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Diane Warren to Be Honored With Prestigious ASCAP Founders Award at 2017 ASCAP Pop Music Awards

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Diane Warren to Be Honored With Prestigious ASCAP Founders Award at 2017 ASCAP Pop Music Awards

ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, will present acclaimed songwriter Diane Warren with its prestigious Founders Award at its 34th annual ASCAP Pop Music Awards on Thursday, May 18. The exclusive, invitation-only gala, which celebrates the songwriters and publishers of ASCAP’s most performed pop songs of 2016, takes place at The Wiltern in Los Angeles, CA.

“Diane Warren is one of the most continuously prolific and successful contemporary songwriters of our time,” said ASCAP President Paul Williams. “Her music evokes universal emotions that connect us in a way few songwriters can. Diane’s ability to channel our common experience through her songs has captured audiences all over the world.”

“I am honored to be receiving the Founders Award and to be among the names of songwriters whom I admire and respect so much,” said Warren. “I am grateful for the success I have had with my songs but to be honest, I feel like my career is just beginning.”

In the course of her impressive career, Diane Warren has written for iconic artists such as Beyoncé, Adele, Whitney Houston, Cher, Aerosmith, Elton John, Faith Hill, Aretha Franklin, Willie Nelson, Mary J. Blige, Jennifer Hudson, *NSYNC, Eric Clapton, Celine Dion, LeAnn Rimes, Mariah Carey and Barbra Streisand. She continues to work with many of today’s most popular acts, including Snoop Dogg, Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Justin Bieber, Jessie J, Andra Day, Jason Derulo and Demi Lovato, among many others.

Since her first hit “Solitaire” in 1983, Warren’s timeless ballads such as “Unbreak My Heart” (Toni Braxton), “How Do I Live” (Trisha Yearwood, LeAnn Rimes), “Because You Loved Me” (Celine Dion) and “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” (Aerosmith) have earned her Grammy, Golden Globe awards and countless other award nominations. Her work has been featured in more than a hundred motion pictures resulting in eight Academy Award nominations. Warren has six ASCAP Songwriter of the Year Awards, three consecutive Billboard Music Awards for Songwriter of the Year and she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2001.

Most recently, Warren composed the original song “Prayers for this World,” performed by Cher for the documentary Cries From Syria directed by Evgeny Afineevsky. The film premiered on January 22, 2017 at the Sundance Film Festival and debuts on HBO on March 13, 2017. She also wrote a new theme song for ABC’s “THE VIEW” called “World’s Gone Crazy.” Performed by Mary J. Blige, it premiered on the show in September 2016.

Warren’s haunting and evocative “Til It Happens To You” was featured in the groundbreaking 2015 documentary on campus sexual assault, “The Hunting Ground.” Performed by Lady Gaga, it was the first song in history to be nominated for an Academy Award, Grammy and Emmy, winning the Emmy for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics in 2016. It was also nominated for a Critics’ Choice Award for Best Song and won the Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best Song — Documentary.

Warren has written inspiring anthems for many issues important to her including the song, “This Is For My Girls.” Released in 2016, it features vocal performances from Kelly Clarkson, Chloe & Halle, Missy Elliott, Jadagrace, Lea Michele, Janelle Monáe, Kelly Rowland and Zendaya. Sales from the single benefit charities supporting young women’s education globally, including former First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let Girls Learn” initiative. Michelle Obama and Missy Elliott performed the song on the popular “Carpool Karaoke” segment on The Late Late Show with James Corden, which garnered over 52 million views.

Warren maintains control of her compositions as the sole owner of her publishing company Realsongs.

The ASCAP Founders Award goes to pioneering ASCAP songwriters who have made exceptional contributions to music by inspiring and influencing their fellow music creators. Past recipients include Ashford & Simpson, Burt Bacharach & Hal David, Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello, Billy Joel, Annie Lennox, Sir Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Tom Petty, Smokey Robinson, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, Carly Simon, Patti Smith, Steely Dan, Rod Stewart, James Taylor, Steven Tyler & Joe Perry (Aerosmith), Tom Waits, Ann & Nancy Wilson (Heart), Stevie Wonder and Neil Young.

Juno-Award Winning Singer/Songwriter Ron Sexsmith to Publish Debut Novel With Dundurn Press

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Juno-Award Winning Singer/Songwriter Ron Sexsmith to Publish Debut Novel With Dundurn Press

Dundurn Press is delighted to announce the publication of the hugely imaginative, fantastically grim fairy tale that marks the bold literary debut of musician Ron Sexsmith. The celebrated Juno Award-winning singer/songwriter takes his way with words and applies it to his novel Deer Life, a whimsical yet dark story about a boy who accidentally gets into trouble with a witch.

