Music

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in Music

      How a ‘Dirty Gospel’ Minister Spends His Sundays

      by

      The Reverend Vince Anderson, a mainstay of the Brooklyn music scene, fills his day with worship in two languages, the Mets and a full hour of watering his 92 houseplants.When most people picture a minister, Vince Anderson is not who comes to mind.He curses. He wears caftans. He has played a “dirty gospel” residency with his six-member band, The Love Choir, on Monday nights for the past 26 years, a majority of them at the Union Pool bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. His signature song is “Get Out of My Way,” a growling, percussive call-and-response anthem he wrote in 2000. (He used to get naked by the end of every show; he stopped in the mid-2000s.)Mr. Anderson, 53, who left seminary after three months in 1994 to pursue music, is the minister of music and community arts at Bushwick Abbey, an Episcopal church in Brooklyn, and plays the piano for Sunday services at Iglesia de la Santa Cruz, a Spanish-speaking congregation in the same building.Known as Reverend Vince, Mr. Anderson said he was ordained in 2003. He has played with all of his band members since at least about that time, and he said they’ve never had a rehearsal. “Once in a while I send the band a crude recording, but most of the time I just play a new song once onstage for the first time on piano, and they kind of get it, and then we go into it,” he said.He was the subject of a 2022 documentary, “The Reverend,” which is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video and the Criterion Channel. He lives in a two-bedroom apartment in the Ridgewood neighborhood of Queens — about a 15-minute walk from his Bushwick congregations — with his wife of five years, Millicent Souris, 50, a cook and a writer, and their 3-month-old rescue kittens, Ace and Sonny.DAILY DEVOTIONS I wake up around 7 a.m. — lately I’ve been trying to keep my phone out of my bedroom, so I just use my Apple Watch for an alarm — and read a book or some psalms. I’m currently reading “Wandering Stars,” Tommy Orange’s new novel. I let the kittens come in and cuddle with me for a minute. Rather than doomscrolling, I’m trying to just be thankful and count my blessings; it’s important to me to be present in the moment to start my day.GETTING CENTERED I started drawing mandalas during my recovery from spinal surgery in January (I had five herniated discs in my spine, all from me playing piano) and I’ve kept it up. I’ll paint or draw something in a circle, which gives me focus. It opens up the spiritual side of me and gets the creative side of me flowing in a different way than music does.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      Aerosmith Retires From Touring, Citing Steven Tyler’s Vocal Injury

      by

      Last year, the band’s frontman, Steven Tyler, suffered a vocal injury during a show, and the farewell tour was postponed. The band announced its retirement on Friday, saying a full recovery was not possible.Aerosmith, the venerated American hard rock band whose hit records like “Dream On” have reverberated across the airwaves and in sweaty sold-out venues around the world for more than half a century, announced Friday that it was retiring from the tour stage, citing a permanent vocal injury to its star frontman, Steven Tyler.“He has spent months tirelessly working on getting his voice to where it was before his injury,” the band said in a statement on its website. “We’ve seen him struggling despite having the best medical team by his side. Sadly, it is clear, that a full recovery from his vocal injury is not possible. We have made a heartbreaking and difficult, but necessary, decision — as a band of brothers — to retire from the touring stage.”An email message sent to a representative for the band on Friday night was not immediately returned.The announcement came ahead of the band’s “Peace Out” farewell tour, which had been set to begin in Pittsburgh on Sept. 20 and run through February at stops in the United States and in Canada, including a performance at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Feb. 23, 2025. The band’s final tour stop was scheduled for Buffalo on Feb 26.The tour had been postponed to later this year after Tyler, 76, hurt his vocal cords during the band’s Sept. 9, 2023, show at UBS Arena on Long Island. The band said that it had decided to postpone the tour until this year because the injury turned out to be more serious than initially thought and involved a fractured larynx in addition to the vocal cord damage.Fans who purchased tickets through Ticketmaster will receive automatic refunds, the band said. People who bought tickets via third-party sites were asked to contact those vendors. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      Benjamin Luxon, British Baritone Thwarted by Hearing Loss, Dies at 87

