Future Shock was a television variety show produced and hosted by James Brown from 1976 to 1979. Shot in Augusta and Atlanta, Georgia and broadcast late on Friday nights on the Ted Turner-owned UHF station WTCG, it featured local amateurs performing a variety of popular and emerging dance styles, including disco, locking and popping, and early breakdancing, to prerecorded music. Brown and his musical guests also performed briefly. Other regular features included dance contests, interviews, and segments on African-American history. “Future Shock (Dance Your Pants Off)”, a song written by Brown and recorded by Maceo Parker with The J.B.’s, served as the show’s nominal theme music, though it was not consistently used.
Fender Brings Back Free Online Guitar Lessons
Fender stands to report the brand’s highest-ever year for sales in 2020 with individuals turning to music to occupy their time during quarantine and stay-at-home orders, as reported in The New York Times. In March 2020, Fender gave away three months of free guitar, bass, and ukulele lessons via Fender Play as an act of goodwill during the pandemic. Within a month, Fender Play’s user base grew nearly 500% to approximately 930,000 aspiring players learning on the app. Recognizing this growing community of players, Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC) is bringing back this goodwill offer – three months of free Fender Play – through the end of 2020. The Fender Play app makes it easier than ever to learn how to play the guitar, bass or ukulele with multi-genre, instructor-guided video lessons to assist those embarking on their musical journey. Designed with bite-sized learning in mind, Fender Play gives beginners everything they need to get playing songs by their favorite artists in minutes.
To ensure those motivated by this record interest can get started with the right instrument, Fender has launched the findyour.fender.com interactive online guide, an intuitive web experience that demystifies the guitar shopping process to help match up new players with the right gear for their playing style and musical interests.
“Fender is increasingly focused on bringing new players to our industry as new players have fueled solid growth in guitar sales for over a decade and continue to represent the future of our industry,” said Andy Mooney, CEO at Fender. “Given the accelerated growth in new players entering the market this year, with most researching their buying decisions on-line, we created the FindYourFender experience to assist new players in personally selecting the ideal guitar, uke or bass for them to enjoy.”
For new players of all generations, the question of “where to start?” and “what guitar do I buy?” have long been difficult ones. These new players might have an idea about what they want their first guitar to look and sound like, but may not be familiar with all the options – namely the best gear for their need. FindYourFender offers a solution to this problem by first learning about the user, including which genre of music inspired them to pick up guitar, the finishes and colors that match their personal style, and the price range they’re comfortable with. The online experience also offers simple, interactive tools so users can listen to what tones Fender instruments and hardware can provide — eliminating technical jargon and instead letting users hear firsthand which sounds resonate most with their musical taste. After the user finds their perfect instrument, they’ll be directed to Fender.com and have the opportunity to find the closest Fender dealer. The FindYourFender microsite also takes into consideration the new player’s approximate budget — not just for the guitar, bass or uke, but also for the equipment and accessories they need as well.
“The current circumstances have made it harder for new enthusiasts to get the hands-on experience and expert advice they need before investing in their first instrument,” said Evan Jones, CMO at Fender. “For any new player to be successful in the long term, it’s important they get the information they deserve and right instrument from the start. All too often, the guitar buying experience can be overwhelming for beginners, but FindYourFender is one of the first interactive online experience to offer new players an intuitive, personalized solution.”
Three free months of Fender Play is now available for new users at fender.com/playfree. FindYourFender is live for new players in the U.S., U.K .and Australia at findyour.fender.com. For a video walkthrough of FindYourFender click here. To access screenshots of the experience, click here.
Daniel Lanois Announces New Album ‘Heavy Sun’
Today, acclaimed songwriter and producer, Daniel Lanois, has announced a new album for April 2021, Heavy Sun, the first release under Daniel’s new Maker Series brand.
Whether crafting ambient records with Brian Eno, making rock and roll history with U2 and Peter Gabriel, digging into American roots with Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris, scoring Oscar-winning films and blockbuster video games, or composing his own solo music, 11-time Grammy winner, Daniel Lanois, has always seemed to reinvent himself with a chameleon-like ease. While Lanois may be best known for his production work on era-defining albums like Joshua Tree, Wrecking Ball, and Time Out Of Mind, he actually grew up on organ records and gospel music, and he cut his teeth as a young man in the studio recording vocal quartets touring their way through Ontario. In the decades to come, Lanois would go on to become one of the most acclaimed studio gurus of the modern era (Rolling Stone declared that his “unmistakable fingerprints are all over an entire wing of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame”), as well as a prolific solo artist (NPR hailed his “brilliant albums of heartfelt songs”), but his love of soul and roots music never left.
