Monthly Archives: February 2023

Call it the long game. Since their formation,  indie-alt-what-have-you stalwarts the Dandy Warhols have remained essentially intact and absolutely active. 

Formed in Portland, Oregon in 1994, the band has outlasted most of their peers and even survived their hometown’s upscale evolution from a well-rooted, post-‘60s counterculture to its present-day Airbnb-ing and foodie oasis. Their earliest live shows were a raucous detonation of garage punk, shoegaze and rock-sotted chaos. 

Whether the band honed their sound or a larger audience simply bent its ear is anyone’s guess. Their 1995 debut Dandys Rule OK (Tim/Kerr) cooked up the drone-hum of Spacemen 3 with refreshingly nineties-irony-free Byrds-style harmonies. Yet the critical response (“what the Portland quartet sound like on bad drugs”- Q Magazine) was as varied as the band’s temperament. 

Two years later, the band released their breakthrough album …The Dandy Warhols Come Down. Released by Capitol Records, the album received universal critical acclaim and featured the hit “Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth.” Yet, most tellingly, Capitol rejected the band’s first submission as their “breakthrough” album as it was too deranged for the major label. And “Be-In,” the death-trip-friendly opener of Come Down, is an ear-opener for people looking for any resemblance to the glam crunch of “Last Junkie.” 

An auspicious start and either by volition or agitation, the Dandy Warhols have enjoyed a career that has zig-zagged from a lowbrow/highbrow presence. Their 2003 single “We Used To Be Friends” was eventually used as the theme song for the teen mystery TV show Veronica Mars.

Arguably still one of the more in-depth, enjoyable, and blunt documentaries on ‘90s independent rock, Dig! (2004) featured the combustible “twin flame” ascent of both the Dandy Warhols and their blood brothers/arch-rivals the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Between landing the 2004 Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and now finding a home in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, Dig! is probably the first music documentary about musicians starring musicians who grew up informed and formed by watching music documentaries. That kind of self-consciousness works in favor for both bands in Dig! Filmed over the course of seven years, everyone onscreen is at turns weary and wooly, and aware of director Ondi Timoner and her film crew’s constant presence. 

Whether through grit or grace, The Dandy Warhols have sidestepped the death-knell closures that vanquished the majority of their peers. The core lineup of lead singer-guitarist Courtney Taylor-Taylor, guitarist Peter Holmström, keyboardist Zia McCabe, and drummer Brent DeBoer has remained the same since 1998 and the band has released more than 20 live and studio albums and a whopping 28 singles.

The critical response to their records has been either derisive or blindingly devotional—a predictable phenomenon for most guitar-rock bands like the Dandy Warhols who are, unsurprisingly, a band more intent on bottling lightning live and on stage. 

Between the presence of solid local acts, and Os Mutantes and the Dandy Warhols, this year’s Winterland Festival has leveled up the game to offer a free two-day event for Northeast Florida. 

We spoke to Dandy Warhol leader Courtney Taylor-Taylor, where we talked about the band’s forthcoming symphonic project, looking for Roky Erickson in the bit-stream, and the band’s eager acceptance by the rock elders. 

Courtney, thanks for talking with the Jacksonville Music Experience.

Sure. Hey, can I call you back? I have to park…we’re doing this thing with the symphony.

Sure. [A few minutes pass; phone rings].

Ok. Thanks. Sorry about that.

So, you’re working with a symphony in Portland? How did that come about? 

I have no idea. I don’t really remember who connected that but it was before COVID and we were supposed to play on March 15 or something, in 2020. And then on like March 2, the world shut down.

Are the Dandy Warhols doing a full concert with them?

Yeah, it’ll be, like, I believe 45 minutes sets—an hour and a half of music. 

How do you feel about this?  Are these new waters for you to swim in, working with a symphony?

Yeah, we haven’t done this before. I grew up playing in symphonic bands and things; that’s actually where [Dandy Warhols’ guitarist] Peter Holmström and I met, at a symphonic summer camp at Willamette University when we were in high school. So it isn’t that daunting to me. I would imagine Zia [McCabe; band keyboardist] is, you know, if she was the kind of person that is ever daunted (laughs), this would be it.

This is the daunting moment. Break out the tux. 

Yeah.

So your upcoming show here at Winterland kicks off a run of Southeastern and East Coast shows. At this stage in your career, is there still an intensity for gearing up emotionally for any tour? 

Well, there’s a lot of rehearsal before tours. So, you get in the headspace, and you get your chops back, and you get your calluses back, etc. So you kind of get ready for it: we’re also just ready for it. We need to go somewhere every four months, really, or we start to go crazy in our personal relationships and the interiors of our personal lives start to get awkward or ugly, even. So, we are traveling beasts and we have been for so long that at this point we just can’t really live, or function, without it. Normally, I guess. Or we tell ourselves that.

The pandemic notwithstanding, your career has now spanned at least two major shifts in the music industry and rock history: the ‘90s ascension of the global indie-rock awareness and now music streaming and the semi-extinction of major labels. Unlike many of your peers, the Dandy Warhols continued to work and tour through all of these shifts. Did you feel any kind of awkwardness or even fear when the music scene changed so radically from labels to DIY downloads?   

Well, the only shift that really made any difference was when Spotify, Apple, whatever, all these subscription services were in cahoots with the labels. And what they’re doing is illegal. But nobody has enough clout, not even Taylor Swift or Neil Young, to pull a class action lawsuit and bust them, right? So it’s over, you know? Musicians cannot make money, they cannot survive. You have to be a pop artist; an extremely-pop artist, at that. Which is why music is so much less interesting. Commercial music, you know?

“We are traveling beasts and we have been for so long that at this point we just can’t really live, or function, without [touring].” 

There’s no Cure, there’s no Clash, right? Nothing like that is going to make it. Everything is really clean and slick and it’s all very similar. And there’s some good pop music now: it’s not like all of it is just nauseating. But, you know, almost all of it is. But that’s the thing: by reducing the value of music to nothing…you used to spend 15 bucks, to buy a band’s record that you liked. And now for a few bucks a month, you have every single song still in existence. And that’s just reducing it to being completely valueless and thus, new music compared to old music, just sounds, unsurprisingly, valueless.

We have witnessed writing move from being a story to being “content,” and songs are now “downloads.” So even the designation lets us know what is happening in a gleefully blunt way.

Yeah, and it’s not anything new to be an artist, for as long as [the Dandy Warhols] have, and to complain about the industry, and how it has changed. (Laughs). There’s nothing new about me doing that and complaining. But if I could take your average 14-year-old kid—pop-music listening, garbage listening, laptop-electronic-music-making kid—and plug my brain into their brain and show them what it was like when MTV made what we do, as important as what Michael Jordan did…musicians were as present and elevated as any other occupation on Earth. The end of MTV, which aligned with the dawn of the internet, resulted in MTV failing. Badly. They had it all: they could have been the Spotify, YouTube, and iTunes of the new world. But at the top levels they were just an old, rotten, fat, and lazy group of titans of the past. So they couldn’t adapt. They were too old and dumb. So, yeah, it is hard for us to deal with that. And to think about it and to remember.

