#julian kirshner

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 8, Number 12

Blood Incantation (but not Blood/Incantation)

Dusted closes out 2022 with blood and incantation.

Specifically, this Dust features two separate recordings with identical band names, one a split release by a pair of metal bands, one named Blood, the other Incantation, the other also metal but more atmospheric whose name is Blood Incantation.  It’s a lot of blood. A lot of incantation.

But never fear if your tastes are less sanguinary. We’ve also got experimental klezmer, power pop, sound art, new weird traditionalism, synth pop, deep house, death metal and jazz both free and more traditional. This edition’s contributors include Bryon Hayes, Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Jonathan Shaw, Ian Mathers, Patrick Masterson and Jim Marks.

Baltic Furs — Contemporary Ruin (Round Bale Recordings)

Contemporary Ruin by Baltic Furs

For its final release of 2022, the Minnesota-based Round Bale Recordings label offers a cassette from someone in its inner circle. Baltic Furs is the alter ego of Matt Irwin, a graphic designer whose optical artistry enswathes some of the label’s output. Irwin is a drummer-cum-synthesist whose aural hue leans toward the inky black end of the spectrum. On Contemporary Ruin, both Irwin’s percussionist origins and his tendency toward the inchoate are on display. Dreamlike, dimly lit images attempt to bring themselves into focus as warped, bell-shaped tones emanate from unholy objects. Irwin is signalling the coming of an impending disaster: it could be the end of the world or a demon emerging from its resting place. He’s happy to let the listener decide their fate. The latter half of the cassette begets emergent strains of melody that seem to brighten as the music runs its course. The tenderness is nascent and without form, but it’s also indicative that Contemporary Ruin is the first page in the next chapter of Irwin’s engaging narrative.

Bryon Hayes

 Black Ox Orkestar — Everything Returns (Constellation)

Everything Returns by Black Ox Orkestar

Even when it dances, klezmer has a melancholic air. It commemorates, after all, a Jewish-East European culture that flourished despite centuries of persecution until ending, abruptly, in the Holocaust. True, Jewish emigres brought this rollicking but wistful concoction of clarinet and fiddle, elegy and celebration, with them in the diaspora. It reached, even, the experimental precincts of Montreal, where members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion formed Black Ox Orkestar in the early aughts, then left it fallow for a decade and a half. Everything Returns is their lovely (and timely) return, a pensive exploration of cross-cultural discourse that melds Jewish, gypsy, Arab and European traditions in bittersweet rumination. This is music made of shadows and sighs, but ready, nonetheless, for the fight. It’s opening salvo, “Tish Nign,” layers wordless vocals over piano, then gathers its strength in martial cadences of bass clarinet. “Skotshne” sparkles with cimbalom, a dulcimer-like instrument with a ghostly echo; it skitters over a skeletal foundation of drums and acoustic bass. But it’s “Viderkol” that stops you short, a dusky lament hedged in by the low hum of clarinet, a run of piano. Even sung in English, it has a foreign, historical aura, as the principals remember the lost with the gentlest, least bitter sort of sadness. “There’s something in us that could make us whole,” they sing, and maybe they mean music and remembering.

Jennifer Kelly

 Blood/Incantation — Split 7” (Hell’s Headbangers)

Not Blood Incantation, but Blood and Incantation (see what they did there?) collaborate on this divertingly atavistic split record. Blood Incantation seems to provide the newest front opened in the Hipster Metal Wars — and to be honest, this reviewer can’t really fault the offended (“ambient death metal?”). If anyone might have any sort of right to defend the traditional boundaries of the kingdom of Metal ov Death, the dudes in Blood might be able to claim it. The German band has been making records since 1986, and the two new tracks on this split record are still the same old moldy stuff, a grinding, guttural assault on good taste. Incantation is by contrast the fresher face, having only started releasing music 1990—but the band certainly has the bigger name. Their tune, “Quantum Firmament,” is also the more engaging side of the split. Whether you find this record to be more than a sort of scenester-snarky, vinyl-mediated pun may depend on the degree of your interest in Incantation’s music; if you dig the band, “Quantum Firmament” is worth hearing.

Jonathan Shaw 

 Blood Incantation — Timewave Zero (Century Media)

Denver death metal psychonauts Blood Incantation have never concealed their love of ambient, cosmische, new age synths, et al. They also were clear even before putting out their second record Hidden History of the Human Race that their third would be their own entry into those fields. A 40-minute, two-track EP, Timewave Zero has (based on comments) clearly come as an unpleasant surprise to a grouchy, vocal minority of their existing fanbase. but those more into avowed influence Klaus Schulze than blastbeats, death metal growls and intense riffs will find that Blood Incantation know what they’re doing. This isn’t just the quartet noodling around with some neat synth sounds; there’s pacing, sculpting and evidence of a compositional eye on both halves of the EP. Timewave Zero, then, is admirable on multiple fronts, both as a totally solid record and as evidence of a band determined to follow its muse even in the face of requests to keep making more of the same.

Ian Mathers 

 Dazy — OUTOFBODY (Lame-O)

OUTOFBODY by Dazy

Power pop is harder than it looks. It balances on a knife edge between crusty fuzz and open-hearted tunefulness, and it’s easily tipped towards noise or daffiness. But James Goodson, out of Richmond, gets the blend just about right, a bit to the sweet side of Teenage Fan Club, a bit more muscular than the Raspberries. Indeed, the buzzy, frictive “On My Way” sounds like the Dirtbombs crossed with James, which is to say gloriously clangorous but with its earnest heart showing. “Motionless Parade” swoons and jangles in the vein of True West and the Rain Parade, while “Choose Your Ramone” hilariously amps it up, with a blistering, squalling guitar solo that is neither Joey nor Johnny. Goodson may never be a big star (or a Big Star), but it’s fun watching him try.

Jennifer Kelly

 Bruno Duplant — Nox (Unfathomless)

nox by Bruno Duplant

Art reckons with life on Nox, which is one of the nine full-length recordings that the ultra-productive French sound artist has realized in 2022. The artist’s statement references observations, both recent and antique, of certain bad navigational habits of humans, to wit, they closely circle things that will scorch them. At least moths, who aren’t noted for their brain mass, have an excuse… But even if you aren’t acquainted with the musician’s intent, you’re likely to grasp this immersive, 40-minute-long piece’s intimations of decay. Gathered and generated sounds creak, crackle, and bob around the listener like the chunks of debris that swirled around your surfboard that one time you fell asleep on the beach at low tide and woke up in the middle of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Bill Meyer

 Kelman Duran — “Loko” (self-released)

Kelman Duran is a low-key LA-based Dominican producer who’s made his name on art school dancehall and reggaeton edits, notably 2017’s excellent 1804 Kids. But “Loko” is another animal, blisteringly zooted deep house filth all taut and suspended in that leery-eyed fork in the road where the head says no and makes the good decision but the heart speaks louder, beats yes, makes an ellipsis for you to fill in. Adriana Roslin’s epileptic video (in which she appears, by the way) is the perfect accompaniment, exuding the self-assured swagger of a fashion school grad-turned-social media manager by day and club rat queen by night; you’ll see what I mean when you watch. It’s unclear if this is a brief diversion from his usual speed or a turn toward a more permanent 4/4 producing mode, but either way, Duran has left one of the best dance tracks of 2022 rather late in the going. How late? Consider: At the time I write this, Dust is scheduled to go live in about two hours; “Loko” has been up for less than 24. But we weren’t going to miss out. You shouldn’t, either.

