In Eric Andre Live Near Broadway, a new Adult Swim comedy special that debuts tonight, the veteran comedy maniac incorporates various liquids, visual aids, guests, and set pieces while playing to a raucous live audience that seems to super charge the proceedings. It’s the perfect proof point for why Andre’s show has endured, showing an audience clamoring for and being rewarded with something real. Because, while some parts of Andre’s show are, of course, scripted and expertly planned out, the show (both the classic version and this live edition) just feels like a primal comedy scream, born from pent up anxiety and boundless creativity manifested through on-the-spot inventiveness and comedy guts of steel. Not quite anarchy, but something quite close and quite real.
As we do when Andre has a new project set to hit screens, Uproxx spoke with him, checking in on this new special, performance anxiety, crafting the exact right kind of jizz cannon, shocking the hell out of guests, taking to the high seas, and his earliest pranks.
We’re both fellow anxiety sufferers. Is doing this in front of an audience helpful to your anxiety or is it just a speed-run through chaos internally?
I think more the latter. I get more comfortable doing the show as the show goes on. My anxiety isn’t totally logical. I definitely have dealt with performance anxiety stage fright for years, which is normal, but my anxiety manifests at weird parts of the day that aren’t totally based on logic or external stimulus. Anxiety is a fiction. Anxiety is a fiction and anxiety is just a sensation, but it’s not totally logical. It’s misplaced. It’s a distraction.
How much does the live audience aspect feed the improvisational aspect of these shows?
A good amount. It’s prank-based, so you’re relying on whoever you bring up on stage. If they’re a great guest, you got a great show. If they’re so-so, especially at the end where I’m FaceTiming their ex, it’s in their hands more than it’s in my hands. We’ve had a couple shows where it was a total bust, and it’s really stressful and frustrating. But it’s worth the risk because when I do pull it off, it works really well and the crowd erupts. It’s a high wire act a little bit, especially that stuff. But I lucked out completely with the New York show because Billy Porter was so engaging and he was so reactive to each and every twist and turn. And also the guy, the audience member at the end, that guy Ryan and his ex-girlfriend were so perfect, without spoiling anything.
Yeah, Billy seemed to be completely surprised by everything that was going on.
He was baffled. He had never seen me or the show. He had no idea what he was getting into. People always ask, “Why do people do the show if they don’t know what they’re getting into?” And I say, anytime I’ve done any talk show or any press, “I have no idea what I’m getting into.” And you want to promote whatever you’re working on. We like attention.
I’m sure there’s an aspect of the unknown that’s appealing to someone coming on the show as well.
Billy Porter knew nothing. He really had no idea. I really caught him off guard. He was perfect. He was a perfect guest.
How did he feel after the show? Do you check in after the show to see how someone is?
He was gone after the show by the time I got off-stage. No. I think he had a good time. I gave him a hug and a kiss.
Can you take me through the construction of the ejaculate canon?
That’s mule semen. No, I couldn’t tell you. It’s Joe Holiday, Gizmo Joe, the guy that builds our props. He built that rig and he has some jizz-like substance that he’s created. And he also uses some, I don’t know, he has a crazy contraption. He’s brilliant. He’s a genius prop master. He’s like Christopher Lloyd in Back To The Future. He has a TikTok that’s really famous for crazy gizmos and contraptions that he makes. He’s awesome.
What was behind the choice of the Simpsons porn in the background? Why not Family Guy?
That was a last minute decision. We only did that for that show. On the road, we were having rappers on the show and stuff and we would have people drink the hot sauce and beer and Red Bull and all this stuff and do dizzy bat, and then rap. Some people would handle that actually well, so in the last few shows leading up, we were like, “Why don’t we go further?” In the Philly show the night before, we had a dog pooping backwards and nobody cared. It looked cool. So then we were like, “Why don’t we show cartoon porn or something?” So that was a last minute. We weren’t sure if that was going to work or not. It worked really well.
Aside from the special, you’re going on a comedy cruise coming up in the next couple weeks. What is Eric Andre’s show in international waters going to be like?
Completely lawless. The law books don’t apply.
How big is the waiver that people have to sign to go onto this thing?
It’s giant. It looks like butcher paper.
I have not had a chance to read Dumb Ideas yet, but looking forward to that. What was that process like writing the book?
We (Andre and Dan Curry, The Eric Andre Show head writer and exec producer) were trying to make a prank cookbook at first. It was like pranks you could do at home and a prank kit and all this stuff. I don’t know, it didn’t have enough meat on the bones, so we just started writing stories and behind the scenes tales of the trials and tribulations of the show and the movie and everything else, and then we hit our stride.
What was the first prank that you did, or what inspired the first prank that you did when you were younger?
That’s a good question. The first prank, I don’t know, they’re all crude. I’m trying to think of from when I was a little kid. My buddy got expelled from high school for pooping in the history textbooks, but I can’t claim that one. I remember one time I bashed my head through a fire hose glass enclosure in the English building. It was 11th grade. Everybody was walking to class in the hallways. I bashed my head through the glass, I pulled my head back, and the glass sliced my forehead and my hands up, but it was coming out of the center of my hands, the blood. I didn’t mean to do that, I was just trying to make a big loud noise. I didn’t think the glass would break. I wasn’t really thinking it through, I was fucking crazy. I bash my head through the thing and I lean back and blood was coming out of my forehead and my hands and I was like, “Stigmata!” And I bled all the way to the other building. They made me go to the hospital.
You got the laugh?
No, my friend was like, “Jesus Christ.”
