Music News and Muse: September 9th, 2016

The best thing I saw all week are these vintage suitcases turned into functional boomboxes.

I had the opportunity to interview Alice Bag for Le Sigh and if you don't know anything about her, this is a great place to start if I don't say so myself. If you want to know more about the birth of NY punk, this interview with three east coast legends is worth your time.

Holy crud - did you see the U+NFest 5 fest happening in Baltimore? ESG is the headliner and the line up of awesomeness explodes outward from there.

Paper wants you to know about 15 rising DJs and producers which also happens to = a whole lot of talented ladies.

What is better that one iconic punk singer? Two powerhouse vocalists! New band Sex Stains on Don Giovanni Records features Allison Wolfe of Bratmobile and Mecca Vazie Andrews.

Laura Marling is so curious about how equal women in music are, she has launched a new Podcast series dedicated to it.

Backyard Report! The Richmond Folk Festival is RVA's flagship annual music event and our friend/neighbor Katie McBride has designed the perfect poster for it this year.

Doe breaks down their new record track by track and I want to crawl inside of it and live there forever. Rawkus power Pop from the U.K. is what anyone with ears needs to hear on a Friday.

The feel good story of the month is this Mary Boyer, a 93 year old Prince fan from Cleveland. Thanks Drew Cary for making me instantly sing Cleveland Rocks.

Miranda Lambert has created a scholarship for female songwriters because she knows women in the industry could use the support. And while we are talking about scholarships. Bitch Media is currently accepting applications for their 2017 writing fellowships.

Learn more about the woman who helped shape the music of Britain's legendary series Doctor Who and has gone on to influence music decade after decade. Stranger Things included.

Wow busts some of the most common myths of being a woman in music.

Do you live in DC and dream of working for NPR? Look at this - they are currently hiring!

Pearl Jam's sound engineer for over two decades is Karrie Keyes and she has a group that supports and mentors women in in professional audio called SoundGirls. I now have a favorite new charity!

In my ears this week is Lithics from Portland, OR - brilliant post-punk. While we are on the subject of Portland, musician Joel Magid posted on Facebook a confession to sexually assaulting a woman in 2010.

Brix Smith-Start of The Fall was a guest on WFMU this week and you can listen to the full show here.

Prom Queen from Seattle nailed a mash up between the Stranger Things theme and Twin Peaks soundtrack song "Laura's Theme".

You might have been wondering what the singer/songwriter Jewel was up to and slaying Ann Coulter at the roast of Rob Lowe leads me to believe that comedy may be in her future.

The Black Girls Talking Bandcamp picks for August are worth your time.

Toxic masculinity is everywhere and I definitely have been literally punched out by it at shows, made the mistake of dating a few people who were fueled by it years ago, and watch the horror unfolding in the news each day and think to myself that there are a lot of angry men out there. There is now a zine about this and they are looking for submissions. And the dumbass of the week award goes to Cute is What We Aim for Singer for denying rape culture is a real thing. Idiot.

Living room tours are all the buzz and I am not just saying that because we recently sponsored one in our home. They are an offering a real way for touring artists to make money and reach fans in a sincerely intimate setting. Small and curated is the new making it. Shannon Curtis will fill you in.

T-Rextasy will make it all better.

And Bomba Estero too.

The Rise, The Fall, and the Rise : Brix Smith-Start : A Book and My Heart Rate

WARNING! BOOK PLOT SPOILERS !

Fame. What's the point? It doesn't last. It doesn't guarantee money or respect. For every fan there is a reactionary hater. Being famous to some still means nothing to many others. It takes normal people and turns them into reclusive weirdos whose worlds are built around the machine that is trying to keep their fame alive for as long as possible. Their reality is ironically a false universe of people who mostly want to steal their light or ride their coattails. Strangers offer gifts that are actually disguised marketing schemes so businesses can align themselves with their aura of cool. When the fame bubble bursts (and it almost always does) these poor people are thrown back into the real world only to discover they are damaged goods with few real friends and zero real life skills. There is often no career plan B so next follows a depressing scramble to pay bills and rebuild a "normal" life. Fame. What a fucking terrible idea.

