#oh it’s a music video platform. i thought it was a band and/or record label. that explains a lot.

[ded-ihn-uh-hul]

In which our very own Parker messes around on random instruments, intermixed with unintelligible ʅ(◣◡◢)ʃ noises.

[jazzviewswithcjshearn]

A deeper look at: Pat Metheny: From This Place (Nonesuch/Metheny Group Productions, 2020)

Pat Metheny: guitars, keyboards; Gwilym Simcock: piano; Linda May Han Oh: bass; voice, Antonio Sanchez: drums with the Hollywood Studio Symphony conducted by Joel McNeely. Special guests: Luis Conte: percussion; Gregoire Maret: harmonica; Meshell Ndegeocello: vocals.

This review is dedicated to the memory Lyle Mays (1953-2020).  Your brilliance, and contribution to Metheny’s music, and the world of music as a whole will never be forgotten.

Pat Metheny enters a new phase of his career and era with From This Place. The guitarist has been regularly performing for the past several years be it with the stellar quartet that graces this release, Welsh pianist Gwilym Simcock, Malaysian-Australian bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer of choice, Antonio Sanchez, in addition to duos with bass legend Ron Carter, and the experimental Side Eye project prominently featuring acclaimed up and coming young musicians. However, From This Place is the guitarist's first recording in six years since Kin (↔) with the Pat Metheny Unity Group.  To round out the core group, Metheny enlisted Metheny Group alumni Luis Conte on percussion, in addition to harmonica ace Gregoire Maret who played on and toured behind The Way Up. The guitarist also welcomes back arranger Gil Goldstein to the fold who appeared on Secret Story as well as the tour that followed, and the legendary Alan Broadbent. Meshell Ndegeocello sings on the title track with lyrics written by her partner Alison Riley.

Metheny has been no stranger to touring and constant playing, although the 66 year old has scaled back his once massive nearly year round touring schedule to about 150-200 dates around the world to accommodate family life, the fact that From This Place is the first album in six years is a bit of anomaly in his release history.  The music industry has rapidly changed in recent years: the rise of streaming sites like Spotify, Amazon HD Music, and Qobuz in addition to Youtube has changed the way the public consumes music. CD sales have rapidly declined, although they still outsell vinyl, which is continuing it’s resurgence.  Metheny has been an example of an artist where physical releases are truly special, almost an event.  Going back to his days on ECM, he has always benefited from striking cover art, often being involved directly in the process itself, something rare nowadays.  He has adopted not only streaming, but usage of Bandcamp and offers up audiophile high resolution mastering of the new recording on platforms like HD Tracks and Pro Studio Masters, though the advent of Youtube almost a decade ago and frequent camera phone videos (as well as bootlegs in general) have been an impediment to the guitarist and thus resulted in the controlled studio environments that spawned The Orchestrion Project and Unity Sessions video and album releases reflective of how he approached the music live on tour.

The guitarist has also in the past decade drastically changed his approach to music.  While his recordings with the Pat Metheny Group featuring co founder, keyboardist and writing partner, the late Lyle Mays were and continue to be his most popular works balancing complex forms with memorable melodies.  Since the PMG's final recording The Way Up in 2005, the guitarist has focused on increasingly complex, harmonically dense music that has entered new arenas. This music, featured on albums like Orchestrion, Tap (where he played the music of John Zorn) and Kin(<->) while bearing his inimitable melodic stamp, if one were to peruse various internet discussions, some fans felt that these albums had a higher barrier of entry and wished for more melodic material-- while all these albums, plus Unity Band featured exemplary writing, occasionally the melodies took their time to unfold.  While many of these melodies contained Metheny’s unmistakable essence, From This Place for the most part, goes back to  where his melodies are instantly memorable and singable. Because the album features backing from the Hollywood studio symphony, in addition to the core quartet,  some listeners may automatically assume it is a direct sequel to Secret Story,  the album is anything but. Though it at times conjures moods of the earlier album, the similarities end beyond surface comparisons. The fact is Metheny has moved far beyond that period in his writing, and improvisational abilities, and his writing is the best it's ever been. The album is somewhat of a career summation, but like many others in his discography like Speaking Of Now, or Imaginary Day, the contents also show a new path forward.  This album is firmly rooted in the interplay and solos of a quartet, as Unity Band was, though the the backing of the orchestra, with arrangements centered on what the quartet played, change the complexion considerably.  It is also the first time the guitarist has had a pianist for a foil in his own bands since Lyle Mays.

The genesis for how this music came to be is fascinating.  Around December of 2017, Metheny went into the studio with Simcock, May Han Oh and Sanchez, and laid down sixteen new compositions, of which ten are on this release.  As the music began to be played, he began to hear things inside of it that had yet to be manifested.  The guitarist had logged considerable road time with bassist Ron Carter, whom he played several duo gigs.  During the travel time, Metheny asked Mr. Carter, a lifelong hero of his about the process of playing in the Miles Davis Quintet from 1963-1968-- more specifically, why did they stick to Davis' standard book in concert?  The bassist has frequently described the nightly experiences of playing with Davis as being a laboratory, and they developed a certain code on the bandstand, where through playing standards, they were able to use said code in the creation of new music in the studio.  

From that inspiration, Metheny toured the quartet on the road playing selections from his vast songbook.  They too, would use their own code, something not entirely unfamiliar.  After all, the first recording that Antonio Sanchez participated in was Speaking of Now (2002) with the Pat Metheny Group, and that album, like From This Place was an evolutionary album, which set the stage for the  larger territory tackled in  The Way Up.  The seeds sown in the compositional processes found there would be in Orchestrion and Kin (↔).  The present quartet has really inspired him, and arguably is closest in conception and flavor to the original PMG in terms of broad stylistic conception.  Longtime Metheny fans who have been at shows in that period, or in collector's circles are quite familiar that the early PMG experimented with new tunes before recording, including standards into the set list as well as playing fan favorite tracks.  Something quite similar to the current quartet. As Metheny explained vis a vis the approach to add orchestration to flesh out the playing of the quartet he notes:

As much as folks might describe the sonic language of the avant-garde movement of the sixties as falling into an identifiable generic sound, I have always regarded the general expansion of creativity of that era in a more ecumenical way.

The stylistic changes that occurred then in our community included not only the obvious examples of individual players utilizing extended techniques on their instruments in new ways, or new types of ensembles, but also the wildly new approaches that technology, particular recording technology, offered.

Multi-track recording allowed for entirely new kinds of music to be made.

It is unlikely that the recordings of the CTI label of that time would likely never be thought of as “avant-garde” by garden variety jazz critics of that (or probably any other) era. But from my seat as a young fan, the idea of an excellent and experienced arranger like Don Sebesky taking the improvised material of great musicians like Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter and weaving their lines and voicings into subsequent orchestration was not only a new kind of arranging; it resulted in a different kind of sound and music. 

It was a way of presenting music that represented the impulses of the players and the improvisers at hand through orchestration in an entirely new way. I loved those records.

This will not be the first recording of mine where that equation—record first, orchestrate later—has come up. But it is by far the most extensive one, and I would offer the most organic. From the first notes we recorded, this was the destination I had in mind.

Don Sebesky's arranging skills, found on recordings such as First Light (1971) by Freddie Hubbard, Sunflower (1972) by Milt Jackson and his own Giant Box (1974) illustrate the approach Metheny had in mind.  The track “Wide and Far” is not the first Metheny track to feature an overt homage to the CTI sound.  “So May It Secretly Begin” from the classic (Still Life) Talking (1987) was also an Sebesky homage, particularly in the rich Synclavier string arrangement, but “Wide and Far” positioned as the second cut on From This Place takes that arranging influence to a far deeper level.  The melody is simply prime Metheny, with string, reed and brass sections that in some ways are reminiscent of Freddie Hubbard's Sky Dive (1972) album.  The guitarist, spurred by Sanchez's liquid ride and May Han Oh's of the earth bass takes an inspired solo, amidst soaring orchestral harmonies.  There is a deep in the cut funkiness aspect of Metheny's playing here that not only exhibits the sheer joy of playing with this special class of musicians, but his  nods to George Benson here appear  more overt than they did on “Here To Stay” from the Metheny Group's We Live Here (1995).  It is a beautiful homage, and the handoff to Gwilym Simcock on the bridge section is seamless, where the pianist weaves, fresh lines in his very individual voice. The Welsh pianist was a late bloomer to the jazz world, as he began playing the music in his twenties. Over the course of two decades with associations such as former reedist with Chick Corea's Origin, Tim Garland and the Steve Rodby produced Impossible Gentlemen, Simcock has been one of the most in demand pianists.  During the quartet's 2017 performance at the Beacon Theater it was amply evident how much the guitarist enjoyed having a pianist against as co conspirator and solo voice. The quality is evident in spades on From This Place and one wonders the possibilities were Metheny and Simcock to become co writers.  Also in the Davis Quintet mold, Metheny had each member have input on the material and three of the four members arrange pieces, save Sanchez who acts as an arranger in real time crafting colors and textures based on what the music calls for.  While the recording has several trademark cinematic numbers, perhaps none so than “America Undefined” a defiant statement against the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President.  The piece draws on the more complex material found on Orchestrion and Kin (↔). Linda May Han Oh, a wonderful leader and composer in her own right, most recently used strings in provocative ways on her latest work Aventurine, and brings that deep orchestral awareness and attention to shading found in her own work to From This Place.

A Sanchez cymbal roll leads into May Han Oh's ascending arco bass melody, which bears some similarity and extends on a bit, the post solo interlude section of the Kin (↔) title track featuring Giulio Carmassi's ascending vocals in tandem with guitar in piano.  May Han Oh's arco melody sets a prominent melodic thread through the piece, and Metheny adds signature hollow body guitar over a rubato foundation that gives way to him once again stating the melody with orchestra behind him in a 5/8 time signature. During the melodic statement, Simcock and May Han Oh play a stunning unison counterpoint line, reminiscent of Bach.  Simcock's piano solo begins with the rubato foundation, Sanchez adding provocative rim clicks and fascinating comping underneath. From there, Simcock is vaulted into a burning 4/4 swing and samba section sans bass drum accents, the orchestra reminding listeners of the melodic cel behind them.  Simcock's solo is filled with vigorous single note ideas, he is a devotee of Metheny's entire catalog, also bearing out why he is an evolution in Metheny's concept of a pianistic foil—something the guitarist clearly relishes. Metheny follows with a soaring, inspired hollow body solo, the orchestra's harmonies providing a huge lift.  

May Han Oh returns with the initial melodic figure at the top, and then around 8 minutes into the piece, what sounds like Orchestrion vibes introduce a much darker, brooding mode.  Shades of the sound effect and musique concrete driven sections of “As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls” are here, with some of the strangeness of the soundscape section of “Are We There Yet?” from Letter From Home in terms of eerie sounds wafting in and out of the mix.  The sounds of clunking, and railroad tracks dominate as the strings remind of the melody once again, May Han Oh's thunking pedal point from earlier in the composition is yet another thematic thread.  Metheny uses slide and ebow guitar as a constant distant drone, and provides disembodied strands of further distanced electric guitar in the sound stage bouncing between speakers (or headphones).  At first listen it seems to be a call back to “Cathedral in a Suitcase” from Secret Story (1992), but upon further listens is more reminiscent of the distorted guitar deeply embedded into the mix at the start of “Psalm 121” on the soundtrack of The Falcon And The Snowman (1985). The bluesiness of these disembodied lines somehow evokes uncertainty, and the loud bells of a railroad sign, as the orchestra spins variations on the main theme, let you know something is coming. Suddenly, Sanchez' slightly gated drums, a not so subtle Phil Collins and 80's production reference, and reminder of Steve Ferrone's toms on “Cathedral in a Suitcase” thunder in, to the sound of a loud train whistle, panning through the speakers. Sanchez's driving, John Bonham inspired rock beat along with the symphonies' restatement of a portion of the melody makes things truly epic.  The five minutes of orchestral investigation is truly thrilling and shows how deep of a writer Metheny has become.  Indian flavored strings play portamento glissando with microtonal elements, like those used on “Within  You, Without You” from The Beatles are an unexpected but pleasant element in a breathtaking finale.  The piece dies down with the fluttering of castanets, like birds flying away in a flock, eerie sampled vocal sounds in the left channel, fluttering and processed abrupt flutes and strings.  It's an unexpected end to a piece using some variant of a sonata form but never resolves itself completely.  Make no mistake about it, the piece is foreboding and dark, tapping into a new area of Metheny's writing, but strangely, there is also a trace of hope.

“You Are” is one of the most striking offerings on the recording.  Since Bright Size Life (ECM, 1975) on every album, the guitarist has had a melodic idea that his pushes to the breaking point through motivic development. Simcock's piano quietly begins the track doubled by chiming orchestra bells, a tip toeing two note figure is stated in unison, with sparse brushed cymbal work from Sanchez. Metheny's dark hollow body tone announces the melody, as the two note figure is enhanced by a wall of synthesizers, and strings.  May Han Oh's soprano voice is added to the density as she and Metheny state an arresting three note idea that builds and builds to a dramatic climax, before gentle strings sing in hushed tones as the original two note motif returns to close the piece.

Flutes double May Han Oh's resonate bass for the gentle melancholic theme of “Same River”.  The acoustic sitar guitar makes it's first appearance since “Wherever You Go” from Speaking of Now, and Metheny's double tracked guitar and sitar make use of one of his favorite devices, the glissando. Simcock plays a tasteful brief piano solo before the guitarist takes a trademark flight on Roland GR300 guitar synth, gorgeous ascending french horn and string harmonies-- the CTI reference is indeed very clear in this track with strong doses that will recall listeners of the PMG at their peak and some flavors of Secret Story (1992).

“Pathmaker” represents some of Metheny's most adventurous writing on record.  The track, along with “Everything Explained” bear a strong Chick Corea influence.  Metheny is positively lyrical on his first solo, then Simcock is at once melodic and knotty.  One of the most exquisite aspects of the track is the  unison line between Metheny and Simcock following the second guitar solo as Sanchez frames a volcanic dialogue around their line.  The provocative dreamy coda, sounding something out of a French film score, utilizes choice coloration from bass clarinet amidst butterfly esque clarinet string trills and some  electronics popping in and out.  Atop all that, Metheny's heavily reverbed slide guitar offers a longing melodic aside as the composition finishes. PMG alum and frequent Phil Collins percussionist Luis Conte's omnipresent colorations are a tremendous asset to the track.

If anything will make listeners make direct comparisons to Secret Story it will be the track “The Past In Us”. PMG alumni Gregoire Maret's reflective harmonica solo may remind some of the late Toots Thielemans' unforgettable eight bar contribution to “Always and Forever”, with the swelling strings behind him. Metheny graces the track with an absolutely gorgeous nylon string guitar solo. The final tracks are also perfectly programmed.  The title track stands as one of the guitarist's prettiest ballads, gorgeous strands of Bach inspired baroque strings frame a long intro, from which hymn like harmonies emerge. Ndegeocello's rich voice in alto and soprano ranges paints a picture of despair and hopelessness with tender lyrics related to the current cultural climate-- yet like much of Metheny's music over the years stands a bright ray of hope.  He takes an exquisite nylon string solo here as well.