Mortified.
Mortified.
You’ve been in this obviously for a while, are you having to train yourself in any different ways? Are you having to guard against certain injuries more than not?
Yeah, I still get injured. I try not to. Getting injured sucks now. I’m in my forties. You always make mistakes.
I’m assuming it’s not the Johnny Knoxville getting tossed around by a bull to the point of near comatose level?
No, he goes really fucking hard. He’s gotten 16 concussions.
You’ve worked with him obviously over a couple of projects. Is there a competitive streak to you when you’re in the same room with him?
No, not at all. He’s like my big brother. I look up to him and look at him in awe. I don’t feel competitive at all. I feel like I’m trying to learn from him.
Yeah, it feels like I don’t think anybody could really match him. It feels like that’s probably flirting with death if one tried to match him at this point.
I can’t believe he’s alive.
‘Eric Andre Live Near Broadway’ premieres tonight at midnight on Adult Swim
HBO Max may have rebranded as Max, but one thing has definitely remained the same: A steady stream of cancellations. Rap Sh!t, a hip-hop comedy series from Insecure creator Issa Rae, is the latest victim of the ongoing bloodbath at the streamer.
While fans were hoping that Rap Sh!t would return for Season 3, Max has confirmed that the series is no more in a statement announcing its fate.
“We are extremely grateful to Issa Rae for creating Rap Sh!t, a one-of-a-kind comedy with compelling social commentary that reached viewers in a way only Issa’s talents can accomplish,” a Max spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter. “A huge thank you to Issa, showrunner Syreeta Singleton and the teams at Hoorae and 3 Arts Entertainment for introducing us to Shawna and Mia, a duo whose journey fans have been invested in and who they have continued to root for through everything. We’ll never get ‘Seduce and Scheme’ out of our heads and we wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Rap Sh!t joins a growing list of recent cancelations at Max, which now includes Warrior, Julia, and Our Flag Means Death. However, HBO chief Casey Bloys has confirmed that the creators of the Taika Waititi pirate series are free to shop the show to another platform. As of this writing, no such plans have been announced for Rap Sh!t. Yet.
The lineup for New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (also known as just JazzFest) has arrived today (January 18), and it’s awesome. It’s led by The Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters, Chris Stapleton, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, The Killers, Queen Latifah, and Hozier. Also on the poster are folks like Vampire Weekend, Big Freedia, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, and plenty of others.
If you’d like to head down to The Big Easy and check out the festivities (from April 25 to 28 and May 2 to 5), here’s what you need to know about buying tickets.
How To Buy Tickets For New Orleans JazzFest 2024
You can pick up tickets right now via the JazzFest website. There are multiple types of tickets you can get at multiple price points, so check out your options:
1st Weekend 4-Day (April 25, 26, 27, 28): Early Bird Ticket ($290) or Advance Ticket ($320)
2nd Weekend 4-Day (May 2, 3, 4, 5): Early Bird Ticket ($465) or Advance Ticket ($495)
2nd Weekend 3-Day (May 3, 4, 5): Early Bird Ticket ($240) or Advance Ticket ($270)
GA+ 4-Day 1st Weekend: Early Bird Ticket ($499) or Advance Ticket ($549)
GA+ 4-Day 2nd Weekend: Early Bird Ticket ($749) or Advance Ticket ($799)
On top of that, there are also the Big Chief and Grand Marshal VIP-tier packages. The Big Chief VIP 1st weekend tickets go for $1,850, while the Big Chief VIP 2nd Weekend option starts at $2,550. There’s also a 2nd Weekend 3-Day option at $1,700, but VIP parking and VIP shuttles are no longer available in that tier. Grand Marshal VIP is similar, with 1st Weekend ($1,750 base price) and 2nd Weekend ($2,350 base price).
To get even further into the weeds regarding the most up-to-date info on ticket pricing and options, head to the JazzFest website.
New Orleans JazzFest 2024 lineup poster
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Human personalities range from super laid back to extremely picky and everything in between. But even the chillest among us have something we’re particular about—that “thing” we can’t stand or that has to be a certain way whether we have a logical reason for it or not.
Some of us have multiple “things,” but precious few people have none.
We asked our audience what they were weirdly finicky about and the answers ranged from food to bed sheets to grammar. But what was fascinating was to see how many people’s “things” overlapped.
Check out some of the most popular answers and see if any of these resonate with you:
Removing the egg chalazae
Don’t know what a chalazae is? You probably do but didn’t know you know. It’s that stringy thing that we often mistake for an umbilical cord that connects the egg yolk to the white in a raw egg. (Don’t worry, I didn’t known it was called a chalazae until I looked it up. Perfect spelling bee word, though.)
Anyway, many people shared that they have to remove the chalazae before they can use an egg for any purpose.
“I have to take the ‘umbilical cord’ off of the egg before I use it – for anything.” – Sande H.
‘We call them squigllys and, yes, they must be removed.” – Jan J.
“Me too!!! I call them goobers. There are two per egg. Ugh.” – Jess M.
Food = no touchy
A whole lot of people do not want different foods to touch on their plate.
“Mine is that certain foods can’t touch, no matter how many people tell me that it all goes to the same place.” – Janice C.
“I like a plate with dividers because I don’t like for my food to touch one another.” – Pat. W.
“I love pickled beetroot and I love mashed tatties. Can’t have them on same plate – nooo pink tatties!” – Sheila D.
Line up those $ bills
Some people need their Abes and their Benjamins all facing the same direction, preferably in ascending order, in their wallet.
