Buck is an 8-week-old Heeler who isn’t so sure about his first experience with hiccups. “What are these things inside me!? I will scare them away!”
How Bessie Smith Ushered In The Jazz Age
Jazz and blues are often treated as one and the same — but how did one end up taking over and surpassing the other, ushering in the jazz age?
That’s a subject of an upcoming HBO biopic, called Bessie, about singer and songwriter Bessie Smith and her mentor Ma Rainey. Jazz bassist and composer Christian McBride, host of NPR’s Jazz Night In America and a regular guest on All Things Considered, spoke with host NPR Audie Cornish about Bessie Smith’s legacy.
One MTV Spin At 4:00am. The Story of How Guns N’ Roses Broke MTV.
Short doc about Guns N’ Roses tells the story of how A&R Rep Tom Zutaut saved “Appetite For Destruction” from an early death. After seven months of touring the album had only sold 200,000 units, and Geffen records wanted to pull the plug. Tom decided to risk his career on a power move that got the band on MTV and changed the course of rock-n-roll history. One video play at 4am was all it took.
David Letterman on innovations and being weird
“I never knew if the stupider things we did or the more traditional things we did would work. I didn’t know if the stupid stuff would alienate people. I didn’t know if the traditional stuff would be more appealing. And then, when I look back on it now, of course the answer is, you want to do the weird thing.”
– David Letterman, on his late-night innovations, New York Times
John Cleese Takes Over as Host of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Sorta.
When Monty Python’s John Cleese gets tired of sitting next to Terry Gilliam, he and Jimmy Fallon swap seats. And Jimmy gets to even pull an Oprah move.
Kurt Cobain’s Handwritten “Top 50 by Nirvana”
Titled “Top 50 by Nirvana,” this list of favourite albums by the group includes plenty of selections that will be familiar to the band’s fans: The Vaselines, Sonic Youth, The Raincoats, The Wipers, Leadbelly. But there are some fascinating surprises from Public Enemy to Mazzy Star to Rites of Spring.
Joni Mitchell’s 25 Best Quotes On Music, Fame, and Neil Young
Canadian songwriting legend Joni Mitchell is in a coma and unresponsive, according to TMZ. The website reported Tuesday that Mitchell was in hospital with “no immediate prospects for getting better.”
TMZ reports that Mitchell’s longtime friend Leslie Morris filed legal documents to obtain “conservatorship” over the Saskatchewan-raised songwriter, because no other close relatives were available.
Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and small club of Toronto. In 1965, she moved to the United States and began touring. Some of her original songs (“Urge for Going”, “Chelsea Morning”, “Both Sides, Now”, “The Circle Game”) found homes with other folk singers, allowing her to sign with Reprise Records and record her own debut album in 1968.
Mitchell has deeply influenced fellow musicians in a diverse range of genres, and her work is highly respected by critics. AllMusic said, “When the dust settles, Joni Mitchell may stand as the most important and influential female recording artist of the late 20th century”, and Rolling Stone called her “one of the greatest songwriters ever”. Her lyrics are clebrated for addressing social and environmental ideals alongside personal feelings of romantic longing, confusion, disillusion, and joy.
Tonight might be just another time to listed to her Blue album. With this in mind, let’s hope she pulls through, and honour her fighting with 25 of her greatest quotes.
On music: “I see music as fluid architecture.”
“There are things to confess that enrich the world, and things that need not be said.”
“When the world becomes a massive mess with nobody at the helm, it’s time for artists to make their mark.”
“In some ways, my gift for music and writing was born out of tragedy, really, and loss.”
“I don’t like being too looked up at or too looked down on. I prefer meeting in the middle to being worshiped or spat out.”
“I thrive on change. That’s probably why my chord changes are weird, because chords depict emotions. They’ll be going along on one key and I’ll drop off a cliff, and suddenly they will go into a whole other key signature. That will drive some people crazy, but that’s how my life is.”
“I don’t understand why Europeans and South Americans can take more sophistication. Why is it that Americans need to hear their happiness major and their tragedy minor, and as jazzy as they can handle is a seventh chord? Are they not experiencing complex emotions?”
“I had made all these rules for myself: I’m not writing social commentary, I’m not writing love songs.”
“Back then, I didn’t have a big organization around me. I was just a kid with a guitar, traveling around. My responsibility basically was to the art, and I had extra time on my hands. There is no extra time now. There isn’t enough time.”
“Not to dismiss Gershwin, but Gershwin is the chip; Ellington was the block.”
