Bandcamp Album of the Day: Battle Trance, Green of Winter
“Calling a new Battle Trance release a ‘record’ feels incomplete, a grasp at a convenient shorthand. ‘Achievement’ is probably the best word that can be used to encapsulate hearing the saxophone quartet’s remarkable ability to, like ants, construct and wield masses of sound vastly out of proportion to their bodies …
We’ve all emerged—at least as much as that word applies to an ongoing situation—from COVID-19 as different people. But one can still draw comfort from the fury and challenge of Battle Trance: The world turns, the great sea yearns, the ants go marching on.”
Breath In and Breath Out: Battle Trance’s Blade of Love
“Despite all this talk of pushing past limitations, my injury taught me as much, if not more, about accepting them. I had a time with a fully functional left hand and now that’s past. I can’t force it to come back. But it’s all a part of my present—of all that I have at this moment—and so I have no choice but to live with it; to celebrate it, even, because it’s mine.
“But I can always put on Blade of Love to hear the sound of people pushing past what should, by all rights, be impossible. I can hear the struggle—and the sound of transcending that struggle. But the moment still passes, the notes still end. I take a deep breath, and then I let it go.”
Bandcamp Album of the Day: Toner, White Buffalo Roam
“[Toner’s] elevator pitch—power pop meets shoegaze, mixed through a pair of Robert Pollard’s Chuck Taylors—is reductive, but it’s a good way to get a grip on Toner’s latest record, White Buffalo Roam. However, as the entirety of the record was cut by Cruz and singer Ellie James in Oakland, its production is less My Bloody Valentine and more bedroom pop. With all 12 songs being essentially a one-man job, it’s a testament to Cruz’s compositional chops that they feel both cohesive and varied, plowing through the canon of ’90s guitar-rock touchstones—J. Mascis is a handy comparison point for Cruz’s vocals, and certain riffs seem imported directly from Loveless— without coming across as slavish or particularly rote.”
Child’s Play director Tom Holland on Jessica Walter’s almost-role as Chucky
“I thought Jessica was absolutely brilliant in ‘Play Misty for Me, and I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting to try a woman’s voice behind Chucky? Let’s see how that works.’
“So I had her in, and she voiced him, and she was terrific,” Holland continues. “But when I looked at it in a preview situation, it just didn’t work with the character, because the doll was obviously a boy.”
Chick Corea, iconic jazz keyboardist, dead at 79
Corea — who picked up a staggering 23 Grammys from nearly 70 nominations — authored a book, “A Work in Progress … On Being a Musician,” that he published in 2002. In its introduction, he wrote, “Being a musician is what I’ve been at the longest and is the ‘hat’ I’ve loved like no other.”
How Dr. Tiffany Moon ended up on Real Housewives of Dallas
"Maybe in a year I'll look back at this when it's all just a s--tshow and be like, 'Why did I do that?'
Badass breaks barriers as first black female chef instructor at Culinary Institute
Chef Roshara Sanders might be making history, but at this point, that comes as naturally to her as making dinner.
The 30-year-old Sanders — chef de partie at Midtown’s Oceana — was recently appointed as an instructor at the Culinary Institute of America, making her the first black female chef instructor in the school’s history since its founding in 1946.
“The industry needs to shift, and I feel like I can get them to do that from the inside,” Sanders, whose nickname is Chef Ro, told The Post.
Thundercat's quarantine has been mostly MMA training, Wayne Shorter and therapy
"Right before quarantine hit, it was a bit of a weird nexus where everything unfolded into ... Mac's death, and the person I was with. The last couple years moved very quickly. And I realized I wasn't taking care of myself, I was just like, in it. … I'm just working on getting back to a place of normality. And ironically, when I was trying to get to a place that's better for me, the whole country shut down."
"For the first time in any life, I couldn't run to music to help me through the moment.”
