| No Ukrainian musician that I know would say that their songs are going to stand up against a nuclear bomb. Nobody's delusional enough to say anything like that. But if we're fighting against what may be an attempted genocide, the entire erasure of Ukraine, then I think keeping this culture in the front of our minds, learning more about it, listening, is essential. |
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 | | Korean girl group 2NE1 (from left: Bom, Minzy, CL, Dara) reunite during CL's set at Coachella, April 16, 2022. | | (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images) | | |
| quote of the day |
| "No Ukrainian musician that I know would say that their songs are going to stand up against a nuclear bomb. Nobody's delusional enough to say anything like that. But if we're fighting against what may be an attempted genocide, the entire erasure of Ukraine, then I think keeping this culture in the front of our minds, learning more about it, listening, is essential." | | - Maria Sonevytsky, ethnomusicologist who has written extensively about Ukrainian music | |
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| rantnrave:// |
Shhhh
A public service announcement from BIG THIEF singer/songwriter/guitarist ADRIANNE LENKER, who wants people to shut up and listen—or at least just shut up—when opening bands are playing: "When you enter into that space," she urged fans in an Instagram video a couple days ago, "try to be mindful of what's happening and pay attention and don't talk." Lenker goes on to say she doesn't mean you can't ever talk to your friends, and you always have options, and she tries out a couple ways of saying what she's trying to say, which in the end is this: "There is a real magic that happens when there is... actual silence."
I've heard opposing arguments on this subject, some pretty convincing (short version: It's the performer's job to get your attention, not yours to simply give it), but none as persuasive as hers, no matter how (charmingly) awkward her delivery. Read (and listen to) the room. Silence, it can be golden.
See Something, Say Something
There are other kinds of rooms where silence is the last thing anyone should consider. I was moved by this short thread from ESPN senior writer TOM JUNOD about BETSY SAILOR and IRV PANKEY, two of the central figures in "Untold," Junod and PAULA LAVIGNE's longform, multiformat story about a predator on the PENN STATE football team in the 1970s. Betsy Sailor was one of the college football star's victims. Irv Pankey was another player on the team. "One night," Junod writes, "there is knock on her door. She opens it, and another football player fills it. 'Hello,' he says. 'My name is Irv Pankey, and I believe everything you say.'"
As he and Lavigne were reporting their story, Junod goes on to write, "many people asked us a question about the coaches, cops and players who learned about [the player/predator/rapist, TODD HODNE] in real-time: 'What would you have had them do?'
"Irv Pankey is our answer."
I thought immediately of DAN CLEARY, who served as an Irv Pankey in EVAN RACHEL WOOD's long-running quest to get justice not just for herself but for the many women who say they were sexually abused and assaulted by MARILYN MANSON. Cleary was an assistant to Manson in the late 2000s, when Manson and Wood were in a relationship that she says included torture and rape. (Manson denies all the allegations raised by her and others, and is suing Wood for defamation.) "Dan stood on my side of the stage while we were on tour," Wood says in AMY BERG's documentary PHOENIX RISING, which premiered on HBO in March. He didn't say anything at the time. No one did. Wood herself wouldn't tell her story and publicly name Manson until many years later. But in 2020, after Wood went public, Cleary stepped forward.
In the documentary, Berg captures Wood reading Cleary's tweets on her phone, and it's a deeply affecting moment. "I worked directly with Marilyn Manson in 2007-2008 for his touring band when Evan Rachel Wood was with him," Wood reads, occasionally breaking into tears. "She was on tour with us the entire time. Over the course of 1 year he turned her into a different person. He broke her."
In his thread, Cleary shared some of the reasons he originally stood by Manson, some of the generosities the provocative rock singer showed him. "But as I see so many people defending him & calling his accusers liars," Clearly wrote, "I've just had enough. Believe them, I saw it."
"God bless you, Dan," says Wood, who has spent much of the documentary up to that point looking for support, for affirmation, for confirmation that she's not crazy.
