Guardian really appreciates Two Minutes to Late Night, a comedy metal show hosted by comedian Jordan Olds’s corpse-painted alter ego Gwarsenio Hall (Gwar + Arsenio Hall). Its DIY, punk ethos and absurd, profanity-laced comedy made it a hit among metalheads, especially in lockdown, the G insists.
New Zealand seems like Mars now with the rest of the world in some sort of lockdown due to the Covid pandemic, while the island-country in the southern Pacific holds big shows (it had 1,927 Covid-19 infections over the past year). Pop band Six60 held a concert in Hastings on Saturday night which was attended by - 20,000 fans. Hawke's Bay reports from the show.
Super-group Kings of Quarantine, featuring members of Limp Bizkit, 311, Mastodon, Filter, The Used, Veruca Salt, and In Flames, teamed up to perform a socially-distant cover of Jane's Addiction's 'Mountain Song'. The project is in collaboration with the Roadie Relief effort, in hopes to raise awareness for touring industry workers whose jobs have been affected by the pandemic. Buy the song on Bandcamp.
For the venues to be reopened, the society needs to reach an effective level of herd immunity, which means vaccinating from 70 percent to 85 percent of the population, dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the top infectious disease expert said, the New York Times reports. In the case of the US, "this will occur some time in the fall of 2021, so that by the time we get to the early to mid-fall, you can have people feeling safe performing onstage as well as people in the audience”. Once that happens, theaters with good ventilation and proper air filters might not need to place many restrictions for performances by the fall, including venues capacity, except asking their audience members to wear masks, which he suggested could continue to be a norm for some time.
PopMatters has an extensive article about how American musicians are surviving in a pandemic shutdown which is closing in on a full year. They talked to guitarists Marisa Anderson, Sarah Louise, Bill MacKay, Jackie Venson, and Ryley Walker, to singer-songwriters Jerry David DeCicca and Simon Joyner, the folk songster Jeffrey Lewis, and experimental/free jazz/session cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm about their income, music streaming, indie labels, Bandcamp etc.
In the year of big fear and great isolation, musicians turned to producing ambient music "to soothe us where human connection couldn’t", as Guardian puts it. There was consolation from the usual suspects like Brian Eno, his brother Roger Eno, the NYC mystic Laraaji. Dance producers like Daniel Avery and Alessandro Cortini switched to ambient music as well, Manchester jazzman Matthew Halsall created a weekly playlist, DJ and musician Auntie Flo launched a new digital radio station Ambient Flo with two channels - ambient music, and birdsong...
12-year-old Manchester DJ Cael Bell had his equipment confiscated by the teachers after hosting a rave in the school bathroom, The Mirror reports. The boy invited “all the boys from year 8” at St. Antony’s Catholic College in Manchester, UK, and together they held an impromptu dance fest in the boys lavatory during lunch period on December 11th. The set included complimentary soft drinks and Cadbury Twirls, and it lasted 30 minutes before the teachers broke it up. Bell’s mother said that the boy’s speaker and lights have been impounded, although she did not herself punish him - “Am I wrong for finding this funny?”.
“With your help, our artists and songwriters not only raised the spirits of millions everywhere, but also brought awareness to worthwhile causes that will help to repair a world so badly in need of repair" - UMG's Lucian Grainge said in his year-end letter to staff, Variety reports. He added - "more often than not, that awareness will trigger action, funding, and, ultimately, results… When the harsh realities of inequality and racism exploded across the globe, our artists were galvanized and, together with them, we responded quickly”.
"Having a deep-rooted love of music in the back pocket is to be able to pluck out something capable of soothing broken hearts, tortured minds or restless souls. It is an infinite source of reliability, profundity and surprise" - the Quietus writes, arguing this relationship has changed in this lockdown year. The places to discover new music have tumbled down to all but one - computer screen, and the curiosity itself has tumbled due to the claustrophobic year. However, tQ says, we need to accept, and through this acceptance that spark for music will return. It most certainly should - musically, it has been a great year, and the next might prove to be even better, if not even game-changing.
Indie rock bands with very sizable followings have already turned in new albums to their labels with the understanding that they be held until, at the very least, next fall - Last Donut of the Night blog writes about the prospect of new albums by indie bands like Death Cab For Cutie, Soccer Mommy, Protomartyr... It is similar with A-list stars - we could have expected new albums by Lana Del Rey, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and Billie Eilish were it not for the pandemic...