The groundbreaking fairy tale is scheduled for release in late 2017.

Deer Life tells the story of a kind-hearted boy from the fictional village of Hinthoven. The dark, humousous tale weaves through witchcraft, bullying, revenge, and a mother’s undying love. And a mysterious bowler hat. The idea for the story came to Sexsmith in a dream.

“We’re thrilled to be able to work with a great talent like Ron Sexsmith. Given his brilliant lyrical ability, I wasn’t surprised to see him ably shift into writing engaging, funny, yet poignant prose fiction,” says Dundurn Press acquisitions editor Shannon Whibbs. “It was a pleasure to read an early draft of Deer Life. It made me laugh, it made me think, and I was caught up in the fairy-tale world he has created and described so evocatively. This is an exciting time for Dundurn and we’re very glad Ron has come on board with us to launch this new creative venture.”

Ron Sexsmith hails from St. Catharines and lives in Toronto. He landed his first major recording contract in 1995. He has released fourteen albums, the most recent being 2015’s Carousel One. He is a highly respected member of the Canadian music community and has a large international following. Sexsmith has won three Juno Awards, was nominated for the prestigious Polaris Prize, and has headlined legendary venues such as the Royal Albert Hall and Massey Hall. His songs have been covered by artists such as k.d. Lang, Elvis Costello, Rod Stewart, Feist, and noted fans include Bob Dylan and Elton John. The New Yorker called him “the songwriter’s songwriter.” Deer Life is his first novel.

Kurt Vonnegut Writes A Letter To People Living in 2088: “I am not sure I could bear to hear what you may have done”

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Kurt Vonnegut Writes A Letter To People Living in 2088: “I am not sure I could bear to hear what you may have done”

Back in 1988, as part of an ad campaign to be printed in Time magazine, Volkswagen approached a number of notable thinkers and asked them to write a letter to the future—some words of advice to those living in 2088, to be precise. Novelist Kurt Vonnegut agreed, and his letter is below:

Ladies & Gentlemen of A.D. 2088:

It has been suggested that you might welcome words of wisdom from the past, and that several of us in the twentieth century should send you some. Do you know this advice from Polonius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: ‘This above all: to thine own self be true’? Or what about these instructions from St. John the Divine: ‘Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment has come’? The best advice from my own era for you or for just about anybody anytime, I guess, is a prayer first used by alcoholics who hoped to never take a drink again: ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.’

Our century hasn’t been as free with words of wisdom as some others, I think, because we were the first to get reliable information about the human situation: how many of us there were, how much food we could raise or gather, how fast we were reproducing, what made us sick, what made us die, how much damage we were doing to the air and water and topsoil on which most life forms depended, how violent and heartless nature can be, and on and on. Who could wax wise with so much bad news pouring in?

For me, the most paralyzing news was that Nature was no conservationist. It needed no help from us in taking the planet apart and putting it back together some different way, not necessarily improving it from the viewpoint of living things. It set fire to forests with lightning bolts. It paved vast tracts of arable land with lava, which could no more support life than big-city parking lots. It had in the past sent glaciers down from the North Pole to grind up major portions of Asia, Europe, and North America. Nor was there any reason to think that it wouldn’t do that again someday. At this very moment it is turning African farms to deserts, and can be expected to heave up tidal waves or shower down white-hot boulders from outer space at any time. It has not only exterminated exquisitely evolved species in a twinkling, but drained oceans and drowned continents as well. If people think Nature is their friend, then they sure don’t need an enemy.

Yes, and as you people a hundred years from now must know full well, and as your grandchildren will know even better: Nature is ruthless when it comes to matching the quantity of life in any given place at any given time to the quantity of nourishment available. So what have you and Nature done about overpopulation? Back here in 1988, we were seeing ourselves as a new sort of glacier, warm-blooded and clever, unstoppable, about to gobble up everything and then make love—and then double in size again.

On second thought, I am not sure I could bear to hear what you and Nature may have done about too many people for too small a food supply.

And here is a crazy idea I would like to try on you: Is it possible that we aimed rockets with hydrogen bomb warheads at each other, all set to go, in order to take our minds off the deeper problem—how cruelly Nature can be expected to treat us, Nature being Nature, in the by-and-by?