I would have said Brix Smith Start would agree but her story is an American marvel that has spread to other continents. She is a cat with 9 lives. She was born into a world of affluence, her rock and roll limelight timed out within a decade and yet she found her way back into the spotlight again in the most surprising of ways.

Some people don't seek fame, they are born with what I call shiny penny syndrome. People want to pick them up and stash them in their pocket. They glow from within like a jack o'lantern and people are naturally attracted to them. They stand out in a crowded room. People lean in when they speak just to be closer to their breath. They are catalysts to people's imaginations and desires. It is maddening to those who try to seek out that sort of magical existence because they discover it isn't something you can create or buy. Cool is a genetic freak accident only further fueled by money, style, and talent. Brix is one of those people. Like a moth to a flame, fame finds her.

Brix Smith-Start's story is the perfect balance of American dreams and nightmares. Her grandfather entered the country as an immigrant and amassed a fortune in California through hard work and innovation. A sun soaked and decadent life for his family was to follow. Financial privilege afforded her one of a kind opportunities (horses, Friar's club brunches, Beverly Hills shopping, housekeepers) but tied into that cost was also an abusive father eventually cut from her life, feeling like a causality of divorce with parents split between two states, and a revolving door of caregivers. An eating disorder complicated her already tense childhood. Huge things would be on the horizon for Brix but again good came along with the bad. Her teenage years brought drugs, sex, an introduction to the world of fashion, exotic travel, but also there was also brutal sexual assault. An elite college experience included a vampire bite that caused a serious infection (no really!) a bloody concussion, and an unwanted pregnancy. At this point we are only at the halfway through the book now and like a car crash you can't look away from, in walks Mark E Smith, the leader (AKA dictator) of The Fall. Here is a man that has dedicated most of his adult life to being a living, breathing, seething artist. One part drunk, one part poetic wrecking ball.

Each new chapter of The Rise, The Fall, and the Rise encourages me to curse. I have found myself wincing while muttering FUCK! or SHIT! The intensity and wildness of the first portion of the book is matched, no, surpassed by the second half. Her life gets stranger - something that seems nearly impossible. Overnight she goes from a fan of The Fall with minimal band experience to being not only a member of the band but living in England and married to Mark in a whirlwind that keeps swirling for much of the '80s.

Brix's entire story in wholly unbelievable and she articulates it in a manner that is like catnip to the curious. You will find yourself wondering how one person can fall (pun intended) into this many crazy situations. They seem to seek her out unlike the reality stars of today who fake drama and jump start headlines. There are endless run-ins and brushes with fame from fairytale royalty to the hard to pin down je ne sais quoi icons of hip usually associated with the likes of Lou Reed and Nico. From the ashes of a dead-end she rises time and time again. Her story is one of perseverance, survival, spirituality, and surreal luck.

Out of the hundreds of jaw dropping moments recreated in this book, one small paragraph still haunts me. Brix played on and helped write some of the most memorable and popular Fall albums yet she has never seen one cent of royalties from any of those records. When Mark E Smith walked out on her as a cheating husband, he also cheated her of rightful compensation. Yes, plenty of dirt dished in regards to their relationship in and out of the band but I think what is most surprisingly is her ability to forgive him and still see the good when most people in her shoes would have bludgeoned him to death with them.

A weaker individual would have come apart at the seams after the 10th bottoming out but Brix's star shine doesn't fade; she pops back to life like a trick candle whose flame can't be extinguished. She reappears in new bands, builds new career paths, becomes romantically entangled with a series of larger than life characters, and eventually ricochets back stronger than ever on UK television. I didn't know what to expect from this book but once I recovered from the shock of a world class roller coaster ride, I was left with hope and comfort. No life is perfect.We each cope in strange and wonderful ways to get by. It is reminder that around the corner isn't just more disaster or doom but occasionally things of true marvel, joy, and beauty. Just as easily as we can let others own us, we can take back our lives and make the impossible happen.

This books comes highly recommended and I have made you a playlist (18 plus hours!) of all the music she discusses in the book in chapter order.