by David Burn | Jan 20, 2007 | Literature
I read Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, in a graduate school class a few years ago. It’s an outstanding American novel, so I’m pleased to learn that thousands of high school students will be reading it next month thanks to an initiative from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The NEA found that literary reading in America is declining rapidly among all age groups, and that the rate of decline has accelerated, especially among the young. Their program, The Big Read, aims to address this crisis by providing citizens with the opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their communities.
Louisville, Kentucky is one community picking up the ball, or book, as the case may be. According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, the city’s library has purchased and distributed over 5000 copies of Hurtson’s novel.
“This is the most ever we’ve bought of any one title,” said Craig Buthod, director of the Louisville Free Public Library. “This goes beyond just reading. It’s about coming together and talking about what you’ve read. It forces you to think differently and more deeply about what you’ve read.”
by David Burn | Jan 20, 2007 | Music
Fast Company is running a feature on Coran Capshaw, the 48-year old Deadhead behind Musictoday, the company that partners with performing artists to sell more than $200 million worth of concert tickets, CDs, merchandise, and fan-club memberships.
Capshaw’s long, strange journey from fan to mogul began in the late 1970s while a student at University of Virginia. He was inspired by Grateful Dead. “I went to a lot of their shows,” he says, “and was exposed to the do-it-yourself model.”
He began booking bands for frat parties in Charlottesville, then got into the venue business. Today he owns office buildings, an amphitheater, various apartments, several restaurants, a club and a microbrewery. C-Ville Weekly once called Capshaw “the Donald of Charlottesville.”
Fast Company calls Capshaw “notoriously media shy.” Apparently, it took more than a year to arrange the interview.
by David Burn | Jan 12, 2007 | Music
According to The Herald-Sun, 28-year-old independent label, Sugar Hill Records, is leaving Durham for Nashville, Tenn.
Sugar Hill Music was founded in Durham in 1978 by Barry Poss, a Duke University graduate with a love of traditional music. Welk Music Group, a California company that also owns Vanguard Records, acquired Sugar Hill in 1998.
Kevin Welk, president of Welk Music Group, said, “This move enables us to further our mission statement of being the premier roots label.”
The label, which has a long roster of artists that ranges from Dolly Parton to Nickel Creek to The Gourds and The Duhks. In 2006, two of its artists took home Grammys: Tim O’Brien for Best Traditional Folk Album, and The Del McCoury Band for Best Bluegrass Album.
by David Burn | Jan 12, 2007 | Music
Christina playing the birthday party of Joe Hardy, founder of 84 Lumber
Los Angeles Times looks at the growing number of super high priced private events where pop stars entertain the insanely wealthy.
Grammy-winning superstars of every stripe are available these days for holiday parties, weddings or bar mitzvahs, whatever, just as long as there’s a boatload of money waiting for them. Actually, make that a yacht-load of money.
Robert Norman, who heads the corporate and private events division for Creative Artists Agency, said last year that his division handled 500 events. Many were $100,000 to $200,000 corporate affairs with acts such as Seal, Hall & Oates, Styx and the Go-Go’s. But about a quarter of the CAA bookings were private social events, a good number of them with staggering budgets.
The volume of business in that rarefied sector has surged dramatically in recent years. It’s now quietly commonplace for A-list stars to sing to middle-aged billionaires as they blow out candles.
The notion of Grammy-winning artists moonlighting as wedding singers at the peak of their careers would have been scoffed at a decade ago. But times and taboos change. Now, according to Norman, it’s rare to find an artist who won’t at least peruse the offer sheet.
According to the article Bruce Springsteen and U2 won’t do it, but just about everyone else will. Including punk band Social Distortion, 1960s icon Bob Dylan, The Eagles, Sammy Hagar, George Michael, John Mellencamp, The Rolling Stones, 50 Cent, Aerosmith, Tom Petty, Elvis Costello, Joe Cocker, Foo Fighters and more.
by David Burn | Jan 9, 2007 | Music
Billboard reports that Bonnaroo’s producers have long term plans for the Manchester, TN site where the festival is held each June.
Superfly Productions and A.C. Entertainment, producers of the annual Bonnaroo Music Festival, are finalizing the purchase of the bulk of the festival site land near Manchester in Coffee County, Tenn.
The festival will end up owning about 530 acres alongside Interstate 24 purchased from landowner Sam McAlister. Bonnaroo has long-term leases with owners of 300 additional acres at the site.
Superfly president Jonathan Mayers declined to reveal a price tag for the land, but did say the plan is to not only build a permanent infrastructure at the site, but to host other events in addition to Bonnaroo.
Mayers says the rural Bonnaroo site would work for a wide range of events, large and small, “whether it’s a country event or a Christian music festival, or just a stand-alone concert out there, with us producing it, someone else, or us partnering with someone. We’re totally open-minded.”
by David Burn | Jan 9, 2007 | Music
According to Teen Hollywood, one popstar is eager to return to her DIY roots.
