You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September 2009.
This is the fucking cool news of the day. Nirvana’s re-issue of Bleach comes out on November 3, with the added bonus of a live show from 1990 mixed and what not by Bleach’s original producer Jack Endino, you know, to keep the sounds right, which is rad. The first track is up now at PFork. YYEEEAHHH! Check it out, it’s rough and rocking just as we like it.
Poor Kurt Cobain never leaves the news. Our appetite will never dull. And if it’s not him in the news it’s @CourtneyLover79, which is another crazy story completely.
Nirvana: Scoff (Live at Pine St. Theatre)
Nirvana: Scoff (Live at Pine St. Theatre)
My Robot Friend is an electronic and slightly indie-sounding band on Dean and Britta’s label, Double Feature Records. I’ve never heard this band before but they were built from the shambles of the NYC 90s band, Princess. More details at the Vegan.
Soft Core is out on Oct. 13 and My Robot Friend plays on Friday at the 92YTribeca.
Check out the track below. At first it sounds like it could be just another cutesy electronic song but then some Belle and Sebastian style vocals ease in over the sound of twinkling bells. You’ll be smiling and tapping your toes in no time.
My Robot Friend: Misfits Fight Song
My Robot Friend: Misfits Love Song
Being trapped in the middle, in limbo, in purgatory is tough. Good thing bands like Pure Ecstasy can counsel us.
“I don’t want to see, but I don’t want to stare.”
Thanks to Weekly Tape Deck and Rose Quartz, two great discovery blogs, for tipping.
Pure Ecstasy: DWLDWD
Pure Ecstasy: DWLDWD
This is a really good boyfriend/girlfriend song. All you have to do is put it on and sing “I’m gonna go crazy, craaazy on you now!” to your signif oth and they freak out! It’s so fun. And then you kiss.
This song is an odd combo of arena-style rock, some folk-y guitar playing and the “only Heart can do this” intertwined-female vocals. It’s infectious and country flavored goodness.
Heart: Crazy On You
TONIGHT:
The Coathangers, Nervehunt (members of WAVVES, Teeth Mountain), X-Ray Eyeballs, Swimming Cities at the MAZE at Death by Audio, 8ish (Coathangers also at Cake Shop on Wed.)
Alan Licht, Pat Irwin, Cynthia Sley, Chris Brokaw at Issue Project Room, 8ish
WEDNESDAY:
Among the Oak and Ash at Joe’s Pub, 7:30
THURSDAY:
The Roots at Brooklyn Bowl, 10 pm (Dirty P’s were invited…)
Richard Lloyd, Woods at Maxwell’s, 8ish
Faust, Cold Cave at Music Hall of Williamsburg, 8ish
FRIDAY:
The Soft Pack, The Dig, Right on Dynamite, The Sundelles at Bowery Ballroom, 8:30ish
Zs, Excepter, Mick Barr, Noveller at the MAZE at Death by Audio, 8ish
Pissed Jeans, TV Ghost at Music Hall of Williamsburg, 8ish
Holy Fuck at Webster Hall, 10
SATURDAY
Chain and the Gang, Fiasco at 171 Lombardy St., 8ish
Acrylics at Mercury Lounge, 10ish
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Sightings, Drunkdriver, Talk Normal at Music Hall of Williamsburg, 8ish
Get the track of the song performed on Jimmy Fallon! Yessss. Thanks to JP’s Blog.
Dirty Projectors: When The World Comes to an End
Will it look like Dirty Projectors? Will it sound like Dirty Projectors? I certainly hope so. “How’d you do that? How’d you do that?,” asks Jimmy Fallon. Good fucking question….they did it with looooove.
What is so rad about this band is they don’t care to make music that people will instantly like. They go on Jimmy Fallon and do they play their R&B influenced and easy to listen to track “Stillness is the Move”? No. They play the new song that is focused mainly on the insane three-part vocal harmonies of Amber, Angel and Haley. It sounds so strange! But people can see the band is good, they’re not stupid. They’ll follow Dirty Projectors til the end of the world (so will Questlove). And me too, duh.
