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Paolo Banchero Believes The NBA Putting A Team In Seattle ‘Should Be Mandatory’

The NBA has not had a team in Seattle since 2008. At the conclusion of the 2007-08 campaign, the Seattle SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City in a highly-criticized move, and ever since, there’s been a groundswell of support for the NBA to make its return to the city.

Seattle has a very proud basketball culture even beyond the Sonics, as the Storm are one of the best organizations in the WNBA and the city has produced a number of prominent hoopers. This includes Paolo Banchero, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft who will start his career as a member of the Orlando Magic.

Banchero appeared on the latest episode of Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson’s “All The Smoke” podcast. At the 9:37 mark of the below video, Barnes asked Bancheo about whether he views it as important that the NBA makes its return to Seattle. Unsurprisingly, Banchero has some pretty strong thoughts on the matter.

“I think it needs to happen, I think it should be mandatory,” Banchero said. “Not just because I’m biased, but because it’d be a great look on the NBA. It’s a great city, the fans there are crazy. If you get a team in Seattle, they’ll automatically be a top … not the top, but a top fanbase. Those games would be sold out right away.”

Banchero mentioned that he was young when the Sonics moved, but recalled watching players like Chris Wilcox, Earl Watson, and Kevin Durant play in Seattle while he was growing up, in large part because of his mother’s career as both a basketball player and coach at Holy Names Academy.

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Sampa The Great Spreads South African Music With The Bass-Heavy ‘Bona’

Last month, Zambian-Australian rapper Sampa The Great announced her upcoming sophomore album, As Above, So Below after releasing two singles, “Lane” and “Never Forget” featuring Denzel Curry. Today, she has released the album’s third single, the bass-heavy “Bona.” According to its press release, it’s influenced by the music Sampa heard as a child in Botswana, borrowing the genres that originated in neighboring South Africa such as kwaito and amapiano.

In a statement, Sampa described the meaning of “Bona,” saying, “I haven’t yet shown the influence Botswana has had on me musically; this is the style, language, and swag of Botswana youth. ‘Bona’ is a chance for me to shine light on other elements of music that I was influenced by when growing up, outside of Zambian music. I want to bring a Southern African anthem to the mix and DJ desks, and show that there’s an array of music coming out of Africa, on top of Afrobeats.”

In a roundabout way, the track represents Sampa joining a growing trend of artists reclaiming dance music, especially through genres originated by Black artists, such as house and techno. In her case, though, she’s an African artist introducing African genres to wider audiences, showing that the continent has more to offer outside of Nigerian Afrobeats.

Listen to “Bona” by Sampa The Great above.

As Above, So Below is due on 9/9 on Vista Loma. Pre-order it here.

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Rosalía Unveils ‘Despechá,’ A Catchy New Song

Rosalía does not rest. She released one of the biggest albums of this year, Motomami, which received praise from Cardi B and even Barack Obama. Now, she’s already back with brand new material, unveiling the song “Despechá” today.

“There are many ways to be Despechá, in this theme it is from the freeness or the craziness, moving without reservations or regrets,” she said. “This is the place from where I make music, from where I did it when I first started and where I will continue to until God says so.”

She added, “I’m grateful for having been able to travel in recent years and have learned from music from other places including the DR, where artists like Fefita La Grande, Juan Luis Guerra and Omega have inspired me and without them this song would not exist.”

Motomami was also praised by Lorde. “I’ve listened to the Rosalía album every day since it came out,” the “Royals” singer wrote in her newsletter. “F*ck, it’s so good, I gagged when I heard that interpolation of ‘Archangel,’ ‘Hentai’ is genius, ‘Sakura’… projects like this remind me why I live for pop music — at its best, there’s nothing better.”

Listen to “Despechá” above.

