#087: We Are The Telescopes
I’m Todd L. Burns, and welcome to Music Journalism Insider, a newsletter about music journalism. I highlight some of the best stuff I hear, read, and watch every week; publish news about the industry; and interview writers, scholars, and editors about their work. My goal is to share knowledge, celebrate great work, and expand the idea of what music journalism is—and where it happens. Questions, comments, concerns? You can reach me anytime at music.journalism.insider@gmail.com.
Today in the newsletter: Interviews with Rhian Jones, co-author of a new book about mental health and music; Roctober founder Jake Austen; and longtime Mexican music journalist David Cortes. Plus! A new Notes On Process with corrido expert Elijah Wald, reading recommendations, and much more. But first…
Just Tidying Up A Few Things
Reading List
Rhian Jones on why eating disorders are rife in pop music
Andre Gee takes a long look at rap antiheroes
Patrick Sisson on the imminent reopening of live music
Douglas W. Shadle on the complex legacy of Antonin Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony
Anna Codrea-Rado offers ways to set boundaries for yourself as a freelancer
Roy Christopher can’t unwire his connection between a Jawbox song and a J.G. Ballard novel
Jonny Scaramanga wonders whether the guitar solo is dead [h/t Ted Gioia]
Ellie Kovach delivers a state of the scene address
Jordannah Elizabeth writes about the possibilities for feminist jazz journalism
Danielle Chelosky collects a bunch of record label pets
Notes On Process: Elijah Wald
The latest edition of Notes On Process is here! The idea of this column is simple: I invite a writer to a Google Doc where I’ve copy-pasted one of their pieces and added a bunch of footnotes with flattery, jokes, and questions. They reply to my queries, and then we provide you with a link to the doc where all of our marginalia is visible. The goal is to provide a window into the writing and editing process, so that folks can see how great writers think about their work.
Today, I’ve interviewed Elijah Wald about a story on corridos for the Boston Globe that changed his life, eventually leading to the publication of the book Narcocorrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas. You can check out the Google Doc here.
Podcasts!
Endless Scroll celebrates 100 episodes with lots of hot takes and the addition of two new hosts
Philip Ewell chats about the music theory world on Lexical Tones
Cory Wong goes deep on funk guitar on Switched On Pop
Sammy Maine talks about the art of bio writing on Other Record Labels
Two new country music podcasts: Holler Country and More Than a Cowgirl
Trilloquy invites Rissi Palmer to compare and contrast issues in classical and country music
“Just Tidying Up A Few Things”
Q&A: Rhian Jones
Rhian Jones is co-author, with Lucy Heyman, of the new book Sound Advice: The Ultimate Guide to a Healthy and Successful Career in Music. Rhian describes it as “a self-help style health-focused career guide for musicians and those that work with them.” In addition to the book, Rhian is a freelance music business journalist, contributing editor at Music Business Worldwide, and London correspondent at Hits. In this excerpt from our interview, Rhian describes how the book came to be.
I wrote this article for The Independent and that was the jumping off point for delving further into this subject through my work but also just as a personal interest. I really felt (and still feel) drawn to the subject of health and musicians, which I think is partly down to being surrounded by musicians both in my family and social life, having empathy and understanding for them, being a huge music fan and caring about the artists I love, and feeling passionate about changing the business side of music for the better.
The idea for the book came to me while I was on holiday—I knew I wanted to write a book, I’d enjoyed writing a self-help blog for fellow journalists during my training, and health and music was the subject I was most interested in at the time. I’d also spent a lot of time asking what other people and organisations were doing to help and wanted to make my own contribution to the cause. My co-author Lucy Heyman, who I’d met while doing research, had a very similar idea for the book, which we both discussed as a future goal over a catch-up. We decided to do it together and got started immediately on what has turned out to be a two-and-a-half-year rollercoaster ride!
Read the full interview with Rhian here.
A Cause Worth Supporting
From Rhian Jones:
Recently I learned that my first boyfriend, who was a kind and caring man as well as a talented guitarist, died by suicide after keeping quiet about struggling with OCD for most of his life. I think this particular mental illness is grossly misunderstood (as many still are) and I’ve loved seeing music writer James McMahon be so open about his struggles in an effort to help others and remove the shame associated with it. Rik’s family started a Just Giving page in his honour to support a residential therapy rehab centre called Willow House in the UK that he attended for a short time a few years ago—places like this are grossly underfunded but can make a real difference in people’s lives.
Check out all of the causes highlighted by folks I’ve interviewed.
Radio Corner
Elissa Stolman tells the curious tale of the time that USAID sent a Serbian music promoter to Cuba in an attempt to foment an anti-Castro uprising
Jad Abumrad has a new show on Apple Music called Everything. Together. Radio
Taigen Kawabe’s mix of royalty-free Japanese music is pretty wild
Stuff You Gotta Watch
Stuff You Gotta Watch celebrates music journalism in video form. This week’s column is by freelance writer Jesse Locke.
If Canadian punk had a Mount Rushmore, Teenage Head’s Frankie Venom would be front and centre. Picture My Face tells the story of the endlessly photogenic frontman, his untimely passing from throat cancer in 2008, and how his bandmates have kept the music alive for 45 years.