Rolling Stones guitarist said he has taken up gardening to keep him occupied during the lockdown, leading to a “more normal way of life” after years of living as one of rock’s most notorious hell-raisers - "which is un-normal”. He told Goldmine Magazine, according to Contact Music: “I spent the whole summer actually admiring the garden and also doing a bit of gardening myself – watering the veggies and the stuff... I saw the garden grow – really quite unbelievable".
Fender is expecting a record year this year as guitar sales have grown 17% during the pandemic and are expected to rise to $700 million, from $600 million last year, CNBC reports. Fender's CEO Andy Mooney attributes the rise in sales to housebound consumers looking for new hobbies. The company also offered Fender Play, the online video platform for learning guitar, bass and ukulele. Introduced in July 2017, it was free for 90 days to the first 100,000 subscribers. Fender hit that mark the very first day, reached a half million sign-ups the first week and settled at about 930,000 subscribers by June. In similar, yet less positive news, Guitar Center, the largest American retailer of musical instruments, has filed for bankruptcy, CNN reports.
Music creators in the UK will lose 65% of their income in 2020 due to Covid-19, according to the new annual Music By Numbers report by UK Music. The effective shutdown of concerts and festivals will also cause live music revenues to fall by 85% this year. UK music industry contributed £5.8 billion to the UK economy in 2019, and employment in the industry hit an all-time high of 197,168, NME reports.
The British government has announced the latest round of its £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund, with this new tranche of aid totaling £18 million to be shared by eight arts and cultural organizations, among them Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London, the London Venue Group, and the Academy Music Group. Music Business Worldwide compares this concrete help to the one US venues are being offered.
English pop-rock star James Arthur was inspired to write 52 songs after doing Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in lockdown, as he says to the Evening Standard. Arthur - who struggles with social and health anxiety, as well as various different forms of depression - has a "fear of dying young” and admitted his anxiety heightened amid the coronavirus pandemic, "and then I made music again. I wrote 52 songs - that helped me through”.
Among the fifty best-selling records of August on Discogs.com, three of the top five entries were just different vinyl pressings of Khruangbin's 'Mordechai', including the top spot. In all, six of the top fifty best-selling records were by Khruangbin, topping both current hot acts such as Phoebe Bridgers and catalog titles like David Bowie. It goes down to music of course 'Mordechai' is a “record that is fun and full of heart, and also really calming", Hannah Carlen, head of marketing at Khruangbin’s label, Dead Oceans, told Texas Monthly.
Veteran music executive and Lollapalooza co-founder Marc Geiger has been working on an initiative of his own called SaveLive this year with a plan to save American indie venues, the New York Times reports. Geiger’s plan is to buy at least 51 percent equity in dozens of music clubs nationwide, and help them expand into “regional forces” with the help of sponsorship opportunities and create a “network effect”. Geiger has already collected $75 million from the first investment round.
Moses Sumney made a stellar short show at the digital edition of Planet Afropunk with reinterpretations of four songs from this year's album 'Græ' and his debut project 'Aromanticism'. Sumney starts on the rear of a truck with his band projected on the back, to continue with an in-nature performance, and finishing with darkness. A much bigger emphasis on the sonics here. Awesome!
New Zealand is one of the only places in the world where musicians are touring right now, since they have successfully curtailed community spread of covid-19 with a total lockdown. Washington Post talked to the Beths, a band that's back on tour, happy to play and mingle with the crowd. However, they are limited to New Zealand, so by the end of their current tour, the Beths will have played 17 shows in their home country. Normally, they would have played 60 international dates...
Mastodon guitarist Bill Kelliher, Anthrax bassist Frank Bello, Korn drummer Ray Luzier, Men Without Hats keyboardist Ivan Doroschuk, and others have joined forces to cover Faith No More's 'We Care a Lot'. The collaboration was organized by Slaves on Dope members Jason Rockman and Kevin Jardine, who contribute vocals and guitar. Refused frontman Dennis Lyxzén handles the first verse, while other vocalists include Darryl “DMC” McDaniels of Run-DMC, Richard Patrick of Filter, Walter Schreifels of Quicksand, Kevin Sharp of Brutal Truth, rapper Esoteric of Czarface, and Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace. The performance was organized to support the Roadie Relief effort, benefitting concert crew members who have been out of work in the midst of the pandemic - buy the song via Bandcamp.