Meet Mike ‘Zappy’ Zapolin, ‘psychedelic concierge’ to the stars
Would you do drugs with a guy named “Zappy?” What if you met him through Lamar Odom, or Michelle Rodriguez?
Mike “Zappy” Zapolin is one of the burgeoning crowd of “thought leaders” pushing for the therapeutic use of psychedelic compounds like LSD, psilocybin, ketamine and DMT, which are currently illegal in the US.
Kenny Loggins: We are in the climate change 'Danger Zone'
"I don't actually have a lot of hope for this species."
The life and tragic death of infamous Oscars streaker Robert Opel
The year is 1974: 33-year-old Robert Opel, looking for all the world like a fit David Crosby, streaks naked past David Niven, who was about to introduce Elizabeth Taylor.
After the laughter subsides, Niven lets loose with the second-most-memorialized part of the incident, this quip: “Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was almost bound to happen … But isn’t it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?”
Niven got his laugh, but he had no way of knowing how wrong he was.
25 Years of Dookie: How Green Day's Breakthrough Shaped the '90s
Green Day were not a band poised to take over the mainstream. Their name is a reference to an entire day spent stoned, their breakthrough album is named after poop, and its three lead singles casually lob references to masturbation and prostitution alongside the de rigeur 1990s lyrical touchstones of mental illness and generational malaise. They were a group that deliberately avoided taking themselves seriously, and consequently, hindsight bestows Nirvana’s Nevermind with the honor of being the big cultural reshaper of the ’90s, the hair-metal killing monolith that brought underground culture to a global audience.
Rent Live: How Has the Musical Aged Since 1996?
Culture moves quickly, and you can’t fault something for being a product of its time. But Rent was already an anachronism when it appeared: Its lengthy gestation period meant that it probably never had a chance at lasting relevancy. How you measure a year in internet time? A year on Twitter? A year of selfies? It’s not easy. But then, neither is making rent.
Cher’s ‘Believe’ turns 20: How the Song Helped Bring Auto-Tune into the Mainstream
This isn’t a joke: What do Cher and ExxonMobil have in common? The answer is mathematician Dr. Andy Hildebrand, the inventor of Auto-Tune. Cher‘s iconic “Believe,” which popularized the warbly, “robotic” sound long before T-Pain or Kanye West did, turns 20, so we’re taking a look back at the technology that’s helped — or hindered — pop music ever since.
Jazz Legend Sonny Rollins Can No Longer Play His Horn, But He's Still Searching for His Sound
" I could never achieve what I wanted to, especially since I had to stop playing some years ago. I felt that I was gaining on the knowledge that I wanted to get; I felt that I was getting there. But in truth, I’m sure that if I got to that place, I would still see another mountain to climb. I feel that there’s always more to do."
Blues Legend Buddy Guy Re-Records His Classic 'Skin Deep' to Benefit Playing for Change
"You take a person down to the skeleton, down the bones — you can’t tell if they were black or white."
"[That's] something that I learned from Erykah Badu and Kendrick and Flying Lotus — how you have to be honest in the music. You can go anywhere you want with the music, but you have to be specific and true to yourself."
"I still actually have dreams about Bill," Gomez adds. "They're really very realistic ... Playing together, moments on the road, backstage or traveling somewhere. Those kind of surreal dreams. They're good dreams. They're good places that I was. I don't live in those moments, but they're definitely part of me and I do love them."
"There's a lady I credit with saving my life, a physical therapist. She helped me to basically be able to get up, to get out of bed, and once I was able to do that, I was able to draw. And then… this crazy obsession took over. I began to draw for 15, 20 hours at a time, for days on end. Eating in bed, peeing into a tube, and drawing. And drawing.”
The Overwhelming (and Overlooked) Darkness of Jinx Dawson and Coven
The circumstances that kept Coven from achieving the widespread fame of their contemporaries — or any of the groups that aped their look without the commitment — are easy to laugh at with the benefit of hindsight. But they have their fans, and though the Devil may not have helped Jinx take over the world, she's certainly been able to keep on keeping on, another faithful soldier in the army of darkness.