Patrick Masterson

 Family Ravine — Jumpthefox (Round Bale Recordings)

Jumpthefox by Family Ravine

With his Family Ravine project, Kevin Cahill navigates a similar path to that of Henry Flynt, welding his avant-garde sensibility to traditional musical styles. Jumpthefox follows hot on the heels of Away & Instinct, and both records document Cahill’s polyglot approach to music making. The musician has created an Interzone-like fusion of American, British and European folk forms, which he has processed through his tireless creative instinct. Cahill builds a fluid-like loam from loops and fragments, which he layers repeatedly into a strange topography. Working primarily with stringed instruments and melodica, Cahill materializes his songs in a spectrum of shades, from shimmering and bright to muted and foreboding. It must be magical to hear his songs being crafted in real time, but we’ll have to settle for experiencing the finished product. This writer is certainly not complaining.

Bryon Hayes

  Hot Chip — Freakout/Release (Domino)

Consistent quality is a great asset for a band and a thrill for fans, but it can have the opposite of a silver lining for us music writers. Freakout/Release is another topnotch set of emotionally mature, sometimes melancholy synthpop bangers from the now sort-of-venerable Hot Chip (their eighth!). It’s not as if they’re not trying new things, heck here you actually hear a couple of guest vocalists (Lou Hayter on “Hard to Be Funky” and a blistering Cadence Weapon on “The Evil That Men Do”) and the title track is more rough-and-tumble than the Chip usually gets. “Down” rides a Universal Togetherness Band sample to dancefloor glory, while tracks like the hopeful “Broken” and the gossamer “Not Alone” show their more emotive strengths. It’s another great record in a career full of them, and if it’s hard to know what more to say, it feels unfair to them to leave it at that.

Ian Mathers

 Keefe Jackson / Jim Baker /Julian Kirschner — Routines (Kettlehole)

Routines by Keefe Jackson / Jim Baker / Julian Kirshner

Routines? I don’t know. On the one hand, the title might acknowledge that the three musicians on the album can, either together or separately, be counted upon to be heard in some small space that hosts Chicagoan improvisers, on a pretty routine basis. But the music itself is far from routine, unless you want to take a step back and acknowledge that each musician habitually figures out apposite responses to any given situation. Jim Baker can be relied upon to completely change any sound environment with a pivot of his seat, since that will determine whether one is going to hear his restlessly assertive voice on the piano and or the ozone-scorching sizzles he obtains from his ARP 2600. Keefe Jackson can likewise be counted upon to be equally engaged playing either sopranino or tenor saxophone, but lightning disruption he launches from the first differs profoundly from the mercurial forcefulness he summons on the second. Kirshner can also be expected to keep things moving without lapsing into cliché. But the trio keeps enough variables in play that you’ll never know quite how the music is going to get from start to end.

Bill Meyer

 Philip Jeck — Resistenza (Touch)

Resistenza by Philip Jeck

Touch has never been about staying in the past, so it makes sense that the firm would experiment with new formats. Resistenza is a digital-only recording issued on what would have been the 70th birthday of the late Philip Jeck, whose passing was just one of those that has made 2022 an especially rough slog. It’s simultaneously a bit sad and quite poetic that the first (and hopefully not last) posthumous release by an artist whose work was all about the stubborn physicality of vinyl would be a non-physical edition. It comprises two live recordings, both made in 2017-18. The more recent is “Live in Torino,” a fittingly ephemeral sequence of sounds snatched from old records and manipulated into ghostly scraps that spin and bob like the luminous traces left by deep sea fishes. “The Longest Wave,” which was recorded in Jeck’s home town of Liverpool, is quite the opposite. Jeck is joined by Jonathan Raisin, whose piano trills augment Jeck’s already lush flow. The best moments come when the turntablist breaks out some sub-aquatic bass figures that ballast Raisin’s delay-dampened drizzle of notes.

Bill Meyer 

 Niko Karlsson — Its Own Phantom (Feeding Tube)

Its Own Phantom by Niko Karlsson

Look out the window of your Finnish country cabin in the winter and your view is likely to be reduced to a few essentials. Grey sky, green trees, white snow — that’s about it. Its Own Phantom is an apt soundtrack for an afternoon spent gazing upon such a vista. None of its tracks are in a hurry, and each sweep of hand across strings (mostly guitar, sometimes banjo or sitar) unleashes a stream of melodious sound that’ll draw your mind into an imaginary space situated somewhere beyond the farthest visible fir. The term “acid folk” implies a potentially psychedelic experience generated by not entirely voltage dependent means. Let’s call this tape snowshoe folk; it may not induce hallucinatory states, but it has its own way of elevating the listener beyond the cold ground.

Bill Meyer

Eva Klesse Quartett — Songs Against Loneliness (Enja)

Songs against loneliness by Eva Klesse Quartett

Holiday season got you feeling isolated? Eva Klesse is here to help you feel better with Songs Against Loneliness. This new set of jazz originals by her quartet (joined occasionally by guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel) is soothing but not sleepy. Klesse, a drummer, composed five of the 13 tracks here, and the other members of the group, Evgeny Ring on sax, Marc Muellbauer on double bass and Philip Frischkorn on piano, contributed the rest of the compositions.

In practice, apart from the titles of the tracks (“Glory Glory Misfits,” “Der Eremit,” and so on), there is nothing ponderous (or overly perky) about the melodies and arrangements on display here. The quartet’s decade of playing and recording together (apart from Muellbauer, who replaces Robert Lucaciu this time around) is evident in its cohesiveness. Muthspiel and Klesse have worked together before, and his contributions here are fully integrated into the quartet’s sound, beginning with the poignant chords that open the title track “Minor Is What I Feel.” That track and some of the others seem carefully composed, while others, such as “Past, Tense,” are more improvisation. This cut builds slowly from a solo by Muellbauer to the full quartet. Klesse’s rattling percussion keeping things together without ever quite settling on a rhythm.

So take heart if you’re feeling left out and let these well-crafted tunes serve as your soundtrack for the journey back from loneliness. And if you’re already in the holiday spirit, Songs Against Loneliness will help keep you feeling warm and fuzzy.

Jim Marks

 Mdou Moctar — Niger EP Vol. 2 (Matador)

Niger EP Vol. 2 by Mdou Moctar

This is the second in a series to collect early cassette tape recordings of the Niger-ian guitar phenomenon as he and his band travelled, often by bus, to informal gigs: weddings, rehearsals, house parties. The vibe is not much different from Moctar’s studio recordings, pacing torrid runs of guitar with homespun handclaps and hand drums. The difference comes in the ambient sounds. A motorcycle zooms away at the end of “Iblis Amghar,” birds chirp and people go on with the ordinary activities in their lives, even with such incendiary music going on around them. And, indeed, it is fire, this music, balancing locomotive percussion and hypnogogic trance, as on driving, dreaming “Ibitilan” or the searing blues of “Asditke Akal.” “Chimoumounim” sounds as if it comes in from a great distance, its groove approaching, then taking up a central place in our ears and hearts. Moctar’s grooves sound great in the studio, but maybe even better here in their natural space.