Now that we can discuss the mess we are in with some precision, I hope you have stopped choosing abysmally ignorant optimists for positions of leadership. They were useful only so long as nobody had a clue as to what was really going on—during the past seven million years or so. In my time they have been catastrophic as heads of sophisticated institutions with real work to do.

The sort of leaders we need now are not those who promise ultimate victory over Nature through perseverance in living as we do right now, but those with the courage and intelligence to present to the world what appears to be Nature’s stern but reasonable surrender terms:

  1. Reduce and stabilize your population.
  2. Stop poisoning the air, the water, and the topsoil.
  3. Stop preparing for war and start dealing with your real problems.
  4. Teach your kids, and yourselves, too, while you’re at it, how to inhabit a small planet without helping to kill it.
  5. Stop thinking science can fix anything if you give it a trillion dollars.
  6. Stop thinking your grandchildren will be OK no matter how wasteful or destructive you may be, since they can go to a nice new planet on a spaceship. That is really mean, and stupid.
  7. And so on. Or else.

Am I too pessimistic about life a hundred years from now? Maybe I have spent too much time with scientists and not enough time with speechwriters for politicians. For all I know, even bag ladies and bag gentlemen will have their own personal helicopters or rocket belts in A.D. 2088. Nobody will have to leave home to go to work or school, or even stop watching television. Everybody will sit around all day punching the keys of computer terminals connected to everything there is, and sip orange drink through straws like the astronauts.

Cheers,

Kurt Vonnegut

Via

Guitars Made From the Reclaimed Wood of Old New York City Buildings

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Guitars Made From the Reclaimed Wood of Old New York City Buildings

Fancy playing a guitar that was literally once part of a New York City landmark? How about owning a guitar designed by a man who has sold guitars to Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and Steely Dan? At Carmine Street Guitars in New York City, every guitar has a story. Owner Rick Kelly creates each custom instrument from reclaimed lumber that once belonged to buildings around the city. These are more than simple guitars, they’re history in your arms.

All Kelly guitars are made from one-hundred percent reclaimed lumber. …Recently I have started a new series of limited-edition “Bowery Guitars” which are all built from recycled lumber. I call this wood “The Bones of Old New York City”. It is the “King’s Wood” — white pine timbers that were barged down the Hudson River 200 years ago from the great virgin forests of the Adirondacks, in upstate New York. This is the framing wood from which all 1800’s New York City buildings are built. As these buildings are demolished, or, in many cases, the old wood is being replaced, I am right there to build a guitar from a piece of Old New York.

ABC’s “Still The One” TV Promos From 1977-1979 Will Make You Go “Whoa”

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ABC’s “Still The One” TV Promos From 1977-1979 Will Make You Go “Whoa”

During 1977 until 1979, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) used the popular Orleans song “Still the One” in order to promote their upcoming season lineups, using the stars of the day to make appearances in these promos including Robin Williams, Danny Devito, Ted Lange, Tom Bosley, Hal Linden, Cheryl Ladd, Adam Rich, Susan Richardson and Doris Roberts.

https://youtu.be/WQX5Tne3cH0

DJ Shadow on Why Hip-Hop No Longer Exists As We Know It

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DJ Shadow on Why Hip-Hop No Longer Exists As We Know It

Talking about new music, what kind of evolution have you seen in hip-hop during the past 20 years?
DJ Shadow: As far as hip-hop, of course, it’s the age-old debate about hip-hop as a culture being born in one or two very specific neighborhoods in New York City in the early-to-mid-Seventies. I mean, you’re talking very specific intersections at parks and schools in the Bronx. Then later it expanded to Queens, Brooklyn, Long Island, etc. To me, that New York doesn’t exist anymore. That time and place is gone. The music remains, but when I hear contemporary rap music, which I still love and support and listen to, I disassociate it from hip-hop because the cultural context is no longer inherent in the music. The music has taken on a life of its own outside of the cultural connotation. I enjoy contemporary rap, but it has very little in common with Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Islam and the roots of the music itself. It’s just something else entirely, which is as it should be.

That’s one of the reasons why when people ask what hip-hop I’ve heard in the last few years that I like a lot, I always have to say that if they’re talking about hip-hop in the traditional cultural context, I haven’t heard much, because usually anything recent that proclaims itself to be hip-hop means that it’s kind of longing for a time that doesn’t exist anymore, and as a result, artistically, it’s not very compelling to me, whereas rap is still an enduring art form in its own right. I mean hip-hop and the lessons I’ve learned as far as the original five elements, that’s permanently ingrained in my core, and in the way I view the world, and in the way I view music, and in the way I view everything.

