nighttimes.com

2 September 2005

Yo Babes: Not much to say except that I got myself some space on MYSPACE, so if you want, you can come visit me there. I'll do my personal blogging there from now on and leave this exclusively for the purpose of music enhancement. Or something.

I'm at: www.myspace.com/wordgirlnt

JGB in B&W

11 August 2005

As promised, darlings, here's my Lollapalooza poem:

Lollapalooza 2005

What’s the matter?

My wussy friends can’t take a hundred-and-nine degrees?

or a hundred-thousand bodies

near-naked, almost-intimate, under broiling sun?

If it means seeing Serge from Kasabian’s face

large on the screen, and small on that stage

If it means excavating Dinosaur Jr. songs long forgotten

and grooving to Spoon…

We drove five hours for this and here I am

watching helicopters pull butterfly kites across the sky

I’m left in the trail of The Trail Of The Dead

I’m slaughtered by Brian Jonestown Massacre and Blonde Redhead

Moon orbs rise in the hot afternoon, pronouncing:

The reawakening of a reason

The slumber of common-sense

A delicious delusion dreaming

Come out and play!

I’d do it a hundred and nine times over

Dancing with stilt-walkers, walking with dancers

Painting my face in a mud-melted sweat

Huddling in the small shade of large people

I cried all day between joyful sets

for my broken heart from the night before,

for my lost All-Access Pass,

for the physical pain and

for the fact I was doing it alone. But no,

who’s alone in this weird, wild, world of Lolla?

I wish I’d had more time to see The Walkmen

and I never made it to The Planet Stage

I’m learning, listening, devouring new music

No food, who can eat? I’m just

nibbling on a side of heatstroke

A girl passed out beside me

As I pour water on her head, I think

I’m faint too, but it might be only

from the band, Satellite Party

I’m wasted in the flame of Arcade Fire

By the time the Dandy Warhols come on,

I’ll be dandy too

Shaking off the dust of the day

to myself, I say:

I take my music as seriously

as I take my health.

And today,

I’m dying for more.

Julia Gordon-Bramer

Managing editor and publisher

6 August 2005

So--it's been a busy couple weeks and I'm sure you're all in a clusterf*ck wondering what the deal is: how I said last month I was back and Ken was stepping away from these editorials--and then, all of a sudden Ken is writing again! Seems that Ken's got a burst of energy and a fresh new outlook on life. We'll be taking turns here.

What's up with me? I'm back from Lollapalooza (review and a poem forthcoming), and revved up about my new projects.

RE: The St. Louis Century of Music it looks like I will have not only a vast source of wonderful contributors in the St. Louis Writers Guild, but the organization may also be our publisher! I am still in the organizational stages of this project, and it's enormous, but also really exciting. I've got a list of a hundred significant musicians to come out of STL--and that's just before the 1930s!

I've submitted a book of poetry to the MARGIE American Journal of Poetry FIRST BOOK contest--wish me luck on that--and my agent says that my memoir, NIGHT TIMES, will leave the agency to sit on many a publisher's desk by the end of this month! Things are happening! I'm also at work on a follow-up to NIGHT TIMES about this psycho social services place, STEP, Inc., where I used to work my day job during the NT era. Man, it was an evil place, I'm tellin' ya. You can learn about it here:

http://www.riverfronttimes.com/issues/2001-11-14/news/feature_1.html It's kind of a challenge to write a follow-up memoir DURING the same era as your first memoir without being redundant, but I'm up to the task. I'd planned to have this be a sub-story in my first draft of NIGHT TIMES, but a drugs-for-sex ring is just too sensational on its own.

So hey--four books at once! That's kinda cool, huh? And I won't forget to write to you too, dear readers. xo, jgb/nt

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.”

- Hunter S. Thompson

31 July 2005

The Radio is Broken

--Ken Kase, Editor

Well, it certainly didn’t take a genius or a fortuneteller to predict the outcome of New York attorney general Elliott Spitzer’s investigation into alleged payola practices in his state. The tenuous alliance between the major labels and corporate radio has been under scrutiny since the early days of rock and roll. Songs played over the airwaves are essentially commercials that sell records, so it’s no wonder that the Powers That Be were able to rationalize their dubious efforts to promote records.

The first target, the folks at Sony/BMG, rationalized themselves into a $10 million settlement. The paper and e-mail trail left behind indicated some naughty behavior indeed, fraught with free trips and the lure of iPods, laptops and other digital doodads for spins of records by J-Lo and Jessica Simpson. Lurid stuff, but also pathetic as it was revealed that some radio stations took the bait straight off the hook and ran, neglecting to provide the airplay for their perks. All of these actions cost a great deal of money and all of these actions point to a system for the recording, distribution and promotion of music on a national scale that is utterly broken.

