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“Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir” by Matthew Perry
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Before the actor delves into his eye-opening story you’ll hear from Lisa Kudrow, the late star’s friend and co-star, in a foreword. The description for the memoir also says it’s “frank, self-aware and with his trademark humor, Perry vividly depicts his lifelong battle with addiction and what fueled it despite seemingly having it all.” His hope was to help those also overcoming addiction while also letting those on the path to sobriety know that they’re not alone.
When music attorney Don Passman was starting his career five decades ago, he talked his first client out of signing a 15-year contract that would have paid her manager half her earnings. Today, that same artist could get the same career-saving advice from Passman’s revered guide, All You Need to Know About the Music Business, for just $35 retail.
A partner at Los Angeles-based Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman, Inc., Passman is hesitant to discuss his high-wattage clients — he is said to represent Taylor Swift and Adele, among others — but is always eager to share the lessons he has learned from five decades of representing them. The 11th edition of All You Need to Know About the Music Business, to be released by Simon & Schuster on Oct. 24, arrives at a critical time for many musicians. Increasingly, artists are deciding to remain independent and use the high-powered tools at their disposal — everything from recording applications to digital distribution to social media apps like TikTok — to build a fan base. Both opportunity and the ability to make poor decisions have never been greater.
To Passman — who doesn’t take major record labels as clients, although his firm “occasionally” represents an independent label, he says — the proliferation of do-it-yourself marketing tools has brought equity to a business long marred by power imbalances. Unlike the early years in Passman’s career, when record labels, retailers and radio stations acted as powerful gatekeepers, today’s artists go directly to fans using digital distributors and powerful tools such as TikTok and YouTube. With such low barriers to entry, more than 100,000 tracks are uploaded to digital service providers every day. Being a professional musician is easy. Being a successful professional musician is far more difficult.
“Now the game has become [about] how do you break through the noise?” says Passman in a recent Zoom call. “The record labels have made a conscious decision to wait and see what artists can get traction on their own. And then when they get enough heat, the record company starts to chase them.”
As the tools of the trade have changed, so too has the path to success. With the exception of K-pop labels, companies rarely pluck unknown artists from obscurity and spend years developing their careers. Artists are expected to build their own careers and develop enough momentum to warrant a record label’s commitment. That often requires building a team — manager, agent, attorney and an army of consultants — and taking more of a CEO role. For a generation of aspiring artists, Passman’s advice has never been more important.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
In the new version of All You Need to Know About the Music Business, you write that the music business has become far more democratic since the last edition of your book. What do you mean by that?
Now it’s about how you connect with your fans. I have a section that I’ve expanded this time about how to go about doing that. Whether you want to do it yourself completely, or whether you want to go to a label, you’ve got to start a buzz on your own and you’ve got to make things happen. The companies get the same data, they’re all chasing the same artists and you’re getting bidding wars. And artists are able to get deals that in history they could have never gotten for their first record deal.
The downside is that you get people who have a billion streams but have never played in front of a live audience. I’m exaggerating, but they don’t have years on the road of developing their chops and don’t have a show. Maybe they’ve only got a few songs. If you look at the statistics from Billboard, there are less new artists in the top 100 over the last few years. It’s been declining. And there’s a concern that we’re in we’re in the hip-building business rather than the career-building business and no one’s quite sure why or what to do about it other than feed the short attention span and the virality of some of these things. But it’s challenging in that sense to build a long-term career.
From where you sit as an attorney, are things working out for these artists that have some do-it-yourself success and then get signed? How’s that next step going for them?
The reality is I don’t do a lot of those kinds of deals, just because we’re a small firm and I don’t take a lot of business. And so, I don’t take as many shots with brand new artists. I do here and there, but not a lot.
It also depends on the smartness of your manager and the innate talent of the artists to follow it up. But the ones that are real artists, and the ones that are well managed, can launch a good career off of it. The ones that are one-shot wonders don’t do so well. They can’t follow it up. I don’t know what the statistics are on the ones that get these massive deals, but I’m going to guess there’s a pretty good rate of failure beyond the first record.
But the companies have gotten more sophisticated. They’re not just looking for something that’s got hundreds of millions of streams. They’re also looking for fan engagement. They’re looking to see whether there’s a real connection with the artists because today it’s all about connecting with fans. And the artists that do that well and maintain it and build their connections and their image and their buzz, are going to have much healthier careers than the ones who just happen to catch a moment.