“When you’re trying to pass on the best of the stuff you’re culling to what should be a hungry culture but you have it diminished… that’s kind of disappointing.”
“I hate show business.”
“I always thought the women of song don’t get along, and I don’t know why that is.”
On the difference between New York and Los Angeles: “In New York, the street adventures are incredible. There are a thousand stories in a single block. You see the stories in the people’s faces. You hear the songs immediately. Here in Los Angeles, there are less characters because they’re all inside automobiles.”
On the environment: “The thing that gave me the most pain in life, psychologically, and it gave me tremendous pain psychologically, is man’s disrespect for nature.”
“I see the entire world as Eden, and every time you take an inch of it away, you must do so with respect.”
On Neil Young: “You know, Neil Young is singing Rock n’ roll will never die, and Neil never rocked and rolled in his life. I mean, he rocked, but he didn’t roll. He has got no swing in him.”
On humans: “My heart is broken in the face of the stupidity of my species.”
On songwriting: “You could write a song about some kind of emotional problem you are having, but it would not be a good song, in my eyes, until it went through a period of sensitivity to a moment of clarity. Without that moment of clarity to contribute to the song, it’s just complaining.”
“My goal as a writer is more to comfort than to disturb.”
On her childhood: “My childhood was very difficult. I had every childhood disease and then some, but my parents didn’t mollycoddle me. They left me to fight those battles on my own. I guess that was very Canadian, very stoic. But it’s good. I had to become a warrior. I had to give up hope and find a substitute for hope that would be far more stable.”
On America: “This is a nation that has lost the ability to be self-critical, and that makes a lie out of the freedoms.”
On creativity: “I sing my sorrow, and I paint my joy. Sorrow is so easy to express and yet so hard to tell.”
On getting older: “You wake up one day and suddenly realize that your youth is behind you, even though you’re still young at heart.”
“I know my generation – a lot of them, they’re getting old now, and they want to think back fondly, they want to kid themselves. A lot of them think, ‘Yeah, we were the best.’ That’s the kiss of death. That’s non-growth. And also that’s very bad for the world.”
On life: “My name had gone stale, and no matter how progressive I got, it was my time to die.”
NXNE Announces Next Round of Programming: Atlas Sound, Warpaint, Willow Smith
North by Northeast (NXNE) is thrilled to announce its latest round of music programming for the fest, which features an eclectic mix of hometown heroes and the most anticipated new acts of 2015. Taking place June 17-21, 2015 in Toronto, with previously announced artists including Action Bronson, The New Pornographers, Rae Sremmurd, and Best Coast, NXNE has now confirmed performances by psych-rock quartet Warpaint, Bradford Cox’s solo project Atlas Sound, and 14-year-old rising star Willow Smith.
Also confirmed for NXNE 2015 is the soulful and dapper Nick Waterhouse, post-punk veterans Mission Of Burma, the charming indie pop band Lucius, garage rock foursome Heartless Bastards, and Dublin’s rising Girl Band.
NXNE is proud to champion female-led acts including U.S. Girls, Seattle’s Chastity Belt, Toronto’s own singer-songwriter Jennifer Castle, twin sisters Tasseomancy, Cassie Ramone of Vivian Girls, Lia Ices and more.
The Festival will also host shows by synth-pop trio Diana, the self-described Prince of West Coast hip-hop Casey Veggies, Toronto’s shoegaze masters Moon King, techno-noise artist Container, experimental metal group Sannhet, Mad Decent’s beat-driven Daktyl and garage rock trio Tijuana Panthers.
Other additions to the new round of programming include: Greys, Raz Fresco, Ambassadeurs, Slim Twig, Naomi Punk, American Wrestlers, Grooms, California X, Frog Eyes, Summer Heart, Craig Finn, JOOJ, Darlene Shrugg, Doomsquad, PC Worship, Soupcans, Crosss, Heaters, EZTV, Holydrug Couple, Pet Sun, Emilie & Ogden, Hua Li and Ava Luna.
For ticketing information and a complete list of artists playing NXNE 2015, visit www.nxne.com, and be sure to check out the NXNE Spotify playlist here. More exciting programming and partnership announcements will be released in the coming weeks . . . stay tuned!
Check out these 10 Amazing Drum Stunts!
Check out these 10 Amazing Drum Stunts featuring Tommy Lee, Joey Jordison, Tommy Lee, Keith Moon, Tommy Lee and more:
