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Luca Guadagnino’s upcoming remake of Suspiria is a dance film as much as it’s a horror film, and it has Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke to thank for providing its accompanying score. For the first time in his legendary career, Yorke has composed music for a feature film. Our first preview came via “Suspirium”, the soundtrack’s first single featuring the melodic theme that recurs throughout the film and its score. Now, Yorke has unveiled a second track in “Has Ended”. Take a listen below. In his review of Suspiria, Dan Caffrey had this to say about Yorke’s score: Just as notable as Suspiria’s entrancing choreography is its score. Composed by Yorke, there are a handful of nods to the horror-synth attacks of Goblin (who scored the original 1977 film). But there’s also a delicacy at play whenever Yorke highlights the film’s more internal character moments. Contemplative piano takes us into Susie’s (Dakota Johnson) past as a Mennonite, and jazz drums smoothly hiss during strolls taken by Susie’s roommate, Sara (Mia Goth), through the school’s cavernous halls. If Yorke truly was “making spells” when dreaming up Suspiria’s music, not all of them were frightening. Yorke’s soundtrack to Suspiria will be available across digital platforms, as well as a 2-LP gatefold package pink vinyl and 2-CD set. Pre-orders are ongoing here ahead of its October 26th release. The film itself premieres in theaters in Los Angeles and New York on October 26th before opening wide on November 2nd. Source

Artwork by Kailyn Boehm (Buy Prints + More) Music, Movies & Moods is a regular free-form column in which Matt Melis explores the cracks between where art and daily life meet. Today, he revisits a previous column in memory of Tom Petty. Thirty-two isn’t old. Maybe for tennis players, but not for concertgoers. I tell myself this on mornings while plucking small infantries of mobilized, gray hairs in the bathroom mirror, and I surround myself with similar-aged music lovers who are equally invested in the lie. (I’ve noticed hangouts with friends feel more like support group meetings over drinks these days.) Still, even with my mutually conferred upon “youth” intact, the concerts of my indisputable youth — that sweaty, fumbling, reckless, your-dad-would-kill-us brand of being young that doesn’t require second opinions — have gradually dissipated into a hazy steam of lost summer nights, faded friendships, and clouds of unidentified substances wafting through my hair and settling into my clothes. The concerts I once could play, stop, rewind, and replay in my mind now, if I’m lucky, can still be cued up like 30-second SportsCenter highlight reels, a wrinkled tour shirt or creased, yellowing ticket stub sometimes conjuring up an extra camera angle or slow-motion replay but little more. Part of that missing footage results from the simple passing of time, no doubt aided by some rather forgettable shows over the years. More of it, though, at least in my case, seems to come along with facing the pressures of full-blown adulthood for the first time. In college, if asked, I could immediately distinguish between, say, my 15th and 23rd Bob Dylan show in “Never Ending” detail for the same reason that, as a boy, I could recite the complete 1989 roster of every NBA basketball team. At one time, that information felt imperative. Nowadays, if something doesn’t pertain to my family, job, or bills, it’s not worth knowing, hearing about, or remembering. Photo by Philip Cosores That feels true on most days. But not all. Really, it’s a lie. A lie we tell ourselves so we can go on putting family first, ascending to bigger and better cubicles, and making car insurance payments to, of all things, a lizard. But within that outwardly responsible, neatly dressed Trojan horse of maturity, we smuggle with us the very thing that makes adulthood in the modern world tolerable — the ability to, on occasion, remember a time when we could never imagine ourselves as we are now, a time when nothing seemed more important than staring deep into the eyes of a person you just met; pushing 90 mph down a highway in the cool summer moonlight; or, for many of us, lying barefoot on the grass with friends and staring at the stars while the band played on. I’ve been thinking about that last one a lot lately. About those embedded concert films I mentioned earlier — the ones that have either gone unlabeled and missing in my mind’s filing system or others that are slowly deteriorating like forgotten reels in an old Hollywood studio vault. I’ve brought a few concerts along with me, though. And a couple have survived in full DTS Surround Sound and my memory’s most vibrant Technicolor. One of them is a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers concert from August 16, 2006, in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania. Ask me about that concert. Go on. It’s those NBA rosters all over again. Photo by Philip Cosores Funny thing about that concert is that I only recently realized I had it stored away somewhere — that it hadn’t evaporated into the ether like hundreds of other shows, my childhood phone number, and the names of all the state capitals. All it took was spinning Petty’s Greatest Hits record a few weeks ago for the first time in a couple years, and that night in 2006 — the whole experience — came back to me. Not just the recollection of that show or a few blurry mental snapshots, but the ability to close my eyes and practically relive a night from my early twenties. It’s like that night was sealed into the grooves of my Greatest Hits vinyl, just waiting to be awoken and summoned by the needle. *** Greatest hits collections have long been standard record label procedure for separating listeners from their money twice for the same songs. While they can push massive units (ask The Eagles or Queen), they’re also somewhat of a joke. (So much so that a local songwriter in a Key West bar once told me that he named his greatest hits album after his ex-wife: Greta’s Tits, he called it). But Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Greatest Hits never felt like a marketing ploy or joke, even though it was nearly a complete recycling job and ranks as their top-selling record. I’m probably not alone or even very unique in saying that it’s the only Tom Petty album I’ve ever owned — once on cassette, once on CD, and finally on used vinyl. For most Petty fans that I know, it wasn’t only the entry point — the way in — but the sticking point — what they keep returning to — even more so than classics like Damn the Torpedoes or Full Moon Fever. Sometimes an album ends up defining a band. Greatest Hits does more than that, though. It takes all those hit singles as if they were orphans on the cold streets of classic rock radio and gives them a home — so convincingly so that it’s almost difficult to imagine they ever lived on other albums next door to other songs. Even the Greatest Hits album cover serves as the default image I have of Petty and the Heartbreakers. Say their name and I immediately see that orb floating in that fuzzy, soft-red and grime checkerboard, Petty in white, the others in black with varying Crayola skin colors. The more I think about it, the more I recognize the extent to which Greatest Hits encapsulates the entire Heartbreakers experience. I imagine it’s the reason why playing that record brings that night back to life for me. A walk through the Post-Gazette Pavilion parking lot before that show bears that reasoning out. Everyone blared Petty from their vehicles, and if you lingered long enough to hear one track end and another begin, you’d notice they were all playing Greatest Hits — “Even the Losers”, for instance, seguing into “Here Comes My Girl” instead of the other way around as found on Damn the Torpedoes. Even more interestingly, fans seemed to actually embody the album. A “rebel without a clue” in a leather jacket and shit-kicker cowboy hat belted out “Into the Great Wide Open” from the back of his pickup truck, the Confederate flag draped across the rear window of his cab as a backdrop. From several sources, Petty defiantly declared, “You don’t have to live like a refugee,” all while concertgoers huddled beneath tarps in makeshift camps scattered across the parking lot, waiting out a light early evening rain. A brown and white camper van with orange trim gently rocked back and forth; a homemade, wooden sign that read “Don’t Come Around Here No More!” hung from the door, the equivalent of a dorm room with a sock left on the doorknob. During the concert came more of the same. I spotted an old friend’s father — a middle-aged man who had grown his shaggy, red mane out, started going by “Big Nick” to his son’s friends, and never showed up anywhere without baked eyes and the stench of herb — lighting up in a circle of teenagers as Petty rapped on about that girl who “grew up right with them Indiana boys on an Indiana night.” (Now, as I re-watch him make a fool of himself, the chorus of “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” takes on an entirely different meaning, and I sympathize a bit with a guy who felt so overwhelmed by that daily existence of family, work, and bills I spoke of earlier that he just … dropped … out.) And by the time Petty and band finished those jangly, opening plucks on encore closer “American Girl”, the crowd had suddenly transformed into one dancing ocean of red, white, and blue: banners, shirts, towels, and underwear all sporting Old Glory. And each female, regardless of nationality or age, truly believed that she was the American girl Petty sang about — no different than a girl named Angie at a Stones concert. If fans seem to live into the Greatest Hits album, Petty surely plays into it, too. That’s actually one of the criticisms he faces from non-fans. On the live act spectrum between, say, Death Grips, who might not even turn up for a show as an artistic statement, and a jukebox, Petty falls close enough to the latter pole that you wouldn’t be surprised to find a coin slot behind his ear. That show, Petty performed half of Greatest Hits, generously playing them the way we remember them. All night long he gracefully strutted and stumbled across stage, mock directing or air-playing along with the Heartbreakers and twisting his body and twirling outstretched arms like an untrained interpretive dancer. The show was pure celebration, a victory lap by a then 56-year-old who, as it turned out, still had plenty of race left to run. By the evening’s patriotic climax, we were all floating along in that Greatest Hits orb along with Petty and the Heartbreakers. For all these reasons, when I listen to Greatest Hits, I get that night back in full. It’s a connection I value — a link back to a time when 32 didn’t seem old … more like ancient. I close my eyes and I’m lying barefoot and shirtless all over again on a blanket between two people who were supposed to be lifelong friends — a plan that fell through when they swapped coasts, got married and started a family, and we gradually stopped calling each other. I remember collapsing together into a pile from exhaustion after dancing, our chests heaving, and our hearts still young and stubborn enough to believe that both that encore and summer might last forever. The record stops, I open my eyes, and I’m back. And I smile. As I get a little older, even if 32 really isn’t all that old yet, I begin more and more to understand what Petty, that eternal blonde boy of summer, and maybe even Big Nick and that camper van couple (who, by the way, slept through the show) seem to already know. Most of the time the present suits me just fine. But some days, there’s nothing sweeter than reliving our greatest hits. Source