“My money has to all go in the same direction in my wallet. When a cashier gives me change I have to put the bills all the same way before putting them away.” – Michelle M.
“I don’t carry cash much these days, but I can’t stand if it’s not all facing the same way and organized smallest bill to largest.” – Josh C.
“Paper money that comes out of the ‘Hole-in-the-wall’ has to be sorted so the notes are all the same way and then kept like that until they are spent. I can’t bear them to be upside-down and back-to-front with each other.” – DA O.
Where the table is in a restaurant
This one was interesting. Several people commented that they can’t sit in the middle of a restaurant.
“I have to sit next to a window or wall in a restaurant. Hate sitting in middle of the room.” – Reed K.
“I dislike being seated where people pass behind me while I eat. I also prefer an end seat while rehearsing or watching a show. I like to move around.” – Judy J.
Improper spelling and punctuation
There were a lot of grammar police in the comments. Some complaints betray a lack of understanding about different English dialects, but some things are universal no-nos.
“I have a physical reaction to apostrophes being used for pluralizing words.” – Sarah R.
“Must have correct spelling and punctuation.” – Annette L.
This one was just hilariously specific:
“Being able to spell the breed of the dog you own.” – Amy P.
So much bed finickiness
“Climbing into a bed that has wrinkles and isn’t tucked in with hospital corners.” – Yvonne M.
“My pillowcase open end has to face the outside edge of the bed.” – Karen M.
“Having my sheets straight when I go to sleep. I hate having one side long and the other side just barely covering the other foot.” – Laura H.
“Dishwasher loading: Can you PLEASE wash the pots by hand, put the glass and heavy things on the bottom, and fragile, or noteworthy (heirloom/souvenir) items on the TOP RACK. Gee… help a sister out.” – Charlotte T.
“How I load the flatware into the dishwasher, handles up. Safe because when unloading you only touch the handles, not the business end that goes in the mouth.” – Kim D.
“Stacking the dishwasher, I re-stack it if it’s untidy.” – Joanne O.
Flatware and cutlery having to feel just right
I get this one, personally. I have a thing with the size of spoons (can’t stand the big ones). Apparently, I’m not alone.
“My husband’s pickiness about silverware and its length, weight, and balance. He’s not really OCD either. It’s weird.” – Diana M.
“Matching cutlery. I can’t stand a mismatching knife and fork.” – Tracey M.
“Forks , they have to be long and lite weight.” – Leona S.
That wasn’t all. Lots of people also commented on washing hands before handling food, keeping countertops spotless, closing cupboard doors, putting things back where they belong and other cleanliness/organization dos and don’ts. Some people joked about having the list of things that they aren’t finicky about being shorter. But the main takeaway is that whatever you’re particularly finicky about, you always can find others who understand because somebody, somewhere shares the same “things.”
In Barbie, America Ferrera gives a powerful monologue about what it’s like being a woman. “It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong,” she says, adding, “I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us.”
Emily Ratajkowski put it another way: “I just don’t really give a f*ck.”
The model, author, and podcaster spoke to Glamour UK about how she’s perceived as a woman.
“In the past two years, how I feel is I just care a whole lot less what people think,” she said. “So, if I am in a certain type of mood where I want to post something or wear something that I could be judged for because it’s, quote-unquote ‘desperate,’ I’m a little bit like, ‘Well, that’s where I’m at.’ I’ve learned to prioritize my own happiness, probably because of my son. I feel I have bigger fish to fry than caring about the politics of whether or not I’m appealing to the male gaze in a given moment.”
Ratajkowski then quoted “Vigilante Sh*t,” a song by Taylor Swift. “Because I know there are plenty of times where I don’t – and I just am living my life and it feels great,” she said. There’s this huge conversation happening with Gen-Z or the Taylor Swift lyric, ‘I don’t dress for women. I don’t dress for men. I dress for revenge.’ Who do you dress for? Female gaze? The male gaze?” Ratajkowski continued, “So I guess where I am is a little bit of a true liberation, in a personal sense, in the way that I just don’t really give a f*ck.”
1st Weekend 4-Day (April 25, 26, 27, 28): Early Bird Ticket ($290) or Advance Ticket ($320)
2nd Weekend 4-Day (May 2, 3, 4, 5): Early Bird Ticket ($465) or Advance Ticket ($495)
2nd Weekend 3-Day (May 3, 4, 5): Early Bird Ticket ($240) or Advance Ticket ($270)
GA+ 4-Day 1st Weekend: Early Bird Ticket ($499) or Advance Ticket ($549)
GA+ 4-Day 2nd Weekend: Early Bird Ticket ($749) or Advance Ticket ($799)
Additionally, there are two VIP packages: Big Chief and Grand Marshal. The base price for the Big Chief VIP 1st weekend is $1,850, while Big Chief VIP 2nd Weekend starts at $2,550. There is a 2nd Weekend 3-Day option with a base price of $1,700, but VIP parking and VIP shuttles are no longer available.
Similarly, Grand Marshal VIP is separated into 1st Weekend ($1,750 base price) and 2nd Weekend ($2,350 base price).
All of those ticket packages are currently on sale, and single-day tickets are expected to become available in February.
See the lineup poster below.
New Orleans JazzFest 2024 lineup poster
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Scotch whisky really starts to get good in the $40 to $50 range. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still deepin the “beginner” bottles. But this is the price point where hidden gems start to sneak in. That’s kind of exciting. But it’s also tough as this is still a low enough price point where garbage bottles still dwell too (beware of the random “stags” and “glens” on cheap-looking bottles).
