To me, art has always been about evidence. Evidence of the lives of the people who are inspired by that divine spark that is so rare. | | | | Throbbing Gristle's Genesis Breyer P-Orridge at Coachella, April 19, 2009.
(Wendy Redfern/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | | “To me, art has always been about evidence. Evidence of the lives of the people who are inspired by that divine spark that is so rare.”
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| | rantnrave:// I was supposed to fly from Los Angeles to New York this past Friday, which is a thing that seemed perfectly reasonable five or six days earlier, became worrisome by Tuesday or Wednesday and revealed itself to be an astonishingly bad idea circa Thursday. So I rescheduled the flight (with ease, which I've been told is not the norm) to April 6, which seemed far away and... perfectly reasonable. By Saturday, I wasn't so sure. Now I'm sweating my Thanksgiving travel. It's March. April seems like an unknowable concept. May and June ring a bell but I can't quite picture them. Am I worrying too much? Too little? You? Can you see any more clearly? Now imagine you're a band with a summer or fall tour on your schedule, or two or three festival dates, or an event in late spring in London or Berlin or Atlanta. And imagine that was going to be your main, or only, source of income for the next half year or so. Or imagine you're one of the people trying to manage that tour. Or the manager of a club on the tour route. Or the front-of-house person. Or part of the team trying to roll out the band's album for May or June release and deciding if that's a thing you still want to do. Or the owner of one of the record stores where that album might have sold a few copies. Or, even, a music journalist paid to chronicle these things. This plague year is hitting everybody hard, in multiple ways, but there's an extra wallop for part-time, self-employed and gig workers, which describes a huge percentage of the music business, from artists on down. Respect to the ingenuity, creativity and determination with which many are motoring through, and hugs to those having a tougher time at it. Resources. More resources. Still more. A little hope. A plea for support, which everyone reading this can heed. Call it the year live music broke, literally. Know that the rebound is somewhere around the corner. And that no one's going to stop making music in the meantime... The notion of capital-O originality in music, as in "this is an idea no one had before," is a myth. Everything, no matter how bent, no matter how strange, no matter how disturbing, no matter how beautiful, comes from somewhere. THROBBING GRISTLE is one of the great proofs of that, its pristinely damaged run of late '70s and early '80s albums serving as the source of the musical Nile for hundreds if not thousands of industrial, noise, experimental, synth-pop, psychedelic and beyond bands that came after. TG's nominal leader, GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE, floated off last week to wherever people like Genesis P-Orridge float off to in the end. Genesis' life of creation through destruction also involved the somewhat more accessible band PSYCHIC TV, visual art, performance art and the ultimate art project that was their own body. An amazing—and not at all perfect—life that came about as close to that capital-O as anyone ever does. RIP... SOUNDGARDEN and the estate of TUPAC SHAKUR have withdrawn from the UNIVERSAL fire lawsuit... Has country radio rediscovered women?... Stay home if at all possible, and congregate online, or at your window... RIP also ANTON COPPOLA, DANNY RAY THOMPSON, ERIC TAYLOR and PETE MITCHELL. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| As the COVID-19 outbreak threatens live music everywhere, crew members, venue workers, and many other employees are struggling to pay their bills. | | |
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| "If this is a two-week hiccup, then that in itself for businesses that might be running from show-to-show is too long." | | |
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| Owners from across America talk about how the pandemic is affecting their business, and how music lovers can help. | | |
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| Genesis achieved cult notoriety leading the British rock bands Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, and later pushed the limits of gender in a surgical project to merge identities with her wife. | | |
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| For years, the elusive singer-songwriter has been working, at home, on an album with a strikingly raw and percussive sound. But is she prepared to release it into the world? | | |
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| We need to think about those "force majeure" clauses that everyone skips over in contractual boilerplate. | | |
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| Top music producers and songwriters Ricky Reed, Ross Golan and Justin Tranter provide advice to fellow creatives on how to adapt their hustle to the new landscape. | | |
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| If you have the ability, it is absolutely essential to the survival of the music scene to seek out artists whose music is meaningful to you and give them your support. | | |
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| The former One Direction singer gave a charming performance of "Watermelon Sugar," "Adore You" and other cuts from his latest album, "Fine Line." | | |
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| As moderated by fellow experimental musician Alan Licht | | |
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| “It wipes out an entire source of revenue for many artists.” | | |
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| How artists and venues are coming up with innovative ways to keep the lights on and the music playing - without leaving the house. | | |
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| A directory of tools that artists and speakers can use to host virtual shows, panels and meetups, in the wake of major festivals like SXSW, Ultra, Miami Music Week and Coachella getting postponed or cancelled. And a calendar of virtual/livestreamed events that artists and music organizations are hosting in the coming months | | |
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| As the nation seems prepared to hole up at home, the Opry has the same role it did in the early days: bringing live country music to the people. | | |
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| For one writer, Harry Styles and Ariana Grande provide an opportunity for both creative expression and familial connection. | | |
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| Taylor’s just released his tribute to the American Songbook, “American Standard,” with classics by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, and… Moe Jerome. How’d that happen? | | |
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| She built a blockbuster in a bedroom, so it makes sense she’d record “No Time to Die” on a tour bus. | | |
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| Buck Curran, an American musician who has lived in Bergamo for several years, is just trying to stay sane as his city endures the largest COVID-19 crisis outside of China. | | |
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| The birthday jingle owes its current prominence to two simple facts: just about everyone knows it by heart & it takes about 10 seconds to sing. | | |
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| With a pandemic silencing the nightlife, our relationship to music is about to change. | | |
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| | | | | | | From "20 Jazz Funk Greats" (1979). |
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