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UK music fans were hopeful that Glastonbury would be able to go on this year, but over the past few months, organizers didn’t sugar-coat the fact that the 2021 festival may not be able to happen. Sure enough, it was announced yesterday that this year’s festival has been canceled. That said, this doesn’t mean the folks behind Glastonbury won’t do anything this year.

In an LBC interview, festival founder Michael Eavis said that he hopes to organize some sort of smaller Glastonbury event this year. He said, “I would like to do something in September. I would like to do something smaller somewhere around the anniversary date of when we started, which was the 18th of September 1970. I would like to consider possibly doing something around that time.”

He was then asked if such an event would involve getting some big artists who were slated for this year’s canceled fest to participate, and he responded, “Yes, but I do need to get reassurance from the ethics people.”

Festival organizer Emily Eavis previously said that if this year’s festival didn’t go on as planned, some sort of Glastonbury event could still take place this year, saying in 2020, “We’re actually looking into the possibility of streaming some things from here if we can’t run the full show next year. We really want to get busy with planning some gigs — even if they’re to be streamed!”

We’re looking for the best Scotch whisky at every price point this year. To kick things off, we thought we’d start off low — but not “bottom shelf” low. Mostly because scotch is just naturally more expensive (tariffs, travel, less of it, etc.) than other types of whisk(e)y. But also, scotch gets really interesting in the $30 to $40 range. Your options include classic blended juice and a few affordable single malts as well.

It’s one of the first sweet spots in Scotch whisky pricing.

Please note that, depending on where you live, some of these bottles might not be quite as cheap as they are here. Prices vary greatly from coast to coast and even shop to shop. That being said, maybe you luck out and you find them for a little cheaper.

The ten bottles below were selected based on price, taste, and availability. We tried to cast a wide net in the flavor department — since scotch is a pretty wide category with a lot of nuances. We also tried to choose bottles that are widely available at your average shop or online delivery service.

Happy hunting!

Dewar’s 12

ABV: 43%

Average Price: $32

The Whisky:

Dewar’s is a blend of 40 whiskies with the famed Highland Aberfeldy at its core. The whisky is aged for 12 years before blending. Then the juice spends a final six months mellowing in a batch tun (tank) before it’s proofed and bottled.

Tasting Notes:

Vanilla, oak, and caramel draw you in with a note of maltiness. The palate expands on those flavors with a mild Christmas spiciness, focused on nutmeg next to a slight vanilla creaminess and whisper of honey-crusted nuts. The end is velvety, smooth, and creamy thanks to that vanilla, with a mild spice warmth on the finish.

Bottom Line:

This is a really easy sipper on the rocks. The water helps open it up and those flavors really bloom with an added hint of fruit. It’s also a classic highball base.

The Famous Grouse Ruby Cask

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $33

The Whisky:

The Famous Grouse Ruby Cask utilizes classic Grouse — which touches on Highland Park — and then adds in a port cask finish. That finishing touch adds a depth to the light blend that helps it really stand out amongst The Famous Grouse line.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a clear maltiness at play next to hints of cinnamon candies and vanilla cream, with a touch of roasted almond. The taste amps the spiciness up to full Christmas cake territory with plenty of dried fruits and more nuttiness, while holding onto the malt. A hint of orange zest comes in late as the sip fades out fairly quickly.

Bottom Line:

This is another dram that needs water to really open it up — otherwise, it’s a bit warm. While a highball is the best play, this also works in classic cocktails.

The Glenlivet 12

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $34

The Whisky:

This Speyside single malt is a good entry point into the wider world of The Glenlivet, especially if you can find it at this price. This single malt juice is aged for 12 years in both American and European oak before blending, proofing, and bottling.

Tasting Notes:

Fruit, fruit, fruit!

There’s a real sense of both tropical fruits, like pineapple, next to orchard fruits, like apricot. Plus you get a slight hint of citrus. The palate really leans into the pineapple but more like a sweet and buttery pineapple cake with a vanilla frosting. The oak comes in late and only peeks in as the fade amps up the sweetness of the fruit.

Bottom Line:

This is sweet and fruity. That makes it really easy to drink, especially in a highball or on the rocks.

Johnnie Walker Black

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $35

The Whisky:

This is Johnnie Walker’s entry point blend that’s crafted for sipping (Johnnie Red is made for mixing). The juice is a blend of 40 Diageo whiskies with an emphasis on Caol Ila, Talisker, Lagavulin, and Cardhu amongst many others.

Tasting Notes:

This is subtle, with hints of cedarwood next to very mild yet earthy peat malts and sweet fruit. Those malts carry through as a hint of dark, powdery spices arrive. The sweetness remains subtle as the fade comes about quickly and is buttoned by a final whisper of smoke.

Bottom Line:

Drink it on the rocks as it’s meant to be. Though, it really works best in a highball.

Laphroaig 10

ABV: 43%

Average Price: $36

The Whisky:

This Islay single malt is a great entry point for peaty whisky. The malts are dried with the island’s signature peat smoke. And that flavor is built into every layer of the juice as it’s barreled, blended, proofed, and bottled.

Tasting Notes:

You’re greeted with a big billow of peat smoke next to a sea brine edge, mild spice, and a hint of sweet caramel. The palate sweetens the smoke slightly as the sea brine really kicks up a notch leading towards toasted oak, creamy vanilla, and a hint of black pepper. The finish lingers on your senses with all that iodine-y smoke and sea salt (think something like smoked white fish) with a little bit of charcoal sneaking in late.