To drive that home, I’ve ranked these bottles based on how deep they go. There’s something for everyone below with unpeated and peated single malts, diverse blends, and special oak finishes. So read those tasting notes, find the whisky that jumps out to you, and then hit that price link to buy a bottle (prices will vary based on your region). Let’s dive in!
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Scotch Whisky Posts of The Last Six Months
This single malt from Diageo is a great gateway to good single malt. The juice is aged for 12 years — mostly in ex-bourbon barrels and a few ex-sherry cask-matured whiskies — before it’s cut with that iconic Speyside water and bottled.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: This is a delicate sip of whisky that leans into notes of dried florals and sweet fruits counterpointed by spicy oak and worn leather.
Palate: The palate lets the spice amp up a bit while the fruit touches on both orange oils and orange blossoms with whispers of bourbon vanilla, dried fruits, and fresh honey.
Finish: The end really holds onto that lightness while fading fairly quickly, leaving you with a cedary leather, more of that sweet fruit, and almost creamy vanilla.
Bottom Line:
This is a great place to start any Scotch whisky journey. This is one of the most approachable unpeated single malts out there. It’s so easygoing yet offers a nicely nuanced and deep profile of fruit and honey. That all said, this is a cocktail whisky more than a sipper. Think big floral and citrus flavors in spring and summer cocktails.
9. Mossburn Blended Malt Scotch Whisky Island Smoke & Spice
This blended malt (that means only single malts are in the blend and not single malts and single grain whiskies) is made from a mix of whiskies aged in American oak. Those barrels came from the “Island” region of Scotland which is very wide-reaching. Mossburn vatted those barrels and then re-barreled the whisky into ex-bourbon barrels that were refitted with toasted new European oak heads for a final rest.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose feels like it’s almost salted with a sense of smoked apples and plums next to vanilla cream cut with fresh lemon zest.
Palate: The citrus turns into lemon meringue pie on the palate as caramel malts sweet toward digestive cookies with a hint of chocolate lurking somewhere deep in the palate.
Finish: The end kind of thins out the lemon pie toward a soft sweet grain roundness and a hint of salted vanilla sauce.
Bottom Line:
This is a young-ish-tasting whisky (that sweet graininess gives it away). That doesn’t take away from the depth and nuance of the overall profile though. This works really well as a classic highball whiskey with some good sparkling water and a briny or botanical garnish (think of a cinnamon stick wrapped in nori).
8. Speyburn Arranta Casks Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Arranta translates to “bold” and this whisky leans into that. The hot juice is aged for an undisclosed amount of time in first-fill ex-bourbon casks (that means this whisky was the first thing to go into those casks after they were emptied of bourbon). Those barrels were then vatted, proofed, and bottled without filtration.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Pear candy and honey lead the way on the nose toward woody spices, light leather, and a hint of sour apple skins and stems.
Palate: The palate is sweet and malty with a drive from pear flesh to pit, skin, and tree with floral honey and wet coconut leading to a hint of creamy vanilla sauce dusted with cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice.
Finish: The end leans into pears soaked in honey and nutmeg with a hint of old porch wicker and worn leather gloves on the finish.
Bottom Line:
This is a nice and fruity unpeated malt that’ll be easy for anyone to get a start with. There’s a hint of bourbon in there, but it’s the soft fruits that shine the brightest, especially in cocktails or over a lot of rocks.
7. Ardbeg Wee Beastie Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky
This expression from Ardbeg was first released back in 2020 and instantly became a mainstay of the line (especially for bartenders). The hot juice is aged for only five years in both ex-bourbon and ex-oloroso sherry casks before marrying for the final product. The idea is to give a sense of the quality of the peaty whisky from Port Ellen’s malting house without too much wood influence.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: This is a little abrasive on the nose with alcohol soaking through dried berries and raisins next to a hint of pear candy, woody vanilla, and dried dirt.
Palate: The palate has a hint of smoked plums that lead directly into pear candy with a touch of smoked pork belly buried in BBQ ash.
Finish: The finish is a mix of hot asphalt and soft pear tobacco with a thin layer of salt water calming everything down.
Bottom Line:
This is the perfect “beginner peated malt”. This whisky does not hold back on the dark and earthy peated ashiness. But there’s more to it than just that with soft pear and vanilla adding real depth. My advice is to take it slow with a lot of ice and ease your way into the darkness slowly. You may just find out that peated whisky is your thing.
6. Johnnie Walker Double Black Blended Scotch Whisky
This is Johnnie Walker Black that’s been re-casked in deeply charred oak barrels for a final maturation, making this a classic double-cask whisky. The idea is to maximize that peat and amp up the Islay and Island whiskies’ smokiness.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Clove-forward spice and billows of softwood smoke — think cherry and apple trees — greet you on the nose.
Palate: The palate has a vanilla creaminess that’s punctuated by bright apples, dried fruit, and more peat that leans more towards an old beach campfire than a chimney stack.
Finish: The spice kicks back in late, warming things up as the smoke carries through the end with a nice dose of oakiness, fruitiness, and sweet vanilla creaminess.
Bottom Line:
This is a very softly peated blend. That smoke is tied to sweet fruits more than anything else, making this an easy sipper in highballs with a berry garnish or a touch of dried florals. Or both!
