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Karl Wallinger, who was a short-lived member of Welsh rock band The Waterboys and then helmed his solo project World Party, died Sunday (March 10). He was 66, according to his publicist. No cause of death or place was given.
Wallinger also worked with Sinead O’Connor, had his music covered by Robbie Williams, and was featured on 1994’s Reality Bites soundtrack.
The multi-instrumentalist was born in Prestatyn, Wales, in 1957. After serving as musical director for a West End production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Wallinger joined the Michael Scott-led Waterboys for the alternative rock band’s second album, 1984’s A Pagan Place, providing keyboards, percussion and backing vocals. By the time he finished work on their third album, This Is the Sea, which included the Scott/Wallinger composition “Don’t Bang the Drum,” he was done.
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In its review of 1985, a Waterboys’ boxed set devoted to the creation This Is the Sea, Mojo describes the fractious, yet fruitful musical dynamic between Scott and Wallinger. “It’s the volatile relationship between [Wallinger] and Scott that forms another key narrative on 1985. Long, stoned sessions at Seaview, Wallinger’s home studio in central London, prove inventive. A first instrumental take on ‘The Pan Within’ is a gorgeous meeting of aesthetics, with Scott – organic, gestural – on piano and guitar, and Wallinger providing rubbery, funky synth bass and drumbox.”
Shortly thereafter, Wallinger left The Waterboys and in 1986 formed World Party, a primarily solo endeavor with Wallinger bringing in a revolving cast of musicians as needed to his atmospheric pop universe.
World Party’s debut album, Private Revolution, spawned what ended up being the act’s biggest hit, the cynical indie-pop anthem “Ship of Fools,” which reached No. 27 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album included a then-unknown Sinead O’Connor on backing vocals and Wallinger then helped O’Connor on her album debut, 1988’s The Lion and the Cobra. Wallinger reissued “Ship of Fools” in 2018 with a new video that included newsreel footage of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Stormy Daniels, refugee camps and environmental crises. The lyric video concluded with the declaration “Now more than ever.”
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World Party’s second album, Goodbye Jumbo, included “Way Down Now,” which reached No. 1 on Billboard‘s Alternative Songs chart, and “Put the Message in the Box” and was nominated for best alternative music performance at the 33rd annual Grammy Awards. World Party’s fourth album, 1997’s Egyptology, included “She’s the One,” which Williams later covered and took to No. 1 on the U.K. Singles Chart.
Wallinger suffered an aneurysm in 2001 and had to reteach himself to talk and play instruments. Following his recovery, World Party returned to the road, including playing South by Southwest and Bonnaroo in 2006. Their last tour was in 2015, and their last recording was 2012’s Arkeology, a 70-track collection of new and live songs, as well as cover tunes. “It was my homespun attempt at making something interesting,” he told BuzzineNetwork. “On this album there’s lots of different kinds of music…It’s not really one genre which has been one of our problems, actually; we’ve never been able to be marketed to any particular audience. It’s just music really.”
In a 2022 interview with The Big Takeover Show, following the reissue of Egyptology, Wallinger talked about the power of music and what he aimed for as a songwriter: “It’s good to write songs about stuff that people think about, that I thought about … I’ve always thought it should be something to do with healing or finding things out about the world that have truth. It maybe sounds a little idealistic, but it’s what music is about. It’s kind of a pure thing, music. I’m not left or right wing; I don’t even think in terms of that. I just want people to have what they need to get through living on the planet.”
Survivors include his wife, a son and daughter, and two grandchildren.
Like many modern artists, Sawyer Hill is constantly scrutinizing the social media platforms that impact music discovery. In January, the 24-year-old singer-songwriter sensed a shift in the digital winds.
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“I used to scroll through TikTok and my whole feed was musicians,” he says. “And then I started noticing all my videos on Instagram were getting distributed at a way greater rate — for the same video, the ratio of likes to views was way higher on Instagram than it was on TikTok.”
This was true despite the fact that Hill was treating Instagram Reels as an afterthought at the time — often just re-posting TikTok clips there, as many artists do. “I wonder what would happen if I really put effort into an Instagram video,” Hill remembers thinking. He started promoting his 2023 single “Look at the Time” – a caustic, grungy rocker delivered in somber baritone – on the platform, and it rose to No. 1 on Spotify’s Viral 50 chart in the U.S. in February.
This sort of breakthrough would be an exciting moment for any musician. Hill’s story has also taken on additional weight at a time when the music industry is casting around for marketing alternatives to the app that’s been ground zero for pop virality for a half-decade now. Some artists are unable to use TikTok to promote their recordings since negotiations between the platform and Universal Music Group fell apart at the end of January.
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Historically, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels have not been able to match TikTok’s impact on streams, so most artists and marketers have not prioritized them to the same degree. (Even with the success of “Look at the Time,” Instagram users’ passion hasn’t led to the type of streaming explosion enjoyed by TikTok favorites like Djo’s “End of Beginning.”) Some optimistic marketers believe that, in a world where TikTok is no longer an option for many acts, artists will finally be able to figure out effective strategies to use elsewhere. It’s like a point guard being forced to tie his right hand behind his back to build strength dribbling with his left.
