On this day in 1969, The Rolling Stones headlined the infamous Altamont Free Concert in Altamont, CA. Immortalized in the film “Gimme Shelter,” it’s a cautionary tale of what not to do when planning a large scale rock concert. Interestingly, the Hells Angels have always gotten blamed for the death of 18 year old Meredith Hunter, but while being far from...
Authenticity
I got into a pretty heavy “discussion” with a friend the other day. He works in content marketing, and his job is to create content around a brand that helps drive focus and awareness. Ultimately it’s what all marketers do, but his specialty is in content creation. Sometimes it’s good content and other times, the cause of my distress, it’s just noise wrapped...
RockGeek Fact of the Day #5773
Happy 78th Birthday to Leonard Cohen! Cohen, a nice Jewish boy, has drawn from Jewish religious and cultural imagery throughout his career. Unetaneh Tokef, an 11th-century liturgical poem recited during Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, are echoed in his song “Who By Fire.” Here’s the English translation: On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed, And on Yom Kippur it is sealed. How many...
Enough already!
Where is David Bowie?
Without going on and on and on about how last night’s Closing Ceremonies, what seemed oddest to me was the attention lavished on David Bowie. Don’t get me wrong, I love the guy. But where has he been lately? There’s no mentions of him in the press, no albums to promote, no tour dates, not even a TMZ style “hey-look-who-we-just-bumped-into-getting-dinner-at-Mr...
RockGeek Fact of the Day #5309
Happy Birthday to Chuck Negron of Three Dog Night. He of the exploding penis. Really. Here’s the tale courtesy of spinner.com: According to Chuck Negron, one of the three lead singers of the band that virtually lived in the Top 40 in the early 1970s (‘Joy to the World,’ ‘An Old-Fashioned Love Song,’ ‘One’), his by-the-book excesses — sex, drugs and...
Tits too.
Amanda “Fucking” Palmer raises over a million dollars on Kickstarter prompting her to scrawl the fact across her naked torso. There are her boobs for all to see. Oh, you rebel. Oh, you cutting edge, avant garde-ist, you. And golly wow, you’re really pushing that envelope. There were gasps from here to Williamsburg, from Lexington to Concord, and from PayPal to pocket. But...
RIP Adam Yauch
When you’re a Jewish kid growing up in the suburbs, your choices are pretty slim. You like Billy Joel, you go to Hebrew School, you get braces, and you practice for your Bar Mitzvah. That’s pretty much all you get ’til you head off to college. For me, such was life. And it wasn’t a bad life by any means, but I found it kind of hard to look up to musicians that seemed...
Good people
Last year, my company (D.I.-Why) sponsored the New Music Seminar. It was our first sponsorship ever as a company, and we were a bit nervous about what could happen. Having worked in multiple marketing departments over the years, it’s far more fun to spend money when it’s not actually yours. But when it’s your company, and your money, you toss dimes around like they’re...
SXSWhatever
I held off on writing a SXSW post because everybody else is. Who wants to be a sheep, right? When March rolls around, every musician and music industry hack starts frothing at the mouth. SXSW is a big ol’ schmoozefest accompanied by bbq. All things considered, it’s right up my professional alley. I’ve attended SXSW a bunch of times in the past as a rep from whatever company I...