Month: September 2024

Ben Katzman is more than just a Survivor finalist; he’a also a wildly accomplished rock musician. He’s a shredder, a DIYer, and a punk rocker. Tears On The Beach, his latest album, leaves it all out there on display. Opening with the one-two punch of “Dig Deep” and “Fire Sprite,” Katzman sets the stage with incendiary guitar solos and a carefree spirit.

Still, that’s not to say that Katzman is careless. Tears On The Beach, despite its fuck-it-all air, blazes by with a ferocity that still feels meticulous, diligent, and well-crafted. He’s an ardent student of rock history, and his chops are made apparent from the record’s start to its closing track “The Vibe Has Spoken.”

Following the record’s release in August — and ahead of tonight’s premiere of the 47th season of Survivor — Katzman sat down with Uproxx to talk about the Oasis reunion, farting on command, eating at every fast food chain as a teenager, and more in our latest Q&A.

What are four words you would use to describe your music?

Energetically Rippin Emotional Rocks.

It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?

It would be cool if it was like the future in Bill and Ted where our riffs and music were heralded as the greatest thing of all time and used as a tool to inspire generations of people to grind on axes and live their lives on 10. I always thought my music was like motivational metal, but yeah hopefully? That would be most excellent.

Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?

I think it would have to be KISS as a band. And yes while the music might be a huge influence, it’s the idea that four dorks could transform themselves into superheroes and make something epic that went way beyond themselves. I believe rock ‘n’ roll is a transformative tool!

Where did you eat the best meal of your life and what was it?

My parents are pretty killer chefs, and I’ve eaten a lot of killer meals in my lifetime, but I’d say the best meal of my life must’ve been in high school after we did this legendary run on 163rd street. We hit every fast food chain that ever lived: Burger King, Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Church’s Chicken, Pizza Hut, Chipotle, Steve’s Pizza, etc and set up a legendary line-up that equaled the feast from Talladega Nights. Would I say that was the best food? No, definitely not. But it was like climbing Shred Mountain; we accomplished something that day.

Tell us about the best concert you’ve ever attended.

The Happy Jawbone Family Band at the BUFU Records Christmas party.

What song never fails to make you emotional?

“May It Be” by Enya off The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack. That sound rules and is all about the release of control and accepting you are on the journey that is life.

What’s the last thing you Googled?

Who is in the Oasis reunion lineup. COME ON BONEHEAD WE NEED YOU!

Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?

One time we were on tour in the middle of nowhere, we stayed at this person’s house who kept telling us how tired they were but wanted us to crash with them. Only when we were finally about to go to sleep they invited the whole town to come rip an after party at their house. Because it was a small town there was an array of wild characters from moonshine makers to bible salesmen. I wouldn’t say it was weird but I would definitely say we were in tropical fargo.

What’s your favorite city in the world to perform and what’s the city you hope to perform in for the first time?

Outside my hometown, my favorite place to perform is in Edinburgh Scotland aka Shredinburgh. I’ve never had a bad show there and people there seem DOWN TO ROCK! Hopefully we make it to Japan; I want to shred Budokan like KISS did!

What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?

Don’t try to impress anybody else; just be yourself and let the people around you figure that out.

What’s one of your hidden talents?

I can fart on command. Seriously, Taco Bell or not I’m ready to let it rip at all times. I don’t know if that’s considered a health issue or not though.

If you had a million dollars to donate to charity, what cause would you support and why?

It’s all about art and music education for me. I truly believe kids should have access to instruments, art supplies, lessons and have free time to allow themselves to explore their mind and let loose becoming themselves. Art really can be therapy so whatever charity helps that happen, I’M IN!

What are your thoughts about AI and the future of music?

The future of music consumption is bleak. AI in my mind feels like another word for posers. Sure it’s cool and fun but the second it becomes capitalized by big record and film businesses it’s a wrap. I think people will still need the energetic release though and live music will hopefully keep powering through. Rock bands are like the cockroaches on a nuclear fallout, we’ll never die.

You are throwing a music festival. Give us the dream lineup of 5 artists that will perform with you and the location it would be held.

Oasis, Metallica, Enya, The Beets (from Doug, the ones who sing Killer Tofu), and maybe the SHAMEN from Scotland. That would be pretty bonkers huh?

I would also say let’s hold that festival at a veteran’s hall in the middle of nowhere so the kids can let it RIIIIIP.

