| Group texts are the greatest untapped and private archive of the music industry. So many exist. Mystery treasure troves that one day will have their own museum. |
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| Danalogue, Betamax and King Shabaka (from left) of the Comet Is Coming, Turin, Italy, Aug. 28, 2021. |
| (Roberto Finizio/Getty Images) |
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| quote of the day |
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“Group texts are the greatest untapped and private archive of the music industry. So many exist. Mystery treasure troves that one day will have their own museum.”
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- Marissa R. Moss
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| rantnrave:// |
Loudness
In the past week, I’ve ventured inside a movie theater for the first time in two and a half years and to a music festival for the first time in a little longer. We’re all continuing to work our way back at our own pace. This is mine.
It was an inspiring week in two different ways. The music fest was SEA.HEAR.NOW in my old hometown of Asbury Park, N.J., a guitar-heavy fest befitting the city’s traditionalist blues, R&B and rock roots. My route through the grounds started with BILLY STRINGS’ bluegrass-meets-Southern-rock acoustic chops Saturday afternoon and ended with COURTNEY BARNETT’s electric folk-garage-blues-rock verities Sunday night. But it was the sheer volume of sound produced on Sunday afternoon by IDLES, especially bassist ADAM DEVONSHIRE, that, more than anything, reminded me of something specific I’d been missing: the joy of being rattled by loud, live, beautiful pulses of sound while being surrounded by thousands of people dancing as if the rattling was the entire point. It’s one of a thousand things I love about music, but one that’s all but impossible to replicate anywhere but in front of live performers with stacks of amplifiers. The physical feeling of speakers pushing air, as an old bandmate loved to say. Yes, I wore earplugs. And yes, I was overcome with emotion when Idles singer JOE TALBOT took time near the end of the show—the final one on the band’s US tour—to thank every member of the road crew by name. It’s been a painful two and a half years for live music, and arguably no one has suffered more than roadies, who aren’t on salary, don’t get royalties, do live from gig to gig and cancellation to cancellation, and don’t even get the small reward of someone shouting their name from a stage. On this inspiring afternoon, they did. And then a few minutes later, Talbot realized he’d forgotten the people out by the soundboard and thanked each of them, too. Pushed a little extra air their way.
(On a jangly side note, there was also this.)
The movie theater was the ANGELIKA in New York, where I saw a screening of ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL, which is returning to theaters next Tuesday, Sept. 27, 13 years after its initial Cinderella cinematic run (with a digital re-release to follow). SACHA GERVASI’s documentary about two lifelong friends, STEVE “LIPS” KUDLOW and ROBB REINER, who’d spent the better part of 30 years running down a single dream with their Canadian metal band, ANVIL, against all imaginable odds and all conceivable logic, remains as inspirational as ever now that Lips, Robb and Anvil are closing in on 45 years of running and dreaming and never stopping.
“Anvil!” is, on one hand, an alternate history film in which THIS IS SPINAL TAP turns out to actually be a documentary, and it still succeeds, hilariously, at that. But it’s also something more, as the New Yorker’s ANTHONY LANE, wrote in his review way back when. “This film is not about rock music at all, still less about school lunches in Ontario, or unusual uses for vibrators,” Lane wrote. “It is about time, and how it threatens to fade us out like a song on the radio, and why, risking ridicule, and leaning on love, we should crank up the volume and keep going.” That’s a perfect description. And has there ever been a better time to rage, rage against the fading of the radio? No, there has not.