“Focusing on one or two platforms instead of three could result in better impact,” says Johnny Cloherty, co-founder of digital marketing company Songfluencer.
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This climate helps explain why, after “Look at the Time” began to take off on Reels, “all these people on the industry side were like, ‘this is unbelievable,’” Hill says.
Virality was far from Hill’s mind when he started playing guitar as a kid in Fayetteville, Arkansas, using an instrument abandoned by his brother. By the time he was a freshman in high school, he was good enough to join a band full of seniors. “Whenever they all graduated, they’re like, ‘We’re playing bars now, so you’re either going to do that with us or hit the road,’” Hill recalls.
The choice was easy: He started playing bars around the age of 15. “I was always hanging out with 30- and 40-year-olds at the bar who were telling me their whole life story,” Hill says.
But he eventually realized there was a ceiling on the local circuit. “We’ve been playing all these bars for years, and it hasn’t really gotten us very far,” Hill remembers feeling. “We want to play for the masses. And the only real way we saw to do that was through social media.”
He started with TikTok, since “all music-related things were extremely TikTok-specific at that point.” It didn’t come to him easily. “I started out feeling what a lot of musicians do: ‘These social media platforms are lame, and it seems so fake,’” he says.
But the imperative to reach a wide audience eventually overruled the cringey moments. “There are people making their careers on these platforms,” Hill says. He wanted to be one of them: “I became borderline obsessed with figuring out these platforms.”
His first popular video was popular for the wrong reasons; users were making fun of his singing. Hill remained calm. “One day you can have thousands of people in your inbox telling you that you’re the worst thing in the world, and then the next day you have thousands of people in your inbox telling you that you’re the best in the world,” he says.
His equanimity was rewarded not long after, when he posted a live performance video of “Look at the Time” that was well received on TikTok. (At the time, he had not recorded the song.) After a few more successful videos, Hill caught the attention of AWAL, a label services company acquired by Sony in 2021, where he signed last year. When he turned his attention to Reels earlier in January, he wanted to push “Look at the Time” again because he already knew it was “super reactive.”
Many artists who benefit from a sudden surge of attention on social media and get record deals then have to go and learn how to perform. For Hill, this is not a problem. “I’m so grateful for having spent my teenage years playing all these bars,” he says. “We’re ready to take advantage of the moment and to go on tour.”
His advice to others hoping to crack the code on Instagram promotion boils down to “try hard” and stay flexible. “They’re pushing musicians like crazy on Instagram for now,” Hill says. “But that can change in one software update.”
There was nothing Jimmy Buffett liked more than a wild party. So it’s fitting that some of the late “Margaritaville” singer’s friends and musical compatriots are planning to pay homage to his celebratory legacy on April 11 with an all-star concert at the Hollywood Bowl entitled “Keep the Party Going: A Tribute to Jimmy Buffett.” […]
Bryce Dessner, composer, guitarist and former Yale history major, confesses that he and his twin, Aaron – with whom he makes up two-fifths of indie rock outlet The National – have a bit of a fixation with a certain chapter of the American experiment.
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“My brother and I have always been passionate Civil War buffs,” he tells Billboard from Melbourne, where the band has just played two shows at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. “For years we used to name National demos after Civil War battles – I think the song ‘Ryland’ was called ‘Fredericksburg.’”
You could call it kismet that the 47-year-old composer’s latest scoring endeavor is for Apple TV+’s Manhunt, a historical crime thriller centered around the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in 1865. The seven-part series, which premieres March 15, follows U.S. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, played by The Crown’s Tobias Menzies, as he tracks down Anthony Boyle’s runaway John Wilkes Booth – a bloody, intense chase that Dessner says was like “running a marathon seven times” to write the music for.
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To capture the scale of the tragedy’s impact — which risked putting Lincoln’s post-war plans for Reconstruction on the brink of collapse — Dessner threaded subtle electronic embellishments into an orchestral tapestry of strings and brass, all while honoring the American folk traditions of the time with the occasional fiddle or banjo. His attention to detail even led him to Nashville, Tenn., where he purchased a classic, early ‘60s J-50 Gibson guitar specially for the project.
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“It’s quite minimal but very specific,” he says of the soundtrack, which follows his previous work on films such as Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant and Zach Braff’s A Good Person.
The cello, for example, unofficially serves as Booth’s sonic mascot, as demonstrated in the moments leading up to the fatal gunshot at Ford’s Theatre in episode 1. The droning instrument lurks beneath the surface as Boyle meditatively recites dialogue in sync with the play being performed onstage before bursting into the president’s box at what he clearly hopes is the juiciest moment to aim, fire, and declare, “Freedom for the South!”
More than 150 years after the fact, the National is coming down from two back-to-back albums — First Two Pages of Frankenstein, which debuted at No. 14 on the Billboard 200, and Laugh Track. The projects were released just five months apart in 2023, but Dessner says the band is already back to the drawing board.
