#white label digital music distribution
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Website : https://www.aandrduty.com/
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A&R DUTY is an independent A&R company with a passion for music. We are creating a community for A&Rs to come together under one umbrella, training and educating them on how to trade in their business space without being ripped off, and also creating an avenue for a record label and independent artist to hire professional A&Rs when the need arises, so as to increase the population of the artist making hit records in Africa.
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Power Metal reddit currently has a discussion about Nuclear Blast, about what has changed with them and why, and man I have learned a lot of disturbing facts about what has happened there in the past 5 years. Someone posted an in-depth investigative article about it (from November 2021), which you should read if you speak German and are interested, otherwise or if it's too long here are the main points...
If you're into Nightwish, Sabaton, Blind Guardian etc., this is relevant information.
In 2018, the French Believe Music, which is a large corporation that mainly specializes in digital distribution, became majority owner of NB
Believe is not really interested in physical media like CDs and vinyls even though the people who worked at NB told their new corporate overlords that metal fans like physical media, both because many fans of especially the oldest and most successful bands are 50+ and because it's more ingrained in the subculture. Believe doesn't care and doesn't listen. They have their experiences from pop and hip-hop, where phone-based streaming subscriptions are the norm, and that's all they want to know. They are also ignoring printed magazines and don't advertise there much anymore.
Less focus on physical media means that bands now earn less, that they rank less highly in album charts, which in turn means that they lose negotiation power when they try to plan tours and negotiate with venues etc., because they "look" less successful
Believe has been dealing with this by signing mainly bands that are easy to market digitally and ending co-operations with bands that aren't, even ones that had been with NB for decades (like Rage and Nile, who went to Napalm)
The personal cooperation between bands and NB has really suffered, everything is more profit-oriented and impersonal, a lot of budgets have been decreased and the real decisions are made by Believe in Paris, not by any specific NB team
Believe has been stock market traded since 2021. Their stock value went down at first, was at about the price it had started out at when the article was written - I looked it up and in March 23 it's down 40% from its original value. Ouch.
The original founder of NB started a new label, Atomic Fire, and took "Amorphis, Helloween, Opeth, Sonata Arctica, Meshuggah, Primal Fear, Agnostic Front, Rise Of The Northstar, Silver Lake, White Stones and Michael Schenker Group" with him, also because Believe didn't really do much to keep many of these bands
It's certainly interesting to learn about, also because I had already wondered if NB, and some of their bands, had intentionally taken a more "commercial" approach in recent years, but I didn't know about the Believe thing. I thought it maybe had something to do with losses from the pandemic or something. Turns out they have a new owner.
#nuclear blast#metal news#nightwish#sabaton#blind guardian#behemoth#hammerfall#therion#sonata arctica#in flames#type 0 negative#metal#power metal#music stuff#cApiTAliSm bReEds iNnoVAtiOn
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https://mediamonarchy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/20240216_MorningMonarchy.mp3
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American conspiracy, Alicia off-Keys and get me Carlucci + this day in history w/Epstein document dump and our song of the day by Remy on your #MorningMonarchy for February 16, 2024.
Notes/Links:
“This Is Scary”: Soros Prepares Takeover Of 200 Radio Stations Ahead Of US Presidential Election
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/scary-soros-prepares-takeover-200-radio-stations-ahead-us-presidential-election
Huma Abedin and George Soros’ son Alex reveal relationship in Valentine’s Day photo from Paris
https://nypost.com/2024/02/14/us-news/huma-abedin-and-george-soros-son-alex-share-romantic-valentines-day-dinner-in-paris/
Video: Huma Abedin hooked up with George Soros’s soy boy son for cash? (Audio)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFu2NxFbAuc
Image: @Hybrid’s Cover Art – ALEX’s ‘THE AUDACITY’
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/983208466481029191/1207901722727420006/20240216_MorningMonarchy.jpg?ex=65e15524&is=65cee024&hm=a8ff4c499151b8c2fd4bbcd25dc157a2369269c8f6045bf861a686d975f9ef86&
#MorningMonarchy: June 12, 2023 – ALEX’s ‘MORE POLITICAL’
https://mediamonarchy.com/20230612morningmonarchy/
White to black-identifying transracial woman Rachel Dolezal has been fired from her teaching role in the Catalina Foothills Unified School District in AZ after they learned she was selling p—rn content on OnlyFans. She previously lost role at NAACP.
https://vxtwitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1757965472975487125
Video: Former NAACP President Nkechi Diallo, formerly known as Rachel Dolezal, has been fired from her job as a teacher in Arizona. (Audio)
https://vxtwitter.com/RealBrittain/status/1757879956204388498
Image: Dems Wish You A Very Happy Black History Month
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/414600236783239168/1207871522778255422/dems_blackface_black_history_month.jpg?ex=65e13904&is=65cec404&hm=9194f9c3d74545a817343c6f56af36eb4baa4e63663a0cffedb8683099bff304&
American Conspiracy Trailer Previews Netflix’s Octopus Murders Docuseries
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/american-conspiracy-trailer-previews-netflix-204130206.html
Video: American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders | Official Trailer | Netflix (Audio)
https://youtu.be/mHcBh4EBudk
‘Octopus’ Radio Play (Digital Download)
https://newworldnextweek.com/products/octopus
Kanye West’s ‘Vultures 1’ Already Has a New Distributor; After a brief dalliance with FUGA, West’s new album moved back to Label Engine, which had distributed the lead singles.
https://www.billboard.com/business/streaming/kanye-west-vultures-new-distributor-label-engine-1235608833/
Kanye West & Ty Dolla $ign’s ‘Vultures 1’ Album Returns to Apple Music After Brief Removal; The album and its songs were previously wiped from the streamer as well as iTunes on Thursday (Feb. 15).
https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/kanye-west-ty-dolla-sign-vultures-album-removed-apple-music-1235608704/
Sinéad O’Connor nominated for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68267253
Michael Jackson: Stake in catalogue sells for $600m
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68261217
Iowa’s Caitlin Clark breaks NCAA women’s basketball scoring record
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/15/sport/caitlin-clark-ncaa-scoring-record-spt-intl/index.html
Fans fighting and beer sales stopped as PGA Tour golf event descends into chaos
https://archive.is/eNTpX
Arthur Blank on “Private Equity” in the NFL: ‘There Are Models That Can Work’
https://frontofficesports.com/arthur-blank-on-pe-in-the-nfl-there-are-models-that-can-work/
Shooting after Chiefs Super Bowl parade seemed to stem from dispute among several people, police say; Three detained
https://archive.is/B73Pe
More than 120 million viewers for Chiefs’ overtime Super Bowl win
https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2024/02/super-bowl-record-audience-120-million-cbs-chiefs-49ers/
Super Bowl ratings breakdown: Biggest gains in young, female, demos
https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2024/02/super-bowl-ratin...
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#alternative news#booksmarts#media memes#media monarchy#Morning Monarchy#mp3#podcast#Remy#Songs Of The Day#This Day In History
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The Evolution of Indie Rock Bands: From Garage to Stardom
The journey of indie rock bands from humble beginnings in garages and local scenes to global stardom is a testament to the genre's resilience, authenticity, and ability to challenge the norms of the music industry. In this blog, we embark on a retrospective exploration of the evolution of indie rock bands, tracing their path from DIY origins to the pinnacle of stardom.
The Garage Days: Where it All Begins
DIY Ethos Takes Root:
The origins of indie rock can be traced back to the late 1970s and early 1980s when bands rejected the conventional music industry model. Armed with a do-it-yourself (DIY) ethos, musicians began creating music in garages, basements, and small local venues. This marked the birth of a movement that prioritized creative freedom over commercial success.
Local Scenes and Independent Labels:
Indie rock's early days were characterized by vibrant local scenes, where bands flourished within close-knit communities. Independent labels played a crucial role in nurturing these emerging talents, providing a platform for them to release their music without compromising artistic integrity.
The Alternative Revolution of the 1980s
Sonic Exploration and Alternative Sounds:
The 1980s witnessed an alternative revolution, with indie rock bands embracing sonic exploration and alternative sounds. Bands like R.E.M., The Smiths, and Sonic Youth paved the way for a new wave of musicians willing to challenge the status quo. The rejection of mainstream norms became a defining characteristic of the indie rock movement.
College Radio and Underground Exposure:
College radio stations played a pivotal role in the evolution of indie rock during the 1980s. These stations provided a platform for independent and alternative music, exposing bands to a broader audience. Indie rock's underground roots began to intertwine with mainstream culture, setting the stage for its future ascent.
The 1990s: Indie Rock's Coming of Age
Nirvana and the Grunge Explosion:
The 1990s witnessed a seismic shift as grunge took center stage, led by iconic bands like Nirvana. While some argued that grunge diluted the indie ethos, it undeniably catapulted indie rock into mainstream consciousness. Nirvana's success demonstrated that indie bands could achieve stardom without compromising their authenticity.
Mainstream Recognition and MTV Unplugged:
Indie rock bands found themselves on MTV Unplugged, a show traditionally associated with mainstream success. This crossover showcased the genre's ability to maintain its authenticity while gaining widespread recognition. Bands like Pearl Jam and Radiohead continued to blur the lines between indie and mainstream, redefining the industry's landscape.
The 2000s: Indie Rock Goes Global
The Indie Boom:
The 2000s marked an indie rock boom, with bands like The Strokes, The White Stripes, and Arcade Fire achieving critical and commercial success. These bands carried the torch of indie rock into the new millennium, proving that the genre's appeal was not limited to a niche audience.
Digital Revolution and Online Platforms:
The digital revolution played a pivotal role in indie rock's global expansion. Online platforms, file-sharing, and social media allowed indie bands to reach audiences far beyond their local scenes. The democratization of music distribution empowered indie rock bands to connect directly with fans around the world.
The 2010s and Beyond: Indie Rock in the Digital Age
Streaming Services and Independence:
The rise of streaming services further empowered indie rock bands, providing a direct channel to global audiences. Musicians no longer needed major label backing to reach listeners worldwide, emphasizing the continued independence of the genre.
Diverse Influences and Genre Fusion:
Indie rock in the 2010s and beyond witnessed a proliferation of diverse influences and genre fusion. Bands experimented with a wide range of sounds, incorporating elements of electronic, folk, and hip-hop into their music. This sonic diversity kept the genre fresh and relevant.
From the Garage to the Grammys: Indie Rock's Stardom
Grammy Recognition and Mainstream Awards:
Indie rock bands began to receive critical acclaim and mainstream awards, challenging the notion that success required conformity. Arcade Fire's win for Album of the Year at the 2011 Grammy Awards marked a historic moment, showcasing that indie rock could compete and triumph on the grandest stages.
Festivals and Global Tours:
Indie rock festivals, including Coachella, Bonnaroo, and Glastonbury, became cultural phenomena, drawing massive crowds. Indie rock bands embarked on global tours, selling out arenas and cementing their status as international sensations.
Conclusion: Indie Rock's Enduring Legacy
The evolution of indie rock bands from garage to stardom reflects a journey marked by authenticity, resilience, and a refusal to conform. From its humble beginnings in local scenes to the grand stages of global festivals, indie rock has maintained its rebellious spirit while influencing the very fabric of modern music. As we look to the future, the legacy of indie rock continues to unfold, promising a sonic landscape shaped by the untamed creativity of those who dare to challenge musical conventions.
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198: "Various Artists" // Box
Box
Boots / C.C. / Snake & Remus
2006, HP Cycle
For more than 25 years the gloomy weirdo unknown folk artist who created Box has released his music from behind a veil of secrecy, changing his alias and “record label” with each recording. In 2002, Rojvi (credited to Terry) and Music Performed by the High Mass (credited to Jim Collins) trickled out into the market, distributed without fanfare on the mail order lists of record collectors Paul Major (of Endless Boogie) and Stan Denski; in 2017, a dozen lathe-cut 7” and 12” records appeared in a thrift store, all credited to different artists, each possibly the only one of its kind in existence. His music has tended to be unearthed rather than released, with the exception of 2006’s Box, which collects three LPs originally discovered separately in 2004: Boots (Boots), No Tape Outside (Snake & Remus), and Live at the Rainbows End (C.C.). Box was distributed in an edition of a few hundred by HP Cycle, a Canadian label that, while miniscule, has endured longer than the cicada’s flight enjoyed by each of the artist’s own enterprises. In this sense, it is the closest thing the artist has provided to an intentional entry point to his work—the black peak marking a dark berg beneath the waves.
youtube
Mysteries naturally draw adventurers, and I’m indebted to the Discogs user known as envious for the information above, which I’ve drawn from his blog Rabbit Run Down the Hole of a Skull (which also hosts a near-complete digital archive of the artist’s known music). I think it’s helpful to parrot his research here not only because the story is in itself interesting, but because when I post this it will create another node for other seekers to access the next layer beneath the surface. According to envious, the first of the artist’s known pseudonyms Robyn Nice, and this name has become the catchall his small following uses to refer to him. (envious also occasionally refers to Nice as the Crystal Spider, which yes, instantly made me cum.) It’s thought that in his youth Nice spent time living on an acid-drenched Louisiana artist’s community called the Compound. The Compound was led by Damien Youth, himself a somewhat enigmatic folk musician, until harassment from suspicious local police forced its dissolution. Much of Nice’s work seems to call back to the image of an idyllic community, though its frequently bitter, despairing tone suggests the posture of an Adam mourning in exile—or a Manson in the making. envious’s blog digs much more deeply into the Nice mythos than I can here—one of my dream projects after I finish this year of record reviewing is to listen through Nice’s 15-hour catalogue in its entirety.
