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Ariana Grande’s Billboard Cover

Ariana Grande
Jason Tate

Chris Martins profiles Ariana Grande for Billboard:

As a matter of fact, Grande appears on the cover of Dangerous Woman in shiny black headgear with long ears. It looks like it was designed for American Horror Story by the cartoonists at Warner Bros. The Super Bunny “is my superhero, or supervillain — whatever I’m feeling on the day,” says Grande. “Whenever I doubt myself or question choices I know in my gut are right — because other people are telling me other things — I’m like, ‘What would that bad bitch Super Bunny do?’ She helps me call the shots.”

Her new album is straight up great.

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Interview: Frank Turner

Craig Manning

Frank Turner is about to return to the United States for another leg of the Positive Songs for Negative People tour. I got a chance to chat with Frank about how he feels about the album now that it’s been out for a little while, why his next record will be more “radical” and “experimental” than anything he’s ever done before, how Butch Walker ended up producing the album, why playing shows with Jason Isbell is a realization of a years-old dream, and how recording the mournful “Song for Josh” in a live setting almost made Turner, a “profoundly, sternly atheist man,” glimpse a higher power.

Read More “Frank Turner”

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Donkey King Score Achieved

Nintendo
Jason Tate

Wes Copeland has broken the all-time record high score for Donkey Kong.

It’s how he took the title, though that’s so staggering. Copeland did not lose a single Mario in the game. He took his first life all the way from the first level all the way to the end, cashing in the extra lives to obliterate all comers.

“This will be my last record score,” Copeland wrote on Facebook. “I don’t believe I can put up a game any higher than this.” Copeland had set 1.2 million as his ultimate goal in Donkey Kong, and said he’d retire from competition if he could reach that.

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Jon Bunch Memorial Show in Philly

Jon Bunch
Jason Tate

An east coast Jon Bunch Memorial Show (benefiting his son, Jack) will take place on Saturday, June 25th at the TLA in Philadelphia. Tickets are $30 and now up for purchase. The line-up includes Further Seems Forever, Garrett Klahn performing Texas is the Reason songs acoustic, Dave Smalley, Vision, War Generation, Second Letter, and Running From Dharma. Sense Field will be performing a full set with guest vocalists, including Richie Birkenhead (Into Another), Jeff Caudill (Gameface), Ari Katz (Lifetime), Garrett Klahn (Texas in the Reason), Fred Mascherino (ex-TBS), Popeye (Farside), and Kenny Vasoli (The Starting Line).

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Google Announces “Google Home”

Google
Jason Tate

Google has announced their own little device that lives in your home and you speak to and it does things for you, kind of like the Amazon Echo. From, The Verge:

It’s not portable, but the benefit of always being plugged in is that Google can make a more powerful speaker. Quieroz says that it “really fills the room” and that it will have “strong bass and clear highs.” That’s important, because one of the main use cases Google is foreseeing here is listening to music. The Echo isn’t great at that.

I like the idea of these devices being around and helping me with conversions while cooking, or checking basketball scores, or hopefully one day being able to control more home automation — I’m not convinced on them being great music listening devices yet.1

  1. I’ll reserve judgement until I can hear one in person. I do think this is potentially a great podcast speaker.↩

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