Month: July 2021

Strand Of Oaks (aka singer-songwriter Timothy Showalter) has unveiled the release date for his forthcoming eighth album, In Heaven, which will be out October 1. Showalter has also released a contemplative new lead single, “Galacticana.” It was recorded with collaborator Kevin Ratterman at Ratterman’s Invisible Creature studios in Los Angeles and is the first LP of Showalter’s since his move to Austin, Texas.

Of the album, which follows up 2019’s Eraserland, Showalter said in a press release, “In Heaven was created with so much love and my greatest hope is that it connects with people and provides a momentary space for reflection, joy, catharsis, and whatever else someone might be looking for in their life. Music is magic and I feel like the luckiest person in the world that I’m allowed to share it.”

Listen to “Galacticana” above and check out the album’s art and tracklist below. Also, have a look at Showalter’s upcoming fall tour dates (venue and ticket information will be announced soon).

1. “Galacticana”
2. “Easter”
3. “Hurry”
4. “Horses At Night”
5. “Somewhere in Chicago”
6. “Jimi & Stan”
7. “Sunbathers”
8. “Carbon”
9. “Sister Saturn”
10. “Slipstream”
11. “Under Heaven”

10/11 — Boston, MA
10/12 — Washington, DC
10/13 — Philadelphia, PA
10/15 — Holyoke, MA
10/16 — Hamden, CT
10/18 — Brooklyn, NY
10/19 — Buffalo, NY
10/20 — Detroit, MI
10/22 — Cleveland, OH
10/23 — Columbus, OH
10/24 — Indianapolis, IN
10/26 — Kansas City, MO
10/27 — Denver, CO
10/29 — Boise, ID
10/31 — Seattle, WA
11/01 — Portland, OR
11/03 — Oakland, CA
11/04 — Los Angeles, CA
11/06 — San Diego, CA
11/08 — Phoenix, AZ
11/10 — Dallas, TX
11/11 — Houston, TX
11/12 — Austin, TX
11/15 — Tampa, FL
11/16 — Atlanta, GA
11/17 — Nashville, TN
11/19 — Carrboro, NC

In Heaven is out 10/1 via Galacticana Records/Thirty Tigers. Pre-order it here.

While the old adage “a series does not start until the road team wins a game” applies so far, the Milwaukee Bucks find themselves in a tough spot in the 2021 NBA Finals. The Phoenix Suns currently boast a 2-0 series lead as things shift to Wisconsin for Games 3 and 4, meaning now’s a great time for a guy like Jrue Holiday to get into a rhythm.

While Holiday has been his usual pestering self on the defensive end of the floor, he’s had some major issues getting the ball to go into the basket. He’s averaging 13.5 points per game in his NBA Finals debut while connecting on 31.4 percent of his field goals and 14.3 percent of his threes, and despite the fact that he’s done other good things — Holiday’s averaging eight assists, six rebounds, one steal, and one block in 39.7 minutes per game in the Finals — his inability to provide a scoring punch is giving some folks flashbacks to his predecessor, Eric Bledsoe, whose struggles in postseason play were well-documented.

The good news, to whatever point there is any, is that Holiday’s MVP teammate is confident in what he’s able to do. Giannis Antetokounmpo spoke to the media after the game and expressed that he’s not worried about Holiday’s play so far.

“Just keep talking to him, keep telling him to be aggressive,” Antetokounmpo said when he was asked how he approaches Holiday’s slump as the team’s leader. “No matter what’s going on, you gotta stay aggressive and you cannot get all in your feelings. It’s hard not to — NBA Finals, 20,000 people booing you and all that, it’s kinda hard, but at the end of the day, it’s not about me, it’s not about him, it’s not about Khris, it’s not about coach, it’s about all of us. And at the end of the day, if there’s a game that you’re 3-for-12 or whatever the case has been, you can rebound the ball, or get a steal, or do something else to help the team win, that’s what it’s all about right now. And I think he understands that, and I don’t worry at all about him, I know he’s gonna be there when we need him the most.”