“We don’t fully understand how we released two records last year,” he says with a laugh. “It’s fairly shocking, because it usually takes us forever to make one record, but to make two in a year … We were just so excited about music and this intense, prolific period that we wanted to get them out there.”
“But yeah,” he adds. “We’ve started writing again.”
So, too, have Dessner’s friends and past collaborators, including St. Vincent’s Annie Clark. The musician recently unveiled a new single, “Broken Man,” and announced her album All Born Screaming.
“She’s one of my really old friends,” Dessner says. “She and I met playing in Sufjan Stevens’ band in the early 2000s — I think Annie was like 18 or 19. It’s always exciting to see what she’s doing, and mind-blowing.”
As for Taylor Swift, whose Folklore and Evermore albums he helped work on with his brother, Dessner says he’s “very excited” for Tortured Poets Department to arrive April 19. “It’s good,” he reveals, smiling. “I can’t say too much but, as usual, she’s a genius.”
Pearl Jam returns to No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart for the first time in 26 years and two weeks, reigning with “Dark Matter” on the March 16-dated survey.
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The song becomes Pearl Jam’s first No. 1 on the chart since “Given To Fly” led for six weeks in January-February 1998.
That lengthy break between No. 1s is the longest in the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart’s 43-year history. The record was previously held by Kenny Wayne Shepherd, who went 20 years and 11 months between the six-week reign of “Blue on Black” (credited to The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band) in 1998 and his featured turn on Five Finger Death Punch’s cover of the song (alongside Brantley Gilbert and Brian May) in 2009.
In terms of distance between No. 1s by lead acts, the record prior to Pearl Jam belonged to The Offspring, via its nearly 18-year respite between the rules of “Gone Away” in 1997 and “Coming for You” in 2015.
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Pearl Jam now boasts four total Mainstream Rock Airplay No. 1s. In addition to “Given To Fly” and “Dark Matter,” “Daughter” reigned for eight weeks beginning in December 1993 and “Better Man” led for eight frames starting in January 1995. “Dark Matter” ties “Given To Fly” for the group’s fastest flight to No. 1: four weeks each.
In between “Given To Fly” and “Dark Matter,” Pearl Jam charted 20 Mainstream Rock Airplay 20 entries, paced by the No. 2-peaking “World Wide Suicide” in 2006 and “Mind Your Manners” in 2013. Of those 20 tracks, 11 hit the top 10.
Concurrently, “Dark Matter” holds at its No. 10 high on Alternative Airplay and jumps 26-22 on Adult Alternative Airplay. On the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, the song returns to No. 1 for a second week (after leading the March 2 survey) with 6.9 million audience impressions, up 8%, March 1-7, according to Luminate.
On the most recently published Hot Hard Rock Songs chart (dated March 9), “Dark Matter” ranked at No. 2. In addition to its radio airplay, the song earned 876,000 official U.S. streams and sold 1,000 downloads Feb. 23-29.
“Dark Matter” is the lead single and title track from Pearl Jam’s 12th studio album, due April 19.
All Billboard charts dated March 16 will update on Billboard.com on Tuesday, March 12.
It’s an incredible accomplishment: Since its inception in 1967, Chicago has never missed a year of touring. Even during the pandemic, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees played dates in 2020 before the shutdown, and then was one of the first acts back on the road in 2021.
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“It was eternity, not being able to work for a year and a half,” says James Pankow, the band’s trombonist and one of the three founding members — along with keyboardist/singer Robert Lamm and trumpeter Lee Loughnane — still with the band. “So here we are. This is our 57th year and, gosh, it just keeps getting better. I have to pinch myself because this phenomenon is never ending. And, man, we’re going to do this as long as we can.”
Earlier this week, the band hit another milestone: on Wednesday (March 6), Chicago played its 50th show at Las Vegas’ Venetian Theater, the first act to reach that landmark. The 1,815-seat venue at the Venetian allows fans to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band in a much smaller setting than its other 80-to-90 annual shows.
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There’s a reason Chicago is still filling seats more than a half century after its inception in its namesake city: It is one of the most successful rock acts in history, landing albums on the top 40 of the Billboard 200 album chart for six successive decades and releasing such pop-rock classics as “Saturday in the Park,” “Make Me Smile,” “Just You & Me,” “If You Leave Me Now” and “Wishing You Were Here.” On Billboard’s charts-determined 2019 list of the Greatest of All Time Artists, Chicago ranked as the third-highest band, behind only The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and 10th on the list overall.
In a wide-ranging conversation, an animated Pankow talks about the future of the band and why he still delights in taking the stage every night, while also looking back at bringing down the house (literally) with the Beach Boys, earning Janis Joplin’s respect and opening for (but never recording with) Jimi Hendrix.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
When I saw you at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles last summer, it seemed like the band was having the time of its life and the energy was outrageous. It feels like a good time in the life of Chicago.
