jason hirschhorn's @MusicREDEF: 11/01/2021 - Black Opry House, 'Tomahawk Chop' Music, RRHOF, Drum 'n' Bass, Mountain Goats...
By -Edward Lance Lorilla
November 01, 202114 minute read
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['Tapestry'] was a watershed moment for humans in the world who have feelings, and for cats who had big dreams of one day ending up on iconic album covers.
Going back to Cleveland: LL Cool J at his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, Cleveland, Oct. 30, 2021. (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images)
quote of the day
"['Tapestry'] was a watershed moment for humans in the world who have feelings, and for cats who had big dreams of one day ending up on iconic album covers."
"There would not be less of us if more of us were visible," KATHY VALENTINE told the assembled glitterati and gatekeepers as her band, the GO-GO'S, was inducted into the ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME Saturday night, distilling the idea of diversity, equity and inclusion into a single line with the poetry and punch of a great rock and roll lyric. (Someone should write the rest of that song.) It was a good night for women at the rock institution, the first such night in a long time, and it wasn't because the Hall's selectors decided to induct artists simply because they're women but, rather, because the Hall's selectors decided to stop *not* inducting artists simply because they're women. Which is a very different thing. See also: hip-hop. "Growing up, we didn't think we could be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Fame," said JAY-Z, one of a record two rappers inducted into the Hall. (Yes, really: "record two.") Great hip-hop artists tend to have great imaginations, but there's only so far your imagination can take you. Rappers growing up now will hopefully learn the opposite: They *can*. That matters.
I was thinking of all that as I read JEWLY HIGHT's NPR Music story about Black musicians and advocates who've been building their own spaces and support systems within a country/roots/Americana scene that hasn't always welcomed them. To make themselves more visible. So there won't be less of them in the future. Among the people Hight wrote about is my friend MARCUS K. DOWLING, a music journalist who has occasionally curated and written this newsletter. When I met Marcus, I knew him as an electronic music and hip-hop writer, which, it turns out, wasn't entirely by choice. He had an interest and expertise in country, too, but strangely couldn't get anyone to buy those pitches. That started changing in the summer of 2020, when, as Hight puts it with a touch of understatement, "public reckonings reached certain sectors of the country ecosystem."
In the past year or two, Dowling has become a familiar face around Nashville and a widely published advocate for Black country and roots music. And not unlike the Go-Go's in Cleveland, he's made a conscious decision to hold the door open for other Black writers and artists. In September, during the AMERICANA MUSIC CONFERENCE, he co-hosted (with HOLLY G, founder of the website BLACK OPRY) a series of guitar pulls for Black artists at a rental house they called the BLACK OPRY HOUSE. The goal was to re-create the conditions that have allowed white country artists to develop, network and flourish, and make them available to everybody else. "I feel very good to say that white people paid me to write about country music," Dowling told Hight. "I then paid for Black people to come down to Nashville and to write songs about country music." Perfect. That other Opry celebrated its 5,000th Saturday night broadcast this weekend. May this have been the first run of many for an Opry upstart.
Etc Etc Etc
KISS's GENE SIMMONS and PAUL STANLEY have been vocal advocates for masks and Covid vaccinations. But did lax enforcement of Covid safety measures on the band's current tour lead to the death of Stanley's longtime guitar tech, FRAN STUEBER, in a hotel room two weeks ago? ETHAN MILLMAN investigates for Rolling Stone (paywall)... JON BON JOVI and BRYAN ADAMS are among a "growing list of vaccinated musicians" who have had to cancel performances after testing positive for Covid-19, the LA Times reports. Both are said to be feeling fine. Adams was forced to pull out of the TINA TURNER tribute at the Rock Hall of Fame induction ceremony.... LIVE NATION selling SWEDISH HOUSE MAFIA ticket stubs as NFTs... Atlanta's hip-hop cat rescuer.
Rest in Peace
BRUCE GASTON, celebrated American composer/performer of Thai classical music... ERIC GREIF, metal lawyer and manager whose clients included Death, Obituary and Massacre.
The mostly white country and folk music industries remain frustratingly difficult for Black musicians to enter. During one of Nashville's biggest events, one group envisioned a new pathway in.
Barack Obama (via video), Paul McCartney and Taylor Swift spoke on behalf of the inductees at a ceremony that also honored Tina Turner, the Go-Go's and Todd Rundgren.
"I hope you die" is a line that Mountain Goats fans have been singing at the band's shows for about 20 years. But suddenly, the song that contains it, "No Children," has turned from a fans-only cult hit to a favorite among millions of new listeners.
Exactly 100 years before Venom's 1982 album "Black Metal" codified the term, the world saw a work similarly infused with perverted religiosity, hatred, mutilation, darkness, extreme ideological stances, blood, racist undercurrents, occultism, revolutionary soundscapes, a yearning for transcendence, and an unyielding aesthetic totality.
As the UN Climate Change Conference - or COP26 if you prefer - kicks off in Glasgow this weekend, the UK live music industry has reaffirmed its aim of reaching net zero emissions across the sector by 2030, while also promoting a number of music-led events taking place around the conference itself.
Noah Shachtman, who cut his teeth as a national security reporter before rising to the top of the Daily Beast masthead, joined Rolling Stone earlier this year as its new editor in chief. The hire has brought renewed attention and buzz to the 54-year-old rock magazine.
A two-hour celebration for the milestone broadcast captured the shifts and strides in country music that played out over the past century on the Opry stage.
Audacy head of programming Jeff Sottolano talks about the switch from country to classic hip-hop in New York and why the chain remains bullish on country radio.
Matt Sorum was sitting poolside with his wife when he got a text from Motörhead's Lemmy Kilmister. Lemmy was asking Sorum to fill in on drums for a run of Motörhead shows. Sorum texted Lemmy back, asking "why me." "And Lemmy wrote back, 'Because Dave Grohl's not available,'" Sorum tells Spin.
Sacha Jenkins is a documentarian, a film producer, and a creative director at Mass Appeal. He joins me on today's show to talk about his most recent documentary titled "Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James" and the steps that he took to get that project off the ground.
During a 1985 Executioner practice, John Tardy stood quietly in the corner of his parents' garage while his bandmates bashed away on "I'm in Pain," a new Trevor Peres composition. (Excerpted from "Turned Inside Out: The Official Story of Obituary.")
Perhaps as a coping mechanism, or as an instinctual aspect of my sensory perception, perhaps in an attempt to insert intellectual distance between myself and my procedures, or because I simply had no choice, I trained myself to turn my dental saga into a cycle of musical encounters, and to revise my role as a patient in the recliner into that of a captive audience.
"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?'"