The front of the new edition of your book says artists have more power than ever in the history of the business. Where’s that power coming from?
From what we’ve discussed about how the labels are chasing people who already have a buzz. What happens is that two or three labels start to chase the same artist and if the artist is trending upward during the fox hunt, the numbers get bigger and bigger, and the labels are bidding against each other out of FOMO. And so, the artists now have a lot of power to demand things that they’ve never gotten before in history, like a share of the profits, like ownership of their masters that revert after a period of time. It used to be that you had had to be massive to get those things, but not anymore.
What about artists who are already established? Do they have more power? Is there a ceiling to how powerful a Taylor Swift or somebody can be in her negotiations?
Well, there’s a ceiling. But the ceiling in any negotiation is just simply the pain tolerance of the other side. My personal philosophy is that you there’s such a thing as making too good a deal — if you leave the other side so battered that they have no incentive to do anything, in particular with the artist if something goes wrong, because they just can’t make enough of a return on it. I think there’s such a thing as going over the line. Now, I’m happy to go up to the line and maybe an inch or two over. In fact, I’m probably not doing my job if I don’t. But when you get to the massive superstars, you get to figure out where the lines are, and you get to do something that’s never been done before. And that, to me, is the most fun part of the business.
The 360-degree multi-rights contract was dominant for a time. Artists pushed back. They didn’t want to share other revenue streams other than recorded music. And is that still a starting point for contracts is the 360 and then you carve out exceptions?
Yes, and yes. Most of all, labels will ask for something. If there’s any kind of bidding war, it goes away pretty quickly. A few labels are stubborn and think they’re entitled to it no matter what. But most labels, if there’s any kind of bidding, it’ll go away. Or at worst, it gets reduced radically to relatively small amounts.
So that’s a sign of artists having more power is getting better terms in these recording contracts.
Correct.
What things still exist in recording contracts that have had a bad reputation? I’m thinking of reserves for returns or control composition clauses or ways that labels would keep a little money for themselves at the expense of artists. Do these things still exist?
They do but they’re becoming much less relevant. Certainly, the returns reserve if the item is physical goods still applies. Although vinyl is surging, it’s still less than 10% of the business. So, it applies to that. And the same thing with the control composition clause. It doesn’t really apply to digital. It only applies to physical product in any relatively recent deals. And so, it’s become less relevant and easier for the artists to get better terms on it.
What would you like to completely rid from contracts?
The contracts have gotten reasonably artist-friendly over time. I mean, obviously, they’re still going to want to take an edge and a corner. I will tell you that re-recording restrictions have gotten tougher in recent years for reasons you can probably figure out. And those used to be much broader than they are now.
What’s a typical restriction?
They don’t want you to duplicate your recordings — like ever — and then they will limit the other types of recordings you can do. So, it’s gotten tougher as the labels get more concerned about artists re-recording or catalogs.
There’s a lot of concern about artificial intelligence these days — about properly harnessing the technology, concerns about getting paid, concerns about unauthorized use of artists, voice or songwriters’ compositions from a legal perspective. How challenging is this new generation of AI technologies?
We’re not going to put AI back in the bottle. It’s here. The real problem with AI, apart from the fact that artists may not like it, is that it can dilute the money that’s paid out to real artists. If I got 1,000 plays, and there’s 10,000 in a month, I’m gonna get 10% of the money, right? The problem is that if part of those plays are AI, and the streamer isn’t paying anybody, because there’s no copyright in AI, and there’s no ability to get paid for it, then they’re taking a chunk of money that’s not going out to the real artists. So, the challenge is to make sure that they can’t use AI to dilute what’s going to the record companies and artists. And obviously, the companies are all over this and I think will be successful if they aren’t already — it’s not public — in making sure that doesn’t happen. But that’s a major concern coming out of AI that we need to be careful about.
But there’s also potential, too. I can imagine estates using AI to bring to life deceased artists.
Yes, of course, all of those things are possible. Interestingly, there’s no copyright in AI. So, if you use it to create something, it may be that anything you create, anybody else can use for free, and you can’t necessarily get paid for it. So, I do think AI has a place in helping artists and helping enhance materials and so forth, but the law gets a little tricky because you can only get a copyright on what’s created by a human is pretty well settled. And so, the part created by the AI doesn’t have a copyright, so you don’t end up owning 100% of your material.
If something is created with AI, would part of that be copyrighted and then some portion would not, based on whatever the AI created?
