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Tomorrow, The Killers are releasing a deluxe edition of their 2021 album Pressure Machine. Today, they’ve offered something to accompany that: A concert film/documentary called Notes From A Quiet Town. The 33-minute video features the band visiting Brandon Flowers’ childhood home of Nephi, Utah and performing “Cody,” “Terrible Thing,” and “Quiet Town” on a simple stage in somebody’s yard. The film premiered on Facebook on March 21 but is now available on YouTube.

Flowers previously told NME about his and the album’s relationship with Nephi:

“Mentally, I started to go to this place where I grew up and write songs about it. It was as if there was a chamber of memories somewhere that was just waiting for me to unlock it. It was incredible. Once I finally opened that door, the songs that came out and the memories were pretty vivid and emotional. It became pretty obvious to me what this record was going to be.

I have a lot of nice and tender memories of Nephi. It’s no secret that I didn’t have a lot of struggle in my upbringing. My parents stayed together; they loved me and nurtured me. What I found was that the memories attached to sorrow, sadness and shock were really emotional for me. I was still walking around with them.”

Watch Notes From A Quiet Town above.

Jimmy Kimmel had some harsh words for the many Republican senators who’ve been treating the Supreme Court confirmation hearing of Ketanji Brown Jackson as if it’s some sort of audition for the world’s worst soap opera. The shameless, seemingly performative, and often idiotic lines of questioning from the likes of Lindsey Graham (who has now stormed out of the hearings TWICE), Josh Hawley, and Marsha Blackburn would almost be laughable if they weren’t so racist, sexist, and/or hypocritical. Kimmel had something to say about all of these GOP knuckleheads on Wednesday night, but saved some of his most exasperated outrage for frequent adversary Ted Cruz.

Cruz, who somehow managed to ask Jackson whether babies were “racist” with a straight face, made a total ass out of himself yet again when he unwisely decided to follow up on Blackburn’s question about whether Jackson could provide a definition of “woman” for the assembled senators. Which Kimmel half-expected.

“Of course, Cancun Cruz had to get in on the action,” Kimmel said. “He loves talking at these things, and he really wants to know what a woman is, too.” After sharing a clip in which Cruz tells Jackson that he thinks she’s “the only Supreme Court nominee in history who has been unable to answer the question: What is a woman?,’” Kimmel people out that “she’s also the only one in history who has been asked that disgusting question.”

But Cruz wasn’t done yet: He went on to wonder “If I decide right now that I’m a woman, ummm, then, apparently I’m a woman. Does that mean that I would have Article 3 standing to challenge a gender-based restriction?”

Kimmel had an answer: “No, it means you’d be the world’s ugliest woman. What a slug of a human being… This poor lady had to sit there and listen to this pontificating from a man who wipes from back to front.”

You can watch the full clip above.

Fox News is getting desperate. While several of their anchors have concocted elaborate theories about why Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson should not be trusted, no one headline seems to be catching on in the way the network hoped it would. So on Wednesday night, Laura Ingraham decided to go big or go home and spontaneously declare that a president with a falling approval rating cannot nominate a person to the Supreme Court.

As Raw Story reports, Ingraham decided to take any and all senators who vote to confirm Jackson’s nomination to task by chastising specifically anyone who votes to approve the nomination, not anyone who votes against it, which seems to indicate a basic flaw in her logic:

“Rushing to approve a Supreme Court nominee of a president, with what, an approval rating that always seems to be hitting new lows? That, my friends, is a violation of the basic, sacred duty that each and every senator, himself or herself, has agreed to.

That means every word of the oath that they took to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution. That is an oath just as sacred as the oath that the nominees have to swear to as well.”

Approval rating polls are, of course, notoriously finicky. It’s true that Biden’s numbers are shrinking amidst the Russia Ukraine War and the high inflation costs that are causing in the U.S.; The Hill reports that a recent Reuters-Ipsos poll has him at a 40 percent approval rating, an all-time low for that particular poll. While that might be a low for Joe, it’s the exact same number Donald Trump was at when Neil Gorsuch was appointed to the Supreme Court in February 2017, according to Gallup. Yet we didn’t hear a peep from Ingraham about what, in her opinion, should have also seemed to be a senatorial dereliction of duty at that time.

It’s also worth noting that when Barack Obama’s plans to nominate Merrick Garland to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court were disrupted in 2016, the 44th POTUS held a 50 percent approval rating. Yet again, we heard nothing from Ingraham on the matter.

While Jackson’s path to confirmation appears to be clear, Fox News can always try and get Tucker Carlson to demand the judge’s LSAT scores—again.

