I can’t tell you what that first night down at Willie Mitchell’s nightclub on Beale Street was like for me back in 19881994 (ed note: thanks Archie), the night Charley Burch first took me in to meet the man himself. I couldn’t tell you because, well, I was young and unscrupulous back then and, not to mention, so much fun was being had, I felt like I was spending a New Year’s with my own family.

At the time, I was a very young man and I couldn’t tell you Willie Mitchell from Willie Stargell. I had no idea who the man was, his legacy or what he had done for Memphis music. I only knew he had a club, that he was exceptionally kind to me, and we took a mutual liking to one another that New Year’s Eve. He and his wife Anna Barbara, his family … they treated me as if I was part of their family, that I was welcome to be where they were. I was immediately taken with his daughters, Von and Lorrain, and his grandchildren, Archie and Boo. I felt like I had come home to Memphis for the first time. That night, I saw myself reflected. I felt, for the first time in my life, really, truly at home in Memphis.

In the days, weeks and years which followed, though, I grew to become intimately familiar with the life’s work of the legendary Willie Mitchell. From time to time I would catch myself in an awestruck moment when I thought about him and, often, sat speechless at having been so blessed to meet and know this great, great man. I was often fearful to speak up in his presence which, if you know me, is a rare feat in anyone’s presence.

Around Pops I always felt, as I do with people whom I hold in such admiration, the need to quietly listen and learn what I could, recognizing that time was indeed a precious commodity.

Tuesday morning, when I heard the news of Pops’ death, I became very still. For a long time, I knew this day would come, and in my mind I had tried to prepare so much for what I would say when it did. I knew that Pops had been ill for many months, that he had broken his hip back in September and was struggling to recover from cardiac arrest several weeks ago. At first, I was wrought with distress but, somehow, a kind of calm came over me.

I knew that Pops was at peace, that he didn’t have to struggle with the pain any longer.

When I think of Pops, I think of a man who was among a core group of people whom we refer to as “the winners” in the world of entertainment. He was as real as it gets, a visionary who could pick a hit record as easily as he could see through a situation, call bullshit on it, and move on without blinking or waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I can still hear Pops telling a joke, cutting on someone in a playful way for not doing something, or telling the most fascinating stories about entertainment that I’ve ever heard to this day to a slack-jawed room of listeners. I see Pops waiting for the playback with his trumpet in hand, or giving someone in the studio some quick vocal guidance to improve their range. I see him sitting at his desk, or adjusting the levels from behind the console, or on the phone in his office handling business at his studio. This is how I have him emblazoned in my mind: a man so dedicated to the craft of making records, the image is inseparable from the man himself.

Here is a man who, even at 81 years of age, was at the controls of his studio every single day of his life that he was physically able. You might be surprised to know: that was quite often. He gave and gave to the point where some might have given up. Instead, he approached the recording process with enthusiasm. Willie Mitchell exuded qualities that seem so lacking in others: elegance, dignity, strength, compassion, and an ear for music that was keen to the very end.

The term “legend” is a word we throw around far too much these days. We call people legends who have had three or four hit records. We call people legends who have done one or two great things. There are very few among those who are truly deserving of the title “legend”, whose body of work so thoroughly embodies the spirit of the term. Willie Mitchell lived a long and fascinating life, continuing to make his mark through 60 years of music, recording, performing and songwriting.

Without Willie Mitchell, we would never know the works of Syl Johnson, O.V. Wright, Ann Peebles, Otis Clay, Denise LaSalle or enjoyed the extensive body of work (which he was instrumental in crafting) by the Reverend Al Green. We would never have gotten to know Hi Records or the steady stable of brilliant soul, gospel, blues, rock and R&B performers whose work was recorded at Royal Studios, whose records appeared on that much-loved, independently-operated label during the many years he sat at it’s helm. At a time in the world where we focus on the power of the independent producer, performer or record label, Willie Mitchell wore all of these hats successfully and graciously, long before it was a point of fashion.

And you out there who call to mind words like “genius” to describe yourself or others, I challenge you to place your own legacy against that of Willie Mitchell. Few would begin to stand up to measurement, and none would have the impact that Pops did.

