Metallica, Anthrax and Testament have paid their respects to Marsha Zazula, the co-founder of respected US metal label Megaforce Records, who passed away on January 9. Zazula died at the Florida home she shared with her partner of 41 years, Jon Zazula, aged 68. The cause of death was cancer.
Together with her husband Jon, her partner in the New Jersey record shop Rock And Roll Heaven, Marsha Zazula launched Megaforce Records in 1982 in order to release Kill ’Em All, the debut album from Metallica, whose No Life ’Til Leather demo cassette was a top selling item in their store. The Zazulas welcomed the Californian quartet into their New Jersey home ahead of the recording of Kill ’Em All, and underwrote Metallica’s first national tour with labelmates Raven. Megaforce subsequently went on to release albums by Anthrax, Testament, Overkill, King’s X, Stormtroopers Of Death, and more.
After news of Marsha Zazula’s passing broke, Metallica posted a recent photo of James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich with the Zazulas, and wrote: ‘Rest In Peace Marsha. Thank you for everything.’ Drummer Ulrich also paid his own tribute, thanking Zazula ‘for making it happen’.
“For supporting us, for encouraging us, for advising us, for sheltering us, for feeding us, and most importantly for cheering us on and along with your husband Jonny, believing in the possibilities of how a gang of misfits and outsiders like ourselves could connect with a larger and likeminded audience…
You were an incredibly selfless matriarch and we’ll be forever grateful for the impact you had on our lives.”
Anthrax posted on social media: “It’s with much sadness that we hear of the passing of Marsha Zazula. A true pioneer along with Jonny Z. Those two were responsible for changing all our lives. Hard to put into words what a world this might be without their belief and dedication to metal and all of us. Our love to her family.”
In his own tribute, guitarist Scott Ian wrote: “Marsha was an integral part of our career and a force to be reckoned with – knocking down (with Jon) whatever doors stood in our way in those early days. We were like a family, a big head-banging metal family and we took care of each other.”
Alex Skolnick, Testament’s guitarist, paid tribute to Zazula in an interview with Variety.
“She kept things balanced,” he said, “She was this steady hand, a calming force, during these intense moments — and there were intense moments! Jonny and Marsha were really a team; she was there for every decision. Jonny, bless him, was the stereotypical hot-headed, East Coast label executive — patience and calm may not have been his strong suits — and she balanced him out.”
“She kept things balanced,” he said, “She was this steady hand, a calming force, during these intense moments — and there were intense moments! Jonny and Marsha were really a team; she was there for every decision. Jonny, bless him, was the stereotypical hot-headed, East Coast label executive — patience and calm may not have been his strong suits — and she balanced him out.”
All at Metal Hammer send our condolences to Jon Zazula, and the couple’s family and friends.
Power of Prog is proud to announce that legendary album reviewer and interviewer Kev Rowland has joined our team as a contributor. Kev is one of the most prolific writers on the scene right now his work is published in Acid Dragon, Prog Archives, Metal Music Archives, Jazz Music Archives, Feedback Fanzine among others. We look forward to Kev’s input here at Power of Prog and what he has to say.
Kev Rowland’s Bio
From 1990 – 2006 I ran Feedback fanzinein the UK, writing about bands that were never covered in the mainstream press, many of whom were in the progressive underground. During the period I built close ties with many of the UK groups in particular, including writing the newsletter for Freewill, getting gigs for Credoand writing the introduction to Galahad’s OCMDIIcompilation. I reviewed literally thousands of cassettes and then CDs from prog bands from throughout the world, and was lucky enough to interview many of them. During this period I also contributed to the French progzine Acid Dragon (which I am still doing, all these years later!), and was also asked to write for Rock ‘n’ Reeland once there was such a thing as the internet, for the Ghostland website.
In 2006 I moved to NZ, and stopped running Feedback (which was then renamed Amplified after I left at my request) having produced over 80 editions with more than 11,000 pages of print and heaven knows how many reviews and interviews.
