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Behind the Pebble Core

Kickstarter
Jason Tate

Steven Levy, writing for Blackchannel, on the new device from Pebble called the “Pebble Core.” It’s basically a little keychain sized device that can stream music from Spotify.

Today, Pebble is launching Kickstarter campaigns for three products. Only two of them are smart watches. It’s the third product that will garner the most attention. It’s a Pebble that’s not a watch. It is optimized for a single task: taking a run. It’s a white plastic and black rubber block, a little thicker than a mahjong tile, with an orange clasp that grasps a keyring. It plays music, has GPS and other sensors that can track activity, and a 3G cellular modem that allows it to work even if your phone isn’t on you.

Comixology Unlimited

Comic Books
Jason Tate

Comixology has unveiled a new “unlimited” package for their comic book reading app, Six Colors has a good run down on what this means:

The idea of Comixology Unlimited is exactly what you’d expect: for a monthly fee—in this case, $6—you get access to a library of titles that you can read at your leisure. Unlike Marvel’s offering, there are a lot of different publishers here, such as heavy hitters like Image and Dark Horse, and other popular houses like Dynamite, Oni Press, IDW, Valiant, Fantagraphics, and way, way more. Not present, though are titles from Marvel, obviously, or from its chief rival, DC. That leaves the home of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman as the remaining major publisher not to offer a subscription service.

Mariel From Candy Hearts Details Abuse From Tour Manager

Candy Hearts
Jason Tate

Mariel from Candy Hearts has posted a blog alleging she was physically assaulted and emotionally abused by Seaway’s tour manager.

Here’s the thing: It is never, ever, okay to lay a finger on another person, even if they’re a girl infiltrating your little circle of fun-loving bro-dudes at a pop punk show. I don’t care if no one believes me, but I can’t live with this weighing on my chest anymore. It’s been almost a year and it haunts me. Every single day I wake up and remember he told me no one is going to believe me, how I was just a crazy girl who’s band was terrible and he was going to make sure he ruined my career. Have fun on your last tour as a band, he said. So I kept quiet. I keep quiet because every day I see another band I love repping Seaway, and I’m afraid. I’m afraid and feel isolated.

These stories keep coming out and it’s not going to stop unless we, all of us, decide it’s time that it stops. Right now there is no accountability in our music scene — bad things happen and the people that do them see little, if any, repercussions. They still make music. They remain employed and on tour. They are given countless chances and everyone looks the other way. Demand better.

Drake Tops Charts, Pierce the Veil at Number Four

Jason Tate

Drake’s Views is once again the number one album this week. Beyoncé was number two, Meghan Trainor came in at three, and Pierce the Veil are number four.

Rock band Pierce the Veil claims its highest charting album ever, and best sales week yet, as Misadventures bows at No. 4 with 54,000 units (50,000 in traditional album sales). The group’s previous largest week came when its last album, 2012’s Collide With the Sky, launched at No. 12 with 27,000 sold.

Chewbacca Talking Masks Selling Out Everywhere

Jason Tate

Brad Esposito, writing for Buzzfeed, on how the famous Chewbacca talking masks are now selling out all over the place. I want one.

The mask is now out of stock at Target, Walmart, Toys R Us, and Kohl’s, meaning you’ll have to turn to eBay if you’re desperate, where prices continue to rocket well beyond the original $20 to $30. In less than two days, more than 100 million people have watched a video of Texas mom Candace Payne trying on a Chewbacca mask in her car and laughing hysterically.

Are Mis-Gendered Band Names ‘Ironic’ or Sexist?

Jason Tate

Kayleigh Hughes, writing for The Establishment, on the topic of mis-gendered band names:

Women and nonbinary people are desperate to see ourselves in, well, any kind of pop culture. We’ve created organizations around the world such as Girls Rock Austin, Gender Amplified, and Girls Inc to try to work toward a future where seeing women making music, working in tech, appearing onscreen, or working behind the scenes is normalized and not othered. So, when members of dominant cultural groups take terms used to describe us or our bodies, such as “girls” or “pussy,” this works against that goal by pushing us out of even lingual spaces. Even our words aren’t ours anymore; they’re being snatched back and reappropriated by those who already have so much.

If you’re thinking, “oh god another think piece,” I would beg you to reconsider and give this a full read, it’s well researched and well argued.

The New Scrabble Strategy

The Wall Street Journal
Jason Tate

The Wall Street Journal, with an interesting article about how Nigeria is changing the strategy of Scrabble:

Nigeria is beating the West at its own word game, using a strategy that sounds like Scrabble sacrilege. By relentlessly studying short words, this country of 500 languages has risen to dominate English’s top lexical contest.