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Lawrence Kasdan On ‘Raiders,’ ‘Empire,’ ‘Jedi,’ And His New Special Effects Docuseries, ‘Light & Magic’

On the surface it makes sense that Lawrence Kasdan – you know, the guy who wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens and Solo – would do a deep dive, six-part documentary on the history of the special effects team at Industrial Light and Magic. Before this interview, for research, I read an interview with Kasdan from 1981 in Starlog where he was talking about how he was fascinated with the effects in The Empire Strikes Back because it’s the part of the movie he had the least to do with. And then it kind of hit: right, that makes sense. Kasdan has never actually directed any of these movies for Lucasfilm. And when Kasdan does direct, they are more character studies, like Body Heat, The Big Chill, and The Accidental Tourist. Anyway, my hunch was right that a big reason Kasdan wanted to make this project was because he, too, wanted to learn what it is, exactly, that goes on at ILM.

Kasdan’s series, Light & Magic (which is streaming on Disney+ as you read this), plays as a love letter to what these crazy geniuses used to have to come up with to make a shot work. There’s respect for what ILM does today with CGI, but Kasdan’s doc shows there’s something clearly missing today. Before, there was something preposterous about the whole endeavor. They used to have painters, puppeteers and mechanics all working together for some crazy goal. Now it’s all done on a computer. One of the wild stories told in the doc is how ILM used actual maggots to make the Tauntaun fur in The Empire Strikes Back. (Something tells me maggots aren’t used very often these days at ILM.)

Ahead, Kasdan takes us through what he learned while researching ILM and takes us through his experience with them when he was helping to create some of the, still today, most popular movies of all time.

Before we start, during the worst part of the pandemic, I believe one night I tweeted at your son, Jon, “Could you pass along to your dad that we’re watching French Kiss and this movie rules?” Just in case you didn’t get that message.

[Laughs] That’s great. I’ve heard that a couple of times during the pandemic. It’s a pandemic movie, I guess.

You’ve heard that more than once?

It has a following, a devoted following.

Yeah, people really like that movie, but it’s not on streaming anywhere. We had to order the Blu-ray to watch it.

I think that must be due to the producing kind of thing. It was Polygram, and I don’t know why it’s not available.

You making this series on ILM is interesting. I read an interview with you in Starlog from 1981. You’re talking about The Empire Strikes Back and you’re complaining about how the arcs of C-3PO and Chewbacca were cut from your script, but you’re fascinated by the effects because that’s the thing you have the least to do with. So you’ve been part of this Lucasfilm family, but have never been directly involved with the effects. Now you’ve made a documentary about them. Does that make sense?

It makes absolute sense. I felt that way myself going in. I had this interest in visual effects and told them I’d like to do something about the history of visual effects. And then they suggested ILM because they already an arrangement with Lucasfilm. And I said, Oh, well that’s perfect. Because I felt like I was going back to a reunion. I knew a lot of these people, but not well, and I knew a little bit about the processes, but not much. But I’d always been fascinated that there was a place that housed all these geniuses. And I wanted to see, how did they get there? Who were they at? How do they get paid? What was it like between them, these brilliant people interacting all the time?

That Starlog interview is also interesting because it ends with you saying, “And that’s it for me with Star Wars. No more.” And they had to add an addendum with another interview from you going, “Oh, well that was wrong. I’m now writing Revenge of the Jedi.” I am curious when you wrote Jedi, were you more conscious of what ILM did? I know you had more time on that than you did Empire. Were you ever thinking, “Can they visualize what the stuff we’re putting down on paper?”

I never thought about what can they do, because the answer was “anything.” And you couldn’t know how they were going to do it, but they reached the point very early on in the life of the company where they could do anything. And the directors who were coming to them didn’t always know what they wanted, but they knew that this was the place they were going to get it. They had a vision, but it wasn’t necessarily terribly defined. But they knew that when they embraced ILM as a partner in the process, they were getting all this firepower. And they just loved it and they kept coming back. And that’s why they all wanted to be in the series and everything. There’s a real affection for ILM.