The Pops I knew was not a showy person, not a person who flaunted or was extravagant in an overbearing, blinged-out haze. Pops struck me always as a ferociously private person and, truth be told, I don’t see it as my duty to break that covenant with him. His life and his legacy exists in the sounds that we still sing and enjoy today from the many artists whose lives he has impacted. People that have recorded at Royal Studios in just this decade include Anthony Hamilton, Buddy Guy, John Mayer, Solomon Burke, Rod Stewart … the list goes on and on.

Much of the music Pops himself put into this world as an R&B performer of the 1950’s and 1960’s is long out-of-print, sadly. But like a cooling breeze whistling it’s way across South Lauderdale and Trigg on a blisteringly hot Memphis summer’s day, the music that Pops put his signature sound on can be heard everywhere in both classic and modern soul, blues, gospel, hip-hop, R&B and pop music. To call his impact “far reaching” fails, it seems to me, to make room for the impact his work will continue to have on generations to come.

The street that is named for him, in the neighborhood he made the home of Royal Studios for nearly 55 years, seems small but fitting tribute.  I want that people should wander back and forth down this street, any street bearing his name, and call to mind the plethora of great works Pops was a part of. I want them to think of the lasting joy Pops brought to Memphis and to the world through the gift of music.  If any of us should live to be 81 years old, we should all be so lucky to live a life so fulfilled and transition to the next world with such dignity.

Rest in peace, Pops. I’ll see you again someday. Thank you for being here for me in this world, being here for all of the children that your life’s work helped to inspire, and thank you for the many gifts you bestowed upon us.

We who were always unfit to walk in your shoes have much to learn from what you taught.

Willie Mitchell – “Reachin’ Out”

If you just want to let the whole list ride, play this playlist. If you want to jump around, I broke it down for you by chapter. I would say let it ride, but the option is yours.

Slept On: Chapter One — The truth.

If the truth scares you, you picked a bad time to come to my blog. Look, let me put you on to something: 2009 was a really horrible year for me, and I’m not alone. This was a year full of confusions, explanations, loss, rebirth and unsubtle change. If the rest of the world was a restless mess wallowing in its own mire, mine was a journey into a blistered tunnel of darkness and back into the light. Make no mistake: this list of records and this blog entry is something I wrote for me, and I’m sharing it with you.

I realize why we have best-of lists now: human beings like to have everything all in one place so they don’t have to do a lot of work. They like for people like me to do the work for them, and we gladly oblige your indulgences. I hope you will find enjoyment from my indulgences and that the story behind them doesn’t bore you to tears. These songs are in order from number 1 to number 40 on my best of 2009 songs list, in the exact order, in fact. I recommend headphones.

I realize that most people reading this thing don’t know me or know much about me. Blogging proffers a music fan and a writer a subtle kind of anonymity that I’ve shielded myself in for a long time. But part of 2009’s reawakening for me was that who I have been in my own sort of spiritual journey through life, this year and beyond, is part of the code. My story, the one I don’t talk about, is probably something you’d relate to: its more than reflections of emotion or opinion about music. I realize now that we share many common bonds, that each of our musical interests can in some ways secretly reveal our own character traits and flaws to the universe and to us.

As I see it, there’s really no way for me to continue talking about the records I should’ve listened to more, any records really, without getting into the reasons why I should’ve listened more. This year, I felt the universe wanted to end me.

Slept On: Chapter Two — Inverse Opposite Right Side Up

There’s this “gotta be cool” part of me that likes to use writing a music blog as some sort of crutch for not having to do very much else in life. Over the last few years, I grew accustomed to a certain kind of cache that comes with writing a music blog. I want you to like me and think I’m cool because I know something about music. But you know what? There’s a whole lot of mfkrs out there who know something about music besides me, and knowing something about music isn’t always enough.

In this year’s film An Education, there’s a scene in which the main character, Jenny, is dancing with her boyfriend’s best friend. She asks him, “Trying to work out what makes good things ‘good’ is hard, isn’t it?”.

He responds, “Well the thing is Jenny…you KNOW…without necessarily being able to explain why. You have taste. That’s not half the battle. That’s the whole war.”

I heard the words ricochet through my mind and, in an instant, I realized something dark about my intentions. In pursuit of maintaining some capability of being able to know what makes good things good, I slowly gave up on everything else that makes me who I have become in this world, showing no real regard of my station or lot in life in the process. I overvalued my sense of good taste and undervalued my ability to accomplish the things that I had once only dreamed about.

