WHY MUSIC MATTERS - MUST READ......

We all listen to music for our own reasons. Some of us complain that there isn't any new music that compares to what we grew up with (the generation before us invented that line). Whatever your tastes are, the article below transcends all of that. Read it and it will bring a smile to your face. Yes, music might just be the soundtrack of people's lives - no matter what their condition.


Why Music Matters for Alzheimer’s Patients
March 02, 2009 07:30 AM
by Shannon Firth
A new UC Davis study shows that memory, music and emotions all activate the same region of the brain, which may have implications for Alzheimer’s patients.
Making Memories With Music
The idea that songs can evoke memories of people, places and moments from our pasts is hardly news, but Petr Janata, associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, has figured out why.

According to ScienceDaily, Janata’s research builds upon earlier findings that Alzheimer’s patients who have difficulty with their memory still respond to music. After mapping the brain activity of a group of individuals while they listened to music, Janata noted activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, an area just behind the forehead.

According to WiseGeek, “The prefrontal cortex is the brain center most strongly implicated in qualities like sentience, human general intelligence, and personality.” And the term medial, according to Medicine.net, simply means “nearer the middle of the body.”

MSNBC reported Janata’s finding that as Alzheimer’s progresses, this area remains intact longer, while most other areas of the brain have deteriorated. When a song elicits a memory, Janata explains, “[The] music serves as a soundtrack for a mental movie that starts playing in our head.”

In his early research, Janata created “tonal maps” of a subject’s brain activity as various chords were played. The areas active in the tonal study corresponded to the same areas where subjects appeared to be accessing memories—the medial prefrontal cortex and neighboring regions. ScienceDaily reported that the more significant the autobiographical memory was the stronger the “tracking” activity.

In another of Janata’s studies, he first selected a group of the most popular songs from years when the subjects were between 7 and 19 years old. David Munger, a writer for Cognitive Daily, explained that in this study, 329 subjects listened to 30 such songs chosen at random. They rated each song’s familiarity, what emotions it triggered, and whether or not they liked it. In cases where the song elicited a memory, they were asked whether the memory related to a person, place or event. Subjects recognized about half of the songs they heard, and about 30 percent of the songs stirred up a memory. The most familiar songs were more often linked to a memory.

SIRIUS RADIO - SAVE IT??

Another great rant by the only one who truly wants to save the music industry....Bob Lefsetz.
Yes he's biting. Yes he's sarcastic. Yes, he enjoys watching the recording industry implode.
But if you really read his daily musings the love of music always floats to the top. If you don't believe it
then just download his podcasts. Then you will hear the passion and love for the music.

Until then - read today's newsletter.

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Saving Satellite Radio
-Bob Lefsetz

It needs to be a tribe.

Instead of running Oprah's new TV network, Tom Freston should be in charge of resuscitating Sirius XM. Because he was there when MTV blew up as a result of the "I Want My MTV!" campaign!

FM radio was biggest when it was a club. The station filled all your needs. Not only musical, but informational too. The deejay was the ringleader, the news was alternative, it felt like being in a room with the Little Rascals. You knew about the shows coming to town, you knew the new tunes, you BELONGED!

All that is gone on Sirius XM. The growth of the service, the buzz, is history. What they've got now is a replication of what's on the FM band, but sans commercials. With all the research they've done, don't they realize people hate terrestrial radio and are tuning it out? Why? Because of the short playlists, the endless repetition and the jive deejays. All of which have been transferred to most Sirius XM channels. It's hard to spread the word on the service, because not only do most people not want to pay for radio, those that ARE paying are PISSED!

Satellite radio isn't going to be sold by the media. It's going to be sold by its fans. Until the fans are motivated to spread the word, Sirius XM is screwed.

Where's the Sirius XM social network? Where are the bumper stickers, quoting Howard Stern?

NOW is the time to play up the Howard angle. When we've got a vast wasteland in the mainstream and Howard is better than ever. Where's the site with Howard clips, other interactive features to grow his presence and audience?

As for music...

Do we really need to hear "Won't Get Fooled Again" on Classic Vinyl? Certain tracks NEVER need to be played again. What gets a listener motivated is when he hears something that jogs his memory, that he wasn't expecting. Instead of analyzing tune-outs, the team at Sirius XM should be analyzing TUNE-INS! What makes people fire up the service, what makes them keep subscribing? You can't live on fear. You've got to be focused on growth, not loss.