“Sixty-Six” is a beautiful reminder of the midwestern tinges returning to the fore in Metheny's music.  The train motif is once again stated, with Sanchez' brushes on snare, and the guitarist spins a wonderful, singable melody over the top, and mixes the lyrical with the more harmonically rich approach to improvisation that has marked his work over the past decade.  Linda Oh's initial solo is full of ripe ideas, and her double tracked bass interlude following the guitarist's solo is an affectionate wink to Eberhard Weber.  To close the album, the Sebesky arranged CTI vibe returns on “Love May Take A While”, a wonderful ballad that if one closes their eyes, one can almost imagine Metheny's nuanced hollow body solo to be a horn, in his assurance of ideas.  

Sound

From This Place was principally recorded and mixed by Pete Karam at Avatar Studios (now Power Station, Berklee) with the orchestral parts recorded by Rich Breen in Los Angeles.   Karam has inherited the very rich sonic world found on Metheny recordings that was originally created and perfected from the Geffen era on by Rob Eaton.  Metheny's guitars take front and center in the sound stage with the delay from his multiple amp set up panning between the left and right speakers-- the effect is not as pronounced as say Travels, Question and Answer or Letter From Home, but is still there and has evolved as Metheny's tone has changed through the first two decades of the 21st century.  Linda May Han Oh's basslines appropriately showcase the deep woodiness of an acoustic bass sound and is quite accurate to the real thing.  Antonio Sanchez' drums are very present and forward in the mix with the main ride cymbal in the left channel, and his multiple snare drums being placed across the sound stage.

Luis Conte's percussion is also quite forward in the mix, and Simcock's piano is rich.  Orchestra placement is subtle to the rear of the soundstage.  What is apparent though is unlike earlier Metheny albums, the mix, like Kin (↔) the previous studio album is heavier on the mids, with not as much treble sparkle up top though this may be clearly system dependent.  Also interesting, while the album will be released in high res, the promo copies that were distributed by Nonesuch are 16 bit WAV files with a 48 KhZ sample rate equivalent to DVD quality, so while not hi res, the quality is a step from CD quality.  Thankfully Ted Jensen's mastering maintains a strong sense of dynamics which is imperative for music of this scope.

Final thoughts:

In what has been a career spanning nearly a half century, and filled with gems and milestones from both solo work and the Pat Metheny Group combined, From This Place may very well be one of the best albums of Metheny's career, if not the best.  His writing is clearly on another level, and as great as recordings with orchestra accompaniment have been like The Falcon and The Snowman, Secret Story and A Map of The World have been, the combination of one of his best ensembles in years, the inspired memorable tunes, great solos and the high level of arranging prowess,  represent the guitarist at his best.  The music is as much a summary of what has been to this point as it is pointing some new directions into the future.  Those who take the time to listen, understand the music for what it is, rather than what it should be, or is not, will be greatly rewarded.

Music: 10/10

Sound: 9/10

Edit: I made an addendum to the date of the recording which I previously stated as December 2016.  After the NYC Beacon Theater show in June 2017, Antonio Sanchez told me they were going into the studio to record, that December.

[elanorjane]

California Soulmates: Epilogue

Summary: Pop princess Belle wants to write her own music and get out from under her father’s thumb. Single father Gold wants to put his failed music career behind him and get the hell out of L.A. When inspiration strikes, there’s only one problem…the songs they’re writing aren’t their own. They’re each other’s. 

*“Telepathic soulmates” RCIJ for @beastlycheese

A/N: THANK YOU @beastlycheese for gifting me with this idea and letting me run with it...and run with it...and run with it some more. It was such a delicious idea I refused to let it go. <3

AO3 link

He missed the smell of cigarette smoke in bars. He’d mostly quit when Bae was young, but in the intervening years, he’d been known to sneak one up on the roof and bury the butt in the planter afterward. He enjoyed the nicotine contact high of being around smokers because it made him feel like it was still 1985 and his career was still in front of him, if only for the length of a song. But gone was the haze over the audience. Now, he saw each and every face crystal clear. He appreciated the vape smoke for aesthetics, but it wasn’t the same. Lately, he was more likely to get a whiff of pot from the tables below, which equally transported him back to his twenties. But honestly, he didn’t need the crutch anymore.  

He’d been to enough open mic nights to know that many people squinted in the spotlight when they climbed on stage. Some, unfamiliar with the creaks and groans of an old wooden platform still sticky with decades of spilled beer, even threw up an arm to shield their eyes from the glare but he didn’t. Ancient stage or a slab of concrete in a dark corner, it felt comfortable to him, like home. Tonight, he could feel the heat from the overhead light on his face. He didn’t even need to look to see whether he sat in the center of the rickety stage raised one foot off the ground. He could just feel it.

But Belle winced as the stool she pulled forward scraped against the grain and wobbled a little climbing up. She’d performed in front of more people than he could comprehend, yet in this intimate club, he watched her eyes narrow when the light hit her face. She swiveled self-consciously so she faced him more than the expectant faces two feet away. He knew she was going to be uncomfortable tonight, that this was going to be a stretch for her, but he knew she’d be brilliant. She wiped her palms on her old torn jeans. He knew she chose to wear them here as a sort of armor.    

He couldn’t guarantee her fame, he couldn’t give her money, he couldn’t promise her that their life together was always going to be easy, but he could give her nights like this. A safe space to build confidence in her abilities and a venue to workshop her feelings through song.  

Sometimes they showed up at an open mic night and wrote together, telepathically, on the spot for fun. It was a rush, being in front of a crowd and not knowing if the next verse was going to appear, but it always did. They throwing out the beginning of an idea, because the other person was always there to finish it.  

He’d brought her to this particular venue tonight because it was known for its discerning crowd. If you weren’t good, they’d let you know it with their indifference. It was also close to their old apartment.

Following her Hollywood Bowl performance, Belle had moved in with him and Bae. But it wasn’t long until they’d moved out of the neighborhood, leaving their cramped, bohemian rooftop living behind. They’d bought a modest house just outside the city but still close enough to music venues and nightlife.

Bae was going to a better school now. He fought the transfer at first, but he could still see his friends on the weekends. Unlike his old school, his new school hadn’t defunded the music program. Since he didn’t want to be in the school chorus, he’d landed in band. They’d given him his choice of instruments, they were even progressive enough to include electric guitar. But he refused to play the same instrument as his father. After trying out all they had to offer Bae discovered his new love - the trumpet. On any given night an obnoxious blaring reverberated through the house. Since Bae spent his entire life keeping it down for the neighbors, Gold couldn’t bring himself to tell him to knock it off, and being anything but wholly supportive was outside Belle’s capabilities. Gold found himself playing a lot of Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis records around the house, trying to convey to Bae that he needn’t be blowing full-force, as loud as he possibly could, the entire time.  

“Most of you know me,” Gold told the small but interested crowd. When he and Bae had lived here, this was the dive bar he played at regularly. It paid nothing, but let him practice. The owner even let a young Bae sit at the bar and drink ginger ale while he performed.

“This is my friend,” he cocked his head at Belle, “ah,” he picked a name at random, “Lacey.”

Many people in the room laughed, knowing exactly who Belle was. But he and Belle learned in the last few months that it wasn’t always prudent to give her real name everywhere they went. The headline of America’s pop princess shaking up with a single father twenty years her senior had captivated the celebrity gossip magazines. Bae thought it was cool when a mob of fans and paparazzi descend upon them, but Belle and Gold were less thrilled with the ensuing hoopla. Since “Belle French” set off alarm bells everywhere they went, they’d come up with a host of pseudonyms. Gold secretly hoped to give her his own last name soon, if she’d have it, so perhaps she could stop giving false ones.

Belle, now settled in her seat next to him, smiled at his attempted ruse.

“We’re going to start with a song we wrote together,” he continued. “You might know it.” He leaned back to play the opening notes then sang.

I know he hurt you Made you scared of love, too scared to love

It was Belle’s song from the Hollywood Bowl that he’d helped her finish. Fans had recorded it on their phones and put it up on YouTube and it got a positive response. He and Belle had tweaked it slightly since. He’d added a more complicated guitar lick at the beginning and Belle suggested they pick up tempo to add more mass appeal. He also took on lead vocals. They’d shopped that version around town and it was one of the first songs they’d sold as a writing team. People more famous than him sang it on the radio now. While he was proud of the money they earned every time he heard another man sing it on the radio or in a commercial, Gold preferred this stripped down version that made it more of a love song. Belle appreciated the more pop version because she said it sounded more celebratory, that they’d struggle but they’d made through to the other side and were together now.

He didn't deserve you 'Cause you're precious heart is a precious heart

Together over the past several months, he and Belle had built a credible reputation as in-demand songwriters-for-hire, penning a few tracks for various pop stars and even a big crossover hit. He didn't know what he had and I thank God, oh, oh, oh

Since Belle was still was technically under contract on Moe French’s label, until they could figure out how to disentangle her from that, she couldn’t record any of the music they wrote or release it.

And it's gonna take just a little time But you're gonna see that I was born to love you

But Belle wasn’t living off her father’s money any longer, or any money she made as “Belle”. Gold had tried to dissuade her, trying to convince her how hard it was to make a living playing music on your own. He wasn’t going to be able to provide for her at the level her father had been, but she wouldn’t be deterred. She had that much faith in their songwriting ability to sell to other major artists. After Moe took a large chunk off the top, the small percentage she did get in sales, radio, and licensing royalties went towards legal fees to unsnarl her professional relationship with her father. The rest she put into a college fund for Bae.

Belle closed her eyes, comfortable in the room now that she could lose herself in the song, and sang the chorus

What if I fall

Also new was a call and response they’d built into the chorus. Gold leaned into the mic and answered her.

I won't let you fall

Her voice was clear, angelic yet full of meaning. If you’d listen to a “Belle” record and her singing now, you’d never even guess they were the same person. She was beginning to find her own voice, outside of the one that Moe and the record label conceived for her.

What if I cry

Since she was still obligated to fulfill her contract, Belle was technically on her international tour right now, but she’d flown in from Houston for a couple days in between shows. She’d be leaving for Europe in a few months. She flexed her newfound muscles when she could, making her own choices where she was legally allowed. But the plan was to ride out this international tour, get her off Moe’s label, and move on with their lives. She was currently only talking to her father through intermediaries. I'll never make you cry

After her initial anger wore off, Gold could tell that it was hurting Belle to completely lose contact with the only parent she had left. Seeing her struggling forced Gold to finally let go of his old resentments against Moe. But Belle insisted that she needed to destroy her relationship with her father if she had any hope of rebuilding it.

And if I get scared

Also making the rounds on YouTube was a video his own son had taken.

I'll hold you tighter When they're tryna get to you baby I'll be the fighter

After Bae convinced him to not give up on Belle, they rushed off to the Hollywood Bowl. Surpassing even their Staples Center escape, they’d climbed the canyons in order to come down the other side and sneak into the venue. The whole time they could hear the concert in progress. By the time they slipped through the barriers, it was late and Gold feared they’d miss the show completely.

Because it was so late in the show, security was unnervingly lax and it was easy to slide their way through the crowd and to the stage wings unnoticed. He’d spent the past several days constructing a barrier in his mind to block out Belle’s voice, but it only took moments to disintegrate when he saw her at the edge of the stage, standing there in her ripped jeans. She looked vulnerable and beautiful and strong all at once. He didn’t need to read her mind, she was talking to the crowd, telling them about the song we was about to sing. A song he knew she’d written for him. She was putting herself out there, at her own show in front of thousands of people, in the hope that he’d reach out to her. She was doing so much and asking so little of him. He wouldn’t let her down. He wouldn’t abandon her, on stage or ever.  

He bolted out of the wings and onto the stage, but was blocked by the unwelcome shadow of Moe French.  

“You,” Moe growled, his cool demeanor from their previous run-in abandoned. “How many times am I going to have to destroy you?”

Gold’s ire immediately rose. But he couldn’t get caught up in the poisonous cycle, not again. Belle needed him. He could feel her impending panic as she reached the end of her song, with no answering lyrics from him.  

“Once more, apparently,” and shoved past Moe and out onto the stage.

Gold hadn’t know it was happening. He was out on stage with Belle. But, fortuitously, Bae captured the entire exchange, and the tantrum immediately afterward, on camera. He said later that he pulled out his phone and started filming for evidence in case Moe physically assaulted him. But that didn’t explain why he immediately uploaded it to YouTube and titled it “Moe French Has Meltdown at Belle Concert.” The footage of Moe standing at the edge of the stage, spitting bile about his only daughter and verbally abusing the staff that were unfortunate enough to be standing in the vicinity, was difficult to watch. But not as difficult as sitting beside Belle, holding her hand, as she viewed it for the first time.

Back at the dive bar, the closing notes of their Hollywood Bowl song faded out. A silent pause, and then thunderous applause erupted from the audience.  

He’d seen her showered with praise after two-plus hour concerts. But this was the happiest, the most proud, he’d ever seen Belle.

Riding that high, he unlooped the guitar strap from around his neck and thrust the instrument towards her. He accompanied her on all their songs. But he was teaching her to play, little by little, and this next song was for her and her alone.

“Ready?” he murmured.

She hesitated, swallowing audibly, before reaching out and wrapping her hand around the neck.

They wrote all their songs together, save this one. He hadn’t helped her with the lyrics, even when she asked. He gave her an assist with the instrumental, but he’d strictly limited his role. He knew the process of writing a song alone, of struggling with it over a period of time, of really having to dig, could be redemptive. You unearthed feelings long forgotten, pain you didn’t know you still held on to, pleasure you believed you’d never experience again. Either way you exorcized it through writing something honest, something true.    

It was because the lyrics were so delicate, so plain, so raw, and not hidden behind heavy symbolism or clever turns of phrase that made her lyrics about losing her mother and, in a different way, her father, so powerful.

I'm learning how to live Without you in my life I'm learning how to live Without you in my life I'll take the best of what You had to give I'll make the most of what You left me with I'm learning how to live

Gold sat back and watched her play and sing. For years she’d mesmerized crowds with her youth, her body, her energy. He looked down at the crowd and marked how spellbound they were by her by her voice, her words, her feelings.  

In its own way, what they were building together would eclipse his meteoric rise and fall or her pop stardom, and even Moe French’s empire. Because this career was built on love.

NOTES: Song: The Fighter Songwriters: Keith Urban / Michael James Ryan Busbee Song: Learning How to Live Songwriter: Lucinda Williams 

[lamekidzine]

NOWADAYS INTERVIEW!