Both me and my little website here have been called “tastemakers” by people whose own taste I respect but, inevitably, would give me no financial backing or outlet to pursue aiding the makers of the tastes that I discussed here. They think we music bloggers are your free A&R people who sift thru the coal to find you a diamond. We are thought of as your psychic friend who stares deeply into our tarot cards or crystal ball or whiskey bottle, tells you what’s good and then, if you have money and are clever, you go out and sign the bands I tell you about and make them stars. Though I was loathe to repeat this term to anyone, I secretly got a kick out of it because let’s face it: who doesn’t want to be called a tastemaker? But later on, it felt dirty and unsatisfying. It was an empty, condom-free, cheap piece of intellectual ass that was easy to get, didn’t cost anything, got me fluffed up then let me fall apart.

Slept On: Chapter Three — Purpose

I admit this to you freely: I’ve done in my writing and blogging what I accused bands (both publicly and privately) of doing with their music. I have slowly allowed my fears of perception to sterilize the content of my work, becoming one of those writers who gets torn between turning his music reviews or opinions into Live Journalling and keeping it all bottled up and free of personal connection. I figure what makes the river between me and everyone else seem so much longer has been my unwillingness to let my guard down and show any vulnerability at all because it’s “unprofessional” to talk about one’s own self. Oh wait, so I don’t get paid shit to do this, and now I’m a professional?

To do so, I was told, assumes the reader gives a toss about me or my life as much or more than what they’re hearing. On the flip, I feared a piece like this would come across as weak to people, whether to other writers, to my friends or my family or to myself. Somewhere along the way, I got the idea that I had to keep working way too hard at things that didn’t matter to fit into this world that is an intimate part of my life. If I focused on my personal life in any way in the way I wrote or what I said, I was robbing the artists I talk about of the attention they deserve. After all, it’s supposed to be about them and not about me.

But right now, I don’t care what looks professional or what someone thinks about how I do my writing. I’m grateful that this year I’ve discovered there’s way more people out there writing the way I once wrote than I ever imagined when I started doing this in 2004. Isn’t the reason I write and you read, if you’re a regular reader, because you know how deeply music moves me?

Slept On: Chapter Four — Revelations

You feel that way, too, probably. Maybe you’re sitting at a cafe or a coffee shop trying to force an idea to the surface and you wanted some music to get your wheels turning. Maybe you’re a rapper with skills and no way out of your life, a young DJ or a music producer trying to get on that new ish.

You’re a wife or a husband, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a lover, a partner or maybe happily alone. Maybe you’re a painter staring at your empty canvas, a web designer or developer, a graphic artist or a graffiti artist. You’re at school or at work or you’re on the train and nobody will talk to you so you browse the web and look for music to change your mood.

You ate today or, maybe, you haven’t eaten yet because you only have enough money for food or cigarettes and a beer but not both and, well, cigarettes come first. Maybe its the choice between food or gasoline, between food for yourself or your kids. Maybe you can get someone to buy you lunch today or dinner. Maybe you’ve gotta go out and work the corner for a minute so you can make enough money to feed you and your son or daughter, get some new kicks or some rims or buy your girl some jewels. Or maybe you can’t make it out of the house today because instead of working the corner, the corner has finally started working you. Who knows.

Maybe you’re a singer, you want to be a singer, or it could be that you just love karaoke after too much sake or too many whiskeys? Maybe you’re a musician trying to find themselves in the lost highway of people creating. Maybe you’re sitting there in your bedroom at your parents house, dreaming about a world that exists only in pictures and videos you’ve seen and, perhaps, in the creativity of your own mind. You’re a miscreant. You’re a beautiful, torn, frayed and beaten but truly fantastic freak of nature gasping for some fucking air in a oxygen-deprived world that sometimes seems like it was built to keep you standing right where you are forever.

And then, there is music and for some handful of beautiful, painless minutes, you feel more alive than you ever thought possible just through the simple act of listening.

