IFRS: Assignment #4: Curate Your Own Music Festival

Following up on RyTunes' exemplary submission, here is another stab at the most recent RS writing competition. The lowdown:

Assignment Four: Create and curate your very own music festival. Name your ideal band/artist lineups, location, name, size, venue…it’s all up to you. Remember, we’re mostly concerned with the quality of your writing. It’d be great if your fantasy festival was logistically feasible — but the exercise is principally a test of your creativity. Outline your scheme in 300 words or less...

A musical feast of your heart's content, how glorious! This is actually something myself and other members of this site have discussed independently of this project before, so when the time came, of course, I scratched all previous ideas and went with a spur of the moment inspiration. I had initially conceived of doing a major political/benefit festival, but there are already enough of those. I also threw around the ideas of a U.K. invasion (man, are there some hot bands out of the U.K. right now, coverage on that coming soon to AtD); a "Vital Organs" lineup, which would consist entirely of piano-dominated bands; and even a mega-reunion tour (since this is all purely hypothetical anyway) in which several major players who have recently regrouped (i.e. Rage, The Police, Smashing Pumpkins, VH), and a few others that haven't done so quite yet (Led Zep, Pink Floyd take two) all hit the same stage together for an all out rock n' roll blowout. But that seemed just a bit too grandiose. The ultimate winner was,"Cabaret Rock/Art Punk 2007," as described below:

Come one, come all, boys, girls, and everything in-between to the first of its kind Cabaret Rock/Art Punk tour hosted by Ziggy Stardust himself - David Bowie. This extravaganza gala event will take place in the exotic Nevada desert, not far from the infamous Las Vegas strip. The featured performers at the bonanza include headliners Panic! At the Disco and My Chemical Romance, performing shockers mostly from their latest albums with true dramatic and overblown flair. Also taking part will be anti-folk princess Regina Spektor, The Dresden Dolls, The Hush Sound, and dark violet Jill Tracy. But that’s not all! There are also Eastern European gypsy folk punks Gogol Bordello, Devotchka, Revue Noir, Tiger Lillies, and finally the grand French entertainers Fantasmagoria.

Witness the sights and experience the majesty of street performers at every turn, as the live music onstage is but a sensual tease of what’s in store at this romantic traveling carnival of dangerous intrigue. Behold the clowns, burlesque dancers, acrobats, contortionists, jugglers, and jesters slyly masquerading before you as plate spinners, mimes, and street artists of all kinds work their dark magic to make you believe the impossible. Things may disappear before your very eyes, while brooding noises and colorful smells wistfully ensnare you. Give in to the cavernous sand dunes painted by the magnetic, intense lights from all around the stage as they envelop you into sudden desires and intoxications. Fear not! The vast expanse of the once barren desert can accommodate thousands, and after all, it’s only a concert. Or is it? The festivities begin at dusk and run all through the night with special appearances by members of Cirque du Soleil, the Slava Snowshow, and various performing arts troupes and surprise guests. The night of a thousand wonders awaits!

More on this highly provocative genre to come. Stay tuned!

More Mock Rock Interviews

Ya know, after completing the Rolling Stone assignment I thought about their scenario a bit more carefully:

In 300 words or less, write ten insightful questions you'd like to ask a living artist or band. Make sure to identify the artist/band that is the subject of your interview.

While living artists certainly continue to be compelling and worth writing about, what if we took some time to look back at the numerous greats who have departed from this world, so many of them before their time? So here's s new challenge:

"What questions (let's say 3 max to keep this simple) would you ask any deceased artist or band?"

Here's mine:

Artist: John Lennon
Question: How would you describe the power of music to empower people as catalysts of social and political change?

Post yours in the comments.

IFRS - Writing Competition: Assignment Two

I'm elated to announce that I have just submitted my piece for the current "I'm From Rolling Stone" contest, which complements their MTV-based reality show. Here's the dirt:

Now let’s say you got the chance to shoot the breeze with your favorite living band or artist for a Rolling Stone profile. What questions would you ask? Tell us 1) who you’d interview and 2) what ten stellar questions you’d ask. Intelligent, well-informed, provocative, off-the-wall or poignant — the goal is to do your homework and then craft inquiries that will elicit compelling answers and reveal something about the interview subject.

Contest rules and submission form live here.

My submission follows below:

10 Questions for Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke:

1) After the breakout success of your debut album, "Silent Alarm," the band catapulted from performing in small clubs to full arenas. Was this an intimidating time for you?

2) Bloc Party originally signed on with Panic! at the Disco's fall tour. Given that the audiences for the two bands are very different from each other, do you think it worked out for the best not to have completed the tour as a result of Matt Tong's collapsed lung?

3) Your new single, “I Still Remember,” reportedly explores the theme of latent bisexuality. Is that topic risqué even in modern rock?