Yes, that’s correct.
And then how is the split determined?
It depends on how much creativity the human put into it. If I go to an AI machine, and I say, “Write spa music,” and it knocks out a bunch of spa-sounding music, I haven’t done anything creative. I’ve just said, “Go make spa music”. If, on the other hand, I say, “Draw a picture of Kim Jong Un and Abraham Lincoln in a wrestling match on a roof in Mumbai,” maybe I’ve got enough creativity to get something of the copyright — but not in the drawing.
There’s a recent case with the Copyright Office about Zarya of the Dawn, where the author wrote a story and then had AI create the pictures for a graphic novel. The copyright office said there’s no copyright in the individual images. There is [copyright] on the story. But there’s interestingly what’s called a compilation copyright in the novel, meaning the way you arrange the pictures. The law in copyright says if I arrange un-copyrighted material in a particular way, I can get a copyright in the arrangement even though the underlying materials aren’t copyrighted, like a phone book, for example, the names aren’t copyrightable, but you can get a copyright in the way they’re arranged in the phonebook. And so that same principle applies here when you’ve got a number of copyrightable drawings in a particular way. But anybody could copy one of the drawings separately.
In your book, you give artists some advice: “All the superstars I’ve known have a clear vision of who they are and what their music is.” But there are also countless stories of artists, perhaps with clear visions, running into record labels’ A&R teams and sometimes that vision changes. What separates the superstar artists that you’ve known from the artists that didn’t reach that status?
I think the simple answer is their drive and their passion. The superstars have an unlimited amount of drive and are willing to walk through walls and they don’t get discouraged, and they keep getting up when they get knocked down and they just keep going. I think that’s what separates them. I think it could arguably be more important than talent. I mean, you and I could both name some moderately talented superstars just as we can name amazingly talented people who’ve never had much of a career. And the difference, I think, is their drive and their ability to want to do the work. It’s just a lot of work to have to have a serious career in any field really, but particularly in entertainment when you there’s no set path to get on. You just have to do it yourself.
Are the superstars equally demanding of their attorneys? Do they have high expectations for you as well?
I hope so. You know, it depends on the artist, and it depends on the situation. A lot of them are not that interested in business, or they may be interested but they want to spend their time being creative, which is a smart decision. So, they have people around them. But I think they deserve the utmost time and attention.
Your book details quite well how the music business can get really complicated and have a lot of pitfalls. What are some mistakes you see artists and their attorneys still making that they shouldn’t?
Well, in the early stages, the biggest mistakes artists make are signing long-term deals and not having any kind of an out if things aren’t working and they can get hung up with a manager that can really impact your career. They can get hung up on a record deal that’s not very good or a publishing deal that’s not very good, and no ability to ever get out of it. I think those are the things to watch for in the beginning.
That recalls your first client. I believe a manager was trying to get 50% out of your first entertainment client?
Yeah, for 15 years.
So, there would have been an out at some point, but 15 years is a long time.
Yeah, it was a completely stupid deal, but I was so young I was scared to death. But I did talk her out of it.
Artists and songwriters can sell their catalogs for pretty large sums these days. It seems to me that those deals haven’t changed the balance of power much because they go to artists who are already the most successful. Would you agree or disagree with that?
Catalog sales are happening at every level; the ones who get the headlines are the most successful. At almost every level somebody is selling their catalogs. I’ll give you my philosophy on it: For most people, I think it’s a mistake, and I try to talk them out of it. And I can give you the reasons if you’re interested. There’s a section in the book on this as well.
Yes, please do.
Historically, everybody who sold their catalog has regretted it. The Beatles catalog sold a Michael Jackson for $47 million; it’s probably worth $1 billion today. There’s people over the years who have sold their royalty stream and with the changes in technology, they now make almost as much every year it would have made them as what they sold it for, or at least two or three years’ worth. And the other exercise is a pretty simple one: Take the money that you get from the sale, deduct your expenses of selling, pay your taxes, and when you look at what’s leftover can you invest it and get the same amount of money you were getting before? And do you have the same upside potential your catalogue has? A lot of time the answer is no. And prices are definitely at a historic high. I’ve never seen them this high.
On the other hand, these are pretty smart financial people on the other side, and they’re betting that the market is going to grow and subscription prices will go up and there’ll be more people subscribing as an industry matures, and they think that the income is going to go up.