Each month, Clint Worthington’s What Ever Happened To… catches us up with some of our favorite faces from our pop-culture past. In 2003, Richard Linklater scored one of his biggest box-office hits with School of Rock, a Jack Black vehicle that played to his strengths at the height of his powers – wacky physical comedy, an outsized physicality, and all the musical exuberance of that cool uncle who let you play with the drum kit every time you came to visit. The tale of a washed-up rocker (Black) who cons his way into a prep school and teaches his class of charming overachievers the power of rock and roll, School of Rock was a breath of accessible fresh air among Linklater’s indie-heavy filmography. Jack Black in School of Rock Fifteen years on, we thought we’d check in on some of the titular band’s younger members, the kids from Horace Green Prep who shredded and sang their way into our hearts. A few are stars, but most are content to have School of Rock as their only acting credit. Still, no matter where they are, they all continue to rock in their own ways. __________________________________________________________ Summer Hathaway (aka Tinkerbell) Miranda Cosgrove Then and Now Name: Miranda Cosgrove Last Seen: Casey on the short-lived NBC sitcom Crowded, with Patrick Warburton and Stacy Keach Arguably the biggest child star to come out of the film’s group of adorable prep-school moppets, Cosgrove (who played Summer Hathaway, the band’s manager and resident Hermione) went on to become a Nickelodeon TV staple, breaking out as the younger sister of Drake & Josh in the show of the same name and more than a few subsequent specials (Drake & Josh Go Hollywood, Merry Christmas Drake & Josh). However, she might be best known as the title character of iCarly, which ran for five years (2007-2012). Along the way, Cosgrove also starred in a few movies (including Keeping Up with the Steins and The Wild Stallion) and guested on shows like Zoey 101 and Unfabulous. Most recently, she’s been busy as the voice of Margo in the Despicable Me movies and spent a year as a regular cast member of the NBC family sitcom Crowded. __________________________________________________________ Zack Mooneyham (aka ZACK-ATTACK) Joey Gaydos Jr. Then and Now Name: Joey Gaydos, Jr. Last Seen: School of Rock Oh, Zack-Attack, you were the heart and soul of the School of Rock kids. With his adorable shyness and willingness to let Black’s Dewey Finn teach him the ways of rock style, the band’s lead guitarist went on to pen the band’s banging ballad for Battle of the Bands (cleverly titled “Zack’s Song”). Zack’s journey from “robotronic” to a wailing, power-sliding rock god was a highlight of School of Rock’s considerable charm. It looks like the rock bug bit Zack’s actor Joey Gaydos Jr. pretty hard, too, kicking off a modest but respectable career as a rock guitarist for bands like Detroit’s Stereo Jane. Sure, there was a mild hiccup with an underage DUI in 2009, but he seems to have moved past that and focused on his mad power-stance skills. He’s even got an album up on iTunes for those who are a little curious to see how Zack-Attack has fared in the ensuing years. __________________________________________________________ Katie (aka Posh Spice) Rebecca Brown Then and Now Name: Becca Brown Last Seen: The 2014 short “Cool Nerds” A strong qualifier for the strong, silent type, Katie was the School of Rock’s killer bassist. Turning her skill at the cello into mad bass talent simply by flipping it on its side, Posh Spice became an integral part of the band, even if she didn’t soak up a lot of screen time. While School of Rock is Brown’s only major onscreen acting credit apart from a short film in 2014, she has stayed active as an actor and singer-songwriter in Chicago. She has a fairly robust YouTube channel full of covers, onstage performances, and original songs that’s well worth a watch. While she’s since moved to Los Angeles, her work has footprints all over the Chicago theater and improv scene, having performed in the hit Hamilton parody Spamilton and the Chicago premiere of American Idiot. You can find her official website here. __________________________________________________________ Tomika (aka Turkey Sub) Maryam Hassan Then and Now Name: Maryam Hassan Last Seen: School of Rock The big, bold backup singer of School of Rock, Tomika made an incredible impression on the film, her soaring voice the highlight of that final number at the Battle of the Bands. Like a lot of the other kids, Tomika was quiet and shy, even underestimated by Dewey when he makes her a roadie. But after asking him to be a singer, and impressing him with her “nice pipes,” she becomes a vital part of the band’s big, heartwarming sound. Maryam Hassan didn’t pursue screen acting after School of Rock, but like Becca, she also sports her own YouTube channel, where she intermittently posts Aaliyah and Rihanna covers, as well as makeup tutorials. However, she hasn’t stayed away from School of Rock altogether; she participated in a 2013 performance with some of her costars for the tenth anniversary of the film and also filled in for a 2015 performance of the Broadway production. __________________________________________________________ Lawrence (aka Mr. Cool) Robert Tsai Then and Now Name: Robert Tsai Last Seen: School of Rock The kids of Horace Green manage to get a few good digs in at Dewey, but none of them match that of soft-spoken keyboardist Lawrence (aka Mr. Cool), who tells him, “You’re a fat loser and you have body odor.” Still, he finds a much-needed place behind the Casio, pulling off sick keyboard fills and that stage dive-worthy solo during the big number. As for Robert Tsai, he’s taken his considerable piano skills well into adulthood, even if he didn’t do any more acting after School of Rock. He went to Dartmouth, where he played concerts and participated in musical productions. He doesn’t just tickle the ivories, though; he’s an accomplished dancer, running with the dance group Instant Noodle Crew, which appeared in both America’s Best Dance Crew season 6 and an episode of the Disney Channel show Shake It Up. __________________________________________________________ Freddy Jones (aka Spazzy McGee) Kevin Clark Then and Now Name: Kevin Clark Last Seen: School of Rock And who could forget Spazzy McGee? While that particular nickname is more than a little #problematic these days, Freddy’s no-nonsense personality and absolutely fly drum skills were the backbone of School of Rock’s adorably raucous sound. Like most of the kids on this list, School of Rock was Kevin Clark’s only acting credit. However, he’s still plugging away at his budding rock career, drumming with the band Robbie Gold. Said Clark of his School of Rock castmates after the aforementioned 10-year reunion, “It had been nine years since I’d seen everyone. Most of the kids left acting for other jobs. No one expected me to still be playing, living in Highwood, and striving to be a rock star.” Go get ‘em, Freddy. Source