The current lineup, in my opinion, is the strongest lineup in the history of the band. The band is firing on all cylinders. There’s no weak spots in the personnel. We have trimmed the fat and we are just slamming. Being on stage with my fellow bandmates is a joy every night that I will never tire of. Who would have thought more than a half century later that it’s still an amazing experience? More amazing than ever.
On Wednesday, you celebrated your 50th performance at Las Vegas’s Venetian Theatre. What do you like about playing there?
The sound in that room, which I particularly appreciate, is amazing. There’s not a bad seat in the house in terms of hearing every note in the music. We play arenas. We do the Forum in L.A., Madison Square Garden — those are created for sporting events, and the acoustics leave a lot to be desired. The intimacy of the Venetian Theatre, you hear everything. And when people come to hear Chicago, they come to experience the real deal. There’s no smoke and mirrors. This is live. They are actually seeing and hearing the band recreate this music completely live. And we do it very well, if I may say so.
The current run at the Venetian ends March 9. Will you be back in 2025?
I hope so. We love this gig.
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You’re playing very complicated, sophisticated music. When’s the last time you remember one of you getting lost on stage?
Everybody has a moment. We’re human. If somebody flubs, you’re right there to watch his back. I remember one night the horn section opened the show with an a cappella horn thing, and I went blank completely blank. I got on stage and I started blowing notes that had nothing to do with the piece. They were wrong notes. They were hideous. I stopped playing and I went up to the mic and I said, “I blew it!” The comic relief took a million pounds off my back. The audience loved it. But that’s what live is. Stuff happens.
You travel by bus now, instead of flying, but those days of chartering a plane in the ‘70s and ‘80s must have been pretty sweet.
For many years, we leased an airplane. We had a logo on the tail. That was an amazing experience. It spoiled us. You leave the show, you get on your jet and you’re in the next city before last call. It wasn’t a four or five-hour bus ride, it was an hour flight. It was the golden age. We were as excessive as everybody [Laughs].
It was a little difficult getting used to ground transport after chartering for so many years. Then the cost of aviation fuel went through the roof and it just wasn’t practical anymore and so we had to go to buses… We’re a lot more frugal. We have our eye on the bottom line. I want to go home with some money in my pocket.
You’re headed out with Earth Wind & Fire this summer for the sixth time. What’s your favorite Earth Wind & Fire song?
I love so many of them. “September” has always been one that I love to play. It’s got a great groove. The horn parts are really fun to play. Their arrangements are really terrific. And then you look around and there’s 20 guys on stage. It is so powerful. I’m a maniac on stage, and usually I end up next to [EW&F high-energy bassist] Verdine [White] in the finale, and the two of us are trying to stay out of each other’s way because it’s nonstop. It’s pretty funny, we have had moments of near collision. My horn has had to go into the shop a couple of times, banding into the neck of his bass.
You’ve had multiple runs with the Beach Boys as well. You must have amazing memories.
We had some runs with the Beach Boys that were off the map as well. We were doing stadiums. And this is when Peter [Cetera] was still in Chicago and the Beach Boys were fully represented. Dennis [Wilson] and Carl [Wilson] were still alive. Brian [Wilson] was out. Mike Jardine and Mike Love. It was the original lineup of both bands doing both of our biggest hits. I remember being at Angels Stadium, and they had to evacuate the upper deck because they were worried about the concrete cracking because people were going up and down, singing “We’ll have fun, fun, fun…” They had to send a riot squad up there and evacuate it. Those are some other pretty wild experiences we’ve had.
Do you have a favorite era of Chicago?
Each one is defined in a unique way — you can’t really compare because it’s a completely different time. But the first album will always be the most special to me. I’ll never forget walking into Columbia Recording Studios in New York City, standing in front of a mic and knowing that this is going on tape forever. We were very frightened young men. And that music was the embodiment of the idea of what this band is all about.
When we put this thing together, [founding member/ band saxophonist] Walt Parazaider approached all of us and said, “Hey guys, what do you think about the idea of a rock and roll band with a horn section that’s a lead voice?” How do you create a horn section that is a main character in the music? Not just frosting on the cake and background riffs, like is typical with what horn sections do. We didn’t know if that was going to work or not. But I guess it has, because here we are all these years later!
Chicago opened for Jimi Hendrix after he saw you opening for Albert King at the Whisky a Go-Go on the Sunset Strip. What was that like?
We had become almost like the new house band at the Whisky and big acts that were going through L.A. would go there on their night off to check out what was going on in the local see what’s the next big thing. We were in the dressing room waiting to go back on stage and we opened the door and here’s this guy standing in the doorway. “Is that?” “Wait a minute. Is that Jimi Hendrix?” And he says, “You guys have a horn session that sounds like one set of lungs and you got a guitar player that’s better than me. You guys want to go on the road with me?”
And the rest is history. We became his opening act. We got exposure that we never could have had. Hendrix was a God. I remember being on stage at those shows and the audience would be going, “We want Jimi, we want Jimi,” and Walt would go to the mic and say, “Shut the hell up and listen!” [Laughs.]
