I came from a family where my people didn’t like rhythm and blues. Bing Crosby—'Pennies From Heaven'—Ella Fitzgerald, was all I heard. And I knew there was something that could be louder than that, but I didn’t know where to find it. And I found it was me. | | Doja Cat on "The Voice," May 11, 2020. (NBC/Getty Images) | | | | | “I came from a family where my people didn’t like rhythm and blues. Bing Crosby—'Pennies From Heaven'—Ella Fitzgerald, was all I heard. And I knew there was something that could be louder than that, but I didn’t know where to find it. And I found it was me.” | | | | | rantnrave:// If world events allow, you can spend anywhere from $500 to $1,500 plus plane fare plus hotel to go to Nashville in August and network with executives from AWAL, A2IM, UMG, BIG MACHINE, SONGTRUST and scores of other companies and organizations at MUSIC BIZ 2020—to take one random rescheduled industry conference—and depending who you are, you should. But it isn't August and it's possible you can't leave your house and you may or may not currently be employed and so here are some alternatives you might consider. This afternoon, as part of a series of online events during the week Music Biz 2020 was originally supposed to happen, you can hear TROY CARTER and his partners in the music/tech services company Q&A talk about what they do and how they've been navigating the quarantine; tomorrow you get WARNER RECORDS CEO AARON BAY-SCHUCK and COO TOM CORSON talking about how they worked DUA LIPA's FUTURE NOSTALGIA ALBUM. Alternatively tomorrow, you can, for example, listen in on a Songtrust-sponsored webinar on music publishing. Next Tuesday you can sit in on the next edition of Q&A's weekly Human Re-Sources panel with industry bigwigs. Or maybe you'll spend Tuesday and Wednesday taking in the two-day-long series of events at MUSIC TECTONICS' ISOLATE OR INNOVATE conference. All of this is happening on ZOOM. Listen via the usual boxes on your laptop or phone and network via the chat window on the side of your screen. Most of it is free; the Music Tectonics event, with panels ranging from "Music Tech Pivots" to "How Labels and Managers Can Come Out Ahead When the Dust Settles," requires a pay-what-you-can registration. There are dozens more options, and here's a giant unpaid shoutout to the MUSIC BUSINESS ASSOCIATION for curating the options on this regularly updated Google Doc. No one's paying me to tell you any of this, and in normal, non-quarantine times you'd be spending multiples of your paycheck to attend all these sessions. This is the music biz helping the music biz. Take advantage while you can... Speaking of the music biz helping the music biz: Maybe you know MATT PINFIELD, maybe you grew up watching Matt on 120 MINUTES, maybe Matt once interviewed you for 240 minutes about the b-side of your first single, maybe you're amazed and inspired by the fact that anyone loves rock and roll as much as he does. My friend Matt could use a little love right now... A legal challenge to COACHELLA's gargantuan radius clause, dismissed a year ago because Portland, Ore., promoter SOUL'D OUT PRODUCTIONS didn't have standing to sue, has been un-dismissed by an appellate panel that says the promoter does have standing. Portland is 1,000-plus miles from Indio, Calif., in case you're wondering how gargantuan Coachella's radius clause is... Arkansas GOV. ASA HUTCHISON says he's blocking that TRAVIS MCCREADY concert scheduled for Friday in Fort Smith, the one where seating was being arranged in pods with built-in six-foot radius clauses. The show at TEMPLELIVE was scheduled for three days before Arkansas is allowing indoor events to resume and hasn't been approved by the state health department, among other issues... "What good is it to be a man (and) how can I use that to make everything better rather than make everything worse?" JASON ISBELL chats with BILLIONS creator BRIAN KOPPELMAN about masculinity and other such subjects on the latter's THE MOMENT podcast... A short investigation into a certain US senator who has a RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS poster and a NEW POWER GENERATION drum head on the wall in the home office (hint: this senator doesn't represent either California or Minnesota)... SCORPIONS frontman KLAUS MEINE denies the CIA wrote "WIND OF CHANGE." Then again, he'd have to deny it, wouldn't he?... RIP CHARLES "FUZZY" OWEN. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | | | | | The Bitter Southerner | A small Muscle Shoals record label, Single Lock, is changing minds about exactly what “Southern music” means — and collapsing the barriers between the hometown legends of old and the music of the young. | | | | Refinery29 | K-pop’s rise in America is forcing many to confront long-held stereotypes they have regarding masculinity - especially when it comes to Asian men. | | | | Variety | Dr. Luke may have vanished, but Lukasz Gottwald — and his businesses — haven’t gone anywhere. | | | | VICE | Amber Coffman, Of Montreal, and Zola Jesus gave VICE their thoughts on asking for donations on the multi-billion-dollar platform after coronavirus put them out of a job. | | | | Level | Channel 37 wasn’t just one of the first Black-owned stations in the country - it was a launchpad for Bay Area stars. | | | | NPR Music | Shocker: Bob Dylan's new song "False Prophet" is not, entirely, a new song. In what's become a familiar, recurrent aspect of his creative process, the 2016 recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature has reached back to another little-noticed gem for inspiration. | | | | NJ.com | We caught up with Johm Scher, an expert in all things live music, to discuss when he thinks concerts will come back, what they’ll look like and if we’ll ever return to a world where 125,000 music lovers can again gather and sing. | | | | Chicago Reader | “This is gonna devastate our industry. We were the first to close; we’re gonna be the last to reopen. A lot of venues aren’t gonna make it," says Billy Helmkamp, co-owner of the Whistler and Sleeping Village. | | | | Vulture | The 1975’s front man wants a clean slate. | | | | Rolling Stone | The 37-year-old Buffalo rapper -- so prolific he recorded some of his latest album with coronavirus -- “speaks to an audience that a lot of people sleep on,” one A&R says. | | | | NPR | Over the weekend, hip-hop and R&B lost one of its most influential moguls, Andre Harrell. Memorials poured in over social media from friends and celebrities who worked with Harrell over the years, citing him and Uptown Records, the label he founded in 1986, as one of the most influential forces in the entertainment industry. | | | | The New York Times | In 1993, the R&B group performed on an “MTV Unplugged” devoted to Harrell’s Uptown Records. “Lately” was a master class. | | | | The Guardian | Billie Eilish, Girl in Red and others have clocked millions of streams from music made at home. Mac DeMarco, Ariel Pink and others explain why we need to embrace this lo-fi recording. | | | | Beats & Bytes | Chartmetric's data-driven analysis of COVID-19’s effects on music-related consumption helps artists, songwriters, labels, agencies, distributors, and other entertainment-related entities sustain and improve their well-being during these unprecedented times. | | | | Wired UK | The wireless headphones have been a surprise hit. Here’s how. | | | | Los Angeles Times | In Episode 3, the new series from "La La Land" director Damian Chazelle holds a jazz funeral. We explain what it is -- and how they pulled it off. | | | | The Independent | Trauma can make its victims feel robbed of their bodily autonomy, but post-MeToo, artists like Williams, Austra and Kesha are wielding theirs. | | | | Los Angeles Review Of Books | Dan DiPiero talks about music nostalgia during the pandemic and how it shapes his attitudes and politics. | | | | The New Yorker | I’ve never needed the sense of community at small shows more. | | | | Pitchfork | In many ways, Mike Huckaby was the glue that bound Detroit's electronic music scenes together. | | | | | | YouTube | | | | | | | | From "Grae Part Two," out Friday on Jagjaguwar. | | | | | | © Copyright 2020, The REDEF Group | | |