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Rod Stewart, 70, Drops First New Single in Years and It’s Great– Album Due in October

Roger Friedman
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Rod Stewart, 70, Drops First New Single in Years and It’s Great– Album Due in October

Rod Stewart is back! He’s six months into his 71st year, and sounding better than ever. He’s just released a song and video called “Love Is,” and I love it. Very Celtic folk Rod style, and also now what you might call very Mumford. Rod did it first, kids! His new album “Another Country” will be released by Capitol on October 23rd.

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Watch this video– the whole thing works. It’s got life, it’s got bounce, it’s all real instruments, and Rod looks like he’s having the time of his life. “Another Country” is all originals– and you know selling it is tough because no one wants new music by their favorite oldies. But maybe people will get smarter. This looks good. Some guys have all the luck, but Rod Stewart makes his luck. He’s a survivor. And cool.

Oscar Winning Composer James Horner: Harrison Ford Narrated Short on Flying for Which He Wrote Music

Roger Friedman
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Oscar Winning Composer James Horner: Harrison Ford Narrated Short on Flying for Which He Wrote Music

Oscar winning composter James Horner is presumed dead tonight after crashing his private plane near Santa Barbara. He won the Oscar for “Titanic” and Celine Dion’s hit “My Heart Will Go On.” His dozens of credits include the upcoming “Southpaw.” He had six other Oscar nominations and was working on the sountracks to the new “Avatar” movies.

He recently composed the music for a short film called “Living in the Age of Airplanes.” The film is narrated by his friend Harrison Ford, who narrowly escaped death this year flying his own plane to a crash landing. Horner leaves a wife and two children. Condolences to them and to his friends and fans. A terrible loss.

Orange Is the New Cheap as Casting Director Warns Talent Agents About Actors’ Fees

Roger Friedman
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Orange Is the New Cheap as Casting Director Warns Talent Agents About Actors’ Fees

We do know that “Orange is the New Black” is a huge hit. We don’t know how big, though, because Netflix doesn’t release ratings. Suffice to say that when the new season was released recently, Netflix almost exploded from too many people trying to watch the new episodes at the same time.

So it’s all the more surprising that an odd warning was sent out to talent agents recently by casting director Jennifer Euston. She’s casting for the 4th season.

It read– and in all CAPS– I’m told:
ALL OF THE ROLES BELOW ARE SCALE +10%. I CANNOT EMPHASIZE MORE THAT THIS IS WHAT WE ARE PAYING. IT’S NOT A JUMPING OFF POINT AND I’M NOT PUTTING IT ON HERE FOR FUN. SO PLEASE, DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR CLIENT IF THEY WILL NOT WORK FOR SCALE OR IF YOU WON’T LET
THEM WORK FOR SCALE. IT’S A WASTE OF EVERYONE’S TIME.
ALSO, AS ALWAYS, ONLY NY LOCAL HIRES.

Please tell Ms. Euston that I am still available, even for these wages. Maybe the ladies new a new lawyer to get them out of jail!

Season 4, with some new characters, debuts a year from now.

Broadway: Larry David’s “Fish in the Dark” Drops by $400K A Week with Jason Alexander

Roger Friedman
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Broadway: Larry David’s “Fish in the Dark” Drops by $400K A Week with Jason Alexander

I don’t get this: with Larry David out of his own “Fish in the Dark,” the comedy has dropped by $400,000 a week. It’s not like they replaced Larry with chopped liver. Jason Alexander, beloved from Seinfeld playing George– aka Larry David– takes his place with no trouble, I would guess. (I wouldn’t know since they don’t invite press.) What the heck? The show is doing heavy promoting of discounted tickets with Jason– aka Larry– in the role of Larry. Were people that fixated on seeing Larry David? Jason Alexander should be a draw.

Meanwhile, “It Shoulda Been You”– no Tony noms– must be playing to vacant houses. Last week they made $344,000 out of a potential $991K. Maybe they can rent out the other part of the theater for a wedding…

And “Finding Neverland” is steady as she goes. They make $1.1 million a week. No Tonys, nothing. Nothing but Matthew Morrison and Kelsey Grammer. The actors are signed for a year. As long as they are present, “Neverland” is assured a spot on Broadway.

Please everyone, go see “On the Town.” Such a great show. But the numbers are low. I doubt it can go into the fall. Don’t miss it.

Taylor Swift Vanquishes Apple Music and “1989” Returns to Top of iTunes Charts

Roger Friedman
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Taylor Swift Vanquishes Apple Music and “1989” Returns to Top of iTunes Charts

Poor James Taylor. His first new album in 12 years was supposed to be number 1 this morning on iTunes. It had been number 1 for a day or so. But now…Taylor Swift’s “1989” has jumped back to that spot.

The reason? Taylor vanquished Apple Music last night. She posted a statement to Tumblr explaining why she wouldn’t allow her “1989” album to be streamed on the service. Apple Music had said it wasn’t going to pay artists for the 90 days that the service was free to subscribers. Taylor — the only contemporary artist who is selling right now– disagreed with the policy.

