You are here: Home / Archives for Music

Got a lot of luggage in your name? Here’s your online baggage claim.

November 13, 2011 by · 4 Comments

Country sensation Miranda Lambert has been taking the world by storm, becoming the first country artist in the 47-year history of the album charts to have her first four albums debut at No. 1. Her first single off her new album, Four the Record, is entitled “Baggage Claim,” which she performed at the 45th Annual Country Music Association Awards recently, just moments prior to taking home “Female Vocalist of the Year” for the second year in a row.

This no-nonsense, “kiss-off song” about a woman liberating herself from the emotional burdens of a no-good, soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend, is a light-hearted approach to a situation that is often most vocalized by men:

At the baggage claim
you got a lot of luggage in your name
When you hit the ground check the lost and found
cuz it aint my problem now I can’t carry it all
I got a lot of troubles on my own
Its all over the yard and in the trunk of the car
I’m packing it in, so come and get it

Regardless of our gender, yeah, we’ve all been there once or twice. Just admit it.

While I’m still in preparation to launch That Damn Music Blog,  I thought I’d share this wonderfully amusing and cathartic site I found recently called EmotionalBagCheck.com. (Think of this post as a preview to the kind of content you’ll find at TDMB.)

Emotional Bag Check is a brilliant site powered by the API of Grooveshark (but created independently) that basically allows you to check your emotional baggage online and tell an anonymous collective your problems. When other people read it, they can send you a song that they feel appropriate.  If you’ve got no baggage to share, you can pick someone else’s up and send them a song to (hopefully) make them feel better.

Emotional Bag Check 1

I personally love this concept, so I decided to try it. Hesitant, I decided to pick someone else’s baggage up first, and this is what I got:

Emotional Bag Check 2

Well, OK, so I’m probably not the most original person here but the first song that popped into my head was “Comfortably Numb,” only not the original by Pink Floyd, but by Dar Williams with Ani DiFranco on backing vocals. So that’s what I sent the anonymous, non-feeling person, with a note:

Emotional Bag Check 3

If I could sum up “why I love music” in a nutshell, it would be one word: therapy. Simple as that. In fact, not only is music therapy an established profession these days, but back in the days of Beethoven, doctors used to prescribe music to people to lift their moods. (I read that somewhere the other day and wish I could remember where in order to cite it. I can’t, but if you can find the link for me, let me know in the comments, thanks.) However, you don’t need to be a genius to know that music is medicine for the soul. You just need to be human. Which, if you’re reading this, I’m sure you are.

Anyway, so I decided it was only fair I dump some of my own baggage at EmotionalBagCheck.com after lifting someone else’s. After I “dropped off my baggage” (so to speak), I was greeted with a message that linked me, the user, to appropriate sources if I felt I was in danger or in need of help right away:

(Note that this site is not the product of any kind of corporate funding to do PSAs or whatever, but rather a single person with a conscience. Frankly, it makes me feel good to know there are still a few of us out there.)

I’m not going to get into the details of  the baggage I dropped off, but literally within minutes, before I even finished this blog post, I got a response from someone with some heartfelt advice and a song I had never heard, from a band I normally wouldn’t listen to, let alone would have suspected would write something congruent to my situation. And you know what? It helped.

I’ve come to the conclusion that a service like EmotionalBagCheck.com is way overdue. The closest thing we’ve had until this was radio dedications a lâ Delilah, and while I love Delilah, she’s not quite as instantaneous nor as interactive as the interwebs. I thank Robyn Overstreet for making this giant, anonymous, ethereal support group on the web happen, and I encourage y’all to give it a try, and let me know here in the comments how it works out.

In the meantime, I think I need to make myself more familiar with the catalogue of Linkin Park.

Filed Under: Music, Reviews, Social Media · Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The show must NOT always go on. Please be safe first.

August 14, 2011 by · 5 Comments

Stage collapse at Indiana State FairAs I sit here and type this, I am listening to a live feed of the scanner by the Marion County MECA Fire & Rescue in Indiana. Apparently, the stage collapsed just before the Sugarland concert at the Indiana State Fair.  They had delayed the show, but were hoping to ride it out. Yet strong winds and storm conditions were enough to make the stage collapse, injuring at least a dozen and right now the Indy Star has confirmed 4 dead. For the past hour on the scanner, I’ve been listening to reports that there is a certain 10 year-old girl nowhere to be found, yet a second ago the paramedics just said that they transported a 10-13 y/o “unconscious female, possibly named Maggie” to the local emergency.

