Month: September 2022

On The Up is back after a short break, once again highlighting five new artists you should be listening to this month. September’s picks jump from a surging Bay Area R&B singer to a new face on the Brazilian music scene signed to Stones Throw Records. Fans of Big Thief will be hyped on one of our picks, while a dizzying LA rapper and rising Aussie psych-pop group round out September’s group. Check ’em out and listen in below.

Zyah Belle

We’ve been featuring some of Zyah Belle’s tracks in our Best New R&B column dating back to when the Bay Area singer signed with Guin Records last year and dropped the silky Who’s Listening Anyway EP. She hasn’t let up in 2022 and has her album, Yam Grier, set to drop on September 9th. “Not The One” beams with some serious mystique from her and LA rapper Tempest, while “DND” is armed with a sultry, electro-R&B bounce. Named after ’70s blaxploitation film queen Pam Grier (who also starred in Quentin Tarantino’s 1997 cult classic, Jackie Brown), Yam Grier sees Belle channeling that alpha woman energy Grier made famous on the silver screen and she says the album is, “The embodiment of a woman who has finally come into her own, unapologetically.”

Gabriel Da Rosa

When Brazil’s Gabriel Da Rosa arrived in LA eight years ago, he was armed with a guitar, a backpack, a dog, and a rock and roll dream. Where he’s at today looks very different — well, at least musically. The latest signee to the always-eclectic Stones Throw Records label, Da Rosa is making music in the mold of the Brazilian samba, bossa nova, and tropicalia greats. On his debut single, “Jasmim Parte 1,” that uncanny breezy guitar, pairs with lush Wurly keys, bossa horns and a gorgeous Brazilian sidewalk flute. In the song’s video, the avid vinyl collector flips through records from legends like Joao Gilberto, Novos Baianos, Gal Costa, etc… and if any of those names mean something to you, you’re gonna want to press play on “Jardim Parte 1” stat.

Tenci

We’ve got a soft spot for so many artists on Austin’s indie workhorse label Keeled Scales. Acts like Sun June, Why Bonnie, and Katy Kirby are helping shape the label’s roster and now Chicago’s Tenci are pushing towards their second album on the imprint. A Swollen River, A Well Overflowing is due out on November 4th, and lead single “Two Cups” showcases singer/bandleader Jess Shoman’s imaginative arrangements and inviting vocals that harken to Adrianne Lenker’s distinct range.

Rhys Langston

LA’s off-kilter art rap scene has always rested on the foundations of MCs dropping stream-of-consciousness raps that in actuality, aren’t that at all. For these cats are just delightful, highly-intelligent weirdos with a microphone and a lot to say. Rhys Langston is one of these artists and the POW Records-signee has a sharp-tongued, verbose approach that comes across as trippily as smashing melons on the shores of the La Brea tar pits. The Sufjan Stevens-esque-titled “I Will Stop At Nothing (I A Magnetized And I Move!)” is a spiraling display of wordsmithery, as Langston spits in a controlled fury, “And my voice box full of stuffing, dressings, fixings / MacGuyver’d, Epoxy, aluminum wire. Ready-made, sculpted tableau portmanteau…” His album Grapefruit Radio is set to drop on September 14th and also features Jersey’s Fatboi Sharif, LA mainstay The Koreatown Oddity, and others.

Babe Rainbow

In a most unusual, but wholly welcome collaboration last year, Jaden Smith guested on the sunny, shore-break airiness of Babe Rainbow’s “Your Imagination.” It was another high-profile co-sign for the Aussie psych-y surf pop band following a release on Danger Mouse’s 30th Century Records and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s Stu Mackenzie producing their debut. Now the group are pushing towards a new album as tunes like “Smash The Machine” have grown increasingly more psychedelic. It’s no surprise that their upcoming tour begins on Sept 30th at SoCal’s buzzy, psych rock-focused (but still eclectic) Desert Daze festival alongside Tame Impala, King Gizzard, and Sky Ferreira.

