The only problem with being a composer is you don’t get to listen to very much music. You can’t really have the radio on while you’re doing it. The people I know who are writers or painters or designers know so much more about music than me because they’re listening all the time. | | | | | Junie Morrison (second from right) with the Ohio Players, early 1970s. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) | | | | | | “The only problem with being a composer is you don’t get to listen to very much music. You can’t really have the radio on while you’re doing it. The people I know who are writers or painters or designers know so much more about music than me because they’re listening all the time.”
|
| |
| | rantnrave:// Longreads for a long weekend... BRIAN ENO gives PITCHFORK's PHILIP SHERBURNE a generous tour of his musical brain. Their long, smart conversation is focused on Eno's regenerative album (and app) REFLECTION, but strays off into reflections on the meaning and architecture of ambient music in general (spoiler: no one ever said it has to be quiet and mellow), how a non-musician approaches the studio ("I've always loved rhythm guitar and I've never been able to play it"), and the differences between permanent and ephemeral music, among other things. Also, Eno does not like Trump, in case we weren't clear on that... Eno would perhaps appreciate the thinking patterns of DIRTY PROJECTORS singer/guitarist DAVID LONGSTRETH, who wanders off into a brief sidebar about fractal geometry in the middle of a NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE profile. JONAH WEINER's story traces Longstreth's unlikely path from abstruse indie rocker to collaborations with SOLANGE, BJÖRK and KANYE WEST (spoiler: Longstreth brought his own ceramic coffee dripper to a MEXICAN songwriting retreat for Kanye's THE LIFE OF PABLO album) and back to an LA studio where he's working on the Dirty Projectors' seventh album (and demonstrating cringeworthy posture on a mid-century modern sofa)... WEIRD AL YANKOVIC is still sad that COOLIO isn't cool with his 1996 song "AMISH PARADISE," which appears to be the only emotional setback he has suffered in four improbable decades of pop success. The WASHINGTON POST's GEOFF EDGERS goes long on the pop parodist who has "outlasted so many of the stars he once spoofed" and who continues to ask personal permission of every artist he parodies, even if it means jumping in front of IGGY AZALEA unannounced as she's walking offstage in COLORADO to show her the lyrics to "HANDY" (spoiler: she said yes)... WALTER "JUNIE" MORRISON, a keyboardist (and songwriter and producer and you-name-it) who played on the OHIO PLAYERS' early albums and went on to become FUNKADELIC's musical director, was an unheralded star of '70s pop (or maybe not so unheralded). And not just because he co-wrote "ONE NATION UNDER A GROOVE," but, come on. RIP... ACM Award nominations: Yes to KEITH URBAN and FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE, no to GRAMMY Album of the Year nominee STURGILL SIMPSON... The ROOTS will perform an NBA-themed musical at Sunday's NBA All-Star Game, and I'm already thinking they should be playing at halftime of the next SUPER BOWL... HBO acquires DAVID BOWIE: THE LAST FIVE YEARS doc... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from FUTURE, JIDENNA, RYAN ADAMS, JONWAYNE, CHARLIE WILSON, NIKKI LANE, ALISON KRAUSS, THE COURTNEYS, FAT JOE & REMY MA, TIM DARCY, HANNI EL KHATIB, THE ORWELLS, JENS LEKMAN, MOZART'S SISTER, PEGI YOUNG & THE SURVIVORS and SON VOLT... MusicREDEF is taking Monday off in honor of PRESIDENTS' DAY. We'll be back Tuesday. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
|
|
| | | so wide you can't get around it |
|
| The unceasingly curious composer on chance, minimalism, and the politics of form. | | |
|
| Pandora's Glenn People's makes the case that their acquisition of Ticketfly and other initiatives are creating the first full stack music streamer. | | |
|
| There’s a way to mingle with the suits and still keep your soul. | | |
|
| The band created one of indie rock’s most indelible sounds, built around the collaboration of David Longstreth and Amber Coffman. Now he’s reinventing their music without her. | | |
|
| The composer of films like "Gladiator," "Inception," and "The Dark Knight" has become so ubiquitous, he’s playing at Coachella. | | |
|
| Unending love and appreciation is the least we can offer pioneers like Big Mama Thornton and Tina Turner. | | |
|
| John Fogerty has been reunited with his famous 1969 Rickenbacker 325 four decades after giving it away to a young fan. | | |
|
| The copyright industry knows that enforcement of copyright is incompatible with privacy and freedom of expression, and works consistently to curtail them. | | |
|
| How did sound mixer Mandy Parnell make it to the top in such a blokey industry? The former homeless runaway reveals all. | | |
|
| Camila Cabello kicked off her solo career and her band sisters in Fifth Harmony unexpectedly denounced her for it. Now she's got a top five single, a much-anticipated album coming and zero second thoughts. | | |
|
| | | so low you can't get under it |
|
| After nearly 40 years, the accordion-playing nerd has become a legend in his own right. | | |
|
| Looking back on the genre that refused to be cool. | | |
|
| Really, REALLY need that ID? | | |
|
| Multi-instrumentalist played pivotal roles in both groups. | | |
|
| Architectural acoustics is a field that rarely makes the front page of any newspaper, much less op-eds in tech publications like Wired. The January 11th opening of Herzog & de Meuron’s Elbphilharmonie, though, was such big news that even my architecturally naive family heard about it, and let’s just say: that is a feat. | | |
|
| Smartphones rule the music industry. | | |
|
| Plans to celebrate a pivotal moment in San Francisco’s hippie history have been quashed after city cited safety concerns - and people says it’s not cool, man. | | |
|
| Every September, millions of people celebrate Carnival in Brooklyn. From the pre-dawn J’ouvert bacchanal in the streets, to the intense Panorama steel pan competition, to the massive Labor Day Parade on Eastern Parkway, central Brooklyn is transformed into a Caribbean cultural haven. But before the fun comes months of preparation and centuries of history. | | |
|
| Following a self-imposed exile from music to confront his demons, LA producer and rapper Jonwayne tells Laurent Fintoni about "Rap Album Two." | | |
|
| Bob Dylan’s work proves not only that he's an autodidact, but also that he understands the importance of structure, form, and tradition in both literature and music. | | |
|
| | | | | | | RIP Walter "Junie" Morrison, 1954 – 2017. |
| | |
|
|
| © Copyright 2017, The REDEF Group |
|
|
