Ladybird Books has been publishing children’s books in Britain for 100 year, but they take direct aim at hipsters in a series targeted at grownups called Ladybird Books for Grownups. With their classic nostalgic illustrations from their 1940s children’s books, it’s the words that nail it. The eight books will feature How it Works: The Wife and The Ladybird Book of the Mid-life Crisis, but the best one comes from The Ladybird Book of the Hipster.
A couple of months ago, 1,000 Italian Foo Fighters fans made a video where they heartwarmingly played the alt-rock act’s 1999 single in unison in an attempt to bring the band to the town of Cesena. Tuesday night, Dave Grohl and Co. fulfilled their wishes and played a 27-song set featuring a handful of covers and guest appearances from some of the organizers of the Rockin’1000 campaign.
Most moving however was a six-minute speech Grohl gave detailing his initial encounter with the viral video. He already wrote about some of his feelings when he announced the show, but he got emotional again in person. “To see you people, singing our song for the whole f**king world, to me, it’s the greatest moment of my life,” he said. “Of course we couldn’t say no, we had to come. You trapped us, we had to come here.”
Via Spin
The Village Voice put in an interview request to talk with Jonathan Richman — Modern Lovers founder and frontman and overall pop-rock purveyor as they wanted to know more about his time in New York, how it inspired him then, and how he feels about the city today.
Before long, the weekly newspaper got word that their interview request had been forwarded to the singer by priority mail, Richman’s connection to the outside world runs through the United States Postal Service. He does not do phone interviews; he does not own a computer.
In his handwritten response sent via snail mail, Richman riffed on his short stint living in New York with the kind of romanticism and eye for detail that make his music so treasurable.
Dear Ryan,
Sorry I can’t do phone interviews but here’s something: I moved to New York when I was 18 to be near the Velvet Underground and that whole Andy Warhol art scene. I thought I would do art with them but what really happened was I spent the 10 or so months I lived there, more or less alone, walking around after work (work was as a foot messenger for Esquire Magazine and before that on Wall Street).
The grand, monstrous scale of the place sticks with me. The Battery on a cold Saturday afternoon in the winter by those ancient ferry buildings with the huge ferry buildings of New Jersey and Staten Island off in the distance and the monstrous fifty-story financial buildings all closed up looming over you. Chinatown nearby on this ten-degree afternoon with the fish and salt smells cutting through the cold air.
Or a winter Saturday morning in that Ukrainian neighborhood at E. 5th and 1st Ave., with the silent old men in those little shops that sell ikons and sell honey and stuff too — with the cold, silent street outside with the rat piss smell cutting even through the six-degree air.
Yah! Bethesda Fountain in the Spring! Chestnuts as work lets out at 5 PM in the late fall! It all still lingers in me! And, as have so many other strong atmospheres, it has affected my ear for sound and music just as it has affected my eye for color.
Jonathan
Here’s a full shot of Jonathan’s letter:
Via Village Voice
Musicians are four times more likely than the general population to suffer hearing damage, but few are doing anything to lower the risk, according to Help Musicians UK.
Though rather than blasting airhorns into the ears of unsuspecting non-musicians to help redress the balance, the Help Musicians UK organisation is instead opting to educate music types on the importance of looking after their ears. This follows research the organisation carried out, which found that 41% of musicians experience hearing problems during their career, with the vast majority blaming their profession.
Despite the increased risk, 68% of musicians surveyed hadn’t had a hearing test within the previous three years. And while 89% believed that they should be using hearing protection, only 66% ever actually had, and then only 8% every time they played.
Check out this site for more information on how you can protect your hearing, and still be able to rock out onstage.
Cross-sector trade group UK Music has published the latest edition of ‘Measuring Music’, which sets out to assess the economic impact of the wider music business in the UK.
And according to the research, the ‘gross value added’ by the music industry in 2014 was nearly £4.1 billion, up from £3.8 billion in 2013, an increase in no small part aided by the success of British artists internationally. ‘Measuring Music’ reckons that 117,000 full time jobs are now provided by the music industry, the majority of which are people involved in the writing, creating, recording and performing of music.
The music creator community – so musicians, composers and songwriters – contributed £1.9 billion to the economy last year. The music rights sector was worth just over a billion (£615 million for recordings, £410 million for publishing), while the live sector saw the biggest growth from 2013, up to £924 million. Studios and music production contributed £116 million, while music representatives contributed £89 million.
Facebook announced its latest quarterly financial results yesterday, and they reveal yet more growth for the social network across a range of metrics – many of which are of direct interest to the music industry.
Financially, Facebook had a very strong quarter: it posted revenues of $4.5bn and a net profit of $896m, both seeing healthy year-on-year rises.
In terms of user numbers, Facebook now has 1.55bn monthly active users (MAUs) and 1.01bn daily active users (DAUs) – the latter is a significant milestone for the company.
Mobile continues to be Facebook’s driving force: it averaged 894m mobile daily active users in September, while 78% of its $4.3bn advertising revenues last quarter came from mobile ads. 47% of Facebook users *only* access the social network from mobile devices.
Via MusicAlly
Billy Bragg has released a book of annotated lyrics, A Lover Sings, published by Faber & Faber. Released on Nov. 4, The Guardian published an excerpt from the book, including this passage: “Music can draw us out of isolation and connect us with a community where we feel our troubles and concerns are recognised and shared. If music has any real power, it lies in this moment – when we experience the solidarity of song, the cathartic realisation that you’re not the only person who shares the sentiments that are being so forcefully expressed.”
Via The Current
Pitchfork.tv’s latest documentary series is called “Unsung”. The series focuses on those individuals who made significant contributions to music but don’t necessarily get the recognition they deserve. This next installment focuses on Dan Corrigan, known for his photography with bands such as Hüsker Dü, Soul Asylum, The Replacements and many more.
“I said, ‘Elvis, I’m going to ask you one thing before we part company here. If you die, do you think you’d go to heaven or hell?’ And he got real red in the face, and then he got real white in the face, and he said, ‘Jerry Lee, don’t you ever say that to me agin.’ I said, ‘Well, I won’t even say it to you again.’ Hahahaha!…He was very frightened.”
…I was always worried whether I was going to heaven or hell. I still am. I worry about it before I go to bed; it’s a very serious situation. I mean you worry, when you breathe your last breath, where are you going to go?” – Jerry Lee Lewis, in The Guardian (irony)
In order to create the perfect “wake up” playlist, Spotify enlisted the help of music psychologist and Cambridge PhD candidate, David M. Greenberg, because nobody wants to wake up to a beeping noise or alarm clocks anymore. Greenberg and Spotify’s data team focused on three main elements these songs needed to have:
Here are the songs:
I’m going to try this tomorrow morning. I’ll let you know how it goes.
H/T Business Insider
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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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