Jennifer Kelly

 Mister Water Wet— Top Natural Drum (Soda Gong)

Top Natural Drum by Mister Water Wet

Top Natural Drum is Kansas City producer Iggy Romeu’s third album as Mister Water Wet. It’s also his first to arrive via a label other than West Mineral Ltd., the imprint founded by his buddy Brian Leeds, who most know as Huerco S. Although they’re connected, Romeu and Leeds have taken divergent paths. Romeu’s first two MWW outings were colorful and strange in comparison to Leeds’ grainy, monochromatic fog banks. He brews up his ambient tinctures with hints of jazz, hip hop and elements sourced from his Puerto Rican roots. Romeu is also careful to add subtle bits of the arcane to his concoctions, revealing himself to be a master crate digger. With Top Natural Drum, he drops the ambient veil to show off some rhythmic chops. The result is a series of head nodding beat-scapes sure to please those who spent the 1990s with their ears glued to the turntablism scene.  

Bryon Hayes

 The Modern Folk Trio Band — Always Be Recording (Island House)

IH-002 Always Be Recording by modern folk trio band

The Modern Folk Trio Band is actually a quintet, formed around J. Moss’s languid, liquid guitar, but including Austin Richards, Zach Barbery, Remi Lew and Trevor Schorey trading off on additional guitars, bass, drums and synthesizers. This cassette includes three tracks, two lengthy and one succinct, but all three fluid and luminous. “Diet Coke Extra Ice” winds placidly through slow, chugging lyricism, its lead guitar high and clear and full of light. “Slide Solo,” the short one, is just what its name implies, an interlude of intriguingly bent and haunted sounds, tinged by blues but not exactly boxed into it. And “Hot Jam,” the final cut, is not as viscerally physical as its title suggests, but rather a glistening, nodding, extended drone, grounded by the thud of drums but reaching always for an ethereal other-ness. Throughout, a loose improvisatory air presides. If you’re always recording, sometimes you get something good.

Jennifer Kelly

 Woody Sullender — Music from Four Movements & Other Favorites (Woody Sullender)

Music from 'Four Movements' & Other Favorites by Woody Sullender

What’s the difference between listening and performing listening? If you have the time and credit, you could take up the matter while you pursue an MFA. Or you could go to www.fourmovements.woodysullender.com and download Four Movements, a video game space that “consists of several navigable environments where the virtual participant can perform listening” and live the difference. It is the work of an artist and musician who has studied under Maryanne Amacher and previously performed banjo music under the guise, Uncle Woody Sullender, and it provides the sort of disparate yet cohesive sound experience one might expect from a person whose creative map contains such aesthetic/methodological coordinates. Cantering banjo in just intonation coexists with techno beats, a Robert Hood cover sounds like a streamlined remembrance of Conlon Nancarrow’s player piano music, and moments arise when you might wonder if this guy’s spent some salon time with Horse Lords.

Bill Meyer

 Tchornobog/Abyssal — Split LP (Lupus Lounge)

Tchornobog / Abyssal by Tchornobog

You get two epically scaled tracks of death metal-adjacent mayhem on this split LP. More bang for your buck? More yuck, for sure. Markov Soroka’s utterly whacko project Tchornobog is given the A side, and his 25-minute song “The Vomiting Choir” pummels and roils, blackened on its edges but still very much belly-down in layers of rancid muck (see that title…). There aren’t many opportunities to lift your face out of the sodden slurry and grab a breath — which is sort of impressive for a song so long, and by its halfway point, pretty oppressive, too. So, you may be grossed out by the bubbling, gurgling noises that become audible around the 11-minute mark, but at least the mix is a little less clogged up with clangor and crunch. Abyssal’s contribution, titled “Antechamber of the Wakeless Mind,” is only a minute shorter, but the song seems by contrast rather mannered, alternating slowly suppurating death-doom with long spells of churning, dissonant riffage that always feel consciously composed. The split is not a pleasant experience so much as it is an interesting experiment in differing modes of metal excess.

Jonathan Shaw 

 temp. — Taking notes (American Dreams)

Taking Notes by temp.

temp.’s Erica Mei Gamble is a producer, DJ and video archivist based in Chicago—and one half of the experimental electronic duo Dungeon Mother, but her Taking notes represents a significant step forward for the artist. It gathers music previously posted on Soundcloud into a chilly, cerebral and surprisingly cohesive statement; that is, it sounds very much like an album. It starts in wordless abstraction, the cut “Air” lofting translucent tones of synthesizer onto a pristine background. They pulse and flare like northern lights, unearthly also visceral. “Yah” finds the ghost in the machine as a human cry punctures glistening electric pulses; the cut is clean and a little spooky, like a quieter Shackleton. But it's “What’s Beyond,” performed with Gamble’s Dungeon Mother collaborator Sarah Leitten, that fully realizes the juncture between unreal, ominous sonics and fragile human consciousness. Leitten chants poetry against a seething mesh of synth tones, her words encompassing both natural and super-natural imagery (For example: “I’ll dance with the stars above/and I hold the moon in my hands/and I drink the sun with my eyes/and I am the darkness/I am the abyss.”) Later, with Emme Williams in “Trying to Climb,” Gamble stakes out a minimalist corner of the disco floor, with beats that glitch and blot and corrode and a half-remembered recorder melody tootling in the background.

Jennifer Kelly

  Wild Pink — ILYSM (Royal Mountain)

ILYSM by Wild Pink

John Ross got the idea for his song, “Hold My Hand” while lying on an operating table, waiting for the anesthetic to knock him out before surgery. Ross, who is the main creative force behind Wild Pink, found out he had cancer mid-way through recording this fourth full-length. His uncertainties around this diagnosis, combined with his dogged insistence to finish anyway, define this album, whose bright, soft indie pop textures wrap around some very dark textures. Consider, for instance, “Hell Is Cold,” with its thumping rhythms, its half-focused glitch textures, its shimmering layers of piano. Ross sings just above a whisper, here and elsewhere, in a confiding tone that tickles the hairs inside your ear. Yet while the sonically, the song bounds and wafts, its message doesn’t. “I know I’ll be free when I die,” sings Ross, and the song ends abruptly like a life snuffed out. Likewise, the title track, aims at the kind of soccer stadium anthemic-ness that sends beach balls bobbling out over festival crowds. “I love you so much,” Ross intones over surging synths and pounding drums. Still, despite its ebullience, the cut has a vertiginous feel, as if the bottom is dropping out. Like many people facing difficulties, Ross reached out to friends for aid. The album has striking cameos from Julien Baker (“Hold My Hand”) and a multigenerational brace of guitarists, J. Mascis (who rips a sidewinder “See You Better Now”), Ryley Walker (breezily anthemic in “Simple Glyphs”) and Yasmin Williams (shimmering and gorgeous in “The Grass Widow in the Glass Window”). And yet, for all that, and despite the serious subject matter, the music mostly feels bland and oversaccharine, except for the sludgy, guitar-driven fury of “Sucking on Birdshot” and, at the end, “ICLYM” shuffling out like the Beta Band in shambolic triumph.

