ATP New York 2009: Review

It’s perpetually 1972 at Kutsher’s Country Club, the utterly perfect location for the New York incarnation of ATP. The event may attract several generations of indie rock fan, but for the people who run the resort this is no different to a local wedding or bar-mitzvah. So Jim Jarmusch and David Cross stalk the corridors while high haired ladies staff the cosmetics counter and a lovely old man performs Patsy Cline covers on his organ. Imagine Steve Albini walking into the department store in Are You Being Served? while Mrs. Slocombe carries on regardless, and you’re somewhere close to picturing the bizarro world of ATP New York.

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ATP and the New Festival Experience

The music world has ushered in some radical innovations this decade. The preeminence of iTunes, the iPod, and MP3 files has caused us to fundamentally alter the way we listen to music. But this has also been the decade when the music festival grew up and branched out into previously uncharted territories. A typical scene from a ‘90s festival featured concertgoers caked in mud, sword-swallowers and jugglers, and unhappy camping experiences for all concerned. The lineups had certainly improved, with forward-thinking festivals such as Reading in the U.K. and Lollapalooza in the U.S. mostly shedding the hippie jam-band ethos that had prevailed, instead bringing in alternative rock and indie acts to entertain the masses.

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Euros Childs - Son of Euro Child: Review

There’s something to be said for Euros Childs’ bloody-minded determination to foist his music on the world. To the casual listener he may appear laid back, in-thrall to the easy life, happy to let his unorthodox words and somber pop tunes land in the laps of a small band of devotees. The reality is quite different. This is Childs’ fifth album in three years, released for free on his website after various dalliances with major record companies and high profile indie labels came to an end. A lack of commercial success and dwindling resources have been swept aside, with the former Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci frontman picking up keyboards from car boot sales to get the job done.

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Rock Music and the Battle to Go Green

In 2007, a series of concerts took place across the world under the Live Earth banner. The aim of the shows was to alert people to the damage being wreaked on the planet by climate change, a hot-button topic that was facing resistance and scorn from the George W. Bush administration. Madonna, Genesis, Bon Jovi and Spinal Tap were among the eclectic lineup of performers who played on the day, sparking many jokes that hairspray bills and expensive lighting were causing irreparable damage to the environment despite the good intentions of everyone involved. The organizers refuted these claims, saying the events were carbon neutral and promising to purchase carbon credits to offset any damage done.

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Everybody Needs a 404

In 1996, Fatboy Slim released his single “Everybody Needs a 303,” and the genre that would become known as Big Beat was born. The song paid tribute to the Roland TB-303, a bass synthesizer/sequencer that had long been a key component in the hardware arsenal of many influential electronic music composers. The instrument initially helped define house music as Chicago musicians picked up and manipulated the 303, and its squelchy synth patterns became ubiquitous when the acid house boom took hold in the early ‘90s.

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The Selling of a 21st Century Pop Star

Hundreds of used copies of Lady Gaga’s The Fame are freely available at knockdown prices on Amazon and EBay. It’s not surprising; journalists were flooded with copies of the CD prior to its release in August 2008. Sometimes, multiple copies of the disc would even arrive in the same week. Her name wasn’t as recognizable back then, her ubiquity still agonizingly out of reach. Fast forward a year and it’s difficult to imagine Gaga having many aspirations left, although her bolshy, Madonna-esque outlook on life would never allow her to admit to that. For Lady Gaga, this is just the beginning.

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Chris Brown and the Death of the Music Video

So video didn’t kill the radio star after all. For a while back there, it even seemed like the two mediums were happy to co-exist. Radio proved to be a remarkably resilient beast, while video became an artform in its own right via innovative work from directors such as Russell Mulcahy, Spike Jonze, and Michel Gondry. Certain posthumous commentaries on Michael Jackson’s career recalled the halcyon days of MTV, and how he became the first African American artist to gain heavy rotation on the network. Jackson did more than that-—his “Billie Jean” and “Thriller” videos helped establish MTV as a powerful force in the American pop culture landscape.