Last night and tonight, Kid Rock is having sold out shows at Comerica Park and holding a huge block party in downtown Detroit. I almost went to both, but passed.
When I followed a link to this story at MSNBC, it delivered me to my local MSNBC page, where I saw a story headlined, “Kid Rock Show Will Go On, Rain or Shine” … I don’t know if it’s even fair to make a comparison, or draw any parallels here, but one thing rings true, regardless:

It doesn’t matter what the show is, “the show must go on” isn’t always true. Safety comes first. Period.

. . . and just as I typed that, someone on Twitter tweeted at me, “So REO Speedwagon is coming on stage to play youtu.be/DPk4EX2GDc0” … wherein the story behind this song/link is:

In 1991, there was a huge event in Orlando called Festival in the Park. Several big name acts were scheduled to play but a hurricane came through the day before. Most acts canceled & instead of 10s of 1000s of people, only a handful of people turned out. REO probably still would’ve gotten paid if they’d canceled, but they came out anyway & played to us, less than 100 people in the pouring rain, full-throttle for 3+ hours non-stop. they closed the show with this song and it was truly incredible.

While that’s nice, and could seem a gallant effort, the timing of that person’s tweet to me was before he was aware of the confirmed causalities, and I was. Which means at that specific moment in time, I found it very tasteless. He didn’t know at the time, so I can’t blame him for just wanting to be funny, but still …… the point is, people, SAFETY trumps everything else.

Earlier today I was elated to find out that the National Show Ski Championships (Division I) were being streamed online, and watched it fervently as I was cleaning my apartment today. See, show water skiing WAS MY LIFE growing up. My home team, Silver Lake Ski Club, just placed 4th in Division II a week or so ago, and lately I’ve had nothing on my mind but show skiing and “back in the day.”

Then the storms rolled in today. And I was also reminded of some shows where we did some pretty stupid shit in the name of “the show must go on.”

The one incident that stands out the most in my mind was the year we did a show at the Michigan State Show Ski tournament (a.k.a. “states”) with an impending storm very close on the horizon. The judges decided that the weather was OK enough for us to go on with the show, and so we did … but toward the end of the show (you’re allotted exactly one hour) the clouds were so ominous, and it started raining, and we were worried we wouldn’t be able to finish.

Silver Lake Ski Club 4-tier pyramid
Traditionally in show skiing, the pyramid is the last act. And we were lucky enough that the weather had let us make it to the pyramid act. But though we had taken first in states numerous years in a row previous to that year, our competition that year was
TOUGH.

There were about 5 minutes deliberation among our team of whether or not we should go on with the show. I was in the pyramid act, and really, I was very young, and I didn’t have much of a say one way or the other. If I was to climb to the top of the pyramid, honestly, I didn’t have much of a choice. I trusted their judgment.

Let me just tell you one thing: Deciding to do ANY kind of sporting event in an impending thunder/lightning storm is NOT A SMART IDEA. And it’s REALLY not a smart idea if you’re ON THE WATER.

We decided to go with it anyway.

Luckily, we made it off the dock OK, but I was a part of that pyramid act, and let me tell you, when you’re standing on someone’s shoulders on water skis, being pulled by a boat at aroud 25-30 mph, and you see a lightning bolt come down from the sky NOT-TOO-FAR-IN-THE-DISTANCE, even at 13 years old, you start to wonder one simple thing: Is this REALLY worth almost getting killed?!

Obviously, since I’m writing this, we didn’t get killed, and yes, we did walk away with another state trophy that year, but I can’t help but think, “what if we didn’t? what if somebody were seriously hurt?”

Even though we were extremely lucky on all fronts, the fact is, given the weather conditions, we really should not have been on the water at that point. I was 3-tiers high, being pulled by a boat, on a lake, and I saw LIGHTNING, people! 

Which brings me to the Sugarland concert tonight in Indiana.

I’ve been working in and around music for over a dozen years. It’s not nearly as physically dangerous as show skiing (usually), but there’s a lot that can go wrong. Unfortunately, tonight, it was the concert goers vs. G-d, because there’s nothing anybody could have done. I mean, they were waiting it out … the opener had already performed, Sugarland had decided to wait it out, the fans were waiting, enthusiastically, in the rain and the storm … and then Mother Nature decided to take down the stage, and some dozen or more people with her. You can’t blame the roadies for this.

This isn’t even a question of whether or not that was “fair,” because those arguments are futile. This is more or less a reexamination of our common sense here, people.

