Two days after Kurt Cobain’s body was found in the greenhouse of their Seattle home, Courtney Love showed up late to a raucous candlelit gathering of distraught Nirvana fans. She played a grief-stricken, vulgar recording of herself reading part of his suicide note, led the crowd in a chant calling Cobain an “asshole,” and handed out some of Cobain’s clothes, which she continued to do in the weeks that followed. Twenty-five years later, one of the sweaters that Love gave to a family friend is expected to fetch $300,000 at an auction this weekend.
“Courtney couldn’t have realized that the value of these things would be worth what they are today,” Darren Julien, who is running that auction, tells Fortune. “Those are John Lennon prices.”
The most reticent of rock stars—one who agonized about his artistic truth being fed into the thresher of corporatism—now commands his own economy from beyond the grave. In 1991, the cover of Nirvana’s major-label debut, Nevermind, satirically depicted a baby chasing a dollar bill on a fishhook. In 2019, the Kurt Cobain business is big business.
David Frangioni, an award-winning veteran of the music industry, has expertise ranging from being a drummer and producer, to an artist development & label founder, audio consultant, music technologist, integrator, author & engineer. He built a ground-breaking music tech consulting business working w Aerosmith, the Stones, Ringo Starr, Elton John, Sting, Bryan Adams, Journey, Styx, Phil Collins, Shakira, Pat Metheny, Rascal Flatts, Ozzy Osbourne, and Chick Corea, many more.
David has authored 3 books incl Icon and Crash, along with founding companies Frangioni Media , Audio One , All Access IDA & his non-profit Frangioni Foundation. In 2019, David became Publisher of Modern Drummer Magazine, the world’s #1 drum magazine.
Back in February, the fascinating David Frangioni made a trek up to Pwop Studios to geek out with Carl and Richard about music technology. Oh, the stories! What a gas.
When someone is going to write a book about an area of non-fiction, you first ought to wonder what their qualifications are. Did they know the people and/or events they were writing about? Did they speak with people directly involved with the subject matter? Or better yet, does this author know what they are talking about?
In the case of David Frangioni -- author of CRASH: The World’s Greatest Drum Kits from Appice to Peart to Van Halen -- he has been the recipient of dozens of gold and platinum albums as technical consultant, engineer, and/or programmer. These award-related credits include work with The Rolling Stones, Ringo Starr, Elton John, Sting, Bryan Adams, Journey, Styx, Shakira, Rascal Flatts, Ozzy Osbourne, and Cher. Frangioni was the in-house engineer for five of the studio albums by Aerosmith, for whom he also built recording studios and high-end A/V systems.
Less than a decade ago, pro AV technology was thought to be the premier equipment market—the industry was untouchable and at the forefront of innovation. Many home technologies were born out of the AV market, and at-home-AV research and development was often started with professional R&D.
Today the opposite is occurring, it seems. Harman’s engineering team, for example, is leveraging technology drawn from the company’s connected car business. “Nobody in the pro industry can afford the thousands of engineers needed to develop secure Linux products,” said Mohit Parasher, president, Harman Professional Solutions. “We have access to that because that development was done for our connected car business. We can borrow 80 percent of the work and bring it into the pro industry. The same thing with the consumer side, and the services side, and from Samsung, etc.”
On Saturday, March 16, Backstage Auctions, Inc. presents the private collection of David Frangioni, an award-winning veteran of the music industry, for auction. Frangioni started in the industry early, playing live at 12 years old, where he was focused on drumming with bands in Boston. He found the future of drumming in technology, starting his career first with a consulting business at age 16, which helped to make his connection with Aerosmith, where he was their in-house engineer/technologist for 13 years and continued working on their singles, albums, tours and even the theme song for the Spider-Man animated television series with Joe Perry.
Technology has changed the world and the music industry has reaped a lot of benefits. Read on to learn about the biggest technology breakthroughs in music I’ve experienced throughout my 25+ year career in the music, technology, and A/V businesses.
Music has long been a dance between creative advancements and technological ones. Since humans began singing together, inventing musical instruments, and finding ways to put music into a fixed and tangible form, there have been technological advancements that have helped pave new ways of musical expression.