Recorded in Los Angeles and Toronto, Heavy Sun fuses classic gospel and modern electronics, mixing gritty, human textures with crisp, digital accents and lush, swirling atmospherics to create a sound that’s at once warmly familiar and boldly unexpected. The arrangements here are spacious and dreamy, anchored by rich, righteous organ topped with airy falsetto and mesmerizing four-part harmony, and the writing is buoyant and soulful to match, tapping into the shared uncertainty of the human condition to offer hope, comfort, and connection at a time when all three run in desperately short supply.
“We want to lift people’s spirits with this music,” says Lanois. “It’s so easy to feel isolated right now, but we want everyone to feel included in what we’re doing.”
That communal spirit is on full display here, with Lanois and his bandmates—guitarist/vocalist, Rocco DeLuca; organist/vocalist, Johnny Shepherd; and bassist/vocalist, Jim Wilson—showcasing an undeniable chemistry and boundless appetite for sonic discovery that far surpasses the influence of any individual member.
For Lanois, who sang and played guitar in addition to producing the album, that meant taking full advantage of modern recording techniques, slicing and dicing live, improvised performances into discrete songs that could be fleshed out with experimental effects and sci-fi flourishes. Some tracks began life with Shepherd alone on the organ, taking the rest of the group to church the way he did for years at Zion Baptist in Shreveport, LA; others began with a melody or a simple groove played on a vintage beatbox. While Lanois dug deep into the production work, carving up raw material and extracting samples he could weave back into the arrangements, DeLuca (a revered solo artist in his own right) was often in the rear of the studio with the rest of the band, crafting lyrics around inspiring messages of community and resilience.
“Our goal was to be a force for good with these songs,” explains Lanois. “We wanted to remind people not to let the world steal their joy, to remind them that even during a global pandemic, it’s our responsibility to protect our spirits and find ways to keep on dancing, keep on singing, keep on teaching, keep on loving.”
Five Extraordinary Charlie Parker 10” Records Packaged Together As New Vinyl Box Set
Charlie “Bird” Parker, an architect of modern music nearly universally regarded as the greatest alto saxophonist who ever lived, released five 10-inch LPs via Mercury Records and producer Norman Granz’s pre-Verve label Clef Records in the early 1950s. For the first time, these building-blocks of bebop — 1950’s Charlie Parker With Strings, 1952’s Bird and Diz and Charlie Parker Plays South of the Border, 1953’s Charlie Parker With Strings (Vol. 2) and 1954’s Charlie Parker, have been packaged together in honor of Bird’s centenary dubbed Bird 100. Parker’s complete recordings from this important cornerstone of his career will be released on Verve as The Mercury & Clef 10-Inch LP Collection on December 18, available exclusively via uDiscover and the official Charlie Parker webstore. All five records have been newly remastered, pressed to 10” black vinyl, and housed in faithful reproductions of the original packaging.
https://youtu.be/igRVRC3Wc1I
The boxed set, which features David Stone Martin’s strikingly illustrated original sleeve art, doubles as a tip of the hat to the 10-inch, a format popular in the late 1940s between the 78 and the 12-inch. It also contains an elegant booklet with rare photos, detailed session information, and essays by pianist-journalist Ethan Iverson and author David Ritz. All of the records included except Bird and Diz have been out of print on vinyl since their original releases more than 60 years ago (although the recent iteration of the album was not the original 10-inch). These attributes make The Mercury & Clef 10-Inch Collection the most detailed, collectible presentation yet of Bird’s fruitful 1940s-to-mid-’50s streak before his untimely passing in 1955 at age 34.
