(Keep Feeling) Vaccination

What if the live event industry doesn't have to wait for enough people to get their Covid-19 vaccinations before it goes back to work? What if it can put itself back to work as part of the vaccination effort itself? That's the lightbulb of an idea that a broad industry coalition including LIVE NATION, AEG and the NATIONAL INDEPENDENT VENUE ASSOCIATION proposed in a letter to PRESIDENT BIDEN Tuesday.

“Live events is one of the best prepared, best equipped, most experienced industries in America to manage and control large crowds in a rapid, organized fashion," they wrote. "Moving people in, out, and around a public gathering space swiftly and safely is the foundation of our industry." And because the companies and their venues are largely shuttered, they add, they're ready to get to work immediately.

The Wall Street Journal's ANNE STEELE notes (paywall) that the FORUM in Los Angeles is among the venues that have already been turned into public vaccination sites. But the coalition behind the letter represents urban, suburban and rural locations across the US equipped with, among other features, refrigeration systems and staffs who know how to use ticketing systems efficiently.

I'll note that NIVA—a leading force in successfully lobbying Congress for rthe $15 billion SAVE OUR STAGES act—represents independent venues who normally see industry giants Live Nation an AEG as rivals, if not existential threats. Reaching across the aisle to join forces with those threats sounds like a good example of, to use a current term of art, unity. "It's human nature to come together in good times and bad," Live Nation CEO MICHAEL RAPINO said. It's rock and roll nature to do that with a little swagger. "If the live event industry was tasked with vaccination distribution" Rapino tweeted last week, "we would have it done in a weekend, sold t-shirts and beer and a meet and greet with Fauci."

Separate MODERNA, PFIZER and FAUCI t-shirts, please, if you wouldn't mind.

New Rules?

Does the music biz need new/better rules and protocols for a world where you can buy (or lease) a beat on the internet on Monday, record a song on your laptop on Tuesday, have a viral hit in TIKTOK on Wednesday and have labels and managers blowing up your phone on Thursday? By which time your original lease agreement for the beat could already be on its way to expiring (if, for example, too many people are streaming the song)? Here's a story of one particular mess involving 20-year-old songwriter CALEB HEARN—whose viral blowup in December took a few more days than that, but not that many more—and a young manager, JUSTIN GOLDMAN, which has led to legal threats, an online war and questions about how prepared new artists have to be in such a fast-moving space and where exactly the border is between what managers (or anyone else in the business) can do when they come across that artist, and what they *should* do. When does monetization become exploitation? What do both sides need to know about the music business come Thursday and, maybe more important, what does the music business need to know about them?

And You Won't Have to Walk Down 6th Street

SXSW may be a virtual affair in 2021 but that apparently isn't stopping the fest from filling up a week in March with an onslaught of bands from around the world. A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS, THEON CROSS, WAVY THE CREATOR, SQUID and ASTRID SONNE are among the first 100 artists announced for showcases that will be livestreamed in a musical blitz starting March 16. WILLIE NELSON will deliver SXSW's keynote speech. Presumably/hopefully someone's hard at work putting together a raft of unofficial parties, if only so someone else can put together a comprehensive unofficial guide to all those events. Wristbands will be virtual, obviously... Props to the WalesOnline's headline about "World's first DEPECHE MODE-themed barber shop" for its implication that at some point there'll be a second.

Rest in Peace

SoundCloud rapper 6 DOGS... Chicago (the city, not the band) drummer JOE CAMARILLO, best known for his long tenure with the WACO BROTHERS... British folk singer and radio presenter MICK PEAT.