      by

      A favorite of Benjamin Britten, he won acclaim in roles like Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin and Falstaff until his affliction forced him to largely give up singing.Benjamin Luxon, a warm-voiced British baritone who was admired for his singing of German and British song and his robust opera performances, but whose flourishing career was cut short by encroaching deafness, died on July 25 at his home in Sandisfield, Mass. He was 87.His son Daniel said the cause was colon cancer.At the height of his career, in the 1970s and ’80s, Mr. Luxon was one of the most sought-after singers on British, American and continental operatic stages, in roles like Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin and Falstaff, as well as in the operas of Benjamin Britten.Mr. Britten created the title role of the 1971 television opera “Owen Wingrave,” based on a Henry James short story, specifically for Mr. Luxon. Mr. Luxon’s thoughtful singing of Schubert, Hugo Wolf and English song was praised by critics in England and the U.S. for its subtlety.Mr. Luxon in the English National Opera’s production of “Falstaff” in 1994, around the time he was forced to largely give up singing. “The problem is that most of my high-frequency hearing has gone,” he said at the time.Robbie Jack/Corbis, via Getty ImagesHe moved with ease among folk song, art song and even English music hall favorites, explaining to interviewers that he had grown up singing in church and school choirs in his native Cornwall in England. “It was like breathing, it was like second nature to me,” he said.But his singing days were curtailed when, in the late 1980s, he developed a hearing affliction that led to partial deafness and some disastrous misfires on the recital stage. He bore the condition stoically, but by the mid-1990s he was forced to largely give up singing despite using a hearing aid.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      After Olympic Show, ‘Love Activist’ D.J. Barbara Butch Deals With Hate

      by

      The Paris Olympics opening ceremony made the French D.J. Barbara Butch famous and infamous around the world. Already known in France as an outspoken lesbian and activist for fat people, Butch — her stage name, of course — appeared with a crown and her mixing board in one of the last scenes, called “Festivity.”For 45 minutes, dancers, including drag queens, showcased their talent along a raised catwalk that stretched down the stage before, at the very end, the French singer Philippe Katerine emerged from under a giant silver dome, painted entirely in blue and wearing little clothing, to sing part of “Nude,” one of his songs.The scene incited an almost instant public fury, particularly among those who interpreted it as parodying Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” and, by extension, mocking Christianity. Even after the ceremony’s artistic director, Thomas Jolly, explained the inspiration was a grand pagan festival connected to the gods of Olympus, the fury continued, with Donald J. Trump calling the scene “a disgrace” on social media.On Monday, Butch filed a complaint for cyber-harassment, and the Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation for discrimination based on religion or sexual orientation. The next day, Jolly followed suit, and an investigation was opened into his case, too.Delegations arrive at the Trocadero during the Olympics opening ceremony as spectators watch the French singer Philippe Katerine performing on a giant screen.Ludovic Marin/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesButch has become accustomed to hate, though not at this level. She is a Jew from a working-class family who grew up in a small apartment above her parents’ restaurant in Paris, and antisemitism had provoked her grandmother to leave France for Israel years ago, she said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Music

      Who’s Afraid of Being Black? Not Kamala, Beyoncé or Kendrick.

      by

      With her response to Donald Trump’s comments about her background, Kamala Harris showed that Blackness doesn’t need to be explained or defended — an idea underscored by her campaign theme song.Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t take the race bait.A few hours after Donald J. Trump falsely claimed that she suddenly decided to become “a Black person,” Ms. Harris reminded the crowd at a Black sorority convention in Houston that Mr. Trump was resorting to a familiar script. It was the “same old show,” she said, of “divisiveness and disrespect.”She chose not to deflect attention away from her multicultural heritage or to double down on it. That tactic nullified an implication that being Black is something that needs to be authenticated, explained, disavowed or defended. It underscored that Blackness isn’t something that can be turned on or off.Like Ms. Harris, my father is the child of an Indian mother and a Black father. Both he and his parents were born in and emigrated from Trinidad and Tobago. Because of him, I saw up close what Ms. Harris is conveying: that it’s possible to refuse to pit one heritage against the other even as you embrace Blackness as your primary political identity.“My mother understood very well that she was raising two black daughters,” Ms. Harris wrote in “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey,” her 2019 memoir. “She knew her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud black women.”Ms. Harris, like my dad, considers her Blackness something to be celebrated and, at times, protected.Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar perform her song “Freedom,” now used by the Kamala Harris campaign, at the BET Awards in 2016.Matt Sayles/Invision, via Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 38 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      Untitled (The Playlist)

      by

      Hear songs with no firm names from the Cure, D’Angelo, Kate Bollinger and more.Robert Smith of the Cure.Ronald Wittek/EPA, via ShutterstockDear listeners,Today, Jack White released a new solo album named “No Name,” joining the ranks of the many artists throughout history who have finished a piece of music and, confronted with the challenge of giving it an all-encompassing title, simply shrugged and said, “I’d rather not.” Elliott Smith, for example, had a whole numbered series of “No Name” songs, while the Breeders called their 2002 album “Title TK,” publishing shorthand for “to come later.” The rapper Noname has confused things further, cheekily titling a recent song “Namesake.” The mind boggles.But when it comes to music without a name, one particular title has been used more often than any other: “Untitled.” And so we have arrived at the theme of today’s playlist, filled entirely with untitled tracks.“Untitled,” that neutrally toned cop-out of a name, has been used by all kinds of artists past and present, Interpol, R.E.M. and Mk.gee among them. To call a song “Untitled” can be either pretentious or practical, depending on the ear of the beholder. Sometimes, as on Kendrick Lamar’s demo collection “Untitled Unmastered,” it’s used to suggest that there is a certain rough, unpolished quality to the material. Other times, as illustrated here in songs by Kate Bollinger and the Cure, a lack of a title echoes a narrator’s struggle to communicate the right sentiment. Every so often, it’s all a bit of a lark. Consider the playful wink that D’Angelo gave this whole phenomenon when he titled what is perhaps his most famous song, “Untitled (How Does It Feel).”What’s in a name? These nine songs just might make you wonder. For all their differences, though, they share an understanding that an untitled song lets the music speak for itself.Never quite said what I wanted to say to you,LindsayListen along while you read.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares109 Views