In the next scene, they meet at a survivor's meeting arranged by Wood, and they hug. It's all but impossible not to cry as you watch. And all but impossible not to ask yourself what if more witnesses and assistants and friends came forward? What if more people spoke up? Like so many films on the same subject, "Phoenix Rising" is explicitly about one particular story but implicitly about other, untold ones. Marilyn Manson has been shunned in some quarters—his label, LOMA VISTA, and longtime manager TONY CIULLA dropped him a year ago—but continues to be embraced in others. He appears on KANYE WEST's DONDA 2 and was nominated with West for a Grammy this year. He could easily go on tour—he last released an album in 2020, during the pandemic—with someone else in Dan Cleary's place. Who else is being embraced and encouraged by handlers and assistants today? Who else isn't speaking up?
There was a "code" among colleagues on tour, Cleary wrote in his 2020 thread. The quotes around code are his. "It's hard to find work in music," he said, "if you can't keep your mouth shut." No one will be surprised to read that. And no one could be blamed for wondering who's keeping their mouth shut right now, and who's being hurt as a result.
Rest in Peace
NICHOLAS ANGELICH, an American classical pianist who lived most of his life in Paris and specialized in the Germanic repertory... Chicago drill rapper JOHNNY MAY CASH, at least the 11th rapper murdered in the US in 2022. His girlfriend was charged with the murder but her lawyer says the rapper was beating her and the shooting was "clearly self-defense."
| | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | |
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 | | feed.fm |
| | Creator economy empowerment and music tech with Molly Neuman | | By Jeff Yasuda and Molly Neuman | | During Molly Neuman's time as president, Songtrust has grown to represent more than 3 million copyrights for more than 350,000 writers in 145 countries. In Episode 10 of Voices Behind the Music, she talks to Jeff Yasuda about music publishing, tech and the creator economy. | | |
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 | | The New York Times |
| | She Taught New York to Sing | | By Alex Traub | | "Throw the note over your shoulder!" Debbie Harry, Kathleen Hanna, Justin Vivian Bond and other singers recall Barbara Gustern, a beloved vocal coach who was killed last month at age 87. | | |
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 | | The Music Business Journal |
| | K-Pop's Dominance in Merch Sales | | By Ingrid Chan | | K-pop garners the bulk of its revenue through the sales of physical albums and other related merchandise, a facet of the South Korean music craze that seems at odds with what is typical of pop artist revenue streams in the West. | | |
 | | Attack Magazine |
| | Six Things I Learned During My Time Building Pulselocker | | By Alvaro G. Velilla | | Pulselocker was a music subscription and storage service created for DJs and electronic music fans. In this op-ed Pulselocker's co-founder, Alvaro G. Velilla, shares an open letter to entrepreneurs in the music and technology space. | | |
 | | iHeartRadio |
| | Questlove Supreme: Elvis Costello Pt.1 | | By Suga Steve and Elvis Costello | | Team Supreme's Suga Steve, a lifelong Elvis Costello fan, sits and talks with Elvis in Electric Lady Studio A. Spurred on by a clearly amused Questlove, this is the deepest dive possible into The Roots and Elvis' "Wise Up Ghost" album and the 50-year career of an enduring music superstar. | | |
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 | | Pitchfork |
| | The Syrian Cassette Archives Explore a Pivotal Era of Middle Eastern Music | | By Peter Holslin | | When Mark Gergis visited Syria for the first time in December 1997, he was drowning in magnetic tape. On the streets of Damascus, the capital, cassette sellers set up carts where they'd crank the volume on their radios to advertise the latest hits from Lebanese pop stars and Western stars like George Michael and Yanni. | | |
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| what we're into |
|  | | Video of the day | | "Cypress Hill: Insane in the Brain" | | Estevan Oriol | | It's 4/21 in the real world but forever 4/20 in Estevan Oriol's documentary, which premiered Wednesday on Showtime. | | |
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| Music | Media | | | | | | Suggest a link  | | "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?'" |
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