So, now having said all that, I do think it makes sense in the following circumstance: If you’re an older artist, if your heirs don’t know how to handle your catalog, or will kill each other trying to handle it, it could make sense to sell it. It could also make sense if you don’t have enough cash to pay estate tax on the value of your catalog when it comes around, and they have to do a fire sale, and you’re worried about that for your heirs. Or if you desperately need money at any level. I think it should be one of the last assets to go. It’s a place to get money, but you could also borrow against it to some degree depending on what you’re looking to do. I’ve obviously done a number of these because not everybody agrees with me and a lot of them are in the circumstances I’ve described. But for the most part, and certainly for younger artists, I think it’s something to be very careful about
How often are you able to dissuade people of selling? Do you make a convincing argument?
I have a pretty good track record of it, yeah. By the way, it’s not in my personal interest. I’d love to get it large fee for selling a catalog, but I always try and do what’s best for the artists.
ILLENIUM has had a massive 2023 with his self-titled album and the global tour behind it. But as the year comes to a close, he’s returning to the beginning of the ILLENIUM saga.
On Nov. 21, the producer born Nick Miller will release ILLENIUM Presents: Starfall, a graphic novel spin on the producer’s own origin story. Produced in collaboration with Z2 Comics, which has produced graphic novels with a variety of artists including Blondie, Sublime and Vince Staples, the 80-page graphic novel tells the story of “a cold totalitarian society where only the fittest survive.”
See exclusive images from the project below.
“Nick has embraced a new world order of violence and brutality,” the Starfall teaser continues, “blindly following his overseers’ wishes no matter how much blood stains his hands. To meet these vicious ends, Nick relies on an addictive Substance—a potent elixir that his malignant overlord rations out to the loyally subservient.
But a mysterious woman named Ash soon challenges his worldview, unlocking a potential of harmonyrooted in a winding mythology of phoenixes and fire. To transcend the dystopia he helped create, Nick will have to battle demons of addictions and unearth the secrets of ILLENIUM.”
This storyline mimics Miller’s own life, as the producer has been candid about getting sober in 2012 after a heroin addiction.
“The chance to bring my origin story to life in graphic novel form has always been a dream of mine,” Miller says in a statement. “This will be unlike anything anyone has ever seen from me before.”
The graphic novel will be available in standard hardcover, deluxe hardcover and super deluxe editions. The deluxe edition will feature an oversized hardcover book in a custom slipcase and come packaged with three art prints illustrated by artist Alex Moore. The super deluxe edition, which contains the same contents as the deluxe edition, is limited to 100 copies signed by ILLENIUM and also includes a limited edition holographic collectors card in a magnetic case and an enamel pin. Pre-orders are available now.
The IRL ILLENIUM is currently on tour in Europe and will play a pair of shows at Los Angeles’ SoFi stadium in February behind his ILLENIUM LP, which debuted at No. 1 on Dance/Electronic Albums upon its release this past Mary. The hero of our story also announced yesterday (Oct 3) that he got married in Aspen, Col. this past weekend.
From ILLENIUM: Presents Starfall, with images from Pablo Andrés and Luis Expósito Hernández
From ILLENIUM: Presents Starfall, with images from Pablo Andrés and Luis Expósito Hernández
From ILLENIUM: Presents Starfall, with images from Pablo Andrés and Luis Expósito Hernández
Throughout his blockbuster career, drag icon RuPaul Charles has built a personality on being the big, boisterous glamazon who fans have become accustomed to seeing on RuPaul’s Drag Race. But now, Ru is ready to let fans see the person behind the makeup.
In a video posted to his Instagram on Wednesday (Oct. 4), RuPaul announced his upcoming memoir, The House of Hidden Meanings. Set to release on March 5, 2024, the memoir will follow RuPaul as he recounts the story of his life, from pre-fame childhood poverty in San Diego all the way to his global renown today.
RuPaul made it very clear in his announcement that the book also dives into aspects of his life he’s never shared before. “I’m so excited and so anxious at the same time because I reveal so much of myself,” he said in the candid video, sporting a cap and hoodie. “This world today, it feels so hostile, and it’s such a scary place to be vulnerable in. But I did it. So get ready.”
In the caption of the post, Ru continued to underline the exposure in the new memoir. “Writing this book left me gooped, gagged and stripped raw,” he wrote. “I’ve learned that vulnerability is strength, but so far, all I feel is nervous as hell, yet super excited to share it with y’all. When all is said and done, it’s just me, Ru.”