      in Music

      Hear Billie Eilish and Charli XCX’s ‘Guess’ Remix

      by

      Hear tracks by MJ Lenderman, Miranda Lambert, ASAP Rocky featuring Jessica Pratt and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Charli XCX featuring Billie Eilish, ‘Guess’In the slightly less than two months since its release, Charli XCX’s sixth album, “Brat,” has transformed from a clubby cult classic into a mainstream phenomenon, fueled by a sense of cool so elusive yet galactically powerful that a CNN panel recently convened to discuss, with magnificent awkwardness, its potential impact on the presidential election. Strange times indeed. Luckily, Charli is still keeping it light, not allowing the new patina of Importance to cloud the fact that “Brat Summer” is, above all things, about messy, hedonistic fun. So let’s just say that the latest “Brat”-era remix, the deliriously suggestive “Guess,” is unlikely to appear in an upcoming Kamala Harris campaign ad.“You wanna guess the color of my underwear,” Charli winks atop an electroclash beat produced by the indie-sleaze revivalist the Dare, who interpolates Daft Punk’s 2005 single “Technologic”; Dylan Brady of 100 gecs also has a writing credit. It’s an underground loft party crashed by a bona fide A-lister: Billie Eilish, making her first guest appearance on another artist’s song, purring a playfully flirtatious verse that ends, “Charli likes boys but she knows I’d hit it.” It’s refreshing to once again hear Eilish on a beat as dark and abrasive as those on her debut album, but she and her brother and collaborator Finneas know they are ultimately on Charli’s turf, reverently endorsing the trashy aesthetic and if-you-know-you-know humor of “Brat.” “You wanna guess if we’re serious about this song,” Charli intones at the end, as Eilish lets out a conspiratorial giggle. Against all odds, reports of Brat Summer’s death seem to have been slightly exaggerated. LINDSAY ZOLADZOkaidja Afroso, ‘Kasoa’Okaidja Afroso, from Ghana, sings about cycles of nature and human life in his childhood language, Gãdangmé, on his new album, “Àbòr Édiń.” But his music exults in modern technology and cultural fusions. The six-beat handclaps and bass riffs of “Kasoa” look toward Moroccan gnawa music, while the vocal harmonies exult in computerized multitracking. “There will be meetings and partings, and joys and sorrows,” he sings. “May we journey with ease, and hope to cross paths again in another lifetime.” JON PARELESWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares159 Views

      in Music

      At 97, This Conductor Is Modest and Extraordinary

      by

      When Herbert Blomstedt, the oldest major conductor active today, led the Vienna Philharmonic, age was only one factor in his remarkable artistry.If you’ve been reading news about the U.S. presidential election, you might be forgiven for thinking that age has something to do with ability.But it doesn’t work that way in classical music, a field in which artists often go on as long as they can. Conductors tend to retire only when they decide it’s time. And Herbert Blomstedt, who recently turned 97, clearly doesn’t want to just yet.The oldest major conductor still keeping a regular performance schedule, he was forced to take a break after a fall in December, but was back onstage by the spring and, this week, conducted the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival in Austria. Hardly pushed aside because of his age, he was at the podium of one of the world’s greatest orchestras, at one of classical music’s most prestigious events.Blomstedt has garnered a lot of attention for his longevity and vitality, but that is just one aspect of what makes him a remarkable conductor. As the critic Alex Ross wrote when Blomstedt was 94, equating age with wisdom is a dubious belief, and what he enjoys now is “a belated reward for a resolutely unshowy musician who has gone about his business decade after decade.”Even Blomstedt doesn’t spend too much time making sense of his age in interviews. He values routine, and cooks for himself when he’s not on the road. And he has mentioned that, as a Seventh-day Adventist, he doesn’t eat meat or drink alcohol or coffee; without missing a beat, though, he often adds that Winston Churchill made it to 90 liberally drinking and smoking cigars.Wisdom may not be a given with Blomstedt’s age, but it’s undeniable in his artistry. Perhaps because of physical limitations or personal preferences, or both, his conducting in recent years has had the kind of economy that comes with experience. (You can hear it, too, on the recordings he continues to release, with ensembles including the Philharmonic and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.) He is also a maestro with roots in musicology, who thrills at returning to scores; he has mentioned that it took 66 years to notice a detail in Schubert’s “Great” Symphony for the first time.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More