Month: July 2021

Earlier in the summer, Los Angeles’ Illuminati Hotties, aka the garage-pop project of Sarah Tudzin, released new songs “Pool Hopping” and “Mmmoooaaaaayaya.” Now, Tudzin is back with “Uvvp,” a warm weather-appropriate, beachy single that features a guest spot from Big Thief guitarist and backing vocalist Buck Meek.

About the new song, Tudzin notes:

“The road toward fulfillment is lonesome and dusty for a rambling ranger like yourself. For when you need a deputy’s hand, a sling of something sweet, or just a breather in paradise, there’s ‘Uvvp.’ I brought along my pal Buck Meek to remind you to say something about how special your beau may be to you, even if you’re too shy to muster up the courage.”

Tudzin is on the cusp of releasing Illuminati Hotties’ new album, Let Me Do One More, which follows 2018’s Kiss Yr Frenemies. Illuminati Hotties are also about to go on tour supporting Death Cab For Cutie‘s West Coast dates in September. The day after the album drops, on October 2, the Hotties will headline Zebulon in Los Angeles.

Watch the video for “Uvvp” above and revisit our 2018 interview with Tudzin here.

Let Me Do One More is out 10/1 via Snack Shack Tracks/Hopeless Records. Pre-order it here.

There’s a whole genre of entirely informed female representatives in Congress channeling major “group project leader” vibes to humiliate the hell out of their lazy, incompetent peers and … we’re kind of here for it.

Representative Katie Porter has done it time and again, weaponizing her whiteboard so effectively that we imagine it must strike fear into the heart of every Big Pharma CEO unlucky enough to cross her path, but she’s not the only intelligent woman on Capitol Hill that’s determined to do her job and do it well. May we now introduce to you, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?

Just kidding, we know that you know who AOC is and how adept she is at taking her fellow lawmakers to task when they screw up, but that doesn’t make watching her publicly drag those same coworkers for not being prepared for a meeting any less enjoyable. That’s exactly what she did during a hearing on a bill she introduced with Representative Rashida Tlaib to offer a public banking option that would address some of the pitfalls of the current commercial banking system. In the video of AOC’s testimony, which has been viewed over one million times, the Congresswoman from the Bronx drags the Republican colleagues who not only oppose the bill, they haven’t even bothered to read it.

“When I first got to Congress, I thought, man, people definitely study what they’re talking about here,” AOC begins. “Then I got here and realized that people don’t even – a lot of my colleagues don’t even read the bills that they are commenting on. We’re making lots of statements that have nothing to do with the legislation and frankly, you know, if I made comments that very publicly demonstrated that I didn’t read the legislation I was discussing, I’d be embarrassed, but that is an aside.”

Someone, please alert the nearest hospital, they’ll be seeing some badly charred lawmakers soon.

AOC has been happy to share her full takedown of the current for-profit banking system, while slyly throwing shade at Republicans who simp for it, on social media and people on Twitter are loving it.

Mama instincts can be strong, regardless of species. That’s why breastfeeders will often have a milk letdown reflex when they hear a baby crying, even if it isn’t their own. It’s why we get stories of cross-species caregiving when a baby animal gets abandoned. And it’s why a video of a mama deer running to a crying human baby’s rescue is so endearing. (Please high-five me for not typing “endeering.”)

Hanna Burton of New Lexington, Ohio, shared the video on TikTok with the caption “When you almost have to throw down with a momma deer because your baby starts crying outside.” The video has been viewed more than 27 million times and liked more than 6 million.

According to Fox 2 KTVU, Burton was hanging out on her deck with her 5-week-old son, Charlie, when the deer encounter occurred. Charlie was lying on fluffy blankets and having some tummy time when he began to get fussy. As Charlie cried and Burton started to console him, a deer came bounding into the yard toward the deck. Burton immediately picked up Charlie, calmly saying, “No, no. This one’s my baby. It’s not yours.”

“Hi, mama!” she added as the deer stopped in her tracks.

“She thinks your her baby,” she said to Charlie.

Burton said that the deer lives nearby with her two fawns and visits their yard frequently. And the commentary on Burton’s TikTok share was hilarious:

“She was ready to name that baby Tarzan and raise it on her own.”

“She’s like, ‘Oh you got this? You don’t need my help? I’m just gonna hang out over here then.'”

“The fact that your baby understood the assignment and stopped crying.’

“The deer’s TikTok is ‘when you almost have to throw down with a mama human because you think she stole your baby.'”

“So you’re telling me I can use a baby as a deer call?”

The sound of Charlie’s crying really does resemble the sound of a fawn crying for help, so it’s understandable that the deer would come running to the rescue when she heard it. Such a good mama.