Moving on to Box itself, we find three 12” records in plain white sleeves, each hand stamped with a title and alias. All three records have a similar structure: free form, acoustic outsider folk songs on the A sides, lengthy jams or field recordings on the flip.
The individual records are packaged in plain sleeves with labels in blue print, like the original 2004 releases.
On the self-titled Boots record, Nice’s voice hits somewhere between early Peter Gabriel and Dylan, but the lyrics are wacked out ravings. On one track he snarls about “shitcaked corpses” and raped children before proclaiming “I’m a farm” and imitating a braying donkey. On another he bellows at what sounds like the top of his lungs about “compromised smells.” His deft progressive folk-inclined guitar playing tends to follow the emotional arc of his vocals, reserved at the outset, ragged and battered by the end. The B-side (“New Earth”) is roughly five minutes of faux-tribal New Age followed by 13 of minimal synth.
On No Tape Outside by Snake & Remus, the artist sounds somewhat older, which may indicate the albums collected in Box don’t all come from the same period. At any rate, Nice is in a more pensive mood, the trancelike songs expansive and beautifully played on guitar with various minimal piano/synth/percussion accompaniments (suggesting Snake & Remus could be a duo project). In place of Boots’s misanthropic rage, No Tape Outside is shrouded in despair at failing relationships, a fallen world. The B-side is fully instrumental, sharing the autumnal feeling of the vocal tracks but skewing more psychedelic, building through passages of rippling echo to a climax like a dozen clocks having a quiet disagreement over the exact time. Unlike the other records in the set, this record has no track names stamped on the disc’s label, leaving you with few moorings. I recall certain passages of inspired playing, snatches of strange poetry (“voice from across the sea / drips red into me / says my mother was wine”), a general sensation by record’s end of doomed peace.
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The outlier here is C.C’s Live at the Rainbows End, which clearly features a different (considerably more technically proficient) vocalist. Good news, it’s also weird, though it sounds less like it was recorded by the guy on the cover of Aqualung than the others. envious speculates C.C. may be another Compound personality who used the alias Chris Cologne and recorded a CD called Horn for Blackberry, Nice’s early stab at a conventional indie label. C.C. is either a Brit or affecting an accent (I think the latter), and has a gentle, sighing way with his phrasing that suits these hushed ballads in a Nick Drake-ish mode. There is some downright gorgeous fingerstyle acoustic playing on this one and more conventional musical structures, even a few refrains (though no choruses). The guitar could plausibly be played by Nice, though the technique is cleaner and less shamanic than what we hear elsewhere on Box, but even if it isn’t Live at the Rainbows End shares a certain paranoid energy that somehow marks it as a product of the same artistic camp. The B-side offers one more short romantic tune followed by “Paul’s Jennifer is Dead,” a fifteen-minute field recording of a bonfire and distant, indistinct conversation. envious once again offers an astute guess here, suggesting this may reference the nighttime bonfires where members of Youth’s Compound once communed at the end of each day.
Overall, your mileage with Box will vary depending on your yen for the wilfully obscure. My interest in a savage, disoriented record like Boots is ultimately curious (maybe even prurient), in the same way I like to collect strange postings on street poles around my city. No Tape Outside on the other hand is a genuinely entrancing avant-folk record, while Live at the Rainbows End houses a delicate collection of misty-eyed tunes forked by morbid suspicion and trembling yearning. I think both are superb in their own ways. I am haunted by my questions about Box’s provenance, but also by its contents—both of which make for a strong endorsement to new listeners attuned to similar currents in the musical underworld.
198/365
#halloweek#robyn nice#snake & remus#c.c.#boots#avant folk#freak folk#damien youth#the crystal spider#anonymous artist#'00s music#private press#hp cycle#music review#vinyl record
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5 posts!
The Music Umbrella International Consulting Company is a four-decade-old international entertainment management, music publishing, licensing, and media consulting company started by glenn h friedman founder and CEO
Since 1980, The Umbrella has worked with legendary artists such as The Who, AC DC, Atlantic Starr, Anita Baker, Luther Vandross, Barry White, Wynonna Judd, the Oak Ridge Boys, Janet Jackson, and Robin Gibb (of the Bee Gees). Their current roster includes talented artists like Bruce C ( 4:20 ). Stevenson, Jon Varto and Dan Sistos, Brad Basker, Zebra. and Michelle Fabre
As publishers, the Umbrella's previous companies, Sweet Glenn and Sweet Karol Music, achieved seven Gold records, three multi-Platinum records, and received top ASCAP and BMI performance awards. In 2017, The Music Umbrella launched their new publishing divisions, The Music Umbrella Music (ASCAP) and The Music Umbrella Songs (BMI).
The Music Umbrella International Consulting has and still represents various labels, publishers, artists, and venture capitalists. They have successfully placed thousands of songs in television shows, films, commercials, trailers, and video games, resulting in top-charting songs and multi-platinum sales.
Over the past 17 to 20 years, The Music Umbrella has excelled in licensing, digital distribution, and branding. They help artists gain exposure in international markets through digital platforms, touring, and carefully crafted merchandise.
The company does have a modest, negotiable monthly fee.
If you have been frustrated launching your career or other musical careers, this is your one stop to possible success around the world.
For artists seeking professional guidance and support, The Music Umbrella welcomes you to visit their website at themusicumbrella.net.The Music Umbrella International Consulting Company is a four-decade-old international entertainment management, music publishing, licensing, and media consulting company started by glenn h friedman founder and CEO Since 1980, The Umbrella has worked with legendary artists such as The Who, AC DC, Atlantic Starr, Anita Baker, Luther Vandross, Barry White, Wynonna Judd, the Oak Ridge Boys, Janet Jackson, and Robin Gibb (of the Bee Gees). Their current roster includes talented artists like Bruce C ( 4:20 ). Stevenson, Jon Varto and Dan Sistos, Brad Basker, and Zebra. As publishers, the Umbrella's previous companies, Sweet Glenn and Sweet Karol Music, achieved seven Gold records, three multi-Platinum records, and received top ASCAP and BMI performance awards. In 2017, The Music Umbrella launched their new publishing divisions, The Music Umbrella Music (ASCAP) and The Music Umbrella Songs (BMI). The Music Umbrella International Consulting has and still represents various labels, publishers, artists, and venture capitalists. They have successfully placed thousands of songs in television shows, films, commercials, trailers, and video games, resulting in top-charting songs and multi-platinum sales. Over the past 17 to 20 years, The Music Umbrella has excelled in licensing, digital distribution, and branding. They help artists gain exposure in international markets through digital platforms, touring, and carefully crafted merchandise. The company does have a modest monthly fee. If you have been frustrated launching your career or other musical careers, this is your one stop to possible success around the world. For artists seeking professional guidance and support, The Music Umbrella welcomes you to visit their website at themusicumbrella.net.
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Fritz-kola, a Drink Created by Two German Students to Challenge Coca-Cola with the Highest Legal Amount of Caffeine
The beverage, which started as an idea one night over frozen pizza 20 years ago, has become a brand that employs 300 people and is distributed throughout almost all of Europe
— Elena G. Sevillano, Berlin | March 08, 2023
Mirco Wolf Wiegert, co-founder of the Fritz-kola brand. Patricia Sevilla Ciordia
They came up with the idea one night over frozen pizza and Coke in the kitchen of their Hamburg college dorm. Mirco Wolf Wiegert and Lorenz Hampl, a couple of enterprising twenty-somethings looking for a business that was lucrative, yes, but above all fun, decided to create a new cola. Never mind that the worldwide market was pretty much cornered by another brand; theirs was going to be different – and better. With less sugar, much more caffeine and a recognizable flavor. They had no idea where to start, but they raised €7,000, registered the company and started looking for a manufacturer to help them create the formula.
It took them a while, but they found one, and after much trial and error, their perfect cola was a reality. Their first test was carried out at a party: their friends stayed up until the next morning, which they considered a success. The caffeine content was just right, they concluded. They delivered the first 240 boxes of 24 bottles of Fritz-kola themselves, in a Volkswagen van. Wiegert, now 48, smiles when he remembers those days of dreaming, scarcity and lots of partying. They would go to bars, cafés and restaurants, where they talked the owners into giving their kola a chance; they were amused by those kids who wanted to challenge the big monopoly with a drink made in Hamburg that only used reusable glass bottles.
Twenty years later, Fritz-kola employs 300 people and is distributed throughout almost all of Europe. The brand, with five bottling plants, has become particularly strong in Germany and other central European countries like Austria and Switzerland. In many Berlin establishments, for instance, it is the only cola available. Little could Wiegert have imagined that the idea he developed with his childhood friend would end up sponsoring music festivals across the continent and raising eyebrows with eye-catching advertising campaigns.
“We are expanding south to France and Spain, where we want to start producing locally,” he explains at the company’s modern Hamburg headquarters, where an endless stream of casually dressed young people flows by. This is where the creatives and the marketing, communication and business staff work. The bottling plants are spread out throughout Germany so their product can be distributed northwards, to Scandinavia; to the east, to the Czech Republic and Poland; to the west to Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom; and to the south.
On the meeting room table stand the different drinks produced by Fritz-kola, which over the years has expanded its repertoire: lemon, orange, apple, rhubarb... they all flaunt the original logo: the smiling faces of two guys in black and white. Two guys who are actually Mirco and Lorenz. Overwhelmed as they were by the lack of budget and looking to save on the designer, they snapped a picture of themselves against a white background in the dorm’s basement ping pong room, took it to a store to have it digitized and asked a friend for help creating the silhouette. It remained in black and white because printing the labels that way was cheaper, Wiegert says. Today that logo is as recognizable as the brand or more.
Part of the success of Fritz-kola is due to its halo of authenticity, of an artisanal, local product, apparently far removed from the industrial world, explains Francisco Torreblanca, branding expert and professor at the ESIC business and marketing school in Spain. In addition to the cola’s flavor and the disruptive nature of its image and name (kola with a k), the company has exploited what in advertising is known as storytelling; that is, taking advantage of its peculiar history. “The new type of consumer is hungry for novelties. We are interconnected and want to try new things, even more so after the pandemic. And this brand is amazing,” says Wiegert to explain its entry into markets like Spain, where it can be already found in more than a thousand bars and restaurants.
The founders decided to listen to their future customers to choose the drink’s name. They came up with a list of possible names that were related to Hamburg and northern Germany: Alster kola, after the lake; Elbe kola, after the river; Northern kola… and Fritz, the name of the ordinary German par excellence. They stood at the entrance of a shopping center and surveyed shoppers themselves. The simple but endearing short form of “Friedrich” took the majority of votes. As for the “k,” it symbolizes the desire to do things differently, Wiegert explains.
Hampl left the company in 2016 to undertake other projects. Wiegert says that he is not tired of facing challenges. “Our long-term goal is to become the number-one cola drink in Europe in the hospitality segment, in bars and cafés,” he says. Currently, its market share is around 4%, according to data from the company, which only discloses its growth data (5.3% in 2022, compared to the previous year for cola).
Although their drinks can be found in virtually every supermarket in Germany, competing with Coca-Cola’s cans and plastic bottles is impossible. Nor is that their target audience. They wanted a cola drink that was associated with partying, with special occasions. They had other students like themselves in mind. They wanted to “cause a high” in whoever tried it, recalls Wiegert. That is why they added the maximum amount of caffeine allowed by law: 25 milligrams per 100 milliliters. Fritz-kola also has a touch of lemon and less sugar (there is also a version with sweeteners) and it is only sold in small formats, 0.2 and 0.33 liters. In German bars and restaurants, it has been the second best-selling brand for years, ahead of Pepsi, according to Nielsen data.
Sustainability is another of the pillars of the brand; therefore, their product is only sold in glass bottles. In Germany and central Europe they work with returnable bottles, which are cleaned and refilled up to 50 times. In farther markets, like Spain, they use recyclable bottles. “You won’t see our bottles floating in the sea or at the beaches,” says Wiegert firmly.
— EL PAÍS
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The 5 Most Important Features of a White Label NFT Marketplace
The White Label NFT Marketplace is a tested and proven ready-to-deploy platform for buying, selling and bidding on NFTs in the form of digital collectibles.
With the white label NFT marketplace, you can easily trade NFTs thanks to advanced blockchain technology. For building NFT marketplaces, the most popular blockchain networks include Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Solana, Polygon, Avalance, Cardano, etc.
The NFT marketplace allows users to trade many types of NFTs, including art, photography, music, movies, memes, metaverse, game components, and more. White label NFT marketplaces offer the same functionality. Many businesses use white label NFT marketplaces instead of building their own NFT marketplace platforms.
Compared with custom NFT platform development, the advantages and characteristics of white label NFT marketplace make it a better choice. Creating an NFT marketplace from scratch takes longer and requires more capital than launching a white label NFT marketplace. Launching a white-label NFT marketplace will help platform owners quickly run profitable NFT companies in the short term.
White Label NFT Marketplace: 5 Features
White label NFT coinage
The fastest and easiest way to create digital collectibles like NFTs is to use white label NFT minting. In other words, white label NFT minification is the process of duplicating existing digital assets. New NFTs are created by using blockchain-based NFTs to create smart contracts. People who want to create digital assets can use NFTly’s white label NFT minting platform, it’s simple.