Obviously, by my example above, I’ve done some really stupid shit in the name of glory.

And obviously, by my twitter friend’s example above with the REO Speedwagon story, people will do some similarly stupid shit in the name of glory/music/whatever. I could add plenty more of my own examples to that, but I won’t.

The fact is, however — it doesn’t matter how “die-hard” you are in your passion, whether it’s music, or sports, or whatever … if your safety is in danger, your dedication is trivial.

(Note that I am NOT talking about those brave men and women who put it all on the line every day for our country … that’s a totally different story. NOTHING they do for our freedom is trivial, and EVERYTHING they do is appreciated.)

But the things we civilians take pride in — whether it’s a water ski state championship, or saying “I saw Suglarland in the pouring rain” … is, indeed, trivial compared to the big picture here, and we need to just use some common sense. I know that once those folks were there in the crowd, they couldn’t quite easily say “never mind, I’m going home.” But still, I chose not to go see Kid Rock tonight for a reason. I had plenty of opportunities. The degree of which you’re a fan doesn’t matter. The fact is, there will always be another concert, there will always be another tournament, and there will always be another chance to do or see something cool. But there will never be another YOU.

So please, be careful out there.

Photo 1 via IndyStar, photo 2 via the Silver Lake Ski Club. 

Filed Under: Miscellaneous, Music, personal, Social Media · Tagged With: , , , ,

Content Marketing at its finest: Kenny Chesney’s No Shoes Radio

March 21, 2011 by · 5 Comments

No Shoes Radio screenshotA couple weeks ago, I was having “one of those days” … you know, those days where nothing’s going right and you’re in a crummy mood and you can’t seem to shake it. Out of the blue, a friend of mine sent me a tweet that said something like, “Hey, @damnredhead, check it out: No Shoes Radio! Come join me!” followed by a link.

Curious (and knowing she’s too smart to have been hacked), I clicked and found myself suddenly in a much better mood. I wasn’t in Margaritaville, but I was close — I found myself in the neighboring world of country singer Kenny Chesney’s No Shoes Radio, an online radio station of feel-good music that spans everywhere from Simon & Garfunkel to Coldplay to the Pixies to yes, Kenny Chesney and Jimmy Buffet.

I could have just said “thanks” to my friend and stopped there, but being of the marketing mind something immediately stood out to me — No Shoes Radio is one fine piece of content marketing.

For some reason, it seems like people are just now waking up to the fact that gee, content is kind of important in marketing. In fact, as Will Davis points out in this excellent piece featured on Social Media Today, when many companies say they want to “do social media” they really mean content marketing  — they just don’t know it yet.

Is “content marketing” a new buzzword? I sure hope not, because it’s certainly not a new concept. Or, as as Ian Laurie says so eloquently in this awesome post,

‘Content’ has been important since your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great ancestor clubbed a close relative and explained themselves by saying ‘ook’. And content drives internet marketing. It always has. Saying it’s revolutionary is like taking a deep breath and declaring “OH MY GOD I’VE DISCOVERED AIR.”

So, what makes No Shoes Radio so special? What makes it great content marketing? Here area few reasons:

It provides a service.

I was in a crummy mood, and the music made me feel better. Not only that, it was great to have on in the background as I worked. It played familiar songs I could sing along to like Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man,” as well as some newer songs I wasn’t as familiar with. It made my day a lot more pleasant by discovering it.

It’s branded, but it’s not overt or intrusive.

Yes, it’s to promote Kenny Chesney’s upcoming recently kicked off “Going Coastal” tour, and yes, it’s co-branded by his tour’s sponsors. But you wouldn’t know it right away. Sure, there are some audio clips of Kenny goofing off and doing interviews about the upcoming tour, but it’s much less in-your-face than say, any of the commercials you’re usually made to watch before viewing a video online.

On the right side is a panel that, if you’re curious, will slide out when you mouse over it, and offers some promotions to win concert tickets and other things from his sponsors, but everything is optional and it’s rather subtle. If you want to sign up at the top of the site, you can, and every time you sign in gives you a chance to win something, but again … it’s far from shoved down the user’s throat.

It’s not writing.

There’s a widely-held misconception that when people hear “content” or “content marketing,” they think blog posts and whitepapers. While yes, those are considered content, the truth is content is anything that can be consumed.

All bases are covered, and it’s fun!

Of course, there’s a Twitter feed, a Facebook page, a store, news, a Firefox add-on (more of a skin), and yes, iPhone users, there’s an app for that. Every day there’s a different background picture, but everything about No Shoes Radio stays consistent with Kenny Chesney‘s fun, laid back brand.

