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This is undoubtedly the summer of National Parks. Everyone I know seems to currently be on or just back from an epic road-trip to witness our natural wonders. I can’t blame them. I’ve visited 55 of the 63 major US parks and hundreds of other NPS sites over the past few years, so I know their beauty well. I’ve also seen firsthand that there are many more people in the parks this year. And I’ve seen how staffing issues in parks and the surrounding areas can — and has — created a headache for many first time visitors expecting unobstructed views and wide open spaces.

While many of us have already made our summer park visitation plans, it’s not too late for you. Campsites may be booked out but the park system is actually pretty well set up to accommodate spontaneous travelers. Just know that summer parks crowds are real — and they can get bothersome for anyone wanting a secluded slice of nature.

To help you plan, I’ve outlined where you can expect to find the most and fewest number of people at some of the most visited US National Parks. Use this as a resource if you’re keen to get yourself a little extra elbow room in the last month of the busy season.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park — 12.1 Million Visitors, Annually

Crowded:

People are often surprised when I tell them that not only is Great Smoky Mountains the most visited National Park, but that it wins by a landslide. With more than three times the visitation of the second most visited park, prepare yourself for other people on your hikes — often a lot of other people.

The most-visited parts of the Great Smoky Mountains tend to be the places that are easiest to get to. The pull offs, park roads, and short hikes with big payoffs. Clingmans’s Dome and Cades Cove will be especially crowded but are, in my opinion, worth it.

Less Crowded:

Drive the Foothills Parkway, a 16.5 mile section of a planned 71 mile road that provides a different vantage point of the park, or visit the Deep Creek area.

Yellowstone National Park 3.8 million visitors annually

Crowded:

Old Faithful, Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Grand Prismatic Spring are all iconic spots at Yellowstone National Park that everyone wants to see for themselves at least once in their lifetimes. And the crowds mirror that. I still recommend going, just be prepared. (and pro tip — watch Old Faithful from the lodge’s second floor balcony with a drink, if it’s open)

Less Crowded:

Hike almost anywhere — most people stay close to the lookouts. Fairy Falls trail will give you the best view of Grand Prismatic from above, and North Rim Trail gives you less crowded views of the lookout to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.

Zion National Park 3.6 million visitors annually

Crowded:

The Narrows and Angel’s Landing are all over your IG feed because those are the hikes everyone wants to do at Zion National Park. And for good reason, they are iconic and memorable and have some of the best views you will ever witness.

But they are also crawling with people.

Less Crowded:

Hike the East Side! While it’s also gaining in popularity it’s still less crowded than the main thoroughfare and just as gorgeous. Some hikes to try: Canyon Overlook, Petroglyph Canyon, and Observation Point (accessed from the East Mesa Trail).

Rocky Mountain National Park 3.3 million visitors annually

Crowded:

The Bear Lake Road corridor is the most popular part of Rocky Mountain National Park for sure — there is even a separate timed entry to this portion of the park this summer. It’s where you can access popular hikes like Emerald Lake and Sky Pond, so the crowds make sense.

Less Crowded:

Try the Wild Basin entrance! It’s a favorite of mine and generally less crowded. From here you can hike to the gorgeous Ouzel Falls. The Grand Lake entrance will also be less crowded in general than the two entrances from Estes Park.

Grand Teton National Park 3.3 million visitors annually

Crowded:

Grand Teton is the only national park with a commercial airport inside of it — so it makes sense that most of the park is crowded. It’s easy to access by air and then by car or bike once you arrive. Some popular spots are Jenny Lake, Mormon Row, and Schwabacher Landing.

Less crowded:

Hike! A great thing about Grand Teton is that you can truly experience the beauty without ever hiking more than 100 feet from your car. With the abundance of pull outs and lakes making the park easily accessible, the actual trails aren’t too crowded in my experience. Taggart Lake, Phelps Lake and Leigh Lake are some of my favorites (are you sensing a pattern?).

You can also venture over to the Idaho side of the Tetons which, while not technically within the park, have great Teton views and nowhere near the traffic.

Grand Canyon National Park 2.9 million visitors annually

Crowded:

Grand Canyon Village, where you will visit first when entering the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park is going to be super crowded. There is no way around this. It’s where the tour buses and families and day trippers enter and most stay.

Less crowded:

The Rim trail. Yes, seriously. Hear me out here. Like many of the other parks of this list, aside from the bucket list type hikes, most people aren’t venturing too far from the parking lot. In the Grand Canyon that means a mile or so in either direction of Grand Canyon Village (or less) until you reach some solitude. Another great option is the North Rim — only open from May-October, it’s much less visited.

