A few nice tidbits in this week’s paper. First off, my review of Paul Curreri’s Saturday show at the Jefferson Theater to celebrate the release of California, his sixth album in about eight years; an Open Studio feature with Mister Baby, who is in fact a woman; and this week’s Feedback column—well, there isn’t one, but go to the News section for an article that asks a huge question: Is Ted Genoways out of VQR? (Read some past reviews of VQRs here and here.)
Plus, a couple of brief notes for today:
- Some big press for local author Emma Rathbone, who I wrote about in a recent Feedback column. Her first novel The Patterns of Paper Monsters came out yesterday, and got a nice writeup in the New Yorker last week.
- Sorry to double down on New Yorker content, but there’s an interesting article in that magazine about the ever-blurring line between major and independent labels that aspiring musicians would be wise to read. It argues, what’s the point of playing by major label rules if, even by making your own rules in the context of an independent label, your band can still get to be larger than life? Case in point: the Arcade Fire, whose Funeral outsold Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea as Merge Records’ most popular-ever release.
What do record labels do now?