Interview by Sal Fratto

Nowadays are an amazing band from New Jersey, Philadelphia, and D.C. All members reside in different places during the school year, but do not let the distance hurt their dedication, and incredible sound. Consisting of Rob, Hesley, Jason, and Danny, they put on a live show that you do NOT want to miss. Nowadays just released “Listening & Relaxation,” an LP on Nap Time Records. You can find them on all listening platforms! Their artwork was done by the wonderful Caroline Corbett. Check out the LP and make sure to order it!

1) Nowadays! You’re putting out a full length album on 9/15 via Nap Time Records! Could you talk a little bit about how working with the label has been a benefit to you moving forward?

Rob Cline: Nap Time was really great with helping us ACTUALLY release the album. They made all the tapes, CDs, and are handling all of the online distribution (Spotify, ITunes, etc.) It’s really hard to do it by myself, and they were completely invaluable. They are also really great people and we love them. 

2) I see that you have recorded new songs, as well as re-recorded fan favorites! What was your method for choosing the songs/how do you think they have grown from the first recordings?

Danny Williams: “As far as the old songs, we chose the ones that got the most energy out of people when we performed them. They were also some of the ones that we thought were our better works. We didn’t want them to get lost in the old recordings.

Rob Cline: When we made this album, we wanted to take all of our best music at the current moment, whether it was an old song or not. Although some of our old songs were recorded with a DIY recording process, we thought that they deserved to be looked at again and revamped. They’re not much different; we didn’t actually change the songs that much. We’ve kind of worked a live sound into them that is different from the original recordings. We just went with that in the studio because we want our songs to sound like we play them at shows, especially with “Lighthouses Rule.” 

3) This is your first release with Jason Gilman on guitar! How is working with him/what does he bring to the table?

Danny Williams: HE BRINGS NOTHING

Jason Gilman: For me, this whole release and recording process was interesting because I was kind of thrown into it just because of getting a late start at coming into the band. I don’t really know what to compare it to, considering that this was the only time that I’ve had this experience. All in all, it’s been great working with them; easy, and nothing better I could ask for.”

Rob Cline: “I agree, everything is working great with him. He listens to a lot of different music than me, which is great because it keeps our sound from becoming flat or repetitive. It brings flavors into it that I would not necessarily bring. I think that can be said for the whole band. We all listen to the same music, but we also have different tastes. Jason brings in new flavors that I think really help.”

4) Can you tell us about the recording process itself?

Rob Cline: “This recording process has been interesting, and I think it is different than how most artists would record. We don’t live in the same state, which I’m sure Elephant Jake can relate to, not being in the same place at the same time. At the start of this summer, we decided that we wanted to get serious about this, and record it. We picked a few dates where we were going to meet up in Philly and record. We picked a three day weekend, got rid of our other responsibilities, and just recorded for three days straight. We recorded with Ethan Farmer at Drexel University; it was mixed by Ian Farmer, and mixed again and mastered by Dan Siper. It was fast paced but a lot of fun! There was definitely stress, but that doesn’t matter now because here we are. 5) What is planned moving forward to hype up the release?

Rob Cline: Last night (9/14) was the release show in Philly. Tonight (9/15) is the release show in D.C. with Cokestar, which is Nick of the Obsessives, Peaer, and Bleary Eyes. It’s going to be a really fun show. We’re just going to get right back on the house show circuit, playing shows on the weekends when we can this fall, and try to cultivate our fanbase in places that we realy care about, like Philly, New York, D.C. We are looking at a longer tour sometime this winter. We’re going to tour around on this album as long as we can. Oh! Also some music videos. 

6) How are you all so beautiful?

ALL: “My dad. Genetics, he says. Skin care, no that’s not true; I don’t care for my skin. Yeah, my dad’s cool. No no no, hair products and genetics, and Frosted Flakes.”

CHECK OUT NOWADAYS

“Listening & Relaxation:”  https://nowadaysnj.bandcamp.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nowadaysnj/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nowadaysnj/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nowadaysnj?lang=en

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/lifestyle/cemetery-was-the-right-vibe-for-a-glamour-goth-wedding/

Cemetery was the right vibe for a glamour goth wedding

Grossan, a music aficionado, and the rock musician Ayers, who has jazz in his blood, aren’t the “wedding factory” types. (Elizabeth Lippman/The New York Times)

Molly Creeden

Just months after they started dating more than two years ago, Ally Jane Grossan and Nabil Ayers felt certain they were headed for marriage, and it was with as much surety that they didn’t want their wedding to feel formulaic and familiar.

“We wanted to get married somewhere that’s isn’t a wedding factory,” said Grossan, a founder of Brooklyn FI, a financial planning firm geared to creatives and tech entrepreneurs in New York. “It’s always the same: a beautiful space, flowers and salmon or chicken, and we just wanted to do something that wasn’t that.”

By many markers, the couple’s evening wedding on Thursday, Dec. 20, in the Masonic Lodge at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery could not be typecast. There was DJ Gregg Foreman — lithe former music director for the musician Cat Power with Joan Jett hair — who played songs by the Cure on the piano. There was the bride’s walk down the aisle with her parents, to the cascading drumbeats of the eerie first bars of “Atmosphere” by post-punk band Joy Division. There was the irrevocable fact that several yards away, entertainment industry legacies — from Mickey Rooney to Johnny Ramone — lay deceased.

“I don’t know why, I’ve always loved cemeteries,” said Grossan, 30. “Père Lachaise in Paris is one of my favorite places; Green-Wood in Brooklyn. I don’t think they’re morbid. I think they’re beautiful.” Ayers, 46, agreed: “It’s like a beautiful park.”

It was at another wedding reception in June 2016 at House of Yes, an events space in Bushwick, Brooklyn, where Ayers first spotted Grossan. “I remember thinking, who is that beautiful woman standing there?” he said. The two were in attendance to celebrate the marriage of respective co-workers: Anna Bond, with whom Ayers worked at 4AD, an independent record label where he is the US label manager, and the groom, J Edward Keyes, who was Grossan’s then-boss at Bandcamp, a self-publishing music platform where she was a senior editor.

Ayers waited to make his move until he saw Grossan chatting with Joan LeMay, a friend from Seattle, where from 1997 to 2008, he ran Sonic Boom Records and was a drummer in indie rock bands like the Long Winters. Ayers greeted his friend, who introduced him to Grossan. “My first impression was that he was wearing this fabulous suit with cool glasses,” she said of Ayers’ signature oversize frames.

The pair spoke for a few minutes before rejoining the party, and then found each other again, talking for an hour against the backdrop of karaoke. They spoke about music. At 24, Grossan had been appointed the series editor of the publisher Bloomsbury’s 33-1/3 Series, a collection of biographies about individual music albums and artists. “I, and anyone else who had ever heard about it, was impressed by that,” Ayers said.

Ayers is the son of noted jazz composer and vibraphonist Roy Ayers, with whom he has had a distant relationship. He was given a drum set at age 2 by his uncle, jazz musician Alan Braufman, and has made music his lifeblood since.

Nabil Ayers, center, and Ally Jane Grossan are lifted during “Hava Nagila” at their wedding reception at the Masonic Lodge at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles. (Elizabeth Lippman/The New York Times)

“I remember someone telling me that night: ‘Oh that’s Nabil Ayers from 4AD, that guy’s a big shot,’” Grossan said. After the two parted ways, Grossan followed Ayers on Twitter in the Uber ride back to her home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

The next day, Ayers reached out to LeMay with a request: Could she ask Grossan to pass along her email address? Once in hand, Ayers sent Grossan a casual message mentioning Skee-Ball, which Grossan had revealed was a talent. Two days later, Ayers was surprised he hadn’t heard back. “I thought it was weird. We’d gotten along well, and my friend had asked her if it was OK to get in touch.”

After giving the go-ahead, Grossan thought it was odd that she hadn’t heard from Ayers. “I checked the spam folder and was like, ‘No way, this doesn’t happen.’” There was Ayers’s email from his 4AD address.

Grossan responded immediately and the two made plans to meet the following Sunday for a drink. On the Thursday evening beforehand, however, Grossan was seated at a table in the Hammerstein Ballroom at the Libera Awards — a ceremony honoring the indie music community — and heard Ayers’ name announced. She looked up to see him walking on stage to accept an award on behalf of singer/songwriter Grimes for the video “Kill V. Maim.” Grossan emailed him: “Short and sweet — great speech.”

They found each other after the program and Grossan invited Ayers to join a group heading to a karaoke bar (note: for how much karaoke appears in this story, the groom does not particularly enjoy it). There, jammed into a bench with industry peers, Ayers was enchanted as Grossan sang the grim, rapid fire lyrics to System of a Down’s “Chop Suey” with perfect elocution. “She took her shoes off for the song, and I was like, ‘Whoa, she’s really going to do it,’” Ayers said. “I was really impressed.”

The group dispersed and Grossan and Ayers wound up at New Wonjo in Koreatown, talking over cold noodles late into the night. That night the couple kissed for the first time.

It would be the first of many dates.

“Most of the men in the music journalism space are obnoxious: They’re proud of knowing the names of every single album,” Grossan said. “But Nabil knows more that everyone and is so understated. He never tries to display his knowledge to anyone. He’s just excited to talk about it.”

Like the tongue-twisting lyrics to Chop Suey, the relationship moved at a heady clip. On an early date, Grossan mentioned that her favorite album was Hole’s Celebrity Skin; several weeks later, on her birthday in July, Ayers gave her a copy in vinyl. That month, the pair decided on impulse that Grossan would be Ayers’ date to a September wedding in Paris. And in October, Ayers met Grossan’s father, television producer Mark Grossan, in a hot tub during Orange County’s Beach Goth music festival. By Christmas, they had plans for Ally Jane Grossan to move into Ayers’ Brooklyn Heights apartment when her lease was up in May.

In early 2018, Ayers began looking for rings to propose to Grossan. Once he found one — a vintage emerald-cut diamond with two baguettes that reminded him of the art deco angles of the Chrysler Building — he put his plan in motion. He had arranged to have Julien Baker, Grossan’s favorite musician, perform a private serenade during the Sasquatch Music Festival in George, Washington, on May 25, 2018.

But the couple was running late that day. Grossan got her first speeding ticket while they were en route to the Gorge Ampitheater from Seattle. She was frazzled as Ayers hurried her through security, texting with Baker’s manager about the mere minutes they had before the musician was due on stage. Telling Grossan they were hurrying to meet a friend at a backstage video shoot, Ayers wove them through the 20,000-person crowd, past the tour buses, and around a bend behind the stage. There, they found Baker and her violinist on a cliff overlooking the gorge. She started playing Love Me Tender by Elvis. When the violin solo began, Ayers dropped to one knee and asked Grossan to marry him.

The couple chose to marry in Los Angeles, where Grossan grew up and where her grandparents, Murray and Rosalyn Grossan, 95 and 94, live. (They were unable, however, to attend the wedding). Ayers had recently organised a show at the Hollywood Cemetery and thought it might dually be suitable for matrimony. On the summer day when Grossan and her mother toured the cemetery for a visit, the staff was cleaning up the site of the memorial for Chris Cornell, Soundgarden’s frontman.

Nabil Ayers, right, and Ally Jane Grossan at their wedding reception at the Masonic Lodge at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, (Elizabeth Lippman/The New York Times)

On the evening of December 20, however, morbidity was the last thing on the minds of the 125 friends and family who gathered in the temple of Masonic Lodge in festive interpretations of “glamour goth,” the couple’s suggested attire for guests. This meant oversize earrings, peacock feathers, sparkly slides, tattooed fingers, faux fur and evening gowns, with an over-index of black rimmed glasses paired with long rocker hair.

“Each of you are glowing tonight, and the love of life that you are share with each other helps to light this world around us,” said the officiant, Rabbi Michele Ellise Lenke, under a white huppah in the temple room, which was a vision in crimson, from carpet to walls, with a Masonic Eastern Star hanging in the center. “Julien Baker may sing about turning the lights out,” the rabbi said, “but my wish for you is to keep shining bright.”

In his vows, Ayers spoke of his respect for Grossan’s drive and ambition, and called her his motivation in life. “I’ve always been a happy person,” he said. “It’s become clear to me that you’ve always been a happy person. So it’s hard to believe that I would meet someone who has made me infinitely happier, but you’ve done that.”

Grossan, who is taking her husband’s last name, praised his accomplishments and his “infectious warmth.” “Waiters, bartenders, shopkeepers and strangers we meet are immediately drawn to you,” she said. “It’s like the whole world is completely in love with you, but not as much as me. I vow to protect and cherish that feeling.”

In toasts over dinner in the building’s Eastern Star Room, where guests drank sparkling Topo Chico water, natural libations from Silverlake’s Psychic Wines, and ate a Mediterranean buffet feast, Ayers was referred to by a co-worker, Gabe Spierer, as “the nicest guy in rock.”

(“Not only rock, but one of the nicest guys in earth, wind and water,” Matt Berninger, the frontman for the rock band the National amended later in the evening).

Ayers’ mother Louise Vesper, a former ballet dancer, recalled seeing the body language between the couple for the first time, and praised the fact that “in their busy lives, they still make time for their parents.” The party moved back across the hall to the Masonic Temple for dancing, and then onto an after party at Brass Monkey — for karaoke, of course.

[theconservativebrief]

Pornhub has 80 million daily users and more pornographic videos than any other site in the history of the internet, and now it wants to be Playboy.

More specifically, what Playboy was in the ’90s. “A lifestyle brand, a fashion brand,” explains Alex Katz, co-founder of the Madrid-based creative agency Officer & Gentleman, which has been leading the brand strategy for Pornhub for the past four years.

Co-founder Javi Iñiguez jumps in: “The girls were wearing sweatshirts and purses with the Playboy bunny even though they might not have seen a Playboy magazine in their lives.”

Fair enough. Who doesn’t want the cultural clout of Hugh Hefner, literally everything else about Hugh Hefner aside?

It may be a small shock to discover that Pornhub even has a brand strategy, but it makes sense. The company has spent the past several years doing what anybody would do once they become superrich: buying their way to coolness. And, by extension, buying their way to women, whom the company has historically had a hard time appealing to.

I mean, who doesn’t see the connection between lifestyle brands and chicks?

Pornhub’s first website launched in 2007 and was acquired by the MindGeek conglomerate in 2010, at which time it merged with YouPorn, RedTube, and Xtube to become the Pornhub network. From there, it easily consolidated power to become the biggest porn distribution platform ever, but its new challenge was to become a brand that anyone would talk about out loud, and just maybe, someday, wear on a T-shirt.

Models from the ’90s-inspired Playboy fashion line launched last year by Joyrich. Joyrich

In 2014, the network held a contest asking advertising and creative professionals to submit concepts for safe-for-work, PG-13 Pornhub ads that could run in traditional media spots. The move was a reaction to a year of mainstream misses and only two hits: In 2013, Pornhub finagled a centerpiece montage (with clips handpicked by VP Corey Price) in the heart of the porn-focused Joseph Gordon-Levitt rom-com Don Jon. It also nabbed dozens of headlines in outlets from BuzzFeed to SBNation when CBS refused to air a 20-second, completely innocuous ad spot during the Super Bowl. By the time anyone bothered to point out that Super Bowl ads are only sold in 30-second increments, the scam had done its work.