This expression is a marrying of whiskies from all over Scotland. 65% of the blend comes from single malts from a “distillery near the town of Aberlour,” Laphroaig, and Clynelish. The rest is part Highland malt blend (from the Glen Moray, Tomatin, and Balmenach distilleries) and a grain whisky from Cameronbridge distillery. Those whiskies were barreled in sherry and bourbon casks with a French oak barrel thrown in too.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose draws you in with this subtle peaty malt that feels more kissed by a hint of smoke than drowned in it in a malting room with a hint of stewed stone fruit.
Palate: The first sip is “malty scotch!” That then leads to dry straw, very mild plum, the memory of opening up a bag of charcoal, and almond shells.
Finish: You’re left with a slightly sweet straw and a buzzing maltiness that is more reminiscent of a cleaned-out fireplace than “smoke.”
Bottom Line:
This is a great cocktail base. The smokiness is kind of sneaky when you mix with it, providing a soft base for citrus, honey, and florals.
Chivas is renowned for its iconic blended whisky. This expression — created for the Japanese market and released in the U.S. in 2019 — adds a unique dimension to the classic blend. A portion of the whisky is finished in Japanese Mizunara casks, adding a layer of nuanced flavors to the standard Chivas.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Caramel and dark dried fruits mingle with tasty pears, soft orange zest, a touch of leather, fresh and floral honey, and maybe some old oak staves on the nose.
Palate: The palate has a dash or two of winter spice next to walnuts and honey-soaked raisins with a hint of sunburnt heather and wildflowers.
Finish: The finish lets the spiciness warm the palate as pear and leather fade through the end.
Bottom Line:
Chivas has always been the best on-the-rocks whisky on the market. This one is no different.
3. Kingsbarns Lowland Single Malt Scotch Whisky Doocot
This whisky is from a new(ish) Lowland distillery in Scotland. The whisky in the bottle is a single malt that was aged in ex-bourbon and ex-red wine barriques (a slightly bigger barrel by a few gallons). Those barrels were vatted and proofed with Lowland water before bottling.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The light nose opens with a sense of banana bread, pineapple skins, and floral honey with a moment of wet brown sugar and pancake batter.
Palate: That pineapple gets sweet on the palate with a sense of winter spice and dark red berries dipped in vanilla chocolate sauce.
Finish: The fruitiness builds at the end toward more pineapple, mango skins, and kiwi while the spice leans into some soft wood.
Bottom Line:
There’s a lively fruitiness to this whisky that feels almost tropical. So give this a shot in a tropical cocktail with a lot of fruit, spice, and botanicals.
2. Glengoyne Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky 10 Years
Glengoyne uses unpeated Highland barley that they airdry themselves before fermentation. The uniqueness of this whisky doesn’t end there. They also season their own American and European oak barrels with sherry for six years before filling them with their juice. After ten years of maturation, those barrels are vatted, proofed, and bottled for this expression.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: This starts fairly familiar for a sweet Highland malt with notes of apple candies, butter toffee, and a few chocolate-covered almonds.
Palate: The taste leans back into the apple but it’s more tart and juicy now as minor notes of anise and wet cedar bark lead to a little bit of warm cream sitting on top of a shot of espresso and a hint more of those almonds.
Finish: The finish lets the malts sweeten with a hint of orange marmalade on toast rounding things out.
Bottom Line:
There’s a deepness to this whisky that just doesn’t stop. It’s like a rollicking ride through Highland malt, Kentucky bourbon, and Speyside bakeries. That makes this a fun sipper over some ice or a nice cocktail base. It’s especially great in a Scotch old fashioned.
This bespoke whisky is made from special Andalucia sherry casks that are blended with malt aged in ex-bourbon casks. The final product is then finished in fresh Olorosso sherry casks before proofing and bottling.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Sharp marmalade over scones with a hint of cream drives the nose toward ginger candy and soft vanilla.
Palate: That orange bitters toward chili pepper spice in the creamy malts with a hint of salted caramel and floral honey.
Finish: The sharp spice gets a little woody at the end with a hint more of vanilla and orange rounding things out.
Bottom Line:
This is a special bottle of whisky, especially at this price. It’s a wonderful example of how sherry can help malt find its brightest and deepest points of beauty. This is refined and dialed in a way that makes it a rewarding sipper — neat or on the rocks. This is also a whisky that could cost $100 and no one would blink an eye. So buy two.
She may be President Barbie, but Issa Rae is not very confident in her dancing abilities. But to be fair, dancing is not a requirement for running for political office, though maybe it should be! Dancing is fun. But not for Rae.
The actress starred as President Barbie in Great Gerwig’s cinematic masterpiece Barbie, though she was not happy about Stereotpyical Barbie’s giant blowout party with all the Barbies with planned choreography and a bespoke song.
“Dancing to it was my worst nightmare. It was the worst day of my life,” she said. “It was the best day of my life being on that set. It was exciting, and then literally the first day, I had to learn the choreography to shoot the [following] day. And it was terrible,” she explained.
One of the reasons it was terrible? Lipa and her team hadn’t written the lyrics yet, so it was all a fun guessing game. “We also didn’t have the lyrics to the song. Greta was like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be a Dua Lipa song.’ But all we had was the instrumental, so I was just like, “What the f*** is this? What am I dancing to?’” She added.
As for which track deserves the Grammy? Rae has a quick answer. “I want ‘Barbie World’ to win because I didn’t have to dance to that,” she added. After all Issa Rae did, quite literally, Dance The Night Away. She should rest now.
Tool is continuing their 2024 tour, as the band is currently making stops across North America until February. Then, in May, they will kick off a European leg that will run through the summer.