Acadia National Park 2.7 million visitors annually

Crowded:

Cadillac mountain (even with its reservation system) and Jordan Pond were the most crowded parts of the park during my visit last month. Acadia is consistently one of the most visited national parks while also being 5th smallest by land area — so many areas will probably have a few more people than you’d like. I wouldn’t avoid any of these areas though, just visit early in the day (or in the off-season).

Less Crowded:

The Schoodic Peninsula portion of Acadia is dramatically less visited. It is not directly connected to the main part of the park on Mount Desert Island, which seems to deter most people. But once you’re there you will be nearly alone to enjoy the beautiful coastlines and trails.

Olympic National Park 2.5 million visitors annually

Crowded:

In my experience (and I haven’t been in all seasons), I’ve never found Olympic particularly crowded. Maybe due to its size, but even the popular areas have never felt overwhelming to me. That being said, the most popular places are definitely the Hoh Rainforest and the beaches. Hurricane Ridge is also a popular spot. I still recommend going to all of them.

As far as hikes, Mount Storm King is very popular and will be crowded.

Less Crowded:

The South Fork of the Hoh trail is far less crowded than the main Hall of Mosses trail if you want to avoid more people. The Lake Quinault area is definitely at the top of my list and less crowded and more remote than some of the other areas on the peninsula. From there you can hike the short Rain Forest Nature Trail, Gatton Creek, or Irely Lake.

The music world has been anxiously awaiting the beginning of Kanye’s new era, and his first album to drop since his divorce from Kim Kardashian was finalized. Entitled Donda after the rapper’s late mother, whose tragic death has had an ongoing impact on the rapper’s life, he previously previewed the new album in a massive stadium show in Atlanta that was live streamed on Apple Music. But in true Kanye form, the album wasn’t exactly finished, so he’s been holed up in Atlanta finishing the album, and announced that a second listening event would be held once it was done.

Now, Apple has debuted a live stream leading up to the second event, which shows Kanye hanging out with friends and collaborators, pumping himself up for the event. Fan accounts have captured high-profile visitors like Chance The Rapper, Ye’s weight-training moments in a Donda vest, and what looks like a new Balenciaga suit for tonight’s stream.

Excitement for the follow-up is definitely high, even if plenty of fans were disappointed in his Pro-Trump era, the strange follow-up that was his own presidential campaign, and didn’t think Ye was his best work. But with Kanye, a potential comeback is always in the works. Check out the live stream via the Apple Music link above.

There are 130 episodes of the original He-Man and the Masters of the Universe animated series that aired in syndication from 1983 until 1985. Here’s a fun fact about that series: Skeletor loses 130 times. Every single hare-brained scheme he comes up with to defeat He-Man and his pals fails every single time. Skeletor goes 0-130. That’s a truly remarkable level of incompetence. Yet, I watched, just in case Skeletor finally pulled one off. He never did.

By the way, have you watched these original episodes lately? A couple years ago I was at a hardware store in my New York City neighborhood and they had a DVD set for $3.99 so I bought it. This show is pretty much unwatchable to an adult. That’s not always the case. Some of the old Transformers episodes are still pretty good. I get why I liked it as a child, but I couldn’t make it through more than a couple of episodes.

I hadn’t yet seen Kevin Smith’s Masters of The Universe: Revelation when my Twitter feed lit up with angst. (My favorite was a tweet about how this series ruined the legacy of Moss Man, a character who, if you don’t know, is made of moss.) The series had gotten pretty good reviews, but after my experience of trying to rewatch those earlier episodes, I was going to take a pass on this one. But, I have to admit, the sheer amount of online “outrage” at whatever happened during this series piqued my interest. For this amount of people to be mad online, that tells me something actually interesting happens in this series.

(So, if you haven’t seen it and you plan to watch I’m going to get into specific spoilers.)

Look, He-Man kind of sucks. Not Masters of the Universe, but the character of He-Man, in that he’s not very interesting. And what would be the most interesting thing to do with He-Man? That would be killing him off, then watching the fallout across the rest of Eternia. Which is exactly what Masters of the Universe: Revelations does at the end of the first episode. Now, something that bothered me even as a little kid was the fact Teela didn’t realize Prince Adam was He-Man. And not just because they look exactly the same (at least Clark Kent wears glasses), but because all of Adam’s other close friends seem to know. She is literally the only character Adam is at all close with (other than his parents, who don’t seem to like him much anyway) who doesn’t seem to know this. So, yes, at the end of the first episode Teela freaks out because she was lied to. This makes sense! Also, it makes total sense it would be Teela in this role because no one else would be that mad they didn’t know this. What, are you going to have Stratos all upset about this? Why would he care? Teela is literally the only character who would be this upset.

