Month: October 2021

Not a day goes by since his death nearly six years ago where the creative community doesn’t miss David Bowie and his uncompromising artistic vision. The singer, actor and visionary’s legacy is forever a cause for celebration and now as the date that would have been his 75th birthday approaches, two immersive Bowie 75 pop-up experiences have been announced.

Bowie 75 is taking place at 150 Wooster St in New York City’s SOHO neighborhood (near where Bowie lived) and at 14 Heddon Street in London, where the album covers of The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars were photographed. Each features experiences set to exclusive video and photos of Bowie content set to 360 Reality Audio, which uses Sony’s spatial sound technology to recreate the music exactly as Bowie heard it in a recording booth or on stage.

The locations have an on-site gallery documenting specific eras of Bowie, giving it all a museum-like feel. Of course there’s also a highly Instagrammable component where you can don one of Bowie’s signature costumes and take photos in front of thematic sets. The pop-ups are primarily retail-based, with apparel, memorabilia and limited run physical music available for purchase as well.

The stores will open on October 25th, running for 75 days leading up to Bowie’s 75th birthday on January 8th. Visit bowie75.com for additional event info, store hours and other announcements pertaining to the event.

It’s been several months since LA-based indie pop group The Marías dropped their debut album Cinema. Now expanding on the gauzy, elegant world they built surrounding their album, the groups share an equally opulent video to their Spanish-language track “Un Millón.”

Directed by Bethany Vargas, the mesmerizing video pays homage to the euphoria of the dancefloor. It opens with lead singer María Zardoya in a sea of moving bodies shaking their hips to the song’s snappy beat.

Written and produced entirely by Zardoya and bandmate Josh Conway in their LA apartment, Cinema draws inspiration from innovative filmmakers like Pedro Almodóvar and Wes Anderson. “We want people to feel inspired to create anything, whether it’s music or art or whatever else they’re drawn to,” Zardoya said about the LP. “Hopefully the songs will help them to break away from real life for a while and create some kind of dream world in their heads – something like the scenes to their own little movie.”

Watch The Marías’ “Un Millón” video above and find their upcoming tour dates below:

01/26/2022 – Las Vegas, NV @ Brooklyn Bowl
01/27/2022 – San Diego, CA @ SOMA
01/28/2022 – Phoenix, AZ @ Van Buren
01/29/2022 – Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf
02/01/2022 – El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace
02/03/2022 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s
02/04/2022 – San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger
02/05/2022 – Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall
02/06/2022 – Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater
02/08/2022 – St. Louis, MO @ Old Rock House
02/10/2022 – Nashville, TN @ Exit/In
02/11/2022 – Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre
02/12/2022 – Carborro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
02/14/2022 – Washington DC @ 9:30 Club
02/17/2022 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
02/18/2022 – Philadelphia, PA @ TLA
02/19/2022 – Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
02/22/2022 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth
02/24/2022 – Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre
02/26/2022 – Madison, WI @ Majestic Theatre
02/27/2022 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Ave
03/02/2022 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot
03/04/2022 – Seattle, WA @ Neptune
03/05/2022 – Vancouver, BC @ Venue
03/06/2022 – Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom
03/08/2022 – Eugene, OR @ Sessions Music Hall
03/09/2022 – Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades
03/11/2022 – Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater
03/12/2022 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Novo
03/13/2022 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Novo

Cinema is out now via Nice Life Recording/Atlantic. Get it here.

The Marías are a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The NFL’s investigation into the workplace culture surrounding the Washington Football Team led to a number of emails being unearthed that showed Jon Gruden, then an ESPN employee, using racist, homophobic, and other sorts of derogatory language in conversations with then-general manager Bruce Allen. Gruden has since resigned from his post as the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders in the aftermath.

While the NFL has made clear it will not release the more than 600,000 emails it has unearthed as part of that investigation, the Los Angeles Times highlighted a collection of emails that were filed in federal court earlier this year. Among them was a 2011 correspondence between Allen and ESPN’s Adam Schefter, in which Schefter sent Allen a piece he wrote on the NFL’s lockout and made clear that Allen was free to offer up revisions.

“Please let me know if you see anything that should be added, changed, tweaked,” Schefter wrote, per the LA Times. “Thanks, Mr. Editor, for that and the trust. Plan to file this to espn about 6 am ….”

While Schefter’s ability to get scoops has never been questioned, he has toed (or straight up crossed) lines relating to journalistic ethics in the past. In the aftermath, both Schefter and ESPN have come under a wave of criticism for how this all played out — and sparked plenty of conversation about how journalists should deal with sources.

