Summerteeth

Covid-19, you're not alone in preventing people from seeing live music. Here's Stereogum writer CHRIS DEVILLE's loving ode to going to his first concert in a year and a half—WILCO Sunday night in Columbus, Ohio—accompanied by an explanation that his life as a father might have had as much to do with that long lull as the pandemic. "Not that I was exactly out at shows every night *before* COVID-19," DeVille writes. "You know how it goes." But this weekend everything fell into place and, to quote Stereogum's headline, "Damn, It Felt Good." Live music, it's a salve. (And this might just be an excuse for me to point out that Wilco has opened every show on its current tour with "A SHOT IN THE ARM." You would, too, if you had a song called "A Shot in the Arm." Still, well played.)

And then there's nature. BONNAROO on Tuesday fell victim to Hurricane Ida, which, not satisfied with its vengeful path through New Orleans, the soul of American music, headed north to Tennessee and, reconfigured as Tropical Depression Ida, soaked the site of what would have been the biggest American music festival in two years. It may or may not have been a good idea to try staging the fest in the middle of one of the hottest hot spots of the current Covid-19 wave, even with strict requirements for proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test, but festival organizers were determined to go ahead after having to cancel twice in 2020. The return of live music is going to be touch-and-go for a while, there's no way around that. For Bonnaroo, Mother Nature did what the Delta variant couldn't. Canceling the fest only two days before it was scheduled to begin, with fans already on the way, was no doubt a painful decision, but the right decision. The cost will be significant. But after all this natural disaster, can we afford a man-made one? That cost would be even higher.

Money for Something

BILL ACKMAN's PERSHING SQUARE HOLDINGS is going to end up owning 10 percent of UNIVERSAL MUSIC after all. The fund is paying $1.15 billion for its final 2.9 percent piece. And in case anyone else has that kind of dough lying around, Ackman thinks WARNER MUSIC is undervalued, too... And for anyone who wants to convert their music copyrights into a few million bucks, here are the tax reasons why it might make sense to sell your publishing catalog now instead of waiting, at least according to a trio of entertainment wealth managers. In case anyone still owns their publishing. Which is no longer clear to me.

Rest in Peace

Bluegrass banjo player BILL EMERSON of the Country Gentlemen... RUTH MARX, a commercial jingle singer who also sang backup for her son, Richard Marx.