Month: May 2022

The Black Keys stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! this past week to deliver a captivating performance of “Wild Child.” The track comes from their latest album Dropout Boogie, released on Friday (May 13). The college-dropouts-turned-successful-musicians leaned fully into the theme of the album by displaying rows of lockers on the backdrop and dressing as if they were too cool for school.

Dropout Boogie is the 11th album of The Black Keys’ discography, led by singles “Wild Child” and “It Ain’t Over.” Coincidentally, Dropout Boogie arrived almost exactly one year to do the day of the group’s 2021 LP Delta Kream, released on May 14. The Black Keys are gearing up for their Dropout Boogie tour along with Band of Horses for all dates, and Ceramic Animal, Early James, and The Velveteers on select dates. The tour kicks off on July 9 in Las Vegas, Nevada continuing all the way through the middle of October with a grand finale in Dallas, Texas on October 18. Black Keys fans will also be happy to know that El Camino is set to get a ten-year anniversary deluxe edition.

Check out the “Wild Child” performance above.

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

In addition to anointing UK rapper Dave as one of the most unique artists in the business today, Drake also had another surprise for fans at Dave’s tour stop in Toronto last night. After performing “Wanna Know” and “Knife Talk” alongside his host (or guest, since Drake owns the venue, History), Drake told the diehards in attendance that he’s also planning on bringing back his own event, OVO Fest, sometime this year. “I love you with all of my heart,” he said. “They let the city back open so I will see you at OVO Fest soon.”

Drake’s festival would have had its 10th iteration in 2020, but COVID-19 and the resulting safety restrictions forced him to forego plans to celebrate the 10th anniversary at the event itself. Unfortunately, as a side effect of the slowed income from that year, there was no 2021 edition, either. The last OVO Fest took place in 2019 with guests like millennial favorites B2K, Chingy, and Lloyd. Intriguingly enough, Drake’s festival isn’t the only one coming back to Toronto this year; in April, Rolling Loud announced its own event in The Six featuring none other than Dave as a headliner alongside Future and international superstar Wizkid.

Drake didn’t offer any more details, but you can bet when he does, there will be a frenzy to get tickets to his hometown show — no matter how much they cost.

A new Nielsen report is highlighting the “staggering” amount of television that Americans have watched over the past few months. Despite its current troubles, Netflix was the undisputed champ, besting every single broadcast network thanks to streaming series like Ozark, Squid Game, and The Witcher. On the network side, the winner was also predictable: CBS, although the total there was just barely half of the viewing minutes pulled in by Netflix. (Netflix had 1.33 trillion — yes, trillion — to CBS’ 752.8 billion.)

More importantly, the Nielsen report reveals a massive amount of TV watching by American audiences, and that’s without factoring in HBO Max, or other cable channels, or other broadcast networks outside of the biggies, which were all left out of the calculations. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

Nielsen data showing total minutes viewed for the season so far (Sept. 20, 2021-May 8, 2022) show that Americans spend a staggering amount of time in front of screens. The big four broadcasters and the five streamers the measurement company publicly tracks (Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, Netflix and Prime Video) accounted for more than 4 trillion minutes of viewing time — or 203 hours for all 332 million people in the United States. That figure doesn’t include other streaming services, broadcast networks The CW, Univision, Telemundo and PBS or any of the dozens of cable channels.

Of course, it’s tempting to draw the conclusion that America is still in a pandemic, but that’s not exactly the strongest argument. While the Omicron variant did send cases through the roof over the holidays, the country has essentially been open for a while now, and even more so after the introduction of COVID vaccines. That said, the pandemic did delay many seasons, so when new episodes started coming in, Americans gobbled them up after months of watching reruns. The point is people are watching insane amounts of TV. Four trillion minutes. To put that in perspective, it is… so many minutes. An unreasonable amount of minutes, probably.

Sorry. Our brains hurt just thinking about it.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Arcade Fire stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to perform a luminary rendition of “Age Of Anxiety II (Rabbit Hole)” off of their latest album We. Singers Win Butler and Régine Chassagne belted passionately with the backing of band members Richard Reed Parry, Tim Kingsbury, and Jeremy Gara. Strobe lights, mini stands, and a big eye taking up the background contributed to the vibrant sonics of “Age Of Anxiety II.”

Arcade Fire is currently preparing for their upcoming We tour, the eighth of their career, supporting We, their sixth studio album. The trek begins its European leg in August, joined by Feist. Arcade Fire returns to the states in October to close out, with the assistance of Beck.