Jennifer Kelly

[noloveforned]

it's friday afternoon and we're gearing up for this week's no love for ned on wlur this evening at 8pm. tune in live or catch up with last week's show below!

no love for ned on wlur – october 22nd, 2021 from 8-10pm

artist // track // album // label jawbreaker // boxcar // 24 hour revenge therapy (remastered) // blackball brnda // perfect world // do you like salt? // crafted sounds yucky duster // grump // grump digital single // (self-released) built to spill // randy described eternity // perfect from now on // warner bros. hutch harris // it's not gonna be ok // suck up all the oxygen // (self-released) jackson reid briggs // the chase // fear / move ep // legless helvetia // feeling the patchwork // presents sudden hex // joyful noise * public service broadcasting featuring andreya casablanca // blue heaven // bright magic // play it again sam * the buoys // carpark // unsolicited advice for your diy disaster ep // spunk porches // grab the phone // all day gentle hold ! // domino * pia fraus // moon like a pearl // now you know it still feels the same // seksound the beths // uptown girl // auckland, new zealand, 2020 // carpark the db's // she's green i'm blue (new york rocker sessions) // i thought you wanted to know: 1978-1981 // propeller sound violent femmes // american music (alternate version) // why do birds sing? (deluxe edition) // craft antietam featuring georgia hubley // the night before // his majesty's request: a wink o'bannon select // motorific sounds buck owens // i'll give my heart to you // buck owens // capitol the dead tongues // pawnshop dollar bills // pawnshop dollar bills digital single // psychic hotline matthew sage featuring francesco covarino // bellissimo, poposos // wants a diamond pivot bright // florabelle gerrit hatcher, peter maunu and julian kirshner // bronze mine // live at splice series // kettle hole snaarj // old new // snaarj ii // (self-released) bunn debrett quintet featuring tenesha the wordsmith // praise dance // bunn debrett quintet // bdq eddie chacon // tnght // modern love- a tribute to david bowie // barely breaking even ll cool j // i can't live without my radio // radio // def jam system olympia // freak 4 u // delta of venus // huntleys and palmers amoah. // higher // higher digital single // the love movement ego ella may // breathe // fieldnotes ep // (self-released) s. raekwon // anywhere 4 u // where i'm at now // father/daughter * dean wareham // under skys // i have nothing to say to the mayor of la // double feature laetitia sadier // new moon // new moon digital single // drag city records astral brain // behind our house // the bewildered mind // shelflife the smallgoods // on with the show // lost in the woods // lost and lonesome

* denotes music on wlur’s playlist

[fieldsofplay]

Favorite Albums of 2020

25. Dehd – Flower of Devotion

Rather than look back on the shit year that was 2020, lets keep our eye on the hope of the horizon.  Speaking of which, Dehd herald much of what’s to come on this here list.  While as previously mentioned a shit year for most everything besides presidential politics, 2020 proved to be a great year for good old fashioned guitar music.  Could I be accused of curling up with my version of musical comfort food? Perhaps.  But starting off with Dehd, we have a type of band that used to be everywhere and now seems to be almost nowhere.  Jangly lo-fi guitars, perky drums, and straightforward unadorned singing.  About five years ago you couldn’t throw a rock in Brooklyn without hitting a band like this, but now that that fad is long gone.  I’m glad that Chicago’s Dehd are still carrying the torch.  

24. Perfume Genius – Set My Heart on Fire Immediately

I’ve always liked Perfume Genius, but for whatever reason Set My Heart on Fire Immediately is the album that took him out of the realm of casual background musical encounter to something I sought out.  Chamber pop has never really been my thing (except for those couple summers where Grizzly Bear was totally my jam), but here the torch songs catch fire by the compressed force of Michael Hadreas’ longing.  This record also pulls off the impressive feat of each song gradually morphing just a bit from what proceeds it, so that the whole record sounds similar and yet each song carves out its own little generic niche, the whole thing united by the quivering power of that pleading voice.  

23. 2nd Grade – Hit to Hit

If you ever found yourself wondering what Guided by Voices would sound like if they wanted to be Big Star instead of punk rock Kinks, we now have the answer, and it’s Phily’s 2nd Grade.  In the noble tradition of Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes, Hit to Hit’s 24 tracks breeze by in a mere 41 minutes and 8 seconds.  An earworm sunny melody, a quick guitar hook, a second verse (maybe), and poof, each song is gone before you could ever miss it.  You would think variation would be difficult working within such tight musical corners, but while each song clearly shares common DNA, there is actually a lot of variance here, from weepy country ditties (“Bye Bye Texas”) to overdriven stompers (“Baby’s First Word”) though they all tend to orbit the same (big) star.  

22. Tame Impala – The Slow Rush

I’ll be the first to admit that The Slow Rush isn’t my favorite Tame Impala record, not by a long shot.  Having said that, this album still feels like it got short shrift this year (not that anyone can really complain about that in these here times).  If we never knew that Lonerism or Innerspeaker or Currents existed, I wonder how much people would be head over heels for this album.  “One More Year” “Is It True” and “Posthumous Forgiveness” are all top notch Impala jams.  Seems like this album is the soundtrack for the chilled out summer hangs that we never got to have, and thus it’s fitting that it seems condemned for the ash-heap of history rather than the late-night come downs we never got up to.

21. Against All Logic – 2017 – 2019

Ah, speaking of complicated musical relationships, I can never seem to chart a clear course with Nicolas Jaar.  The music he puts out under his own name never seems to do much for me, but I dug his collaboration with Dave Harrington as Darkside, and I really love most everything he’s put out as Against All Logic.  While admittedly not a great year for house music—normally a liberating genre of communal interconnectivity, now a cruel reminder that we all live in Footloose—a banger remains a banger, and 2017-2019 is full to the brim with them.  While I honestly can’t remember the last time I went dancing, I’ll still crank up “Fantasy” and bop around my living room, literally dancing by myself (lets be honest, something I would have done pandemic or no).  

20. Fiona Apple – Fetch the Bolt Cutters

Fetch the Bolt Cutters has had a lot of great things said about it this year, so I don’t really have to add that much.  What I will say is this is perhaps the most interesting percussion I’ve ever heard on a record.  There is percussion all over the place, but almost none of it in the form of full-kit drumming.  Fiona always used the left hand on the piano as the rhythmic center of her songs, but here there is drilling, tapping, rapping, patting.  The phrase DIY gets tossed around all the time (and almost never applied to big money, big label Fiona) but to me the most impressive thing about this record is how it always sounds like she is sitting at a rickety upright piano in the corner of a living room, while everyone congregating around keeps the beat by tapping on pots and pans, the walls, whatever is at hand.  I’ve truly never heard anything like it.  

19. Advertisement – American Advertisement

Godbless Seattle’s Advertisement. So long as there is cheap beer, old shitty cars driving with the windows down, and the U-SofA, there’ll be bands like Advertisement.  Straight out of the vein of Cheap Trick and the more recent White Reaper, Advertisement play power pop with the emphasis on the power.  Sometimes this type of music gets called sleazy, but honestly I don’t get it.  I think its probably because you can imagine it playing while Wooderson drives around Austin looking for redheads. While we rightfully cancelled the song of summer this year, “Upstream Boogie” would have gotten my vote, perfect for backyard bbqs and cannonballing into creeks.  