Is it true you talked about recording together?
We were talking to Jimi and [Jimi Hendrix Experience members] Noel [Redding] and Mitch [Mitchell] about “Hey man, let’s do an album together.” And Hendrix was all excited.
It’s really quite charming in a way: [original Chicago guitarist/vocalist] Terry Kath and Jimi Hendrix intimidated each other. They both had such high regard for one another that they were nervous around each other. They were never really quite able to compare notes. Eventually, yes, but for much of the tour, they were afraid to approach each other. But then as we worked together more and we got more comfortable with each other, we were talking very seriously about an album project: A mash up with Hendrix and Chicago. And, man, the next thing you know Jimmy’s gone, then Terry Kath is gone. I will always wonder what would have resulted had we collaborated. [Hendrix died in 1970 and Kath in 1978].
You also opened for Janis Joplin. Where did you meet her?
We met her at the Fillmore West in San Francisco. We were the opening act for Santana and then Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis. We’re sitting in our dressing room and, out of the blue, Janis Joplin barges into the room. I don’t know why. Maybe she just wanted to get a look at these scraggly looking nobodies.
She proceeds to brush her hair in the full length mirror on the wall. She drops her brush and she looks at us and says, “Pick up my brush, you MFs.” And Walt, all 6’ 2” and a ½ of him gets up off the couch, walks right over to Janis Joplin and looks right down into her face and says, “Young lady, pick up your own [MF] brush and tell me you’re sorry.” And she was like a little schoolgirl. She bent down and picked up her brush and looked at Walt and said, “I’m sorry,” and walked out of the room sheepishly.
From that moment on, she respected us because everybody else let her get away with abusive behavior, abusive language, and we didn’t tolerate it. She just stuck to us like white on rice. She became dependent upon us to keep her together: “Hey Janis, put the Hennessey down. You’ve got to go to work. Get your butt up on stage.” She would hang in our dressing room, not her own. And she would not go to an aftershow party unless we’re at the table with her.
If you could put one Chicago song in a time capsule, which one would it be?
“Beginnings” from the first album. It’s one of the songs in the repertoire that I get to stretch out on and solo on. So, I always like that.
You put out a great documentary, 2016’s Now More Than Ever: The History of Chicago, but have you thought about writing an autobiography?
We’ve been approached by several writers. If you do a book, you’ve got to tell the whole story. Our manager said, “If you guys told the whole story, you’d all be in prison.” [Laughs.]
I mean, there’s been drugs, alcohol, ex-wives, affairs. All that stuff that’s going on, the seedy underbelly. It’s part of life. And I don’t know if there’s any lifestyle that’s more conducive to being a bad boy than what we do. So, there’s things that you can talk about and things that you cannot talk about.
You’re down to three founding members on the road since Walt retired from touring in 2017. How many of you would you need to keep touring?
We’re going to do this until we cannot be believable anymore. I don’t want to have to get up on stage with great effort and go through the motions and try hard to do what we do. As long as we can get up there and we can kill it every night, I pray to God that we can do that. At this point there is no end in sight. We’re at the top of our game. I say, “Retire to what?”
Alison Tavel, whose father died in a car accident when she was an infant, grew up with the family stories that her dad was a charming genius and the creator of an early music synthesizer he had dubbed the Resynator.
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The truth was more complex. Discovering that truth led Tavel on a decade-long journey to create the documentary Resynator, which premieres Sunday (March 10) at the SXSW FIlm & TV Festival.
“This is not the story I was trying to tell,” Tavel tells Billboard, explaining how she planned to share a little-known piece of music technology history involving her father Don Tavel. Instead, she also created a family history with deeper impact. Resynator is a film that explores the connections between mental health and creativity, against the backdrop of musical invention.
“This is a search for your dad,” Peter Gabriel — Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer-songwriter, and one of the few early users of the Resynator — says to the filmmaker, who visits Gabriel’s offices in London — 37 years after her father made the same trip.
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Alison Tavel describes in the film how, after her father’s death, she grew up in a loving home, “a magical world,” with her mother, who remarried, and her stepfather. She narrates the documentary, often addressing her late father directly. “Dear Don, you’ve missed a lot over the years,” she says. “I’ve always loved music. And everyone told me — I got that from you.”
Growing up with those family stories of how Don Tavel “invented the synthesizer” in the 1970s, she wanted to write a school report in fourth grade on her father’s achievement. She opened an encyclopedia to the entry for “synthesizer” — and read instead of the well-known success of Robert Moog. “I didn’t do my report on the synthesizer,” she says. It would be years before she thought of her father again.
Tavel worked for a music publisher, then as an assistant and later a road manager for Grace Potter. And at age 25, in her grandmother’s attic, she discovered her father’s invention packed away in a cardboard box.
“I was looking for a keyboard, because that’s what I thought a synthesizer was,” she says in the film. “And then, I pulled out this black, rectangular box, with a bunch of knobs on it. From what I can remember [being told], it’s a ‘rack mount, monophonic, instrument controlled, pitch-tracking synthesizer.’ But I don’t know what any of that stuff means,” she says, laughing.