Spitzer’s next steps, going after EMI and Universal Vivendi, should be easy pool in light of this week’s settlement. The manipulation of airplay and chart positions via terrestrial radio will prove to be far more difficult in the presence of more media outlets--most notably, satellite radio and the internet—that have much more fragmented audiences. Ever slow on the uptake in embracing new technologies and methods, the last few years have seen a record industry paralyzed with fear and resorting to draconian tactics. When faced with newer delivery mediums such as .mp3, the record labels affiliated with the RIAA chose to sue their potential customers for copyright infringement rather than seize the potential of the new technology to promote their records. Rather than see that the music buying public has the potential to support a wider market with a broader spectrum of artists, they have chosen to revert to “pay for play” tactics for their most formulaic, fabricated “stars.” Stupidity is usually defined as repeatedly engaging in behaviors that are either self-defeating or have disastrous consequences. By definition, these guys are really stupid.

The old system is crumbling and the record industry needs to find new ways to redeem itself. They have proven that they are not the arbiters of public taste. They have also proven how truly desperate they are for a return to days gone by. They don’t even have enough confidence in their “bankable” rosters. Their efforts to manipulate sales and airplay send a loud and clear signal—the music they’re peddling is crap. Such crap that they need to pay to get it played. And even then, it doesn’t always work.

email: kenkase@nighttimes.com

Julia Gordon-Bramer,

managing editor and publisher

July 9, 2005

Hey all, I'm back.

Not that I was ever gone, but I haven't been doing the editorial for some time since bringing Ken on board. While Ken's still with nighttimes.com 100% (okay, 90%), he's stepping away from the regular editorial authoring responsibilities in his quest for peace of mind. A good thing.

Me? I'll drop in and blog here as I feel like it. When I brought back NT online, it was decided that it should be all about fun. I realized that, along with my other writing, I love music writing. It's a part of me and I can't give it up. But for a while (when we were a print zine), it had taken over my life and I had time for nothing else. Lately, I've had a lot of fun with it, though--especially meeting so many great bands on this last Warped Tour (My Chemical Romance, Underoath, My American Heart, The Receiving End of Sirens, Bedouin Soundclash--interviews are all either live now or soon to be).

If you can believe this, I've got a few book projects in the works now. I'm still waiting for my agent to sell my memoir called, NIGHT TIMES (guess what that's about!) and any of you in publishing will sympathize with me on this painfully slow process. I've been told my proposal was 'about' to be shopped to the publishers for over six months now. Still waiting for it to leave my agent's office. Sigh.

If you are one of the weirdos who watch daytime television, there's a chance you may have caught me on Show Me St. Louis, talking about my latest endeavor, The St. Louis Century of Music Project. I'll be soliciting help from other writers--and the community--to put together a hundred years of the history of popular music. If you want to be a part of it, either with information, contacts, stories, memorabilia, or your writing, photographic or design talent, contact me at wordgirl@nighttimes.com or call 314.434.7219. From my first press release announcing the idea, we've had a tremendous response from the community. Thanks also to KMOX's John Carney, who gave me and my partner, Benjy Portnoy, a full hour of air time to talk about it and take calls.

Finally, those of you who know me know that I'm inclined to scrawl down poems on bits of paper, backs of notebooks, or any surface I can find when the inspiration hits. While I've never thought of myself as 'A Poet', I'm starting to take this hobby a little more seriously. I'm putting together a book of my favorite poetry--at this point I don't know if it will be independently published, small or medium-house published, or just for my own, personal review. But I'm having a great time with it. I thought I'd close by sharing a recent poem I wrote, inspired by the song "A Dark Time For The Light Side Of The Earth," by the amazing young indie-pop band, Doris Henson. See my review of them with Billy Corgan, as well as my interview with them in our interviews section.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to write me back.

xo, jgb/nt

Song

Find me, Song

hungry and tempted

by the lick of your

tongue at my ear

you appear

in the right season

knowing that the recipe for Me

contains that hot rush of loneliness

an infusion of amusement

baked in gusty layers all

whirling beside that thin difference

of heartbeat and heartache

Touching on something stolen,

buried deep, and unnamed

Naughty and pure,

together we’re

ugly and perfect

‘til I find another to fill

me the same

Don’t expect me to settle

I’ll never be faithful

Lay your scarlet letters

on this promiscuous girl

and hurl me into

that shared music core

where I’ll be

naked, nestled

inside another heart’s message

in sweet rhythmic darkness

apart from and within me