The ILM artists from that era, their enthusiasm is infectious. Harrison Ellenshaw, who paints Matte paintings, is hilarious talking about the painting he did under the tractor beam that Ben Kenobi has to turn off. “Why would that even be there on the other side of this thing where you could fall?” But who cares? It’s fun!

Absolutely. It’s something that people don’t give George Lucas enough credit for. But when I met George, when I took on the job of Raiders, and then when it suddenly got extended and he said, “Will you write the sequel to Star Wars?” He was a very … He’s fun. He was funny. He did all the voices. He was delighted. There would be a lot of tension and hard work to get A New Hope out, as you can see in the show, but he had actually achieved something he’d been working on for years. And he was in a good mood. And when we went to work on Empire, it was total fun. There wasn’t this pressure because there were people on payroll and stuff. I loved working with him. And Kershner would come in, he’d be an entirely different tone. And he had his own major gifts. And to see this very heavy Kershner meeting with George’s sensibility… George had studied with Kersh at USC. Kersh was very much this sort of the guru kind of guy.

I was lucky enough to interview Kershner right before he passed away. He’s fascinating.

He was a fascinating guy. And to see those two sensibilities meeting and they’re each turning to me and saying, “Well, how can we make that? What could you do? What could we write? How do we make that better?” It was really educational.

At one point in this doc, Lucas tells you, “Forget the story, forget the actors. It’s about movement.” In that interview in Starlog, you’re talking about Body Heat coming out soon and are kind of like, “Well, it’s a lot of talking.” Body Heat is incredible, but I’m curious what you think when he says that because your philosophy to filmmaking seems a little different than what he’s saying.

When anyone says that, I think, “Oh yeah, that’s a part of this.” That was not my area of concentration, but the things that hooked me on movies when I was 10 years old were that: they were action, they were movement. They were heroic characters who maybe had to be forced to do the right thing. But once they did the right thing, they were the best there were. And I think I have concentrated on interpersonal relationships, but always with an enormous affection for the action.

Silverado comes to mind as a movie of yours that does have action, but I’ve always wondered, you wrote Raiders, Empire, Return the Jedi, Solo, The Force Awakens, but you didn’t direct any of those. The movies you direct, you seem to eschew that and want to do other things. You direct movies like The Accidental Tourist. Is that by design?

I know. An opportunity finally arrived for me to do it in 1991 with Costner (The Bodyguard), but I had just started working on Grand Canyon with my wife. I made a commitment to do that movie and that movie turned out to be very satisfying, and I got to take part in the fun of The Bodyguard‘s success. To this day, there are road shows all over the country, all over the world. It’s a theater situation. It’s a musical and it never stops.

We rewatched it recently. That movie is incredible.

Yeah. The story just has a lot of appeal.

So, is it just circumstance that you’ve not really directed a movie that would need ILM?

Well, I made one and it was a disaster, so I don’t really think I’m good at it.

The doc gets into how after the first Star Wars, ILM had nothing to do. One of their only offers was a pornographic movie called Flesh Gordon.

Yeah. And they had no idea that this would go on forever. You know? And they were just sort of winging it. And no one had an idea at that moment, that 40 years later it would still be an institution.

The situation with John Dykstra is interesting. He’s running ILM, wins an Oscar for Star Wars, but when the company moves to San Fransisco, George Lucas does not invite him to come. He seems to still have trouble talking about that.

Well, I love that you pick up on that because that’s an important story. And when we started out, I’d say, Well, I’ve heard rumblings about this the whole time. I’ve never understood what happened. And I want this show to explain what happened and to the extent that we can get the naked testimony of the people involved, that’s great. And it turned out that everybody was willing to open up and talk about it.