Last November, for the final of Scrabble’s 32-round World Championship in Australia, Nigeria’s winningest wordsmith, Wellington Jighere, defeated Britain’s Lewis Mackay, in a victory that led morning news broadcasts in his homeland half a world away.

I’m always fascinated by new ways of thinking and strategizing at games that seem to have had the same techniques for years.

DC Comics Debuts New Logo/Identity

DC Comics
Jason Tate

We’re not the only ones getting a new logo, DC Comics debuted their new identity this week as well:

“While comics continue to be the heart and soul of DC, the brand has evolved to now stand for powerful storytelling across so many different forms of media. DC is home to the greatest Super Heroes and Super-Villains, and the new logo has the character and strength to stand proudly alongside DC’s iconic symbols,” stated Amit Desai, DC Entertainment Senior Vice President of Marketing and Global Franchise Management.

If you squint, it kinda looks like Spider-Man or Deadpool … not DC characters. But other than that, it’s not bad.

Reports: Daniel Craig Done With James Bond

James Bond
Jason Tate

Rehema Figueiredo, reporting for The Daily Mail that Daniel Craig is done with James Bond:

One LA film source said: ‘Daniel is done — pure and simple — he told top brass at MGM after Spectre. They threw huge amounts of money at him, but it just wasn’t what he wanted.’ He added: ‘He had told people after shooting that this would be his final outing, but the film company still felt he could come around after Spectre if he was offered a money deal.’

Oddsmakers have Tom Hiddleston has the frontrunner to replace Craig.

An Update from Bandcamp

Bandcamp
Jason Tate

Bandcamp founder, Ethan Diamond, has posted an update on the status of the music service:

Bandcamp grew by 35% last year. Fans pay artists $4.3 million dollars every month using the site, and they buy about 25,000 records a day, which works out to about one every 4 seconds (you can see a real-time feed of those purchases on our desktop home page). Nearly 6 million fans have bought music through Bandcamp (half of whom are younger than 30), and hundreds of thousands of artists have sold music on Bandcamp. Digital album sales on Bandcamp grew 14% in 2015 while dropping 3% industry-wide, track sales grew 11% while dropping 13% industry-wide, vinyl was up 40%, cassettes 49%… even CD sales grew 10% (down 11% industry-wide). Most importantly of all, Bandcamp has been profitable (in the now-quaint revenues-exceed-expenses sense) since 2012.

An area I’d like to see Bandcamp expand into: podcasts.

Taylor Swift’s Impact on Jimmy Eat World

Taylor Swift
Jason Tate

Billboard looked at what kind of bump Jimmy Eat World got from the Taylor Swift Apple Music ad.

For their second act, Swift queued up Jimmy Eat World’s hit “The Middle,” (No. 5 on the Hot 100 and No. 1 Alternative Songs in 2002) a track on her “Getting Ready to Go Out” playlist that, she says, she “used to listen to in middle school.” The tune’s bump was even larger than “Jumpman”: between the week before the ad’s April 18 debut and the week after, “The Middle” soared 298 percent in sales and 49 percent in U.S. streams (from 3,000 downloads sold to 12,000; from 614,000 clicks to 916,000) and led to a surprise appearance on Billboard’s Hot Rock Songs chart at No. 16.

In a Room With Radiohead

Radiohead
Jason Tate

Adam Thorpe, writing for Times Literary Supplement, after visiting Radiohead while they recorded their recent album:

This is all layers as well, a millefeuille of epochs and moments, and seems perfectly attuned to Radiohead’s methods. We wander out into the grounds: tree-surrounded lawns, large swimming pool, further courtyards and barns, decayed cottages and a softly roaring mill-race. In one of the larger granges, numerous canvases display abstract explosions of colour. The barn’s speakers are wired up to the recording studios: the band’s resident artist Stanley Donwood reacts in acrylic to what he hears, the results to be modified and manipulated on computer for the LP’s cover.

Ariana Grande’s Billboard Cover

Ariana Grande
Jason Tate

Chris Martins profiles Ariana Grande for Billboard:

As a matter of fact, Grande appears on the cover of Dangerous Woman in shiny black headgear with long ears. It looks like it was designed for American Horror Story by the cartoonists at Warner Bros. The Super Bunny “is my superhero, or supervillain — whatever I’m feeling on the day,” says Grande. “Whenever I doubt myself or question choices I know in my gut are right — because other people are telling me other things — I’m like, ‘What would that bad bitch Super Bunny do?’ She helps me call the shots.”

Her new album is straight up great.