(Via Raw Story)

If you’re tired of hearing “Dance Monkey,” don’t feel bad — so is the song’s original artist. In an appearance on the Australian radio show, Smallzy’s Surgery on Nova, Tones And I admitted that she’s not always the biggest fan of her quadruple-Platinum hit.

When talking about songwriting sessions in LA, Tones said that other songwriters have often tried to get her to create songs similar to “Dance Monkey.”

“They do this thing where they put you in a room with a different person every day,” Tones said. “I was in the room with men every day, which is fine, but there [were] a few of them that had all worked together heaps before and so they just kind of start going off on a tangent. And, usually, it was directed at ‘Dance Monkey’ like, ‘OK, this girl had a hit with this kind of song, like, let’s go there.’”

While the song has over 2.5 billion streams on Spotify (the third most of all time), Tones admitted she didn’t want to create music similar to “Dance Monkey” anymore.

“I wrote that song on my own, not trying to do a single thing, and it happened,” Tones said, “But I don’t want to chase that song. I loathe that song a lot of the time. A lot of times I don’t want to sing it. I’m not gonna write another song like it. I just want to tell people how I’m feeling.”

Last week, Tones released a new single and video for “Eyes Don’t Lie.” In the video, Tones is seen navigating her way through a desert by herself.

“‘Eyes Don’t Lie’ is written about a large loss of someone / something,” Tones said of the song in a statement. “The music video reflects being alone, but not lonely. Escaping something that hurt and happy to be wherever else, even though it’s over.”

Tones And I is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

To the surprise of no one, Ketanji Brown Jackson‘s Supreme Court confirmation hearing has been an absolute circus thanks to Republicans peppering her with “gotcha” questions and/or storming out of the room in fits of tantrum. Naturally, one of the biggest clowns has been Ted Cruz.

After making a staggering ass of himself earlier in the week by asking Jackson if she thinks babies are racist — you really can’t make this stuff up — the Texas senator decided to switch courses by asking Jackson to define what a woman is. He followed up that question by suggesting “modern left sensibilities” on gender would presumably mean he can also change his race. Via Newsweek:

“If I can change my gender, if I can be a woman and an hour later decide I’m not a woman anymore I guess I would lose article 3 standing? Tell me whether that same law applies to other protected characteristics?”

“For example, I’m a Hispanic man, could I decide if I was an Asian man. Would I have the ability to be an Asian man and challenge Harvard’s discrimination because I made that decision?”

In a recurring theme for his political career, Cruz was dragged on Twitter, and The Daily Show made sure to get in on the act by tweeting, “Imagine going to a job interview and the person interviewing you asks if he can be Asian.”

However, Cruz’s penchant for getting roasted on social media took a weird turn as he all but confirmed that he relishes in the attention. During Wednesday’s hearing, Cruz was caught checking his mentions on the Senate floor, which would suggest the GOP senator loves being dunked on by strangers. Sounds about right.

(Via The Daily Show on Twitter)

(Spoilers for Netflix’s Bad Vegan will be found below.)

Bad Vegan subject Sarma Melngailis ruined her successful celebrity restauranteur career for one of the worst reasons imaginable. She fell from grace and ended up as a fugitive of the law after falling in with a very bad man, Anthony Strangis (who used the pseudonym of “Shane Fox”). He convinced her (and Sarma is very upset that the series is marketing with this hook) that he was some superpowered, black-ops agent who had the power to make her dog immortal, if only she’d prove herself by meeting conditions, including constantly giving him vast sums of money.

On paper, that’s nuts, but Sarma did his bidding, and soon enough, the two were on the run after her restaurants closed — because she stopped paying her employees and jilted investors and so on — while she funneled nearly $2 million to Strangis, who she married. Despite all of this, Sarma (and she alludes to this during the series) wouldn’t mind returning to her former glory (NYC’s Pure Food and Wine was frequented by celebrities including not only Alec Baldwin but also Woody Harrelson and Jason Lewis, as shown above ^^^). And she’s got an unlikely supporter who thinks she should move forward with that goal. It ain’t Alec or Woody saying this, but the other dude in this photo.

That would be Matthew Kenney, Sarma’s ex-business partner (and ex-lover), with whom she actually opened Pure Food and Wine (before going on to open One Lucky Duck) in 2004. When they split, an investor (Jeffrey Chodorow) made the call to boot Matthew and keep Sarma as the business’ owner, and even after everything that’s transpired, TMZ reports that Matthew is all for Sarma trying to reboot with a different restaurant. Here’s TMZ’s lowdown:

[A] rep for Matthew tells TMZ … he believes in second chances and wishes Sarma the best. If opening another restaurant is what she wants, he thinks she should pursue it.

