In the 1990s, you weren’t in the studio if you were s***. You didn’t even have a microphone. Nobody was paying for your studio time. It wasn’t like everybody got a chance... Now everybody has a shot. Which is a gift and a curse. There’s things you may have never heard of before because it was too outside the box or whatever that you would get exposed to now. And that's dope. I love that. | | | | James Brown with (from left) Johnny Terry, Bobby Byrd and Bobby Bennett at the Apollo Theater in 1964.
(Don Paulsen/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “In the 1990s, you weren’t in the studio if you were s***. You didn’t even have a microphone. Nobody was paying for your studio time. It wasn’t like everybody got a chance... Now everybody has a shot. Which is a gift and a curse. There’s things you may have never heard of before because it was too outside the box or whatever that you would get exposed to now. And that's dope. I love that.”
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| | rantnrave:// The first shot in ROGER ROSS WILLIAMS' documentary about the APOLLO THEATER is a performer's-eye view of the iconic theater's 1,506 seats, all unoccupied. There's a feeling of intimidation, but also connection. If you happen to be sitting in one of those seats while watching the film, as I had the privilege of doing Wednesday, the opening night of the TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL, you feel the chill of a magically meta moment. You might also get a hint of what Williams intends to do in the next hour and a half, besides treating you to thrilling footage of ELLA FITZGERALD, BILLIE HOLIDAY, JAMES BROWN, the MIRACLES, LAURYN HILL (booed at amateur night, cheered a few years later with a group you may have heard of) and so many others who did so much legendary work while sharing that exact view. Music is never just about music, and "THE APOLLO" is, at heart, a film about the connection between a theater and its community. Several communities, really: Black Harlem, which wasn't welcome in the COTTON CLUB and the SAVOY, homes to black musicians and white audiences. Aspiring black musicians, who had an open invitation to the Apollo's sometimes brutal but always welcoming amateur night. Professional black musicians, who saw the Apollo as a safe space and home no matter where they were from, no matter which dressing room they were assigned to (the eighth floor was the worst; the more established you became, the lower your floor), and no matter what Apollo owner FRANK SCHIFFMAN wrote on one of his infamous index cards about how they performed, how much they were paid and whether they earned it. And black culture in general, which the Apollo housed, protected and fostered through eras of segregation, civil unrest and more. This era, the America of the 2010s, being no exception. Woven through the film are scenes of actors rehearsing and staging a theatrical version of TA-NEHISI COATES' 2015 book "BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME," a letter to his son about being black in an America that hasn't changed as much as it likes to think it has. By the end of the film, when you see ANGELA BASSETT, COMMON and others performing the show, the importance of the very space you're sitting has hit you in a visceral way. "Our struggle," Williams said in introducing the screening, "is defined by our music and our art." At the Apollo, and in "The Apollo," the music and the art does the struggle justice. "The Apollo" airs on HBO in October. If you're in New York, it has two more Tribeca showings, Saturday and Monday. And it leads a particularly strong slate of music films at this year's festival, which runs through next weekend... In the first episode of the second season of KCRW's LOST NOTES podcast, now hosted and executive produced by JESSICA HOPPER, an old Boston punk-rocker talks to his daughter and an ex-bandmate about a problematic song he wishes the former had never heard and the latter had never written. And realizes that he himself helped write it, too. A complicated, bittersweet and important story. The band is the FREEZE, which connects my hometown and my current home in 19 glorious and much less problematic seconds... It's FRIDAY and BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN says HELLO SUNSHINE (seven-word review: Laurel Canyon dad-rock; this is great) and TAYLOR SWIFT says hello it's ME (empowerment! at the disco, with Cherbourg umbrellas). There's also new music from SCHOOLBOY Q, EZRA COLLECTIVE, MARINA, KEVIN MORBY, the CRANBERRIES, PINK, SUNN O))), DJ NATE, ALDOUS HARDING, QUEEN KEY, LOYLE CARNER, the MOUNTAIN GOATS, CRAIG FINN, OTOBOKE BEAVER, HELMS ALEE, JACKIE MENDOZA, RODRIGO Y GABRIELA, MARISSA NADLER & STEPHEN BRODSKY, NICK MURPHY, NILS LOFGREN, ROB THOMAS, KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD, GUIDED BY VOICES, FOXYGEN, PETE ROCK, AMON TOBIN, ALAN PARSONS, SLY & THE FAMILY DRONE, LOCAL NATIVES, STARFLYER 59, the DAMNED THINGS, NEW YEARS DAY, CATFISH & THE BOTTLEMEN, JOSH RITTER, the late J.J. CALE and the pop/rock/hip-hop/country compilation FOR THE THRONE: MUSIC INSPIRED BY THE HBO SERIES GAME OF THRONES... RIP MARILYN MASON. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| | | one of these things is not like the others |