So there ya have it … a great example of content marketing, by none other than a country music singer. Check out No Shoes Radio and let me know what you think in the comments. If you’ve got any other great examples of content marketing that’s not the usual, run-of-the-mill stuff, I’d love to hear about them.

Oh, I almost forgot — for the uninitiated, No Shoes Radio is named after his song/philosophy “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems.” See the video below.

Hat tip to Nichole Brown for bringing NSR to my attention.

Filed Under: Case Studies, Featured, Music · Tagged With: , , , ,

Natalie Merchant awakens from 8-year slumber with Leave Your Sleep, leaves a lasting mark on Ann Arbor with two shows 7/27/10

August 3, 2010 by · 3 Comments

Natalie Merchant promo shotWhen it comes to artists, true artists in every aspect, few are as pure (and under-appreciated) as Natalie Merchant. Formerly known as the lead singer for 1980s college-rock phenom band 10,000 Maniacs (yes, they’re still around), Merchant built quite a cult following for herself after splitting with the Maniacs in 1993 and releasing her debut album, Tigerlily, with hits such as Carnival and Wonder.

I am among that cult following.

Since leaving her label Elektra in 2002, Merchant’s only album had been The House Carpenter’s Daughter, which resurrected many all-but-forgotten gospel and folk songs. However, up until recently, I had always regarded her 1998 release Ophelia as her best work.

After an eight-year hiatus from cutting any albums or touring at all, Merchant is back with Leave Your Sleep, which is sure to be considered her magnum opus for years to come.  In these eight years “off the map,” she focused on raising her daughter Lucia, and between Motherland and motherhood arose a creative curiosity in children’s poetry.

A week ago today was a very special day for a die-hard like me. I was able to catch not one, but TWO performances by Natalie Merchant in downtown Ann Arbor.

At the very last minute, she agreed to do a special noon in-store performance at Borders Bookstore 01. Lucky for me, this is about 5 or 6 blocks down the street from my office, and I can’t think of a better way to spend a lunch break than to watch one of my favorite artists perform for the first time in eight years in an intimate performance in a bookstore, with a special meet and greet afterwards.  Ann Arbor’s 107.1 hosted the event, and broadcast half the show on air. (Tip: If you go to their website and sign up to be an “Insider” (it’s relatively hassle-free), under “Audio Archives” you can stream the six tracks they recorded.)

Posted using Mobypicture.comI only wish I thought enough at the time to write the entire setlist down in my BlackBerry, but was too captivated by the performance to think of anything else but how awesome it was to be there. I took a few shots with my phone, but AnnArbor.com has a nice gallery of that performance you should totally check out.

The main show itself was . . . wow. For someone who has seen her as many times as I have throughout the years, I can tell you that it was much different than “the usual,” but in a good way. Overall, she collaborated with over a hundred musicians on Leave Your Sleep, all of whom are named in the liner notes of the album, and her live band was much different than she’s had it in the past. There was no drum kit, nor a keyboard/piano, but plenty of strings, including a cello, an upright bass, a banjo, a fiddle, the usual lead and rhythm guitars, a snare, and an accordion and a tuba thrown in for good measure.

The first half of her set was entirely composed of songs from Leave Your Sleep, and each song had an accompanying story about the poem it was grown from, along with slides of the poet and educational, sometimes amusing commentary beforehand by Ms. Merchant herself, on her research of the poet, the song, and how it came to be.

She opened the show with her adaptation of obscure poet Charles Edward Carryl’s poem The Sleepy Giant, about a giant who used to eat little boys and is now reformed, much to the relief of the little boy to whom giant is speaking.  From there she led into her adaptation of the classic Mother Goose The Man in the Wilderness, a song with a very classic Merchant-esque musical arrangement, in the same vein as her Motherland album.

However, the rest of the first half of the show was anything but classic Natalie Merchant musically. One of the things that stands out about Leave Your Sleep over her other albums is the amount of thought and research that went into every song, not only about the poem and the poet, but the time period in which they were written, the musical stylings that accompanied the era, and of course, her creative liberty to adapt the piece. In all of Merchant’s performances, she is not just a singer, but a full-out interpretive dancer to each and every song, and this show was no exception.

