Clip: Don't take your guns to town
published: 4/28/99 Thursday, April 29, 1999 Country music's answer to the boy groups changes name! Country music's answer to Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, 5ive and 98 Degrees, Young Guns is changing their name. In light of the tragedy at Littlton High School near Denver the teens have decided to rename themselves. All of the members of Young Guns are teenagers from Alabama, Tennessee and Texas. The shootings deeply affected all of the boys. ``Young Guns was a name we came up with meaning the 'new kids in town' with a country twist. I am sure there is another name that could convey the same message, and we are currently welcoming suggestions from fans through the internet at [EMAIL PROTECTED],'' commented member Cory J. Williams. ``We are also exploring other ways to help the kids there, maybe a concert at the school, when things calm down, to pay tribute to the victims.'' The five boys are preparing for their debut release and promotion of the album with live performances.
Clip: Country Music Hall of Fame
Wednesday April 28, 2:13 pm Eastern Time Company Press Release Council Vote, Approval of Financing Clear Way for Hall of Fame Groundbreaking NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--April 28, 1999--Approval last week by the Metro Council of a $2 million allocation for the new downtown Country Music Hall of Fame has triggered the financing needed to break ground at the new facility. Work on the $37 million project will begin within two weeks, and a formal groundbreaking celebration is being planned for early in the morning on June 17 as part of Fan Fair, Country Music Hall of Fame Director Kyle Young said. The new facility on Demonbreun Street will cover an entire city block catercorner from the Nashville Arena and directly behind a new downtown hotel and a city park. ``The unanimous vote by the Metro Council to allocate $2 million in tourist-related funds over the next four years set in motion all of the things we have been eagerly awaiting,'' Young said. ``It triggered the approval of financing from NationsBank, allowed excavation to begin and let us begin planning a big groundbreaking ceremony as part of Fan Fair Week.'' Young said $12 million had to be raised in order to allow ground to be broken on the site. A total of $10 million in cash and pledges was gathered from private donors before Mayor Phil Bredesen and the Metro Council came up with the Metro share of the project. The Hall of Fame, slated to be completed by May 2001, will be the largest tourist destination built in Nashville since Opryland opened in the 1970s. It is estimated that the new facility will draw at least 550,000 people annually and give a boost to tourism and hotel/motel revenues. ``We are excited about having our formal groundbreaking be part of Fan Fair Week,'' Young said. ``Country music fans from all over the world are a big reason why there is a Country Music Hall of Fame, and they deserve to be part of the ceremony.'' While Young was not ready to unveil all of the details of the Hall of Fame groundbreaking ceremony, he said he expected it to be a fun event honoring living members of the Hall of Fame and showcasing some of the music that has made Nashville and country music popular worldwide. ``We will have some unique features to this event,'' Young said. ``It will not be the run-of-the-mill dip-in-the-shovel and give-a-speech ceremony.'' Contact: Network Ink Public Relations, Nashville Elizabeth Thiels, 615/297-0550, ext. 102 or McNeely, Pigott Fox, Nashville Mike Pigott, 615/259-4000
re: Clip: Don't take your guns to town
I forwarded this to the list: ``Young Guns was a name we came up with meaning the 'new kids in town' Or "New kids on the block," as the case may be. with a country twist. I am sure there is another name that could convey the same message, "The Rentboys?" --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: New York
Jeff Copetas writes: I'd like to add Martin's Folly to the list of New York bands that play around there fairly often: 4/30/99 - Manitoba's And, yes, this is the bar that is owned by Dictators vocalist Handsome Dick Manitoba. Haven't been there yet myself but plan on making the required pilgrimage when we play again in NYC in June. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Clip: Twangcast
From today's Nashville Digest. Congratulations, Mike! Cyber Country Internet 'Station' Redefining Country Broadcasting BY REBEKAH GLEAVES Everybody has an opinion on what s wrong with country radio today. General consensus seems to be that country music has lost its soul that it sold out to slick production and pop music-type marketing. Everybody has an opinion, but only a few are actually producing alternatives. Fortunately, these few include Mike Hays. Hays, born in Pulaski, Tenn., and now living in Lawrence, Va., operates Twangcast, an Internet-based radio "station" which plays assorted country music with a particular emphasis on relatively unknown artists and classic country hits. "There s a whole lot of music going unheard," says Hays. "I have a background in country and commercial radio, and I ve found that a lot of good music can t be played in a commercial setting." So far, listeners seem to be responding to Twangcast in consistently growing numbers. According to Hays, 3,000 listeners tuned in to Twangcast in January. By February, that number had grown to 4,000. March brought 6,000 people tuning in, and Hays is predicting 8,000 people will listen to Twangcast by the end of April. At this rate, Hays says his Internet broadcasting organization is on track to reach 10,000 people by June. However, these numbers can be misleading in, for Hays, a good way. The aforementioned figures represent only those tuning in solely to the full Twangcast site. But people can also elect to have the service playing as background music throughout the day, and these numbers are not being monitored. Listeners seem to be drawn to Twangcast s unusual playlist. Because it is not limited by ratings, Twangcast is able to play music from artists who typically are never heard on country radio, be they emerging upstarts or classic country masters. "It s a crying shame that Mandy Barnett and Heather Mills are not being played on country radio. But country radio has its head so far up its ass that no one is playing those artists," says Hays. Twangcast also regularly features artists like Ferrin Young and Dale Watson, and will venture into commercial country music only far enough to play non-single album cuts from Nashville artists like Alan Jackson, Sarah Evans and Lee Ann Womack. But Hays claims the bulk of the new music he features is made by artists currently based in Austin and songs recorded by traditional country performers. "I can play the people beyond their prime," says Hays. "Those that don t have the tight butts and belly-buttons you need to make it commercially." It seems that no one even misses these entertainers. Boasting a slogan that reads, "We play the best twang Nashville never heard," Hays has plenty to keep himself and his listeners busy. Currently, Twangcast has no advertisers, but Hays says that as the listener numbers increase, advertiser interest is likely to as well. "If the listeners come, the advertisers will follow. We ve had some interest from advertisers already, but we just now have the statistics to show them," says Hays. As the stats rise, certainly advertisers will take notice. And as more country fans denounce the genre in its current state, perhaps country radio will too. Until then, Twangcast can be found at www.twangcast.com.
Blue Chip Radio Report, 04/26/99
THE BLUE CHIP RADIO REPORT Country Music News, Charts, Show Prep, Sales Info April 26, 1999 Bill Miller Editor Publisher The Blue Chip Song of the Week: "Nashville Casualty Life" by Lee Roy Parnell. Writers: Kinky Friedman. Producers: Kacey Jones. Label: Kinkajou Records. Parnell's best-ever vocal, fine guitar licks and a splendid lyric. From the excellent tribute album, "Pearls In The Snow (The Songs of Kinky Friedman)", which jumped 9 slots to # 15 on Gavin's Americana chart this week. BMG picks up distribution tomorrow. Ray Stevens has prostate cancer. The singer/comedian is optimistic about a complete recovery. Doctors feel they caught the cancer in its early stages. His summer series in Nashville, The Ray Stevens Show, has been cancelled as a result of the illness. Blackhawk's Van Stephenson told Country Weekly that his cancer treatments have been successful and that he's healthy again. Cledus T. Judd recently had a procedure to correct a defect in his heart. To celebrate, Cledus plans a parody of Chad Brock's "Ordinary Life" on his next album. The title will be "Coronary Life". George Richey has asked he be dismissed from the lawsuit filed by four of Tammy Wynette's daughters. The widower's logic is that he is not a doctor, so a medical malpractice lawsuit would be misdirected. Jo Dee Messina won Act Of The Year at the Boston Music Awards show last Thursday. Has Barbra Streisand gone country? New hubby James Brolin is said to be an avid country fan and has led Barbra to the light. Here's some inside skinny. You may remember when we reported that Streisand and Vince Gill did a session together a few weeks ago on the west coast. The great one was so pleased with the session that she looked for other country material. The grapevine says Barbra fell in love with a song off an old George Strait album, "We Must Be Loving Right" (written by Clay Blaker Roger Brown), and called Tony Brown to L.A. to produce the tracks last month. Those who have heard the final mix say there's some fine steel guitar mixed in with the orchestra. It's expected to be on her fall album, along with the Vince Gill duet. Welcome to our new subscribers, including Lynn Stewart from WIL/fm in St. Louis; Gary Major, PD at WNAI/am in Louisville KY; Christophe von Goufein from R.P.L. Radio in France; Janet Bozeman with Sony Music; Jeny Duke with The Music City News; and, Freddy Fender. They say her Denver CO fans were shocked to see Faith Hill with long, brown hair and a ponytail a few days ago. Quite a change. Meanwhile, our Tattoo Police report that hubby Tim McGraw is sporting a new tattoo on one of his biceps. It says "Faith". The old standard of 3 single-for-radio releases from an album seems to have fallen by the wayside. These days one can expect four or five releases. For superstars, six releases seems to be the trend. The record companies lead the effort to get more gross dollar return out of each album investment. With the productive life of an artist becoming shorter and shorter, the labels want to squeeze out every dollar of profit before leading the artist to pasture. The upside is that smart producers and artists will be looking for more top-flight songs (read "not co-written by the artist") since they may have to go six deep into an album for releases. The downside is that the not-so-smart producers and artists won't go looking for 6 power songs. The result will be less competitive releases, less chart action, and a quicker contract termination from the label. Dixie Chicks will be doing some of the stops on the Lilith Fair tour this summer. Fund raising problems have slowed plans for the Country Music Hall of Fame's new building in Nashville. Shedaisy is composed of 3 sisters. They have performed in the past as The Osborn Sisters and as The Violets. Travis Tritt expects to be touched by a couple of angels in the coming months. Tritt filmed an episode of the TV show "Touched By An Angel" in Salt Lake City last week. Closer to home, he and Theresa are expecting to paint the baby's room blue before he enters the world in June. David Letterman's stage manager, the legendary Biff Henderson, has been in Nashville taping some stuff for a May episode of Late Night. BR5-49 will be one of the artists featured. In a deft casting move, Jo Dee Messina is scheduled to play a musician on this Friday's (4/30/99) episode of "Nash Bridges" on CBS. By the way, when is someone going to do a radio parody of the show and call it "Nashville Bridges"? Rumor has it that David Ball is about to re-enter our cosmic orb. Garth Brooks has sold 4.4 million copies of "Garth Double Live", according to the New York Daily News. John Michael Montgomery's new album, "Home To You", is due May 25th. It marks the first time that JMM has worked with producer Garth Fundis. Also due May 25th is Mary Chapin Carpenter's next release. "Party Doll and Other Favorites" is
Re: Early Bird Calendar
Carl Wilson writes: RELS: Hattifatteners (Syd Straw and Cat Power's Chan Marshall) I thought the Hattifatteners were a God Is My Co-Pilot sideproject? More to the point, I thought Syd Straw had moved back to Vermont. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Hot Club Of Cowtown
Tom Stoodley writes: So who's going to the Johnny D's show? Anyone want to meet up for supper and get a table? I'll be going, though I'll probably save myself some money and have supper at home. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Neil Peart
Dave Purcell writes:
Yeah, for better or worse, my early Rush thang got me to read
some stuff I probably otherwise wouldn't have. Not that I understood
much of it, but
Yup. I, too, place my high school/college-era interest in Rand's
stuff squarely on Peart's shoulders. She doesn't cast nearly as long a
shadow on me at 35 as she did when I was 22, but the influence still pops
up here and there. It'd be interesting to figure out what percentage of
younger fans (say, under 40) of her stuff would have ever heard of her if
it hadn't been for "2112."
I stopped buying records after Grace Under Pressure. Though, a
friend made me a tape of Roll The Bones ("no synths!") which I
liked well enough. My fave stuff is the Permanent Waves-Moving
Pictures-Signals trio, it's been downhill since then.
I made it as far as "Roll the Bones" before I gave 'em up for dead.
I just got sick of straining myself trying to hear the guitars.
--Jon Johnson
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: great Kempner quote
William F. Silvers writes: Great quote Dave. This reminds me, has any of that Little Kings stuff ever been made available for public consumption? I believe that two Little Kings songs ended up on a collection of Dion's post-Belmonts material that was released (on Sony?) a few years back, but never heard them. Is the band even together anymore, or are the Dictators Kempner's sole focus at the moment? --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Solos Instruments
Stuart writes: I always liked that first Argent album, that was more Zombies and less bombastic 70s rock band. My vinyl of it is shot. Did Koch reissue this one by any chance? Good question. And you're right - it *is* a real good album. I probably have something like six Argent albums (due to my love of the Zombies) and that's the only one I think I've listened to more than once. Also sorely underrated: Colin Blunstone's first solo album, "One Year." --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Clip: Buck Owens
Buck Owens rescues beloved sign Copyright © 1999 Nando Media Copyright © 1999 Associated Press BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (April 22, 1999 2:41 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - A condemned, 40-ton sign that once welcomed people to Bakersfield has been rescued by country music singer Buck Owens. The rusty 50-foot-long sign used to serve as a pedestrian bridge for guests of the old Bakersfield Inn beginning in 1949. However, time and earthquakes took their toll and no one came forward to retrofit it. But Owens said Wednesday he would put up the $175,000 cost of moving any of the salvageable letters and reconstruct the sign in front of his Crystal Palace Western museum and nightclub. "Each time I would come back to Bakersfield I would always see the famous sign," Owens said. "It had great warmth to it. It became an old friend." Owens hopes to have the new sign ready by the Fourth of July.
Clip: Ray Stevens/prostate cancer
Friday April 23, 12:28 pm Eastern Time Company Press Release Illness to Remove Grammy Winner Ray Stevens Temporarily from Performances NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--April 23, 1999--Grammy winner Ray Stevens has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and will undergo treatment as recommended by his doctors. Stevens debuted The Ray Stevens Show in the Roy Acuff Theatre at Opryland during November and December 1998. ``Our first priority is obviously Ray's health and well-being,'' said Jim Ditenhafer, vice president of operations of the Grand Ole Opry Group. ``We know Ray's fans will be disappointed that he won't be able to open the show on May 27 as planned. We are reviewing our options for a replacement show during his absence. We will make a determination at a later date as to whether he will be back this fall or during the holidays.'' ``Ray has been one of the most influential forces in music and video history during his 35-year career and while this situation will remove him temporarily from the limelight, we're sure he'll be back at the Acuff Theatre as soon as his doctor allows,'' said Ditenhafer. ``This diagnosis has come as a big surprise but I have complete confidence in my physician's ability to help me fight this disease,'' said Stevens. ``During this time of discovery, I've learned my cancer is in the early stages. I encourage every man over 50 years of age to get out and have a PSA test, which detects this disease. Prostate cancer is the most common, most curable form of cancer in men and my prognosis for recovery is excellent. I look forward to getting back to the music as soon as I possibly can.'' All individuals and groups who have already purchased tickets will be contacted directly. While the summer shows featuring Ray Stevens will not take place, a replacement show is under consideration. Plans are underway for the fall and holiday shows featuring Stevens at the Acuff Theatre. Anyone with immediate questions about The Ray Stevens Show at Opryland, including refunds, scheduling or securing replacement tickets for another show, should call 615/889-3060 for individual tickets or for group sales call 615/871-5993.