Some jazz-with-strings albums are hit-or-miss; Bird’s is a grand slam. He seized on the format; his Strings volumes are two of his recorded pinnacles. Vol. 1 begins with his immortal version of Sam Lewis and John Klenner’s “Just Friends,” which contains one of the most stirring and technically brilliant improvised saxophone solos ever recorded. Thomas Adair and Matt Dennis’s can’t-catch-a-break lament “Everything Happens to Me” receives a heavenly lift when Bird “sings” it on his horn. His take on Rodgers and Hart’s “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was” shows how Parker could channel a romantic ballad naturally as if breathing. Vol. 2 is just as inspired, conjuring a nocturnal feel via George and Ira Gershwin’s “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz’s “Dancing in the Dark,” and Cole Porter’s “Easy to Love.”
Bird’s most famous foil was the brilliant trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and Bird and Diz is what its title suggests: a portrait of the pair at full tilt. But it has historical and artistic import beyond that: Bird and Diz documents the only joint session with Bird, Diz, and the revolutionary pianist Thelonious Monk, who made intellectual, hard-charging music. “Bloomdido,” a Parker original that went on to be a standard, is toe-tapping and relentlessly melodic. The percolating melody to “An Oscar for Treadwell” is traced through the changes to “I Got Rhythm” in C. “Leap Frog,” a co-write between Parker and trumpeter Benny Harris is head-spinning in its velocity and quicksilver innovation.
Parker and Gillespie dabbled in Afro-Cuban forms, most notably with the pioneering Latin vocalist and percussionist Machito. South of the Border is a testament to Bird’s transcultural connection. In Iverson’s essay, the saxophonist Henry Threadgill notes “the rassling match when the modern jazz guys came in and tried to play with the Latin cats in the Forties.” Bird, however, did this effortlessly: “Charlie Parker could bring the music together, but as soon as Bird stopped, the rassling match would begin again.” Parker is in his element here, especially on Óscar Gómez and Albert Hammond’s zestful “Un Poquito De Tu Amor,” Zequinha de Abreu’s effervescent “Tico Tico,” and Manuel Ponce’s yearning “Estrellita.”
Bird recorded his self-titled album in 1952 and 1953 with two quartets featuring drummer Max Roach: one side with bassist Percy Heath and pianist Al Haig, and the other with bassist Teddy Kotick and pianist Hank Jones. The title is essential because of the strength of its performances, the clean recording quality relative to Bird’s earlier works, and its singularity as his only studio LP in a quartet setting. Although the end of his life was approaching, Bird more than proves his might on compositions now revered as calling-cards, like “Now’s the Time,” “Laird Baird,” and “Confirmation.”
The Mercury & Clef 10-Inch LP Collection caps off a banner year for Bird and acts as a bellwether for another to come. Ahead of the centennial, Verve/UMe released The Magnificent Charlie Parker on vinyl and Jazz at Midnite for Record Store Day. Next year, Verve Records/UMe will offer an illuminating new perspective on a previously underexamined chapter of Parker’s life with a new collection titled Bird In LA, featuring unreleased songs recorded during Bird’s storied visits to Los Angeles in the mid ‘40s through the early ‘50s.
In conjunction with The Mercury & Clef 10-Inch LP Collection, uDiscover is also offering David Stone Martin’s iconic cover art as framed, archival-quality canvas prints. The high-end wall art is available in various sizes and includes the albums Big Band, Machito Jazz With Flip & Bird, The Magnificent Charlie Parker, Charlie Parker With Strings and Charlie Parker With Strings (Vol. 2).
The Mercury & Clef 10-Inch LP Collection
LP1 – Charlie Parker With Strings (1950)
Side A:
- April In Paris
- Summertime
- If I Should Lose You
Side B:
- I Didn’t Know What Time It Was
- Everything Happens to Me
- Just Friends
LP2 – Charlie Parker With Strings (Vol. 2) (1953)
Side A:
- Laura
- They Can’t Take That Away from Me
- You Came Along from Out of Nowhere
- East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)
Side B:
- Dancing in the Dark
- Easy to Love
- I’m In the Mood for Love
- I’ll Remember April
LP3 – Bird & Diz (1952)
Side A:
- Bloomdido
- My Melancholy Baby
- Relaxing with Lee
- Passport
Side B:
- Lead Frog
- An Oscar for Treadwell
- Mohawk
- Visa
LP4 – Charlie Parker Plays South of the Border (1952)
Side A:
- Tico Tico
- Un Poquito De Tu Amor
- My Little Suede Shoes
- Estrellita
Side B:
- Begin the Beguine
- La Paloma
- La Cucaracha
- Mama Inez
LP5 – Charlie Parker (1954)
Side A:
- Now’s the Time
- I Remember You
- Confirmation
- Chi Chi
Side B:
- I Hear Music (a.k.a. The Song is You)
- Laird Baird
- Kim
- Cosmic Rays
“This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ to Glide” by The Kings Inducted Into Canadian Songwriters Hall Of Fame
Two songs, one classic hit. Song writing partners and members of The Kings, David Diamond and Mister Zero knew they had two pretty good tunes, but it wasn’t until the band put the songs together as a segue in rehearsal that the magic started to happen. The 1980 release of This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ to Glide, became The Kings’ breakout rock hit that stayed on Billboard’s Hot 100 for 23 weeks, and today has more than 2 million+ streams on Spotify while the video has 4 million+ views on YouTube.
