According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the only word that perfectly rhymes with “orange” is “sporange,” an uncommon botanical term for a part of a fern. But that just gets Eminem all riled up, like a door hinge.
Eric Hutchinson Has A GREAT Idea Called Songversations, And He Created A Game About It
The best part of social media for me is getting to ask silly and sometimes deliberately thoughtful questions and read through the answers. Eric Hutchinson is taking the art of conversation, juggling it with music, and has a wonderful idea. But first, a bit about Eric.
He’s is an international platinum recording artist, songwriter, and music lover, and best known for his 2008 hit single“Rock & Roll. Hutchinson’s albums include Sounds Like This; Moving Up, Living Down; Pure Fiction; and Easy Street, and he has appeared on The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and Conan, and has toured with artists such as Kelly Clarkson, Jason Mraz, and OneRepublic. So you know he breathes and lives music.
Songversations: Conversation Starters about Music and Life is coming out September 5 though Abram Books. Each of the 50 record-shaped cards in this conversation deck is printed with a music-themed question on each side (100 questions total). The questions range in format: some invoke songs that are tied to memories (name a song from your school dance); others prompt you to choose an ideal soundtrack for a hypothetical situation (if you were a major league baseball player, what song would blast when you’re up to bat?); some cards aim to get people comparing their favorite (and not-so-favorite) music moments. Created expressly to start a conversation about the music people love and the personal insights that their favorite songs evoke, Songversations is the perfect gift for serious audiophiles, casual listeners, and everyone in between.
Get it before the holiday rush starts!
Billy Bragg Explains Why Skiffle Was England’s First Teenage Subculture
The roots of skiffle as a musical genre and its influence on popular music is discussed in this book talk presented by singer and guitarist Billy Bragg at the Library of Congress.
In his book, “Roots, Radicals and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World,” Bragg examines the moment in history following World War II when British teens transformed the country’s pop music from a jazz-based musical form into the guitar-led sound that changed the world of music.
Steve Albini Just Didn’t Like Music Promotion For Shellac, He Hated It For Everyone Else
From the outset Shellac kept operations deliberately low-key. Their earliest music was released on 7″s with homemade covers, they performed in small atypical venues and refused to partake in any publicity. Their debut 7″ showcased three mid-paced tracks of thundering guitar noise over which singer/guitarist (and renowned recording engineer) Steve Albini snarled about fire and billiards. If early interviews are anything to go by, one of Shellac’s principal aims was to avoid acting anything like The Smashing Pumpkins.
Steve Albini: When we first started recording and doing stuff publicly in the 90s, it coincided with the beginnings of a feeding frenzy for underground bands. The greater entertainment industry had taken an interest in what had previously been an underground of experimental punk and post punk bands. On the part of a lot of bands from the underground there was an indulgence in that, where they were getting a public profile in a professional sense. They would have publicists and advertising and their record labels were doing promotions and journalists were being supplicated with free records and access to exclusive stuff. There was a branch of the underground that was playing along with this creeping professionalism and we wanted no part of that. From the beginning, we decided that we were just going to make records and put them out, and that was it. We weren’t going to do any act of promotion. We weren’t going to do any advances. We weren’t going to solicit interest from record labels, stores, journalists, media outlets or whatever. We were just going to go about our affairs as a band, play shows, make records and let people come across them as they would.
Part of it was the insult that all of us felt when stuff was being thrust at us. The “check out this hot new band” or “this is the record of the summer” kind of shit. It’s insulting and it makes me hate everyone involved. Whenever there’s active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone’s handing out flyers or whenever there’s active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There’s just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail. Because of my feelings and the specific insult of having somebody tell you that you don’t know what music you like and that instead you should like this, we didn’t want to be a part of that. I didn’t want to trick anybody into buying our records. If you weren’t interested, we weren’t going to try to convince you. We’ve conducted ourselves that way ever since. I feel like it was the right decision then and I’ve been very happy with the way things have transpired in that we’ve never done anything embarrassing for attention and I don’t feel like anybody would have ever gotten into this band under false pretenses.