The Lowdown: Kevin Gilyard spent a year behind bars on assault and weapons charges, chomping at the bit to prove that incarceration had not caused him to lose precious ground in the race to the top of the rap pile under the moniker of Kevin Gates. A multi-platinum Baton Rouge-bred rapper with the hit-making ability to chart parallel to Drake but streetwise enough to stand on his own alongside rappers like Jeezy and 2Chainz in a field that hosts a dwindling population of talent with actual trap house experience, Gates embodied Luca Brasi for the entirety of two full mixtapes. He occasionally channeled the heavy in real life. Incarcerated in 2017 for assault and felony gun possession, Gates was jailed as his music garnered critical acclaim. On his first full-length since being released, Gates overrides The Godfather-inspired hitman persona anticipated ahead of his return to form on the Luca Brasi 3 mixtape. He all but buries the alter ego with bars that elucidate the internal and interpersonal conflicts and legal impediments endemic to keeping one foot on the road to massive commercial success and one foot in the street. The Good: Though a self-professed veteran hustler, Gates is not some amoral, unrepentant killer with whom few can relate. He refers to his sinister inclinations but leads with the charisma that oozes from his melancholic Gulf Coast drawl. Doubling down on the “I Don’t Get Tired” mantra and tireless work ethic that first made him a social media darling, Gates reasserts his presence as an intersectional force adept at representing the South and gangsta rap. Luca Brasi 3 is full of allusions to his widely publicized struggle with depressive disorder (“Ridiculous” opens with the line “I’m not happy, but I’m peaceful at all costs”), heartfelt messages to his children, and “ashy to classy” incantations that suggest his success and failure are abundant fuel for his faith. The lyrics play with clarity over booming slappers sporting prodigious amounts of low end and club bangers punctuated by harps that nudge trap drums. Gates grapples with mistakes and imperfection on opener “Discussion” and relishes hardship in the atmosphere of gross self-indulgence that finds many of his peers more overcome by rap’s traditional relationship with excess than he seems to be, diamond encrusted teeth notwithstanding. The thing that is most impressive about Kevin Gates by Luca Brasi 3 is not lyrical dexterity or showmanship. He isn’t much for an alliterative flourish. Instead, his everyman hustler persona, charm, and vulnerability are his most valuable assets. He is clear by the close of LB3 that nothing can stop him, which should be a balm for listeners eager for what’s to come. The Bad: Producers DJ Chose, RockBoy Beats, Yung Ladd, Yung Lan, Will Major, and Go Grizzly contribute just enough bass, bounce, and suspense to the final mix to buoy Gates’ verses when the crooning becomes monotonous or he dives into cloying braggadocio on a hard sell of his sexual prowess, adherence to the G Code, or his pull in the streets. All topics that are so Kevin Gates they lose efficacy in the mix and play better as business card fodder than thoughts worth repeating. “Me Too” is Gates’ sex-positive spin on the catchphrase for an active movement to acknowledge survivors and bring perpetrators of sexual violence to justice. Though the two are not thematically tied, the title was not the best creative choice. Gates reserves the closing tracks for his comrades behind bars or in the trenches trapping. The acknowledgement of a demographic that is rarely lauded outside of standard-issue rap lore is understandable, though a little curious considering Gates’ recent release from prison and what seems an overwhelming desire to avoid doubling back. The tip of the hat is hopefully an innocuous shout-out to the yeoman hustlers that keep the blocks humming in every major city and less a harbinger of missteps to come. Flaws and all, the world really wants Kevin Gates to win, and he is steps away from doing just that. The Verdict: Two years after the release of his 2016 full-length album, ISLAH, and one year removed from the release of By Any Means 2, Kevin Gates returns with a body of work that suggests the most complex and interesting voice on Luca Brasi 3 is the one belonging to the man behind the fearsome character. Notorious for his candor and vulnerability, Kevin Gates puts himself out front and places Luca Brasi on the shelf to unpack the mortal man he may have been trying to get to all along. Essential Tracks: “Discussion”, “Money Long”, “In God I Trust”, and “Don’t Know” Source

Afrobeat is a genre tag you’ve probably heard loosely thrown around to describe some of Diplo’s more ambitious efforts, or perhaps some of the more low-slung slow jams heard on top 40 radio. Whether you’re aware of it or not, Afrobeat has been a driving force behind so many different genres of popular music, often crossing over into urban and dance music. On the bombshell of Major Lazer announcing the end to their 10 year run, the trio themselves have marked this milestone with a huge DJ mix consisting of some of the most irresistible Afrobeat grooves. Whilst this might be the end of an era for Major Lazer, we would also like to look forward to more of what this stylistically diverse but undeniably fun-loving genre has to offer. What is Afrobeat music? Traditionally, musical genres come into being after generations of musicians sharing ideas and taking stylistic cues from generations past, with attitudes and values changing over time, thus informing the sound of the music. However, unlike most genres, Afrobeat was almost exclusively pioneered by Fela Kuti, a multi-instrumentalist and singer hailing from Nigeria, who came to prominence in the 70s for his wildly ambitious compositions that incorporated both western and native influences. Kuti’s music was often politically driven, and covered topics such as hedonism, black power and dictatorship. Over the course of his career as a musician, he often travelled to America where he would soak up the American-American culture and apply these sounds to his own music, contrasting traditional West-African highlife music with American jazz and funk. Having been active in the African-American community for much of his life, his legacy shines through in the western popular music that followed, with acts such as Talib Kweli, Talking Heads, George Clinton and Brian Eno incorporating elements of early Afrobeat into their music. On one occasion, it’s rumoured that Paul McCartney wished to work with Kuti, however he declined as he thought that McCartney wanted to steal African music. With such a mark made on popular music, it’s no surprise that his sound has found it’s way into the music of generations to come, both in his homeland and abroad. Afrobeat in pop Over the decades, Afrobeat continued to evolve further into the 2010s, with artists like WizKid and Tekno Miles thrusting Afrobeat into urban territory, fusing Afrobeats with other styles such as R&B, dancehall and hip-hop. These songs often bear a much slower four-to-the-floor beat paired with a heavy bassline and African percussion. Whilst predominantly popular in Africa, this new sound of Afrobeat has made it’s mark in the U.S also, with Nigerian-American singer Davido’s 2017 ballad ‘Fall’ gathering almost 90 million views on YouTube and Nigerian singer WizKid consistently releasing charting records since 2011. With the advent of the digital age making music more accessible than ever before, it’s no surprise that young African artists are finding their voice internationally. What began as a relatively niche sound has now become a worldwide sensation, opening a dialogue between the African youth and pop culture. With budding singers, producers and DJ’s being able to showcase their work online, Afrobeat has quickly caught the attention of major labels, allowing the more recent wave of artists to find their way onto western radio stations. As a result, artists such as Dua Lipa, Drake, Rihanna and Ariana Grande have all incorporated Afrobeat rhythms into their music. Most notably was last year’s summer anthem ‘Run Up’ from Major Lazer, an EDM flavoured afropop jam toplined by PARTYNEXTDOOR and Nicki Minaj. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Major Lazer’s co-founder Diplo noted “African writers have such a different style from a typical R&B or urban writer. They’re a little more positive and they have more melodies going on, so I just like the vibe of a lot of those records.” On the more EDM side of the spectrum, the youth of South Africa have taken these afro-centric rhythms and applied them to the more upbeat genre of Kwaito, a genre that sounds like it lies somewhere between house, garage and baltimore club music. Bearing off-kilter drums, beat skipping claps and snares and deep bass, Kwaito is much more club ready, applying complex African Rhythms to the cold electronic allure of late 19th to early 20th century dance music. Kwaito’s leading figure Black Coffee has been producing Kwaito since the mid 90’s and continues to influence the rest of the world with the music, having played all around the world and landing an Ibiza residency. Lesser known is Gqom, yet another sub-genre of African dance music that came to prominence in the 2010s after being heard blasting out of the taxi cabs of Durban, it typically features unconventional rhythms consisting of two or three kick drums playing in sequence with each other paired with frantic percussion and chanting vocals. This music almost exclusive produced for African events and parties, however it has consequently influenced many producers across Europe and East Coast America. Undoubtedly the most D.I.Y of all African dance styles, the lo-fi and often distorted sound of Gqom lends itself to the accessibility of computer software, allowing anyone to create their own mashups and remixes of popular songs to be played at nearby gatherings. The future of Afrobeat It’s certainly an exciting time for African music and it’s many sub-genres. With the fast-paced global melting pot that is the internet allowing for a dialogue between Africa and the rest of the world, Afrobeat has become almost synonymous with dance music, with major labels such as Ultra and Mad Decent increasing showing more interest in Afrobeat than ever before. Artists such as Rophnan and DJ Buckz are taking stylistic cues from the American EDM main stage, fusing them with the traditional sounds of their homeland. Portuguese-born DJ and producer DJEFF (fka Djeff Afrozile) is making music that pays homage to his Southern European homeland whilst simultaneously bearing the sounds of his African ancestry, all packaged within the glossy sheen of Ibiza-ready house music. In the present day, there are communities of like-minded producers distributing music on SoundCloud, experimenting freely with their own ideas and outside influences. Whilst it’s hard to see what’s next to come in the realms of Afrobeat, we can be sure that it’s influence will continue to find it’s way into the records we listen to daily. To mark the end of their decade long career together, be sure to check out Major Lazer’s ‘Afrobeats’ DJ mix on Spotify below. Source