On the 40th anniversary of This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ to Glide, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame (CSHF) is pleased to celebrate the song induction that will be presented to Diamond and Zero on Monday, November 2 during a virtual induction airing on Breakfast Television Canada. The presentation will also include a live-streamed performance by The Kings on stage inside the newly renovated El Mocambo in Toronto.
“We’re thrilled to recognize the writing duo of Diamond and Zero, whose song will now join a rich legacy of fellow Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame Inductees who have also created hybrid hits including The Guess Who’s No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature, and Galt MacDermot’s Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In by The Fifth Dimension,” said Vanessa Thomas, CSHF Executive Director.
Zero first started writing songs when he met keyboardist Sonny Keyes in Vancouver, BC in the ‘70s, and together determined that they needed to form a band to bring their compositions to life. Zero reached out to bassist/singer David Diamond and drummer Max Styles that he knew from high school back in Oakville, Ontario and the band they named Whistleking was born. Soon Diamond was contributing songs and cowriting as well, and with his incredible lead vocals, the four young men knew that this was something special. So, they wrote, rehearsed and gigged for a couple of years and after winning the first homegrown radio talent contest in Toronto, they realized a catchier name was needed and they became The Kings.
When The Kings went into Toronto’s Nimbus 9 recording studio to make an indie album, they had no idea that they would meet celebrated producer Bob Ezrin, who had just recorded Pink Floyd’s No. 1 album “The Wall.” Ezrin realized that while the talent was there, the band needed his studio expertise. With Ezrin’s input, Diamond had changed the chord structure for This Beat Goes On and then Zero spent a couple of weeks re-writing the lyrics. Elektra released Switchin’ to Glide as a single, but it didn’t get much notice until the label released the two song segue and that is when the phones started ringing at major market radio stations across North America.
This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ to Glide stayed on the Billboard Hot 100 for 23 weeks, and peaked at No. 43 on December 13, 1980. It reached the Top 10 on Toronto’s CHUM FM and WMET in Chicago, but it was massive airplay at U.S. stations like mid-West powerhouse WLS-AM, WRIF in Detroit, KROQ in L.A., and WNEW in New York City that gave Elektra reason to really promote the single. On the West coast leg of a long tour, they debuted in L.A. at the Whisky a-Go-Go, and gave an electrifying performance on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand for ABC TV.
In Canada, the song reached No. 59 on RPM’s Top 100 chart, and No. 8 on the Canadian content chart. It was also named “One of the Top 100 Radio Programmers Picks of the Decade” by Album Network Magazine U.S., and labelled the “Almost Official Song of Toronto” in 2018 by the Toronto Star.
The album “The Kings are Here,” reached Billboard’s Top 100 album chart and went Gold in Canada, earning a JUNO Award nomination for Most Promising Group of the Year, and The Kings were named Most Promising New Band by Cashbox Magazine USA. After the CD version came out, the album passed platinum status and was declared a SOCAN Classic in 2016 for more than 100,000 plays on Canadian radio.
Four decades since its release, The Kings have performed more than 2,000 shows across North America sharing stages with international stars including Eric Clapton, The Beach Boys, Bob Seger, Jeff Beck and many others, as well as Canadian artists Loverboy, April Wine, Jeff Healey, Teenage Head, and more.