Last week, popular comedic Twitter account @NoContextBrits shared a terrific post, of some sort of old bunker that has been left neglected and has come to be surrounded by overgrown amber grass. It definitely looks like a certain somebody with a distinct hairdo and the account nailed it on the head with the caption, “Rod Stewart is looking well.”

The tweet has performed quite well, as it has racked up over 83,000 likes since August 24. The tweet even caught the attention of Stewart himself, who clearly got a kick out of it. He shared the tweet yesterday (August 31) and wrote, “F*ck sake [crying laughing emoji].”

As for what Stewart’s been up to, he’s currently approaching the end of a North American tour that has two shows remaining: September 2nd in Jacksonville and the 3rd in Tampa. He’s also preparing to bring the Rod Stewart: The Hits residency back to The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for a handful of performances starting towards the end of this month. His latest album is 2021’s The Tears Of Hercules, which has done well commercially, achieving a peak at No. 5 on the UK chart.

Rod Stewart is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

“83 channels of ecstasy/I love my cable TV” – “Weird Al” Yankovic

A few days ago I got a text message from my friend Rob back in St. Louis. He and his family “cut the cord” some time ago and live fully on a streaming lifestyle. Recently, he’s been traveling around with his son for baseball tournaments and sent me this message:

So, we “cut the cord” many years ago and so all we do is stream and occasionally we will watch live over the air TV. But traveling all over the place this summer for my son’s baseball, and staying in hotels, I got back to my old channel surfing roots. So my question to you is this: why is it, in 2022 when most anything we would want to watch is available to us at any time we want to watch it, it is SO SATISFYING when you stumble across something on traditional TV? When we were somewhere waiting to find out if my son’s game that day would be rained out or not, Beverly Hills Cop was on Showtime and it was AWESOME!!!! But it shouldn’t be, I could watch that at any time.”

So, I’ve thought about this a lot. To the point that anytime it’s even considered to get rid of cable, I don’t, for these very reasons. (Also, our internet package is tied up into our cable bill and canceling cable, then getting internet service on its own, doesn’t really save that much money.) In fact, Brian Truitt at USA Today recently asked me for a quote about if I missed the days of video stores, specifically VHS, to the streaming model of today. My gist was: No. Driving (or getting my parents to drive me) to the video store only to find the pan and scan movie I wanted was rented was a pain in the ass. Streaming, in general, is much better. (Though, the streamers are a whole different subject.)

I’ve dabbled in this subject before because I find it fascinating. In that, so many of the movies we consider classics today from the ’80s and ’90s weren’t even big hits at the box office but found their lives on what seemed like never-ending cable television loops. And I truly believe that’s why so many movies over the last ten years have kind of drifted out of the cultural consciousness because these aren’t playing in front of as many people on those aforementioned never-ending loops.

So, I’ve put a lot of thought into my friend Rob’s question and I decided, well, why not just make the answer public since I think about this all the time anyway?

Rob used the example of Beverly Hills Cop, a movie that still plays a lot on cable (I know this from experience) and, yes, I usually watch it every single time if I’m flipping through channels. So why was he so excited to see Beverly Hills Cop, even though he could watch it anytime he wants with streaming? Well, Beverly Hills Cop is a good example because many, many people enjoy this movie very much. But it’s very few people’s favorite movie. So, with streaming, a person would have to make a conscious decision to sit down and watch Beverly Hills Cop from start to finish. Which most people aren’t going to do because, when choosing a movie, most people pick something new they haven’t seen, something old they haven’t seen, or literally their favorite movie.

It would take a surprising amount of effort to decide, “Yeah I want to watch Beverly Hills Cop right now.” Actually deciding to watch a movie is exhausting. A person has to do something. As opposed to coming across a movie on cable. This is the opposite. It’s a passive experience. A person gets to stop flipping channels. Instead of stressing about what movie to watch, instead it’s a relief to find something familiar.

Then there’s the aspect of picking up a movie we’ve already seen somewhere in the middle, but hardly ever at the beginning. People like this. We don’t have to waste time with the setup we’ve already seen numerous times. We basically get to start right in the middle of the action. And there’s nothing we can really do about it. There’s no guilt. “Well, this is when I happened to tune in.” But with streaming, no one is going to fire up Beverly Hills Cop and start it during the strip club scene when Axel, Billy, and Taggart bust a robbery. On cable, watching Beverly Hills Cop is a 45-minute, maybe hour-long experience. On streaming, it’s the full hour and 45 minutes.