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More simply, “it’s like a cool blend between a synth — which is, by definition, a synthetically derived sound — but it’s being triggered by an organic instrument,” says Potter’s engineer and husband Eric Valentine. “So it’s this really interesting combination.”
In the film, Potter offers Tavel clear advice: “I just think you should get as many people to play with this thing as possible and see what comes of it,” she says. “See what it sparks,” says Potter.
Among the artists and performers seen interacting with or commenting on the Resynator are: musician and actor Fred Armisen, Onnie McIntyre of the Average White Band, producer Butch Vig, Wally De Backer of Goyte, Rayna Russom of LCD Sound System, drummer Kenny Aronoff, WIll Gregory of Goldfrapp, Adrian Utley of Portishead, Mike Gordon of Phish, Rami Jaffee of the Foo Fighters, and Jon Andersen of Yes.
“Your dad was creating something that was the beginning of a lot of things,” says Andersen.
In one of the film’s most moving segments, Tavel brings the Resynator to Colombia to the studio of Latin Grammy-nominated producer and musician Christian Castagno. Playing guitar through the device, he declares: “It clearly has that old school, textured, beefy sound,” gesturing with his fist. “It’s a super-trippy machine. Synthesizers that I’ve encountered could almost be thought of as domesticated animals. And here, this thing is like a wolverine or something.”
The film takes a somber turn when Alison Tavel seeks out one of her father’s friends: Gordon Baird, the co-founder of Musician magazine (which was under common ownership with Billboard during the 1980s). She discovers that her father was visiting Baird in the days before the car accident that took Don’s life. And she learns for the first time of her father’s depression and emotional turmoil.
“I was so shocked,” recalls the filmmaker. “I called my mom and she revealed that there’s this letter: `Please read, come home and read this letter.’” Her father had described the family roots of his emotional struggles and the difficulty of acknowledging that pain.
In a director’s statement for the film, Alison Tavel says of her father:
“He was not this picture-perfect, famous and accredited master of music; he was a small-town, hustling man striving for success in order to feel loved and accepted. He was broken, confused and insecure. He was likely a genius – that part seems true, but he still couldn’t figure out how to be loved. It led him to depression, abuse and a bad marriage – and it may have led him to suicide.”
Alison also received perspective and advice from Gabriel. Just as her father was always looking to the future, the rock legend said, Alison should do so also — by converting the hardware of the Resynator into software for musicians. “I want to see my dad’s work fully realized — something he didn’t get to see for himself,” she says.
“I made this film for me, for my friends and my family —and for my father,” says Tavel. “But I need to share it publicly because I think that there are universal themes here. It’s about family, about figuring out who you are—and who the people you love are—through your own lens.”
Considering that Conan O’Brien made a name for himself by subverting TV comedy tropes in the ‘90s, people were ready for something weird when the comedian kicked off the eighth annual Love Rocks NYC benefit concert at Manhattan’s Beacon Theatre on Thursday (March 7). But it’s safe to say few people expected him to grab a guitar and deliver a full rock band performance of Elvis Presley’s final Hot 100 No. 1, “Suspicious Minds” – and honestly, he killed it. He hammed it up on the bridge, but the ginger giant delivered a mostly straight-faced take on the song and proved he’s got a solid set of pipes. You might not turn a red chair for him on The Voice, but he’s good enough to be a ringer at a karaoke bar (plus, it’s fun to see that orange pompadour undulating as he headbangs).
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That was one of the many unexpected delights at Love Rocks NYC, a fundraising show for the New York City nonprofit God’s Love We Deliver, which hand delivers 10,000 medically tailored meals to New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other serious illnesses every weekday. It’s an inarguably fantastic cause, and everyone involved – rock royalty, comedy legends and rising talents – brought their A-game to the Beacon Theatre.
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Eagles’ Don Felder played “Hotel California” on his signature double-neck guitar; Dave Grohl rocked out “Everlong”; Hozier belted “Take Me to Church”; Nile Rodgers brought the “Good Times”; and the Black Keys trotted out “Lonely Boy.”
Even so, most of the standout moments came courtesy of artists banding together for unexpected covers. For instance, who knew that Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” needed a trombone solo? But when Trombone Shorty, Joss Stone and Ivan Neville teamed up to cover the late, great Purple One, it brought a fresh New Orleans flavor to the Minneapolis sound. Speaking of Stone, the British soul singer had jaws on the floor with a fervent cover of Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” which had Tracy Morgan dancing side stage, hands in the air. Aside from Morgan and O’Brien, Martin Short, Bill Murray and Jim Gaffigan kept the night moving between sets, managing to make “donate now!” exhortations funnier than they should be. (Short’s quip that it’s a “rule of show business” to never ask Nick Cannon what he’s doing on Father’s Day was a chef’s-kiss moment.)