So then, in the fifth and final episode that was released, Adam comes back, only to have Skeletor finally reveal his master plan that, no, he did not die as we thought he did, instead he was hiding for just the right moment to kill Adam. And he presumably does, stabbing Adam through the chest right before he transformed into He-Man. Skeletor then raises the power sword and says, “By the power of Greyskull,” then becomes some sort of He-Skeletor super-being.

After all this time, Skeletor finally wins. And who’s getting the credit? “Woke culture.” What?

Look, Skeletor deserved to finally have some good news. He now has one in the “win” column. But even in victory, his win is being credited to woke culture for giving Teela such a big role in the series (as I mentioned earlier, Teela is the only character where it makes since she’s feel betrayed). Good gosh, Skeletor literally can’t catch a break here. Imagine, after 40 years, finally winning and, instead of a victory lap, Skeletor has to read about how “woke culture” is the real villain and about how Moss Man, a character made out of moss, has been ruined. Skeletor finally wins and people are crying about “Moss Man.” What does Skeletor have to do to get your love? Or your hate?

Look, we don’t know what will happen in the remaining five episodes. But, for now, Skeletor finally gets the W. And if he’s reading this, I just want you to know that I, for one, noticed your victory. And I do not believe “woke culture” is the villain of Masters of the Universe: Revelations. I believe, you, Skeletor, are the villain. And I believe that after almost 40 years of watching your work that you deserved to finally catch a break. Congratulations, Skeletor. It’s past time you got your due.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Paramount+ hasn’t had a breakthrough hit like The Handmaid’s Tale for Hulu or Ted Lasso for Apple TV+, but there’s a lot of good stuff on there. It’s the home of The Good Wife spin-off, The Good Fight; Star Trek, including Picard and Lower Decks, as well as the original series and The Next Generation; and while HBO Max has every episode of South Park, Paramount+ is about to get 14 (yes, 14) new South Park movies.

Remember the episode where Cartman eats only the fried chicken skin and not the actual chicken? Cartman is South Park fans, the fried chicken skin is Paramount+, and the chicken is other streaming services.

“MTV Entertainment Studios has inked South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone to a new deal that will run through 2027, including 14 new movies made exclusively for Paramount+, beginning with two this year,” according to the Hollywood Reporter. “The new movies appear to be a way to get South Park programming on ViacomCBS’ own streaming service after cutting the HBO Max deal in 2019.” Paramount+ carries a lot of Comedy Central programming, and Comedy Central is owned by ViacomCBS, which…

Sorry, I started drifting off while explaining the boring intricacies of streaming deals.

The point is, new South Park movies (as well as a multi-year Comedy Central renewal that will bring the show to season 30)! The made-for-streaming movies will likely be closer to the three-part “Imaginationland” trilogy than South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, one of the best big-screen adaptations of a TV show ever, but there’s no reason one of them can’t be a full-blown “Loo Loo Loo” musical. With Brian Boitano, naturally.

(Via the Hollywood Reporter)

Bill Gates isn’t perfect.

See Exhibit A:

But on the scale of “big mistakes” to make, befriending an accused sex trafficker is definitely pretty high up on the list of no-nos. Which Gates understands (now), and feels sorry about (now). On Wednesday, Anderson Cooper invited the billionaire Microsoft founder and uber-nerd onto Anderson Cooper 360° to chat about COVID, but Cooper wasn’t about to let the opportunity to discuss Gates’ recent divorce (which was finalized on Monday) or the rumors that the dissolution of his marriage was, in part, due to his blossoming friendship with accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

After lobbing a few softballs his way about how he was holding up amidst his divorce, Cooper then went in for the kill when he asked Gates to “explain” his relationship with Epstein and whether he had “any concerns” about being associated with him. But Gates seemed prepared to defend his actions, while minimizing his link to the late, disgraced financier, explaining:

“I had several dinners with him, you know, hoping that what he said about getting billions of philanthropy for global health through that he had might emerge. And when it looked like that wasn’t a real thing, that relationship ended. But it was a huge mistake to spend time with him [and] give him the credibility. There were lots of others in the same situation, but I made a mistake.”