Etc Etc Etc
BAD BUNNY leads the field of nominees for the LATIN GRAMMY AWARDS, with 10 nominations including album and record of the year. Other top contenders at the Nov. 17 ceremony will include songwriter/producer ÉDGAR BARRERA, with nine nods, and ROSALÍA and RAUW ALEJANDRO, with eight each... SPOTIFY, continuing to pursue its goal of being “the world’s No. 1 audio platform,” has entered the audiobook market. It opened for business in the US with 300,000 titles Tuesday, and for now it’s offering a la carte purchases only—no streaming, that is—and a bit of awkwardness. You can see and play the titles in the Spotify app but you have to go to service’s website to actually buy them and unlock the play buttons. Here, for example, is where you can buy MARISSA R. MOSS’s HER COUNTRY and DANYEL SMITH's SHINE BRIGHT... Ex-JOURNEY singer STEVE PERRY is asking the US Patent and Trademark Office to void his ex-bandmates’ merchandising trademarks on the titles of Journey hits including “ANY WAY YOU WANT IT” and “WHEEL IN THE SKY.” Perry says NEAL SCHON and JONATHAN CAIN don’t have the right to sell t-shirts and other clothing with those phrases on them without his consent... TAYLOR SWIFT says her lyrics all fall into one of three genres: quill lyrics (those that "sound like a letter written by EMILY DICKINSON's great grandmother while sewing a lace curtain"), fountain pen lyrics and glitter gel lyrics. THE US SPACE FORCE, which is a thing that exists, now has an official anthem, written by an Air Force veteran and Coast Guard chief musician, that, weirdly, sounds like it was written and recorded long before space flight existed. Or, as Washington Post classical critic MICHAEL ANDOR BRODEUR put it: “I was hoping for something... I don’t know, spacier?”
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| - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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GQ |
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| The Man Whose Sound Systems Make You Feel Like You’re On Psychedelics |
| By Noah Johnson |
| Devon Turnbull’s custom-built speakers can be heard in Supreme stores, at New York’s hottest new hotel, and in Mark Ronson’s house. But Turnbull is not chasing clout or decibels with his hi-fi audio gear-he’s offering an entirely different approach to the listening experience. |
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Passion of the Weiss |
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| A Requiem For PnB Rock (1991-2022) |
| By Jayson Buford |
| The Philadelphia musician was defined by the freedom of having no one to answer to. His passing is another tragedy in the midst of an epidemic of fallen rappers. |
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The New Yorker |
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| Unboxing Lou Reed’s Posthumous Parcel to Himself |
| By Sarah Larson |
| After the death of the Velvet Underground front man, two archivists and his widow, Laurie Anderson, discovered a mysterious sealed package from 1965. Inside was treasure: never-before-heard, folky versions of “Heroin” and other classics. |
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The Verge |
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| Will the future of music sound a lot like the past? |
| By Alex Cranz and Charlie Harding |
| Switched on Pop podcast host Charlie Harding discusses how old, unused recordings are transformed for new albums, how AI is recreating famous singers, and how labels are purposely using elements of old, extremely profitable catalogs to create new hits through remixes and interpolations. |
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Jay Gilbert |
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| The State Of Vinyl (from someone who works at a vinyl pressing plant) |
| By Sean Rutkowski |
| All those supply chain issues you read about in other manufacturing industries-increased cost of goods, shortage of materials and parts, shipping challenges, or labor shortages- we are dealing with every single one of them at any given time. It’s like playing Whack-A-Mole everyday. |
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Pitchfork |
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| Björk: Mother, Daughter, Force of Nature |
| By Jazz Monroe |
| In Iceland with the experimental pop icon, digging deep into the triumphs and tragedies that birthed her remarkable new album, "Fossora." |
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The Quietus |
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| Lust For Life: Tana Douglas Hits The Road With Iggy Pop In 78 |
| By Tana Douglas |
| In the 1970s, Tana Douglas was rock’n’roll’s first female roadie. In an extract from her new book, *LOUD: A Life in Rock 'n' Roll by the World's First Female Roadie*, she recalls the 18th birthday she spent fixing Iggy Pop’s sound rig. |
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Africa is a Country |
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| Afrobeat is bigger than Fela |
| By Simon Adetona Akindes |
| In the second of four articles on Afrobeat music in South America, political scientist Simon Akindes writes about the all women and nonbinary Brazilian band, Funmilayo Afrobeat Orquestra. |
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The New York Times |
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| Robert Fripp Lightens Up |
| By Jon Pareles |
| No one expected to see the leader of King Crimson dancing in a tutu on YouTube. In a rare interview, the guitarist explains “an entirely different trajectory.” |
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| what we're into |
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| Music of the day |
| “Technicolour” |
| The Comet Is Coming |
| From the British trio's third album, "Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam," out Friday on Impulse! |
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| Music | Media |
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Suggest a link  |
| “REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask ‘why?’” |
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