Antetokounmpo went on to call Holiday “a great basketball player” before referencing how well he’s played all season. While Holiday’s scoring went down a tick during the regular season — his 17.7 points a night was his lowest scoring output in four years — he put forth career-best marks in effective field goal percentage (57 percent) and true shooting percentage (59.2 percent).

The Bucks very much need to continue to have faith in him, and if there’s a reason for optimism, it’s the fact that the friendly confines of Fiserv Forum are on the horizon. If that faith does not come to fruition, though, it’s not hard to imagine the Bucks struggling to get this series back to Phoenix.

It has now been more than five months since Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States, but the conspiracy theories about the various ways the election was stolen from Donald Trump keep on comin’. The latest comes courtesy of kooky Colorado congressman Ken Buck, who doesn’t seem to know how elections or algorithms work, which is a pity, given that he’s the House Antitrust Committee’s top Republican. As Mediaite reports, Buck is now pointing the finger at Google as the reason Trump got fewer votes than Biden. Yes, you read that correctly: Google! As he explains it:

“Google, by the way, changed its algorithm in May of 2020 to disadvantage Donald Trump and to advantage Joe Biden. [It] changed its algorithm! And when you ask them about this, and I know people that own newspapers, and I asked them about it, and they say, ‘Oh, well that’s just a technical thing. We don’t know what the result was. We just know that we did, that a technical person did this.’ Nonsense! They chose the winner… The estimates are they moved 15 million votes. Because every time you ask for an article on Donald Trump or every time you Google Donald Trump—and people here obviously Google in a more sophisticated way—but people out there that were hearing about Donald Trump and they’re wondering, you know, ‘Donald Trump, Hunter Biden.’”

If only Google had an algorithm to decipher what the hell Buck is talking about!

When asked to better explain what he was talking about, and how a search engine “flipped” 15 million votes to Joe Biden, Buck briefly stammered before giving his response:

“Well, what I’ve heard from, you know, sort of the academics on this issue is that by, by changing the algorithm, you can flip 15 million votes. You can influence 15 million people to move one direction or another, in that situation… So you talk to people, you know, at conservative publications and what they’ll tell you is the day after that algorithm went into effect, their readership went down. So if you were looking for something on The Washington Examiner or The Washington Times, or the conservative newspapers in this area, you would have to go further down. You’d have to go to page two or three to find the story you were looking for.”

We won’t bore you with the details of how Google algorithm tweaks affect the traffic of pretty much all media outlets (including this one!)—not just the conservative ones—but in July 2020 it was revealed that there was some sort of glitch which caused Google to block search results for conservative sites like Breitbart, and that it was quickly rectified.

Which is all to say that of all the people, places, and things that have been blamed for Trump being less popular than Biden, Google might be the wildest culprit yet.

(Via Mediaite)

With “WitcherCon” fully in swing, Netflix didn’t waste a minute building up hype for the heavily anticipated Season 2 of The Witcher. The epic fantasy series starring Henry Cavill was on track to becoming the streaming service’s best stab at having its own Game of Thrones-type phenomenon, but the pandemic had other plans as it threw off the production, which tried to get off the ground in early 2020.

However, despite an almost two year gap between seasons, The Witcher is roaring back, and to get fans pumped, Netflix’s first order of business was dropping a first look at the fan-favorite character, Jaskier. Played by Joey Batey, the traveling bard delivered the instantly viral song, “Toss A Coin to Your Witcher” in the first season, and now he’s back, belting out another “breakaway pop hit” in the still from the new season.

Can Jaskier’s new tune compete with “Toss A Coin” and its viral catchiness? It’ll be a bit until we find out. After teasing fans with promises of a new Jaskier earworm, Netflix finally confirmed The Witcher Season 2 release date. The good news is fans won’t have to wait until 2022, as reports were suggesting, after production got delayed due to the pandemic and Cavill injured his leg when things finally picked up again. The bad news is they’ll have to wait until the end of 2021 when the new season premieres on December 17.