Slept On: Chapter Five — Escaping the Island of Self

For me, after God and my family, music is the most important part of my life. It is now and always has been for as long as I could remember. Whether I listened, watched, or created the music, I have always found and reawakened myself through music. And whatever with my self-consciousness: the truth was that someone already accepted me for me a long time ago, and that person is me. This year, for me, has been about learning to be vulnerable and humble at the risk of being thought of as weak, about letting go of control of things that I couldn’t change. I am still not good at it.

So this year, while I was supposed to be listening to records, I was going about the world feeling sorry for myself. I started the year feeling sorry for myself because I was poor, that I was having extreme difficulty picking up paying work. I starved and scrambled and hustled for basic survival. The work began to come in, and things became much more tolerable.

As if on cue, at the precise moment when the work picked up, I came down with a very serious illness. I developed a debilitating case of diverticulitis this year, complicated by multiple abscesses and punctuated by numerous emergency room trips and three hospital stays. My insides had decided they were going to work differently from the way they were intended, and there was little I could do except pray. I went from feeling sorry for myself for being poor to feeling sorry for myself because I had gotten sick and knew I could have died.

When faced with my own humanity, I began to disconnect from the world. Slowly, I went from working all the time into steadfast silence. I was forced to give up things that mattered to me like my weekly at Dish, jobs were lost to me and given to others, and I just sat here thinking, “When is this shitty part of the movie going to be finished?”

But in life, like any good movie I’ve ever seen, it’s the scenes that have the most dramatic effect which lead to the moment in which the audience can connect. In those hospital stays, through the drugs and the IV’s and the surgery and being forced to give up things that mattered to me in order to make my body whole again, I have entered a personal reawakening that has me thinking about different futures for myself than just being a blogger or a writer. You know, once upon a time not that long ago, I used to play music. I can sing my ass off. I can rap. I am not just some guy who writes music reviews on a website, but I’ve been hiding from the person I am in my own life. When I was in college, I studied in the best acting program in the United States. By time or circumstance, those lives shed me or I shed them. And in those blank moments of chaos that swirl around in my brain unable to calm me, I began to dread the notion of my life ending without ever pursuing my acting or releasing any of my own music.

These thoughts of mortality, which preyed on me for many a year prior to this one (but ever so quietly) became unsubtly louder and more direct, much like a stuck car horn that will not leave my ears so I can concentrate or recall where I am.

Slept On: Chapter Six — Walks Among Us

I realize I have spent four decades jumping from island to island looking for another castaway to hang out with. I can admit I have no idea what love is, don’t know my capacity for identifying or feeling it. That’s why I am still stranded out here wondering whether being alone out here is comforting or corrosive. I realize that what makes me hardest and most brittle is in direct parallel with the freedom I have enjoyed to do whatever I wanted without thought or consideration to anyone else. Perhaps if I just took the time to really give a damn about someone besides myself, I wouldn’t have had to go through all of this bullshit in 2009. That’s what I tell myself, of course. The truth is less technical: I got very unlucky and I’ve had to deal with it. And you, my fair reader, you have been unlucky too, haven’t you?

The life you thought you wanted turned out to be someone else’s nightmare and you got your own. Or maybe you’re living the dream? Maybe you’re living someone else’s dream and they’re living yours. Today, I think the truth that I want to fight against exists in a yesterday, and today has the potential to be something different. I don’t think I want to be rich and famous and make so much money that I never could afford a vacation. Today, I want to make enough money to eat and pay my rent and my bills, to do nice things for my mother and my family, to make their lives better. Sound familiar to you? I want to live a simpler version of the life I thought I wanted so that other people will have the same chance. If it should be that I can’t share my own artistic ability with the world, I want to share music with the world that pushes every endorphin in my body to its limit, that sends a rush across my senses and pushes off whatever yesterday I’m troubled by down a dusty street.

Slept On: Chapter Seven — Dedication and Unity

To the businessmen and bankers, the bosses, the bakers and boilermakers, the brave men and women in our armed forces, the bar keeps and bar stool savants, all of you dreaming of some door through which to walk that will change your life forever, this year was for all of you. This horrible, awful fucked up shitty year was for saints and sinners, beginners and trophy winners, trophy wives and the men who betrayed them, for hellos and goodbyes to parts of ourselves that we thought could never be greeted or walked away from. It was a year of firsts and lasts and in-betweens, for artists to create and for people figuring out what those creations mean. This year happened for all of your sins and took with it the wreckage of your being so that 2010 could be a better year for you. It was not ours to judge, it was ours to witness and to experience.