Clip: June Carter Cash
June in bloom (pub. date: April 25, 1999, The Tennessean) By Jay Orr staff, The Tennessean Carter Family legacy lives in 'Press On' As they prepared to retreat to Jamaica last fall after the family's Thanksgiving celebration, Johnny Cash urged his wife, June Carter Cash, to consider delaying the trip so she could finish recording a new album. The Cashes had a lot on their minds. Johnny had been off the road for just over a year, sidelined by Shy-Drager syndrome, a degenerative nerve disorder. Six months earlier, June had lost her sister and long-time performing partner, Helen Carter, and her younger sister, Anita, had been in ill health. But the album, June's second solo effort, had become a priority for the couple. "This is something I've wanted for so many years, for her to have her own record," Johnny Cash said during a recent interview. "John insisted that I make this record," June concurs, speaking during an interview at the Cashes' home on Old Hickory Lake. Last Tuesday, Hollywood-based Small Hairy Dog Records, in conjunction with Risk Records, released Press On, an acoustic collection that loosely chronicles June's musical legacy. The album begins with the Carter Family classic, Diamonds in the Rough. Played by June on autoharp, with guitar accompaniment and vocal harmony from Marty Stuart, the song includes the line which gave rise to the album title: "No more gems be gathered/So let us all press on." Along the way, there are other Carter Family songs (Meeting in the Air and Will the Circle Be Unbroken); a new rendition of Ring of Fire, the Johnny Cash classic co-written by June and Merle Kilgore; a duet with Cash on Terry Smith's Far Side Banks of Jordan; the semi-autobiographical original, I Used To Be Somebody; and Tiffany Anastasia Lowe, a hilarious tune about June's granddaughter with the cautionary line, "So Tiffany run and find an earthquake, girl, go jump in a crack/Just don't let Quentin Tarantino find out where you're at/'Cause Quentin Tarantino makes the strangest movies that I've ever seen." The new record had its start three years ago, at the House of Blues in Los Angeles, when June joined Johnny in a performance to preview John's Grammy-winning 1996 release, Unchained. Vicky Hamilton, a friend of Rick Rubin, Cash's producer, was impressed by June's performance. Rubin hooked them up and Hamilton set in motion the early plans for recording Press On. The Cashes' son, John Carter Cash, co-produced the album along with J.J. Blair. The recording was done in a cabin on the Cash property, converted for use as a studio. "He just really has an ear for everything, hears everything, and as a producer he's fantastic," says John Carter's proud mama. For musical support, June enlisted two former sons-in-law, Rodney Crowell and Marty Stuart, as well as acoustic guitar ace Norman Blake, daughter Rosie Carter, bassist Dave Roe, drummer Rick Lanow and mandolinist Hazel Johnson. "When June first called me about it, I thought it was the coolest idea I'd ever heard," says Stuart, who once was married to Cash's daughter, Cindy. "She wanted me and Rodney Crowell [ex-husband of Rosanne Cash] and Nick Lowe [ex-husband of Carlene Carter] to help me do it, and she wanted to call the album June Carter and Her Ex-Sons-in-Law." Lowe couldn't make it, but Stuart and Crowell played key roles. "The minute I heard her sing the old Carter song, Little Moses [which is not on the record], I thought, this is totally millennium-based, cosmic Carter Family music," Stuart recalls. "June naturally brings a cosmic edge to everything." "It is not an ordinary country record. We both know it's not," says June, who'll turn 70 in June. "I wouldn't have cut one. I've been in country music so long, and how can you be any purer than pure if your name is Carter? How can you get away from being a Carter? There's a part of you that's gonna come through. How do you keep from doing it? It's what you're born to do." June, of course, is the daughter of Maybelle Carter, who performed with her brother-in-law, A.P. Carter, and his wife, (Maybelle's cousin) Sara Carter, as pioneer country group the Carter Family. June and her sisters began performing with the Carter Family in the late '30s, singing on border radio stations in Mexico. By 1947, Mother Maybelle the Carter Sisters had become stars in Richmond, Va., and in 1950 they joined the cast of the Grand Ole Opry. In the late '50s they shared bills with Elvis Presley, and June went to New York to study acting with Elia Kazan at the Neighborhood Playhouse (she makes reference to those days in the song I Used To Be Somebody). A photo from that period is included in the CD booklet, showing June as a beautiful, aspiring starlet. By 1961 June was traveling with The Johnny Cash Show, and in 1963 she penned Ring of Fire, inspired by her growing attraction to the headliner, though both she and Cash were married to other people at the time. "I'm
Re: Argent
Jerry Curry writes: Well, I took some time digging through the KOCH WWW site and their catalogs this morning. I couldn't find the Argent album I have let alone another record. Hmm...their address is: www.kochint.com So, I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'm betting only _All Togehter Now_ has been reissued. Might have to check out Argent's and Blunstone's first solo albums if they are akin to their ealrier Zombies material. Did anyone pick up that Zombies box set that came out late last year? I've only heard good things about it. Yeah, it's superb; excellent packaging, a whole bunch of rarities, unreleased songs, demos, a whole disc of BBC sessions, etc., great sound quality, and the whole nine yards. The first Argent album is pretty similar in mindset to the Zombies. Blunstone's "One Year" even more so in some respects since Argent is the backing band on a few songs. "One Year" is a pretty short album, but it's a near-masterpiece in my book, with some of the best singing and writing of the man's career. There's a nice collection of Sony called "Some Years" that collects material from Blunstone's first three solo albums, including most of "One Year." --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Tom Waits in LA Weekly
It's a bit long to post here, but there's a nice piece on Tom Waits that can be found in this week's "LA Weekly" at http://www.laweekly.com/ink/99/22/music-lloyd.shtml. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Clip: Scott Hendricks post-G*rth
http://www.nashscene.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?browser=netscaperequest=Thi s_Week:Music:Industry The Virgin King Scott Hendricks talks about life after Garth By Beverly Keel On a rainy Wednesday morning, a relaxed, denim-clad Scott Hendricks eases into his morning of interviews and phone calls. To call the president of Virgin Records Nashville press-shy might be an understatement--he has yet to meet a reporter he wouldn't rather avoid. Even so, he has agreed to meet with the press to discuss the debut album by Julie Reeves--which is also the 8-month-old label's first musical release. Now settled into his new post, Hendricks is enjoying the calm after the storm of Hurricane Garth, which blew him out of his position as president of Capitol Nashville Records, sister label to Virgin under the EMI umbrella. The two men's working relationship started off bumpy in 1995, and it went downhill from there. Brooks blamed Hendricks for what he considered to be lackluster sales of the 4 million-selling Fresh Horses album. Then, when the time came for Brooks to release Sevens, he refused to turn in the project until his hand-picked management team was in place. In a startling power play, Hendricks was replaced in November 1997 by then-executive vice president/general manager Pat Quigley. Overnight, Hendricks became the martyr of Music Row--a sacrifice to the cold corporate forces of the music biz. Now, more than a year later, Hendricks is ready to move forward, yet he speaks candidly about the past. "[EMI Recorded Music Chairman] Ken Berry believed in me and what we were doing at Capitol and didn't want to cut that off," the 42-year-old Hendricks says. "He wanted that to continue, and since Garth got the label he wanted, it gave us the opportunity to start Virgin. And basically [my] philosophy here is no different than what I had when I was at Capitol: If you get the right music out there, you will have a successful label." As proof, he points to the successes he had at Capitol with Deana Carter and Trace Adkins. After his ouster, Hendricks received several offers from labels and even considered returning to independent production, but he ultimately decided to remain with the company that, to all appearances, had unceremoniously dumped him. "I never for a second felt betrayed by Ken Berry," he says. "He could not have been more supportive. "You have to put yourself in Ken Berry's shoes, and I tried to do that. You have to look at it from a lot of different levels. A decision had to be made, and I was part of that decision in a roundabout way. This wasn't [a situation where] I got the call one day saying, `You are out.' " One of the main reasons Hendricks remained with EMI was his loyalty to the Capitol staffers who had also been dismissed--Doug Baker, Mark Brown, Donna Duarte, Susan Levy, and Lorie Lytle. Their livelihoods were in his hands, as were the fates of Julie Reeves and River Road, acts he had signed at Capitol but not yet released. During the nine months he spent deciding his next move, Hendricks' dismissal became the hot topic on Music Row. Amidst all the talk, he admits it was difficult to remain silent. "It was hard not to defend myself--it's hard now--but I don't want to get down on that level. Naively or not, I believe the truth will prevail." Scott Hendricks Ironically, Hendricks had every reason to think that he and Brooks might get along. "I mistakenly believed that there was something common there because we grew up 50 miles from each other," he remembers. "We used to play each other's high school in sports, and we went to the same agricultural college. "My first meeting with Garth, I said, `I'll never lie to you or kick you under the table. I want to be able to have the kind of relationship where we can be truthful with each other.' I found he didn't like for me to be truthful." Brooks also didn't like taking any share of the blame when it came to figuring out why he'd failed to reach his sales goals for Fresh Horses. "There was a lot of hoopla about Garth and the marketing plan, but the reality is, he signed that marketing plan. He agreed with it wholeheartedly, and we executed it to a tee." Even though Hendricks' tenure at Capitol will always be marked by his rift with Garth Brooks, he helped to turn the label around at a crucial point. When he arrived, new acts and song pluggers were bypassing Capitol because they figured they'd just be ignored, overshadowed by Brooks. "We finally got the boat going in the right direction," Hendricks recalls, "and all of a sudden we had more than one artist on that label." In the months since his departure, Hendricks has had to watch Adkins' and Carter's careers lose steady momentum. (The two could possibly change over to Virgin if they so chose.) He's also remained quiet in the face of criticism from Quigley, who has suggested that Tanya Tucker, John Berry, Suzy Bogguss, and Billy Dean were all poorly treated at Capitol under
Clip: Steve taylor (no twang, but interesting industry stuff nonetheless)
http://www.nashscene.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?browser=netscaperequest=Thi s_Week:Cover_Story Would You Trust This Man With a Record Company? Christian music iconoclast Steve Taylor finds unexpected mainstream success By Rob Simbeck, photos by Ben Pearson Steve Taylor may not be the last person you'd expect the Gaylord Corporation to entrust with millions of dollars, but he'd have to be pretty far down the list. True, he has long been a highly visible part of Christian music. But in an industry concerned with projecting a positive, upright image, he has been anything but orthodox. A left-of-center singer, producer, and filmmaker and an unapologetic fan of The Clash and David Bowie, he has made a lot of people nervous. Over the course of his long and fertile recording career, he has displayed a wicked satirical streak, skewering the pomposity, smugness, and self-righteousness of Christians and non-Christians alike. In fact, his over-the-top rock 'n' roll stage theatrics and his iconoclastic lyrics once earned the enmity of famed televangelist Jimmy Swaggart. Taylor helped modernize Christian music, transforming it from an often lame, Sunday school version of pop radio to a genre that can hold its own with the best of secular music. Along the way, though, he found himself bound alternately by the expectations of the Christian marketplace and by the cold, hard politics of the record business. With a deep understanding of just how hard it is for a musician to succeed, he decided three years ago to form his own record company--a company where he could do things differently. Squint Entertainment is his ultimate act of rebellion, the hacksaw with which he aims to cut through corporate shackles. The fact that he's operating under the umbrella of the Gaylord Corporation, a company not often identified with innovation, is intriguing, to say the least. If his enterprise works, it could help change the way Nashville makes music. And so far, it's working pretty well, thank you. "I would have to say honestly that picturing him as a label executive was not within my realm of capability," says Neal Joseph, former head of Warner Alliance, the label that released Taylor's last solo record. "[It's not strange] that someone would give him the opportunity, but that he would take it. By its nature, heading a label has some corporate structure to it, and Steve is not one who likes to function within a corporate structure." Yet here he is, with a desk in a nice fifth-floor office overlooking West End Avenue. Of late, things at Squint have been going swimmingly: The label has scored that rarest of coups--a hit pop single from Nashville, by Sixpence None the Richer. The group's single "Kiss Me" is now sitting in the Top 5 of Billboard's Pop Singles Chart, while its eponymously titled album has shipped 400,000 units. The video for "Kiss Me"--shot by Taylor for $50,000, a mere fraction of a normal rock video budget--has received significant airplay on VH1. And that's only one of Taylor's successes: The Insyders' Squint LP Skaleluia is the only record ever to hit No. 1 on both Soundscan's Rock/Alternative chart and its Praise and Worship chart. Burlap to Cashmere, another Squint group, peaked at No. 10 on the Soundscan Christian music sales chart. Both groups' albums have sold nearly 100,000 copies. His next big project is Chevelle, a Detroit rock trio inspired by such heavy alternarock bands as Tool and Nirvana. The group is being produced by Steve Albini, an underground rock musician who has found major-league success as producer for Page and Plant, Bush, Nirvana, and PJ Harvey. What makes Taylor such an interesting figure isn't his surprising success--it's his wariness of the very music industry he's working in. "The modern recording contract has become like the tax code," he says firmly. "I think it should be thrown out and started over from scratch. It can't be fixed." Taylor has long been troubled by the business side of music, so he has decided to lead by example, dealing fairly and honestly with the musicians on Squint's roster. Sixpence None the Richer is a perfect example: The group's album, which is doing so remarkably well, was released in November 1997--a full year-and-a-half ago. Most other labels would have long ago lost interest in such a project, preferring to write off their losses and move on in search of the next big thing. But since Taylor is himself an artist, he follows a different set of guidelines. For starters, he says, "I want to sign people I like and trust. If I don't like hanging out with them, this is not going to be fun in five years." His other prerequisite is contractual fairness, something that falls squarely on his shoulders. "I don't want a scenario where you spend all this time developing trust, and then when it's time to make a deal, you turn it over to the lawyers to fight it out. Modern record deals have become an exercise in bad faith. I don't believe in taking advantage
Clip: Johnny Cash
Tuesday April 20 3:54 PM ET Johnny Cash Gets Spiritual BURLINGTON, N.J. (AP) - Johnny Cash has recorded more than 400 of his favorite Scriptures for a soon-to-be-released line of electronic Bibles. Cash will narrate the desktop version of Franklin Electronics' King James Bible due out in July. He has been a spokesman for the Burlington, N.J.-based company for six years. ``I am honored to lend my voice and share my favorite, hand-picked passages from the Scriptures with other daily devotionalists,'' Cash said in a statement. Cash, 67, has been sidelined in recent months with a rare neurological disorder, Shy-Drager Syndrome, which causes progressive damage to the nervous system. His voice, however, is still strong.
Clip: Kelly Willis
Country flame After 10 years, Kelly Willis gets what she deserves By Donna Freydkin CNN Interactive Contributing Music Writer (CNN) -- Given country singer Kelly Willis' less-than-easy sojourn in the music business, she's probably earned a certain amount of bitterness. In less than a decade, the gifted vocalist has been given the proverbial boot by her first label, MCA Nashville; lost her second recording deal; and in the last five years has had to content herself with only one promotional EP to her name. But after years of such travail, Willis has released "What I Deserve," her critically lauded labor of love. The title might seem to be a statement of Willis' vindication. But this amazingly tranquil artist swears she's not bitter. She says she's just delighted and relieved that she's had the chance to release the record she's been hearing in her head for most of her adult life. "A lot of it was backbreaking, hard and discouraging, to where I thought maybe I wasn't cut out for this thing, maybe it's just too hard for me," says Willis. "But I thought, I have to make this record for my own personal wellbeing. Once I make this record, I can quit if I choose." For Willis, the album is a triumph, proof that she has what it takes to make it in country music -- while holding onto her artistic integrity. "What I Deserve" is moody, quiet, pensive -- more alt-country than much of what's coming out of Nashville. With her throaty voice and introspective lyrics, Willis most resembles a country version of Sarah McLachlan. The album, released on independent label Rykodisc in February, is already outselling her first three albums for MCA Nashville, released in the early 1990s. "This album is a soul-searching, self-redemption album that figures out where you're going and what you want to do with your life," says Willis. No hard feelings The Oklahoma native started out fronting a rockabilly band, Kelly and the Fireballs, at age 16. In the late '80s, Willis moved to Austin, Texas, where the band attracted the attention of country singer Nanci Griffith, who caught a performance and immediately alerted MCA. So at 19, the promising Willis got a deal with the same label that was home to Griffith, Lyle Lovett and Steve Earle. A few months later, she started working on her debut album, "Well Traveled Love." And that's when the problems started. In the early 1990s, the label wanted a cute country crooner, a photogenic media star, but Willis says she was just a timid, naïve, introverted kid who wanted to make music. After releasing three albums, which collectively sold fewer than 100,000 copies and registered only with critics -- MCA dropped her. "I was young and my music sounded young, but the sound wasn't right for the time," recalls Willis. "And I was a really awkward, shy person and was not capable of being the kind of performer they really wanted. And there were other creative differences as well. I wanted to take a little time, do some different songs, and be a little more creative with it -- and that got nixed pretty early on in the recording process. "I don't feel bad about it," she says, now 10 years wiser. "I was young and inexperienced. With the experience I have now, I would have said, 'Screw you, I'm going to take more time and do what I want.' Back then, I was really intimidated by the whole thing." Willis decided to reinvent herself, and focused on writing her music. After signing with AM in 1996, she released "Fading Fast," a four-song promotional EP which featured collaborations with alt-country performers Louris, Son Volt and 16 Horsepower. But again, Willis had the rug pulled out from under her when she lost the deal with AM in 1997. Willis says she talked to a number of labels, but most of them weren't sure what she'd sound like and didn't want to take a chance on her. So she struck out on her own, making a record and shopping the finished product around to various labels. Rykodisc released her album intact. "That was my dream -- there was no conflict or controversy. Everyone was happy with what was happening and that was ideal," Willis says. So far, the response has been staggeringly positive, earning Willis ink in Time, Spin and Rolling Stone. She says she's more surprised than anyone. "I didn't think about what people's reactions would be," she says. "In a small part of my mind, I did. But mostly, I was just desperate to get the record made. I never thought what would happen beyond that. I just knew I would move forward after it." The recognition couldn't have come at a better time for Willis, who says she was ready to abandon her lifelong dream of making music her way for a safer and steadier day job. Sweet victory A decade after being dropped by MCA Nashville, a jubilant Willis is in Atlanta, following a triumphant performance at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry the night before. Before a packed crowd, which included many members of her old MCA family, Willis says she exonerated
Re: Beale Street Music Festival-May 7-9 (Big Star, etc)
Lance Davis writes: For those of you relatively close to Memphis this May, keep in mind that Big Star will be playing a very rare show at the aforementioned festival on Friday. Unfortunately, detail on bandmates is unknown at this time, but as long as Jody Stephens shows up, a splendid time is guaranteed for all. Word on the Posies list last week was that both Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer will be holding down their usual posts in the group; Ken on bass and vocals and Jon on guitar and vocals. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Clip: Johnny Cash