Vice published a great text about the lack of live music, and what really we are missing (not the sounds coming out of speakers): "It’s the one thing, besides sports, that provides community when no one else gives a shit. The impact that has on opportunity and quality of life, even – in fact especially – in the context of financial hardship, is huge. So it’s baffling, although does not surprise me in the slightest, that when it comes to making 'necessary cuts' to 'save' the economy, cultural and social services are always the first against the wall. People rarely consider things they don’t need, and no one needs fun less than rich people".
The British government on Monday announced grants of 257 million pounds to help almost 1,400 arts and cultural organizations survive the coronavirus pandemic, Independent reports. The money goes to theaters, music venues, museums, and cultural organizations such as the London Symphony Orchestra, which received 846,000 pounds, Liverpool’s Cavern Club, where The Beatles shot to fame, which got a grant of 525,000 pounds, and The Brudenell, widely considered to be one of the UK’s greatest grassroots venues, with 220,429 pounds. The money is the first chunk to be spent from a 1.57-billion-pound Culture Recovery Fund.
New Zealand singer-songwriter Anderson Rocio wrote a dreamy, nostalgic tune called 'Paradise' after binge-watching international news on the pandemic. The song was picked by the producers of Netflix hit 'Lucifer' to play over a dramatic scene in season five, which aired last month. “Life’s not paradise, and we all know that, but it’s pretty great regardless of all the challenges. And that’s what we felt about the lockdown” Rocio told the Guardian about the song, which is now celebrated as hymn to post-Covid hope.
American president Donald Trump has ordered a halt to talks over a package of COVID-19 relief bills that included more than $10 billion in aid for independent music venues, agencies and music companies indefinitely shut down by the global pandemic, Billboard reports. National Independent Venue Association has been warning that without federal assistance, more than 90% of its 2,500 members would go out of business. Now, NIVA says the collapse is happening.
“We have made the best of it. We’ve really done what we should have done” Billie Eilish told Jimmy Fallon during their guest appearance on The Tonight Show about the pandemic. "We’ve made a lot of music. I don’t think we would have made it otherwise, if we hadn’t got this time. So as much as it’s been terrible to have this going on in the world, I think it has birthed some things. We have been really lucky with it”.
Rapper and entrepreneur Jim Jones started Quarantine Studios, a one stop shop for artists, producers and engineers to work in the studio from anywhere in the world. Complex says it is a unique virtual experience, enabling artists to still cooperate in lockdown. The magazine visited him in his Q-Studios.
When lockdown began in March, Fender launched their free guitar lessons initiative, which they now extended for three more months, Guitar World reports. The Fender Play app giveaway offers lessons for guitar, bass and ukulele using multi-genre, instructor-guided video lessons that can be accessed on smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers. Its user base grew almost fivefold in April of this year - increasing from 150,000 to 930,000 subscribers.
Bloomberg writes about efforts to restart the live events sector. The Utopia music festival in September served as a potential new model for the future as all the attendees were screened with a Covid-19 test a few days before the event - and again at the door - in an effort to create an event “bubble". The founder of Croatia’s Lighthouse Festival launched a 60-second, gargling-based Covid-19 test that is currently available over the counter in Austria. Ravel Hotel in New York made waves over the summer by offering rapid tests to revelers at its crowded rooftop parties...
The skies do sound different during the pandemic, as many have noticed, and indeed, birds are singing different tunes during lockdown, according to a scientific study by the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. By analysing the calls of sparrows recorded over decades, scientists confirmed a change in the birds' vocal repertoire when the city fell quiet, Science Alert reports. The birds upped the quality of their songs, as they called to defend their territory and entice a mate. The sparrows also sang more quietly.
Canadian venues and performance spaces lit up red Tuesday evening (Sept 22) in a show of support for the live event industry "that is still dark", Indie 88 reports. The #LightUpLive campaign says "the effect of shutting down a $100 billion industry in Canada will have unimaginable impacts on both companies and individuals".
