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25 Years of iPod Brain

Jason Tate

Molly Mary O’Brien, writing about the iPod:

I was imputed upon. The first song I played on my iPod was “Anthem Part 2” by Blink-182. It was a favorite song from middle school, and it felt right to begin with a sentimental choice. But it wasn’t long before I was approaching mp3 collecting with an almost deranged reverence for eclecticism. I needed to max out the hardware’s potential. I needed representation from as many genres as possible. Some of this desire came from the UX itself—when I used my thumb to rotate the pale gray click wheel, I felt a strong desire to scroll through a long list of artists, with each letter of the alphabet represented many times over. So Blink-182 got nestled between Black Sabbath and Bloc Party, followed by Billy Joel and Blonde Redhead. 

Some days I really miss the iPod. The simplicity of it. Heading out for a walk with just music, no social media, no communication apps, just some headphones and an empty road.

And when music is pulled from Apple Music … even more so.

The Format on Surviving the Pandemic and Hoping for the Best

The Format
Jason Tate

The Format talked with the Last Donut of the Night newsletter:

Nate: It’s tough, and this harkens back to our conversation about how America is eventually going to burn down, and that’s when new and good stuff will start up. As far as bands, Sam has his ear to the streets way more than I do. But I’m encouraged now more than ever—and I sound like a fucking old guy—but I just like seeing guitars. If that’s not your thing, cool. I’m fine with that. But I remember the community that we had as pop-punk kids growing up in Phoenix, going to see shows, and what that meant to my life. I wouldn’t be here without any of that, and I couldn’t be happier with where I ended up in my own personal life—and those formative years of going to see bands played such a huge part.

MC Lars Launches ‘The Graduate’ Kickstarter

Kickstarter
Jason Tate

MC Lars has launched a Kickstarter for a vinyl pressing of The Graduate.

The record came out of a specific moment: early Myspace, the height of the RIAA lawsuits, cheap laptops, long van drives. I was making what I called “post-punk laptop rap” in bedrooms and studios from Oxford to Long Island to San Francisco, trying to connect literature, punk energy, and hip-hop in a way that felt natural.

A Wilhelm Scream Talk New Album

Jason Tate

A Wilhelm Scream talked with New Noise Magazine about their new album.

Usually, I know that I’m done with a song when I feel like it’s gotten as close as it can to the idea’s potential. That’s good, but also bad. You can spend 12 years writing an album, because every song has to be the best song that’s ever been written. Once I let go of (perfection), the songs came out so much cooler—more me, in terms of just spitting insults nonstop in a song. It’s like 90s rap beef. That was our biggest fucking influence (back in the day), before they called it hip hop! The writing boot camps came into play because everybody’s busy. Like, Nuno has a job and a family! So to be able to dedicate the time and focus that it takes, Ben had the idea, “Hey, let’s go out to the desert.” 

Read More “A Wilhelm Scream Talk New Album”

American Football Talks With GQ

American Football
Jason Tate

American Football were featured in the latest issue of GQ.

The “this” is the extraordinary and uncanny story of American Football, who became one of this century’s most influential rock bands in part because they no longer existed. In the weeks after Polyvinyl released the band’s album in September 1999, 21 college radio stations added its tracks to rotation—very respectable, Lunsford remembers, given that the expectations were essentially nil. But as the album seeped onto file-sharing services like Napster and Limewire, the kids who first downloaded it often bought a copy themselves. I worked in a college-town record store right as LP1 entered that growth curve, and I must have slipped hundreds of CD copies into Schoolkids Records paper bags before I finally listened and bought one myself.

Read More “American Football Talks With GQ”

AI Music Producer Joining Google

AI
Jason Tate

The Verge:

ProducerAI, an AI-powered music-making platform, is joining Google. As part of the deal, Google will fold ProducerAI under the Labs umbrella and power the tool with a preview version of its new Lyria 3 music-making AI model.

ProducerAI is a music-making platform that allows users to work with an AI agent to generate sounds, workshop lyrics, remix songs, and even create new instruments based on a prompt.

Less Than Jake Talk Lyrics With RockSound

Less Than Jake
Jason Tate

Chris DeMakes talked with RockSound:

We all grew up loving metal, and it wasn’t a schtick with us. We were always very proud of that. It was a play on words about how we judge each other, though. You don’t know what’s going on in someone else’s head, and you don’t know what they’re feeling. Someone may put all their faith in religion, and that might work for them even if it doesn’t work for the next person. Someone may only listen to disco or rap music, but does that make them any less? Often, we don’t take the time to discover what people are all about. They might be wearing different clothes to you or giving you a funny look, but have you tried to discover what they’re about?