Dave Purcell writes: From Matthew 21:2 -- "Hello, I'm Jesus Christ." Sorry, couldn't resist. Don't apologize, Dave--I almost used that as my subject line! --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Tom Petty's roots are showing (real twangy)
John Friedman writes: Molly Hatchet also hails from FLA. BTW, they toured several years ago w/Danny Jo Brown at the helm. It was him, a bass player, ONE freakin' guitar player and a drummer. *One* guitar player?!?!?! Hell, John, why don't you just tell us they were recruiting for the Socialist Worker's Party while you're at it? --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Blue Chip Radio Report, 04/19/99
THE BLUE CHIP RADIO REPORT Country Music News, Charts, Show Prep, Sales Info April 19, 1999 Bill Miller Editor Publisher The Blue Chip Song of the Week: "Bang Bang Bang" by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Writers: Al Anderson and Craig Wiseman. Producers: Josh Leo. Label: Dreamworks. CDX: volume 209. Our first two-time pick as The Blue Chip Song Of The Week. Last year we chose this song and the record label promptly folded, but Dreamworks wisely picked up the album and re-released this single. Hey, "Bang Bang Bang" is a lot of fun- and radio should be fun. Tammy Wynette's body was exhumed Wednesday (4/14/99) and an autopsy was performed. Wynette's widower, George Richey, requested the autopsy after a $ 50 million wrongful death lawsuit was filed by 3 of her daughters (a 4th daughter joined the lawsuit this past week). Results of the autopsy are expected in four to six weeks, according to Nashville Medical Examiner Dr. Bruce Levy. Mindy McCready may not have had a big hit in awhile, but her ability to grab headlines is second only to Garth Brooks. The gal who was engaged to Superman, and then engaged the attention of at least one pro hockey player, is now charming an an oil prince. According to Brad Schmitt at The (Nashville) Tennessean, Mindy's stud muffin du jour is Saudi Arabian prince Khaled Al Fahd. Khaled is the 23-year-old eldest son of one of the world's richest families. Trisha Yearwood's singing talent continues to grow. On TNT's "An All-Star Tribute To Johnny Cash" Sunday, she sang Kris Kristofferson's "Sunday Morning Coming Down" like she had just discovered the song. Although it's hard to imagine her having a beer for breakfast and liking it so much that she had another one for dessert, Trisha did a killer rendition of the song. By the way, Johnny Cash is feeling so good that he went back into the studio last week. The Man In Black is getting excited about a doing a new album. Expect more rear-end collisions on Music Row in the near future. Vince Gill's Volvo was involved in a 3-car accident on West End Avenue just off the row a few days ago. Reports say that Vince was stopped for a red light when he was rammed from behind and pushed into the car in ahead of him. After the usual swap of driver's license and insurance company numbers, the guy who rammed Vince gave him the old by-the-way-I'm-a-songwriter and slipped him a demo tape. They say that Vince graciously accepted it. Vince will skip the Academy of Country Music awards show on May 5th. He has multiple nominations, but that's the day of daughter Jennifer's birthdate. Daddy has promised daughter the evening, according to Associated Press. Fan Fair ticket sales are sluggish for the 2nd year in a row. In an effort to move them faster, Ticketmaster has been added as an outlet for the June 14-19 event. Your listeners may also call 615.255.9600 for tickets. Mark Wills was watching "Maury" on TV the other day. The theme was "Beautiful Girls With Ugly Scars". One young girl, badly scarred from a fire, told her story and then broke into the Wills' hit "Don't Laugh At Me". Wills was so moved that he called the producer. He's now booked to appear on a followup show next month with the girl. Welcome to our new subscribers, including Mike Forrest from 101.9 The Twister in Oklahoma City OK; Gary Murdock, PD/MD at Kix 96 in Florence/Muscle Shoals AL; Greg Dorschel with Collins Music; Pontus Lindroth with Radio Viking 101.4 in Svartsjo, Sweden; Ed Cohen with Clear Channel Communications; and, Ted Stecker. Johnny Paycheck is hoping to leave an Atlanta hospital after a nearly six-month stay. Paycheck told WSM Radio in Nashville that he hopes to be released within the next couple of weeks. Shania Twain is scheduled to be the cover girl on the June issue of Glamour magazine. She has already appeared on the covers of Cosmopolitan and Rolling Stone. Shedaisy is composed of 3 sisters: Kristyn Osborn, Kassidy Osburn and Kelsi Osborn. They hail from Magna, Utah. Who has the largest fan club in country music? Alan Jackson holds that honor among no-fee clubs with 125,000 members. Among the fee-based clubs, George Strait leads with 75,000 members. Faith Hill says she started her Family Literacy Project because her father never learned to read. To aid the project, she's collecting donations of books at each of her concerts. In a recent interview, Faith also disclosed that having children released some of the stress of her career. She said that having her two daughters made her realize that her career wasn't the most important thing in her life. Have you ever seen the Roy Minnie statue at The Ryman Auditorium? The single, white female who posed as Minnie Pearl was Chely Wright. Billy Ray Cyrus has recorded the Scooby-Doo theme song for an episode of the cartoon. A new Townes Van Zandt album is set for release on June 29th. "A Far Cry From Dead" will be a 13-cut collection on the Arista Austin label. Van Zandt left behind the
Clip: The Grand Wizard of Wrestling died for your sins
From TV Guide: Wrestling Heading to TNN? Friday, April 16, 1999 Is The Nashville Network ready to add a wrestling show to its schedule, or is the speculation just a bunch of pro-wrestling hokum? Rumors have been flying among wrestling fans that the country-oriented cable channel is preparing to launch its own wrestling show this fall to cash in on the kind of success currently enjoyed by competing networks USA and TNT. The National Wrestling Alliance and Extreme Championship Wrestling, two upstart wrestling organizations that currently buy airtime on local TV stations around the country, are said to be vying for a TNN network deal. "The reality is that it appears wrestling will show up there in one form or another, and my hope is that it shows up with a name-brand identification and with our potential involvement," says NWA's Bill Behrens. "There is a contract, there is a commitment, but it isn't going to start until it does. Obviously, there are certain financial timetables that need to be met." So, does this mean that Shania Twain might soon be sharing airtime with muscled strongmen on TNN? It wouldn't come as too much of a surprise, considering the network recently added a Roller Jam roller-derby show to its schedule. Then again, it didn't sound very promising when we asked a TNN spokesman about the wrestling rumors: "We have no clue where the rumor started. There is no truth to the rumor." Rich Brown
Clip: Help me, Merle
From today's Boston Globe: MUSIC Merle Haggard still calls the tune The country legend pulls no punches By Steve Morse, Globe Staff, 04/16/99 When Merle Haggard released ''Okie from Muskogee'' 30 years ago, the song made him a right-wing hero. Issued at the height of the Vietnam War protests, it won him praise from conservatives for the line ''We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee/We don't take our trips on LSD.'' Haggard always said the hoopla was overplayed, claiming he intended the song as a kind of jest. And, today, this country legend cum rugged individualist says that conservatives - especially the anti-marijuana forces - have gone too far. ''America has sure gone to some sort of a police state in the last 10 years,'' says Haggard, who is at the Flynn Theatre in Burlington, Vt., tomorrow and Lowell Memorial Auditorium on Sunday. He hasn't played in New England since 1990, mainly because the region used to serve as a connecting stop for his tours of Canada, which he has cut out temporarily. He says he's sick of the US ''zero tolerance'' laws, which make reentering the States an indignity. ''If they find a seed of marijuana in your car or bus, they'll run it all over the news,'' says Haggard, speaking from his home in northern California. ''I've got 30 people working for me. There is liable to be a seed of marijuana, so it makes it very uninviting to go into Canada, knowing that the United States is going to harass you coming back. ''They snatched some buses from people I won't name, and buses are not cheap,'' he adds, referring to the US customs officials. ''It costs us seven or eight years of our lives to pay for these buses, and they just take 'em. Like I say, you can't personally shake people down that work for you. I'm not going to do that. You don't know who's doing what and who isn't, but [the police] come on and this `zero tolerance' thing they've got going is really amazing. They've got private enterprise building prisons now. It's scary. It's overkill.'' Maybe Haggard could do a solo acoustic ''unplugged'' tour instead. ''That's not a bad idea. Yeah, they won't have nothin' to search,'' snaps Haggard, a grizzled 61-year-old (alias ''The Hag'') who is loaded with strong opinions and enjoys being cast as a proverbial outsider. Take his feelings toward the Nashville establishment: Been there, done that. To put it mildly. ''I moved to Nashville for two years - in 1976 and '77 - and my record sales went down to about half what they had been,'' says Haggard, who emerged from the same Bakersfield, Calif., scene that spawned Buck Owens. ''So I got the hell out of there and my record sales went right back up. It was like living in the middle of a carnival. Hey, I don't mind coming to work and running the Ferris wheel once in a while, but I don't want to live right there. That's kind of the way it is down there. Your work becomes your entirety. I've never given my full entire self to this business. I give about half my time. And I'm not going to give any more than that.'' No wonder the Hag is branded a classic loner - an image the public has embraced during a career that has seen an astonishing 63 of his songs in the Top Ten of the country charts. Among his signature, baritone-rich tunes: ''Mama Tried,'' ''Workin' Man Blues,'' ''Sing Me Back Home,'' ''Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down,'' and ''Today I Started Loving You Again.'' ''I'll tell you what the public likes more than anything. It's the most rare commodity in the world - honesty. You just have to be honest with them and say, `Hey, I don't want to live in Nashville.' It's a nice city and has paid tribute to me and I owe it a lot. But I don't want to live there ... I want to make my music on the West Coast.'' Haggard is almost a Paul Bunyan figure in country lore. He was born in Bakersfield and lived in a boxcar where his father, a railroad worker, resided. His father died when Haggard was 9, starting a downhill spiral that led to a crime-dotted youth, including a three-year stint in San Quentin for armed robbery. He was released in the early '60s and was given a full pardon by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1972. Haggard has been on the road for 38 years with his band, the Strangers, of which only three early members are left: Don Martin, horn, steel player and band leader, Norman Hamlett; and harmony singer, Bonnie Owens. ''All the rest of the band is new,'' he says, ''and everybody's younger than me, but that wouldn't be saying much.'' Haggard has fought many battles in his life, but one that stands out is his fight to use the Strangers in the studio. He stuck with them even though the Nashville way was to make solo acts use so-called ''A team'' studio players to get a homogenized sound suitable for radio. ''If there's an Elvis Presley out there today, we wouldn't even know it. He wouldn't get a chance to use his own band. They'd run that same damned band in on him,'' he says. Today's new artists are also
Clip: Don't count out Johnny Cash yet
04/15/99- Updated 12:29 PM ET Johnny Cash carries on By Brian Mansfield, Special for USA TODAY Just an hour before he was to sing Folsom Prison Blues at his own tribute concert last week, Johnny Cash wasn't sure he could do it. Johnny and June: Johnny has spent the past 19 months recuperating with support of wife June Carter Cash (By Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY). "It had been 19 months," says the 67-year-old singer, who hadn't performed publicly since being diagnosed with a nervous disorder that has weakened him, destabilized his blood pressure and nearly taken his life. "Even walking down the stairs to go to the stage when I was going on, I had my doubts about myself, if I could pull it off," Cash says, "because Folsom Prison Blues takes a lot of energy. I didn't know if I had that energy or not. "As it turned out, I did. I had more than enough. If they had scheduled more songs for me, I probably would've sung them." Though he appeared grayer and frailer than he did at his last concert, in October 1997, when he nearly fell over while reaching for a pick, the Man in Black's commanding baritone still resonated through New York City's Hammerstein Ballroom. He sang Folsom Prison Blues, then led an all-star chorus that included Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews, the Fugees' Wyclef Jean and Cash's wife, June Carter Cash, through I Walk the Line. TNT taped the concert, which included performances by Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Brooks Dunn, Trisha Yearwood, Chris Isaak and others, for a two-hour special called The All-Star Tribute to Johnny Cash, airing Sunday at 8 p.m. ET/PT. After making his unannounced appearance, Cash says: "I had to go to the dressing room and lay down on June's shoulder. I made it OK; after a few minutes I got back up on my feet and started seeing people and talking to people and everything was all right. "But I had my doubts, because whatever this disease is I've denied that I've even got it it weakens you." In his first interview since being diagnosed with a progressively degenerative condition, Cash says: "I've made it a point to forget the name of the disease and not to give it any space in my life because I just can't do it. I can't think that negatively. I can't believe I'm going to be incapacitated. I won't believe that." Cash has loomed large over America's cultural landscape during his five-decade career, willfully ignoring musical, social and political boundaries. The breadth of his impact is reflected in the stylistic diversity of the TNT special, which includes country (Emmylou Harris), hip-hop (Jean) and rock (Bob Dylan). "I never saw him look so good in my life," Cash says of Dylan's videotaped performance of Cash's 1956 hit Train of Love. "He talked good, he was dressed well, his hair looked good, and he looked like the old Bob Dylan of 30 years ago." Cash also gives high praise to recorded tributes from U2 and Bruce Springsteen. "Bruce Springsteen sang a song of mine called Give My Love to Rose," Cash says. "I sent Bruce a fax and thanked him for bringing that 40-some-year-old song up out of a rut and making it shine." Fellow performers aren't the only ones who've honored Cash during his illness. His Unchained album won the 1997 Grammy for best country album, and he was awarded a lifetime achievement Grammy this year. His 1963 hit Ring of Fire was added to the National Academy of Recording Arts Sciences Grammy Hall of Fame. Several record labels have released compilations and reissues of his music the past two years, with more on the way among them a themed series featuring collections of murder ballads, prison tunes and love songs and an expanded version of his landmark 1968 album, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison. Cash, though, has spent most of the past 19 months recuperating either at his home in Montego Bay, Jamaica, or at his estate north of Nashville. He's been hospitalized several times, once spending 12 days in a coma. Doctors have struggled to find the right medication levels to treat the symptoms of the disorder, called Shy-Drager syndrome. Shy-Drager syndrome is rare but ravaging Shy-Drager syndrome is a rare neurological disorder that affects one out of 10,000 people, mainly between the ages of 50 and 70. It causes progressive failure of the nervous system, including a part that controls key body functions, such as heart rate, blood pressure, sweating, and bowel and bladder control. Its cause is not known, but the symptoms, which are often confused with those of Parkinson's disease, develop as a result of damage to nerve cells in the spinal column. Some people experience mild symptoms for years; others get worse quickly. There is no cure. Treatment focuses on controlling the symptoms. For example, drugs might be given to counter the low blood pressure or movement difficulties. Symptoms of syndrome: Dizziness or fainting spells Lack of sweat, tears or saliva Bowel or bladder problems Blurry or poor eyesight Walking or movement
Re: criminally underappreciated albums of the '90s
Jerry Curry writes: Bill, No more"Can I get a witness?" requests for you. I couldn't disagree with a statement further than the one I snipped below. I find the textured beauty of _Dear 23_ to be so wonderful, that it easily creeps onto a Desert Island short short list. As for _Frosting._, I find the sonic dissonance (along, with the heinous masturbation reference of the title) to be damn near a betrayal of everything I thought the band was about. Gee, Jer, don't hold back your feelings As a longtime Posies fan, my thoughts on the matter: I remember having heard a few tracks from their first album, "Failure," when it first came out and thought it was pleasant enough but wasn't doing cartwheels over it. However, when "Dear 23" came out my head fell off. To this day I regard it as one of the five greatest power pop albums of all time; so lush it sounds like it was recorded on black velvet and chock full of witty lyrics filled with double and triple entendres. I saw that lineup open up for Marshall Crenshaw a few months after the album came out and was really surprised by how much harder they rocked as a live outfit than one would have expected from listening to the record. The difference was really striking. Later on I found out that the group had hired John Leckie as producer of "Dear 23" because he had worked with XTC, which is one of their all-time fave bands, but they were a little miffed that the sound turned out so lush. They were as surprised as anyone that it sounded the way it did. There are supposedly pre-production demos of the "Dear 23" songs that are closer to what the group sounded like live, though I've never heard any of that stuff. "Frosting On the Beater" disappointed me on quite a few levels when it first came out. It was really far more representative of what they really sounded like than was "Dear 23," but it was missing all but one of the songs that they had recorded for the unreleased *original* "Dear 23" followup, "Eclipse." The failure to include one song, in particular, "This One's Taken," struck me as particularly annoying. To this day I think a lot of those songs were better than what eventually ended up on "Frosting" In short, it wasn't the album that I was expecting, though I've warmed up to it since then. Having said that, "Dream All Day" was a minor radio hit for the group and probably more than half of the group's hardcore fans first heard the group as they sounded on that album. "Frosting..." might have seemed like a betrayal, but trust me: the group never really sounded like that outside of the studio to begin with. Posies fans tend to be divided into the camp that first heard the group around the time of the first two albums and those who first heard the group after that period. "Dear 23" fans rarely revise their opinion of that album and "Frosting..." fans are similarly loyal. Tenuous twang connection: the Posies' Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow can be heard doing a solid Jordanaires imitation on Maria McKee's terrific "Only Once" from her second album. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: The perfect single (was Re: Weller's Prime)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: "You're My Favorite Waste Of Time" is on Marshall Crenshaw's CD "The Nine Volt Years", which is a pretty good collection of outtakes and rarities from the '80's. It's not a crucial buy but it's fun for fans of the man. It's also on MCA's promo-only best-of collection that they released to promote his one-and-only MCA release a few years back. A really nice piece of work, actually, including songs from his various WB releases, "...Waste of Time," his Buddy Holly number from "LaBamba," and a couple of songs from the MCA album. About the only glaring omission is "Maryanne," which was a minor radio hit (around here, anyway) when it came out. It's comparatively rare, though not so rare that I don't see it turn up at least once or twice a year somewhere. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Clip: Jon Randall leaves Asylum
No Asylum For Country Singer Jon Randall - --- (4/12/99, 1 a.m. PDT) - With his first single "Cold Coffee Morning" struggling on the Billboard charts, country singer Jon Randall and his label Asylum Records parted company last week. Randall, an aspiring singer-songwriter, is perhaps best known as singerLorrie Morgan's husband du jour. Morgan and Asylum AR head Susan Nadler are longtime friends and business associates (Nadler managed the singer for several years), but label reps say the split with Randall was amicable, "mutual," and stemmed from differing ideas on the artist's career. Randall's first album was to be titled Cold Coffee Morning after the single--in retrospect, a prophetic title. Randall won't be shopping the project to other labels, as he apparently opted not to buy back his masters. However, he is actively looking for a new label deal. Until last week, "Cold Coffee Morning" was at number 74 on Billboard's Hot Country Singles chart. Without a label's support, it didn't stay there long, and has since dropped off the chart for the April 17 issue. -- Lisa Zhito, Nashville
Re: Radio
Joe Gracey writes: Can it get any worse than this? Every time I think it has hit rock bottom, somebody comes up with a big drill and takes us farther toward Hell. Listen to the latest Firesign Theater album. This is the future of radio, complete with a format change every fifteen minutes. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: This will get my ass to a large venue: Do they do it in COlumbus, let me hear ya!