And until this moment, I haven’t found a way to let the emotion of this year come out of me. I bottled it up like I was saving it for some kind of renaissance that would happen later on. In between wiping away tears and trying to explain myself to people who don’t know me, who probably might not even give a shit what went on with me, I saw and became one with my essence and my mortality. I became open to enlightenment and, by becoming open, have begun an enlightenment agenda that I was made to discover.

When I finally started cracking the towering stack of records that I had not listened to in 2009, I saw myself sitting there in that stack, an unplayed CD or piece of vinyl that was begging to let himself be heard. As quickly as I started discovering the gems of 2009 pouring out of my speakers, I knew: what I slept on wasn’t just some records that I couldn’t find the time to pay attention to. because life had happened while I watched. What I’ve really slept on, and not just this year but for a long time before now, was family, my true friends and, importantly, my self and my own self-worth in this world.

Slept On: Chapter Eight — Seat Belts and Air Bags

Recognizing this got me to this moment. Like so many of you, whittling your lives away in places you don’t want to be doing shit you don’t want to do trying to figure out how to steer this ship of your own lives….forgiving myself has become my daily operation moving into the next decade and the next year.

But, as Georgia Muldrow put it so eloquently, “I feel like I’m running, not away but to take off and fly using this life as a runway.”

Now take these records that I have searched out for you and do what I’m going to do. Let there be no more 2009’s, and let 2010 be the year of new beginnings for us all. To the many whom we lost and those special few whom we each found, I give thanks to you all for the wonderful music and inspiration you’ve lent to me that I might pass it on to others. The gift of gratitude and so many intangible blessings have been given to me, and I will not take them for granted.

To forgive and forget and move on.

To rejoice in the spirit and be found.

To find ourselves in what’s been missing.

To see ourselves in the lives of the people we touch.

To dance with those that brought us and remember them to the future.

*** UPDATE: ***JesseCASH has set up a donation page requesting assistance to go directly to Vic’s family. Click here to be taken to the donation page. (via Kristin Hersh)

With a heavy heart, we can now verify that indeed, sadly, of one of the Athens music scene’s most enduring figures, songwriter and guitarist Vic Chesnutt, has died. The cause of death is suicide.

Surrounded by family and friends, Vic Chesnutt died in Athens Georgia this afternoon, Friday 25 December at 14:59.

Several news sources had reported on Thursday that Chesnutt had fallen into a coma, and rumors about his condition began to circulate on the internet. A Twitter message from Henry Owings, the man behind Chunklet Magazine and a friend of Chesnutt’s, first sent the news to people that Chesnutt had died, later confirmed by a piece published in The San Francisco Examiner.

However, many people close to the situation, including the head of Chesnutt’s label at the time of his death, Constellation Records, worked vehemently to let people know that Chesnutt was not dead but remained in a coma. As a result, major news outlets (including Billboard and Spinner) pulled their stories on Chesnutt on Christmas Eve, turning the profound sadness felt by Chesnutt’s many fans around the world to confusion over the facts.

Confined to a wheelchair since he was 18, when a car accident left him a quadriplegic, Chesnutt was a master of melodramatic songwriting, one who was able to use the tragedy of his accident as a means of becoming aligned with his life’s work. Chesnutt was known for crafting songs that proved him at times both precociously venerable and, frequently, restlessly vulnerable. When Michael Stipe, the lead singer of R.E.M., first discovered Chesnutt in the late 1980’s, he was so taken with his work that he was moved to produced Chesnutt’s first releases, Little and West of Rome. Chesnutt went on to create a sphere of influence with his music, including his seminal 1995 album, Is The Actor Happy?, an album which established him as one of the decade’s pre-eminent songwriting masters.

In 1996, Chesnutt’s music was recorded for the benefit album Sweet Relief II: The Gravity of the Situation by a variety of major industry figures, including Garbage, The Smashing Pumpkins Madonna and R.E.M. The proceeds from this album still continue to benefit Sweet Relief, a nonprofit organization that assists musicians without insurance in their times of medical need.