Although I stopped writing and reviewing when I came over to NZ, I was gradually brought back into the scene (initially kicking and screaming until I accepted my fate) and started contributing to many different sites and magazines. I was heavily involved with the Crossover sub-genre team on Prog Archives, wrote the booklets for the Red Jasperreissues, and generally tried to be as involved in the scene as I had some 20 years previously. However, I stopped this in 2014 to start work on a book containing all of my progressive reviews from Feedback, and finally finished this at the end of 2016, after more than half a million words! (To be published by Gonzo Media hopefully later this year in three volumes, watch this space!)
My aim for 2017 was to review every album I had been sent over the last three years, but even though I managed to knock out more than 600 I still have plenty more to get through! The first five months of 2018 has seen me contribute more than 300 reviews so far, and I am ever so slowly starting to make a dent in my backlog, while also trying to keep up to date with new releases.
So much music, so little time…
The idea of Artificial Intelligence-supported A&R has become big news in the music business lately, with UK-based scouting tool Instrumental raising $4 million for aggressive growth, and Warner Music Group acquiring Sodatone for an undisclosed fee. Here, Instrumental Founder & CEO (and ex-President of Warner Music Entertainment), Conrad Withey , argues that machine learning isn’t hurting the tradition of signing and developing artists – it’s improving it…
There has been a lot of noise in the music media recently predicting that bots will gradually take the place of experienced A&R teams, by making calls on what tracks or which artists are going to be hits.
People claim that this tech can accurately predict the likelihood of artist success in the future, and subsequently question the need for old school ears.
I even heard a recent alarming question concerning Instrumental’s own AI-driven scouting platform: ‘It’s listening to 20,000 songs a day – so who needs A&Rs?’
“AI OFFERS THE MOST EXCITING DEVELOPMENT IN THE WORLD OF TALENT DISCOVERY SINCE THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN MUSIC BUSINESS.”
Most of the time this kind of stuff is pure speculation, based on misunderstanding, or peddled by data scientists trying to make a name in an industry they don’t understand.
(Or it’s just a good punchline: a recent meeting at Instrumental HQ in London triggered this very article. MBW publisher Tim Ingham joked that – with both AI-supported A&R and AI-generated music continuing to emerge – we might soon be witnessing “robots signing robots”!)
My serious view is that AI offers the most exciting development in the world of talent discovery since the birth of the modern music business.
This isn’t about a binary choice between ‘gut instinct’ and ‘data’ – it’s about technology which helps all of us get better at what we do.
To get to the truth, let’s take a step back and look at what AI actually means. It’s a hot topic in investment circles right now, but it’s bandied around a lot without an enormous consideration for what machine learning is really all about.
A quick look at Wikipedia tells us that artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning is “the field of computer science that uses statistical techniques to give computer systems the ability to ‘learn’ (i.e. progressively improve performance on a specific task) with data, without being explicitly programmed”.
That’s a helpful summary because it gets us to the crux of the matter: why might it be useful to employ machine learning in the process of scouting in the music business?
THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IS DROWNING IN DATA. THERE’S NEVER BEEN SO MUCH OF IT.”
The simple answer is that we are now drowning in data. There’s never been so much of it – from Spotify to SoundCloud, Shazam to SongKick and Instagram to YouTube it just goes on and on. And it’s only getting worse (or better, depending on your disposition). Spotify – currently the biggest audio streaming platform by a country mile – recently confirmed that it’s adding 20,000 new tracks to its service every day. That’s 7 million+ each year!
Granted, the vast majority of these tracks won’t be of interest to most labels or publishers (the democratisation of the business has done great things, but it also means there is a lot of poor quality music out there).
However, within that 20k-a-day stat, there are definitely future hits and emerging stars.
As we all know, in 2018’s music business, play listing is an essential A&R tool in itself: Spotify’s curators and algorithms drive streams, and streams drive commercial value.
On Instrumental’s platform we can see that there are currently over 8,000 ‘influential’ playlists in existence on Spotify – by which we mean those with 10,000 followers or more.
Within these playlists, as we stand today, there are 400,000+ artists and 45% of them are not on major labels – ie. they are on indie labels or self-releasing artists.
So that’s 20,000 new tracks a day, many of which are being added to 8,000 ‘influential’ playlists, harnessing 400,000 artists, of which nearly half (circa 180,000) are independent.
And that’s just on Spotify!