In a statement to the Times, ESPN said the following about Schefter’s email: “Without sharing all the specifics of the reporter’s process for a story from 10 years ago during the NFL lockout, we believe that nothing is more important to Adam and ESPN than providing fans the most accurate, fair and complete story.”

The Brooklyn Nets announced Tuesday morning that All-Star guard Kyrie Irving “will not play or practice with the team until he is eligible to be a full participant.” At the moment, under New York City protocols, Irving becoming eligible to fully participate means receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, which he has staunchly opposed to this point and will reportedly continue to do, even amid Tuesday’s news. Until that sentiment changes, if it ever does, the Nets will continue on without him as they pursue a title.

Wednesday, James Harden spoke with the assembled media and said he and the team “respect” Irving’s conviction in his beliefs, but said his own goal remains a championship and that he has not spoken with Irving since Tuesday’s development.

“We all love Kai. But as far as us, we have a job to do. And individually, myself, I’m still wanting to set myself up for a championship,” Harden said, via James Herbert. “I feel like the entire organization is on the same path and we’re a collective unit. So, we’ll keep pushing forward and we’ll try to do our best every single day to get better and keep going as a collective unit.”

Regarding Brooklyn’s decision to bar Irving from joining the team as a part-time member, Harden said “we had conversations as a collective unit,” but that he did not have input in the final verdict.

“I can only state my opinion and we’re gonna continue to move forward,” he said. “Obviously, we would love to have Kyrie here. I think for us, we just gotta focus on the guys in this locker room that’s here, that’s putting in the work every single day. That’s all we can control. That’s all we can focus on.”

Once fictional space captain, now real life astronaut William Shatner was moved to tears after his 11-minute journey beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

As he landed back on the desert grounds of Texas, Captain Kirk himself remarked on the profound experience. His speech is so heartfelt and full of poignant reflections on life, it felt like another episode of Star Trek.

“It was unbelievable. I mean you know the little things. To see the blue color and then this black. That’s the thing — the covering of blue,” said Shatner. “This sheet, this blanket, this comforter of blue. We think, ‘Oh, it’s blue sky.’ And then suddenly you shoot through it all of a sudden like you whip off a sheet, and you’re looking into blackness. Into black ugliness.”

Getting emotional, he continued, “you look down, and there’s the blue down there, and the black up there … there is mother Earth, and just comfort, and there is just — is that death? Is that the way death is? It was so moving to me. This experience has been something unbelievable.”

Perhaps there are correlations between the two. Death, like space, is the vast unknown. Full of wonder, but also so far away everything that gives us any sense of safety. To look it straight in the face can be both wondrous and daunting.

Shatner added that “everybody in the world needs to do this.” And where I don’t see the entire human race being able to afford the luxury of space travel (back to Earth, Will!) the good news is that no one needs a rocket launcher to take a quick bird’s eye view and truly appreciate the natural miracle that is our planet.

Basically, what I’m saying is: we can all go boldly forth.

Long Beach has long been on hip-hop’s map as a result of Snoop Dogg’s eternal popularity, but in recent years, the nation’s gaze has been returned to the city by the sea thanks to the efforts of a rising crop of rappers that includes, Vince Staples, Seafood Sam, and Huey Briss. Huey himself dropped by Uproxx Studios to demonstrate just why North Long Beach deserves its renewed time in the spotlight with a gritty rendition of the song “Grace Park Legend (Norfside)” from his spring 2021 album of the same name.

In a recent interview with the Long Beach Post, Huey breaks down the thematic drive behind the chilling single. “When I’m talking about North Long Beach, I’m talking about people that aren’t there. It’s like I’m talking to ghosts,” he says. “Ninety percent of the people I grew up with are not even here. They’re all in jail, but not because they’re bad people, but because they’re broke. What you want to do? Go to college? You never see nobody do that. You only want to be what you see, and you see everybody around you steal a car, you’re gonna steal a car.”

Fortunately, the music is beginning to take off for the self-proclaimed Grace Park legend, who recently released the deluxe version of his album, which you can listen to here.

Watch Huey Briss’ gritty interpretation of “Grace Park Legend (Norfside)” for UPROXX Sessions 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.

Yesterday, Netflix decided to introduce some chaos to our lives:

“Something special is coming tomorrow from David Fincher…” Netflix Film tweeted, along with the eyes emoji. What could it be? A wrap-up movie for Mindhunter? A spin-off of The Social Network about Parler? Fincher announcing that he’s the Zodiac Killer? The Mank Cut??? All good guesses (wait, no, they’re terrible guesses), but nope:

Voir is a “new documentary series of visual essays celebrating cinema, from the mind of one of film’s modern masters,” according to the tweet. The video calls the project a “collection of visual essays… for the love of cinema.” Voir is probably going to be very good because David Fincher is a good director who makes good movies (sorry, cinema), but this is not what people were expecting, based on many of the replies.