Since there never was a video for the segue, The Kings produced one themselves, using live footage from more than 20 years of shows, which was also repurposed for their documentary, Anatomy of a One-Hit Wonder, that tells the band’s success story with their trademark humour. Alongside YouTube and music streaming, The Kings continue to amass fans from around the world with a recently released concert movie, The Kings: Live at Heatwave, using re-mastered footage from their closing performance at 1980’s Heatwave Rock Festival in Bowmanville, Ontario that also headlined Elvis Costello, The B-52’s and The Pretenders among others.
Following the virtual song induction, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame will add This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ to Glide to its permanent and interactive exhibition at the National Music Centre in Calgary, that features a celebrated catalogue of inducted songs that fans can listen to, as well as displays, exclusive artifacts, and one-of-a-kind memorabilia celebrating Canada’s greatest songwriters and Inductees.
Alanis Morissette: Keynote Conversation with Ann Powers
NPR Music and The Museum of Pop Culture present the opening keynote session for the 2020 Pop Conference “Forever Young: Popular Music and Youth Across the Ages”
Folk duo THE SMALL GLORIES release new video for “Sing”
Canadian folk duo The Small Glories touched a nerve with audiences with their U.S. debut, ASSINIBOINE & THE RED, an album that celebrates the Canadian Prairies. The Juno award-nominated release was embraced at folk radio and garnered them the 2019 “Artist of the Year” award at the 2019 International Folk Alliance convention. The Small Glories, aka Cara Luft, an original member of the Wailin’ Jennys, and multi-instrumentalist JD Edwards, are sharing a new video with Folk Alley for their modern protest song, “Sing.” The song has long been an audience favorite. Luft describes it as a protest song for our time. “It’s a song to roust us out of our complacency and our indifference, a song to challenge our era of divisiveness and polarization to remind us what ‘it’ is all about, and what it’s not,” she says.
“We’ve been digging deep, to our roots, to honour the folksinger and troubadour’s role in society, to harken back to our family’s heritage of peace, protest and labour movement songs, to tap back into our spiritual upbringing that taught us that all humans are valued, loved and important,” Luft tells Folk Alley. “We want, and need, to sing about the things that matter, to speak out through song, to offer what we can to our world. Now is the time.”
Luft and Edwards’ onstage chemistry and humor complements their energetic live performances and buoyant, Americana-inflected folk songs; their exuberant harmonies bring to mind such duos as The Civil Wars and Shovels & Rope, but with a Northern spin. NPR wrote, “Luft is a Wailin’ Jennys alum whose work on the clawhammer banjo is to die for, while Edwards’ guitar and vocal harmonies deepen and enrich the duo’s sound.”
“We’re folk singers, we try to write stuff that people can relate to,” says Edwards, whose looming stage presence and penetrating eyes find him the yin to Luft’s petite, snort-laughing yang.
The album’s songs do play out like travelogue of sorts. ASSINIBOINE & THE RED is rich with a sense of place and geography and is bookended by two songs that pay tribute to locales. The opener, “Alberta,” is a love song to Luft’s home province and is “dedicated to anyone who is new to a place and surprises themselves by having their heart stolen by the land.” The raucous closing track, “Winnipeg,” is a spirited celebration of their hometown, “a city full of heart and guts and soul,” Luft says. “It’s a city of many languages and cultures where a big beautiful sun, the great equalizer, shines down on everyone all year long.”
Electronic Duo Divine Astronaut Release Their Latest Single Ransom
Ransom pays tribute to DA’s “unique style, blending their love for 90’s electronic acts with industrial rock elements” (Earmilk) fusing cinematic ambient soundscapes, driving electronic drums and heavy guitar tones. Vocalist Livvy Holland explains that Ransom is a song of contrasts – forgiveness and reckoning, ambient and industrial. These images are meant to inspire a sense of stillness in the listener amid the chaos our minds try to create.
Divine Astronaut are currently working on their debut album ‘Made Not In Berlin’ which is due for release in 2021. Their first single ‘Undone’ was released October 2019. A music video for Undone was released in November 2019. Singles ‘Whither’ and ‘Undone’ were released in Summer 2020 with videos garnering press worldwide including exclusive premieres on Earmilk, V13 and Tinnitist and features on Dark Beauty Mag, Earmilk, Tinnitist, Loudhacker, Soundsphere and many more. Not to be overlooked, the album is being preceded by their debut EP 4 which is coming on November 20th exclusively in Europe via M&O Music, an indie French label.