For those who are going to an upcoming show in the US, here’s what to expect in terms of the songs on the setlist. According to setlist.fm, Tool recently did two nights at Madison Square Garden, where they played the most songs from their Fear Inoculum album.
The setlist also shifted a bit between the two nights as they played “The Pot,” “Intolerance,” “Flood,” and “Schism” on opening day, but shifted the songs out for “Jambi,” “Sweat,” “Descending,” and more on night two. The second night also saw a birthday tribute to Adam Jones and Joe Paul Slaby.
Tool is set to head to Hollywood, Florida for two performances at Hard Rock Live. If you want more information on tickets and a complete list of dates for Tool’s 2024 shows, visit their official website.
Continue scrolling to view the full setlist, as of their second MSG show.
Did you enjoy speculating on glass beach’s artistic direction based on the prog/jazz fusion of “the CIA”? What about the In Rainbows-goes-gang vocal eruption of “rare animal”? Hell, are you pumped for glass beach to run through an exhaustive Q&A about the second glass beach album, which isn’t actually called the second glass beach album this time around? If so, would you have traded all of those things for a surprise drop of plastic death that could have happened eight months ago?
When I talk to the newly Tacoma-based quartet a few weeks before the actual release date of plastic death, the excitement and pride glass beach feel towards their highly anticipated sophomore LP is nearly matched by the novel frustration of having to carry out the campaign of a highly anticipated album. “If the record could have come out in 2023, there wouldn’t have been singles. I firmly believe that,” drummer William White states. “This is the last time we’re going to do an album rollout like this.”
Whether it arrived four or five years after the first glass beach album, plastic death justifies both the hype and the wait. It might seem like faint praise to call it one of the most adventurous, thrilling albums of 2024 when January is barely half over, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t hold true by the time we get to December. Though compositionally sophisticated as any record that falls within the scope of art-rock or post-punk, plastic death is mischievous and melodic in a way that escapes other artists who namecheck Philip Glass and black midi as primary influences, as glass beach do on the opening “coelacanth” (it was originally titled “Philip Beach”). Or, take the very next song; the lyrics of “motions” were inspired by Layne Smith’s more demoralizing, mercenary experiences as a sound engineer, and to make a joke about the monotony and interchangeability of creating art under capitalism, they pull a “same note, every string” trick shot from Guitar World icon Paul Gilbert of Mr. Big.
The result of lengthy jam sessions, painstaking editing, and passionate arguments about sequencing and the most minute sonic details, plastic death is a rare instance of an art-rock opus that’s as fun as it is challenging, playing out more like Tears Of The Kingdom or Super Mario Bros. Wonder than homework. But it’s also somewhat misleading to say it took five years to create. Though long opposed to releasing anything from plastic death in advance, frontperson J. McClendon found two reasons to settle on “the CIA” as the lead single; for one thing, they saw it as one of the least representative songs on the record and thus the most likely to confound listeners. They also claim that it dates back to before even the first glass beach album, originally a “Thundercat/disco” sketch that has undergone a Ship of Theseus transformation in the time since, retaining none of its original lyrics or instrumentation. Likewise, “Slip Under the Door” was literally raised from the dead multiple times before reaching its final state as a vampiric nü-metal suite and McClendon threatened to leave “Puppy,” the album’s catchiest pop song, off plastic death solely because it was catchy enough to be a standalone single.
With all the effort they put into the actual creation of plastic death, it’s understandable that they longed to repeat the release strategy of their debut. the first glass beach album was uploaded to Bandcamp in May 2019 with no fanfare, even amongst the people who made it. “J. was wrapping up production and all of sudden, we get a message saying, ‘Yeah I think we’re gonna release it next week,’” White recalled in a 2019 interview. This is the way J. had always done things. “I’ve been making music for exactly a full decade before glass beach and it was always, ‘I just want to make the music,’” they say. “I’ll put it up online, it’s pay what you want, and if people want to send me money, that’s cool. If not, that’s cool.”
In retrospect, it’s hard to believe that the first glass beach album could’ve gotten lost amidst the countless Alex G and Prince Daddy ripoffs sharing the “emo” tag in Bandcamp throughout 2019. Toggling between ambient interludes and maximalist arrangements that threatened to crash McClendon’s Logic X software, it sounded like a lot of different things at various points – no other album had ever been accurately likened to Boards Of Canada, seapunk, Saves The Day, and musical theater before. For reasons that still escape them, glass beach somehow found its way to perpetually keyed-in advocates like Skylar Spence and Los Campesinos!, which sparked a word-of-mouth buzz that led to their signing with Run For Cover and assembling the kind of team who’d ultimately convince them to take a more traditional path towards the release of plastic death.
In the ensuing years, tfgba would retroactively be deemed a formative document of “fifth wave emo,” a movement defined by wild stylistic leaps and an often queer and highly online lyrical perspective. But after the passage of a half decade, bassist Jonas Newhouse reflects that “we’re all orbiting around the 30s threshold and had a lot of enforced personal growth through the pandemic.”
“There were a good six-ish months where we literally hadn’t seen each other,” White recalls and while remotely-composed, one-off singles “1015” and “Running” were well-received, each felt like placeholders until glass beach could return to their previous, communal creative process. But even as they generated momentum on plastic death in their NoHo home studio, the band questioned their willingness to ever tour again after contracting COVID in 2022, despite taking the utmost safety precautions. They’ve donated their time and air purifiers to kickstart a Seattle-area chapter of the Clean Air Club to ensure COVID-safe events at a time when new strains keep emerging despite assurances that the pandemic is long over.