“45% OF ARTISTS ON SPOTIFY’S MOST ‘INFLUENTIAL’ PLAYLISTS ARE NOT ON MAJOR LABELS.”
Stats like these help us see both the problem and the opportunity for AI.
Clearly, tracking all of this music the old way just isn’t going to work. An A&R boss can employ as many interns or scouts as they like – they’re never going to be able to sort through all of that manually.
Who’s hot, who’s climbing in popularity, whose music is worth taking the gamble and investing in; this is all information the music business needs, in real time, to effectively compete.
AI can do that sorting for you in a nano-second.
By applying preferences to the way the data is filtered, through machine learning, you can achieve results that have been hyper-qualified to your strategy and tastes.
At that point, when you have the results, the power of ‘old school’ A&R really comes into play.
That’s when you can start measuring things in terms of the hairs on the back of your neck.
Armand Ruiz, Lead Product Manager at IBM Watson, said recently: “[The] purpose of AI is to augment human intelligence.”He’s absolutely right.
This is not about replacing human intelligence. It’s about helping us do the intelligent things which we are paid to do… better.
So, A&Rs: apply AI to the scouting process and then apply your ears to the super-qualified results.
By doing so, you will undoubtedly improve at what you’re employed to do.
Here’s another point I think people get hung up on: letting a machine power your scouting isn’t some sort of cop-out.
It doesn’t make you a lesser music executive or label.
“LETTING A MACHINE POWER YOUR A&R SCOUTING ISN’T SOME SORT OF COP-OUT. IT DOESN’T MAKE YOU A LESSER MUSIC EXECUTIVE OR LABEL.”
Let’s face it – scouting isn’t the music business’s most highly-valued skillset anyway. If it was it wouldn’t have been left to the most junior member of the team for the last 50 years!
Scouting is the start of the A&R journey. It is the discovery bit.
It is the process that comes before the bit where you truly start applying the skills, experience and instincts that a bot cannot come close to replicating.
But scouting is also critical. Do it badly and your music business… isn’t in business.
So, ‘Data vs Gut’ in A&R really isn’t a binary choice. In the computerised world of 2018, the music industry truly does need both.
It’s time to welcome the machine into the creative process – not to replace your gut instinct, but, actually, to empower it.
Legendary Rock ‘n Roll Musician Chuck Berry dies at 90
ST. CHARLES, MO (KTVI) – Police say that legendary rock n’ roll musician Chuck Berry has died at the age of 90-years-old.
First responders were called to a medical emergency on Buckner Road at about 12:40pm Saturday. They found an unresponsive man inside the home. They started administering lifesaving techniques. St. Charles Police say he could bot be revived. Berry was pronounced dead at 1:26pm.
St. Charles Police sat they have confirmed the identity of the man to be Charles Edward Anderson Berry Sr., better known as legendary musician Chuck Berry.
The family requests privacy during this time of bereavement.
Berry was born in The Ville neighborhood of north St. Louis in 1926, where he attended Sumner High School. His home, on Whittier Avenue, is on the National Register of Historic Places. That’s where he lived in the 1950’s when he recorded many of his biggest hits.
Berry just released his first new studio album in more than 35 years. The album called “Chuck” was recorded in St. Louis-area studios.
Jimmy Marsala, a bassist in Berry’s longtime band, suggests the new album took so long to come together because Berry wanted to make sure it lived up to everyone’s expectations. His last studio album was “Rock It” in 1979.
Sometimes amazing things happen unexpectedly. Today I’ve had a recording session with the amazing Elvya to put on tape some of her astonishing hammered dulcimer improvisations, and she brought a friend to the recording session who happened to be no other but Dyian, a polish folk hurdy gurdy player, who has also kindly agreed to play some additions with his exotic ancient instrument. So here I am to announce another guest on #therianthrope album. You can also check his project’s Facebook page.
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Power of Prog is proud to announce that legendary album reviewer and interviewer Kev Rowland has joined our team as a contributor. Kev is one of the most prolific writers on the scene right now his work is published in Acid Dragon, Prog Archives, Metal Music Archives, Jazz Music Archives, Feedback Fanzine among others. We look forward to Kev’s input here at Power of Prog and what he has to say.
