Budweiser Renaming Beer “America”

Jason Tate

Budweiser are renaming their “beer” America for the summer.

The campaign is Budweiser’s plea for attention — and it’s working. (You’re reading this article, after all.) But the fact that it’s needed at all shows how much American beer-drinking habits have altered in the past few decades. Tastes have changed several times, and each change has pushed Budweiser further down on America’s list.

This feels straight out of a Futurama plot.

Yacht Fakes a Stolen Sex Tape for Publicity

Jason Tate

The band Yacht faked having their sex tape stolen to try and build hype for their new video. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d be typing.
Here’s Anna Merlan, writing for Jezebel:

That wasn’t quite right, of course, because there was no actual sex tape: when I tried to download it, I just got an error message, and so did lots of other people. The only folks claiming to have seen it, as we noted in an update yesterday, were Yacht’s famous friends. (I’m going to stop capitalizing their band name now because it’s tiresome and because I find them tiresome).

But most folks probably didn’t try to download it at all, because Yacht said the video was leaked without their consent. Most people are not craven and/or horny enough to watch a video whose participants are begging you not to view it. Most people don’t suck. Most people aren’t Yacht.

The thing about revenge porn—the real kind, not the desperate fake kind cooked up to attract extra attention to your mediocre art band—is that it ruins lives.

Riot Fest to Return to Denver and Chicago

Jason Tate

Riot Fest have announced they will return to Denver (September 2-4) and Chicago (September 16-18) this year. But not Toronto.

With recent local changes in Riot Fest’s partnership in Toronto, the planning process and resources required in staging a fest in Ontario was no longer compatible because of the available timeline. While Riot Fest has fallen in love with Toronto and the province of Ontario because of all of the great music fans who have welcomed and supported us in these last few years, Riot Fest 2016 will only take place in Denver and Chicago. We have every hope that we’ll be back in Toronto in the near future, and, in the meantime, we’ll begin announcing the lineups for Denver (Sept. 2-4) and Chicago (Sept. 16-18) shortly.