This won’t be RuPaul’s first time flexing his writing skills. The House of Hidden Meanings marks Ru’s fourth book, preceded by his 1996 autobiography Lettin It All Hang Out, his 2010 style guide Workin’ It!: RuPaul’s Guide to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Style, and his 2018 self-help guidebook GuRu.
Watch RuPaul’s announcement video for The House of Hidden Meanings below:
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. The fates have spoken and your favorite demigod is back for a new adventure in the upcoming book Percy Jackson & […]
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
As if your summer couldn’t get more “Golden,” a new Harry Styles book is officially available for preorder on Amazon — and it’s the perfect gift for Styles fans. Featuring an under $20 price tag and more than 100 photos of the chart-topping singer, this will easily become the MVP of gifts.
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If you’re a fan of the Harry’s House singer, then you need to make sure this book is on your coffee table next to the Watermelon Sugar candle (of course). Within its pages are three sections that talk about his music, style and appeal to society. On top of that, you’ll be able to drool over some of his most jaw-dropping looks, including outfits from Coachella 2022 and the Met Gala.
The book is expected to drop on Oct. 24, but rather than mark your calendar now and wait, you can preorder it and expect it to be delivered the moment it comes out. Also, preordering will ensure you snag a copy because the last thing you want is to wait until release day and see that it’s sold out.
Keep reading to preorder the “Harry Styles” below.
Amazon
“Harry Styles” by Alex Blimes, Aya Kanai and Jem Aswad
$19.99
While you can’t actually bring the “Cherry” singer home, this book is the next best thing as it not only includes a gorgeous cover that you can display on top of your fashion coffee table books, but even includes expert insight from music, culture and style editors. Plus, it’s less than $20, making it an easy and budget-friendly gift for the fan in your life.
Need something to pair it with? Consider this Harry Styles Tattoo Hoodie or Two Birds Necklace inspired by the musician.
For more product recommendations, check out our roundups of the best female musician memoirs, musician cookbooks and the best music books.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
Megan Fox is showing off her “wicked humor” in a debut poetry book titled “Pretty Boys Are Poisonous” that will aim to give us a deeper insight into the actress and her life experiences. While there are a range of female musician memoirs out there, the Jennifer’s Body actress turned to poetry to discuss themes of men and relationships, which she officially announced on Wednesday (Aug. 9).
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The book will officially be released on Nov 7, but you can preorder the book now on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in hardcover, audiobook or Kindle versions.
“These poems were written in an attempt to excise the illness that had taken root in me because of my silence,” Fox said in a statement. “I’ve spent my entire life keeping the secrets of men, my body aches from carrying the weight of their sins. My freedom lives in these pages, and I hope that my words can inspire others to take back their happiness and their identity by using their voice to illuminate what’s been buried, but not forgotten, in the darkness.”
The 37-year-old also took to Instagram to share the news with her followers and reveal the cover art.
“i wrote a book 💔,” she captioned the post.
Keep reading to preorder the book below and make sure you get it the moment it’s released.
Amazon
Pretty Boys Are Poisonous: Poems
$26.00
The book is already labelled a bestseller on Amazon and features over 70 poems in which “Fox chronicles all the ways in which we fit ourselves into the shape of the ones we love, even if it means losing ourselves in the process,” according to the description.
For more product recommendations, check out our roundups of the best music books, musician cookbooks and Taylor Swift recommended books.
There’s an anecdote in the opening pages of Together, Somehow where the book’s author, Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta, recounts a moment on the packed dance floor of the infamous Berlin nightclub Panorama Bar.
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In the telling, a young man squeezing through the mass of dancing, sweating bodies pauses in front of Garcia-Mispreta just long enough to utter the question, “Alles klar?” (“All good?”) to the raving ethnographer.
When Garcia-Mispireta responded affirmatively, “Ja Alles klar,” the nameless young man simply smiled, then, “he caressed my face along my jawline from ear to chin, and continued pushing his way through the crowd. I never saw him again.”
Such unsolicited touching would have been intrusive, if not utterly inappropriate, in most other environments. But for Garcia-Mispireta, the moment is a salient example of what he calls “stranger-intimacy,” a gesture that is simultaneously warm and impersonal. An interaction made permissible due to “corporeal copresence, a shared sensorium, and apparent aesthetic affinities.” Or as the academic author helpfully clarifies, “in the flesh, sharing space, atmosphere, and sensuous enjoyment.”