Now we officially sound like old people talking, but I first became aware of amazing, weird people like Nina Hagen and Klaus Nomi directly from MTV. And this touches on what is almost an evergreen obsession of mine: the idea of the grail quest, the seeking things out. I can remember reading about the 13^th Floor Elevators when I was in my teens but I couldn’t find any actual physical copy of Easter Everywhere until I was 20. I had to imagine what the album even sounded like. 

(Laughs). Absolutely. I get it.

And as you touched on—that nearly every band or song is a few clicks away—do you think this mass availability of all music also killed the similar buzz for you, in hunting down what was once an obscure artist? 

It really was great, knowing the names of every employee at every cool record store in this little armpit-of-a-town of Portland, Oregon (laughs). And they knew who I was and they were at peace knowing that I was going to stand around and look through records and, four out of five times, probably not buy anything. That was really cool. 

And you know, that was the first thing I started hearing, at the dawn of the internet and the removal of records and physical copies from the music industry, that everyone complained about. The first thing everyone complained about was CDs: “You don’t have the big artwork. Kids will never know what that’s like, blah, blah, blah.” Then those went away, too. Everything went away. 

“It was just because there simply wasn’t such a glut of cool artists that were that prominent, or visible at the time, like there were in the mid-80s. So we really got to stand out as the greatest, globally for several years. Now we have this legacy behind us. And that’s just increasingly really exciting and something to be grateful for.”

So [digital music] makes it accessible but the world is now covered with a thick fog of gray, waxy information. You can’t scream into it and be heard. It absorbs all things and reduces them to complete nothingness. So it doesn’t really matter that you can find everything on there because how is anyone going to hear about it? You and I are just looking up the 13th Floor Elevators because we were at that age when you hear about it. You know, at the junior high school down the street, the 14-year-old kids have Sabbath t-shirts and Nirvana hoodies. They’re not finding Roky Erickson because he is just a blip in the data stream and it’s probably not even cool to find him. They’re just stoked to find this obscure band that none of their peers have heard of called Led Zeppelin. And what a treasure trove of real art and deep expression and craft and power. Those records are just great. 

I listen to our records and they’re halfway between that and Glass Animals at times. Just being oddball artists with a bunch of vintage and modern instruments and technology is, I think, the coolest of all musics. But how do I know if that’s just me? This could just sound really stupid to 12 year olds, and then they turn 14 and then hear Jimi Hendrix, the Clash…I think that will always be a universal experience for some. But it’s just free for them (laughs). So, we’re not making any money. You can’t make a living doing this anymore. Unless you are U2 or something.

To dovetail into what we’re talking about: of influence, and whether it’s subtle or gross as far as being obscure or popular. As a songwriter, do you feel like in some way your core influences that originally inspired you to write have changed or diminished? Particularly since even in the decades when you’ve had success, whether by deliberate choice or default, you have been exposed to, or discovered, all these other earlier and even newer songwriters. 

I am completely unaware if I’ve ever been influenced by other songwriters.

Seriously?

Yes, seriously. For me, songwriting has nothing to do with anything outside of my own f***ed up head. So it’s different: making records is where you engage your influences and you employ them. So the songwriting part of that—where the melody goes; what notes you choose; what the rhythm is; what words you choose to say or sing over this chord change—that is just such a personal thing. It’s like vomiting. (Laughs). You know, “When you vomit, do you think of other vomits that you’ve seen? Maybe at bars or on the sidewalk…”

Or the influence of great cinematic vomiting. 

Exactly! (Laughs). “There was a house party where they didn’t lock the bathroom door, and you walked in just as she hurled into her hair.” End scene. You don’t think about it: it just comes out. And that’s the way it should be, I believe. I feel like I can always tell when a song was designed by committee. A camel is just a horse designed by committee. And that’s generally what pop music seems like to me: tacky and awkward and very tricked-out with details. But in a “the committee says it’s okay” kind of way.

I have one more question and I’ll stop holding you hostage but this totally impresses me although it’s probably old hat to you. David Bowie was an ardent fan of the Dandy Warhols. He handpicked you to perform when he curated the Meltdown Festival in 2002 and the band performed  “White Light / White Heat” with Bowie during his encore. That is akin to being validated by the Olympic Gods. Are you still getting a contact high from that experience? 

You got to remember that was a really dead time for cool bands. In the late ‘90s, the end of that MTV era was a lot of Spice Girls, The Backstreet Boys…I think the New Kids on the Block were on the cover of Rolling Stone and it said, “The Greatest Band in The World.” (Laughs). You know? And so it was easy for us to be this band with massive, swirling, trippy-guitar textures, and beautiful vocal harmonies and vintage thundering, cool Zeppelin drum sounds. We have all the right things and we were “new wave kids.” So we have that in our blood. 

So everyone from Joe Strummer to Robert Smith to David Bowie to Tom Petty: everybody came out of the woodwork to meet us and wanted to hang out. And I remember the day I met Joe Strummer, which was an amazing day to be a musician. He was like, “I was the singer in the coolest band in the world. And now you are the singer in the coolest band in the world. How the fook does that feel, mate?” And it was probably 1999, exactly during that era when Fred Durst was a “great rock god”—only Joe Strummer, Robert Smith, and David Bowie thought I was this rock god guy. And I thought about our era when MTV was playing the sh** out of The Pretenders first record, and The Clash videos were in heavy rotation: just really cool stuff. MTV showed Dead Can Dance videos (laughs)! Insane. And after he asked me how it felt, I thought for a second and just said: “Frustrating.”

So, that’s kind of why we got to tour with those guys and play with them and work in the studio with David Bowie and go out to dinner and wind up drinking all night with Robert Smith, and all these great times that we had smoking pot with Tom Petty. It was just because there simply wasn’t such a glut of cool artists that were that prominent, or visible at the time, like there were in the mid-80s. So we really got to stand out as the greatest, globally for several years. Now we have this legacy behind us. And that’s just increasingly really exciting and something to be grateful for.

The Dandy Warhols perform at the Winterland Festival at 10 p.m. on Saturday, February 25 at the Riverfront Plaza in downtown Jacksonville. The festival is free and VIP packages are available. For full festival lineup and interactive guide, visit here. 

Call it the long game. Since their formation,  indie-alt-what-have-you stalwarts the Dandy Warhols have remained essentially intact and absolutely active. 

Formed in Portland, Oregon in 1994, the band has outlasted most of their peers and even survived their hometown’s upscale evolution from a well-rooted, post-‘60s counterculture to its present-day Airbnb-ing and foodie oasis. Their earliest live shows were a raucous detonation of garage punk, shoegaze and rock-sotted chaos. 