Aside from all that, the band has been up to a lot lately. They helped introduce a photo of a black hole with a performance of their song that’s partially named after it, they dropped off a Harry Styles cover, they performed on Saturday Night Live, they were last-minute additions to the 2022 Coachella lineup, and Will Butler recently announced he left the band after finishing work on We last year.

Watch Arcade Fire perform “Age Of Anxiety II (Rabbit Hole)” on Fallon above.

House of Gucci was a decent enough movie, even if it wasn’t as campy as it should have been. But I’m still angry that it exists.

First of all, it gave us Jared Leto’s over-the-top depiction (even by his standards) of Paolo Gucci, which is either the best or worst performance I have ever seen. I genuinely can’t tell. Also, Gucci prevented Lady Gaga from being in the movie where Brad Pitt is a bucket hat-wearing assassin on a train full of assassins played by the likes of Paper Boi and Van from Atlanta, Bad Bunny, Michael Shannon, and Warrior‘s Andrew Koji.

Director David Leitch told Entertainment Weekly that Gaga was in talks to appear in Bullet Train, but “it really all came down to her schedule with [House of Gucci]. There were short discussions and then, this isn’t going to work because she was preparing for Gucci. They shot right before us and overlapped with us and it really didn’t work.”

Leitch wouldn’t say what role Gaga was supposed to play, but she focused her energy on another action movie project. I’ve always said planes are the bullet trains of the sky.

The Gaga-less Bullet Train comes out on August 5. It looks like a blast.

(Via EW)

When the Philadelphia 76ers fired Brett Brown and brought Doc Rivers in, they thought they were making a move that would help bring the roster together and elevate themselves to a championship contender.

On Thursday night, the Sixers exited the playoffs in the second round for the second straight year, as the Miami Heat trounced them in Game 6 in Philadelphia. While the Sixers certainly will wonder what could’ve been different had they had Joel Embiid fully healthy and available for the first two games, the performance once again left something to be desired.

For months, there have been whispers that Rivers might be on the hot seat now that the Sixers had gone all-in with the James Harden trade after Rivers was unable to bring Embiid and Ben Simmons together (and ultimately proved to be one of the forces that pushed Simmons to sit out until he was trades). Daryl Morey’s arrival meant Rivers no longer was answering to the person who hired him, and as the season wore on, there were rumblings Morey might turn his sights elsewhere (like old friend Mike D’Antoni) and that Rivers might also bolt for a return to L.A., where the Lakers are seeking a new coach to guide their fractured group.

But on Friday, despite all the rumors, Sixers executive Daryl Morey told the press that Rivers will get another chance to coach the team for the 2022-23 campaign.

Rivers has gone 100-54 in his two seasons in Philadelphia, but a 13-11 record in the postseason has led to frustration among the Sixers faithful. Time will tell what the future holds, but for now, Rivers will get the chance to improve on both of those marks next year.

In terms of her musical output, Ariana Grande had an extremely productive period between 2018 and 2020, when she released three No. 1 albums: Sweetener; Thank U, Next; and Positions. Now, though, we’re coming up on two years without a new album from Grande, and it turns out she hasn’t been working on one, either. Furthermore, it doesn’t look like she plans to start making new music until she’s done with her two Wicked movies.

In a make-up tutorial and Q&A video shared by Grande’s REM Beauty yesterday, Grande explains of her next LP:

“This is a question I’m nervous to answer, but I feel like I want to have a little bit of transparency and honesty with my fans. Why not, you know? […] I… The truth is, I have not begun an album. I know, I hear through the grapevine that you have a lot of theories and expectations in that department. But after Positions, was not ready to start another album yet, so I have not begun another album.

That’s the main… I mean, that was really the only reason, but aside from that, that was kind of around that time that I started hearing murmurs about a Wicked audition coming soon, so I went into full preparation mode while I was also shooting The Voice. So I was shooting and then also doing lessons every day, ’cause I just wanted to be prepared for when the call came. I had no idea what it was coming, but I was just like, ‘I want to be ready to go in.’ I know that I know the material like the back of my hand, but I still have so much to learn and I want to be prime condition.

So I went pretty hard getting ready, and now, thank god, the most… thank goodness, literally, the most incredible gift of my entire life is, you know, this role that I’ve adored since I’m ten years old, and that is going to have every piece of me; every minute, every ounce of my heart, my time, my soul, my everything that I can give it.

So my hands are quite full with a lot of other thrillifying work at the moment, and this being a part of it. REM Beauty is really fun and we work really hard on that as well. But yeah, I am spending all of my time with Glinda. I just was not ready.”