Who’s your favorite person to follow on social media?

Liam Gallagher on Twitter. Dude can roast and toast anyone like there’s no tomorrow. Especially his brother.

What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?

I have my childhood dog’s underbite tattooed on me with the words ‘All Dogs Go To Heaven pt.3’ The part 3 is probably cuz there are only two movies. So I lived the 3rd.

What is your pre-show ritual?

I like to pull a Dewey Cox and think about my whole life leading up to that moment. This way I can gather all the emotions and let it all rip in the name of rock.

Who was your first celebrity crush?

DEFINITELY Kimberly from Power Rangers. Every ’90s kid KNOWS!

You have a month off and the resources to take a dream vacation. Where are you going and who is coming with you?

If I had the resources, my dream vacation would be to go to the West Coast and see all the spots they filmed The O.C.. AND IF I REALLY had the resources I’d hire Rachel Bilson, Adam Brody, Melinda Clarke, and Peter Gallagher to give me a guided tour with stories from stuff behind the scenes. I would pay to be a punisher for that 2000s gossip.

What is your biggest fear?

That one day I’ll stop being curious and live an adventure-less life. I hope I make it to my deathbed with 10,000,000 stories to tell between meeting Metallica, touring the world, arguing with Jeff [Probst] about Van Hagar, and how I was surrounded by my friends and loved ones the entire way!

Tears On The Beach is available now via BUFU Records. Find more information here.

Nicki Minaj has lived in the United States for most of her life, but as she recently discussed, she’s not actually a US citizen. She thinks that’s pretty wild given how much of her money has gone to paying taxes.

As HipHopDX notes, during a recent TikTok Live broadcast, Minaj said:

“I’m not a citizen of America. Isn’t that crazy? I was born on a beautiful island called Trinidad and Tobago. But I’ve been in the States for many years. You would think that with the millions of dollars that I’ve paid in taxes to this country that I would have been given an honorary citizenship many, many, many thousands of years ago.”

Minaj previously opened up about her background in 2018. In an Instagram post shared in response to children being separated from their parents at the US/Mexico border, Minaj wrote, “I came to this country as an illegal immigrant @ 5 years old. I can’t imagine the horror of being in a strange place & having my parents stripped away from me at the age of 5. This is so scary to me. Please stop this. Can you try to imagine the terror & panic these kids feel right now? Not knowing if their parents are dead or alive, if they’ll ever see them again…”

Colin Farrell has been able to transform his body and mind for The Penguin to the point where he was virtually unrecognizable. He first appeared in 2022’s The Batman, and now the Penguin has his own show set in the gritty underworld of Gotham. But something would be not quite right if the mobster had Farrell’s native Irish accent, which doesn’t sound quite as threatening.

But to get into character, Farrell worked with a vocal coach to perfect the Northeast accent. “My dialect coach, Jessica Drake, she has a library of thousands of accents from all over the world dating back to the ’30s and ’40s, so when we’re preparing for something we go in — based on where the character’s from, we have a listen to four or five different recordings from around that region, then you narrow the zone into something you think is good energetically, not just the sounds,” the actor The Hollywood Reporter.

Farrell kept coming back to one term that would help, and it’s pretty unconventional. “There was a gentleman who was the manager of an apartment complex in the ’80s; he was older, he sounded about 60 or so, and he talked a lot about Gefilte fish. And so whenever my accent started to go, she would call me back and I’d say ‘Gefilte fish’ and that was a little trick,” he explained. Not only is it a popular Passover dish, but the phrase also helped Farrell stay in character.

In addition to changing his accent for the upcoming DC drama, Farrell had to wear an excessive amount of prosthetics in order to achieve the Oz Cobb look. This is something he won’t miss. “I never want to put that f*cking suit and that f*cking head on again,” the actor told Total Film last week. Hopefully he learned to shed his Penguin accent or else we’ll have another Austin Butler on our hands.

The Penguin premieres Thursday, September 19th at 9 pm ET on HBO, then Sundays starting on September 29th.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

(WARNING: Spoilers for Power Book II: Ghost will be found below.)

