94.  A Room
Where are you?  You’re in A Room.  Many activities go on in each room you enter and exit.  A Room of your own.  A Room for the baby.  A Room for storage.  Make room for A Room.  Perhaps an instrumental that starts when you enter A Room and finishes when you exit.

95.  From The Depths
From The Depths of her soul she wept as she danced holding her sister tightly in the kitchen while the radio played a forgotten song.  True story.  From The Depths of my soul I love music!

96.  Blow My Dice or Blow On My Dice
Frank Sinatra sings “… a lady doesn’t blow on another guy’s dice…”  That is such a cool line it deserves a repeat.  Blow My Dice, a little shorter can mean = give me luck.  Blow On My Dice and I will score.  Blow My Dice baby, let’s take it home. 

It’s no longer possible to “sell out” — at least, not within a certain time-cherished understanding of the term. Rockers, rappers and up-and-coming pop titans of all stripes are licensing music and image as an integral part of brand-building, which largely has usurped selling music and concert tickets as many musicians’ professional end goal.

Consider Chris Brown’s smash hit “Forever,” which cracked the Top 10 in seven countries in 2008 (before his career-derailing assault on Rihanna) and went double platinum. At the start of the song’s video, Brown is shown sliding a piece of gum into his mouth before heading out for a night on the town. On “Forever’s” chorus, he croons: ” ‘Cause we only got one night / Double your pleasure, double your fun.” Turns out the song was commissioned by Wrigley to promote — you guessed it — Doublemint gum. Three months after releasing the single, the chewing gum conglomerate aired its “reveal”: a TV commercial version of “Forever” featuring Brown singing about gum and dancing with a pack of Doublemint. The spot generated outcry among music purists, but marketers greeted the spots with awe.

“When the reveal happened, some people got upset,” recalled Steve Stoute, founder of the firm Translation Consultation & Brand Imaging. “But the number of spins went up and Doublemint went up in awareness.” Stoute, who was behind “Forever,” also is responsible for Justin Timberlake’s “I’m Lovin’ It” spots for McDonald’s as well as Beyoncé’s endorsement deal for Tommy Hilfiger’s True Star perfume and the career game plan to treat Lady Gaga “like a brand” in her own right. “Using entertainment assets to introduce products is a platform that needed to get exploited,” said Stoute, a former executive vice president of Interscope Records. “The lines needed to be blurred. When done correctly, there’s consumer acceptance.” Stoute said his marketing company gets several calls a week from “major artists” in pursuit of their own “Forever.

” It’s not selling out, he argues, if there’s an authentic relationship between the music and the product being hawked. “Marketing isn’t successful if the consumer feels he or she is being sold something,” Stoute said. Personal favorite products Mariah Carey’s most recent CD, “Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel,” was accompanied by a 34-page mini-magazine bearing the R&B diva’s image and emblazoned with an Elle magazine logo. It’s a co-production between Carey’s label Island Def Jam Music Group and Elle that features such brands as Angel Champagne, Elizabeth Arden and the Bahamas Board of Tourism intermingled with lighter-than-air Mariah-based editorial featurettes: “VIP access to her sexy love life,” “Fantasy: the five-time Grammy winner goes behind the scenes of her new drama.” Carey pointed out she is personally or commercially invested in everything advertised.

“Angel Champagne, I guess I’m part owner. The Bahamas, we have a house down there,” Carey explained, between bites of caviar at the Polo Lounge. “It all has to do with things that are organic to me. And honestly? I’m a big kid. I thought it would be cute.” Island Def Jam is exploring similar branded CD booklet deals for artists including Kanye West, Rihanna and Bon Jovi. It all makes the Who’s rollicking 1967 concept album “The Who Sell Out” — which featured faux commercials and cover art depicting band members shilling for deodorant and baked beans — appear prescient. (In further irony, the Who’s epochal 1965 single “My Generation” is currently featured in a commercial for Flo TV.)

Scott Lipps, owner and founder of the New York modeling agency One Management, recalls a time not long ago when indie rock acts would sooner pack in their skinny jeans than appear in fashion ads. But now, Lipps has augmented the success of his agency (which represents such A-list glamazons as Bar Refaeli and Claudia Schiffer) with its offshoot One (M), dedicated to help place rock and pop stars in precisely such commercial environments. Among them: Alison Mosshart of the Kills and Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode, who were featured in ads for the fashion line J. Lindeberg, and the New York pop-rock band the Virgins, who were photographed for a Tommy Hilfiger campaign.