Jewel is determined to show her former bosses at Atlantic Records how cheap it can be to record, release and market acts after filming a new music video for just $5,000.
The Alaskan singer/songwriter is in between record deals after parting ways with Atlantic, and she’s out to prove you can be a star on the cheap.
“I’m going to continue my career by trying to make records that are affordable. I think records cost too much and have such a big burden that you can’t make it back as an artist or as a label.
“I just made a video for $5,000 and filmed it on Super 8 (film) on my ranch. I think you have to make cheap affordable videos and try to make music about music again which for me works because I was never about being very cool anyway, so sincerity works in low-fi.”
by David Burn | Jan 6, 2007 | Lowcountry
Creative Class spokesman, Richard Florida spoke in front of 800 people in Savannah last month. I missed it, but I saw him speak at SXSW in 2003, so I know first-hand the message the man delivers.
Creative Coast Initiatve executive director Chris Miller was there. Miller left a lengthy comment on Florida’s blog about the experience and how Savannah fits the bill for a city able to attract members of the so-called Creative Class.
Even as many (if not most) other cities shed creative, young professionals, Savannah is not only bucking the national trends by not losing there folks, we are a rare place that is growing the 25-34 age demographic at a rate exceeding the overall population growth of the area!
Ironically enough, they are coming from other major metro areas that attracted young folks in the 90’s but are now losing them to smaller, more soulful places where they can more easily engage in the community and express their creativity in a cultured but quirky place that embraces them.
In my view, Savannah College of Art + Design must be credited with bringing thousands of young creative people to town, many of whom opt to stay in Georgia’s first city after graduation. The ones who do stay tend to work for, or create their own, creative companies–proving that an investment is education is the best investment a person, a city or a nation can make.
p.s. Tune in to SCAD Radio for some fresh sounds.
by David Burn | Jan 6, 2007 | Advertising, Lowcountry
The Hilton Head Chamber of Commerce paid California-based Believable Brands 60 Large for insights into the Hilton Head brand. That’s right, Hilton Head is more than a home to 30,000 beachcombers and a great place to visit for millions–it’s also a brand that needs promoting.
The Island Packet, a McClatchy newspaper, reveals the strategic communications guidelines established by Believable Brands.
The island “renews and enriches a visitor’s body and spirit through a sophisticated, relaxing and aesthetically beautiful and lush South Carolina seaside resort environment,” the brand statements say. And Bluffton is a “historic creative community located on the May River that is a tapestry of eclectic arts and eco-adventure.”
These insights were then delivered to Smith Advertising and Associates, a North Carolina firm that specializes in tourism marketing. Some of Smith’s creative is shown above.
According to Hilton Head Island MLS, the chamber receives about $1 million a year for tourism marketing from Hilton Head’s share of the state tax on overnight lodging. This year the chamber received an extra $450,000 for the brand study and the subsequent marketing campaign.
by David Burn | Jan 6, 2007 | Music
For decades members of Grateful Dead claimed they were not political. Yet, that was never actually the case. Anyone recall the 1988 Rainforest Benefit in Madison Square Garden? Tickets were $50, more than I’d ever paid for a concert at that point in time. But I digress…
Greatful Dead News, the blog from SLC Library Boy, is reporting on a new high for the band–a $1000 ticket. Apparently, Bobby, Mickey, Billy, plus Bruce Hornsby, Warren Haynes and Mike Gordon formed something called “Your House Band” and played Speaker Pelosi’s party at National Building Museum on Jan. 4. They were also joined onstage by Wyclef Jean and Carole King. Tonny Bennett and his four-piece band had their own two-song performance.
Setlist:
Shakedown Street >
Truckin
Touch of Grey
Dow the Road
I Left My Heart in San Francisco
The Best Is Yet To Come
Nancy Pelosi Speech
The Way It Is
Sugaree
Come Together
US Blues
Iko Iko
Gone Till November
Redemption Song
Natural Woman
Earth Move
You’ve Got a Friend
by David Burn | Jan 2, 2007 | Art, Politics
We went to Atlanta’s High Museum yesterday. People were clamoring to see items on loan from The Louvre, but I didn’t care for that exhibit. The pieces that stood out for me were in the permanent Folk Art collection. Particularly, Howard Finster’s “sacred art” and the following piece from Ned Cartledge:
“The Flag Waiver,” 1970, Carved wood with paint
In the scene above a civil rights protestor is being stepped on, while a journalist is being silenced. Sadly, such things don’t belong to art and history, but to the present day, as well. The New York Times reports that 2006 was was the deadliest year on record for journalists and news media workers worldwide, with at least 155 killings and unexplained deaths.