Others were more positive. “I’m going to be counting down the days until I can binge this. As someone obsessed with all things film history (I could have spent the entire week in the new @TheAcademy Museum) this is what I’ll be obsessing over this month. It’s awesome seeing Netflix embrace the classics!” filmmaker Aaron Morgan tweeted, while MTV news correspondent Josh Horowitz noted, “It could have been David Fincher’s Ernest Goes To Camp and I’d be in…” Great, now I want to see David Fincher make an Ernest movie. Oh well. This will do, too.

(Via Deadline)

Before Meghan McCain began her four-year tour of terror on The View, former child star Candace Cameron Bure was the show’s resident conservative for two seasons. While McCain had a knack for barreling into any subject, regardless of her knowledge of the matter, Bure had the opposite problem. In a new interview with the The View: Beyond the Table podcast, the Fuller House star revealed that she still suffers from “PTSD” from her short stint on the daytime talk show.

According to Bure, the source of her stress came from being the sole conservative and either having to talk about topics that she either didn’t care about or wasn’t comfortable enough to share her true feelings about. Via The Wrap, she declared, “There was only one type of stress that I’ve ever felt in my life that came from that show and I [have] PTSD, like, I can feel it.” Here’s more of what Bure offered:

“When I felt like I was going into a show that I didn’t have a clear opinion about or it was something that I was legitimately nervous to talk about because I did have an opinion about it but I knew I was the only one at the table that had my opinion, I would just get sick to my stomach,” she said. “I hated that feeling. And then I’m like, ‘I don’t know who’s going to come at me.’”

Despite her claims of having PTSD, Bure surprisingly doesn’t regret being on The View. “I feel like there were so many wonderful takeaways from the show,” she said. “And as difficult as that job was, I’m very, very grateful for it.”

(Via The Wrap)

At the moment, Courtney Barnett is in the swing of promoting her upcoming album, Things Take Time, Take Time, which drops on November 12. Today, though, she’s taking a bit of a break from that with a different musical project: An animated TV series adaptation of the classic 1964 children’s novel Harriet The Spy is coming to Apple TV+ on November 19, and Barnett wrote and performed the theme song for it. A trailer for the series was shared today, and so too was Barnett’s full theme song, titled “Smile Real Nice.”

The track runs for a hair over two minutes, and it’s a fun, rhythmic, and breezy rocker much in the vein of Barnett’s other material. The hook is especially catchy and is complemented by equally enrapturing guitar work. All in all, TV theme songs are supposed to be immediately memorable and recognizable, and Barnett’s song definitively checks both of those boxes, all while staying true to her signature style.

Meanwhile, her latest release from Things Take Time, Take Time, “Write A List Of Things To Look Forward To,” dropped a couple weeks ago. Not long after that, she gave fans the opportunity to make their own mixes of that and other songs with a stem mixer on her website.

Listen to “Smile Real Nice” and watch the Harriet The Spy trailer above.

Whether it’s packing on the PDA on the red carpet or carrying around a vile of the other’s blood, Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly’s relationship always manages to make its way into headlines. As the new celebrity “it” couple, the two were tapped by GQ to test their relationship in the publication’s popular series, GQ Couple’s Quiz.

The quiz is designed to see how well each person knows their partner. They’re asked a series of questions that gauges how well they listen to each other, like asking what their favorite TV show is or how many tattoos they have. During the segment, Kelly reveals a bizarre tidbit: Fox really hopes she’ll be abducted by an alien one day.

Fox poses the question, “What’s something on my bucket list?” Kelly immediately responds: “To be abducted by a UFO.” Fox simply nods her head and gives Kelly two points for answering the question correctly, but either celebrity explains this wish any further. However, later in the segment, the two reminiscence on a vacation they took in Bora Bora, saying they took psychedelic mushrooms and were convinced they spotted a UFO in the sky.

Of course, Kelly and Fox are far from the only celebrities who are into UFOs. Earlier this week, Demi Lovato discussed her upcoming Peacock show Unidentified With Demi Lovato, which sees her investigating UFOs and extraterrestrial life. In an interview about the new series, Lovato stated that she believes the term “alien” is a “derogatory” term for extraterrestrial life. “I think that we have to stop calling them aliens because ‘aliens’ is a derogatory term for anything,” she said. “That’s why I like to call them ETs! So yeah, that’s a little tidbit. A little information that I learned.”

Watch Fox and Kelly take the GQ couple’s quiz above.