“People’s views on endorsements, doing magazine stuff — any way to reach fans — it’s all changed. It’s not taboo anymore,” Lipps said. Lipps, formerly drummer for ’80s rock group Black Cherry, remains attentive to the alliance of brand and band. “I’m never going to ask a very cool band to do business with a brand that they would never associate with,” said Lipps. “It’s about finding that right fit.” After the rock quartet OK Go broke into mainstream consciousness with the homemade video for its 2006 single “Here It Goes Again” (featuring the band members performing a synchronized routine on exercise treadmills), they were bombarded with offers to re-create the sequence for TV commercials.

The group developed what frontman Damian Kulash calls OK Go’s “hell-no criterion”: “If it’s a product we feel is demeaning or that cannibalizes the meaning or artistry of our song,” he explained. Still, the band has remained receptive to overtures from corporate America. Last year, the musicians appeared in print ads and billboards for Banana Republic — its spring fashion line campaign that also included such artists as Liz Phair, Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carrabba and Sara Bareilles — attired in natty suits, playing their instruments.

“The recording industry has so entirely bottomed out, advertising is one of the only distribution methods that still works,” Kulash said after returning from Japan, where he did a photo shoot for the fashion brand Uniqlo. “The music side has a deep ambivalence. It’s a pretty major paradigm shift that requires a rethinking of how we see what we do.” He added: “I wish we never had to get in bed with that stuff. It doesn’t feel particularly good to wear the marketing hat. But our record label isn’t paying to put up billboards across the country.” It’s become fashionable Fashion designer John Varvatos faced a similar reluctance when he approached Ryan Adams about appearing in print ads and billboards for his streetwise clothing line in 2005.

But after convincing the alt-country singer-songwriter that there would be “nothing fakey about him appearing in the clothes,” Varvatos went on to land Iggy Pop, members of Velvet Revolver and Cheap Trick, Perry Ferrell of Jane’s Addiction and Aerosmith’s Joe Perry for subsequent ads. Varvatos said attitudes toward commodifying stardom have changed. “I was besieged by people wanting to hook up with us,” Varvatos said. “There are a lot of people coming after us now. It’s almost the opposite problem now. We have to filter out.” The designer was quick to dispel the notion, however, that the performers in his ads were selling out their images in return for some hefty payday.

One of our songwriter performing artists, Olga, submitted a song titled “For The Love Of Music” that talks about how she performs because simply, she loves the music.  It’s not about the purse.  Here’s an interesting article by Bob that hits on that subject & then some. 

I just finished reading the Millennium Trilogy.

It wasn't easy. Richard Griffiths had to send me the "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest" from the U.K. It was six hundred pages long. But I savored every line. As I was introduced to a new world that was eerily similar to my own. Because, as Depeche Mode once sang, people are people.

Mikael Blomkvist is all about the work. He may get laid in the midst of his passion, but romance will not get in the way of his pursuit. For truth, justice and what we used to call the "American Way". Something Tea Partiers have bastardized to the point where socialistic Sweden is closer to what we used to be than their vision for the future. One in which we live in a society where everyone is included and the government makes sure no individual gets an unfair advantage.

Lisbeth Salander is an outcast, an outsider. No different from the pierced, tattooed denizens making up the audience at a punk show. Desirous of playing it their way, skeptical of anyone who wants them to conform, who wants them to play by their rules.

Well, this was before today's punks went home after the show and wrote software to become rich and famous on their laptops. Actually, Salander does become rich utilizing her computer skills. But fame? No, she's lurking behind the scenes, like a real artist.

A real artist doesn't do it for public adulation. If the unwashed masses love you, then what you're doing can't be too good, can't be very edgy, can't be testing too many limits. Great art makes people uncomfortable, yet ultimately draws them in. The Beatles were laughed at in America, they sounded nothing like Elvis or the Four Seasons. Then, suddenly, seemingly overnight, people threw off their mental constructs and embraced the four lads from Liverpool. They were born to follow...young men who were not restricted by convention. John Lennon was chastised by oldsters for stating the obvious, that the band was bigger than Jesus. Isn't it interesting that we remember him and his work yet not his detractors...

Stieg Larsson, author of the Millennium Trilogy, died before its publication. Do you get that? He wrote three books alone at night, not wondering all the while why he didn't have more Facebook friends or Twitter followers. He wasn't checking his bank account, he was following his passion. The passion of people who call themselves artists today is too often for riches and fame, not utmost personal expression. An artist does it for the work, too many of today's "stars" do it for the aftereffects of the work.

In today's L.A. "Times" there's a story about the infiltration of corporations in music. If you think this is the future, you're probably sucking at the tit. You too, want to get paid. That's what's wrong with too many agents, too many middlemen brokering corporate deals, they say they're about the music, but really, they're about the money. Do you really want to trust these people?

Who do you want to trust?