Whether the band honed their sound or a larger audience simply bent its ear is anyone’s guess. Their 1995 debut Dandys Rule OK (Tim/Kerr) cooked up the drone-hum of Spacemen 3 with refreshingly nineties-irony-free Byrds-style harmonies. Yet the critical response (“what the Portland quartet sound like on bad drugs”- Q Magazine) was as varied as the band’s temperament. 

Two years later, the band released their breakthrough album …The Dandy Warhols Come Down. Released by Capitol Records, the album received universal critical acclaim and featured the hit “Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth.” Yet, most tellingly, Capitol rejected the band’s first submission as their “breakthrough” album as it was too deranged for the major label. And “Be-In,” the death-trip-friendly opener of Come Down, is an ear-opener for people looking for any resemblance to the glam crunch of “Last Junkie.” 

An auspicious start and either by volition or agitation, the Dandy Warhols have enjoyed a career that has zig-zagged from a lowbrow/highbrow presence. Their 2003 single “We Used To Be Friends” was eventually used as the theme song for the teen mystery TV show Veronica Mars.

Arguably still one of the more in-depth, enjoyable, and blunt documentaries on ‘90s independent rock, Dig! (2004) featured the combustible “twin flame” ascent of both the Dandy Warhols and their blood brothers/arch-rivals the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Between landing the 2004 Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and now finding a home in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, Dig! is probably the first music documentary about musicians starring musicians who grew up informed and formed by watching music documentaries. That kind of self-consciousness works in favor for both bands in Dig! Filmed over the course of seven years, everyone onscreen is at turns weary and wooly, and aware of director Ondi Timoner and her film crew’s constant presence. 

Whether through grit or grace, The Dandy Warhols have sidestepped the death-knell closures that vanquished the majority of their peers. The core lineup of lead singer-guitarist Courtney Taylor-Taylor, guitarist Peter Holmström, keyboardist Zia McCabe, and drummer Brent DeBoer has remained the same since 1998 and the band has released more than 20 live and studio albums and a whopping 28 singles.

The critical response to their records has been either derisive or blindingly devotional—a predictable phenomenon for most guitar-rock bands like the Dandy Warhols who are, unsurprisingly, a band more intent on bottling lightning live and on stage. 

Between the presence of solid local acts, and Os Mutantes and the Dandy Warhols, this year’s Winterland Festival has leveled up the game to offer a free two-day event for Northeast Florida. 

We spoke to Dandy Warhol leader Courtney Taylor-Taylor, where we talked about the band’s forthcoming symphonic project, looking for Roky Erickson in the bit-stream, and the band’s eager acceptance by the rock elders. 

Courtney, thanks for talking with the Jacksonville Music Experience.

Sure. Hey, can I call you back? I have to park…we’re doing this thing with the symphony.

Sure. [A few minutes pass; phone rings].

Ok. Thanks. Sorry about that.

So, you’re working with a symphony in Portland? How did that come about? 

I have no idea. I don’t really remember who connected that but it was before COVID and we were supposed to play on March 15 or something, in 2020. And then on like March 2, the world shut down.

Are the Dandy Warhols doing a full concert with them?

Yeah, it’ll be, like, I believe 45 minutes sets—an hour and a half of music. 

How do you feel about this?  Are these new waters for you to swim in, working with a symphony?

Yeah, we haven’t done this before. I grew up playing in symphonic bands and things; that’s actually where [Dandy Warhols’ guitarist] Peter Holmström and I met, at a symphonic summer camp at Willamette University when we were in high school. So it isn’t that daunting to me. I would imagine Zia [McCabe; band keyboardist] is, you know, if she was the kind of person that is ever daunted (laughs), this would be it.

This is the daunting moment. Break out the tux. 

Yeah.

So your upcoming show here at Winterland kicks off a run of Southeastern and East Coast shows. At this stage in your career, is there still an intensity for gearing up emotionally for any tour? 

Well, there’s a lot of rehearsal before tours. So, you get in the headspace, and you get your chops back, and you get your calluses back, etc. So you kind of get ready for it: we’re also just ready for it. We need to go somewhere every four months, really, or we start to go crazy in our personal relationships and the interiors of our personal lives start to get awkward or ugly, even. So, we are traveling beasts and we have been for so long that at this point we just can’t really live, or function, without it. Normally, I guess. Or we tell ourselves that.

The pandemic notwithstanding, your career has now spanned at least two major shifts in the music industry and rock history: the ‘90s ascension of the global indie-rock awareness and now music streaming and the semi-extinction of major labels. Unlike many of your peers, the Dandy Warhols continued to work and tour through all of these shifts. Did you feel any kind of awkwardness or even fear when the music scene changed so radically from labels to DIY downloads?   

Well, the only shift that really made any difference was when Spotify, Apple, whatever, all these subscription services were in cahoots with the labels. And what they’re doing is illegal. But nobody has enough clout, not even Taylor Swift or Neil Young, to pull a class action lawsuit and bust them, right? So it’s over, you know? Musicians cannot make money, they cannot survive. You have to be a pop artist; an extremely-pop artist, at that. Which is why music is so much less interesting. Commercial music, you know?

“We are traveling beasts and we have been for so long that at this point we just can’t really live, or function, without [touring].” 

There’s no Cure, there’s no Clash, right? Nothing like that is going to make it. Everything is really clean and slick and it’s all very similar. And there’s some good pop music now: it’s not like all of it is just nauseating. But, you know, almost all of it is. But that’s the thing: by reducing the value of music to nothing…you used to spend 15 bucks, to buy a band’s record that you liked. And now for a few bucks a month, you have every single song still in existence. And that’s just reducing it to being completely valueless and thus, new music compared to old music, just sounds, unsurprisingly, valueless.

We have witnessed writing move from being a story to being “content,” and songs are now “downloads.” So even the designation lets us know what is happening in a gleefully blunt way.

Yeah, and it’s not anything new to be an artist, for as long as [the Dandy Warhols] have, and to complain about the industry, and how it has changed. (Laughs). There’s nothing new about me doing that and complaining. But if I could take your average 14-year-old kid—pop-music listening, garbage listening, laptop-electronic-music-making kid—and plug my brain into their brain and show them what it was like when MTV made what we do, as important as what Michael Jordan did…musicians were as present and elevated as any other occupation on Earth. The end of MTV, which aligned with the dawn of the internet, resulted in MTV failing. Badly. They had it all: they could have been the Spotify, YouTube, and iTunes of the new world. But at the top levels they were just an old, rotten, fat, and lazy group of titans of the past. So they couldn’t adapt. They were too old and dumb. So, yeah, it is hard for us to deal with that. And to think about it and to remember.

Now we officially sound like old people talking, but I first became aware of amazing, weird people like Nina Hagen and Klaus Nomi directly from MTV. And this touches on what is almost an evergreen obsession of mine: the idea of the grail quest, the seeking things out. I can remember reading about the 13^th Floor Elevators when I was in my teens but I couldn’t find any actual physical copy of Easter Everywhere until I was 20. I had to imagine what the album even sounded like. 

(Laughs). Absolutely. I get it.

