Blue Chips is a monthly rap column that highlights exceptional rising rappers. To read previous columns, click here. Water sloshes in the background when Adam Levin answers the phone. Bath time ran longer than anticipated, so the 32-year-old Chicagoan calls back when his infant daughter is occupied with episodes of Sesame Street. Teacher by day, […]
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs opened their first show in three years last night (May 30) at Los Angeles’ Teragram Ballroom by debuting their new single, “Spitting Off the Edge of the World.” The studio version of the track, which features Perfume Genius, will be released tomorrow. They also performed new songs “Fleez” and “Splitting.” [embedded […]
Will Butler has released his first new music since his surprising March departure from Arcade Fire in the form of two songs from Merge Records, “A Stranger’s House” and “Nearer to Thee.” Butler will also tour this summer for the first time since 2019, with a seven-show run beginning Aug. 11 in Cambridge, Mass. Unsurprisingly, […]
My bus is named Skippy Jr. Date May 5, 2022 Current city Denver, CO On our way to Salt Lake City, UT Come see us until (date tour ends): May 22nd… but Imma be all over the place this summer, too. Promoting “100sadsongs” off my project that’s gunna be out end of summer called HDTV. My favorite song to perform […]
In case you missed it, last week Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner celebrated a career milestone. No, we’re not talking about performing on Saturday Night Live, we’re talking about throwing out the first pitch at the Phillies vs. Mets game at Citi Field. On Saturday, we caught up with Zauner backstage at Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival […]
Vagrant Records has been celebrating its 25th birthday for a while now, and the party’s first live event landed in Irvine, California on Saturday (May 28). The six-band showcase featured an afternoon and evening with Hot Rod Circuit, the Anniversary, the Get Up Kids, Thrice, Alkaline Trio and Dashboard Confessional (in that order). Thousands of […]
Three years ago, Mark Tremonti — guitarist/singer-songwriter/founding member of the rock bands Creed, Alter Bridge, and Tremonti — became absolutely obsessed with Frank Sinatra. Though he’d always been a fan of Frank’s and sang along suitably with Sinatra’s low register, this time was different. It was as if Tremonti was being deliberately pulled in Sinatra’s […]
Harry Styles broke another record: he now has the largest sales week for a vinyl album released in the U.S. since Luminate (formerly known as Nielsen SoundScan) began tracking this data in 1991. Styles’ third solo album, Harry’s House, sold 182,000 copies in its opening week. The previous record-holder was Taylor Swift’sRed, Taylor’s Version, which […]
COVID be damned, welcome to peak season for music festival rats. I’m one of them and have attended scores of festivals around the world. But I’ve never done “the camping thing,” and it was time for that to change. After all, like so many others during the pandemic, and inspired by the much hash-tagged romantic […]
Elvis Costello has re-teamed with old friend Allan Mayes to record for the first time music they once performed back in the early 1970s in the band Rusty. The six-track EP Rusty: The Resurrection of Rust will be released by Capitol on streaming platforms on June 10, with a CD release following on July 1. […]