Music

Sly Stone is gone but as everybody will be pointing out he left the stage a long, long, time ago.

They were the only band at Woodstock who had had a number 1. This is it.

Cracking piece…..

When contacted directly by The Telegraph and asked whether the band denied any modern day slavery offences, Moffat said: “All denied. It’s all fake. No one is a slave and everyone is ok. We have begun criminal lawsuits against the persons behind this hate campaign.

“We don’t believe in social media trials – we only believe in a democratic system of innocent until proven guilty, with fact-checking and hard evidence.”

Sgt Tom Ottley, of Devon and Cornwall Police, said: “As part of our response to the initial incident, we identified several of the occupants of the van as being potential victims of exploitation offences. They are receiving specialist support and being safeguarded at this time.

Of course, I’ve no knowledge of anything at all here. But “criminal lawsuits” sounds like bluster to me.

Irv Gotti, the chart-topping producer and music label executive who was instrumental in the careers of Ja Rule, Ashanti and DMX as the co-founder of Murder Inc Records, has died at the age of 54.

I have never – to my joy and relief, I think – heard of any of these. Which, given thatthe one of them is famous enough to have his death reported in the newspaper is a pretty big hole in my knowledge of the world. An appropriate hole perhaps, but one all the same.

Two teenagers arrested over fatal stabbing of 14-year-old drill rapper on bus
Police detain two boys and 44-year-old woman in connection with murder of Kelyan Bokassa in south-east London on Jan 7

Not to make light of a young lad cruelly done away.

But this idea of someone being a “drill rapper”. Seems a very common occupation judging from newspaper coverage. Now of course I’ve never heard of any of these people – it’s not really aimed at pale and stale like me. Also, there’s no way I listen to teenibop chart countdown each week.

But I’m getting the impression that this isn’t quite what drill rapper means – that connection to the teeniebop charts. Rather, given the cheapness of new media, this is something more like having a Facebook page. Pretty much everyone’s got a video camera these days – phones will record video. Mumble something while filming, stick on social media of choice, you’re a drill rapper. But, not really – in the same way that 60 years ago ringing your bicycle bell didn’t make you a campanologist.

Your “drill rapper video” is seen by the 50 to 200 people in your wider social circuit and that’s it. Some, obviously, do make it to the teeniebopper chart countdowns. But the newspaper descriptions of this or that lad as rappers are about someone shouting into a microphone for Instagram, not anything else.

Given my intense and detailed knowledge of todays youf scene of course all the above could be complete bollocks. But that is how it seems to me.

What was your worst financial decision?
It wasn’t really a decision so much as a deal I couldn’t do. It was about 1978 and I asked my bank manager for a £4,000 loan to sign the publishing rights for the songs of an unknown group called U2. He looked at me as if I were joking and turned me down. The rights to U2’s songs must be worth trillions now.

Umm, yes…..

Elton John on the keyboard geniuses who blew his mind: ‘With Zoot, you were in for a party’

It’s much better than that headline makes it sound. Worth reading properly and dipping into the linked samples they have. More than anything it’s about being a musician and realising that others may or may not be better but they’re different and you cannot do that.

As we all know I’m not too hot on The G and as we might not know Elton’s never really struck me. But this is *good*.

The Australian punk band has been praised by Billy Corgan and Karen O for their explosive live act and uncompromising politics.

Uncompromising politics, eh?

Social commentary is never far from Taylor’s lyrics, which could just as easily contain brutal ragers about life under oppressive systems (Capital)

“They also champion safe spaces and advocate for Palestine at every performance

no classism and racism

“The security guard might live on a farm in Kentucky and shoot animals and eat them – he might not know about, like, identity politics,” she says. “I don’t want them to feel ashamed. I want to use our opportunity to say, ‘Hey, this is something we care about. Maybe it’s something that you could start looking into.’”

Same o, same o then.

Walk on the Wild Side, Grandad, Tuba Smarties, Herbie Flowers played on the first and wrote the other two.

I’ve always liked this:

But as long as there are ambitious tuba players – and brass bands – they’ll be playing this for centuries:

Vale

I knew that Bobby Gillespie had been a drummer for Jesus and Mary Chain:

Naturally, the Mary Chain would have a standing drummer (a position that rotated so much – including a stint by Bobby Gillespie – this joint memoir should come with an “other guys” spreadsheet).

And it’s a nice little trick that the drummer here is standing:

And I like the song, the album etc. But the confusion. Drummers are supposed to have a sense of beat, of timing. But by the way he dances Gillespie doesn’t have that. Which is just so terribly confusing to me….

Liam Gallagher has hit back at claims that Oasis are set to reunite because they are “broke” following his brother Noel’s £20 million divorce last year.

The band’s former lead vocalist took to X, formerly Twitter, to tell users that “your attitude stinks” after they posted that the brothers would only be reforming the band because they needed money.

He responded after one user posted: “It’s better off left it the 90s … they must be skint.” Another was told the same after claiming that “cash is drying up”.