Matt Benz writes: Just found out the original J. Geils Band is coming to Columbus to play this over-priced shithole called Polaris. One of 15 shows. I will be there, despite Polaris and my sworn oaths. This has been in the rumor mill for a few months around here. There have been at *least* a half-dozen serious attempts to put the band back together in the past ten years. The main problem, as I understand it, has been some lingering hard feelings between Peter Wolf and Seth Justman. Should be a good time. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Fw: Kay Bass Owners
Ran across this on the double bass list. Thought some doghouse players here might find it of some use. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts - Forwarded message -- From: Bob Gollihur [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "Double bass list" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thu, 08 Apr 1999 10:12:50 -0400 Subject: Kay Bass Owners Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Some of you may be aware that Roger Stowers has done significant research into the history of Kay basses, and last year published an article first in Bluegrass Unlimited magazine, and then on his web site at http://www.midplains.net/~rstowers/#M His two+ year project of collecting information on model and serial numbers of Kay basses continues, in anticipation of a follow up article with details and descriptions of at least 21 model types as well as serial numbers with correlations to the year produced. Roger continues to seek owners of Kays, particularly those with original paperwork or documentation that can further establish details of the instruments and their production dates. If you have a Kay or are interested in their history, do visit his page at http://www.midplains.net/~rstowers/#M and register your serial number using the form provided. If you have paperwork or an unusual example, I'm sure he'd like to hear from you directly, at [EMAIL PROTECTED] I'm sure we will all look forward in anticipation of this interesting and valuable information, and I hope that anyone can help his project and subsequent article will contribute their data. thanks, Bob Gollihur eclectic bass - http://www.gollihur.com/bass.html Double Bass LINKS page - http://www.gollihur.com/kkbass/basslink.html
Re: Kay Bass Owners
Jon Weisberger writes: Roger's Kay stuff is dandy. I'm proud to say that I made a modest contribution to his info, in the form of a photo of a previously-undocumented tailpiece decal. Hey, I'll sneak into the history books any way I can... There's a great picture of 70-year-old Jon Weisberger proudly displaying a Kay bass at the bottom of the page. Word on the 2X bass list is that this was just before Jon yelled at a couple of "damn punks to stay out of [his] yard!" Just kidding. The old guy is someone else. I had noticed Jon's photos on the page and, had I not been posting the info to four lists at once, two of which Jon doesn't subscribe to, I would have mentioned it. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Clip: Johnny Paycheck
Paycheck expects to be released May 1 WSM Radio News Grand Ole Opry member Johnny Paycheck is still in the hospital recovering from respiratory problems. The 60-year-old singer is hoping to leave the hospital on May 1, but isn't sure when he'll return to the stage. "I can't tell right yet, but soon, I hope, soon," Paycheck said Wednesday. He spoke publicly for the first time with WSM Radio from his hospital bed in Atlanta. Paycheck has been in the hospital for nearly six months. He says he's tired of being in the hospital. "Yes I am," he said. "I'd like to thank my Grand Ole Opry family, who stuck by me through all this. All my friends, I want to thank them, too. And I especially want to thank my wife, Sharon." Best known for his hit Take This Job and Shove It, Paycheck says he appreciates all the prayers and cards from friends and family.
Clip: MP3 in Nashville
Money for No One, and your Discs for Free MP3 is Quietly Wreaking Havoc on Music Row BY REBEKAH GLEAVES AND SNACKBAR JENKINS Forget Y2K. What Music City needs to lose sleep over is MP3, a digital audio compression technology that allows music to be posted on the Internet and downloaded at near-CD quality for free. Is the gravity of this sinking in? All the music you want for free. Years of fat royalty checks might have left some Nashville songwriters too content to pen sad songs, but that hasnt stopped MP3 from lightening the loads in their wallets. If only the songwriters knew. While Al Gore was busy "inventing" the Internet, actual techies were forcing the medium into uncharted territory. Most likely the veep did not consider the effects of on-line pirating when he made his claims, but, recognized or not, the Internet is full of hackers, each waiting to cash in at Nashville's expense. Huh? What this means is that any 15-year-old with a Dave Matthews Band CD, a PC and a CD burner can perpetrate Internet piracy. In fact, the worst offenders aren't even old enough to vote. After "sex," "MP3" is the most requested term on the Internet, and pop-up ads on the most popular MP3 site offer links for those looking for information on "depression," "acne," and, of course, "barely 18 babes" and "teenage orgies." Gore presumably did not consider that the information superhighway would wind through a pre-pubescent red-light district. But thats another story. For those of you keeping score at home, MP3 (short for MPEG Layer3) is an audio compression algorithm that allows computer users to download free CD-quality songs. It was developed by the Moving Picture Coding Experts Group (MPEG) between 1988 and 1992, so its been around for a while. You do not have to buy it or attach complicated devices to your computer. It is something anyone can download at no charge. One year ago, 40 minutes of music required 400 megs of storage. Now, with MP3, 40 minutes of music can be compressed into 40 megs, depending on the translation. At that point, you burn a CD, clear the memory and start again. Some users with CD burners can fit up to 20 albums worth of material on one recordable disc. Taking Candy From a Baby Picture royalties as the world's largest candy machine. There's a never-ending line waiting to drop a quarter in the machine. But the people in charge took the day off, just in time for a couple of kids to knock the machine over, filling the streets with candy. Anyone with a sweet tooth can fill her arms with free goodies. Do you think shell leave a quarter when she's done? Many of Music Row's inhabitants hope so, but most remain wary. Even Tom Petty gambled on MP3 recently when he posted his new single in the format. Two days and 150,000 downloads later, Petty's single was yanked off the Net. "There's a lot of opportunity with [MP3]," says Mindy White, a marketing consultant with Thunder Call. "It opens up doors for non-traditional promoting and music marketing. But, no matter how badly we want to believe the opposite, the Internet is largely unregulated." This is something many industry types want to change. After significant candy gathering, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and some of the major labels gathered to announce the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI). Their goal was to protect copyrighted material in all existing and emerging audio formats and through all delivery channels. One such effort of SDMI is the incorporation of digital watermarking to prevent second-generation copying of material. "We are looking for ways to watermark music so we can keep track of it to insure that royalties are paid," says Page Kelly, senior director of business and legal affairs for Arista Nashville. "We have not authorized the release of tracks by any of our artists in the MP3 format to any site. The majority of the stuff out there is bootleg, and the artists and the recording companies are not making any money off of it. I don't know if people downloading it will take the place of buying the album. It's still too soon to tell." But is it? An annual survey commissioned by the RIAA reports that music sales in the ages 15-24 demographic, a mainstay in the market, are down about 4 percent since 1996. The report, issued just two weeks ago, speculates that MP3 piracy could be behind the decline. Blame It On Rio Until last year, no one in the industry really worried about MP3. Not until Diamond Multimedia Systems developed a device about the size of a deck of cards (2.4 ounces) called the "Diamond Rio PMP 300." The Rio is a shockproof, walkman-like musical godsend that everyone who reads this will probably rush out to buy. It holds about one hour of music and retails for under $200. The unit plugs into a port on the computer, which then transfers MP3 files into the unit's memory, thus making it portable. There are no moving parts to break and no CDs to skip. The Rio is
Re: Japanese hipsterism....
Neal Weiss writes: Got me thinking, anyone know who the most popular Japanese artist in US history might be? I can't think of anyone beyond Cibo Matto, who, by virtue of being on a major label, might win this pony race. Well, Pink Lady actually had a bona-fide top 40 hit circa 1979 with "Kiss Me In the Dark" (I think that was the name of it). They somehow managed to land a short-lived variety series called "Pink Lady and Jeff" (Jeff Altman spoke English. They didn't.) that was absolutely mind-numbing in its banality, even by the lofty standards of the day. I think I only watched it once; to catch an appearance by Alice Cooper (who showed the video for his foray into new wave, "Clones"). Other than that, yeah, Loudness comes to mind. They put out about three or four records on Atco in the '80s. Shonen Knife was on Capitol for a while. There was a terrific Japanese girl-punk band called Supersnazz on Sub Pop at one point, but they didn't sell too well and I don't think the album is even in print anymore. Too bad. I could never figure out why they didn't tap into a bigger audience. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Japanese hipsterism....
Morgan Keating writes: We played with this metal act once from Japan, but I can't remember the name to save my life... They came out right around the same time as Loudness give or take a year... Vow Wow or E-Z-O? They were the other two big Japanese metal bands around that time who had contracts in the US. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Television Live (and twangless)
William F. Silvers writes: Review/commentary on the re-release of Television's live BLOW-UP record. I don't get it. This has been on CD as a French import for, what, six years or so? I've had it that long, anyway. To be honest, it's not their best work. It's interesting, but the sound quality ain't too hot. I never saw them back in the day and my sole live encounter with them was the '91 Paradise date, though I have no doubt that better live material exists. There was a great story about Mike Watt playing at the Middle East (I think) last year while Verlaine was doing a date next door at TT the Bear's. I might have the clubs reversed, but it doesn't really matter. Anyway, Watt is almost as big a Television fan as he is a B.O.C. fan and closed his set with a Television cover, hoping that Verlaine would hear it; "Little Johnny Jewel," I think. Speaking of New York punk bands from the '70s, the Dictators are at the Middle East on May 7th. Woo hoo! Rock 'n' roll made a man out of me... Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Clip: Louisiana Hayride reunion
Published Monday, April 5, 1999, in the San Jose Mercury News Gold reunion rocks country music's Louisiana Hayride Fifty years after the legendary Louisiana Hayride first took to the stage, hundreds of the weekly music show's original regulars returned to a renovated Municipal Auditorium Saturday night for some hillbilly, Western swing, blues, gospel, jazz, Cajun and pop music. Willie Nelson was back. So was Hank Williams' daughter, Jett Williams, and others who worked behind the scenes on the show, which boomed forth each Saturday evening from 1948 to 1960 courtesy of 50,000-watt KWKH Radio in Shreveport, La. In its heyday, the Hayride transformed country and western music by showcasing the fertile and culturally diverse talents of the region still known as the Ark-La-Tex. Nelson, Johnny Cash, Slim Whitman and Johnny Horton got their starts there. Country Music Hall of Famer Jim Reeves worked as an announcer until a singer didn't show up one night and he was asked to fill in. A youthful Elvis Presley honed his style there for the union minimum of $18 a show. Saturday's notable no-show was former Louisiana Gov. Jimmie Davis, who was hospitalized earlier in the week with liver problems. Davis (``You Are My Sunshine'') turns 100 in September. Members of the original Hayride alumni appeared Saturday in suits, although cowboy boots frequently peeked out of the trousers. Many younger musicians wore jeans, gold chains and long hair streaming from beneath their cowboy hats. ``I don't know what people then would have made of this group,'' said Merle Kilgore, who once toted gear for Williams and has been his son Hank Jr.'s manager for 14 years. ``For a time there, we didn't even wear cowboy hats. If you showed up in one, it meant you were from the sticks.'' ``It was a wonderful place,'' said Hunter Huff, who appeared in 1954 with his four-man dance band. ``That crowd set you on fire and made your heart throb.''
One more Cash clip
Friends, fans lavish praise on Cash in tribute concert Country music legend Johnny Cash performs during a tribute concert last night. The show is scheduled to air on April 18. (AP) By Jay Orr / Tennessean Staff Writer NEW YORK -- For more than 40 years, Johnny Cash has sung about keeping the ends of his heart out, ready for the tie that binds, and last night, in song and spoken tribute, his friends, family and musical admirers surrounded that heart with affection and respect. An audience of more than 2,500, including R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe and film director Peter Bogdanovich, filled the Hammerstein Ballroom, adjacent to Madison Square Garden, to witness a concert honoring Cash as a rock 'n' roll pioneer, a country music legend, a gospel music lover, a champion of the "poor and beaten down" and a rowdy rebel who wrestled with the record industry establishment and with his own demons. Hosted by actor Jon Voight, An All-Star Tribute to Johnny Cash was taped for broadcast April 18 on TNT. Cash's broad appeal was exemplified in everything from an acoustic performance by Fugees' rapper Wyclef Jean of Cash's lurid murder ballad, Delia's Gone (including a mid-song rap that borrowed the "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die" line from Folsom Prison Blues), to a house-shaking gospel number, Belshazzar, performed by Nashville's Grammy-winning a cappella gospel specialists, the Fairfield Four, led by Cash's former son-in-law, Marty Stuart. June Carter Cash drew a standing ovation for her performance, with autoharp, guitar and fiddle accompaniment, of Ring of Fire, the song she wrote with Merle Kilgore. The crowd's most passionate response, however, was reserved for Cash's climactic appearance at the end of the three-hour event. Surrounded by stagehands, Cash was hustled on stage while actor/director Tim Robbins gave a dramatic reading of the notes Cash wrote for his landmark album, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison. With his guitar slung back over his shoulder, Cash wheeled around as the spotlight hit him. Unbowed by his battle with Shy-Drager Syndrome, a degenerative nerve disease, Cash rumbled his trademark, "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash" as the house erupted in whoops and applause. Reunited with former members of his early bands, including bassist Marshall Grant, drummer W.S. Holland, guitarist Bob Wootton and pianist Earl Ball, and with his son, John Carter Cash, behind him, Cash appeared to relish his first turn at center stage since being forced by his health to give up touring in October 1997. Looking robust, his guitar slung behind him or held at a jaunty angle, Cash ambled confidently to the mike and launched into Folsom Prison Blues, with all the tics, head gestures and enthusiastic growls that characterized the performances of his prime. He followed with I Walk the Line, a song about faithful love and the ties that bind, as his wife, June Carter Cash, and members of the cast joined him on stage. For the balance of the concert, Cash watched the show from a monitor in his dressing room. "It feels good, it feels good, it feels good," he said from the stage. A star-studded, black-clad cast, including Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, Kris Kristofferson, Trisha Yearwood, Brooks Dunn, Lyle Lovett, Emmylou Harris, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Dave Matthews, provided the musical complement to a roughly chronological script written by Rolling Stone contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis designed to give a full picture of Cash's historical and cultural legacy. U2, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen contributed pre-taped performances to the production. Introducing his performance of Cash's Give My Love to Rose, Springsteen said to Cash, "You took the social consciousness of folk music, the gravity and humor of country music and the rebellion of rock 'n' roll and told all us young guys that not only was it all right to tear up all those lines and boundaries, but it was important."