Cooper then went on to talk about Gates’ admission that he had an affair with an employee 20 years ago, and recent reports that he has creeped some of the women he works with, who have said that his “behavior has created an uncomfortable workplace environment.” Cooper wanted to know whether Gates had any regrets. To which he replied yes, but added that “it’s a time of reflection and… at this point I need to go forward. You know, my work is very important to me. Within the family, we’ll heal as best we can and learn, learn from what’s happened.”

Sure. Because at 65 years of age, how should you be expected to know that sexually harassing your employees is a bad thing?

As The Wrap pointed out, one thing Cooper did not ask about was the “statement [Gates] made in a 2011 email, that Epstein’s ‘lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing although it would not work for me.’ When that email was made public in 2019, Gates claimed that he was referring to Epstein’s interior design preferences.”

If only Clippy could help in coming up with better excuses.

You can watch the full clip above.

(Via The Wrap)

After a handful of false starts dating all the way back to 2017, Impeachment: American Crime Story—the latest installment of the Ryan Murphy-produced crime anthology—is finally making its way toward a screen near you. While it’s dropping in just about a month, the creative team behind the FX series isn’t ready to give much about Impeachment away yet, as evidenced by its new teaser (which you can watch above).

While we all know the basic storyline—in 1995, then-President Bill Clinton had a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a 22-year-old White House intern, which led to his impeachment—American Crime Story has never really been about the story you know. As they did with the O.J. Simpson trial and the murder of fashion icon Gianni Versace, the series is designed to let time and age allow viewers to relitigate these infamous incidents and scandals from a modern-day perspective and to consider what biases might have been at work in the initial media coverage.

In the case of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair—which for years had been referred to as “The Monica Lewinsky Scandal,” as if Clinton was just a hapless bystander who played a totally passive role in the relationship—it will be interesting to reexamine the case through the lens of the #MeToo movement. While powerful men who use their influence as sexual currency are being toppled as quickly as statues of Confederate “heroes,” the timing seems perfect to reexamine this case—especially knowing that Lewinsky was brought on as a producer, and signed off on each script.

Of course, in the irony of all ironies, the series is being adapted Jeffrey “Is This Camera On?” Toobin’s book, A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President, but we’ll just leave that alone.

Though we only get to see Beanie Feldstein as Lewinsky from the back—as she winds her way through the halls of the White House and makes her way to the Oval Office—and the camera cuts out before we get a good glimpse of Clive Owen as Clinton, this is one “teaser” that certainly lives up to its name.

Impeachment: American Crime Story will premiere on FX at 10 p.m. on Tuesday, September 7th.

(Via Variety)

Billie Eilish let fans know early on that her next era was going to be a departure from the sound that defined her debut album. Still, most people probably weren’t ready for her to make a jazzy album influenced by Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee and Julie London. Happier Than Ever is a stunning left turn for the pop star, but proof that all she needs is herself when it comes to the music she wants to make. Today, she doubled down on her new era’s focus by actually covering a jazz classic in the style of London, heading over to BBC’s Radio 1 Lounge, where artist’s frequently give spins on other artists’s songs, and performed “I’m In The Mood For Love” accompanied only by Finneas on guitar.

Truly, anyone listening to the “Bad Guy” and “You Should See Me In A Crown” probably didn’t consider this was coming next. Then again, softer earlier songs like “When The Party’s Over” do point to the same tone and feeling of these tunes. If anything, Eilish is just proving her versatility early on, as our culture loves to put artists, particularly female ones, in a box as soon as possible. Check out the cover above.

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

There’s simply not enough 7-string guitar on Draw Down The Moon. Maybe it’s the Woodstock ‘99 discourse talking, but that’s the main critique I have of Foxing’s audacious fourth album and they probably agree with me. It doesn’t take long for Eric Hudson’s favorite new toy to pop up, as opener “737” explodes like a punctured Surge can, the first time a song has ever inspired me to use “chamber pop” and “Linkin Park” in the same sentence.

The album only gets weirder from there. While Foxing would obviously prefer if Draw Down the Moon led to a widespread commercial and critical success that has mostly escaped them thus far, the trio seem oddly thrilled at the possibility of Draw Down The Moon being a complete flop. At that point, with nothing left to lose, they can finally go full nu-metal. “That’s the one that’s gonna do it for us,” drummer Jon Hellwig jokes. “We purposefully try to tank this thing and it’s gonna blow us up and then we’re fucking stuck.”

He’s joking but not really; Foxing is the most celebrated rock band St. Louis has produced since… Story Of The Year? Living Things? Gravity Kills? Still, Hellwig’s fellow line cooks barely acknowledged Foxing’s existence until they saw him dragging out an empty keg; he needed it to get the most accurate possible drum sound for their cover of Slipknot’s “Duality.” Hellwig showed them the video from their Patreon page and the response was immediate: “Fucking sick, I thought your band sucked but you guys are cool.”