No more cliches. No more stupid bumpers. If satellite radio is not hip and different, not an exotic club that you feel proud to be a member of, it's got no future.

Sure, there are economics involved. But the key element of Sirius XM's survival is the programming. And too much of it is repetitive, without hooks.

Where's the stunting on Sirius XM? The type of event that built MTV, but is absent on satellite? Like giving away an artist's house, or allowing a fan to be a roadie or...

It's about buzz more than superstardom.

I love satellite radio. It's light years better than any computerized service. But it's got a bad image and now the programming is too mediocre on too many stations. It's like they're living in the twentieth century. There's no hipness, no edge.

They're doomed unless they motivate and involve their audience.

LIVE FROM DARRYL'S HOUSE! MUSIC TV NOT ON TV?

If you are asleep at the wheel (no pun intended at all) or on the internet.... You need to discover the best music show NOT on television. And it would be the finest music show if it was on television. But that is another conversation for later.

Just watch and enjoy. This is great music. And great television - not on television.

http://www.livefromdarylshouse.com/index.php

DARYL HALL LOOKS BACK TO A YEAR-AND-A-HALF OF LIVE FROM DARYL’S HOUSE WITH RETROSPECTIVE, PERFORMING INFLUENTIAL COVERS
19th edition of landmark webshow features highlights from first 18 episodes, with Daryl performing songs that formed his musical roots

NEW YORK, May 11, 2009—A year and a half ago, Daryl Hall launched his monthly webshow Live From Daryl’s House with an eye towards opening up the music-making process to his fans by collaborating with both established artists who’ve had an impact on his music and new artists that have, in turn, been influenced by him. This month, Daryl takes a look back at the previous 18 episodes, featuring musical highlights and behind-the-scenes anecdotes, in a brand-new episode which debuts May 15 at www.livefromdarylshouse.com, where it can be seen along with archived footage of past episodes.

“It’s been an incredible run so far, and this is just the beginning,” says Daryl about the experience. “This has been one of the most rewarding musical experiences of my life working with all these different people and sharing it with the world.”

In addition, Daryl takes a trip down his own musical memory lane, playing a set of songs with longtime collaborator T-Bone Wolk that formed his own musical roots, including incredible covers of Ruby and the Romantics’ aching “Our Day Will Come,” Paul Butterfield’s blues classic “In My Own Dream” Bob Dylan’s “You’re a Big Girl,” from Blood on the Tracks, The Four Deuces’ doo-wop novelty hit, “WPLJ” (“White Port and Lemon Juice”), which gave the N.Y. station its name and was later covered by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, and Gladys Knight and the Pips’ “Neither One of Us,” from Daryl Hall and John Oates’ Our Kind of Soul album.

Sitting around with his band, Daryl talks about previous episodes of the groundbreaking web series, including how he discovered guitarist/songwriter Monte Montgomery on YouTube playing an incredible version of “Sara Smile,” then invited him to play it with them on the show.

Past episodes of Live from Daryl’s House have featured a mix of well-known performers like The Doors, Nick Lowe, K.T. Tunstall, Gym Class Heroes’ Travis McCoy, Finger Eleven’s James Black and Rick Jackett and the Bacon Brothers, along with newcomers such as Philly soul singer Mutlu, Canadian techno-rockers Chromeo, MySpace pop-rock phenom Eric Hutchinson, Cash Money rocker Kevin Rudolf, Wind-up Records’ Chicago rockers Company of Thieves and Bay Area singer/songwriter Matt Nathanson.

Live from Daryl’s House started with Daryl’s “light-bulb moment” idea of “playing music with my friends and putting it up on the Internet,” and the show has subsequently been praised by such varied publications as Rolling Stone, Daily Variety, Yahoo and the influential Lefsetz Letter.
Back

Jay bennett - Dead at 45

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0ZKHljySfI

Truly an integral part of Wilco's best Music....From Summerteeth - Yankee Foxtrot. That was the best albums - what a run.

Here's the story from the press.

The singer and multi-instrumentalist was 45 years old.

"Early this morning, Jay died in his sleep and an autopsy is being performed," said Edward Burch, a friend and musician who collaborated with Bennett on the 2005 album "The Palace at 4 a.m." "The family is in mourning and is unavailable for comment at this time."