Bottom Line:

This is another one where the price is going to range pretty wildly. If you do want to snag a bottle and start your journey on the smoky whisky path, make sure to add some water to let this bloom properly.

Chivas Regal 12

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $35

The Whisky:

This Highland whisky is built around the famed Strathisla Distillery. The whisky is crafted to work as a sipper or mixer, with real complexity built-in. It really shines in both respects.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a matrix of oak, nuts, malts, and fruit up top. The fruitiness leans into orchards in full bloom as a minerality drives the taste towards spicy tobacco with a hint of creamy vanilla. The oak peeks back in with a little more maltiness, as the end slowly fades alongside a mild chewiness.

Bottom Line:

This a really easy sipper to have on hand. It’s the classic “scotch on the rocks” whisky after all.

Monkey Shoulder

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $36

The Whisky:

This Speyside blend is crafted as a workhorse whisky. The juice is drawn from the William Grant & Sons distilleries, focusing on Kininvie, Glenfiddich, and The Balvenie. The juice is then rested for up to six months after blending to let it mellow even more before proofing and bottling.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a nice welcoming note of creamy vanilla that almost becomes cream soda, next to hints of zesty orange marmalade, malts, and dark spices. The taste delivers on those notes by amping the spices up to Christmas cake territory with a slight tart berry edge next to that cream soda sweetness. The end is short and sweet with a nice lightness that really makes this very drinkable.

Bottom Line:

It’s really hard not to love this whisky. It’s an incredibly solid cocktail mixer but works on the rocks just as well.

Shackleton Blended Malt

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $37

The Whisky:

This whisky is a bit of a conversation starter that also delivers a solid taste. The whisky is a retread of the actual whisky Sir Ernest Shackleton took with him on his voyage to Antarctica in the early 1900s. The juice is a recreation of that exact dram — with a few of the rougher edges taken off to make it a little more palatable to today’s drinker.

Tasting Notes:

Malty crackers dusted with brown sugar and cinnamon greet you. The taste builds on those notes, with plenty of orange zest and caramel-dipped apples next to a whisper of oak. The orange drives the sip towards its short yet malty finish.

Bottom Line:

This is a solid bottle to have around to mix up some serious cocktails.

Tomatin 12

ABV: 43%

Average Price: $37

The Whisky:

This heavily awarded single malt from the Highlands is a classic and accessible example of the region. The single malt juice is aged in ex-bourbon and ex-sherry for 12 years before those whiskies are married, proofed with the soft Highland spring water, and bottled.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a real sense of soft cedar on the nose with a bit of wildflower next to marzipan sweetness and nuttiness. The palate is ultra-svelte, with a creamy vanilla pudding next to buttery toffee covered in roasted almonds — all counterpointed by fresh ginger and orange zest spiciness. T

he sip ends with a hint of malts next to more of that cedar and final notes of pears and apples.

Bottom Line:

Try this one with a little water or a rock to really let it bloom. Then have fun mixing it into your favorite cocktails.

Buchanan’s DeLuxe

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $38

The Whisky:

Buchanan’s is another Diageo blend that’s making a big comeback. Just last year this expression snagged a Double Gold from San Francisco World Spirit Competiton. The whisky has a long history and is built to be a classic “on the rocks” whisky.

Tasting Notes:

The whiskey opens with a real sense of dark chocolate married to bright orange zest. The palate builds on that adding in hints of vanilla pudding and dark spices next to a cedar woodiness and a little bit of spicy/ chewy tobacco. A whisper of peat arrives late and far in the background as the chocolate orange throughline lasts the longest on the fade.

Bottom Line:

Drink it on the rocks. That’s what it’s made for, folks.

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE — Monday nights are for chaos now

My favorite moments on 9-1-1 are the ones where two characters we’ve never seen before start having a conversation that has nothing to do with anything, because that’s how you know something wild is about to go down. It’s like the beginning of an episode of Law & Order where you’d see two dudes walking through the park deep into a generic discussion about the Mets’ bullpen or something and you’d know, deep in your soul, that those two dudes are about to find a dead body. The difference with 9-1-1 is that the conversations are usually arguments about progressive workplace issues and instead of finding a body they might be massively injured by a city bus that flies through their eighth-floor office window.

Which brings us to the season premiere that aired this Monday. I was not kidding about the bus thing. Look at this very real screenshot from the episode.

There are hows and whys here, of course, and I could explain everything to you if you make me, but I’d prefer not to. It’s more fun this way, just me telling you that there’s a network telling show that stars Peter Krause and Angela Bassett that sometimes launches a bus into a multi-story downtown Los Angeles building. Don’t ruin your fun with research. It’s rarely worth it. The only thing I feel I need to add, just for color, is that the bus ended up there because the Los Angeles dam broke in an earthquake and the rushing flood of water lifted the bus straight off the freeway and through the sky like a neon Honda in a Fast & Furious movie. This is at least the third large vehicle that has gone airborne and crashed into a building on the show. Last season opened with a tsunami. It’s a fun time.

And guess what: it wasn’t even the craziest show on television this week. Hell, it wasn’t even the craziest show that aired on Fox on Monday night. That honor goes to 9-1-1 Lonestar, the spin-off that stars Rob Lowe as an NYC fire captain who moves to Texas because his experience rebuilding a firehouse after 9/11 is in demand after an entire department was killed in a manure plant explosion that started because a janitor tried to nuke his burrito in the microwave with the aluminum foil still wrapped around it. I promise all of this is true.

