Associated Press:

Police Inspector Leif Nystrom said there had been 32 reports of attacks by boys or young men at a three-day festival in the city of Karlstad, 300 kilometers (190 miles) west of the capital, Stockholm. The youngest alleged victim was 12. Police identified seven young men they wanted to question.\

And:

In neighboring Denmark, where the annual weeklong Roskilde rock festival attended by 130,000 people wound up on Sunday, police said they had reports of five cases of alleged rape or sexual assault, which police officer Carsten Andersen described as “nothing out of the ordinary at such a big event, although every single case is too much.”

Speaking of ways to avoid phones at shows, Alicia Keys has been using the Yonder pouch at her shows. The Washington Post reports:

Dugoni says the pouch serves two purposes. The artist can try out new material without worrying about it being leaked. Fans will also realize that they actually enjoy a show more without constantly filming, texting and Tweeting.

“If you haven’t been to a phone-free show, you just don’t know what you’re missing,” he says. “There’s something about living in real life that can’t be replicated.”

Alex Pham, writing for Billboard, on how Google has licensed lyrics from LyricFind to add into their search results.

Google has signed a multi-year licensing deal with Toronto-based LyricFind to display song lyrics in its search results, both companies announced today. A query for the lyrics to a specific song will pull up the words to much of that song, freeing users from having to click through to another website. Google rolled out the lyrics feature in the U.S. today (June 27), though it has licenses to display the lyrics internationally as well.

Oliver Burkeman, writing for The Guardian, on the phenomenon of when something gets so much praise, or hype, and then you end up avoiding the praised thing expressly because of how much everyone else seems to like it:

So what’s going on? One explanation is what psychologists call “optimal distinctiveness theory” – the way we’re constantly jockeying to feel exactly the right degree of similarity to and difference from those around us. Nobody wants to be exiled from the in-group to the fringes of society; but nobody wants to be swallowed up by it, either. In toddlerhood and teenagerhood, this manifests as a bloody-minded refusal to do what we’re told, precisely to show we can disobey our parents. Perhaps it never entirely goes away.

I’ve been reading up on the optimal distinctiveness theory on Wikipedia today and it’s almost funny how well it describes interactions I see in our forums on a daily basis.

Jesse Cannon, from Noise Creators/Off the Record, has released a free ebook breaking down his guide to getting into the music business:

After four annual editions of Get More Fans: The DIY Guide To The New Music Business, and being added to a dozen University programs, and tons of praise from the music world, the one complaint I would always get is that it took too long to read. So I decided to make a free version that contains all the information a musician needs to get their music off the ground. The 30 Minute Guide To Getting More Fans is the most concise way to learn how to promote you music and it’s free over at Noise Creators.

Voters have decided that Britain will exit the European Union. Vox has a good rundown on what this means and what the ramifications may be:

Britain’s exit will affect the British economy, immigration policy, and lots more. It will take years for the full consequences to become clear. But here are some of the most important changes we can expect in the coming months.

Read More “What Happens When Britain Leaves the EU”