Born in the Chicago suburb of Rolling Meadows, Bennett began playing in bands as a teenager. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and earned multiple degrees in secondary education, math and political science. In between, he co-founded the Replacements-like power-pop band Titanic Love Affair, which released three albums during the alternative-rock heyday between 1991 and 1996, when it was dropped from its label.

Bennett was working at a VCR repair shop in Champaign when he was tapped to join Wilco as it toured in support of its first album, "A.M." A talented arranger and versatile musician who could play virtually any instrument he picked up, from mandolin to Mellotron, Bennett formed a fruitful partnership with Wilco bandleader Jeff Tweedy. His contributions over a seven-year period were key to the albums that resulted in the band's national breakthrough, including "Being There" (1996), "Summerteeth" (1999) and "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" (2002).

Relations between Bennett and Tweedy, both painstaking perfectionists, soured during the latter recording, as documented in the film "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart," and Bennett left the band. Earlier this month, Bennett filed a lawsuit against Tweedy for breach of contract and unpaid artist's royalties, stemming in part from his role in the film.

In late April, Bennett wrote on his MySpace blog about dealing with intense pain from a hip injury suffered during a dive from the stage while playing with Titanic Love Affair. He was preparing to have surgery, but was concerned about his lack of health insurance. However, he also was looking forward to finishing his fifth solo album, "Kicking at the Perfumed Air," at his studio, Pieholden Suites, named after the song on "Summerteeth" that best encapsulates his talents as an arranger.

"This whole experience [with the hip pain] has really taught me to look both inward and outward for support, and I've learned things about myself that I thought I had completely figured out years ago," Bennett wrote. "Family and friends have helped me to keep faith in a future that will actually be much more carefree than my constricted present state. I encourage you all to tell me stories of recovery, as they really do help... All in all, I'm 'in a really good place' right now; I'm just waiting until I can make it all happen."

Bennett's former bandmates in Wilco are touring in Spain and could not be reached for comment. But Burch said he had spoken to bassist John Stirratt, and the band was "broken up" about the news.

"He was an extremely talented musician and a great person, and I'll miss him terribly," Burch added.

UPDATE: Wilco publicist Deb Bernardini released the following statement from Tweedy:

"We are all deeply saddened by this tragedy. We will miss Jay as we remember him -- as a truly unique and gifted human being and one who made welcome and significant contributions to the band's songs and evolution. Our thoughts go out to his family and friends in this very difficult time."

Bad Economy
The Worst Industry (Next to the recording industry)
The Best Music Magazine Still alive.
Without them we are basically stuck with Spin and Rolling Stone (or what was once a viable read)
They need help. Check it out if you don't know about it. It is by far the only magazine you need to read about music. And if that isn't enough - they cover film, tv and culture.

As stated on hyperbot.com:
"There needs to be a place for professional music journalism where the standards are high and the coverage more complete. Paste has always represented that. "

Truer words have not been published on the internet (Ok, maybe I embellished a bit...)

Read the press releases below....
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THE CAMPAIGN TO SAVE PASTE
Paste Needs You!

The global recession has taken its toll on Paste as advertisers have slashed their spending. We are turning to our readers to help bridge the gap. Even a small contribution can make a big difference.

Join 75+ of our favorite artists in the campaign to save Paste and get rare & exclusive tracks as a thank you.

Artists include The Decemberists, Neko Case, She & Him, Cowboy Junkies, Of Montreal, Indigo Girls, Jayhawks, String Cheese Incident, G. Love, Josh Rouse, The Hives, Matthew Sweet, The Avett Brothers, Joe Henry, John Roderick of The Long Winters, Over the Rhine, Bob Mould, Arrested Development, Brandi Carlile, John Doe, Josh Ritter, Marc Broussard and more. We also have a number of goodies (such as signed R.E.M. and Band of Horses posters, an ocean-view cabin on next year's Cayamo cruise, and more) to give to donors in random drawings.

