One, Two, One Two Thr...

Imagine a band onstage, any genre, metal, funk, classical, doesn't matter. Imagine a featured instrumentalist—maybe the lead guitarist, maybe the drummer, maybe the principal French horn player—deciding at the outset of a piece that she's going to start soloing at the two minute 45 second mark. Not after the second chorus, not at the beginning of the 37th measure, just wherever everyone happens to be at 2:45. That probably wouldn't work, would it? For most ensembles in most situations it would be a terrible idea. (But power to the soloist and the group that can make that work; I want to see your next show.)

The British government was kind of doing that when it decided earlier this summer that it was going to lift almost all Covid-19 restrictions on July 19, even if case counts throughout the country were crescendoing, even if a variant was running wild, even if there still wasn't enough vaccine to go around, even if cases were showing up everywhere from the Olympic village in Tokyo to a Dutch music festival specially designed to keep the virus from spreading. The government didn't actually say any of that "even if" stuff. It just made clear it wasn't listening for any of it. Chorus not over yet? Chords haven't come around? Singer's in the middle of a line? Too bad. July 19 is here. Time to cue the saxophone.

PRIME MINISTER BORIS JOHNSON made a strange announcement Monday, the first full day of freedom from masking, social distancing and other restrictions at music venues and other businesses. Pivoting away from that full freedom just as it was getting started, Johnson said he's going to order music venues to require proof of vaccination—the so-called vaccine passport—from all patrons starting more than two months from now. Why two months from now? Because that's when all adults over 18 in the UK will have had the chance to be fully vaccinated. That sounds reasonable—you can't require people to have vaccines if you haven't made the vaccine sufficiently available—until you turn the logic around and realize the prime minister is saying maskless nightclubbing can't work if everyone isn't vaccinated and yet that's exactly what we're going to do for the next two months: Covid is surging and maskless, unvaccinated 18-year-olds are being encouraged to throw caution to the wind. The rhythm section isn't ready for that 16-bar sax solo to start but just go ahead and start anyway. You've waited long enough.

But have we?

Etc Etc Etc

Today would have been POP SMOKE's 22nd birthday and Spotify and Complex are marking the occasion by premiering COMPLEX SUBJECT: POP SMOKE, a six-part podcast on his life. Host DJ PVNCH will moderate a conversation about Pop Smoke's legacy with writers SHAWN SETARO and DANYEL SMITH in Spotify Greenroom at 5pm ET... TAYLOR SWIFT, CÉLINE DION and the EAGLES were the three highest-paid musicians in the US in 2020, a year in which, says Billboard, hip-hop and R&B artists stormed the top 40, fueled by big streaming paydays. Swift was one of several artists on the list with zero touring income. Worldwide, QUEEN, Swift and BILLIE EILISH topped the earnings chart... Two predictions (paywall) from IRVING AZOFF: Ticket prices will go up because "acts want to make up for lost time" and TV awards shows and "that whole kind of genre of music on TV" are in "serious danger"... KEIGO OYAMADA, better known as CORNELIUS, has stepped down from his gig as a composer for the Toyko Olympics opening ceremony after apologizing for bullying disabled classmates when he was a kid.

Rest in Peace

ROBBY STEINHARDT, violinist, vocalist and founding member of Kansas.