Chesnutt’s last two albums, At the Cut and Skitter on Take-Off (both released this year) have been lauded by fans and critics as being among his most vital in a career that spanned some 25 years. The albums now prove fitting swan songs to Chesnutt’s legacy. We here share sadness with and extend our condolences to his family, friends and many fans around the world.

UPDATE: A memorial service for Chesnutt appears to have been planned for Sunday, though it is not known whether it will be open to the public.

Vic Chesnutt – Flirted With You All My Life

[Songs Of Survival And Reflection: 'At The Cut' (NPR, 12/1/09)]

Apparently, some Christmas Eve confusion about the condition of Athens songwriter Vic Chesnutt, who was reported to be in a coma on Thursday, has led to speculation about rumors surrounding his reported death. Stories have swarmed on Twitter and on various blogs this evening about his death. It now appears that two sources which carried notice about his passing, Billboard and Athens Blur, have pulled their stories.

Right now, we don’t know what’s going. Under whatever circumstances, we wish the best to Vic Chesnutt, his friends, family and many fans around the world this Christmas day. (HT: Brooklyn Vegan)

[Songs Of Survival And Reflection: 'At The Cut' (NPR, 12/1/09)]

The story of the 1970’s teenage all-girl rock band The Runaways is one for the ages in both rock ‘n roll and punk rock. To read it in print exposes one to the extreme highs and lows that life in the world of rock and roll and punk rock proffers its disciples. The notion of watching the story unfold on screen promises to engage those unfamiliar with The Runaways a slice of cinematic intrigue with the all-too-true story of Joan Jett, Cherie Currie, Sandy West and Lita Ford.

Picture, then, the story of four teenaged girls who form a rock band in Los Angeles leading them to early fame, an unlikely connection to the newly-emerging scene of punk rock and sold out shows the world over. Their true story, as told by director Floria Sigismondi will feature expected breakout performances from two of Hollywood’s respected young actors: Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett and Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie. From the looks of this short trailer, there’s good reason for us to remain interested and optimistic about the finished film.

The Runaways – Queens of Noise

[The Runaways: Official Site]

Two key recordings which serve as bookends to Elliott Smith’s catalogue of solo recordings, Roman Candle (his first) and From A Basement on the Hill (ostensibly, his last), are being reissued by Kill Rock Stars on 6 April 2010. Roman Candle, Elliott’s first album, was issued by Portland’s Cavity Search Records in 1994. For the Kill Rock Stars reissue, Roman Candle been remastered by Smith family archivist Larry Crane. Crane, the respected long-time editor of Tape Op Magazine, served in several engineering capacities on Elliott’s work over the course of his career, predominantly as owner and operator of Jackpot! Recordings where Elliott recorded many of his earliest works.

Embarking on the journey of remastering Roman Candle, Crane says that his primary intention going in was to “make the album more listenable.” The job was never to create remixes from the masters or to purposefully make the record seem louder, Crane said. Instead, Crane tried to deal with intricacies that would give the audio a warmer quality. “We never tried to make this CD as loud as current, over-limited trends,” Crane says, “but just to match the volume of the rest of Elliott’s KRS catalog in a graceful way. Please note that none of this album is “remixed” from the master tapes – it is still composed of the mixes Elliott created himself.”

From A Basement on the Hill was previously released by ANTI- Records in 2004 and now becomes part of the Kill Rock Stars catalogue of Elliott Smith material.

To celebrate these two reissues, KRS is giving away this free, previously unreleased track, “Cecilia/Amanda” which was recorded at Jackpot! Recording Studio in 1997 by Larry Crane. And, until January 4th, Elliott Smith’s entire back catalogue is on sale both via KRS mail order (http://buyolympia.com/killrockstars) and via iTunes.

Elliott Smith – Cecilia/Amanda

[Sweet Adeline:KRS (Label)]

Along comes a video for yet another totally ill track off Skewby’s epic “Proving You Wrong Since 1988″ mixtape which, if you don’t have already, you can get by clicking here and downloading it, aiight?

Skewby – “Talk 2 em’”

With free downloads from St. Vincent, Deerhunter, Camera Obscura, The Mountain Goats and M. Ward just to name a few, famed UK label 4AD has unleashed a free downloadable sampler of their 2009 releases in time for the holidays. Follow the links above to listen or download from 4AD.