Here is is people:
John P. Strohm is an example of what happens when you stay positive, you make the best with what you’ve got, you give it your all. Strohm’s first band was Blake Babies, straight outta Boston, 1986, Juliana Hatfield. The band had some minor success and Hatfield went on to stardom. Strohm kept making music and eventually became an entertainment lawyer. He’s a happy man, with positive outlooks for artists AND the music industry. Pretty impressive. Strohm is also still a rootsy musician. Keep reading for juicy tidbits from the Lemonheads years, why licensing is not a bad thing, details on inspiration for songs and mp3s.
You’ve had an interesting career. How did you decide to become an entertainment lawyer?
When the Lemonheads broke up in 1997 I didn’t really have a way to make a living. I’d ended my nearly ten-year run under contract with Mammoth, and my prospects were not very good. Nevertheless, I decided to make one more record in an attempt to establish a career as a solo artist. I decided if the record did not establish a career, I would go back to college and figure out what else I could do.
I made the album Vestavia, which I feel is the best record of my own music by far, but obviously it didn’t end up a career-making record. It received some very nice press and I toured the U.S. and Europe, but by 1999 I was back in school full-time. I was sort of in a crisis time because I really had no idea what I could do other than music. I wanted to find a way to work with musicians, but I really didn’t have a plan. Then I did really well in school, which opened doors. I decided almost on a whim to apply to law school.
I’d noted that lawyers in the music industry have a pretty sweet deal. Lawyers are usually independent of the major labels and publishers, and they get to be involved with a lot of different careers. I hated the idea of working for a major label because I had mostly negative feelings about those companies. My main ambition was to find a way to make a living, but I also really wanted to find a way to help artists in their careers without having to work for a record company.
I went to work for a firm in Birmingham out of school by choice, and I’ve remained in town ever since. Since there are no entertainment lawyers here to speak of, I was really on my own to build a practice. My firm’s been very supportive of my fledgling practice. Some of my clients are quite successful – more successful than I ever was – and some are brilliant but obscure. I feel it’s turned out really well; I wouldn’t have seen myself doing what I do back when I played music full-time, but it’s a really good fit for me.
What’s your role in the Future of Music Coalition?
I started going to the Policy Summit when I was still in law school, on a musician scholarship. Since then I’ve gotten to know most of the people on the board, particularly Michael Bracy, the co-founder and policy director. I’ve done a bit of transactional work for FMC, but mostly I’m just an avid supporter and a member of their advisory board. I’m doing a panel at the Policy Summit next month, which is a huge thrill. It’s a real honor and privilege to be involved and to participate in the policy discussions. It’s such a challenging yet incredible time for this industry.
How do you feel about the music industry in terms of file sharing? Do you believe it’s good for bands to give away their music for free?
Since I’m essentially a copyright lawyer and I represent copyright owners and rights-holders, I take a dim view on unauthorized copying. But having said that, I think we’re in a time of transition right now, and obviously the old way of looking at the sale of recordings as the core of the industry is over. I don’t think so-called file sharing will be an issue for very long, because as I’ve believed for most of this decade I think we’re quickly moving towards a new paradigm where ownership will be mostly irrelevant. It should be amazing for the music fans, because we’ll legally have access to all music (and all entertainment product) all the time; the issues that need to be settled are how to charge for the access and how to pay the rights-holders.
I’ve observed that people – even prolific file sharers – will pay for music if it’s cheap and easy. Some won’t pay under any circumstances, but of course some people will shoplift CDs as well. What most people won’t do at this point is drive to a store and drop seventeen dollars on a CD – that represents the greedy, outmoded model of scarcity that led to bloated profits for the majors. Once the major companies realize that’s over and fully embrace the new paradigm, and once all of the parties get together and devise a system to pay the owners and creators, the industry will be healthier than ever for the long haul. Music is more popular than ever- all of the issues arise as a result of the problem of competing with “free.”
That said, free has worked quite well recently for all sorts of artists (including some of my clients), and I have absolutely no problem with artists giving away their music, assuming they control all of the rights. Most artists don’t make their money from selling recordings and never have, so it makes sense to use the recordings as a loss leader to generate interest and increase other revenue streams, such as live concerts, merchandise, and licensing income.
What about the idea that once you sign on with a company and represent a product, you’ve lost your authenticity? What about the claim that art should be for arts sake and not to sell products??