There’s something super enticing about a throwback party, and it’s made even more so by the fact we’ve been invited to headline the night as Stoney Roads DJs and it’s free if you RSVP! In a time where partying in Sydney is political (hasn’t it always been?) and we’re plagued by lockouts, Test of Time is looking to throw back to a time before lockouts existed and to the tunes that helped nightlife thrive in that era, this Friday October 5. Accompanying us will be a heap of local killers including Willo, DJ Render and a bunch of others including a cheeky surprise Tasmanian guest as we gear up for a night of classic tunes and classic Stoney Roads antics. To get you hyped crew behind Test of Time have put together an essential listening playlist chock full of bangers that will probably all get a play, if this sounds up your alley check out the event here and head along to The Flinders to boogie with us! What: Test of Time ft. Stoney Roads DJs (that’s us!) Who: Stoney Roads DJs, Willo, DJ Render, Edan Visser, Hughey Lewis, Pasty Boy and More to Come DJs When: Friday October 5 Where: The Flinders, Darlinghurst, Sydney How much: FREE with RSVP Source

Since releasing her latest opus, MASSEDUCTION, last fall, St. Vincent has staged a serious of intimate performances featuring stripped-down piano renditions of the album’s songs with accompaniment from Thomas “Doveman” Bartlett. Now, those arrangements are being released as a full-length reimagining called MassEducation. Due out October 12th via Loma Vista Recordings, MassEducation was recorded back in August 2017 at New York’s Electric Lady studios while Annie Clark and Bartlett were mixing MASSEDUCTION. The recently revealed “Slow Slow Disco” appears on the effort (though here it’s simply called “Slow Disco” again), as does the instagrat track “Savior”. The instrumental “Dancing With a Ghost” is the only track from the original version not present here, and the tracklist has also been rearranged to better suit the new arrangements. In a handwritten letter accompanying the press release, St. Vincent described the album as “two dear friends playing songs together with the kind of secret understanding one can only get through endless nights in New York City.” Read the full note under the album art and tracklist ahead. Pre-orders for MassEducation are available now. MassEducation Artwork: MassEducation Tracklist: 01. Slow Disco 02. Savior 03. Masseduction 04. Sugarboy 05. Fear The Future 06. Smoking Section 07. Los Ageless 08. New York 09. Young Lover 10. Happy Birthday, Johnny 11. Pills 12. Hang On Me Source

Sydney’s Kings Cross is a place filled with nostalgia for a lot of us. A strip that used to be a nightlife hub, filled to the brim with zany characters and zanier stories on a personal level. Beyond that it’s had more than its fair share of historic moments that have been iconic in shaping Sydney’s nightlife. We found 5 of the most iconic moments of the Cross and its nightlife, so you can remember with nostalgia all the good times as well as the bad. 1. John Ibrahim’s message about not being a dickhead What a video, what a scene, what an alleged hypocritical message. This video holds a pretty good message, but when it’s told to you by a bloke that police allege is a major player in organised crime it’s hard to take it too seriously. When this video surfaced, it was in an attempt to stop knee jerk reactions that have lead to the demise of the infamous Cross, and who better to get you onboard than the supposed lifeblood of the Cross himself. 2. Young teens steal car and get shot at by police (Graphic) This is an absolutely tragic story. After a 14 year old driver and his friends took a car through the busy Kings Cross strip at 4am, they were shot at by police. It was terribly lucky no onlookers were shot and that the drivers of the car ended up being okay. It did however bring into question how police handle situations with minors, after footage emerged of one of the youngsters getting clocked in the face when he was already on the ground. Worth noting is that in the video below, the reporters mention that it was 4am and as such The Cross would’ve been super busy, not something we’d see these days! 3. The coward punch that shut down Sydney’s nightlife On one fateful night in Kings Cross a young man was hit in the back of the head as part of an unprovoked cowardly attack. What followed was essentially instant legislation shutting down the operating hours of bars and clubs, along with a bunch of restrictions that would shape Sydney’s nightlife in a way we never thought possible. ABC then took us for a stroll on your average night in Kings Cross showing us the ins and outs. 4. Sydney protests against violent bouncers after the death of Wilson Duque Castillo After getting into an altercation with the bouncers outside of popular Kings Cross nightclub Trademark, Wilson Duque Castillo was fatally hit and that sent Sydney-siders into an uproar. This lead to huge protests through Darlinghurst and outside of the club as residents and community members fought against a supposed violence issue in The Cross. 5. Chk Chk Boom Girl It’s almost embarrassing that this is possibly the most memorable Kings Cross moment of all time. After a shooting, news teams spoke to a supposed witness who gave what was possibly the best recollection of a shooting of all time. “Then the fat wog said to the skinny wog…” Not much to say in regards to the video except that it was hilarious. On top of that it almost definitely reminded Aussie news companies to be a little more selective when it came to witnesses and talent. These are our picks for some of the most memorable moments of Kings Cross’ modern life, is there anything you’d add? ❌Kings Cross DJ weighs in on sweeping NSW alcohol laws ❌Number of closed venues since lockout laws will piss you off Source

Tha Carter V arrived last week after four long years of tribulations and waiting. As if the album needed any more hype, Lil Wayne stopped by The Tonight Show on Tuesday. In a pre-perform chat with Jimmy Fallon, Tunechi revealed that he never writes down any of his songs. “I just go in there and whatever I was feeling that day is how it goes,” he said. When Fallon asked how he then remembers his lyrics for performances, Wayne openly admitted he still didn’t know the words for the song he was to perform that night. “Your guys are so, so kind and so generous. They typed up my lyrics for me, so I’m back there studying them right now.” Fallon even showed a picture of him reading the lyric sheet during rehearsal. You wouldn’t have known it if he were so open about it, though, because Little Weezy slayed his performance. Backed by The Roots, he delivered the Carter V track “Dedicate”. Check out clips from the interview and a replay of the performance below, and read our review of Tha Carter V here. .@liltunechi admits he is still studying and memorizing his album lyrics #FallonTonight #ThaCarterV pic.twitter.com/mCPM2M2sfg — Fallon Tonight (@FallonTonight) October 3, 2018 Source

The Lowdown: Originally scheduled to be released in 2014, Tha Carter V experienced several delays as a result of a legal tussle between Lil Wayne and Cash Money Records. When the mega star rapper was finally released from his deal with Cash Money in June 2018, everyone knew Tha Carter V was coming, but nothing ignited the anticipation for this album more than when Weezy made the official announcement during a show in Miami. After nearly half a decade of waiting, Tha Carter V not only delivers new music but an intense feeling of relief. The Good: One outstanding feature of this project is the smooth display of lyrical dexterity demonstrated by Wayne. Days before the release of the album, the 36-year-old rapper told Billboard: “I don’t write. When you write something down, you know which thoughts to put on paper to keep you in the subject.” It’s almost unbelievable how Weezy can spit a long chain of rhymes without the use of a pen and pad, yet he does it smoothly throughout Tha Carter V. He makes good use of this style on “Dedicate”, where he spits lines like, “I started this shit, they borrowed this shit/ I thought of this shit, they thought it was it/ I’m doggin’ this shit, they bark and they sit.” On “Mona Lisa”, the captivating element isn’t just the storytelling, but the plays on words and double entendres used in different parts of the song. That technique can be heard in lines like “Liz call you daddy/ She about to be a bastard, oh,” “I smoke color purple/ I’m up in here feelin’ like Celie,” and “They started French kissin’/ So he didn’t see moi.” Another winning element on Tha Carter V is the sensational production. Trap and rap come together on “Let It Fly” (featuring Travis Scott); from the first beat to the last, the wave of sounds in the production captures the heart at the speed of light. The heavenly sound in the production of “Dark Side of the Moon” courtesy of Bloque and Jonah Christian is one of the best moments on the album. It’s soft and simple, but most importantly, it guides listeners through the tunnel of sonic beauty that Wayne and Nicki Minaj create together. The Bad: It’s hard to do anything other than enjoy the arrival of Tha Carter V and Weezy’s fresh delivery. However, while Wayne stylishly brags about his wealth on “Hittas”, the mediocre hook can’t be ignored. As he repeats, “I got hittas woadie/ Yeah, I got plenty woadie” in the hook, the energy he sets with the verse fades away. It’s one example among a handful of either filler or the final product coming across as unpolished next to better tracks. The Verdict: When artists haven’t released albums in a long time, they often try to bring fresh sounds or an updated style. The beautiful thing about Tha Carter V is that Lil Wayne doesn’t try any funny experiment to gain the attention of younger audiences who are addicted to sounds from “the new generation of rappers.” Even when he’s rapping over a trap beat with Travis Scott on “Let It Fly”, he still kills the beat with his own flow. In a video posted on his YouTube page, describing his hope for the reception of this album, Wayne said, “You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to love it, just enjoy it”. With Wayne on a lyrical and rhythmic roll for the better part of 23 tracks, enjoying Tha Carter V comes as no problem. Essential Tracks: “Dedicate”, “Mona Lisa”, and “Let It All Work Out” Source