Thanks to the contest, Pornhub buddied up with both Officer & Gentleman and Vendetta Studios, an LA-based viral video production house headed by Dave Lehre — an anxiety-inducing internet personality best known for one of the first viral YouTube clips, “MySpace: the movie,” and more recently for an elaborate stunt in which he fashioned himself into “the first white American K-pop star.”

For Pornhub, Lehre made a litany of viral videos, mostly ads for Pornhub’s new product releases: a VPN service, a “BaDoink” VR headset, a $1,000 robotic twerking butt, and so on.

“Make the brand accessible to the world” was the brief, Lehre says. Make it PG-13; make it live on YouTube; make it shareable. “When we came in, it was all potential. Nobody had tapped the power of Pornhub.” He pauses. “Damn, that sounds epic.”

Officer & Gentleman’s first projects were also tech-related: videos for a cryptocurrency called Titcoin and a (real) piece of wearable tech that would recharge your phone while you masturbated. It was called Wankband. At Christmastime last year, noting the success of gift cards for streaming services like Spotify and Netflix, they started selling Pornhub Premium gift cards. “We thought it would be the perfect Secret Santa present at workplaces and stuff like that,” Iñiguez says.

(Please don’t give a Pornhub Premium gift card to anyone you work with.)

So, is Pornhub … a tech company? “Depends who you ask,” Katz says, though he seems uninterested in the proposition. “But I think the brand … it’s an entertainment company. You don’t see anyone wearing Facebook shirts because they’re cool.”

Right, right. Cool, we’re doing cool here.

“[In online porn], everyone has the same product, so the only way you can differentiate yourself is by building a brand,” Katz explains. “We only want to create advertising that can go viral.” That means safe-for-work content. “[Pornhub] has enough porn; they need content that’s shareable.”

“Everything has to go viral,” Iñiguez points out. So you throw a lot of shit at the wall to see what sticks. The list of what Pornhub has not been willing to try in the past four years would probably be more expedient, but here we are.

It launched its own lube brand, then the world’s largest lube slide. (One of Lehre’s projects, of which he says, “They didn’t come to set, they just said ‘Oh, we have these 5-gallon drums of lube we can send over.’ We got this huge slide. They sent all these porn stars to hang out and slide down it. That was a magic day.”)

“[In online porn], everyone has the same product, so the only way you can differentiate yourself is by building a brand”

At one point, the company started a record label and hosted music video premieres for California rapper Mykki Blanco and Michigan metal band King 810. It hosted a porn film festival in New York, featuring soft-core entries from Miley Cyrus and James Franco. It made an “adult adult coloring book” featuring X-rated sketches from Instagram and Tumblr artists, which it then sold exclusively at the Think Tank Gallery in LA, Verso Books in Milan, and the menswear boutique Off the Hook in Montreal. It launched a line of sex toys, then commissioned Spanish electro-pop band Perlita to create a song from sex toy noises.

The high-end Italian denim company Diesel became the first fashion brand to advertise on a porn site in January 2016, kicking off a much-covered official partnership with Pornhub. Creative director Nicola Formichetti told Dazed, “We all go on websites like Pornhub, you know? So before you start jerking off maybe you can stop and look at our new pants.” For New York Fashion Week in 2017, Hood by Air sent a Pornhub-inspired line down the runway (models wore their hair stylized as if it were coated in semen, and jackets reading “HUSTLER” and “NEVER TRUST A CHURCH GIRL”).

In September that year, the New York streetwear brand Richardson announced a capsule collection featuring Pornhub-branded hoodies, hats, swimsuits, jackets, and T-shirts — one featuring porn actress, poet, and Pornhub spokesperson Asa Akira, and another featuring the flags of countries in which Pornhub is banned. Two months later, the New York outerwear brand Moose Knuckles debuted a limited-edition Pornhub bomber jacket that was sold through the Rihanna-blessed SoHo streetwear staple VFILES.

VFILES is also beloved by Pornhub’s most important woman: Kim Kardashian.

Last summer, the team stopped by the De Re Gallery in Los Angeles for “Make Me Famous,” the first exhibition by “professionally provocative” Instagram-famous twins Allie and Lexi Kaplan — just to pick up a painting of the Kim Kardashian–Ray J sex tape, which is now prominently displayed in the company’s LA office.

Pornhub loves Kim. When she was robbed at gunpoint later that year, Pornhub offered $50,000 “in exchange for information leading to [the] arrest and conviction of criminals who robbed Kim Kardashian.” The press release said that everyone at Pornhub was “deeply saddened” by the “horrible incident,” and reminded the world that Kim Kardashian’s sex tape with Ray J “remains the most viewed video on Pornhub with 110,198,725 views and counting.”

“We consider her to be a member of the Pornhub family,” Pornhub VP Corey Price tells Vox. “As such, we wanted to extend a helping hand and do all that we could to help bring the wrongdoers to justice.” Ultimately, the police didn’t need Pornhub’s help, but it’s a nice gesture. The video now has more than 143 million views!

Pornhub hosted a sci-fi art installation in LA’s De Re Gallery last summer. Maggie West/Pornhub

This June, the company sponsored an elaborate sci-fi art installation at the LA nightclub Union — handing the reins over to LA photographer and activist Maggie West (best known for her “Fluid” series, containing abstract images of blood, saliva, and semen) and New York artist Ryder Ripps (best known for creating the branding for Soylent and using the Ace Hotel’s artist residency to hire two Craigslist sex workers for a widely-reviled project called “ART WHORE”).

Then it partnered with the editorial arm of luxury fashion seller SSENSE to produce an avant-garde photo shoot and literary companion essay called “The Data of Desire,” using Pornhub analytics to figure out which sneaker brands are most fetishized in porn. (Converse, Nike, Adidas, Vans, and Yeezy, in that order.)

Then last month, Kanye West told Jimmy Kimmel he “still looks at Pornhub” and the company reached out via Twitter to offer him a lifetime subscription to Pornhub Premium. Two weeks later, he was serving as creative director for the first annual Pornhub Awards in Los Angeles, which were reportedly a disaster but came off, anyway, as a major coup.

West debuted a new music video featuring the currently incarcerated Lil Pump at the awards and brought G.O.O.D. Music signee Teyana Taylor along to perform. He dressed porn stars in the latest Yeezy collection (when he bothered to dress them at all) and arranged them onstage to accept futuristic-dildo-shaped award statues he also supposedly designed. The next day, he announced a line of Yeezy sweatshirts featuring the night’s winners, including “Nicest Tits” honoree Kendra Sunderland and “Hottest Female Ass” honoree Mia Malkova.

“Where do these [partnership] decisions come from?” Katz parrots back to me. “Well, we can’t be in mainstream spaces, so we become this outsider brand that’s doing out-there things. That’s what attracts these other brands like Richardson and Yeezy. Pornhub has an outsider quality that draws people to them.”

Here’s the rub (sorry): Per Pornhub’s own data, as of December 2017, just 26 percent of the site’s users are women.

This is not really a problem, as what Iñiguez pointed out is true: Girls didn’t have to read Playboy to buy the clothes. But it is kind of a problem, mostly because women make up a large share of the people on earth, and Pornhub has basically nowhere to go within the demographic it already serves.

So far, Pornhub has tried selling Mother’s Day–specific cardboard VR headsets, publishing site traffic insights from the day of the 2017 Women’s March, and weighing in on International Women’s Day to announce that it would change the “female-friendly” tag on its site to “popular with women.” It also pointed out that searches for Amy Schumer rose 513 percent in tandem with her Instagram post about the holiday.

“More than ever before, women are coming forward to express their desires more openly,” Price says. “And we want to provide resources to support that.”

So, this January, Pornhub debuted “F*ck Your Period.”

“There are two types of women: women who have sex on their period and women who don’t,” Katz tells me. “It’s 49 [percent] to 51,” (based on an informal Pornhub survey of its female users). With that, uh, fact in mind, Pornhub launched a campaign with the goal of explaining the health benefits of having an orgasm during your period. It made its own period calendar app and encouraged women to fill it out so that each month, they would receive a free login code for Pornhub Premium for the duration of their period. “[The goal was] to get girls to experiment with Pornhub for the first time in case they hadn’t,” Katz says. “Pornhub is a sex-friendly, female-friendly company.”

Pornhub’s cryptocurrency launch in New York. Officer & Gentleman

Yet the campaigns aimed at women are rarely the ones that blow up. In March, the site started accepting cryptocurrency as payment and had models stroll through the Financial District in Pornhub-branded ski masks, tossing plastic coins and licking the Wall Street bull’s balls. This worked: It got press.

The following month, Pornhub launched a program called “The Visionaries Director’s Club” with the aim of “[diversifying] porn production” and gave rapper Young M.A. a budget to write and produce her own pornographic short film. The company described the film in a press release, writing that it would appeal to “our progressive generation,” and adding, “While high production level lesbian content is often clearly created with the male gaze in mind, M.A’s debut film is authentic and genuine to her taste profile.”

Last month, it gave a similar budget to pansexual singer and rapper Brooke Candy, who wrote of her film, “We had the most next level crew of fine artists from all over the world and the cast of actors that I chose really had an inner beauty which they unleashed on film. It’s queer, it’s sex-positive and it’s super-hot.” This didn’t work — it got no press. But the data says that female usership of Pornhub grows every year, Price points out. So it’s fine.

As a woman who menstruates, did I know that orgasms make period cramps less painful and bleeding cycles shorter? I mean, as a woman who drinks water, did I know it keeps my organs running?

Pornhub’s brand strategy is elaborate, multifaceted, funny, and cool. It’s also as simple as a bunch of straight boys chasing what straight boys so often chase: a projection of ease and edge that makes them appealing to other boys like them, and a veneer of caring that they hope will grant them an in with women.

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Original Source -> Pornhub wants to be a lifestyle brand

via The Conservative Brief

[realsamcalloway]

6/4/18 - Interview with So-Cal Band, The Flytraps (www.brodydallechronicles.com)

Originally posted June 4, 2018 and appearing on www.brodydallechronicles.com.

© 2018 TRSB (Sam Bone)

The Flytraps on Opening for The Distillers, All Their New Fans & Tequila

By Sam Bone

Social media is fucking amazing and, in some cases, can lead to ‘mind-blown’ moments—Checking out a live show for a band that’s piqued your interest, combined with the option to stalk prey on social media like a salivating, hungry wolf, circling a potential kill.

The story goes that this is how Brody Dalle wrangled up the Los Angeles-based band, The Flytraps. Understanding and enjoying a band and then metaphorically passing on notes with scribbled hearts along with “Call Me” underneath, eventually led to the band being tapped to open for The Distillers reunion and return to the stage after 14 years.

In a nutshell and to recap:

Iconic female-fronted punk band from the 2000’s reunites and announces a short, six-date tour.

It’s been 14 years since the bands’ members were all in the same room, “plugged in” together.

Most of the tour sells outs 24 to 48 hours after it goes on sale.

Fans ask themselves: is this real life?

I chatted with The Flytraps’ Elizabeth Boyd in early April this year, and to say that she, along with her band, were “boggled” about the request to support The Distillers is a complete understatement; Was it some type of critical error? Was someone playing a super-fucked up prank? Did someone miss hear the word “Flytraps” when the actual band requested was The “Flatjacks?” (If this is a real band in existence, I’m sorry-- Not for the reference to your band, but for the fucked-up name.)

The truth is that they were sought after by Brody Dalle herself. I had to reassure Beth’s palpitating heart that Brody handpicks her support. It’s not an oopsy-doopsy... it’s a female Uncle Sam, pointing at your band attentively while declaring “I WANT YOU.” And, the odds are likely .0748 out of 1,000,000 that Brody Dalle would pluck your band off the Los Angeles Female-Fronted Band Tree.

A few days after the tour concluded and The Flytraps departed Dallas back to Los Angeles, I had the chance to chat with the band about their time with The Distillers, the reception by the sold-out audiences and the band’s promising future.

BDC: Sam Bone | K: Kristin (Lead Vox, Bass) | BB: Beth (Lead Guitar) | FR: Fabian (Drums) | CY: Chloe (Rhythm Guitar)

 BDC: To start and in keeping with the current chaos, what are your guys’ current feels and how has that changed since The Flytraps were formed in 2010?

BB: Our sound has changed a lot in the last 8 years and we’ve also had a few lineup changes as well. Compared to some of the old stuff, the songs are faster, heavier, and nastier than ever.

K: Well when we started the band I would say we sounded more like if The Mummies and The Pleasure Seekers had a blood orgy. Now we are more like if Suzi Quatro had KISS as prisoners in her Sex Dungeon. But one thing has been a constant since day one: ROCK & ROLL OR FUCK OFF!

 BDC: What was it like touring with The Distillers; how was the reception from their fans?

BB: Touring with The Distillers really seemed to be a turning point for us and it was a crazy experience playing to their sold-out crowds. We got a great response from their fans and definitely made a lot more of our own. We are so grateful to have been invited to open for them and had a great time hanging out with the band and crew.

FR: It was amazing, and the fans were more than we could ask for. Everyone was very welcoming and nice to us.

BDC: Any funny or over-the-top memories you want to share from the tour?

K: It wouldn’t be very smart to reveal how over the top we get… all I can say is we are out-doing ourselves constantly.

BB: Probably a few that shouldn't be shared, haha.

BDC: I noticed that your catalog contains one full-length (She-Freak, 2013) and then sporadic releases of singles/EPs. I know the music business can suck and it’s tough to maximize and stretch a buck; How do you guys handle that and how can you make more money (so us fans know the best way to support you)? How has this changed (-or stayed the same?) since 2010?

K: In the beginning, almost everything we did was self-released and in limited numbers; Recorded in a garage done by us or a friend. We've released several demo albums such as Worst Coast and Demos from the Deep. She-Freak was released by our friend Cumstain and his Oakland-based tape label Slop Bop. Since then we’ve just released a 7” on Outro Records and a 12” EP “Sunset Strip R.I.P.” on our label Power Plant Records, split with our friends from Burger. We have all of this and other weird shit for sale on our website. Also, we will be releasing Vol. 2 of our foot fetish calendar Flytraps Foot Feast this winter.

BB: Buying our merch definitely helps out a lot, especially when we are on tour.       

BDC: Keeping about sales, I chatted with Beth off-and-on during April and May, she said you guys sold through merchandise at an unexpected rate at The Distillers shows. That has got to feel awesome. Did you anticipate that level of reception?

CY: No, we didn’t at all-- We ran out of shirts half way through the tour! We didn’t expect so much support.

BB: Wish we had brought more! We sold out of shirts I think before our last show and completely out of vinyl by the end.   

BDC: Kristin, I read in an old OCWEEKLY interview that the po-pos used to frequently stop by your old rehearsal space and tell you to simmer it down. If you could run in to those same cops today, what would you say?

