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World Air Guitar Championships

Air Guitar
Jason Tate

Jacob Pinter, writing at NPR:

Great rock guitarists need great nicknames. There’s Slash, Slowhand and The Edge.

Meet a new one: Airistotle. No, that’s not a misspelling. The nom de rock belongs to Matt Burns, a waiter and world-class competitive air guitarist living in New York City. He decided to try air-rocking almost a decade ago when he saw the documentary Air Guitar Nation.

And:

But his creative niche is air guitar. Competitors generally use the same routine for a year, then create a new one in time for the start of a new air guitar season.

Burns’ creative process involves a couple of months of listening to pop-punk songs — he grew up with Green Day and Sum 41, he says — and narrowing it down to a song he likes. Then he crystallizes his performance routines with the help of a few friends.

You can watch all of the performances here. Today is better because I learned this exists.

Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett Talk With Rolling Stone

Courtney Barnett
Jason Tate

Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile sat down with Rolling Stone to talk about their upcoming collaborative album:

“It’s a scary process, taking a half-written song to someone,” Barnett says. “I didn’t want him to be like, ‘God, this sucks. What have I gotten myself into?'” But they hit it off immediately. “The vibes were strong,” says Vile. “We discovered we could finish things on the quick, like an outlaw country singer, or Neil Young.” Adds Barnett, “We were mucking around, eating pizza, and we had all these songs all of a sudden.”

The album, Lotta Sea Lice, will be out in October.

Artery Recordings Sells to Warner

Warner Music
Jason Tate

Warner Bros. Records has acquired Artery Recordings. Alternative Press reports:

The entire staff, including President Shan Dan Horan, has been let go from the company since Warner’s acquisition, with an unclear future for the band’s that are currently on the label.

“To address the rumors, yes, Artery has sold to Warner,” Horan said in a statement to Alternative Press. “I can’t disclose too much about the deal, but building up this company to a million record sales in just five years is a tremendous accomplishment for the fans, our artists and the team. I’m humbled and appreciate each and every band I’ve ever had the honor of developing at Artery Recordings. As we hand over the keys to Warner, I’m not quite sure their plans for the label or catalog, but I hope they keep the legacy alive. With new Slaves and Capture albums on the horizon, I’m sure the fans will be ecstatic. “

Hurricane Harvey

Globe
Jason Tate

The New York Times:

Tropical Storm Harvey strengthened into a hurricane over the Gulf of Mexico last week and made landfall northeast of Corpus Christi, Tex., around 9:45 p.m. on Friday. It was a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 130 miles per hour. It then moved offshore before making landfall again on the shore of Copano Bay, this time as a Category 3 hurricane.

It brought devastating amounts of rain to an area that includes some of Texas’ most populous cities. It stretched along the state’s Gulf Coast from Corpus Christi to Houston, and inland to Austin and San Antonio. Parts of Louisiana were also expecting heavy rain.

A variety of resources and links to places you can donate to help can be found below.

Read More “Hurricane Harvey”

The Domestics Part Ways With Record Label

Jason Tate

The Domestics have left their record label after a PR stunt that went horribly wrong:

The band stressed they’d had no involvement in the campaign aimed at drawing attention to their new album Little Darkness and, as a result of the negative publicity, they’ve agreed to leave Tender Loving Empire, taking their catalog with them.

The label mailed cassette tapes labeled “Trump / Comey Recordings” with Russian text beneath to a number of media outlets. Early reports suggested that only Jewish industry operatives had been targeted, but that was quickly denied. By that time, however, severe damage had been done to the Domestics’ image.

How Avenged Sevenfold’s Lawsuit Could Upend Record Deals Everywhere

Avenged Sevenfold
Jason Tate

Eriq Gardner, writing for The Hollywood Reporter:

What’s a record label actually good for? That is a question implied in a lawsuit between Warner Bros. Records and Avenged Sevenfold, a heavy metal band from Huntington Beach, California, that is scheduled to go to trial this year and has the potential to upend the music industry.

The dispute dates back to 2015, when the act notified its label that it was terminating the contract it signed in 2004, citing the “seven-year rule,” which bars personal service contracts lasting longer than seven years. The law has its roots in a pro-labor statute put on the books after the Civil War to prevent long-term contracts from becoming the means for involuntary servitude. The modern version of the rule was famously tested in entertainment in 1944, when Olivia de Havilland used the law to break her contract with Warner Bros after the studio repeatedly suspended her for turning down roles. An appeals court decision helped bring an end to Hollywood’s old studio system.

Kendrick Lamar Joins Nike

Kendrick Lamar
Jason Tate

Kendrick Lamar has officially left Reebok and joined Nike. GQ reports:

And while Reebok sneakers are having a moment right now, there’s no arguing that the Nike Cortez has been a bigger staple of hip-hop style, particularly in Lamar’s hometown Los Angeles. And now it looks like K.Dot has decided to leave Reebok in favor of Nike, taking to social media to post a photo of himself in a pair of Nike Cortez kicks with the caption “Cortez. Since day 1. #teamnike.”

Dave Keuning No Longer Touring With The Killers

The Killers
Jason Tate

The Killers News reports on an upcoming Q Magazine interview which announces that The Killers’ Dave Keuning will no longer be touring with the band:

Like many fans who woke up this morning to scans of the ‘Q’ magazine interview floating around in various Killers communities, I am heartbroken to hear the rumors that had churned over the past several months of Dave Keuning seeking an arrangement simliar to Mark Stoermer’s had turned out to be true.

Tesla Working on Own Streaming Service?

Tesla
Jason Tate

Fred Lambert, writing for Electrek:

A friend of the site and Tesla tinkerer known as Green, who brought us Tesla’s new maps and navigation engine and the Autopilot debugging mode, has found a new client in Tesla’s most recent updates for the new streaming service.

It’s called ‘TTunes’, which could likely only be a placeholder name for the actual service.

Brand New Top the Charts

Brand New
Jason Tate

It’s official: Brand New have the number one album in the country.

Rock band Brand New nabs its first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart as Science Fiction starts atop the tally with 58,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Aug. 24, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 55,000 were in traditional album sales. The set was released Aug. 18 through the band’s own Procrastinate! Music Traitors label, and is the first album from the band in nearly eight years.

What an absolute delight to see. I told the story on the last podcast about when I first started writing about this band and I truly never thought I’d see them top the charts like this. Incredible. Congratulations to the band and their team. If this ends up being their last album, the years of building a hyper-dedicated fanbase and releasing fantastic music pays off with this special honor.

Taylor Swift’s Gamification of Ticket Sales

Taylor Swift
Jason Tate

HitsDailyDouble:

“Taylor Swift Tix,” her newly unveiled promo with Ticketmaster, requires you to register on TaylorSwift.com to put you on a wait list for tickets. You can then pre-order the album, share her pitch on social media.

You can buy the album at different retailers and get a boost each time, with a limit of 13 items to boost your chances (or spend the same amount on StubHub—not that we’re endorsing such a gambit). And if you buy a CD or a T-shirt—or multiple albums and merch—from her site, each buy ups you in the queue for tickets. But it doesn’t actually guarantee that you’ll get them.

In essence, Swift’s strategy leaves open the option for a bundle at some point closer to release date without cannibalizing her Target exclusive or iTunes now.

This entire strategy for selling tickets, and boosting album sales, is fascinating to me. The gamification of music. It’s kinda brilliant.