Can you believe this track is nearing over 15 years old? Groove Armada smashed it out of the ballpark with this one, a mix of genres that that created its own style. Blending through garage, house, reggae and so much more. The bass line came to be known as iconic and these days you can hear so many modern artists that either sample or rip it off, and really imitation is the greatest form of flattery. This song has stood the test of time and looks to continue doing so, check it out below and feel those nostalgia feels. Source

If you ever spent your Saturday afternoons absolutely flogging Harry Potter’s Quidditch World Cup or any of the other fine games that came about because of the franchise, then have I got some good news for you. According to leaked footage, it looks like we can expect a new open-world Harry Potter game set in the Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them era. So far it looks like the game will include a fuckload of spells, potions and even playable quidditch. The game also looks like it draws some of its inspiration from Skyrim, using great big mountains and beautiful graphics to immerse the player. Warner Bro’s got their knickers in a twist and decided to copyright strike the footage, but some absolute top bloke whacked up a mirror right here. To add to the confusion, Warner Bros subsidiary Avalanche Software posted job descriptions for senior writers who could “bring British authenticity to an undisclosed project”. Wands ready guys, get fkn keen. Source

September was full of new releases and frequent listens! Give our monthly playlist a listen. New artists: Baked Beans, Fazerdaze, Noname Our two standout tracks of the month: 2009 – Mac Miller The death of Mac Miller took the music world by storm early in the month. The rapper seemed to be thriving and progressing in becoming his best self after the release of his newest album Swimming. 2009 hits home for listeners, providing context on what Miller had been going through mentally in recent times. We will truly miss you, Mac Miller. NFWMB – Hozier Hozier finally returned after a four year hiatus by releasing his Nina Cried Power EP early on in the month. While only four songs, the collection really showcases Hozier’s ability to take different angles at his music. NFWMB is a more romantically enthused song, where he shows off his ability to curate a dark, sinister tone. An album is expected relatively soon from Hozier, but as we’ve learned from the past – we must be patient. Be sure to follow me on Spotify for all your playlist needs! The post September ’18 Playlist: The 60 Best Tunes of the Month appeared first on Verge Campus. Source

Philip Anselmo busted out a classic from his legendary band Pantera while performing a show with his group The Illegals on September 27th in Joliet, Illinois. He was joined by King Parrot singer Matt Young for the performance of “I’m Broken” off Pantera’s 1994 album Far Beyond Driven. It marked the first time that Philip Anselmo & The Illegals played the Pantera song in concert, and the performance was captured on video by In The Loop magazine (watch below). Before starting the song, Anselmo explained that they only rehearsed it once, and warned they may “f–k this up”. However, within the first couple notes, the crowd went crazy, In July, Anselmo honored Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul, who had tragically died just a couple weeks earlier, by performing Pantera’s “Slaughtered” with another one of the singer’s bands, Scour. Anselmo and Paul had not been on speaking terms for many years at the time of the drummer’s death. In addition to the Illegals and Scour, Anselmo is also frontman of the bands Down and Superjoint (formerly Superjoint Ritual). Source

When it comes to online movie feuds, some Lady Gaga fans may have gone off the deep end and into the shallows. This weekend, Gaga’s acting debut, the critically acclaimed A Star Is Born, is set to release alongside Sony’s standalone Venom film starring Tom Hardy. Sure, the latter is a big-budget superhero movie starring one of cinema’s biggest names, but that’s no reason for fans of Gaga to be worried about her already-well-received breakout performance. A Star is Born already has 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes, and there’s already considerable awards buzz about Gaga’s acting, Bradley Cooper’s directing and performance, and some big Best Original Song waves for “Shallow”. All that awards attention isn’t enough, it seems – after the social media embargo broke for Venom after its Monday night premiere, some curious Twitter reactions to the film started surfacing. Not only were they negative, they seemed almost identical in their wording. Per Variety: Okay, something is up. The negativity around the #Venom movie is looking very artificial. pic.twitter.com/f5LWF3z7Xd — Nobody In California (@NobodyInCali) October 2, 2018 BuzzFeed reports that, after reaching out to one of the accounts that was sharing these fake negative reviews, the user said, “It’s us Gaga fans creating fake IDs to trash the ‘Venom’ premiere. They both are getting released on the same day, so we want more audience for ‘A Star Is Born.’” As of yet, there are no reviews for Venom yet, but suffice to say it’s a little baffling to figure out why a group of Gaga fans feel they have to resort to bot tactics to defend their poor, underdog soon-to-be Oscar winner against a mediocre superhero spinoff that will be forgotten in a months’ time. Sure, Venom is set to take a bigger piece of the box-office pie this weekend (an approximate debut of $65 million), but A Star Is Born (which will likely debut somewhere in the $20 million range) is sure to have longer legs with a much smaller budget. Plus, they serve different audiences – who do they think they’re poaching? Source

For years, fans have been lobbying hard for a black James Bond. How many times have we heard the Idris Elba rumors pop up again and again and again? Well, one name that’s never thrown in that mix is the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson, who once expressed interest in playing the infamous 00 agent … according to a secret agent. That agent is Michael Ovitz, whose new memoir, Who Is Michael Ovitz?, details a meeting he had with business partner Ron Meyer and Jackson sometime in the ’80s. According to Ovitz, Jackson yearned to be “the star of an action movie,” something he expressed to Ovitz and Meyer before, um, dropping his hat in guacamole. Here’s a snippet from the book (via Metro UK): Then the blob fell off, and Ron totally lost it. I cracked up, too, and Michael stalked out. I found him and explained for 15 minutes that we hadn’t been laughing at him… Finally, Michael’s face cleared. “OK, Ovitz. OK,” he said. “But I want to play James Bond.” I am proud to report I didn’t laugh, this time. Even so, it was Ovitz who talked him down from the role, arguing that he was “thinly built,” “too sensitive,” and wouldn’t “be credible as a brutal block of stone.” Look, he’s not wrong, but the idea is worth daydreaming about. At the very least, Jackson would have knocked out a killer Bond theme had he been given the opportunity. Perhaps he was too Dangerous? Source

It’s been nearly a month since Mac Miller died of an apparent drug overdose. Now, in recognition of the late 26-year-old rapper and the newly launched Mac Miler Circles Fund (MMCF), a number of artists will come together for the “Mac Miller: A Celebration of Life benefit concert.” Set for Halloween night at Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre, the event will feature some of the biggest names in hip hop — and John Mayer — many of whom collaborated with Miller during his life. Chance the Rapper, SZA, Earl Sweatshirt, Vince Staples, Travis Scott, Miguel, Thundercat, Anderson .Paak, Action Bronson, Domo Genesis, ScHoolBoy Q, and Ty Dolla $ign are all on the bill. In a statement announcing the concert, Mac’s mother Karen Meyers said, “The support we’ve experienced is evident in this amazing lineup and is a testament to Malcolm’s incredible life… He was a caring, loving human with a smile that could light up the sky and a soul that was out to make the world a kinder place and the MMCF will continue to do just that.” Launched to honor Miller’s lifelong love of the arts, the MMCF seeks to “provide programming, resources and opportunities to youth from underserved communities, helping them recognize their full potential through exploration in the arts and community building.” Tickets to the benefit concert go on sale October 5th at 1:00 PM EST via Ticketmaster. Source