Check out the video below.

The Tom Collins is one of the most classic cocktails there is. The drink goes back to at least 1876 and probably much further, as gin mixed with lemonade. And that description is true to this day. That said, bartenders tend to cut big corners with this drink which takes away from its depth and greatness, and makes it pretty bland. Let’s not do that.

The biggest corners cut are on the lemon and sugar component of this drink. Collins mix is a common sight in every liquor store. You really do not need to waste your time with that stuff. This drink is super easy to make without it. Secondly, a lot of bartenders will make this in the glass with simple bar syrup. And those are okay… at best. But by not a) using powdered sugar and b) shaking this cocktail, you’re missing out on something that makes a lot more sense as a “classic” that’s transcended entire centuries than a quick, sweet highball that’s likely pretty “meh.”

So, let’s take it back to the late 1800s and shake up a killer Tom Collins because this is one of the best spring-summer refreshers you can have. Seriously, this is mega-thirst-quenching in every sip. Let’s get shaking!

Also Read: The Top Five Cocktail Recipes of the Last Six Months

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• The Vieux Carre Is The Perfect Whiskey Cocktail For The Holidays
• The Americano Is An Excellent Low-Alcohol Cocktail For January, Here’s Our Recipe
• Our French 75 Cocktail Recipe Will Make You A New Year’s Eve Pre-Party Star

Tom Collins

Ingredients:

• 1.5 oz. London dry gin
• 1 oz. fresh lemon juice
• 1 barspoon of powdered sugar
• Fizzy mineral water
• Ice
• Lemon wheels
• Luxardo cherry

As mentioned above, you need powdered sugar for this. Any standard stuff that you get in your store’s baking aisle will do. If you want to get super fancy, you can make your own with a pestle and mortar (have fun with that!). The rest is pretty straightforward. I like using Gordon’s London Dry Gin because it’s affordable and findable. Lastly, make sure to get good fizzy mineral water with a lot of fizziness. The more minerally bubbles, the better.

What You’ll Need:

• Collins glass (a tall and narrow eight-ounce glass)
• Cocktail shaker
• Cocktail strainer
• Barspoon
• Paring knife
• Hand juicer
• Jigger
• Cocktail spear

Method:

• Fill the Collins glass with fresh ice. Set aside.
• Add the gin, lemon juice, and powdered sugar to the shaker. Add a handful of ice cubes, affix the lid, and shake vigorously for about 20 to 30 seconds.
• Use the cocktail strainer to pour the base over the ice in the Collins glass, it should fill the glass about 2/3.
• Top the cocktail with a small, maybe two-ounce, pour of fizzy mineral water. Use the barspoon to gently stir the drink once or twice.
• Garnish with a fresh lemon wheel and speared cherry. Serve.

Bottom Line:

This is delightful! The powdered sugar and lemon acids bind in the shake and create a mouthfeel that’s halfway between a lemon angel food cake and a lemon meringue. There’s actual texture and depth here even though it’s topped with fizzy water. That depth is never going to be there if you’re making this in the glass with simple syrup, much less Collins mix.

Then there’s how refreshing this is. A drop or two of the cherry syrup spirals through the drink, adding a fruity, candy sweetness to the end. But the lightness and brightness before that are off the charts. This is like taking a sip of cool on a hot day from top to bottom. Five stars! I know I’ll be making more of these as the weather heats up — you should too!

Kyrie Irving could end up being a free agent in more ways than one at the conclusion of the 2022-23 NBA season. Should Irving opt into the final year of his current contract, the Brooklyn Nets guard would hit the open market and have the flexibility to choose where he’d want to play his basketball.

According to a new report by Ramona Shelburne and Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, Irving’s future in the sneaker game is equally unclear. Irving is a Nike athlete, and is among the NBA players who have their own line of signature sneakers. But after his latest sneaker drops later this year, Nike appears to be ready to move on.

Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving has long had one of Nike’s most popular and profitable signature basketball shoes, but uncertainties surrounding his NBA future have left the company unlikely to extend him to a similar signature deal beyond the 2022-23 season, sources told ESPN.

The report did indicate that the popularity of Irving’s line means that “it is expected Nike will still offer some product associated with him in the future, like retro shoes from previous collections.” Irving’s most recent release from Nike, the Kyrie 8s, made headlines when their namesake hopped onto Instagram and called them “trash” before explaining that he just wanted “to make sure we get [the sneaker] right.”