Every single week, almost every day, I get emails about a different venue that has said, 'I just can’t anymore.' And it doesn’t have to be like that. | | | | Women with masks, man without: Pitbull at the 2020 Premios Juventud, Hollywood, Fla., Aug. 13, 2020.
(Jason Koerner/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “Every single week, almost every day, I get emails about a different venue that has said, 'I just can’t anymore.' And it doesn’t have to be like that.”
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| | rantnrave:// A sobering thought for a Monday morning with no relief package in sight for US live music venues—or any other struggling businesses—and both houses of Congress having skipped town: If a cure for Covid-19 is discovered today and everyone in the country can go back to work tomorrow, those venues would still find themselves with a unique problem: No inventory. As in, no bands. "The movie theater business could come back on with a flip of a switch," AUDREY FIX SCHAEFER, a spokeswoman for the NATIONAL INDEPENDENT VENUE ASSOCIATION tells VARIETY. "But it will take at least four months for touring to be scheduled and for all the venues to be able to have a calendar, because it is such an intricate process." Routing tours. Coordinating travel. Booking hotels. Etcetera. Schaefer, who also handles communications for a group of Washington, D.C., area rooms including the 9:30 CLUB, says legislators on both sides of the aisle have been receptive to NIVA's pleas, but any music-specific package is dependent on an across-the-board national relief package being negotiated and passed. The adjournment of legislative business, she says, came as "a kick in the gut." In the UK, meanwhile, where indoor venues have been allowed to reopen but with restrictions that will make it difficult for many to do so, the GUARDIAN reports on roadies who have moved back in with their parents and/or taken jobs stocking grocery-store shelves. "The weirdest thing," VACCINES tour manager EDD SEDGWICK says, "is knowing every day by its date or the day of the week—so you call a day ‘Monday’ instead of ‘Barcelona’ or ‘Milan'"... The collapse of the live music industry has forced musicians to rely on recorded music for a much greater share of their income, which has, not surprisingly, caused many of them to reevaluate how that part of the business is working. And that, in turn, has reinvigorated an old discussion about how streaming services divvy up royalties. The basic question: If you use your SPOTIFY or TIDAL subscription to play nothing but DRAKEO THE RULER, should he get all the royalties your subscription produces, or should your money go into one giant pot that gets distributed to tens of thousands of artists based on total plays across the service, which means more of your $9.99 goes to DRAKE than to Drakeo? Pro rata royalties (the latter way, which is how all major services work) vs. user-centric royalties (the former way, which is especially attractive to middle-class artists and their fans). MusicSET: "Whose Royalty Is It Anyway?"... The second installment of DJ CASSIDY's old-school hip-hop TWITCH series PASS THE MIC—available on YOUTUBE—features members of RUN-DMC, LL COOL J and SALT-N-PEPA... BOB DYLAN prefers the black keys (the ones on that piano, that is, not the band)... RIP PETE WAY, JULIAN BREAM, DAVID "COWBOY" SANDERS and DUANE TATRO. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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 | Variety |
| "When they went out on recess, it was hearts going to the basement and the sub-basement," says a rep for the National Independent Venue Association, which doesn't expect most clubs and small theaters to survive without long-stalled federal relief. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| The pandemic has shut down concert tours - and with them go thousands of jobs in sound, lighting, catering and more. As the industry lobbies the government, road crews tell their stories. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| The rapper and director both called the same neighborhood home and had a mutual respect for one another’s work. But their connection runs deeper than that. On the eve of what would’ve been Nipsey’s 35th birthday, we explore who and what they represented—and why. | | |
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 | REDEF |
| Even if you've never played a Drake or Post Malone song, they're getting a cut of the money you pay Spotify every month. Is there a better way to divvy up streaming royalties? Should users have a say in where their money goes? | | |
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 | The Forty-Five |
| Trump's executive order could ban TIkTok in less than a month. Sophie Wilson investigates just what that will mean for music and the viral hit | | |
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 | Slate |
| Like any boy band alumnus, he first had to overcome radio’s bias against teen heartthrobs. | | |
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 | Music Business Worldwide |
| What’s behind the major’s surprise buyout of IMGN Media? | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| The New York City band known for explosive live shows went on hiatus in 2010, and lost a member to lymphoma in 2013. A new album finds them in a new rock landscape. | | |
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 | Complex |
| Chief Keef’s career is a case study in reevaluating how we perceive music industry success. | | |
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 | The Alternative |
| "I don't even have a tape player," my friend said to me one morning. "I don't know what I'm going to do with this thing." Both of us had woken up early one Friday in April to purchase a cassette copy of Songs for Pierre Chuvin the new quarantine-created and boombox-recorded Mountain Goats album. | | |
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 | W Magazine |
| Megan Thee Stallion speaks frankly about an intense few months in isolation, her relationship with her fans, and dancing as a creative outlet. | | |
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 | Trapital |
| Tyler's greatest creation is the loyal fanbase that's been riding with him since Odd Future. | | |
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| Music Business Worldwide |
| What Universal, Cooking Vinyl and Kobalt’s new deals really mean in China. | | |
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 | The Washington Post |
| The Post’s national arts reporter is hosting “Stuck With Geoff,” with whoever will take his calls. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| Jim Mahoney believes he's stumbled on the rarest of rarities: two unreleased Frank Sinatra songs. Experts aren't so sure. You can decide for yourself. | | |
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 | Chicago Reader |
| He didn’t just found the legendary Medusa’s-he also helped everyone in his orbit shine like a star. | | |
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| Complex |
| Announcing their first album 'B4 The Storm,' Internet Money's Taz Taylor and Nick Mira speak with Complex about the project, Juice WRLD's legacy, and more. | | |
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 | Guernica Magazine |
| Now's a very good time to go deep with a movie score-in a crowded content space, they can offer a refreshingly elliptical experience. | | |
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| Variety |
| Fender admits he had hesitations about playing "the biggest human cattle market" but ultimately found the shows thrilling. And he had some words for Piers Morgan, who called the concept "“sooooo weird." | | |
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 | Louder |
| In 2013 former UFO bassist Pete Way sat down with Classic Rock to discuss his extraordinary life... and four decades of hellraising. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | Method Man and Mary J. Blige |
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