4) You have talked about not hiding behind abstraction on the new album. How do you, as a songwriter, go about writing more directly and clearly to your audience?

5) Your new album, “A Weekend in the City,” has been described as being about the living noise of a 21^st century metropolis. In this way, is the record almost like a concept album?

6) What was the experience like of working with producer Jacknife Lee (U2, Snow Patrol) on the new album?

7) “A Weekend in the City” has reportedly leaked on the Internet. Do you think this will adversely affect the commercial success of this greatly anticipated record?

8) The song “Where is Home” is said to explore issues of race in England. Do you feel this topic isn’t explored often enough in pop music and, if so, why do you think that is?

9) On your upcoming U.S. tour you will be predominantly hitting theaters as opposed to clubs or arenas. Why do you prefer theaters to others types of venues?

10) What message do you ultimately hope people take away from “A Weekend in the City?”

Tracking Rolling Stone's Reality TV Show

Preeminent music magazine Rolling Stone is now two weeks into their MTV-partnered reality series "I'm From Rolling Stone," and I must say it's been a good trip so far. My primary interest rests in the journalistic aspects of the program, as I temper my jealousy at the opportunity these all-too-pretty aspiring writers have been given with genuine interest in learning from their experience. While I don't want to go in depth about the characters (nothing personal, I would just rather focus on the assignments and the writing) I gotta talk about how ludicrous (not the rapper) it is to being playing 'hotshot' with this kind of role. C'mon people, you're given a literally once in a lifetime chance (as opposed to those pseudo once in a lifetimes) yet you're not above acting arrogant, lazy, and undisciplined? It really makes you want to get in there and do their job for them, and considerably better than their churlish efforts so far. Here is to hoping, for the sake of the show as well as the respect I have for the magazine, that the quality of the contestants gets a whole lot better. Hey, they're just starting out, I am willing to cut them some slack...for now.

As for the journalistic aspects, I must say it's wickedly cool to hear Joe Levy, executive editor, dishing out his charges and observations, along with a slew of other senior brass at the magazine. There are little (and not so little) things you can pick up about the world of pop culture writing, such as:

- The importance of getting material facts and substance over sugaring your piece
- Not burying your 'lead'
- The dangers of excess prose
- The vitality of having a clear and concise focus
- The need to actually articulate the sound and feel of the music
- Not overusing clichés
- The value of properly preparing for interviews (checking the recorder, writing out questions beforehand, directing the flow, being confident, getting concrete information)

Not that I pretend to be a masterful editor, as many of these things I picked up right from the RS website, but they are invaluable nonetheless as I embark on my mission to be a prominent reporter and writer in my own right. I'll amend this list and add comments as the show goes on. I think it will prove to be a remarkably educational exercise in what you can learn from reality television. Particularly when that television features (albeit sporadically) some of the finest journalists on the planet.

To be continued...

Rolling Stone Does Reality TV

The premise: six aspiring jouranlists suffer the trials and tribulations of network reality television in the hopes of becoming a writer for the well known music and pop-culture magazine Rolling Stone. I must say on a personal level, as an aspiring freelance music journalist, this concept greatly appeals to me. But it seems not everyone would agree. A quick peek at the comments on RS's website show no lack of restraint by people trying to rip the show and the magazine to shreds before the first episode even airs. How dare the seminal rock and roll trade publication think about partnering with the overtly pretentious and teen-worshipping Music Televsion network? Of course, later comments attack earlier ones and the Internet phenomenon known ever-so-descriptively as 'flaming' follows.

But as to the idea that RS and MTV have actually put forth? I am really curious to see where it all goes. Many of us remember Almost Famous (The Foo Fighters have even covered, in a manner of speaking, Elton John's 'Tiny Dancer' as an homage to the famous scene from the movie) and how an early teenaged Cameron Crowe was given the kind of break that most mid-life, Led Zeppelin T-shirt wearing adults would fawn over with reckless abandon. But for those of us like myself who identified with the main character and wanted to be that innocent 70's child given the opportunity of a lifetime during a gilded and lost period of music history, the dream is anything but dead. Needless to say, AtD will be following this series as it develops, particularly this golden nugget:

Think you could’ve done better? You’ll get a chance to prove it, as we’re going to hold online contests based on the assignments undertaken by the I’m From Rolling Stone contestants. And just like on the show, if you’re really good, you might even get to write for Rolling Stone.

I don't think I need to explain how exciting that last bit of news is, given what we're doing here. Rolling Stone, after all, is the premiere music media source of the last 40 years. The opportunity to be a part of their elite team means being literally in the forefront of this prized industry. So the least we can do is go along for the ride and see how all of this goes down, no?

"I'm From Rolling Stone" will air Sundays at 10:00 P.M. on MTV, starting January 7.

On the web: http://www.rollingstone.com/imfromrollingstone