The instruments which require breathing, to me, are more in line with what's happening on an earthly level. But the instruments that can produce a sound that's continuous express the eternal, the infinite... The organ and strings. Strings can continuously produce without a break... You can sustain [an organ] tone indefinitely. | | | | Alice Coltrane, circa 1970.
(Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “The instruments which require breathing, to me, are more in line with what's happening on an earthly level. But the instruments that can produce a sound that's continuous express the eternal, the infinite... The organ and strings. Strings can continuously produce without a break... You can sustain [an organ] tone indefinitely.”
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| | rantnrave:// While the RYAN ADAMS news was breaking on Wednesday, I was at the POLLSTAR LIVE conference in Los Angeles, at back-to-back panels addressing diversity and inclusion. The first, which featured STACY L. SMITH, lead author of the ANNENBERG INCLUSION INITIATIVE's devastating reports on Inclusion in the Recording Studio, was about strategies for increasing diversity in the live music space, though it ended up going wider than that. "Music is a bit more diverse [than the film industry] when it comes to racial and ethnic diversity," Smith, who has studied both, said near the top of the discussion. But music is severely lacking in gender diversity. (Other panelists pointed out the need for socioeconomic diversity, which I'll try to come back in the coming days because yes, that's crucial, too.) This isn't for lack of trying on women's part. SOUNDGIRLS and SHE IS THE MUSIC both have online databases of women available for tech work in studios, on tours, etc. They're not hard to find. What appears to be hard to find are people willing to hire them. "The data," Smith said, "tells you not only the problem, they tell you exactly how to fix it." KEVIN SHIVERS, a WME agent, said the solution has to start with "younger artists. I don't think artists that have been on the road for 30 years or 40 years are willing to fire their crew, nor are we asking them to." Smith suggested a perhaps faster and more urgent approach: "We need the data, we need the best folks coming together... and everybody pushes a lever in their own sphere of influence at the same time." Hopefully those levers get pushed soon. I went from that panel to a roundtable discussion on the same subject, in a conference room with five or six simultaneous discussions. The diversity table was in the middle of the room and had exactly one chair and, not surprisingly, not many people. Men—they were mostly men—appear to have grabbed the chairs so they could crowd around the "VIP/Enhanched Experience," "Ticketing" and other tables. The one chair was occupied by moderator NANCY TARR, whose WELL DUNN organization sources music industry internships for students who are short on financial resources. Some companies have been eager partners; others haven't returned her multiple calls. Her would-be interns are part of music's future. They're the people who one day will be—or should be—in the studios, behind the live monitors and on the stage crews where too many women today find themselves alone, if they find themselves there at all. With no support system, no peers, no other women to turn to. Surrounded by musicians and music that is, statistically speaking, overwhelmingly likely to be the work of men. After studying seven years' worth of BILLBOARD pop charts, Smith's latest study found that 10 specific male songwriters were responsible for 23 percent of the most popular songs. "Ten men," she said Wednesday, set our views, culturally, through lyrics, about what's important." After chatting with Tarr for a while, I had lunch and then heard the Ryan Adams story. The line from those discussions to the awful things Adams is accused of doing by multiple women (and which he denies), is short, simple and direct, and goes well beyond any one singer-songwriter. This causes that, and that causes this.This *is* that... The first aha moment for me in hearing the creative explosion of current London jazz was witnessing THEON CROSS blowing fierce quarter-notes on a tuba for what seemed like 15 unbroken minutes in the middle of a set at NUBLU in New York two summers ago. (I was late on this.) It was jazz, it was rock, it was trance, it was hip-hop, it was pure groove, it was what it was without any regard for what it wasn't, and it was amazing. Cross' debut album, FYAH, featuring saxophonist NUBYA GARCIA and drummer MOSES BOYD, is out today on GEARBOX RECORDS... It's FRIDAY and that means there's also new music from CHAKA KHAN, FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE, CZARFACE & GHOSTFACE KILLAH, JONNY NASH, YANN TIERSEN, SIR BABYGIRL, BETTY WHO, AVRIL LAVIGNE, HUGH MARSH, WOMAN'S HOUR, KING MIDAS SOUND, POWDER, PAPOOSE, HAYES CARLL, LADYTRON, INDIA.ARIE, PIROSHKA, BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE, METHYL ETHEL, TRISHA YEARWOOD, RYAN BINGHAM, SHOOK TWINS, EFDEMIN, PICTURE THIS, TOURIST, TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND, MILLENCOLIN, ROBERT ELLIS, SETH WALKER and the LONG RYDERS... RIP AYUB OGADA and SALI SIDIBE.
| | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| | | what cha' gonna do for me |
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 | The Guardian |
| So-called alternative musicians pride themselves on being more enlightened than their rock counterparts, but in my years of writing about them, I have found no end of ‘beta male misogyny.’ | | |
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 | Deutsche Welle |
| Berlin's politicians and clubs are teaming up to make partying more sustainable. Ideas range from more efficient light and cooling systems to generating energy through dancing. And there's an even bigger goal. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| A quarter-century after the release of their landmark sophomore album, members of the quintessential ’90s indie-rock band reflect on their big moment, their defining music video, and that silly little beef with an alt-rock icon. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| The musician denies that he had inappropriate online sexual communications “with someone he knew was underage.” Agents from the Crimes Against Children Squad will seek to interview the woman. | | |
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 | Fortune Magazine |
| The EU's big institutions have agreed a final version of the new Copyright Directive, leaving many appalled at its implications. | | |
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 | The FADER |
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 | Mixmag |
| Rewinding a record can be a delicate art, as the scene has recently found out. | | |
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 | Paper |
| As chosen by veteran songwriter Sarah Hudson. | | |
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 | Playboy |
| Why do Post Malone and Ariana Grande get classified differently than their black contemporaries? | | |
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| Billboard |
| It was the song that put the Miami bass group on the map, and explicit lyrics on trial. | | |
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| The Ringer |
| Danny Boyle’s newest movie asks, “What if only one person in the world knew about the Beatles?” And well, that question is extremely loaded. | | |
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 | Motoring Research |
| Adventures in Hi-Fi: from its roots in the 1920s to Apple Carplay, we chart the history of in-car entertainment | | |
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| The Guardian |
| When the 100 Club announced it wouldn’t be posting stage times for gigs, punters were enraged. So what is at stake -- for venues, gig-goers and support acts? | | |
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 | Nashville Scene |
| Two Instagram accounts by Nashville guitar experts offer an intimate look at players’ relationships with their instruments. | | |
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 | 5 Magazine |
| One of the essential weapons of electronic warfare: the story of Roger Linn and the making of the classic MPC. | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| Meek has become the face of prison reform advocacy. But is his stance contradicted by his bromance with the billionaire Patriots owner? | | |
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 | Trapital |
| New York hip-hop dominated the 90s and early 2000s, but the internet changed the industry and paved the way for Atlanta. | | |
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 | NewMusicBox |
| Years before Hollywood cemented the theremin’s association with the alien or otherworldly, critics heard different qualities in its sonority: emotional expressiveness and excessive sentimentality. | | |
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 | Longreads |
| My on-again, off-again love affair with Engelbert Humperdinck. | | |
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 | YouTube |
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