This has been the most familiar beat in a Foxing profile of late — minimizing their many accomplishments over the past decade and trying to figure out how they can win over people who aren’t otherwise predisposed to liking a D&D-influenced, artsy post-emo band from the Midwest. A lot of it is admittedly due to the self-interest of artist advocacy; I know I would certainly feel less insane if more people actively championed Foxing’s 2018 album Nearer My God as one of the decade’s true, populist art-rock masterpieces, which it is. But Foxing’s following reminds me more of the online armies that emerge around cult TV shows, the ones that obsessively track Nielsen and Metacritic ratings because these quantifiable measurements play an enormous role in determining whether it actually survives.

Hudson’s Twitter tends to be a bellwether for Foxing’s internal mood on this front. Quite frequently, he’ll talk about the economic precarity that comes with being the guitarist in their scene’s one band that was stubborn and just successful enough to keep going (he prefers to call it “posting some cringe”). If the “emo revival” indeed channeled the spirit of emo’s second wave by exhuming the sounds of Cap’n Jazz and American Football, history repeated itself as the wave immediately after that one that broke big commercially: as in the early aughts, “emo” is more likely to mean “pop-punk” in 2021. Singer Conor Murphy reflects on what might have happened if scene leaders like Modern Baseball and Title Fight didn’t break up at the peak of their success: “If those bands make it, it gives credence to all of these other bands that were also adjacent,” he guesses. “They’re just gone because there was nowhere to go”; Brendan Lukens dropped out of the spotlight completely, Ned Russin attended Columbia University for creative writing and started a minimalist electro-rock project. Most notably, we’re probably not getting a fourth Hotelier album because Christian Holden found online poker to be more sustainable than a career in indie rock.

Foxing lose an average of one primary band member per album to more stable careers; bassist Josh Coll left the band in 2017 to attend NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Guitarist Ricky Sampson learned to code and announced his departure in September 2020. I bring up a memorable, deleted tweet where Hudson wonders what numbers Draw Down The Moon would have to do for him to not just give up and get a “government job and a normie girlfriend.” The band ruminates on what might actually pass for a comfortable living — “I guess in the Midwest, maybe $47,000 with full benefits,” Hudson shrugs before negotiating against his own hypothetical: “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to make a minimum wage salary.” The question of what Foxing’s music is truly worth was put in sharp relief after they decided to offer Patreon subscriptions during 2020, a survival tactic in the pandemic that was still subject to the outmoded and self-defeating DIY philosophies that protest anything that gets a band paid because, you know, capitalism. “It’s so disrespectful from the fan point of view to knock something like that,” Murphy says. “You knocking these bands is just helping these giant commercial bands, by eliminating all of their small competition.”

At this point, it’s worth pointing out that Foxing is pretty fucking popular; not that it’s a perfect metric by any means, but their 375,000 monthly Spotify followers are triple that of, say, Iceage. While they still hold out hope for getting signed by 4AD or getting any kind of late-night appearances, Murphy admits, “Those bands might be looking at artists like us and thinking, ‘we’re critical darlings and we’re on Pitchfork Fest and stuff but people aren’t really coming to our shows in droves.” Hudson agrees that Foxing are in a rarefied place, an actual “middle class” band in an increasingly stratified business. Still, “I think the bar for being fortunate is so low. It’s really fucked up that I’m supposed to feel lucky for this.”

Foxing have addressed this issue with unusual candor and frequency throughout their existence. “Where The Lightning Strikes Twice” was technically the third single released from Draw Down The Moon and the one that accompanied the record’s actual announcement: the band imagined it as their take on Queen’s star-spangled prog-pop, though I can also hear the Reno to The Killers’ Las Vegas. “With everything we gave it / It’s hard not to be devastated” Murphy sings over a galloping, indie-disco beat, a metacommentary on the Sisyphean nature of being a middle-class band, one that generates just enough success to make a day job impossible but never provides any real stability. “I twisted both my ankles on a rain dance / Here on the hill I wanna die on.”

