NEW DANCE MUSIC AWARDS SHOW BEING PLANNED IN THE  USA

Photo credit: Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images
With a collection of GRAMMYs to Skrillex’s name and the dance music bubble never being stronger, old mate Dick Clark Productions (DCP) has had a light bulb moment and decided it would be a wise idea to start an EDM/dance music only music awards show.
For those who don’t know who Dick Clark productions are, these guys are the ones behind the Golden Globes, American Music Awards and Academy of Country Music Awards.
A big part of this push is because of the effectiveness of live programming. In the money focused side of EDM and it’s festy looking commercial glaze, it would be considered a more lucrative investment for advertisers, especially with their flourishing viewership legally and illegally streamed. Our question is can DCP get the right people in the industry behind the idea to make it successful?
Beside the point above, it all just sounds like a good time for DJ’s and DJ’s managers to start beefs, kind of like Diploand DJ Bl3nds. Hilarity!

Todd Rundgren Researched Skrillex For New Album

Todd Rundgren Researched Skrillex, Frank Ocean For New Album

"There's even a little bit of Bon Iver influence, but I couldn't tell you where," Rundgren says of "State," out April 9.

After hearing younger acts sing his praises and cite his influence and having others (Tame Impala, Lindstrom) ask him to do remixes, Todd Rundgren says he "suddenly felt this obligation to get more educated on what's happening on the fringes of music and make a more sincere attempt to kind of re-adopt the process I had a lot to do with founding."
That, in turn, led to Rundgren's new album, "State," a characteristically one-man-band project that incorporates contemporary electronic and industrial elements throughout its 10 tracks.
"I thought, 'Geez, am I missing out on my own revival here? I better start studying up on what's going on and maybe re-claim some of that kind of experimental, very personal kind of music-making,' " Rundgren tells Billboard. "There's a younger generation of artists, some of whom cite my earlier records as influences on them, who are using the studio or elements of the recording process as creative elements in themselves now, and what you're coming up with ultimately depends less on the usual kind of inter-musician collaboration and are more about a kind of aggressive discovery of possibilities within a more limited scope. The whole thing has just been returned to the artist, and that was my intent way back when I built my first studio and started making my first crazy records."
Rundgren says he delved deeply, and broadly, into artists he clearly felt were making a fresh sonic impact, including Skrillex, Frank Ocean, David Tipper, GRiZ and Lewis Taylor. "There's even a little bit of Bon Iver influence, but I couldn't tell you where," Rundgren notes with a laugh.
But, he hastens to add, he was careful not to let any of that influence him to the point where it was too obvious in "State's" songs. "It gets to a point where I have to stop listening to it or I'll start literally taking stuff from it," he explains. "I wasn't really trying to stick with one style. I was simply trying to find myself in other people's music and figure out, once there was a connection, where does it go from there? So there may be the vague memory of...all the artists who were doing something that I found intriguing and found their way onto my radar and into this record in some way, but in a way that I actually avoid citing them completely."
The Hawaii-based Rundgren will be taking "State" on the road starting May 5 in his former home of Woodstock, N.Y., performing with a trio and "a modicum of machinery." And, he promises, there will be "an improvisational element" to shows.
"We will have a broader palette of things to draw on because we've got some real players there," Rundgren says. "But also I want to have the advantage of random access to a whole realm of music, which is what the portable studio gives you. Certain aspects of the songs can be opened up; you can make an unexpected side excursion into another musical realm and possibly come back -- or possibly not come back. Who knows? Maybe you decide that once you've gone off of that other tangent it's more entertaining than perhaps doing the conventional rendition of a particular song. There are myriad possibilities."

Avoiding Skrillex's Mosh Pit

'Shameless' Star Emmy Rossum on Avoiding Skrillex's Mosh Pit, Making Out to 'Wonderwall'

Emmy Rossum / Photo by Sam Jones

The actress-singer shares the soundtrack to her life.

The multi-talented Emmy Rossum could use a breather. It's a good thing then, that the Showtime network's Shameless, on which she plays a dutiful sister holding a family of miscreants together in Chicago, just tied a bow on its third season. Earlier this very busy year the New York City native dropped her second full-length album, the standards collection Sentimental Journey. While back in her hometown, the singer-actress cleared some space in her schedule to chat about her life in music.
What's your favorite song?Probably "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid because that was the first song I loved as a kid. When I hear it, I try to take it out of the Disney context and just think of the sentiment of the song. It's a very sweet one.
When you were growing up did your parents object to anything you were listening to?Spice Girls.
What was wrong with the Spice Girls?My mom thought it was crap. I was singing in a classical children's chorus when I was seven so I was exposed to so much classical music at a young age; that's what I would hear when I came home. My mom was playing these standards from the '20s to the '60s and that influenced my listening. So she didn't like Spice Girls
What song do you associate with your first kiss?"Wonderwall" by Oasis. The guy I was kissing told me, "I think this song is about drugs" and then we made out.
What was the last concert you went to?I was at Jay-Z's Made In America festival last year. I saw Skrillex and he was so awesome. It was so fun, though I thought I was going to be killed by the moshing!
So you got down in there in the madness?I stayed away mostly. Skrillex had a whole light show going — it was pretty amazing.
Who on the set of Shameless has a musical taste that's similar to yours?[Shameless co-star] Justin Chatwin and I both like stuff like Passion Pit and M83. William H. Macy also plays the ukulele on set.
Often?He has it with him every day, always picking a cute tune over in the corner. The guys who play the drunks in our bar on-set are all musicians too and sometimes they'll break out guitars and have a jam session with Macy.
Who's music has helped you over a breakup or through a dark time?I could be corny and say Celine Dion but it's really more like David Gray. I used to really like his earlier stuff and its very nostalgic and comforting. I also think food and music can also go hand in hand when nursing a broken heart so, like, grilled cheese and some ice cream, too. Lots of dairy and David Gray.
Do you have a go-to karaoke song?"Girls Just Want To Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper. I really can't mess up the words if I'm drunk. You just sing the chorus and then kind of blah, blah, blah your way through it and you're golden.