Re: Television Live (and twangless)
Carl Abraham Zimring writes: Has Richard lloyd put out any solo work this decade? His record on Celluloid about a dozen years ago was excellent. I have an import LP that he did at some point on a Swedish label with - I believe - a Swedish backing band. I think it was done earlier in the decadebut can't remember any details. It's been a while since I pulled it out to listen to it. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Clip: Blacks in country music (from the US News World Report website, believe it or not)
Breaking a color line, song by song Country music attracts more and more African-American listenersand artists BY JOHN MARKS When he first took his country music act on the road in the early 1990s, Trini Triggs booked himself into the most remote honky-tonks in the state of Texas. He wanted to make sure his audience would accept a black man doing hillbilly songs. "There were a few stares at first," Triggs remembers. "But as soon as I started to play, it didn't matter anymore." Triggs, whose debut CD will be released by Curb records this summer, is attempting what once seemed impossible. In his impeccably starched button-down shirts, his omnipresent George Strait Resistol Stetson, and his ostrich-skin cowboy boots, Triggs is trying to break into the most ethnically homogenous of all American popular music forms. Country music has only ever had one black superstar, and in 1966, when Charley Pride's "The Snakes Crawl at Night" became a hit, RCA executives made sure no listeners knew he was African-American. They feared alienating a mostly rural Southern white audience. It's one of the stranger truths of American popular culture: Country music, with its profound debt to African-American musical traditions, has become so deeply associated with whites that black artists seem wildly out of place when they perform it. In the mid 1990s, when Nashville was doing some of the best business in its history, a few black artists landed record deals, but none have sustained careers. Now, some in the industryespecially Frankie Staton, head of the Black Country Music Associationthink it's time to break down what they see as the country color line. "Did you ever think you'd hear a song like that coming out of a brother?" asks Staton, after watching one of her artists, Dwight Quick, sing a hymn to the American South in a twang worthy of Dwight Yoakam. Country music, in its current form, was invented in the 1920s as one format for the newly emerging radio and phonograph markets. Before that time, rural, working-class people, black and white, had a shared musical heritage, a broad-based folk music stemming from a variety of sources: African-American gospel and blues, Appalachian mountain songs, and traveling vaudeville shows, among others. Jimmie Rodgers drew upon all of these sounds, particularly the blues, to become country's first major star in the 1920s and '30s. Both black and white performers played in groups called stringbands, which were popular at that time. Yet the eclectic music soon collided with a renewed period of segregation and tension between the races. "Earlier there had been less concern about differences between blacks and whites, particularly in the working class," says Vanderbilt sociologist Richard Peterson, author of Creating Country Music. "Suddenly, whites became more self-conscious about doing black culture, and blacks did, too, about white culture." Blues they could use. Segregated markets never hindered black influence on the sound. The blues, for instance, had a far more profound impact on country lyrics than pop did. The classic hillbilly song, like classic blues, typically focuses on alcohol, marital breakups, sin, and death, often in the form of a tale. (When asked why he liked country music, jazz great Charlie Parker replied, "The stories, man. Listen to the stories.") In the civil rights era, says Peterson, most of the black audience turned its back on country. At a time when both country and bluegrass were identified by some racist adherents as "white people's music," the hillbilly sound, he says, "was the very opposite of what [blacks] wanted to be." Charley Pride turned out to be an anomaly: He had 29 No. 1 hits between 1966 and 1989, but no other black country artists followed. Staton's BCMA, founded in 1997, is taking up where he left off, organizing showcases in Nashville, sending CDs and tapes of black artists to label executives and using every opportunity to spread the word. The timing is good. After one of the most lucrative decades in its history, country music is stagnating. Listenership has dropped 25 percent over the past five years, meaning that the industry is desperate to find the next big thing. Black country acts have emerged all over the United States. On the West Coast, Mike Mann and the Knight Riders play what they call cowboy soul, a combination of pedal steel guitar, country harmonies, and a rhythm and blues beat. Wheels, an Alabama-based five-man band, has been playing the national casino circuit, and until recently, had a record deal with Asylum. Trini Triggs is alone on the star track, however. A native of Natchitoches, La., Triggs, 33, got a taste for country music from his mother, who listened to nothing else. When he entered high school, he organized bands with black and white members who could play both the Commodores and Kenny Rogers. Three years ago he was discovered by a West Texas businessman who offered to become his manager. And last month
Re: Big Labels Dropping Bands
Michael Berick writes: I'll second that. "The Whole Sheband" was a song that always perked up my ears and made my toes tap when it played on KCRW down here. it perfectly recalled the glam era without souding like a weak parody. This also reminds me that I never picked up the soundtrack. And the movie was a disappointing mess. The era was certainly worth documenting (word is that Bowie is also working on his own film about the period) and there are parts of the movie that I thought worked very well indeed. In fact, I'll say this about it: It *looked* great. But - like "Grace of My Heart" - it was impossible to see any of the characters as anything other than carboard cutouts of the real people on whom they were based and the structure of the movie was liberally...ahem..."borrowed" from "Citizen Kane." The soundtrack is a pip, though. A hoot from start to finish, including some vintage glam tracks from the likes of Steve Harley, Roxy Music, Lou Reed, and Brian Eno, new songs that very convincingly evoked the sound of that period from Grant Lee Buffalo, Pulp, and Shudder to Think, and some re-recordings of classic glam-rock hits by Teenage Fanclub (with Donna Matthews) and others. Dig out that old feather boa and those stackheel boots and primp and preen in front of the mirror with this as your soundtrack. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Drake (Re: Kelly Willis calling the shots)
Neal Weiss writes: Which reminds me, any minor or major Drake fan want to offer up a good starting point into that artist's catalog? I need to go buy yet another CD that I've never gonna have enough time to appreciate to its fullest. Sigh... Yeah, there's a real nice single-disc best-of collection on Rykodisc that'll serve you in good stead. If you want one of the real albums, I'd probably start with "Five Leaves Left." --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Clip: WKDF Nashville format change
From the In-Review (Nashville) website: Dicked Over What Happened to WKDF, and Why is it Screwing Nashville? Like the culmination of a bizarre April Fools Day joke, long-time Nashville rock staple WKDF 103.3 has decided to trade in its electric guitar for a fiddle, leaving Music City in the lurch. Rumors have been flying for weeks. Everyone from musicians and industry insiders to clued-in loyal listeners spoke of the possible format change with surprised voices and incredulous faces. One can only speculate on why Dick Broadcasting, the company that owns WKDF, would quit rock. It seems suicidal for the station to pit itself against established and popular country institutions like WSIX 97.9 and WSM-FM 95.5. However, emboldened by the acquisition of Carl P. Mayfield, one of Nashvilles favorite radio personalities who says he prefers working at a country station, WKDF decided to plunge head-first into a pool of country homogeneity. The stereotype that has Nashvillians listening only to country music has just moved one step closer to becoming a reality. Possibly due to alternative rock stations flailing and failing nationwide and WKDF losing much of its 25-35 male demographic locally to traditional rock stations like The Rock 105.9, it appears that the station had to undergo a format change simply to survive. No Alternative Like a former prom queen at her high school reunion, WKDF seems to have realized how much it hurts to fall from coolness. Throughout its 30-year-old history, the station has typically stayed in the top three in Nashvilles radio rankings. Never accurately described as a trend-setter, the station nevertheless managed to muscle its way into a respectably sized audience and commanded impressive revenues in ad sales. And then a beast called alternative rock reared its ugly head. By limiting itself to an alternative format, the station greatly reduced the variety of music it could play. "Alternative" left no room for traditional rock or local rock, robbing WKDF of its ability to act as an arbiter of Nashville music. "KDF used to be The Cutting Edge of Rock," says Barye Cassell, an agent with The Box Office management company. "Now they are on the cutting edge of what's not happening anymore." In the early 1990s, the alternative rock and grunge rock genres acted to effectively reinvigorate popular music. Tired pop tunes and transparent heavy metal acts were replaced with seemingly sincere bands who sang of real issues facing young people. Referred to by many as "complaint rock," bands like Nirvana struck a chord with underage Americans, filling the teen angst void that rock n roll had left vacant after years of drowning in the aforementioned styles. Perhaps WKDF and other alternative stations got a hint of alternatives waning popularity when Gary Gersh resigned from Capitol Records in June of 1998, citing wilting rock sales. Gersh, known to some as the "Godfather of Grunge," had spent the five prior years running Capitol and had initially established himself in the music world by being the AR man who signed Nirvana, Sonic Youth and others. At Capitol, Gersh coddled acts like the Foo Fighters, Marcy Playground, Meredith Brooks and Everclear, and helped these artists achieve commendable success. With Gershs progeny comprising the bulk of WKDFs playlist, and Gersh himself admitting that the genre was dead, it was time for WKDF to act. "Alternative was sold as the alternative to rock it never was rock," says Cassell. "Now rock is cycling back, and though it is different, it is still basically the same as the rock of the 60s and 70s." Being on the down slope of a trend, change for WKDF was inevitable. Not embracing a different format would condemn the station to accepting a position as promoters of the next dinosaur in music. But country? Low Country According to data compiled by the M Street Music Guide, commercial country radio peaked in 1994. For anyone not keeping track, that was five years ago. In 1994, there were 2,642 stations nationwide playing commercial country. In 1998, the last year tabulated, 2,368 stations were spinning twang, a number lacking 80 stations from the 1989 number. So, it seems now WKDF unwisely wants to jump on the proverbial bandwagon 10 years after it rolled off a cliff. When alternative was ushered in, rock n roll was thrown out, leaving us with hours of Natalie Merchant and what last year seemed like an endless loop of "Velveeeta [correct spelling, believe it or not] Lounge." In fact, WKDF's alternative format did not even meet the criteria set forth by M Street to be considered a "rock" station. According to M Street, alternative is not rock, and it seems all those listeners who now prefer 105.9 agree. Indisputably, WKDF wields some of the greatest radio power in town. Broadcasting at 100,000 watts, the highest wattage legally allowed, WKDF has the ability to reach substantial numbers of listeners, even those over an
Re: awwwww...
Don Yates writes: I know Mary Lou Lord rubs some folks the wrong way, but I find her wide-eyed fandom of different kinds of music to be pretty darn endearing. By the way, you might want to check KCMU's rockabilly library to see if the new Raging Teens CD is on hand. Mary Lou co-wrote a couple of songs on the album (her boyfriend, Kevin Patey, is the group's lead singer). I think Amy, their lead guitarist, also played keyboards in her road band for a while. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: tasteless epiphone elvis model guitar
Dave Purcell writes: np: Masters of Reality - Sunrise on the Sufferbus Wow. I thought I was one of, like, five people who thought this was a great record. I just pulled it out over the weekend, in fact, for the first time in about eight months. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Attention ex-Bostonians == WMBR Available via the Internet!
Kate writes: Great news this week: the radio station of MIT (yup, that school with all the smarties) is now available over the Internet (WMBR, 88.1). For anyone that has ever lived close to the Boston/Cambridge area -- listen up Soron -- this is like a dream come true! Yeah, I was listening to "Debbie Does Dallas" this morning in my office and she mentioned it. Good news indeed. I've been spending most of my weekends up in New Hampshire of late and haven't heard "Backwoods" in probably two months. It'll be nice to tune in for a bit now. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: British CMA
There is also a Brit / Commonwealth magazine, which may be simply titled "Country Music" (I forget), that I've seen a few copies of and which always amazes me by how much it covers what *I* would consider good country as opposed to HNC industry promo, etc Country Music People. The magazine's website can be found at http://www.musicfarm.demon.co.uk/. Unfortunately, except for a review or two, there isn't much to "sample" from there. "Country Weekly" has its flaws, but there's more there to entertain the online visitor. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Clip: More G*rthball
Brooks' impact comes off field The Arizona Republic March 28, 1999 In the world of music, he has recorded a bunch of hit singles. In spring training, he has a single hit. One hit in 16 at-bats. As the Padres slung travel bags over their shoulders and filed out of the small visitors clubhouse -- "Ten-minute bus!" coach Davey Lopes announced -- Garth Brooks lingered, lost in thought, staring at a wall. Brooks pondered his latest missed opportunity in his one trip to the plate, an eighth-inning pinch-hit appearance against the Angels. He was angry with himself. Instead of taking a strike, as planned, he had jumped at left-hander Mike Magnante's first offering. "A stupid thing," he said. At that moment, it didn't matter to him that he is the highest-selling solo artist in U.S. music history or that hundreds of baseball fans, many of whom listen to and buy his music, were waiting for him, as they are after every game. Brooks earned $54 million last year. But he can't buy a base hit. When Chris Pritchett caught Brooks' weak pop foul, fans playfully booed the Angels first baseman for sending the most popular .063 hitter in baseball back to the dugout unfulfilled. "Very frustrating," Brooks said. "I hate sucking." He isn't trying to kid anyone. The 37-year-old singer hasn't played baseball seriously since high school. He didn't expect to pick up a bat as if it were a guitar and began terrorizing big league pitching. Brooks joined the Padres spring training camp as a non-roster invitee. The team made a donation to the Touch 'Em All Foundation, a collaboration among major league players, entertainers and corporate partners that contributes money to children's charities nationally and in San Diego. Brooks is a realist. When a cheery TV reporter asked Garth how he will feel when spring training ends and Brooks is informed he made the opening day roster and is a full-fledged Padre, the entertainer offered a reply as ridiculous as the question. "And they'll also tell me we have world peace and we're out of debt as a country." It's too late in life for him. Brooks knows that. Alone in the clubhouse, I asked what he would like the Padres to tell him when spring training ends. "What would I like to hear?" he asked. After a thoughtful pause, he said, wishfully, "I would love to be told that if I had invested the last 17 years playing the game, I would be playing major league baseball." This is the closest chance he will have. So he took it, ignoring critics and cynics and fighting down his fears. "I'm scared to death of embarrassment and failure," Brooks said. But he made a commitment. He would try. "If you don't, you might as well stay in the house all day. . . . You're the only one who can see your dreams." What he has seen during his "minute a day," as he calls his cameo roles at the plate, are fastballs and curves. Although he has struck out only once, Brooks sometimes must feel like former big league catcher Bob Uecker during his playing days. A career .200 hitter, Uecker jokes that the manager would turn to him on the bench and bark, "Uecker, grab a bat and put out that rally!" Brooks is disappointed in himself. From the day spring training began, he has said he doesn't want to embarrass the Padres and baseball. He doesn't have to worry. Can he hit? No. But not every contribution a person makes appears in the morning box score. Those columns of gray type don't record the hours Brooks has spent after every game patiently shaking hands, posing for pictures, signing his signature until his hand begins to cramp. "Hi, what's your name?" "Chris," the fan said. "C-h-r-i-s?" Brooks asked. Before autographing each ball, he checks the spelling. They call out to him. Reach for him. Offer him gifts. One woman presented Brooks with a jar of pickled vegetables she had picked from her garden. "Let's see your arm," Brooks said, singling out a wide-eyed little girl. The child tossed the ball from the stands. Brooks caught it, wrote her name and tossed it back. When Brooks noticed a TV cameraman shooting the autograph scene, he asked him, politely, to turn off his camera. "If you don't mind," he said. "I don't want people thinking I'm doing this for you." The bus leaves. Garth Brooks stays and signs another ball, and another. "I'm getting more out of this than I'm giving," he said apologetically after another hitless game. I couldn't disagree more. ***
Blue Chip Radio Report 03/29/99
Dunno if Jeff Wall's taken off yet since he normally takes care of these, but I'll send it out anyway. --Jon Johnson THE BLUE CHIP RADIO REPORT Country Music News, Charts, Show Prep, Sales Info March 29, 1999 Bill Miller Editor Publisher The Blue Chip Radio Report is a free weekly newsletter for people in the radio and music industries. To add your name to our e-mailing list, or to remove your name, send your request to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks! The Blue Chip Song of the Week: "Some Broken Hearts" by Bellamy Brothers. Writer: Wayland Holyfield. Producers: Bellamy Brothers and Randy Hiebert. Label: Intersound Country and Bellamy Brothers. CDX: volume 207. The original country hat act, the Bellamys come from left field with this arrangement of the 1977 Don Williams hit (under the title "Some Broken Hearts Never Mend"). This song has a reggae beat, much more hip and jiggy than some of the second-rate pop music flowing out of Nashburg these days. Most importantly, the lyric is timeless. After all, some broken hearts never mend. Two more of radio's heavy hitters from the past year are without labels this morning. Toby Keith has left Mercury Nashville as Tracy Byrd exits MCA. The news is better for Doug Stone and for The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Stone returns to the major label arena with an Atlantic Nashville deal. He had a long string of fine country hits for Epic before sliding into a rock sound that was greeted with a collective yawn by the radio and music public. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has signed with Dreamworks. Their first release, scheduled for May 4th, will be "Bang Bang Bang", an album recorded for the defunct Rising Tide label a year ago. Ray Price was arrested on charges of possession of drug paraphenalia and marijuana last week near his Texas ranch. He posted a $ 500 bond, pleaded no contest to the possession of drug paraphenalia charge, and paid a $ 200 fine. The 73-year-old member of The Country Music Hall of Fame is expected to go to court at a later date on the possession of marijuana charge. It's not unusual for a radio station to react to a downturn in ratings by cutting the playlist. When the pressure's on, "Play the biggest hits more often" is always a line that a P.D. or consultant on shaky ground can sell to the men and women in the large, carpeted offices. How bad are things? Trini Triggs broke into R R's Top 50 with only 8 reporting stations playing "Horse To Mexico". That number broke the previous low record of 22 stations on a LeAnn Rimes tune of awhile back. You may recall that former California Governor Ronald Reagan pardoned Merle Haggard for his felony convictions after The Hag achieved stardom. Through the generosity of North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt, Randy Travis now enjoys the same pardoned status. As a troubled teen, Travis was convicted of larceny, burglary and weapons charges at various times in his home state. Quoted in Seventeen magazine, The Dixie Chicks' Martie Seidel said that men haven't started throwing underwear at the group, but they'd prefer boxers, not briefs, if and when the phenomenon develops. Chad Brock has worked as a car salesman and as a pro wrestler. He was on the WCW circuit using his real name and wearing cowboy togs as his gimmick. Brock says he wrestled 19 times on TV, including one appearance against Paul Wight, a.k.a. The Giant. Rumors are that Brock may still want to hide soap and bottle caps in his trunks. Some speculate that he may combine his new-found singing stardom with a return to the WCW ring. He'll be the good guy, no doubt. Welcome to our new subscribers, including Rick McCracken, MD at WSOC/fm in Charlotte NC; John Nichols of WKMH/fm in Cullman AL; Jim Murphy, Director of Operations at Jones Radio; Catherine Gollery with Spinner.com; Diny Schapendonk of CENTRAAL FM in The Netherlands; and, Joel Denver. Brock Speer of gospel music's Speer Family died earlier today (3/29/99) in Nashville. Speer joined his brother Ben and Gordon Stoker of the Jordanaires on Elvis Presley's first Nashville session for RCA Victor Records in 1956, according to The Tennessean. The brothers also contributed to other Presley sessions, but the family is legendary in gospel music circles. Speer was a former president and chairman of the board of the Gospel Music Association. Brock Speer was 78 years old. Charles Sawtelle, a founding member of the bluegrass group Hot Rize, died March 20th from complications of leukemia. Charles Sawtelle was 52 years old. Inspiration is everywhere. The Bellamys said on Crook and Chase awhile back that they got the idea for the reggae arrangement on "Some Broken Hearts" from a bar band- a beach bar band, in fact. In the Miami area, the brothers walked out to the beach bar (as in "thatched tiki hut") and heard someone do a reggae arrangement of the classic. Supposedly, they looked at each other and said something like "Duh". There are more than 300,000
Buddy Holly lawsuit update
From the Rockabilly Hall of Fame website... Buddy Holly Lawsuit Update Buddy Holly's widow pleaded with MCA Records for decades to raise royalty payments from her husband's music before resorting to a lawsuit this month seeking millions for alleged underpayment. Maria Elena Holly and her lawyer told a news conference Wednesday she was stonewalled by the record company for most of the 40 years since Holly died in a 1959 plane crash at age 22. Holly joined the rock pioneer's sister and two brothers in filing the suit last week in Buddy's hometown of Lubbock, Texas. MCA Records is a unit of Universal Music Group, which owned by Seagram Co Ltd. "I have never given up, I have always had different lawyers approaching MCA... This is like David and Goliath. MCA laughs in everybody's face," said Holly, now in her late 50s. "They knew they were doing the wrong thing the whole time," she said. Holly recorded for just two years but was a major influence in history of rock, especially on Bob Dylan and the Beatles. Songs such as "Rave On" and "That'll Be the Day" are still recorded with regularity and Dylan closed his shows during his latest U.S. tour with Holly's "Not Fade Away." The lawsuit alleges that MCA underpaid royalties, used invalid or faked contracts from the 1950s, sold music without legal authority and failed to pay after reaching a negotiated settlement with the Holly survivors in January 1996. Universal Music Group has declined to comment on the legal action, saying it does not discuss pending suits in public. Maria Holly said MCA has continued paying the Holly survivors royalties at just 3 percent, far below today's rates. She said she asked MCA again and again to see the contracts it based its music rights on and has sought an accounting of where the company got material unreleased while Holly was alive and supposedly stored with Holly's parents. "She was stonewalled and lied to again and again and meanwhile things were happening and she couldn't keep up with them," said her attorney, Kevin Glasheen.