2. White label NFT riveting
White label NFT staking is a brand new way to generate cryptocurrency income by staking NFTs. Locking assets on a DeFi system benefits NFT holders. They can all keep their NFT collections without selling them.
Proof of Stake (PoS) rewards participants for NFT staking like DeFi yield farming. Locking NFTs allows users to earn rewards based on the Annual Yield (APY) of their staked NFTs.
NFT staking can potentially benefit investors personally due to the reduced total supply. Still, on a larger scale, NFT staking opens up new applications for NFTs, far beyond the mere concept of collecting digital artwork.
3. Lazy minting
NFT and other marketplaces have adopted “lazy minting” to reduce the barriers to entry for NFT developers, allowing them to mint NFTs without incurring any upfront expenses.
In addition, NFT creators use the private key of their Ethereum account to create a cryptographic signature of specific data, rather than directly executing contract functions to create an NFT.
The signed data is used as a “credential” or “ticket” for the NFT. As such, credentials may include additional data not stored on the blockchain, but in real NFTs.
4. IPFS-NFT storage
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a perfect fit for the storage and addressing capabilities of IPFS. The IPFS data storage of NFT is the focus, so that both NFT authors and NFT owners can have long-term experience.
IPFS NFT storage can store off-chain NFT data (such as metadata, photos and other assets) on NFT. You can reserve up to 31GB per upload. Therefore, the URI to refer to the partial data is “ipfs:/…” (using the content identifier or CID). To guarantee that the NFT keeps referencing the correct material, IPFS URLs and CIDs can be used in the NFT and metadata (eliminating rug pulls and making it verifiable which content the NFT is associated with).
Dedicated IPFS servers for Filecoin and NFT storage keep multiple copies of uploaded data. NFT storage networks are usually mainly used to save data. You can store NFT storage data on any other IPFS-compatible storage solution, from pinning the service to your own IPFS node, to other storage networks like Arweave or Storj, as IPFS is the standard used by many different storage services. NFT. Storage will become more and more distributed over time!
5. Multi-chain compatibility
Multichain, formerly known as Anyswap, is a platform that allows users to exchange tokens or liquidity in a decentralized manner. A router on Multichain will figure out the best way to connect the selected currency.
Using liquidity pools, Multichain will transfer cryptocurrencies through various chains for coins with native tokens. Multichain has no native currency. Therefore, it locks the token and mints a pegged token (if any) on the target chain.
is ending
As more and more entrepreneurs enter the crypto space, various business models are emerging in the digital world. Today, the NFT market with cutting-edge concepts is attracting the interest of most investors.
The NFT market has piqued the curiosity of many businessmen who had previously shunned the crypto space. With the launch of many NFT marketplaces in the digital world, many white label NFT marketplaces have been built to meet market demand.
Using NFticly, a global B2B SaaS, you can create your own white label NFT company or NFT marketplace without prior technical knowledge.
In our development center, you may see your needs come to life in front of you. Meet with our project managers, engineers and designers to review your platform.
NFT Marketplace Development
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200930 Variety
How BTS and Its ARMY Could Change the Music Industry
It was just a year ago that BTS’ Love Yourself: Speak Yourself tour was selling out stadiums all over the world. Each night of the 20-date trek, which grossed $116 million, a total of nearly a million ticket buyers around the planet witnessed a thumping opening liturgy at the top of the K-pop band’s set in the form of the song “Dionysus.”
As flames shot up from the stage, seven figures emerged in supplicant white amid Greek columns and a long altar. Rapper RM (full name: Kim Nam-joon) led the way, twirling the staff of the titular mythical deity, as group mates Jin (Kim Seok-jin), SUGA (Min Yoon-gi), j-hope (Jung Ho-seok), Jimin (Park Ji-min), V (Kim Tae-hyung) and Jung Kook (Jeon Jung-kook) flanked him in a display of choreographed precision. The crowd, reaching peak pandemonium in a night full of deafening screams, made willing maenads and satyrs, transported by the band’s presence. An anthem about rebirth and self-discovery through the ecstatic collective experience of music was received as intended — as if from the gods.
Idol worship is by no means a new concept in pop music — remember John Lennon’s provocative statement in 1966 that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus”? — but there’s something about BTS that turns fandom up to 11. The global brigade of BTS acolytes is collectively known by the acronym ARMY, short for Adorable Representative MC for Youth, a moniker chosen by Big Hit Entertainment, the company that launched the band. ARMY comprises the lion’s share of a Twitter audience that’s 29.2 million followers strong, more than triple that of any other K-pop group, and growing daily. BTS’ Instagram presence of 30.6 million followers (also rising rapidly), is trailed closely only by YG Entertainment’s Blackpink, at 29.3 million.
“It is because ARMY exists that we exist,” Jin says.
To understand the scope of BTS Inc.: An influential 2018 study by the Hyundai Research Institute estimated that the ripple effects from the boy band’s ecosystem contribute roughly $4.9 billion annually to South Korea’s GDP, on track to generate more value over 10 years than the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. The study gauged that in 2017, one in 13 visitors to the country came for BTS-related pilgrimages. That ratio may soon be growing. Spotify has reported a 300% spike in new listeners to the group since the Aug. 21 release of “Dynamite,” BTS’ first all-English single.
The BTS boom has also driven Big Hit to launch an IPO in October projected to raise some $811 million. (Each BTS member will be awarded shares worth approximately $8 million.) Of Big Hit’s revenue in 2019, 97.4% was generated by BTS, including $130 million worth of T-shirts, cosmetics, dolls and other merchandise.
The numbers are no accident. The South Korean government began investing strategically in the arts and the digital economy to help steer the country out of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. On the heels of “Parasite” sweeping the Oscars, the worldwide success of BTS may be another sign to the West that Seoul might be the center of a new force in creative production.
Big Hit, and the K-pop music business in general, have proved just how much a band, and a company, can prosper through a direct-to-consumer relationship, driven by digital platforms and dedicated apps with lots of behind-the-scenes content that keeps fans emotionally involved. It’s engagement on a scale that no Western artist has ever achieved, despite decades of radio promotion and the best retail strategy.
For the global music industry, the band’s success has meant a serious rethink of how a record company — in BTS’ case, Sony Music’s Columbia Records, which distributes the group’s music in the U.S. (though the band is not signed to the label) — builds and maintains a fan base. You could almost look at it as a collaborative arrangement: As music is being made in real time, decision-makers and strategists at Big Hit and Columbia are taking in and processing the comments and views of ARMY and pivoting accordingly.
“It creates a self-sustaining engine that, eventually, becomes hits perpetuating more hits,” says Neil Jacobson, a former president of Geffen Records who runs Hallwood, a talent agency for producers and songwriters. “A label wants that fan connection happening all the time so that they can consistently release and promote music. But in the past, there had always been intermediaries that labels had to talk to in order to manifest exposure. Now, there is a mechanism for an artist to speak directly to their fans. That didn’t exist before, and it has turbocharged the process.”
It’s all led to this “Dynamite” moment: The single has sold nearly 700,000 adjusted song units since its release — good for a gold record certification by the RIAA. The song is quickly becoming the band’s biggest radio hit to date (without a featured artist, it’s worth noting), and represents a significant breakout beyond its core audience. After that, will Grammys follow?
“They check all the boxes,” says Jenna Andrews, the vocal producer on “Dynamite” who also serves as an executive at Sony’s Records label. “I’ve never seen anything like BTS in terms of singing and dancing. This is just an indication of what’s yet to come. They’re going to take over the world.”
Kathryn Lofton, Yale University professor of religious and American studies and author of the book “Consuming Religion,” says that the bond BTS has with its ARMY is different from the typical singer-fan connection because “BTS’ driving commitment is to their relationship to the fan group, to the manufacturing of their communal joy for you to participate in.” It’s why she views BTS as “a religious project; they are seeking to make a togetherness that you can’t stop wanting to be a part of.”
Lofton also makes a point of distinguishing ARMY from the groupies associated with Beatlemania. Sure, BTS fans know the hagiography and backstory of each member, but everything about the band’s output prioritizes the collective over the individual.
The band itself has certainly leaned into the comparison with the Fab Four. For instance, it re-created the iconic moment of the Beatles’ 1964 debut at the Ed Sullivan Theater last May on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” — in a black-and-white segment that showed the K-pop band performing as mop tops in tailored suits.
But while John, Paul, George and Ringo had spotlight moments of their own, both within and outside the band — songs they wrote individually, causes they took up personally — with BTS, it’s all for one all the time. Unlike many other groups, the members share single, collective Twitter and Instagram accounts, and release even solo material through their shared channel. Accomplishments are never spoken of as belonging to any one group member but rather as the work of the team (and, of course, ARMY). In their videos, they often begin in solo shots but end up together.
This all strays from the typical tropes of Western boy bands including New Edition and ’N Sync, which have all proffered “star” frontmen. The thinking for decades had been that a record company would be lucky to have one breakout solo career among the bunch.
But BTS’ selfless approach didn’t happen randomly: The group was envisioned as a collective to heal the alienation that ails us in the digital age. Its name — “BTS” stands for Beyond the Scene — is an invitation to fans to join them offstage via almost daily video content featuring moments in their intimate if immaculately curated private lives on YouTube, Twitter and Big Hit app Weverse.
In 2011, Big Hit’s revenues from its then-main acts, Lim Jeong-hee and boy band 2AM, were plummeting. As the shadow of bankruptcy loomed, Bang Si-hyuk, now chairman, and Lenzo Yoon, global CEO, felt the company needed a total revamp. They stopped all normal work for months and called on employees to perform market research instead, seeking a new vision and formula.
Bang describes the conclusion they reached in a recent Harvard Business School case study of the firm written by Anita Elberse and Lizzy Woodham: “You would think that with the development of digital technology, people can come together more easily, but we found that it is actually more likely that people will feel more isolated. And so we need to find a way to help them, inspire them and heal them.”
Reflecting on the choice to develop a group that satiated this need, Yoon says in the study: “I think back then in 2011, with the conclusions we drew, we found the wild ginseng, as we say in Korea.”
On “Dynamite,” Big Hit worked with Columbia to further cultivate that ginseng. Pitched by Jacobson to label chairman Ron Perry, who guided and essentially A&R’d the song, worked to radio by Columbia executive VP and head of promotion Peter Gray (who has broken hits for Dua Lipa, Kelly Clarkson and Kings of Leon), and all overseen and informed by the years of management savvy of Big Hit, it’s the kind of artist development that was a music business calling card and that has lost its place in the fast-paced world of digital releases.
Radio exposure is not considered as impactful in Korea as it is in the U.S., notes RM, and so BTS — “maybe naively” — didn’t hit the ground in the U.S. thinking, ‘What can boost our airplay?’” the last time around. Still, RM notes that the band has “100% trust” in Columbia, Big Hit and the greater BTS community. “ARMY and the label are all trying their best,” he says, recounting how in the band’s early days, fans would send bouquets to radio DJs to get their songs on the air.
“Our goal is to try to show ourselves, expose ourselves to ARMY as much as possible,” adds Jin. “There are a lot of platforms now.”
In some ways, BTS’ ARMY has grown into its own force and brought the group along for the ride. In the world of K-pop, the expectation is that entertainers stay far away from politics, but as the genre has grown more global, it has begun to reach a transnational cohort to whom matters of social justice are top of mind.
When Variety broke the news on June 6 that BTS and Big Hit had donated $1 million to Black Lives Matter, BTS fans quickly flocked to #MatchAMillion through a link sent out by the fan charity Twitter account @OneInAnARMY. They hit the financial target in just 25 hours.
Erika Overton, a 40-year-old Georgia resident and one of the co-founders of the account, says of the experience: “It was one of the craziest nights I’ve ever seen. I was on Twitter all night. We were refreshing the page every couple of minutes, going, ‘Oh, my God …’” Witnessing ARMY’s U.S. battalion bring the message of Black Lives Matter to fans in other parts of the world who were unfamiliar with the movement was a “big educational moment that was really, really beautiful to see,” says Overton, who is African American.
What Overton saw was facilitated by networks of fan translators who also turn Big Hit’s Korean content into dozens of languages. Other ARMY groups provide counseling or tutoring services, invent themed recipes or write informational threads on everything from the history of the music industry and how charts work to Jungian philosophy, which deeply informs the BTS albums.
Some fan accounts have even become registered nonprofits, with dozens of administrators spread around the world putting in nearly full-time work on top of their day jobs.
In addition to Black Lives Matter, BTS this year donated $1 million to Crew Nation, a Live Nation campaign to support live entertainment personnel impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. And it has continued its campaign with UNICEF to end child violence. But the band members are reticent to take on the role of global activists. “I don’t consider ourselves as political,” says Suga. “We aren’t trying to send out some grandiose message. We would never see ARMY as a conduit for our voice or our opinion. ARMY speaks their own initiatives, and we always respect their opinions, as we respect any other person’s.”
RM, on the other hand, keeps the door open for a kind of apolitical politics based more on actions than words: “We are not political figures, but as they say, everything is political eventually. Even a pebble can be political.”
The scale of its influence is not something that the group takes lightly. “Our [‘Dynamite’] video has seen 80 million, almost 90 million views in just a day. In a way, that’s very weighty — and almost frightening,” RM told Variety the day after its debut, explaining that the balancing act is often one of how to juggle the burdens of being both role models and artists.