Editor’s note: This is just a copy/pasta press release. I’m in a hurry & don’t have time to detail my thoughts, but you should definitely mark your calendar and check this out.

Matisyahu’s Festival of Light to be Streamed as a Live Webcast via Ustream on Sunday, December 20!

The closing night of Matisyahu’s 4^th annual Festival of Light, an eight-night run of shows in NYC during the eight nights of Hanukkah, will be streamed live from the Music Hall of Williamsburg on Sunday, December 20^th, beginning at 7:45 p.m. EST. The live webcast is powered by Ustream, the leader in live broadcasting on the web. Viewers can watch and interact during the event at www.Ustream.com/Matisyahu. Opener Kevin Devine hits the stage at 7:45 p.m. EST and Matisyahu is on at 8:45 p.m. EST. Visit Ustream early and you may get a sneak peak into Matisyahu’s dressing room and backstage happenings.

2009 has been an incredible year for Matisyahu, releasing acclaimed third album Light (Epic Records) to rave reviews, lending anthemic lead single “One Day” as the theme song for NBC’s Winter Olympics campaign and amassing more than 1 million followers on Twitter. He’s been playing to packed houses during his massively successful North American tour, bringing his fans a show that can be labeled nothing short of an experience. With an intense energy and a vibrant presence, Matisyahu is one of the most dynamic and captivating live performers in music today. With his prolific lyrics, epic choruses and genre-spanning music, he effortlessly transcends classification to claim a space all his own. With influences spanning reggae-soul, ska-inflected new wave, pop-rock and acoustic folk, his new collection of songs is tied together with triumphant melodies and his powerful and distinct voice – a voice that calls for peace, hope and understanding.

Be sure to catch Matisyahu’s live brilliance during his live webcast Sunday, December 20, at 7:45 p.m. EST at www.Ustream.com/Matisyahu.

Not much more to say other than you can download the latest issue, guest-edited by Animal Collective, by clicking on this here spot right charr.

WARNING: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS EXPLICIT PORNOGRAPHIC MATERIAL WHICH MAY BE CONSIDERED OFFENSIVE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED – PLAY THIS VIDEO AT YOUR OWN RISK.

A new video has been released from Massive Attack’s forthcoming Heligoland, a video which is likely to raise some eyebrows. The video for “Paradise Circus” features an interview with ’70’s porn icon Georgina Spelvin, providing color commentary over portions of her banned pornographic film classic, The Devil in Miss Jones. I found it tough to watch, but I post it in the hopes you’ll find it enjoyable and interesting.

David Byrne, the clever and inventive world music impresario and former Talking Head, has joined forces with multi-instrumentalist and turntablist Norman Cook, better known to the world as Fatboy Slim to pursue an experimental new song cycle entitled Here Lies Love. The boxed set, containing the completed works, will be released on 23 February 2010 by Todomundo/Nonesuch Records.

Contained in the set are 22 songs, each inspired by an examination into the lives of Imelda Marcos (the former first lady of The Philippines) and her childhood servant, Estrella Cumpas. The star-studded lineup of guest performances are said to include Santigold, Florence Welch (Florence + The Machine), Sia, Steve Earle, St. Vincent, Natalie Merchant, Tori Amos, Sharon Jones and Nicole Atkins to name but a few. Details are emerging slowly, and when there is new information to report, we’ll let you know. Tracklisting after the jump.

For now, here’s the tracklisting, released today:

David Byrne and Fatboy Slim — Here Lies Love
CD 1
1. HERE LIES LOVE
Vocal by Florence Welch (Florence + The
Machine)
2. EVERY DROP OF RAIN
Vocals by Candie Payne & St. Vincent
3. YOU’LL BE TAKEN CARE OF
Vocal by Tori Amos
4. THE ROSE OF TACLOBAN
Vocal by Martha Wainwright
5. HOW ARE YOU?
Vocal by Nellie McKay
6. A PERFECT HAND
Vocal by Steve Earle
7. ELEVEN DAYS
Vocal by Cyndi Lauper
8. WHEN SHE PASSED BY
Vocal by Allison Moorer
9. WALK LIKE A WOMAN
Vocal by Charmaine Clamor
10. DON’T YOU AGREE?
Vocal by Róisín Murphy
11. PRETTY FACE
Vocal by Camille
12. LADIES IN BLUE
Vocal by Theresa Andersson