I was the first to post last night that Apple’s Eddy Cue stood down. He said later that he’d called Swift in Europe and talked the whole issue over with her. I don’t know Eddy Cue, and I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but he was in trouble with Taylor Swift making public proclamations against Apple. That had to be shut down fast.

And now Taylor, who’s the hero of the day, is back at number 1. I’d like to hear some of the pillars of rock– McCartney, Jagger, Dylan, Springsteen, Bono–speak up about this sort of thing, too. They are rich beyond belief. It’s time to show some leadership.

Broadway Carole King Musical “Beautiful” Will Play Central Park for Free as August Concert

Roger Friedman
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Broadway Carole King Musical “Beautiful” Will Play Central Park for Free as August Concert

Carole King played Central Park in 1973 for free. So why not do it again– sort of? The Carole King musical on Broadway– “Beautiful”– will do the same thing in August for free. As part of Central Park Summerstage, the cast of “Beautiful” will perform all the songs from the show on Monday, August 3rd for one night only. My guess is Carole might join them if she’s in town. She didn’t like the idea of “Beautiful” when it started, but once it was praised and won the Tony Award she embraced it. Also she gets a really nice royalty check. So it’s not “too late” to see “Beautiful” for free after all!

Janet Jackson Releases “No Sleeep” Single: Misspelled, One Verse, Trance-like

Roger Friedman
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Janet Jackson’s new single “No Sleeep”: it’s misspelled, has one verse that comes in at around 2:40, and is meant to put you to sleep. I think it works. Interesting choice by Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam Harris. Couldn’t they write more verses? Did they have a lot of spare ‘e’s around? Anyway, the beat is nice. It reminds me of Patrice Rushen’s “Forget me Nots.”

Taylor Swift on Slicing Apple Music : “I am elated and relieved…they listened to us”

Roger Friedman
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Taylor Swift on Slicing Apple Music : “I am elated and relieved…they listened to us”

Taylor Swift just responded to her victory over Apple Music. I don’t think this is a pr stunt, as some have suggested. Apple really intended not to pay artists for 90 days for streaming. I don’t know why they created a situation where one artist, Taylor Swift, would bring them down. They didn’t listen to complaints from anyone else. But “1989” is selling after 8 months. Without it, they’d have been in a really sticky place to launch this week.

Taylor Swift Makes Apple Back Down: They Will Pay Artists During 3 Month Trial (exclusive)

Roger Friedman
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Taylor Swift Makes Apple Back Down: They Will Pay Artists During 3 Month Trial (exclusive)

EXCLUSIVE Taylor Swift‘s letter to Apple worked. Eddy Cue has just Tweeted that Apple will pay artists during the 3 month Apple Music trial period. This is HUGE. Good work Taylor. Apple Music was telling all artists they would not be paid for streaming during the 3 months when new Apple Music subscribers get a free trial. Artists and labels were outraged. (I hear that this wasn’t going over with Apple’s biggest music partners, the Beatles and U2, by the way.) Now in just the last few minutes, Apple’s Eddy Cue has Tweeted back the news:

Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig Spoofed Lifetime on Lifetime: Funny and Dull at the Same Time

Roger Friedman
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Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig Spoofed Lifetime on Lifetime: Funny and Dull at the Same Time

You knew that Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig’s “A Deadly Adoption” was a spoof. Lifetime TV let them make a parody of one of their god awful movies of the week. Why? For ratings? It was like a 90 minute “Saturday Night Live” sketch, alternately full and dull.

“ADA” is full of cliches, particularly those found on Lifetime. Sometimes it’s played very straight, other times the movie is a hoot. Imagine if you had enough money and time to make a parody of something no one cares about. That’s “A Deadly Adoption.”

Will plays Robert, a writer of self help books who’s given up heavy drinking. Robert and his wife Sarah have a cute little blonde daughter named Sully (for Capt. Sullenberger maybe?). They live in a sleepy lake town. Sarah has a food stand that she runs with a nice gay guy who’s her bestie. The couple wants a second child, but they can’t have one. So they try to adopt.

The reason they can’t have more kids is the linchpin here, and it’s hilarious: Sarah fell off a rotted pier and miscarried their baby. Robert holds this against her– she should have known the pier was no good. It’s right out of “Mary Hartman” or a Carol Burnett spoof. Yet they read these lines totally straightfaced. Sublime.

Into their lives comes a gorgeous young pregnant girl named Bridgette (the spelling is great). She says she lives in a shelter, but wears designer clothes and looks like a model. It will turn out later she slept with Robert when he was on a book tour and on a bender drinking because of the pier accident. He has totally forgotten her. She’s come for revenge.

What else do you need? Bridgette accidentally smashes a framed photo of the family when she first meets them. There’s sl-mo scenes, dialogue for 2 year olds, and long knowing looks from everyone. None of it makes sense. There’s so much exposition in the third half hour that Ferrell vanishes from the screen. When he saves Wiig from a perils-of-Pauline situation, it’s laugh out loud funny. And that’s nice because the thirty preceding minutes are incredibly dull.

Why was this done? I guess, why not? Will I return to Lifetime? Not in this one. But what the heck.

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