“Love Rocks is its own thing. We designed this concert to feel like a real rock n’ roll concert. While we do a text-to-give and message the charity throughout the show, we never wanted this to feel like a benefit or a gala. We do the majority of the fundraising prior to the show, so that when people come to the concert it is all about the music and entertainment,” Love Rocks NYC co-executive producer Greg Williamson tells Billboard. “And for the artists it is a very special experience where they get to see their friends and have a reunion with so many fellow artists that they love and respect. It’s a true lovefest and Love really does rock.”
It was a testament to the quality of the lineup (not to mention the flawless house band led by Will Lee) that the four-hour affair flew by. Bettye LaVette brought soul and attitude to a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Things Have Changed”; Tom Morello steered a sing-along to Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” complete with the oft-excised verse about hungry people waiting for relief; The Struts’ Luke Spiller led a crowd-pleasing take on Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”; and Allison Russell and Hozier traded vocals on a version of Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City” that was so good one hopes they record a studio version.
The evening closed with an all-star jam to David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance,” led by the Chic frontman who co-produced the Hot 100 No. 1 for the Thin White Duke – with Grohl on the drums, no less. “Is it possible that the entire evening was a favorite moment?” asks Love Rocks NYC co-executive producer Nicole Rechter. “Love Rocks 2024 was riveting from the opening act with Conan to the finale with Dave Grohl on drums. The night never let up with extraordinary performances from all the artists and comedians.”
Just like God’s Love We Deliver feeds thousands of New Yorkers in need every day, the audience at the 2024 Love Rocks NYC show left the Beacon Theatre well fed – and ready for the next one.
[Trigger warning: this article contains descriptions of domestic violence, as well as sexual and physical abuse.]
Marilyn Manson announced his first live dates in nearly five years on Friday (March 8), marking the shock rocker’s return to the road after more than half a dozen women accused the him of sexual and emotional abuse. The news came in an X post in which Manson revealed that he and Slaughter to Prevail will be hitting the road this summer/fall for a 30-date arena/amphitheater tour with Five Finger Death Punch slated to kick off on August 2 at Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey, PA.
More than a dozen women have accused Manson (born Brian Warner), 55, of sexual, emotional and physical assault, including actress Evan Rachel Wood, who was the subject of the two-part HBO 2022 documentary Phoenix Rising that delved into her claims of the abuse she claims she allegedly suffered at the rocker’s hand during an on-and-off relationship that began when she was 18.
Manson, who has denied all the allegations, reached a settlement with actress Esme Bianco last year to end her sexual assault lawsuit after a judge dismissed another sexual abuse suit from model Ashley Morgan Smithline. Previously, an L.A. Superior Court judge dismissed a suit against Manson filed by a former personal assistant alleging sexual assault, sexual battery, sexual harassment and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
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The singer was sued over allegations of sexual assault against a minor in January 2023, in which the “Jane Doe” claimed Manson groomed and sexually assaulted the then-underage girl early in his career. The graphic details of that Doe suit closely match the allegations from a number of the other women who have made claims against Manson, including that the singer subjected them to “hostile and verbally abusive behavior,” as well as racially charged language mixed with the sharing of intimate personal details.
After initially declining to name Manson as her abuser, Wood posted an Instagram statement in Feb. 2021 in which she wrote that “he [Manson] started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years. I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission. I am done living in fear of retaliation, slander or blackmail.” Among her horrifying claims were that Manson would “draw swastikas over my bedside table when he was mad at me” and that he would allegedly tie the actress up and torture her ritualistically, lashing her to a “kneeler” bench and hitting her “over and over” with a Nazi whip from the Holocaust before shocking her welts and private areas until she broke the bench in half. Following Wood’s claims four other women came forward with similarly allegations against Manson in a Vanity Fair article.
Manson has countersued a number of his alleged victims — in addition to settle Bianco’s suit — and judges have dismissed several of the abuse lawsuits against him over the past three years. In the wake of the raft of allegations, Manson was dropped by his record label Loma Vista Records in Feb. 2021 as well as by his longtime manager, Tony Ciulla, several days later.
The “Antichrist Superstar” singer has been off the road since the final August 18, 2019 date on the Twins of Evil: Hell Never Dies joint tour with Rob Zombie and hasn’t released new music since his 2020 We Are Chaos album.
See the announcement and tour dates below.
