[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Uqn0HoBDq7i0Zz0DVOVaIArJE9kt6RIf"] A FEW weeks ago I wrote about the difficulties the new regime of streaming were creating in jazz and classical music, and quoted one of the heads of the avant-garde Pi Recordings on how the label had chosen to take its music off Spotify, since the rates were so bad and cutting into their sales. He was glad he'd done it. The Blue … [Read more...]
Archives for 2014
Amazon Attacks… George Orwell
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="FGMaW10z0XI8nVQN7MfT1Ac9PxVEGJCS"] BOY, this is weird. The online bookseller, in an attempt to tackle its critics, has been quoting George Orwell WAY out of context. A New York Times story gets at the whole messy business. In 1936 Orwell told a British paper: “The Penguin Books are splendid value for sixpence, so splendid that if the other publishers had any … [Read more...]
“Is Spotify Killing Music?”
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="AJwkTxpSjSsEeL7n5JFPH23s6m8blcVb"] TWO descendants of Woody Guthrie and John Steinbeck make a good illustration of what's happened to the lives of musicians lately. A new story -- co-written by yours truly -- up on TakePart looks at how musicians are being proletarianized, and I don't just mean the lyrics. The story -- written with Kathleen Sharp -- weaves between … [Read more...]
Waging War on Middlebrow
A PROFOUND story appeared in the New York Times a few days ago and seems to have gotten far less discussion that it deserved. I mean film critic A.O. Scott's "The Squeeze on the Middlebrow." This is one of the best pieces I've seen connecting income inequality and the whole 1 percent business to culture and the middle class's role in it. Scott begins by speaking about Thomas Piketty's Capital … [Read more...]
Creativity and “Powers of Two”
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="h6kHO9RuWKQjpO1pgA06PU80n7f3lQ1n"] JOSHUA Wolf Shenk's new book, Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs, is the subject of my latest story. Shenk looks at more than 100 partnerships -- some overt, some hidden -- to try to distill the process of creation and derive patterns. He works especially with figures in literature and the arts -- … [Read more...]
What Can the Music Business Learn from TV?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="ovgvpF5mVNWQ4VA6t0cWS8RxeXKTS2uP"] THE contrast is hard to miss: the great surge in television -- especially on cable -- as the music industry collapses. Culture writer Ted Gioia has written a short provocative post trying to make sense of the mismatch. He's also asking how music can replicate some of the success of HBO, Showtime and the others. Generally, Ted is … [Read more...]
Bill Frisell and John Pizzarelli
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="YzGwojzyP7xLvlItRYvhB3hE0xZLcPub"] Want to see two masters of the jazz guitar play a laid-back duo version of "Days of Wine and Roses"? We sure do. The performance, along with an inteview, just went up on the Fretboard Journal. Here it is. Enjoy! … [Read more...]
The Downside of Freelance Nation
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Xdew9ZyDPnPc00sNxT9gh2myS9uRknrk"] WITH all the hype around the go-it-alone/ "free-agent" lifestyle and the new economy, it's refreshing to see a sober, well-balance piece about making a living as a freelancer. Though it's not specifically about the creative class, Tiffany Hsu's story on freelancers and the "gray economy" in California is crucial to understanding … [Read more...]
Phil and Dave Alvin Play the Blues
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="UKi5w9mxgcYp60mSYYXB3aLbyiq9oNKk"] YOUR humble blogger just caught the former Blasters playing a short set from their new Big Bill Broonzy (pictured, right) record, at the Federal Bar in North Hollywood. This exceeded my expectations -- Phil (who almost died a few years ago) was in good voice, not just on the blues numbers, but on a Jimmie Rodgers song (complete … [Read more...]
Silicon Valley’s New Robber Barons
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="EgEeltgVhbdrJtpZgu1Pc9OkKclq7k1w"] THERE'S a very fine new piece in the August Harper's in which Rebecca Solnit draws a straight line between the 19th century robber barons and Silicon Valley's cyber-utopians. The common denominator, she writes, is Stanford University. The relationship between the early kings of the railroads -- who were given free reign across much … [Read more...]