18. Nation of Language – Introduction, Presence

I didn’t set it up this way, but if Advertisement has a diametric opposite, its probably Nation of Language.  Where Advertisement is all frayed edges and foam, Nation of Language is as buttoned up as those terrible sports jackets people wore in the early ‘90s.  While its not as good as my beloved Black Marble, those bands share enough DNA to make me a big fan of this synth pop gem.  It’s not as dark as the cold-wave Black Marble, but it does share that bands fondness for stark baselines and crisp arpeggios.  If you’ve ever envisioned your life as a scene from a John Hughes movie, Nation of Language could easily be playing in the background.

17. The Soft Pink Truth – Shall we Go on Sinning so that Grace May Increase?

Indulge me in a moment of naval gazing.  Every year as I put these things together I reach a point where I’m lack “damn, this album is this low on the list?” And the point at which that thought enters my head is usually indicative of how good a year for music it was.  Now 2020 wasn’t a good year for anything, and I probably spent the least time of any year listening to music, new, old, whatever.  For the most part I just listened to the Grateful Dead and ambient albums.  However, for my idiosyncratic tastes, 2020 was actually a pretty fucking incredible year for new music, as evinced by the fact that this album is all the way down at 17.  

Earlier on in 2020 as I was bombarding my poor local music text thread with yet more of my inane musings, I think I declared this a top 3 album of the year.  And I wasn’t lying!  “Pretty” is often a dirty word in aesthetic appreciation, but this is certainly the “prettiest” album of the year in the best sense of the word.  From the Drew Daniel half of Matmos comes Shall we Go on Sinning so that Grace May Increase?  A record that is somehow simultaneously deep house and feather light, so much so that it needs its own dumb internet music writing moniker—shallow house? wide house? vacation house? (actually kinda like that last one).  With vocals from Jana Hunter, Angel Deradoorian, and Colin Self (with whom I wasn’t previously familiar) this thing will simultaneously make you want to tap your foot and drift off into the clouds.  This is album is like the prayer Madonna sang about all those years ago.  

16. Kurt Vile – Speed, Sound, Lonely KV

It’s not at all surprising that if Kurt Vile decided he wanted to go country western he’d be really fucking good at it.  First of all, he’s an exceptional acoustic guitar picker.  Secondly, his voice, while always befitting his hazed out urban rockers, has just enough twang to it that in retrospect it always sounded a little bit country.  This record also gives me room to offer up an homage to the late great John Prine, for whom the EP is essentially a tribute.  Vile covers two Prine songs, dueting with the man himself on “How Lucky.” Saying goodbye is never easy, but on Speed, Sound, Lonely (both the album, and the song more or less by that name) Vile manages a fitting tribute to a lost legend.  

15. Lomelda – Hannah

The reviews of Hannah really did Lomelda a disservice.  Sure, they were glowing, but they made it sound like this was some weepy milquetoast singer songwriter affair, when it’s actually a knotty album full off elliptical piano and fuzzed out electric guitar.  Its 14 tracks hurtle by, largely due to the fact that almost all of them are under 3 and a ½ minutes.  Things really get going with the second track, “Hannah Sun” with is squiggly synth effects and driving acoustic strums carrying on Hannah Read’s musings.  It’s an album of relentless forward musical movement even if the vibe feels like it’s always looking back over its shoulder.  Basically this album is what emo would sound like if it wasn’t made by the worst people in the universe.  

14. Shabaka and the Ancestors – We are Sent here by History

Jazz! Another great year for jazz (Asher Gamedze’s Dialectic Soul and Keefe Jackson, Jim Baker, & Julian Kirshner’s So Glossy and So Thin are with a strong group that just missed the cut).  In the midst of an excellent jazz renaissance (you gotta use super annoying words like “renaissance” when talking about jazz) Shebaka Hutchins remains my absolute fave of the bunch, and We are Sent here by History is probably my favorite thing he has put out so far.

13. Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud

While I really liked Waxahatchee’s low-fi emoish debut—American Weekend—I’ll readily admit I wasn’t much about the popier albums that followed, frequently jesting, honestly, that Allison was my preferred musical Crutchfield sister.  All that changed for me with Saint Cloud.  I’ve certainly drifted far off into country and Americana as I’ve aged, and it appears the same came be said for Katie Crutchfield.  These songs have a giddyup to them but they never break out into a gallop, allowing the strength of the melodies to carry them along across the plains, with just the right hint of twilight.  Saint Cloud is the sound of Patsy Cline if she played to roadside inns rather than the Grand Ol’ Opry.  

12. Neil Young – Homegrown

This was the hardest album to place on the list this year.  For starters, should it even count? Clearly I say yes.  While some of these songs have been available for over 30 years, as an album, Homegrown was a “new” release here in 2020, even though it was originally slated to come out in ’75 between On the Beach (my personal fave Neil record) and Zuma.  As a pure piece of music, is it better than most, if not all, of the records that follow? Of course yes.  But what does a new Neil Young record mean in 2020? As a thought experiment its fascinating.  Do we value this album within the musical context of 2020 or 1975? Fortunately, it’s an even more enjoyable listen than it is a thought experiment.  From the first strums of “Separate Ways” you’re like “oh shit, this is the vintage stuff.” Gentle amber acoustic numbers (“Try”) share space with electric stompers (“Vacancy”).  The best thing you can say about Homegrown is that if Neil had originally decided to release this instead of Tonight’s The Night, it would have fit right in amongst his unimpeachable run from Everybody Knows This is Nowhere up through Zuma.  A classic is still a classic, no matter what year it finally sees the light of day.  

11. Destroyer – Have we Met

Ah Dan Bejar, boy was I wrong about you.  I kinda got into Destroyer’s Rubies, I loved his contributions to Swan Lake and The New Pornographers, but yet when Chinatown started really making waves, I just couldn’t do it.  It was soft rock! I hate soft rock! I hate everything about it!  This preconceived notion wasn’t helped by the fact that I saw him open for the War on Drugs in Pontiac once and he was so drunk he could barely stand up and had to read his own lyrics from a sheet.  And yet, for some reason I never really gave up on it. I can’t tell you why exactly, but two summers ago Chinatown just slowly became my go-to for early morning / late afternoon strolls. I found comfort in giving myself over to its pillowy soft embrace / cheating on my own aesthetic judgments.  Now that I’m card-carrying Bejarhead, I greeted Have we Met with open arms, and I was not disappointed.  The synths glimmer, the guitars add just enough punch, and his lyrics remain sharp as ever.  Its fitting that this was the last concert I saw before the iron curtain fell.  The one thing I had always turned my back on ended up being the last memory of dionysian group enthrallment I had to carry with me out into the desert of social isolation.  Come back soon Destroyer, come back soon, everyone.