Anyway, how could any show possibly top “launching a city bus into an office building with the flood from an earthquake-related dam break”? I’m so glad you asked. Let’s hit the highlights:

• The episode opened with someone commandeering a tank and barreling over, around, and through the city before Rob Lowe stopped him with the sheer power of his handsomeness
• There was a roller derby injury involving a comically large splinter popping up out of the track and jabbing straight through the torso of a competitor who fell
• A woman fired a damn crossbow at the people trying to install a 5G tower near her house

None of those were my favorite, though. That honor goes to a throwaway one in the middle involving a group Zoom call. One lady forgot her camera was on and took it to the bathroom and then frantically rushed to shut it off, and some guy named Larry found this so hilarious that he started choking. Everyone on the call saw him start like turning blue but no one could hear him because he was on mute and they all called 9-1-1 to get him help. Then this happened.

It’s a blast. Both shows contained longer serious stretches about the trials and tribulations of the characters and their personal lives, and you are welcome to watch and discuss those to whatever degree you like (Lisa Edelstein popped up as a love interest for Rob Lowe, giving us maybe the most unlikely West Wing reunion yet), but that is not what I’m about. I’m in it for the bonkers emergencies. I’m in it for the chaos. And now that Fox has decided to air these two beautiful, lunatic television programs back-to-back on Monday nights, I can get two straight hours of it to start every week. This is good. I need this. I can’t wait to see where they go next. Someone might hijack a blimp. I wrote that as a joke but there is literally no way to rule it out. This is the sign on a quality television program.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — Hmm.. but why?

It is, as we all know, an established fact that every major or semi-major character in every beloved or semi-beloved film must at some point get a full-length origin story. Typically, the origin story will be gritty and raw, even if the original work it came from was not. There is usually a trailer that features a haunting piano cover of a fun and upbeat song. The projects are rarely necessary in any way, and are often thinly-disguised cash grabs, but are still, occasionally, somehow, very good. The most obvious example here is Better Call Saul. There is no reason that show should be as good as it is. The degree of difficulty on “a prequel of one of the best dramas ever that focuses on the main character’s comic relief lawyer” is astronomical. And yet, somehow, against odds long enough to wrap around the equator twice, it might even be better than the original. Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould are sorcerers.

This brings us to Wonka, an upcoming film that plans to give the world more background on the loony candy tycoon from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. From THR:

Wonka, which will hit theaters on March 17, 2023, hails from Paddington director Paul King and Harry Potter producer David Heyman. The studio describes it as focusing on “a young Willy Wonka and his adventures prior to opening the world’s most famous chocolate factory.”

So there’s that. And there’s also this, from Collider, regarding the potential casting of the deranged chocolatier

Back in 2018, Collider reported that Ryan Gosling, Donald Glover and Ezra Miller were being eyed to star, but those names have all fallen by the wayside since then. Lately, sources say that Warners has its eye on either Tom Holland or Timothée Chalamet to play the eccentric confectioner.

I love that Chalamet gets his name thrown into any casting rumor now. Seriously, start keeping track of every time you see his name in a report like this. He’s going to end up playing Batman one day. He won’t even do it on purpose. One day he’ll just wake up on the set in the suit and have no clue how he got there. He’ll be terrific.

Anyway, I really only have three thoughts about this Wonka business:

• I do not think it needs to exist
• I am still kind of hopeful about it because the Paddington dude is involved and the Paddington movies whoop-ass
• It would be really funny if the whole movie is about some guy who lives in the suburbs and works a mind-numbing office job and then in the last 10 minutes he gets bonked in the head with a golf ball and becomes obsessed with candy

It could happen to anyone, really.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — Kathryn Hahn is so good

WandaVision is so freaking weird. And good. But mostly weird. It’s a television show featuring two popular characters from a mega-successful film franchise, but it’s also a faithful tribute to sitcoms of yesteryear, and also an Easter Egg filled scavenger hunt for passionate comics fans. The first episode was a black-and-white dinner party farce inspired by The Dick Van Dyke Show. The second was a talent show fiasco inspired by Bewitched. Again, good, but again, very weird.

I’m still not sure what to make of it beyond “it is pretty cool that someone is letting a billion-dollar franchise get nuttier than pecan pie,” but it is still worth pointing out that Kathryn Hahn is so good. She is so good. She plays a character named Agnes who is like the traditionally nosy and annoying neighbor from these shows, and there is already lots of speculation about who the character is or might be and where this all may or may not be headed, and all of that is fine but not the point in stumbling toward. The point is that she’s so good. She is always good, so it’s not like this is a shocker, but go watch the episodes and focus on what she’s doing. She’s playing a character that doesn’t exist anymore, and probably never existed in real life, with the mannerisms and accent and speech patterns of the 1950s sitcom wife just nailed. Elizabeth Olsen is doing this too, as evidenced by the little arm-swingy walk she does here…

… and Paul Bettany seems to be having more fun than anyone should be allowed to have without breaking — at least bending — a few laws, but seriously, Kathryn Hahn. I can’t wait to see where the show goes next. I can’t wait to see what kind of characters it asks Kathryn Hahn to play. I can’t wait to see how good she is at playing them. I might never understand what is happening on the show or why any of it is happening, but I sure as hell plan on appreciating it. Sometimes it’s okay to just go for a ride. I would let Kathryn Hahn drive me anywhere.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — I am very sorry but no, I will not stop talking about the Muppets

I am pleased to report that you are about to get lots more Muppets. You already have a lot of Muppets, probably, especially if you have Disney Plus (go watch The Great Muppet Caper right now), but come February you will also have access to all five seasons of the original Muppet Show from the 1970s. I know, I know. This is a 50-year-old television show. It is nuts for me to be writing about it on a website that has the slogan “The Culture of Now.” But, I’m sorry, I am, because the Muppets are the best.

