Radiohead’s Thom Yorke will be featured on the live album, Pathway to Paris, being released next Wednesday, July 27th. More information can be found on their website.
Pathway to Paris Live Album
John Feldmann Discusses Producing Blink-182
MusicRadar has an interview with John Feldmann about producing Blink-182’s California that contains quite a bit of information I hadn’t heard before:
To me, the essential Blink sounds are the band’s instruments. Travis has a total custom kit that’s been built from scratch using some vintage parts and some modern parts that him and his tech Daniel built from the ground up. Besides being the best drummer that’s ever lived, his passion for the instrument is key to his sound.
“All of Mark’s basses are custom-built Fender’s made to his specifications. Jerry Finn actually suggested re-routing Mark’s pickups to flip them because of the way Mark plays – he has this really interesting downstroke.
Descendents Stream ‘Hypercaffium Spazzinate’
Descendents’ new album, Hypercaffium Spazzinate, can be streamed at NPR. The album comes out next week.
Tesla’s Master Plan, Part Deux
Elon Musk, writing at Tesla, has shared the second part of the company’s “master plan”:
By definition, we must at some point achieve a sustainable energy economy or we will run out of fossil fuels to burn and civilization will collapse. Given that we must get off fossil fuels anyway and that virtually all scientists agree that dramatically increasing atmospheric and oceanic carbon levels is insane, the faster we achieve sustainability, the better.
Here is what we plan to do to make that day come sooner:
Musk aims high and then raises his own bar. Call it crazy, call it a pipe dream, but I still find his ambition nothing short of inspirational.
Breaking Down the (Fake) Team’s Decisions in ‘Draft Day’
If you’ve listened to more than a handful of episodes of Encore you’ve heard me rant about the movie Draft Day at one point or another. Riley McAtee, at The Ringer, breaks down the trades in that abomination of a movie and there’s just no way I can’t share this:
But the Browns’ owner (a how-did-I-get-here Frank Langella) wants Weaver to make a splash in the draft, and he’s infatuated with Bo Callahan, a quarterback widely expected to go no. 1 overall. And why wouldn’t he want him? A linebacker or a running back can’t SAVE FOOTBALL IN CLEVELAND. So when Seahawks GM Tom Michaels (Patrick St. Esprit) lays out a deal that would give Cleveland the no. 1 pick, it’s Weaver’s chance to … you guessed it: SAVE FOOTBALL IN CLEVELAND. By the end of the movie, Weaver’s made three deals and numerous other decisions. But did he SAVE FOOTBALL IN CLEVELAND? Let’s grade every major draft-related decision in the movie to find out:
This movie is worth watching just to prop up your local liquor store’s monthly take.
Unilever Buys Dollar Shave Club
Unilever purchased the Dollar Shave Club for $1 billion. Ben Thompson, writing at Stratechery, has a really good analysis of the purchase and how it fits with the disruptive power of the internet:
Probably the most important fact when it comes to analyzing Unilever’s purchase of Dollar Shave Club is the $1 billion price: in the world of consumer packaged goods (CPG) it is shockingly low. After all, only eleven years ago Procter & Gamble (P&G) bought Gillette, the market leader in shaving, for a staggering $57 billion.
To be sure Gillette is still dominant — the brand controls 70 percent of the global blades and razors market — but there is little question that Dollar Shave Club is a much better deal, in every sense of the word.
The Set Listener Creates Playlists From Set Lists
The Set Listener is a pretty cool web-app that lets you enter any Setlist.fm URL into it and it’ll create a Spotify playlist from the songs. Clever.
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Twitter Just Permanently Suspended Milo Yiannopoulos
Charlie Warzel, at Buzzfeed:
According to Twitter, it was Yiannopoulos who led the harassment campaign against Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones that inspired the SNL cast member’s decision to leave Twitter. The tweets, many of which targeted Jones for being black and a woman, were the final straw for Twitter, which is taking steps to try to solve its harassment problem.
About-fucking-time.
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Third Eye Blind Headline Charity Event During RNC
Third Eye Blind are playing a private charity event at the Republican National Convention:
Third Eye Blind will be the headline performing act at the charity benefit for Musicians On Call (MOC), a nonprofit that brings live and recorded music to the bedsides of patients in healthcare facilities, at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
In 2012 lead singer Stephan Jenkins penned an op-ed for the Huffington Post explaining why they had turned down playing a similar event:
Even the private party my band was asked to play at the RNC is not some innocuous event. Though I am happy to play for Republican fans, like my life-long Republican mom, playing the RNC convention is a tacit endorsement of the Republican presidential candidate and his party platform, and this is not my mom’s Republican Party anymore.
Reading through Jenkins’s Twitter feed makes me think this is the last place he would want to be playing. Now I’m curious what they’re going to say on stage.
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Taking Back Sunday Threaten Military Campaign to Take Back Rest of Week
Steven Kowalski, throwing down the satire at The Hard Times:
Lazzara, sitting on his throne high atop his Sunday Fortress, looked out upon a crippled, unassuming week. “People think I’m going to take back Monday first,” Lazzara said to his legion of fans, “But no! We’re taking back Tuesday from the people that took it from us. Once we take back Tuesday, we can attack the rest of the week from both ends.”
The True Size of Things
The True Size Of … is an interactive map that lets you drag around different countries to see how they fit and what their relative size is to other countries. The different ways we can visualize our world in 2D has always fascinated me.
Twitter Opens Up Verification Requests
Nick Statt, writing at The Verge, on Twitter’s new program that will allow anyone to request a verified account:
Starting today, the company will let users request a verified account on its website by filling out a form with a verified phone number and email address, a profile photo, and additional information regarding why verification is required or helpful. In defining who will get approved, Twitter says “an account may be verified if it is determined to be of public interest.”
Until Twitter can get their harassment problem under some kind of control, I see all of their other announcements through that frustrating lens. Even when they’re things I think they should be doing and could be great for the company.
The Postal Service Re-Pressing
The Postal Service’s Give Up has been given a limited vinyl re-pressing by Newbury Comics.
The Surprisingly Interesting Story Behind the Filet-O-Fish
Karl Smallwood, at Today I Found Out:
According to McDonald’s executives, approximately 23% of the Filet-O-Fish sandwiches sold by the chain each year are sold during Lent. While the exact rules vary somewhat from region to region, in general, Catholics traditionally abstain from eating most meats on Fridays and Saturdays during this period. In some regions, the requirement is even that members of the Church avoid non-seafood meat on every single Friday of the year.
‘Stranger Things’ Soundtrack
The new Netflix series Stranger Things is one of the best things I’ve watched in quite a while. The binge is strong with this one. It has a great 80’s throwback feel that brings forth memories of Spielberg, Stephen King, and finishes it off with a really great soundtrack (and score). What’s On Netflix has compiled a list of the songs that appear throughout the show and created a Spotify playlist for your listening pleasure.