 

Brad Paisley-LL Cool J draw ire with song on bias

Brad Paisley-LL Cool J draw ire with song on bias

Country singer Brad Paisley says he was trying to foster an open discussion of race relations when he collaborated with rapper LL Cool J on "Accidental Racist."

The new song about racial perceptions has drawn ire from both the country and urban music worlds after its wide release this week. Paisley, the singer-songwriter known for his white cowboy hat and virtuoso guitar work, gave his first interview Tuesday since the hubbub began on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" after briefly addressing the debate Monday night on Twitter.
"I felt like when we were writing this song, it wasn't necessarily up to the media and I don't really trust Hollywood ... or talk radio or anything like that to sort of deal with that anymore," Paisley said on the show. "I think it's music's turn to have the conversation."
The song appears on Paisley's new self-produced album "Wheelhouse," released Tuesday. It's his most ambitious album so far and the progressive message of "Accidental Racist" is in line with opinions the 40-year-old West Virginia-born singer has expressed before in interviews and songs.
Of the album, Paisley wrote on Twitter, "I hope it triggers emotions," and says he wouldn't change a thing about it: "This is a record meant to be FAR from easy listening. But fun. Like life. Have a ball, ya'll."
At its heart, "Accidental Racist" is about how cultural symbols favored by whites and blacks - the fashion choice of wearing Confederate flags or baggy pants, for instance - come loaded with meaning.
It's not a new discussion. Though race relations have evolved over the decades, cultural symbols continue to color perceptions.
Paisley uses the Confederate flag as an example in the song, noting whites are "caught between Southern pride and Southern blame" 150 years after the end of the Civil War.
"I try to put myself in your shoes and that's a good place to begin," Paisley sings, "but it ain't like I can walk a mile in someone else's skin/Because I'm a white man livin' in the southland/Just like you I'm more than what it seems/I'm proud of where I'm from/But not everything we've done/It ain't like you and me can rewrite history/Our generation didn't start this nation/We're still paying for mistakes that a bunch of folks made long before we came."
Paisley was unavailable for an interview and LL Cool J's publicist did not immediately respond to messages. The 45-year-old rapper, who elevated himself from a teen sensation on the streets of Queens to an American cultural icon as a personality and actor on shows like CBS's "NCIS: Los Angeles," provides the response to Paisley's meditations.
He kicks off his portion of the song "Dear, Mr. White Man, I wish you understood what the world was really like living in the hood." Later in the song he raps, "I guess we're both guilty of judging the cover not the book/I'd love to buy you a beer, conversate and clear the air/But I see that red flag and I think you wish I wasn't here."
Later he and Paisley enter a call and response portion of the song where LL Cool J raps in part: "If you don't judge my 'do rag, I won't judge your red flag. ... If you don't judge my gold chains, I'll forget the iron chains ... Can't rewrite history, baby ... let bygones be bygones ... Rest in peace, Robert E. Lee, I got to thank Abraham Lincoln for freeing me ... ."
"One of my favorite lines in the song is he says 'I think the relationship between the Mason-Dixon needs some fixin','" Paisley told DeGeneres. "Leave it to a rapper to put it so simply and so beautifully."
Not all the good people of the blogosphere and Twitter world were as taken, though, and comedians were weighing in as well.
Demetria Irwin of black culture blog The Grio wrote, "'Accidental Racist' is the worst song in the history of music," then broke it down line by line.
Comedian Patton Oswalt tweeted: "I can't wait for Brad Paisley & LL Cool J's next single: "Whoopsy Daisy, Holocaust, My Bad""
Even the usually open-armed Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson of The Roots seemed taken aback as he tweeted: "Just heard the "Accidental Racist" man that Weird Al is amazing."
A little later, he compared the reaction to "Accidental Racist" to the recent backlash over Rick Ross' contribution to the Rocko song "O.U.E.N.O," which brought an apology after detractors accused him of glorifying date rape.
"All the "OUENO" weigher ins....i expect "Accidental Racist" to get equal amount of discussion & dialogue," he wrote.
That it did. Paisley told DeGeneres that was the point.
"Make up your own mind," he said. "That's fine. You can throw things at me. I'm all right."