Gibson guitars have filed for bankruptcy. NPR reports:
The petition, filed on Tuesday, notes that the company currently has up to $500 million in debt and will focus its operations on its musical instruments business, “unburdened by the challenges experienced by [the company’s] separate, primarily non-U.S., consumer electronics business.” That business includes the brands KRK, Cerwin Vega and Stanton, whose lines include studio monitors, headphones and turntables.
Michael Cavna, writing at The Washington Post:
With that in mind, it only seems fitting that “The Simpsons” draws upon both principles to dramatize its act of taking down “Gunsmoke” as the new sheriff of television. On Sunday night, “The Simpsons” will pass the classic midcentury western by airing show No. 636 — the most scripted episodes broadcast by any prime-time series in TV history.
Noah Kulwin, writing at NY Mag:
First, I’ll say there were very few decisions made. I think that the biggest problem that Reddit had and continues to have, and that all of the platforms, Facebook and Twitter, and Discord now continue to have is that they’re not making decisions, is that there is absolutely no active thought going into their problems — problems that are going to exist in coming months or years — and what they can do to combat them.
Anna Gaca, writing at Spin:
Charity organizations often tout close connections to the communities they serve, but in the case of Punk Talks and misconduct allegations, the boundaries feel too unclear. The result is an embarrassing, rumor-fueled fiasco that’s arguably started more anguish than it solved. It’s a story of good intentions gone wrong; of a fledgling institution unprepared for the pressures of public reckoning; and of the pressing need for an uncompromised restorative justice process that can earn long-term trust from its constituents.
Paramore talked with Billboard on the recent Parahoy cruise:
We’re really fortunate to have been on two different sides of what the internet has done for bands. There’s times it just feels absolutely too much. But it was a tool for us early on and it felt very pure… Not only was that vital to the vibe of the shows and the touring aspect of everything, but it helped us grow. Doing [Parahoy!] all these years later, we’ve found a lot of people out in the crowd are the same people from the early years. It’s this tangible, multicultural thing — people are coming from all over the world — and yet we’re part of a real community. I’m really proud of that — in 2018, it’s hard to imagine the internet did something so pure.
Vera Papisova, writing for Teen Vogue:
Despite all of that, this year’s Coachella experience was also full of moments I never saw on Instagram: being repeatedly violated by strangers. In the three days I was at Coachella, I only spent a total of 10 hours at the actual festival, where I watched numerous performances and interviewed festivalgoers about their experience with sexual assault and harassment for Teen Vogue. During the 10 hours I was reporting on this story, I was groped 22 times.
M.G. Siegler, writing on Medium:
There’s something that has been in the back of my mind for some time now. And while it pre-dates the Facebook fiasco, that situation certainly brings it to the forefront. Increasingly, it feels like people in our industry, the tech industry, are losing touch with reality.
You can see it in the tweets. You can hear it at tech conferences. Hell, you can hear it at most cafes in San Francisco on any given day. People — really smart people — saying some of the most vacuous things. Words that if they were able to take a step outside of their own heads and hear, they’d be embarrassed by.
Underoath sat down to talk about their latest album with Upset Magazine:
“When you’re a kid in a band, you play together because you all like the same stuff,” explains Spencer. “It’s tough when you leave your teens because you start becoming individuals and different people. That’s weird, and you don’t know how to handle it. As time goes on, you go in different directions. You miss how it used to be. It’s a hard place to grow up.”
But grow up they did. It wasn’t until someone revived their group chat with the reminder that Define The Great Line was about to turn ten and maybe they should play a show, that Underoath returned.
Kanye West interviews his interior designer, Axel Vervoordt, over at The Hollywood Reporter:
The hip-hop mogul interviews his interior designer Axel Vervoordt and reveals his own plans for a philosophy book, thoughts on Virgil Abloh going to Louis Vuitton, and his future goals for the brand: “I don’t wish to be number one anymore, I wish to be water.”
Thanks to Jokic, Bell learned earlier than most this important lesson about NBA life: In a sport in which games can last nearly three hours and seasons almost nine months, it becomes essential to save strength for the more important moments. After all, 100 percent effort on 100 percent of plays would sap even the greatest of deities of their godly gifts and transform contests into stumbling slogs.
And so to avoid this descent into the mud, many players strike unofficial pacts with their opponents. Possessions are punted, secrets are traded, game plans are passed along. It’s not that these players don’t care about the outcomes of games. Think of it, instead, as a sort of gentleman’s pact between players, one governing action across the NBA.
I found this article fascinating.
Brendan Kelley of The Lawrence Arms talked with Dying Scene about their recent release:
Ever the businessman, Fat Mike of course had a method to his madness. Says Kelly: “He made a good point, or at least I’m attributing this point to him. (He said) ‘the way people consume music these days is that they just go on Spotify and check something out. Wouldn’t you like to have a bunch of good songs in one place so everybody can just go there and you can make sure they’re not getting something that’s not that representative of your band? A greatest hits record is a great way to do that!”
Molly Ringwald, writing at The New Yorker:
I made three movies with John Hughes; when they were released, they made enough of a cultural impact to land me on the cover of Time magazine and to get Hughes hailed as a genius. His critical reputation has only grown since he died, in 2009, at the age of fifty-nine. Hughes’s films play constantly on television and are even taught in schools. There is still so much that I love in them, but lately I have felt the need to examine the role that these movies have played in our cultural life: where they came from, and what they might mean now. When my daughter proposed watching “The Breakfast Club” together, I had hesitated, not knowing how she would react: if she would understand the film or if she would even like it. I worried that she would find aspects of it troubling, but I hadn’t anticipated that it would ultimately be most troubling to me.
Deadline is reporting that a new TV series based on Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity will be coming to Disney’s new streaming service:
I hear a romantic comedy TV series inspired by Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel High Fidelity and the 2000 feature starring John Cusack is in early development for Disney’s upcoming direct-to-consumer service. The project, a gender-swapped take on the classic title, comes from writers Veronica West and Sarah Kucserka (Bull, Ugly Betty), the Midnight Radio producing team and ABC Signature Studios (SMILF), the cable/streaming division of ABC Studios.
Mike Thornton, writing over at Pro Tools Expert, goes through a history of Pro Tools from 1983 up to the present day:
The history of Pro Tools goes all the way back to 1983 with the release of E-MU’s Drumulator drum machine. Evan Brooks and Peter Gotcher, who were high school friends and both graduated from the University of California saw an opportunity and set about creating new sound libraries for the Drumulator and set up Digidrums, and offered upgrade EPROM microchips a year after the release of the E-MU drum machine.
Spotify went public today. Market Watch has some of the numbers:
The stock’s first trade was at $165.90 at 12:43 p.m. ET for 5.7 million shares, according to FactSet, or 27% above the reference price of $132. The stock then rose to an intraday high of $169, before falling to a low of $148.48. The stock was recently 9.8% below its opening price in afternoon trade.