Slowdive’s Neil Halstead On When To Quit The Band…And Get Back Together
Neil Halstead is an English musician and songwriter best known for his work in the bands Slowdive and Mojave 3. both bands I love dearly. After releasing three albums and subsequently breaking up in 1995, all the original members of Slowdive reformed for a lengthy reunion tour in 2014. Earlier this year the band released their first new album in over twenty years to critical acclaim. Neil talks about the life of a band member, and going back home again.
As a musician or as a songwriter, do you feel like a radically different person now than you did when you made those early records?
In some ways I do and in some ways I don’t. It’s weird. I still connect with those songs, but you do think about them slightly differently. I can see the angst in them differently. We were 17 or 18 when we were writing those songs, so that’s just your life. Angst. You don’t necessarily view it from the outside. Like, I guess I can view them from the outside at this point but I can still connect with it in some way. Now that it’s 20 years on, we’re all different people in a way but interestingly enough, we still connect as a band in the same ways. In the way we interact with each other, there’s still that sort of gang mentality that we had when we first were putting out records. But you know, we’ve got nine children between us now, so it’s very different. It’s different to play in a band when you are just into your 20s than it is to do it when you’re in your 40s. Simple, practical things like finding chunks of time to work together becomes increasingly difficult. The main thing I think about now is the different way you think about time. Looking back, I think we did quite a lot in the six years we were initially together, but we had so much time to do stuff because the band was all we had. It was our only thing.
We stopped when we were all in our early twenties and at a point where we all wanted to do different things. We’d been doing the band for six years at that point and things had fallen apart to a certain extent. We were pretty empty creatively by the time we finished Pygmalion. We needed to move on and do other things as people, plus there were practical considerations. We weren’t really making much money and we’d been dropped by a label, so that all played a part as well. I genuinely don’t think anyone has any regrets that the band stopped when it did. It seemed like the right thing at the time and I still think it was. Sometimes things really need to end. When Slowdive broke up everyone went and did other things. It was actually a healthy thing. It’s good to be able to recognize when it’s time to stop… or when it’s time to start again.
Pussy Riot Are Kickstarting A Breakthrough Theatre Production To Remind Us What Is Worth Fighting For
How wonderful is it to be living at the same time as Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist protest punk rock group based in Moscow, who continuously put their safety and lives on the line every single time they take a stand for what’s right. Founded in August 2011, their provocative guerrilla performances in public places, performances that were filmed as music videos and posted on the Internet, performances that mean something, is almost eclipsed by the fact these are real human beings behind their message. Instead of grumbling when we see something we don’t like, or agree with, we should just be happy that the brave and powerful Pussy Riot exist, that they changed music and politics, that they’re working towards a better world. I know many musicians inspired by Pussy Riot taking up causes like feminism, LGBT rights, and opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin (or, in these artists’ cases, whoever is in power in their own country), to use music as a weapon, their lyrics as actions, and their voice to be heard.
This is why, right now, you need to support them. The group has a few weeks left of their Kickstarter campaign, and once I finish writing this line, I’m going over to the site to donate. I urge you to do the same. Below is a personal note from Nadya of the group, and below are photos of some of the photos and prints they’ll send you as a way to say thanks.
Hi, it’s me, Nadya from Pussy Riot.
’m asking for your support in an exciting new project. Pussy Riot, together with the award-winning, London-based theatre company Les Enfants Terribles, is working on a breakthrough immersive theatre project that will open in London this November.
This wild theatrical experience will allow the audience to become a participant, experiencing exactly what Pussy Riot went through during our imprisonment – from the original Church performance, to the court trial and prison cells. We’re going to recreate Russian courtrooms, a real Russian labour colony, solitary confinement cells, priests who shout about banning abortions and many more absurd, but real-life things that exist in Russia today.
The audience will actually get the chance to re-live each one of these experiences themselves, learning what it means to be a political opponent in Russia today. We’ll take you on a journey from the cathedral altar deep into the vaults of the Kremlin itself. Hopefully, this is a journey that you’ll only have to make once in your life.
We’re hoping that this production will be funded by regular people from around the world who are excited about the idea of political immersive theatre, and we need your help! In order to ensure its launch we need to pre-fund this high-tech production – and fast. All the money raised will be spent on renting the space, the set design, employing actors and staff for the show’s 6-week run and making those rooms in London look exactly like solitary confinement cells in the Russian prison I did my time in.