Also, and this is something you should not overlook, the Muppets were chaotic as hell. They still are, to a degree, but they used to be really out there. I say to this remind people who forgot and also because I spent 30 minutes on the Wikipedia page of The Muppet Show the other night and saying it will give me an excuse to post some wild sentences from the episode descriptions.

So let’s do that.

“Kermit wants to know what the banana sketch is.”

“Fozzie and Scooter prepare to do the telephone pole bit.”

“Fozzie gets locked in a magician’s box.”

“The Swedish Chef decorates a cake, then smashes it.”

“The orchestra gets fed up with playing the theme song every night and threatens to quit unless Kermit allows them to play their own music.”

“Gonzo chats with George Burns about Gonzo’s early showbiz days.”

“Gonzo catches a cannonball with his bare hand, stretching his arm.”

“Statler and Waldorf successfully drive Milton Berle insane by heckling him, creating a hilarious monologue in the process.”

“Gonzo plays the bagpipes from a flagpole 10 feet in the air, but the act is cut short when a beaver gnaws the flagpole, prompting it to fall down.”

“The band is so pleased with the song Fozzie picks for them that they declare him hip and give him a pair of shades.”

“Scooter’s uncle J.P. Gross will give the show the money they need in exchange for adding a lady wrestler number.”

“A moose, named Mickey and who sounds like John Wayne, hangs out backstage, upsetting Kermit.”

“Fozzie goes to group therapy to become more assertive.”

“The Swedish Chef tries to make a banana split but is interrupted by dancers.”

“Gonzo recites the seven-times tables while standing on a hammock and balancing a piano.”

“Statler and Waldorf leave their box to sit out in the alley, disgusted by the night’s guest star.”

“Miss Piggy and Cheryl Ladd practice karate together while singing ‘I Enjoy Being a Girl.’”

“Liberace decides to perform an entire ‘concert for birds’ in the second half of the show, while Gonzo is determined to get his tap-dancing chickens into the act.”

‘The backstage is invaded by Sylvester Stallone’s groupies, who have paid Scooter for backstage passes.”

“Kermit and Miss Piggy get tangled up in Gonzo’s catapult sky-writing act.”

“Gonzo asks John Denver for gardening tips.”

“The show may be under a Gypsy curse.”

“Fozzie arrests a car for double-parking.”

People will try to tell you The Sopranos was the best television show ever. That’s a reasonable argument. It was a very good show. But consider this: Did The Sopranos, at any point, feature a fuzzy blue monster whose daredevil bagpipe act is ruined by a mischievous beaver?

It did not. At least I do not think it did. I feel like I would have remembered that. In any event, please take a few minutes and picture Pauly Walnuts talking to a Muppet. Any Muppet. My gift to you.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — Oh look, a movie for me

Well well well, look at this, another movie just for me…

Five Eyes, written by Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies (The Gentlemen) follows MI6 guns-and-steel agent (Statham) who is recruited by global intelligence alliance ‘Five Eyes’ to track down and stop the sale of a deadly new weapons technology that threatens to disrupt the world order. Reluctantly paired with CIA high-tech expert, Fortune sets off on a globe-trotting mission where he will have to use all of his charm, ingenuity and stealth to track down and infiltrate billionaire arms broker. Ivan Atkinson and Ritchie are producing for a February start in Turkey.

Jason Statham using his charm, ingenuity, and stealth to take down a billionaire arms dealer? Yes. Yes, please. I will watch this movie, possibly many times, possi-…

Wait. Hold on. Look at that second to last sentence again. The one that starts with “Reluctantly.” Why is the word Fortune capitalized? Is…

Is Jason Statham’s character named Fortune?

Is Fortune the last name of a Jason Statham character who is trying to take down a billionaire arms dealer?

SOMEONE ANSWER ME.

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

Orson Fortune.

His character is named Orson Fortune.

ORSON FORTUNE.

I’m so happy. I would say the only way this could get better is if he, in character as Orson Fortune, escapes a dicey situation by leaping from the roof of a gondola onto a passing hang glider, but a) I don’t want to get too greedy, and b) he already did that in the movie Mechanic: Resurrection.

It is infuriating to me that Jason Statham does not have an Oscar. We should give him one. I do not care what we give it to him for. Make up a new category. Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Kicking Bozos in the Sternum. Whatever it takes. It’s the least we can do for a man who has provided this much entertainment.

Thank you.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Melissa:

Lupin is great! But it made me think about heist shows and, specifically, why is it that Remington Steele isn’t streaming anywhere?

You got Pierce Brosnan as a character with the name Remington Steele. You got Stephanie Zimbalist doing feminism.. You got the mom from Everybody Loves Raymond being sassy. Every third episode involves them having to pull off a heist to slinky music, and usually making out. Each mystery is solved because Pierce remembers some movie that has the same plot as the mystery.

I mean, the dude was forced to cancel his initial gig as James Bond to do a fifth season of the show (which involved a fake marriage and inheriting a castle and Jack Scalia). The least we can do is have it streaming somewhere.

