Lana Del Rey Talks With Grimes, Courtney Love, and More

Jason Tate Feb 7, 2018

Lana Del Rey was recently interviewed for L’Official:

I like “Coachella,” actually. I put it in the song exactly the way I was thinking about it driving home. I love when I can do that. And for me, it was such a culmination of things: Seeing Father John Misty, being with his wife; realizing there was a real problem with North Korea, that it was an impending, bigger world problem. It was to the point where I did not want to go home after the festival. I stopped at this crazy place called Rim of the World Highway in Lake Arrowhead [California]. I sat there, went to the redwood grove, and really had a moment with myself.

Quincy Jones Talks With Vulture

Jason Tate Feb 7, 2018

Quincy Jones sat down to talk with David Marchese at Vulture, and it’s … interesting:

That they were the worst musicians in the world. They were no-playing motherfuckers. Paul was the worst bass player I ever heard. And Ringo? Don’t even talk about it. I remember once we were in the studio with George Martin, and Ringo had taken three hours for a four-bar thing he was trying to fix on a song. He couldn’t get it. We said, “Mate, why don’t you get some lager and lime, some shepherd’s pie, and take an hour-and-a-half and relax a little bit.” So he did, and we called Ronnie Verrell, a jazz drummer. Ronnie came in for 15 minutes and tore it up. Ringo comes back and says, “George, can you play it back for me one more time?” So George did, and Ringo says, “That didn’t sound so bad.” And I said, “Yeah, motherfucker because it ain’t you.” Great guy, though.

And:

Musical principles exist, man. Musicians today can’t go all the way with the music because they haven’t done their homework with the left brain. Music is emotion and science. You don’t have to practice emotion because that comes naturally. Technique is different. If you can’t get your finger between three and four and seven and eight on a piano, you can’t play. You can only get so far without technique. People limit themselves musically, man. Do these musicians know tango? Macumba? Yoruba music? Samba? Bossa nova? Salsa? Cha-cha?

‘Game of Thrones’ Creators to Write and Produce a New Series of ‘Star Wars’ Films

Jason Tate Feb 6, 2018

Star Wars:

David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are going from Winterfell to a galaxy far, far away.
It was announced today that Benioff and Weiss, creators of the smash-hit, Emmy Award-winning television series Game of Thrones, will write and produce a new series of Star Wars films.
These new films will be separate from both the episodic Skywalker saga and the recently-announced trilogy being developed by Rian Johnson, writer-director of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Frank Ocean Interviews Timothée Chalamet

Jason Tate Feb 6, 2018

Frank Ocean recently interviewed Timothée Chalamet for V Man:

Absolutely. I’m a total “nostalgist” and Call Me By Your Name’s director, Luca, grew up in that time period. In fact, the book is set in ’88 and he changed it to ’83 because he said that was the year in your life you can hear music from. In the movie, there’s Talking Heads, The Psychedelic Furs, or just the Bach or Beethoven—those are all songs from Luca’s youth, what it was like for him in Italy in the ’80s.

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The Pink Spiders Launch Kickstarter

Jason Tate Feb 6, 2018

The Pink Spiders have launched a Kickstarter to help fund their first album in almost ten years:

This pre-order campaign allows you to grab limited edition merch and experiences that have never been available before including shirts and other collectibles, hand-written lyric sheets, studio visits, house parties and much more! Take a look around this page at the many unique ways you can participate in the process.

Podcast Listeners Really Are the Holy Grail Advertisers Hoped They’d Be

Jason Tate Feb 5, 2018

Miranda Katz, writing for Wired:

Podcasters and advertisers alike have long suspected that their listeners might just be a holy grail of engagement. The medium is inherently intimate, and easily creates a one-sided feeling of closeness between listener and host—the sense that the person talking into your ear on your commute is someone you know, whose product recommendations you trust, and whose work you want to support.

I really need to find the time to get Encore rolling again on a more consistent basis. I miss doing the show every week.

I Quit Twitter and It Feels Great

Jason Tate Feb 5, 2018

Lindy West, writing for The New York Times:

When you work in media, Twitter becomes part of your job. It’s where you orient yourself in “the discourse” — figure out what’s going on, what people are saying about it and, more important, what no one has said yet. In a lucky coup for Twitter’s marketing team, prevailing wisdom among media types has long held that quitting the platform could be a career killer. The illusion that Twitter visibility and professional relevance are indisputably inextricable always felt too risky to puncture. Who could afford to call that bluff and be wrong? So, we stayed, while Twitter’s endemic racist, sexist and transphobic harassment problems grew increasingly more sophisticated and organized.

I think about this all the time. There are times when I find Twitter indispensable (while watching a sporting event and following experts, or when huge news breaks), but at what cost?

Migos Top The Charts

Jason Tate Feb 5, 2018

Migos have the number one album in the country this week:

Rap trio Migos scores its second No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart as Culture II opens atop the tally. The set — which was released on Jan. 26 through Quality Control/Motown/Capitol Records — earned 199,000 equivalent album units in the week ending Feb. 1, according to Nielsen Music.

Senses Fail Talk With Substream Magazine

Jason Tate Feb 5, 2018

Buddy Nielsen sat down with Substream Magazine to talk about the new Senses Fail album:

Nielsen goes on to explain, “I wanted to write a career-defining record for the band, using my songwriting.” As someone who has been following Senses Fail for a long time, this was news to me. I was unaware that Nielsen was primarily just the lyricist for the band, up until the past few records. For 2013’s Renacer, he wrote one song completely on his own, and for 2015’s Pull the Thorns From Your Heart, he wrote six songs completely. For their upcoming album, If There is a Light, It Will Find You, Nielsen wrote all of them.

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Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers

Jason Tate Feb 5, 2018

The Wall Street Journal:

Apple Inc.’s streaming-music service, introduced in June 2015, has been adding subscribers in the U.S. more rapidly than its older Swedish rival—a monthly growth rate of 5% versus 2%—according to people in the music business familiar with figures reported by the two services. Assuming that pace continues, Apple will overtake Spotify in the world’s biggest music market this summer.

Interesting.

Brian Fallon’s Great Expectations

Jason Tate Feb 5, 2018

Brian Fallon sat down with Track 7 to talk about his upcoming album, The Gaslight Anthem, and his past, present, and future:

“Whenever someone mentions a record, that’s when I step away. And the reason for that is because right now, I can’t see what a new Gaslight record would sound like. When you take the records that we’ve done that I’m very proud of – and I’m proud of all of them, even the later ones – I don’t know what I would add to that right now.”

Weezer to Release ‘The Black Album’ in May

Jason Tate Feb 5, 2018

Weezer confirmed on Double J that they will release The Black Album on May 25th:

“This other album just kind of materialised,” he said. “I had two folders on my Dropbox: one was ‘The Black Album’, and it didn’t get filled as quickly as this other folder, which I temporarily titled ‘New Folder’. That one filled up with ten songs that were definitely different, but not quite as different as The Black Album. So, we put a name on it – Pacific Daydream – and put that out first.”

Best Buy To Stop Selling CDs, Target May Be Next

Jason Tate Feb 5, 2018

Ed Christman, writing for Billboard:

Best Buy has just told music suppliers that it will pull CDs from its stores come July 1. At one point, Best Buy was the most powerful music merchandiser in the U.S., but nowadays it’s a shadow of its former self, with a reduced and shoddy offering of CDs. Sources suggest that the company’s CD business is nowadays only generating about $40 million annually. While it says it’s planning to pull out CDs, Best Buy will continue to carry vinyl for the next two years, keeping a commitment it made to vendors. The vinyl will now be merchandised with the turntables, sources suggest.

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