K: When the cops would come to our practices they were usually surprised to see me answer the door because we were all beach rats, had no air-conditioning and we would usually be in bikinis. The cops were pretty cool about it. If I saw them today I would probably say SUP?

 BDC: What are your thoughts about Burger Boogaloo in June? I mean c’mon now—John Waters, DEVO, Mudhoney and The Mummies! I read somewhere that The Mummies are one of your band’s influences. Have you met them before and if not, are you prepared?

BB: Russell Quan from The Mummies is an old friend of ours. We have played with a couple of his bands before, but this will be our first time playing with The Mummies!   

K: We are so stoked to be on Boogaloo this year, it's an insane line-up. You forgot to mention The Damned!! Whoever doesn't have their tickets better get to it because it’s for sure gonna sell out!                             

 BDC: Speaking of insane line-up—how do you handle nerves? Do you get nervous? Do each of you deal with it differently and/or is there that one member of the band who balances everyone out? 

K: I get more excited than nervous. Pre- show I’ll get a burst of adrenaline… It’s better than any drug, but drugs can make it even better!

CY: Tequila

BB: I haven't figured that one out yet… Sometimes, on stage, I will just stare at one person until they seem to feel uncomfortable and it will make me feel better.

FR: Booze tons of it. Yeah, I still get nervous before every show, I think we all do. I've noticed I become quieter. Just depends on the head space I'm in.

 BDC: Oh, and curious—pre-show rituals? Please explain.    

K: Usually passing around a bottle of tequila and praying to our patron saint, Rosemary Kennedy; JFK’s sister who was lobotomized at 23.

FR:  Getting all dolled up together.

 BDC: I feel that we're all about to witness a real revolution when it comes to female rock musicians, and as a male who happens to be a hardcore feminist, I'm all-fucking-for-it. What are your thoughts on being musicians in this Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief Era? I just read how the Trump admin is cutting Federal funding to clinics who deal with women's health. With the stage as a platform, and girls and guys looking up at you with shimmering eyes, do you feel any obligation to revolt or speak out?

K: Pussy-grabbing has been going on behind the scenes for a long time, in politics and show business. It’s finally coming to light because now is the time for truth and progress. We are so lucky to be born in this current age where we can be ourselves and make our own rules.

 BDC: What is next for you guys? What can fans anticipate? What's the future hold?

K: We have a lot of things happening; New videos, more records, more tours. We’re playing a new festival in Twentynine Palms, California in October called The Pilgrimage Campout. Keep a look-out. We're comin’ for YOU!

The Flytraps official website | The Flytraps on Facebook

Certain elements, such as links and photos, may have been removed from the original version of the above article.

[rockrevoltmagazine]

INTERVIEW: ROB EVAN OF THE BROADWAY MUSICAL ROCKTOPIA

What is Rocktopia? It all started with an idea from actor, producer, vocalist Rob Evan.  What if we fused some of the most world-renowed classical compositions with legendary classic rock? Not to ignore the visual senses make it a multimedia experience like no other.  This was Rob’s idea that has become a reality known as Rocktopia.  Backed by a full symphony orchestra, choir and rock band; five world-class vocalist will intertwine the anthems of Journey, Queen, Led Zeppelin and others to create a one-of-a-kind experience never heard before.  Now this experience is set to take over Broadway for six weeks starting March 20th.  RockRevolt Magazine had the opportunity to talk with Rob prior to their takeover of NYC’s cultural arts scene to discuss how Rocktopia came to be.

Let’s start off by talking a little bit about your background.  You have quite the extensive, impressive resume.  From seven leading roles in New York Theater, over 40 symphony orchestra performances, as well as working with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra to name a few things, I don’t even know where to begin.  I guess a good place to start would be with your first audition for the theater, a part in Les Misérables and how you thought you got the golden ticket by landing the part.

It’s funny; it’s like an analogy from “American Idol.”  This is like in 1990 or ’91, I can’t remember.  I was a senior in college.  I played football for the University of Georgia, even though growing up I sang all the time.  I was exposed to a lot of different musical genres.  I had this voice like an opera singer, like a Placido Domingo or Luciano Pavarotti, but all I wanted to be was Robert Plant or Steve Perry.  I just wasn’t built that way, didn’t sound that way, but those were my influences in high school, from listening to rock bands and being in rock bands.  So I kind of abandoned it all to get a business degree, and I was going to go to law school. 

I ended up taking a date, on Valentine’s Day, to this French restaurant, and this French musical called Les Misérables, not knowing what it was, in Atlanta. At that point, I was like, that’s what I want to do (laughing); this is what I have to do.  I started sort of daydreaming about being on the stage and singing for a living.  There was an open call in Nashville, and I drove there and waited nine hours to sing a half a song.  That’s when they were like, “we like you,” and that’s what I kind of called my golden ticket.  You know now they call it that ticket to Hollywood or whatever on “American Idol.” 

They flew me to New York and auditioned me again.  Then I moved to New York with my girl at the time I had met on a cruise ship, singing on a cruise ship, trying to work as a singer.  I met this beautiful Norwegian stewardess, and we just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary.  So, we moved to New York together; she left her country.  Then they put me in Les Miserables.  I never looked back; it was, “OK I guess I’m doing this now.” 

Then ten years later, after seven leading roles, I met Paul O’Neil of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Jim Steinman, who created Bat Out Of Hell.  It’s funny, I kind of did it backwards. I would have thought as a young man I would have been in the rock world and maybe a little bit older on Broadway, but I did it completely backwards.  Then I got into the rock world and started working with all the guys from TSO (Trans-Siberian Orchestra) which is really Savatage, the metal band.  I was thinking, oh my god I’m a fish out of water here and realizing, dude you’re a rock star, and l’m thinking OK I guess I’ll be a rock star now (laughing).  It was funny then, realizing as a mature professional, I’ll be 50 in June, going I guess I don’t have to choose I can do both and combine. 

There’s really a commonality with these things.  It’s just great music and great hooks.  Time is the only thing that has separated these two worlds.  That’s when I came up with the idea for Rocktopia.  Trying to create a project for me, a concert project, even though I was a Broadway star selling millions of records in a rock band nobody knew who the heck I was.  So, it couldn’t be Rob Evan in concert it had to be something that was a hook, a name and that I could sing Puccini’s opera at the same time I did Kashmir (Led Zeppelin). 

That’s when I met the co-creator of Rocktopia, Randy Fleischer.  He’s an amazing, accomplished maestro around the world.  He also had the same vision; he’s deeply routed in the classical world but had this love for rock.  We were like, alright let’s create this thing; then we realized the idea was bigger than either one of us.  That’s when I realized I’m not the frontman of this band; we’ve got to have many different singers and different types of singers to serve this material and this fusion.  It’s really not a tribute band. 

I know there’s a lot of those out there, and they’re great, but the way I approach these songs is the way I would organically as an artist approach these.  I wanted the other singers and musicians to do the same thing.  That’s when we thought, this is cool.  Then the audiences started buying in.  It’s not a cheap show to produce; we can’t just do clubs.  We have to have a symphony orchestra and a choir and a rock band and singers to serve this concept.  It’s something that has been in the works, at least the actual production, for eight years.

What goes into a production of this magnitude?

When we did it in Budapest, we were trying to find a way to tell the world what we’re doing.  And that’s hard because it’s a hard thing to explain.  I can talk about it more comfortably now, years later, then when I was originally pitching a few investors and promoters.  I feel we’ve done it many times and know what the narrative is.  But originally we were like, OK this is what we are going to do, and they’re like, I have no clue. I don’t understand; we have to see it (laughing).  You can’t tell people I need two million dollars; you’ve got to see it first. 

PBS and my producing partner, Bill Franzblau – he’s amazing – he’s produced Broadway shows and been in the rock world managing major acts at his own record label; he got it.  He and I have kind of been the force to go tell the world about this.  We got PBS on board a few years ago, and we did the show in June of 2016 in Budapest because we felt like this is something that makes it feel like it’s a world project not just a U.S. project.  And those opera houses around Europe are beautiful and have a lot of history.  So, we put it in the Hungarian Opera House with their full harmonic, which is 75 musicians plus a choir, their opera chorus which is another 40 plus, another show choir which is 30, a rock band which is 7, and 6 singers.  So, we had like 150 people on stage and that was a big stage. 

It’s really expensive, and you can’t do that night after night.  And what we learned when we had to deliver the tour in the spring of 2017 was that we can change the sizes a bit, and it still works. The audience still reacts because the music and the heart of what we are doing hasn’t changed.  So, we went to 14 orchestra players and 6 backup singers, then our rock band, and our singers to the full Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, which is 65, and the Georgia Tech choir, which was another 60, and we still got the same response from the audience.  That was very encouraging. 

So, the idea of Broadway was another platform of telling the world of what we are doing and to perpetuate our touring project, so it’s really just a tour stop for us.  Our residency on Broadway, hopefully, will come around every year and do a different version of Rocktopia every year with this idea.  On Broadway, we are going to have 20 in the orchestra, about 40 in the choir, a big light and video show, 6 in our rock band, 5 singers, plus Pat Monahan of Train for the first three weeks. 

It’s going to feel big on stage.  You rarely, on Broadway, have that many people on stage. 

[embedplusvideo height=”400″ width=”550″ editlink=”http://bit.ly/2p8KlkD” standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/MnGvz6YUZ-o?fs=1″ vars=”ytid=MnGvz6YUZ-o&width=550&height=400&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=&notes=” id=”ep5079″ /]

What separates Rocktopia from the Broadway show, Rock of Ages?

We are very different from Rock of Ages.  I think the only thing we have in common with Rock of Ages is the word “rock.”  I love Rock of Ages. Our pianist was the musical director of Rock of Ages on Broadway.  Rock of Ages approached this whole genre in this fun, campy way.  The way we are treating the classical music is the way the original composer would.  Then we, hopefully, seamlessly transition into an iconic classic rock song.  Then find ways to weave in the classical music as the rock song is being played.  I would say Rock of Ages is a musical with a storyline; we’re a concert. 

We do have a conceptual idea of the way the songs are woven together, which is what I call the human condition.  I was looking for an idea that if you go see a concert, and you find a personal connection to a song or something, then you don’t forget that.  And I was looking for ideas for what would connect audience goers, whatever their age is, their gender, their ethnicity, or their religion.  Trying to find something we all have in common, and that’s just we are all humans.  We all go through birth and adolescence, some sort of experimentation or rebellion, to different versions of love and lust, and then some sort of loss or death, and some sort of cathartic rebirth.  That’s the way the show is art, and the songs are art. 

I won’t tell you that because I think your imagination is better than me telling you what the story is going to be.  We have video content also that kind of hints to that stuff, but my hope is that I don’t care what kind of music you like or how old you are or where you’re from. You can come into it and connect.  Most of the classical music that we chose was stuff that will be familiar, whether you’re a classical fan or you’re a rock fan.  You might hear (hums a tune) and be on United Airlines and go, oh that’s United Airlines theme, but it’s Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”  So, it’s completely accessible; we’re not trying to be snobs in any form.  We found that these two genres really do have a lot in common.

The entire show you are covering music, is that correct? Or do you have any original pieces?

We are covering everything, but the one kind of out of the classical rock box we did, just because Pat (Monahan) is great, we kind of created a Rocktopia treatment on his song “Drops of Jupiter” which is going to happen as the first encore.  There was a composer, Gustav Holst, that wrote an amazing symphonic work called “The Planets” around the early 1900’s. When you listen to it, you can completely tell that he inspired John Williams to write Star Wars or Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones or E.T. He was that kind of amazing celestial type, symphonic composer. 

His work “Jupiter” we fused with Pat’s “Drops of Jupiter” which Pat wrote about his mom passing.  It’s a wonderful rebirth element and for us to kind of tip the hat to Pat as an encore.  During the show he sings “Stairway to Heaven” mixed with Beethoven��s “7th” and “Kashmir” mixed with Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” and “Dream On” mixed with Berlioz “Sumphonie Fantastique” so he’s being completely a Rocktopian throughout that but we wanted to give him a little tip of the hat.

You mentioned a couple of the performers, who are the primary performers? Anyone else we might know?

You know it’s funny because everybody is at the top of their game and level, but they are also people that can walk around the street and not get mobbed by paparazzi, which I love.  I mean Pat was even telling me that, too.  As many records as he’s sold, he was afraid people wouldn’t know who he was.  You’ve got me who’s done a lot in the biz; you’ve researched that. 

You’ve got a guy named Tony Vincent who’s been a big Broadway star; he was the star of Jesus Christ Superstar.  He was in American Idiot when they brought that to Broadway; he was the lead in that.  He also was on The Voice.  Again, someone that is just a great artist.  Chloe Lowery of Trans-Siberian Orchestra.  Alyson Cambridge, our Opera singer, who is fresh off of the Metropolitan Opera stage.  Kimberly Nichole also of The Voice. 

So, we’re all kind of working artists, but I love the idea that we are all serving the concept and not our own brand as much which lets people buy into it more then I think having a marquee name.  They’re all amazing talents.  Mairead Nesbitt is our violinist. You’ve probably heard Celtic Women. She was the violinist from that from the beginning.  She came over because she loved what we were doing.

How did the audition process go? Was there anyone we might know that auditioned that didn’t get a part?

It’s funny you call it an audition process.  I never like to tell people I bring in. I call it a work session.  I think that level, and what we are looking for are not people that are auditioning.  They are people we’ve had our eyes on for a long time.  It’s a very select few that we’ve worked with.  There are a lot of other people that are reaching out, that are saying, “I love what you’re doing,” that are icons, great artists.  That’s also our hope for Broadway; it’s another platform to tell the world what we are doing and more people will buy in.  Then we can keep having a good time, creating this great music. 

We’ve received so many affirmations from great artists.  Take Patti Smith, who co-wrote “Because the Night” with Bruce Springsteen. We were at SIR which is the rehearsal studio in New York for rock bands.  I was rehearsing Rocktopia at one point and heard somebody do “Every Breath You Take,”  and I was like, that’s a great Sting cover band. Well, next Sting walks out of the room, and I’m like okay (laughing), that’s probably why; that’s the room everyone rehearses in.  We were rehearsing “Because the Night” mixed with Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo & Juliet” with Kimberly Nichole who just knocks it out of the park.  It’s a closed rehearsal room, the door opens, and I’m watching Kimberly sing. I turn around and see this woman in a Northface parka jacket, and she’s got amazing silver hair.I don’t know who that is.  I look at the manager, and she’s like, should I kick her out and I’m like who is that? Then I turn around and look her in the eyes, and it’s fucking Patti Smith. 

She happened to be in the place walking by, her son who I guess is her manager said, “Mom, they’re doing your song in there.” So, she just comes in the room.  Then it was like, holy shit.  I tell Kimberly as she was singing what was happening.  I’m like (whispers), “That’s Patti Smith,” and she freaks out.  It stops the whole rehearsal process, and Patti is saying this is the best fucking version of the song I ever heard, and you can quote me on that.  To get those affirmations is pretty amazing.