Unrequited affection presented itself more blatantly on “The Medic” and “Rory,” Foxing’s most popular songs and the tentpoles for their 2013 debut The Albatross. That album is full of convulsive and ornate emo that rendered its title all too literal in the ensuing years. “I asked my 15 year old brother what his favorite Foxing album is. He told me he didn’t know any of them besides ‘the one with the dogs on it,” Hudson tweeted; whether or not this is true, the joke is in how it’s a pretty common opinion. Emo diehards and, infamously, Anthony Fantano rejected 2015’s Dealer, a muted, gorgeous record stocked with lyrics covering Catholic guilt and former member Coll’s military experience in Afghanistan but very little guitar tapping or Murphy screaming “SO WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME BACK.” Even beyond the potentially crippling financial and physical setbacks they experienced on the road — getting $30,000 worth of gear stolen, a catastrophic van incident, Murphy getting his nose broken before an Audiotree session — the reverent reputation surrounding Foxing’s powerful live show ended up turning into a backhanded compliment: “why don’t you sound like that on your albums?”

These frustrations culminated in the title track of Nearer My God, an album otherwise magnetically tuned into 2018’s zeitgeist of post-Blonde sonics and political doomsaying. “Does anybody want me at all?,” Murphy belts on an actual arena-rock song that was destined for the scrap heap until producer Chris Walla talked them out of it. He immediately heard the resonance in the song’s message, an artist hitting a crisis of confidence, wishing they could sell out if anyone was buying. While Nearer My God inspired occasionally feverish reviews and crashed a handful of year-end lists, none of it felt commensurate with its accomplishments. Foxing overtly aspired to make a classic, something that could hang with Radiohead, TV On The Radio, Wolf Parade, and the other “Pitchfork cred bands” they loved in their teens. Not coincidentally, I found the most receptive audience were my 30-something friends who used to write for music blogs in college, but it wasn’t one they attracted en masse.

From that angle, Draw Down The Moon can appear to be Foxing’s answer to Future Islands’ Singles or Bleed American or Manchester Orchestra’s A Black Mile To The Surface, recent examples of perpetual underdogs betting on the most direct version of themselves. It’s easily the most streamlined Foxing album to date, using “Nearer My God,” the convoluted trance-pop of “Heartbeats,” and Murphy’s underappreciated Smidley album as starting points for songs that favor immediacy and repetition. Simple doesn’t come naturally to Foxing; Murphy proudly states that their manager sees them as “a band that confidently goes against better judgment on everything that they do,” and a brain trust of Big Indie megaproducer John Congleton and Manchester Orchestra’s Andy Hull helped them hone their most unruly ideas into compact pop songs.

Fans who completed the third “ritual” in Draw Down The Moon’s vast and complex multimedia rollout got to hear an 8-bit rendering of “Go Down Together,” which isn’t that far off from the original version that Murphy submitted to the band. In his new role as in-house producer, Hudson rejected the “Game Boy music” synths and tweaked them into something more sleek and modern. He got as good as he gave; Hudson’s original composition of “Bialystok” was a “drawn-out trance-house song that meandered a lot and didn’t make a ton of sense,” before Hull helped the band shape it into a bona fide glowstick-waver. Before “Speak With The Dead” became Draw Down The Moon’s Lazer Floyd closer, Murphy envisioned a solo organ/vocal piece as an homage to Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar soundtrack.

The lyric writing process was newly collaborative as well. When Murphy first brought “Beacons” to the band, it was a cautionary tale of ambition inspired by The Prince and John Franzese, Jr., the son of a mafia boss. “I was like this is the best thing I’ve ever fucking written,” Murphy jokes before Hudson asked him to reconsider, in his typically brusque manner. “Dude, I don’t read. I wanna know what you’re talking about.” The version you hear now is an ecstatic discovery of sexuality after years of being bludgeoned by the Catholic church.

It all superficially appears to be a textbook approach to making an indie-pop crossover record: put the hooks to the front, emphasize a newly positive outlook on life, play up the Carly Rae Jepsen influence. And yet, I’d call Draw Down The Moon the most polarizing pivot to pop I can think of in recent memory. The album confirms what the singles promised, that Foxing go headlong into an era of hypercaffeinated, day-glow major-label indie rock that began with MGMT, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, and Passion Pit and served as a gateway towards proper indie, or at least the soundtrack to drunken, youthful indiscretions. Hellwig remembers the “Young Party Jon” of 2009, the guy who spent his early 20s listening to Young Money singles, guzzling Sparks with a “Lemmy chops-to-mustache thing going on.” The trio laugh hysterically upon recalling his “Lil Sleepy” alter ego. “I was a fucking mess dude,” Hellwig monotones.

