Every afternoon for the past two weeks, we’ve been greeted with a rays of blissful sunshine as it peaks through the office window that makes us just want to sit and stare. Unfortunately for our Kiwi of the office, Hugo he hasn’t been able to see the glorious rays, as he suddenly took a turn for the worst on Monday night and hasn’t been in the office since. Get well soon Hugo!

Hearing great reports about her Ting Tings interview, Denise has been in high spirits ever since – she’s literally been living on cloud nine. With a few more interviews including singer Daley and rapper Wale over the coming month, she’s going to have more than her plate full of things to do.

All week Lisa was excited about going to enjoy Turkish food for the Name PR spring outing, however, due one being sick and another having previous plans the meal had to been postponed. Although, she’s now glad that she can look forward to it for another week. The plan is to go to Mangal 2 in Dalston where the food comes highly recommended and star spotting reasonably secure (artist’s Gilbert & George dine at the restaurant daily).

For Sam the big man on campus, it’s been another crazy and fun week. With the likes of PIAS putting out their new Spotify app it’s been all systems go.

Also, check out Orbital’s track ‘Never’ off their forthcoming album ‘Wonky’ – released 1st April

A grand total of £5,000 was raised in total from these customer donations, WeGotTickets’ 20% booking fee for tickets to Macmillan’s Big Mix Festival in Shoreditch in June and gift aid.  The team at Macmillan have sent a personal thank you to all those who took part in supporting them via the site.   In total over £32,000 was raised from the Big Mix event for the vital work of Macmillan, who support cancer sufferers and their families, giving then the strength to get through these hard times.

Thursday 21st July, London:Play It Again Sam Recordingshave signed the critically-acclaimed Australian four-piece The Jezabels.

The band are a significant signing for the re-launched Play It Again Sam label: Music Week exclaimed that “this is a band on the cusp of greatness”, while The Guardian suggested “a breakthrough is imminent” after making them a Band of the Day earlier in the year.

Play It Again Sam beat off competition from a number of other labels to sign the band after they caught them at this year’s SXSW. Further thrilling performances at The Great Escape and various shows in London, Holland and Germany led the label to approach the band with a deal in May.

As a result of the tie up, the band will release their debut full-length, Prisoner, through Play It Again Sam Recordings in spring 2012. The band will return to the UK in September for a full tour, andrelease single Endless Summer onMonday 5th September 2011, the first to be taken from their debut album.Releases will be marketed through [PIAS] Entertainment Group’s Global Project Management division.

The Jezabels join a growing roster of acclaimed artists – including Seasick Steve, Agnes Obel, The Jim Jones Revue, Liz Green, dEUS and Other Lives – who have been signed to the recently relaunched Play It Again Sam Label.

Says [PIAS] Group MD, Edwin Schroter: “I am extremely excited about The Jezabels and proud to have them as one of the first new artist signings to our recently re-launched Play It Again Sam label. I was blown away the first time I saw them and it’s great to listen to how the band have developed throughout their three EPs. We look forward to developing the band’s broad appeal and with an awesome live show to work with, the debut album, to be released next spring, will be an exciting moment for Play It Again Sam Recordings.”

Manager Dave Batty adds: “We’re very excited to be working with Play It Again Sam Recordings. They have a strong vision for the band, equal to our own, and share the same ideologies and ethic as the band on how we’ll get there. They’ve shown great enthusiasm through all their European offices and we’re looking forward to getting to work with them on the debut album.”

The Jezabels UK tour dates:

Sat 3rd Sept Electric Picnic Festival Stradbally Estate, Ireland
Mon 5th Sept Stereo York
Tues 6th Sept King Tuts Glasgow
Weds 7th Sept The Deaf Institute Manchester
Fri 9th Sept Cluny 2 Newcastle
Sat 10th Sept Stealth Nottingham
Tues 13th Sept XOYO London

About [PIAS] Entertainment Group

Cult dance labels by Steve Lawler and Doorly among latest signings to Essential

• Lawler’s VIVa and Doorly’s Pigeonhole This! top list of new signings
• Decon, Rhymesayers, Workhouse and Dirtybird complete the list
• Pusha T ft. 50 Cent, Pharrell Williams and Tyler The Creator plus Ryan Leslie releases coming via Decon

12^th May 2011, London:- With massive residencies by DJs Steve Lawler and Doorly soon to be kicking off the Ibiza clubbing season, Essential Music & Marketing is somewhat thrilled to be announcing the signings of their respective labels, Pigeonhole This! and VIVa to its roster of clients. Also newly announced are deals with Decon, Rhymesayers, Workhouse and Dirtybird.

The London-based label services, sales and marketing company has signed a worldwide deal with Steve Lawler’s VIVa Music ahead of the release of the double mix Lights Out Decade at the end of May: the much anticipated next chapter in his Lights Out… series. The album is set to be a return to his darker roots, and will provide fans with a truly original experience, mixing, editing and re-editing previously unheard tracks to create an absolutely original dance floor hit. Hidden in one special copy of the CD release will be a “golden ticket”, with the prize of an exclusive live set by Lawler in their home going to whoever buys the lucky album.