(Via Netflix Geeked)

Inglewood is going through a bit of a resurgence, not just geographically and economically, but also artistically. While the City Of Champions receives an influx of business and development thanks to a giant new football stadium and the new Clippers arena currently being constructed in the area, its profile in the entertainment world has risen dramatically, thanks to the efforts of locals like rapper D Smoke and multi-hyphenate Issa Rae. They’ve been putting on for their city in a way that hasn’t been seen since the Los Angeles Lakers and their Showtime antics gave Inglewood its nickname in the late ’80s/early ’90s with Issa’s show Insecure, Smoke’s season one win on Netflix’s Rhythm + Flow, and his debut album Black Habits.

The city is now the home of the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers, the future home of the Los Angeles Clippers, and the hometown of rising rap star Nana. Nana, the son of Ghanaian immigrants and a lyricist of powerful artistic intent, recently released the cathartic, authentic debut album Save Yourself. On it, Nana details his battles with demons both internal and external with wit, empathy, and a stark, realistic outlook that conveys all the sensibilities of old-school gangsta rap with a much more cosmopolitan and modern twist. Call it gangsta-adjacent rap. It’s the sort of lyricism that has long been embraced in the Inglewood area by longtime friends like Thurz and in the wider LA area from the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Murs, and Reason, but Nana’s unique approach gives it enough originality to overcome straight-up homage and elevate his street credibility.

I connected with Nana via Zoom to talk about the album, as well as our shared experiences as children of the Los Angeles street culture who stayed out of it by some stroke of fate, faith, or luck (or all of the above), but were still touched by it.

All right. So first off, I would like to say thank you for creating Save Yourself, because that is an incredible album. I discovered it on my last trip to the park to hoop and I swear I shot 87% from three that day.

There we go. Though safe to say that it had a positive effect.

Yes, sir. So let’s start with who is Nana? You are from Crenshaw and I know that, and I know that your parents are Ghanaian. I don’t know much about you, so let’s just start with when did you start rapping? Why did you start rapping? What was the impetus behind who you are now?

Word. Well, I’m Nana, a young man from the Crenshaw district and born and raised here. Didn’t move here. I was born and bred here. My parents came here, I want to say 1983. 1983. And then I’m one of five siblings. So I’m of and from the area and I’m somebody that I felt like it’s my God-given destiny to not only give my story, and my story, it’s a very interesting story given where my parents are from and me being first-generation Ghanaian. But to really tell the story of young Black and brown kids that come from where I come from and who don’t have the voice that I have. So that’s just the tip of the iceberg of who I am.

You changed your stage name from Blaison Maven. Can you explain what that name meant, why you changed your name and why it was so important to you to go by your government?

Man, I chose that name because I wanted to be like Lupe [Fiasco]. I felt like “Blaison” looked good on paper. I remember Lupe telling his story and how he said he chose the name Lupe because it looked good on paper.

And in hindsight, it was a ridiculous name that I chose. But I decided to change my name because I was always insecure about my name, the name Nana. I was always insecure about it. I didn’t want to go by my real name initially, which is why I went by what I was going by, but I think with my newfound honesty and me really giving people my truth. I’m like, I can’t really tell people the truth until I’m truthful with myself, right?

So I’m like, I have to embrace my insecurities. There are other people that are out there that have insecurities and I got to be the one to kind of let them know that it’s okay to embrace who you are. You don’t have to run away from it, especially the power that is behind the meaning of my name. My name means “King” in Ghana.

So once I grew up and really embraced it and really took on the meaning of my name, I felt like I defeated that demon of insecurity. If I’m giving people the real, I got to be real with myself.

