Month: September 2025

The Starting Line Talk With Rolling Stone

The Starting Line
Jason Tate

The Starting Line caught up with Rolling Stone to talk about their new album:

I had held the first three records on some sort of pedestal because we were playing them so much and people obviously had an attachment to those songs. And so when I was telling [Tim] that I don’t know if people are gonna care, he just said, ‘I think that’s just insecurity talking.’ And he explained that if we did want to make a record, it would just be a higher likelihood of people getting to hear it in general. He said that even putting our efforts on a seven inch, you’re just minimising the chances of people being exposed to it. And that sounded very sensical to me. So, and as soon as he said the insecurity thing, it really was a perfect reverse psychology on me where I was like, ‘I’m not insecure. I’m better at songwriting now than I’ve ever been.’ And I do feel that in my heart of hearts.

Jack Antonoff Responds to Live Nation Head

Jack Antonoff
Jason Tate

Jack Antonoff responded to the head of Live Nation, Michael Rapino, who said on a recent earnings call that concert ticket prices were too cheap:

I always joke: Sports – it’s like a badge of honor to spend 70 grand for a Knicks courtside [seat]. They beat me up if we charge $800 for Beyonce, right? We have a lot of runway left. So when you read about the ticket prices going up, it’s still – average concert price is $72. Try going to a Laker game for that, and there’s 80 of them, or whatever the hell. So the concert is underpriced, has been for a long time.

Antonoff responded on Xitter:

answer is simple: selling a ticket for more than its face value should be illegal. then there is no chaos and you give us back the control instead of creating a bizarre free market of confusion amongst the audience who we love and care for.

Jason Tate
Jason Tate chr.us

Not including new bands, which have also had a nice run, this streak of Motion City Soundtrack, to The Starting Line, to Thrice, AFI, and then Yellowcard is pretty ridiculous. We’re spoiled and we deserve it given the state of everything else in the world right now.

This week’s wall picks. My current AOTY came! Plus, the perfect leading into October album, a new addition, and The Format.

Jason Tate Photo Blog

Recommendation: Cheap Charts

Apps
Jason Tate

Over the years I’ve been slowly adding to my digital movie collection. For films I love, I like to have them in 4K as part of my collection for easy rewatching. I’ve maintained a Plex server for years, but there are certain movies where I want the best quality, best sound, and don’t want to store them on a hard drive. (And yes, I know buying physical media would do this too, but Hannah may kill me if I buy more stuff to collect, she already puts up with my vinyl.) Like, I’ve seen Jaws so many times having it in 4K is just a no-brainer. However, who wants to spend more than they have to on this stuff? In this economy? Not me.

CheapCharts is an app I’ve been using for a while that helps. (App Store link.)

You go through, favorite the movies you want to watch, and it’ll let you know when the price drops. I’ve regularly found movies that were $19.99 go on sale for $4.99 and a few days later jump back to the regular price. I am not sure why, but I don’t really care.