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Axl Rose Announced as AC/DC Singer

Axl Rose
Jason Tate

Axl Rose will be taking over vocal duties for AC/DC on their tour.

AC/DC band members would like to thank Brian Johnson for his contributions and dedication to the band throughout the years. We wish him all the best with his hearing issues and future ventures. As much as we want this tour to end as it started, we understand, respect and support Brian’s decision to stop touring and save his hearing. We are dedicated to fulfilling the remainder of our touring commitments to everyone that has supported us over the years, and are fortunate that Axl Rose has kindly offered his support to help us fulfill this commitment. AC/DC will resume their Rock Or Bust World Tour with Axl Rose joining on vocals. The European stadium tour dates begin on May 7 in Lisbon, Portugal and run through June 12 in Aarhus, Denmark as previously announced (see below for full itinerary). Following this European run of dates with AC/DC, Axl Rose will head out on his Guns N Roses, Not In This Lifetime Summer Stadium Tour. The 10 postponed U.S shows will be rescheduled and announced imminently, also with Axl Rose.

Dustin Kensrue of Thrice Talks with Fuse

Thrice
Jason Tate

Thrice’s Dustin Kensrue spoke with Fuse about the band’s new album:

I can totally understand anyone being bummed out on their favorite band’s new song or something like that, that’s totally natural and we’ve all been there. But what’s super strange to me is someone going on that band’s website or whatever social media thing and telling them, “C’mon guys, you can do better” or, “This is horrible, why are you…?” I can’t even fathom doing that, personally, and I don’t know if it’s because I grew up right before you could just say whatever you wanted to whoever you wanted. Is it just because of the access, or is there something else going on? Would those people have always not had an understanding of what is kind or polite? It’s just odd. I get not liking it. I don’t get you coming on and bitching about it.

I don’t think fans should be worried.

Deadpool 2 is Confirmed

Deadpool
Jason Tate

Surprising basically no one after it took in a pile of money, Deadpool 2 has be confirmed.

During a panel at CinemaCon today, 20th Century Fox exec Stacey Snider confirmed that Ryan Reynolds and director Tim Miller would both be returning for Deadpool’s upcoming sequel. When news of the sequel arrived just after Deadpool was released earlier this year, it already seemed very likely that Reynolds and Miller would come back, but now it’s officially official. Snider also said that in addition to Miller, the entire creative team would be returning.

All dinosaurs feared the T-Rex!

Bands Who Bemoan Their ‘Teenage Girl’ Fans Are Missing the Point of Music

Jason Tate

Alexandra Pollard, writing for The Guardian, looks at the myth that a band needs to have male fans to gain credibility in the music scene. I enjoyed the entire piece, but this really stuck out to me:

As a reviews editor, I’ve lost count of the number of times writers have – while bemoaning a gig’s drawbacks – referred derisively to the amount of “teenage girls” in the crowd. It’s as if that phrase itself is a code that needs no further explanation, no elaboration as to why a young woman’s fully paid-up presence at the gig is, unquestionably, a bad thing. It isn’t. Their judgments are just as legitimate, their enthusiasm just as credible, even if their screams are a little louder. And if you think their taste is indiscriminate, you’d be wise to remember that for every One Direction, there’s a thousand other bands who tried and failed to gain even a fraction of their success.

I remember making comments just like that in the past and it was ridiculous and stupid. We talk a little bit more about looking back on our past selves and why we think the term “guilty pleasure” is outdated in this week’s podcast.

Netflix’s Plan to Conquer the World

Jason Tate

Brian Barrett, writing for Wired, with a behind the scenes look at Netflix:

The instant Daredevil premiered, Netflix greeted its users with eight header image variations of Matt Murdock and friends, shown to customers in eight identically sized chunks. Netflix immediately began tracking which top shots inspired the most streaming.

By now, those eight images will have given way to the best-performing two or three. After 35 days, one of those will become the default. The rest will vanish. This happens now for every Netflix original show. It’s survival of the clickest, all around the world.

James Cameron Working on Four Avatar Sequels

Jason Tate

James Cameron is apparently developing four Avatar sequels, the first coming Christmas of 2018.

The filmmaker discussed the many ways in which he is expanding the world — a theme park with Disney in in the works, and his company has signed a deal with Dark Horse Comics for graphic novel spin-offs — but the movies themselves are obviously the biggest component. The Avatar sequels have been a moving target since he first announced he was working on them, and Cameron has since assembled what amounts to a screenwriting superteam to break the story for the various films. As it stands, the second film in the series will be coming out in the holiday season of 2018, with the subsequent films arriving in 2020, 2022, and 2023.

Grimes Talks With Rolling Stone

Grimes
Jason Tate

Grimes talked with Rolling Stone about new music in the works, sexism in the music industry, and how rock music could work in 2016.

I personally really love [British bands] like Bring Me the Horizon and Foals. There’s definitely a future in rock, but it will probably be more fusion-oriented, like rock that uses 808s. Twenty One Pilots is kind of like that – it’s sort of rock, but the sound is hip-hop. You know all those songs on [the Smashing Pumpkins’] Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness that almost sound like Lorde or something? I feel like that vibe has not been explored.