Summer/Fall 2024 North American tour:
August 2 — Hershey, PA @ Hersheypark Stadium
August 4 — Boston, MA @ Gillette Stadium ( w/ @metallica )
August 5 — Holmdel, NJ @ PNC Bank Arts Center
August 7 — Detroit, MI @ Pine Knob Music Centre
August 8 — Cincinnati, OH @ Riverbend Music Center
August 10 — St. Louis, MO @ Hollywood Casino Amphiteater
August 11 — Chicago, IL @ Soldier Field (w/Metallica)
August 13 — Rogers, AR @ Walmart Amphitheater
August 14 — Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
August 16 — Noblesville, IN @ Ruoff Music Center
August 18 — Minneapolis, MN @ US Bank Stadium (w/Metallica)
August 19 — Des Moines, IA @ Wells Fargo Arena
August 21 — Omaha, NE @ CHI Health Center
August 22 — Denver, CO @ Ball Arena
August 24 — Saskatoon, SK @ SaskTel Centre*
August 25 — Edmonton, AB @ Commonwealth Stadium (w/Metallica)
August 27 — Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena
August 29 — Airway Heights, WA @ NorthQuest
August 31 — Portland, OR @ RV Inn Style Resorts Amphitheater
Sept. 1 — Seattle, WA @ Lumen Field (w/Metallica)
Sept. 3 — Mountain View, CA @ Shoreline Amphitheater
Sept. 4 — Chula Vista, CA @ North Island Credit Union Amphitheater
Sept. 6 — Anaheim, CA @ Honda Center
Sept. 8 — Las Vegas, NV @ MGM Grand Garden
Sept. 10 — Phoenix, AZ @ Talking Stick Resorts Amphitheater
Sept. 11 — Albuquerque, NM @ Isleta Amphitheatre
Sept. 13 — Durant, OK @ Choctaw Grand Theater
Sept. 15 — Atlanta, GA @ Lakewood Amphitheatre
Sept. 16 — Biloxi, MS @ Mississippi Coast Coliseum
Sept. 18 — Austin, TX @ Germania Insurance Amphitheater
Sept. 19 — Houston, TX @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
*no Manson
Today (March 8) is International Women’s Day, and to mark the occasion Tunecore has released its fourth annual Be The Change: Gender Equity In Music Report. Prepared by research firm Midia, the study offers key findings on progress and challenges around representation for women and nonbinary people in the industry.
Beyond the findings, the study incudes a forward from rock pioneer Melissa Etheridge, who reflects on the discrimination she has experienced and witnessed during her four decade career. She notes that while women have dominated the charts for decades, “typically white, male executives have profited from our labor.”
She also tracks some of the changes she’s seen during her long music career, noting that the industry has become more inclusive for women and gender expansive people since she started out in the ’80s, a time, she writes, when being gay protected her from some of the discrimination she saw straight women experiencing.
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She emphasizes how crucial it is to truly be the change one is hoping to affect, writing that “people are sometimes driven by their own misunderstanding and fear, so if you become the love you want to see, we hope they will feel that and change.”
Read Etheridge’s foreward in full:
It’s no secret that the music industry has historically been a boys’ club. There have been decades of music defined by incredible women dominating the charts, but behind the scenes women have often been pushed aside and prevented from reaching the same career heights while typically white, male executives have profited from our labor.
When I started in the business back in the ‘80s, the A&R reps who came out to see me were all men. There were very few women in the business, and this was the norm at the time.
In the late ‘80s, the industry started to change. There was finally a bit of interest in women artists’ music and experiences. In 1988, when I was finally signed and my album came out, women were starting to break through the industry wall. Tracy Chapman, k.d. lang, Toni Childs, and Sinéad O’Connor were writing and releasing songs, and people finally started paying attention and realizing we had something to say.
In music—as in life—being a woman comes with its own set of obstacles, both seen and unseen. Ranging from unequal pay and a diminished sense of autonomy to the countless cases of sexual harassment and abuse that have come to light in recent years from all corners of the industry. And, these obstacles are compounded for women of color and gender expansive individuals.
What was the hardest for me was also a blessing. I was lucky enough to find steady work in L.A.’s lesbian bars, so when I entered the music industry, it was already known that I was gay. It changed the way people responded to me. I didn’t experience the same sexual harassment as straight women did in the industry. Men stood back and didn’t know how to deal with me, so in a way, my queerness protected me.
To me, BE THE CHANGE means that when you try to spend your time and energy trying to change everyone else – that’s a rough road. The best change is to become what you want to see. You want to see more peace, more inclusiveness and understanding? Then you need to be more peaceful, inclusive, and understanding.
I’ve been around in the music industry for over 40 years now – long enough to see how far women and gender expansive musicians have come. It’s really important to give thanks for that so that this work doesn’t feel so impossible. It used to be that people were either straight or gay and now there’s a beautiful rainbow – a whole sphere of beings and ways of being, and it’s important to celebrate that. The best thing to do is not to make it an issue of us against them. People are sometimes driven by their own misunderstanding and fear, so if you become the love you want to see, we hope they will feel that and change.
The history of our industry does not have to be a vision of its future. Studies like BE THE CHANGE: Gender Equity In Music educate our peers and help close the perception gap through storytelling and provide actionable solutions to combat gender-based discrimination.
Through this, we can reshape the face of music. We can work together to create a more equitable, accessible, and inclusive industry, where people of all backgrounds, sexualities, abilities, and gender identities are granted the same opportunities for success. From the stage, to the studio, to the board room, we each have a part to play to make that vision a reality. It’s on all of us to take action to combat discrimination in all forms. Inclusivity is a necessary ingredient for our industry to thrive. We all have to BE THE CHANGE.