| We have had legendary clashes, so much so that authorities have had to be called into suppressing clashes—prime ministers calling DJs to sit in particular sessions to ease the tension, school students taking sides. So the clash is an animated, exaggerated component of Jamaican life. | | |
| |  | Far from the shallow: Kris Kristofferson as John Norman Howard in the 1976 version of "A Star Is Born."
(Archive Photos/Moviepix/Getty Images) |
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| | | “We have had legendary clashes, so much so that authorities have had to be called into suppressing clashes—prime ministers calling DJs to sit in particular sessions to ease the tension, school students taking sides. So the clash is an animated, exaggerated component of Jamaican life.” | |
| | For the Good Times
Three stories, in chronological order, about KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, the songwriter, singer, outlaw, actor, raconteur, etc., whose retirement from music, at age 84, was announced Wednesday.
There was no TIKTOK, no YOUTUBE, no internet when he was trying to hustle his way into the business as a Nashville songwriter in the late 1960s. You couldn't just DRIVERS LICENSE yourself onto the pop charts back then. But Kristofferson, an Army veteran, did have a helicopter license and he used it to hustle his songs the old-fashioned way: landing a chopper, uninvited, on JOHNNY CASH's lawn. This really happened. Kristofferson, who didn't know Johnny but had befriended JUNE CARTER CASH while working as a janitor at COLUMBIA RECORDS' Nashville office, was intending to hand him a demo tape of "SUNDAY MORNIN' COMING DOWN" in this most dramatic fashion. Whether he succeeded has long been a matter of dispute; Cash says that's how he got the tape, Kristofferson says Cash wasn't even there. (If this happened today, we'd know for sure because it would be on INSTAGRAM, obviously.) But the stunt worked either way, and "Sunday Morning" became a signature song for both of them. The music business has always been about the hustle, and always will be. The platforms and modes of transportation change. The stories and motivations do not. Be hungry. Learn to fly. Just remember to stick the landing.
This is a great thread about what happened after SINEAD O'CONNOR became a pariah for ripping up a photo of POPE JOHN PAUL II on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE in 1992. Her reasons were righteous, her method was provocative, and though history has validated her righteousness, it hasn't salvaged her reputation or her career because history, like people, can be cold and cruel. I can't think of any pop star who's been vilified like she was. People continued partying with PHIL SPECTOR for years after he murdered LANA CLARKSON. People still play R. KELLY on the radio today. But Sinead O'Connor, who dared to defile a photograph? Goodbye, lady. When a New York audience tried to boo her off stage during a BOB DYLAN tribute at MADISON SQUARE GARDEN 10 days later, no one, not even Dylan, spoke up for her, with one exception: Kris Kristofferson, who had been tasked to escort her off the stage. Instead Kristofferson walked out, sans helicopter, hugged O'Connor in front of all those boo birds, told her "Don't let the bastards get you down" and made sure she finished her performance. Moral: Believe in yourself, but believe in other people, too. (Full disclosure: Sinead O'Connor might have a different ending for this story than I was expecting.)
I've seen him in concert only once, at CARNEGIE HALL 15 years ago opening for GEORGE JONES. It was a charming disaster. Onstage alone with an acoustic guitar, he struggled to remember the words to his own songs, including "Sunday Morning Comin' Down." He struggled with the guitar, too, as if he couldn't quite remember how to play. For one song, he sang the first verse, sang it again, stopped, sheepishly apologized and moved on to a different song and a different struggle. He wore a puppy dog smile the whole time. You had no choice but to root for him. You wanted to root for him. Was he drunk? An easy assumption to make. Was he a 70-ish year old man beginning to experience dementia? That assumption was so easy to make that his doctor eventually made it for him. Kristofferson took medication for Alzheimer's for years and his health kept getting worse. Because the diagnosis, it turned out, was wrong. He had Lyme disease. Which can also affect your memory. But which is curable. Don't make assumptions, kids, if you don't have to. And respect your elders. He was/is, his many accomplishments notwithstanding, a pure songwriter, with a pure songwriter's heart.