As if things weren’t bad enough already for Tariq, Brayden, and the Tejadas, it got a lot worse in episode seven of Power Book II: Ghost season four. The episode begins with Diana in the hospital as she discovers that Felicia’s brutal attack on her resulted in the death of Tariq and Diana’s baby. Though he initially sought revenge from her, Tariq decided against it, but Diana went through with it and eventually kills Felicia. Her dead body is discovered by Detective Cater after he rushed to Felicia’s home in hopes of saving her.

Carter walks into the house to see Diana, Tariq, and Monet where it comes close to killing them all. Thankfully for them, Dru’s decision to help Carter after his release from prison is what saved Diana, Tariq, and Monet’s. As for what happens next, well, that will be on display in episode eight. Here’s what you need to know about it.

h2>When Does Power Book II: Ghost Season 4, Episode 8 Come Out?

The eighth episode of Power Book II: Ghost season four, titled “Higher Calling,” will arrive on September 20. The episode will be available on Friday, 9/20 on the STARZ app starting at midnight EST/PST. The episode will later air on the STARZ TV channel that same day at 8 pm ET/PT. A synopsis for “Higher Calling” can be found below:

Tariq and Monet try to leverage a way to get out from under Carter… by making a play to Noma. Positioned on opposite sides, Cane and Dru compete for the streets. An incident with Brayden’s relationship with Elle sends him off the deep end as he goes from puppy to pitbull.

You can also watch a teaser for Power Book II: Ghost season four, episode eight below:

‘Power Book II: Ghost’ season four, part in now streaming on the STARZ app Season four, part two debuts on September 6.

A fun music fan pastime is to think about some artists you’d like to see work together on a dream collaboration. If you’re in the cross-section of Kid Cudi and J. Cole fans, that meet-up hasn’t happened yet, but not due to a lack of trying.

On X (formerly Twitter) today (September 18), a fan told Cudi they’d want to see him collaborate with Cole. Cudi responded, “I had a session w Cole for Indicud he couldnt write to the beat I produced. It was a bummer, and I always wanted to do something so I reached out for INSANO, no response. So theres that.”

In a response to another tweet, Cudi wrote, “Cole dope I fux w him.” He added in another tweet, “Yea for sure I dont think Cole dislikes me I think he just didnt connect w what I sent him. One day hopefully it happens.”

Somebody else asked who Cudi is looking forward to collaborating with next and he responded, “No one new really im all tapped out haha I think my next couple albums will be really short w features. Maybe 1 or 2. Depends on if something comes up organically. OH! Chip im always excited about. Hes my favorite collaborator hands down. We dont have any weak songs its beautiful and pure @kingchip.”

Cudi was referencing Chip Tha Ripper, with whom he just collaborated on the new song “Don’t Worry.”

In the retelling of the legend of the rise of Billie Eilish from indie fave to global superstar, it’d be a mistake to overlook the importance of COLORS in the story. The YouTube performance show put Billie on a lot of fans’ radars in 2017, and her encore a year later is still the most-watched episode the studio has ever produced. Today, she makes her long-awaited return with a gut-wrenching rendition of a favorite from her new album, Hit Me Hard And Soft “Wildflower.”

Eilish appears in one of her trademark baggy outfits, a plaid button-up woven short sleeve over a brown long-sleeve T-shirt with jeans and a plaid newsboy cap, and delivers a similarly restrained performance. As always, the signature monochromatic background reflects the mood of the performance with a muted blue.

While Eilish is still currently promoting Hit Me Hard And Soft and enjoying the success of singles such as “Lunch,” “Chihiro,” and “Birds Of A Feather” — especially “Birds Of A Feather” — she and her brother Finneas used some of the attention they’ve deservedly garnered over the past couple of years to endorse Kamala Harris for President earlier this week, urging fans to “vote like your life depend on it.”

You can watch Billie’s COLORS return performance of “Wildflower” above.

Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels, but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.

Every week, Uproxx is rounding up the best new indie music from the past seven days. This week, we got new music from Foxing, Porches, Nilüfer Yanya, and more.

While we’re at it, sign up for our newsletter to get the best new indie music delivered directly to your inbox, every Monday.

Foxing – Foxing

For an album that nearly drove Foxing apart, the St. Louis emo quartet’s self-titled record presents them at their most unified. Clocking in at nearly an hour, Foxing traverses a wide swath of sonic playground: nü-metal, screamo, indie rock, and, of course, the twinkly, heart-on-sleeve emo they originally built their name on. It might just be their best work to date.

