INTERVIEWS
The Story Behind Pink Floyd’s “Have a Cigar”
Pink Floyd’s “Have a Cigar” is a scathing critique of the music industry. The third track off of 1975’s Wish You Were Here is sung from the perspective of a record company executive, who cynically implores the band to “ride the gravy train” by following the proven formula of their prior blockbuster, 1973’s Dark Side of the Moon. “Which one’s Pink?” the song asks. It’s a standout line that resonates in this particular recording all the more because neither David Gilmour nor Roger Waters sings it. In fact, no one in the band sings it. Roy Harper does. Who is Roy Harper? He’s an English artist raised on Romantic poets like Shelley and Keats and later inspired by the performances of Bob Dylan and Paul Simon. He’s a revered figure among singer-songwriters and musicians across the world — s...
![Gametheory Management’s Edwin Tsang on His Strategy to Innovate EDM and Gaming in the Age of COVID-19 [Interview]](https://www.wazupnaija.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/gametheory-managements-edwin-tsang-on-his-strategy-to-innovate-edm-and-gaming-in-the-age-of-covid-19-interview-1050x600.jpg)
![Gametheory Management’s Edwin Tsang on His Strategy to Innovate EDM and Gaming in the Age of COVID-19 [Interview]](https://www.wazupnaija.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/gametheory-managements-edwin-tsang-on-his-strategy-to-innovate-edm-and-gaming-in-the-age-of-covid-19-interview-80x80.jpg)
Gametheory Management’s Edwin Tsang on His Strategy to Innovate EDM and Gaming in the Age of COVID-19 [Interview]
At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the music industry so heavily, many know of the struggles that both artists and fans have faced over the past six months. But for artist managers, the pandemic also poses some major obstacles and challenges. Independent artist manager and modern Renaissance man Edwin Tsang is looking for ways to overcome those obstacles, and innovate the music and gaming industries while doing so. GAMETHEORY 22 seems like a young age to launch an artist management company, curate festival lineups, photograph some of EDM’s biggest stars on tour, and create an EDM-gaming crossover festival, but Edwin Tsang has managed to do all of that and more in his short time in the music industry. At the age of 19, Tsang entered the EDM space ...
![Netsky on New Album “Second Nature,” His Return to Hospital Records, and More [Interview]](https://www.wazupnaija.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/netsky-on-new-album-second-nature-his-return-to-hospital-records-and-more-interview-1050x600.png)
![Netsky on New Album “Second Nature,” His Return to Hospital Records, and More [Interview]](https://www.wazupnaija.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/netsky-on-new-album-second-nature-his-return-to-hospital-records-and-more-interview-80x80.png)
Netsky on New Album “Second Nature,” His Return to Hospital Records, and More [Interview]
Ten years ago, a rising drum & bass star called Netsky released his self-titled album debut on Hospital Records, and fans weren’t been able to get enough since. The release of his sophomore effort, 2, propelled Netsky even further into the spotlight, but when the next album in the number sequence was released (and not on Hospital Records), a schism formed between drum & bass purists and fans of Netsky’s more experimental, pop-infused offerings. In April of this year, however, naysayers were silenced as Netsky released a new drum & bass single via Hospital, “I See The Future In Your Eyes.” That single was followed by “Mixed Emotions “(feat. Montell2099),” and those two tracks were just the beginning of the talen...
Bartees Strange on Blurring Genres, Feeling Cursed, Crafting Debut LP
“If I died in a meadow, I don’t think they’d ever find me at all,” Bartees Strange belts on “Stone Meadows,” a cathartic indie-rock centerpiece from his debut LP, Live Forever. It’s a grim thought — but one that often crossed his mind as a young Black person in his native Oklahoma. “I knew people who died, and no one found them,” he tells SPIN. “I’m Black, and I grew up in the country. And I remember being afraid — if something happens to me, if this cop doesn’t like me, if these boys chasing me home don’t leave me alone, no one’s gonna find me. And it’s like a really dark way to live your life: knowing that, no matter what, no matter how successful you are, how much money you make, how many people know you, you can still literally be disappeared off the face of the Earth. That’s kind...
Death Valley Girls’ Waking Dream
Bonnie Bloomgarden of Death Valley Girls isn’t one for writing songs as much as accessing them. She’s fascinated by the Akashic records — the concept of a metaphysical plane that holds all information of the human experience past, present, and future. If you follow this philosophy within their latest record, all songs have already always been and will be written. “None of us know the record that well,” Bloomgarden confesses to me from Los Angeles. “We’re all gonna learn it at the same time that everyone else does.” While drawing from the same musical and aesthetic reservoir of punk, psychedelia, the occult, and the bizarre, Under the Spell of Joy is a far more experimental effort than the band’s previous records, due in equal part to the challenges of releasing a record during a pandemic a...
Insane Clown Posse on COVID Era, Wokeness, How Eminem Beef Was ‘Hip-Hop History’
I once almost saw Insane Clown Posse’s Violent J naked. In 2013, I was working as ICP’s publicist. We were out in L.A. doing a press tour to promote their Fuse TV show, Insane Clown Posse Theater. It was me, Shaggy, Violent J, and their assistant Chop. We had just arrived at our hotel in Beverly Hills, and J decided to adjourn to his hotel room instead of joining us for dinner. So I got him a salad and an order of boneless chicken wings from a diner down the road. I arrived at his door with the vittles and knocked. No answer. I knocked again. Louder. Still no answer, but I heard a mumbling sound behind the door. Seconds went by. Still nothing. I banged on the door. Hard. The door opened just a crack. “Leave it outside the door! I’m NAAAAAKEEEEEEEED!” Violent J’s voice bellowed down the hal...