Movin' Way Too Fast
If you're driving in Brisbane, Australia—or anywhere in the state of Queensland—and if you're listening to SPOTIFY in your car and if you're within five kilometers of a school and if you don't have a premium subscription, Spotify will auto-play a song that literally slows down after a few seconds and tells *you* to slow down because you're in a school zone. I have no doubt this pilot program is being done with the best intentions and I also have little doubt it's one of the worst ideas Spotify, which is doing this in partnership with the Australian Road Safety Foundation, has ever had. There have to be better ways to persuade people to drive safely near children, and there also have to be better ways to get people to upgrade to premium subscriptions. Spotify is also, it would appear, looking into this.
Plus Also Too
A music doc and concert channel called the CODA COLLECTION is launching next month on AMAZON PRIME. The team behind it includes YOKO ONO and JANIE HENDRIX (JIMI's film producer sister). Ex-Chicago Tribune music critic GREG KOT will oversee editorial for an accompanying website... BIG HIT ENTERTAINMENT, the management company behind BTS, is investing $63 million in rival YG, whose clients include BLACKPINK... WAVELENGTHS, organized by the team behind GLOBALFEST, is a two-day conference on "urgent issues facing the international music ecosystem," of which there are a lot. It's happening Friday and Saturday via Zoom with a pay-what-you-can ($40 is suggested) entry fee... MADLIB, whose first-ever proper solo album (!), arranged, edited and mastered by FOUR TET, comes out Friday, doesn't own a cellphone because, the New York Times reports, "too many people kept trying to reach him." Hero.
Rest in Peace
Dallas club owner TIM DANIELS.
| | | Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| |  | Water & Music |
| | Olivia Rodrigo and the fall of Disney’s music machine | | by Kristin Robinson | | Several factors fueling Rodrigo’s rise highlight how teen entertainment has evolved significantly in recent years — to the point where Disney’s influence in grooming the next generation of young stars actually might not last much longer. | |
| rantnrave:// This isn't exclusive to hip-hop obviously. Be careful out there. | |
|  | Complex |
| | How Rap Misinformation Spreads on Social Media | | by Andre Gee | | Misinformation and rumors are spreading on hip-hop social media timelines at a rapid pace, with little accountability. Here's how it happens. | |
 | VICE |
| | The Oral History of 'Guitar Hero' | | by Blake Hester | | How to accidentally change the world. | |
 | Billboard |
| | ‘The Phone Never Rang’: How The Concert Industry Letter to Biden Came Together | | by Dave Brooks | | Live industry pros have been suggesting for months that venues, especially those with large parking lots, would be ideal for mass distribution of a vaccine. | |
 | The New York Times |
| | How Four Tet Helped Madlib Make Something Totally New: A Solo Album | | by Eric Ducker | | For decades, the producer and rapper Madlib had no interest in synthesizing his disparate works into a single statement. So the electronic music producer Four Tet took matters into his own hands. | |
 | Rolling Stone |
| | RETRO READ: Kris Kristofferson: An Outlaw at 80 | | by Neil Strauss | | Country legend has faced memory loss and the death of old friends, and has also found peace - just don’t try to tell him what to do. | |
| rave:// A long oral history aimed at a very specific audience, you know who you are, and it's fantastic. | |
|  | Chicago Reader |
| | Twenty-four points of view on the band Joan of Arc | | by Leor Galil | | Tim Kinsella lets everyone else tell the story of his longest-running group-entirely in keeping with their music’s embrace of illogic and reinvention. | |
 | The Guardian |
| | UK music industry outraged over licence fee cost for live-streamed events | | by Laura Snapes | | A PRS tariff on virtual events grossing less than £500 could make online performances - often raising money for struggling artists and technical staff - ‘grind to a halt’, critics say. | |
 | Complete Music Update |