I do think the communal aspect factors in too. The other day I watched a Blu-ray of Hal Ashby’s last film, 8 Million Ways to Die (which isn’t on streaming) and there is the sense that I might be the only person in the world watching this particular movie at this particular time. At the very least, I was the only one watching it on the exact schedule it was on. And that’s fine, but there’s something fun about knowing that when Axel and Bogomil take out Maitland, you’re watching that scene with a few thousand other people. Streaming feels lonely. Cable still feels like we are watching with others, and it’s an experience that can be shared with friends and strangers via Twitter, WhatsApp, texting, etc.

I’ve seen people bring up the idea of streamers having a “random channel.” Anytime I hear this idea I feel like Peter Gibbons in Office Space right after Bob Slydell asks him if he’d be interested in a hypothetical, “stock option, equity sharing program,” to which I reply, “I don’t know, I guess.” The problem with that is, it’s still just going to have whatever the streamer has to offer. Netflix isn’t exactly filled with a library of classic movies these days. Also, the streamers would want to promote their new stuff, so a Netflix “random” channel would be The Grey Man and Red Notice all day. Also, this would be one channel. There’s no flipping. It would be, “watch whatever is on our random channel or pick something else,” which defeats the purpose. And let’s say every streamer got on board with a random channel … sure, that sounds fun, at least a minute trying to navigate to a new app to “change the channel.” (Though, a friend of mine had a fun idea for HBO Max: a “this used to be played on a constant loop in the ’80s and ’90s” channel. Something like that I might be interested in, maybe.)

Combine all this with the fact cutting the cord isn’t the money-saver that it was promised to be once you add up internet charges and the price of every streaming service subscription. (And these streaming prices keep going up!) So now it’s some hodgepodge of cable, plus a few streamers, and most of them I get free … because I have cable.

So, as it all turns out, I am “stuck” with cable still for the foreseeable future, something I still enjoy.

Bob Odenkirk may have just finished up his stint as goofy lawyer Saul Goodman, but he is already prepared to begin his next chapter as the world’s most in-demand action star. Sorry, Chris Pratt! Your time is up!

In 2021, Odenkirk starred as a low-key guy who turns to violence after his house is robbed in Nobody. The film was a decent hit, despite being released mid-pandemic but pre-vaccine, and now Odenkirk wants to get back up on the action-thriller horse.

“I was very surprised by Nobody,” Odenkirk told the crowd at the Vence Film Festival. Odenkirk then cited Saul as an inspiration for the character. “I had initiated that project because I had a feeling that the character I was developing in Better Call Saul was the kind of character you see in an action film. He has earnest desires and he was willing to sacrifice himself.”

Despite the end of Saul, Odenkirk is still training in case the next big action movie comes along. After his near-fatal heart attack last summer, it seems like the actor has a new lease on life and wants to live to the fullest. And if living to the fullest is becoming the next John Wick, then so be it!

He added, “I still train multiple times a week and if I get my way you’re going to see me doing more action. I found the action sequences a great deal of fun and close to doing sketch comedy…I love the early Jackie Chan films which had humor in them. I’d like to get that in in future.” Odenkirk is no stranger to sketch comedy as he was an SNL writer for many years before eventually starring in his sketch show with David Cross.

So now, we beg, more scenes of Odenkirk running around and jumping into dumpsters! Thanks!

(Via Deadline)

Back in May, Danny Brown got into the podcast game by launching The Danny Brown Show (through YMH Studios, owned by married comedians Tom Segura and Christina P.) He’s put out new episodes weekly since then and on the latest one from August 30, he weighed in on AI rapper FN Meka. To put it simply, he’s not a fan.