And then Scholz does something I never would have expected from a genius guitar virtuoso, home-recording pioneer and animal-rights activist: He cracks a dad joke. "That's something to chew on, if you're going to have a steak tonight."
Joan Rivers, who died on Thursday, was one of late-night television’s true pioneers. And inextricably tied to her legacy of trailblazing is her relationship with The Tonight Show, and the long shadow that Johnny Carson cast over her career.
"The great thing about our distillery is that you got the hard-headed old man that's not gonna change anything," Eddie continues, gesturing at his dad. "Then you've got me, who knows what he built and I'm not gonna change, but I've got some different thoughts."
For all the misery in the world, there’s also the strength derived from surviving emotional desolation and the joy of moving on. It’s the sadness in our lives that helps us to appreciate what’s good, and that’s why we need artists like Adele. Or at least someone like her.
On Chic being nominated 11 times prior at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame without being honored:
"I'm kinda proud of that! I come from the hippie days, the anti-authoritative thing. I'm a rebel. To be the biggest loser is kind of amazing ... If you can get nominated 12 times and not get honored, then I bow to you. Because that means that on some level, you're doing something right, but the essence of what you do is rubbing society the wrong way."
Do you remember the first time you heard "Hallelujah?" Was it in Shrek? Maybe on a reality-singing competition show? Maybe you just heard it from a street musician somewhere and thought, "That's a really nice song." It's safe to say at this point, though, that the majority of people who've been touched by the song didn't hear it from its writer, the late Leonard Cohen. Cohen's song — like Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" vis-a-vis Johnny Cash — has become one of those rare examples of a song completely outshining its author as it's made its way through pop culture.
"The first time that I heard real life artillery fire, when I was in Libya during the Arab Spring, I had flashbacks that I didn't know I was going to have," Hedayat explains to PEOPLE. "I remembered the sounds of war."
The song that made Pickett famous (three times over), "Monster Mash," spikes to 40 times its regular view and search volume on YouTube every Halloween, and with good reason. It is a uniquely ripe piece of American cheese, a novelty hit that stands among the best of a decade packed with them, and Pickett's life — and dogged attempts to keep grabbing the brass ring he glimpsed with the song — represent a uniquely American story.
"Just being in social situations, being around people … every little thing that you used alcohol as a crutch to get through — for me, pretty much everything — all of the sudden is there, again, but you don’t have that crutch anymore. So it was really frightening [at first]. I mean, I remember at one point, thinking, "I don't even know how to get on the phone and talk to someone without having at least a drink or two already." And then that was the realization of how bad it had really gotten: "Man, I can't even make a f—ing phone call without having a drink."
The song annually tops the list of most-streamed holiday songs and is officially the most-downloaded holiday single of all time, with 3.2 million downloads as of Dec. 3. According to Tech Times, it's also the 11th-highest selling single of all time and has earned more than $50 million for Carey and cowriter Walter Afanasieff. It is, bar none, the most enduring modern Christmas "standard" of our time, and I personally guarantee you're hearing it in your head right now. That is its power.
Chief Suhr agrees: "Talk about heroes, man. [People] talk about cops and firefighters being heroes for kids, but for Miles to go through what he went through..." He trails off. "They waited for his leukemia treatment to be finished so he'd have the strength for his day. That was my concern, I thought it'd be a lot for him, but they said, 'Are you kidding me?' And it’s true. Look at the picture of him. He's beaming. And he's still beaming."
"I had no intention, ever, of being in the music industry. I can't carry a tune, I played trumpet in high school and I was a ballet dancer — that was the extent of my musical talent. Before the music industry, I was a nutritionist for 20 years and I worked in television. I kind of bumped into the music industry; I met the owner of the label and we became friends and he and his business partner offered me a job and here I am, 11 years later."
Brooklyn's Liturgy is either redefining black metal or ruining it. As always, the truth is somewhere in between.
