
(Ryan Musick/CBS/Getty Images)
(Ryan Musick/CBS/Getty Images)
Rock the Vax
Does the world in which a bunch of pop and rock stars, Hollywood celebrities and a duke and duchess can get on TV for an hour and unite the world for a common cause still exist? Did it ever? I have my doubts, but I'll readily applaud the spirit of those who are compelled to try. Which, this weekend, means JENNIFER LOPEZ singing "SWEET CAROLINE" to 20,000 people at SOFI STADIUM in Inglewood, Calif., H.E.R. performing with 125 middle-school students in the stadium parking lot and J BALVIN grilling business leaders behind the scenes before performing on set shaped like the moon.
VAX LIVE: THE CONCERT TO REUNITE THE WORLD, which also features FOO FIGHTERS and EDDIE VEDDER, was taped last weekend but will air across multiple TV networks Saturday night as a one-hour special (an extended 90-minute version will be available exclusively on YOUTUBE). The goal is to raise money (mostly from corporations) to send vaccine doses to India, Africa and other places in dire need and to pressure world leaders to follow through and make it happen. It's also aimed at persuading hesitant Americans to get the Covid vaccine, while showing them one tangible reason why they should: the return of concerts like this, which was staged for about 20,00 invited, vaccinated first responders. It was the biggest concert staged in Los Angeles since the pandemic started.
"It ain’t LIVE AID or WOODSTOCK," KEN EHRLICH, one of the producers of the broadcast, told Variety (good, thorough roundup of how the event came together). "But in 2021, to have that many people in one place to listen to music, and get a message through about why we haven’t seen this for over a year, is historic.” Using plainer language, DAVE GROHL told the crowd, "Let’s work as hard as we can to make sure that we can do this every f***ing night for the rest of our lives."
Court Docket
CHRIS CORNELL's widow and children have settled out of court with a Beverly Hills doctor they accused of overprescribing drugs to in the months before his suicide in 2017... DON EVERLY is the sole author of the EVERLY BROTHERS' 1960 #1 single "CATHY'S CLOWN," according to a federal judge in Nashville, ruling in a decades-old dispute between Don and his late brother PHIL EVERLY and Phil's heirs over a song the brothers had long claimed they wrote together.
It's Friday
Has anyone written a song called "BANDCAMP FRIDAY" yet? A search on SPOTIFY says no, a search on Bandcamp yields this and this, both of which have their charms, but two seems insufficient, anyway today is that and you know what to do... There's new music from JACK INGRAM, MIRANDA LAMBERT and JON RANDALL, who went to Texas to cut an album of campfire songs called THE MARFA TAPES with acoustic guitars and a handful of microphones, and it may be the best album that doesn't get played on country radio this year. It also may be good Grammy-bait, or maybe that's wishful thinking on my part... MF DOOM's first posthumous album is his second collaboration with hip-hop trio CZARFACE, aka 7L, ESOTERIC and INSPECTAH DECK. SUPER WHAT? was originally intended for release a year ago, when he was still alive, but it was pushed back until now because of the pandemic... Ever-evolving Danish punks ICEAGE flirt with classic rock and power balladry on their fifth album, SEEK SHELTER... British rockers SQUID, who debut with BRIGHT GREEN FIELD, are part of the Post-Brexit New Wave... British YouTube star DODIE makes her full-length debut with BUILD A PROBLEM... Jazz tenor saxophonist JAMES BRANDON LEWIS pays tribute to GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER... Somehow pop singer/songwriter BEBE REXHA is only now releasing her second album, which unfortunately doesn't include a metal song because "everybody was very against it"... YOU AND ME is HEART guitarist NANCY WILSON's first solo album... The only way to hear MITSKI's soundtrack to the graphic novel THIS IS WHERE WE FALL is to buy the hardcover or deluxe edition of the book here.
There's also new music today from the late TONY ALLEN (which I mistakenly told you was coming out last Friday; apologies), LIL POPPA, QUANDO RONDO, ALLBLACK, NASIMIYU, MONSTA X (released Wednesday), WEEZER, PILE, ANGEL OLSEN (box set with bonus LP of rarities), SOUND PRINTS (Joe Lovano, Dave Douglas, Lawrence Fields, Linda May Han Oh and Joey Baron), ULYSSES OWENS JR. BIG BAND, MANDY BARNETT (tribute to Billie Holiday's album "Lady in Satin"), NOAH HAIDU (tribute to Keith Jarrett), RAG'N'BONE MAN, SARAH JAROSZ, TRAVIS TRITT, AMERICAN AQUARIUM ('90s country covers), JUDY COLLINS, CHLOE MORIONDO, ASHE, FIVER WITH THE ATLANTIC SCHOOL OF SPONTANEOUS COMPOSITION, SUFJAN STEVENS, INDIA JORDAN, MONTRÉAL SCRATCH ORCHESTRA, A CERTAIN RATIO, GREY AURA, SUMO CYCO, MAN ON MAN (Roddy Bottum and Joey Holman), MEPHITIC GRAVE, ILAN BLUESTONE, SOPHIA KENNEDY, L'ORANGE & NAMIR BLADE, TEE GRIZZLEY, COCHISE, TOOSII, GLENN CLOSE & TED NASH (yes, that Glenn Close; it's a spoken-word jazz album), HOT KNIVES, AXIS SOVA, TEKE::TEKE, the MIGHTY MIGHTY BOSSTONES, ANNIE HART, ALY & AJ and, last and least, LATEST RECORD PROJECT VOL. 1 is a good album title, but unfortunately it's a 2021 VAN MORRISON album, which contains, in "THEY OWN THE MEDIA," the most offensive song I've heard from a major artist in a very long time, and it isn't an aberration. Shabbat shalom, Mr. Morrison.
Rest in Peace
Composer and electronic music pioneer JOEL CHADABE... Pittsburgh rapper FLATLINE NIZZY, at least the eighth American rapper murdered this year; it's May.