Any thought of special guest while doing the Broadway run?

Yeah we are working on it.  You know it’s funny working with people at that level; it’s all about schedules.  What we are excited about is people are like, we would love to do that, but I can’t because I’m touring, or I’ve got this, or I’m doing that.  We’ve got some more surprises up our sleeves.  Again, with Pat I never wanted it to be a gimmick, and with Pat it’s not.  We’re not rolling out any dinosaurs in a way that wouldn’t serve the concept.  I’m excited about people that are excited about the concept.

Now you’ve performed for world leaders including Presidents Bush and Clinton as well as Mikhail Gorbachev; what were those experiences like?

It’s exciting. I played a role called Jekyll and Hyde on Broadway and was known for that probably more than anything on Broadway, and there was a song called “This is the Moment,” that works for a lot of different political or sports things.  One of my favorite things was doing that for the Yankees back in the late 90’s when they kept winning the World Series. 

They have this parade through Wall Street, I think they call it the Cannon of Champions, and during that they had me at City Hall singing, “This is the Moment.” And, Tony Bennett is right next to me, and he sings “America the Beautiful,” I did that like three years in a row.  To sing for Presidents and world leaders, it’s surreal, and it’s a wonderful thing to brag about, and I get to pretend like I’m a rock star to my kids (laughing). But I’m just a guy trying to feed his family.

Tell us about some of the other projects you have going on.  Are you currently doing anything with your band, Menrva Realm?

Menrva Realm was a progressive rock band that I had worked on and something that is on the shelf right now.  It’s hard in the business, you’ve got to find ways that will actually sell tickets right now.  Menrva Realm is something that I’m very proud of, and we made a great record and something I hope that I can do later.  My whole goal is to make sure Rocktopia is where it needs to be and maybe take myself out of that vocally and put somebody that’s probably better than me (laughing) in my place and then go do other things just for enjoyment of music. 

Menrva Realm is one of them.  I’m also working as a producer and creator on a residency for NBC’s The Voice in Las Vegas, which will happen in September.  We’ve taking former winners of the project and created this concert property that will happen in a new building that they are building at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas.  It will perpetuate their next steps as artists.  Most of what I’m all about is music and creating fresh new takes on existing songs and genres and things like that.  I think that that’s going to be something that’s pretty cool.

Finishing up, tell us about your experience playing football at the University of Georgia, you were a punter and kicker correct?

Yeah I did a little bit of both for JV. I was a kicker and punter for Varsity.

That must have been a cool experience.

It was very cool.  Somebody was like, how do you go from football to showbiz? I’m like, it’s the same thing. When you’re in front of a hundred thousand people, it’s the same thing. It’s show biz. 

Who’s your NFL team?

I’ve been a Giants fan for a long time.  I was disappointed on how Eli was treated.  And of course the hometown boys, (Atlanta) Falcons.  But, yeah, I’m a Giants fan.

Oh man, I’m a Pats fan, and the team that always has our number, the Giants.

I was pulling for Brady, I like Brady; he’s a rock star.  I hate all the haters.  Whenever they are there, they are there because they deserve to be there.  He will go down in the books.  He’s so perfect people hate him (laughing).  His looks, his technique, his history, the guy is perfect so don’t hate somebody like that.  Embrace him and be glad he’s playing the game.

Any final words on Rocktopia, and anything else you’d like to add?

Send everybody to www.Rocktopia.com, it’s that easy.  You can buy tickets there.  We just want to spread the word, that’s the big thing. 

It starts March 20th correct?

Yes first performance is March 20th and we are gone after April 29. That’s our last performance.  And that is it; we really are a limited run, and that’s all we are going to be there for.

Well I plan on attending, Rob, and encourage others as well.  It looks and sounds like an amazing production.  Thanks for taking the time to speak with us, and best of luck with the show.

Thanks Brett, appreciate it.

Connect with Rocktopia(click icons):

Interview by photo journalist Brett Tully

INTERVIEW: ROB EVAN OF THE BROADWAY MUSICAL ROCKTOPIA was originally published on RockRevolt Mag

[bthenoise]

2017 And Beyond: A Year In Review & A Year Ahead With Black Label Society Founder And Ozzy Osbourne Guitarist Zakk Wylde

[photo by Alex Kluft]

After wrapping up an incredibly busy year touring the world with Zakk Sabbath,  the Experience Hendrix Tour and his former “boss” Ozzy Osbourne, guitar legend Zakk Wylde is currently enjoying some well-deserved peace and quiet with his wife Barbaranne before hitting the road all over again on his Noise Presents Black Label Society tour.

See, when Wylde is offstage and his iconic striped guitars are unplugged, the six-string soloist is a lot like us. “I’d rather just sit on the couch,” he tells us jokingly looking into the New Year. Being that 2017 was such an active year for the hard rock icon and because his 2018 is looking to be just as busy with a new Black Label Society record on the way, Noise contributor Jimmy Smith reached out to Wylde to recap the year that was and see what the long-haired, fun-loving guitarist/vocalist anticipates moving into January.

To check out Jimmy’s interview with Wylde chalk full of laughs, stories about the Ozz Man and insight into how the Book Of Shadows penman has been able to maintain his success for 30-plus years, be sure to see below. Afterwards, make sure to pick up tickets to see Black Label Society out on tour with Corrosion Of Conformity and pre-order their forthcoming album Grimmest Hits before it hits stores January 12th. 

This may or may not be the hardest question I ask you today: What was your favorite album of 2017? Well, the most recent record I just got was Robert Plant’s new album, Carry Fire.

What’d you think about it? I think it’s slammin’! I’m a big fan. I also like that other band he played in, Led Zeppelin. I think they��re good too [laughs].

[Laughs] Yeah, I think some people might have heard of them.  Yeah, his side project. I also enjoy his “side project,” Led Zeppelin [laughs]. 

So, what about your favorite movie of 2017? Probably, Get Out. I thought that was really good. The actual plot and the whole thing — I was like this is kinda new. This is pretty cool. So that was fresh and done really well. 

Favorite TV show of the year? It’s gotta be either Curb [Your Enthusiasm] or Seinfeld. Whatever’s on of the two, those are great. Or just old Star Trek -- original Star Trek.

Are you enjoying the new Curb season so far? Without a doubt. What’s not to like about it? It just keeps getting sillier and sillier [laughs].

Yeah, it’s awesome Larry David’s back doing that stuff again. Your favorite song of 2017? Uh… Favorite song of 2017? So far, um, I wanna say… of this year?

*Barbaranne Wylde in the background*: “Room of Nightmares!”

Oh! It’d have to be “Room of Nightmares!” Yeah, what am I thinking?! 

That’s a very good pick. And that may or may not lead to our next question of your favorite music video of 2017. Well of course! I wouldn’t actually call it a music video [though]. That was more a documentary about us playing a children’s birthday party. Ozzy was asking me, “Zakk, is this real?” [And I said] “No, you know what? It’s all too real, Oz. It’s a sad fact that the music business is what it is and we gotta play 11-year-old’s birthday parties, circumcisions, proms and weddings.” So it is what it is. But you know what? At the end of the day, a hundred bucks is a hundred bucks [laughs].

So that video was pretty fun to shoot, I imagine? Yeah, without a doubt. It was awesome. It was just beyond silly and the kids had a lot of fun, so it was a good time.

What was your favorite Internet moment of the year? It could be your favorite viral video, meme or gif. Well, the new ones I got up on my Instagram and all my social media right now. The day I worked at Generation Records is pretty good right now. 

A post shared by Zakk Wylde (@zakkwyldebls) on Dec 5, 2017 at 12:04pm PST

I saw that one. That one was pretty funny. Do you have a lot of time on your hands to put those things together? Well of course, I look in the mirror and I go: I have no friends and no one wants to hang out with me. [laughs] I might as well come up with something.

[Laughs] Well that’s interesting. When you talk to other bands who don’t have much of an online presence, do you look at them and get confused? Like, as if they don’t realize the audience they can reach with their social media platform? 

Well I mean that’s why I always tell kids, you know, younger musicians [who ask] “You got any advice?” or their parents go, “Hey Zakk, you got any advice for my son or daughter? They want to play music.” The interesting thing is, back before I got the gig with The Boss [Ozzy Osbourne], me, you and the band were trying to get— you know, the big thing was to get a record deal blah, blah, blah. But the whole thing back then was, if you didn’t get signed by the time were 30-years-old, it’s kinda like the dream’s over [and] I guess it’s time to get a horrendous job for the rest of our lives. Whereas nowadays, the cool thing about [social media] is, if nobody signs me and you, it’s like, “Dude, we’ll just do it ourselves. To hell with it, we’ll just do it ourselves.”

Just like us starting our own burger joint. I mean, it’s just like we’ll get a hot dog cart and we’ll start from there. And we’ll do it ourselves, you know what I mean? We’ll go door-to-door and we’ll build this thing. So I mean that’s really kinda the cool thing about [social media] because you can actually be your own boss. It doesn’t matter what level the band is on because I remember telling Oz, I go, “Oz, think about it. Back in the day, if this was 1969, 1970 and you guys are in England, me and Jimmy could be living in Seattle, New Jersey, Boston or whatever. And we’re like ‘Dude, check out this band. It’s Black Sabbath. They’re from England.’” You know what I mean? It’s just really cool. I’m saying, “Oz, if no radio stations are playing Black Sabbath or anything, you’re reaching everybody on social media. You don’t even need them.” You don’t have to kiss anybody’s ass to get anything. It’s just like I don’t need any favors from you. Me and Jimmy will just do it ourselves. We’ll post it up on social media. We’ll make our own records, we’ll take them out and then we’ll get the packaging done and we’ll go door-to-door and we’ll sell it at our shows. So [with social media] you’re completely hands on. I mean it really is like me and you bought the building. Me and you make the coffee. Me and you make the donuts. Me and you box them up and ship them out. So that really is the cool thing about it. I’ve seen so many younger bands do it. Without a doubt, if I was eighteen years old again, me and you would be doing that. We’d have our band, we’d have our U-Haul and we’d be going door-to-door to make sure me and you don’t have to have a crummy job the rest of our lives. I mean like, literally, make the band your job. It really is the truth.

I think that’s great because I feel there are some metal bands that don’t even know how to log into Facebook. They’d rather just play music. But in today’s world you have to have that avenue to keep building your audience otherwise people may or may not just forget about you. But I mean like I said, you’re either up for doing it, or I mean, put it this way: If me and you owned the New York Yankees, I would want me and you being involved with everything -- aside of the drafts, the trades, the free agency. And then, me and you own it but we have all our buddies that we hire who are working that are really good at whatever. I’m saying, like, me and you every day [have] the grocery list of domination that is kinda like talking about how we’re going to make the stadium basically a year-round mall, year-round shop. And so when it’s not baseball season, we got concerts going on, we got shopping going on, we got restaurants in the stadium, we’ll have apartments in the stadium. I’m just saying: So it’s a completely living, functioning thing. It’s not just cause it’s baseball. I mean obviously me and you want the Yankees to win every year, that’s the whole thing. That’s priority number one. [However], me and you are involved with everything – making transportation to the stadium better, making it easier, making it safer — just improving constantly every day. Me and you are sitting going, “Oh dude, it’d be cool if we put a movie theater in it” and yadda yadda yadda. And it’s like yeah, we’ll do that. 

So I mean, I always tell kids, “If you’re not practicing [music], you’re not writing songs, then you should be either doing your artwork or dialing in the merch.” I mean you should have a hand in everything. You should never be going, “I can’t believe we made a million dollars and me and Jimmy only have $8.15 in our bank account.” I mean that’s nobody’s fault but us. It really is, you know what I mean? At the end of the day, if we owned a bar and each beer was a dollar and we noticed that a hundred beers were sold [then] me and you check the cash register at the end of the night and we go, “There’s only eighty bucks in here man. We’re twenty—there were a hundred beers sold and they were a buck each. We have eighty bucks in here— who’s pocketing cash around here? We’re missing money.” Then we just shake everybody down, hang them off the building and then we get our money back.

[Laughs] That’s interesting because obviously that business savviness can be seen in everything you have going on other than your music (Wylde Audio, Valhalla Java, etc.). When you started, did you always have that business mindset or did you kind of grow into that throughout your career? I pretty much grew into it. When I was younger giving guitar lessons, I would keep up with everybody and just say “Hey, just a reminder, Jimmy - tomorrow we got the lesson at five or whatever” and you’re like “Yeah, alright” or be like “Hey Zakk, can we do it the day after because I can’t do whatever.” So I’d be up on that. But you know, between mowing lawns and everything going door-to-door, saving up money to get a guitar, an amp, petals, whatever. So, I mean, the working aspect I’ve always—you always realize that if you want something nice, if you want a guitar, if you want something, you gotta work for it. You gotta start mowing lawns and that’s that. So shoveling snow, whatever it is you gotta do before you get a job. But, no, like I said, it’s not for everybody, but I love doing it.

Going back to the best of 2017, what was your favorite onstage moment of the year? Hmmm... it would have to be “Room of Nightmares”! – playing for a bunch of eleven-year-olds!

[Laughs] That’s good! I mean you could’ve picked playing Ozzfest, but I’m sure doing that music video was pretty memorable.  Yeah, I mean obviously Ozzfest was great and playing with The Boss again is always a laugh fest. Just being around Oz for five minutes, you’ll be on the floor crying laughing. It doesn’t matter how depressed you are, all you gotta do is hang around him for five minutes. It’s like being with Larry David [laughs].

I feel like it should be a goal of yours to get Larry David and Ozzy Osbourne in the same room. [Laughs] Ozzy is the Larry David of metal! 

[Laughs] That’s great! Next is… your New Year’s resolution? I never make any New Year’s resolutions. I just plan on being as lazy and depressed as possible. Why be happy and get off the couch? You know what I mean, why?

You could get off that couch to go do a tour next year. That could be a good reason. Yeah, I just stay horrendous. But then you gotta put work in. Yeah, that’s work. I’d rather just sit on the couch [laughs]. I’m not bothering anybody. 

Let’s go into next year then. Obviously exciting stuff – the tour, the album. What’s the thing you’re most excited about releasing the record? Well obviously it’s Grimmest Hits, not greatest hits. So the thing I’m most excited about is there are no expectations. It's not like “Oh, let’s listen to these hit songs.” It’s just like, “No, they’re not hit songs. Don’t worry about it. You won’t find any hits.” That’s quite the relief and it’s not a burden on my back [laughs]. But between that, obviously just getting back together with the fellas and rollin’ -- cause you know we’ve been doing the Zakk Sabbath thing for a bit and that’s been a blast rolling with Blasko and Father Joe and the rest of the Doom Crew. I think the last show we did on the Book of Shadows tour was well over year ago now, like a year and four or five months ago. We played with Guns ‘n’ Roses in Arizona. So we’ve just been, I mean we did the record and stuff like that, but I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of my Black Label brethren and us going and seeing how the choreography works out and the dance steps. 