This is an important project that has immense educational value, especially given the trying times in which we are living and an increasingly scary political world order. If we do it right, the production is set to be mind-blowing.
Kensington Market Jazz Festival Is Back For The 2nd Year
The new kid on the block on Toronto’s jazz festival circuit, Kensington Market Jazz Festival debuted in style in 2016 when over 200 musicians performed over 3 days to packed houses, enthusiastic crowds and a buzzing neighbourhood. The second annual KMJF is looking to build on that joy and those numbers, with the addition of a big band stage and a new series of curated busking within popular Kensington Market businesses.
The Kensington Market Jazz Festival is a not for profit organization lead by Molly Johnson, committed to presenting live music in the heart of Toronto’s heritage market neighbourhoood throughout the year and with a 3-day festival September 15, 16 and 17th, 2017.
Returning to Handlebar (159 Augusta Avenue) this year is the “Boys and Girls” fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada, this year featuring cream of the crop Canadian vocalists from all musical backgrounds, from Canadian R&B veterans Sharon Lee and Shawne Jackson to Soulpepper Theatre artists Neema Bickersteth and Daniel Williston fresh from the company’s Canada 150 celebrations in New York City. Also joining from Soulpepper’s theatre troupe are powerhouses Jackie Richardson and Alana Bridgewater.
Neighbourhood live music staple Supermarket will host 9 shows including JUNO winning artists Robi Botos and Mike Downes while the little gem of a year-round jazz club Poetry will feature 15 performances including Canadian acclaimed triple threat singers, songwriters, pianists Laila Biali and Elizabeth Shepherd. Popular craft beer hall Trinity Common (303 Augusta Avenue) will host a dozen shows including “Canada’s Sweetheart of Swing” Alex Pangman and multi-talented vocalist, voice artist and broadcaster Heather Bambrick.
“Canada has world class talent and the spirit of this festival is artist-driven,” says KMJF creator, artist, philanthropist and officer of the Order of Canada, Molly Johnson. “The festival is fueled by volunteers and support from Yamaha Canada. There are no advance tickets. Shows are Cash only with money going directly to the artists. This makes Kensington Market Jazz Festival unique around the world.”
On this day in 1983, Prince played “Purple Rain” for the first time at a benefit for Minnesota Dance Theatre
I LOVE Minnesota’s The Current radio station. They’ve really been my go-to online music since WOXY went down, and today, they posted this fact: Before the 1984 blockbuster Purple Rain catapulted Prince on to the national stage, there was a benefit concert for the Minnesota Dance Theatre at the recently re-branded First Avenue. It was there that the budding pop star debuted much of the Purple Rain album tracks, and recorded the versions of “Purple Rain,” “I Would Die 4 U” and “Baby I’m A Star” heard in the film and soundtrack. Read more of the story here.
An ad in City Pages following the August 3, 1983 concert at First Avenue (from First Avenue’s files at MNHS)
Paperwork from the August 3, 1983 concert (from First Avenue’s files at MNHS)
Paperwork from the August 3, 1983 concert (from First Avenue’s files at MNHS)
The Next Two 33 1/3s Books Will Be David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs and D’Angelo’s Voodoo
The always excellent 33 1/3 book series just announced the next two editions that are due to be added to the series: David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs and D’Angelo’s Voodoo. Though you’ll have to wait until circa Spring 2020 to snag these, they’ve got cover mock-ups and some words from the editors on why these will definitely be worth the wait.
David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs
Series Editor Kevin Dettmar says: We’re very excited to add a second David Bowie title to the 33⅓ series—Glenn Hendler’s book on Diamond Dogs. Hendler will look at Bowie’s almost-rock opera in the context of its time, and ours. Interest in Bowie has of course exploded in the wake of his untimely death last January; Diamond Dogs is eerily timely once again, as the George Orwell novel from which it takes its name shot up the bestseller charts following the election of our new president, and the album has new things to say as we examine the post-human and trans- identities that are now coming to the fore. Hendler promises to show us just how untimely and prescient this weird and gorgeous album always was.