For example, not much is known about the British poem The King of China’s Daughter, whose author is unknown, however the song itself has a very classic Chinese sound to it, and in fact, she had some very talented Chinese musicians record the song with her for the album. She danced a hypnotic interpretation to the arrangement using a Chinese paper lantern as a prop, and took you back to one of the ancient dynasties right there in the theatre. (Or, as someone I know would say, “it sounds really plinky-plinky.”)

In The Janitor’s Boy, by child prodigy Nathalia Crane, whose first book of poems (by the same name) was published at the age of 11 in 1924, Merchant appropriately adapts the poem to a very swanky, jazzy arrangement in the style of the 1920s, and glides across the stage as if to portray a sultry lounge singer.

She closed the Leave Your Sleep portion of the show with a haunting song entitled Equestrienne, by Rachel Field (1894 – 1942), a song so haunting it’ll linger with you hours later. Here’s a video of her doing the song at the Philadelphia show in April:

The encores. Oh the encores. . . .

. . . the encores began the second half of the show that night, where the majority of the audience would be a bit more familiar with the material, as she began with Life is Sweet and played other more-well-known hits such as Carnival, Wonder, and closed with Kind and Generous (typical). But it was a couple rare nuggets that she threw in that had old school fans like me in love with this show — she played Eat for Two, from her 10,000 Maniacs days, the lead track from Blind Man’s Zoo (1989). I can’t honestly remember the last time I saw her do this live, if ever, but . . . what a dramatic performance. She slowed the tempo down significantly from when she did it back-in-the-day, and the song was all the more intense with abrupt breaks at strategic intervals — if it gives you any indication, I literally watched this one with my mouth open and chills down my spine.

The other pleasant surprise? Don’t Talk, another 10,000 Maniacs-era one, from 1987’s In My Tribe album. I was very glad she threw in a couple of the really old songs for the die-hards, and all in all, I can’t say she’s lost any of her stage presence and/or zest over the years. Natalie Merchant is looking and sounding better than ever, and though she said she “won’t be coming back to Ann Arbor for many years to come,” I can only hope that isn’t true. She’s in a league of her own, one of the most seasoned singers, songwriters, and all-around true artists of our era, and it would be a shame to not see her again for another eight years.

Natalie Merchant Full Set List 7-27-10 Michigan Theatre, Ann Arbor

The Sleepy Giant
The Man in the Wilderness
The King of China’s Daughter
Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience
Spring and Fall: to a young childNatalie Merchant Michigan Theatre marquee
maggie and milly and molly and may
The Peppery Man
The Janitor’s Boy
Bleezer’s Ice-Cream
Adventures of Isabel
Calico Pie
If No One Ever Marries Me
The Dancing Bear
Equestrienne

1st Encore:

Life is Sweet
River
Eat for Two
The Worst Thing
The Letter

2nd Encore:

Carnival
Don’t Talk
Wonder
Michael Row Your Boat Ashore (improv)
Kind & Generous

Note: All links to albums in this post are Amazon Affiliate links.

Here is a link to AnnArbor.com’s review of the show.

Filed Under: Music, Reviews · Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Music Monday | New video by Carolyn Striho – “Sing it to Me”

July 19, 2010 by · 1 Comment

Back in April I wrote a preview post of the 2010 Detroit Music Awards for Detroit Unspun and interviewed my friend Carolyn Striho, who was nominated for twelve DMAs, the most of anybody this year. She ended up taking home three, including Outstanding Rock/Pop CD for Honesty. Carolyn has collaborated with a slew of amazing musicians in the past, including punk legend Patti Smith, but she’s an amazing songwriter/singer/performer in her own right.

Nothing exemplifies this more than her new video, “Sing it to Me,” a sultry, Spanish-sounding single with a film noir vibe that is slightly reminiscent of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” video (minus the controversy). At the time I interviewed Carolyn for my DMA story, she mentioned that the following day she was going to be shooting a new video, and this is the product of those shoots. It was directed by Mark Kinnunen of Tears of Nimbus Films, and I’ve gotta say — it’s the best effin’ video of any local artist I’ve ever seen, no matter the scale of the artist’s fame.

I feel very fortunate that I know such a wide variety of talented people, and this kind of awesomeness is a constant reminder.

Find more of Carolyn Striho on ReverbNation & MySpace, and support this amazing Detroit musician by purchasing the award-winning album “Honesty” on iTunes or CD Baby. If you’d like to read more about her, there’s a great feature on Carolyn in the June 17th edition of the Detroit Free Press.

Filed Under: Music · Tagged With: , , , ,
« Older Posts

Bad Behavior has blocked 229 access attempts in the last 7 days.