Allegra Krieger – Art Of The Unseen Infinity Machine

Allegra Krieger’s new album flows with the impermanent urgency of and, in turn, appreciation for, life itself. After nearly completing Art Of The Unseen Infinity Machine, the New York singer-songwriter’s fifth full-length, Krieger almost died in an apartment fire caused by a lithium-battery explosion in the e-bike shop housed on the first floor. The remaining recording sessions didn’t flow with rushed dread but a sense of gratitude. That much is present in the gorgeous music Krieger has given us on Infinity Machine. While not all of it reckons with this near-death experience, it acknowledges the sundry, messy complexities of living across its 13 spellbinding songs.

Floating Points – Cascade

Sam Shepherd has spent the past few years wandering. From Promises, the ambient jazz masterpiece he created alongside the late Pharoah Sanders and the London Symphony Orchestra, to producing J-pop legend Hikaru Utada’s 2022 LP Bad Mode, Shepherd has stayed busy regardless of his main project, Floating Points. On Cascade, the first new solo Floating Points joint in five years, Shepherd is no longer wandering. He’s locked back in, making playful electronic music, armed with a batch of nine bangers fit for the club.

Porches – Shirt

While touring behind his 2021 album as Porches, All Day Gentle Hold !, Aaron Maine cranked up the volume and distortion knobs. Songs that previously leaned more into the synth-pop side of things gained a second life as rambunctious thrashers. Maine went back to the drawing board with this rowdier mindset, and the result, Shirt, is a stirring exercise in exorcism. Summoning crunchy guitars and boisterous drums on tracks like “Sally” and “Rag,” Porches comes back completely reinvigorated.

Nilüfer Yanya – My Method Actor

Nilüfer Yanya is three for three. Following splendid albums like 2019’s Miss Universe and 2022’s Painless, the British indie rocker has returned with yet another tour de force. My Method Actor, her third and best record, firmly cements Yanya as one of modern indie’s greatest actors. On songs such as the riveting opener “Keep On Dancing” and the gritty, immediately memorable “Like I Say (I Runaway),” she sounds radiant and self-assured, exuding a well-earned confidence in her prowess.

julie – my anti-aircraft friend

One of my good friends once described Sonic Youth’s music as “guitars are happening,” and, for both of us, that’s high praise. A lot of young bands draw from the ‘80s and ‘90s DIY scenes to filter their own music through, heavily mining those sounds if not straight-up ripping them off. Though julie, an LA trio with a major-label debut LP, my anti-aircraft friend, sound a lot like Sonic Youth, they also sound a lot like julie. Condensing Sonic Youth’s ambitious, atonal sprawls into bite-sized chunks, julie haven’t just streamlined a wildly adventurous sound so much as rendered it their own. Many new bands make ‘90s-indebted shoegaze. Then again, many bands don’t do it nearly as well as julie.

Pom Pom Squad – “Street Fighter”

Mia Berrin and co-producer Cody Fitzgerald stumbled upon an auspicious accident when toying around with synth patches for the new Pom Pom Squad album: They found something that sounded like it was straight out of a Street Fighter game. Using the influential game series as a basis for Pom Pom Squad’s new single, “Street Fighter,” Berrin blazes ahead with a seething yet playful fury.

FKA twigs – “Eusexua”

“Eusexua,” an adaptation of the Greek word “euphoria,” is an earned space for FKA twigs. As one of the most exciting and visionary artists occupying left-of-center pop music these days, twigs deserves her flowers. So it only makes sense that the title track of next year’s Eusexua unfolds as beautifully as a flower itself. Shifting from a muted thump to a fittingly euphoric techno beat, “Eusexua” is a reminder that twigs goes beyond tears in the club; she’s here to both provide joy and experience it for herself.

Porridge Radio – “A Hole In The Ground”

The next Porridge Radio album, Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me, is out in just a month. Before then, however, the Brighton indie rockers have shared another preview of what’s to come. “A Hole In The Ground,” as figurehead Dana Margolin puts it in a press release, is about “predicting horrible futures that come true and self-fulfill.” Porridge Radio’s latest single is thick with despair, outlining the prophetic contours of what will soon pass.