D’Angelo’s Voodoo
Series Editor Gayl Wald says: In 2014, the multi-talented musician D’Angelo came roaring back into the public spotlight with Black Messiah, an album positioned both politically and aesthetically as a “soundtrack” to the burgeoning #BlackLivesMatter movement. For this 33 1/3 volume, filmmaker and writer Faith Pennick turns the clock back to Voodoo, the 2000 album that earned D’Angelo a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. Pennick explores Voodoo’s themes and sounds in the context of D’Angelo’s career and the history of millennial rhythm-and-blues. A sharp observer of black sexual politics, she pays special attention to the video for “Untitled (How Does It Feel),” which became a sensation for its hyper-eroticized representation of the artist’s naked torso, establishing D’Angelo’s permanent place in the pantheon of (black American) male musical sex symbols.
Dawes Adds Additional Shows To An Evening With Dawes Tour
Dawes have added four additional shows to the An Evening With Dawes tour. The newly-added dates are bolded below. The general on-sale begins Friday, August 4 at 10am CT HERE, except for the Rock Mount, VA show, which begins at 10 a.m. ET HERE. Tickets for all other shows are available now HERE.
July 31 – The Castle Theatre – Bloomington, IL *
August 1 – Pabst Theater – Milwaukee, WI *
August 2 – Codfish Hollow Barnstormers – Maquoketa, IA * [SOLD OUT]
August 4 – The Majestic – Detroit, MI *
August 5 – Osheaga Festival – Montreal, QC ^
August 6 – Lowell Summer Music Series – Lowell, MA *
August 12 – Outside Land Music & Arts Fesival – San Francisco, CA ^
August 18 – BB&T Pavilion – Camden, NJ %
August 19 – PNC Bank Arts Center – Holmdel, NJ %
August 20 – XFINITY Theatre – Hartford, CT %
August 22 – Lakeview Amphitheater – Syracuse, NY %
August 23 – Northwell Health – Jones Beach Theater %
August 25 – Jiffy Lube Live – Bristow, VA %
August 26 – Riverbend Music Center – Cincinnati, OH %
August 27 – Darien Lake Performing Arts Center – Darien Center, NY %
August 29 – Budweiser Stage – Toronto, ON %
August 30 – Blossom Music Center – Cuyahoga Falls, OH %
September 2 – Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre – Tinley Park, IL %
September 3 – Klipsch Music Center – Noblesville, IN #%
September 15 – Academy of Music Theater – Northampton, MA *
September 16 – Grand Point North – Burlington, VT *
September 19 – State Theater – Ithaca, NY *
September 27 – PNC Music Pavilion – Charlotte, NC #
September 28 – Harvester Performance Center – Rocky Mount, VA *
September 29 – First Tennessee Park – Nashville, TN #
October 2 – Red Rocks Amphitheater – Morrison, CO #
October 3 – Madrid Theatre – Kansas City, MO *
October 4 – Chesapeake Energy Arena – Oklahoma City, OK #
October 6 – The Joint – Las Vegas, NV #
October 7 – Hollywood Bowl – Los Angeles, CA #
October 11 – Rogers Arena – Vancouver, BC #
October 13 – Rogers Place – Edmonton, AB #
October 14 – Scotiabank Saddledome – Calgary, AB #
October 16 – MTS Centre – Winnipeg, MB #
October 17 – Cavalier Theater – La Crosse, WI *
October 18 – Xcel Energy Center – St. Paul, MN #
October 20 – Schottenstein Center – Columbus, OH #
October 21 – KFC Yum! Center – Louisville, KY #
October 23 – Tuscaloosa Amphitheater – Tuscaloosa, AL #
October 24 – Duling Hall – Jackson, MS *
October 25 – Daily’s Place – Jacksonville, FL #
October 27 – Perfect Vodka Amphitheatre – West Palm Beach, FL #
October 28 – MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre – Tampa, FL #
November 3 – Sports Palace – Mexico City, Mexico #
November 4 – Sports Palace – Mexico City, Mexico #
November 10 – Highlands Food & Wine Festival – Highlands, NC ^
November 11 – Cox Capitol Theatre – Macon, GA *
November 12 – Charleston Music Hall – Charleston, SC *
* An Evening With Dawes
^ Music festival
% With John Mayer
# With Kings Of Leon