When Teenage Head step off stage, director Douglas Arrowsmith’s documentary becomes a meditation on loss and resilience. Few bands are willing to get this vulnerable about their mental health struggles, making Picture My Face comparable to uncomfortably intimate rock docs like Anvil! and Some Kind of Monster. Guitarist Gord Lewis’s priest brother makes the largest impression, a character on par with Metallica’s therapist Phil Towle.
Arrowsmith’s emotionally charged film follows the 2017 comeback of the Ontario punk legends, from the release of a greatest hits compilation to performances with new singer Dave “Rave” Desroches at local high schools and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats halftime show. They might not incite riots like they did back in 1980, but Teenage Head still rock and roll like their lives depend on it.
Pivoting To Video
Andrew Huang asks four soundtrack composers to create a song for the same scene
The Punk Rock MBA wonders: “What killed crunkcore?”
CBS Sunday Morning looks at one man’s quest to build a great soundsystem [h/t MusicREDEF]
Loudwire highlights a bunch of truly strange-looking guitars
Q&A: David Cortés
David Cortés is a journalist and writer, with bylines in some of the biggest newspapers and magazines in Mexico. David has been writing about music for more than three decades and has authored several books, among them El otro rock mexicano: Experiencias progresivas, sicodelicas, de fusión y experimentales; La vida en La Barranca; Escritos en el tiempo; and Coordinated 100: discos esenciales del rock mexicano, with Alejandro González Castilllo. In this excerpt from our interview, David talks about where he thinks music journalism is headed.
Six years ago, here in Mexico City, another journalist, Alejandro González Castillo, and myself organized a seminar in which we gathered 27 music journalists from different time periods, from 1969-70 all the way to the present. Even then we wondered where music journalism was heading and, unfortunately, we couldn’t find an answer. Part of that seminar is printed in a book called El Rock también se escribe, which was published at the end of 2020.
So. Where is music journalism headed now? I don’t know. Things move so fast, values move continuously, trends are so fleeting that I am still looking for an answer, although I believe that with so much music, our work is still as important (or even more important) than before. We are the telescopes that bring things closer to people, we are the ones that make folks look at the details and the many stories (and lies) that the industry would not like anyone to talk about.
Read the full interview with David in English or Spanish here.
Bits, Bobs
Pitchfork is now publishing reviews at midnight EST
Unionized workers at Condé Nast have voted to authorize a strike
Every song Haruki Murakami has ever written about [h/t Love Will Save The Day]
On March 30, Caspar Melville is leading a panel discussion on the impact of the lockdown on the UK jazz economy
DJBooth recently turned 18
The True Investigative Journalist Would At Least Give Us The Condiment List
Q&A: Jake Austen
Jake Austen is the long-time publisher of Roctober zine and a producer behind Chic-A-Go-Go, both of which started in the '90s. Roctober features incredible deep dives into lost and forgotten histories, while Chic-A-Go-Go is a public-access TV program that bills itself as “Chicago's Dance Show for Kids of All Ages.” In this excerpt from our interview, Jake describes how he got where he is today.
I started doing Roctober as a xerox zine around 1992 and eventually it became a thick, advertiser supported magazine selling a few thousand copies (but still pretty shoddy and DIY-looking). I studied art in school, and had done some illustrations and comics, but never built a real professional career that route. However, the zine led me to a lot of freelance gigs, and I became good at pitching to magazines, weeklies, and newspapers. I had a few years of doing weekly reviews and previews for Time Out and a few years reviewing comics for the Chicago Tribune, but I usually had to hustle a million different ways to make any decent money. Roctober definitely got me my first salaried job (when I was over 40) running a jazz/dance venue in my neighborhood, but we have been closed most of the last year, obviously.
[When] I took a job running a jazz/dance venue a few years ago, I really cut back on writing, but during the pandemic/unemployment I could not get kids together to dance, but I could start writing features for an alternative weekly, produce a new issue of Roctober, and get a few book proposals cooking. If the world reopens I think I have mapped out ways to do writing and publishing (on smaller scales than when it was my full time gig) while still running the club.
Read the full interview with Jake here.
Academic Stuff
Call for Papers: The conference New Approaches to Music, Identity, and the British Empire from the Early Modern Era to Brexit will take place in August
New issues: Acoustics, Popular Music and Society, Intersections, and Jazz Research Journal
The edited volume Fumbling Towards Ecstasy: The Intersectionality of Music and Deviance is seeking submissions
Wayne State University Press is hosting a book and journal publishing symposium on April 9
Call for Papers: A conference devoted to Transnational Perspectives on Music, Sound and (War) Propaganda (1914–1945) will take place later this year
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The Closing Credits
Thanks for reading! Full disclosure: My day job is at uDiscover Music, a branded content online magazine owned by Universal Music. This newsletter is not affiliated or sponsored in any way by Universal, and any links that relate to the work of my department will be clearly marked. Feel free to reach out to me via email at music.journalism.insider@gmail.com. On Twitter, it’s @JournalismMusic. Until next time…