Addressing the initial upset some hip-hop fans had about Meka signing with Capitol Records, Brown said, “Only thing I’m mad about is he’s an AI-generated rapper but they got him saying ‘n****.’ Now that’s racist, ’cause we know ain’t no n****s programming no f*ckin AI-generated rappers. He’s saying ‘n****’ and sh*t and that’s the weird sh*t because I mean, he’s an AI-generated program: He should be smart enough to say some other words. He should have a vast vocabulary.”

He continued, “F*ck FN Meka, I’m beefing with him. Tell him to drop the diss song on me, Danny Brown want all the smoke.”

Brown also brought up another point about competition in hip-hop: “So if he comes up and this does real good, and this is successful, […] other record labels are going to be like, ‘F*ck it, I gotta get me an AI-generated rapper.’ I mean, bad enough we competing with each other. You know how many rappers it is in the world? It’s too many of us! It’s definitely too many f*cking rappers. […] Now you’re telling me we gotta compete with computers, too? F*ck this sh*t, man!”

That Meka diss track is likely not coming any time soon, as the rapper was quickly dropped from its label following the backlash.

Check out Brown discussing FN Meka above or watch the full Danny Brown Show episode below.

The man who embodied Rocky Balboa and John Rambo surprisingly found his hardest job to date in Paramount+’s Tulsa King. That’s wild, and I’m not sure if we can blame this on the scorching summer heat, which wasn’t exclusive to Oklahoma by any means, but it sure didn’t make Sylvester Stallone’s job easier.

Stallone previously mentioned his hell-preparing experience, in which he strutted about (while playing a mob boss exiled to Bill Hader’s hometown) in jeans, suit jackets, and a giant belt buckle. Stallone lifted some tiny cups while shooting in downtown Tulsa, but it seems like we haven’t caught a glimpse of any of his heavier lifting yet.

In an Instagram video that presumably shows the Season 1 wrapping moments, Stallone penned a caption about his “very long ,difficult ,exciting, mind blowing production.” He thanked creator Taylor Sheridan (who wrote the role for Stallone), and in the footage, he can be heard declaring, “I never worked so hard in my life… and had so much fun, seriously.” He called the project “extraordinary,” and Stallone added, “Keep punching, love you guys!”

On the subject of punching, Stallone did still have the energy to recently drag Rocky producers, who he called “pathetic” and “moronic” due to the reported Drago spinoff as part of the Creed extension of the franchise. He seems to feel a lot better about Tulsa King, which is certainly a different role than we’ve ever seen him play up so far. Even though he spent a lot of time getting sweaty in Tulsa and OKC (which is considered by many locals to be an enormous truck stop, among other labels), Stallone’s rolling with the punches and headed to our small screens for our viewing pleasure.

Tulsa King premieres on November 13.

“Mommy, why do you wear makeup?”

I don’t remember how old my first daughter was when she asked me that question, but I do remember feeling unprepared for it. Such a simple and reasonable question seems like it should have a simple and reasonable answer, but as I looked at her young face, I thought about how my answer could shape her entire view of women and beauty and her own self-image.

The full truth of why I wear makeup is complicated, as I’m sure it is for most women. I started wearing makeup mainly to cover up acne as a teen, but I remember being younger and feeling intrigued by eye makeup on magazine models. I started to mess around around with eye shadow and eye liner because it was fun to “paint” my face.

I like wearing makeup and always have. It truly can be fun, but I’d be fooling myself to believe that societal standards of beauty don’t also play a significant role in my choices now. I wear makeup because it makes me feel prettier and more “put together,” even when it’s just a quick five-minute routine. It makes my skin look better and brighter and it brings out my eyes. I think of it as enhancing my beauty rather than creating it.

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There’s nothing wrong or unusual about that, but everything gets viewed through a different lens when you’re explaining something to a child—especially our own child.

I’ve never wanted to put society’s arbitrary and unattainable beauty standards on my daughters. I wanted them to reject anything that told them they weren’t good enough just as they are. I didn’t want them to feel like they needed to wear makeup to feel beautiful; I wanted them to choose how to define beauty for themselves. I wanted them to feel comfortable enough in their own skin to go without makeup, but also confident enough in their own choices to do whatever they wanted with their faces.