CD 2
1. DANCING TOGETHER
Vocal by Sharon Jones
2. MEN WILL DO ANYTHING
Vocal by Alice Russell
3. THE WHOLE MAN
Vocal by Kate Pierson
4. NEVER SO BIG
Vocal by Sia
5. PLEASE DON’T
Vocal by Santigold
6. AMERICAN TROGLODYTE
Vocal by David Byrne
7. SOLANO AVENUE
Vocal by Nicole Atkins
8. ORDER 1081
Vocal by Natalie Merchant
9. SEVEN YEARS
Vocals by David Byrne & Shara Worden
(My Brightest Diamond)
10. WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME?
Vocals by Cyndi Lauper & Tori Amos

I’m not going to lie to anyone: this update is being written by someone who has always felt Sade could do no wrong. Being a fan of Sade’s sultry voice and soul-searching music for many, many years, I’ve listened to this single, “Solider of Love” from her forthcoming album of the same title and… I’m not really ready to make comment on this one just yet. It’s definitely a Sade track. That’s the most I can say myself right now. What do you think of it?

(Big ups @DISCOATTACK for the heads-up)

Money

In our monopolistic world of online music, it seems bound to happen every time: just as another consumer-friendly strategy begins to take root, that strategy gets swallowed into oblivion through an acquisition. Such may be the confounding case of the little-known music retailer Lala, a company whose strategies and efforts I’ve long been a fan of personally. Apple, the New York Times reported on Friday, has agreed to purchase online music retailer Lala in what some analysts will see as a game-changing strategy on the part of Apple.

Lala was a company that originally started as a used CD swapping and resale opportunity, remaining somewhat under the consumer radar the past few years while consistently garnering dramatic attention from technology and music industry insiders. Though under-appreciated, Lala changed its focus and technology to produce a new identity for themselves.

But in 2007, the company engineered synergistic breakthroughs in personal digital music library storage and delivery, managing to create and implement a business model which could give previously unforeseen freedom to consumers amidst a climate of fear in the music industry.

Driven by their energetic and enthusiastic CEO, Bill Nguyen, Lala’s model for success couldn’t have been more simple or fair: charge people less money for DRM-free, high-quality MP3’s while allowing them to, at the same time, store and stream their complete digital music collections from any web-enabled device, smartphone or PC — digital music without borders.

As Lala’s technology strengthened and their business model began to take shape, they opened the technology even further, launching services at the end of 2008 allowing consumers to create streaming playlists like the one above (either from consumer’s individual collections or from Lala’s extensive library of music) which could be embedded on websites and social networks. Recent deals with Facebook and Google to deliver content easily to consumers instantly opened up new avenues of revenue which would, at a base level, drive up the company’s potential value in the marketplace.

So, why the sale? The feel-good marketing strategies and open border policies of Lala haven’t really had time to demonstrate their projected growth and scalability because, unlike Apple, nobody except those in-the-know have been aware of Lala or the technology behind their brand. When a name like Apple jumps into the mix, people quickly take notice because, after all, it’s a brand people have grown to trust.

But on the other side of things, there are Lala’s extensive music licensing agreements with both major and independent music labels which would likely dissolve as a result of this deal — licensing agreements which are non-transferrable in the sale of the company.

There’s also a school of thought that Apple is buying much more than the brand of Lala — they’re buying the technology that Lala’s developers built in order to extend their reach into the next generation of PC and smartphone streaming technology.

The fear I have for consumers is the death of that incredibly-alluring deal that you might have been lucky enough to discover from time to time when you clicked on one of those friendly-little Lala players you’ve started to see: “Add this song to your collection for 6 cents”. It’s too early to tell what Apple or Lala have in mind yet because, clearly, nobody’s talking yet and there’s no crystal ball that would have even predicted this acquisition on the part of Apple.

Perhaps, in the end, the message Apple will see itself delivering to consumers is that the cost of doing business outweighs the best intentions of the little guy. If that is case, and I hope it isn’t, we’ll have to wait a little longer for a company to come along and rewrite history. For now, I hope we can all discover the long-term upside for music consumers in this very important acquisition for Apple.