Obviously, people who work on effects today are still extremely innovative. They’re the best at what they do, but it almost feels like there’s a preposterousness that’s missing today how they came up with ideas for things. Is something missing because that preposterousness is not there? I don’t know if that’s the right word or not…

No, there’s no question that … It’s like a lot of things that have passed. I liked it better when you’d go downtown, you could walk from store to store, there were no malls. That kind of thing. It was a different world. It was a more innocent world. And you could run into people on the street. That doesn’t happen when you pull into a parking lot with 4,000 spots. And this is comparable to that. It was handmade. It was a handmade industry. And the people that were thrown together in the beginning didn’t really know much about movies and that wasn’t really their primary interest. A lot of them were mechanics or sculptors or painters. And they all got thrown together for this brand new enterprise, something that didn’t really exist before that. There had never been this job in this generation. Oh, we take a group of a motley crew and put them together and they all have special skills.

Something you did, you’re talking to Kim Smith from ILM and she’s talking about ILM then versus ILM now with computer effects. And she just says, “Well, so be it.” But then you linger on her face and she doesn’t look very happy. And you leave it there for a bit. I mean, you can tell she’s thinking about the old times and how much crazy stuff they did.

Although what you just said is the highest compliment for the show because you got right to the heart of what I wanted it to be. And right from the get-go, I said, “This is not about the technology. This is about the people.” I had never gotten an idea of what the people were like. What did they feel when they were there? And as the thing went through various phases and how alienated did they get? How much did they want to hang on? Or how many much did they say, “Well, this is just not for me anymore.”?

Like I said, the people who do effects today, they’re the best at what they do today, but I really doubt today they’re using actual maggots to make Tauntaun fur. I had never heard that before. That is truly crazy.

That is maybe my favorite story in the whole show. I love it. And the more we understand, what he’s saying is outrageous and funny! And yet they were just concentrated on this problem. And that was the solution. I love that they took that kind of ad hoc solution to things. You don’t get that feeling today. You get the feeling like, “Oh, we got to write another program.” You got to do a hair-in-water program. You know? That’s not what was going on then.

‘Light & Magix’ is streaming now via Disney+. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

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King Princess Reminisces About Getting Taylor Hawkins To Drum On An Upcoming Song: ‘He Was Just So Kind’

Tomorrow marks the release of King Princess’ (real name Mikaela Straus) new album, Hold On Baby. It will also mark the release of a new posthumous track from late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, as he performs on Hold On Baby closer “Let Us Die” (not to be confused with Foo Fighters’ “Let It Die”). In a new interview with Zane Lowe (as Billboard notes), she discusses how Hawkins came to be on the song.

Straus noted she and producer Mark Ronson both thought “Let Us Die,” the album closer, was a terrific song. She said, “He was like, ‘But we really need a drummer who’s going to bring life to this. This needs to be a living and breathing person behind a drum kit and not a programmed beat, not a sample. This is the type of song that needs humanity behind all the instruments.’”

Straus continued:

“So he called [Hawkins]. He called him and he sent him the song and he’s like, ‘Do you want to play on this?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, man! It’s a great song! Yeah!’ And I was like, ‘Are you f*ckin’ serious?’ […] We FaceTimed, so he was recording it at their studio and I was in Brooklyn and we were feeding it through the console. So pretty trippy, too, to be in my childhood home studio, listening to this guy play on my dad’s speakers. And my dad sitting there, watching… I can’t even describe it. I was so emotional. It was crazy.

But in between takes, we’d FaceTime and he was just so kind. […] He was just saying he loves playing drums. And to hear that from somebody who’s lived such a life that, at his age and playing for as long as he has in so many different bands and his own projects, for him to just love to play the f*cking drums, that to me is just what we should all strive to be: Somebody who does not lose that love of their instrument.”

She also said of Hawkins’ death, “To find out, I was just completely in shock, and then a couple weeks later I was like, ‘Guys, I think that what we need to do is reach out to his team and just let them decide whatever they want, because it’s up to them and it’s up to his legacy, but I will include that he did love this song and that’s the reason that I would want him on it is because he loved it.’ But we sent this message and it was very respectful, I think. They came back and said, ‘As long as he wanted to be on it, that sounds great.’ And they were just so kind. And I can’t even imagine getting a message like that during that time. I was just so anxious and sad and nervous to just ask of someone like that. But they felt that it was an homage. And it is an homage. It’s for Taylor.”