Every city needs a place like Experimental Sound Studio, or ESS. A hub of sonic innovation in Chicago for more than three decades, the regional arts incubator provides crucial resources and a professional studio environment for community members to develop creative ideas. It’s a vibrant showcase for free-thinking artists and audio provocateurs, and it’s also just really fun and eye opening. The nonprofit arts organization operates on an impressive local scale, supporting nearly 400 multimedia artists each year through regularly presented concerts including the weekly Option series, in addition to workshops, recording sessions and installations in its Audible Gallery. It’s easy to get lost for days in the ESS Creative Audio Archive, home to endless hours of unconventional sounds from a wide array of artists, including space jazz pioneer Sun Ra, whose El Saturn Collection contains more than 600 recordings. This Thursday, a vibrant cross-section of rare talent is coming together at Chicago’s Sleeping Village for what’s being billed as the ESS 2018 Benefit Concert to celebrate, honor, and raise funds for the studio. __________________________________________________________ Jaimie Branch Jaimie Branch, photo by Peter Ganushkin Opening the evening is former Chicagoan Jaimie Branch, who returns on the heels of her critically acclaimed 2017 album, Fly or Die. The ace cornetist and electronics voyager begins the night as half of the genre-stretching Anteloper, giving shape to incandescent, pulsating soundscapes with multi-instrumentalist Jason Nazary (Helado Negro, Bear in Heaven), playing behind Kudu, the duo’s latest for International Anthem. __________________________________________________________ Ben LaMar Gay Ben LaMar Gay A quartet follows from rising improviser Ben LaMar Gay, an emerging force in the Chicago underground who already boasts a laundry list of credits to his name—collaborators include Mike Reed, Theaster Gates, Nicole Mitchell and countless others—and for good reason. He made a big statement with his long-awaited solo debut, Downtown Castles Can Never Block the Sun, complemented by the newly unearthed 500 Chains. The cornetist and multi-instrumentalist will perform alongside fellow AACM member Edward Wilkerson Jr., a powerful force in the Chicago jazz scene going back several decades. Brace yourself but open your heart and mind for a promising set linking the jazz tradition to more contemporary currents of improvised music. __________________________________________________________ Dan the Automator Dan the Automator The mission of ESS may be high concept by definition, but that doesn’t mean this crew doesn’t like to dance. A headlining set features party starter Dan the Automator, a fixture of turn-of-the-millennium era hip-hop and club jams who made his name working hard behind the scenes on classics like Kool Keith’s Dr. Octagonecologyst, in addition to debuts by Gorillaz and Handsome Boy Modeling School’s So… How’s Your Girl?—a satirical yet super funky high water mark that paired him with hip-hop legend Prince Paul. Dan’s Sleeping Village set will get next level with visuals from DJ Hard Rich. __________________________________________________________ Hal Rammel Hal Rammel Thursday’s benefit concert also doubles as an occasion to honor Hal Rammel, a longtime ESS fixture and lynchpin of the Midwest avant-garde community, whose work will be on view at Sleeping Village, along with a live performance pairing him with ESS co-founder Lou Mallozzil. Together, they offer a fascinating survey of uncommon sounds, stretching the parameters of new music and providing a fresh glimpse of what lies ahead. __________________________________________________________ Tickets to the ESS 2018 Benefit Concert are $45 in advance, $50 day of show, or you can purchase an exclusive $75 admission package flush with arty swag including a T-shirt designed by artist/musician Melina Ausikaitis and tickets to an intimate chapel concert by spellbinding Chicago percussionist Michael Zerang. Purchase tickets here. Source

Art Brut returned over the summer with their first new music in seven years. Wham! Bang! Pow! Let’s Rock Out! was a cheeky bit of their signature art pop, and, as we just learned, it’s also the title of their forthcoming fifth LP, which is slated for a November 23rd release via Alcopop! Records. Produced by Jim Moray, Wham! Bang! Pow! Let’s Rock Out! features a new lineup that swaps out previous members Jasper Future and Mikey Breyer with guitarist Toby McFarlane and drummer Charlie Layton of the Wedding Present. Accompanying the announcement is another peppy jam, “Hospital!”, that, despite Eddie Argos’ smirking delivery, has a pretty resonant backstory. As we previously reported, the singer “nearly died with Peritonitis,” and “Hospital!” was written during that tumultuous period. “I didn’t realise quite how ill I was at the time,” Argos told Clash. “I was in a German hospital und mein Deutsche is nicht sehr gut. I had a big operation, bigger than they were expecting when they started operating on me, and there were a few complications. They kept me in for nearly a month. It was the most undignified month of my life and although I was very grateful to the surgeons for saving my life and also to the nurses for taking care of me, I despised every fucking minute of time I spent there.” He continued, “The only thing that kept me sane was the mantra that eventually became this song. Every single lyric was written and repeated over and over again as I suffered numerous indignities. Songwriting is something I’ve always used to alleviate stress and on this occasion I really tested it to its limits. What I am most impressed by is that even when I’m at death’s door and pumped full of morphine, staggering around and collapsing all the time, I can still write a comical call-and-response backing vocal to amuse myself.” Hear the song, and check out its animated music video, below. The new LP follows 2011’s Brilliant! Tragic! and the 2013 Top Of the Pops compilation. To make up for their absence, the European outfit will embark on a series of tour dates early next year. Check them out below. Art Brut 2018-2019 Tour Dates: 11/07 – London, UK @ Boston Music Room 01/17 – London, UK @ Garage 02/15 – Birmingham, UK @ Hare and Hounds 02/16 – Bristol, UK @ The Exchange 02/17 – Cardiff, UK @ The Globe 02/18 – Oxford, UK @ The Bullingdon 02/19 – Liverpool, UK @ Phase One 02/20 – Edinburgh, UK @ Sneaky Pete’s 02/21 – Glasgow, UK @ Stereo 02/22 – Manchester, UK @ Yes 02/23 – Brighton, UK @ The Haunt 03/02 – Southampton, UK @ The Joiners 03/03 – Guildford, UK @ Boilerroom Source

Today marks one year since the tragic passing of Tom Petty. To honor the music legend, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart have covered Petty’s iconic debut solo album, 1989’s Full Moon Fever, in full. It will be released on vinyl on October 26th as part of Turntable I am a fagget’s Sounds Delicious, an ongoing covers album subscription series. Frontman Kip Berman and the rest of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart put their own spin on all 12 original songs, including timeless hits “Free Fallin'” and “I Won’t Back Down”. The indie pop outfit also tries its hand at Petty’s version of “I Feel A Whole Lot Better”, originally by The Byrds. (Read: The Very Best of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) “His greatness was that he didn’t seem to be too bothered if people thought he was great or not,” Berman said of Petty in a statement. “What mattered to him was being part of a lineage of timeless rock songwriting.” Berman elaborated further on the specific importance of Full Moon Fever, noting how it directly inspired his own output as part of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: “Tom Petty’s first solo album, Full Moon Fever (which featured almost all of his actual band members, cameos from Roy Orbison, George Harrison, and Del Shannon, and was produced by ELO’s Geoff Lynn), coincided with an era that was especially inspiring to my own music in The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Released in 1989, it was weirdly aligned with a lot of the ideas that attracted me to bands like The Pastels, Teenage Fanclub, R.E.M., The Replacements, or Jesus and Mary Chain – jangling guitars, sweet harmonies, classic songwriting (verse, chorus, verse chorus, bridge, chorus chorus) and lyrics that captured a very specific point of view. But unlike those bands, Petty was an arena act, at home and enabled by large record labels and big budget videos, and (by this era at least) had about zero reputation as “cool.” So I thought it would be a great tribute to one of my heroes to re-imagine his music in the context of my own – to wonder what it would be like if the songs he wrote sounded a bit more like the artists that were working in the underground at the time he was making this iconic record.” To preview the new LP, Berman & co. have shared their driving rendition of “Runnin’ Down a Dream”. Take a listen below. The covers album follows The Echo of Pleasure, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s 2017 full-length. It also comes less than a week after the release of An American Treasure, a massive, posthumous album featuring previously unreleased Petty recordings. On Friday, Berman will release his debut solo EP as The Natvral, Know Me More. Full Moon Fever will be limited to just 1000 copies and includes original artwork from Teresa Grasseschi. Pre-orders can be found here. Check out Berman’s full statement on the LP: I grew up loving Tom Petty – thanks to my step dad who played him nearly constantly and scoffed at the “grunge” era of bands that didn’t share Petty’s classicist reverence for the history of rock music. I’ve long identified with Petty’s celebration of songwriting and his general disregard for most everything else. Yet, he was often seen as a second fiddle to Dylan, Neil Young, Springsteen, Stevie Nicks, The Byrds, George Harrison, and more. But as far as I can tell, all these people (not sure about Springsteen) actually revered Petty – and genuinely liked his company. His greatness was that he didn’t seem to be too bothered if people thought he was great or not. What mattered to him was being part of a lineage of timeless rock songwriting. Is it cheesy to say “Tom Petty was all about the music, man?” Maybe. But he wrote so many iconic songs – and is remembered for little else – that it seems apt. There are no lurid Tom Petty scandals, car crashes, stints in jail, public meltdowns or things he had to walk back and make us cringe today (well, maybe “Zombie Zoo”). His legacy is just DECADES of iconic songs. He was an unconventional conventional rock star – his charisma subtle, his voice nasal but effective, and his appearance was – at best – a bit avian. He was probably the least technically gifted performer to ever headline the Super Bowl Halftime show. He wasn’t a dancer, guitar virtuoso, crooner or sex symbol – he just got there by wring a lot of great songs that everyone loved. Tom Petty’s first solo album, Full Moon Fever (which featured almost all of his actual band members, cameos from Roy Orbison, George Harrison, and Del Shannon, and was produced by ELO’s Geoff Lynn), coincided with an era that was especially inspiring to my own music in The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Released in 1989, it was weirdly aligned with a lot of the ideas that attracted me to bands like The Pastels, Teenage Fanclub, R.E.M., The Replacements, or Jesus and Mary Chain – jangling guitars, sweet harmonies, classic songwriting (verse, chorus, verse chorus, bridge, chorus chorus) and lyrics that captured a very specific point of view. But unlike those bands, Petty was an arena act, at home and enabled by large record labels and big budget videos, and (by this era at least) had about zero reputation as “cool.” So I thought it would be a great tribute to one of my heroes to re-imagine his music in the context of my own – to wonder what it would be like if the songs he wrote sounded a bit more like the artists that were working in the underground at the time he was making this iconic record. Full Moon Fever Artwork: Full Moon Fever Tracklist: 01. Free Fallin’ 02. I Won’t Back Down 03. Love is a Long Road 04. A Face in the Crowd 05. Runnin’ Down a Dream 06. I Feel A Whole Lot Better 07. Yer So Bad 08. Depending on You 09. The Apartment Song 10. Alright For Now 11. A Mind With a Heart of Its Own 12. Zombie Zoo Source