Still, even with this ongoing risk, glass beach are far more stoked to finally tour and perform plastic death than promote it. “I don’t give a shit about advertising, honestly. I have faith that the people who would like it will find it from word-of-mouth at this point,” J. flatly states. “I guess that’s a very funny thing to say in an interview.”
Before we talk about plastic death, I wanted to get into what happened with “Running” – it’s now official “glass beach lore” that the song was submitted for Bill & Ted Face The Music, but ultimately rejected. How did they let you know it was a pass?
Jonas Newhouse: Hold on, let me find the email [checks phone].
J. McClendon: From what I understand, the music supervisor really liked it. They requested a couple of changes that we made, but the version we released was the unmodified one. I think it was ultimately the director that vetoed it.
William White: There were a couple of others that were still…I was going to say “in the running,” on accident. And we were definitely the music supervisor’s maybe-favorite. I hesitate to say that only because you could probably look up who the music supervisor is and I don’t want to put words in their mouth.
Jonas: All I know is the music supervisor didn’t decide we weren’t in it. They made that clear.
J.: And there were definitely discussions we weren’t privy to.
William: They also said that they liked the song but they wanted a different vocalist and they were gonna redo the instrumentation.
Jonas: I swear there’s a version where Rivers [Cuomo] did a test track.
J.: I think the Weezer song ended up taking the spot, but yeah I still haven’t seen that movie.
William: I’ve only seen the scene with the Weezer song.
J.: I think I would have seen it if our song was in it, but I don’t know that I ever believed that the movie was gonna be good.
I didn’t think it was going to be very good and it was not very good, but I remember seeing it because we were just so desperate for a traditional movie experience during the early pandemic. I’m dying to know what changes they recommended, did they want you to write lyrics that summarize the plot…
J.: Totally, like Space Jam. William, you wrote a lot of the lyrics, because straight up, that was so out of my ballpark. I can’t write something positive.
William: I wrote the chorus, which is funny because that kind of just proves that it’s not really a glass beach song. No offense to the glass beach fans that really like it. Because there were people who said, “if this is the direction glass beach is going, I’m so excited!” And I was like, oh no!
J.: It was us doing a Queen impression or “God Gave Rock and Roll To You” by KISS, they wanted something like that. And Layne did such a good solo for that song, it does rip.
What struck me about the first time we talked was how much glass beach, the band, was a byproduct of friendship, that the four of you would likely still be hanging out together if you weren’t making music. In the time since, there’s been touring and signing to a label and all of these other things that test relationships in a way you can’t anticipate. How have these things impacted the way you collaborate as both friends and musicians?
William: I think my friendship with the people in the band wanes as it becomes more like a business. Being in a band is not hard for a friendship, it introduces a heightened version of what friendship is, it forces a greater form of communication. And then having a business based around that band based on this friendship, it starts getting into a zone where you need to bring people in to save your friendship, basically.
J.: I don’t know if I’m speaking for everybody here, but I feel like if it didn’t have to be a business, then we wouldn’t care about trying to sell the music. You know, if this weren’t the best career prospect we all have right now. We’re kind of in this position where treating it as a commercial enterprise is kind of the best way forward for us, for the sake of enabling us to continue doing this, you know?
Jonas: Which also is rough because when we’re done with the music, we’re kind of done thinking about it outside of listening to it and reflecting on it. We don’t want to be thinking about the fucking publishing and all the production stuff.
J.: We were asked to do a thing for Spotify where it’s like, “Hey, to all our Spotify fans, thank you for listening. Make sure to stream our new album in the next year!,” and all that kind of shit. It just feels so deeply fake to me and I feel like anybody else would be able to see through that too.
Layne Smith: Make sure to smash that “like!”
J.: People going on TikTok and being like, “Oh, did I just make the song of the summer?” I would rather die.
I’ve talked to a lot of bands in the indie/punk/emo/etc. sphere about their experience during the pandemic and whether they felt like it represented a missed opportunity to finally do things differently in the music industry, rather than just continuing the same old three-year, “release an album, tour, tour again, release the next album” cycle. Were there any conversations like that within the band?
Layne: We all shared the sentiment of doing things in a better way and at almost every turn, William for sure has been like, “Why do we have to do that?” And then we talk about it for a little bit, and it’s like, “Oh, well, because it’s expected of us.” Okay, well, can we just not do that?
Jonas: We ended up doing two singles which is fairly normal for an album cycle. But that was after hours and hours of deliberating on it because we didn’t want to do it just because.
J.: What it came down to is that I would like people to hear some of the music before 2023 is over. Or, at the very least, know that we’ve done something because we finished the album so long before the release date. That was the whole other thing too – we want it out now. Next time, we’re just going to try to have it drop with no singles or anything because we really never thought of it as an album to be picked apart into pieces like that. The album is the work that we’re making.
Layne: Whenever we have these industry-talk conversations like, “This is how things are done,” there’s part of my brain that always asks that question, “Do we have to do that?” But there’s also a part of my brain that’s like, “I’ve never made it this far.”
J.: There’s people that we trust to defer to about certain things. I think there’s also a lot of bullshit because – I’m not going to say success is totally random – there is a big part of success that is random. I think a lot of people find some kind of success and then just tell everybody to do things exactly how they did. Which is from a completely different time, different context, maybe even different genre. I look at how our first album took off and I would never tell anybody [to do it like us]. I think any older people established in the industry would not have told us to do things the way we do. I guess if there’s any point to be made here, don’t take advice from anybody you wouldn’t trade places with. And nobody knows how to succeed in the music industry. Even people who have done it don’t know how they did it.