Some Korean scholars feel that BTS’ statement in support of BLM shows how ARMY is actually out ahead of Big Hit, spontaneously enacting its own initiatives to which the company must then respond. “Big Hit thinks they can create a company-dominated [approach to] fandom, but fans are agents doing only what they want, not what they don’t want,” says ethnomusicologist Kim Jungwon of Yonsei University in Seoul. For Kim, the fluidity of ARMY’s unplanned, collective responses “is the possible answer to BTS’ success.”
Candace Epps-Robertson, an ARMY member and assistant professor of rhetoric at the University of North Carolina, says the affirmational content of the group’s lyrics and videos may sound simple, but lay the groundwork for millions of fans to learn to engage critically with each other and develop a transcultural sense of global citizenship. “The message of ‘you, yourself, are enough, and you should love who you are and start with that — I think people miss how radical that can actually be,” she says. “We can’t overlook the power of that as an invitation to people to be part of this community.”
The Grammys, where BTS is eligible for record of the year, among other categories (nomination ballots for the 2021 awards, slated to air Jan. 31, went out on Sept. 28), provide a chance for the group to gain industry recognition as a mainstream contender, not just a K-pop act.
Asked why the Grammys matter so much to them, SUGA seems to bristle a bit at the question. “I grew up watching American award shows, so obviously we all know and I know the importance of the Grammys,” he says. “It’s a dream anyone working in music has.”
RM says having the goal of a Grammy, an industry-voted award, “motivates us to work harder. As SUGA said, if you are in music, the Grammy Awards are something that you cannot help but to look toward and set as an eventual goal.”
BTS’ global influence will soon collide with national duty, and a Grammy Award or three could help maintain its momentum. The band members all have to participate in Korea’s mandatory military service by the age of 28 — and four of them are within two years of that threshold. “Big Hit really wants to target the Grammys before [the members] go into the army,” says an industry source privy to the company’s marketing plans, adding that, from Big Hit’s perspective, it would be best for business if the boys all perform their service at the same time.
The group renewed its contract with Big Hit in 2018, which commits the members to another seven years with the firm, but the army service issue could knock off two years within that time span. A company statement ahead of Big Hit’s IPO shows that Jin, the oldest group member (he’ll be 28 in December), must conscript by 2022 even if he gets an extension of the draft deadline. The statement discloses that plans to prerecord content to be released over the course of any army tenure are being discussed.
South Korea officially changed its rules in July to allow draftees access to once-banned cellphones on weeknights and weekends, meaning BTS could theoretically continue some interaction with fans. However, the taking of photos, video or audio recordings remains prohibited. (Historically, most Korean celebs have fallen silent during their service.)
Soldiering aside, with the push from Big Hit’s IPO, multiple TV appearances — including an ongoing weeklong takeover of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” — the chart success of “Dynamite” and growing Grammy buzz, BTS is poised to make some serious noise this fall, which is saying a lot for a group known to shake the decibel scale with a wave or a wink. But perhaps the most significant measure of its ascent is underscored by the frequent speculation of the band’s place in a new moment for the music industry.
“What would it mean not just to include the sound of Korea in the annals of world music, but to actually propose that the South Korean sound is the next chapter?” posits Yale’s Lofton. “What if BTS are actually the next Beatles?”
Source: Variety
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NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, are digital assets with unique identifiers stored on the blockchain that can be used to represent ownership of real and virtual items. They have disrupted the traditional economic system by allowing for the authentication and transfer of highly sought-after items - like art, music, and collectibles – without having to go through intermediaries. NFTs have also opened new avenues for creative expression, allowing artists to showcase their work and retain complete control over its rights, production, and distribution.
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Estate Entertainment Releases New Album
The spokesperson for Bayonne, NJ, based Estate Entertainment (www.estateent.com) recently announced that Brooklyn, NY, recording artist, composer, performer, producer, and street poet DESON TENINCHY's latest album titled "First Supper" has been officially released. The record street-dated earlier this month and has already demonstrated the initial signs of impact within the entertainment industry. The week of September 26th, 2022, BDS, DMS, Mediabase, and NACC radio "surveyor adds into rotation" debuts.
Estate Entertainment representative Nicole White put forth an important point with a prior press release that while this album is intended to be construed as somewhat unorthodox by hip-hop aficionados, the artist's and label's goal was to appeal to a more conscious listening target. "We've tried to capture DESON's passion and somewhat aggressive lyrical delivery on ‘First Supper' to counterbalance it with its underlying wit, metaphors, and the strength of an inner-city point of view within its content," she stated in the earlier announcement.
The "First Supper" album has now been distributed globally by his label to all major digital retailers, and streaming platforms North American radio and press campaigns have also been launched to promote DESON TENINCHY's work and spread the word about his music. Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop single-driven format radio stations were serviced with "Bosses Boss Up," the first radio single from the LP. Album-driven Hip-Hop, R&B, and Top 30 were provided with a copy of the entire album for airplay. Additional personal appearances will be announced in the weeks to follow. If you wish to learn more about the artist, then you may, of course, surf over to https://www.desonteninchy.com. The artist is available for interviews and/or appearances. An EPK will be provided upon request to all members of the media by contacting the representative listed below.
Media Contact:
Stevie B
Mia Mind Music
Phone: 800-843-8575
Email: [email protected]
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The music monopolists
Writing in Wired, Institute for Local Self Reliance researcher and anti-monopolist Ron Knox gives a thorough, important account of how music industry monoplization resulted declining revenue for artists, even as the industry itself has reaped greater profits.
https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-big-music-needs-to-be-broken-up-to-save-the-industry/
Importantly, Knox describes how concentration has come to every link in music’s supply chain, from radio to recording, streaming to live performance. The monopolists who dominate these sectors fight fiercely between each other, but no matter who wins, artists lose.
Let’s go segment by segment. Two thirds of all North American music comes from three labels. The labels grew through anticompetitive mergers: giant companies, awash in investor cash, bought out mid-sized, successful labels, turning them into subdivisions of the Big Three.
The more concentrated the labels got, the worse they were for everyone. They spent the nineties and naughties price-gouging record companies, pocketing hundreds of millions from an illegal price-fixing conspiracy. The fines they paid were smaller than the profits they reaped.
But at least they distributed music. Today, the struggling physical record store industry — a network of passionate music sellers who serve the most intense music fans — find themselves getting “record shipments” that turn out to be boxes of random stuff like cough syrup (!).
That happened when the Big Three all piled their distribution into a single company, the monopolist Direct Shot Distributing. As Direct Shot started to fail, its operations descended into chaos, and record stores started to receive boxes of random consumer packaged goods.
It was bad news for the non-monopolized, music-first record stores, but it barely registered for the Big Three labels — today, they buy an average of two new acts every day.
The labels don’t make money from selling records, of course. They get their money from streaming.
Streaming is also massively concentrated, gathered into the hands of just a few companies: Spotify, Apple, Youtube, Amazon — with the notable exception of Spotify, the industry is dominated by companies that also monopolize other sectors.
Monopolies are good to these companies. Spotify’s market-cap doubled during the pandemic — the market values its 150m subs (twice as many as subscribe with Apple) at $50b. The major labels get $1m/hour from streaming. 99% of their artists see $25/year in streaming royalties.
Spotify may be the biggest streaming service, but it’s not the lowest-paying. Youtube — a Google division, whose unsuccessful attempt to launch an in-house video service convinced it that it had to buy someone else’s success — drives the worst bargain.
Spotify uses its industry dominance to extract heavy fees from the labels — creaming 30% of the total revenue generated by a typical track. Big Three monopolists with fat margins can absorb this. Indies? Not so much.
Spotify’s market cap growth is in part due to the new ways it’s come up with to shake down the labels — a variety of tactics that all boil down to one thing: payola. Spotify will sell labels pop-up ads, placement in “radio” algorithms, and access to “Discovery mode.”
Like all forms of payola, Spotify’s rate-card is a way for monopolists to edge out indies, buying their way into your ear-holes. I’m sure that the Big Three would rather keep the bribes they pay to Spotiify, but the consolation prize is pretty sweet.
If the Big Three are the only ones who can afford to buy access to Spotify’s audience, then creators are driven to sign with them, and have less bargaining leverage when they negotiate their deals.
Spotify, meanwhile, can consolidate its gains by driving up those fees, pitting labels against each other in a bidding war for access to listeners. This effectively drives down the royalty rate Spotify pays, because every new track will have to buy in to get any reach.
Spotify talks a good game about how it uses big data and machine learning to pick the songs you hear, but increasingly, the algorithm is getting far less compute-intensive, a simple sort-by-highest-bidder system you could operate from a laptop running Windows 3.1 and Excel.
In theory, streaming losses can be made up with touring. Acts who attain digital popularity can charge access at the door to clubs and other venues. The only problem is that live performance is also a monopoly business.
The 800lb gorilla there is Livenation, a division of the ticket monopolist and notorious arm-breakers Ticketmaster — spun out of Clear Channel, the monopolist that we now know as Iheartradio.
Livenation parlayed its access to the capital markets to buy out $1b worth of venues and promoters, before being acquired by Clear Channel for $4.4b in 2005. Today, it’s a division of Liberty Media, consolidated with Ticketmaster, Pandora, and Siriusxm.
What goes around, comes around: Liberty’s private equity owners are in the process of buying up Iheartradio, re-merging all of Clear Channel’s spinouts into one giga-monopolist.
The conglomerate already coerces artists to book exclusively in its clubs and using its ticketing, starving independent venues. Add 850 terrestrial radio stations to the mix and it will choke off all the oxygen that independent venues, promoters and ticketers rely on.
Liberty didn’t buy all these companies because it’s passionate about music and wanted to ensure artists got a fair shake. By rolling up the entire live music/radio supply-chain, it bought the power to extract vast sums from musicians, and to keep rivals out of the market.
Well, not all competitors. Lollapalooza co-founder Marc Geiger raised tens of millions for “Savelive,” a new would-be monopolist that offered to “rescue” live music venues in exchange for a 51% stake in them.
Savelive illustrates an important point about the nature of monopolies: they beget more monopolies. Consolidation in the labels meant that only the largest streaming companies could negotiate a sustainable rate.
But consolidation in radio drives consolidation in labels — and many of the indie radio stations that survived the first wave of consolidation were picked up cheap by Iheartradio once monopolistic streamers ate their lunch.
This is a pattern across the whole entertainment industry: bookstore mergers and big box retailers drove consolidation in publishing; that was accelerated by consolidation in online ebook and physical book retail.
It’s not limited to the entertainment sector either. As David Dayen describes in his essential book MONOPOLIZED, hospitals didn’t start consolidating until the pharma industry underwent a wave of brutal mergers and started gouging for drugs.
https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/29/fractal-bullshit/#dayenu
Hospital consolidation led to gouging insurers, leading to a wave of insurance consolidation. Today, nearly every part of the health industry is monopolized, from pharmacy benefit managers to medical labs.
The only parts of the supply chain that doesn’t monopolize — that can’t monopolize — are the ends of the chain: the people who work in the system, and the people who use it.
Monopoly punishes doctors and nurses and other health workers — and it punishes patients.
It punishes writers and publishing workers, and it punishes readers.
It punishes musicians and independent venue owners, and it punishes listeners.
When every part of the supply chain gets so monopolized that it can’t easily be squeezed by any other part of the supply chain, these giants turn on us — the workers and users of the system. We, the atomized and fragmented, cannot resist the squeeze.
But as Knox writes, the tide is turning. After 40 years of waving through anticompetitive mergers in the name of “efficiency,” the DoJ and FTC are under new management, with two-fisted trustbusters like Lina M Khan at the helm.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby
This new cohort of monopoly fighters reject the “consumer welfare” theory of antitrust (the idea that monopolies drive prices down and are therefore good for society), going to war against the hegemonic orthodoxy that began with Ronald Reagan.
https://doctorow.medium.com/epic-v-apple-d3e59893b4f3
The new antitrust is surging, with bills in the House and Senate, executive orders from the White House, regulatory proceedings at the DoJ and FTC, and an interagency-cabinet coordination committee that ties it all together.
This new antitrust promises workers and users of monopolized industries a better alternative than rooting for one giant to beat another in hopes that they will drop a few crumbs for the rest of us to enjoy.
Creative workers don’t have to choose between Big Tech and Big Content based on their assessment of which monopolist will abuse them the least. Instead, we can root for antimonopoly, for giant-slaying, and the right to self-determination.
The most important immediate step towards that future is blocking new anticompetitive mergers, like Sony’s bid for AWAL, or Liberty Media’s use of a $500m SPAC to go on a vertical monopoly shopping spree.
The agencies have the power to stop these. They should. When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
But ending anticompetitive mergers won’t get us out of that hole: most industries (from beer to cheerleader uniforms to wresting to eyeglasses) are already monopolized.
The new trustbusters — and the ILSR — want to use antitrust law to break up these conglomerates. I think that’s right: vertical monopolies will always engage in self-dealing to the detriment of independents, workers and customers. Break. Them. Up.
But breaking up is hard to do. When the DoJ tried to break up IBM, the company’s lawyers outspent the entire DoJ antitrust division, every single year, for twelve consecutive years, and in the end, it escaped breakup.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. IBM escaped justice because Reagan was elected and neutered antitrust. And even though it remained intact, it was never the same — for one thing, it decided that it was too risky to make its own PC OS.