Today’s episode of UPROXX Sessions features another LA transplant, the Baltimore-born Def Jam rapper Roddy Rackzz, who gives a melodic performance of his trenches-to-penthouse anthem “Head Up.” Appearing in a red Supreme motocross vest and crooning over his Deeboy/JishBeatz-produced, guitar-looping track, Roddy makes a case for perseverance and determination in the face of adversity.

Roddy’s wardrobe choice isn’t just a fanciful affectation. He’s also an actual rider, who has shot commercials for Reebok and showing his dirt bike skills in the official video for “Head Up”… which I suppose would be a bit like Dame D.O.L.L.A. coming through to perform rocking his Portland Trail Blazers jersey. Among Roddy’s most popular tracks are the wistful trap banger “Never Enough” from his 2020 debut mixtape F*ck Rap and the money-hungry “Addict” featuring the DMV’s own Shy Glizzy.

Watch Roddy Rackzz’s “Head Up” performance above.

UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.

Let’s face it: Running to stay fit and active isn’t easy – even for the most advanced athlete. But with a little motivation and practice, you can grow to appreciate and love running. “Anyone can be a runner. You just got to go out and run,” says Duy Nguyen, co-founder of the Koreatown Run Club.

Nguyen and the club’s co-founder, Mike Pak, detail the origins of the club and what it has meant to them in the first episode of Greater Outdoors, which is a collaboration between Uproxx and KeVita. As the two discuss in the above video, what started as an IG post in search of like-minded runners five years ago has turned into something that allows them to find a routine, celebrate community, and develop their love of running with the approximately 25 group members.

“Run club is a space we can be ourselves and work on ourselves and improve on ourselves, and hold each other accountable,” Pak tells Uproxx. “If you do feel like you do suck at running, know that you’re not the only one who’s thinking that. You’re not the only one who’s thinking that you’re going to be the last person to finish.”

Watch the video above to get encouraged by the Koreatown Run Club and its founders’ inspiring journey and stay tuned for more Greater Outdoors.

There’s usually two types of people who play The Sims. One enjoys building characters and watching them thrive, and the other prefers the more sadistic act of watching their sim die in creative ways. Either way, one thing is certainty true about The Sims universe: The game features some great music.

All of the music played in The Sims is translated into Simlish, the nonsensical language spoken by the characters which consists of familiar-sounding gibberish. The Sims oftentimes taps popular artists like Snail Mail and The Black Eyed Peas to record some of their hits in Simlish to be used in the game. Japanese Breakfast is the latest musician to offer up a Simlish version of their music, translating her Jubilee track “Be Sweet” into a catchy-yet-unintelligible tune for the game’s upcoming Cottage Living expansion pack.

Though a lot of her music on Jubilee is synth-driven, Japanese Breakfast told Uproxx in a recent interview that she has always been inspired by “cringe-worthy” indie rock like Built To Spill and Death Cab For Cutie:

“The music that I really loved growing up were bands like Built To Spill, Death Cab For Cutie, and Modest Mouse. Also, all the K Records bands and that sort of anti-folk stuff, I was into that when I was a teenager. And all the Phil Elverum projects, which had that sort of hyper-personal, confessional quality. There’s this almost cringe-worthy earnestness that accompanies the Pacific Northwest. And I feel like that type of music really influenced me growing up and is definitely a major reference point for a lot of Japanese Breakfast albums, whether or not I want to admit it.”

Listen to “Be Sweet” in Simlish above.

Jubilee is out now via Dead Oceans. Get it here.

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Hulu’s coming-of-age comedy series PEN15 is about to get a whole lot more surreal and strange. In an exclusive interview with Vanity Fair, cocreator, writer, and Anna Kone actress Anna Konkle revealed the upcoming season two episode “Jacuzzi” will be entirely animated. The episode hits Hulu on August 27, hopefully not too long before the series returns with the second half of season two.

According to Vanity Fair, the episode takes place immediately after PEN15‘s midseason finale and follows best friends forever Anna (Konkle) and Maya (Maya Erskine) as they take a family vacation to sunny Florida. According to Konkle, the episode digs deep into her own memories of family vacations to Florida and how it was “never really […] what you thought it was going to be.” Konkle expanded, saying:

“I grew up going to Fort Lauderdale, where my grandparents lived in a retirement facility. I was excited to go, but then I would get there and remember, Okay, Anna, you’re sleeping on a mattress in the sunroom. So you’re going to wake up in a pool of sweat on rubber. And you will not see a person your age for a week, and if someone agrees to play cards with you, you’re lucky.”

While “Jacuzzi” was initially supposed to be a 40-minute live-action special utilizing “camera tricks and prosthetics” to better showcase and represent how Maya and Anna internalized their bizarre vacation, the team ultimately settled on switching over to animation even before COVID forced their hand. However, despite the pivot to animation, the episode will still be framed around Maya documenting the trip on her camcorder. When asked why, Konkle said the inspiration came from her own experiences with her dad being “really f*cking annoying with his camcorder,” as well as to better convey the episode’s message.