When you named the album Grimmest Hits, did you think people may have thought you guys were just putting out a greatest hits album? I had no concern for that at all. Because somebody did ask me, “Zakk, do you think they’ll get it messed up with a greatest hits?” and I go, “No. Why would they get it mixed up?” “Why are you so relaxed about it?” “Well first off, in order to have a greatest hits record, you need one important ingredient: hits. And we don’t have that yet.” [Laughs] So there you go. That’ll just de-confuse the whole idea. And when they hear Grimmest Hits, they’ll go, “Actually, you know what? These songs aren’t as grim as I thought they’d be.” So that’s a win right there.

So pretty much once the album comes out, the confusion will be cleared up? Yeah, because they’re gonna listen to it and say, “There are no hit songs on this record.” [laughs]

What’s the thing you’re most looking forward to about this tour? I know you touched on it a little, but getting back and doing Black Label stuff for the first time in a while, you’re obviously going out with such a great package. Is it interesting to think about doing your own stuff again and not playing Black Sabbath or Ozzy songs but all your own songs again? To me, I wouldn’t change my situation for anything. I always said playing with The Boss is like playing in the coolest cover band ever. And you get to play your own songs too. And then when we’re doing Zakk Sabbath, it’s like me and you doing Sabbath when we were sixteen years old playing keg parties in people’s kitchens and like I said, circumcisions and eleven-year-old parties. Now, I’m fifty years old and I’m still playing Black Sabbath songs [and] that’s just awesome. It’s an awesome reason to get together and jam. That’s a lot of fun. Then obviously, playing with the fellas. I really am truly blessed. I couldn’t ask for a cooler situation. Like you said, each one of them is awesome. I love rolling with The Boss. I love rolling with Blasko and Father Joe. Then I love rolling with the rest of my Black Label brethren and the Doom Crew. I wouldn’t change my situation for anything. I thank the good Lord when I wake up, that’s always important. Because when you wake up, you think, “OK, I’m breathing and this is very good.” And then in the middle of the day, and then before bed. Then when you wake up in the middle of the night for a midnight snack, I thank him then too. I’m truly blessed, man. 

When you’re doing Black Label tours, do you feel like things are more on your shoulders versus when you’re doing other things? Or is it just another show for you? No. To me, it’s just the love of music. The cool thing about it is that it helps keep a marriage fresh. Bottom line is like, if I’m just doing Black Label all the time, Barbaranne would just go, “Whatever, it’s just Black Label Society.” Then when I’m playing with Ozzy, she’s like “Oh my god! You’re the guitarist in Ozzy Osborne?” And she’s like really into me. Then all of a sudden, if I’m not playing with Oz and that kinda gets old, she’s like, “Oh my god! I love Black Sabbath! You’re in that Zakk Sabbath band?” It really works out good, man [laughs]. People ask me how you keep a successful marriage? That’s one way. Being in a couple different bands [laughs]. 

[Laughs] Just keep it exciting at all times. Switch it up. Without a doubt. Because the energy and excitement start wearing off, you know what I mean? Me and you just start doing the other bands and our girlfriends are like “Oh my god, they’re sooo hot!” Because then they’ll go like this and they’ll actually say, “Well we haven’t slept with these guys yet!”

[Laughs] That’s amazing advice! As a newlywed, I’ll definitely keep that in mind. The marital pitch from Uncle Zakk.

We talked a bit about the business stuff you have going on. Are there any business endeavors in the New Year you’re looking forward to starting?   Yeah, obviously we’ve got Wyld Audio expanding. We got the electrics obviously that we’re going to start working on. The amps and the acoustics are next. And we’ve got strings in the works right now. So just a bunch of new, some new fresh Krispy Kreme donuts about to leave -- some Black Label Country Donuts o’ Doom over there. So I’m definitely looking forward to that. 

As a fellow bearded guy: Have you ever had the idea to pursue a beard oil? Maybe it could be a beard and hair, like, Mane and Tail type thing? Well, I eat a lot of protein. So it’s a lot of eggs and chicken and stuff like that. And fish and lean beef. So I’m sure the beard stuff would be made out of that because most of the time I leave my food in my beard because you never know when you might get hungry for a snack later on [Laughs]. You and me could be hanging around and I’m like “Jim, you hungry?” “Zakk, I got a chicken sandwich hanging out of my beard, I’ll be fine.” 

[hemcountry]

INTERVIEW: WHY 2018 SHOULD BE MEGAN'S YEAR

How best to describe Megan O’ Neill? Well, if you haven’t heard of Megan yet, the very first thing you need to do – maybe even before you read any further – is look her up and check out her music. And start with the Kildare native’s latest release, ‘Why I Need You’. What you’ll realise straight away is that you’ve been missing out on enjoying the work of an extremely talented songwriter, and a truly beautiful singer. Megan has perhaps been flying a little bit under the radar in Ireland, but as one of the artists on the bill for Harvest Fest this summer, she was rewarded with some well-deserved time in the spotlight.

In London and Nashville, however, where Megan has been spending most of her time working on her career over the last few years, she has steadily been establishing herself as an artist to keep a close eye on. You don’t end up performing at the famous Bluebird Cafe, or with a song featured on one of the biggest tv shows in the world right now, or working with someone of Guy Fletcher’s calibre, unless there’s something pretty special about who you are and what you can do. And Megan is definitely that: an artist who is pretty special. And I, for one, wouldn’t be in the least little bit surprised if 2018 turns out to be a milestone year in her career.

  Megan’s latest single ‘Why I Need You’

Her latest single, ‘Why I Need You’, is simply as a beautiful a song as you’re ever likely to hear. It already sounds like it’s a classic, a tune that’s been around for decades. When I had the pleasure of chatting with her recently, I began by asking Megan to tell me a little bit about how she came to write ‘Why I Need You’…

  “First of all, thank you very much, that’s amazing to hear. I was out in Nashville in May, on a writing trip. I lived there before I lived in London, so I kinda try to go back out there as often as I can and work with the same people. So I was out there this time working with a Welsh songwriter called Zac Lloyd. It’s actually funny, cos’ we’d been writing a real pop song that day, cos’ I write for other artists as well, I don’t just write for me. So we’d been working on this pop, dancey track, and I was leavin’, on my way out the door. But he has this beautiful grand piano in his living room, right by the door. And we were chit-chatting, as you do before you say goodbye, and he started playin’ these chords on the piano. I was just like, ‘Wait, what is that?’, and he was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know, I’m just messin’ around.’ But I said, no…we have to write that! [laughs]. So we literally wrote the song in like…fifteen minutes, maybe? It was just one of those times where it all flowed out. I was on the clock, but still had ten minutes to spare so we said right, let’s go back upstairs and lay down a demo before I go. We just thought we’d lay it down so we’d have it there [to work more on]. Anyway, when it came around to recording the album, three or four months later, we expected that we’d re-record everything. But we didn’t. We just left it as we had recorded it on that day. So yeah, that’s how that happened!”

Picture from Megan’s video for ‘Why I Need You’. Click here to watch the video.

The video for ‘Why I Need You’ matches the track itself in terms of class. And one of the things that really struck me was the emotion in Megan’s facial expressions in some parts, it’s almost like acting. How does she channel so much emotion into a performance?

“In ninety-nine per-cent of what I write, I’m telling a story. Do you know what I mean? I’m telling a story about an experience I’ve had. So this song, ‘Why I Need You’, is about my partner, and about partners generally. It’s not specific to my life, obviously. It’s about the love that you find in someone else and why you need them. And for me, every time I sing a song that I’ve written, I try to express that particular story through how I perform it. Because I think that’s really important, ya know. After you write the song, you’re kind of just the messenger. You have to find a way of putting that message out there. I think that’s more than just [about] the lyrics, that’s about the performance.”

Megan on stage at Harvest Fest

Would Megan begin a writing session with the objective of writing either strictly for herself then, or for another specific artist?

“My focus in writing sessions is just on writing a good song. I just approach it that way. I’m not gonna try and write for….say, Taylor Swift, not that she needs it [laughs]. I try and just write a good song and go from there. At the end of the day then, if I walk out of a session and I absolutely love, love, love a track, I’ll probably use it myself. But I used to, when I first started songwriting – I think I was fifteen or sixteen, although I probably wasn’t in any way decent until I was twenty-one, because it takes a long time – but I used to be really precious about my songs. Like, they were my babies! [laughs]. And I didn’t want anybody else to have them. But now if I write a great track, I’m happy if anyone can get that out there. I’m not precious about keeping it for myself anymore.”

Having been a student of psychology, I wondered if that knowledge and awareness plays any part in Megan’s songwriting?

“I haven’t really thought about that. I mean, I love people. And I love life! And I love recording the situations around me. If I’m out for dinner with a friend and they’re telling me a story about something that happened with them, or at work, or something that’s on the news or whatever, you get inspiration from those things. I’m not sure it’s necessarily tapping into psychology skills, cos’ I don’t even know if I have any left! [laughs]. I think it might just come down to reading people and situations, the way you kinda do if you’re an artist. Like the way a painter would read a scene they want to paint, ya know?”

Megan with fellow Irish singer/songwriters Donna Taggart (Left) and Niamh Lynn (Centre)

Going back to Megan’s latest single, ‘Why I Need You’, I wondered why she decided on it as the new single? And when she picks songs to be singles, how much thought goes into a factor like how radio-friendly a song might be?

“The last record I released [‘Stories To Tell’] which was in February of this year, I did with my band, The Common Threads, and it was something I was super proud of. We did it with Guy Fletcher [Dire Straits]. We were very specific about which song we were gonna pick for the single, and exactly because it was the most radio friendly. But at the end of the day, you can’t actually judge that [what is radio friendly], because sometimes a producer will be working on…let’s just say BBC Radio 2, and they’ll come across a song on the album and be like, I really want to play this one. Even though it might not necessarily be the single, or the most radio-friendly. So with that last record, as I said, we were really specific with what was going to be radio-friendly and we picked accordingly. And it got great air-time and everything, and I think any of them kind of would have if we pushed them the way we pushed the one we released.

With ‘Why I Need You’, my thinking behind it is that, first of all, I’m not with the band for this album,so I only have myself to rely on for the decisions. So I’m kinda going off my own instincts with this one. This album is different to anything else I’ve ever done before. It’s probably a bit more in the Americana vein than in the country vein in some ways, but it still has a good bit of country going on. Elements of folk, too. That First-Aid Kit feel. So yeah, my thinking in releasing ‘Why I Need You’ first is that it would break the mold for me. I thought if I release this track, which is really raw, that’s really stripped back, ya know, nobody would really be expecting it. That was my thinking. But also, I just adore this song! [laughs]. Yeah, those two things coupled together, let’s go with that [laughs].”

Megan outside the Grand Ole Oprys artist entrance in Nashville

For any songwriter, especially one involved in the country music side of things, the Bluebird Cafe is one of those venues everybody wants to perform at. And Megan has done just that, and more than once already. I asked her what those experiences were like…

“Absolutely….out….of….this….world! It’s the most amazing feeling, as a performer, to play there because you know how historic it is, and magical, too. It’s so small, but it’s always sold-out with people who really want to listen. You get people in who are really appreciative. Sometimes you’ll be playing a gig in London and people are too busy ordering their pints to pay any attention to what you’re singing or saying [laughs]. Which is fine, that’s a different market. But that’s also part of the reason why the Bluebird is so special. Yeah, I’m very, very fortunate with the people I get to work with when I’m over in Nashville. Some of the songwriters I work with are mega-successful and amazing people, too. So every time I go out there they always invite me along to play. But I remember going to the Bluebird, like, my first week that I lived there, and I remember seeing Emily Shackleton [‘Love Like Mine’, from the ‘Nashville’ tv show] and Tony Arata [‘The Dance’, by Garth Brooks], amazing songwriters. I looked at them and I thought it’s gonna be about fifteen or twenty years before I’m good enough to play here [laughs]. Or successful enough, ya know, to have loads of hits. So to find myself there three years later…dreams do come true!”

Megan’s Facebook picture proudly showing her name on the Bluebird set list

The ‘Nashville’ tv show has also become a massive platform for country music worldwide, and Megan has also achieved the distinction of having one of her songs, ‘Don’t You’, featured on the show.

“Yeah, it was amazing for me, but also to do that without having a record label or a publishing company was huge because a lot of times those are the very people who get you those opportunities.I just submitted ‘Don’t You’ to a pool of songs being put forward to the show. It was chosen by one of the editors, then approved by the creator of the show, Callie Khouri. So yeah…it just kind of happened. I don’t think I really believed it [that it was going to happen]. I mean, a lot of things can be like that in the music industry. When you start out, every time somebody says something to you, you think it’s gonna happen. You’ll meet this record exec, and he’ll tell you he’s gonna pass your music on and you think, ‘That’s it, I’m definitely gonna get a record deal here!’ [laughs]. But as the years go on, you’re more like, screw this [laughs]. There’s so many highs and lows, I’m just gonna stay in the middle and I’,m not gonna get excited about anything. So I think I just didn’t believe it until I heard it on the show. And then I was like, ‘Oh…wow! That IS actually me!’ [laughs].”

Click on the picture to get Megan & The Common Threads EP ‘Stories To Tell’

Moving away from country music for a moment, anyone who checks out Megan’s social media will hear some of the gorgeous covers she’s recorded, including tracks by Pink, Picture This, and even Avicii. So who does she listen to when it’s purely and simply to ‘enjoy’ music, and is she listening to anyone right now who she just can’t get enough of?

“I listen to a bit of everything. The only thing I don’t really listen to is heavy metal. I like to be able to listen to the lyrics, and I like beats and melodies. But I’m a runner, so I love going out running with dance music in my ears! And I love up-and-coming artists, cos’ that’s who a lot of my friends are. So I tend to listen what they’re doing and draw inspiration from them. The biggest inspiration for me at the moment, especially in the time of recording this album, was probably Ryan Adams. I’ve been completely obsessed, for like the last two or three years. I just can’t get enough of him! [laughs]. I’d been a fan for probably seven or eight years, but his most recent album [‘Prisoner’], I’ve been just listening to it on repeat since it came out, just all the time. I think he’s a phenomenal songwriter, an amazing storyteller. His use of words is incredible. So yeah, him, and Brandi Carlile, who’s also amazing and an inspiration to me. And First-Aid Kit as well. But I guess none of them are really country. I definitely think all of them have elements of country, but maybe a lot more Americana.”

Like myself, Megan comes from a really small little Irish town [shout out to Lusmagh, in County Offaly for me!], Ballymore Eustace, in Kildare. What was it like for her to go from there, to working with someone like Guy Fletcher, for example, of Dire Straits fame?