And as you touched on—that nearly every band or song is a few clicks away—do you think this mass availability of all music also killed the similar buzz for you, in hunting down what was once an obscure artist? 

It really was great, knowing the names of every employee at every cool record store in this little armpit-of-a-town of Portland, Oregon (laughs). And they knew who I was and they were at peace knowing that I was going to stand around and look through records and, four out of five times, probably not buy anything. That was really cool. 

And you know, that was the first thing I started hearing, at the dawn of the internet and the removal of records and physical copies from the music industry, that everyone complained about. The first thing everyone complained about was CDs: “You don’t have the big artwork. Kids will never know what that’s like, blah, blah, blah.” Then those went away, too. Everything went away. 

“It was just because there simply wasn’t such a glut of cool artists that were that prominent, or visible at the time, like there were in the mid-80s. So we really got to stand out as the greatest, globally for several years. Now we have this legacy behind us. And that’s just increasingly really exciting and something to be grateful for.”

So [digital music] makes it accessible but the world is now covered with a thick fog of gray, waxy information. You can’t scream into it and be heard. It absorbs all things and reduces them to complete nothingness. So it doesn’t really matter that you can find everything on there because how is anyone going to hear about it? You and I are just looking up the 13th Floor Elevators because we were at that age when you hear about it. You know, at the junior high school down the street, the 14-year-old kids have Sabbath t-shirts and Nirvana hoodies. They’re not finding Roky Erickson because he is just a blip in the data stream and it’s probably not even cool to find him. They’re just stoked to find this obscure band that none of their peers have heard of called Led Zeppelin. And what a treasure trove of real art and deep expression and craft and power. Those records are just great. 

I listen to our records and they’re halfway between that and Glass Animals at times. Just being oddball artists with a bunch of vintage and modern instruments and technology is, I think, the coolest of all musics. But how do I know if that’s just me? This could just sound really stupid to 12 year olds, and then they turn 14 and then hear Jimi Hendrix, the Clash…I think that will always be a universal experience for some. But it’s just free for them (laughs). So, we’re not making any money. You can’t make a living doing this anymore. Unless you are U2 or something.

To dovetail into what we’re talking about: of influence, and whether it’s subtle or gross as far as being obscure or popular. As a songwriter, do you feel like in some way your core influences that originally inspired you to write have changed or diminished? Particularly since even in the decades when you’ve had success, whether by deliberate choice or default, you have been exposed to, or discovered, all these other earlier and even newer songwriters. 

I am completely unaware if I’ve ever been influenced by other songwriters.

Seriously?

Yes, seriously. For me, songwriting has nothing to do with anything outside of my own f***ed up head. So it’s different: making records is where you engage your influences and you employ them. So the songwriting part of that—where the melody goes; what notes you choose; what the rhythm is; what words you choose to say or sing over this chord change—that is just such a personal thing. It’s like vomiting. (Laughs). You know, “When you vomit, do you think of other vomits that you’ve seen? Maybe at bars or on the sidewalk…”

Or the influence of great cinematic vomiting. 

Exactly! (Laughs). “There was a house party where they didn’t lock the bathroom door, and you walked in just as she hurled into her hair.” End scene. You don’t think about it: it just comes out. And that’s the way it should be, I believe. I feel like I can always tell when a song was designed by committee. A camel is just a horse designed by committee. And that’s generally what pop music seems like to me: tacky and awkward and very tricked-out with details. But in a “the committee says it’s okay” kind of way.

I have one more question and I’ll stop holding you hostage but this totally impresses me although it’s probably old hat to you. David Bowie was an ardent fan of the Dandy Warhols. He handpicked you to perform when he curated the Meltdown Festival in 2002 and the band performed  “White Light / White Heat” with Bowie during his encore. That is akin to being validated by the Olympic Gods. Are you still getting a contact high from that experience? 

You got to remember that was a really dead time for cool bands. In the late ‘90s, the end of that MTV era was a lot of Spice Girls, The Backstreet Boys…I think the New Kids on the Block were on the cover of Rolling Stone and it said, “The Greatest Band in The World.” (Laughs). You know? And so it was easy for us to be this band with massive, swirling, trippy-guitar textures, and beautiful vocal harmonies and vintage thundering, cool Zeppelin drum sounds. We have all the right things and we were “new wave kids.” So we have that in our blood. 

So everyone from Joe Strummer to Robert Smith to David Bowie to Tom Petty: everybody came out of the woodwork to meet us and wanted to hang out. And I remember the day I met Joe Strummer, which was an amazing day to be a musician. He was like, “I was the singer in the coolest band in the world. And now you are the singer in the coolest band in the world. How the fook does that feel, mate?” And it was probably 1999, exactly during that era when Fred Durst was a “great rock god”—only Joe Strummer, Robert Smith, and David Bowie thought I was this rock god guy. And I thought about our era when MTV was playing the sh** out of The Pretenders first record, and The Clash videos were in heavy rotation: just really cool stuff. MTV showed Dead Can Dance videos (laughs)! Insane. And after he asked me how it felt, I thought for a second and just said: “Frustrating.”

So, that’s kind of why we got to tour with those guys and play with them and work in the studio with David Bowie and go out to dinner and wind up drinking all night with Robert Smith, and all these great times that we had smoking pot with Tom Petty. It was just because there simply wasn’t such a glut of cool artists that were that prominent, or visible at the time, like there were in the mid-80s. So we really got to stand out as the greatest, globally for several years. Now we have this legacy behind us. And that’s just increasingly really exciting and something to be grateful for.

The Dandy Warhols perform at the Winterland Festival at 10 p.m. on Saturday, February 25 at the Riverfront Plaza in downtown Jacksonville. The festival is free and VIP packages are available. For full festival lineup and interactive guide, visit here. 

With the rapid rise in creative tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI) like ChatGPT, Dall-E and Midjourney, the laws that protect these new forms of generative content, the government agencies that make them, and the creators who use them are faced with new challenges unique to the emerging technology genre.

What is generative AI?

Generative AI is a subset of artificial intelligence that uses algorithms to generate new content from existing data in the form of images, text, or music. This AI has many accessibility and creativity benefits, however, the tracking of digital copyrights or IP in the form of data which taken apart and pieced back together via algorithms to create new works, presents a layered and complicated logistical and legal puzzle.

AI-generated images not protected by copyright

Last week, the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) decided to recognize a portion of copyright registration for a comic book created using AI – a departure from its original declaration. Zarya of the Dawn, a comic book authored by Kris Kashtanova, had three components that were created using AI software – the book’s text, artwork selections and the images inside the book. In this case, the text and artwork selections were considered protected under copyright, however, the individual AI-generated images inside the book made using Midjourney, were found without protection. In a letter first reported by Reuters, explaining the copyright registration, the reason the images were not protected is because they “were generated by the Midjourney technology” and “are not the product of human authorship,” according to USCO. As this case is a first of its kind, the outcome could foreshadow how AI-generated material across all creative industries will play out legally, especially in music.