Hudson and Murphy also admit they weren’t finished products at the time; the duo has known each other since the age of 12, bonding over memorably awful MySpace bands like Kill Hannah before older siblings put them onto Explosions In The Sky, Radiohead, and Anathallo. They’re the target audience for Just Like Heaven festival, guys shaped by the rise of late aughts indie and not-so-secretly longing for a time when tastes shifted entirely on the whims of Panda Bear and Bradford Cox. It’s a tricky form of nostalgia; without fail, you could get 10,000 RTs for saying something like “lolz, blogs tricked us into liking Animal Collective,” suggesting that bands of that ilk were hyped up at the expense of the actual pop acts.“‘My Girls’ was a hit but compared to an actual hit,” Murphy trails off, resigned to the present day where bands like Foxing feel like they’re directly competing with the biggest artists on the planet for resources.

Also, “indie” would eventually become the new alt-rock, “My Girls” and “Stillness Is The Move” and “Sleepyhead” and “1901” opening the door for a bunch of critical whipping boys that still feel like shorthand for entire swaths of festival-friendly, sync-ready, Spotify playlist stuffers loathed by tastemakers if they’re acknowledged at all. The reaction to “Draw Down The Moon” and “Go Down Together” has typically been something along the lines of “this kinda sounds like KROQ music,” and the real question is whether that’s supposed to be a good thing. I think about the times I’ve heard Phillip Phillips’ “Home” in Sprouts and thought, “kind of a banger,” before Googling the lyrics and realizing it’s Phillip Phillips and questioning my own taste. The same thing when I’ve found myself intrigued by “Alligator” or “Visitor” over the gym PA and then discovering, “wait, that’s what Of Monsters And Men sound like?” Or when I somehow catch myself yelling “Hang Me Out To Dry” in the shower despite not having voluntarily listened to that song in over a decade.

These songs aren’t too far off from “Bialystok” or the howl-at-the-moon power ballad “Cold Blooded,” which I could easily hear belting from a distant festival soundsystem or a supermarket or a period film set in 2011. All of which raises an existential quandary: do I love these songs solely because Foxing made them? And does this mean myself and many others were unduly critical of, say, Foster The People or Cold War Kids or Grouplove because they didn’t come from the emo revival?

Maybe a little of both or neither at all; at no point during Draw Down The Moon is there a question of who I’m listening to. Murphy’s voice remains as unhinged and expressive as ever; I’m starting to see Passion Pit brought up more frequently as a comparative point for newer bands, and what I never get is the same sense of desperation and panic that went into Michael Angelakos’ best work. “Beacons” sounds like Passion Pit but it also sounds like Foxing landing a tailspinning plane while the controls malfunction. “Go Down Together” could soundtrack an iPod commercial or a late-night crisis about your student loans becoming due again. Hudson’s first full-on production job is raw and unorthodox; the final choruses of “Draw Down The Moon” and “Cold Blooded” hit with the impact of hardcore, appropriate since he took pointers from Kurt Ballou YouTubes.

Still, Draw Down The Moon sometimes feels both 10 years behind and ahead of its time. While we have enough distance from Sublime and Limp Bizkit to reassess their merit, Foxing anticipate a future where Foster The People, Cold War Kids, and Portugal. The Man are reclaimed the same way Goo Goo Dolls, Gin Blossoms, and Third Eye Blind are now deemed staple influences of indie rock. To that point, their manager Joseph Marro tweeted that if Draw Down The Moon had been released in 2012, “I’d be fucking rich.”

The irony is not lost on Foxing; Marro was previously in The Early November and Hellogoodbye, bands that thrived in a pre-streaming era without having to court the kind of press coverage or festival circuit on which Foxing feel dependent. “It’s so depressing when he talks to us about how easy it was with bands getting bought up so quickly,” Murphy sighs before clarifying that it was easy for some bands. “There are these very accessible parts of the industry where tons of money is getting thrown out and they’re making fuckloads of money off CDs, bands are on TV, MTV is…” and Hellwig chimes in, “music television.”

Hudson claims their label pitched the idea of them doing a TikTok dance for “Go Down Together,” which went about as well as you’d think. “I don’t really feel like being the embodiment of Steve Buscemi, how do you do fellow kids,” Hudson laughs. The fickle and irreplicable nature of virality was best demonstrated on the day Foxing dropped the title track from Draw Down The Moon. Hours after the song went live, Hudson basically tweeted the credo of Remember Some Guys – “Dudes can literally just sit around and name old sports players and just have the best time.” It went extremely viral and Hudson didn’t really seem to know what to do with it. As Keegan Bradford of the very online emo-pop 4.0 band Camp Trash pointed out, “you had the perfect opportunity to plug your band’s new album that is literally just about to come out and you plugged… Jeff Bagwell.” Hudson meekly mentioned Foxing thereafter and received a modest 700 likes. “Draw Down The Moon” has about 151,000 plays on Spotify. The tweet has about 313,000 likes.