Matthew hasn’t seen the new series yet, despite being featured on it — but it doesn’t appear there’s any bad blood between Sarma and her ex.

We’re told Matthew spoke to her a few years ago, and actually wrote a letter in support of her.

Well, Matthew might wanna go ahead and fire up Bad Vegan (it’s only four episodes, a quick-ish binge) and see if he still feels the same way after all is said and done. The show’s racked up a staggering amount of hours from viewers, despite what Sarma calls a “misleading” ending. She has also insisted that all of her Netflix dollars went towards paying back her jilted employees. Can she get any investors to reboot with her, though? Seems unlikely, but you never freaking know.

(Via TMZ)

This year’s South By Southwest festival just wrapped up a few days ago, and like usual, it was a chance for up-and-coming artists to play some shows and get their names out there. That said, while SXSW is great for those reasons, it’s really more of a marketing opportunity for artists than it is a money-making venture. Now, following the festival, some artists who performed are revealing how much money they managed to earn (or lose) during the week.

Asheville, North Carolina group Wednesday kicked off the conversation by sharing a list of their earnings and expenses for SXSW this year. To summarize, they made $2,084, had $2,182.39 in expenses, and walked away with a loss of $98.39. They noted, “Just for transparencies sake & cause I feel comfortable posting this: here is why it is so hard for bands to go to SX !! This is b4 paying 10% $ to the booking agent and not including food expenses. Combination of staying in COVID safe places and gas prices is p devastating.”

In subsequent tweets, they continued:

“& we are technically a band that is ‘doing very well’ at the moment!! It’s even harder for bands who are more in the DIY side of things who went to SX. I ain’t complaining abt doing my dream job, but do wanna show why being paid fairly from streaming would make a difference.

Also wanna add SX is a special circumstance and we had a gr8 time! Regardless we did get COVID and lost money. A reminder that music is simply an industry that is very inaccessible to people without a safety net of time/money. Very relieved that we are close to being able to live off our music cause working in retail and doing music full time was not sustainable for me forever. Def a good idea as always to support any bands that are struggling rn if you’re a fan and have the means!”

This prompted other performers to chime in with how they fared, like Secretly Canadian artist Le Ren, who replied, “I just did my calcs and my band m8 and I are walking away with a cool $300 each (CAD so around $230 USD).” Philadelphia group The Stone Eye noted, “Ya’ll gotta do some DoorDash/instacart on your days off. We payed for our 3 night, $70 a night stay in Raleigh that way.”

That perspective got some mixed reactions. Colin Caulfield of Diiv replied, “Horrible advice. A day off almost always = a long drive.” Drew Kennedy responded, “Respect.” Remember Sports (formerly Sports) added, not specifically of The Stone Eye’s tweet but in general, “Unbelievable how much useless unsolicited advice has appeared in these comments lmao at y’all.”

Other users wondered why merch sales weren’t included in Wednesday’s figures and the band responded. “The only place we sold merch at SX was a house show. There’s not a ton of opportunity to sell merch at showcases cause the schedules are so packed they want you in and out.”

Later, the band concluded in a tweet thread:

“Here’s the last thing I’m gonna say about the SX tweet. Touring the cheapest way isn’t always touring the ‘right’ way if it makes it unsustainable for you physically/mentally. Two bands were at the Airbnb for 5 days. We played 7 shows total, got paid for 1.

For the bands that say the numbers make you afraid to tour: the point was to highlight how inaccessible being a musician has become. I hope its easier for more people to be touring musicians if they want to in the future! But it’ll take a rethinking of how we engage with music.. Through streaming or whatever.

We’ve been touring for 5 years, working/being in school when we’re home and barely breaking even. If there was anyway we could make it easier for people to live off of music, imagine how much more music we’d be able to listen to!! I’m not gonna engage with any comments on here for my own sake… but idk that’s all I got to say about it.”

Three years ago, Let’s Eat Grandma had to cancelled their US tour as it was in progress when the boyfriend of the duo’s Jenny Hollingworth passed away after a battle with cancer. It was a tragedy felt throughout the indie world and it’s been a wonderful to have Let’s Eat Grandma back making pop music after an understandable grief-stricken hiatus. Today, they’ve announced their return to the stage via a full US and UK tour in support of their upcoming album, Two Ribbons, out on April 29th.

They’ve also shared the powerful new single and video for “Levitation.” Hollingworth and Rosa Walton’s ebullient see-saw vocals are at their finest. The chorus hits with a mighty peak as they sing, “Shooting stars in your direction, as I’m losing grip on my reflection… Everything feels so amazing when our bodies fly like levitation.”