Copyright discourse in music

When it comes to music, copyright discourse is already deeply embedded into the structure of the industry, with many performance rights organizations (PROs) and legal teams built into the fine print whose job it is to collect and enforce royalties between copyright holders and those who desire to use those copyrighted works publicly.

The music industry, however, operates in a somewhat closed and opaque ecosystem of hierarchy while technology innovation tends to value transparency and an open-source model, creating a tense intersection between the two discourses, especially when it comes to administering protections for authors of musical works.

While some parts of the archaic system are still playing catch up to the advancements technology has made in music, serving everyone from creators and fans to mainstream label gatekeepers, and DSPs, the future of music and technology looks bright. Over the last several years, technologies in the form of social media and even Web3 have created social layers between music communities and technologists, giving birth to many innovations that seek to decentralize traditional systems and bring creators more autonomy.

AI and music

Computer-assisted technology has been a somewhat latent part of the music industry for decades. With artists like David Bowie and Brian Eno pioneering new ways of creating sounds deemed futuristic, the recent uptick in music AI conversation indicates that the future is now the present.

According to research and intelligence firm, Water & Music’s latest research and newsletter on creative AI in the music industry in 2023, “over 10 different music AI models have been released by independent researchers and big-tech companies like GoogleGOOG
and ByteDance, hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs are now listed on streaming services and generative AI tools for audio, text, and visual art have picked up tens of millions of users, forcing us to rethink traditional notions of creativity, ownership, and attribution.”

Ethical and legal concerns

With the acceleration of AI’s adoption in music, ethical concerns and uncharted legal territory become visible talking points. “Many musicians seem to be of the opinion that using AI to create music is cheating, but once you start discussing who should be allowed to make art and how, other kinds of ethical questions around ableism and classism arise,” writes VICE’s Kelly Bishop.

The U.S. courts have not yet created a definitive measure for what AI-generated works will be protected. According to the Zarya of The Dawn copyright case which honors the protection of the work authored by a human with assistance from AI, where does that leave works authored AI technology using human assistance? If musical works created by a human draw on creative elements built into AI, where do you draw the line?

The question is both logistical and legal. “In the absence of bright line rules for ascertaining how much input or intervention by an AI’s user is needed, each work must be individually evaluated. It is a question of degree,” writes James Sammataro (partner) and Nicholas Saady (associate) of Pryor Cashman LLP for Billboard. “Under traditional principles, the more human involvement, and the more AI is used as a tool (and not as the creator), the stronger the case for copyright protection.”

Will tracking each input in a data set of a generative AI program be the responsibility of that program or the creator who used it? How will the source be accurately tracked, stored, and transmitted as potentially millions of pieces of data are used to generate new creative sounds, texts or images using AI?

Friction between music and technology

A similar conundrum has plagued blockchain technology and its efficacy in music. Technically, storing the information of a musical work on the blockchain’s immutable ledger could solve many issues affecting the authors of that musical work – from producers to songwriters, musicians, and designers who all shepherded a piece of music to life. The problem with this utopian vision of blockchain technology solving all of these problems – which it easily could – is that every single party involved in the lifecycle and of the musical work would have to “speak the same language” by using the same technology system. Imagine trying to carry on a group chat with half of the people using iPhones and the other half, using Androids, it’s like a game of telephone. The music industry as it stands is far too expansive and fragmented to utilize one single system for anything.

Looking forward

The logistics and legal considerations of adopting new technologies, while complicated, may be creatively healthy for the music and technology intersection. In large part, PROs exist as administrative detectives protecting the rights of an authors and the content they create – with the acceleration of new authors in the form of AI, will we also see agencies crop up to defend generative creative rights?

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers has filed 12 separate copyright infringement actions against bars and restaurants nationwide, arising out of the unauthorized public performance of its members’ copyrighted musical works. 

One of the infringing venues is DTLA’s Treehouse Rooftop, a society statement said. Venue officials didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment from LA Downtown News.

ASCAP is a nonprofit membership association that represents more than 875,000 independent songwriters, composers and music publishers. ASCAP ensures its members can earn a living from their art by licensing the public performances of their songs, collecting those license fees, and distributing royalties to its members, it said. 

Nearly 90% of the license fees ASCAP collects goes directly to songwriters, composers and music publishers as royalties.

“As businesses have recovered from the pandemic, they have returned to using music because it helps create an emotional connection and ambiance that attracts and retains customers,” said Stephanie Ruyle, ASCAP executive vice president of licensing.

“However, each of the establishments sued today has decided to use music without compensating songwriters. Hundreds of thousands of well-run businesses across the nation recognize the importance of paying music creators to use their music and understand that it is both the lawful and right thing to do. By filing these actions, ASCAP is standing up for songwriters whose creative work brings great value to all businesses that publicly perform their music.”

The average cost for bars and restaurants amounts to less than just $2 per day for the right to play an unlimited amount of music. 

ASCAP’s chairman of the board and president, songwriter Paul Williams, added, “We want every business that uses music to prosper, including bars and restaurants, and are happy that they are on their way back after some very difficult years. As songwriters and composers, we must earn our livelihoods through our creative work, and music is how we put food on the table and send our kids to school. Most businesses know that an ASCAP license allows them to offer music legally, efficiently and at a reasonable price — while compensating music creators fairly.”

ASCAP has made numerous attempts at the establishments listed below to offer a license and educate the business owners about their obligations under federal copyright law. 

Despite these efforts, the owners of these establishments have repeatedly refused to take or honor a license. Instead, they have continued to perform the copyrighted musical works of ASCAP’s songwriter, composer and music publisher members for the entertainment of their patrons without obtaining permission to do so.

More information about ASCAP’s licensing of bars, restaurants and music venues can be found on the society’s website at ascap.com/whywelicensevenues.

The next superstar can come from anywhere. By investing in music as we do with any form of infrastructure, communities can have a stake in their success.

2022 was a positive year for the business of music rights. While growth was not as high as 2021 due to interest rate increases and the cost of securing catalogues, billions were still invested by venture firms, multinationals and hedge funds in songs. And with it, the value of global music copyright increased to $39.6 billion, up from $27 billion in 2021, according to economist Will Page. This growth was not solely dominated by heritage artists. All music usage grew. For example, Epidemic Sound, who sell sound effects and production music, amassed $69.5 million in revenue in 2022. White noise, such as rainfall and music to sleep, raked in millions. According to Statista, 524 million people streamed music every day in 2022, compared to 487 million in 2021. And to follow suit, new products were introduced, including a $335 million bond issuance backed by Adele’s licensing revenue by international licensing agency SESAC and a new service called JKBX offering a song stock exchange for fractions of music rights. Songs remain big business.

However, the beneficiaries of this growth were not spread evenly across the commercial music sector. The grassroots live sector, comprising of smaller, grassroots or community owned venues, continued to face financial hurdles. Many artists could not afford to tour, while others chose to stop for mental health reasons. Inflation and supply chain issues continued to wreck havoc, from delays in vinyl manufacturing to an increase in equipment costs.