So, this isn’t a question as much as a request to make someone (Peacock? I know NBC was working on a reboot at one point) air this.

This is a wonderful email. It is wonderful for a lot of reasons but for three primary ones that I will list now:

• It is true
• It references my favorite genre of film and television, Pierce Brosnan Stealing Shit While Being Cool
• It gives me an excuse to link to my glowing review of Lupin and post the GIF of the main character navigating a drone through a neon-laser-guarded room to obtain information

Tada.

Thank you, Melissa. I always appreciate when people help me keep the heist discourse going.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Australia!

Five people have been charged over the alleged theft of up to 250 tonnes of salmon, valued at more than $4 million, from a processing plant in Sydney’s south-west.

Look, it’s easy to read things quickly and kind of skip by the thing that make them special, so let’s pause briefly to point out what we have here: This is A MULTIMILLION-DOLLAR AUSTRALIAN SALMON HEIST.

Say that phrase out loud to yourself. I’m serious. Do it right now. I’ll wait.

…

It feels good, right?

Police were called to investigate after the company’s executive found a reduction of about 600 kilograms per day in output from the Huon Aquaculture Ingleburn plant.

Six hundred kilograms of salmon every day is seriously so much salmon. I can’t even wrap my head around it, and not just because I am bad at the metric system. What does one do with 600 kilograms of salmon? How does one transport it? Where does one store it? Every question raises a dozen more perplexing questions, and every one of those raises a dozen more. I wish I had been the agent that interrogated them after they got arrested, not so much because I want to nail them as because I just need my curiosity satisfied.

I would be a poor law enforcement officer.

Police will allege that the syndicate graded premium salmon as waste, then removed it and transported it for sale or trade.

First of all, I love that we’re calling the salmon thieves a syndicate. I do not ever want to get arrested (no thank you), but if it can’t be avoided some day, I do hope that whatever I was doing involved a syndicate. I have never been in a syndicate. Not even once. I would be lying if I said this didn’t bother me a little.

But more importantly… did you catch the most important word in that paragraph? I’ll give you a hint: it’s at the end. At the very end. It is literally the last word. They tried to trade someone a large quantity of salmon in exchange for goods and/or services. This is incredible to me. Take a minute to think about this. Picture someone opening up the back of an 18-wheeler to reveal dozens of stolen flat-screen televisions, and then picture another person negotiating the price for them in stolen high-end salmon. Like, really haggling about it, too.

This is my favorite thing now. Someone please make a salmon heist movie. Put Chalamet in it. And Statham. And Kathryn Hahn. Put Timothee Chalamet and Jason Statham and Kathryn Hahn in a movie about a large-scale salmon heist. I swear to God I am not joking. I would never joke about this.

One of the few men to ever hold the title of Major League Baseball’s home run king has died. According to a report by CBS 46 in Atlanta, Hank Aaron passed away at age 86. The day of his passing and the cause of death are both unknown, and the Atlanta Braves confirmed the news shortly after it was reported.

Aaron is, by any objective measure, one of the greatest to ever grace the baseball diamond. Throughout a 23-year career in the majors that included stints with the Braves in Milwaukee and Atlanta, along with a return to Wisconsin with the Milwaukee Brewers at the end of his career, Aaron won just about everything that a player could win en route to being a first-ballot Hall of Fame inductee in 1982. Aaron also spent a year at the very beginning of his career with the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro Leagues.

Statistically, there will almost certainly never be someone who combined Aaron’s mix of productivity and longevity again. He is the sport’s all-time leader in total bases (6,856) and RBIs (2,297), and on April 8, 1974, Aaron became the man to break Babe Ruth’s record for home runs in a career when he went yard for the 715th time. By the time his career ended, Aaron hit 755 home runs, a record that stood until Barry Bonds surpassed it in 2007.

Aaron won the National League’s MVP award in 1957, the same year that he won his only World Series as a member of the Braves, and hit .305 in his career. But more important than any of his Herculean achievements on the diamond, Aaron will go down as one of the greatest men to ever play the game — Muhammad Ali once famously referred to Aaron as “the only man I idolize more than myself.” As a Black man in the South, Aaron was oftentimes the target of vitriolic, racist attacks, particularly in his pursuit of Ruth’s home run record, something that he discussed in an interview with CNN.

Through everything, Aaron carried himself with a grace that earned him praise and honors away from baseball, like the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which was awarded to him in 2002.

Chris Baio is most famous for playing bass in one of our country’s most popular indie-rock bands, Vampire Weekend. But he’s also put out several releases under his own name, Baio, including the forthcoming Dead Hand Control, out January 29. Baio, 36, understands that his association with Vampire Weekend will inevitably classify anything he does outside of the band as a “side project,” and he’s okay with that.

“When you’re in a big band and you try something new, people are going to automatically use that term,” he said earlier this month when reached by Zoom at his home in Oregon. “And I’m totally cool with it. Who am I to say how other people categorize or slot a record that I’ve made?”

Actually, I’ve interviewed plenty of musicians who dislike the term “side project,” and Baio kind of sees their point, too. “I have memories watching interviews with Thom Yorke around the time his first solo record came out, and he made a very strong point that he didn’t like The Eraser being referred to as a side project,” he recalled. “And I do think that for most artists, when you’re in that moment of making something, there’s no differentiation. You’re not thinking, ‘Oh, this is my second-tier material. Oh, this is a loosie that I can burn off.’”