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Deerhunter/No Age/Dan Deacon: Live Review

The ‘round robin’ format is gaining real traction in the United States. The set up is simple: take three (or more) bands, squeeze them on stage together, and have them take turns playing songs. Members from other bands can dip in and out as they see fit, fostering a collaborative atmosphere that falls somewhere between Concert For Bangladesh-style indulgence and genuine inspiration. Dan Deacon has tried a few of these tours already, but when it was announced that he was going to test out the format with Deerhunter and No Age on board, complete with a huge free outdoor show in Brooklyn, it felt like the round robin concept had really arrived.

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The Artist As a Business Start-Up

Radiohead’s manager, Brian Message, appears to be on a mission to restructure the music industry. His ideas on how music should be presented and sold have already caused a mixture of glee and controversy among his peers. The pay-what-you-want model for In Rainbows set a fascinating precedent for the selling of music by major artists, and Message has also voiced his support for Joel Tenenbaum—-the man facing a court case against the RIAA for illegally downloading music files.

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The New T-Shirt Revolution

Most music fans have shelled out hard earned cash for a band T-shirt at some point. Sometimes, a simple band logo will suffice. At others, a tour T-shirt with a great list of dates on the back can work as a great souvenir. The recent(ish) trend for retro designs proves that the lowly band T-shirt is far from dead, and has even sparked a bizarre trend for people sporting clothing bearing the name of artists whose work isn’t familiar to them. How else to explain the abundance of Motorhead T-shirts draped over the skeletal frames of catwalk models a few years back? Lemmy must have had a good laugh about that one (a laugh that took him all the way to the bank).

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The Shock of the New

With MySpace caught up in a downward spiral, the question of where new bands should go to promote their wares online is currently a major issue in the music industry. Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor has made a thoughtful post on the topic, in which he outlines various strategies for upcoming artists who want to make their mark. Reznor believes that free is the way forward, and encourages new bands to forget about record sales. He proposes that bands build a fanbase by giving away music in exchange for an e-mail address, which can later be utilized for marketing purposes (promotion of live dates, merchandise, and even future record sales once an artist’s name is properly established).

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Sonic Youth on Jimmy Fallon: Report From the Band Bench

We cover a lot of band performances from late night talk shows here on Prefix. So I thought we should take it to the next level and actually attend one of the shows and report back from there. I scored a couple of tickets for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last week, figuring they have the best range of musical guests of all the talk shows. Last night (June 22) I made the trip to 30 Rock, where Fallon’s guests included John Leguizamo, Nick Cannon and Sonic Youth. These were ‘Band Bench’ tickets, meaning I would be ushered onto the bleachers behind the stage when Sonic Youth played, with instructions to “go crazy” from one of Fallon’s producers.

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Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker Interview

The Careers Through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP) is a non-profit organization that helps high school seniors gain scholarships to culinary school. The program was set up in New York City by Richard Grausman in 1990 and has subsequently spread across the country. Pressure Cooker was shot by Grausman’s daughter, Jennifer, and her filmmaking partner, Mark Becker. It follows three students, Erica, Dudley and Fatoumata, who attend Philadelphia's Frankford High School under the watchful eye of their Culinary Arts teacher, Wilma Stephenson. Wilma’s blunt teaching methods have made her a formidable figure in the education system, her forceful drive positively compelling her students to exceed expectations. Pressure Cooker is a deeply affecting movie that played to sold out crowds at the IFC in New York City, leaving barely a dry eye in the house as Wilma’s students attempt to gain admittance to the finest culinary schools in the country.

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The Future of Music Writing

Last week, a group of British music critics united on Twitter to discuss the pertinence of their work in an age when their jobs may be sliding into irrelevancy. An unquantifiable, but abundant portion of recorded music is now available to stream or download online, often for free. The days of turning up at a record store and basing purchases on a shaky premise (the name of a producer, or a reliable record label) are over, and have been for quite some time. During the Twitter debate, former Melody Maker scribe Everett True asked: “In the babble of voices that is web 2.0, how is one more voice - however well-informed and succinctly argued - going to stand out?”

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