“It feels more true to the minutiae of everyday life, kind of dirty and alternative,” Konkle told Vanity Fair. “And we could direct in any way that [we wanted] to make the use of the VHS cool, not being limited to live-action camcorder.”

The Emmy-nominated series has yet to announce when the second half of its second season will hit Hulu, but here’s hoping the upcoming special means it’s not far off.

During a wide-ranging interview on his prolific career as a Hollywood screenwriter, and his work on the upcoming streaming series Sandman and Foundation, David S. Goyer revealed how Man of Steel became a movie thanks to director Christopher Nolan forcing him to take a break while Goyer was writing The Dark Knight Rises.

As Goyer tells it, he hit a wall while writing the third installment of Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, and he couldn’t figure out how to resolve key elements that the two wanted in the film. “It was a number of things,” Goyer told The Hollywood Reporter. “How Bruce was going to defeat Bane, how he was going to escape the Pit and the switch reveal — that the child was actually Talia. Chris and I just hit a wall, and Chris suggested we take a break for a week and put our pencils down.”

While Goyer initially thought taking a break would be counterintuitive, he heeded Nolan’s advice because, sometimes, you just have to “hope that your subconscious will come to the rescue.” In Goyer’s case, he ended up coming up with an idea for an entirely different movie that we now know as Man of Steel. Via THR:

What happened during that week is I ended up rereading the first few years of Action Comics and writing down a two-pager for a Superman movie. So when we came back, Chris said, “Well, have any ideas?” And I said, “I’ve got this Superman movie that has nothing to do with The Dark Knight Rises.” That’s how Man of Steel happened. We ended up pitching it to Warner Bros. and getting that going.

So there’s a new piece of trivia for DC film buffs. Man of Steel happened because Goyer didn’t realize he can just have Batman punch Bane really hard in his face mask thing. Seriously, go back and watch. Batman’s big plan is, “Guess I’ll just hit this thing harder,” and it works. Movies, everybody!

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

James Blake is having a big day: the Grammy-winning electronic musician has announced a fifth studio full-length, Friends That Break Your Heart, coming in September via Republic Records and featuring guest spots from SZA, JID, Swavay, and Monica Martin. In addition, Blake has shared a ruminative lead single, “Say What You Will,” an accompanying music video co-starring Finneas, and a run of fall tour dates.

“The song is about finding peace with who you are and where you’re at regardless of how well other people seem to be doing,” Blake said of the new song in a statement. “Comparison really is the thief of joy.”

Peep the album artwork and tracklist below, as well as Blake’s upcoming tour dates.

1. Famous Last Words”
2. Life Is Not The Same”
3. Coming Back” Feat. SZA
4. Funeral”
5. Frozen” Feat. JID and SwaVay
6. I’m So Blessed You’re Mine”
7. Foot Forward”
8. Show Me” Feat. Monica Martin
9. Say What You Will”
10. Lost Angel Nights”
11. Friends That Break Your Heart”
12. If I’m Insecure”

09/16 – San Diego, CA @ The Observatory North Park
09/19 – San Francisco, CA @ Greek Theatre
09/21 – Portland, OR @ Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
09/22 – Seattle, WA @ Paramount Theatre
09/25 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl
09/28 – Denver, CO @ The Fillmore
09/30 – Minneapolis, MN @ The State Theatre
10/02 – Detroit, MI @ Fillmore Auditorium
10/03 – Chicago, IL @ Chicago Theatre
10/06 – Boston, MA @ Boch Center Wang Theatre
10/08 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore Philadelphia
10/09 – New York, NY @ Radio City Music Hall
10/12 – Washington, DC @ The Anthem
10/13 – Charlotte, NC @ Belk Theater at Blumenthal Performing Arts Center
10/15 – Atlanta, GA @ Tabernacle

Tickets go on sale to the general public starting 7/30 at 10 a.m. local time. Get tickets here.

Friends That Will Break Your Heart is out 9/10 via Republic Records. Pre-order it here.

Diana Taurasi’s hip injury cost her the Phoenix Mercury’s last three games before the Olympic break and all three of Team USA’s exhibition games before group stage play, but she’s nearing her return to the court. She’s started practicing with the team since they touched down in Tokyo.

“I’m getting a little better every day,” Taurasi said Thursday, according to ESPN. “I’ve touched the court for the last few days, so that’s definitely a good sign. When you haven’t played for a while, there’s a little bit of a protocol to get back on the court. I’m checking all the boxes and hopefully, I’ll be ready for the first game against Nigeria.”