That was the prevailing school of thought among “indie” musicians back in the 80s and early 90s. Over the late ’90s and into the new century that specific branch of indie purism has fallen away somewhat as many musicians and fans now accept that musicians must have a way to underwrite their “art,” and licensing money is more readily available than, say, profits from touring and artist royalties. Also, in contrast to labels, licensees don’t generally exert any creative control over the actual music.
I typically choose to remain silent on the topic, because I represent different musicians whose attitudes differ wildly. It’s not my place as an artists’ attorney to express attitudes about authenticity, but rather to help my clients make a living. Some of my clients have found that certain types of placements piss off their fans, so the market really sort of reigns in what they can get away with to an extent. I consider ALL of my creative clients to primarily be artists, and my role (in addition to protecting property and risk management) is to help them find a way to make their art work in streams of commerce. And, for the record, I generally agree that on balance media licensing is a great thing for creative musicians because it helps them to stay truly independent and make a living.
The whole quest for authenticity is tricky, because a lot of the music that most everybody considers authentic (such as early 20th Century blues and hillbilly music) was primarily commercial music in its time. Popular music is necessarly in commerce, and it’s difficult to pinpoint which sorts of commerce are appropriate and which are not. If you contrast indie music with, say, commercial country, the big difference is that indie is art first, commerce second, whereas commercial country is pretty much all commerce.
Because the fucking Screaming Females were on stage and it was amazing! The experience at Death by Audio on Saturday night was two-fold. First, there was The Maze and then there was the band. Both were intriguing.
I think this was the whole point of The Maze: to make the audience member more aware of their surroundings, and thus, add to their experience. If the walls weren’t built up around us, we wouldn’t know there were walls at all, physical or meta-physical. So yeah, the Maze was a little weird because a lot of people had a hard time seeing. But, if you’re aggressive like me (I guess I do have the added benefit of being short), you can push your way to the front. The sculptures and aqua-resin creatures were fucking cool.
The Screaming Females certainly interacted with The Maze. They inspired so much crash-dancing and stage diving that one wall actually came down. The walls came down! How much more meaningful can this get?
But seriously, I’ve never been so into a band so fast. This was my first live show with the S.F.’s, and after literally two seconds I was madly dancing and screaming. Paternoster plays her Fender like a demon, and she wails like a dying cow. And this is extremely beautiful. The band plays tightly wound guitar punk with a no-nonsense swagger.
The crowd was loving it too, and the dedication of the stage divers- both men and women alike- was inspiring. Jumping into a HUGE crowd of people, all with their fists pumping already, i get that. Jumping into a much smaller crowd, that was divided by walls? Not sure about how smart that is…but i commend those that did it, for sure.
I could have gone for at least 10 more Screaming Females songs, and that’s saying a lot. It was hot in there.
By David Chiu
Singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten may be an example–to paraphrase Maya Angelou’s book—of why the caged bird sings. When she was living in Tennessee a couple of years ago, an old boyfriend wasn’t supportive of her musical endeavors. As a result Van Etten would have to perform her music when he was away.
“It was kind of a rough time in my life,” Van Etten remembers. “I would go to a bar and get whiskey drunk and get enough courage to play [the open mikes].”
Fast forward to today. Van Etten lives in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and is now comfortable front and center as an indie folk songwriter and performer. This past summer she released her full-length debut album, the haunting and ethereal-sounding Because I Was In Love. Van Etten opens for Great Lake Swimmers on Sept. 27 and 28 at the Bowery Ballroom and Music Hall of Williamsburg.
In person Van Etten possesses a gregarious personality, which stands in stark contrast to the melancholy in her songs and singing voice. “It’s all things I would say to people,” she says about her songwriting, “whether it would be I’m talking on behalf of my friend to somebody or talking to a lover. I want everyone to know that it’s okay to be sad and it’s okay to be reminiscent. I want it to be conversational…I want to be as direct and honest as possible.”
Van Etten draws from her own personal experiences on “It’s Not Like,” a song about Van Etten dating someone. “We were trying to be just so casual and I was trying to be cool with it,” she recalls. “My heart was ‘No you love this person, you’re totally falling for this person and he’s not at all for you.’ It was just me kind of go against nature kind of song. It’s optimistic in that made me realize that I was going against myself.”