How could I explain why I wear makeup in a way that conveyed all of that to my young daughter without prematurely planting those pressures in her mind?

If this all sounds overwrought and overthought, it is. Welcome to womanhood, where every choice we make about our bodies is a mishmosh of historical patriarchy and corporate marketing, with some constant self-judgment and overanalysis thrown in for good measure.

My husband and I wanted to do what we could to ease those pressures for our girls, so we tried to talk about beauty in a way that was authentic and healthy as they were growing up. From the beginning, we talked a lot about beauty being about your inner state, not your outer presentation. We wanted our girls to internalize that message deeply before years of ads and billboards and magazines and Victoria’s Secret told them otherwise.

That was a solid parenting choice, but I couldn’t help but wonder if me putting on makeup felt like a mixed message. Was I being hypocritical, preaching that beauty on the inside is what matters, but trying to make myself more beautiful on the outside? One could take that argument to an extreme, not engaging in any grooming at all because outer beauty is just a facade, but that just seems silly and wrong. Ultimately, I told her the truth in all its complicated glory.

“Because I think it’s fun,” I said, realizing that would probably just make her want to wear it when she was still way too young.

“And because it makes me feel more ‘put together,'” I said, hoping that wouldn’t make her view women who don’t wear makeup as not put together.

“And because it highlights my natural beauty,” I said, knowing that the constant questions about what counts as beauty would soon begin to bombard her.

It wasn’t a perfect answer, but it was honest and sometimes honest is the best we can do.

My daughters are 22 and 18 now, and since that initial question we’ve had many more conversations about makeup, beauty, personal grooming and how society and individuals judge such things. Thankfully, I found it easier to talk about beauty as they grew older, as they started to understand how pressures from people we know and people we don’t can impact the choices we make.

Those pressures can go both ways, they found. One of my daughters felt pressure not to wear makeup and had to navigate her way through doing what was right for her. I’m happy to say that they have grown into young women who question beauty standards and challenge people’s judgments from all sides, ultimately landing on what makes them feel best in their own skin. That’s really all I had hoped for them.

Phew. Being a woman in this world can be complicated, but raising women in this world is entirely next-level.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is the epitome of the American dream. He’s an immigrant from Austria who came to America with $20 in his pocket and wound up being one of the most celebrated people in the world. He was Mr. Olympia seven times, played the Terminator on the big screen and was elected governor of California twice.

However, even though he’s had tremendous success, he never call himself a self-made man. This is surprising being that Schwarzenegger is a member of the Republican Party, a group that has traditionally stood for self-reliance.

He explained his rationale in a moving commencement speech at the University of Houston in May 2017.

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“Now, the diplomas — there will only be one name and this is yours, but I hope it doesn’t confuse you and you think that maybe you made it that far by yourself,” Schwarzenegger told the graduating class. “No, you didn’t. It took a lot of help. None of us can make it alone. None of us. Not even the guy that is talking to you right now, that was the greatest bodybuilder of all time.

“I didn’t make it that far on my own. I mean, to accept that credit or that medal, would discount every single person that has helped me get here today, that gave me advice, that made an effort, that lifted me up when I fell,” he added. “The whole concept of the self‑made man or woman is a myth.”

The former “Governator” then shared the names of a lot of people who helped him become successful, including his parents, teachers, a lifeguard, bodybuilder Joe Weider, the people at Gold’s Gym, producer Dino De Laurentiis, director James Cameron, comedian Jay Leno and, of course, the people of America.

At the end of the speech, he shared his belief that with success comes responsibility.

“The reason why I want you to understand that is because as soon as you understand that you are here because of a lot of help, then you also understand that now is time to help others,” he said. “Make sure that it is not about me. That it is about ‘we.’ Turn the ‘me’ into ‘we,’ and I guarantee you that you can change the world.”

Cate Blanchett is one of the best actresses of her generation, with seven Oscar nominations and two wins (Best Supporting Actress for The Aviator and Best Actress for Blue Jasmine), to her name. And she may have just made her “magnum opus.”