But as they’d prefer to look at it these days, 151,000 people have listened to their song. “Early on, critics like yourself or fans of ours or especially management people would always do this thing where they’d say, ‘I can’t believe I’m seeing you guys in a basement right now because you guys are gonna be an arena band,’” Murphy says. “It really did us a disservice because everything was a failure when we’re always looking at it in the context of how successful we should be.” As Murphy looks back on the collateral damage of making this record — the emotional toll of working and clashing with his bandmates remotely, the lost income and moral dilemmas of creating Patreon content, the exhaustion of a five-month rollout — he’s come to accept that his perception of Foxing’s status is much easier to change than the status itself. On a recent episode of the First Ever Podcast with Touche Amore’s Jeremy Bolm, Murphy recalls the reception his band received at the Masquerade in Atlanta; two years earlier, I saw them in the same venue with the similarly hexed Balance And Composure, they played a ferocious show beset by countless technical difficulties. In that moment, he came to realize that — he says this quite literally — Foxing was at a level of success that Nirvana might’ve preferred. The title of that episode: “It’s Okay if this is as Good as it Gets.”

Draw Down The Moon is out August 6. Pre-order it here.

Donald Trump is even more shameless than the band Kiss when it comes to slapping his name on overpriced merchandise, including Trump hats, Trump steaks, Trump board games, Trump ice-cube trays, and the “Women for Trump” bundle. The former-president has found a new hustle to empty the wallets of his biggest fans: Trump Cards.

On Wednesday, the Trump campaign sent two emails “asking supporters to get on board with carrying the red and gold cards, which look like credit cards and bear the former president’s signature,” according to Insider. The first message reads, “The card you select will be carried by Patriots all around the Country. They will be a sign of your dedicated support to our movement to SAVE AMERICA, and I’m putting my full trust in you.” A follow-up email, sent hours later, added, “We’re about to launch our Official Trump Cards, which will be reserved for President Trump’s STRONGEST supporters.”

It continued:

“We recently met with the President in his Florida office and showed him four designs. Originally we were planning on releasing just one design, but when President Trump saw the cards on his desk, he said, ‘These are BEAUTIFUL. We should let the American People decide – they ALWAYS know best!’”

If you’re wondering, “What does an Official Trump Card do?” that’s an excellent question — one that neither email answers. It’s probably an own-the-libs version of a vaccination card with one major difference: a vaccination card shows others that you’re largely protected from a deadly virus; a Trump card only proves that you got scammed. If a recipient of the email clicked on the image of the cards, they were directed to a donation page, where they’ll be “asked to contribute at least $50 to the political action committee.”

One of the four cards, in particular, is catching people’s eyes.

Also, one of the cards misspells “official.”

I’ll stick with my Trump bikini, thank you very much.

(Via Insider)

If you haven’t had the pleasure of watching Daniel Radcliffe’s TBS anthology series, Miracle Workers (co-starring Steve Buscemi), then it’s high time to catch up. Hulu’s got a few seasons available for streaming, and that includes the current (third) adventure, Oregon Trail. This year, the series goes back to 1844, and Radcliffe plays an idealistic good preacher named Ezekiel, who must join forces with a wanted outlaw (Steve Buscemi, who played the beer-guzzling God in a previous season) as they set off on the eponymous trail by wagon. Along the way, they encounter hipster pioneers and take on toxic masculinity while, like, pausing for buffalo hunting. This show is off-the-rails, free-wheeling, and well, kind-of crackers.

This week’s episode is making the social media rounds for one outstanding reason: Radcliffe (and Ezekiel) dances for his audience. Oh, it’s not that simple, though. He’s doing a full-on assless chaps routine to a discotechque version of “She’ll Be Coming Around The Mountain.” Eat your heart out, Channing Tatum and Tim Curry.

Who’s responsible for this display? Let me revise that sentiment: who do we have to thank for this glorious, butt-shaking performance? Writer Kelly Lynne D’Angelo has stepped up to claim that pitch.

Kelly’s truly doing god’s work here, judging from the reactions on social media. Radcliffe’s consistently proven that he’s much more than Harry Potter, and he’s harnessed the freedom afforded by mainstream success to go do what he really wants to do, which is off-the-rails, unexpected, and never feels forced in an effort to be “edgy.” Well, people love the “f*ck it, I can do whatever weird & wonderful roles I want” vibe.

TBS’ Miracle Workers airs on Tuesday nights at 10:30 pm EST.