Absolutely. Now I don’t know if you know this, you’re actually one of two rappers named Nana. When I was doing my research, I found out that there is a German rapper named Nana, who is also Ghanaian, which is pretty wild.

Somewhere down the line, I’m sure we probably even related, but no. I had no idea. It’s a common name in Ghana, especially. I think coming from where my parents are from, it’s kind of like every name has a meaning. If you are born on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday… I have a friend named Thurz. His name is Kofi, though.

I know exactly who you’re talking about. So with that being said, you’ve spoken extensively, I think, about your faith and how faith gave you a way out, but you named the project Save Yourself. And I find that dichotomy to be fascinating because there are two different things at play there: fate and predestination, and also free will and saving yourself. How do you reconcile those two ideas, both in your music and in your personal philosophy?

Well, I think before anybody else can help you, even on a spiritual level, you got to be like, “Yo, I’m going to make this conscious effort to do better.” Once you decide you’re going to make this conscious effort to go in this direction, then you open yourself to all of the positive possibilities within that. I know there’s people out there that are probably alcoholics. If you want to stop, you got to be like, “Yo, I’m going to stop.” Before anybody else could come in and help you, you have to be the one. You are the author of your destiny and you make your own decisions.

Switching gears a little bit. On the album, you don’t really have too many guest stars but you have my boy Reason from Carson on “LA Times.” How did that connection get made, and what was the inspiration of that song that you guys did together?

Yeah, me and Reason, we have the same mixing engineer, my boy Kytel. I met Reason two years ago after Kytel played my music for Reason. Reason took a liking to it, and he’s one of the most genuine guys in this industry. You know how you just meet good people, and you’re like, “Yo, I actually f*ck with him.” Outside of music, outside of everything, he’s genuine, and he’s a good person. So, me and him, we just been cool ever since.

So when we did that song, I was like, “I think it would be cool if I gave my perspective of growing up in South Central.” He was like, “Yeah, I should give my take on being a victim of circumstance growing up in Los Angeles and how we’re ultimately both victims, but giving it in a way where it’s like reality,” because there have been times where… you just trying to go to the mall and you get jammed up and you end up in a situation, and you don’t know whether or not you’re going to make it home or not.

And those were like real turning points in a lot of people’s lives. A lot of people didn’t walk away from those situations. I ended up in those situations a lot. Thankfully, I was able to walk away. So, it was just giving the reality of that because Reason is from Carson and the same thing that’s happening in Carson, is happening in the Crenshaw District.

That part, it’s Southern California culture. So, it was dope how it just transpired and it just felt so organic because of the right relationship that I had with him, I was so hype on how it came out. When I got his verse back, I was like, “This is perfect.”

Now, talking about dualities and dichotomies, you also address that on the album, on the record “Heaven & Hennessy.”

I think Hennessy is fit perfect because, I feel like it represents… this might sound a little dark, but to an extent, a demon in a sense. Where it’s just being caught in the middle of your angels and your demons. We all sin, it’s a representation of sin. A lot of times, when we get turned up, when we get drunk, we’re not really ourselves.

We all struggle and we all are still trying to make the conscious effort to save ourselves by trying to be the best versions of ourselves that we can be. I know I fall short and my intention was to let people know, I’m just like you. I go through the same sh*t that you go through.

So, a year from now, what’s your ideal outcome? What do you want the world to know about Nana? Where do you want to be in 2022?

Man in 2022, I’ll probably have another album out. Within another year, man, hopefully, by God’s grace again, I’m able to really see people and touch people physically. I think for me that was like the most like, (frustrated noise). The fact that I put out a project… and I think it was very dope that I was able to put out a project when I put it out because I know a lot of people needed it, but not being able to see the people and be amongst the people during that.

…Tour with it, yeah.

Yeah, I was like, “Damn,” I want to just be able to travel the world. For me, it’s not really about just traveling the world, but really traveling the world and taking Los Angeles with me and taking these stories with me because I know people from other places can also relate to these stories and just really spreading and getting the movement, these words, and the gift that I was given out there.

