Scarce: Providence & Boston (Cambridge) Dates

Just a quick note about some upcoming gigs for my pals Scarce on the horizon for November and December:

• November 19 2009 – 9:00 pm – Jerky’s – Providence, Rhode Island – with Backwash, openers Diepods
• December 3 2009 – 9:00 pm – TT the Bears – Cambridge, Massachusetts – opening for Sloan

I’ve been seeing a lot of the photos from the tour thru England and Scotland earlier in the fall and I don’t know what’s in the water those three have been drinking, but they all three look younger in every photo set that comes across my way. Proof that rock & roll keeps you young? Maybe so! Chick is like Mr. Rock & Roll, Joe’s got the wild man thing going on with the hair these days, and Joyce looks like a teenager lately in these pics, I’m sooo jealous. I’m only a few years older than Joyce but I’m gonna look old enough to be her mother in comparison if they keep this up, and she’s a mom of two and I have none! Sheesh, no fair.

The Scarce blog has also been updated recently as well with many heartfelt thanks to the UK fans, check out the latest HERE.

• Scarce on MySpace (check out “Ocean Blue” while there, it’s back to being my fave song on the album again)
• Follow Scarce @scarcerocks (Joyce) on Twitter

Anyway, check out the upcoming shows if you’re able and pick yourself up one of the coolest band t-shirts I have ever owned in my life (the cartoon shirts, at least I hope they still have those available now that I’ve said that, heh). Which reminds me, I should scan that thing and post a pic of it here, but you know I’m lazy about things like that sometimes and the scanner is not hooked up to the computer all the time, so don’t hold your breath waiting but I’ll try to do that soon. It’s so super cool.

So if you’re nearby or have nothing else to do, go check out Scarce at one of those gigs and hey, if it’s your first time, be sure and tell Joyce that Lynnster sent ya – she’ll be the one with the bloody fingers from beating up that bass as she usually does. Since I can’t get them to come play Knoxville or Memphis no matter how much I beg, it’ll be the next best thing to me being there!

Israel Darling in Nashville & Knoxville in November

Now, having mentioned Ryan Adams and why I’m not a fan in the last post (sorry for stirring that hornet’s nest up yesterday, eek) – those of you that ARE Ryan Adams fans, and other artists along those lines, might enjoy this new show coming up in Nashville and Knoxville.

I had a tip recently from a music exec about Israel Darling out of Greensboro, North Carolina, who bills themselves on their MySpace profile like so: “We love music. We love being southern. The aftermath is what Israel Darling has become, an observation of the things we either love or hate.”

Oddly (to me), they don’t list Adams as one of their influences (though they do cite Wilco and Elliott Smith).

So I moseyed on over to their profile and listened a bit. As I kind of expected, it kind of missed the mark for me – but remember, I don’t much care for Adams and really the only band of that general genre I ever got into much at all was Son Volt for a spell. But Israel Darling is certainly interesting (I’m a little bit intrigued by the fact there are eight – yes, eight! – members in the band), and actually, I was kinda digging the lyrics a lot of some of the tunes I gave a listen to. So that’s cool and I will continue to investigate this band a bit further, I believe.

So anyway, Israel Darling is playing at The Basement in Nashville on November 17th, and Preservation Pub in Knoxville on November 18th. I think those of you who dig/dug Wilco, Son Volt, Uncle Tupelo, Elliott Smith, Whiskeytown, He Who Shall Not Be Named Again But Whose Initials Are R.A., and the like would probably like this show and you should go (and send me a review and I’ll guest post it here). Or at least check out their music on their page and see what you think! If you like ‘em, send me cookies.

And This Is Why I Don’t Like Ryan Adams

I can’t believe I’ve never written about this here (I might be wrong, though, but don’t think so) – so here we go…

God and everybody knows I don’t really care much for Ryan Adams, personally or professionally. When Whiskeytown came out lo these many years ago, I probably had no less than 100 fellow Replacements fans nudging me on that album and when I finally picked it up, I was not impressed.

I’ll grant, however, that he is musically impressive. He’s just not – for me personally – like Jack White, who I think is a musical freakin’ genius AND I also dig very, very much. Adams is just not for me, and especially not lately when my index finger is more often than not usually hitting “select” along the lines of Slipknot, Godsmack, Korn, etc. Ryan Adams is good, and he’s impressive musically, but I’m sorry, kids – he ain’t no Paul Westerberg, no matter how many critics and others have tried to say it’s so.

One thing Ryan Adams did do that I like very much is his cover of Black Flag’s “Nervous Breakdown” on the West Memphis Three benefit CD that Henry Rollins put out a few years ago, Rise Above: 24 Black Flag Songs to Benefit the West Memphis Three. I like Adams’ version almost as much as I like (original Black Flag vocalist) Keith Morris’ re-cover of it on the same album. (By the way, that whole CD is really cool.)

But really the main reason I don’t care much for Ryan Adams is not just because I’m just not that into him and never have been, but I have had a few violent reactions of revulsion upon hearing of some of his prima donna antics at live shows, particularly at a couple of shows in a couple of towns here in my home state in the past. I’ve said this much in the past – if you can’t act at least somewhat appreciative of the fans that got you where you are, you really don’t deserve any fortune and fame that comes your way.