And today's music world is as technology-driven as ever. Technology breakthroughs happen every day, and many of them, from iPhones to blockchain technology, influence the way we compose, share, and listen to music.
If you're looking to understand where music and technology intersect today, you need to first look back at the major technological breakthroughs that transformed the music industry. In this post, I explore six important music technology revolutions that got us to where we are today.
David Frangioni started his music career as a drummer, but soon became a pioneer in MIDI technology. This lead him into the studio as an engineer and producer for dozens of top artists including The Stones, Ringo Starr, Aerosmith, Elton John, Sting, Carl Palmer, Journey, Styx, KISS, Phil Collins, Shakira, Ozzy Osbourne, and more.
Lennon’s personal copy of infamous Yesterday and Today – autographed by Lennon, McCartney and Starr – sets third-highest price ever paid for vinyl record.
A John Lennon-owned copy of the Beatles’ infamous “butcher cover” version of Yesterday and Today, autographed by three members of the Fab Four, sold for $234,000 at a Beatles-themed auction this week.
The vinyl copy – autographed by Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr and featuring a back cover sketch drawn by Lennon – was the centerpiece of Julien’s Auctions’ The Beatles in Liverpool auction, which featured over 300 items of Fab Four memorabilia.
Drummer this show is for you! David Frangioni is a respected pioneer in digital audio and video technology who has written for Rolling Stone, Fortune, and EQ. With David we discuss Peter Criss, Eric Carr, Eric Singer, Stuart Copeland, Clem Burke, Charlie Watts, Alex Van Halen, Butch Vig, Tommy Lee, Nigel Olson.
On May 13, Modern Drummer magazine announced David Frangioni will become its new publisher.
“I can’t wait to steward Modern Drummer into the new era,” said Frangioni in a statement. “I am going to use all my thirty-plus years of experience in a wide selection of music fields so that Modern Drummer can offer the most complete and…well…modern resource for drums, drummers, and drumming!”
"I’d like to welcome David Frangioni, an award-winning veteran of the music industry, with expertise ranging from being a drummer and producer, to an artist development & label founder, audio consultant, music technologist, integrator, author & engineer.
David Frangioni began as a drummer for a cover band in his early youth before going on to become an engineer, producer and technologist hired by some of the worlds biggest stars. From changing clothes in the liquor storeroom between gigs as a teenager, to working with some of the greatest musicians we all know and love, David has pretty much seen it all. He joins us to have a discussion about what he’s learned from his career in the arts and how to build one that will stand the test of time.
David’s website can be found at www.DavidJFrangioni.com
David also has two companies, Audio One and All Access IDA, go check them out!
I recently had the honor of being interviewed by the great Mark Strigl on his long running podcast Talking Metal. During the course of the show we discuss my passion for collecting, artists I’ve worked with, and, of course, my book Crash: The World’s Greatest Drum Kits From Appice to Peart to Van Halen.
I discussed the importance of preserving and sharing these drum kits for historical purposes. Crash, along with the corresponding drum museum, is a great opportunity for fans to see these instruments and learn more about the artists that made them famous.
Diane Webb from YesterDazeNews.com wrote a fantastic article profiling my book Crash: The World’s Greatest Drum Kits From Appice to Pert to Van Halen. Diane goes into some detail about my career and the wonderful artists I’ve worked with over the years. She also echoed a sentiment shared by drummers around the world: drums far too often take a back seat when being covered by the media! Diane writes, “Drums often get the back seat when fans go to live shows or see live show coverage on websites and in magazines, but not in this killer new book about drums by David Frangioni.”
In February, I traveled to icy Connecticut to join Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell at Pwop Studios where I was a guest on their podcast .Net Rocks! During the course of the interview, the guys and I discussed the development of music technology, and a variety of stories from my time in the field.
We started at the beginning, I told stories about growing up in Boston, what influenced me to get into music, my first drum kit, and becoming one of the most sought-after MIDI Consultants in the music industry.
I was excited to join host Christian Swain--The Rock n’ Roll Archeologist--on an episode of his podcast Deeper Digs in Rock. On the show, Christian and I have an in-depth conversation about my book Crash: The World’s Greatest Drum Kits From Appice to Pert to Van Halen. We discussed some of the notable drum kits featured in the book, as well as the stories behind them.