“Yeah, it’s always weird. I think you always have this expectation of people who are very successful and who you look up to, that they’re going to be larger than life. But first of all, I think I owe my family a lot, because my parents brought me up to believe that I could do anything I wanted to do, and be anyone I wanted to be. So I never felt restricted, and I felt just as good as anybody else. There’s always gonna be people who are better than you, and always people who are not as good as you, too. But, if you work really hard, there’s no reason why you can’t get there [succeed]. So I always had that mentality. But two years ago, right, I performed during Oscars week in L.A., I was invited out by J.J. Abrams and it was right before the ‘Star Wars’ release. So, you had all of the ‘Star Wars’ cast, and tons of celebrities, and it was absolutely mental! And I remember being there, on the red carpet, beside Stephen Fry, and thinking to myself, ‘What is my like LIKE?!’ This IS so weird!’ [laughs]. All of these people were probably looking at me and thinking, ‘Who’s she?’ [laughs]. But you know what, when you talk to a lot of these people [who are successful], and Guy Fletcher is the perfect example, they’re so down to earth and so lovely. They’ve been so successful because they’re really great to work with.”

Megan’s Harvest Fest poster.

Megan was home in Ireland this summer to perform at the first ever Harvest Country Music Festival.

“Yeah, and I loved it! It was my first time working in that manner with Aiken Promotions and I just thought they were incredible, so professional, so organised. Everything just ran so smoothly. And I thought it was a great festival. I was so happy that I was able to be on stage twice a day with Victoria Shaw and Don Mescall, that was a dream. I can’t wait to see Harvest Fest grow over the next few years and become as big as any of the festivals goin’ on in Ireland.”

Jumping away from music for a moment once again, something a lot of people might not know about Megan is that she’s also a marathon runner!

“I am, yeah. I did my first marathon in Madrid and I remember running along, and I’d lost my friend, because she had no time-limit in her own mind. But I was like I’m getting this in under four hours! But I didn’t realise Madrid had hills! [laughs]. And the last six miles were pretty much all uphill! I was raging by the end of it! I ended up running along with these two sixty-five year old men who were both in training for a 100km race. I was like, ah come on, you’re showing me up here, training for a 100km race and I’m struggling for 42! [laughs]. But yeah, I managed it, somehow, to get in in under four. Then I did London last year. Running for me is just a massive stress relief, which a lot of people find in different ways. But for me, it’s running. It’s my ‘me’ time! [laughs].”

Megan enjoying life and ready for 2018

So, last question time, and we ended with one that would, hypothetically at least, put Megan in control of the music business! If it was in her hands to make any one change to the music industry, with immediate and everlasting effect, that she thinks would be of most benefit to songwriters and performers….what one change would she make?

“Wow. I think…I think it would probably be – and I think it is going this way, and I’m thankful for that – I think it would be that payments are made equally through streaming. Like Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music. I have a lot of friends who are just songwriters, who are struggling to pay their rent even when they’ve had a massive hit with an artist. The artist has different ways to make money. We can go touring, sell merch, be brand ambassadors, whatever. We can do a lot of things. But songwriters rely on artists to get their music out there, to pay them. But if it’s going out on these online platforms, then they’re making pennies and not pounds per listen. So they’re struggling. That’s probably what I would like to see change in the future.”

* Megan’s latest single, ‘Why I Need You’, is OUT NOW.

Amendment notice: Please note this article was originally published on 22 Nov 2017 @ 03:38, the article feature image was updated on 23 Nov 2017 @ 01:15 with no other amendments made.

INTERVIEW: WHY 2018 SHOULD BE MEGAN’S YEAR was originally published on HEM COUNTRY

[rachelleonardwriting-blog]

INTERVIEW // PAIGE BACKSTAGE

Meet Toronto-based music blogger and YouTuber Paige Williams, a.k.a. Paige Backstage. With over 11,000 followers on her social media pages, Paige is breaking barriers in the online music world and is becoming an exciting woman to watch in the industry. She’s taking the industry into her own hands and creating an incredible online space where people can come together to love and share the music that means the most to them. We sat down with Paige to discuss her experiences in the music industry, her inspirations, and what she’s most excited about for the upcoming year. 

Aspects Magazine: What inspired you to start your blog?

Paige Williams: I spent a few years working at the biggest record label in Canada, so I got an opportunity to see the music industry on a pretty large scale. One of the things that bothered me a lot was that I felt like a lot of smaller bands weren’t getting the attention they deserved. There were all these artists that signed on thinking they were going to be supported and then were essentially being forgotten. I wanted to create a space where I could sort of showcase the bands that I thought deserved more attention or just bands that I really enjoyed. I also felt like I didn’t have a voice in such a big company. It was very much like “small fish, big pond” where as if I made my own pond then I’m the only fish. It was something that I’ve always loved doing and I’ve had multiple blogs before, but it’s been really fun and fulfilling in some way.

AM: What inspired you to add a YouTube channel into the mix?

PW: I found there was some stuff that was easier to talk about. It’s easier to have a conversation with people or show something off that maybe doesn’t require a full post. I actually used to have a YouTube channel, so I had already been associated with YouTube and I knew it very well. I actually went to school previously for acting for film and television, so I’m very comfortable with a camera and that was just something that I missed doing. Honestly, all the things I’m doing right now are things that I’ve wanted to be doing for the last ten years but I had to keep shutting them down or I didn’t have the platform or I didn’t have the confidence to do it, so I’ve kind of taken the time now to kind of get back in to everything. YouTube has ended up kind of being my favorite, but I’m trying to focus more on my blog now this month.

Part of the problem is that you want to write blog posts and have that good content, but the attention comes much faster on YouTube. Most of the people on my YouTube don’t even know I have a blog. Attention on YouTube is so much easier because there’s people already there that are fans of YouTube itself, so they’ll find anything on YouTube and they’ll look through different videos whereas if you look on my blog and read a post it’s not going to say “Here’s four other bloggers you might like. Read their posts on similar topics.” I think everybody kind of gets swayed toward YouTube because it’s easier to find your audience. But your blog is your own personal space that you can control. YouTube is having issues lately where they’re not putting videos in subscription boxes and randomly canceling people’s subscriptions to channels. There’s all these weird things happening and you have no control over that because it’s not your platform, whereas your blog is your platform so really we should all be focusing on them more because we actually have control over them. I’m trying to split my time between both this year. That’s my goal for 2017.

AM: You’re participating in Blogmas and Vlogmas this year. What made you decide to do thirty-one days of posting on both of your sites?

PW: Last year I did Blogmas, but it only lasted until December 24th because I lost internet after that. But it was fun doing that because I had just started my blog so my plan was mostly to stockpile content.

I didn’t really focus it on music, though, because at the time I just thought “I’ll do music and everything else.” I didn’t really have a focus for a while, but not long after I realized I should just try to make everything tie in to music. But then I kind of accidentally didn’t post on my blog for, like, four months which wasn’t good. I didn’t realize so much time had passed and then I was like “Oh. My last post was in May. That’s fine.” So I said “You know what, it’s time to just buckle down and get all this stuff going so that in 2017 I have a base to jump off and so that I have music content written and published somewhere.” So I decided to give Blogmas a try again. A lot of people do Vlogmas, too, but I don’t really vlog, so I thought “What if I just make a video every single day?” I didn’t want to neglect my YouTube just because I was doing my blog, so instead I decided to completely overwhelm myself and do everything. Honestly, if I thought it through better, I should have done alternating days - one Blogmas, one Vlogmas - but I didn’t think it through. It’s too late now. [laughs]

AM: Is there something specific you’re looking forward to getting out of Blogmas/Vlogmas?

PW: I’m really excited to see how this helps with all the changes with YouTube right now because so many people are having issues getting people onto their channels. I figure if I’m posting more content I can see how YouTube is doing things and I can kind of test it that way. So far so good. I’m also trying to kind of wean my audience off the vinyl videos because there’s only so many videos I can make without bankrupting myself just buying more records to talk about, but when I post other content they don’t watch it as much or as fervently as they watch my vinyl videos, so I’m trying to show that I have more interests than just my record collection and then I can see what content they would prefer me to add or what they completely don’t care about. I’m willing to adjust my content to what they want, but I also want to talk about some other stuff that I think is cool or important. I’m excited to branch out and I’m excited to get some new viewers in, because I have goals for 2016 that I want to reach by the end of the year.

AM: You’re obviously a huge vinyl collector. Do you have any tips for people who want to start collecting but are maybe worried about the cost or just feel so overwhelmed they don’t really know where to start? 

PW: One of the things I think people ask me about is “What are the records that you have to have in your collection” or “What are the records that every vinyl collection needs?” I feel like that comes from this mentality that’s been handed to us by middle-aged men that have made up the vinyl community for so long that act like if you don’t own every Rolling Stones and Beatles record then you’re a fake vinyl collector and you’re garbage. I feel like we need to get over the mentality that you need to have these records or your collection is not real. Your collection is your collection. Why would you spend money on stuff you don’t care about? I don’t own any Rolling Stones records. I’m sure there are a lot of bands whose records I should own that I don’t, but it’s my collection and it shows who I am so I feel like that’s what’s important. Don’t spend money on records you don’t actually want just because you think it’s necessary. 

And don’t let people at flea markets trick you in to paying more for your records because you’ll overspend and you’ll regret it forever. I prefer stores anyway. I go to [HMV or major retailers] because I know I can find stuff and I know it’s going to be at the right price. I shop there. I don’t care. And I’ll shop at Urban Outfitters. It’s fine because I find what I want. There’s this mentality that vinyl collecting has to be this hipster thing where you’re digging through somebody’s garbage in a basement and it doesn’t have to be like that. We need to get over the whole superiority complex. 

Also, never store your records like pancakes. Stand them up or you’re going to wreck them. That’s my advice. [laughs]

AM: This magazine is all about getting people started in the music industry. How did you get your start? What made you decide this was what you wanted to do and what kind of steps did you take to get there?

PW: I’ve been playing piano since I was three-years-old and I’ve always been super connected to music. It’s been the main part of my life since I was born. I think it was always a given that I was going to do something with music and when I went to school for something else I think my parents were really surprised, but I just didn’t really see how I could make a career out of music. I never really realized there were options out there for me. My mom ended up sitting me down one night and just said “I just don’t really know why you’re going to school for anything other than music.” So I dropped out of school and found another school for entertainment management. I don’t know what they’re like in the States, but in Toronto there’s a whole handful of [specialty schools]. So I went to school for that and there you learn about every part of the industry. You learn about working at labels, about management, being an agent, graphic design, website design. They literally teach you everything. It’s nine months of school and a three-month internship. When it was time for me to get an internship, I contacted the biggest labels in the country and actually interviewed with and got internships at both and then I had to pick. 

What I learned from working [at the label] is that a lot of interns come in and kind of do the bare minimum just because they want it on their resume, but you have to put in work. Make yourself indispensable so they can’t imagine life after your internship is done. They extended my internship twice because they said, “We can’t hire right now, but we don’t want you to leave.” They just kept extending my internship until a spot opened up and then they hired me right away. You just have to make sure that you’re putting in work and that you’re not just taking advantage of the situation. You have to really do what you can to make sure you give yourself the opportunities you deserve. And do not undervalue yourself, because I did that a lot and spent way too many hours at the office and didn’t get paid for things that I should have gotten paid for. I thought, “If I don’t do this for free or if I don’t put in ten extra hours today then they’ll find somebody else who will.” That’s not necessarily true. You should definitely stick to your guns. The industry can be hard to get into, but if you look for opportunities you’ll find them. Everybody’s looking for people who are willing to come in and help and it’s always a good way to get your foot in the door for something more long-term or paid.

AM: Obviously you’ve done a lot since you started in the industry. Is there any memorable project or moment, whether it was with your work or on your own?

PW: When I worked at the label, I was just an assistant so I wasn’t actually supposed to have my own projects. I was just supposed to help everybody else do menial tasks so they could focus on their projects. But in July of I think 2014, I saw that Halsey had just signed to Astralwerks and Capitol so I ran into my boss’s office and said, “There’s this artist I know of that you guys definitely don’t know yet and she just signed. Can I have this project?” and he was like, “She signed an hour ago. Nobody here is doing anything yet.” So I kept coming back to him and saying, “Hey. I really want to do this” and he said, “We’re not doing anything here yet. She doesn’t have music yet. She just got signed.” By the end of the year I said, “If I write out a business proposal on why I should be her marketing manager, will you let me do it?” and he said, “Yes. If you bring me a good enough plan, sure.” I wrote out this whole marketing plan over my Christmas break and brought it back in the new year and my boss said, “Fine. You can have this project.”

Up until that point I was kind of already doing everything anyway. Everybody at the office kept saying, “Nobody cares. She’s just another indie-pop artist. There’s other priorities. You need to calm down. You’re just a fan.” I got that every day of my life there. “You’re just excited. You’re just a fan.” I was like, “I’m an employee just like everybody else. I’m allowed to be excited about music. That’s why we’re all here.” But I kept pitching it and kept trying my best to get it out there. I would sneak it into Spotify playlists and into other stuff and by the end of the year, she was the top-priority artist. I ended up leaving the company a little bit after her album was released, but then this year the album went gold so I got an award! I got [a plaque] and it was the most important moment of my whole life, just being able to see that it went from me being the most annoying person that anybody at this company had ever met to one year later when I could say I was right! So many times people ride-off my music tasted because I like boybands or pop music. But then I could say, “No. This time I was right and now I have a huge plaque to show for it.” That was my big work moment, even though it happened after I left.

There have actually been a lot of things with my blog that were important moments for me. I think probably the most important one was the first time I went to my PO box and had something from one of my followers. Companies will send you stuff sometimes. I don’t get that much from companies, but there are vinyl subscription services that will ask me to review them. But actually having somebody say, “Hey. I saw this record and thought of you so I just sent it to you.” Or people will send me letters. It’s really cool because it feels like you’ve actually connected with or helped somebody. Or sometimes I’ll get these really nice DMs on Instagram that just say, “Hey. I’ve been having a really bad day, but I just watched one of your videos and it helped my anxiety so much.” It just feels good to know that it did something other than just join this massive internet hysteria of people wanting to gain followers. It’s a good feeling.

AM: If you had to pick a top moment of 2016, what would it be?

PW: I think the best part of 2016 was the first time I got a check from YouTube. They only pay out at $100 and the most I’d ever made with a YouTube account before was, like, $2.03. The first time I hit $100 it was like, “Holy smokes. This could actually start into something. It put me into this new mindset and I feel like that was the moment I kind of flipped. Also, I met my boyfriend, Aaron. I feel like maybe I should say that. He may be offended if I don’t. That was a big moment. He’s really good and supportive. He’s pretty great.

AM: Since we’re approaching the end of the year, what do you think were the top three albums of 2016?

PW: Number three is PUP’s “The Dream is Not Over.” Number two is “Down in the Dark” by Safe to Say, and number one is “I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it” by The 1975. 100 percent best album.

AM: Any last words to the readers?

PW: Yes. The plural of “vinyl” is “vinyl” or “vinyls.” Everyone needs to get over it because both are grammatically correct as proven by many articles by many people, so stop thinking you’re better than people because you say “vinyl.” [laughs]

Photo courtesy of Paige Backstage. 

Originally published in issue four of Aspects Magazine.