Divine Astronaut are an electronic group featuring singer Livvy Holland and Producer/multi-instrumentalist Moonhead. The duo describe their sound as night-time music that is downtempo alternative electronica with industrial and rock elements. They have been touring and playing shows in Europe since their inception in 2019.
J.B. and The Playboys Together Again, Virtually, on Remastered Digital Album
J.B. and The Playboys’ original record album from 1965 has been remastered. Their original ‘singles’ will be available digitally beginning November 6, 2020.
Montreal-based label Justin Time Records is distributing the eponymously titled album for music lovers of the era as well as collectors and newcomers alike.
“We are elated to be able to bring these songs to light again,” said Jim West, Justin Time President. “Not only for older fans but anyone who’s interested in the original sounds coming out of Montreal during the 60’s British Invasion.”
Debuting in 1964, J.B. and The Playboys was comprised of Bill Hill on lead guitar, Allan Nicholls on vocals, Andy Kaye on guitar, Lorne Douglas West on drums, and Louis Atkins on bass. The group began playing shows at clubs throughout the summer in the Laurentians and the Eastern Townships. They went on to perfect their concert style performances at high schools, community centers, and YMCA dances in and around Montreal and rural Quebec.
Concert promoters took notice of the dynamic band and eventually invited them to be the opening act for The Beach Boys and The Rolling Stones concert tours. The Playboys recorded and released one 45 rpm single record every week for three weeks, and their songs turned into hits on radio stations across Quebec and beyond. On the strength of their chart-topping hit singles, the group performed on national television shows, headlined sold-out concerts to French and English audiences, and amassed great reviews in both national and international press. The touring continued throughout Canada and the USA expanding their audience base who demanded more.
The band’s unique and original sound was finally captured in their first and only self-titled studio album at the legendary Mutual Street recording studio in Toronto.
Fifty-five years later, Justin Time Records decided to revisit this wonderful time in Canada’s musical history. The newly remastered and digitally released music are a tribute to, and a celebration of, the original JB and The Playboys sound and energy.
Digital releases commence on November 6, 2020 with the first singles “Tears of Woe” and “Chances.” On December 11, “Poor Anne” and “My Love” will launch. Expect “Love, Happiness & Sweet You” and “Summer Love” on January 15, 2021. The entire album will be released on February 19, 2021.
“JB and The Playboys were my life for most of the ‘60’s. In the late ‘60’s we all moved on to other bands in other genres of music. I will always cherish the memory of the original Playboys with their unique sound and energetic performances as the best part of my music career. Here we are today 50 plus years later with the opportunity to revisit the material, remaster and release it digitally, and to get the band back together. Thanks to Jim and Justin Time Records we have a music life again.” Allan Nicholls
“JB and the Playboys was a magical band at a magical time in the music business. Since the disbanding of the group I’ve had a full and rich career in music, but the Playboys, aside from being the launching pad, always held a special place in my heart. I am extremely proud of the records we made and am thrilled that Justin Time Records have remastered these classics and are making them available to a whole new generation. I hope people enjoy listening to them as much as we enjoyed making them” Bill Hill
For further information on streaming, downloads and to check out some great photos and content on JB and The Playboys you can follow them on Facebook – visit their web site or go to justin-time.com.
My Next Read: “Noise Damage: My Life as a Rock’n’Roll Underdog” by James Kennedy
“Noise Damage: My Life as a Rock’n’Roll Underdog” by James Kennedy is the tale that follows is not another clichéd collection of rock’n’roll debaucheries (sorry) nor is it another tired fable of triumph over adversity (you’re welcome).
It’s the story of a half-deaf kid from a tiny, remote village in South Wales who was hailed as a genius by the UK’s biggest radio station and headhunted by major record labels, only for the music industry to collapse. It crashed hard, taking with it an entire generation of talented artists who would never now get their shot. CNN called it ‘music’s lost decade’.
Along the way, there are goodies, baddies, gun-toting label execs, life-saving surgeons, therapy, true love, loyalty, hope, breakdowns, suicidal managers, betrayal, drummers and way too many hangovers. James Kennedy shows that the best lessons are to be learned from good losers. It really is all about the journey.
Part memoir, part exposé of the music world’s murky underbelly, Noise Damage is emotional, painfully honest, funny, informative and ridiculous. It’s also a celebration of the life-changing magic of music.