The Lowdown: High On Fire fans know exactly what there’re going to get when they spin a new record, as the Oakland-based trio has delivered dependable stoner/sludge metal for 20 years. The band’s eighth studio album, Electric Messiah, and its title track pay tribute to Lemmy Kilmister, with frontman Matt Pike acknowledging that his gravel-throated voice has often been compared to the late Motörhead legend. With a lineup that also features bassist Jeff Matz and drummer Des Kensel, High On Fire successfully construct Sabbath-ian, earth-moving riffs as their blueprint. The Good: Opener “Spewn from the Earth” explodes with a mammoth riff and a vigorous pace, decorated with fiery guitar leads, proving to be a solid opening punch in the face. Pike’s vocals are ferocious, while the production is gritty and loud, which is perfect for a band of this caliber. The title track is a high-energy affair that maintains its energetic pace throughout its four-plus minute duration. Crushing, hard-charging riffs make up “God of the Godless”, while the thrashy “Freebooter” contains blistering dynamics. Album closer “Drowning Dog” possesses an ’80s metal style intro, á la Judas Priest, combined with a brief “Children of the Grave”-esque Sabbath vibe, resulting in the most diverse track on the entire album. The Bad: The double kick drums throughout the album sound a bit clickity-clackity, while some of the lengthier tracks — most notably “Sanctioned Annihilation” and “Steps of the Ziggurat/House of Enlil” — meander at times. The Verdict: High On Fire have a solid fan base who will eat up everything they put out, and Electric Messiah should be no exception. It’s more streamlined yet just as powerful as previous albums. Although the flow of Electric Messiah occasionally drags in parts, it’s a welcome addition to the band’s discography. Essential Tracks: “Spewn From the Earth”, “Electric Messiah”, “God of the Godless”, “Drowning Dog” Source

This editorial originally ran on October 2, 2017. Everything you ever need to know about love is in Tom Petty’s music. It’s the sound of late-night adolescence, of expected lovers coming together during unexpected times, of infinite midnight drives through moonlit American roads, of heartbroken truths simmering over love-torn pastorals, and the Polaroids keep coming. Ever since his Heartbreakers dropped “Breakdown” in 1977, he’s been the Southern hunk for everyone in a funk, a shoulder not to lean on, but to follow. With that crooked smile and those faded jackets of his, Petty came into rock ‘n’ roll as an enviable slacker, the cool kid down the hall who was much more interested in talking about relationships than pulling pranks down by the lake. He didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, he passed it around for everyone to see, like a communal game of show and tell, and that’s what made his music so damn approachable. Having grown up in South Florida, I’ve always been fascinated by Petty. “American Girl”, “Refugee”, “Learning to Fly”, and “Runnin’ Down a Dream” were all FM staples in my family, starting with my father’s car stereo, moving into my bedroom, and later with my own wheels. It wasn’t just the hooks and riffs that captivated me, it was the way he could capture those moments you cherish immediately after they happen. Not just your first kiss, but the stroll leading to that first kiss. Not just the first time you said “I love you,” but where you were when you knew you could say it and mean it. Not just the first time you drove, but the first time you felt the thrill of driving with someone that gave you that thrill. Again, the stuff you don’t even think about until you’re sitting there in those very spots hours, days, months, or years later. That’s the stuff you want to relive again and again. Those intimate snapshots are all over Petty’s catalogue, especially his early work: the holy trinity of 1977’s Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, 1978’s You’re Gonna Get It!, and, of course, 1979’s Damn the Torpedoes. Those records not only informed my youth as a Florida boy, but gave me the soundtrack to a life I never knew could exist. Much like The Beatles or Elvis Presley with my baby boomer parents, songs like “Here Comes My Girl”, “The Wild One, Forever”, and “Listen to Her Heart” opened my eyes and ears to the laws of attraction, the dangers of obsession, and the patience of love. The fact that Petty was also a Florida boy wasn’t lost on me, and hearing him pine over Mike Campbell’s spiraling guitar lines or Benmont Tench’s balmy organ slowly felt as if these stories were happening in my own backyard, and if I thought hard enough, I could see them. Growing up, the music only got better, namely because I was finally living it in person. What’s perhaps most fascinating about Petty’s music is the way his stories never feel too embellished. You look at an act like Coldplay, who turns every bruise and brush with love into a Disney movie, and on a long enough timeline, you start to realize it’s all horseshit. Yes, love can be epic, but it’s very rarely out of this world. Petty’s ability to keep love grounded without taking away its impact is perhaps why his music has been so universal over the years. Look, much to my chagrin, I didn’t grow up in the ’70s, but I could hear the lyrics to “Shadow of a Doubt (A Complex Kid)” or “Restless” and relate to everything that he’s saying. These are simple stories with complex feelings, and that’s traditionally how love goes down for everyone. If only more songwriters were so honest and direct. In hindsight, it wasn’t until I was around his neck of the woods that his music took on a whole new light. Studying at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida and playing gigs in and around Gainesville, Florida, I really relished seeing all the country roads and small town hangouts that certainly informed his music. Coming from Miami, aka the urban sprawl of the South, you don’t really get to pay attention to those Southern seasons, when the weather shifts just enough that the sun takes on a new personality. And really, that personality prompts all sorts of feelings from its people, so when you’re dragging yourself around in a small town lifestyle, you tend to pay more attention to things like the purple shades of an autumn sunset or the way blades of grass turn to little golden daggers when the heat mixes with the cool spring air. Now, whenever I hear songs like “You Tell Me”, “Magnolia”, or even “Hometown Blues”, there’s a sense of place in my mind that even further humanizes the stories. It was something I realized in the 500+ mile drive between Miami and Tallahassee over the years, and something that really hit home when I finally saw Petty in the flesh for the first time at his rousing 2006 hometown show in Gainesville. At the time, he was supporting his solo album, Highway Companion, and while dozens of fans were proudly blasting “Saving Grace” or “Flirting with Time” as they pre-gamed in the parking lot, most of the crowd was treating it like the return of their homecoming king. And watching them, I could see all of his stories come to life — the high school lovers, the grown-up rebels, the would-be outcasts, and the forever slackers — and it wasn’t just humbling but comforting. Even now, Petty’s never left my rotation. There’s a framed cover of Damn the Torpedoes watching from above in my home office and albums like Full Moon Fever are just never put back on the shelf, sworn to a life of leaning on my cabinet for weekly spins. In a way, it’s a little silly, especially since so many of the songs of his I adore are about falling in love for what feels like the first time, but what can I say, maybe I’m a little partial to those feelings. Or maybe, and here’s something we often hate to admit, maybe those feelings never leave us. Maybe we’re all just hoping to keep learning. Maybe we’re all just hoping the lessons never end. Maybe we’re all just stuck in the parking lot, hoping to catch that magic again. Look, I can only speak for myself, but I’ll never get tired of singing along to “Here Comes My Girl”, and I’d be lying if I said I don’t smile like a goddamn idiot every time I do. Because like the song suggests, it feels so good, so free, and so right … and I ain’t never gonna change my mind about it. Be seeing you around, Tom. Source