Layne: It’s a lot like when YouTubers get asked “How do we make it?” and say, “I got popular like seven years ago, you think that you think things are the same as they were seven years ago?” Anybody who has ever had any success bases everything off of the moment where things change for them, rather than accepting the idea that the music industry is constantly changing.
J.: Yeah, people say singles are better than albums. First of all, that’s not true. And second of all, if it was, then focusing on an album instead would be the way to stand out. Do what nobody else would do.
William: Not even yourself. And then if it’s good and the right people find it, then something might happen. But then there’ll be a risk scenario that you made something awesome that people didn’t find.
J.: And then maybe like 30 years down the line, people are like, “How did this get forgotten?” It’s like, well, I was poor when I put it out.
William: Yeah, I was poor and alive when I put it out, so nobody paid attention.
In 2019, you suggested that the first glass beach album would be a good way for people in the future to remember what being online was like at that time. Do you feel like that prediction has held up?
William: I mean, it’s only gotten more like that. A core idea of [the first glass beach album] was the idea of seeing something horrifying and then something beautiful and something hilarious and then something tragic. That’s the space that we all live in now and it’s worse, because TikTok wasn’t really a thing back then? You swipe up and you see like, “Oh, someone’s singing a pretty song and here’s something about the Palestinian genocide” that’s so much more inescapable.
J.: I mean, it’s been said to death, but with the pandemic, everybody’s lives kind of got transplanted to almost exclusively being online, you know? And I think just I was so much more online than a lot of people for most of my life.
So you’re not less online these days, it’s just that the rest of the world caught up?
J.: I would say I’m less online now than I was then. I think all of us are less online, it feels so cynical and so bleak to me these days. The pandemic really accelerated this for me because in the first couple months of it, I was on Twitter nonstop and it just kind of fucking destroyed me. So I just had to go fully in the opposite direction and I was completely offline for a while. I’ve been trying to find the balance, you spend too much time online and you get worms in your brain, and you spend too much time offline and you don’t have anybody to talk to.
Layne: I think the record is still relevant now in its theme, because there’s a lot of people who may have had that balance at one time. I think that I had a pretty good balance in terms of using Twitter, for example, because I heavily handled my timeline. The things that would pop up were all news that I could find from individual journalists that were accredited. But with the way that Twitter has now gone – I’m never gonna call it the other name – you can’t escape that feeling, you can’t be there longer than 20 minutes and not have it just completely be, “Oh my god this sucks.” It feels like grinding on like an old, thousand-hour JRPG now just to get your timeline reasonable.
It did seem like most of the lyrics on the first album were very online, or at least about the experience of being very online. With plastic death, there seems to be a more surreal, less literal bent to the songwriting.
J.: With the first one, I felt like I had gotten so specific with my songwriting that I was putting details and the literal recounting of events and stuff over the emotionality of it. This was much more about trying to get straight at the emotion. And there is a lot that works on that level. You take a song like “Cul de Sac,” I think that’s a very direct song for me. And I think it’s a very online song too. Because that song, to me, was so much about the culture of nostalgia and how insidious that can be. And then also this idea of Silicon Valley tech people coming from this new age-y mentality of like, oh, “the internet will connect everybody” and then selling out that dream. There’s stuff in there that is very specific, but with this album, I’m trying to write more from the subconscious. That’s where the whole metaphor of the abyss, the deep sea comes from – the Jungian idea of the anima, the repressed part of the self and how there are beautiful things in there, even if there are things in there that are terrifying too.
Do you consider this album to be more hopeful in its view of the future?
J.: I think this album is more a rejection of a lot of the issues with the internet that we’ve talked about before. With the first album there was a sense of it being anti- to this whole mindset of “people are on their phones all the time, they don’t even talk to each other.” Well, people are talking to each other, but it’s on their phones. There was almost this defense of the internet along with the criticism, and a lot more irony in it. I think of this new album as significantly less ironic.
Jonas: If anything, I feel like the irony comes from musical jokes we make.
J.: Irony as a tool in the toolbox rather than as a sensibility.
I think of that aspect in light of a song like “The Killer,” which is the kind of spare, “serious,” mostly acoustic song that glass beach has never done before. Was that the point of making plastic death where you thought, “I’m really out of my comfort zone here”?
J.: I think that’s certainly a song that goes to kind of an uncomfortable place for me. There’s stuff where it was sort of difficult style-wise, like “Slip Under The Door.” There was the whole period of me learning how to scream and everything — not that I didn’t know how to scream before, but learning how to do it more safely and having more control over it. There’s a good bit of stuff that’s emotionally uncomfortable for me, but any time I record something that makes me kind of cringe a little bit, I’m like — okay, that’s right, that’s how it should be. Like the first part of “Abyss Angel,” I use so much restraint, no reverb, we’re not going to double anything, we’re not going to dress it up at all, just have it be as naked as possible. And it makes me uncomfortable to listen. That’s why I know it’s good.
I think we really tried hard to lean into the stuff that is uncomfortable for us because I think that trying to get too comfortable as an artist is dangerous. Like, I think that’s how bands become parodies of themselves. As poppy as we can get, I really try to take an avant-garde mindset to our art of just like, let’s try to do what we’ve never done before. Let’s try something that might fall flat on its face, you know, and whatever album we do next is probably going to sound nothing like this one.
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