Watch the interview clip here.

Hold On Baby is out 7/29 via Zelig Records/Columbia. Pre-save it here.

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Trump Showed Up To A Controversial ‘Blood Money’ Golf Tournament Looking Like A ‘Star Wars’ Villain… Or Maybe The Crypt Keeper?

Donald Trump doesn’t believe in exercise, other than golf. It’s his second favorite pastime, after screaming at small children on the White House lawn, especially when he can make millions by loaning out his money-bleeding golf courses to Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. The former-president is under fire for welcoming and playing in the controversial LIV Golf tour to New Jersey’s Trump National Golf Club Bedminster.

“Backed by the vast wealth of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, LIV Golf has drawn accusations of ‘sportswashing’ – that is, using spectacles such as sports to distract from, or normalize, human rights violations committed by the Saudi regime,” Yahoo! Sports reports. The course being less than 50 miles from New York City, on top of LIV Golf’s association with the Saudi government, has “drawn criticism from activist groups who decry the tournament as an insult to the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.” The term “blood money” is being thrown around, which is never ideal.

But Trump doesn’t care about all that: he’s too preoccupied looking like Emperor Palpatine. Or maybe the Crypt Keeper. Or the fictional parched ghoul of your choice.

Jump scare! Is it generally a bad idea to make fun of someone for the way they look? Sure, yeah. But Trump once suggested that he couldn’t have sexually assaulted a woman because she wasn’t attractive enough for him, so it’s fair game in this instance.

And Twitter did not disappoint:

This is what happens when you no longer have the White House makeup team on the payroll.

(Via the Daily Mail)

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The Wonder Years Grapple With Pandemic Anxiety On ‘Low Tide’

Pensylvania pop punk group The Wonder Years, whose peers include bands like The Menzingers and Tigers Jaw, are prepping for the release of The Hum Goes On Forever, their seventh studio album. So far, they’ve released “Summer Clothes,” “Oldest Daughter,” and “Wyatt’s Song (Your Name),” and now they’re unveiling the cathartic track “Low Tide,” which deals with pandemic anxiety and is full of infectious hooks.

“It’s searching for some semblance of normalcy through small, newly formed rituals,” leader Dan Campbell said. “It’s being unsure if I’ll ever get to do the thing I love again, if live music will ever come back. It’s deciding to just give up and then deciding not to give up and then deciding to give up again in alternating intervals. It’s watching old movies and unconsciously thinking ‘Oh my god, where are your masks?’ when people are in public places because a deep anxiety now exists within me that may never fully leave. You know, all the normal stuff.”

The album is the outfit’s first since Campbell has become a father, so themes of fatherhood appear on the LP as well, a long with reckonings with trauma and existential dread.

Listen to “Low Tide” above.

The Hum Goes On Forever is out 9/23 via Hopeless Records. Pre-order it here.

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Beyonce Fans Are Appalled By An ‘MGK Punk Pop’ Cover Of ‘Break My Soul’

When Beyonce’s house-influenced new single “Break My Soul” first dropped, there were naturally a few fans put off by the pop-R&B queen’s shift into dance music styles. It didn’t take long for folks to jump aboard though, leading to a renaissance (sorry) of interest in Black-led dance music. Even Robin S. started to receive some belated and much-deserved accolades for her role in pioneering house music in the ’90s.

However, while Beyonce’s genre experimentation is part of a larger movement to reclaim traditionally Black music, that doesn’t mean that fans can appreciate further attempts to transform her work. Enter Ali Spagnola, a social media personality who has made kind of a name for herself with attention-grabbing stunts. Along with her band, she has reinterpreted the song as a pop-punk track in a video titled, “What if Beyonce’s ‘Break My Soul’ was by MGK?”