Wynn Stewart news
I've exchanged e-mail a few times with Wren Stewart Tidwell, Wynn Stewart's daughter, and got this this morning: To all Wynn Stewart fans: I want to give you a BIG thank you for visiting the Wynn Stewart website and special thanks to those of you who took the time to sign the guestbook and/or send me email. You all wrote some very wonderful comments. Many of you have contributed with pictures and information that have helped make the website as complete as it is today. I appreciate your help very much. I'd like to invite you to re-visit the website and see some of the additional improvements that have been made over the past few months: One of my favorite additions is the JUKEBOX. Here you can listen to 16 of Wynn's songs in streaming Real Audio files. If you do not have Real Audio, there is a link on the website where you can download it for free. Please forgive me if the background graphic doesn't line up perfectly on your screen. I tried. But you just cannot account for everyone's different setups. Some of the songs may not work unless you are using the most current version of Real Player G2. Pictures of Wynn's grandchildren. Not that I am a proud mommy or anything... but many have said my son, Tyler, favors his grandfather. I do know that at 2 yrs old, one of his favorite toys is the microphone (turned up loud with lots of echo). There is another grandchild, Margaret Elizabeth Stewart (daughter of Wynn's son, Greg). She is 6. I don't have a picture of her. Refer to a friend option - a very simple option that makes it easy to refer this website to a friend. Hopefully you will use this utility and share this website with everyone you can think of that would enjoy it. BIG NEWSFLASH I have been able to confirm that the Bear Family of Germany is in fact working on a boxed set of Wynn's material. Release date has not been announced. But I have received an email and a phone call from them. Stay tuned to the website, I hope to be able to post this great news as soon as it is available, as well as (hopefully) where you can get it. FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS . I have secured the domain - www.wynnstewart.com. Sometime in the future, I hope to be able to relocate Wynn's website to this address. Does anyone know who will host this for free? (he,he) - never hurts to ask, right? Music for sale - I have been able to locate several sources of Wynn's albums and have been buying everything I can find. Hopefully I will someday have an ONLINE RECORD STORE where Wynn's albums, 45's and CD's will be available to buy from this website. Several of you have inquired about this. Thanks again for your support. If you have any ideas for the website or questions, please feel free to reply to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wren Stewart Tidwell, webmaster for the WYNN STEWART website at http://members.tripod.com/WynnStewart/index.html p.s. If you will minimize that irritating little tripod pop-up box when it first pops up, it will stay out of your way as you are browsing through the other pages of the website.
Re: Ray's Tokin, obviously For the Good Times
Paul Kirsch writes: PS I've discovered after listening to interviews with people on NPR yesterday that, if you are an elected official, you can say anything controversial you want publicly- provided you end your statements with the following: "...although I fully support our troops in Yugoslavia." Let's see... PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH REP. FARNSWORTH MARCH 30, 1999 INTERVIEWER: TERRY GROSS (FRESH AIR/NPR) [...] Rep. F.: Why, yes, Terry. Since you mention it, yes, I did travel to Cuba three months ago and meet with President Castro. During our meeting he agreed that his government would join with my staff in funneling leftover funds from my '96 campaign into abortion clinics here in the U.S. In exchange I provided President Castro - or 'El Jefe' as I like to call him - and his senior military staff with detailed information regarding the vulnerabilities of our cruise missiles and stealth aircraft technology. And since you asked, yes, while I was in Havana I employed the services of several teenaged prostitutes of both sexes. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to come clean. Let me add, though, that I fully support our troops in Yugoslavia, and if I wasn't a card-carrying atheist, I'd be praying for their safe return. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Clip: G**th Baseball Update
Monday March 22 7:34 PM ET How Garth Brooks Fared on Monday MESA, Ariz. (AP) - How it went for Garth Brooks on Monday at spring training for the San Diego Padres: COUNTRY CAMPER: Brooks was hitless in two at-bats and made an error in left field in the Padres' split-squad, 7-7 tie with the Chicago Cubs at HoHoKam Park. He is 1-for-13 (.077) this spring. HIGH NOTE: Brooks nearly had his second hit in two days, but Cubs shortstop Jose Hernandez made a nice play behind the bag and threw out Brooks. ON THE RECORD: ``Thank God Mesa has only one ballpark,'' said Brooks, who went to the wrong field in Tucson on Saturday for the Padres' previous road game. HoHoKam's version of the Bleacher Bums were all over Brooks. Some examples: ``Are you the guy who sang `Achy Breaky Heart?'; ``Hey, it's Brooke Shields''; ``Hey, Tony (Gwynn), is Garth going to beat you out?''; and ``Hey Garth, I just bought you for $3 on my fantasy league team.''
Clip: Rockabilly Hall of Fame
From the CNN website at http://cnn.com/WorldBeat/news/index.html#story5 --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts Friday, March 19, 1999 Plans for Rockabilly Hall of Fame NASHVILLE (CNN) -- Groundbreaking on the $3 million building to house the International Rockabilly Hall of Fame is set to take place in September, according to Henry Harrison. A former associate of Carl Perkins, Harrison plans to acquire some land in Jackson, where the rockabilly legend made his home, to build the museum. "It is my fervent prayer and earnest request that music lovers from all over the world join me in building this lasting tribute to the many individuals who made rockabilly music a major part of American music history," Perkins said.
Re: The Blue Chip Radio Report 3/22/99
Stuart writes: hey, I like these blue chip reports. Who's gonna post em while Jeff is off defending us? I've sent 'em to the list two or three times when Jeff hasn't been around, as has Nancy Apple, I think. I don't mind doing it. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Clip: One more reason to stay home on New Year's Eve
Eagles take concert prices to limit Best seats for New Years gig will cost $1,500 REUTERS HOLLYWOOD, March 18 Call it the taking it to the limit tour. The Eagles are in talks to usher in the New Year at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles, with the top ticket price expected to hit $1,500. Show details are expected to be confirmed next month. THE BAND could have a payday of $10 million for the one-night stand at the 20,000-seat arena, which is still under construction but is set to open in October. The show would cap the arenas three-month grand-opening period, which will have several concerts in addition to the Lakers and Clippers basketball and Kings hockey games. After a bitter breakup following the release of their 1979 album The Long Run, Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Don Felder and Timothy B. Schmit papered over the lingering animosity to launch the successful Hell Freezes Over reunion tour in 1995. The road show topped the box office that year with a $61 million take (more than $1.2 million per night). Several acts are raising their ticket prices to abnormal heights for rumored shows to cash in on the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to party like its 1999. Insiders said Barbra Streisands stop at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas is expected to have a top price of more than $2,500, and Jimmy Buffetts New Years Eve show at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles is expected to boast a $1,400 top price.
Clip: Buddy Holly lawsuit
Buddy Holly's Survivors Sue MCA By CHRIS NEWTON Associated Press Writer LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) - Relatives of Buddy Holly sued MCA Records Monday, alleging that the company hoarded royalty payments, forged contracts and illegally produced albums without family consent. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages but Attorney Kevin Glasheen described it as a multi-million-dollar case. ``It's bad form to steal from a dead man, but unfortunately in the music industry it happens,'' Glasheen said. ``The problem is that MCA, just like a lot of people who owe money, won't pay it until they have to.'' Los Angeles-based MCA Records, one of the nation's largest recording companies, did not return calls from The Associated Press. The lawsuit, filed in state court, charges that the contracts providing for royalties to Holly's heirs are legally questionable and should be redone. Plaintiffs are Buddy Holly's widow, Maria Holly; his brothers, Larry and Travis Holley; and his sister Pat Holley. Buddy Holly dropped the 'e' from his last name, and his wife took the new spelling. Maria Holly lives in Dallas and Larry, Travis and Pat Holley live in Lubbock. ``The so-called recording agreements relied on by MCA are void and unenforceable and in certain circumstances, outright forgeries,'' the lawsuit says in reference to a contract that appears to be signed by Maria Holly and another contract signed by a manager the family claims had been fired by Holly. The lawsuit alleges MCA conned Holly's parents into signing an agreement for rights to Holly's music, even though recording officials knew ``the parents had no authority to contract for those recordings. MCA also has ``grossly underpaid the fair market value of the royalties,'' the family alleges in the lawsuit. ``Basically, after Buddy Holly died, the record company went through a lot of manipulations with his former manager to issue a lot of recordings,'' Glasheen said. ``MCA had agreed to pay the family additional royalties, but then wanted to add additional terms to the agreement.'' Holly had several hit songs before he died in a plane crash at age 21 in 1959, including ``That'll Be the Day,'' ``Peggy Sue'' and ``Maybe Baby.''
Re: iggy pop
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: In a message dated 3/15/99 10:01:18 PM EST, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Search Destroy - Red Hot Chili Peppers (didn't EMF do this too?) don't know about emf, but the dictators did/do a great version of this on "bloodbrothers". "Manifest Destiny," actually. Speaking of the 'Taters, though, the group has just reissued "Bloodbrothers" and the early '80s live album "Fuck 'Em If They Can't Take a Joke" on CD for the first time; "F.E.I.T.C.T.a.J." with three bonus tracks. No word on a reissue of "Manifest Destiny" yet, but a new album is due during the summer and Bostonians can cheer the group on at the Middle East on May 7th. Goin' to B.O.C. Thursday night! Woo!!! --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: mo' 70s rock (was Re: iggy pop)
Carl Abraham Zimring writes: Who exactly is in Blue Oyster Cult these days aside from Eric Bloom Buck Dharma? Anybody named Bouchard? Nope, last I'd heard Joe B. had gotten a music degree from Julliard (not sure what he's doing with it) and Al B. was still playing with his wife Deborah Frost in the Brain Surgeons. B.O.C. at the moment includes Bloom, Buck, original keyboardist Al Lanier, Bobby Rondinelli on drums (ex-Rainbow/Heart/Black Sabbath), and bassist Danny Miranda, whose history I'm not aware of. What the hell. Don's gone and when the cat's away Who's up for another epic discussion of '70s hard rock bands? ;-) --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Clip: New Faces Show
New country acts get tepid response from radio execs By Tom Roland / Tennessean Staff Writer Record companies spent last week trying to gain the favor of the nation's broadcast media at the Country Radio Seminar, and the convention closed with the ultimate attempt, the annual New Faces Show. The show is an opportunity for recording artists to show their stuff to the decision-makers at radio who can make or break them. Thus, it's a crucial moment for each of the 10 acts selected. But, said one influential radio executive, if Saturday's lineup is the best the labels can do with new talent, it'll be a while before country gets out of its current funk. Nobody shot themselves in the foot during the show, but nobody got a standing ovation, either. Here's a look at the results, in order of performance: Chad Brock. His ballad Ordinary Life was a steel-tipped portrait of the blue-collar world, while The Lightning Does The Work hinged on an Indian Outlaw backbeat. Brock has a big voice, though he's not particularly unique. Radio gave him a good hand. South 65. 'N Sync meets The Oak Ridge Boys. Five cute guys in their early 20s deliver gospel-pegged harmonies and songs with big, sing-along choruses. They received a decent, though not overwhelming, hand. Gil Grand. Firmly country, Grand displayed a vocal conviction with a resonance reminiscent of Mark Chesnutt. Unfortunately, he had occasional pitch problems, though they weren't particularly devastating. Again, a decent, if not spectacular, reception. Jon Randall. Very smooth performance, and his rendition of the hauntingly lonely I Can't Find An Angel was chilling. Unfortunately, the audience had heard so many ballads by this point that the song's subtlety was lost on a crowd fighting post-dinner fatigue. Allison Moorer. Even though women are the strongest creative force in the business currently, Moorer was the lone female on the bill. Her husky vibrato and smoky tone succeeded, but her biggest stage move was to change the hand she wrapped around the mic stand. A good hand. The Great Divide. A country/gospel tune segued into a perfunctory rendition of Will The Circle Be Unbroken, and they followed with a country/rocker. With a rather gruff lead singer, the group leans toward Steve Earle, though it's a distilled version of him, at best. Applause was polite. Mark Nesler. The author of Tim McGraw's Just To See You Smile put a tinge of Waylon Jennings spirit into a Randy Travis kind of resonance on the solidly country Used To The Pain and sounded more like Billy Ray Cyrus on the breezy pop/country Baby Ain't Rockin' Me Right. Again, the reception was good, but nothing special. Trini Triggs. In the most obvious instance of pandering to the jocks, he toasted the ailing George Jones in a moment that went flat. His songs exhibited an island influence and a bit of Spanish flavor, but they were so wordy they allowed no room for any vocal uniqueness. He did, however, receive a fairly strong response. Shane Stockton. Left in the dust when Decca closed, he got a lot of humorous mileage out of being the only act without a label. After his gritty Geronimo, he got the biggest response of the evening. Monty Holmes. He followed a churning country opener with a George Jones-style weeper, but the crowd had substantially thinned out. Holmes got decent applause from those who were left.
Re: iggy pop
Steve Gardner writes: The Iggy Pop documentary on VH-1 last night was awesome. It really made me want to see him live. I'm sure he's not as crazy as he once was...but some of the footage showed him as still being pretty damn wild on stage. I saw him on the "American Caesar" tour a few years back. Great show. It's not like he's cutting himself up onstage with broken glass anymore, but he's still pretty damn energetic for a guy his age. His band was basically Stoogesmania; not the Stooges but an incredible simulation. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Clip: The state of country radio
Country radio programmers hear criticism at seminar March 15, 1999 By The Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Listeners are deserting country music radio stations because they're bored with the music being played, according to two teams of researchers who spoke at a convention of radio industry workers. More than 2,300 of the nation's 10,000 radio stations play country music, making it the most popular format in the United States. But ratings have dropped about 25 percent over the past two years. Researchers speaking Friday at the annual Country Radio Seminar said listeners are tired of hearing songs that are indistinguishable from one another, and they think programmers should be less loyal to established artists. "What's the expression? Beat a dead horse -- it still ain't going to run. That's what they do," said one man surveyed by Denver-based researchers Roger Wimmer and Matt Hudson. Another member of the focus group said he "couldn't tell Bryan White from Wade Hayes if they walked through that door." White and Hayes are young country music singers. Wimmer and Hudson showed video clips of anonymous interviews of focus groups conducted in Kansas City. Edison Media Research of Somerset, N.J., released statistics from a study of 611 country music fans in six metropolitan areas. "I find country's obsession with artists questionable at times," said Larry Rosin of Edison. He said 48 percent of the fans Edison surveyed thought their local station would play records by a superstar act, even if the music wasn't good. Rosin said pop radio stations were far less loyal to established artists than their country counterparts. He used Alanis Morissette as an example. After songs from the pop singer's "Jagged Little Pill" album were successful, "radio yawned collectively" at her follow-up album, he said. Rosin said the message given was that if Morissette's music wasn't up to snuff, her name wouldn't be enough to get it played. Country fans miss the outlaw movement of the 1970s when unique artists like Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson were popular, the researchers said.
Re: Clip: The state of country radio
Kate writes: Well, well, wellmaybe if they started playing folks like Dale Watson, The Derailers, Duane Jarvis, Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Rosie Flores, Kelly Willis, Jann Browne, Heather Myles, Mike Ireland, Lucinda, Lauderdale, Cisco, The Hollisters, Buddy Miller and Steve Earle they'd get those listeners back. .just a thought! I don't think that big changes are in the works, personally. Radio has been taking its lumps on this subject for years and they inevitably chalk it up to "a vocal minority of malcontents," or words to that effect. In addition, most of these artists are on small labels and don't have the dough to duke it out toe-to-toe with the majors in terms of pushing their stuff at radio. Finally, my most cynical belief is that collective change is unlikely simply because it sounds too much like the consultants admitting that they've been wrong. I recall a Dale Watson interview a couple of years back where he said that he would gladly accept a country music industry that was half its current size if it meant that the music got back to its roots as a result. If radio continues its current approach, he might just get his wish! --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Hank III (Boston content)
According to this week's Boston Phoenix, Hank Williams III will be at TT the Bear's in Cambridge on Wednesday, April 14th. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: dreaded artist of the decade (plus Rushmore)
Jeff Wall writes: They put on a good live show. Yes they are popish, but I love Henry's voice. I think they have suffered a lot from production. I would like to see them do a straight Bluegrass album. I think you might be suprised. I'm with Jeff here. Normally I find them insufferable, but their semi-bluegrass cover of "Wild Horses" was one of a mere *three* songs that I liked on that godawful "Stone Country" album that came out last year (the other two were Possum doing "Time Is On My Side" and Nanci Griffith doing "No Expectations"). I think they have a good bluegrass album in them somewhere if they have the guts to follow through with it. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Shania Spam / and gossip
Nancy Apple writes: How do artists plan to get away with this. Remember what happened to ELO. They sure end up looking like fools if the DAT fails. Unfortunately, when something like this happens once or twice, the public tends to be "innoculated." The Milli Vanilli fiasco wouldn't be such a big deal nowadays if the same thing happened again with, say, the Backstreet Boys or some similar act. Unfortunately, technology makes it easier and easier to cheat. One of my favorite stories along these lines is from an interview with the Boston-area bar band the Fools around 1980 or so. When their first album came out they opened up for part of a tour for Toto, who apparently had a second vocalist backstage who would sing the high notes that their singer could hit in the studio but couldn't do on a regular basis live. The Fools used to piss on the guy's shoes as a joke while he was hitting those high notes, just to try to screw him up. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: RIP Stanley Kubrick
William F. Silvers writes: Do you know if was Kubrick's own doing? Interesting? My understanding is that the film inspired some rapes and other crimes in Great Britain that seem to have unnerved Kubrick. The film had been on the British market for about a year when it was removed from theatres at Kubrick's request. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Sunrise (was: RE: Playlist: The Boudin Barndance - 2/18/99)
Jon Weisberger writes: It's a double-CD in one of those flip cases, released a couple of weeks ago. Basically, it's The Sun Sessions plus - the plus being a number of live cuts from 1955, pre-Sun stuff and a couple of alternate takes that didn't appear on The Sun Sessions. The notes consist of a good essay by Peter Guralnick and not much else; there is, for instance, no date, definite or speculative (beyond the year), for the live cuts, and no discussion of where or why they were recorded. Unfortunately, at least from my perspective, there are a couple of outtakes/alternate takes on The Sun Sessions that don't appear on Sunrise, so a completist will want to hang onto the former (is this a new strategy to reduce the traffic in used copies of The Sun Sessions that might otherwise result?). These are all points that I made in my "C.S.T." review. The good points are that a) "Sunrise" collects - for the first time - all four of Big E's pre-Sun acetate recordings in one place, b) it puts "Fool, Fool, Fool" and the early version of "Shake, Rattle, and Roll" (both recorded in Lubbock for a radio station) in their proper context for the first time, c) it includes an unreleased alternate take of "Blue Moon," and d) the Louisiana Hayride recordings are pretty damn rough, but interesting nonetheless. There are two huge problems in my book. First of all, the sessionography, such as it is, gives absolutely no information about release numbers, take numbers, release dates, etc. You get recording dates and not much else. Personally, I'm not sure what the problem was, considering that all of this information was included with "The Sun Sessions" back in '87. The other big problem, as Jon W. mentioned, is the greatly reduced number of alternate takes that appeared on the original CD, which already had fewer alternates than the 2-record LP version due to space constraints. Since "Sunrise" is a 2-disc set, there's absolutely no excuse for this as far as I'm concerned. There was plenty of room to make "Sunrise" the last word on this era of Elvis' career. And, sure, maybe Joe Consumer isn't going to care about listening to seven barely distinguishable versions of "I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone," but I do. "Sunrise" is worth picking up but I'm absolutely stumped as to why RCA didn't do a better job, particularly considering the hugely improved quality of their Elvis releases since '86 or so and the fact that Ernst Jorgensen was involved with this. More than anyone else at RCA, you'd have thought that *he* would have known better. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: The Eradication Game (Re: Grammyszzzzzzzzz....)
