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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.”

Spotify Goes All in on AI Coding

Jason Tate

Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch:

Has AI coding reached a tipping point? That seems to be the case for Spotify at least, which shared this week during its fourth-quarter earnings call that the best developers at the company “have not written a single line of code since December.” That statement, from Spotify co-CEO Gustav Söderström, came alongside other comments about how the company is using AI to accelerate development.

New Frank Turner Interview

Frank Turner
Jason Tate

Frank Turner recently say down with PunkNews:

At the actual start of my solo career I really didn’t fit anywhere: I didn’t really want to be the token acoustic guy in the British punk scene. At the time all of my friends were part of the kind of Libertines thing, bands like the Holloways and the Pidgeon Detectors. And then there was the folk thing with Munford & Sons and Laura Marlin. I was on the edge of three different scenes: I did shows with Munford & Sons, with Gallows, with Baby Shambles but I didn’t quite fit in any of these worlds. There were days when that was pretty frustrating to me because, if you fit in a certain scene and that scene blows up, life is easy. For a time anyway. I remember Jamie T, who was a good friend of mine, we played open mic shows together and then he just exploded while I stayed small. 

Hayley Williams Pens New Essay

Hayley Williams
Jason Tate

Hayley Williams has written a new essay on her blog:

in 2026, Trump, our president once more, still shits his suits and lies through his teeth about everything. in 2026, Project 2025 is 51% complete and we’re now talking about a Project 2026. ICE (fuck em), Epstein (fuck em), cities who mismanage and put profits over people (fuck em) , multiple genocides (FUCKKKK em)— only a few of the huge issues dominating the news cycle and our collective minds. it’s an exhausting time to just be human, especially if you are a human on the side of liberty and justice for ALL.

the career i’ve chosen allows me to engage with a lot of people directly, through art and through live events. this year, i’ll be even more outside than i was last year, seeing the world over, up close. i still feel very lucky that, as someone who struggles dearly with my mind and a hyper-vigilant nervous system, i get to spend a lot of time together with the people in some capacity. i get to partake in the much needed catharsis live music offers us and to connect with other humans. it’s kind of the only way i see myself staying remotely hopeful in the face of… everything.

New Found Glory’s Kerrang! Interview

New Found Glory
Jason Tate

New Found Glory sat down with Kerrang!:

“They’re caring about me and they want to know how I am,” rationalises Chad, “But my answer is only ever two things: I’m dying or I’m doing good. What I was finding over the past two or three years is there’s a way of talking through the suffering that keeps them in the negative headspace. 

“You want someone to ask if you’ve seen the latest TV show, like Welcome To Derry, and to tell you it’s awesome. I’d rather someone just talk to me like that, like a normal person. There are people in my life that have struggled with what I’m going through more than me. That puts a stress on me where I’m like, ‘I’m having a good day, and you brought it to a place that I don’t want to be in.’ So that’s what [You Got This] is about. It’s saying thank you for caring, but don’t use this as a tool for connection for yourself.”

Bringing The Format Back to Life

The Format
Jason Tate

The Format talked with The Aquarian:

Nate: I’ve always been a psychopath about sequence. For me it’s [about] the final song. In the past we’ve maybe got a little prog about it. Any album I do, it’s always about the first song and the last song, and what happens in between. The first song tees you up. The last song sends you away. This is the exact same way. It just feels like a very cohesive album stylistically. It does allow the songs to flow together nicely.

Spotify Launch “About the Song” Feature

Jason Tate

Aisha Malik, writing for TechCrunch:

Spotify is rolling out a new “About the Song” feature that lets users explore the stories behind the music they’re listening to, the company announced on Friday. The feature displays short story cards that users can swipe through and rate with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

These short, swipeable stories are summarized from third-party sources to highlight interesting details and behind-the-scenes moments, the company says.

Motion City Soundtrack Stand Up Against Ice in Their City

Motion City Soundtrack
Jason Tate

Motion City Soundtrack talk with Rolling Stone about ICE taking over their hometown:

Pierre: It becomes really real when it does happen in your city, or in my case at my kid’s school. I was told that ICE agents showed up at the elementary school one day and got out of their vehicles. They didn’t do anything but they were walking around the school with their guns in the air, and then left. All the kids ran to the window and saw that, and they were scared out of their minds. They’re weaponizing children and they’re terrorizing them and traumatizing them.

Cain: It felt real in a different way, like when the pandemic started and you had that deep pit in your stomach. I started seeing friends of mine filming atrocities, like literal crimes on the streets and watched the way the people that are supposed to be in authority show who they are. I mean, not even the military rolls around without name tags on. What the fuck is this? It felt like we were being attacked.

Red Hot Chili Peppers Documentary Coming to Netflix

Red Hot Chili Peppers
Jason Tate

Variety:

Netflix is spicing up its documentary slate with a new film about the Red Hot Chili Peppers, set to premiere on March 20.

Directed by Ben Feldman (“Bug Out,” “Rich & Shameless”), “The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers” examines the gritty, formative years of the Los Angeles band, and the influence of original guitarist Hillel Slovak, who died in 1988. The film features interviews with bandmates Flea and Anthony Kiedis, as well as others who were close to Slovak, who discuss the band’s early evolution and the deep bond of their childhood friendship.

The Format Talk With The Washington Post

The Format
Jason Tate

The Format talked with The Washington Post:

Even though the songs were piling up, Ruess wasn’t sure if he wanted to release any of them. He called up his old partner Means for a gut check, and they spent a few days hanging out in Santa Barbara, listening to his demos, adding a bridge when a song needed it. “I didn’t know what it was, but I was just happy to be there,” Means says.

At first, Means thought he was helping out on a Nate Ruess solo record. But they eventuallydecided it was a Format album, and Ruess called in prolificalt-rock producer Brendan O’Brien.

It was going to be a rock album, full stop. No pianos. Roaring electric guitars. In the same vein as the albums O’Brien produced for Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen. O’Brien wasn’t entirely convinced, but he loved the demos. “I actually told him you cannot help but write pop songs,” O’Brien says. “This is what you do. You understand that, right?”

Checking in on the Literal Dumpster Fire Platform

Twitter
Jason Tate

The New York Times:

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, created and then publicly shared at least 1.8 million sexualized images of women, according to separate estimates of X data by The New York Times and the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

Starting in late December, users on the social media platform inundated the chatbot’s X account with requests to alter real photos of women and children to remove their clothes, put them in bikinis and pose them in sexual positions, prompting a global outcry from victims and regulators.

In just nine days, Grok posted more than 4.4 million images. A review by The Times conservatively estimated that at least 41 percent of posts, or 1.8 million, most likely contained sexualized imagery of women. A broader analysis by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, using a statistical model, estimated that 65 percent, or just over three million, contained sexualized imagery of men, women or children.