Madonna’s New Deal/Martino Movie

It’s going to be nice and cool in the Ozarks tonight; down to 40. Feels nice, there’s a snap in the air.

I’ve been feeling some heavy fatigue for the last several days. With the M.S., it sometimes hits you like that. Sometimes I’ll go through a period where I have a constant weariness. It does help to lay down for even 15-20 minutes. You just got to ride through it.

It’s funny how stuff happens. On the first of this month, I wrote a post in which I criticized Jimmy Buffett’s lawsuit against Six Flags for naming a Bugs Bunny fan club the “Carrotheads”. Then, I get a call to play a gig for a local chapter of the Parrotheads. I spent all afternoon working on Jimmy Buffett stuff.

I’d best watch who I’m busting on. We’ll know that the mojo is on me if I get a call to do a gig with the real parrot head.

The big name artist, major label exodus is officially under way. This from Breitbart/AFP.

Pop diva Madonna will sever her ties to Warner Bros. and sign a landmark 120-million-dollar 10-year deal with concert promoters Live Nation, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

The newspaper’s online edition reported that the 49-year-old music superstar was close to finalizing the details of what it described as a “virtually unprecedented” deal, citing people familiar with the deal.

The decade-long pact with Live Nation would see Madonna cement her status as one of the world’s highest paid female entertainers, giving her a lucrative mix of cash and stock, the report said.

What is interesting here is that Live Nation is not in the record business but, the deal seems to take the place of a record contract. I’m guessing that any future record that Madonna releases would be used as a promotional device; included with the price of a concert ticket the same way Prince has done it in the past. Also, I can see the record being offered as a free download to drive traffic to a Live Nation controlled website to hype a tour.

Madonna signing an exclusive deal with a concert promoter is not as intriguing as the promoter going after her on such a big level. Live Nation has to have some interest in the recording side of it. If not, why is Warner Brothers getting the elbow?

It will be interesting to see if companies like Live Nation will work deals with the labels involving signed artists and the use of catalogue material in cross promotion.

One of my favorite musicians is Pat Martino. I wore out a copy of his 1968 release, “East”. He is an inspiration as a person as well. This is from Pat Martino.com.

When the anesthesia wore off, Pat Martino looked up hazily at his parents and his doctors. and tried to piece together any memory of his life.
One of the greatest guitarists in jazz. Martino had suffered a severe brain aneurysm and underwent surgery after being told that his condition could be terminal. After his operations he could remember almost nothing. He barely recognized his parents. and had no memory of his guitar or his career. He remembers feeling as if he had been “dropped cold, empty, neutral, cleansed…naked.”

In the following months. Martino made a remarkable recovery. Through intensive study of his own historic recordings, and with the help of computer technology, Pat managed to reverse his memory loss and return to form on his instrument. His past recordings eventually became “an old friend, a spiritual experience which remained beautiful and honest.”

Sixteen Films will soon be releasing a documentary about Martino.

Neuropsychologist and author Paul Broks travels America in search of the soul of legendary jazz guitarist Pat Martino who was brutally silenced by memory stripping brain surgery. Through this remarkable story of his ascent from the depths of amnesia to the peak of artistry once more, Broks explores the nature of memory, self, creativity and the brain systems underlying personal identity making some ground-breaking discoveries on the way.

I would watch a film about Martino just to watch him play. There may very well be a lot more to this movie though. In talking to my neurologist and from my own research, I have found that there are many things we don’t know about the Central Nervous System. I find Martino’s story particularly fascinating because of the extremely high level of musicianship involved; how he lost that and recovered it. He has a different take on philosophy too, and I am curious about how that was influenced by his aneurysm experience. I’m looking forward to the movie.

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