Good Charlotte Talk With Remix

Good Charlotte
Jason Tate

Good Charlotte talked with Remix Magazine:

Motel Du Cap gives a glimpse of who we are today. When you come to the show, you’ll still get all the nostalgia—the old songs, the memories— but everything sounds bigger, tighter, and better than ever. There’s something powerful about revisiting that history from where we stand now. We’re playing the best shows of our lives—and for a lot of fans, it’s their first time seeing us live. That’s been really special. This record reflects that energy. We don’t care if it’s our biggest record; it’s just a cool little personal piece of us that we’re proud to share.

Sean Mackin Talks With Blunt Magazine

Yellowcard
Jason Tate

Sean Mackin of Yellowcard recently talked with Blunt Magazine:

That confrontation with mortality brought focus, “You’re like, okay, really it could happen at any time, like, let’s make the best of it.” For him, that means being present. “I want to be the best dad, I want to be a great friend, I want to be a great violinist performer. I want to be a good husband.”

New Found Glory Featured on Rock Sound

New Found Glory
Jason Tate

New Found Glory are featured on the latest Rock Sound “Album Story” feature.

When the decision was made to work on a new record, the main thing that Jordan and Chad knew was that they wanted to take their time with it. Looking back to how they had made 2020’s ‘Forever + Ever x Infinity’, a record that they admit got a bit lost in the chaos of COVID, they realised that the experience had been defined by simply trying to get it over the line rather than making sure what they had made sense for where they were. When it came to ‘Listen Up!’, it became more about making sure they trimmed the fat and focused on what was important.

New Jack Antonoff Profile

Jack Antonoff
Jason Tate

Jack Antonoff was featured in a new profile with ID:

Still, even inadvertently, I’ll discover by the end of our conversation one aspect of that “magic.” The new Bleachers album is laced with references to Qualley, and when I ask what married life has given him (a sense of security, perhaps?) Antonoff gently turns the question back on me, the way he might in a studio, luring a song out of someone else. 

New Found Glory Talk to V13

New Found Glory
Jason Tate

New Found Glory talked with V13 about their new album, and touched on some other interesting topics:

“I don’t really know. We’ve been a band for so long, and we’re going to get our catalog back. How Taylor Swift rerecorded her albums, I’d never want to mess with anything like that, but I thought it could be fun, instead of rushing into a new album, to rerecord Coming Home in a heavier, New Found Glory style. That record always caused debate. It was either a fan’s favorite or their least favorite. So I thought it could be fun to make fans argue again, do they like the punker version of Coming Home or the piano version?

When we play those songs live, they come out heavier because we’re using our normal gear. So that could be a fun thing to do. But as far as 30 years, I honestly forgot it was coming up. It’s pretty crazy. We still have to release this record, and life takes you where it takes you.”

Reminiscing on ‘Borders and Boundaries’

Jason Tate

Chris DeMakes of Less Than Jake talks about Borders and Boundaries:

“I’m impressed with how well [‘Borders and Boundaries’] has held up. We recorded that record with a guy named Steve Kravac, and Steve had done some mixes right when we got done with the record. And we, weren’t happy with all of them. We had asked Bill… that was the first time we ever worked with Bill from Blasting Room. We asked Bill Stevenson to mix it. Him and Steph the guitar player from Descendants, they mixed the album. Our horn section, they were taking lessons from this well-renowned horn player. I think if they had to drive to a college at a university and they would go sit with him for like an hour a week, an hour or two, and they would learn. Their chops were just really up, the horn sounded good. Rog and I were singing really well at this point. It holds up. I’m proud of it. There’s other records at our catalogue that I don’t feel that way about. So I’m proud for that reason.”

Wasserman to Sell Agency

Legal
Jason Tate

Casey Wasserman will sell his talent agency following an exodus of artists due to his ties to Epstein.

Casey Wasserman has announced plans to sell his talent agency, the Wasserman Group, after an increasing number of clients began cutting ties following his name’s appearance in the latest batch of Epstein-related documents.

“At this moment, I believe that I have become a distraction,” Wasserman wrote in a memo sent to his company late Friday night. “That is why I have begun the process of selling the company.”

Josh Freese Profiled for Modern Drummer

Drums
Jason Tate

Drummer Josh Freese is featured in the latest of Modern Drummer. Consequence has some of it on their website:

“The Foo Fighters are such a big, mainstream band that everything I say gets taken out of context, reposted, and blown out of proportion,” said Freese. “People created headlines from one quick, simple comment I made on a podcast not long ago, it’s crazy. I’ve got to be careful about what I say about it. But I’ve got a lot to say about it and I’ve been just trying to figure out how and when, to go about really articulating it.”

He added, “I have a couple small theories, but I can’t really go into them right now. I did really enjoy the two years I spent with those guys however, and they were good to me… until they weren’t. I liked playing with them. And I loved having Dave [Grohl] as a bandleader. I truly respect him so much as a drummer first and foremost. To me, he’s a drummer first and everything else is second. I’ve listened to him on all the great records he’s played drums on more than I’ve listened to any Foo Fighters stuff. It really was cool being in a band where the leader is a phenomenal drummer that you respect… that’s really fun… We basically came from the same era too and could relate to one another.”