| Well, I would say at that point in my life, I didn't lose my woman. [Though] me and my mom did go through a little, you know, 'situation,' as they put it. That may have put the blues in my life. | | | | |  | DMX at Woodstock '99, Rome, N.Y., July 23, 1999.
(Frank Micelotta/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) | | | | | "Well, I would say at that point in my life, I didn't lose my woman. [Though] me and my mom did go through a little, you know, 'situation,' as they put it. That may have put the blues in my life." | | | | It Was Dark and Hell Was Hot
The best piece of music writing I've encountered in the past few days isn't written down anywhere. It is, rather, a bit of oral history. Early in HBO's WOODSTOCK '99 documentary, New York Times critic WESLEY MORRIS tries to puzzle out the sociological meaning of a single moment in DMX's astonishing performance at that doomed festival. It's a chilling moment—a call-and-response between X and an enormous, almost entirely white, audience, which repeatedly and enthusiastically answers his calls by shouting the title of a certain song from his album FLESH OF MY FLESH, BLOOD OF MY BLOOD back at him. Morris notes the gospel roots of the call-and-response form, and he and the ROOTS' BLACK THOUGHT both note DMX's absolute command of that stage. "The Black performer," Morris says, "is essentially licensing the people in the crowd to say this word with him. To perform a thing that they don't believe. Or maybe they do believe it..."
GARRET PRICE, who directed WOODSTOCK '99: PEACE, LOVE & RAGE, lets this scene play out at some length, and while it's probably neither the performance nor the commentary you came to see in a documentary that's mostly about what happened over the next two days, it may be the moment that stays with you long after it's over. It resonates because the questions it raises remain unresolved, and still in urgent need of puzzling out, 22 years later. To some extent that's also true of the rest of the movie, which is about not-so-repressed male rage, the rock bands who understood that rage and gave it a voice, and the deplorable conditions under which the music business brought the rage and the voices together. It's a flawed doc for a few reasons—for example—but it's also a well-told story about an unsettling moment in rock history that contains plenty of lessons for anyone still in the game today.
Not everyone has learned those lessons. The most shocking thing about the documentary is the presence of JOHN SCHER, the veteran concert promoter who staged the fest with original Woodstock veteran MICHAEL LANG. In footage from a festival remembered more for rioting, fires, sexual assaults and inhumane conditions than for any of the music performed that weekend, Scher is twice shown berating and dismissing reporters who dared ask him, in real time, about those conditions. There seems to have been not much reflection in the two decades since. In a current interview sprinkled liberally through the film, Scher, among other things, blames MTV for his own fest's atrocious reputation; defends charging $4 a bottle for water to a captive crowd on a weekend with temperatures north of 100 degree Fahrenheit at a site that offered little shade; and reaffirms his choice to book exactly three women to perform on the festival's two main stages over the course of three days ("you either had to be a rock band or you had to have the charisma to be able to pull it off," he actually says, out loud, on camera, by way of explaining why he and Lang booked almost exclusively men). He appears to accept no blame for anything but he's happy to blame FRED DURST and LIMP BIZKIT, who he booked and who played a Limp Bizkit set, for lots.
And women. Scher, who's still in the business in New Jersey, blames women. For being groped and sexually assaulted by men. Rolling Stone's ROB SHEFFIELD, who was at the fest, quotes Scher in full in his review of the film, and calls it "one of the 10 stupidest things any human has ever uttered on camera." What struck me is he seems to be aware he's saying something controversial, something he maybe shouldn't be saying, and he goes ahead and says it anyway. He says it deliberately, almost carefully. "I condemn it," Scher says of the assaults. "But..."
There is no acceptable phrase or sentence in the world that can follow that "but." None. Neither Durst nor the RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS nor DMX nor anyone else said anything on the Woodstock '99 stage that comes close to what does in fact follow. And none of them deserve the brunt of the blame.
Bad News
In the not-unrelated category of women being metaphorically assaulted at music festivals, here's video of DA BABY bringing out surprise guest TORY LANEZ at the ROLLING LOUD fest Sunday night in Miami Gardens, Fla., shortly after MEGAN THEE STALLION performed on the same stage. Lanez has been charged with shooting Megan last summer in Los Angeles; he's pleaded not guilty.
Dot Dot Dot
Albums by SAULT, NUBYA GARCIA, ARLO PARKS and FLOATING POINTS & PHAROAH SANDERS are among the 12 shortlisted for the 2021 MERCURY PRIZE. The prize, which honors albums made by British and Irish artists, will be awarded Sept. 9... How would a piano sound on Mars?... The amnesiac songwriter: "I was hearing songs that I had written but had no recollection of. I didn't know what the lyrics were about, what I was thinking, who they were written for. But I thought: these are pretty good"... OMG this is going to be the best guitar pedal ever (h/t JAMIE HILL for the link).