Also setting his sights on the White Isle is the widely acclaimed house DJ, Doorly. Essential has signed a worldwide distribution deal with his label, Pigeonhole This!, in time for the release of their debut sampler EP, available now. Doorly is currently on tour showcasing his uniquely analogue approach to DJing, and is rarely seen without enough equipment around him to launch a man into orbit. He can be seen in his element on any one of his 23 North American tour dates with Rusko or at one of his upcoming Ibiza dates including a massive 14 appearances at both Ibiza Rocks and Majorca Rocks.

Ahead of the release of Atmosphere’s new album Family Sign, grassroots hip-hop label Rhymesayers Entertainment are moving to Essential through an existing deal with Traffic Entertainment. The release is set to push the group’s collective album sales over the 1.6 million mark, and they will be seeing a greatly raised profile in the UK with Essential on board.

Rhymesayers are celebrating their fifteenth year in the business a sold out ‘Family Vacation Tour’ in the US and will be bringing it to the UK and Europe in the autumn of this year. It’s likely to feature artists with significant 2011 album releases: Atmosphere, Brother Ali, Evidence (of Dilated Peoples) and Grieves.

Joining them is New York’s Decon. A fast-growing indie powerhouse, responsible for 2010’s breakout hit for Jay Electronica, ‘Exhibit C’, as well as classic records from the likes of Jurassic 5 and RJD2. Decon is expanding in 2011 with the debut solo release from Pusha T (of The Clipse) featuring 50 Cent, Pharrell and Tyler The Creator, and they’ve also announced the first independent artist album from Grammy-nominated producer Ryan Leslie, the man behind hits for Cassie, Britney Spears, The Game and many more.

Also coming from the States is the Dirtybird label, signing for a European distribution deal with Essential, who’ll be handling all priority releases and associated singles from the upcoming Claude Vonstroke Makeovers album this summer plus Justin Martin’s debut LP, due out in autumn this year.

Based a little closer to home is Workhouse Records, setting up in a deal with Essential to distribute the latest album from the label’s founder Mark Hill, the main man behind Artful Dodger and the key producer and writer for Craig David.

The newly established imprint is set to recapture all that made Artful Dodger so genre-defining at the end of the last century. His mix of some of the best production values in the business and the best vocal talents from the likes of Ed Sheeran, means Workhouse is set to become a major jewel in Essential’s crown.

Steve Crane, Product Manager at Essential said, “It’s great to add more quality imprints to my existing dance and urban labels over here at Essential Music. All of my new additions have great release schedules lined up for 2011 and beyond. There are some very exciting and innovative campaigns in the pipeline too so I can’t wait to get things rolling.”

Additionally, we have also became the proud owners of a huge new mural (see below) featuring a host of musicians that we hand selected who include Freddie Mercury, Frank Black, Mick Jagger and Dan Deacon (an electronic guru who’s songs include ‘Trippy Green Skull’, ‘Woof Woof’ and of course ‘Konor Zizer with Bead Jewellery’ – can you guess who nominated him?)

Sam has spent much of his time working on David Lynch managing to get us a great piece in the Guardian as well as an exclusive stream of the original on their music blog and as a shedload of other press – the news becoming one of Twitter’s top trending music stories on Monday. He has also taken up a new hobby…bread baking. We are now being treated every morning to some freshly baked Sam bread, this morning it had raisons and cinnamon in it (orders can be placed through this site). However, we may not be seeing any for the next few days as tonight he’s off to the Drum & Bass Awards and then the PPL drinks and a Mixmag party tomorrow. At least we are based near a hospital, for pending dialysis.

Meanwhile, Kayleigh has been setting up interviews with Heaven 17 for their latest DVD release. She has been feeling Christmassy and generous as WeGotTickets launch their Advent Calendar with Youth Music featuring news, messages from celebrity ambassadors (yesterday kicked off with Ian Brown!), downloads and even a chance to win an exclusive Rankin print as we count down to Christmas. Aside from all that she has been working on our new business opportunities and looking forward to a summer of festivals (which is pretty hard to do in this bloody weather!) Also, she has been trying to prove to the Name office that she is not just a meat head metal kid by having almost a whole day of rap and hip hop playlisted for them. It’s a shame Sam only recognised The Sugarhill Gang, A Tribe Called Quest and Run DMC…and thought that everyone post 1988 was Usher.

Dave managed to bring a smile to us all by setting up a live stream of Edinburgh Zoo’s penguin enclosure for us all to see them enjoying the snow. It’s not all play however as Dave has been working hard as usual on all his various clients.

Hugo has spent this week fully dedicating himself to PR by staying late in the office every night this week. During this time he has been honing his press release writing skills to perfection as Sam asks him to write, and then re-write, write, re-write and write again, oh well, it’s all character building.

Finally, this week Aisling has been drowning in David Lynch press as more and more comes in by the second. She has also been prevented from her favourite duty of clearing up the mound of newspapers building up in the Name office by the cupboard that Sam smuggled in the office which has now taken up residence in front of the filing shelves.

Anyway, until next time!

The Name Time