http://www.pastemagazine.com/

Paste magazine asks for donations to make budget
By DORIE TURNER – 17 hours ago
ATLANTA (AP) — The music monthly Paste is asking readers to donate money to keep the magazine afloat.
The magazine, hurt by a sharp drop in advertising revenue that already has killed several other publications, won't be able to publish its next issue without the help, editor-in-chief Josh Jackson said Thursday, the day after Paste posted a donation page to its Web site.
Jackson said he is hoping to raise "in the low six figures," though he declined to give a specific number.
In exchange for a donation, the magazine is doing what it does best: giving out exclusive, rare tracks donated by artists like the Indigo Girls, Josh Rouse, Matthew Sweet and The Decemberists.
"We've just seen so many magazines go under," Jackson said in a telephone interview from his office in Decatur. "Rather than shutter the doors, we needed to at least try this."
So far, the average donation is $29 — a promising sign for Jackson, who called the magazine a "labor of love." Paste has a circulation of 205,000, but draws nearly 1 million viewers online, he said.
In 2007, the magazine offered a pay-what-you-want subscription deal — following in the steps of rock group Radiohead, which asked fans to pick how much they wanted to shell out for the band's latest album, "In Rainbows." Jackson said the promotion help boost subscriptions, but advertising sales began drying up later that year.
A subscription currently costs $19.95.
Paste, which is published independently by a staff of 15 of mostly 20- and 30-somethings, started as a Web site in 1998 and was first published on paper in 2002. Each monthly edition includes articles and photos on music, film and culture, plus a CD with songs from up-and-coming artists.
A rival music magazine, Blender, stopped publishing a print product in March and is now only online. Others, like Country Home, Domino, CosmoGirl and PC Magazine have all either shut their doors or converted to entirely online content.
On the Net:
Paste Magazine: http://www.pastemagazine.com

The RBP Flashback: The Beatles' "White Album" Is Released 40 Years Ago
by Mike Jahn (1968) in Rock's Backpages

The Beatles' double "White Album" is deemed an eclectic classic today. It's intriguing and amusing, therefore, to revisit Mike Jahn's contemporary New York Times appraisal of The Beatles on the eve of its US release in November 1968.

Tomorrow the Beatles will release their first album in a year, titled simply The Beatles.

Copies of the album, one of their most unusual although not one of their best, will be delivered to most New York City record stores tomorrow according to Capitol Records, the distributor.

The album, on the Apple label, has received heavy play on several local FM stations for the last week. It consists of 30 songs on two records, including one long electronic-and-taped-noise composition.

In it, the Beatles sample from most every phase of popular music that it has gone through in the last 40 years, and imitate many of its heroes. There is Chuck Berry, Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, Robert Goulet, Bill Haley and Mantovani. Everywhere there are traces of the Beach Boys, but mostly there lingers the Beatles of 1965.

The album has nothing new and very little that is even recent. The main sound is pre-Rubber Soul. In the year before their Rubber Soul album was released in 1965, there was little but the Chuck Berry era, that long stretch where almost everything done by the Beatles seemed liked bleached Memphis. (Mr. Berry is a black singer and guitarist, who set the style for much rock music in the late 1950's.)

In The Beatles the group takes this old, basic rock sound and sees how many different superstructures are compatible. There are blues, country, easy listening, folk and 1955-to-1962 rock. There are a number of electronic distortions, and there are many put-ons.

Many songs are either so corny or sung in such a way that it is hard to tell whether they are being serious. In most cases, they seem not to be. In an act of lyrical overstatement, they sing "Have You Seen The Bigger Piggies In Their Starched White Shirts?" And it doesn't matter if the words--"Now it's time to say 'good night, good night, sleep tight'"--are sung as a put-on, they still are painful to hear.

It is a light record. The music is light, clean and crisp. The lyrics are light. Usually they are happy but often they are lacking in substance, rather like potato chips.

This new album sounds spectacular at first, but the fascination quickly fades. Where the best American groups--Jefferson Airplane and Blood, Sweat and Tears --produce substantial music that can be lived with, the Beatles tend to produce spectacular but thin music that is best saved for special occasions.

The Beatles, though they might not have intended it, have in essence produced hip Muzak, a soundtrack for head shops, parties and discotheques.

The Beatles is a continuation of the Beatles mystique, or maybe an attempt to ride on its coattails. The Beatles mystique was bolstered in mid-1967 when Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released and hailed by the underground and music press as the rock album of the decade. It has been a year and a half since that album was released. And one wonders how much the praise heaped upon Sgt. Pepper's was deserved.

Once they were crowned as geniuses, there developed the self-fulfilling expectation of genius that the Beatles now enjoy, a factor that probably will help make this new album a million seller.