| | Dissecting The Streaming Inquiry #03: The recording / song split | | by Chris Cooke | | Many songwriters and music publishers argue that they are yet to really see the benefit of streaming and that’s principally because of the way the digital pie is sliced, so that nearly four times more money is allocated to the recording than the song. | |
 | Song Exploder |
| | Song Exploder: Haim – 'Summer Girl' | | by Hrishikesh Hirway, Haim and Ariel Rechtshaid | | Danielle Haim and producer Ariel Rechtshaid share the emotional story behind the song “Summer Girl,” from Haim’s third album, "Women in Music Pt. III." | |
|  | NPR |
| | Showdown, The Caribbean Answer To Verzuz, Is Part Of A Long-Running Musical Exchange | | by Baz Dreisinger | | The livestream event debuted in 2020, with two soca stars facing off. Even though Verzuz came first, the American series arguably owes its existence to Caribbean music. | |
| rave:// Gomez's Tom Gray has become one of the most passionate, and effective, artist advocates anywhere. | |
|  | Anchor |
| | Whose Song Is It Anyway? Tom Gray, Artist | | by Hayleigh Bosher and Tom Gray | | Tom Gray talks about creativity and originality in song creation, as well as the #BrokenRecord campaign, the current UK streaming inquiry, equitable remuneration, plus why and how musicians and artists can engage in copyright policy. | |
 | SPIN |
| | Jack Harlow Knew This Was Coming | | by Khari Nixon | | Well, sort of. But now he’s got a smash hit, a new album featuring Adam Levine, and he may have accidentally altered the course of NBA history. | |
| VICE |
| | Everybody's Talking About Ivorian Doll | | by Nana Baah | | The UK's "Queen of Drill" talks spirituality, blowing up in a pandemic and dealing with those rumours. | |
 | British GQ |
| | ‘You can’t destroy music’: what it was like being a musician in Auschwitz | | by Raymond Meade | | Musician Raymond Meade, whose upcoming BBC Three documentary Symphonies Of Survival explores the music of Auschwitz, interviews Holocaust survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who played cello in the Women’s Orchestra during her internment, and scholar Dr Michael Berenbaum. | |
 | Stuff |
| | Top singers release open letter after sexual harassment revelations: Leave industry if you can't act safely | | by Alison Mau | | Big names including Bic Runga and Anika Moa speak out after admissions of harmful behaviour, warning industry players to shape up or get out. | |
 | NPR Music |
| | Benee, The Artist Behind A Viral TikTok Hit, Gets Serious And Weird | | by Stephen Kallao and John Myers | | What's it like to have a song go viral on TikTok and rack up a half a billion plays on Spotify? Host Stephen Kallao talks with up and coming New Zealand artist Benee in this session. | |
 | Mixmag |
| | Will music festivals actually happen this year? | | by Niamh Ingram | | Summer 2021 is fast approaching. Niamh Ingram surveys the festival landscape to find out which festivals are likely to go ahead. | |
 | Pollstar |
| | Author Robert Greenfield On Bill Graham’s 90th Birthday: 'He Never Would Have Sat In A Board Meeting' | | by Andy Gensler | | A few days after Jan. 8, 2021, on what would have been legendary promoter Bill Graham’s 90th birthday, Pollstar spoke with Robert Greenfield, co-author of “Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock And Out.” | |
 | Level |
| | I’m Officially Too Old To Listen to Dudes Rapping About Oral Sex | | by Michael Arceneaux | | The problem isn’t the subject matter -- it’s the callousness. | |
| | The last song Kristofferson played at his final concert, January 2020 on the Outlaw Country Cruise. |  | | Video of the day | | "Songwriter" | | TriStar Pictures | | Classic 1984 country music business caper starring Kristofferson and Willie Nelson. |  | YouTube |
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Classic 1984 country music business caper starring Kristofferson and Willie Nelson. |
| | Music | Media | Sports | Fashion | Tech | | “REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in
everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask ‘why?’” | |  | | Jason Hirschhorn | | CEO & Chief Curator |
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