I don't wish to defy anybody's predictions and I'm really not interested in them. But I'll croak when I croak and everybody will know. | | | | Record pool: Questlove DJ'ing a McCarren Park Pool Party, Brooklyn, Aug. 13, 2006.
(Hiroyuki Ito/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) | | | | | | “I don't wish to defy anybody's predictions and I'm really not interested in them. But I'll croak when I croak and everybody will know.”
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| | rantnrave:// It is absolutely not the same as it was or as it will be or as it should be, but live music exists in the here and now of 2020. In the past week or two, that's meant KASKADE playing a series of sold-out drive-in shows, one of them for first responders, next to ANGELS STADIUM in Anaheim. It's meant JEEZY, MASTER P, MYSTIKAL and others rapping to a socially distanced, masked audience at a Birmingham stadium. It's meant this intimate and not-infrequent scene outside a Brooklyn brownstone, and this virtual affair for 400,000 people in 41 countries emanating from the ROYAL ALBERT HALL. So many styles, so many venues, so many approaches, and none of it is enough. Not nearly remotely enough in a world where, without live music, some people literally don't exist. So I understand artists like MORGAN WALLEN, CHASE RICE and FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE's BRIAN KELLEY who see crowds at college football games and people celebrating last week's presidential election in crowded outdoor gatherings and can't help themselves from screaming, in anger, frustration and capital letters, "WE CAN BOOK SHOWS RIGHT NOW." The frustration is real (even if it suggests lessons learned a month ago weren't actually learned). But they're wrong on some basic facts, as Rolling Stone's JON FREEMAN and JOSEPH HUDAK lay out here (paywall), and they seem to be missing the big picture, which is that Covid-19 is exactly as real and contagious as it ever was (even in college football), no matter how bored of it any of us are. It isn't time to throw in the towel and pretend otherwise. This optimistic German study, which says it's possible to play indoor shows, right now, with a "low to very low" risk of viral transmission, has gotten a lot of attention in recent days. But the study, which hasn't been peer-reviewed, is based on staging shows with strict social distancing and hygiene rules in venues with specific ventilation technology; it's not trying to suggest the TROUBADOUR can open its doors tomorrow and let 200 people in. In Nashville, the CMA *is* opening the doors to the MUSIC CITY CENTER, where it will broadcast the CMA AWARDS live Wednesday with in-person performances and speeches in front of an audience of fellow artists at socially distanced tables. It's as close to a traditional awards show as anyone has attempted during the pandemic, and it will "safely [bring] country stars together," the Tennessean reported on Sunday. On Monday, two of those stars dropped out after testing positive for Covid. One of those stars is Brian Kelley's Florida Georgia Line bandmate Tyler Hubbard. "A hot, Covid mess" is how Vulture is describing the CMA Awards now. And there's still another day and a half to go. LIVE NATION, meanwhile, was one of the entertainment stocks that had a good day Monday after PFIZER announced positive results its effort to develop a Covid vaccine, but that doesn't mean there's a vaccine yet. "Please don't" stop wearing masks, writes the New York Times in its vaccine explainer. Word. Please don't... Once upon a time, though. Dodgeball, Slip 'N Slide, LES SAVY FAV, an enormous water-less pool and the strangely lackadaisical experience of walking BEYONCÉ and JAY-Z into a GRIZZLY BEAR show: The oral history of peak indie-rock Brooklyn, aka the MCCARREN PARK POOL PARTIES... The two most adorable drummers of 2020 plan to write a song together and, as soon as conditions allow, perform together... How metal was ALËX TRËBEK?... RIP ERIC FERRELL. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| A look at the rise of in-game concerts, and the new role of the gamer as online performer. | | |
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| For a short time, a dry and run-down community pool in Brooklyn was the center of the creative cool-s*** universe. | | |
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| The Foo Fighters leader and the English prodigy struck up a competitive friendship on social media that has brought them, and thousands of music fans, immense joy. | | |
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| To be black is to constantly police your own presence, so you don’t get policed by others who don’t care about your safety. You can’t be the loudest one in the room. You have to restrain yourself or else face danger from people who view you as a threat. That’s why it feels so good to listen to a black, chaotic hardcore band like Soul Glo liberate themselves by screaming. | | |
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| “151 countries! You’d never come close to that on a tour.” | | |
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| An ex-college DJ explores college radio’s place in a world full of downloads. | | |
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| Four industry veterans weigh in on how they'd "fix" a medium that remains popular but lacks innovation. | | |
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| He was fluent in a wide array of styles while wielding a distinctive point of view, despite only recording seriously since 2017. | | |
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| At eighty-seven, the musician knows what it's like to lose a partner, your house, all your money, those big dreams. | | |
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| The "Jeopardy!" contestant, renowned as the Runaways' bassist before reappearing decades later as a game-show whiz, writes about how the beloved host really meant every one of his famous "Trebekisms." | | |
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| A far-ranging conversation with the legendary Rolling Stones guitarist on pandemic life, making music, his new box set, and, yes, his sweatpants. | | |
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| Think Imagine Dragons, but replace the burly lead singer with somebody a bit more nasal and theatrical. The sound may be as polarizing as prolonged adolescence itself: way too catchy and well-executed to write off completely, but sure to be dismissed as obnoxious by some large percentage of listeners. | | |
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| Country music's breakout star of 2020 performs three songs for her Tiny Desk quarantine concert, including "Black Like Me." | | |
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| The streaming giant’s latest tool gives artists the option to be paid less in royalties in exchange for more exposure. | | |
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| WeTransfer's Head of Music, Tiff Yu, chats working with Frank Ocean, transparency in the business, and lessons learned across her career. | | |
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| In Season 2 of the Disney+ series, the traditional sounds of ‘Star Wars’ collide with Swedish heavy metal. | | |
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| It was electronic music that served as the exclamation point to the seismic shift moment in American history. That’s not nothing. | | |
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| What we learned from Michael Rapino and co. during firm's quarterly fiscal update last week. | | |
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| As the UK returned late last week to 'non-essential' retail limbo - aka Lockdown 2 - amid the on-going coronavirus pandemic, I felt it was high time I caught up with two treasured independent North West record shops among many more nationwide forced back behind closed doors. | | |
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| At the start of the pandemic, comedy writer Joey Clift set out to harness a nation’s boredom by embarking upon a populist campaign to create a full album for every state. | | |
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| | | | | | | Philadelphia screaming. "Mathed Up" is from the "Songs to Yeet at the Sun" EP, out now on Secret Voice. |
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