Just because you walk into a space and recognize it as unsafe in a brief flash does not mean that you fully process what could potentially be a worst-case nightmare scenario. | | | | | Needle drop. (June Warsaw/Flickr) | | | | | | “Just because you walk into a space and recognize it as unsafe in a brief flash does not mean that you fully process what could potentially be a worst-case nightmare scenario.”
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| | rantnrave:// The death toll in OAKLAND stands at 33 as I write this, on a Sunday evening in December in the worst year of many of our lifetimes, and bodies are still missing and people don't know if their friends are OK. The LA label 100% SILK, whose artist GOLDEN DONNA headlined the party at the GHOST SHIP, says two of its other artists are unaccounted for. The dance music community is shattered. The BAY AREA is devastated. The loss is indescribable. If you want a description of the indescribable, read the scene herein of a resident of the Ghost Ship having to leave a friend behind as he escaped the burning warehouse. Or don't. It's one of the darkest vignettes I've read in a very dark year. Like many sketchy but welcoming warehouses around the country, the Ghost Ship was a safe space, in a very real sense, for artists and outsiders in need of a place to live, to perform, to dance, to express themselves, to exist. In another, very obvious sense, it wasn't a safe space at all. The criminal investigation has already begun into an underground venue and apparently illegal residence that one former tenant called a "death trap." The owner will be blamed, the operator of the space will be blamed, the promoter will be blamed, others will be blamed, all perhaps with good reason. New regulations will be enacted, in Oakland and elsewhere. But who will step up to ask why parties have to be held at venues like this in the first place, and who will step up to try to solve that problem? Who will provide affordable, legal housing in cities like Oakland for the artists who add so much to the city's soul? ROBERT GAMMON writes for OAKLAND MAGAZINE about how a severe shortage of affordable housing has displaced countless artists and forced them to live, perform and party in spaces like the Ghost Ship. "They're integral to DIY's artistic fabric," he writes. "But they're also death traps." The LA TIMES' AUGUST BROWN notes that this tragedy could have happened in any number of cities, and warns that if authorities simply crack down on illegal parties without offering alternatives, they'll "only make things worse." Cities, he says, should be do everything they can to *not* drive promoters further underground. But that's not to let party promoters off the hook. Everyone who has devoted a lot of time to shows and parties has been in spaces like this. And whether they're conscious of it or not, they're taking a calculated risk every time. But, as 100% SILK co-owner AMANDA BROWN told LA WEEKLY, "[It] has nothing to do with these artists being unsafe or these artists wanting to be dangerous or to be put in dangerous situations. This is about these artists needing to find a place to play." RIP to the many souls lost on Friday night, and prayers to those still missing... RIP also MARK GOODINGS and MARK GRAY. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| The fire that ripped through an electronic music concert at an Oakland warehouse-turned-art space Friday night was a worst-case scenario for anyone who attends such events. | | |
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| Officials said that the search of the rubble of a makeshift nightclub in the building would take days, and that they expected the number of victims to rise. | | |
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| Breaking down the winners and losers of this breakthrough year for streaming music, and looking ahead to what’s next for the industry | | |
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| Musician and author Ned Sublette was at a concert in Havana the night of Nov. 25, when the country learned of Fidel Castro’s death. As the former leader's ashes travel from Havana to his home province of Oriente, he shares what it’s like to be in Cuba with all music suspended until Castro's funeral on Dec. 4, what Castro’s passing means for the country’s artists, and what comes next. | | |
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| Its rebirth gives insights into twin trends across the media landscape: prestige and diversity. | | |
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| Rapper Charles Hamilton seemed to have it all after landing a million dollar record deal - but a combination of misfortune and circumstance ripped it away. This is his story of survival and redemption, both creatively and emotionally. | | |
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| Matthew Conboy’s new doc ‘Goodnight Brooklyn-The Story of Death By Audio’ chronicles the painful death of his Williamsburg music haven. Here, he writes about its bitter end. | | |
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| Power broker, sex symbol, and kingpin of the block: reflecting on the rapper, who reconfigured familiar faces into something wholly unfamiliar, 20 years after the release of her debut album. | | |
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| Enter the world of Canadian dance-music superstar Joel 'deadmau5' Zimmerman. You will find: a $5m mansion, a stuffed two-headed calf and a complete disregard for his new album 'W:/2016ALBUM/'. | | |
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| There are dozens of large, unsafe-and vibrant-living spaces in Oakland like the one that became engulfed in a deadly fire Friday night. Unfortunately, fixing them could also result in mass evictions. | | |
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| At the tail end of last year, Lemmy Kilmister died. You could see that one coming, between recurring reports of the man's failing health and his infamously hard living throughout his career. But still: You don't get characters the size of Lemmy everyday. It was a downer wedged between holidays, losing an idiosyncratic icon like that. | | |
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| Repetitive strain damage to muscles, crumbling vertebra and impaired hearing are just some of the common problems aging drummers struggle with. | | |
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| With his extraordinary FX show ‘Atlanta’ and new ‘70s-inspired album ‘Awaken, My Love!’, the former ‘30 Rock’ writer has emerged as one of the most powerful voices of his generation. | | |
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| Saariaho isn't the first woman composer to stage an opera at New York's Metropolitan Opera - just the first in more than a century. Her opera, L'Amour de Loin, has its New York premiere this week. | | |
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| Long before he became G.O.O.D. Music’s president, Pusha T was nearly swallowed by the streets. Now, he’s out to expose the inequities of mass incarceration and harsh laws that prey on children of color. And he isn't letting Trump's America stop him. | | |
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| Revelator CEO Bruno Guez explores how the latest evolution of data driven niche marketing by companies such as Netflix could be applied in different ways to the music industry, particularly as music streaming occupies an increasingly large segment of the market. | | |
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| In the future, we will be listening to music produced by Artificial Intelligence, like it or not. However harsh and uninspiring this statement might sound, don't jump to conclusions too soon. | | |
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| Cover story: With their third album, 'Woman,' the Parisian hellraisers return to the church of their imagination. | | |
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| She’s been threatened with rape and was beaten in the street, but Paradise Sorouri refuses to stop singing about the horrific injustices inflicted upon Afghan woman. | | |
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| Hustling illegal cassettes became a worldwide platform for breaking talent. | | |
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| | | | | Cherushii ft. Golden Donna |
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