Creative agency North Inc. has hired Dave Allen, formerly of Apple Music, as director of artist and music industry advocacy.
Allen comes to North after a long career in music, beginning as bassist for the post-punk band Gang of Four and culminating as a digital music visionary at eMusic.com, Intel and as of late, Apple Music where he spearheaded partnerships with artists and their managers as a member of the artist relations team. This is Allen’s second stint with North; he was previously a digital strategy director in 2010. In his new role at North, he will pioneer a forthcoming music venture and collaborate with artists and their managers to help them seek new revenue streams in the constantly shifting music business.
“I’ve spent more than two decades working in both the music and tech industry, and I want to use what I’ve learned to level the playing field for musicians by creating revenue streams that go directly to the artist,” Allen said. “I want brands to license music directly from artists that are as authentic as their brand.”
North has been built around music since its inception—in fact, CCO Mark Ray and managing director Rebecca Armstrong bonded at their first meeting over a Radiohead song they were both listening to at the same time. Ray was the force behind independent label Undertow Music, which worked with artists such as Jay Bennett of Wilco, and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
“It made perfect sense to collaborate with Dave on our vision of bringing bands and brands together in a new context. Our ambition is to develop, with integrity and soul, new revenue models between artists and brands,” Ray said. “Dave, like North, has music in his DNA.”
Review: Rachel Morrison Makes Feature Directorial Debut With “The Fire Inside”
"The Fire Inside," about boxer Claressa "T-Rex" Shields, is not your standard inspirational sports drama, even if it feels like it for the first half of the movie.
There's the hopeless dream, the difficult home life, the blighted community, the devoted coach, the training montages, the setbacks and, against all odds, the win. We've seen this kind of story before, you might think, and you'd be right. But then the movie pulls the rug out from under you: The victory is not the end. "The Fire Inside," directed by Rachel Morrison and written by Barry Jenkins, is as much about what happens after the win. It's not always pretty or inspirational, but it is truthful, and important.
Sports dramas can be just as cliche as fairy tales, with the gold medal and beautiful wedding presented as a happy ending. We buy into it time and time again for obvious reasons, but the idea of a happy ending at all, or even an ending, is almost exclusively for the audience. We walk away content that someone has found true love or achieved that impossible goal after all that work. For the subject, however, it's a different proposition; Life, and all its mundanities, disappointments and hardships, continues after all. And in the world of sports, that high moment often comes so young that it might be easy to look at the rest of the journey as a disappointing comedown.
Claressa Shields, played by Ryan Destiny in the film, was only 17 when she went to the 2012 London Olympics. Everything was stacked against her, including the statistics: No American woman had ever won an Olympic gold medal in the sport before. Her opponents had years on her. She was still navigating high school in Flint, Michigan, and things on the home front were volatile and lacking. Food was sometimes scarce... Read More