Claudio and Chondra Sanchez Release EP

Chonny and Clyde
Jason Tate

Claudio from Coheed And Cambria and his wife, Chondra Echert Sanchez, have teamed up to release a new EP called Celisti. They recently sat down with PopWrapped to talk about the process:

We had been sitting on these songs and dabbling with a few more that we’ve been working on and we asked ourselves, “What do we do with these? What is the project? Is it a full-length album, an EP?” And then this event happened on the end of all of these horrible events. We had the earthquake in Mexico, the impending storms in Houston and Florida, all of these things. It just felt like people had been financially tapped out from trying to help these disasters because there were so many. These things happened at a time when Puerto Rico needed as much relief as they could possibly get. For us, there’s a heritage piece — Claudio’s father is from Bayamón and has family down there. Bigger than that, we wanted to figure out how to help a cause that desperately needs help.

The EP can be purchased on Bandcamp and proceeds will go to hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico.

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ACLU Defending Blogger From Defamation Claim by Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift
Jason Tate

The ACLU is defending a blogger from a defamation claim by Taylor Swift. From today’s press release:

On Sep. 5, PopFront editor Meghan Herning wrote a post titled “Swiftly to the alt-right: Taylor subtly gets the lower case kkk in formation.” The post is a mix of political speech and critical commentary, and discusses the resurgence of white supremacy and the fact that some white supremacists have embraced Swift. It also provides a critical interpretation of some of Swift’s music, lyrics, and videos. The post ends by calling on Swift to personally denounce white supremacy, saying “silence in the face of injustice means support for the oppressor.”

On Oct. 25, Herning received an intimidating letter from Swift and her attorney labeling the blog post as defamatory and demanding that she issue a retraction, remove the story from all media sources, and cease and desist. The letter threatened a lawsuit.

Seems like a lot of money to pay lawyers instead of just saying “white supremacy is really fucking bad.”

Bikini Kill Reunite for One Song

Bikini Kill
Jason Tate

Bikini Kill reunited last night for the first live performance in 20 years. They played one song at the release party for Jenn Pelly’s new 33 1/3 book about The Raincoats’ self-titled album. Pitchfork reports:

Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, and Kathleen Hanna took the stage to perform “For Tammy Rae.” It was the first time the band had taken the stage together since they broke up in 1997. (Pelly says she had “no idea” this was going to happen; the night was put together by The Kitchen and Raincoats collaborator Shirley O’Loughlin.)

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Morrissey Cancels Show

Morrissey
Jason Tate

Morrissey canceled an outdoor show in California over the weekend because the on stage heater broke and it was too cold.

I’m wondering if “Morrissey cancels” are the two words I’ve typed together the most often over the course of writing about music. Probably.

Arcade Fire Reportedly Playing to Smaller Crowds Than Expected

Arcade Fire
Jason Tate

The Globe and Mail are reporting that Arcade Fire are having trouble filling arenas on their current tour:

Blame it on the new album or the marketing campaign for it, or on ticket prices and the popularity of rock music in 2017. Whatever the case, Arcade Fire is struggling to fill arenas on its North American tour.

Just 4,263 fans showed up for the Canadian band’s Quebec City show, 4,004 in Tampa, 5,614 in Austin, Tex., and 5,051 in Dallas, Billboard and Pollstar boxscore figures show. All of the venues have a capacity to seat roughly 10,000 to 20,000 people.