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 | KCRW |
| The Freeze were an early American punk band. Now, 40 years later, two members reckon with the lyrics they wrote as teenagers. | | |
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 | XXL |
| On-air colossus Ebro Darden has become one of hip-hop's most polarizing forces thanks to an unwavering candor that has made enemies of young rappers like Kodak Black and 6ix9ine. But, will the Hot 97 shock jock tone down his act as he enters a new phase of broadcasting with Apple Music? | | |
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 | Variety |
| You should never take for granted a documentary that fills in the basics with flair and feeling. Especially when the basics consist of great big gobs of some of the most revolutionary and exhilarating popular art ever created in this country. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| By the turn of the millennium, ska was considered dead by mainstream tastemakers. But they were dead wrong. | | |
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 | GQ |
| In a Marvel movie so preoccupied with revisiting its own history, certain songs become their own time machines into the MCU’s past. | | |
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 | Slate |
| John Cameron Mitchell’s "Anthem: Homunculus" recruits Glenn Close and Patti LuPone for a show that defies the conventions of both mediums. | | |
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 | Vulture |
| She got it from her mama. | | |
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 | Please Kill Me |
| ‘Stay Free’ breaks up the predictable formula by taking its time telling the story of The Clash, narrated by Chuck D. Several other punk-related podcasts are worth checking out, including ones hosted by Jenny Eliscu and Henry Rollins, others devoted to the Ramones and Hüsker Dü. | | |
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 | MusicAlly |
| Are you frustrated with the size of your fanbase? Tired of banging your head against a brick wall with ticket and merchandise sales? Unable to reconcile your streaming figures with the number of genuine fans? Then you might be suffering from The Dry Streams Paradox. | | |
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 | Talkhouse |
| Alicia Bognanno (Bully) on crafting the music of "Her Smell's" fictional band. | | |
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| | | like a rainbow with all of the colors |
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 | Longreads |
| Surviving seventh grade with a practically perfect punk nanny. | | |
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| Billboard |
| Until 2018, when users posted videos with snippets of songs, copyright holders often had them taken down. Now the social network is friending the industry by licensing content. | | |
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 | Forbes |
| Rap's rising stars blend genres, garner Grammy attention, create triple-platinum albums, earn tens of millions-and are all under the age of 30. | | |
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 | NPR Music |
| "Hello Sunshine," the first single from Bruce Springsteen's upcoming album Western Stars, shares the same melancholy space as early '70s ballads by Jimmy Webb and Kris Kristofferson. | | |
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 | The Washington Post |
| “There’s no statute of limitations on racism”: Singers Lawrence Brownlee and Morris Robinson weigh in on the controversy. | | |
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 | Kids Take Over |
| Kids Take Over interviews Anthony Kilhoffer, the founder of the 1st Gen record label, and long time engineer for Kanye West and Kid Cudi. | | |
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 | soundcharts |
| Tom Windish is founder of The Windish Agency, which merged into Paradigm in 2015. Throughout his extensive career as one of the worlds most prominent booking agents, Tom worked with acts from Low and Squarepusher to Diplo, Billie Eilish and more. | | |
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 | Vox |
| Disco, DJs, and the impact of the 12-inch single. | | |
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 | Noisey |
| Gaming the system by combining an original track with an ostensibly related one with some level of Latinx representation is a long-standing strategy. | | |
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 | Brooklyn Vegan |
| Grunge is in the air lately, and while the original grunge phenomenon is long in the rearview, there are plenty of modern artists keeping those sounds alive. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | Live BBC 6 performance of title song from debut album, out today on Enter the Jungle. |
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