Rest in Peace
PETER REHBERG, electronic musician and founder of the influential label Editions Mego.
| | | | Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| | | 99, i've been waiting so long |
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|  | | Los Angeles Times |
| | Column: Eric Clapton's not God, just another vile anti-vaxxer | | by Virginia Heffernan | | It misses the point to say Eric Clapton's dangerous rhetoric on vaccines can be separated from his music. | |  | | Okayplayer |
| | Is There Still A Space For Long Hip-Hop Albums? | | by Christopher Kyle | | From Migos' "Culture III" to Tyler, the Creator's "Call Me When You Get Lost," long hip-hop albums are still being made. | |  | | Deadline |
| | Bill Simmons On 'Woodstock 99' & Turning 'Music Box' Into '30 For 30' Of Music Documentaries | | by Peter White | | Simmons tells Deadline how the project came about, the differences between making films about musicians and athletes, his top three movies about bands and being part of a booming culture of music documentaries. | |  | | The New York Times |
| | After Two Decades in Music, Yola Expands Her Powers | | by Jeremy Gordon | | Last year, the English powerhouse singer and songwriter was nominated for four Grammys. Now she's returning with "Stand for Myself," an album made on her own terms. | |  | | VICE |
| | COVID-19 Will Definitely Be at Music Festivals This Year | | by Josh Terry | | This is the reality of live music in a pandemic. Full vaccination is the best way to protect yourself and others. | |  | | The Guardian |
| | Splendour XR: virtual music festival was an eerie, empty reminder of what we've lost | | by Shaad D'Souza | | Splendour in the Grass's virtual edition promised a 'world-first online experience' where 'music, art and culture reigns supreme'. It did not deliver. | |  | | The Washington Post |
| | Florida's 'fast' rap remixes are speeding up another endless summer | | by Chris Richards | | Clock this. Florida rapper Kodak Black dropped his new single, " Senseless," at 3:30 on Monday afternoon, and then, a few ticks after 4 p.m., DJ Frisco954 posted a "fast" remix: a sped-up, pitched-up version of "Senseless" that transformed the rapper's serrated drawl into a 320-grit sandpaper chirp. | |  | | Vulture |
| | The Appealing Uneasiness of Listening to L'Rain | | by Charlie Harding | | How the artist's album "Fatigue" "mirrors my interest in illegibility." | |  | | CNBC |
| | China orders Tencent to give up exclusive music licensing rights as crackdown continues | | by Joanna Tan | | China's antitrust regulator has ordered Tencent to give up its exclusive music licensing rights and slapped a fine on the company for anti-competitive behavior, as Beijing continues to crack down on its internet giants at home. | |  | | The Root |
| | The Twenty-Third Psalm | | by Michael Harriot | | Some stuff about why "Lift Every Voice and Sing" is a perfect anthem for Black America. | | | 99, where did we go wrong |
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|  | | NPR |
| | Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram Reflects On Leaving -- And Sharing -- '662' | | by A Martínez, Phil Harrell and Tekella Foster | | Clarksdale, Miss., where blues guitarist-singer Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram hails from, is "pretty much the mecca of the blues," Ingram says in an interview with NPR's A Martinez on Morning Edition. | |  | | Guitar World |
| | Buddy Guy: "When you pick up a guitar, you have something of your own even if you don't realize it" | | by Jonathan Horsley | | With a new documentary about the great Buddy Guy soon to air on PBS, we spoke to the world's greatest living bluesman about a life bending those strings and chasing people's blues away. | |  | | Music Industry Blog |
| | Spotify and music listening 10 years from now | | by Mark Mulligan | | July marks ten years since Spotify's US launch. Although the tendency among some is to consider this 'year zero' for streaming (thus ignoring everything that had happened in prior years both within and outside of the US) it does present a useful opportunity to reflect on what the next decade might hold for Spotify. | |  | | Pioneer Works |
| | Holding Space For The Music | | by Piotr Orlov | | Patricia Nicholson on Vision Festival and the fate of free jazz in America. | |  | | Pitchfork |
| | I Listened to Funk Flex for Five Straight Hours to See If Rap Radio Is Really Dead | | by Alphonse Pierre | | I tuned into Hot 97 from 7 p.m. to 12 a.m.—yes, five freaking hours—to once again feel what it's like to put my night in the hands of Flex. Here's an hour-by-hour breakdown. | |  | | Mixmag |
| | How to help clubs reopen safely and for the long haul | | by Patrick Hinton, Megan Townsend, Tope Olufemi... | | A 10-step guide to aid the safe and sustainable reopening of nightlife. | |  | | NPR Music |
| | Fiona Apple's 'Tidal' Promised Me The Unknown | | by Lindsay Zoladz | | When writer Lindsay Zoladz first heard 'Tidal' as a teen, it validated her pain in an uncertain time. Returning to the album decades later, it reminds her of how much our past selves can teach us. | |  | | The Ringer |
| | Was Moby's 'Play' the Spiritual Death of the '90s? | | by Rob Harvilla | | The spiritual end of the '90s has long been considered the disastrous Woodstock '99. What this piece presupposes that it came a few months earlier, via a sampler-armed musician who would play the festival's emerging artists stage. | | | | | Music | Media | Sports | Fashion | Tech | | "REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in
everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask 'why?'" | | |  | | | Jason Hirschhorn | | CEO & Chief Curator | | |  |
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