IBM knew that antitrust enforcers were very suspicious of tying software to hardware — so it tapped a couple of hacker kids, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, to sell it DOS, from their new company “Micro-Soft.”
Unfortunately for all of us, antitrust enforcement only declined after that, so IBM was able to return to its monopolistic ways, and Microsoft escaped from antitrust scrutiny after a mere seven years in regulatory hell.
Antitrust enforcement can sap monopolists of the will to power, as they become increasingly concerned that their actions will attract aggressive legal reprisals.
Think of how Apple “lost” the Epic lawsuit but still “voluntarily” rescinded its heretofore hard rule against apps providing links to web-pages where you can use third-party payment processors to make purchases.
As monopolists lose their nerve, space opens up for all kinds of pro-worker, pro-user interventions, far beyond those afforded by traditional antitrust.
Next year, Beacon Press will publish THE SHAKEDOWN, a book I co-wrote with Rebecca Giblin about the monopolistic corruption of creative labor markets and how creative workers, regulators and fans can resist it.
The Shakedown catalogs the ways that monopolization of investment, distribution and sale of creative works allows entertainment companies, Big Tech, and major retailers to shift an ever-larger share of the creative industry’s revenues from workers to themselves.
More importantly, we identify tools beyond breakups that we can use to de-monopolize the industry — things we can do right now, without having to wait for the conclusion of an antitrust suit that might run for decades.
Take reversion rights: many copyright systems allow creators to take back their rights after a set period (35 years in the US). This lets artists who signed bad deals — before they were proven successes — to resell their catalog or extract reparations by threatening to.
But reversion is really hard to do, and 35 years is way too long. Only an handful of creators — even those with valuable catalogs that could be renewed through reversion — ever manage it.
https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/06/backsies/#take-backs
Congress (and other legislatures around the world, including Canada, where this is likely to come up in the new Parliament) could fix reversion: make it easier to do, and make it available after a shorter period — say, 14 years.
And what about those bad contracts? The “freedom to contract” has always been subject to limits, where some clauses are deemed unenforceable “as against public policy” or because they are “unconscionable.”
With the entertainment sector consolidated into just a couple of states, state legislatures could act to void the most abusive clauses — for example, clauses that allow labels to claw back royalties indefinitely to recoup (often inflated or fictitious) “expenses.”
Our book explores dozens of these kinds of ideas, from co-operatives to trade unions; better accounting practices and direct arts subsidies; radical interoperability and collective licensing; minimum wages for creative labor and collective bargaining.
None of these are replacement for reducing the size and power of conglomerates throughout the supply chain, but all of them are interventions we can make as the power and nerve of conglomerates declines, changes that will hasten that decline and open more space for breakups.
And all of them are applicable, to a greater or lesser extent, to helping workers and users of all the other consolidated industries, from health care to cheerleading.
For example, expanding California’s ban on noncompete clauses would help fast-food workers nationwide — because today, fast food employers are the most aggressive abusers of noncompetes.
That means that a fried chicken cashier earning the tipped minimum wage can’t quit to work at a burger joint across the street for a $0.25/hour raise. Creative workers aren’t the only ones suffering from monopolization — we’re not even the worst off.
But by definition, creative workers have a platform. We reach people. We have the potential to help form the kind of unstoppable coalition that we’ll need to reverse the generations of oligarchic, post-Reagan consolidation.
You may have heard about how Danish McDonald’s workers earn $22/hour and get six weeks’ paid vacation and sick leave. That didn’t come about because McDonald’s was required by law to pay it.
It was worker solidarity that did it. As Matt Bruenig writes, McDonald’s initially refused to sign the voluntary “hotel and restaurant” collective agreement. So its workers went on strike.
https://mattbruenig.com/2021/09/20/when-mcdonalds-came-to-denmark/
Now, if McD’s workers had struck alone, they’d probably have lost. But Danish law allows for sympathy strikes — that is, it allows workers in other parts of the supply chain to take industrial action to support their sisters and brothers who are striking.
When the McD’s workers walked out in 1989, sixteen other sectoral unions joined them. They didn’t just help picket at leaflet in front of McD’s restaurants!
Dockworkers wouldn’t unload McD’s shipments. Printers wouldn’t print their cups and placemats.
Builders downed tools on McDonald’s construction projects. Typesetters wouldn’t set the McD’s ads in the daily papers. Truckers wouldn’t deliver to McD’s restaurants. Food industry workers wouldn’t produce the drink syrups, fries and other inputs to the McDonald’s kitchens.
McD’s caved.
Now, as Bruenig points out, these kinds of sympathy strikes are illegal in the US, but it’s a mistake to think that workers don’t have power because sympathy strikes are illegal — rather, sympathy strikes are illegal because workers don’t have power.
Workers across all sectors face the same kinds of monopolistic exploitation. Workers across all sectors have a common enemy (literally, thanks to “common ownership” where companies like Vanguard and Berkshire Hathaway hold significant stakes in almost every major company).
With a shared cause, shared tactics, solidarity and a renewed sense that we can do more than root for the giant we think will mistreat us the least, creative workers and their sisters and brothers in every sector can reverse generations of losses.
That’s why the new antitrust matters — because it is an assault on the consolidation that gives all industries the power to shift money and other forms of value from workers and users to a small elite of investors.
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Rain in California - Act 1 - California
🥀Mini Series “Rain in California” Act 1 - Part 1 - California🥀
✨My Main Masterlist✨ | 18+ | AO3 | Wattpad
🥀Soundtrack🥀 | ✨Aestethic Trailer✨ | 🥀Masterlist🥀 | Words: 9.4k
A/N: The music used in this story is not owned by me (obviously) & I used it in the same style that 'Rock of ages' and 'Mamma Mia' used songs. I gave them a different meaning and context. The meaning and context are NOT representing the one that the ORIGINAL ARTIST had.
TW: ANGST, mention of loss/death/addiction/sobriety/murder, suicidal thoughts/tendencies, depression, addiction, substance abuse, drugs, alcohol, ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP, stalking, death by overdose, mentions of OD, passive aggressiveness, arguing,
Songs in this Chapter:
La di die – Nessa Berrett
Going to Hell | My Medicine | Heaven Knows – The Pretty Reckless
“Spence?”
Spencer looked up from his book.
Oh, so now he was allowed to talk with them about the case.
Since the briefing they hadn’t talked to him about anything. Spencer had to beg them, to let him work on this case.
He had really felt left out and why?
Because the stalking victim was a famous Rockstar with addiction issues. Spencer was hurt about his team not wanting him to be on the case because of this. Yes, he had struggled with addiction in the past, but he had been clean for over ten years now.
Was this unfair treatment…this distrust in his sobriety, ever going to stop?
It wasn’t like they had cared much about it when Emily had faked her death or when Maeve died, but this, for them, looked like a too high risk? Because there was a pretty girl involved?
He tried his best not to sound passive aggressive when responding.
“Yeah, JJ?”, with success.
“I asked if everything´s okay.”
“Sure. Why should anything be wrong?”, the blonde shrugged a little, an apologetic look on her face.
“Well the case-“
“It´s just a stalking case. Nothing we haven’t already seen. I actually wonder why we even need to come. The stalker isn’t aggressive and hasn´t hurt anybody. Right now he´s just importunate. The police should be able to catch this unsub themselves.”, he had accidently let a little of his passive aggressiveness slip and Emily, who was sitting next to JJ, looked at him.
“The record label convinced the police to contact us. They seem worried about their artist.”
“From what I know…this girl can take care of herself.”, Luke snickered, earning himself a ‘Come on, really?’-look from Emily. “Sorry, but have you seen or listened to her music? She could probably beat Reid in a fist fight.”
“Just because she´s making rock music, doesn’t mean she´s tough. But we should talk a little about the case, Reid if you ever feel unco-“, he quickly interrupted her with a snappy tone.
“Why, because she´s an addict? I don’t care about that.”, Emily lifted her hands in a calming manner.
“Okay, jeez. Just the way you´re on edge, since the briefing, doesn’t look like you are okay.”, Spencer took a deep breath, trying to talk calmer this time, now almost pleading in tone.
“I-I know. But I´m clean since was twenty-six. I never touched anything again and I don’t feel the need to. I even regulate my alcohol intake, never drinking more than a beer, maybe two glasses of whiskey. Which means, that statistically all of you are at a higher risk, of becoming addicted, during this case, then I am. You guys need to trust me.”, the dark haired woman sighed and nodded.
“You´re right. I´m- We´re just worried. You´re our friend, Spencer.”, she handed him a file. “Just promise me you talk to one of us, if something changes.”
He nodded opening the file. A picture of [y/n] looked at him. Dark heavy make-up, dark clothing and jet black hair with colorful streaks.
His younger self would´ve been as attracted as terrified of her.
He flipped through the pages. [y/n] [y/l/n]. Twenty-six years old. Stalker since approximately two years. Nothing extremely outstanding for a stalking case…which was kinda outstanding. No letters, no calls, no pictures, no break in, no threats…sometimes she would get random, expensive present delivered to her mansion, but that was it. Given that she was famous, this presents did not even have to be from a stalker.
“Are we sure there´s even is a stalker?”, Spencer frowned at his own question, Emily shrugged as a response.
“According to the manager, Philip Schuyler, since the first time she played his concerns down, he gets these calls of a man asking for [y/n] and how she is doing. The label didn’t take it serious after he told them, but then the unsub stole the last finished album from [y/n]´s band ‘Shot Monarch’, before it could get released and distributed, also erasing every digitally existing copy. He then called the manager and send the owner of the record label a letter; typed on a computer, no fingerprints; stating that he wanted to be taken serious. Later [y/n] got the USB, containing all her songs, with a dozen white lilies, her favorite, back per mail with an apology letter; stating that she had done nothing wrong and didn’t need to worry, since he could never harm her or her carrier. That´s when the label pushed the police to contact us.”
“Because they are worried about the music…not the woman.”, JJ sighed, shaking her head.
“Well, that´s the industry. At least her manager is worried. Police states that he got himself a gun license after that and tries to be everywhere [y/n] is.”, Luke added.
“Something about that is off.”, Spencer whispered, rubbing his stubbles, before looking at JJ, Emily and Luke again. “There is nothing that indicates a stalker, but every time somebody doubts his existence, he does something noticeable. I know she is famous and that comes with the stigma of having crazed fans as stalkers, but most stalking in general is committed by someone known to the victim, such as an ex-partner or acquaintance. We should check that out.”, JJ nodded.
“It would also be smart if one of us stays by her site.”, Luke quickly raised his hand.
“I volunteer. I- Like- Really! If necessary I´ll sleep in the SUV.”, Emily raised an eyebrow.
“Can it be that you´re a fan? I heard you and Penelope freak out a little over the case earlier.”, a shy smirk appeared on his lips.
“‘Shot Monarch’ has really good music. Since my road trip a year ago, I love their stuff. Penelope actually tol-”, Spencer interrupted him determined.
“I´ll do it.”, Emily quickly shook her head.
“Reid, no.”
“Why not?”, his voice got high, making him quickly cleared his throat.
“Because-“
“Because she is taking drugs. Do you trust me that little, Emily?”, Spencer snapped at her and she leaned back into her seat. Sure the others from the team were older than him, but he was in his late thirties, and yet was treated like a child.
“Fine. If you think you can handle it, do it. But stop being so sassy, I hate that.”, Emily looked at look in defeat. “Luke tell him what you know about [y/n] and the band.”, he nodded pulling out his phone.
“Okay so, [y/n] is the lead singer of ‘Shot Monarch’. She´s from a small town in Ohio and came to LA when she was eighteen, to become a singer after going viral. They are a band since five years, the name never really got explained by them, but it has something to do with the butterfly; at least that’s a fan theory I now from Penelope. Plus it makes sense, because [y/n] has a tattoo of one on the back of her hand.”, Luke flipped through some pictures of older man, reminding Spencer of bikers and insurance agents at the same time. Like middle-aged fathers that liked rock but still had a nine-to-five job.
“Hank, the guitarist, was a lawyer before and in a cover band with his high school friends Tom, the bassist, who worked for an insurance company, and Leroy, the drummer, who was history teacher and is also married to Hank. They met [y/n] at an open mic night and even though she´s twenty-six and they are in their late forties, early fifties, they got along so well, that they became a band. That´s ‘Going to Hell’ by the way. One of the more controversial songs.”, Luke pressed play on the video and already moved the lips to the lyrics.
“Father did you miss me,
Been locked up a while.
I got caught for what I did but took it all in style.
Laid to rest all my confessions I gave way back when.
Now I'm versed in so much worse,
So I am back again, and he said
For the lives that I take, I'm going to hell!
For the love that I make, I'm going to hell!
Gettin' heavy with the devil, you can hear the wedding bells.”
“The guitar you´re hearing is a classic Hank. That guy knows what he´s doing.”, Luke added, seemingly in his element, reminding Spencer a lot of Garcia when she was excited.
Spencer nodded and watched the music video, the overall theme was dark and heavy. [y/n] voice was nice, a little smoky and strong, but everything just sounded so angry. Not really his style, although he preferred older, classical music in general over the ‘normal’ things ‘normal’ people liked. [y/n] wore tightfitting latex, while the men from her band mostly just wore black jeans and shirts, sometimes leather jackets. At one time, she was surrounded by snakes, only wearing white lingerie. She was really pretty, red lipstick making her look like a biting version of Snow White. Like a princess that would rather save herself, becoming the villain along the way, before letting someone else save her.
