Here's one for the road

IF you're a budding performer it's not too late to have your name added to the bill at the Falls Festival's Byron Bay debut.

Perk up with Katy Perry.

AS mentioned last week, the annual Falls Festival has sold out its debut at NSW's Byron Bay during the new year period, but if you're a budding performer it's not too late to have your name added to the bill.

The event has joined forces with the Mullum Music Festival in Mullumbimby to host the latter's Hitting the Road competition, which for the past few years has offered a songwriter the opportunity to grace the Mullum stage by composing a song about - surprise, surprise - being on the road. This year the winner gets to play Falls as well. Entries close on November 1. You can find out more at mullummusicfestival.com.au.

SD learned a new phrase this week - Nando's Peri-Perks. On first sight one thought it might be the name of a full-length animated movie about tiny, lovable space creatures or perhaps a skin condition that can be contracted only while trawling the jungles of the Amazon Basin.

But no, it is in fact the name of Australia's newest music sponsor, which is starting at the top by bringing one of the planet's biggest stars, singer Katy Perry, to Australia in a few weeks. Perry, riding high with her song Roar, will be here to launch her new album PRISM, which is released by EMI on October 25. Perry will perform at Sydney Opera House on October 29.

It's an exclusive performance for the Seven Network's Sunrise program which, the press announcement reveals, is "the home of live music in Australia". The concert also will be streamed live on Sunrise's website. But wait, there's more.

The third partner in this merry Perry campaign is the Today Network, which will be wheeling the singer into the 2DayFM studio in Sydney for a chat with lucky fans in "an exclusive, intimate and private setting", whatever that means.

Nando's Peri-Perks, in case you don't know, is a rewards program operated by the chicken restaurant chain. What a bonus it is for the group that if you say Peri and Perry they sound exactly the same.

THE feature film CBGB, about the legendary New York venue that spawned a rash of punk talent in the 1970s, had its theatre premiere in the Big Apple this week.

Reviews of the film, which stars English actor Alan Rickman as the club's owner Hilly Kristal, have been less than favourable. Critics have taken issue with the film's accuracy in portraying the fledgling careers of acts including Blondie, the Police and the Ramones, among others.

One of the most obvious is a scene in which the character of singer Patti Smith is seen performing the song Because the Night at least a few years before it was written. The Dangerous Minds website describes it as "a dreadful film", while New York Daily News critic Jim Farber, who frequented the dingy club in its heyday, was equally unimpressed.

"Not one thing about the movie's narrative proves even remotely compelling," Farber wrote. "The film is a poorly written, clumsily acted mess."

WHAT looks a little more promising in the music movie department is Joel and Ethan Coen's latest, Inside Llewyn Davis. The movie, winner of the Grand Prix in Cannes this year, is due for release internationally next February and stars Justin Timberlake and Carey Mulligan.

The story tracks a week in the life of a musician in New York's Greenwich Village during its booming folk scene in 1961. The soundtrack to the film, produced by T. Bone Burnett, features performances by the two stars alongside the Punch Brothers and a previously unreleased track by Bob Dylan from that era.