Walton said in a statement, “It’s about feeling all over the place, escaping to your imagination and being in a disorientating and surreal mental state, which can be both scary and elevating somehow — everything feels more creative and things look brighter. You’re with someone you’re close to, trying to reach out and connect to them, and even though you’re both struggling, you’re able to find comfort in one another, and have an absurdly funny yet meaningful time together. You begin to see some hope in your future again after a time when you’d started to lose sight of that.”

Songs from Two Ribbons thus far — like “Happy New Year” and the title track — has been emotional, inspiring and cathartic for both the band and listeners alike. “Levitation” raises the stakes.

Watch the video for “Levitation” above and check out Let’s Eat Grandma’s full tour dates below.

04/30 — Edinburgh, UK @ Stag and Dagger Festival
05/01 — Glasgow, UK @ Stag and Dagger Festival
07/24 — Southwold, UK @ Latitude Festival
10/06 — Cardiff, UK @ Clwb for Bach
10/07 — Manchester, UK @ Yes (Pink Room)
10/08 — Leeds, UK @ Belgrrave MusicHall
10/13 — Newcastle, UK @ Cluny
10/14 — Nottingham, UK @ Metronome
10/15 — Birmingham, UK @ Space 54
10/16 — Cambridge, UK @ Mash
10/18 — Bristol, UK @ Thekla
10/19 — London, UK @ Koko
10/21 — Brighton, UK @ Patterns
10/22 — Norwich, UK @ Epic
11/01 — Washington, DC @ Union Stage
11/02 — Philadelphia, PA @ The Foundry
11/04 — New York, NY @ Webster Hall
11/05 — Boston, MA @ Sinclair
11/07 — Montreal, QB @ La Sala Rosa
11/08 — Toronto, CA @ The Axis Club
11/10 — Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop
11/11 — Chicago, IL @ Bottom Lounge
11/12 — Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
11/14 — Denver, CO @ Bluebird
11/16 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge
11/18 — Seattle, WA @ Crocodile
11/19 — Vancouver, BC @ The Biltmore Cabaret
11/20 — Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
11/22 — San Francisco, CA @ Independent
11/23 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Regent Theatre

Two Ribbons is out 4/29 via Transgressive Records. Pre-order it here.

In Wednesday’s big surprise, Harry Styles announced the release of his third album, Harry’s House. Due out on May 2oth, the title is pretty clearly an homage to Joni Mitchell’s 1975 song, “Harry’s House/Centerpiece,” from the album The Hissing Of Summer Lawns. Styles, has been especially enamored with the ’60s and ’70s hippie movement and flower power ephemera as of late: His Love On Tour has a Summer Of Love aesthetic and his skincare line, Pleasing, launched the “Shroom Bloom” collection with Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood as its model. So his affinity for Mitchell, who also thrived in that era, makes sense.

But how would Mitchell respond to the former One Direction star’s homage to her work? Would she react like Courtney Love, who slammed Olivia Rodrigo’s callback to Hole’s Live Through This album cover with her Sour prom concert film press photos? Or would she be flattered and honored that Styles showed love to a lesser known, yet still gorgeous Mitchell classic? “Love the title,” Mitchell said in a quote retweet of Styles’ album announcement.

It’s a sweet seal of approval from the Canadian folk legend. She even later tweeted the opening lyrics from “Harry’s House/Centerpiece,” further cementing how touched she felt by Styles’ gesture.

Harry’s House is due 5/20 via Columbia Records. Pre-save it here.

Releasing her epic debut album, Fake It Flowers, in 2020, Beabadoobee’s star has just continued to rise with every new release. After going viral off the strength of the very first track she ever wrote, “Coffee,” which was sampled in the chorus for Canadian artist Powfu’s “Death Bed,” she’s slowly but surely built her own sound following up that moment of internet attention. Bea, aka Beatrice Kristi Laus, went on to record an EP with The 1975 last year called Our Extended Play, and landed an Uproxx cover story over the look.

Now, Laus let fans know she’s gearing up to release a new album that “sounds very 2006,” and today we’ve got the first taste of that glam-rock sound. “Talk” is a preview of her next album, Beatopia, which will be out July 15 via Dirty Hit. In the meantime she’ll also be opening up for Halsey on select tour dates, and then later tour on her own in support of this second album.

“I wrote ‘Talk’ just after my first album,” Bea said in a press release. “I was obsessed with Tuesday because I thought it was the best night to go out, not too much chaos but just enough to have a good time. Generally, it’s about doing things that aren’t necessarily healthy or great for you, but you can’t help indulging. It’s like that unavoidable feeling that you get. You can’t get rid of it, and you know it’s bad, but you love it really, and its whatever, so you do it anyways.”

Check out the new song above and look out for Beatopia dropping this July.