“Father did you miss me,
Don't ask me where I've been.
You know I know, yes, I've been told I redefine a sin.
I don't know what's driving me to put this in my head.
Maybe I wish I could die, maybe I am dead!
And he said
For the lives that I fake, I'm going to hell!
For the vows that I break, I'm going to hell!
For the ways that I hurt, when I'm hiking up my skirt.
I am sitting on a throne while they're buried in the dirt.
For the man that I hate, I'm going to hell!
Gettin' heavy with the devil, you can hear the wedding bells.”
The lyrics and symbolistic in the video mocked parts of the Christian belief system. Such as the bite Eve had taken from the apple, showing [y/n] taking a bite from the forbitten fruit. The last supper and the crucifixion were shown with a dark twist too. This could be a hint of rebellion, to cope with religious trauma, or simply be a way to cause controversy.
“Please forgive me father,
I didn't mean to bother you.
The devil's in me father.
He's inside of everything I do.
For the lives that I take, I'm going to hell!
For the laws that I break, I'm going to hell!
For the love that I hate, I'm going to hell!
For the lies that I make, I'm going to hell!
For the way I condescend and never lend a hand.
My arrogance is making this head buried in the sand.
For the souls I forsake, I'm going to hell!
Gettin' married to the devil, you can hear the wedding bells.”
As the video ended Luke took his phone and put it back into his pocket.
“Their earlier stuff had a little more emotion to it, was about heartbreak, suffering and made you feel. This is one of the more recent ones and you can hear that it´s now mostly just stuff like sex, drugs and anger. Most people think that´s because [y/n] writes all of their music and she´s…seen better days…”, Luke sighed, trying to make it sound as polite as possible.
“Because she started taking drugs?”, Spencer raised his eyebrows, but Luke shook his head.
“Oh, no. She, according to many rumors and an interview with her father, has taken drugs since she was a teen. But at this point…she just simply seems to have given up, having chosen to not go deeper with her songs anymore. I mean, they still slap. They just don’t slap your heart anymore, you know?”
“Not so nice, when your father talks to the press about your addiction. Could her father be a suspect?”, JJ asked, making Luke shrug and shake his head at the same time.
“Most likely not. He said in that interview that he wishes her the best, but doesn’t want to speak to her again.”, Emily mouthed a silent ‘ouch’, the whole talk about the rockstars private life making Spencer think.
“Maybe that´s part why she´s taking drugs? Often people use them to cope with-“, Emily interrupted him, profiling [y/n] and her substance abuse, quickly.
“Reid. We´re not going there to fix her, just the stalking situation.”, he nodded, knowing that he had a savior complex, always trying to help and save everybody.
“Exes?”, Spencer asked and Luke shook his head.
“Just one is known, Dean Lennox, singer, now married with kids. He and [y/n] were together for two years and according to him it was toxic. Like, always fighting, jealousy, distrust, fear of being left but she still didn’t want him close at the same time, lying. After their last breakup, he told a gossip magazine, he just couldn’t watch her destroy herself anymore. She never commented on it.”, JJ looked at Spencer worried.
“She seems like a handful, are you sure you can handle her alone?”, he chuckled while nodding.
“I´ve been through worse. How hard can it be to watch a twenty-six year old? When she, like Luke said, really doesn’t want anyone close, I´ll just sit on her couch and let her do her thing.”
*****
After landing in Los Angeles and checking into their hotel, the team drove to police station. There already waited a massage for them with an address. It was from the manager, he wrote that he was terribly sorry, but they needed to come to the recording studio, since the band was on a tight schedule all morning. Luke had tried his best, but Spencer could see his excitement through his tough-guy-façade. He, JJ, Luke and Emily took one of the SUV´s and drove to the address.
The building they entered was large and with great security. Expensive, white marble flooring in the entire entrance hall. They showed their batches to the lady at the front desk and the security, she called somebody and soon a short, pudgy man, dressed in a designer suit walked out of the elevator and up to them. He smiled at them friendly and shook everyone’s hand.
“Ah, the agents. I am so glad that you´re here. Hi. Hello. I´m Philip Schuyler, the manager of ‘Shot Monarch’.”, Emily shook his hand and pointed at the team.
“Nice to meet you. I´m unit chief SSA Prentiss, those are SSA Jareau, Alvez and that´s Dr. Spencer Reid. He will take on the job as bodyguard for Miss [y/l/n].”, the man scratched his brown hair, avoiding the bald spot on top.
“Yes, uhm, please just call her [y/n]. She really dislikes being called Miss [y/l/n]. We also already have police and security around her house, so I don’t know how important a personal bodyguard is. I really want this case solved and it would be terrible if we would hinder your work.”, Spencer lifted a finger.
“Actually, it would be better if I´m able to stay close to [y/n]. Normal police and security could probably oversee minor details about the stalker, Mr. Schuyler.”, the man waved off.
“Please, Mr. Schuyler was my father. Philip is completely fine. Everybody calls me that.”, he started walking to the elevator and the agents followed him. “Right now the band´s having a little break. After that, we need to record one more song for the ‘live in the studio’-version of their new album, that just came out. Are you familiar with their music?”, they got into the elevator and Luke already nodded.
“Yeah. Really great. Big fan.”, Emily lifted her hand, silencing Luke.
“I´m sorry. If that´s a problem we can-“, Philip laughed, interrupting her.
“Oh, no, no. [y/n] will love that. She likes meeting fans and showing off her music.”
They got out of the elevator, walked through the little hallway and entered the large double door in front of them. There was the recording studio. A lot of technical things, Spencer didn’t know much of, and a large glass wall in front of it, showing another room.
The recording room was large, with a black leather couch and beanbags in it and nice, warm, wooden flooring. A drum set was placed on an vintage looking, red carpet and the overall lighting was warm and inviting as well. The door to the room was open and he could hear the three men, from the band, talking and laughing inside.
“Guys, can you come out for a bit?”, Philip asked them and they looked up, walking up to them. “Okay, uhm, guys, those are the agents from the FBI. You know? The once coming because of [y/n]´s stalker.”, the largest man, a head taller than Spencer, smiled through his long grey beard that contrasted his bald head.
“Nice to meet you then, I´m Hank. That my husband Leroy,”, they shook hands with the dark skinned, skinny man, who in contrast to his husband was cleanshaven, with short black hair and glasses, “and that´s our friend Tom.”, the chubby, white, blond waved at them friendly.
“Why would like to talk with each of you individually, later at the police station, if that is possible.”, Emily said before introducing her team again, also mentioning Spencer´s duty as bodyguard. Leroy grimaced his face.
“Uh, [y/n] will hate that. The girl does not like being babysat.”
“I´m not going to babysit her.”, Spencer answered, making Leroy chuckle.
“That´s not how she will see it though.”, Hank sighed and put a hand on Spencer´s shoulder.
“Our girl is going through a lot right now. So it would be nice of you, to not take everything she´s saying personally, okay?”
“Personally?”
Spencer raised his eyebrows. He desperately hoped [y/n] wouldn’t be a bitch the entire time, since he couldn’t promise to not give her a piece of his mind, if so.
“[y/n]´s a little belligerent…Easy to get triggered and then she blows up like a bomb.”, Tom said and JJ cocked her head.
“Is the stalking getting at her?”, Leroy shook his head.
“Not really. But her mother died a few months ago and since then…little rough patch. She´ll get better. We all hit rock bottom once.”
“Is she going to therapy?”, Emily asked straight forward, making Tom, the chubby one chuckle.
“Not since she hit the last therapist a few years ago. We paid his medical expenses and he was nice enough to not sue her. But we are here to help her, once she´s ready to let us.”
“Must be exhausting, for you.”, JJ said empathetic and all the men waved off.
“Because of the drugs? No, it´s not that bad. She´ll collect herself. I have seven kids. Four of them are going through puberty right now. Phil has a toddler and Leroy and Hank have three rescue dogs and a couple of snakes. We can handle her.”, Tom laughed and the rest of the men started too.
“And that little stalker…Imma just say, I´m gonna rip him a new one, should I ever get the chance of meeting him. Counts for all of us.”, Hank added with everyone nodding in agreement.
“[y/n]´s a really nice girl and she´s been through a lot. If you´re nice to her, chances are high she´ll warm up to you and you won´t have any problems.”, Tom said to Spencer making him nod.
“And if she doesn’t?”, the tall doctor didn’t get an answer and just witnessed the rockers share a look.
Nice girl. Drug issues not so bad. Be nice and maybe she´s nice to you. For Spencer all of that sounded like he would have to walk around on eggshells, while she would blast through walls like a wrecking ball. The manager, Philip, checked his watch and looked around.
“So, where´s [y/n]? One more song and we´re done. Would be great not to hold up the investigation for too long.”
“She went to the toilet thirty minutes ago. We just ate our sandwiches. She said she wasn’t hungry.”, Leroy answered and at the same moment [y/n] walked in.
Spencer looked at her and for a moment forgot how to breathe. Short, high waisted, leather skirt, low cut, tank top and biker boots, all black, rounded off with fishnet stockings. [y/n] looked like she had climbed out of a teenagers wet dream. The perfect, little goth-girlfriend. She stretched a little and Philip looked at her.
“Bonjour, Philly.”, she said with a sassy undertone, while walking up to him and leaning on his shoulder. He was the same high as her, which wasn’t really tall, about 5,4, if Spencer had to guess.
“Hey, where were you?”, the pudgy man asked her.
“Took a nap in my car.”, she booped his nose and gave him a sheepish little smile. Spencer knew she was high. In fact the whole room knew it.
“You drove here?”, Tom asked shocked and [y/n] grinned sarcastically.
“I guess so, else somebody explain to me why my car´s here.”, Phillip patted her shoulder, looking worried as she took four pills out of an orange pillbox from her bag. He gave her a glass of water and she swallowed them. The men from her band looked at her concerned, making her give them a pearly white smile.
“Headache.”, she explained and they only nodded. Spencer couldn’t help but think, that she wasn’t having a headache and even if she had, it was probably a withdrawal symptom.
“You know that I don’t want you to drive when you´re…”, her manager looked at the agents and stopped talking, making her look at them as well.
“What? Why´d you stop talking? That the fun police?”, she started giggling at her own joke, making the band chuckle, since she clearly didn’t know how accurate she was with her joke.
“That´s the FBI, Princess.”, Hank told her and she made a fake shocked face and then laughed again.
“Officer- No wait, agents, right? I swear I did nothing wrong. Weed´s legal in Cali.”
The team shared some looks and Spencer couldn’t help but roll his eyes. [y/n] was not just on weed. Most definitely not just on weed.
“They are here because of your stalker.”, Philip explained and she shrugged almost disappointed.
“Oh, that guy. Well, then hello. Nice to meet you. I´m [y/n].”
She shook hands with JJ and Emily as they introduced themselves. Luke couldn’t help but breathe in sharply, as he shook her hand and almost choked on his own spit as an aftereffect. She started patting his back with wide opened eyes.
“Shit, you okay? Asthma?”, [y/n] reached into her black, designer handbag and gave him a bottle with clear liquid. Luke took a sip, quickly grimaced his face and began coughing harder.
“Vodka.”, he stated through his coughing. [y/n] quickly took the bottle from him and took a sip too, without flinching. She then started cracking up at her mistake.
“Whoops. Mixed up the bottles, the other´s probably in my car. Philly, can you bring him…?”, Philip nodded and gave Luke a fresh water bottle from the mini fridge.
Wow. Vodka hidden in a water bottle. Spencer licked his lips, taking in the view of her bandmates looking at each other. ‘Not that bad’ looked different. ‘Not that bad’ would not have her sleeping in her car, midday, with a bottle of ‘water’ and coming back high as a kite. Luke, by now, had stopped coughing and [y/n] stepped away from him again.
“You good?”, she asked him, watching him wipe away his tears.
“Y-Yeah. Sorry.”, the black haired girl waved him off.
“Nah, don’t worry. I had asthma till I was twelve.”, he shook his head.
“I- I- No asthma. Just a really big fan.”, she started laughing again and although the light was dimmed, Reid could clearly see Luke´s cheeks turning red.
“Oh, that´s cute. But ‘Take My Breath Away’ is by Berlin.”, that sentence actually made the whole room laugh except for Spencer, who didn’t understand the reference. “What´s your name?”
“Luke Alvez.”, she shook his hand again, this time he didn’t almost choke.
“Well, nice to meet you, Luke. What´s your favorite song of ours?”
“25, no doubt. Really amazing. Like a James Bond song.”, the bandmates chuckled.
“We said that too.”, Leroy snickered, patting Luke´s shoulder and [y/n] nodded.
“It´s also my favorite. Excited to hear one of the new songs?”, Luke nodded excited and she turned her head to Spencer. “We both don’t know each other yet. Hi, I´m [y/n] and you are?”
She sounded quite collected. Clearly high, but able to think straight if necessary. [y/n] must´ve been doing this for a while now, seeming to have figured out, how much she could handle while working. Spencer had been at that point too once. You wanted to do your work and be good at it, but needed to be high, to make it through the day. So you just tried over a period of time, bit by bit, how much you were able to take before doing a shitty job. ‘Not that bad’ didn’t make you figuring out a system to be high all the time.
“Dr. Spencer Reid.”, he shook her hand.
“Dr. Reid will be your bodyguard, [y/n].”, Philip explained and quickly earned an angry look, as she let go of Spencer´s hand instantly.
