Back in the day (around 1946), the country western stars of the time envisioned, invested in, and built a place called Pioneertown in the desert outside Palm Springs, CA. The town was designed as a series of country western sets and became home to more than 50 movies and TV shows. Once the Western boom fizzled, the town changed hands a few times and became a kitschy, cool stop along the highway; a marvel-turned-relic of the great state of California.A few years ago, the French Brothers rediscovered and purchased a valuable piece of this 40’s era antiquity, The Pioneertown Motel, where actors stayed and played while in town shooting. Even though the city hadn’t been “happening” for decades, the French Brothers recognized its potential and, with the help of others investors, slowly built a new culture around it.Things were going fine before Covid, but after they started going more than fine. The pandemic spurred a trend of people moving out of urban cities and into places with more space. Pioneertown and the greater cities of Joshua Tree and Palm Springs are absolutely booming as a result. These are now hot spots with real scenes and all sorts of hip restaurants.I spent last week with the French Brothers in Pioneertown gaining an understanding of the culture and their vision. It’s a charming place with the opportunity to again evolve into a legendary destination. Plus, the long-established indoor-outdoor music venue, Pappy & Harriet’s, was recently taken over by The Knitting Factory.I really enjoyed my time there. P&H’s ribs and bison burgers are legit, and the feeling on the streets is palpable. To eat BBQ & hear live music again was such a treat. I love the direction they are taking and feel strongly that this will become a content-creating experience and host city. We are in the early stages of Pioneertown reclaiming its glory.On the way home to the airport, it was awesome to art hop through Palm Springs, checking out Desert X’s latest exhibits before the red-eye to NY. You can bet by next April (aka Coachella 2022) the California desert will be a hotter destination than ever.Today I head out to Miami, where the current mayor, Francis Suarez, is going all-in on the tech boom. It’s inspiring to see how he and his administration have been intelligently building a bridge to entrepreneurs and tech founders, encouraging them to move operations to Miami. And it’s working! I’m excited to visit Mayor Suarez and his cousin, music, and gaming entrepreneur, Steve Suarez, and to check-in to nightlife guru David Grutman’s latest partnership with Pharrell, the Goodtime Hotel. You know where to find me this week/end if you want to get together IRL.Cheers.
BEATS
U.S. Representatives Pen Letter Urging Biden to Investigate Live Nation-Ticketmaster ‘Monopoly’Five members of the United States House of Representatives have signed a letter urging President Joe Biden to launch an investigation into the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger, which they call a “monopoly.”Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-NJ-09), Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ-06), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY-10), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL-09) and David Cicilline (D-RI-01) sent the letter on Monday to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Rebecca Slaughter, the acting chair of the Federal Trade Commission. (Variety)
What Does a Live Gig NFT Mean for the Music Industry? Viberate Is First to Test the ConceptSay what you want about “crypto”, it’s nice to see it in the headlines again, and getting more people interested. We’re one of the survivors of the 2017 ICO hype, so naturally, we’re always looking for new ways to implement NFTs into our platform and business. And, as always, we want to do it our own way. (Digital Music News)
Glenn Close’s ‘Da Butt’ Oscar Moment Was Clearly the Work of QuestloveFrom Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” drowning out an announcer to Rita Moreno walking on to the theme of “The Electric Company,” the ‘70s childrens’ TV show in which she starred, there was never any question who was behind the ones and twos at the Oscars on Sunday night: Questlove, Roots co-founder and drummer, musical director of both the Oscars and “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” director of the forthcoming “Summer of Soul” documentary and a walking music Wikipedia. (Variety)
Doja Cat Becomes First Woman and Artist to Launch NFT MarketplaceDoja Cat, born Amala Dlamini, is one of the most current voices in pop, adept at navigating the landscapes of music streaming, genre-blending, and TikTok virality. It follows, then, that she would embrace the onset of NFTs in the digital art marketplace. (V Magazine)
How Suzy Ryoo Became The Business Partner To L.A.’s Hottest ManagerBy most traditional metrics, Suzy Ryoo had a successful start to her career: she had studied finance and business strategy at the University of Southern California, began working in entertainment finance and, in 2010, joined media communications giant OMD Worldwide. But after five years at the firm, Ryoo began to feel restless. (Forbes)
SoundCloud To Launch The Lookout Hip-Hop Show Exclusively On SiriusXMSoundCloud is launching a new show called ‘The Lookout by SoundCloud’ exclusively on SiriusXM’s Hip-Hop Nation on Thursday night (April 22), at 9 pm ET. The launch of the new show follows SoundCloud’s announcement in February 2020 that it had secured $75 million investment from SiriusXM. (Music Business Worldwide)