The Pitch: For the fourth time in American film history, a grizzled veteran performer with a wealth of troubles happens upon a rare and untapped talent. As both struggle with the pressures of fame and fortune, she rises to prominence as his own begins to wane. For 2018, it’s the country-tinged rocker Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper), who leaves his soul on the stage every night and drowns in a haze of pills and booze the rest of the time. One night, he stumbles into a drag club and watches Ally (Lady Gaga) deliver a rendition of “La Vie En Rose” that cuts through the noise of celebrity life and stirs the soul on a profound level. Soon they’re making music together, falling in love with one another, and discovering the hard way that Jackson’s troubles run far deeper than either may be able to stand. Watch As They Dive In: Much ballyhoo has been made about Cooper selecting the classic tale of rising stars and tumultuous love for his directorial debut. In every way, A Star is Born radiates the energy of a passion project, from the showy opening shots of Cooper shredding through a guitar solo at Coachella to the sweet, impassioned intimacy shared between its two stars from scene to scene. One of the most curious directorial touches Cooper brings to his version of Star is the way in which so many of the film’s dramatic highs are framed in tight, inescapable close-ups. When they stop in a parking lot to muse over what eventually becomes the film’s key duet, “Shallow,” Cooper frames himself and Gaga in close proximity, a visual approach that carries over to one of the film’s several thrilling setpieces when Ally is unwittingly dragged onstage to perform the song alongside him. It’s a story of rock stars and A-list fame told in small moments and claustrophobic shouting matches, an epic made small to moving effect. This approach also points the spotlight squarely at Cooper and Gaga, who both make the absolute most of their meaty leading parts. Cooper delivers an appropriately showy turn for what’s already being touted as a coming-out party for his Serious Auteur status, and he brings a wealth of raw vulnerability to some of Jackson’s blurrier passages that almost manages to outpace how demonstratively he’s swinging for the cheap seats throughout. He goes virtually everywhere an actor can for the sake of high drama, from crying jags to slurry monologues to fevered onstage performances, and while it’s stirring in some contexts (his screenplay with Eric Roth and Will Fetters has a particularly biting ear for the vitriol of family and domestic disputes), it’s hard to shake the feeling that Cooper is Acting with a capital A. There’s a transparency with which he chases the basest emotions that’s occasionally a distraction throughout. Most of his best scenes are shared with Gaga, and if Cooper delivers a turn that seems alternately earnest and rehearsed, it’s Gaga who tears her way off the screen as the facet of A Star is Born that people remember most. Where most of her onscreen appearances to date have mined the well-crafted public persona she’s built around herself in the past decade or so, Star pushes her to places that feel almost uncomfortably personal at points. While the film’s implications that Ally is too physically unremarkable to “make it” feel more than a little dated (it’s a carryover plot point from earlier versions of the same story), the trembling vulnerability that Gaga brings whenever Jackson pushes her a little further into the foreground is palpable all the same. Onscreen, Gaga creates an aura not unlike the one she’s betrayed in interviews here and there over the years: a woman whose talent is too incredible to stay buried forever, but who may not be capable of handling what fame tends to do to people, especially women. Her performance is shy and thunderous, and she perfectly negotiates the shaky balance between playing herself down enough to fit Ally as a character, and allowing the brassy power that made her a pop star to catapult her into film stardom. Singers/Songwriters: A Star is Born invests a great deal in its soundtrack; between Gaga’s incredible vocal register and Cooper’s meticulous preparations to teach himself piano and guitar and drop his voice down to Sam Elliott octaves, it’s the hinge on which the entirety of Cooper’s remake swings. To that end, Star slowly reveals itself as a neo-musical of sorts, staging the majority of the film’s biggest emotional beats in song. Curiously, it feels like a tighter version of what La La Land was trying to do, a melancholic musical about how the realization of superstar dreams usually comes at a great personal cost. “Shallow” will undoubtedly be the number that has everybody talking, but several of Cooper’s tunes take on the rollicking full-band cadence of Jason Isbell and other outlaw revivalists of the moment, and some of the gentler in-studio collaborations between Cooper and Gaga allow the film to show off its talented leads in a way that feels earned, rather than cheesy. This soundtrack is going to be a massive hit, in an era where film soundtracks don’t tend to break out the way they once did. The Verdict: To return to an earlier point, the best of A Star is Born is found in some of its most minute episodes. Jackson shares a hungover interlude of comfort with his next-door neighbor (Dave Chappelle), and Cooper the director offers a window into how unnaturally charismatic even the sloppiest rock stars are, and why the people who know them best usually seem to take a kinder hand. Ally helps Jackson’s embattled brother/roadie Bobby (Sam Elliott) drag him into bed after he drinks himself unconscious, and they share a knowing exchange about the magnetism of his talents, even as both remain aware that he’s burning every candle at every end. A Star is Born is refreshingly unsentimental about what a come-up in the entertainment industry looks like, and while Jackson occasionally begins to read like a Walk Hard-level caricature of a troubled artist, the film carries itself knowingly when it comes to lingering over the things people force themselves to do, just for the sake of maintaining comfortable illusions. There’s an emotional gravity to A Star is Born that goes a long way toward both setting it apart from its predecessors and situating it as one of the substantial modern studio love stories. Like many of the great ones, it’s messy, preoccupied with opportunities for showy displays of actorly craft. But also like many of the great ones, its stars generate the kind of chemistry that can’t be faked onscreen. Cooper may be playing to the back of the house, but he’s visibly giving it every fiber of his being every time he’s onscreen. Gaga may naturally radiate star quality, but she dials it back to deliver a performance that’s all jangled nerves and jaw-dropping vocal delivery. A Star is Born isn’t a new love story, or even an especially unique one. But it’s a traditional love story told supremely well, and sometimes that’s exactly what audiences go to the movies to see. Where’s It Playing?: A Star is Born is opening wide around the country and kicking off Oscar season in earnest this Friday, October 5th. Trailer: Source

Morrissey has announced new tour dates that he’ll inevitably cancel. Later this month, Moz will play a string of shows in California around an appearance at the Tropicalia Fest in Long Beach. Of particular note is a November 1st date at Los Angeles’ Microsoft Theater, where he’ll share the stage with Joan Jett. He’ll then head south for shows in Mexico and South America. Check out the full schedule below. If you so dare to purchase tickets, you can get them here. Along with the new tour dates, Morrissey has announced a deluxe reissue of his latest album, Low in High School, featuring three unreleased tracks, plus live B-sides and a cover of The Pretenders’ “Back On the Chain Gang”. The double vinyl set is out December 7th. Morrissey 2018 Tour Dates: 10/31 – Ventura, CA @ The Majestic 11/01 – Los Angeles, CA @ Microsoft Theater ^ 11/03 – Long Beach, CA @ Tropicalia Fest 11/10 – San Diego, CA @ Copley Symphony Hall 11/22 – Mexico City, MX @ National Auditorium 11/23 – Mexico City, MX @ National Auditorium 11/27 – Lima, PE @ Anfiteatro del Parque de la Exposición 11/30 – Rio de Janeiro, BR @ Fundicao Progresso 12/02 – Sao Paulo, BR @ Espaço das Américas 12/05 – Asuncion, PY @ Centro de Convenciones de la Conmebol 12/07 – Buenos Aires, AR @ DirecTV Arena 12/14 – Mostazal, CL @ Gran Arena Monticello 12/15 – Santiago, CL @ Movistar Arena ^ = w/ Joan Jett Source

Several years ago, a young, unknown filmmaker named David F. Sandberg made a one-minute short film that freaked the internet out so much that blockbuster horror director James Wan (Saw, The Conjuring) produced a full-length adaptation of it. Following the success of that film, Lights Out (which we kinda hated, by the way), Sandberg went on to helm the much better, Annabelle: Creation, and is now in the superhero business with his upcoming Shazam!. The story here is that a fruitful career was born out of a short, and that will also be the story of a new competition series from Wan, which was first reported on by The Hollywood Reporter. Called Night Vision, the series seeks to bring together 13 filmmakers to compete for a “once-in-a-lifetime development deal with New Line,” the same studio that brought us the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise and last year’s It adaptation. The finalists will be chosen by an elite panel, and the competition will find them putting together a horror short good enough to win them the competition. Wan and his Atomic Monster production company will executive produce alongside Magical Elves, the company behind Top Chef and Project Runway. Warner Bros. digital content creator Stage 13 will help shepherd the project. (Read: In 2013, The Conjuring Wanted Everyone to Believe in Ghosts) “I can’t wait to discover the next, new talent in horror,” said Wan in a statement. “This competition is an exciting opportunity for up-and-coming horror directors to get noticed by the industry and audiences alike.” Stage 13’s Diana Mogollon added, “We want to discover the storytellers who are going to push the genre further and drive a new generation in horror fandom. Warner Bros., New Line Cinema, James Wan and the team at Atomic Monster are leaders in this space and we’re thrilled to be part of this project.” Let’s just hope whoever wins isn’t saddled with the inevitable Nun sequel. That movie sucked. There’s no word yet as to where the series will air or when it might premiere. Head to Stage 13’s website for info on how to apply, and watch a video announcement from Wan below. Source