Category Archives: music business

Touché Morrissey, Johnny Marr To Tell His Side Of The Smiths’ Story

Cover of Johnny Maar’s solo album.

Johnny Marr says he’s got his own publishing deal for an autobiography, Brooklyn Vegan reports. In an interview with the music blog Marr said:

There is gonna be one, yeah. I’ve had so many offers and so many people advising me that my story is worth it, but I understand it’s something that I have to do. I’ll do it in the next couple of years. I’m into from the stance that I want it to be so thorough that I don’t make a record or tour whilst I was doing it. It is gonna happen, and I’ve already made an agreement with a publisher for it, so I will get it done.

Meanwhile, Putnam Books will publish Morrissey’s Autobiography in the US in a hardback edition on December 3, 2013. The book, published in October of this year in the UK, is a major hit, selling 35,000 copies during it’s first week and topping Amazon’s UK bestsellers chart.

Read more of the Brooklyn Vegan interview here.

Jimmy Page Says Remastered Led Zeppelin Albums Will Contain Previously Unreleased Recordings

Jimmy Page says there are Led Zeppelin recordings the public has never heard before, but next year we’ll get to hear them.

In an interview tonight (November 14, 2013) with TeamRock Radio’s Nicky Horne at the Classic Rock Roll Of Honour at London’s Roundhouse, Page explained that he’s remastered all of Zep’s studio recordings, and each album will be rereleased next year with a second disc of previously unheard material.

Each of the albums has been remastered but it also has a companion disc with it. Let’s take, for example, “Led Zeppelin III” — that’s remastered from analog from the original thing. I know everybody does that, but what they don’t do… I revisited all the working mixes that were done at the time. There’s different versions. Say, for example, there’s “Since I’ve Been Loving You” — there’s an incredible version of that which is totally different, it’s really raw in its approach, it’s quite dramatic, it’s cool. That’s one little item of it, but what it gives is a companion disc to “Led Zeppelin III.” It’ll come out in its own box and all the rest of it. Each disc will give a really intimate picture of the group. That’s the idea that I’ve had with it and I think it’s successful.

Listen to the Jimmy Page interview:

New U2 Album Due In Spring 2014

U2 expect to release a new album in April 2014, Billboard reports.

The album is produced by Danger Mouse (Brian Burton), and recording took place for the most part at New York’s Electric Lady Studios, according to Billboard and other reports.

U2’s previous album was 2009’s No Line on the Horizon, the band’s seventh #1 on “The Billboard 200,” where it debuted at #1.

U2 is looking for “brand partners,” according to Billboard, so the band can advertise the album in a Super Bowl commercial.

Working For The Man: How Selling Out Saved Indie Rock

Tegan and Sara want their music used in advertisements.

I remember when the idea of a musical artist letting one of their songs be used in a commercial was the end of the world. Neil Young wrote a song about it called “This Notes For You,” in which he sings:

Ain’t singin’ for Pepsi,
Ain’t singin’ for Coke,
I don’t sing for nobody,
Makes me look like a joke,
This note’s for you.

Not any more.

Jessica Hopper wrote a fascinating story on indie rock and advertising.

“A tiny sliver of bands are doing well,” says Tegan and Sara’s Sara Quin. “The rest of us are just middle class, looking for a way to break through that glass ceiling. The second ‘Closer’ got Top 40 radio play, we were involved in meetings with radio and marketing people who said, ‘The next step is getting a commercial.’ I can see why some bands might find that grotesque, but it’s part of the business now.”

Read the whole story at Buzzfeed.

Don’t Buy Dylan’s “The MacKenzie Tapes” CD Unless…

Recently the Dylan website Expecting Rain, brought to my attention a Bob Dylan CD for sale in the UK (mp3s too) of The MacKenzie Home Tapes, recordings made by Bob Dylan in the apartment of Eve and Mac MacKenzie in 1961 and 1962.

Based on listening to previews of the songs on Amazon UK, and a copy of the recordings I was able to download some years ago, I would not recommend this album to anyone but a total Bob Dylan completest. On the CD, many of the tracks are fragments.

While there are a handful of worthwhile songs from the sessions, those appeared on Sony’s 50th Anniversary Collection, which was released in a very limited edition in Europe last year to prevent the recordings from entering the public domain.

It is possible that those songs — “Hard Times in New York Town,” “The Death of Emmett Till,” “I Rode Out One Morning,” “House of the Rising Sun,” “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” and “Ballad of Donald White” — will be part of one or more bootleg series recordings that will be released in the future.