The fact is that not all side projects are created equal. Some offer a fascinating peek at what prominent musicians are capable of achieving in new musical contexts, while others are embarrassing and unintentionally hilarious ego trips. Dead Hand Control, happily, belongs in the former category, with Baio exploring sonic territory far removed from the crunchy pop-folk of Vampire Weekend’s 2019 album Father Of The Bride. On his own, Baio delves into electronic textures that stretch into extended, near-proggy song structures, all while singing in a twangy, expressive baritone that recalls Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields. The songs are often catchy and immediate, but Baio is also happy to simply revel in a bevy of cool, retro keyboard tones. The result is head music with a sweet tooth and a droll sense of absurdity.

Dead Hand Control clearly is the product of a person who loves records and figuring out how they were made. So it seemed natural for our interview to take a meta turn and focus entirely on side projects by musicians in famous bands — some good, some disastrous.

We start with Mike + The Mechanics, featuring Mike Rutherford of Genesis. Are you familiar with the 1988 album Living Years?

I think my dad maybe listened to them or would’ve told me about them. It probably shows in some of my music that I’m a huge fan of Peter Gabriel, and Genesis as well. Those first five Peter Gabriel solo records are super influential to me. I was very much aware of the existence of Mike + The Mechanics and then also what the perception of Mike + The Mechanics is. I was trying to situate that record in the context of the year it came out, which is 1988. And there had already been insanely, insanely successful Phil Collins records, and Peter Gabriel’s So came out around then. The fact that the first song on that record before “The Living Years” is called “Nobody’s Perfect” is kind of already apologizing for the music in the context of everything else that came from Genesis.

You can tell how it’s related to ’80s Genesis, and even listening to the first 30 seconds of “Nobody’s Perfect,” there’s a lot of production ideas where you can tell it was similar to techniques on Peter Gabriel 3 and things like that. But then there’s just a lot of maudlin cheese on top of that.

You’re hitting on something I wanted to ask about in relation to your record: There are side projects that sound a lot like the “mothership” bands they spun off from, which almost seems like cheating. Your record is definitely not that. Dead Hand Control really sounds nothing at all like Vampire Weekend. How conscious are you of avoiding certain guitar tones, vocal styles, or anything else that people might associate with your other band?

I would say I’m very conscious of that. It’s definitely something that I thought about even as early as when I put my first EP out nine years ago and it was all electronic music. It was very house and techno influenced, which still has carried through to the records I make. But the greatest fear for me when I started making music is that something I put out would be viewed as a watered-down version of what the main band does. That was very at the front of my mind for a long time with making my solo music. I would say honestly there was one song on my second record where I kind of in hindsight regret putting it on the record because I thought it sounded a bit too much like Vampire Weekend. When I make a record, I just want it to be able to stand on its own and not sound like that.

Our next side project Rock’n Roll Gangster by Fieldy’s Dreams, which is a rap album put out by Fieldy from Korn in 2002.

My memory of when this record came out — I guess I would’ve been like 16 or 17 — is that this was one of the worst-reviewed albums of its time. Just universally loathed in the critical space. For me, I don’t know, I remembered it. And then, in 2009 before our second record Contra came out, Vampire Weekend did an all-California tour, just toured up and down California for two and a half weeks. At the time, we were making what was going to be a California tour documentary that since has been long shelved and will probably never see the light of day. But one aspect of the documentary was we were going to interview these sort of SoCal musical legends. Because I’m a bass player and because Fieldy is a bass player, I offered to interview him.

So, I went to his house in Orange County and asked him all kinds of questions. In his studio there was this dry erase board that said “Fieldy’s Nightmares” on it. It was clear that he was working on his follow-up to Rock’n Roll Gangster. I asked him some questions about the record — and this is a record I had never actually heard, but had all these associations that it was kind of a laughingstock — and he was just so nice and warm. He’s like, “Yeah, this is a record that I made, it was a lot of fun. I’m really proud of it. I’m working on another one.”

Maybe it sounds a little absurd in the context of this record that I’m putting out, but the fact that he was super comfortable in something he made and loved it and the rest of the world, whatever their perception of it, didn’t matter, I found that super inspiring as someone who hadn’t put out any music on my own.

Let’s talk about Maya by John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. This came out recently. Before our interview you called it the platonic ideal of a side project. Why?

Drum and bass is not something that I’m particularly well-versed in. When I reach for electronic music, it’s not really my go-to. But listening to Maya, you can just tell this is kind of a mastery of the form and just incredible production. And it’s in a field that is in no way related to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, genre-wise. When I say it’s my platonic ideal, it’s because no one would ever say that it is watered-down Red Hot Chili Peppers. I could play Red Hot Chili Peppers and that record for my grandmother and she would be able to tell those are completely different types of music. The fact that he was able to go into this world and make a really, really strong record, I really love it. I’ve been listening to it a lot since it came out.

Here is a side project I’m not familiar with at all — The Captive soundtrack by The Edge from U2.

My friend George Hulme, who plays guitar with me, also DJs a lot in London. He sent me this track, “One Foot in Heaven,” and thought I would really like it. It’s from his one solo album, which is this soundtrack to a fairly forgotten ’80s movie called Captive that came out the year before The Joshua Tree. I listened to it and was just completely blown away, because it could be a club track that a record label like Permanent Vacation or really cred-y underground house label would put out today.