Franz Ferdinand – “Audacious”

The last time Franz Ferdinand were making headlines, it was for a greatest-hits album that distilled the key aspects of each of their records for a compilation album of their most indelible tunes. Now, the Glasgow blog-rock greats are back with a proper new studio LP. “Audacious,” the lead single of next year’s The Human Fear, is pure Franz Ferdinand, as Alex Kapranos’ crooning vocals collide with post-punky guitars and a steady groove.

There are so many types of people who go onto game shows like Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, so it’s not surprising that a bizarre story comes up every once in a while. After all, when you’re in the moment, you only get a handful of seconds for the world to see your real personality, so you might as well pick a fun anecdote that will be forever ingrained in television history. (Don’t overthink it, though.)

Hilary Glazer, a writer from West Virginia, was a contestant on a recent episode of Jeopardy!, and one of her anecdotes for Ken Jennings was about a moving piece of art she discovered in an unconventional place. “Well, Ken, I gotta tell you, it took place in a restroom, and I was not the artist,” she began. That will surely hook the viewers in!

She continued the story, “But one day at work, I went into the ladies room – there were three stalls. I happened to go into this one, and inside the toilet was the most beautiful composition of still life fruit. There were blueberries, there were melons, there were strawberries. And, oh my God, I wish I had a camera, because I want to remember this. It was like 2006, so I didn’t have anything to take it with. I have my memory and it’s a wonderful one.” Maybe she can create a still life of the still life in order to preserve it for real. Though winning money on the game would probably be a better prize. Glazer managed to walk home with just $496, but the story was more pressing. How did the art get there, and why? The fans were left wanting more toilet art.

After the game, Glazer took to Reddit to add some context to the story, as viewers were just as confused. “I opened the stall door and found a bowl full of blueberries, strawberries, melons (possibly cantaloupe) and was shaken to my core. These days I would say shook? On the one hand, it irked me, because the trash cans were right there… but on the other hand, the composition, the color… all so beautiful!” Even though she didn’t win a fortune, her art experience will always be priceless. Though more money is always nice.

Check out the clip below.

The writer Michael Walker once theorized that the sixties — not the literal decade but the idea or more accurately the vibe — actually ended in 1973. The suggestion was that the era’s halcyon artists finally gave way to a new generation of hard-rocking hedonists like Led Zeppelin and Alice Cooper. But if this thesis is correct, then it’s also true that nostalgia for the sixties commenced almost immediately the following year.

In the summer of 1974, the reunited Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young launched a tour of stadiums in the U.S. and Europe. It started about a month before Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, and the symbolism was obvious and heavy. The jaunt was subsequently dubbed the “Doom” tour, on account of the overblown egos and overabundance of blow backstage. The vibes grew even darker that fall when George Harrison became the first Beatle to tour North America since his former band retired from the road in 1966. Struggling with a failing voice strangled to a weak croak, Harrison famously rewrote the lyrics to “In My Life” to conclude with “in my life / I love God more.” Alas, God could not be reached for comment.

And then there was the golden-oldie revival act that opened the year in January and February, the reteaming that was hyped most of all. Bob Dylan — the prodigal generational spokesman who hadn’t toured regularly in eight long years — was back with his most famous accompanists, the mostly Canadian bar band formerly known as The Hawks, now recognized simply as American music standard-bearers The Band. When they were last seen in 1966, this combo was greeted to nightly hostility by jeering international audiences incensed that their folkie (our folkie) had “gone electric.” Now, back on tour in the new decade, Dylan and The Band were embraced as conquering heroes.

The response was overwhelming: Reports famously alleged that seven percent of the U.S. population (or about 20 million people) applied for tickets. David Geffen, (briefly) Dylan’s new label head, called the tour “the biggest thing of its kind in the history of show business.” Newsweek was more succinct when they put Bob on the cover with the two-word headline, “Dylan’s Back!” God, again, could not be reached for a rebuttal.

Years later, the one thing the participants agreed upon is that this sort of talk amounted to nothing but fertilizer. In the liner notes of the 1985 box set Biograph, Dylan dismissed the tour as an exercise in nostalgia, in which “I was just playing a role … I was playing Bob Dylan, and The Band was playing The Band.” In 1989, he elaborated on this point, telling an interviewer, “We hadn’t made any records. When we were playin’ out there earlier in the era we weren’t drawing crowds like that.” (Bob and The Band actually did put out a new album, Planet Waves, in the middle of the ’74 tour, and it eventually topped the charts. But I take his point. Planet Waves has been unfairly overlooked for decades, even by the guy who made it.) The Band’s guitarist Robbie Robertson echoed Bob’s cynicism about the tour’s worshipful reception to Dylan biographer Howard Sounes, complaining about how “everybody cheered and acted like, Oh, I loved it all along. There was something kind of hypocritical about it.”

