I don't have any interest in just writing about warm, fuzzy, happy things, or only the light side of things, because if that's all I had to write about, I wouldn't need to write songs at all. | | | | Lean on me: Clarence Clemons and Bruce Springsteen in Trenton, N.J., November 1974. Springsteen's "Letter to You" is out today on Columbia.
(Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | “I don't have any interest in just writing about warm, fuzzy, happy things, or only the light side of things, because if that's all I had to write about, I wouldn't need to write songs at all.”
| | | | | | rantnrave:// "One minute you're here / Next minute you're gone," BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN informs us on the first song of his 20th studio album, which arrived at midnight on the wings of an old-school promo campaign that made sure we understood one of rock's all-time great live bands recorded it live in the studio in the middle of a pandemic that has made playing live anywhere else all but impossible. It's a song about mortality but you could, if you were so inclined, read it as an epitaph for the very idea of playing live music. At the beginning of the week, I wrote about my favorite ad of the presidential campaign, a 60-second spot that focused on the pandemic through the lens of the struggling live music business, and specifically through the eyes of the co-owner of the BLIND PIG, a rock club in Ann Arbor, Mich. The co-owner, a wealthy tech investor named JOE MALCOUN who inherited his fortunes of heaven in diamonds and gold, turned out to be an unwise choice to narrate the spot. Supporters of PRESIDENT TRUMP, the target of the ad, zeroed in on the wealth of a man who says he doesn’t know if his club will survive, and called the ad hypocritical. For good measure, they also doxxed Malcoun. The BIDEN campaign pulled the ad on Thursday, four days after it first aired. Here one minute, gone the next. But one essential thing was lost in the flood: the politics of blame aside, the ad remains true. The message is still ominous. Rooms across the country that were crowded eight months ago do sit empty now. The sound of guitars and drums has disappeared. Clubs don't know how much longer they can survive, and a lot of them won't. And that, to quote Malcoun, "is the reality," even for an investor like him. Investors don't keep funding investments that have gone bad. Much bigger, better-funded companies eagerly seek government assistance in times like these. And there are hundreds of struggling club and theater owners who don't have Malcoun's personal wealth who could have narrated the spot, word for word. It's a shame one of them didn't. It would be a bigger shame if the spot's very real message got lost in the politics... A 2020 dilemma: What's a masked artist to do in an era when everyone else is wearing one, too?... BLACK PUMAS, GRUPO FANTASMA and ALOE BLACC are among the acts playing this afternoon's ROCK THE BORDER, a "virtual 2,000 mile wide concert" to protest President Trump's border wall... BECK, BRANDI CARLILE, CHRIS STAPLETON and FOO FIGHTERS are among more than 40 acts celebrating what would have been TOM PETTY's 70th birthday with a two-part virtual birthday party that starts at SIRIUSXM's TOM PETTY RADIO this afternoon and continues online tonight... BILLIE EILISH is performing what's billed as an interactive livestream at 6pm ET Saturday to raise money for Covid relief. Tickets here... It's FRIDAY that means new music from SPRINGSTEEN (and a documentary on APPLE TV+), DEJ LOAF, TY DOLLA $IGN, ADRIANNE LENKER (two solo albums from the BIG THIEF singer/songwriter), CLIPPING, PALLBEARER, the MOUNTAIN GOATS, LAURA VEIRS, JUNGLEPUSSY, JOYNER LUCAS, BOOTSY COLLINS, GORILLAZ (songs from season one of Gorillaz's web series "SONG MACHINE"), ELA MINUS, BOY PABLO, ACTRESS, the late SHARON JONES & THE DAP KINGS, JEFF TWEEDY, JOEL ROSS, MELODY GARDOT, LUKE STEWART, TINO CONTRERAS, AQUILES NAVARRO & TCHESER HOLMES, STEPH RICHARDS, THEY., XAVIER OMÄR, LUH KEL, SONGHOY BLUES, TENO AFRIKA, HHY & THE KAMPALA UNIT, GREG PUCIATO, FEVER 333, SEVENDUST, FUZZ (TY SEGALL side project), MAGIK MARKERS, SEN MORIMOTO, TECH N9NE, D DOUBLE E, JOE BONAMASSA, SHEMEKIA COPELAND, KAKI KING, BRUCE SUDANO, GALDRE VISIONS, LERA LYNN, TERRY MCBRIDE, RAYE ZARAGOZA, PUP, FAT TONY, SALEM, JOHN FRUSCIANTE, FAITHLESS, NOTHING BUT THIEVES and BLUE OCTOBER... And singles from ARIANA GRANDE, SAWEETIE and CHRIS STAPLETON... RIP BENJI ESPINOZA and KEVIN O'MEARA. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | | | |  | Trapital | | The company that revolutionized digital music is now playing catch up. | | | |  | NPR Music | | This past week The Caretaker, an artist who has long leaned into challenging sounds, began emerging as an increasingly popular "challenge" on the youth-led platform. | | | |  | Billboard | | Months after its release, Pop Smoke's ‘Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon’ is back at No. 1 Is a historic Grammy nomination up next? | | | |  | Playboy | | A candid conversation with the curvaceous queen of country music. | | | |  | VAN Magazine | | Before hallucinogens became indelibly linked with rock in the late ’60s, Timothy Leary and his fellow researchers curated their experimental use of psychedelics—whether the naturally-occurring psilocybin found in magic mushrooms, or the lab-made lysergic acid diethylamide (better known as LSD or acid)—with recordings of classical music. | | | |  | Complex | | Drake was instrumental in modifying the DNA of a rap superstar in the 2010s and he changed what it’ll require to sit on the throne in the ‘20s. | | | |  | The Young Folks | | Megan Thee Stallion has quickly become a voice of a generation in a world that tries to tear her down. More men need to follow in her footsteps. | | | |  | Variety | | The Biden campaign said the ad was removed because of "shameful" harassment of the club owner being egged on by the Trump campaign. A Trump campaign spokesman is contending the commercial was taken down because it was exposed as "fabricated." | | | |  | The New York Times | | The police said an attack on the pianist was not a hate crime, but social media disagreed. Now he’s considering a return to Japan. | | | |  | Dazed Digital | | Narrated by Laurie Anderson, Sisters with Transistors traces the lives and legacies of electronic music’s women trailblazers, including Delia Derbyshire, Suzanne Ciani, and Pauline Oliveros. | | | |  | NPR | | Ahead of the release of "Letter To You," The Boss spoke to Morning Edition about revisiting older material, finding hope in these unusual times and attending to his audience's spiritual needs. | | | |  | GQ | | The Big Thief songwriter on her two new solo albums, the nature of time, and the power of art in times of crisis. | | | |  | Music Business Worldwide | | Josh Gruss and Neil Gillis on their new public fund, Hipgnosis -- and the future of music rights ownership. | | | |  | Okayplayer | | From Diddy promoting Our Black Party political party to Ice Cube helping develop Donald Trump's Platinum Plan, the wealthy male hip-hop pundit is divisive and arrogant despite their intentions. | | | | | The New York Times | | A conversation about her memoir, her range of contributions to pop music and her secret alt-rock album. | | | |  | Mixmag | | Jaguar talks to Kevin Saunderson and Idris Elba about their Inner City collaboration, the roots of techno and the future of dance music | | | | | Billboard | | Aluna Francis discusses her album, the presence of Black women at the Grammys and what the dance industry must do to move forward with racial equity. | | | |  | HipHopDX | | A New York MC launched a subscription service and completely changed the way he operates. | | | |  | Pitchfork | | The Wilco frontman and his eldest son discuss their new books, what they’ve learned from each other, and dad-rock. | | | |  | DJ Mag | | One of the world’s great party cities, Berlin is facing up to the COVID-19 pandemic in its own unique way. How are the clubs getting on, are there illegal parties happening, and what is the route back to some semblance of normality? DJ Mag takes a stroll through the heart of the German clubbing capital. | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | | | | From "Visions of Bodies Being Burned," out today on Sub Pop. | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2020, The REDEF Group | | |