I rather worship the aforementioned Mr. Westerberg, as everyone knows – but word on the street for years and years has always been that he can be kind of an asshole. That said, there’s also many anecdotes to the contrary out there as well. Point being, however, that there also aren’t a hundred stories flying around about Paul being a jerk on stage.

One day a while back on Twitter, there was some discussion about Adams. Several Tennessee folks were recounting the past bad behavior, and I piped up with something along the lines of all of the above, saying something not terribly complimentary (okay, I pretty much dogged him), and the next thing I knew – about five or ten minutes later – I had a notification that I was being followed by someone who turned out to be his manager, I think. Me being one of those people who everyone always says is too nice to people anyway, I was appropriately mortified and felt bad about it, sorta.

But really I still stand by what I said. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to be halfway decent to people and I don’t think anyone really expects the famous to just be overcome with gratitude and all happy happy joy joy. But if I’m not that crazy about your work in the first place, and then I hear about prima donna little temper tantrums and other such stuff in front of rooms full of thousands of people who DO like and love you – count me out, I’m no longer interested at all.

Plus for goodness sakes, he’s a Southern boy, so even less excuse. Their mamas raise them better than that, and I’m sure his did too.

Music Education 101: Open Letter to NBC Universal

(NOTE: Not the usual case, but this post is being posted on both blogs since the series that is the subject of this post resides on both blogs…)

So, based on a glance at my Tweets on Twitter that night, I noted that I spent approximately nine hours replacing YouTube videos that have been removed since the last time I looked at my (so far) four-part Music Education 101 series of posts. If you missed that before (or just want to check them out again), all the video links except maybe one are working now, although I’ve had to replace several with “alternate” versions (some I’m not too thrilled about), but also added some extras that weren’t there before.

The series lives in my Music Education 101 category on both blogs, or here are the links:

• Lynnster’s Musical Education in Three (Now Four) Posts – The Beginning
• Coming Into My Own – Lynnster’s Musical Education in Three (Now Four) Posts
• No Turning Back Now – Lynnster’s Musical Education in Three (Now Four) Posts
• Postscript – Lynnster’s Musical Education, Now In Four Posts

I can’t even begin to illustrate what a painfully tedious process it was, searching for and updating all those video links – made even worse by the fact this series is on both my blogs, since it was begun before I added the music blog, so that doubled the work. But of all the posts on either of my blogs – spanning back nearly 13 years on the main blog – those four are probably the most important to me, so whatever.

What pains me, really, is the number of them removed because so-and-so company/organization has declared their ownership/copyright. Fine.

Do these people not understand the power of YouTube these days and the potential for financial gain in a YouTube partnership? When there are everyday people uploading their own videos – be it comedy, commentary, their own music, or what amounts to the video version of a traditional blog (i.e., vlogs) – and making better money doing that than they would with the salary of many very good full time jobs – is the potential financial gain of allowing music and video to be heard and seen on YouTube completely beyond the comprehension of the music and visual media companies?

If Joe Blow next door is able to make a living wage off of YouTube these days, just think how much cash these record companies and other media companies could be raking in by putting up their own partnered YouTube channel. Some have, yes (mainly individual artists/bands though) – but not nearly enough.

There’s one case in particular that gripes me the most – some of what are undeniably the most important performances – American debut and otherwise – of many artists’ careers are their first appearances on Saturday Night Live. These are almost impossible to find – if they get uploaded, it doesn’t take long before they get pulled. Replacing some of those (like Elvis Costello’s famous show-stopping appearance from 1977) is what took me so darned long the other night, and it just irritated the crap out of me.

So here’s my open letter to NBC Universal:

Get your heads out of your collective asses and put up your own YouTube partner channel with these fantastic performances so that they’ll be back in public view where they SHOULD be, for people to enjoy these fabulous pieces of music history – instead of repeatedly blocking them and keeping them hidden from public view.

In this day and age when almost anything can be instantly viewed on the Internet in all kinds of different venues, it’s a doggoned shame that some of the finest musical performances in rock & roll history are being withheld like this. You have the potential to make far, far more profit on those clips as a YouTube partner than you likely ever will recoup in DVD or video sales.

I guess there’s a DVD or music video out there on the market already – point being, I don’t care, and they probably don’t contain the clips I want to see most anyway. How many DVDs have I bought in the past three or four years? Less than ten, and virtually all are feature films.

That said, I’m your target audience with those SNL music clips, NBC Universal – listen to me. Do the right thing and get those clips up on YouTube under your own account so those precious pieces of musical performance history are out there for the public to enjoy (and for those young musically-minded kids, like I once was myself, to learn from) – and make money off of me and everyone else who will watch, rate, and favorite those clips time and time again.

You have nothing to lose – except for the profit you’re not making by withholding them for DVD or whatever purposes, in which case you’re never likely going to profit nearly as much as you would have as a YouTube partner – and instead, the whole world is losing out by not being able to easily access and view these like you now can most anything else on YouTube. I know a big music fan – and Elvis Costello fan – in his twenties who has never even seen that priceless infamous clip. It’s a danged shame.

C’mon, NBC Universal. The solution’s so simple, and everybody wins. You line your pockets probably a lot more than you would have counting on DVD sales – and that music’s back out there where it belongs, for folks to dig. Simple.