http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/blogs-1-1-1-11.html Folk legend Odetta passed away last night at age 77. Here's the canned Associated Press obituary; here's a more personal one from Idolator. Odetta experienced a slight but distinct resurgence several years ago, when a stunning clip of her singing "Water Boy" was featured in the Bob Dylan No Direction Home documentary alongside high praise of the singer. That Dylan so frequently cited Odetta as an influence has always been a ]]> Musician/author and Milwaukee expat John Kruth checked in with the Shepherd from New York via a quick e-mail to share some good news. He's won the ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award: I won the ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award for Best Music Biography of the Year for my latest book To Lives To Fly: The Ballad of the Late, Great Townes Van Zandt published by Da Capo. Also receiving an award will be Oliver Sachs. The Awards Ceremony will be on Tues, Dec 9th ]]> For most, the timing is more noteworthy than the announcement: Summerfest announced its first headlining act for 2009: George Strait, who will play the Marcus Amphitheater on Monday, June 29. The announcement of Summerfest's first 2009 act seems to have arrived earlier than usual, perhaps a sign that future amphitheater headliners will be unvieled more promptly this year than they were last, when some key headliners weren't announced until well]]> Joe Uchill has a must-read article in this week's Shepherd on Juliana Hatfield and her struggles with eating disorders. It touches on a personality shift that's alto doubled as a career-reviving business model for Hatfield: After falling out of fashion and then into obscurity as the '90s ended, Hatfield reclaimed her former prestige as a critical darling by, ironically, doing the exact opposite of what made her so in demand at the peak of her fam]]> Kanye West's rush-released 808s & Heartbreak arrives the same week as another event album, Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy, and though the two discs have little in common, their appeal is largely the same—both have curious fans wondering, "how could this possibly be any good?" This week's charts will be driven by schadenfreude. West has handicapped himself considerably on Heartbreak. Despite his limited voice, the rapper]]> Cries from rival promoters that the Pabst Theater Foundation is using its deep pockets and non-profit status to monopolize the city's live-music market have been almost entirely drowned out by the enthused cheers from Milwaukeeans who love all the big concerts that the foundation's three venues bring to the city. Feeling cornered, the Pabst Theater Foundation's detractors have often asked for a detailed look at the organization's finances and o]]> While retailers prepare for the possibility of the worst holiday shopping season in a decade, the music industry has at least some cause to be optimistic entering Black Friday. Early next week will see the release of four huge albums: Guns N’ Roses – Chinese Democracy: Axl’s album arrives after four presidential terms of hype and speculation, and with strong-than-expected reviews. It’s going to sell and sell well—and it certainly doesn]]> If Los Campesinos'! debut album was the work of adolescents feverish with the possibility of easy sex, their transfixing follow-up is the work of curmudgeonly young adults who've learned there's no such thing. On We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed, singer Gareth Campesinos'! eager erection has been replaced by a thundercloud that hovers above his head, trailing him. The sometimes cloying cuteness of the band's debut is disgorged here, and even the v]]> Idolator reports that Guns N' Roses mythical Chinese Democracy has leaked online—and for real this time, not in a "there's some demos that may be from the album but will be pulled within three hours" sort of way, but in a "this is the actual album and it's already spread so far on the Internet that no amount of legal threats will be able to stop them from circulating" sort of way. I'm too timid to test Axl's legal team, so]]> Here's one for the ick department. This weekend I (and, judging by the CC list, dozens of other members of the Milwaukee media) received an e-mail with the subject line "Rapper %uFFFD Kills himself." It contains a link to a YouTube video that purportedly shows a Milwaukee rapper committing suicide, and with all the tact of a spam penis-enlargement ad, it concludes, "please this video is disturbing.  Forward this e-mail in memory%uFFFD." Of]]> An international staple of the experimental music scene, and one of the foundation's of Milwaukee's music smaller experimental music scene, Jon Mueller's Crouton Music record label will be closing, Mueller announced in a Crouton mailing list e-mail last night. The percussionist followed up with the Shepherd, explaining he want more time to focus on music (for those keeping score, he does double duty, playing both solo and with Collections of Colo]]> After a day's delay, DJ Drama finally posted the latest Lil Wayne mixtape, Dedication 3, on his Web site this afternoon. It's streaming for free now, and will also be available for download once some (significant) technical errors are worked out. (2dopeboyz has also posted a link to download, but that too requires some patience.) Dedication 3 is a 23-track beast, well worth the wait, though it won't surprise anyone: lots of autotune,]]> As Milwaukee radio listeners remain flabbergasted that one of the city’s last contemporary stations has switched to a mostly classic rock format, it’s worth noting that the satellite radio industry isn’t exactly experiencing a renaissance either. Yesterday the two stations, Sirius and XM, completed the final stage of their merger: integrating their programming. Judging from the comments on XMFan.com, a satellite-radio forum, listeners are cold]]> In today's New York Times, Ben Sisario explores a topic that's long fascinated me: Now That's What I Call Music compilations, a series that over the last decade has chronicled the evolution of American pop music in real time. The article is worthwhile, if a little skimpy on big revelations, detailing the compilations' simple marketing model (bright colors) and lending a bit of historical context. Most interesting for those following the declin]]> The ever-wonderful Ryan Miller introduced me to some of his fellow FM 102.1 DJs last night at the Shepherd’s Best of Milwaukee party, and our conversation turned to songs long since retired from the station’s regular play list. We covered favorites brought back occasionally (Tori Amos’ “Cornflake Girl”) and novelties unlikely to return anytime soon (The Ass Ponies’ “Little Bastard”), which led me to recall the one song I don’t think anybody misse]]> A direct copy and paste from my ever-expanding "you can't make this stuff up" file of press releases: I would like you to consider runnung a story on the band "4 On the Floor". The bass player is just re-elected Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel, the drummer is local municipal attorney Stan Riffle, the lead guitarist is Pius High School teacher Craig Gyland and I'm the front man, fromer corporate counsel]]> I figured I didn’t need Girl Talk to have a good time Tuesday night. The city was already in rare form, as Bay View bars filled to near-capacity in anticipation of a Barack Obama victory celebration (and not to mention in response to the rare offer of free beer). I figured I didn’t want to be any place that wasn’t displaying election results, so I skipped the show. I am an idiot. By all accounts, the sold-out show]]> Hat tip to my friend Beth, who alerted me to the news in an e-mail titled "Wow ... Another Milwaukee Radio Station that Plays 'Whatever.'" In a confounding move, one of the few Milwaukee radio stations that played contemporary-pop music, WKTI-FM 94.5, has shifted formats to a free-form station modeled after the "Jack" formats found in other cities. There's an irony here: Although this format prides itself on a broader playlist than th]]> A decade later the Internet would begin to rob music of its monetary value, but in the early ’90s, music was expensive, and I couldn’t afford much of it. A compact disc might cost $12 or $13, which was a lot of lot of cash for an 11 year old, so if you saved up and bought a CD that turned out to be a lemon, you listened to it ad nauseam anyway. For lack of better music—or at least more music—I memorized every nuance of the few albums in my meag]]> The Cure never really got bad, conventional wisdom says, they just became too familiar. Sometime over the last decade they lost their ability to recreate the magic of hearing them for the first time. T hat may be true, but I couldn’t care less. Robert Smith still writes lovely little pop songs, and a great song is a great song, regardless of whether it sounds a little bit too much like something from Wish. Even when new Cure songs are a]]>