Amazon Working on Bob Dylan TV Series

Bob Dylan
Jason Tate

Cynthia Littleton, writing for Variety, on a TV series in the work inspired by Bob Dylan songs:

Lionsgate TV is closing in on a deal with Amazon for an hourlong drama series inspired by characters and themes from Bob Dylan’s vast archive of songs.

“Time Out of Mind” will be spearheaded by writer-director Josh Wakely, who managed to secure the wide-ranging rights deal for Dylan’s song catalog. The project, which is in the early stage of development, will be produced through Wakely’s Sydney-based Grace production banner.

Noisey Talks With Latterman About Reunion

Latterman
Jason Tate

Dan Ozzi, writing for Noisey, talks with Latterman about their upcoming two reunion shows and catching up on what the members have been up to. It’s a great read.

Something I’ll experience so often on RVIVR tours is that people will come up to me and say, “I wish I saw Latterman!” And I’ll be like, “Yeah we played here.” And they’d be like, “Really? When?” And I’d say, “In 2001 at Trashcan Books.” And they’re like, “What’s that?” And I’m like, “I don’t know, the anarchist space?” And they’re like, “Oh that’s not around anymore. My older sister worked there, but I was ten years old.” RVIVR, in the beginning, we pissed a lot of people off. People were very, very angry at us about wanting to be inclusive of queer people, wanting to be inclusive of women, of trans people. To the point where people would come to RVIVR shows just to mess with us.

Lady Gaga’s Startup Backplane Selling Assets

Lady Gaga
Jason Tate

Josh Constine, writing for TechCrunch, on Lady Gaga’s startup, Backplane, selling its assets:

Founded in 2011, Backplane raised a Series A of $12.1 million in 2012 from the top venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. Sequoia, Google Ventures, Founders Fund, SV Angel, Greylock, Menlo Ventures, Formation 8 and Eric Schmidt’s TomorrowVentures all poured money in at around a $40 million valuation. That was despite basically just being a fan site for Lady Gaga with hopes of launching social networks for brands. It eventually raised $5 million more.

‘Nondescript Pop Punk Band Dropkicks a Girl Off Stage’

Jason Tate

Alex Young, writing for Consequence of Sound, after Parker Cannon of The Story So Far kicked a fan in the back over the weekend:

Over the weekend, the band’s desperation for relevancy reached a boiling point, as lead singer Cannon decided it would be super badass to dropkick a female in the back. The female fan had climbed onstage during the band’s encore, seemingly with the intention of taking a selfie, which is pretty douchy thing to do. But no where near as douchy as potentially paralyzing a person by kicking them in the spine so that they fall off stage. It’s the type of dumb shit one would do in high school — or, as member of a pop punk band whose target fanbase matured a decade ago.

And from Emma Garland, at Noisey:

The flippancy with which Cannon acts so aggressively towards a young female fan who is literally funding his excuse to be on stage in the first place – despite the fact that he spends every night shouting “think about who you let between your thighs” and “I know where you’ve been / You’re ruining men” into a mic – is fucking gross. Yes, taking selfies onstage is probably quite annoying, but as a grown ass adult it’s your responsibility to handle it A) reasonably and B) not like a piece of shit.

Warped Tour’s going be running a full-fledged university by the time all the classes needed to teach pop-punk bros how to be decent human beings are accounted for.

The Largest Ever Analysis of Film Dialogue by Gender

Film
Jason Tate

Hanah Anderson and Matt Daniels have put together the largest ever analysis of film dialog by gender: 2,000 scripts, 25,000 actors, 4 million lines.

But it’s all rhetoric and no data, which gets us nowhere in terms of having an informed discussion. How many movies are actually about men? What changes by genre, era, or box-office revenue? What circumstances generate more diversity?

To begin answering these questions, we Googled our way to 8,000 screenplays and matched each character’s lines to an actor. From there, we compiled the number of words spoken by male and female characters across roughly 2,000 films, arguably the largest undertaking of script analysis, ever.

You could spend hours exploring this page; incredible.

Jessica Brown Findlay Cast in Morrissey Biopic

Morrissey
Jason Tate

Ali Jaafar, writing for Deadline:

Downton Abbey star Jessica Brown Findlay has joined the cast of Steven, the Mark Gill-directed biopic of iconic British singer Morrissey. Findlay stars opposite Jack Lowden in the lead role of the movie that follows the character from his early life in the 1970s before he went on to become the lead singer in seminal 1980s band The Smiths. She will play Linder Sterling, an English visual artist, performance artist and musician from Liverpool who became a close friend of Morrissey.

Kanye West’s ‘The Life of Pablo’ Hits Number One

Kanye West
Jason Tate

Keith Caulfield, writing for Billboard, reports that Kanye Westʼs The Life of Pablo will debut at number one on the Billboard 200 charts.

The Life of Pablo is the first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 where the majority (70 percent, in fact) of its units were generated by streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Its 66,000 SEA units equates to just over 99 million U.S. streams for the album’s tracks in the week ending April 7. (Each SEA unit is equal to 1,500 streams from an album.)