Contradictory behaviors like the one Garcia-Mispireta describes are common in subcultural communities like the underground house and techno scenes of Chicago, Paris and Berlin that serve as the focal point for Garcia-Mispireta’s 320-page study, full title, Together, Somehow: Music, Affect, and Intimacy on the Dancefloor, published this month by Duke University Press.
“My central argument in the book is that the vagueness of how we get together and get along is actually kind of how we continue to do it,” Garcia-Mispireta says on a Zoom call from the U.K., where he is an Associate Professor in Music at the University of Birmingham.
He continues, “It’s part of the way that nightlife scenes in general and club culture, rave culture specifically, manage this weird trick of bringing together crowds where there should be some significant reasons for fracturing and schisms. And instead, getting them to, not get along forever, but to hang out for a party and mostly not get on each other’s nerves.”
Pick up any book about electronic music (there aren’t very many to choose from) and the focus will inevitably be some version of the music’s historical narrative. Authors will make passing mention of the audience as part of the overall phenomenon while mainly focusing on the key artists, records and events that make up the chronological story. But none have delved this deeply into the physical contact that is as distinct to the overall experience of raving as the lights and music.
Take, for instance, Nick, a Chicago raver who told the author, “I’m definitely, to this day, more intimate with my friends in the techno scene than my other friends, in terms of touching, hugging, kissing.”
Or Lisette, a Paris raver who found herself “starved for touch,” according to Garcia-Mispireta, in her daily life in the reserved city.
And it’s not just personal touch that gets, er, touched on. Another chapter explores physical touch by musical soundwaves (“Sonic Tactility”), while others address the beautiful messiness of partying (“The Sweetness of Coming Undone”) and the less-beautiful exclusivity of clubbing (“Bouncers, Door Policies, and Embedded Diversity”). The author writes about each situation in a manner that is rigorous (and rigorously cited), considering psychological and sociological perspectives that leap from broadly human to deeply personal.
Technically, the boots-on-the-ground research conducted for this book took place from 2006-2010, in the cities listed in the subtitle. As such, the book can’t help but offer a window into the fallow decade between the Y2K crash and the EDM boom, when electronic music had largely retreated from mainstream attention.
“For the global North, that was when dance music was picking itself up from the 2000 bust — the end of the nineties,” Garcia-Mispireta explains. “2006 to 2010 was a period when there wasn’t actually a lot of money. Cities’ scenes like Paris and Chicago were struggling to organize events and get enough people out. And there wasn’t huge scrutiny from the outside.”
But documenting this slice of electronic music history is not the focus of Together, Somehow. And despite Garcia-Mispireta’s first-hand accounting, the book is not a memoir or exposé. It is an academic study categorized by its publisher as research in gender and sexuality, LGBTQ studies, music, ethnomusicology, cultural studies and affect theory. As such, you’re more likely to encounter the names of cited researchers in its pages rather than any of the DJs or producers who thrived in this era.
The names of clubs like Berghain (Berlin), SmartBar (Chicago) and Le Rex (Paris) are mentioned with regularity, but this is due to ethnographic rigor rather than the historical importance of specific venues. The fieldwork is balanced out by interviews with individuals conducted outside of the club environment.
The combination of theory, history and first-hand accounting makes Together, Somehow highly readable as far as academic books go. This was important to Garcia-Mispireta so that the book’s readership might extend beyond his fellow academics and into the community it analyzes.
“This is first and foremost an academic book,” he admits. “But I do want this to be a book where the community can see themselves. That’s why the flow is anecdote or vignette, then shift to theorizing, then shift back to storytelling, and so on.”
Luis Manuel Garcia-Mispireta
Courtesy Photo
The author is qualified to accomplish his dual agenda better than most because he is a card-carrying member of the community he studies. A “queer-presenting Latino dude” who sports gauged earrings and favors brightly-colored clothing that conflicts with the all-black aesthetic that dominates the techno scene, Garcia-Mispireta discovered raves growing up in Toronto, and went on to combine his passion for parties with his academic interest — the latter enabling the former via grants and post-doc positions.
His previous publications include articles with titles like “Techno-Tourism and Postindustrial Neo-Romanticism in Berlin’s Electronic Dance Music Scenes,” “Agonistic Festivities: Urban Nightlife Scenes and the Sociability of ‘Anti-Social’ Fun” and “Whose Refuge, This House? The Estrangement of Queers of Color in Electronic Dance Music.” He also writes for Resident Advisor (check out 2013’s “An Alternate History of Sexuality in Club Culture”) and gives lectures on subjects like “Bouncers, Door Policies, Multiculturalism.”
