“Last Saturday in Detroit, Alice played their first gig in the campaign that will support the release of their first record this decade–a tour that I think will cement them as the premier rock band on this planet.”

Premier rock band on this planet? Really? I mean they’re good and all, but that’s quite a statement. Later he states:

“I remember a musician telling me sometime in 1996 that Kurt Cobain had made it OK for the rest of us not to have to learn our instruments–I guess he assumed Kurt couldn’t play? That guy had it so wrong. ALL the guys in Nirvana were such good players that they made it all SEEM so easy”

Riiiiiight… as if technicality were one of Nirvana’s hallmarks or something. But then he partially redeems himself with this one:

“Best Buy and Target can promote and advertise and generally make a great fuss, but all the fluster about the Metallica and AC/DC records last fall kind of fell flat after the first couple of weeks.”

No complaints with that statement.

It’s not often that I actually pay attention to something said by mainstream rock artists. That’s probably a subconscious defense mechanism used to hopefully reduce my overall stress. But Mr. Steve Van Zandt got under my skin recently after reading an interview posted at Bloomberg.

Van Zandt is “mad at modern music.” I find it amazing that he feels the heart of the issue is that “it’s become unfashionable for new bands to play live, many young fans have no idea of pop’s history.” First of all, what does playing live have to do with knowing your music history? Second of all, there’s nothing new about many young musicians being ignorant of what’s happened before them. Thirdly, Van Zandt claims that the ability for anyone to easily create their own music is what’s inhibiting the industry? I just about had an aneurism when I read this.

This interview irked me so much that I will refer to Steve Van Zandt with exclusively third-person pronouns from here on because I’m not sure he deserves the privilege of a proper noun with regards to him as a musician. He thinks the state of rock is weak because “kids are now going from their rooms where they are learning the rudiments of playing and they go right to MySpace and Facebook. They are skipping the most important stage of their life, which is the bar-band stage.” OK, kids can’t play at bars… and bars really only want bands that can bring a crowd or please the usuals which unfortunately leads to turning into a cover band. He’d rather these “kids” just not make new music at all? I don’t actually believe that’s what he meant, but that’s exactly where his logic goes. While I agree there is something very unique and moving to play live music, he’s got this all wrong.

Someone who has lived through the 60’s and 70’s can ramble off a huge list of amazing bands and claim music isn’t as good as it used to be. That’s because bands that suck have a hard time maintaining a space in your long-term memory. There’s always been a lot crap out there. While I agree the quality of popular bands has diminished, the “state of rock” is at least as strong is it’s always been because it’s easier than ever to find great music through the internet and the diminishing areas of uncharted territory in rock is forcing talented musicians to be more creative.

We want entertaining in the White House to feel like America, that we are reminded of all the many facets of our culture. The Latino community, the Asian-American community, the African-American community… hip-hop, spoken word - we want to bring the youth in, for them to hear their voices in this.

Now that’s a good sign for conscious music. Perhaps we can get artists like Mos Def & Robert Glasper to perform for various guests that come to the White House. You get to mix in the old (jazz) with the new (hip hop) and you’re still keeping it real conscious. 

What I also really like about First Lady Obama is that she started a fresh garden in the backyard just a week ago. She’s going to have all the White House Chefs use vegetables and herbs grown from that garden to feed her children and family. And probably guests as well. Now that’s keeping it fresh!

In the ’70s or ’80s you listened to a song because “everyone else” was also listening to it. That’s the definition of pop music… Now, “everyone else” is not defined by where you live or what radio station you listen to. It’s defined by which horizontal or vertical slice of the world you connect yourself with… So you end up with all these silos and niches and lots and lots of ways to look at the world…

As we approach on-sale dates for the upcoming tour, I’ve noticed lots of you are curious / concerned / outraged at the plethora of tickets that somehow appear on all these reseller sites at inflated prices - even before the pre-sale dates. I’ll do my best to explain the situation as I see it, as well as clarify my organization’s stance in the matter.

…

NIN gets 10% of the available seats for our own pre-sale. We won a tough (and I mean TOUGH) battle to get the best seats. We require you to sign up at our site (for free) to get tickets. We limit the amount you can buy, we print your name on the tickets and we have our own person let you in a separate entrance where we check your ID to match the ticket. We charge you a surcharge that has been less than TicketMaster’s or Live Nation’s in all cases so far to pay for the costs of doing this - it’s not a profit center for us. We have essentially stopped scalping by doing these things - because we want true fans to be able to get great seats and not get ripped off by these parasites.

     - NIN Forum 

Otherwise, you are listening to the new school sounds of Glasper on piano, Vincente Archer on bass and Damion Reid on drums, which is worlds away from the streets where hip hop resides.  The trio possess a maturity level beyond their years, with Glasper’s busy-without-sounding-too-busy stylings already lauding comparisons to Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock.

I will speak for most hip hoppers though in saying that those who have found interest in Robert Glasper really fell in love with his interpretation of jazz music. And though this album does not have hip hop components, it is quality nonetheless. And real music listeners, like Obnoxious Listeners, will understand that.

Well now these two hustlers may be merging to form the ultimate nemesis of concert-goers everywhere. Check out this article from CNN: Ticketmaster-Live Nation Talks Raise Concerns

I would’ve written a full-blown editorial about these criminals but I decided it would simply make me way too angry.

The passing decades haven’t diminished fascination with that night on Feb. 2, 1959, when 22-year-old Buddy Holly, 28-year-old J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson and 17-year-old Ritchie Valens performed in Clear Lake and then boarded the plane for a planned 300-mile flight that lasted only minutes.

Rock fans head to Iowa to recall day music died

I’m glad to see the IFPI is at least a little smarter than the RIAA:

Pretty impressive growth despite the piracy. Also, unlike the RIAA, the IFPI does not consider every download to be a lost sale. Rather, they consider about 10% of the downloads to be lost sales, meaning that rather than 40 billion songs, only 4 billion song sales were lost, assuming, of course, the IFPI’s unsubstantiated numbers are correct.

Even still, I think the IFPI forgot to do another independent survey to assess how many people lie in surveys… 

Still, it’s hard to believe that 95% figure. The majority of people hardly understand P2P, or want to participate in what many consider immoral as well as illegal, after all. Happily for the industry, though, according to the report,