Save Yourself is out now. You can get it here.

In 1994, Friends made its television debut on NBC and turned all six of its lead actors into extremely famous people seemingly overnight, with Jennifer Aniston being its real breakout star. One year later, when Aniston and Rachel Green, the character she played on the beloved sitcom, got a haircut, millions of women were begging their hairstylists to give them “The Rachel,” too. Basically, Friends was the biggest thing on television, and news that one of its stars bought an apple at the grocery store could be teased out into a 2,500-word front-page feature. Yet Counting Crows lead singer Adam Duritz claims he had no idea who the hell Aniston was when they started dating in 1995.

Honestly, the timeline here seems suspicious. But ET had the opportunity to sneak a peek at Dark Side of the ’90s, VICE TV’s new docuseries, and shared Duritz’s comments on how he first met Aniston and how they got together. The story goes like this: The Counting Crows found fame the same year that Johnny Depp opened The Viper Room, which became a celebrity hotspot. It was one of Duritz’s favorite haunts, and he admitted that he could be found there almost every night. And that is where he met the Friends star (who, remember, was starring on Friends at that time, so was already a mega-celebrity).

“A bunch of my friends lied to me and told me she had a crush on me,” Duritz explained. “Those same friends lied to her and told her I had a crush on her. I honestly had no idea who she was, I had been on the road during all of Friends. I had never seen it, I don’t think.”

Maybe it was Duritz’s lack of being wowed by the superstar that was part of the attraction, as they were definitely considered an oddball mix at the time. “It didn’t last very long, but she’s a nice girl,” Duritz said of their short-lived romance.

Oddly, for someone who didn’t watch Friends, Duritz certainly had an affinity for its female stars. In 1997, he and Courteney Cox also had a brief romance after Cox appeared in the band’s music video for “A Long December.”

The ‘90s were weird, man.

(Via ET)

2020 was a huge year for Benee, as it saw her debut album, Hey U X, as it brought her increased attention on an international level. She even made her US late-night TV debut on The Late Show towards the end of the year. It’s been quieter in the Benee camp this year, though, aside from releasing her Hey U X cut “Happen To Me” as a single.

Now she’s back with a fresh recording, though, of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know.” For her rendition of the 2011 hit (which was released when Benee was just 11 years old), Benee took things in an ’80s-inspired lo-fi direction. The cover was recorded as an Amazon Music exclusive.

Benee says of the song, “I resonate so strongly with the lyrics in this song. I wish that I had written it and was so excited by the opportunity to record it for Amazon Music.”

Benee’s rendition of the song goes along with what she previously told Uproxx in a 2020 interview, saying of her own music, “I really love the contrast between having happy, kind of playful, upbeat production and having really sad lyrics. That’s what I’m drawn to when I’m listening to music.”

Listen to Benee’s Gotye cover above or here and compare it to the original “Somebody That I Used To Know” below. Also revisit our interview with Benee here.

Apple is reportedly interested in a big bet on the National Football League as its Sunday Ticket package is set to go up for bid. The longtime DirecTV exclusive package is apparently attracting plenty of interest from streaming services in what’s shaping up to be a very interesting bidding war that will impact millions of football fans.

The Information reported on Friday that Apple is already in talks with the NFL about Sunday Ticket, which allows fans to watch the full slate of NFL games not regularly broadcast in their TV market. Described as “early talks” by the outlet, the news means Apple is among a slew of companies interested in swooping in to take broadcast rights from the satellite provider that’s had control of the package for close to three decades.

The iPhone maker is one of a number of companies, including TV networks and other tech firms, that have had discussions with NFL executives lately about the package of games, including at this week’s Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley for tech and media executives. The rights cover a package known as Sunday Ticket, which now airs on DirecTV. They are separate from a slew of licensing deals recently completed between the NFL, most major broadcast TV networks and Amazon. ESPN’s parent Disney is among those likely to be interested in Sunday Ticket.

