Bob Schwartz

Category: Music

December 11, 2012

Happy Hanukkah from Matisyahu

Matisyahu
Matisyahu is a Hanukkah miracle.

Not because suburban native Matthew Miller named himself after Mattathias, head of the family that took back the Temple in Jerusalem from the Assyrians, giving us the holiday. Not because he became a Chassidic reggae superstar. Not because last Hanukkah he shaved his beard and announced: “No more Chassidic reggae superstar.” Not because this Hanukkah his latest album Spark Seeker is Number 1 on the Billboard Reggae chart, a position it has held for weeks. Not even because his single Happy Hanukkah  is a joyous and irresistible rap reggae celebration about all that is good about the holiday, from which all proceeds go to Hurricane Sandy relief:

Happy Hanukkah
I wanna give a gift to you
Light up the night, my love shine through
From Mount Zion, this is what we do
Bring love to you

Matisyahu is a miracle because he did and is doing what we are supposed to do. Follow your light where it takes you, wherever it takes you. Wherever that is, when you get there, if you get there, shine a light of your own. It is a chance to make yourself happy and to make other people happy. And even if you are not sure you are there, or even sure where you are, celebrate anyway. It’s Hanukkah.

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December 5, 2012

Dave Brubeck

Dave Brubeck - Time OutJazz legend Dave Brubeck is dead at the age of 91.

There is going to be a lot written, but with musicians, the best way to remember or learn is to listen. There’s plenty of Brubeck on YouTube and elsewhere. Here’s Take Five, from the Time Out album.

Right now, the VEVO Hot This Week includes a Justin Bieber song (100,701,925 views), P!nk (27,490,445) and Lana Del Rey (14,931,653). These are talented musicians, and even with the added attention that comes with passing, Brubeck is unlikely to hit numbers like that.

Take Five, one of the most recognizable jazz recordings ever, was written by Dave Brubeck Quartet saxophonist Paul Desmond and recorded in 1959. It’s still hypnotically appealing and head-noddlingly cool today. Time will tell which of the Bieber, P!nk or Del Rey records are listened to, let alone remembered, in 53 years.

In the meantime…

Dadadadada dada da da, dada da da…

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November 6, 2012

Election Poem: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

 


A poem for Election Day seems in order.

Maybe surprising, maybe not, there are a bundle of poems about elections. Walt Whitman’s Election Day, November 1884 from Leaves of Grass, for example. That seems too literal and expected. Going in an entirely different direction, Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, a milestone in modern culture, was in the running. (And if this election is about anythings, modernity is one of them.)

Somewhere in the middle—well, not exactly in the middle—is Gil Scott-Heron’s poem and song The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. Gil Scott-Heron (1949-2011) was a celebrated cutting-edge poet and musician. Even if you don’t know him, you’ve heard his work, as his version of an old R&B song, I’ll Take Care of You, was the foundation of the Drake hit song Take Care.

First recorded in 1970, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised may seem an offbeat choice for an election poem. But it does contain the lines

NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

More than that, it is about brighter days not being found in a media mediated version of reality

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.

Forty years and more, and it’s still visionary.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o’clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver’s seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

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November 5, 2012

Alabama GOP To Hold Victory Party At Shooting Range

The Alabama Republican Party

will be holding its Victory Party tomorrow night at Hoover Tactical Firearms

Entertainment by Act of Congress

Special Guests Anna Laura Bryan, Miss Alabama 2012

Amie Beth Shaver, Miss Alabama 1994

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November 1, 2012

4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)

Who’s the boss?

The challenge of being a pop culture maven is that songs, movies and TV shows are regularly running around in your head, just waiting for a hook in the other real world. Then something happens and the connections light up, seemingly by themselves.

As soon as it was certain that the storm would hit the Jersey shore, Bruce Springsteen’s 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) became the involuntary soundtrack. It is from his career-making second album, The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle.

It is a sweet and melancholy song, more folk than rock. It seems to be about leaving a girl behind, but as Springsteen has explained, it is about leaving Asbury Park behind:

And me, I just got tired of hangin’ in them dusty arcades, bangin’ them pleasure machines
Chasin’ the factory girls underneath the boardwalk where they all promise to unsnap their jeans
And you know that tilt-a-whirl down on the south beach drag
I got on it last night and my shirt got caught
And they kept me spinning, babe, didn’t think I’d ever get off…

Did you hear the cops finally busted Madame Marie for tellin’ fortunes better than they do
For me this boardwalk life is through, babe
You ought to quit this scene too

All this (Sandy the storm, Sandy the girlfriend, the Jersey shore, Bruce Springsteen) prompted the question: Between events and people, who’s the boss?

The reflexive answer in the face of natural disasters like this is that events are in charge. As true as that may be, the parallel truth is that when people claim dominion, by building boardwalks and impossibly complex cities, people are in charge too.

Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog was one of the big inspirations in Steve Jobs’ life and career. In the 1969 issue of the Catalog, Brand stated the premise for his project to help people understand whole systems and master the tools to build and maintain them in an enlightened way. As we rebuild and reflect after Sandy, this is worth keeping in the mix:

We are as gods and might as well get good at it.