“What? I don’t need a bodyguard, we talked about this.”, she hissed at her manager, but then started laughing after looking Spencer up and down. “And then that guy?”, Philip nodded as she rolled her eyes at him. ‘Do not take it personally’, Spencer told himself.
“I am more than capable of protecting you.”, he stated as friendly as possible, making her giggle.
“From what? A difficult math question?”
[y/n] mocking tone started to piss him off, but as Spencer felt Emily´s look on him, he played it cool. After all, he had to proof himself able to handle her.
“Your stalker.”, he corrected her and she licked her lips, pulling out a pack of cigarettes, looking at Luke.
“Since you don’t have asthma, would you mind if I…?”, Luke shook his head and she smiled. “Nice.”, she looked back at Spencer, at his gun. “Philip has a gun too.”
“But Philip isn’t an FBI agent.”, Hank told her, making her shake her head in protest, like a little child.
“That´s ridiculous. And all of that just because a stranger sends me stuff, people send me stuff all the time.”
“You should be more worried about this guy.”, Leroy said and Tom nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, what if he´s dangerous?”
“What´s the worst that could happen, like honestly, Doctor?”, she cocked her head at Spencer, looking up at him with an almost flirty smile.
“He could kill you.”, he gave back objectively, making the rockers obviously worried.
“Geez. You make that sound like it´s a bad thing.”, she snickered and looked over to Luke. “Luke, wanna hear some music?”, he nodded.
“It would be an honor.”, his sentence made her giggle as she walked past him.
“You´re really cute.”
[y/n] walked into the recording room, Tom, Leroy and Hank following her. She put on her headphones and lit a cigarette, putting the package on the little table next to her mic. Philip closed the door and started pushing some buttons on the sound mixer in front of him. JJ whistled impressed.
“You do the technical stuff too?”, he nodded, chuckling.
“Since the stalking started, I try having as little people near [y/n] as possible. Thought it might just be a little crush from a weirdo and when he doesn’t get to see her, he gets over it.”
“We need a list of the people that worked here though.”, Emily told him and he nodded.
“Of course.”, then he pushed a button and started talking into his microphone. “You guys, ready? Last song. ‘My Medicine’, then we can go home.”
They all approved of his words and started to playing. [y/n] relighting her cigarette and clearing her throat. Spencer couldn’t tell if that was her simply not caring or doing it for the feeling of the song. However, it seemed to fit the style.
“Somebody mixed my medicine
Somebody mixed my medicine”
“I love this already.”, Luke whispered and JJ chuckled.
“You haven’t even heard anything yet.”, she snickered.
“Doesn’t matter, the feeling is there.”, he lifted his arms, showing her his goosebumps.
“Well you hurt where you sleep and you sleep where you lie
Now you're in deep and now you're gonna cry
Got a woman to your left
And a boy to your right
You start to sweat so
Hold me tight 'cause
Somebody mixed my medicine
I don't know what I'm on
Somebody mixed my medicine
Now baby it’s all gone
Somebody mixed my medicine
And somebody's in my head again
And somebody mixed my medicine again, again”
Spencer watched [y/n] starting to move to the rhythm, swaying her hips and tapping her left foot to the beat, then looked to Philip pressing some buttons.
“She´s gonna be happy with that one.”, he whispered almost to himself and the next time Spencer looked at the band again, it almost felt like she was attentionally singing in his direction.
“Well I drink what you leak and I smoke what you sigh
See you cross the room with that look in your eye
Got a man to his left and a girl to his right
You start to sweat so
Hold me tight 'cause
Somebody mixed my medicine
I don't know what I'm on
Somebody mixed my medicine
Now baby it’s all gone
Somebody mixed my medicine
Somebody's in my head again
And somebody mixed my medicine again, again”
She started moving her head in a way that made her long black hair fall in her face, framing her features almost delicately. While Spencer starred and earned some grins from [y/n], he could hear Luke whisper with Emily, who actually seemed to like the music too.
“There's a tiger in the room and a baby in the closet”
The room laughed and Spencer looked confused, having JJ tell him, that it was a movie reference. Sometime he felt like an alien, having such simple references fly over his head. Star Trek or Book references would´ve been easier for him…although he still didn’t know what that ‘Twilight’ book was Penelope and JJ talked about a couple of times. Or that other book all the women had talked about in their break….what was it called, ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’? They had told him it was a romance novel, so he just assumed it was like ‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austen.
“Pour another drink mom I don't even want it
Then I turn around and think I see someone that looks like you”
Philip pressed some buttons again, [y/n] now harmonizing with herself.
“Well you hurt where you sleep and you sleep where you lie
Now you're in deep and now you're gonna cry
Got a woman to your left
And a boy to your right
You start to sweat so
Hold me tight 'cause
Somebody mixed my medicine
I don't know what I'm on
Somebody mixed my medicine
Now baby it’s all gone
Somebody mixed my medicine
Somebody's in my head again again
And somebody mixed my medicine
Again, again, again
Again, again, again
Again, again, again”
The music started to slow down again, just like [y/n] movements, making Luke whisper words in awe.
“Somebody mixed my medicine
Somebody mixed my medicine
Somebody mixed my medicine”
Philip and the team applauded as [y/n] took her headphones off and the men put their instruments away.
“I´m happy with that.”, she said looking at Philip. “You, Philly?”
“Sounded great to me.”, he gave back, happy to answer.
“What about my new favorite fan. Luke?”, Luke quickly pushed Spencer aside to get to the microphone.
“Loved every second of it! Like- Amazing! Really!”, she giggled, throwing her head back and came through the door.
“What about my new guard dog?”, Spencer pointed at himself, not knowing if she was talking about him. “Of course you. So, what do you think, Doctor?”
“I- I don’t really know.”, she raised her eyebrows at his answer.
“Okay? Was it the drugs or just the music in general?”, he felt himself go pale. “Ah, okay. You´re prude, get it. I mean you already have that whole tutor-thing about you, so…Bach or Chopin?”
“Pardon?”
“Which one? Or is it Mozart, or the deaf bitch, Beethoven?”, she grinned snarky.
[y/n] had a mocking tone in her voice, making Spencer feel embarrassed and like he was in school again, when the other kids in high school were making fun of him for not being cool enough. But he was too old to be bullied by a little junkie, who thought she was better than him.
“I´m surprised somebody like you would even know them.”, her smile vanished.
“Little bitch.”, she snapped at him, stepping closer as he cocked his eyebrows at her. Philip quickly walked between the two of them and smiled.
“So, what are we doing next? The albums done. Taken care of. [y/n] have you eaten something today? You wanna go out for dinner?”
“No, I haven’t and no, I don’t want to, when THAT is around.”, with ‘that’ she clearly meant Spencer.
“Now don’t be grumpy, Princess. You started it.”, Hank told her and she started to pout, shoulders relaxing.
“Wasn’t worth my time anyways.”, she murmured and Spencer felt himself getting proud. This was the first person, trying to bully him, he had stand a chance against.
“So, we´re gonna need you at the police station, if that´s okay?”, Emily asked Leroy, Hank and Tom, who nodded. “And Spencer, you should take [y/n] home and check out her house.”
“Mansion.”, [y/n] corrected Emily. “I have a mansion. Worked too hard to have it being called a house.”, Emily only nodded, not letting herself get bothered by her words. Philip nodded, completely ignoring his clients snappiness too.
“I follow you in my car.”, he told Spencer. “[y/n] give Dr. Reid your keys, please.”, she shook her head indignant.
“No. That guy is not driving my car. I´ll drive.”, the whole band now started saying no.
“[y/n], you´re not driving.”, Tom ordered and Leroy nodded.
“You´ll get an DUI so quick, it´s not even funny.”, Spencer lifted his hand, waiting for the key.
“Oh, come on.”, she groaned, looking at her bandmates like her childish behavior would change their mind.
A nice sound. An annoying person, not getting what they want. Almost as beautiful as her [y/e/c] eyes, that actually were rather bloodshot, when Spencer thought about it.
“Should the police pull you over and see that you´re high, they´ll look through your car and I don’t think you want be taking in custody for drug possession, right?”, she handed him her keys and Spencer couldn’t help it and whispered “Thank you”, in the most mocking tone he was able to.
“Fucking cunt.”, she whispered back at him and he just chuckled.
“I´ve been called worse. So your little words don’t hurt me…sorry.”, she then grinned.
“Things like Spencer?”, [y/n] asked him, spitting his name like poison.
Spencer took a deep breath and watched her go out the door, telling himself to not answer her.
“Hey, kid.”, Spencer looked at Hank and he just lifted his thumb.
“You held yourself better than we thought you would.”, Leroy added, Emily looking at Spencer concerned.
“You sure you can handle her?”
He nodded, walking out the door and to the elevator which doors [y/n] was holding open for him.
“Hurry up, bitch boy! I wanna go home.”
*****
Of course the rich, spoiled brat drove an imported sportscar. When Spencer got in, he firstly had to push back the seat, not having enough room for his legs and then tried getting [y/n] to tell him where she lived.
“Try google, smart ass.”, was her answer and he sighed.
[y/n] then rolled down her window and grabbed a joint from her glove compartment. Spencer quickly leaned over and snatched it from her hand, making her whine as she tried getting it back.
“You´re such a bitch. Give me-“, he interrupted her whining.
“No. First tell me you´re address.”, she sat back into her seat.
“Fine. I´ll lead you there.”, [y/n] said, making grabbing motions with her hand and he handed her the joint back. She lit it and smoked out of the window.
Spencer knew he should have questioned why she gave up and let him win so easily. After ten minutes they weren’t at her mansion, they were at a McDonald´s.
“You´re fucking kidding me, right?”, he snapped at her and she began to giggle.
“You´re kina hot when you´re angry.”, her flirty grin and the way she bit her lip made him furious, because it was hot.
“What is wrong with you?”, Spencer almost yelled and she leaned back and pointed somewhere.
“I´m hungry. Drive-Through. Over there.”
“No.”
“Come on. Don’t be a bitch, dog.”, she snickered, resting her feet on the dashboard.
He looked at her, for a second thinking about simply getting out of the car and leaving, before he could hurt her. Maybe she was really too much for him to handle, the drugs were manageable, but it was her personality that drove him mad, yet he wasn’t someone to give up easily. Cars started to honk behind them.
“You´re holding up the traffic. I just wanted something to eat.”, [y/n] said, now almost annoyed because she wasn’t getting what she wanted. Spencer took a deep breath.
“Okay.”, she looked at him confused.
“Okay?”, he nodded, pulling into the Drive-Through. He was above this. ‘Give her what she wants, so she´s at least quiet.’
“You win.”
She started clapping and hugged him, smelling like marijuana and something he couldn’t quite make out. When they came up to the microphone box, [y/n] crawled over Spencer´s lap, forcing him to look and think respectfully. She ordering a bunch of stuff and then looked at him.
“What do you want? I only have booze at home, so…”, he looked at her a little startled. Was she trying to be nice to him?
“You wanna buy me something?”, she nodded like this behavior was normal to her.
“Sure.”
“Surprise me. I never eat fast food, I don’t know what´s good.”
She nodded and then told the voice from the box to double her order. Sitting back into her seat, [y/n] took out a hundred dollar bill from her purse, handing it to Spencer. When they pulled up by the window, taking their things, the woman in the window nearly lost it when she saw the rockstar, starting to cry. [y/n] was really nice to her and asked her if she wanted to take a photo in the parking lot. Of course the woman said yes and after paying, where [y/n] had left almost fifty bucks as a tip, Spencer had to park and wait till they had made the photo and given an autograph.
“Okay, now drive before it goes viral. I wanna eat that stuff before it gets cold.”, she told him, taking a sip of one of the milkshakes.
“That was nice.”, she shrugged and then told him her address, telling him she´d scream when they reached it.
*****
Lo and behold, no twenty minutes later they parked in front of [y/n] mansion, next to another, more run down car, belonging to Philip. The mansion would´ve made Rossi´s mansion cry. At least twice as big and the property was enormous. In contrast to [y/n], it was very light and minimalistic from the outside and the inside.
“Most rooms are empty. Too big.”, she explained walking straight into the open living area, that had a large terrace with pool and a view over the Hollywood hills. She put the paper bags filled with food on the large kitchen island and sat on a barstool.
“You could sell it and buy a smaller one.”, [y/n] shrugged and took out a burger, starting to eat it.
“Philip says I´m gonna grow into it.”, she answered, mocking the tone of voice her manager had probably had.
Spencer watched her type something on her phone and a minute later Philip came into the room.
“Hey, where were you? I got worried.”, he asked them and [y/n] handed him a salad.
“It´s the one you always have.”, he smiled at her.
“Thank you. You´re so nice.”, she shrugged at his words, not really caring.
“Yours is in here too, dog.”, she now told spencer.
Ah, yes. She was being bitchy again. Spencer had only waited for it to happen. He said nothing, but walked up to the white kitchen isle and took the bag she pointed at.
“Milkshake, burger, fries. Fast food essentials.”, she stated, finishing her small cheeseburger and getting up to her fridge, taking out a beer. She held it to Spencer who declined and then to Philip who did the same. “Lame asses.”, she chuckled, opening it and standing at the counter, watching Spencer eat. “So you´re here for…?”
“Technically it would be the easiest for all of us, if I just stayed.”, she raised her brows.
“Staying like, in my house staying?”, he nodded and she shook her head. “No chance. I enjoy my solitude.”