With Trapital, Dan Runcie Found A Way To Cover The Business Of Hip-hop And Make It Sustainable“1999 was also the height of the CD era. If you adjust for inflation, the current music industry has not caught up to the revenue that was coming in back then,” Runcie said. “That kind of stuff really stuck out to me.”As he got older and studied business, he came to understand that hip-hop artists, a majority of whom are Black, weren’t given the same level of coverage, credit, or praise for their business accomplishments in mainstream media in the same way that finance or technology sectors are covered. (NiemanLab)
These Music Producers Are Getting Rich and Famous By Making...MemesAs India found itself caught in the throes of a bleak lockdown last year, it wasn’t just dalgona coffee, TikTok challenges and our collective disgust for diversion tactics that brought the country together. It was a colossally catchy tune called “Rasode Mein Kon Tha (who was in the kitchen)” that truly stood out as a cultural flashpoint for South Asians or desis everywhere. (Vice)
So You Think You Can Rap? Drake Offers $100,000 Prize for the Ultimate Rap League ChampionDrake is putting up a $100,000 cash prize for the Ultimate Rap League season three. The new URL series kicks off on Saturday (April 24th) at 3 pm EST on Caffeine. Drake inked a multi-year partnership deal with Caffeine in February of 2020. At the time, Drake said he was happy to contribute to the future Ultimate Rap League series. (Digital Music News)
Blackstone is Buying Eone Music From Hasbro in $385M Cash DealMBW has long predicted that Hasbro would end up offloading eOne Music, after Hasbro acquired the operation as part of a $4bn buyout of Entertainment One in August 2019.Assets owned by eOne Music include the Death Row Records catalog and Dualtone Music Group, in addition to production music house Audio Network, which eOne acquired for approximately $215m in April 2019. (Music Business Worldwide)
We Told You Warner Music Group Was Becoming a Media Company – Now It’s Launched an Advertising DivisionWe broke the news about WMG’s acquisitions of media brands UPROXX (in 2018) and and HipHopDX (in 2020). And we also broke the news that WMG had bought Instagram and TikTok meme-maker IMGN a couple of years back for around $85m.Now, WMG’s status as a traditional (albeit also non-traditional) media publisher is moving into the next phase of this evolution. (Music Business Worldwide)
‘Time To Shake Things Up’: Music Industry Confronts Climate Crisis as Gigs ResumeA series of announcements last week, coordinated by the Music Declares Emergency collective, have challenged the idea that the industry is not taking the climate emergency seriously. After a uniquely difficult year for those in live music, perhaps this is an inflection point: can the recovery from Covid-19 be green? (The Guardian)
BYTES
Jesse Grushack has been operating at the intersection of blockchain and music since 2015. In the beginning of 2015, Jesse joined ConsenSys and started working on Ujo Music which was an Ethereum based, ConsenSys backed music software services company for the modern economic landscape of music. Additionally, Jesse is a co-founder of Ethereal as he understands the importance of bridging the digital/physical boundaries and providing meaningful experiences. Most recently, Jesse is the Co-Founder 6, an NFT creative agency in partnership with RAC.
Today Architectural Digest is bringing you to The Goodtime Hotel in Miami Beach to meet up with owners Pharrell Williams and David Grutman for an all-access tour. Working in tandem with renowned designer Ken Fulk, Pharrell and David have curated a boutique environment so full of vibrance and artistic energy that the hotel becomes the destination, not just a place to toss your bags and sleep. Lounging at the pink-hued Strawberry Moon Restaurant, Bar, and Pool Club while sipping a “Purple Reign” cocktail? Now that sounds like a hit.
AIn a tie-up of tech titans, Facebook and Spotify worked together to bake a Spotify “mini-player” into the social giant’s namesake app to let users listen to music and podcasts directly within Facebook’s apps for mobile devices.The feature launches Monday (April 24) in 27 markets, available for Facebook app on iOS and Android. Facebook announced the deal with Spotify last week — a project code-named “Boombox” — as part of its larger strategy to embrace social audio.
Late Thursday, the Weeknd dropped the music video for “Save Your Tears,” featuring Ariana Grande (and her seldom-heard lower register). The video, in classic recent Weeknd fashion, begins with a dismembered head. It’s a brightly-colored tour through an assembly line that translates the song’s unmistakable ‘80s vibe into fuzzy, globoid visuals. Produced by London-based studio Blinkink, it’s like a ride through Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, but instead of candy the factory produces a robotic doll of Ariana Grande in three minutes and 25 seconds. The animation is modern in its use of round, exaggerated forms (often credited to Facebook’s Alegria), but its elements of heavy shading and detail shots draw on a different art form: Anime.
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This week's newsletter was carefully curated by the Nue Agency staff and our editor Rachel Meisner. If you think we missed something this week or have any suggestions/comments for next week's newsletter, let us know!