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September 20, 2012

Too Much of Nothing


The last post was called a political break, with the prospect of returning immediately to earnest observations about the current campaign. For those who didn’t read it, that post included a Marx Brothers movie and a Weekly World News exclusive about Mitt Romney and Bat Boy. Now that’s a break.

If it’s possible for political junkies to overdose, this may be it. There are already a bunch of posts drafted and ready, political and otherwise (this is a blog about everything, not just politics). But just for a moment, the will to post seems to have gotten a little lost.

So the political break continues. In the same spirit of free association that gave rise to the guest appearance of Bat Boy, here is some commentary from Bob Dylan. “But when there’s too much of nothing, nobody should look.”:

Now, too much of nothing
Can make a man feel ill at ease
One man’s temper might rise
While another man’s temper might freeze
In the day of confession
We cannot mock a soul
Oh, when there’s too much of nothing
No one has control

Too much of nothing
Can make a man abuse a king
He can walk the streets and boast like most
But he wouldn’t know a thing
Now, it’s all been done before
It’s all been written in the book
But when there’s too much of nothing
Nobody should look

Too much of nothing
Can turn a man into a liar
It can cause one man to sleep on nails
And another man to eat fire
Ev’rybody’s doin’ somethin’
I heard it in a dream
But when there’s too much of nothing
It just makes a fella mean

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August 23, 2012

The One The Only The Real Hank Williams


Sometimes something good can come from something bad.

Somebody wearing the ill-fitting name Hank Williams has been going around saying nasty things about President Obama (he’s a Muslim, he hates America). Despite that name being a few sizes too big for him, it appears he has somehow managed to have some success as a musician and as the son of a more famous father. But as with the name, the shoes are also way too big to fill.

Hank Williams (1923-1953) was one of the great musical artists and folk poets in America. He died too young at the age of 29, but had already produced songs that entertained millions and inspire musicians fifty years after his death. His songs have been covered by scores of artists as diverse as Al Green, Beck, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, George Thorogood, Keb’ Mo’, Keith Richards, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tom Petty.

If you haven’t heard of Hank Williams, you are missing something. If you haven’t heard him, because you “don’t like country music”, you are missing something. Don’t believe it? Believe the Pulitzer Prize Board, which in 2010 awarded him a Special Citation for “his craftsmanship as a songwriter who expressed universal feelings with poignant simplicity and played a pivotal role in transforming country music into a major musical and cultural force in American life.”

So if someone named Hank Williams, Jr. is going around badmouthing the President, what good can come of that?

Just this: In the midst of looking around for things to say about Hank Williams, a brand new independent film came to light. The Last Ride is the story of a fateful trip. Hank Williams was heading out for a series of concerts to end in Canton, Ohio on New Year’s Day 1953. Bad weather prevented flying, so a college student was hired to drive him from Nashville to the concerts. Before reaching Ohio, on January 1, Williams died in West Virginia. Last Ride is the story of that trip. The film has already been screened in New York and Los Angeles, and later this week can be seen in Nashville, Dallas, Seattle and Bakersfield.

There’s plenty of Hank Williams music around. Give it a listen. Because if the only Hank Williams you know about is the Junior who seems so out of touch with reality, there’s someone to discover. Hank Williams—the one the only—was nothing but real.

Hear the lonesome whippoorwill
He sounds too blue to fly
The midnight train is whining low
I’m so lonesome I could cry

I’ve never seen a night so long
When time goes crawling by
The moon just went behind a cloud
To hide its face and cry

Did you ever see a robin weep
When leaves begin to die
That means he’s lost the will to live
I’m so lonesome I could cry

The silence of a falling star
Lights up a purple sky
And as I wonder where you are
I’m so lonesome I could cry

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July 20, 2012

Us And Them: Presidential Pink Floyd

In response to ABC’s Robin Roberts’ questions about Mitt Romney’s tax returns, Ann Romney stood firm:

“We’ve given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and about how we live our life.”

The benefit of the doubt might indicate that “you people” meant “the media” rather than the huddled masses yearning for information and transparency. But it does seem to fit the storyline that the Romneys believe, appropriately, that the rich are different.

In either case, Pink Floyd’s Us and Them from Dark Side of the Moon came to mind. Us and Them is hauntingly beautiful and multivalently obscure. Hundreds of interpretations have been generated (war? money? Kent State? Syd Barrett?). Who knows? This is art and Pink Floyd, for God’s sake, and like the rest of Dark Side it both washes over you and seeps into you.

Us and them
And after all we’re only ordinary men.
Me and you.
God only knows it’s not what we would choose to do.

Black and blue
And who knows which is which and who is who.
Up and down.
But in the end it’s only round and round.

Haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words
The poster bearer cried.
Listen son, said the man with the gun
There’s room for you inside.

Down and out
It can’t be helped but there’s a lot of it about.
With, without.
And who’ll deny it’s what the fighting’s all about?