10. Deeper – Auto-Pain

Ladies and gentlemen, get ready, because post punk is back! I always say my favorite genre is ‘sad songs you can dance to’ but post punk is a close second.  When I was in college post punk underwent a bit of a renaissance in the form of Interpol (back when they were still good), Bloc Party (ditto), Franz Ferdinand, and a whole slew of British one hit wonders (Maximo Park, Futureheads, Art Brut, the Bravery).  Fortunately, as is always the case, what’s old is new again, and stark melodic bass lines, angular guitars, and moody introspective speak-singing are back in full force.  Of the three post punk bands gracing this here top ten (Deeper, Fontaines DC, and Crack Cloud) each has its own little slice of the generic pie.  Fontaines have the deep gloom of Interpol/Joy Division, Crack Cloud ripple with the staccato energy of Gang of Four, and Deeper have the wiry dancieness of, well, Wire. So long as leather jackets and black and white photography remain cool, there’ll always be bands like this, and thank god for that.  In a true sign o’ the times, I learned about this band from some random girl’s Tik Tok in my for-you feed.  She repped five bands, two of which are in my top three, so I was like, sure I’ll give this band Deeper a go.  God bless the internet.  Finally, Deeper get bonus points for naming a song “This Heat,” who I’ve been spending a lot of time revisiting this year, and whose spikey guitars are all over this record.  

9. The Flaming Lips – American Head

There are few things as satisfying in art as being genuinely surprised by a beloved artist you had given up as culturally dead.  Since putting out their last masterpiece (2009’s Embryonic) the Lips have put out a string of good, if inconsequential, albums that befitting the ethos of the band could best be described as half baked (The Terror, Oczy Moldy, and a series of collaborative experiments).  Basically, they had reached that dreaded nadir where I was no longer interested in listening to their new output (cough The National, cough cough Arcade Fire).  So what made me give American Head a chance? That reader, is the point of art criticism! I can’t remember how the blurb on pitchfork read exactly, but I knew it referenced Tom Petty and a return to a preoccupation with more Earthly concerns—namely ‘70s heartland rock.  Well, this sounded intriguing, and boy was I not disappointed.  Sure, the Flaming Lips have already reached their sell-by date twice over (first in 1992, immediately followed by their MTV reinvention on 1993’s Transmissions from the Satellite Heart; and then again in the late ‘90s with the departure of guitarist Ronald Jones, followed by their creative pinnacle, ‘99’s symphonic masterpiece The Soft Bulletin), so it shouldn’t be all that surprising that this band could rise from the dead a third time.  Only, for the most part, they didn’t.  I guess I’m not surprised that American Head failed to reach a broader audience. Most people probably aren’t even aware that they are still a going concern, and after the failures of the last decade it makes sense that most weren’t interested in more tunes from the Oklahoma freaknicks.  But for those willing to give the band another chance, American Head easily delivers their best album since Embryonic, if not all the way back to Yoshimi.  Mixing ‘70s Americana with the star gazing of Soft Bulletin’s “Sleeping on the Roof,” the Lips deliver their best album in decades by foregoing the parlor tricks and returning to what they do best, taking trips to distant galaxies while keeping their feet firmly planted in the soil and songcraft of Oklahoma.

8. Cut Worms – Nobody Lives Here Anymore

This one is pretty easy.  Do you like George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass? If yes, listen to Nobody Lives Here Anymore and revel in this double album’s upbeat acoustic rock mediations.  If no, well there’s plenty of other good stuff out there.  Not quite as metaphysical or orchestral as All Things Must Pass, Nobody Lives Here Anymore still manages to hit that rockabiliy-pop sweet spot that Harrison used to mine.  I’m not quite sure what the definition of “troubadour” is, but it feels safe to call Cut Worms a troubadour, which is certainly better than his terrible stage name.  

7. Cigarettes for Breakfast – Aphantasia

Similar to Cut Worms, Cigarettes for Breakfast also involves a simple influence equation.  Do you pray at the altar of Loveless? If so, Aphantasia is just the record for you.  Sure, it’s a bit of My Bloody Valentine paint by numbers (“Breathe” even features the same squally guitar noise [it’s really hard to try and describe My Bloody Valentine effects ha] as “Soft as Snow (But Warm Inside)”) but when you’re as into shoegaze as I am, that’s never really a bad thing.  Plus, I’m being a bit unfair.  Everyone with textured tremolo heavy wall-of-sound guitars and cooed vocals is going to inevitably be compared to MBV, and Cigarettes for Breakfast do enough to chart their own course.  Perhaps most interesting is the musical journey this record charts.  Its loudest moment is its opening, where pummeling guitars more reminiscent of Sonic Youth with a touch of Dinosaur Jr. rip across hardcore style drumming. From there each song becomes a little more ambient, until closer “If Someone Could Help Me, Please” more or less floats away on its shimmering sheets of beautiful noise clouds.  In this sense, it bears a resemblance in structure, if not in sound, to Deerhunter’s Cryptograms, another album I spent a lot of time revisiting this year.  A shutout here is owed to the fine folks at Radio K, who had me diving for my shazam as this thing ripped across their airwaves.  So long as there is college radio, there’ll be a new crop of kids discovering via Kevin Shields that the electric guitar contains endless sonic possibilities.  

6. Fontaines D.C. – A Hero’s Death

The second entry in our top-ten post punk trio is A Hero’s Death by Fontaines D.C.  I’ll admit, on first blush it’s kind of a dumb band name (I just assumed they were some hardcore band from Washington DC chasing those Dischord Records glory days), but when you learn that the “DC” stands for Dublin City, it all clicks, as this band is sorta inescapably Irish in the way that James Joyce is.  Now this fact at first was also off-putting—if I went the rest of my life without ever hearing the Dropkick Murphy’s again I’d be quite content—but eventually it becomes integral to their sound, and not just because of the brogue in Garin Chatten’s vocals.  “Love is the Main Thing” is an incredible song in many ways, most notably because of the hypnotic quality of the drumming with its counterpoint between riding cymbal and staccato toms, but perhaps in the main (*wink*) for the way it manages to connote the weariness of a grey urban environment without ever being explicitly about it.  Just as Turn on the Bright Lights managed to perfectly capture New York in 2001, A Hero’s Death to me is the aural equivalent of a dense urban center like Dublin, especially after nightfall.  

5. Imaginary Softwoods – Annual Flowers in Color

It should come as no surprise that I listened to A LOT of ambient this year, and to me there was no better electronic record to chill the fuck out to during this insane year than Annual Flowers in Color.  I absolutely loved Emeralds’ Does it Look Like I’m Here? and was devastated they never followed that gem (*wink*) up.  In the immediate aftermath of the demise of Emeralds Mark McGuire’s solo albums got a lot of attention, but apparently the person I really loved in Emeralds was Imaginary Softwoods’ John Elliot.  Annual Flowers in Color is like if Dead City’s, Red Seas, Lost Ghosts were waiting in the departure’s lounge of Eno’s airport.  At the heart of the album lies the 10 plus minutes of “Another First/Sea Machine.” I could listen to this song forever, and on some particularly WTF 2020 lakewalks I more or less have.  Chunky synths, arpeggios that drift off to infinity, ‘80s soundtrack nostalgia.  I could live in these Softwoods for the rest of my sonic days.  

