Whenever dad would go off to work, I'd wait for the door to slam and I'd grab a record and turn on the stereo. Eventually, my dad would scratch his head and be like, "Have any of you been going through my records?" He'd ask everyone, and by the time he got to me, I was so terrified you'd think the word "yes" was written on my forehead. I'd get my brains beat out of me, sometimes until I was unconscious. Then he'd put my hands on the radiator and burn them, in hopes that it would keep me out of the closet. But it only peaked [sic] my interest more.

-Grandmaster Flash in a new interview with Newsweek

Remember when tremendously talented people with awful parents worked hard and became great instead of going on coke binges and shopping all day long? I don't, but it must have been wonderful.

Yesterday 70 musicians gathered at Grand Central Station in the hope of becoming one of 20 new, New York City-certified subway buskers. Certified buskers, unlike all the other ambitious but uncredentialed musicians playing in New York's guts, get placed at the most lucrative spots in the subways, places where tourists gather and stand right in your goddamn way to hear "Hey Jude" for the 200,000th time.

As usual, The New York Times covered this story rather inelegantly, focusing their video attention on a guy who calls his music "retro acoustic rock," and thus not giving any coverage to Kip Rosser, who played Duke Ellington covers on a theramin. Nice one, Times.

Balla Tounkara, a talented Malian player of the traditional instrument the kora who was briefly highlighted, told the paper: "You can do O.K. in the subway with tips, but it’s still very tough to make it here as a musician, unless you’re a big star like Snoop Doggie." So, that's pretty depressing. Good morning.