Us and Them is clearly the theme of this Presidential campaign. So much so that we should adapt the Dark Side of the Rainbow approach, in which Dark Side of the Moon is mind-blowingly synchronized as the soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz. In this case, Dark Side can be synchronized to your choice of campaign videos. This is not as crazy as it sounds, especially given that both Obama and Romney have exhibited their musical chops. It is doubtful that either one has ever tried singing anything from Pink Floyd, or in Romney’s case even heard the band, but it would be fun and enlightening. The bright promise of politics in Eclipse, maybe?:

All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel.
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save.
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy,
beg, borrow or steal.
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say.
All that you eat
And everyone you meet
All that you slight
And everyone you fight.
All that is now
All that is gone
All that’s to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

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June 29, 2012

Summer All Day Music


Even a serious (or seriocomic) blog needs a summer break. So here it is.

Driving down the mean streets of a mid-sized American city at midday, it is 92 degrees, hotter than it should be the first week of summer. Not bad, though, with the radio loud but edgeless cool, playing summer songs. Women wait to cross at the corners, long loose print cotton skirts clinging and waving in the breeze, sleeveless tops. This means War.

There’s All Day Music

Music is what we like to play
To soothe your soul, yeah

Down at the beach or party in town
Making love or just riding around
Let’s have a picnic, go to the park
Rolling in the grass till long after dark

And on the flip there’s Summer

Riding round town with all the windows down
Eight track playing all your favorite sounds
The rhythm of the bongos fill the park
The street musicians trying to get a start

Cause it’s summer
Summer time is here
Yes, it’s summer
My time of year

So there are no more eight tracks. So what? The hot songs of summer, girls of summer, boys of summer are forever.

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June 14, 2012

Marketing To “The Gays”


In the 2005 comedy The Family Stone, Sarah Jessica Parker plays an uptight New York businesswoman. She is at a family dinner with her fiancé’s gay brother, who is planning to adopt a baby with his partner. Trying to prove her open-mindedness, she says every wrong thing, and finally blurts out: “I love the gays. Gay people. They know that.”

This article appeared in a recent Billboard:

Why The Wanted Play Gay Clubs: Marketing, Music And The LGBT Community’s Mainstream Music Clout

When the Wanted was looking to book its first major U.S. gigs in January, the British pop group didn’t just call up Live Nation or AEG to reach the tween- and teen-girl fan base courted by the generations of boy bands that had come before them. Sandwiched in between 10 midsize-club dates, the group made a quintet of special appearances booked by a boutique PR and events company called the Karpel Group to help reach what has arguably become an even more powerful audience when it comes to modern pop stardom: the gays.

The article is a straightforward business and marketing story: here’s an identifiable market, here’s how the artists and labels are marketing to it. Among the reports:

For music, bloggers like Perez Hilton, Andy Towle (Towleroad) and Jared Eng (JustJared) wield a lot of influence and Sirius’ Out Q (hosted by former Billboard editor Larry Flick) has been a satellite-radio mainstay since 2003. Even Clear Channel has a Pride radio network that serves 19 markets with gay-friendly pop music as well as across iHeartRadio’s digital network.

And this:

Gay buying power, often touted for the consumer group’s supposed affluence, remains a bit of a misnomer. “There’s no data that suggests gay people are wealthier than anybody else,” Witeck Communications’ Bob Witeck says….

They also not only appreciate being marketed to directly, they expect it — particularly when it comes to music. Labels are starting to develop dedicated gay-marketing strategies for certain artists, much as they already have for reaching Hispanic or African-American audiences.

And this:

“Five or six years ago it was almost uncomfortable. Now I sit in label meetings and someone in the room will say, ‘We really have to drill down on this market,'” says Scott Seviour, senior VP of marketing and artist development at Epic Records. “On a business level and an industry level, there’s a greater respect for that consumer. You’ve seen them break an artist and make names. They’re passionate and they can move the needle.”

Business is business, markets are markets, and if you can identify and reach consumers who might buy and promote your products, that is the game. As is pointed out, the practice of marketing to all sorts of groups is common. And in a consumer-driven economy, being recognized and courted is at least a show of economic respect, if not of social acceptance.

But there are caveats too. Being targeted is not necessarily a sign of enlightenment, though it is better than ignorance, invisibility or hate. There is also a general challenge with identity marketing. It’s a thin line between identity and stereotype, a line that’s always in danger of disappearing—if it’s there at all. It can be legitimate and effective to target consumers on the basis of what you know about them and how that works with the products you are selling. But it is easy to fall unwittingly into treating people of any kind as a market and not as people.

The proposition “If you are a (fill in the identity), then you will/must like/want this” is problematic. That’s why “the gays” and “they” and even “gay-friendly” are so cringeworthy. Substitute your own or anybody else’s identity there—woman, black, Jew, etc.—and you’ll see.

We’ve come a long way culturally, moving closer to seeing and treating all people as individuals. It’s too late to turn back or slip back now.

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