V.I.P. ticketing on Soundcheck

I was honored to talk about V.I.P. ticketing today on Soundcheck, where I uttered an unintentional howler: artists, I said, are “horrified and jealous” by the prices scalpers get for their tickets. John Schaefer didn’t miss a beat on that one.

Here’s the show, in a nifty embed.

And here is my story from the other day on the same topic.

Talking ‘Exile’ on WFUV

The good people at WFUV asked me back to chat about the reissue of Exile on Main St. Listen here, subscribe here.

I’ll be back there next week to review the new Teenage Fanclub.

More decade stuff: Return to WFUV

I’m not quite done with the decade yet. Still have to do postmortems on my 2007 and 2008 lists, and then of course finish up my 2009 list. I spent the holiday weekend unpacking, centering and leveling picture frames, and re-alphebetizing records, so I’m running behind. Soon, I swear.

But first. The good people at WFUV, where for two years I reviewed records every week, invited me back for a special end-o’-decade show. Claudia Marshall and I talked about a few of my shoulda-beens for the decade: amazing albums that did not get the attention they deserved at the time, and are getting even less now. Find out what I chose tomorrow morning at 8:30, on 90.7 FM in New York. They also podcast it here.

And now back to lists for me.

❧

UPDATE: Here’s the link for the audio.

Playing Grim Reaper

It can be weird. Yesterday I wrote an obit for Bess Lomax Hawes, daughter of John A. Lomax and sister of Alan, herself a folklorist as well as a performer. She was in the Almanac Singers with Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, and co-wrote “M.T.A.” (a.k.a. “Charlie on the M.T.A.”), a hit for the Kingston Trio that became the semi-official theme song of the Boston T.

After writing it, I was told that I had now buried two people in the above photo, which shows the Almanacs circa 1942: five years ago I did Sis Cunningham (at right, on accordion; Bess is on guitar). Until I was reminded of this by the amazing Jeff Roth, I had no memory of it whatsoever. Most people in that picture are now dead. From left to right: Guthrie, died 1967; Millard Lampell, died 1997; Bess; Seeger, alive and kicking; Arthur Stern, status unknown; and Cunningham, died 2004.

It’s as much an honor to have done this as it is somewhat creepy, and it’s also one of those you-ain’t-a-kid-yourself-anymore moments. Last year around this time I realized that I had obited two-thirds of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. So watch out, Michael Rother.

Kyp Malone on Popcast

Tooting own horn dept.:

This week on Popcast, the Times’s weekly music podcast, we have a visit from Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio, who sat down for a friendly interview and played a song live from his new solo project, Rain Machine. It was pretty cool to watch his voice wake up over the five minutes or so of recording the song, “Free Ride.”

The segment also includes Jon Pareles on Gossip and Ben Ratliff on Fred Hammond. Listen to it here, and subscribe to Popcast here. Rain Machine is on tour now, coming to the Bowery Ballroom on Oct. 24 for CMJ.

Big scalpin’

My story about strange new world of ticket scalping is in the paper today.

It’s a complicated issue, and everybody has been covering it in recent months, including me. My story attempts to explore the phenomenon of the “secondary ticket market” from the point of view of the scalpers themselves, whom you don’t usually hear much about. Decide for yourself about their ingenuity and legitimacy in business.

Hope you enjoy it.

‘Favorite Recorded Scream’

My story about “Favorite Recorded Scream,” a 12-inch vinyl compilation of 74 screams from Black Francis to Ian Gillan to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins to Bjork, which were chosen via ballot by the employees of 42 Manhattan record stores, is up on the Times homepage now.

“Favorite Recorded Scream” is a pretty great little project that I stumbled upon one day a month or two ago at Academy Records on 18th Street. On the wall behind the counter they had taped up a map of New York City record stores, which I’d never seen before, though I’ve attempted to do the same thing myself. (Lately the stores have been going out of business too fast to keep up with.) When I asked about it, they said that it was an insert in “that scream record.” Hmm? “Um, it’s this red record, can’t remember what it was called, but this guy came around to all the record stores. Can’t remember his name...”

It took a small amount of casual hunting, which I’m sure I could have done much more efficiently, but after inquiring at a few more stores where no one could quite remember that young man’s name or the title of the record, I tracked him down: LeRoy Stevens, an extremely nice 25-year-old guy in Brooklyn, who told me about his project over some Juan Valdez coffee. For the rest of the story, you’ve got to read the piece.

Buy the record soon. He made 500 copies and only has 150 or so left.

They had me at 013750C7A180815D18F5FD8598C879CB

In re this.

“Dear 013750C7A180815D18F5FD8598C879CB...”

Now that’s customer service to warm my hexadecimal heart. Another smart new move from the folks at eMusic.

WFUV update

I spoke too soon when I announced that last week would be my final broadcast with the WFUV Music Review, where I’ve been reviewing records every Tuesday morning for two years. (Archived links below right.)