Prince Collaborators Reflect on 1987 Opus ‘Sign o’ the Times’
By the mid-80s, Prince was a global superstar thanks to the worldwide success of 1984’s Purple Rain. So when he started work on his follow-up — eventually released on March 31, 1987 as the double-LP Sign o’ the Times — it came amidst a creative tsunami that saw two more classic albums with his longtime band the Revolution (1985’s Around The World in A Day and the following year’s Parade), the 1986 film Under The Cherry Moon and three ultimately shelved titles (Dream Factory, Camille and Crystal Ball). For those who worked closest to him during this period, including Revolution keyboard wizard Matt Fink (aka Dr. Fink), longtime engineer Susan Rogers and bassist Levi Seacer, Jr., it was astounding to see such a voluminous output from Prince during this time. “His creativ...
Deftones’ Chino Moreno on Creative ‘Balance,’ Healing Energy of New LP Ohms
“It’s dark,” says Chino Moreno. “It’s a trip.” Not a bad off-the-cuff summary of Deftones’ ninth LP, Ohms, which amplifies the art-metal band’s signature dynamic extremes: Frank Delgado’s shadowy synth atmospherics are more prominent in the mix, and Stephen Carpenter’s detuned riffs scorch the terrain beneath them. But Moreno isn’t describing the album — instead, he’s marveling at the post-apocalyptic orange skies that blanket his current home of Bend, Oregon. Weeks before Ohms enters the world, the West Coast is ravaged by wildfires that have polluted the air to dangerous levels. “I’m actually out walking right now,” the frontman says, noting one of his regular pandemic-era activities. “But I shouldn’t be because the quality is too bad. It’s 11 a.m., and it’s really dark right now.” ...
Arcade Fire’s Will Butler on How White Privilege, Race Reporting Informed New Solo LP
The fall after Will Butler’s debut album, Policy, was released in 2015, he went to the Harvard Kennedy School of Government to study…policy. After working with Partners in Health, a non-profit focused on providing global medical health care, by donating proceeds from Arcade Fire’s single “Haiti” off Funeral and licensing proceeds from NFL ads that used the band’s “Wake Up,” Butler wanted to help the organization more. It would also be a great opportunity to be exposed to people he wouldn’t have necessarily met otherwise. Studying at Harvard coincided with Donald Trump winning the presidency, intensifying Butler’s desire to investigate how the United States got to the point where this could happen and how to move forward from there. Butler studied under Leah Wright Rigueur, the histor...
IDLES Shoot for Less Noise, More Volume on New Record
Over 10,000 fans bought a ticket for the three virtual sets IDLES dove into at Abbey Road Studios – the same weekend they were billed to showcase at the Reading and Leeds festivals. Unsure of what a livestreamed production would bring, the band simply treated it as they would any other performance: frenzied, loud, and imperfectly perfect. 10,000 sets of eyes watched through the glow of whatever screen they were peering into. Somehow IDLES delivered in these unideal conditions, with their fans happy to escape a quarantine-fueled fog — if only for a moment. “I didn’t miss the heckling, that’s for sure,” frontman Joe Talbot said with an unassuming chuckle following the Abbey Road Sessions, where they showcased tunes off of their impending Ultra Mono album (out on Sept. 25). And while the band...
![How eevee, the Heroine of Lo-Fi, is Channeling Her Music Through Her Pregnancy [Interview]](https://www.wazupnaija.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/how-eevee-the-heroine-of-lo-fi-is-channeling-her-music-through-her-pregnancy-interview-1050x600.jpg)
![How eevee, the Heroine of Lo-Fi, is Channeling Her Music Through Her Pregnancy [Interview]](https://www.wazupnaija.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/how-eevee-the-heroine-of-lo-fi-is-channeling-her-music-through-her-pregnancy-interview-80x80.jpg)
How eevee, the Heroine of Lo-Fi, is Channeling Her Music Through Her Pregnancy [Interview]
Despite its robust presence in the streaming landscape, lo-fi music remains one of the most unheralded and overlooked avenues in the industry. A melancholic and brooding sub-species of dance music, lo-fi is EDM’s ugly duckling, trudging behind the genre flock before quietly emerging as a dominant force. You may not readily know what lo-fi music is, but odds are it is a subliminal quality of your everyday life. Subtly incorporating organic audial elements like the hiss of a cassette deck or the crackle of a vinyl player, lo-fi music is deeply enrooted in its mainstream counterparts—hip-hop, R&B, and soul—and influences much of the contemporary music we hear today. To this day, though, it remains in the shadows, eager to burst out of the murky cocoons of the vast musical genre spec...
Beyond the Boys’ Club: Orianthi
Beyond the Boys’ Club is a monthly column from journalist and radio host Anne Erickson, focusing on women in the heavy music genres, as they offer their perspectives on the music industry and discuss their personal experiences. This month’s piece features an interview with acclaimed guitarist Orianthi. Australian guitarist, singer, and songwriter Orianthi has performed with some of the biggest acts in the world, from Michael Jackson to Alice Cooper. Back in 2009, Orianthi was knee-deep into rehearsals for Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” tour, but sadly, Jackson passed away before the tour could come to fruition. That same year, she scored a solo hit with “According to You”, and she went on to join Alice Cooper’s band for two world tours. Now, Orianthi keeps busy with her own solo music and ...