This demonstrates a paradox. If we are collectively listening to more sounds and music, even if it is rainfall and whale sounds, it should widen the pool of those who benefit. Wall Street, for one, is proving that music pays. This is not the case for the majority of those who work in the commercial music ecosystem. But this can, and should change. We just need a new pool of investors. And I believe all of us, no matter where we live, can be those investors. We just need a model, and I think that model can be found in how community development is financed.

In the United States, community development finance institutions (CDFIs) offer debt-financing to businesses at better repayment rates than commercial banks. In the United Kingdom, similar community investment funds exist, as well as in other countries. Investments are made with public money, or public money as collateral to retrain or reskill people, upgrade or build facilities and establish programs that address inequity. Keeping with the U.S., the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) doled out $10 billion in American Rescue Plan funds for just that to help small businesses, or those with under 10 staff. Much of the U.K. Government’s Levelling Up funding is aimed at increasing the amount of money available to local communities to invest, such as in upgrading high streets or expanding community centres. In each of these circumstances, public money spent now is being judged on its return to the local community now, and with it increased jobs and tax bases – later.

Now let’s look at music. It is a business that continues to grow in value, year-on-year. It is a product that is inherently local. It may be uploaded online and shared everywhere, but it originates from somewhere. Music can be a long-tail, patient investment, especially if the music continues to be listened to long after it is made. This is the premise underlining the Adele bond issuance, for example. All music made now may not make any money in the future, but some will. This is no difference to developing experimental drugs, backing app developers or supporting restaurants. Not all drugs will make it to market, but a few will, because like music, we all need drugs to survive. Moreover, few apps will become unicorns and not all bars and restaurants that open will survive, but we will always need a place to eat and an app to guide us.

If a similar approach was taken by a community, a local music development finance institution could be created that offers loans, grants or seed capital to a suite of artists, writers and producers. For each investment, 10% – for argument’s sake – of what is created would be owned by the community development organisation, under general terms similar to those of the private sector. And if one or two songs, co-writes or productions became successful, the return would benefit the community in addition to the artist and their business that created and owns the majority of the IP. Moreover, a local music library would emerge, full of shared stories and experiences that could be placed on local ads to support local businesses, used in tourism campaigns or marketed to external partners – all of which pay.

A version of this has been done, and it works. Take Barcelona. There, the Catalan Finance Institute (CFI) offers low interest rate loans to music and cultural firms. Capital is distributed at a rate that wouldn’t suit banks and high street lenders. Both the interest and capital repayments, when repaid are then recycled, with the increased income the interest engenders, to then support more Catalan cultural firms, including music firms. A virtuous circle is created, allowing for more investment in music, talent and local talent. Barcelona has one of Europe’s leading music tech industries, and it is due, in part, to these investments. While no ownership is taken by CFI, all profits are reinvested back into the source of the revenue – the music related IP, made and developed in Barcelona.

Wall Street has already capitalised and continues to benefit from the value of music rights and music tech. No matter how much this increases, if there is no direct link between the value the music accrues and where it was created, any potential local return – where the artist or writer – or entrepreneur – first realised they had a voice and the confidence to share it – will be minimal. Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, Bob Dylan, Spotify and other unicorns are all from somewhere. So is the next superstar. Let’s ensure that everywhere, there’s opportunities for them to realise their success.

The Hermitage Artist Retreat has announced the line-up of guest stars for its one-night-only benefit concert to celebrate the 20th Anniversary Season of the Hermitage and to raise funds for ongoing repairs to the Hermitage following the impact of Hurricane Ian earlier this season. The announced stars include Broadway veterans Jeannette Bayardelle, Laura Bell Bundy, Jay Armstrong Johnson, and Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer as well as a Hermitage alumna and Sarasota theater favorite Ann Morrison. In town for one night only on Monday, March 20th at 7:30pm, this incredible company joins Hermitage Artistic Director and CEO Andy Sandberg as he returns to his roots as a performer to sing a concert of Broadway songs at Sarasota’s iconic Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, accompanied by Hermitage Fellow and 2023 Grammy Award nominee Rona Siddiqui.

Jeannette Bayardelle received a 2022 Tony Award nomination for her role in Bob Dylan and Conor McPherson‘s Girl From the North Country. She has starred on Broadway as Dionne in the Tony Award-winning revival of HAIR and as Celie in the original production of The Color Purple, produced by Oprah Winfrey. Bayardelle went on to launch the National Tour as Celie, winning the NAACP Theater Award for Best Lead Actress. Bayardelle is also the writer and star of the award-winning musical SHIDA, directed by Sandberg, which has played successful engagements in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and London. She is currently appearing in The Public Theater production of The Harder They Come, adapted for the stage by Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks.

Laura Bell Bundy has originated several legendary roles in the theater including Tina in Ruthless (Outer Critics and Drama Desk nominations), Amber in Broadway’s Hairspray, and most notably Elle Woods in Legally Blonde: The Musical, for which she received a Tony Award nomination. Her career also spans international tours of her music, over 100 episodes of television, notable films, a successful podcast, and a dedication to activism. She is perhaps best known to television audiences for her role in “Anger Management,” and she can currently be seen in the Paramount Plus live-action series “The Fairly OddParents.” She will be returning to Broadway this summer to star opposite Erik McCormack (“Will and Grace”) in The Cottage.

Currently appearing on Broadway in the highly anticipated revival of Parade, Jay Armstrong Johnson‘s impressive Broadway resume includes leading roles in On the Town, Hands on a Hardbody (with a book by Hermitage Fellow Doug Wright), Catch Me If You Can, HAIR, and Phantom of the Opera. Johnson earned Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Award nominations for his role in Scotland, PA, written by Hermitage Fellow Adam Gwon. Other notable credits include the Off-Broadway revival of Working (Drama Desk Award), A Chorus Line at City Center, and concerts Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Kennedy Center, among others. He is best known to television audiences as Will Olsen in ABC’s “Quantico.”
Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer recently concluded her acclaimed run on Broadway as Delia in Beetlejuice, for which she received Drama Desk, Drama League, and Chita Rivera Award nominations. She received the Lucille Lortel Award and Drama League Award for her performance in The Robber Bridegroom at Roundabout Theatre. Other Broadway credits include Something Rotten!, Elf, Sondheim on Sondheim, Legally Blonde: The Musical, Hairspray, and A Catered Affair, for which she received a Drama Desk nomination. She has recently appeared on television in “Bridge & Tunnel,” “The First Lady,” “New Amsterdam,” and more.

Sarasota’s own Ann Morrison is an actor, singer, writer, director, and Hermitage alumna who has starred in original roles on Broadway (Merrily We Roll Along, LoveMusik); London’s West End (Peg); Off-Broadway (Goblin Market); and leading roles at regional theaters throughout the country. In addition to her performing career, she also founded SaraSolo Productions.

