Anti-Flag May Have a New Album Out This Year

Anti-Flag
Jason Tate

Anti-Flag sat down to talk with Billboard:

Sane not surprisingly predicts Anti-Flag’s next album “could end up sounding like a more angry record, maybe than we would’ve originally intended to make,” but nothing’s in stone yet. “Ultimately I just want to make the best record we can,” he says. “I think that for as much as the politics about all this are going to matter, writing the best songs we can and playing music is something that helps me keep my sanity — even when we’re doing songs that are political in nature and about difficult problems. So we want the music to be good, not just angry.” He’s hoping for a fall release, but Sane also doesn’t want to rush into topical commentary without giving issues some time to develop.

Chris Cheney & Phil Jamieson Will Star in the Aussie Run of ‘American Idiot’ Musical

The Living End
Jason Tate

Chris Cheney of The Living End and Phil Jamieson of Grinspoon will be playing the lead cast members in the Australian run of the American Idiot musical.

The Aussie rockers will both take on the role of St Jimmy in the Brisbane shows, a role Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong performed on occasion throughout the musical’s North American run. Cheney will play the role from February 23rd to 26th and Jamieson will take over from February 28th.

Review: Natalie Hemby – Puxico

Natalie Hemby
Craig Manning

In the summer of 2015, when I put Chris Stapleton on the last-ever incarnation of AbsolutePunk.net’s Absolute 100—a feature dedicated to celebrating up-and-coming, under the radar artists—I asked a pair of questions that have since proved to be prophetic. The first was “If given the opportunity, how many of country music’s gun-for-hire songwriters could make better records than any of the artists they write for?” The second was “How many of them could make masterpieces?” More than I thought, apparently.

Since Stapleton’s breakout success, the songwriters seem to be taking back Nashville. 2016 brought major critical and/or commercial successes for Maren Morris (who had previously written for Kelly Clarkson and the TV show Nashville), Brandy Clark (who had previously written for Sheryl Crow, Miranda Lambert, and Toby Keith, not to mention a slew of co-writes with Kacey Musgraves), and Lori McKenna (who penned two of the biggest hits in modern country with Tim McGraw’s “Humble & Kind” and Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush”). Hopefully, these big successes will push Nashville labels to take chances on more of their top songsmiths. Who knows how many stars are waiting to be born in the liner notes of your favorite country records.

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Sigur Rós Post Casting Call for Fans

Sigur Ros
Jason Tate

Sigur Rós have posted up a casting call for fans of the band in the Los Angeles area:

we are casting for a short documentary exploring the lives of sigur rós fans. if you have been to numerous live shows and have a strong connection with the band in a way that has really impacted your life please submit. we’re looking for people based in los angeles, california – and are available over the next few weeks

The Rise and Fall of McDonald’s Happy Meals

McDonalds
Jason Tate

Nina Corcoran, writing for Consequence of Sound, about the history of McDonald’s Happy Meal:

Kids wanted a clear distinction between their food and their parents’ food. Bernstein decided to give them that. Shortly after being assigned the task of bringing the “Menu Ronald” to American audiences, Bernstein took note of his son’s habits at breakfast. Instead of staring at his cereal while eating it, he scanned the cereal box’s illustrations over and over, drawing a line through its mazes and reading the jokes characters told. Bernstein instructed his creative team to set to work on paperboard boxes modeled in the style of lunch pails. The restaurant’s iconic Golden Arches, he told them, had to be handles. The company asked nationally known children’s illustrators to design content for the sides of the boxes, eight items total, that incorporated jokes, games, comics, stories, or anything else that might capture a child’s imagination.

I remember as a kid when getting to go to McDonalds was treated like an event, a special occasion.

‘La La Land’ Soundtrack Lands at Number Two on Charts

Jason Tate

The La La Land soundtrack has hit number two on this week’s Billboard charts. The Weeknd remains at number one.

Meanwhile, following La La Land’s big night at the Golden Globe Awards, the film’s soundtrack flies from No. 15 to No. 2. Starboy earned 63,000 equivalent album units (down 10 percent) in the week ending Jan. 12, according to Nielsen Music, while La La Land jumps to the runner-up slot with 42,000 units (up 83 percent).

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Martin Luther King, Jr
Jason Tate

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. day. It feels like his words are needed now more than ever.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

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