“[y/n]. If it´s easier for the agent and better for you…”, she sighed, opening a drawer and taking out some pills, swallowing them with her beer. “Fucking hell. But don´t expect me to be considerate of you.”, the rockstar told him.
“Should you consume them with alcohol?”, Spencer asked, taking a bite of his burger and she shrugged.
“I´m going to sleep…you guys…do what you want, I don’t care…”
“Do you need me to do your laundry?”, Philip asked and [y/n] shrugged again, it seemed to be her favorite motion. As she walked down the hallways and Phillip yelled after her. “Don’t forget that you have a gig tonight, [y/n]!”
“THAT`S WHY I`M GOING TO SLEEP NOW, DUMB ASS! WAKE ME UP WHEN WE NEED TO GO!”, she yelled back, followed by the smashing of a door.
“She´s a nice girl.”, Philip said in the middle of the silence, as Spencer took place on one of the barstools.
“Like a car crash.”, the man in his fifties chuckled.
“I know she´s difficult, but in here she´s good.”, he pointed at his heart. “She has suffered a lot of losses in her life.”
“Then, just as a random thought, you should get into therapy before she OD´s.”, Spencer answered sassy.
“I know what you mean. But as long as she doesn’t want help or overdoes it…she has a system.”, Spencer let his head fall back and groaned.
“You know about that fucking thing?”
“You too?”, Philip asked back in surprise.
“Profiler. Took me no longer than the nap in her car, to figure that out.”
Yes, a small lie from Spencer, but it sounded better then: Oh yes, I was addicted to dilaudid once. I had a system too!
“Tell me, how does that train wreck of a system work?”, Philip leaned back from his salad.
“Well, she takes her painkillers in the morning and smokes some cannabis to get out of bed. When we´re touring or she has to be at shootings, interviews or anything else that needs her to focus, she only smokes and takes the pills all day, alcohol in water bottles is a new one though.”, Spencer sighed and thought if he even wanted to know more.
“And when she´s alone or not busy?”
“Then she does the harder stuff.”
“Harder stuff like cocaine, LSD…?”, Philip nodded.
“Nothing with needles though…she´s scared of them.”
“She will not always be, if she continues like that.”
“I know. That´s why I do my best to keep her busy. She even has her own recording studio here, knows how to handle everything herself. I thought it might make her spend more time making music than getting high. I also go out with her a lot, to a point where my wife starts to get jealous.”, he laughed bittersweetly. “Have you ever been to Disney World, agent?”, Spencer shook his head. “I take [y/n] there once a week, because she likes it there. I spend more time with her there then with my own daughter.”, [y/n] was famous, no chance people wouldn’t notice her.
“Does she even get to do anything there?”
“Not often. She mostly meets her fans there, but she loves that a lot. She is really sweet to them too, they mean everything to her.”
That was the first time Philip had said something that was true about [y/n]. She had, not once been mean to a fan. The complete opposite actually. She had been nice and thoughtful, going out of her way to make the woman at the Drive-Through happy and was nice to Luke.
“I know she was a little mean to you today, but she also bought us food, seeing it as a matter of course. There are two sides to every person, like a coin.”, Like a coin, just that [y/n] sides flipped as quickly like one too. Philip sighed and got up from his barstool. “I´ll show you around a little, if you want to.”
Spencer nodded, getting up, following the short man around the house.
*****
[y/n] had been right.
It was way too big and many of the rooms were empty. When Spencer asked Philip about the necessity of such a big mansion, he told him, that he had hoped to motivate [y/n] to have a family one day. But now the only rooms in use were her bedroom, one of the five guest bedrooms, which Spencer got to stay in, the open living area with kitchen and living room, the recording studio and a little library. The latter made Spencer a little jealous. In the middle of the room even stood a white piano with notes on it. [y/n] also had a lot of books, all dusty, because she never read anymore. He would´ve killed to have his own library…she probably didn’t even value what she had.
When they returned into the living area, Philip gave Spencer some spare keys, beginning to clean up a little and putting the food in the fridge. [y/n] didn’t lie, when she said, she only had alcohol at home. JJ came over and brought Spencer his go bag, asking him how it was going. Of course he said he was doing great, but couldn’t help but rant to her about [y/n]´s behavior.
“Well, she is an addict, Spence. You know how erratic some drugs can make you.”, he nodded.
“Yeah, but she really tries pushing me and then, one second to the other, she´s nice and polite. Have you talked to her bandmates?”, JJ laughed.
“Way too long. We had interviews with them and then Luke just couldn’t stop talking to them, he has also taken about a million pictures with them and facetimed Penelope so she could meet them too.”, Spencer chuckled.
“Sounds like they had a good time. Anything else happened? Found out something?”
“[y/n]´s mother was an addict and left the family when she was younger. When she found out her daughter was famous, she got back in touch with her, to borrow money. [y/n] didn’t care and even got her to live with her, in one of the guest bedrooms. She overdosed a few months ago, since then [y/n]´s addiction got worse.”, Spencer´s eyes got wide.
“She didn’t die in the guest bedroom though, right?”
Just as JJ wanted to answer, [y/n] walked in. Philip walking behind her with a duffle bag.
“She died in the bathroom and she didn’t overdose perse, she drowned after falling unconscious in the bathtub, while being high.”, she answered cold, seeming to have overheard their conversation. [y/n] grabbed a beer from the fridge and continued calmly while taking some colorful pills. “I found her. The bathroom that it happened in is always locked. Don´t worry.”, Philip fidgeted a little with his hands, looking for his keys.
“Uh-Uhm. Agents? We need to go. The concert…”
“You coming too?”, [y/n] asked, looking at JJ and she shrugged. “We could also invite the cute one…Luke. It´s about 20.000 people so two more won´t hurt…right Philly?”, Phillip nodded.
“You´re all invited. SSA Prentiss as well.”, he said and JJ smiled at them.
“Thank you. That´s very nice, but I´ll have to talk to them first.”, [y/n] shrugged at that and drank her beer.
“You have my number, just call when you know. We start half past eight.”, Philip then took the empty beer bottle from [y/n] and threw it away. “Show time.”
*****
Half an hour into the concert Luke had shown up, completely hyped.
“What did I miss? We had some ex-staff members to talk to. Did they already play ‘Going to Hell’?”, Spencer nodded. “Argh, dammit. Doesn’t matter, that song´s amazing too.”
During the whole concert Spencer watched [y/n]. The music wasn’t that bad, a little harsh, but it was mix of hard and alternative rock after all. At least that´s what Penelope said, when Luke started facetiming her. After the last costume change, Spencer pulled [y/n] aside. He asked her to not be so ‘touchy’ with her fans. Since she would kneel down and hold their hands. He tried telling her about the risks of having the unsub in the audience, but she only laughed.
“I´ll be as touchy as I want, bitch.”, he started to frown.
“At least don’t stagedive. Luke says you always do that and the risk of the unsub use-“, she interrupted him, wanting to go on stage.
“Fuck off, dog.”, he held her arm, trying to reason with her.
“Can you ple-“, she tried pulling away, like an angry child.
“No.”
“Stop being so fuck-“, [y/n] interrupted him again.
“Stop trying to fucking babysit me.”
“I just want to hel-“, she ripped her arm away.
“Yeah, fuck you too.”, the rockstar answered, not letting him finish and walked back on stage.
Philip walked up to Spencer, having seem the ordeal of him trying to talk to [y/n] and him now driving the heel of his palm into his eyes. This girl gave him migraines.
“What happened?”, Philip asked and Luke answered for Spencer.
“He told her not to stagedive.”, Philip laughed a little and shook his head.
“Oh yeah. Never tell her what to do. She hates that and then does it out of spite.”
“You don’t say?”, Spencer answered sarcastically.
On stage [y/n] took her microphone, saying something to her bandmates and then smiling sweetly, while talking to her fans.
“This next song is for my lovely new babysitter, who thinks he can tell me what to do.”, the crowd started booing and she laughed. “I know, I know. But it looks like he doesn’t know how things work around here…So I think we have to help him out a little.”
The music started to play and Luke patted Spencer´s arm.
“She dedicates ‘Heaven Knows’ to you! Penny have you heard? She sings ‘Heaven Knows’ for Reid!”
“NO! SHUT UP!”, the blonde on the phone squeaked.
He and Garcia started to freak out while Spencer watched [y/n] clapping her thigh and stomping to the beat.
“Jimmy's in the back with a pocket of high
If you listen close, you can hear him cry
Oh Lord, heaven knows, we belong way down below
Sing it!”
She lifted the mic to her audience she started to sing for her.
Oh Lord, heaven knows, we belong way down below, way down below, way down below
“Judy's in the front seat picking up trash
Livin' on the dole, gotta make that cash
Won't be pretty, won't be sweet
She's just sittin' here on her feet singin'
Oh, Lord, heaven knows, we belong way down below
Go!”
Again her fans obeyed her, Luke and Penelope freaking out next to Spencer. If it wouldn’t have been a moment, were he had to fear which move she had planned next to unnerve him, he might have even enjoyed this song and the involvement of her fans in it.
Oh Lord, heaven knows, we belong way down below
“Sing, oh Lord, tell us so, we belong way down below”
She now looked at him for a moment, while her audience sang. Before, again, walking around the stage, touching her fans hands.
Oh Lord, tell us so, we belong way down below
Way down below, way down below, way down below, way down below
“I've had better days, man, I've seen better days
I've had better ways, man, I know better ways
One, two, three and four, the devil's knocking at your door
Caught in the eye of a dead man's lie
Show your life with your head held high
Now you're on your knees with a head on low
Big man tells you where to go
Tell them it's good, tell 'em ok
Don't do a goddamn thing they say”
Spencer was surprised how well her fans knew her lyrics. She would just have to point at them or lift her mic and they would instantly sing were she stopped. Not missing a beat.
Oh Lord, heaven knows, we belong way down below
Oh Lord, tell us so, we belong way down below
Way down below, way down below, way down below, way down below
“I've seen better ways, and I know better ways
I've seen better days, man, I've got better days”
[y/n] now stood at the edge of the stage, back turned to her audience. She smiled directly at Spencer, fingers held like a gun to her head.
“Gina's in the back with a pocket of high
If you listen close you can hear the cryin'”
At the last word she mimicked shooting herself and let herself fall back into the crowd. Her fans got wild and continued her song, while Spencer certainly not in a long time, if ever, felt so much spite and frustration against a woman, other than Cat Adams.
Oh Lord, heaven knows, we belong way down below
Oh Lord, tell us so, we belong way down below
Singin' oh, Lord, heaven knows, we belong way down below
Oh, Lord, tell us so, we belong way down below
The crown placed [y/n] back on her stage, where she walked up to her bandmates again, waving at Spencer and Luke with the sweetest smile.
Way down below, way down below, way down below, way down below, way down below
Way down below, way down below, way down below, way down below, way down below
*****
After the concert and the encores she and the band got behind stage, where Spencer for the least thirty minutes had waited to give her a piece of his mind. As [y/n] giggled and walked up to him and Luke. He grabbed her arm, a little harsher than planned.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”, she blinked at his yelling, answering with her innocent eyes blinking and a mocking tone.
“What´s the prob, dog?”
“What´s- Do you really care so little for your own safety?”, Hank came up to them, having seen Spencer´s grip on the girls arm.
“Hey! What´s going on here? [y/n], are you okay?”, Spencer quickly let go of her.
“Yeah, the dog is just pissing himself because I stage dived.”, he quickly took a deep breath.
“I´m not pissing myself, [y/n], but I told you not to do it. What would you have done when your stalker would´ve been in the crowd and lost it? Nobody would´ve been able to get to you fast enough and help!”, Hank looked at her in disappointed shock.
“Is that true, [y/n]?”, the black haired girl ignored her friend and just continued arguing with Spencer.
“Well, maybe I don’t want anybody’s help!”, she hissed at Spencer.
“Then why are we even here?”, Spencer hissed back.
“BECAUSE I BRING MONEY! Else the label would let me rot in a fucking corner! GOD! You are ruining my after-show-high. I hate you!”, [y/n] yelled and Spencer tried not to yell back, tried to be the bigger person, only hissing back at her.
“Oh, trust me. That feeling is mutual.”, she swallowed hard and then turned around, stomping away.
*****
After half an hour waiting, Spencer got a call from Philip, telling him that [y/n] refused to see him again and would be sleeping at his house tonight. He told him, that he should just let himself into the mansion and eat what´s in the fridge. It wasn’t from use, to try talking to [y/n], when she was that angry. Tomorrow Philip would call him and bring her back into Spencer´s care.
Spencer did as told, Luke driving him to the mansion, telling him that it wasn’t his fault. He then got into the large, empty mansion and grabbed himself a well-deserved beer. Being alone in this big house was depressing. After his third beer he stopped, walking into his room.
He pulled his blue and gold sobriety token, he had gotten for being clean ten years, out of his bag. Thumb rubbing over the golden X in the middle of it. He actually had deserved a twelve year token by now, but since prison didn’t actively attended the meetings anymore, having grown past it. Yet, he still kept the tokens he had, close to him.
They reminded him of his achievement, reminded him to be proud at himself.
Spencer never wanted to fall back into the dark hole he was in, when he was addicted, and even when [y/n] would throw tantrum after childish tantrum, she wouldn’t cause him to relapse. He was stronger than this. Stronger than her.
To be continued...
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