But I also think there’s something inherently creatively bankrupt about making any kind of music that seeks to return to an era that doesn’t exist anymore. You can celebrate the past, learn from the past, you can long for the past, but then at a certain point you have to merge those sensibilities and those lessons and those ideologies with what’s happening right here and now. That’s what all of my heroes did back then. I decided long ago for myself that that’s how it would be done. You should understand the past and apply it to the present while looking towards the future.

Via

Tim Burgess of The Charlatans loves vinyl so much, he wrote a book about it

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Tim Burgess of The Charlatans loves vinyl so much, he wrote a book about it

Tim Book Two is the follow-up to Telling Stories, the hugely successful memoir of Tim Burgess, lead singer of the Charlatans. It tells of his lifelong passion for vinyl and the shops that sell them.

After his first book, Tim had more to say. But, instead of another autobiography he chose a different way of telling his story. Tim set himself a quest. He would get in touch with people he admired, and ask them to suggest an album for him to track down on his travels, giving an insight into what makes them tick. It would also offer a chance to see how record shops were faring in the digital age – one in which vinyl was still a much-treasured format.

Tim assembled his cast of characters, from Iggy Pop to Johnny Marr, David Lynch to Cosey Fanni Tutti. Texts, phone calls, emails and handwritten notes went out. Here is the tender, funny and surprising story of what came back. You can get it here.

Here’s THAT 50-Minute Version Of The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows”

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Andrew Liles, described on his Mixcloud page as “a prolific solo artist, producer, remixer and sometime member of Nurse With Wound and Current 93,” has remixed The Beatles’ psychedelic studio masterpiece Tomorrow Never Knows for the 50th anniversary of its release. It’s now 16 times longer than the original song, and is long enough for that special walk or run or car trip.

Liles writes:

On the 5th of August 2016 ‘Revolver’ will be 50 years old. ‘Revolver’ is arguably the first mainstream pop album to explore esoteric themes, ‘exotic’ instrumentation and use the studio as a tool to create otherworldly unimagined sounds. It’s an album that rewrote the rules and laid the foundations for audioscopic cosmonauts like myself to venture deeper into uncharted universes of sound. We have the fab five (how can we forget George Martin) to thank for opening new possibilities and new dimensions. Without their innovation the world of sound would be a lot less colourful.

Surrender to the void, turn off your mind, relax and float down stream with my impossibly elongated, psychedelic, smokeathonic adaptation of Tomorrow Never Knows.

Go Behind The Scenes In Rarely-Seen Video Of Beach Boys Recording Pet Sounds

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Pet Sounds, the eleventh studio album by American rock band the Beach Boys was initially met with a lukewarm critical and commercial response in the United States, peaking at number 10 in the Billboard 200, a significantly lower placement than the band’s preceding albums. In the United Kingdom, the album was hailed by its music press and was an immediate commercial success, peaking at number 2 in the UK Top 40 Albums Chart and remaining among the top ten positions for six months. Pet Sounds has subsequently gathered worldwide acclaim from critics and musicians alike, and is widely considered to be one of the most influential albums in music history.

God Only Knows” has become one of the most beloved in the band’s canon, famously praised by Paul McCartney as the greatest song ever written. Its classic status is even more remarkable considering that it all came together in less than an hour.

Brian Wilson always had a special place in his list of songs for “Let’s Go Away For a While,” labeling it “the most satisfying piece of music I have ever made.” But he also claims it’s missing a major component: lyrics.

Elgar’s Concerto In E minor On A Projection Mapped Cello

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Elgar’s Concerto In E minor On A Projection Mapped Cello

Sol Gabetta plays a 300-year-old cello and it becomes a screen in this unique film. Infrared cameras track the cello’s position allowing a digital projection to stay locked onto its surface as it moves.

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That Eric Alper

Eric Alper is a 6-time nominee for Publicist of the Year during Canadian Music Week and has overseen the publicity campaigns for over 183 JUNO Award-nominated albums (and 16 in 2025), 45 Grammy-nominated albums, including 47 JUNO Award, 58 Canadian Folk Music Award, 126 Maple Blues Award-winning albums and is also truly honoured to work with some of the biggest and most important artists of our time.

Contact me: eric@thatericalper.com

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