For Your Listening Pleasure
Dave Matthews Band – Remember Two Things
Whatever you think of the band, their style, their fans, etc., these guys did things the right way. Playing show after show after show after show. This first album was basically thrown together due to the demand that followed the band’s constant gigging up and down the East Coast, where they’d come up to New York from Virginia and attract 50 people to a show… then come back a few months later and there’s be 250 (and so on). They won’t go down as one of the greatest rock and roll bands to ever play, but you can’t deny the following and success they’ve had.
News to You
So what has the Dave Matthews Band done with their success? Oh, only raisedover $2 million for New York City public schools at the AOL Concert for Schools held in Central Park. 85,000 crazy DMB fans, money donated by AOL and other corporations, and a night of good music on the Great Lawn… Makes you wish more celebrities would donate their time and energy to causes like this. We’d need a lot less taxes if more of us were this generous, that’s all I have to say about it.
Tribute
But wait, there’s more. Jay Z is retiring? The culmination of the career of arguably one of the greatest emcees to ever grace the microphone is set to be his Black Album, set to be released on Black Friday in November, and he plans to celebrate this with a November 25 benefit concert at Madison Square Garden. According to reports, proceeds from the concert will go to the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network along with Jay Z’s Shawn Carter Scholarship Fund. If you remember, the HSAN and WWE’s SmackDown! Your Vote campaign just teamed up with the goal of registering over 2 million young voters by the 2004 election.
I’m not sure what’s more believable… that WWE and a Hip-Hop group have teamed up, that all of these celebrities are dedicating so much of their time for decent causes, or that Jay Z is really going to retire.
Jay says he wants to go out with a bang. I don’t doubt for a minute that the Black Album will be hot, maybe even a hip-hop album of the year candidate, and he promises to do the complete CD with NO guest appearances. Wait. Isn’t there a rule that rap records HAVE to have guest spots? Not even bringing in Carlos Santana or Lenny Kravitz to strum a few bars?
Jay says his future is in other endeavors… you know, the usual. Clothing line, autobiography, movies…
Will Jay Z be a believable actor though? I’ll have to talk about this a bit in a future column. Musicians making the jump into acting. We’ve had some decent performances lately: Cher, Will Smith, J-Lo, Kid, Play. We’ve had some horrible ones: Mariah, Madonna, Britney. The jury’s still out on Mandy Moore, Eminem, Beyonce and others, although so far, so good.
And then there’s Jack F’N Black.
Come on, seriously… are any of you gonna miss The School of Rock? Didn’t think so.
That’s all for now, but make sure to send me your thoughts about your favorite musicians that have tried their hand in acting, and I’ll dedicate my next column to discussing that topic and your feedback.
In the meantime, I hope you’re with me giving credit where it’s due to the seemingly few celebrities out there putting their money where their mouths are.
peace. love. moe.
– Matt
Till My Head Falls Off can be found weekly on 411 Music (old columns are archived in the pull-down menu below). Already hit everything on 411? You can find more from Matthew Michaels at moodspins and 1-42.