Is there still space on Curry's 'acts we wouldnt mind seeing wiped from the earth' list? Oo Can I play? In order: 1) The Grateful Dead. 2) Michael Bolton. 3) Steve Perry. And the world wakes up shiny and new, as if reborn and seen for the first time --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: The Eradication Game (Re: Grammyszzzzzzzzz....)
Jon Weisberger writes: Oo Can I play? In order: 1) The Grateful Dead Nope. If I understand the rules correctly, this would not only wipe out the Old In The Way stuff, which I could probably live with, but the Bluegrass Reunion album with Red Allen, and since that's about the biggest chunk of Red available on CD (save for the cuts on the Osborne Brothers boxed set), it's a definite no-go. I dunno, Jon. Sounds to me like a small price to pay if I could count on never having another hippie trying to convince me how great "Workingman's Dead" was. In one fell swoop my years running a record store would have been improved by 200%. For that matter, some of 'em might have picked up a thing or two about personal hygiene at some point, too. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Grammyszzzzzzzzz....
Jon Weisberger writes: Having said that, and taking note that the fiddle players in the band do, in fact, play their instruments (I've had two separate reports of at least one of them contacting people who played fiddle on the recordings in order to get some pointers on specific passages), it looks to me as though Twain is moving in the direction of crossing over permanently. I caught some of this last night during a break at rehearsal. More than anything else the trappings looked to me an awful lot like a throwback to '80s pop; from Twain's Tina Turner-esque outfit to the band costumes to the multiple keyboard setups. I half-expected to see the guitarist wearing a headband and a mullet and the bass player playing a Steinberger. Hell, Little Texas looked like the Sons of the Pioneers compared to this! --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Clip: Layoffs Hit Country Music Industry
Layoffs Hit Country Music Industry By Jim Patterson Associated Press Writer Wednesday, February 24, 1999; 2:41 a.m. EST NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- As Shania Twain waited to see how many Grammys she would win tonight, some of her country music colleagues were in a far less glamorous situation: waiting to see if they could find work. Even as Twain and Garth Brooks sell millions, the industry has been wracked by layoffs. The problem is Nashville's recent inability to launch new top-selling acts. ``The consumer is changing,'' said Joe Galante, who runs the Nashville office of RCA Records. ``And I'm not sure everybody's got their finger on the pulse. ... Clearly there is a problem in terms of what we are doing as an industry.'' After reaching record heights in 1995, country album sales have sagged. Last year's sales increase of 2.7 percent was due largely to Brooks, who accounted for 10 percent of the nearly 73 million albums sold, according to SoundScan, which tracks sales. As a result, Arista Nashville, a division of RCA, fired six executives last week. Song publisher Sony/ATV Tree dropped about half of its Nashville roster of 100 songwriters in October, citing declining royalties. Mercury and MCA Records, owned by Seagram Co., have laid off seven country-division employees between them. And the publishing divisions of PolyGram and MCA will soon merge, costing jobs in Nashville. Some worry that a repeat of the mid-1980s may be in store. That's when the bottom fell out of the boom started by the 1980 movie ``Urban Cowboy.'' ``Even when you're getting a hit, you're not selling as many units as you did four years ago,'' Galante said. ``You do 2 million (sales) on the Dixie Chicks; a couple of years ago that would have been 4 or 5 million.'' Nashville may be a victim of its own phenomenal success. Revenue from the sale of country music albums quadrupled between 1989 and 1995 to about $2 billion, when Brooks became one of the most recognizable celebrities in America. As the money rolled in, companies like Warner Bros. and MCA built expensive office buildings, gave employees raises and hired more people. Now those companies want to cut costs and small labels like Rising Tide, Magnatone, Almo Sounds, Imprint and Decca have closed their doors in the past couple of years. ``It was a total surprise to me, to everybody,'' said Kim Fowler, a publicist who had barely started at Rising Tide a year ago when the company folded. ``People are getting squeezed out and they have nowhere to go in the music business.'' Promising singers like Shane Stockton, Chris Knight and Matraca Berg have lost their record deals. Dolly Parton did, too, when Decca closed last month, though she won't have trouble getting another. ``Whenever you mix art and commerce, you put yourself in danger of the current craze or trends or style,'' said Jimmie Fadden of The Dirt Band, country music veterans who were about to release an album on Rising Tide when the label closed. They have since signed with DreamWorks SKG. Galante estimated that 10 percent of record company staffers may be cut in the long run, and as many as 20 percent of songwriters will lose the stipends from publishing companies that allow them to write full time. ``I think that we're not done with consolidation,'' he said. Still, far more country albums are being sold now than a decade ago, and country music remains the most popular radio format by far. Del Bryant of New York-based BMI, which distributes songwriting royalties, said all the changes could help in the long run. Bryant, who started his career in the Music City, said larger companies will be leaner and the consolidations may allow smaller record companies to re-emerge, he said. ``Nashville is the classic town that takes two steps forward, then one step back,'' he said. © Copyright 1999 The Associated Press
Re: Merle question
Rebecca writes: I bought a Merle Haggard box set a few months ago and have greatly enjoyed it. I recently saw in the Globe that he is coming to the Boston area in a couple of months and am wondering if he is worth going to see. What do you guys think? Anyone seen him recently? Would I be wasting my time/money? Thanks for any and all feedback, rebecca Well, I saw him up in Concord, New Hampshire in June and thought it was a terrific show. The show was primarily a hits package, though he pulled out a couple of Bob Wills songs, too. Merle is in fine voice and has a top-notch band. Well worth the time and money. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Clip: MP3 article from today's Boston Globe
The prophet Chuck D, on MP3 By Patti Hartigan, Globe Staff, 02/12/99 In the words of Cornel West, he's ''a freedom fighter of his generation.'' In the words of Spike Lee, he's ''one of the most politically and socially conscious artists of any generation.'' But forget the superlatives. Chuck D, founder of the rap group Public Enemy, has roared about the Three E's: education, economics, and enforcement (as in law). Now he's aiming at another alphabetical trio, an Information Age version of the three Rs - record companies, radio stations, and retail stores. ''I'm the person who waves a flag for the artists to have a fair shot,'' Chuck D says during a phone interview from Atlanta. ''The record companies hide behind bushes when I talk because I'm the mouth that roars. They're full of `No comments.''' His latest rap condemns the music industry. ''If you don't own the master/then the master owns you,'' the song proclaims, comparing the artist-industry relationship to slavery. ''Dollar a rhyme/but we barely get a dime.'' Needless to say, you won't find record company executives touting the tune, you won't hear it on the radio, and you won't find it in retail stores. It's available only on the Internet at www.public-enemy.com. The provocative song is the latest salvo fired in Chuck D's dispute with his former label Def Jam Recordings and its parent company Polygram (now part of Universal Music Group). Now, you could write this off as a typical artist-management skirmish if it didn't involve a technological advance that is rapidly changing the way music is produced, marketed, and distributed. The record industry is facing its most monumental shakeup, more daunting than what happened when vinyl gave way to the CD. It's all thanks to a simple but groundbreaking computer format that rhymes with MTV. They call it MP3. The controversial format enables anyone with a modem and a mouse to download digital copies of recorded music that sound almost exactly like the originals. It's the hottest thing in cyberspace these days, and companies like Lycos and JamTV are racing to come up with products and services as fast as you can say, ''I want my MP3!'' Depending on whom you talk to, though, MP3 is either the beginning of a brave new world of artistic freedom or a return to the days when the pirates ruled the seas. Certain artists (including Public Enemy, Billy Idol, the Beastie Boys, and the surviving members of the Grateful Dead) are way ahead of the industry executives, who are scrambling to catch up with the chaotic, constantly changing world of cyberspace. Public Enemy, for instance, used the MP3 format to post recordings from its unreleased remix album on its Web site late last year. Def Jam demanded that the band remove the songs from the site, and Public Enemy eventually severed its ties with the label, which has produced every Public Enemy album since its debut in 1987. ''That was the straw that broke the camel's back,'' says Chuck D. When asked about the split, a Def Jam spokeswoman said, ''No comment.'' But the Recording Industry Association of America is hardly hiding behind the bushes. ''With the touch of a button, any 13-year-old can make music available to millions of people around the world,'' says Cary Sherman, the industry group's senior executive vice president and general counsel. ''We're talking about a whole new dimension of piracy.'' Chuck D, however, downplays these fears. ''They're trying to come up with a two-minute offense,'' he says. ''That's what we say in football when you're behind and you come up with some rush plays.'' Here's the play by play: The recording industry association has been scouring the Internet to shut down illegal MP3 sites, and in December, it launched the Secure Digital Music Initiative, or SDMI, a plan to develop standards to protect copyrighted music in cyberspace. When the Internet portal Lycos launched an MP3 search engine last week, the industry association forced the company to vow it would not link to illegal sites offering bootleg music. MP3 files, after all, aren't scratchy cassette tapes with gaps between tracks. They're high-quality recordings. Many Web sites, including www.mp3.com and www.goodnoise.com, offer legal MP3 recordings to download for about $1 a song; the files are compressed, so it takes only a minute or so to download a track using a high-speed modem. Browsers can then play the tunes right on their computer using one of the free players, such as Real Player, that are readily available on the Internet. MP3 is all the rage among today's technologically savvy college students, who can easily use ''ripper'' software to copy their CDs into the MP3 format and distribute it for free - or for profit - over the Internet. David Weekly, a 20-year-old Arlington native and a computer science student at Stanford University, put his entire music collection up on his Web site two years ago, and his site was so popular it almost crashed the
Re: Clip: MP3 article from today's Boston Globe
Bob Soron writes: I have to admit some curiosity. One of the reasons Sony's MiniDisc has been met with disdain is that it uses a lossy format. MP3 doesn't strike me as all that different, and I do wonder why many people seem to feel so differently about the two. (I'm not implying you have, Brad, just taking off on your comments.) My theory is that its popularity has to do with the fact that the technology isn't proprietary (that is, Sony, Seagrams, Panasonic, Microsoft, etc. doesn't get a cut of each sale) and that it's software-based, not hardware based, so it requires no outlay of cash, unlike MiniDisc, DAT, DCC, or the other digital consumer formats. The resistance from the major labels certainly hasn't hurt, either, giving the format a Robin Hood-esque aura. No one particularly minds seeing the majors squirm a little. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Why I love Kentucky #47
Jon Weisberger writes: Gov. Patton is kicking off is re-election bid and visited Sandy Hook, Ky. Don was there with others and played the Gov. Patton a little grass. According to the paper Gov. Patton joined in the chorus on "Fox On The Run." Yeah, I was always a big fan of the Sweet, too. Can't really see what a '70s British glitter rock hit has to do with Kentucky politics, though. ;-) --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
New Wynn Stewart website
A friend of mine just clued me into a new Wynn Stewart website that was created by his daughter, Wren Stewart Tidwell. It's still a work in progress, but you can find a lot of interesting stuff there nonetheless. Well worth a look at: http://members.tripod.com/WynnStewart. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: k.d. lang (was Re: Heather Myles Injustice)
Dan Bentele writes: Well, you probably said a number of things that folks will be interested in, Tera g, but I am curious about the above, mainly because I honestly don't know or can't remember; did Nashville actually abandon Lang? I mean, was she dropped, was her budget slashed, did radio or the club promoters turn against her? I don't know, and would really like to know why she moved away and into pop if it was for some reason other than just personal preference. As I remember it, there had been some rumors about her sexuality here and there before she came out, but I don't think that was what caused Nashville to turn its back on her. I really don't recall the fact that she was a lesbian as being a huge surprise to anyone. More than anything else, it was her fight with western cattle ranchers that did in her country career, which happened shortly before she came out. Country radio stations out west refused to play her records until she apologized, she refused to do so, and she became a tough sell at radio after that since there was a big chunk of the nation in which her records wouldn't be played. Goodbye country, hello new career. I remember seeing her in New Hampshire on the "Shadowlands" tour and it was the weirdest audience I've ever seen. The audience was pretty equally distributed between Silent Majority-type country fans, yuppies, and the butchest lesbians I've ever seen in my life. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Heather Myles Injustice
R.W. Shamy Jr. writes: Heather is and has been her own girl- Kinda remind you of Dale Watson? (too country for country?) Just like June Carter Cash? --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Bing Crosby recommendation?
Jon Weisberger writes: Since the Del McCoury comment I posted here recently, naming Der Bingle as one of his favorite singers, reminded me that I've heard the same from lots of other cool country guys (e.g., Maggard), I figure my library isn't complete without something representative. Any thoughts? Yeah, the Decca boxed set. I picked up a used copy about a year ago and it's never far from my car's CD player. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: K.D. Lang
There are several lesbians in country music who have done quite well. Oh really? By all means, name even one successful *openly* gay country artist, male or female. Yeah, this baffled me, too. Who (short of spreading unsubstantiated rumors, of course)? And by what terms is "quite well" defined? 10,000 copies of an indie release sold, or actual top 40 hits? It's still considered the commerical kiss of death to publicly cop to same sex orientation in country circles. It's a fact, jack. Yeah, it might be coincidence, but remember how quickly Randy Travis married his manager several years back when the rumors about him reached a certain critical mass. A lot of the old taboos have fallen in the last ten years or so, but that's still the Big One. The eventual emergence of the first openly gay country music star is going to be one of the more fascinating milestones in country music when it finally happens. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: MonkEE Biz
Buddy Woodward writes: Incidentally, Mike has written his first novel, "The Long Sandy Hair of Neftoon Zamora, which was released by St. Martin's Press in December. He just did a book signing at Barnes Noble here in NYC on Jan 29th...woo-hoo!! How's the book? --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Charlie Rich/Holler
Matt Benz writes: Interesting: BR5, who seem to have more than a little rockabilly in their sound, esp on the last album, does ok with the modern country biz, whereas the Derailers have been drawing rockabilly fans while sticking to a more traditional country sound, and getting ignored by the modern country biz. That's the way it seems from here, anyway. I'm probably wrong, and might still be on a PBR drunk right this damn minute.. I've seen BR5-49 a total of five times - three times in Boston clubs, once in a Northampton club, and most recently over the summer at a free performance in Central Park - and the group pulled in a good number of rockabilly fans at the Boston performances I saw, though not nearly as many at the Noho show (which was a typical Iron Horse yuppie audience, for the most part). Can't be sure about the Central Park show, since there were about 4 or 5 thousand people there. The pompadours and Betty Page hairdos tended to get lost in the sea of faces. I think they certainly have their fans on the rockabilly scene, though with the group being on Arista it's considerably more appropriate to market them primarily to a country audience (though the Albini sessions were clearly an attempt to market the group to the rock crowd). As for the Derailers, sure, they attract a lot of rockabilly fans, but so do Wayne Hancock and Dale Watson. The vast majority of rockabilly fans I know like country music; some like it quite a bit, indeed. They just dislike most of what gets on the radio as much as anyone else here. But give them a local country show like BR5-49, Wayne the Train, the Derailers, Dale Watson, etc. and they'll usually turn out in droves. I've seen the Derailers play the occasional rockabilly-type number, by the way, though it's not as big a part of their sound as it is with BR5-49. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: neil's steel/used vinyl
William T. Cocke writes: Some of those '70s party/latenite stoner albums saw some hard use. You're telling me? Back in the early and mid-'80s when I was filling in the holes in my prog collection with used vinyl, I'd *constantly* get albums with gatefolds (which is 95% of every prog-rock album ever released, after all...) and stems and seeds still lodged in the inner cracks of the gatefold jacket. What was that Rush collection of their first three albums? "Archives?" Man, the records were in good shape, but that one had burn marks on the jacket and the inside of the gatefold looked like the thing had been sent up in a shipment from Mexico. Memo to Jerry Curry: Don't get rid of your old vinyl collection, dude! If you don't have room, make room. Once they're gone they're gone. Even if it is a bunch of old Bananarama and the likeg. Curry's a poseur. Where's Magma, Jerry? Blodwyn Pig? Klaatu? Pallas? --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
WSM
Say, here's a question that's bothered me for a while. Does anyone know why WSM doesn't feed its signal through the Internet? I mean, it seems like kind of a no-brainer to me, seeing as how it's easily the most high-profile country radio station in the world (and maybe that's part of the answer). Personally, I'd love to listen to the entire Opry broadcast other than the half-hour that TNN carries, but the station's signal makes it up this far north only on extremely rare occasions. Just curious. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Beach Boys
Brad Bechtel writes: Either "Beach Boys Today!" or "Summer Days" would be good if you didn't want "Pet Sounds". Personally I'd just get the greatest hits package, "Endless Summer". Both are superb albums, as is "Endless Summer." Of the post-"Pet Sounds" albums, I'm extremely fond of "Friends." --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Monkey Biz
Sarah Wrightson writes: Hell, if you are going to talk about the Beach Boys I can ask another dumb question...also on CNN (guess what I watch while eating lunch) one of the news lines at the bottom said that Michael Nesmith of the Monkeys had been awarded 47Million (well it may have been thousand, the eyes are going) from PBS for fraud? What did they do to the guy? He lost big at that 3 card monty table that PBS has set up in Grand Central Station. But seriously I only heard a bit of it, but I think it had something to do with unpaid royalties from shows that his production company, Pacific Arts, produced for PBS. It's ironic, considering that Nesmith himself was on the receiving end of a lawsuit by PBS and filmmaker Ken Burns a few years back for something similar. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Clip: Nesmith/PBS
From the MSNBC site, since Sarah asked. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts PBS owes ex-Monkee $47 million Jury finds public broadcaster defrauded Michael Nesmith ASSOCIATED PRESS LOS ANGELES, Feb. 3 The network of adorable Muppets and highbrow historical programs owes ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith nearly $47 million for wrecking his home video distribution company, a jury says. IN A DECISION announced Tuesday, a federal jury rejected a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed by the Public Broadcasting Service, which claimed Nesmith owed the nonprofit corporation millions of dollars. The jury then upheld a counterclaim of fraud, breach of contract and contract interference, Nesmiths lawyers said. Its like catching your grandmother stealing your stereo, Nesmith said. On one hand, youre happy to get the stereo back. On the other, youre sad to find out your grandmas a thief. The panel decided Monday that PBS defrauded Nesmith and broke its contract with his now-defunct Pacific Arts Corp., which distributed a video library of the networks most popular programs. PBS firmly believes that the facts and the law in the case merited a ruling in our favor and we are frankly shocked at the verdict. We will vigorously contest the verdict, PBS spokesman Stu Cantor said. KNIT CAP AND SIDEBURNS Nesmith, 56, is best known as the knit cap- and sideburns-wearing member of The Monkees, a pop group created for a 1960s TV sitcom. His company made a deal in 1990 to distribute the PBS Home Video Line. He licensed the PBS trademark and obtained home video rights to dozens of programs from their producers. Pacific Arts spent $8 million breaking the market, convincing stores to give up shelf space for this, putting up kiosks in Wal-Marts, things like that, said Bruce Van Dalsem, a Nesmith lawyer. VIDEO LIBRARY By 1993 the videos were selling well but Nesmiths company was losing money because of high costs. He decided to sell the rights to the accumulated video library, which could earn up to $15 million and allow him to pay off royalties and other business debts, the lawyer said. PBS agreed in writing to help him recapitalize the business or, if that failed, cooperate in slowly winding it down to avoid disruption, Nesmith said. However, while meeting with Nesmith and his staff to reassure them of the networks good faith, PBS officials were busy soliciting a dozen other potential distributors, Nesmith contended. They also convinced producers of the shows to terminate distribution contracts with Pacific Arts en masse on Columbus Day 1993, a federal holiday, Nesmith said. The date was chosen because the courts were closed and Nesmith would be unable to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to save his company, attorney Bruce Van Dalsem said. TERMINATION NOTICES When the day came, it rained termination notices, he said. PBS then obtained the video distribution rights, split them with Turner Home Entertainment, and now reaps $27 million per year from the business, Van Dalsem said. Later, Nesmith was sued by PBS, public stations WNET-New York and WGBH-Boston and by Children Television Workshop, which created Sesame Street. He countersued and the cases went to trial on Jan. 4. On Monday, the jury ruled PBS must pay the other plaintiffs what Pacific Arts owed them. Overall, jurors awarded more than $14.6 million to Pacific Arts for the loss of the value of the video library and nearly $29.3 million in punitive damages. Another $3 million was awarded to Nesmith personally.
