Chris Rock turns his always insightful eye on the music industry in the Current Rolling Stone -

Chris Rock: Music kind of sucks. Nobody’s into being a musician. Everybody’s getting their mogul on. You’ve been so infiltrated by this corporate mentality that all the time you’d spend getting great songs together, you’re busy doing nine other things that have nothing to do with art. You know how shitty Stevie Wonder’s songs would have been if he had to run a fuckin’ clothing company and a cologne line?

RollingStone: Plenty of rappers say, “I’m not a rapper, I’m a businessman.”

Chris Rock: That’s why rap sucks, for the most part. Not all rap, but as an art form it’s just not at its best moment. Sammy the Bull would have made a shitty album. And I don’t really have a desire to hear Warren Buffett’s album - or the new CD by Paul Allen. That’s what everybody’s aspiring to be.

We live in a weird time. No one knows who’s smart - we just know who makes money. “Hey, somebody invented Viagra! We don’t know their name, but we know Pfizer, because they make the money.” That guy made a pill that keeps your dick hard, and nobody knows who the fuck he is. The pharmaceutical companies are like fuckin’ record companies. There’s literally the Bo Diddley of medicine walking around, not getting his royalties. He signed all his fucking pill publishing away.

(”Rolling Stone”, Issue 1039, November 15, 2007, page 157)

Shout out to the LefsetzLetter for bringing this pearl to my attention.

This is just brief rundown on events here in Nashville at the Americana Music Association conference. I will add more detail next week.

Meeting Barbara Lamb, Sunny Sweeney, Chip Taylor, Kendal Carson, Gurf Morlix , Stacy Earle and Janet Reno!

The Halloween tribute to the memory of Porter Wagoner with Mark Ferris, Rodney Crowell, Jim Lauderdale and Emmylou Harris.

Seeing Darrell Scott at the Station Inn.

The AMA Awards at the Ryman Auditorium (the Mother Church of Country Music) featuring Joe Ely, Guy Clark (in a tribute to Townes Van Zandt) , Lyle Lovett, The Avett Brothers, Patty Griffin, Old Crow Medicine Show, Darrell Scott, Buddy Miller, Jim Lauderdale and Emmylou Harris.

Eating Jacks BBQ and drinking Big River Brewery beer.

Visiting the Hatch Show Print studio.

How stupid do the major labels think their customers are? The Wall Street Journal’s front page detailed a plan to deceive customers by passing off a signed talent, a 24-year-old singer and guitarist named Marié Digby, as a DIY YouTube using amateur cover-artist trying to get a deal.

Are the labels so bereft of ideas and hard up for the good old days when they printed money and screwed the customers and the artists that they are now willing to squander any shred of remaining good will they might still have with fans, well, at least the ones they haven’t sued? For an unknown cover artist? I mean where is the frikkin upside here? Are they trying to build a more justifiable moral case for musical piracy?

Country music’s soul remains it’s authenticity. Nashville has been very effective peddling pop-country hat acts to people that wouldn’t know Hank Williams from Robbie Williams, but this is a level of calculated fraud that would embarrass even the most hard-bitten music row veteran.

Good for the Journal for exposing this sham. I hope this level of coverage of business misconduct doesn’t diminish under the new ownership by media mogul and FOX News steward, Rupert Murdoch. I won’t be holding my breath.

That’s right, right there between Keith Urban and Sugarland. Proof that there’s still room for great country music performed by legendary geezers that appeals to popular taste. You listening Nashville?

By way of StillIsStillMoving.com and the9513.com.

An update in fun doings in Austin.

What: Guitartown/conqueroo SXSW week kickoff party & showcase
When: Wednesday, March 14, 12 noon until 9 p.m.
Where: Mother Egan’s Irish Pub, 715 W. 6th St.

11:45-12:10   Randy Weeks
12:25-12:50   Ed Pettersen
1:05-1:30   Michelle Shocked
1:45-2:10   Scrappy Jud Newcomb
2:25-2:50   Walter Tragert
3:05-3:30   Tom Freund
3:45-4:10   Jon Dee Graham
4:25-4:50   Pam Tillis
5:05-5:30   James McMurtry
5:45-6:10   Uncle Monk featuring Tommy Ramone
6:25-6:50   The Silos
7:05-7:30   The Summer Wardrobe
7:45-8:15   Patty Hurst Shifter
8:30-9:15   TBA

What:  Whatever That Is Party (sponsored by Split Rock Records)
When:  Friday, March 16th, 2:30 - 6:30pm
Where:  The Ginger Man Pub, Austin TX

2:30pm  Michelle Shocked
3:30pm  Freedy Johnston
4:30pm  Ed Pettersen
5:30pm  Uncle Monk (Tommy Ramone)
6:30pm  TBA

Typically I could care less about the Grammy’s. I mean COME ON! Hootie & the Blowfish, Milli Vanilli and Culture Club! Yeesh! But because because of a flash of musical perception, odds, or whatever…they sometimes get it right. This year the folks at the Grammys have a couple of winners..if they actually win that is.
Willie Nelson’s You Don’t Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker has been nominated for a Grammy for Best Country Album and Rick Rubin has been nominated for Producer of the Year, Non-Classicalfor his work on Johnny Cash’s album American V: A Hundred Highways and the song “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”. He is also nominated in the same category for his work on albums from Neil Diamond, The Dixie Chicks, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

There a great article on Sugar Hills Records CEO, and recipient of the 2006 Jack Emerson Lifetime Achievement Award, Barry Poss in today’s Wall Street Journnal. poss does a great job describing his vision in championing artists “with one foot planted firmly in the traditional world, but were young enough to be exposed to pop music of the time. These artists include Ricky Skaggs, Jerry Douglas, Tom O’Brian and Marty Stuart. I believe Poss best underscores that the recording industry will need to get back to it’s, pardon the pun, roots when he says “If you stay close to your fan, if you work hard and are passionate about the marketplace and the music, you can be fine at this (market) level, even with all the changes that may seem a threat for some of the recording industry.”   Amen brother!