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was good, and maybe it was the best rock album of the decade. But it wasn't as good as its press. The new album is not nearly as good as Sgt. Pepper's.

The new album has no "A Day In The Life." Considering non-Sgt. Pepper's material, the new album has nothing to compare with "Strawberry Fields" and not even a passable "Penny Lane."

It is hard and exciting in parts ("Back In The U.S.S.R.") and funny in others ("Why Don't We Do It In The Road?")--but only in parts.

It lacks the originality of Music From Big Pink, by the Band, and the all-over excitement of Cheap Thrills, by Big Brother and the Holding Company. It doesn't have the emotion of the Doors or the musical expertise of Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield. And by any measure of pure rock power, Blood, Sweat and Tears is far better.

Paste Magazine - A Columnist You Have To Read.....

LISTENING TO MY LIFE: HITCHHIKING TO BERMUDA
AT HIS MEMORIAL, DISCOVERING THE DUDE WHO WAS MY DAD
By Corey DuBrowa on May 21, 2008 6:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nightswimming deserves a quiet night
I’m not sure all these people understand…

It occurs to me as I stand here, looking dazed into a sea of semi-familiar faces: I haven’t been in this building since I graduated from high school—20 years ago.

Melanoma tagged my father almost a year ago to the day (at least, that’s when he called to let me know the prognosis); it moved swiftly, making his last months hell. So tonight we’re gathered in the gym of the school where he taught for more than two decades—the same sweaty hardwood where he coached basketball each winter, prowling up and down the sideline, baiting referees with unanswerable questions like “when are we gonna get a gift like that?”—swapping memories, melancholy and occasional snippets of nervous mirth.

Like all places distantly familiar from childhood, the gym looks smaller to me now. I read from the script I’ve written, feel my throat getting tight. To distract myself, I try to focus on the people I know: There’s my former basketball coach, now the school’s athletic director. And there’s the younger brother of the guy who sang in my band: He’s supposedly a desperate drug addict now. But, like everyone else here tonight, he just looks vaguely sad, and nods at me when we catch each other’s eye.

You, I thought I knew you
You, I cannot judge
You, I thought you knew me, this one laughing quietly…

Each person in the family had a job for this event—I’d done the occasional DJ stint, so my role was to go through Dad’s discs to pick out the soundtrack for the evening, locating songs that represented who he was, who he’d been.

For a guy who couldn’t find perfect pitch with a metal detector, and whose singing resembled the death throes of a mortally wounded dog, Dad had great taste in music. His record collection introduced me to artists whose work would captivate me for life: Dylan, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Steely Dan. Picking out a set list from fodder this great felt like shooting fish in a barrel—“Two of Us,” “Girl from the North Country,” (for my stepmother, whose web-footed Pacific Northwest ways offered a stark contrast to dad’s Hawaiian-shirted, Cali-surfer-for-life persona), “God Only Knows,” “Unchained Melody,” R.E.M.’s “Nightswimming,” made more poignant by my dad’s proclivity to poke mock-fun at my love of the band by imitating Michael Stipe’s elongated Southern vowels.

The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago,
Turned around backwards so the windshield shows
Every streetlight reveals the picture in reverse
Still, it’s so much clearer…

At the end of the service, the audience was asked if anyone had anything else to say, and a guy I knew growing up as “Uncle Duane” (one of my dad’s many fraternity brothers) stood up and told a mildly profane story about one particular spring break during which my perpetually broke dad bet him that he could hitchhike his way to Bermuda from Long Beach, Calif.

“Mike, I’m sure you’ve already figured this out, but Bermuda is an island chain. You don’t hitchhike there.”

As it turns out—with the kind of “I’ll show you, bastards” aplomb that came to characterize his attitude about life—dad did hitchhike to Bermuda, sending Duane a breadcrumb trail of photographs and postcards along the way, thumbing rides and whatever else to the tune of then-favorites such as Jan & Dean, The Turtles, The Byrds, and The Lovin’ Spoonful.

Sometimes I’ll see a picture of my dad now and imagine the young dude he must’ve been then: wind in his hair, “Surf City” ringing in his ears, Bermuda dead ahead.

Paste contributing editor Corey duBrowa has written for The Rocket, Seattle Weekly, The Stranger, The Oregonian and Rolling Stone.