I never felt the music business was that competitive. It’s just not that f***ing hard. I don’t think there’s that many smart people in our business. | | | | The count in Clark County: One sister, two sticks, three rototoms. Haim's Este Haim at the Pearl Concert Theater, Las Vegas, April 13, 2018.
(Denise Truscello/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | “I never felt the music business was that competitive. It’s just not that f***ing hard. I don’t think there’s that many smart people in our business.”
| | | | | | rantnrave:// The life of a rock and roll manager, then and now: "IRVING's role was to keep us out of prison," JOE WALSH tells the LA Times' ALEX PAPPADEMAS, remembering his band's debauched glory days. The band, of course, is the EAGLES. Irving is—you know who Irving is. Everyone knows who Irving is. NICKI MINAJ, who called him "c***sucker of the day" in 2018 and hired him in 2019, knows who Irving is. LIZZO and RODDY RICCH, who are on his firm's roster alongside the Eagles (still, a half-century later!) and BON JOVI, know who Irving is. But these days, Irving's role sometimes involves keeping a client's kid *in* jail, or at least hearing his client out when the suggestion comes up. Life in the not-so-fast lane. He remains the most powerful manager in music, while spending much of his time fighting for artists' rights on a broad range of fronts, including health insurance and streaming royalties ("Your company’s worth $30 billion and you can’t spend 20 grand for a song that becomes a phenomenon on your channel?"). This is one hell of a profile and it's your must-read of the day. On Saturday, Irving walks into the ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME alongside fellow manager JON LANDAU, a man who terrified me, even though we never met, during my years writing about music for his client BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN's local newspaper (Irving probably would terrify me, too, if we'd never met). Congrats! In an unusual ceremony airing six months behind schedule on HBO, they'll be joined by artist inductees WHITNEY HOUSTON, DEPECHE MODE, the NOTORIOUS B.I.G., NINE INCH NAILS, T. REX and Irving's clients the DOOBIE BROTHERS. My thoughts from when they were all voted in nearly a year ago, pre-Covid. And because it bears repeating: Whitney was a generational talent and phenomenon who very very much belongs in that museum. There'll be no live performances, and the video packages introducing each artist will be longer than usual. CHARLIZE THERON for some reason will induct DEPECHE MODE. Going forward, the Hall plans to keep the induction ceremony in the fall. Next year's class will be announced in the spring... LIVE NATION CEO MICHAEL RAPINO thinks ex-WME music head MARC GEIGER's $75 million plan to save indie music venues by buying as many of them as he can is a bad idea, and impractical to boot. Rapino told investors Thursday he doesn't think club owners are interested in cashing out at "fire sale" prices, and even if they were, he doesn't think a network of clubs, on its own, would make for a great business... Live Nation, not surprisingly, had a bad third quarter. One bright spot: 83% of its customers are holding onto their for rescheduled shows rather than asking for refunds... CAPITOL MUSIC GROUP chairman and CEO STEVE BARNETT is retiring. Capitol Records president JEFF VAUGHN and MICHELLE JUBELIRER, COO of CMG, will take over... It's Christmas, apparently. As previously noted by MARIAH CAREY... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from KYLIE MINOGUE, DOE BOY & SOUTHSIDE, NAV, SOUL GLO, ÓLAFUR ARNALDS, GIGGS, LITTLE MIX, MAE MULLER, SHIRLEY BASSEY (her final album, she says), BILLY RAY CYRUS, the KID LAROI, ADULKT LIFE (feat. ex-HUGGY BEAR singer CHRIS ROWLEY), RECORD SETTER, HEY COLOSSUS, FATES WARNING, ORIANTHI, ENRIQUE RODRIGUEZ & THE NEGRA CHIWAY BAND, THABA (duo feat. South African KHUSI SEREMANE, who died in July), the CASKET LOTTERY, YOU WILL ALWAYS, NANA, NOVO AMOR, TUNNG, MADISON CUNNINGHAM, DONOVAN WOODS, DAVE BRUBECK (album of lullabies recorded shortly before he died in 2012), YELLOWJACKETS & WDR BIG BAND... And in the classics & reissues section of your local music emporium: an expanded version of GOODIE MOB's SOUL FOOD, which is 25 years old this week; an ENNIO MORRICONE collection featuring several unreleased tracks; a PYLON box set; a remixed version of DAVID BOWIE's THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD, released under Bowie's original title, METROBOLIST, and a compilation spotlighting electronic pioneer MORT GARSON... RIP KEN HENSLEY, RICHARD "DICKIE" KLINE and BRAX. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | | | | | | | children of the revolution | |  | Los Angeles Times | | The famously pugnacious music manager and live entertainment tycoon will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Saturday. | | | |  | Billboard | | Darkroom founder/CEO Justin Lubliner, who guided Billie Eilish to stardom, leads Billboard’s annual list of the young executives pushing the industry forward. | | | |  | Variety | | In the Q&A session at the end of the Live Nation third quarter earnings report on Thursday, the company's CEO Michael Rapino had some strong words for former WME music chief Marc Geiger's recently announced "SaveLive" plan to bail out struggling independent concert venues. | | | |  | Dazed Digital | | In October, Big Hit Entertainment -- the label behind the superstar band -- went public, giving fans the opportunity to actually own their faves. | | | |  | South China Morning Post | | Many K-pop fans are concerned by the sexual stylising of Aespa band member Winter’s digital self, while one expert worries about the potential exploitation of the virtual members. | | | |  | The Associated Press | | The venerable New Orleans funk band Galactic purchased the historic music club Tipitina's in late November 2018 and, according to bassist Robert Mercurio, was making a go of it. "It's a tight-margin business but we were making our notes and fulfilling our bills and whatnot. | | | |  | Tidal | | Inside five classic rock, pop and funk albums whose sessions were too sprawling for the record industry. | | | |  | The Forty-Five | | Victory is sweet, and while we all wait anxiously to see whether America has chosen red or blue, we can take small comfort in a positive result for music on November 1 - Taylor Swift and her right to regain authority of her musical back catalogue. | | | | | Los Angeles Times | | Steve Barnett, who is retiring at the end of the year, has played a role in the music careers of everyone from AC/DC to Adele to Halsey to Lil Baby. | | | |  | The Bitter Southerner | | Gordon Lamb examines five intense years of music and productivity during which Pylon made its mark on Athens, Georgia, and modern music. | | | |  | Cleveland.com | | Depeche Mode, The Doobie Brothers, Nine Inch Nails, The Notorious B.I.G., Whitney Houston and T. Rex will finally be honored on Nov. 7. | | | | | Billboard | | Fans who tune in to HBO’s presentation of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Saturday (Nov. 7) will notice some changes from the show’s usual format. | | | |  | Chicago Reader | | The new teachers’ union fears the administration is treating them like commodities, not inspirations. | | | |  | NPR Music | | Rap from Nashville isn't new, nor is the city's tendency to overlook the creators and entrepreneurs behind that music -- despite country artists borrowing liberally from the genre over the past decade. | | | | | Variety | | Christmas is now underway on radio across the country, as stations flip to all-holiday formats a bit earlier than usual. In some smaller markets, such as WWIZ in Youngstown, Pa., the move to wall-to-wall seasonal tunes happened as early as late September. | | | |  | The Quietus | | New mothers who also make music face innumerable challenges when it comes to continuing in their creative work, yet it's a rarely discussed subject. Jude Rogers called up Elizabeth Bernholz (AKA Gazelle Twin) and Becky Jones (Saint Saviour) to discuss the highs and lows of juggling babies with songwriting. | | | |  | Vulture | | With a major court hearing that could determine Britney Spears’ future on the horizon, let’s break down conservatorships in pop culture right now. | | | |  | InsideHook | | While the media industry at large is facing great uncertainty, "The Hard Times" is thriving. | | | |  | NPR | | Just like his legendary disappearing hat, Brooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda's career was on the rise in 2014. But so was the evidence in a murder case against his crew, GS9. In the first of three episodes exploring Bobby's story, we look at his come-up through the eyes of former Epic Records exec Sha Money XL, who guided Bobby on his tightrope walk from the streets to superstardom. What happens when the industry capitalizes on a criminal persona? And do record execs have the juice to back Bobby up... | | | |  | JAZZIZ Magazine | | It's been over six months since the great cornetist Peter Ecklund died at age 74, though it seems that few outside the traditional jazz world know it. His death was not COVID-realted, and it happened amidst the first wave of the virus in New York City, when people here could think of little else. | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | Meek Mill (ft. Swizz Beats) | | | | "For the love of the city." | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2020, The REDEF Group | | |