“I could not be more excited to perform alongside some of my favorite people in the world – who also happen to be some of the most talented performers I know,” said Hermitage Artistic Director Andy Sandberg. “Each of them is moving mountains in their schedules to take part of this special event, and it means the world to me that they are coming down to Florida to support the Hermitage in this way. Audiences are in for a rare treat as these Broadway stars come together for one night in Sarasota. I look forward to each and every one of them upstaging me on March 20!”

While many in Florida know Sandberg for his leadership role at the Hermitage, he has nearly two decades of experience in theater and television. “As Artistic Director and CEO of the Hermitage, Andy spends his professional life nurturing the work of fellow artists,” added Hermitage Trustee and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Doug Wright. “How thrilling to finally get the chance to see him reveal his own artistry in this remarkable tribute to the world of Broadway and beyond!”

As a performer, Sandberg has traveled the world with the Yale Whiffenpoofs and Alley Cats and has played iconic roles such as Tony in West Side Story, Leo Frank in Parade, Freddy in My Fair Lady, Huck in Big River, and many original works. As a director, writer, and producer, his works have been seen on and off Broadway, on London’s West End, and recently on the Hallmark Channel, where he wrote the scripts for the movies “Haul Out the Holly,” starring Lacey Chabert, and “Five More Minutes,” based on the hit song by Scotty McCreery.

As Artistic Director of the Hermitage, Sandberg spends the majority of his time championing leading artists and performers who are developing new work. On March 20th, Sandberg will perform a concert of Broadway songs to raise valuable funds for the Hermitage. Bayardelle, Bundy, Johnson, Kritzer, and Morrison are joining him in Florida for this one-night-only event to celebrate the impact of this vital national arts organization on the Sarasota community and beyond.

Tickets for this concert are $25, $50, and $75 (additional phone and online booking fees may apply). A limited number of $250 VIP tickets, which include a reception following the performance, are available ($175 of this $250 price is a tax-deductible contribution to the Hermitage). Thanks to generous underwriting from sponsors, all proceeds from ticket sales will directly benefit the Hermitage Artist Retreat.

Tickets are available at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall box office, 777 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, FL 34236; by calling (941) 263-6799; or online at HermitageArtistRetreat.org and VanWezel.org.

$15 tickets are available for students and teachers at the Van Wezel box office only; must show proof of valid student or teacher ID.
For more information about the Hermitage, this benefit concert, and other upcoming Hermitage programs, visit HermitageArtistRetreat.org.

The Hermitage is a non-profit artist retreat located in Manasota Key, Florida, inviting accomplished artists across multiple disciplines for residencies on its beachfront campus, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Hermitage artists are invited to interact with the local community, reaching thousands of Gulf Coast residents and visitors each year with unique and inspiring programs. Hermitage Fellows have included 15 Pulitzer Prize winners, Poets Laureate, MacArthur ‘Genius’ Fellows, and multiple Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar winners and nominees. Works created at this beachside retreat by a diverse group of Hermitage alumni have gone on to renowned theaters, concert halls, and galleries throughout the world. Each year, the Hermitage awards the $30,000 Hermitage Greenfield Prize for a new work of art, the newly announced $35,000 Hermitage Major Theater Award for an original theater commission, and the Aspen Music Festival’s Hermitage Prize in Composition.

For more information, visit HermitageArtistRetreat.org.

Underwriters for the March 20th Benefit Concert include:

Emerald Sponsors ($25,000)
Steve and Dale Adler
Carole Crosby and Larry Wickless
Liz and Duncan Richardson

Sapphire Sponsors ($10,000)
Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation
Pat Appold
Sondra and Gerald Biller
Marletta Darnall
Huisking Family Fund (CFSC)
Nelda Thompson

The Hermitage is supported by:
Hermitage programs are supported, in part, by Sarasota County Tourist Development Tax Revenues; the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture, the Florida Council on Arts and Culture, and the National Endowment for the Arts; as well as the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation, and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County.

BIOS:

Jeannette Bayardelle received a 2022 Tony Award nomination for her performance in Girl from the North Country. Broadway leading roles include HAIR (Dionne) and The Color Purple (Celie). Off-Broadway: The Harder They Come, SHIDA, Rock of Ages, Girl from the North Country. Select Tours/Regional: The Color Purple (NAACP Theater Award for Best Lead Actress), Big River, Rent, Sister Act, Freaky Friday. As the writer and star of the original musical SHIDA, Bayardelle has brought the show to New York (Ars Nova), Los Angeles, Boston (American Repertory Theater), and most recently to London (The Vaults). SHIDA received nominations from the AUDELCO Awards and Off West End Awards for Best Musical and Best Director (Andy Sandberg), in addition to Bayardelle’s wins for Best Female Performance. Film/TV: The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning, “I Take Thee Zoe.” Albums include “I Know Who I Am,” “Praise Report,” and “Transferable.” JeannetteBayardelle.com

Laura Bell Bundy made her stage debut at age 9 in the Radio City “Christmas Spectacular.” Since then, she has originated the roles of Tina in Ruthless (Outer Critics and Drama Desk nominations), Amber in Broadway’s Hairspray, and most notably Elle Woods in Legally Blonde: The Musical (Tony Award Nomination); she also played Glinda in Broadway’s Wicked. Bundy is a Billboard Top 5 recording artist with multiple albums -Achin’ & Shakin’ (Universal Music) and Another Piece Of Me (Big Machine). A Sony Publishing songwriter from 2008-2013, she toured with her music all over the world. Her most recent critically acclaimed album Women Of Tomorrow (and companion podcast on Broadway Podcast Network) delves into the issues women are facing today and has millions of streams on Spotify. Bundy has appeared in dozens of films and over 100 episodes of television including roles on “Call Me Kat,” “The Fairly Odd Parents,” “Perfect Harmony,” “How I Met Your Mother/Father,” “Anger Management,” and “Jumanji,” among others. As a writer/composer she has developed the series Mashville for Netflix and Girltime for Freeform. Bundy recently launched the “Womxn of Tomorrow” community and app to help women activate their activism: https://womxnoftomorrow.org/join. @laurabellbundy / LauraBellBundy.com

Jay Armstrong Johnson is currently appearing on Broadway in the revival of Parade. Other Broadway: On the Town, Hands on a Hardbody, Catch Me If You Can, HAIR, Phantom of the Opera. Off-Broadway/New York credits: Parade (City Center), To My Girls (2ST), Adam Gwon‘s Scotland, PA (Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel nominations, and Outer Critics Circle Award honoree), Darling Grenadine (Roundabout), A Chorus Line (City Center), Candide (NYCO), Sweeney Todd (NY Philharmonic filmed for PBS), The Most Happy Fella (Encores!), Terrence McNally‘s Fire and Air (CSC), The Mad Ones, Working (Prospect Theater, Drama Desk Award), Wild Animals You Should Know (MCC), 35mm: A Musical Exhibition. Concert: Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Hollywood Bowl, San Francisco Symphony, Omaha Symphony. TV/Film: ABC’s “Quantico,” Sex & the City 2, “Law & Order: SVU.” Album: Jay Armstrong Johnson LIVE at Feinstein’s/54 Below (available on iTunes and BroadwayRecords.com). Jay is also the creator, producer, and star of I Put A Spell On You, benefiting Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. @Jay_A_Johnson

Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer recently finished her acclaimed run on Broadway as Delia in Beetlejuice, for which she received Drama Desk, Drama League, and Chita Rivera Award nominations. Other Broadway credits include Something Rotten!, Elf, Sondheim on Sondheim, Legally Blonde, A Catered Affair (Drama Desk nomination) and Hairspray. Off-Broadway: The Robber Bridegroom (Lucille Lortel Award and Drama League Award), Gigantic (Lucille Lortel nomination), ROOMS: A Rock Romance (Outer Critics Circle nomination), and others. She can be heard on several original casting recordings. TV: “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The First Lady,” “Bridge & Tunnel,” “New Amsterdam,” “Difficult People,” “Kevin Can Wait,” “Younger,” “Vinyl,” and “Law & Order: SVU.” @lesliekritzer

Ann Morrison
(Broadway and Sarasota Guest Performer)

Ann Morrison is an actor, singer, writer, director, and Hermitage alumna who has starred in original roles on Broadway (Merrily We Roll Along, LoveMusik); London’s West End (Peg); Off-Broadway (Goblin Market); and leading roles at regional theaters throughout the country. In New York, she has performed her plays Linda Lovely Goes to Broadway (2012 United Solo Festival Award for Best Actress and Word Painting: Soliloquies Around an Easel. Ann is Co-Founder/ Artistic Director of SaraSolo Productions. Morrison has made more than a dozen recordings and is recipient of the John Ringling Towers Fund Award, Theatre World Award, Drama Desk nomination, DramaLogue Award, SAMMY Award, HANDY Award, Sarasota Magazine Award, the 2020 Outstanding Contribution to Florida Professional Theatre, and the 2023 BISTRO Award for her solo show Merrily From Center Stage. She appears in the documentary Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened.

Andy Sandberg was appointed Artistic Director and CEO of the Hermitage in 2019. An accomplished director, writer, and Tony Award-winning producer whose national and international career has been committed to new work and artist development, Sandberg was selected to lead the organization following an extensive national search. Since joining the Hermitage in January of 2020, Sandberg has guided the organization through a period of significant growth and transition, despite the challenges of COVID-19. Over the past three seasons, the organization has dramatically expanded its programming, more than tripled its fundraising, embarked on a new strategic plan, completed a campus-wide restoration, and established dozens of new collaborative partnerships throughout the region and across the country. Under Sandberg’s leadership through the pandemic, the Hermitage was one of the nation’s earliest and most successful adapters to find safe and innovative opportunities for live programming, creating unique outdoor and virtual experiences for artists and audiences alike.

Sandberg’s theatrical work has been represented in New York City, London, and throughout the United States. In 2009, at the age of 25, he became the youngest producer in history to win a Tony Award. Sandberg’s Broadway and West End producing credits include the hit revival of HAIR (2009 Tony, Drama Desk, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle Awards); the Broadway revival of Gore Vidal‘s The Best Man, starring James Earl Jones, Angela Lansbury, John Larroquette, Candice Bergen, and Eric McCormack (2012 Tony, Drama Desk, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle Nominations); and Will Eno‘s The Realistic Joneses, a critically acclaimed new play starring Toni Collette, Michael C. Hall, Tracy Letts, and Marisa Tomei.

Sandberg directed the London premiere of Jeannette Bayardelle‘s SHIDA, which opened to rave reviews and earned 2019 Off West End Award nominations for Best Musical, Best Director, and Best Lead Actress. He previously directed the world premiere of SHIDA Off-Broadway at Ars Nova (four AUDELCO Award Nominations, including Best Director and Best Musical) and at the American Repertory Theater (Cambridge, MA). Sandberg has been represented Off-Broadway as the director of Straight, named a Critics’ Pick by The New York Times, which cited that the production was “directed with polished finesse.” He previously wrote and directed the critically acclaimed world premiere of Application Pending, a comedy about kindergarten admissions (BroadwayWorld Award: Best Off-Broadway Play, Drama Desk Nomination: Outstanding Solo Show, Winner: Book Pipeline Prize). Additional world premieres that he has directed include Alan Brody‘s historical drama Operation Epsilon (four IRNE Awards, including Best Play and Best Director), the Off-Broadway comedy Craving for Travel (also co-author), and the Off-Broadway musicals The Last Smoker in America, Neurosis, and R.R.R.E.D. In 2020, he directed How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying for the Maltz Jupiter Theater.

As a performer, Sandberg has toured the world with the Yale Whiffenpoofs and the Alley Cats. He has performed leading roles in productions of Big River, West Side Story, Assassins, My Fair Lady, The Last Five Years, Sweeney Todd, Little Shop of Horrors, Parade, and more. He played opposite Golden Globe nominee Lea Michele and Tony Award winner Katie Finneran in the original musical Hot & Sweet.

Sandberg has also written original movies for the Hallmark Channel, including the popular films “Haul Out the Holly” (2022, starring Lacey Chabert) and “Five More Minutes” (2021, based on the hit song by Scotty McCreery).

Born and raised in New York, Sandberg is a graduate of Yale University with a B.A. in English and Theater Studies. He is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), Actors’ Equity Association (AEA), and the Off-Broadway League. He has served on the boards of The Browning School (NYC), the Arts & Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County, the Yale Dramatic Association, the Whiffenpoof Alumni Association, and the Yale Alley Cats Alumni Organization (founder and longtime president). He also served as President of the Browning Alumni Association. AndySandberg.com

Rona Siddiqui is a Hermitage Fellow who has presented original work on the Hermitage Beach in 2020 and again as part of the “Hermitage Sunsets @ Selby Gardens” series in 2021. She is an award-winning composer, lyricist, orchestrator, and music director based in New York City. Siddiqui recently served as music director for the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning musical A Strange Loop, written by Hermitage Fellow Michael R. Jackson, for which she received a Grammy Award nomination and an Obie Award, alongside the cast and creative team. The recipient of the Jonathan Larson Grant and the Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award, Siddiqui was named one of Broadway Women’s Fund’s “Women to Watch.” Her musicals include Salaam Medina: Tales of a Halfghan, an autobiographical comedy about growing up bi-ethnic in America, as well as One Good Day, Hip Hop Cinderella, and Treasure in NYC. Siddiqui is the recipient of the ASCAP Foundation Mary Rodgers/Lorenz Hart Award and the ASCAP Foundation/Max Dreyfus Scholarship. She has written pieces for Wicked’s Anniversary Commemoration, 24-Hour Musicals, Prospect Theater Company, The Civilians, Playwrights Horizons, NYC Gay Men’s Chorus, and 52nd St Project, and has performed concerts of her work at The John F. Kennedy Center and Feinstein’s/54 Below. She has also orchestrated for Broadway Records, Broadway Backwards, NAMT, and Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera. RonaSiddiqui.com