Obviously, it didn’t take long for the video to get negative attention from Beyonce fans for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that it’s kind of … not good. It’s also problematic thanks to some of the reasons stated above, which makes it a bad look in the eyes of many fans who are left to wonder if Spagnola just didn’t get the cultural subtext or got it and just didn’t care (both options sap the intended humor of the situation, given the historical context here). But attention seems to have been the goal all along, and Spagnola hasn’t had any problem with retweeting the criticism as well as the sporadic praise. She even doubled down, posting a video about “How we turned Beyonce’s ‘Break My Soul’ to MGK punk pop.”

And now, if you’ll excuse me, my soul is definitely broken, because I am not Beyonce, so I’m gonna go lie down until I stop feeling so queasy.

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An ‘Immersive’ Experience Based On ‘Squid Game’ Is Heading To A City Near You, Say What?

It seems like Squid Game‘s popularity isn’t dying down any time soon. The series was not only one of the most-watched (and most-pirated) shows of 2021, but Netflix is rolling out a number of projects to keep the fan momentum going, like an actual game show (don’t worry, there is no murder involved) and now there is an immersive game experience debuted in several areas across the US and the UK.

Squid Game at Immersive Gamebox is an immersive walkthrough game that brings players through a series of games like Red Light, Green Light, and Tug Of War in a thrilling and only slightly terrifying VR experience. “Using our 3D motion tracking visors and touch screens around the room, you will need to survive each challenge to advance in the game,” the website explains. “Every time you lose, you lose players’ lives. Every time you win, earn money in the piggy bank.” So the good news is that everyone will make it out of the game alive and unharmed! Unlike the actual show.

Immersive Gamebox CEO Will Dean said in a statement, “People are constantly seeking new and different ways to remain invested in their favorite content. To reimagine Netflix’s most popular show in an entirely new format offers customers more ways to stay connected to Squid Game.”

Right now, the games are available in select locations including California, Colorado, Illinois, New York, Texas, Utah, and Virginia, with more locations coming soon. Of course, if this is all a little too scary for you, the venue also offers an immersive Angry Birds experience where you can throw birds at your friends!

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

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Vladimir Putin’s Probable Successor Has Been Predicted By A Former Intelligence Chief

Over four months have passed since Vladimir Putin decided to launch his imperialistic invasion of Ukraine, and the conflict doesn’t appear to be coming to an end anytime soon. Nor does Putin’s Botox supply, although it must be noted that there are some truly wild conspiracy theories out there about how the Russian president could have recently used a body double in Iran (and it looks like he simply laid off the Botox a bit, the better to awkwardly fidget). Yet rumors persist that Putin’s health is ailing, so it stands to reason (even if he wasn’t a global semi-pariah) that people would be talking about successors.

Actually, that talk’s been going on since Putin launched his dismal war in Ukraine. His inner circle reportedly grew concerned and started maneuvering about how to install a successor with the reported understanding “that in the fairly foreseeable future he will not run the country.” Now, intelligence leaders are starting to really name names, and that includes word by ex-MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove, who appeared on the One Decision podcast to do just that. Via Business Insider:

Sir Richard Dearlove, who served as head of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service from 1999 to 2004, asserted this week that the most likely heir candidate is Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council and a longtime Putin ally known to be one of exceedingly few officials to have the president’s trust.

“I’m almost certain it would Patrushev,” Dearlove said on a Thursday episode of the podcast “One Decision,” which he co-hosts, during a discussion about the ongoing impacts of Putin’s war in Ukraine, more than five months after Russian forces invaded.

It’s worth noting that Putin’s inner circle hasn’t articulated as much. In fact, they’re outwardly saying that Putin’s health is great, and maybe they’ll even trot him out on horseback one of these days to prove that he’s still got it. What “it” might be, only time will tell.

(Via One Decision & Business Insider)