MLCs mandate to match and distribute unpaid royalties to rights holders.
Each webinar will be tailored to a specific market, including Nashville, New York City and Los Angeles, and will be hosted by MLC representatives who will give a full rundown on the importance of the new agency, which recently made its first distribution of mechanical royalties to rights holders.
"We are thrilled to work with the Academy on this webinar series, which builds on our ongoing efforts to reach as many potential MLC Members as possible, provide them with the information they need to join our organization and help position themselves to receive the digital audio mechanical royalties they have earned and deserve," said Kris Ahrend, CEO of The MLC.
Added Daryl P. Friedman, chief advocacy officer of the Recording Academy: "Academy members were so active in passage of the Music Modernization Act, they should now benefit from The MLC that the Act created. We're pleased to partner with The MLC to reach our membership of creators far and wide and ultimately get royalties into their hands."
The first webinar took place on Tuesday (May 4) for Memphis members, while across the state in Nashville an event is slated for May 17. Academy members will receive a registration link in advance of their local webinar. See the full list below:
Memphis Chapter / May 4
Nashville Chapter / May 17, 2 p.m. CT
Chicago Chapter / May 25, 11:30 a.m. CT
San Francisco Chapter / May 25, 5:30 p.m. PT
Philadelphia Chapter / May 26, 4 p.m. ET
New York Chapter / June 8, 12:30 p.m. ET
Pacific Northwest Chapter / June 15, 3 p.m. PT
Texas Chapter / June 16, 3:30 p.m. CT
Los Angeles Chapter / June 16, TIME TBD
Florida Chapter / June 23, 12:30 p.m. ET
Atlanta Chapter / July 29, 2 p.m. ET
NEWS
Supergrass are teasing an upcoming announcement with fans, according to a new post.
The British band, fronted by Gaz Coombes, shared a cryptic new post across their social media channels this morning (September 13), suggesting to fans that a new announcement is on the way.
Posted at 9am BST, the post simply shared artwork of the band’s logo in red, alongside next Monday’s date, September 16. In the caption, the band simply wrote: “Sign up now”, alongside a link to their website’s homepage.
Upon clicking the link, the page prompts fans to sign up for future updates, and asks them to input both their email address and the country they live in. Check out the post below.
While details on the announcement remain sparse, the post has already caught fans’ attention, with some speculating that the news could be around the upcoming 30th anniversary of their debut album, ‘I Should Coco’.
Released in May 1995, the release marked the record that first put the band on the map, and contained singles ‘Mansize Rooster’, ‘Caught By The Fuzz, ‘Lose It’ and ‘Lenny’. It also saw Coombes and Co. nominated at the 1995 Mercury Prize, and contained what would soon become their biggest track to date, the Ivor-Novello winning ‘Alright’.
At time of writing, the band haven’t shared any further indication as to whether the announcement is related to the huge upcoming milestone – whether it be an anniversary tour or reissue – nor whether it has anything to do with new music that could be on the way.
The band’s last studio album was ‘Diamond Hoo Ha’, which arrived in 2008. Since then, they have shared remastered versions of both their 1999 self-titled album and their 2003 record ‘Life On Other Planets’.
In other news around the band, last year it was reported that the band’s frontman joined Johnny Marr onstage last month to perform The Smiths‘ classic ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ at Lakefest 2023.
Before then, Coombes opened up about how “nervous” he was about reuniting Supergrass following the success of his solo albums.
Supergrass split up in 2010 but reunited for a series of live shows in 2019. They released a live album in 2020, Live On Other Planets, to celebrate their 25th anniversary and raise money for grassroots venues affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Having got into a flow and the last two albums having done so well, it seemed a bit odd, like a backward step,” he said. “But then I was confident that I could operate both things together and it seems that I did, because I was obviously writing this record mainly during the reunion so I feel like I made best use of both things.”
Coombes’ fourth solo album, ‘Turn The Car Around’, came out in January of last year.