I spent the 90s pretty much unplugged from British culture – and music. First Russia, then the US. So I missed all that excitement.

I’ve heard some of the music at least since. Some of it I’d even voluntarily listen to. Not a lot, but some.

Still, if the brothers can cash in 25 years later – and it will obvs be cash in as their audience is now itself 25 years richer – good luck to ’em.

They toured the UK in 1962 and returned in 1968. During this visit they were filmed for the BBC and had a two-week residency at the Batley Variety Club in West Yorkshire.

“They” is Louis Armstrong and his All Stars.

You’d not even manage to get Acker Bilk’s coffin to visit Batley these days…..

And this is rather sterling work, no?

The church played a fundamental part in family life. At the age of five, she joined the junior choir. She began to enter — and win — talent contests at a local masonic temple from the age of nine, having learnt songs from listening to records at a local “jukebox joint” where youngsters would congregate on Saturday afternoons. She saved all the money from her talent show prizes and put it towards the house that she was able to buy for her parents when she was 17.

US authorities have launched a legal effort to break up Ticketmaster after botched ticket sales for artists including Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen fuelled accusations of anti-competitive behaviour.

The US Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation accusing the group of illegally inflating ticket prices at the expense of both artists and fans.

It’s possible, of course it’s possible. So is another explanation possible. Lots of people want to see the shows, more than there are shows to see. Supply isn’t matching demand.

The way to check this. What are the margins like at Tickemaster? What are they like at other ticketing agencies? What are they like for the venues and tha artists?

Who’s making out like a bandit? That’s the person earning from the monopoly…..Oh, Hello Ms Swift, how delightful to hear from you……

In the 1950s and 60s, his songs stunned and delighted listeners with their irreverence, wit and nihilism. Then he gave it all up to teach mathematics. Lehrer is still alive at 96 – so I went in search of answers

by Francis Beckett

He’s packaging the songs up into a musical and so on and on. Lots about Lehrer.

Except, well, manages to miss that he wrote for Sesame St too – some of their more famous songs too……

Dickey Betts, Allman Brothers Band co-founder and guitarist, dies aged 80
Rock & Roll Hall of Famer who wrote the band’s biggest hit, Ramblin’ Man, dies at home in Florida ‘surrounded by his whole family’

Yep, it’s hackneyed now after so much play. But in their day they really were a cracking band:

There are more billionaires than ever before. The world has 2,781 people with fortunes exceeding $1bn (£800m), an increase of 141 on 2023, according to Forbes’ annual ranking of the world’s richest people – with Taylor Swift among those making the list.

The billionaires are also collectively worth more than ever, with combined assets estimated at $14.2tn – a $2tn increase on 2023 and more than the GDP of every country except the US and China.

Cool. So a 100% tax on anyone playing – or listening to – Ms Swift’s music is now justified, right? Because equalidee?

The founder of troubled music rights firm Hipgnosis has fallen short of music industry standards when advising the London-listed fund, an external report has found.

Short of music industry standa……that pack of thievery, rip off and gangland excess?

Bath Moles is closing because right now, in 2023, it simply isn’t possible to present original live music in a 220-capacity venue without losing money.

He’s right, and he’s also right that by ignoring what’s going on at the grassroots level the music industry is letting those roots rot. Without venues like Moles (and similar venues, such as Glasgow’s King Tuts and recently closed 13th Note) the British arena-fillers of recent years would never have become famous. No Moles no Radiohead, no Oasis, no Massive Attack, no Ed Sheeran, no Blur.

True, they all played the place. But that’s rather different from saying they’d not have existed if they’d not played that place. For a very large number of bands which have existed have not played that place. Like, say, Tears for Fears who played The Bell around the corner….

And now, to make matters far worse, starting in 2024 Spotify will stop paying anything at all for roughly two-thirds of tracks on the platform. That is any track receiving fewer than 1,000 streams over the period of a year. Tracks falling under this arbitrary minimum will continue to accrue royalties – but those royalties will now be redirected upwards, often to bigger artists, rather than to their own rights holders.

OK, but 1,000 streams what are we talking about here?

What it won’t tell either artists or users in Spotify Wrapped is how much money was paid for all that streaming time. Short answer: not enough. If you want to do the maths, the maximum one can possibly earn in Spotify royalties is $0.003 a stream. It doesn’t add up to a living wage for most artists.

Three cents? Seems, umm, entirely reasonable to me actually. You?

Who wants a company – anyone in fact – to be chasing millions of under 3 cents amounts each reporting period? Note that Spotify doesn;t then keep that – it just pays it out to other people instead.

Over half of employees, including white men, downplay parts of their identity to fit in better at work

Well now, Mick Jagger didn’t eat a mars bar with Marianne at work now, did he, on stage?

Lizzo has been sued by three former dancers who accused the Grammy winner of sexual harassment and allege the singer and her production company created a hostile work environment.

The civil lawsuit filed on Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court claims Lizzo pressured the dancers to engage with nude performers at a club in Amsterdam and shamed one of them for her weight gain before firing her.

Weight gain? Dear Lord…..