They asked me to stay on for a couple more weeks, and I can’t say no to people who have been so good to me, so now my final show will actually be next week. Tomorrow I’ll be reviewing Deer Tick’s Born on Flag Day, and next Tuesday I bow out with Wye Oak’s The Knot. And then that’ll be it. Really.

Farewell to WFUV

I’m very sorry to report that after two years and 101 episodes, I am leaving the WFUV Music Review. It’s been an honor, and my host Claudia Marshall and producer Alisa Ali have made it a lot of fun, too. I wish I could stay on, but the weekly schedule has become impossible for me to keep up, so I have to let it go. I’m bummed.

My final review is of Regina Spektor’s Far, which was broadcast this morning and is also available as a podcast. Archived links for all of the shows I’ve done on WFUV are below and to the right on this page, and you can subscribe to the podcast here.

Marc Ribot on Popcast

Tooting own horn dept.:

We have another treat this week on Popcast, the Times’s music podcast. Marc Ribot, guitarist on every other album you have loved over the last 20-odd years, came in to talk about his series of 55th-birthday concerts, which begin this weekend.

He also brought along his trusty, scruffy Gibson acoustic (that’s it in the otherwise unrelated photo below) to perform in our studio. We couldn’t shut him up — although he was only asked for one song, he played four, one after another. “Got six more minutes?” Marc asked after song number two. Then: “Three more minutes? I’m just getting warmed up.” We used two songs for the show: “Saints,” the title track of his 2001 album in tribute to Albert Ayler, and “Stella by Starlight,” a 1940s standard by Victor Young.

Listen to the show here; subscribe to Popcast here; and go here for more info about Marc Ribot’s birthday shows. (Birthday is May 21, BTW.)

(Photo credit.)

‘True believers ... change of sound ... David Shankel ...’

For Petitioners/Manowar fans only:

Oh, forgot to mention

Tweeting Coachella here.

Bob Mould on Popcast

Tooting own horn dept.:

We’ve had some wonderful guests lately on Popcast, the Times’s weekly music podcast: Eleni Mandell, Bishop Allen and Krishna Das each came in to perform a song, and, in a neat studio-to-studio linkup with London, Psapp demonstrated some of their kooky instruments, like the “bone-a-phone.” (Archived links, below right on this page.)

But this week we are spoiled by the presence of mighty Bob Mould, who sat for a candid interview and performed his new song “I’m Sorry, Baby, But You Can’t Stand in My Light Anymore,” which he calls one of his best in 15 years.

Listen to it here (this week’s show also includes Jon Pareles reviewing the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), and subscribe to Popcast here. (I will also review Mould’s new album, Life and Times, next week on the WFUV Music Review.)

Blender pops

I’m very saddened to learn that Blender magazine is ceasing publication, effective immediately, according to the very reliable Nat Ives at Ad Age.

The music magazine ranks have been thinned in the past year or so, but this is a major blow. They did great work, kept the other mags on their toes, and in the five or six years I’ve been contributing I wrote a lot of pieces I’m proud of, thanks to ace editors Rob Tannenbaum and Craig Marks.

Paid subscriptions at the end of last year were 768,000, down 8 percent from the year before, according to Ad Age, while newsstand sell-through, the number that the bean-counters pay most attention to, was down 18 percent, at 44,000.

RIP. And, ahem, let’s hope that Alpha Media Group makes good on those freelance debts.

SXSW blog, tweets, and actual articles

For all the South by Southwest news you could ever want, and more, I direct you to the extensive, mutli-platform coverage by myself and my colleagues at the Times.

We’ll be blogging at ArtsBeat, and I’ll be popping my Twitter cherry there too, to get you all those 140-character bons mots that just can’t wait for a full blog item. (Or full copy-editing.)

And, as a special bonus, we will also be writing actual articles for the paper — we’re talking thousands of characters here, allowing for things like quotes, ideas and narrative. You’ve already read some by David Carr and Jenna Wortham (right?), and over the next several days you’ll get more by me and Jon Pareles.

Thank you for your kind attention.

If I were the type to twitter ...

... I’d say that I just shook hands with every member of Metallica. VERY cool story coming soon.

Vacation

I’m taking some time away from work, and away from blogging. Will be back when I get back. In the meantime, please content yourself with some lolcats.

Oblique Strategies for iPhone

A company called Far Out Labs has developed an iPhone app for Oblique Strategies, Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s wonderful oracle in a deck of cards. (This is separate from the Dashboard widget.) You tap the screen, and another “worthwhile dilemma” pops up to unlock your mind. Complaint: the screenshots above are misleading since the design is inexplicably in landscape orientation. 

Eno himself has helped create an app called Bloom, which allows you to make patterns of sounds — some might call that music, some might just call it patterns of sounds — by tapping on the screen.

Maybe it’s time for me to finally figure out how to do a web version of my parody, Obtuse Strategies, which I designed and printed privately at not inconsiderable expense.

(Thanks to Rob for the tip.)