NBC News reported Friday that ESPN and Amazon are, indeed, interested in the package, which started as a broadcast add-on for DirecTV and has spawned into its own streaming app and online broadcast options in recent years. The package is lucrative, as millions of football fans utilize it to watch their favorite teams from outside their usual viewing area. DirecTV currently pays about $1.5 billion a year for the rights to the package, a deal that expires after the 2022 season.

It’s unlikely a winner is settled anytime soon, but the negotiations will have far-reaching consequences for not just the NFL and its wallet, but how fans watch the game. Recent years has seen Yahoo stream NFL games, the Thursday Night Football package appear on Amazon as well as the league’s own website, and other broadcast deals impact which streaming devices, apps, and subscriptions fans utilize to tune in. For those in the Apple ecosystem, their interest could be extremely convenient news while others with different devices may be rooting for other corporate overlords to win the next frontier of the streaming war.

[via The Information]

Could you make a burger based solely on a drawing? You’re probably thinking, “Sure! Easy.” But what if that drawing was made by the youngest member of your family? To pull that off, your creativity has to be as dialed in as your skills in the kitchen. To test those skills this week, home chef and actress Britt Ellis is entering the Cooking Battles Thunderdome against chef and co-founder of Seoul Sausage, Yong Kim. Their battle? Make a burger based on a drawing from the youngest member of their family using HEINZ products wherever they can.

That all sounds simple enough. But it really does come down to how the chefs interpret their drawings and the creativity they bring to the kitchen for their burgers. Britt starts off by looking at the green scribbling on her burger drawing and focusing on a Carolina chiliburger with coleslaw piled high. Meanwhile, chef Kim’s unicorn burger with a smiley face, horns, and pink sauce leads towards apples and beets getting pureed for a burger that truly catches the eye.

Both Ellis and Kim go all-in with their burgers and create dishes that look mouthwatering in completely different ways. Ellis’ liberal use of chili and slaw is hard to ignore. But Kim’s use of cheddar and mozzarella cheese with an apple-beet sauce feels like a trip to flavortown.

In the end, Max Greb (better known on the internet as Max the Meat Guy) steps in to judge these burgers himself. Greb’s job goes beyond just tasting the burgers and declaring a winner. He’s also judging each burger on Presentation, Build of the Burger, Use of Sauce, Closest to the Drawing, and Creativity.

Will the smiling, beet-filled unicorn burger win? Or the stacked Carolina chiliburger? Watch the episode to find out!

As part of their ongoing 40th anniversary celebrations, R.E.M. have unveiled the Hib-Tone version of “Sitting Still,” which fans may recall is the B-side to the band’s 1983 debut single “Radio Free Europe.”

For those who need a refresher, Hib-Tone is the Atlanta-based label that originally released “Radio Free Europe” (the reissue of which dropped last May) and “Sitting Still” in 1981. Later, in 1983, both songs would be released on the college-rock favorites’ debut album, Murmur, via I.R.S. Records. Now, you can hear the original 1981 version of “Sitting Still,” which is available digitally for the first time.

In a couple of weeks, R.E.M. will reissue their first single as a 7-inch single via Craft Recordings. Likewise, R.E.M.’s 1981 demo tape — Cassette Set — will be available in limited quantities for the first time exclusively via the official R.E.M. store as a bundle with the 7-inch.

“We were all just kind of finger-painting,” Mitch Easter, who produced “Radio Free Europe,” told Rolling Stone in May. “They weren’t super-deliberate about anything. I loved that about the sessions. Even when we did the LPs, nobody was really taking any orders from anybody. There might have been people advising R.E.M. on the business end of things, to do this, that, or the other. But they pretty much ignored all of them.”

Listen to the Hib-Tone recording of “Sitting Still” above. Look for the reissued “Radio Free Europe” 7-inch on 7/23, and pre-order it here.