Obviously The Edge has so many connotations. When people think of The Edge’s music, it’s nothing like this. And even the track before it, which is a really nice, very pretty pop song with Sinead O’Connor singing on it, it’s very good. When you think about Trent Reznor’s film scoring and the career that he’s had, there’s probably an alternate version of The Edge’s career where he’s cranking out incredible soundtracks on the side when U2’s not busy. The fact that it’s somewhat lost to history, from one of the most heard guitar players on the planet right now, I find kind of incredible.

Let’s move on to Diamond Head by Phil Manzanera of the great band Roxy Music.

There’s something about John Frusciante, that record, it’s a world that’s completely different from the mothership in a way that Fieldy’s Dreams in a way is completely different from the mothership. I view this as more the flip side of Mike + The Mechanics in my mind. It feels like it’s part of the extended Roxy Music universe. Having Brian Eno, who had left that band at that point, but sang on his record, the certain guitar sounds, the sonic world of it. It feels connected, but its own thing, and a really good thing.

No disrespect to Fieldy’s Dreams, but I listened to that yesterday and was a little bit stressed out. And then I put Diamond Head on and my blood pressure immediately dropped.

Manzanera plays great parts on Roxy Music albums, but the guitar is really at the forefront on his solo records. Would you ever want to make more of a muso-type record, where you could really shred?

I don’t know if I have that in me. I will say that doing the Father Of The Bride tour, where it was these two-and-a-half hour shows that were jammy and very much more in that muso sphere, was my favorite tour that we’ve ever done, and sort of scratched an itch I didn’t know I had. It was something that I loved doing. But I think that that desire will probably be more in playing bass live with Vampire Weekend. But I might be wrong.

Finally, we end with Rise by the Johnny Depp-led supergroup Hollywood Vampires, which is technically a side project for Joe Perry of Aerosmith.

I read that the first Hollywood Vampires album was all covers, and this Hollywood Vampires record is a mixture of covers and original material. And I will say that reading the song titles, I could’ve guessed exactly what the song sounded like. Me listening to the Hollywood Vampires and expecting something surprising probably says more about my deficiencies than the Hollywood Vampires.’

The one that I was very struck by was “I Want My Now.” It enters into this tradition of “older rich musicians complaining about the younger generation” songs. There’s a lyric that goes, “I want my diamond selfie stick.” The kind of cranky old guy who feels like millennials are stupid and their existence is shallow. There were plenty of versions of this when boomers were writing songs about Gen X people. And now because Johnny Depp’s in this band, it’s Gen X people writing it about millennials and Gen Z. It kind of passes the torch of that songwriting tradition.

My impression of this band is that Johnny Depp wanted to pretend to be a rock star so he paid some actual over-the-hill rockers to play with him.

I can’t pretend to read the minds of the Hollywood Vampires. But I just would never want to put music out in that way. I find them, just as a concept, pretty fascinating. Around when I first started touring, I would hear stories of when a band would finish an album cycle, and the people who are not the primary songwriters in the band would then get home and just play video games for months until it came time to record their parts or go into a rehearsal room. And I knew that I never wanted to be that way. I definitely want to work and be productive. But at the same time, I never wanted to be like, “Well I have nothing better to do, here’s my fucking album.”

Dead Hand Control is out January 29 via Glassnote. Get it here.

Frances Quinlan has made some of the better indie rock records for the past decade as leader of Hop Along. Then, last year, Quinlan released Likewise, their first solo album under their own name. Now, Quinlan is entering another new chapter of their life: Today, they came out as non-binary.

Sharing the news in a Twitter thread, Quinlan wrote:

“I’ve come to understand (better) why I felt so compelled to start going by my middle name when I turned 18 and went away to college. I needed distance from a role that I have never understood or felt agency within. Sixteen years later, it still confounds me.

I know this, because for so long I thought I had to be desired to gain true worth as a person. Perhaps a lot of us have felt this way. For so long I thought I had to be a ‘correct’ version of a woman. This is a falsehood I no longer buy. Honestly, I STILL don’t know what being a woman is. No one has been able to tell me.

I am privileged and grateful to have had the time, space, and generous insight offered by both advocates and friends, as I’ve learned about the expansive identity that is being nonbinary. I feel more at home with myself in a way I did not realized was possible.

I am embarrassed to say I did not realize how much space there has always been. It’s humans who have created these roles and strange rules. I am inspired and humbled witnessing so many who’ve taken great risk to be their true selves outside of these uneasy, fearful constructs.

I probably should have typed this up in a word doc. F*ck it.”

Quinlan later added, “Identifying as nonbinary has helped me to finally be at home in this body. The pronouns they/them feel most right to me.”

Find Quinlan’s tweets below.

Nas continues to support his 2020 comeback album King’s Disease with a new video for “27 Summers.” The Queens living legend heads down to Miami in the video, hooking up with local hometown hero DJ Khaled to hit the links and celebrate his nearly unprecedented longevity in the rap game. As the two tee up, Khaled marvels at Nas’s “27 Summers” of relevance, defining Nas’s penchant for “doing your thing at a high level… timeless.”

Incidentally, it was DJ Khaled who helped Nas announce that “Nas Album Done” on Major Key in 2016, on which the Queens vet confirmed that a project was on the way. However, that project seemingly never materialized after the song drove up excitement for the Illmatic rapper’s potential return to form. Instead, Nas linked up with Kanye West to release the seven-song EP Nasir in the summer of 2018 to a less than stellar reception — the result, Nas later admitted, of a rushed production process that neither rapper planned out much in advance.