4. Pottery – Welcome to Bobby’s Motel

In another moment of nostalgia for my college years, Pottery are a welcome return to weird ass experimental Canadian bands.  They don’t sound anything like the Unicorns, but in spirit Pottery kind of remind me of them.  I’ve spilled a lot of digital ink here and elsewhere bemoaning the fact that Pitchfork (or perhaps, me) isn’t cool anymore, and to me no band embodies this more than Pottery.  They take a bunch of fun disparate elements—Talking Heads dance art rock, periodic weird pitch shifted vocal effects, hazy deep purple style guitars, and Queen style machismo disco—throw them into a witch’s cauldron, and come up with something off the wall that sounds like nothing else but is also instantly familiar.  This is the type of thing Pitchfork would have been all over in 2007, but instead now they’re too busy chasing conde nast clout clicks.  Oh well, nothing gold can last. But enough negativity, this here is a celebration of the joy of new music, and no new band embodies that unbridled joy like Pottery.  Along with Fontaines DC, this is the band I wish I most could have bopped around to with a bunch of sweaty strangers in the 7th St. Entry or Turf Club.  You can just imagine the call and response vocals and funky grooves getting the people moving.  Oh well, hopefully we’ll soon all be rocking the vaccine, they can breeze through town, and I’ll be the first person on the dance floor embarrassingly pumping my fist a half beat behind the rhythm.  

3. Pure X – Pure X

To paraphrase Same Elliott in the Big Lebowski, sometimes there’s a band, and well, sometimes there’s a band.  For me this year, that band was Pure X.  I absolutely loved their debut Pleasure way back in 2011, when lo-fi reverb heavy slow guitar music (ie, Galaxie 500) was all the rage. Their follow up Crawling up the Stairs was so bad I didn’t even bother listening to Angel, though perhaps that also owed a decent amount to just how terrible the art on that record is.  (I’ve since remedied this mistake; turns out that record rules).  Being that as it may, I can’t particularly tell you what drew me in to this year’s self-titled album, a full nine years after Pleasure first graced the stage.  In one sense it’s probably because Pleasure is one those albums that just never went out of my rotation.  Whenever the fahrenheit tips past 90 and the walk to the bodega is a few blocks longer than you’d like, that record always hits the spot.  Maybe I just knew this was the record I needed this year.  Either way, from the first bars of “Middle America” I was hooked.  The guitars crash over you, but never in a threatening way. Rather, they envelop you like a weighted blanket, comforting you in their sonic embrace.  Nowhere is this more true than on “Fantasy,” easily my favorite song of 2020 (especially since this was a year entirely devoid of dance floor bangers).  If this album came out in 1999 rather than 2020 I would have hit the repeat button on my discman and listened to this song forever.  

2. Crack Cloud – Pain Olympics

Pain Olympics is the answer to the question that no one asked: what if Arcade Fire’s (back when they were good) communal uplift was paired with Gang of Four’s stark anthem’s of industrialism’s collapse?  While on first blush this might sound like your standard album of punkish fist pumping angst, from when the female vocals (sorry there are too many people in this band for me to be able to figure out whose who) come in on opener “Post Truth (Birth of a Nation)” Pain Olympics reveals itself to be a very strange animal (likely a unicorn of some sort), especially as little orchestral swirls creep into the mix, giving it an almost Judy Garland (in hell) quality.  This subtle genre pastiche is given its best effect on stunner “The Next Fix.” That song starts out as an elastic spoken-word call and response addiction rumination, at the minute mark it starts to segue into a vocoded chill raver, then some horns crop up out of nowhere, then a spoken word passage, then at the two minute mark a chorus of voices come in, doing their best Broken Social Scene in the truest sense of the phrase.  This is perhaps one of the strangest records I’ve ever heard, but what is strangest of all is just how beautiful it is.  Crack Cloud are not for everyone, but if you really give it a chance, the returns are limitless.  

1. SAULT – Untitled (Rise) / Untitled (Black Is)

You cannot tell the story of 2020 without SAULT, which is why this pair of records is here at the top, even if under the influence of sodium pentothal (lets be honest, veritaserum) I might lean more towards Pain Olympics.  In June, the “anonymous” London project put out Untitled (Black Is), and then quickly followed that gem up with September’s Untitled (Rise).  Perhaps more amazing still is that these two albums, released so close together, have unique personalities.  Black Is is more pop/R&B whereas Rise has a dancy, electr(on)ic feel.  I lean more towards the latter, but honestly, both albums are so overstuffed with amazing moments that it’s borderline unbelievable that one outfit could put out so much amazing music in such a short span.  While these records would chart high even if sung in Hopelandic, there’s no escaping the social import of the lyrics.  One need look no further than Black Is’s “Don’t Shoot Guns Down” for the 2020 dance party at the end of the world.  As if that weren’t more than enough, it finds its analogue on Rise’s “Street Fighter,” and that’s SAULT in a nutshell: two albums in constant communication with one another, and more importantly, with the state of the world.  Guns down.  Don’t Shoot.  Let’s dance.  

[girlablaze]

finn wolfhard family template !  by stevenyuens.

requested by @nishatk2001. finn wolfhard is seventeen years old  &  is of ashkenazi jewish, german, scandinavian, welsh, &  irish descent. for alternative options, be sure to look below the cut ! a like or reblog would be super coolio if you found this useful !

father: jon bernthal  —  forty three. (  ashkenazi jewish. )

mother: emily hampshire  —  thirty eight.   (  unspecified. )

aunt: ginnifer goodwin  —  forty one.   (  english, welsh, german, ashkenazi jewish. )

older brother: aaron taylor - johnson  —  twenty nine.   (  ashkenazi jewish, english, irish. )

older sister: billie lourd  —  twenty seven.   (  ashkenazi jewish, english, scottish, irish, welsh, german, cajun/french. )

older sister: dylan gelula —  twenty five.   (  ashkenazi jewish. )

older brother: leo howard  —  twenty two.   (  english, irish, ashkenazi jewish. )

older sister: maude apatow  —  twenty two.   (  ashkenazi jewish, irish, finnish, german, scottish. )

sibling alternatives !

* denotes half-siblings or cousins !

alden ehrenreich  —  thirty. (  ashkenazi jewish, british isles.  )

ben barnes  —  thirty eight.  (  english, dutch - german jewish.  )

bex taylor-klaus —  twenty five. (  ashkenazi jewish.  )

charlie rowe  —  twenty three.   (  english, scottish, ashkenazi jewish, greek, french, manx. )

* crystal reed —  thirty five.  (  english, scottish, welsh. )

diana silvers  —  twenty two. (  ashkenazi jewish, swiss.  ) 

emmy rossum —  thirty three.  (  ashkenazi jewish, english, dutch. )

ezra miller  —  twenty seven. (  ashkenazi jewish, dutch, german.  ) 

* jemima kirke —  thirty four.  (  ashkenazi jewish, iraqi mizrahi jewish, english, scottish. )

joey king —  twenty.  (  ashkenazi jewish, english. )

julian morris — thirty seven.  (  ashkenazi jewish.  )

* katie sarife  —  twenty six. (  lebanese, english, scottish, irish.  )

