I don’t want to be Scottie Pippen to his Jordan. | | | | Mosh pit stop: Cars line up for a drive-in concert by singer-songwriter Mads Langer, Aarhus, Denmark, April 24, 2020.
(Mikkel Berg Pedersen/AFP/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | “I don’t want to be Scottie Pippen to his Jordan.”
| | | | | | rantnrave:// Today's the day that clubs, theaters, arenas and stadiums in the state of Missouri are free to open their doors for concerts and other public gatherings for the first time in six weeks under a directive from GOV. MIKE PARSON that clubs, theaters, arenas and stadiums are generally ignoring, and I'd like to dedicate today's newsletter to the club owners, booking agents, artists and local governments who are standing up for staying home. It's too soon to step into an arena like the ENTERPRISE CENTER in St. Louis, whose next not-yet-canceled concert is a HARRY STYLES show on July 21. It's too soon, even with enforced social distancing inside (as if), to take a seat at the UPTOWN THEATER in Kansas City, which has wiped everything from its calendar until a HAZEL ENGLISH show on June 10. The decision isn't entirely in the venues' hands. In the state's biggest cities, local stay-at-home orders, which supersede the governor's order, remain in place. But even in a city like Columbia, where there are no such restrictions, the BLUE NOTE is continuing to host livestreams and saying no to actual live shows. What does the live music community know that the governor of Missouri doesn't? What do most Americans know that the governor of Missouri doesn't? (He's obviously not alone in this, but this particular landmark is a potentially major one for the anti-quarantine movement, if anyone goes along with it.) My heart breaks for musicians and road crews and club employees and everyone else who's unable to work because of a pandemic isn't going to pay attention to government orders any more than it's going to to pay attention to international borders. I work from home and I'm well aware of the privilege that entails, especially now. There are other solutions for those who can't, besides forcing them to return to stores and offices and factories and restaurants. Let's fight for those. Let's fight for testing and contact tracing and personal protective equipment. Let's fight for financial relief. Let's fight for medicine and for real people's economic needs at the same time. And there are options for those who simply want to see a live show that we don't even have to fight for. Look at your phone. Open your laptop. The music is there. Live DJ sets. Live bands. Live bedroom musicians. Live archives. There's so much I don't even know where to begin. But I know that I can begin... In the meantime, if there can be drive-in movies, why not drive-in concerts? An innovation from Denmark... Somewhere in America, I'm pretty sure it's Los Angeles, lives a toddler who wrote a song called "I WONDER WHAT'S INSIDE YOUR B***HOLE," and if I had a record label I'd be on the phone with mom today trying to negotiate a deal. Seriously. Verse lyric: "Maybe there is astronauts / And maybe there is aliens"... RIP CADY GROVES and ELSE BLANGSTED.
| | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | | | |  | Fast Company | | DJ sets, cooking shows, poetry readings: Sheltering in place has changed how The Roots and manager Shawn Gee think about how to engage audiences. | | | |  | Rolling Stone | | We Should Write Sometime, which uses swipe-right technology and geotagging to pair up compatible songwriters, has seen a 61% increase in daily average downloads since sheltering in place went nationwide. | | | |  | The New York Times | | “The Last Dance,” the ESPN series about his final season with the Bulls, is interwoven with classic hip-hop that presented some legal hurdles. But Jordan, and the league, weren’t always fans. | | | |  | Music Industry Blog | | In February 2019 Marshmello caused ripples of almost tidal proportions across the music business when 10.7 million Fortnite fans watched him perform a 'concert' in the game. Then in April 2020 Travis Scott followed in his shoes with his own Fortnite concert, pulling in 12 million players. | | | |  | The Atlantic | | The Mountain Goats’ latest release is authentically a product of this pandemic, but it’s also nicely indifferent to it. | | | |  | Consequence of Sound | | The fate of a pop artist now belongs in the hands of Twitch, Twitter, and Tik Tok. | | | |  | Billboard | | Spotify's prevailing message with its quarterly earnings report on Wednesday should help much of the music business breathe easy as the global markets are distressed: streaming and subscription revenues are expected to continue with little interruption in 2020. | | | |  | Music Business Worldwide | | Doug Davis, Tunji Balogun and Ty Stiklorius took part in a Zoom conversation about COVID-19's impact on the music business. | | | |  | The Pudding | | Do you recognize songs from history more than people your age? | | | |  | UPROXX | | The epic story behind the influential lo-fi masterpiece made with ’lots of beer, lots of cigarettes, lots of fun.’ | | | |  | Mixmag | | Electronic artists are combining a music career with a day job and succeeding on their own terms. | | | |  | HUCK Magazine | | With his new album, Will Toledo is embracing new sounds and donning a mask. To mark its release, he tells us why he’s tired of fighting his past self. | | | |  | Pitchfork | | We spoke with Open Pit, the organizers of in-game concerts featuring 100 Gecs, American Football, and more. | | | |  | The Quietus | | Philosopher and musicologist Lawrence Kramer, author of "The Hum of the World" (2019), meditates on music and listening on lockdown | | | |  | Middle Class Artist | | The billion-dollar question that will determine the fate of Big Hall Classical Music in America is: How do we present music to an audience in a socially distanced hall? Financially, is it even possible? | | | |  | Los Angeles Times | | San Cha is a queer Latina musician whose new album, 'La Luz de la Esperanza,' is a musical telenovela that reimagines rancheras with a gothic edge. | | | | | Billboard | | A steady stream of at-home entertainment for the Cuban public gives a global audience access to performances by a panorama of artists. | | | |  | Pollstar | | Sofar Sounds has made waves in recent years with its unique approach to live music: concerts that are organized in nontraditional venues like office buildings, homes, or warehouses, with attendees only receiving the location and lineup a day or two beforehand. | | | |  | The Daily Beast | | Remembering Ellis Marsalis, father of the Crescent City’s most famous jazz family, which includes musical sons Wynton, Branford, Delfeayo, and Jason—on his own terms. | | | |  | Resident Advisor | | Maya-Róisín Slater meets the organizers behind Club Matryoshka to learn why online raving was a popular choice long before the pandemic and will keep its crowd even after clubs can once again open their doors. | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | Gorillaz ft. Tony Allen and Skepta | | | | Released Saturday in tribute to drummer Tony Allen, who died two days earlier. | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2020, The REDEF Group | | |