However, in 2020, Nas turned to a new producer, California’s Hit-Boy, on the advice of Detroit rapper Big Sean, who appears on the King’s Disease track “Replace Me.” The new album was much better received, putting Nas in the position to truly celebrate his longevity in the game.

Watch Nas’s “27 Summers” video above.

The 2020-21 NBA season is still in its infancy, with only one month of data available for analysis. As such, everything (and I mean everything) should be taken with a grain of salt. That would be the case even without a global pandemic crippling the United States in myriad ways, but it is especially true given the nature of the circumstances the NBA is attempting to navigate while playing basketball in cities across the country.

Throughout the campaign, we’ll take a weekly look at some trends that could be impacting the state of play and, in particular, the burgeoning sports betting industry through the lens of the NBA. In today’s installment, we glance at the impact of home-court advantage or, in this case, perhaps the lack of impact.

Through Jan. 20, home teams were just 97-111-1 against the spread, covering at a 46.6 percent clip. That isn’t a wild outlier in the grand scheme, especially given the relatively small sample, but even with bookmakers accounting for the lack of crowds, they haven’t been able to keep up. Perhaps the wilder statistic is that home teams were just 107-102 straight up, representing a (very) different landscape than during a typical NBA season.

Data from the 2019-20 is difficult to manipulate since most of the regular season happened in standard fashion, but the bubble made an impact on takeaways. Still, home teams won 55 percent of their games before the bubble by an average of 2.2 points per game, which is relatively normal. In the previous season in 2018-19, the sample is much larger (1,230 games) and home teams outscored their opponents by 3,351 total points, or an average of 2.72 points per game.

This season, home teams are outscoring their opponents by only 44 total points across a 209-game sample, for an average of 0.21 points per game. That also helps to account, at least in part, for the lack of success by betting favorites so far in 2020-21.

More often than not, the home team is favored in betting circles, even if the gap is closing this season. Favorites are an ugly 94-114-1 (45.2 percent) against the number so far, lending credence to the widespread assumption that a) home-court advantage is a lot smaller than it usually is, and b) there is more variance right now.

Being that the writer of this post is not a data scientist, it is hard to quantify everything taking place here, especially when it comes to statistical modeling of variance. Still, it is noteworthy, at the very least, that home teams are only slightly better than road teams this season, all while franchises are still flying all over the country.

Perhaps it is the lack of home crowds, perhaps it is officials not being influenced by crowd noise, or perhaps it is even a little bit of small-sample size nonsense. It is still a trend worth monitoring because, even if everyone (including bookmakers) knows the deal to some degree, the visitors have been more profitable through one month of NBA action. For those looking for an edge, to this point, that’s been a fairly easy way to find one.

(Spoilers from Marvel Studios and Disney+’s WandaVision will be found below.)

Things are moving quickly in WandaVision, and we’re not just talking about Vision’s super-speed. (Did he have that before?) During a recent interview with Rotten Tomatoes, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige gave an interesting answer when asked if Wanda’s family members could appear in the Disney+ series. Considering Friday’s Episode 3 included a very pivotal reference to Wanda’s late brother Pietro, a.k.a. Quicksilver, we’re already starting to see major signs that Wanda’s familial connections will be explored. Of course, the big question on Marvel fan’s mind is if those connections will include the biggest one of them all: Magneto.

For those who don’t know, Magneto is the father of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver in the comics, which has not been the case in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — so far. With Disney now owning the rights to the X-Men, fans have been theorizing that WandaVision will begin laying the groundwork for mutants to appear in the MCU. When asked if the show will include Wanda’s mutant family members, here’s what Feige had to say. Via Comic Book:

“This is more about that relationship with Vision, and more about that dynamic and the evolving relationship of that couple, and how that grows and evolves and unfolds.”

When pressed about “other family members” appearing in WandaVision, Feige said with a smile, “There are other characters in other episodes of this show. Who they are, what they are, not worth discussing right now.”

As to whether or not the MCU would actually introduce Magneto in a Disney+ series is open for debate, but that’s what makes this experimental opening to Phase 4 so great. Marvel can do whatever it wants with the story. It could go anywhere! To add further evidence to the mutant theory, Episode 3’s Easter Egg commercial contained a very interesting tag line for Hydra Soap: “Find the goddess within.”

Who’s known for referring to mutants as gods? Magneto.

(Via Rotten Tomatoes & ComicBook)

After establishing the Indiecast Hall Of Fame last week, Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen are taking questions from listeners on this week’s episode. The episode kicks off with a discussion ska, the oft-maligned sect of punk that people tend to joke about, but also have an encyclopedic understanding of its intricacies. After the recent critical reevaluation of nu metal, is ska next in line for a reinvention? Jeff Rosenstock has been proudly waving the flag of ska for years, and the world is finally starting to come around.

This week features many thoughtful questions from listeners, guiding Hyden and Cohen’s conversation on the episode and finding the duo discussing their methods for digging into the discography of a newly-discovered artist, the big-budget albums they’d like to hear, and the role of Manchester Orchestra in modern indie.

In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Cohen has been enjoying Downtiming, the debut EP from Camp Trash. Instead of new music, Hyden is taking the opportunity to plug his recent interview with The Wrens’ Charles Bissel, who revealed that the band’s long awaited follow up to 2003’s The Meadowlands might finally be released later this year!

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 23 on Spotify and Apple Podcasts below and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts here. Stay up to date and follow us on Instagram and Twitter.