Review: Rock Bottom at the Renaissance: A Mixtape Memoir – Mike Henneberger

Rock Bottom at the Renaissance: A Mixtape Memoir by Mike Henneberger

Mike Henneberger just wants you to listen. Whether that entails listening to that voice inside your head that tells you what’s right from wrong, the music blaring through the headphones that connect with you on a deeper level than you could ever begin to describe to someone, or by taking some of his advice so eloquently written in the new memoir he has affectionately titled Rock Bottom at the Renaissance: An Emo Kid’s Journey Through Falling In and Out of Love in and With New York City. We process our journeys through this crazy thing called life in all different shapes and forms, and that’s the beauty of it. No one has the perfect pill or cure for navigating through life, but music seems to be the closest miracle for a lot of us to deal with the shit that comes up daily.

In this “mixtape memoir,” Henneberger carefully crafts his thoughts on living in New York City and how it’s easy to fall somewhere in the void of being in love with the city and loathing it just as often. Henneberger also shares his struggles with mental illness and the music that kept him alive throughout it all. By connecting each of these chapters in his book to a different song in this mixtape, he has created a clever work of art in his own right by making sense of how music can truly save us from the darkest of thoughts. I feel that everyone will be able to take something special out of this memoir by reading how Henneberger describes his emotions in painstaking detail in his quest for understanding what makes him tick. Not to mention, the music he outlines each chapter with is very near and dear to my heart as well, and I’m sure it will hit the right notes with many of us who frequent this site. The playlist can be found on Spotify and Apple Music. Pre-orders are now up, and the book will be available everywhere starting on June 9th.

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The Streaming Model During a Pandemic

Money

Mark Mulligan:

This model worked fine when live and merch were booming because more than three times as many monetised fans meant three times more opportunity for selling tickets and t-shirts. This of course is the ‘exposure’ argument streaming services are fond of, which works until it does not. Now that live and merch have collapsed, as the trope goes ‘exposure does not pay the rent’. The previously interconnected, interdependent model has become decoupled.

Stuart Dredge:

All of this is being driven by streaming (and particularly by paid streaming subscriptions), yet this growth is accompanied by a resurgence in unrest from the musicians whose work has made that growth possible. Many are worried that streaming royalties aren’t providing a sustainable income.

The contrast between these fears and the rosy industry figures is sharpened now, during the Covid-19 pandemic, with the live music industry having shut down entirely in many countries, with an anticipated hit to public performance royalties to come.

I’ve seen a lot of interesting articles popping up about how the current model for the music industry was (kinda) working … right up until live shows were removed from the equation. I’m afraid we’re going to see quite a few smaller to mid-sized bands just not return after all of this is over.

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Apple Releases Big Logic Pro X Update

Apple

Apple:

Logic Pro X 10.5 represents the biggest update to Logic since the launch of Logic Pro X, with powerful new tools that will inspire every artist — from those just getting started with Logic, to those already using it to produce Grammy Award-winning albums. We can’t wait to hear what these artists create next.”