Black Fret Awards $220,000 to Local Musicians at Annual Black Ball
Last Saturday was the annual Black Fret Black Ball: an event with performances from some of Austin’s best rising stars and the bestowing of handsome grants to help fund the next phase of the musicians’ careers. Since its inaugural ball in 2014, Black Fret, through its generous and altruistic 300+ members, has been able to up the top-tier grant from $10,000 to this year’s $17,000, which, presented by mayor Steve Adler, was awarded this year to Swimming with Bears, Suzanna Choffel, Dan Dyer, Walker Lukens, Carson McHone, Ray Prim, Nakia, Wendy Colonna, Bee Caves, and the Peterson Brothers Band. The second-tier prize of $5,000 went to this year’s other 10 nominees: Golden Dawn Arkestra, Leopold & His Fiction, Magna Carda, Harvest Thieves, Calliope Musicals, Daniel Eyes & the Vibes, Dana Falconberry, Brownout, Sweet Spirit, and Name Sayers. In total, Black Fret awarded $220,000 on at the Ball on Saturday night. Also during the event, Black Fret co-founders Matt Ott and Colin Kendrick announced that a donation from local music advocacy group All ATX will help Black Fret hire an executive director for the first time in 2017. (Austin360)
SoundCloud Falls a Little Lower on Musicians’ Hit Lists
SoundCloud announced they will no longer remove uploaded DJ mixes posted to the site. This comes after SoundCloud was able to strike deals with a number of licensing groups enabling the music site to remove the automated content identifier that previously led to many uploads being deleted, and in some cases, having the uploader’s entire account terminated. (FACT mag)
-Taylor Wallace