You can hear excerpts of the songs here.

Weekend Update: Banksy, M.I.A., Arcade Fire, Dylan’s Guitar & More

M.I.A.

In case you have a life, and weren’t paying attention to my posts Friday through Sunday, here’s a recap:

Banksy To NYC: “Thanks for your patience. It’s been fun.”

Watch: Arcade Fire Cover Devo’s “Uncontrollable Urge” At L.A. Show

Listen: Stream M.I.A.’s New Album “Matangi” Now!

Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova Has Vanished

Watch: Trailer For Kathleen Hanna Documentry, “The Punk Singer”

Jim James On Touring With Dylan: “”We never talked to him once…”

Iconic Object: Bob Dylan’s 1965 Strat Up For Auction

Mojo Readers Pick 20 Best Albums Of Magazine’s Lifetime

Watch: Nick Cave & Bad Seeds Debut New Song, “Give Us A Kiss”

Songs For Slim Benefit LP Due Nov. 11 Features Jeff Tweedy, Lucinda Williams

Watch: The National Do “Sea Of Love” On “Later… With Jools Holland

Listen: Loop’s “Forever” Is The End Of The End

Watch: WikiLeaks Julian Assange Gives Short Speech Before M.I.A. NYC Show

John Fogerty On Creedence Clearwater Revival: “the fine running machine was starting to get a little wobbly”

Pussy Riot Member Moved To New Prison (#3)

Listen: Rare Bob Dylan Recording: “I Can’t Leave Her Behind/ On A Rainy Afternoon”

Why Lou Reed Matters: “…every bit Bob’s equal”

Art: Appreciating Art Spiegelman, Creater of “Maus” & Plenty More

Listen: Neil Young “Live At The Cellar Door” Preview

Robert Plant Plans Record Label, Launches “Robert Recommends” Streaming Playlist

Watch: Video Clips Of M.I.A., Arcade Fire & Eminem At YouTube Video Awards

Watch: YouTube Music Awards To Stream Live Today: Arcade Fire, Lady Gaga, M.I.A.

arcade f
Arcade Fire

Expect performances by Lady Gaga, Eminem, Arcade Fire, M.I.A., Avicii, Tyler the Creator, Earl Sweatshirt and others.

Watch here beginning at 3 pm PT, 6 pm ET.

For background on the awards read these stories in the New York Times and Hollywood Reporter.

Beck’s “Morning Phase” Due In February

Beck returns with his first new album in five years in February 2014.  The new album, Morning Phase, is, according to a press release, along the lines of the acoustic, ballad filled Sea Change, released in 2002, which had a Nick Drake vibe at times.

For the new album Beck utilized many of the same musicians who played on Sea Change including Joey Waronker, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Smokey Hormel, Roger Joseph Manning Jr. and Jason Falkner.

The album will be Beck’s first for Capitol Records. He previously recorded for Geffen Records.

Here’s a video for “The Golden Age” off Sea Change.

Stranger Than Fiction: The Residents Continue Their Conceptual Art Project

I hung out at the Cryptic Corporation warehouse in San Francisco back in the later half of the ’70s when The Residents recorded Eskimo. 

I’ve always appreciated the enormity of the group’s vision, and the pioneering work they did, which included a version of punk before there was “punk,” creating short films, or music videos before there were music videos, and an intent to make original art and comment on the music business, sometimes both at the same time.

So I was amused when they offered a unique Ultimate Box Set, a real refrigerator filled with 100 Residents recordings, an eyeball mask and other oddities.

This dude on the right in the photo below apparently paid $100,000 for one of the ten box sets available.

These four videos are worth watching. Check them out. The video at the bottom is a very interesting work in progress documentary on The Residents called “We Stole This Riff: a film about The Residents.”

Return Of The Throwing Muses: “We wanted no further part [of] the recording industry”

Later this week the Throwing Muses return with a new album, Purgatory/Paradise, their first in ten years. The 32-track album comes with a 64-page book of essays and stories by Kirstin Hersh, plus photos and artwork by Muses’ drummer  Dave Narcizo and Hersh.

“We’ve always lived in our own private world,” Muses leader Kirstin Hersh told The Independent, “and we might  well have made this record and never released it, but we felt it was worthy of release.”

The group has spent the past decade “divorcing ourselves from the recording industry, which is collapsing. We wanted no further part in it,” Hersh said.

The new book/album is being published by HarperCollins’ The Friday Project Limited imprint.

For the entire story, head to The Independent.

Here’s are some old videos for your enjoyment.