Wuhan people have the characteristics of ‘punk’ deep in their personality. Our tempers are hotter than our fellow Chinese. And anything we don’t like, we will resist. | | | | That's how you roll: The Pointer Sisters in a Rolls Royce in London, Jan. 15, 1974.
(Brian Cooke/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | “Wuhan people have the characteristics of ‘punk’ deep in their personality. Our tempers are hotter than our fellow Chinese. And anything we don’t like, we will resist.”
| | | | | | rantnrave:// Sobering news: 64 percent of more than 500 epidemiologists interviewed by the NY TIMES say they doubt they'll be willing to go to a concert (or sporting event or play) for at least another year. One percent said never again. The remaining 35 percent may not have much of a choice: The poll arrived Monday morning, as news was breaking that AEG, following a similar action by LIVE NATION in April, will implement a round of layoffs, furloughs and salary cuts on July 1, reflecting the company's belief that "live events with fans will not resume for many months and likely not until sometime in 2021." "Live events with fans" is not a phrase that existed in the general lexicon before this year. Would you have understood the message behind it four months ago? Would you have been able to imagine live events without fans? Here and here are accountings of the live music that’s been lost in 2020: COACHELLA, the NEW ORLEANS JAZZ & HERITAGE FESTIVAL, READING and LEEDS, MONTREUX JAZZ, LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE's first tour in a decade, BILLIE EILISH, TAYLOR SWIFT, BTS, countless club tours and theater tours and, well, basically everything else. An incalculably massive loss, economically, emotionally, artistically. Around the world, there are pockets of live music optimism: In Spain. Down Under. Elsewhere. In the US, even in a music-industry-friendly state like California, movie theaters have been given the go-ahead to reopen (with heavy restrictions) but concerts remain a no-go. And even if state and local governments said OK, who'd show up? Who'd buy tickets? It's easy to look outside at the protest marches around the US and around the world and wonder, if people are willing to congregate for that, why won't they congregate for this? But they're very, very different events. Protesters are making a conscious decision, weighing their anger, their need to be heard and their desire for societal change against the risks of being exposed to a potentially deadly virus. And they're wearing masks. No matter how badly you want to see DOJA CAT or FAITH NO MORE or PHISH live in 2020, what's the cost-benefit analysis of that? You can watch online. You can listen to the records. You can wait a year. Right?... From the other side of the room, here's a sobering view of the calculations artists might be going through in a moment when "artists are learning how it feels to be a songwriter"—songwriter meaning, in this case, that you don't have any live income, you can't sell merch and as a result the the money you're getting from streaming services might not be enough anymore. An interesting perspective on the economics of performers vs. songwriters, and both of them vs. the business... Yes... BONNIE POINTER, who died Monday, formed the POINTER SISTERS with her real-life siblings JUNE and ANITA in 1969 and was a key driver of the group's eclectic early days, when they were mixing R&B, jazz, throwback vocal harmonies and country (they won the GRAMMY for Best Country Vocal Performance in 1975 for this Bonnie and Anita co-write). She was also the radical one: educated at Mills College, wrote poetry with ANGELA DAVIS, joined the BLACK PANTHERS, dated Panthers co-founder HUEY NEWTON. An apt voice for a song like "YES WE CAN CAN." "Wild, fierce, and not to be denied," according to older sister Ruth. She left in the late '70s for a solo career with MOTOWN before June, Anita and latecomer Ruth became pop superstars. But she was the only Pointer with solo hits, including this disco gem (hey streaming universe, you're missing almost her entire catalog; please fix) and she lived a hell of an adventure... RIP also KAY CARROLL. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | | | |  | The Diplomat | | Venues and musicians in Wuhan, China’s underground rock capital, are struggling with lockdowns after the outbreak of COVID-19. | | | |  | Pitchfork | | As the country rallies behind the Black Lives Matter movement, musicians are increasingly offering action instead of stale rhetoric. | | | |  | Rolling Stone | | If the major labels won’t raise royalty rates, they might at least consider writing off unrecouped debt for heritage artists. Indie label Beggars Group offers a model to doing so. | | | |  | Music Industry Blog | | The 'broken record' streaming debate that continues to rage on is a natural consequence of the instantaneous collapse of live music revenue following lockdown. As soon as it was clear that live was going to be gone for some time, MIDiA predicted that the artist backlash against streaming royalties would be a natural, unintended consequence. | | | |  | Variety | | The million-dollar question is: What word should take the place of "urban"? | | | |  | Bandcamp Daily | | Fundamentally born of the Black American experience, the hard-to-pin-down subgenre brought the church organ to the club and was foundational to hip-hop. | | | |  | Stereogum | | It was the giddiest kind of what the f***: a black man in gold fronts, a ski mask, and a bulletproof vest, surrounded by peers wielding all manner of guns, passionately crooning about hating police and getting revenge on ex-lovers, to the sound of... Rascal Flatts? | | | | | Variety | | McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica — which happens to house one of the most storied concert halls in the Los Angeles area as well as being a mecca for acoustic instrument sales and lessons — has gotten to enjoy a Tom Sawyer-type fate this week: attending its own funeral. | | | |  | WQXR | | Why we must talk about race and racism in the context of classical music because like all art it is embedded in and an expression of the society it is a project of. | | | |  | Jezebel | | The man at the opera tells me I'm disgusting, but in a lot of ways, he's lucky. There is no moisture in the air. I slept the night before in braids. It's a matinee, so I'm holding a very strong day vibe: more Tracee Ellis-Ross in "Black-ish" than Diana Ross's 1983 Central Park performance. My hair is being tame for my hair. | | | |  | Vulture | | They’re taking their talent online. Literally. | | | |  | NPR Music | | Over 90-some years of movies about jazz, many films have spun a familiar lick, sometimes falling back on stock standards when inspiration fails, and sometimes knowingly quoting from older works. | | | |  | The Quietus | | In an extract from the new book, "FAC 461 Factory Records: The Complete Graphic Album," label co-founder Tony Wilson reflects on what made the look of Factory Records so outstanding and how the Happy Mondays managed to offend Genesis P. Orridge. | | | |  | Attack Magazine | | How to clear a sample? Do I need to clear a sample? What about one-shots? In this article we breakdown the most common sampling queries. | | | |  | Mixmag | | The raves have been condemned by established UK free party crews. | | | |  | Audiofemme | | Feeling depressed about moving home during the COVID pandemic, music writer Tatiana Tenreyro came up with the idea for a virtual emo night. | | | |  | 8Sided Blog | | Until we regain the electricity of community that accompanies concerts and live music, we've, so far, only captured its facsimile. | | | | | Vulture | | Haim returns with an album begging you to sob on the dance floor with it. | | | |  | WNYC | | Nina Simone: what she told us then, and tells us now. | | | |  | Alan Mercer | | "It was desperation. I wanted out of the ghetto. I wasn’t even in the ghetto really, but I still wanted out. " | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2020, The REDEF Group | | |