These are righteous men. But are they right? A new box set out Friday, The 1974 Live Recordings, can be viewed as a kind of fact-check on the naysayers, both inside and outside Dylan’s inner circle. A sprawling data dump of music, The 1974 Live Recordings collects every known professionally recorded show from the tour, amounting to 431 tracks (all but 14 never before released) spread across 27 discs. This mountain of material attempts to make a small but nevertheless crucial point: The ’74 Tour represented a fascinating crossroads for the musicians in the spotlight. For Dylan, it marked a return to live performance after an extended hiatus, and the beginning of perhaps the most rigorous year-in and year-out tour schedule for any rock star in the past 50 years. For The Band, the tour represented a valedictory moment of triumph just over two years before the original lineup finally folded at The Last Waltz.

Together, these men faced a daunting — if not impossible — task: Live up to the most mythologized rock tour of the sixties, the most mythologized decade in all of rock music. The miracle of The 1974 Live Recordings is that it shows, more often than not, they pulled it off.

Until now, the defining document of Tour ’74 was Before The Flood, the double-live LP mostly recorded at the final shows in mid-February in Los Angeles. Released just four months later in June, Before The Flood was rapturously received by critics. (Robert Christgau called it “the craziest and strongest rock and roll ever recorded.”) But over the years, the album’s reputation has suffered. Subsequent audiences complained about Dylan’s hectoring vocal bark, the overblown arrangements, and the rather stock nature of the tracklist, which sticks mostly to Dylan’s most well-known (some might say tired) greatest hits.

Not all of these criticisms are fair. At the time Before The Flood was released, overfamiliar warhorses like “All Along The Watchtower” and “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” had never been played live before Tour ’74. And the arena-rock bluster of Dylan’s new delivery was in keeping with the times; the very idea of “arena-rock bluster” was still in the process of being invented. (The famous cover image of a sea of lighters held aloft at the L.A. Forum depicts a now-common audience gesture that supposedly never occurred before the Dylan/Band tour.)

But it’s also true that Dylan, despite the tour adding considerably to his bank account, was tired and burnt out by tour’s end. And bootlegs have confirmed that the concerts from earlier on were more inspired. That’s certainly true of the very first show, played on Jan. 3, 1974, at Chicago Stadium. The musicians went in under-prepared — there were only two days of rehearsal — but aside from some flubbed lyrics in the chorus of “Like A Rolling Stone” you wouldn’t know it from the tape. Perhaps it was a combination of adrenaline and muscle memory, but the playing is fiery from the start of “Hero Blues,” an ultra-rare outtake from the early sixties exhumed for the first two shows of the tour and then never again. Dylan, as always, was irreverent about his own “hero” status, and the rest of the show exhibits a disregard for the crowd-pleasing hits that would come to dominate the tour. No less than three songs from Planet Waves — still two weeks from release — are featured, from future deep cuts (like a delectably crunchy “Tough Mama”) to soon-to-be-classics (the tender “Forever Young”).

(Funny enough, Dylan pretty much dropped the Planet Waves material from the sets once the album was finally released, an act of perversity that can only be described as “Dylanesque.”)

And then there’s an acoustic set, which kicks off with Dylan’s first released original, “Song To Woody,” a throwback that makes Dylan seem both older and younger than his 32 years at time. There’s also “Nobody ‘Cept You,” a heart-rending Planet Waves outtake pointing to the romantic dissolution of Blood On The Tracks, which Dylan would start writing around the time that Before The Flood arrived in stores. Even as the rest of the set calcified later in the tour, Dylan would reserve some of his most interesting song choices and impassioned vocals for the acoustic numbers.

But what’s most apparent from the start is the uniquely combustible dynamic between Dylan and The Band. In the intervening years since the mid-sixties, both parties had moved in mellower directions, drifting toward folk rock and country music. And the music on Planet Waves generally has a laidback feel. When I interviewed Robertson in 2018 about the making of The Band’s debut, 1968’s Music For Big Pink, he talked about leaving his days as a hotshot lead guitarist behind. “I no longer had to prove how hard or loud I could play,” he told me. “I thought, ‘I like that it revolves around this song. It doesn’t revolve around this flashiness, these acrobatics on a guitar neck.’ I thought I’d outgrown that.”