In 2014, Garcia-Mispireta helped establish Room 4 Resistance, a Berlin-based collective whose parties were among the first to put issues of “collective care, harm reduction, accessibility and experimentation” front and center. Some of R4R’s innovations, such as posting a highly–visible Code of Conduct in venues or having a taxi fund to help at-risk attendees get home safely, have become common practice for promoters around the world.
Garcia-Mispireta acknowledges that some of the light-touch intimacy he writes about in Together, Somehow might be seen to conflict with the safer spaces he works to create with R4R. He is careful to caveat the fine line between stranger intimacy and offensive behavior.
“I always want to keep in mind that there is tons of creepy-ass touching on the dance floor,” he states. “But nonetheless, as I talk to people, especially folks who were most likely to be vulnerable to bad touch — women, trans folks, folks of color, what have you — they would say ‘I have clear boundaries about this. And at the same time, these are the clubs I go to where I can be open with my body.’”
He proceeds to point out the interview subjects in the book for whom dance floor intimacy offers up a positive experience that is otherwise missing from their life.
“Often, there was initially a period of discomfort if they were new to these sort of norms around touch,” he explains. “But for some people, they’ve awoken to an appetite for a kind of human contact that they didn’t get elsewhere.”
Like all things involving humans, the behavior Garcia-Mispireta studies is nuanced. And messy. And constantly changing as culture evolves. Fortunately, researchers like him are working to identify these knotty interactions, even if the ultimate goal isn’t to untangle them. In a world where people are increasingly divided, the appeal of togetherness is hard to ignore.
“My argument is that a lot of [intimacy on the dance floor] happens precisely because we don’t actually know all that much about each other,” he concludes. “We’re happy to sort of sit with that kind of strangerhood within the space of the party.”
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Musician, producer, author, filmmaker and founding member of The Legendary Roots Crew, Questlove, is set to gift the world with another book featuring his vast musical knowledge and unique insight. In honor of Hip-Hop’s 50th anniversary, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson is following up the all-star tribute to Hip-Hop he led at the Grammys with a new book titled, Hip-Hop Is History.
According to Variety, the book will be released under Questlove’s publisher, Auwa Books, and is slated to drop during the first quarter of 2024.
From Variety:
“No one is else is writing it,” Questlove tells Variety from an unusually quiet NBC Studios in New York, where he and the Roots would normally busy themselves rehearsing for their nightly gig with “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” but are currently on hiatus due to the strike.
Like his previous titles — most notable “Mo’ Meta Blues” and “Music Is History” — the book will benefit from his near-total recall of music history: things he heard, read about or witnessed first-hand. Co-written again with Ben Greenman, the book will be the second title from AUWA, Questlove’s book line through MCD (formerly called Farrar, Straus and Giroux), following the Sly Stone memoir “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” which is due in October.
Between Questlove’s growing book catalog, his Hip-Hop tribute and his Summer of Soul documentary, (not to mention The Root’s entire discography), it’s safe to say Questlove is an authority on music and Hip-Hop culture the masses could only benefit from hearing from. A real-life documentarian he is indeed. And as far as musical knowledge and expertise go, Questlove is an apple that didn’t fall far from the tree or its roots. (See what I did there?)
More from Variety:
“I’m in the legacy business,” he tells Variety, noting that he’s the son of (and former drummer for) doo-wop legend Lee Andrews. “There was no nostalgia culture before the 1970s, so, my dad was the first generation of the oldies-doo wop crowd. I know everything about curating these types of events, working with everyone from Bowser from Sha Na Ha to Dick Clark.”
Still, being in the legacy business is stressful for Questlove, a man who is consciously changing his life “from having 19 jobs a year” to “maybe” four.
“I’m doing all this because somewhere out there, in 2031 or 2041, there will be a new Ahmir Thompson, or Ahmira Thompson – maybe my kids when I start having them – and all of my hard work won’t be for naught. Perhaps, I will have reached somebody the same way that I was reached.”
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And the world will be better for it. Hip-Hop, like all music created through Black culture, has a legacy that should be preserved and protected for future generations to learn from and be inspired by. Salute to Questlove for continuing to be one of the culture’s most prolific messengers.
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