Live Streaming: A New Frontier
Patti & Bruce, Experimental Music on YouTube, musicians relief org, Blakey, Roxy, X, Genesis P-Orridge
In the wake of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, there is a renewed vigor behind attempts to create a viable business model around live streaming performances by music artists.
In the days before television, people gathered around their radios to hear live music.
During the swing era, popular dance bands like the Benny Goodman Orchestra and the Count Basie Orchestra were broadcast live from dance halls and swanky hotel ballrooms regularly, as were vocalists like Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, and June Christy. People in rural Tennessee and Kentucky tuned in to hear the Grand Ol' Opry broadcast live each and every week. The opportunity for many of these people to actually see a live performance by these artists was rare.
Ask yourself this--is the typical stadium performance, where performers are incredibly distant from people in even the mid-range seats and it's easier to watch the performance on a Jumbotron, really any different than live streaming? They are in one respect--the energy of a massive crowd, which is usually led and controlled by the performer, is missing. So the best streaming performances will either be intimate affairs or they feature musicians who are energized by playing with other musicians in a studio-like setting.
I mean, what if The Last Waltz had been streamed live as well as being recorded and filmed, would music fans have plunked down some cash to have the show beamed into their living rooms live while they snarfed pumpkin pie and leftover turkey legs?
If The Beatles existed during the streaming era, would they have welcomed the opportunity to perform directly for audiences, without the circus-like atmosphere of a large rock tour?
I think the answer is yes.
How about the idea of a live streaming platform that allows viewers to purchase single events or subscription series, like concerts, or a channel (by genre) or individual artists who group together based on any number of shared criteria. The platforms exist to do this kind of thing and there are a lot of different ways to organize such a model. People are already organizing mini-festivals online, like Shut In and Sing, a collection of country, folk, and Americana songwriters who have a rotating calendar of shows on StageIt.com.
Not every musician is a perfect fit for this approach, but consider recent non-traditional performance opportunities by Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen. Both created a different kind of show that grew organically out of writing memoirs, and both created new ideas of what could be done to intermingle music, storytelling, and theater.
There are ideas for a new model there, but the kind of shows that Smith and Springsteen have done are not necessarily adaptable to every artist, but there are a variety of ways of adapting what they are doing that could benefit other artists. Still, one fears that shows with less entertaining and established artists could become the 2020's version of Broadway song revue shows. At the very least they provide an impetus to think outside the box.
And the box is definitely part of the problem. For too long the music industry has focused on keeping its business model operating the way it always has. Now that may well be impossible, and that is good in many ways, although it comes about through tragic circumstances. Since the onset of file sharing and then streaming, musicians have been told that the way to make money is through live performances and selling merchandise. CDs and recordings were needed to keep fans' interest and provide a secondary revenue stream. Streaming intimate, 'living room' performances provide a chance to bring the music back as a point of focus rather than a peripheral element.
Live Streaming Performance lists
These are fairly comprehensive lists of live streaming performances by musicians from all styles and genres, and they are being updated regularly.
Virtual Music Events Directory (Cherie Hu)
Live streams & virtual concerts (Billboard)
Where to Stream Live Concerts During Coronavirus Shutdown (NPR)
Free experimental music documentaries on YouTube
This is a list of documentary films about experimental music you can currently see in their entirety for free on YouTube. The list will be published and updated periodically at the New Directions in Music website.
Harry Partch: The Outsider In his 1949 book Genesis of a Music this iconoclastic American composer claimed to be influenced by "Christian hymns, Chinese lullabies, Yaqui Indian ritual, Congo puberty ritual, Cantonese music hall, and Okies in California vineyards, among others.” In addition, he was influenced by the Indonesian gamelan and his years on the road as a part-time hobo. This documentary provides a solid introduction to one of America's most original, yet least known, experimental musicians.
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts This 2007 film documents the life of this most famous composer of the latter half of the twentieth century. Not only has Glass become well known, but his work is both recognizable and often passes unnoticed in soundtracks, commercials, and other ambient roles. Directed by Scott Hicks, screenwriter and director of Shine.
Reich on Reich Like Glass, Steve Reich is often described as a minimalist composer, but the differences between the two composers' work are monumental. Reich's early use of found sounds and spoken word sources suggest sampling and manipulation techniques later utilized in hip hop and electronic pop music.
Moog (Documentary) Interviews and conversations between Dr. Robert Moog and musicians who view the development of the original Moog synthesizer as well as subsequent developments by the company as nothing short of a complete revolution in the sound and recording of popular music. It's not a history at all, so if you're looking for that it isn't probably for you. But there is a lot to be gleaned from this tribute to the man and the instrument that became the biggest thing since the guitar.
Punk: Attitude Don Letts' 2005 film is the film they'd show you in school if they showed films about modern musical movements in school. It covers the idea of punk rock and its practitioners, from godfathers like the MC5 to the revivals and new artists that have been influenced by the classic mid-70s practitioners of punk rock. It's not perfect, but it gives people an idea of the much broader range of 'punk' sounds than one might expect.
Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany This really great documentary was made for BBC 4 and covers the Post WWII conscious attempt by young German musicians to create pop music that was less influenced by Anglo-American pop, a sound that defined the new, modern Germany. Features interviews and performance clips from all the major bands and figures in the movement.
Can: TheDocumentary Can is generally categorized as a Krautrock band, but their influence spread far and wide between the group's inception in the late '60s straight through the 1970s and '80s. The group played everything from hippy-chant trance stuff to funk-locked bass and drums that recall On the Corner-era Miles Davis.
Local Relief Organizations
If you are a musician or performer who needs assistance in meeting the needs of day to day living, there are many organizations that are rallying around musical creatives.
State by State Resource Guide for Music Professionals
Boston Music Maker Relief Fund
Greater Cincinnati Artist Relief Fund
Fort Worth Artist & Service Worker Relief Fund
Recording Academy and MusicCares Covid-19 Relief Fund
Five Tracks I’m Listening to This Week:
Bonus Tracks
Shelved Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers release is on the way. Just Coolin’, will soon be released for the first time, more than 60 years after it was made. Blue Note announced an April 24 release date this morning, and shared the first single: “Quick Trick,” a sauntering shuffle composed by Bobby Timmons, and never before issued in any form.
In ‘The Lost Art of Deep Listening’ L.A. Times staff writer Randall Roberts challenges people to listen to three vinyl albums in a row without distraction, technological or human.
I just found this piece from around a year ago. ‘How Roxy Music Helped Define Generations of Pop’ by D.B. in The Economist is a tribute to the most influential band since The Beatles.
Baltimore-based writer Andrew Holter published ‘The Last American Band’, a look at how L.A. punk band X came to identify more and more with America’s heartland rock sound, Last February. As an X fan, I found it pretty interesting and Holter’s observations about punk, heartland rock, race, and class identity are right on the money.
Genesis P-Orridge, industrial musician, performance artist, and provocateur, founded such influential projects as industrial band Throbbing Gristle and garage-electro band Psychic TV. Genesis, who preferred non-specific gender pronouns, died last month from longstanding leukemia. This article, written before Genesis’ death, discusses the artist’s controversial life and history, including allegations of abuse from former bandmate and sometime companion Cosey Fanni Tutti. Here is a video of Psychic TVs single ‘Godstar,’ a tribute to Brian Jones that is weirdly poppy and managed to scrape the British charts.
Please let your friends know about NDIM. Forward this newsletter, drop our web address or our Facebook page to someone you know who loves music more than almost anything else. Wishing everyone a healthy, peaceful week.