Well, that went out the window in early ’74. As he did in ’66, Dylan drew out the nasty side of The Band, inspiring them to play with barely controlled chaos. And The Band similarly drove Dylan to push his voice and simply rock harder than he ever has, before or since. As Robertson later confessed to Sounes, “we just automatically reverted to a certain attitude toward the songs … it’s fast and aggressive and hard and tough.” For Robertson, that meant revisiting the blazing leads he played on songs like “Just Like Tom Thumb Blues” and “I Don’t Believe You,” which dominate the early shows on the tour. Behind him, Levon Helm — who sat out the original tour with The Hawks out of disgust with all those pissed off folkies — matched Robertson in intensity, playing all over the kit while still keeping the music violently locked in the pocket. Between these men, their fellow compatriots in The Band — Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson – minimized the frills and maximized the energy and power.

The electric sets from the first several weeks represent some of the finest music Dylan and The Band ever made together. (The only song that never really worked is “Ballad Of A Thin Man” – that number needs the drama of reacting against a disbelieving audience to fully go over, not the support of an adoring one.) Obsessives looking to chart each micro-step in how these guys gelled will be fascinated by side trips like the afternoon gig from Philadelphia on Jan. 6, in which the lurching tempos and woozy instrumental leads evoke a serious hangover. That concert opens with the tour debut of “Ballad Of Hollis Brown,” the brutal prairie-land murder ballad from The Times They Are A-Changin’ reworked for Tour ’74 as a lethal and relentlessly swinging rock ‘n’ roll indictment of American poverty. For critics who complained about the bourgeois audiences the tour attracted — tickets were priced at $9.50, a then astronomical fee that equates to around 60 bucks today — here was perhaps the most chilling song in Dylan’s catalog, about a man driven to murdering his own wife and children rather than letting them starve to death. And it was delivered via the most bare-bones, gut-level music of the night, played with such unforgiving severity that it nullifies escapism and forces you to not look away.

For me, “Hollis Brown” is Tour ’74 at its very best, and the greatest performance of the song comes from the overall finest gig of the run, the afternoon show from 1/14/74 in Boston. This concert is among the most widely bootlegged Tour ’74 dates for a reason. They play aggressive and speedy not too aggressive and speedy. Robertson’s molten lava leads pour over Dylan’s indignant pleas without melting them. Levon beats his drums like they just cheated him in a card game. It is — to borrow Christgau’s phrase — the craziest and strongest rock and roll you’ll ever hear.

Not everything on The 1974 Live Recordings is so indelible. The ear tires of hearing multiple versions of “Rainy Day Women” and “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” which are played essentially the same way every night. Over time you feel the players settling into a rhythm. You sense their minds are wandering. You understand the confusion that comes with playing songs the public once hated beyond all reason, and now loves beyond all reason. It starts to feel like show business, and these are not people who are at ease with show business.

But also … we’re talking about Bob freaking Dylan here. And Robbie damn Robertson and Levon sweet Jesus Helm and Rick my god Danko and Richard hallelujah Manuel and Garth holy hell Hudson. Can you really have too many recordings of these people playing together? It’s Bob Dylan And The Band! Give me 127 discs and then I’ll consider going my way and letting you go yours.

In 2017, The xx released the album I See You. Since then, fans have been waiting to see them again: While group members Jamie xx, Romy, and Oliver Sim have been active with solo projects, we haven’t had a new album, or even song, from The xx since then. Today (September 18), that sort of changes: Jamie xx just released a new solo single called “Waited All Night,” which features Romy and Sim.

The track is the first time the three have appeared on a new song together since I See You. The tune comes from Jamie’s upcoming solo album In Waves.

In a statement, Jamie says of the song, “Thank you to my two best friends and musical siblings, Oliver and Romy. It’s wonderful to have the gang back together, working in new ways, working out new lives, I wouldn’t be here without them.” Romy and Oliver add, “We’ve loved collaborating on our recent solo projects but it’s been a while since the three of us came together on one track. We’re so pleased that this was the place we met up again. Proud to play a small part in this long awaited, brilliant album. We’re your biggest fans Jamie!”

Listen to “Waited All Night” above.