Re: neil's steel/used vinyl
Jerry Currey writes: Now, I must admit, I had to look up Pallas. Never heard of those guys. British prog-rock band of the early/mid-'80s; probably second only to Marillion in terms of popularity in the rather anemic prog revival that took place in the U.K. around that time. I know of at least one album by them, though I think there might have been a second. They sounded quite a bit like a cross between "Relayer"-era Yes mixed with the Moody Blues. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: more Boston......
Stacey Taylor writes: Thanks Jeff...now I'm on the way out to pick up that Herald article...have you seen it? I picked it up at the train station this morning. It's fairly short - it's not a feature story like the Kirk Franklin piece in the same issue - but the coverage certainly can't hurt. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: soul, etc
Joe Gracey writes: There is no substitute for a 60s-era soul review. Take my word for it. Okay, as sad as it is, I'll provide a bookend to Joe's James Brown story. The year was 1988. I had graduated from college about a year earlier and was working and teaching bass at a local musical instrument store in Keene, New Hampshire. A local promoter was booking a few shows at the county fairgrounds that summer, one of which was a bill featuring Johnny Rivers, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and James Brown. I'm not a *huge* Johnny Rivers fan (other than "Secret Agent Man," that is) but was nuts for everyone else on the bill. And Rivers *is* a good performer, no doubt about it, and everyone else was great, too. Hell, even Chuck Berry turned in a fine performance. So James is the final performer of the day and his band comes out and starts playing funk instrumentals. James' personal problems were well-known during this period (he was awaiting trial for his famous car chase at that time and was also known to be having marital problems) and there was a lot of curiosity as to how the performance would go. So the band is playing...and playing...and playing. This goes on for about thirty minutes and there's no James Brown yet. People are starting to get a little worried and then Brown finally comes out and turned in a fine performance. Not quite great, and he was a little more incoherent than I'd expected, but certainly nothing to be embarassed by. Meanwhile, outside of town, James' estranged wife had come up to New Hampshire and tried to burn down the motel where James and his band were staying, not knowing that he was at the fairgrounds at the time. She was caught and charged with attempted arson, though I can't remember what the end result of that was. A couple of days later I was at work and a friend of mine came into the store. Said friend worked on the sound crew at the show and was telling me about what it was like backstage. We ended up talking about the arson thing that James' wife had been arrested for and he proceeded to tell me some horror stories about what it was like backstage before Brown's set. I really don't want to get into what he told me *too* much because none of it would come as a huge surprise at this point and James has admirably stuck to the straight-and-narrow in the intervening years. Safe to say, though, there was a good reason why the band was playing instrumental vamps for a half-hour before he finally went onstage. I was really impressed that the performance was as good as it was after hearing my friend's backstage stories. I truly wish I'd seen Brown in the '60s. A few years back PBS ran an old bw videotape of his 1968 Boston TV performance the evening of Martin Luther King's death; one of the most amazing TV concerts I've ever seen. The anger and energy in the audience came through loud and clear, twenty-five years after the original event. The way that Brown and Boston's then-mayor Kevin White handled the situation onstage saved Boston a lot of destruction that a lot of other cities weren't as lucky to avoid. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Blue Chip Radio Report, 01/25/99
Looks like Wall isn't around, so I'll do the honors this week. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts THE BLUE CHIP RADIO REPORT News, Charts, Show Prep, Sales Info January 25, 1999 Bill Miller Editor Publisher The Blue Chip Radio Report is a free weekly newsletter for people in the radio and music industries. To add your name to our e-mailing list, or to remove your name, send your request to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks! The Blue Chip Song of the Week: "Don't Come Crying To Me" by Vince Gill. Writers: Vince Gill Reed Nielsen. Producer: Tony Brown. Label: MCA Nashville. Fiddles to the left, fiddles to the right. For some reason, fiddles are everywhere this week. It's a nice change. If you love country music, you'll love this song. Heads are rolling as cuts are being made at Polygram's subsidiary labels. Affected country labels include Universal, MCA, Decca and Mercury. Several other non-country labels were involved. Non-country labels apparently suffered the most in sheer numbers, but the country cuts rocked Nashville last week. Many talented Nashville artists and front office people are, or will soon be, without a label. Decca Records has been closed. Lead Decca AR man Mark Wright, one of Nashville's finest producers, is apparently headed for MCA. For now, Decca artists Gary Allan, Mark Chesnutt and Lee Ann Womack are moving to the MCA label. Decca artists left without a label include Dolly Parton, Danni Leigh, Rhett Akins, Chris Knight, Rebecca Lynn Howard and Shane Stockton. Parton's highly-acclaimed album and Leigh's hot new single, "29 Nights", are effectively left out in the cold with no support. Parton reportedly learned the news from reporters. At Mercury, John Anderson, comedian Rodney Carrington and new artist Jenny Simpson have been dropped. MCA Nashville cut several staffers but hasn't made roster cuts. About 500 people were cut at the various Polygram labels. About 700 more are expected to be cut in coming months. Seagram's paid $ 10.4 billion for the Polygram labels in deal that was finalized about 6 weeks ago. The company wants to find a way to save $ 300 million by consolidating the various Polygram operations. Legendary steel guitarist Jimmy Day passed away Friday (1/22) after a long battle with various pancreatic and gastrointestinal diseases. While some might argue that the most influential steel guitarist in history was Buddy Emmons or Pete Drake or Shot Jackson or Paul Franklin or someone else, an equal number will argue that Jimmy Day holds that honor. Jimmy Day's list of credits is long and impressive. When Webb Pierce's day job was selling shoes and shirts at Sears, he had a weekend job performing on The Louisiana Hayride at KWKH in Shreveport. Webb hired Jimmy Day to play steel guitar on the Hayride (1951). Jimmy Day would later have stints in Ray Price's Cherokee Cowboys, Jim Reeves' Blue Boys, and Willie Nelson's band (The Record Men). He also played in the backup bands for Lefty Frizzell, Willie Nelson, George Jones, Commander Cody, Tracy Nelson and others. His many honors include election to the International Steel Guitar Hall of Fame, the Texas Steel Guitar Hall of Fame, and the Texas Western Swing Hall of Fame. James Clayton "Jimmy" Day was 65 years old. If you ever wrote to Elvis Presley, be patient. Karen Goltz, now 50 years old, wrote the king a fan letter in 1960 when she was just a bopper. No reply, no return to sender. The young lady was disappointed. But a few days ago, someone found a reply that Elvis had written. It was in the attic of a woman who had rented Elvis an apartment during his military service days in Germany. The happy fan now has her reply from Elvis. Karen, who lived in Oberhausen, West Germany, at the time, had written: "It's my birthday soon and if you send me your autograph I promise I will marry you when I grow up." Elvis' personal note ended with "May you have a happy 11th birthday - and a lot of "Teddy Bears" (referring to his 50's hit) - your friend Elvis". By the way, a collector in the U.K. has estimated the value of Elvis' letter to be about 3,600 pounds. Which almost makes it big enough to play in the Denver Broncos offensive line. Jerry Buckner at Fox97 in Atlanta has a "Dirty Bird" song getting big response in several markets. For the uninitiated, the "Dirty Bird" is the Atlanta Falcons' high-profile celebration dance. Jerry says the song will be featured on Roseanne's Superbowl Show later this week. You can check it out at www.RadioMusicNetwork.com . Jerry will graciously furnish a free copy for your station if you call him at (770) 736-1792. The lovely and talented Sara Evans and hubby Craig Schelske are expecting their first child later this year. The Amy Grant/Gary Chapman split may involve more money than you expect. If you choose to believe The National Enquirer, about $ 75 million
Re: A feature on Boston Country
Interesting article. I missed this when I was looking through the Globe on Sunday. Yup, it can sure be grim here if you're in a local country band and aren't playing at rock clubs (as several do). Morse didn't mention the Fritters, who I think highly of (particularly the Rose Maddox-ish vocals of their singer, Betsy Nichols), though they rarely play live - maybe once every couple of months - so the omission is understandable. Nor did he mention the Stumbleweeds, who *do* play live around here at least two or three times a month, so there's less of an excuse there. Nor did he mention the Bag Boys, who hold court every Saturday afternoon at the Plough and Stars in the heart of Cambridge (Paul Burch fans--word is that he's coming up to Beantown in the next couple of months to do some recording and playing with them). Since when has Loosigian been in the Darlings? What happened to that guy Rik (the one who looked like a leftover member of Slade) who used to play guitar for them? Y'know, I'm happy that a local band won that contest and everything, but I've seen those guys five or six times and I've just never been able to warm up to 'em. Loved this part: WKLB, which sponsors a country festival at Great Woods each summer (with Nashville headliners) and cosponsors summer events at Indian Ranch in Webster, has no time slot devoted to local music, but ''that's not to say there won't be one in the future,'' says music director Ginny Rogers. Well, I'll say it: No, there won't be one in the future. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: 16 RPM (was RE: www.lyrics.ch)
Geffry King writes: Has anybody ever seen an actual 16rpm record? I heard that the Highway HiFi offered as an option on some old Chrysler automobiles played these, but was never able to verify it. Yeah, it's true. It was an option on certain Chrysler models in the late '50s. Actually, I think I have something about this on one of my computers and will post it if I can remember what I did with it. Chrysler had a deal with Columbia to produce 16rpm records for the auto market. I can't remember exactly why the whole thing fizzled, but it was pretty much kaput by 1960, if memory serves. I recall actually seeing 16rpm records that were made for classroom use when I was a kid; basically children's stories and stuff like that. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Clip: Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out
From today's Nashville Tennessean: Shakeup swallows Decca By Jay Orr and Tom Roland / Tennessean Staff Writers Decca Records closed shop, Mercury Records trimmed its artist roster, and MCA Records fired staff yesterday as Nashville felt the impact of a national corporate overhaul. Decca, a historically significant label in Nashville, was a subsidiary of MCA Records. MCA's parent company, Seagram, bought Mercury's parent company, PolyGram, last year, and yesterday slashed staff and artist rosters in all of its offices. The moves are designed to streamline the umbrella company Universal Music Group, which distributes music from all the merged labels. Five hundred employees were terminated nationally at numerous labels, with 700 more cuts expected within the next nine months. "In the end we'll have a fairly lean organization as these labels are merged. ... It gives us an advantage in terms of our margins," said a source within the company. "When you have the best of the best of two rosters going out through a leaner organization, you're in pretty good shape." Country hitmakers Mark Chesnutt, Lee Ann Womack and Gary Allan are all being shifted from the Decca roster to MCA. The label's remaining artists -- including Dolly Parton and Rhett Akins -- were let go. No artists already signed to MCA were terminated. Mercury dropped honky-tonk favorite John Anderson, comedian Rodney Carrington and newcomer Jenny Simpson, whose debut album had not yet been released. The label also cut one support staffer in its marketing department. The consolidation created confusion across Music Row yesterday. Universal, however, acknowledged its moves with a sketchy, unspecific three-paragraph release issued from its West Coast office. Local employees were tight-lipped. Mercury Nashville and MCA Nashville will continue as separate labels under the agreement. Mercury still will be led by president Luke Lewis. MCA Nashville remains under the direction of chairman Bruce Hinton and president Tony Brown. Mark Wright, who was in charge of finding talent and songs for Decca, is expected to move to MCA. The label held discussions with him yesterday to work out the details. Enzo DeVincenzo, a regional record promoter based in Dallas, will also shift from Decca to MCA. The remainder of the Decca staff -- seven full-time and four temporary employees -- lost their jobs. Two of the employees who are now without jobs had been associated with MCA and Decca for at least 14 years -- marketing executive Phil Hart and Shelia Shipley Biddy. When Decca reopened, Shipley became the first woman to jointly head a major record label in Nashville. Some of the employees who were ousted experienced both disappointment and relief at yesterday's developments, which ended three months of uncertainty about their futures. No MCA artists were let go. The MCA roster includes George Strait, Vince Gill, Reba McEntire and Trisha Yearwood. MCA let six employees go, according to a source with close ties to the company. Those remaining at Mercury include such successful mainstream country acts as Shania Twain, Toby Keith, Terri Clark, Sammy Kershaw, Kathy Mattea and Mark Wills. Mercury also boasts a stable of quality alternative country and roots-rock acts, such as Neil Coty, Kim Richey and William Topley. Seagram's $10.4 billion buyout of PolyGram was finalized Dec. 10, with an expectation that combining labels would save $300 million. "While change is always difficult, the restructuring of the labels is necessary for us to be more competitive, develop artists' careers and pave the way for meaningful growth in the future," the Universal release stated. Nationally, the consolidation realigned a number of labels, including Island, Geffen, AM and Interscope. As many as three-quarters of the labels' acts may be purged, according to the current issue of Rolling Stone. Artists on those labels include Sheryl Crow, U2, Aerosmith, Beck and B.B. King. Boyz II Men was officially shifted yesterday from Motown Records to Universal Records. The timing was particularly ironic for country singer Mark Chesnutt, who kicked off a Seagram-sponsored three-month tour Wednesday at Ryman Auditorium. Chesnutt's version of the Aerosmith pop hit I Don't Want to Miss a Thing is the only Decca or MCA single currently in country's Top 10, and an album of the same name is slated for a Feb. 9 release date. The album still is expected to hit stores that day. Reflecting the confusion surrounding the event, Dolly Parton still did not know by 5:30 p.m. yesterday that Decca had dropped her, a Parton spokesman said. When an artist is dropped by the record label, the act essentially becomes a free agent, able to pursue a recording deal with other companies. When, for example, Steve Wariner and Arista Records parted ways last year, Wariner received offers from several Nashville labels, eventually signing with Capitol. The merger also may affect Nashville-based rock acts.
Re: Clip: Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out
Chris Orlet writes: It gives us an advantage in terms of our margins," said a source within the company. Just makes me feel all warm/fuzzy inside to know they are looking out for their margins. The artists, employees, screw em. I liked this one (from the Universal press release): "While change is always difficult, the restructuring of the labels is necessary for us to be more competitive, develop artists' careers and pave the way for meaningful growth in the future," As opposed to the meaningless growth that they had in the past? "...develop artists' careers" Well, except for the ones that they dropped. I love corporate-speak press releases. There's a section of the "Dilbert" webpage that allows you to create your own. It's pretty hilarious. Check it out sometime. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
Re: Americana guesswork
Junior writes: Apparently this person is already in the black on the self-release, whereas the indie still claims it hasn't recouped on sales 5 or 6 times that high And that's an indie. The break-even point at a major would probably be another five or six times higher than *that*, if not higher. --Jon Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wollaston, Massachusetts