The first film from director Todd Fields (In the Bedroom) in 16 years, Tár, premiered on Thursday at the 79th Venice International Film Festival, and the reviews are near-universally positive, especially for Blanchett. “Tár is breathtaking entertainment,” Richard Lawson writes for Vanity Fair, “anchored by Blanchett’s alternately measured and ferocious performance, a tremendous (but never outsized) piece of acting that is her most piercing work in years.” IndieWire film critic David Ehrlich was equally effusive, writing, “The controlled demolition of a performance she delivers here provides a more nuanced (and cautiously sympathetic) interpretation of the social dynamics behind the #MeToo movement than any male actor or character might be able to offer.”

Here’s more:

Following the premiere, Blanchett called Tár a “human portrait and I think we have perhaps matured enough as a species that we can watch a film like this and not make [a character’s gender or sexuality] the headline issue. It just is, and I found that exciting.”

As for the official plot synopsis:

From producer-writer-director Todd Field comes Tár, starring Cate Blanchett as the iconic musician Lydia Tár. Tár examines the changing nature of power, its impact, and durability in our modern world.

Tár opens in theaters on October 7. You can watch the teaser above.

(Via Deadline)

This past weekend, allegations of sexual assault and misconduct against Arcade Fire lead singer Win Butler were published in detail on Pitchfork. After Butler issued a vague statement, the band embarked on their tour nonetheless, which prompted a lot of mixed reactions.

The opener Feist dropped off the tour today and shared a lengthy statement reckoning with accountability and her own responsibility in the situation, writing, “I can’t solve that by quitting, and I can’t solve it by staying.”

Read the full statement below.

“At a pub in Dublin, after rehearsing with my band, I read the same headline you did. We didn’t have any time to prepare for what was coming let alone a chance to decide not to fly across the ocean into the belly of this situation. This has been incredibly difficult for me and I can only imagine how much more difficult it’s been for the people who came forward. More than anything I wish healing to those involved.

This has ignited a conversation that is bigger than me, it’s bigger than my songs and it’s certainly bigger than any rock and roll tour. As I tried to get my bearings and figure out my responsibility in this situation, I received dozens of messages from the people around me, expressing sympathy for the dichotomy I have been pushed into. To stay on tour would symbolize I was either defending or ignoring the harm caused by Win Butler and to leave would imply I was the judge and jury.

I was never here to stand for or with Arcade Fire — I was here to stand on my own two feet on a stage, a place I’ve grown to feel I belong and I’ve earned as my own. I play for my band, my crew, their loved ones and all of our families, and the people who pay their hard-earned money to share space in the collective synergy that is a show. The ebb and flow of my successes, failures, and other decisions affect all of our livelihoods and I recognize how lucky I am to be able to travel the world singing songs about my life, my thoughts and experiences and have that be my career. I’ve never taken that for granted.

My experiences include the same experiences as the many people I have spoken to since the news broke on Saturday, and the many strangers whom I may only be able to reach with this letter, or not at all. We all have a story within a spectrum ranging from baseline toxic masculinity to pervasive misogyny to actually being physically, psychologically, emotionally or sexually assaulted. This situation touches each of our lives and speaks to us in a language unique to each of our processing. There isn’t a singular path to heal when you’ve endured any version of the above, nor a singular path to rehabilitate the perpetrators. It can be a lonely road to make sense of ill treatment. I can’t solve that by quitting, and I can’t solve it by staying. But I can’t continue.

Public shaming might cause action, but those actions are made from fear, and fear is not the place we find our best selves or make our best decisions. Fear doesn’t precipitate empathy nor healing nor open a safe space for these kinds of conversations to evolve, or for real accountability and remorse to be offered to the people who were harmed.

I’m imperfect and I will navigate this decision imperfectly, but what I’m sure of is the best way to take care of my band and crew and my family is to distance myself from this tour, not this conversation. The last two nights on stage, my songs made this decision for me. Hearing them through this lens was incongruous with what I’ve worked to clarify for myself through my whole career. I’ve always written songs to name my own subtle difficulties, aspire to my best self and claim responsibility when I need to. And I’m claiming my responsibility now and going home.”