Lennon said he could only believe in Yoko and himself. That's the essence of an artist. You can't believe in the label or the promoter. They're necessary evils. But their interests are not aligned. You are the creator, they are the exploiter. So you end up with Clive Davis telling you how you should make your music to please him. That's like having Mickey Rourke over your shoulder telling you how to screw.

Maybe you don't get that reference. How Mr. Rourke supposedly had fourteen women in one night. It was all over the Web last week. Just like GaGa shopping in that ridiculous outfit. And the exploits and meanderings of too many little-talented but ultra-famous.

And then we've got the OK Go Rube Goldberg video. An incredible achievement sponsored by State Farm Insurance. Is this a victory or a loss?

In the world of music, it's a loss. Because if the underlying song, whose name escapes me, was that good, we'd already know it, and certainly remember it after seeing the clip. Unfortunately, the clip was more creative than the music. Damian Kulash's expertise seems to be as a performance artist more than a musician. And that's fine, but what about the music?

And there was some more hype about Phoenix in today's "New York Times". But at least the music led the way there. SNL wanted the band because it heard the new record, not because Procter & Gamble threw its weight behind the foursome.

It's hard to put an ad in a book.

No, let's restate that. It doesn't work too well. Or, most companies won't pony up, unless the author is already ubiquitous, and then the company's money isn't needed. The book stands alone. What makes the Millennium Trilogy work is the work itself. The writing.

Stieg Larsson sketched out a landscape of events, with assorted characters and motivations. Unlike "Avatar", the key wasn't the surface, but what was underneath. Today mainstream art is about the sheen. But it used to be different. Used to be art was edgy and oftentimes ugly. And the conflagration surrounding it brought the mainstream to it. And that's quite a difference. One is made for a market, the other creates a market.

Used to be it was almost impossible to get attention. When Andy Warhol uttered the famous aphorism, the average punter could not get on TV, not even in the newspaper. But now people put themselves and their wares up on MySpace and YouTube and expect endless attention and adulation. When most of us shrug. Because there's no reason to pay attention. Unless you're Tila Tequila showing us your boobs and alternately claiming pregnancy and miscarriage

I kept hearing good things about "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo". I saw it seeping into the public consciousness. I checked it out. Over a year after it was released in America. Ever play last year's pop hits? They sound as dated as a Pinto.

And when I entered the world, I was alone. Just like I was listening to great records in my bedroom. There was no club I could go to to try and chase women while someone read from the book in the background. I was drawn in, gave up my regular life to read, in thrall to the work.

"The Girl Who Played With Fire" wasn't quite as good. Because it ended abruptly. Little did I know its loose ends would be picked up in the third edition...

It was like following a band. You're dedicated. You wade through the morass, buy the not as great second album to get to the third. Because the band is on a mission, of exploration. Reaching for the Holy Grail of expressing themselves, of their art.

Music will be relevant once again when it is purveyed by people like Stieg Larsson. Doing it not for the fame, but the experience.

Do not confuse GaGa and Lucian Grainge and all the other tools trying to make a buck with music. That's commerce. And no wonder big corporations want to play along. That's what they want, money. No corporation wants to be involved with something unknown, edgy and dangerous. It can't risk its reputation. Whereas all the artist has is his reputation. So he won't do one thing that compromises it either. Even after he's made it. Because the audience knows.

All of America is a sham. Because the media and the politicians make like the audience doesn't know. It does. It knows that the Democrats are almost as bad as the Republicans and Obama can't lead and you can't trust Fox News. And the story of the decade is how the Internet is undermining the establishment and the old institutions can't cope. That's you, "New York Times". To think that a newspaper should be relevant in 2010 is to believe that we should all be driving Model T's and using electric typewriters. Times change. And you need to change with them.

And like I said, the people have changed. They know the music on the hit parade is vapid, evanescent and insignificant. They know who's selling out. They know, like Frank Zappa claimed, most people are only in it for the money. And they also know, just because you know how to use GarageBand and are hawking your music, that doesn't mean it's worth listening to.

Everybody wants to be famous. Everybody wants to party with the Hiltons and the Kardashians. Everybody wants to be atop the pecking order. As if we could truly live in Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average.

But this is untrue. There are winners and losers in the world. And great artists speak of both. They don't tell us about their exotic lifestyles, in song and on TV, they speak about honest emotions, heartbreak and financial ruin. Because this is the fabric of America.

Sure, there are entertainments that provide escape.

But what we draw close to our bosom, and what truly lasts, is the unsullied honesty of the lifer, someone doing it because he has to, because he's got to get his message across, who will continue even if no one is paying attention. And believe you me, when most of today's failed "artists" realize no one cares, they jump ship immediately, into marketing something else. Because it's not about the music. It's never about the music. And to be valid, to be interesting, to draw us away from our smartphones and PlayStations and flat screens, it's got to solely be about the music. No dancing, no playing to hard drive, just expression, warts and all.

-- 
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/ 

91.  Little Pieces of Food
We all like to eat - right!!!  Last month I had a tooth extracted and noticed I was cutting my food into smaller pieces than usual as there was noticeable discomfort in eating during the healing process.  So Little Pieces of Food is a sign of the times title.

92.  Cling Wrap
I want to Cling Wrap to you baby, Cling Wrap right now.  I was reading how some people use Cling Wrap in their love making sessions.  Far out and whatever turns you on.  Since somebody is out there doing it, they’ll “get” this title.  I want to Cling Wrap my love for you baby!!!  Whew whew whew~

93.  PINCH
One word titles are all the rage.  This is an action word and that is always good for a title.  PINCH and now I’ve got your attention.  PINCH and you turn red.  PINCH, just a pinch of spice to make it right.  PINCH & you are IT! 

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Willie Davis for The New York TimesThe CareFusion Jazz Festival lineup emphasizes up-and-comers like Mostly Other People Do the Killing, with Peter Evans on trumpet, Jon Irabagon on saxophone and Moppa Elliott on bass.

Astrid Stawiarz/Getty ImagesTalib Kweli of the jazz-hip-hop collective Revive da Live.

“More than 20 times in the past year,” he said in an interview on Tuesday. In Brooklyn, which he reckons he hasn’t visited more than two dozen times since 1960, he’s been to Zebulon and Barbès and the tiny Puppets. He’s been spending time at the Jazz Gallery, on Hudson Street in the South Village. And there he was last month during the crammed, chaotic Winter Jazzfest, settled in for a long night at Kenny’s Castaways on Bleecker Street.

“I’ve got to change my way of listening,” he said. “I’ve got to listen to what the musicians are trying to tell me and whether they’re doing it well.”

Some of what he has heard will be found in the first CareFusion Jazz Festival, a major jazz festival in New York this summer, produced by Mr. Wein. It will run from June 17 to 26, and its schedule is to be released on Thursday at carefusionjazz.com.

All this reconnaissance is a change of course. For a long time Mr. Wein ran the fairly formulaic, big-ticket JVC Jazz Festival in New York and relied on employees of his production company, Festival Productions, for programming ideas. The festival imploded under debt last year after Mr. Wein sold Festival Productions. But now he has a new (if smaller) company, New Festival Productions, and he’s taking on much of the programming himself.

The sponsorship by CareFusion, a medical technology company, amounts to about a half-million dollars, said Mr. Wein, almost comparable to what JVC provided. That will cover severalCarnegie Hall bookings that are his predictable standby hits: the pianists Keith Jarrett and Herbie Hancock, the bossa-nova pioneer João Gilberto, the trumpeter Chris Botti. But the schedule also includes a lot of club concerts by jazz’s younger challengers: Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society; the quartet Mostly Other People Do the Killing; a large ensemble culled from the jazz-hip-hop collective Revive da Live, including the rapper Talib Kweli; a new trio of the pianist Jason Moran, the guitarist Mary Halvorson and the trumpeter Ron Miles; and bands led by Eric Revis, Matana Roberts and Craig Taborn, among others.

“What is jazz today?” Mr. Wein ruminated. “It’s a different world. As a producer I have to recognize that. I don’t have a lot of older people in my festival now, except at Carnegie. I don’t want the old names this year. I’ll do them another year.”

The new festival’s emphasis on clubs is significant. In the JVC days Mr. Wein concentrated his bookings in larger theaters: Carnegie, the Beacon, variousLincoln Center rooms. As an add-on, in some years he approached Manhattan clubs like the Village Vanguard, offered them free festival advertising and let them book their own rooms as usual. In return, the clubs would hang the festival’s banner on their stages.

“JVC became basically a Carnegie Hall festival, with a few little side things,” he said.

But this year Mr. Wein is consulting with the club owners, paying the musicians and letting the clubs keep the door money. In one case — the Jazz Gallery — he’s helping book the club throughout the festival and putting on a larger concert at Symphony Space by an ad-hoc band called the Jazz Gallery All-Stars: a crew of excellent musicians associated with the small club, including Roy Hargrove, Claudia Acuña, Ambrose Akinmusire and Gerald Clayton.

The focus on clubs is a good sign for the festival: it is an investment in jazz’s daily working life. Because clubs are where jazz culture lives, this move seems likely to benefit everyone — musicians, clubs, audiences and maybe even Mr. Wein.

“But we won’t make any money,” he cautioned. “If I break even I’ll be very happy. I’m just doing things to do them. I’m not finished, and I’m not tired anymore. I got a burst of energy.”

Source: NYTimes