* kaya scodelario  —  twenty seven.  (  english, italian, portuguese, brazilian.  )

isabelle fuhrman  —  twenty three. (  russian jewish.  ) 

logan lerman  —  twenty eight. (  ashkenazi jewish.  )

* madison mclaughlin  —  twenty four. (  unspecified white / latina.  )

* michelle trachtenberg — thirty four.  (  russian - german jewish.  )

nikki reed —  thirty one.  (  ashkenazi jewish, german, english, italian, scottish, irish, swiss - german, welsh, french. )

* odette annable — thirty four.  (  ashkenazi jewish, italian, cuban.  )

odeya rush  —  twenty two. (  ashkenazi jewish.  ) 

rachel bilson —  thirty eight.  (  ashkenazi jewish, italian. )

ronen rubinstein  —  twenty six.  (  ashkenazi jewish.  )

timothee chalamet —  twenty four.  (  ashkenazi jewish, french, english, scottish, irish. )

thomas mcdonell —  thirty three.  (  ashkenazi jewish, scottish, swedish, german, irish, english. ) 

zachary gordan — twenty two.  (  ashkenazi jewish.  )

parent alternatives !

adam brody  —  forty.   (  ashkenazi jewish. )

adrien brody  —  forty six.  (  ashkenazi jewish, hungarian.  )

alexa davalos  —  thirty seven.  (  ashkenazi jewish, dutch, spanish, finnish, some asian.  )

amanda peet  —  forty eight.  (  english, scottish, german, ashkenazi jewish.  )

eli roth  —  forty seven.  (  ashkenazi jewish.  )

gabe saporta  —  forty.  (  ashkenazi jewish, sephardi jewish.  )

idina menzel  —  forty eight.  (  ashkenazi jewish.  )

jennifer connelly  —  forty nine.  (  irish, norwegign, ashkenazi jewish.  )

joaquin phoenix  —  forty five.  (  ashkenazi jewish, english, scottish, irish, german, welsh, french huguenot.  )

justin bartha  —  forty one.  (  ashkenazi jewish.  )

maggie gyllenhaal  —  forty two.  (  ashkenazi jewish, swedish, german, scottish, welsh, french, english.  ) 

mia kirshner  —  forty four.  (  polish jewish, bulgarian jewish.  ) 

paul rudd  —  fifty.  (  ashkenazi jewish.  ) 

rachel weisz  —  forty nine.  (  ashkenazi jewish, austrian - italian.  ) 

winona ryder  —  forty eight.  (  ashkenazi jewish, belgian/walloon, german, english, irish.  ) 

[freethejazzblog]

Free The Jazz #78 [for Peter Beste]

1 - Angles 3 - Equality & Death (Mothers, Fathers, Where Are Ye?) (from "Parede", 2018 Clean Feed)

2 - Ben Vince / Valentina Magaletti / Cam Deas - Tower Of Cells (from "Assimilation", 2018 Where To Now?)

3 - Ksawery Wójciński / Wojciech Jachna - Waterfall (from "Conversation With Space", 2018 Fundacja Słuchaj!)

4 - Matt Piet Trio - Improvisation One (edit) (from "Live At Constellation", 2016 not on label)

5 - Sloth Racket - Animal Uprising (from "A Glorious Monster", 2018 Luminous)

6 - Alberto Pinton Noi Siamo - Uscita di Sicurezza (from "Opus Facere", 2018 Clean Feed)

7 - Rafael Toral - Lisboa, pt.1 (edit) (from "Space Quartet", 2018 Clean Feed)

8 - Heather Leigh / Peter Brötzmann - Crowmoon (edit) (from "Crowmoon", 2018 not on label)

Hear it first on 8K Sundays 11amNZT (Saturdays 11pmGMT)

[tabloidtoc]

Hollywood Reporter, September 25

Since I don’t have any tabloids  to add today, I’m going to add the Hollywood Reporter. I’ll do this when I run dry of tabloids. If you’d like me to add HR more often, let me know :) 

Keep in mind HR is an over-sized magazine, so some scans will be cut off. If you’d like something scanned that I cut off, again let me know

Lastly, there are a lot of ads in HR, especially For Your Consideration and Congratulations ads. Let me know if you’d like me to keep an eye out for ads for someone or something you’re interested in

Cover: Fall Style Glam Squads -- Hairstylist Bryce Scarlett, Margot Robbie and makeup artist Pati Dubroff 

Page 10: Contents, Cynthia Erivo

Page 12: Contents 

Page 23:  The Report -- How sky-high can massive TV library deals fly?, Heat Index -- Lizzo

Page 24: Who wants to buy DirecTV at a deep discount? 

Page 26: Why Disney quietly launched streaming in the Netherlands, Theaters’ latest cash grab: ads after trailers 

Page 28: Emmys shocks, surprises and that big ratings stumble, who won big and who won big on TV, Emmy Heat Index -- Phoebe Waller-Bridge, HBO, Amazon, Ozark, Jesse Armstrong, Variety categories, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the women of Game of Thrones, Fox Entertainment 

Page 32: Box Office, Broadcast TV, Cable TV, Billboard Hot 100, Billboard 200 

Page 34: 7 Days of Deals -- Margaret Nagle, Penelope Ann Miller, Mia Kirshner, Lori Loughlin, Felicity Huffman, Bruce Holsinger, Greg Berlanti, Jessica Queller, Robert Rovner, Melissa Korn, Jennifer Levitz, D.V. DeVincentis, Ali Krug, Patrick Chu, Jeffrey Wright, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Dean DeBlois, Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds will star in a musical reimagining of A Christmas Carol, Joaquin Phoenix, Big Deal Exclusive -- Billy Joel’s music will be a scripted “arc-thology” called Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, Hot New Books with Hollywood Appeal -- The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Raven Lane by Amber Cowie

Page 35: Rita Wilson, Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver, Gideon Adlon and Lovie Simone and Zoey Luna, Mayim Bialik and Jim Parsons, Ryan Seacrest, Jared Padalecki will star in a Walker Texas Ranger reboot, Stephen Falk, Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson, Dan Levy, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Nahnatchka Khan, Kiefer Sutherland and Boyd Holbrook, Queen Latifah, Kendrick Lamar, Rep Sheet -- Cecily Strong, Chance the Rapper, Jason Bell, Jamie-Lee O’Donnell, Kevin Nash AKA Diesel, Next Big Thing -- Barbie Ferreira

Page 39: About Town -- Stephanie Ruhle of MSNBC 

Page 40: AllBright pitches women a diverse membership and professional cred to stand out amid multiplying options -- Jameela Jamil, Olivia Wilde, The Bungalows’ bar to entry -- Taylor Swift and Emma Stone, Eddie Redmayne

Page 41: Soho Warehouse, Cory Booker Q&A -- he’s a big fan of Supernatural 

Page 46: Yes, I Did Say That -- Bob Iger, Reed Hastings, Renee Zellweger, Thomas Lennon, Mike Schur, Mike Johnson, Oprah Winfrey, Demi Moore, Flashback -- Julian Fellowes in 2018 

Page 48: Rambling Reporter -- Robert Osborne, Billy Porter, Laverne Cox, Ricky Martin, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Padma Lakshmi, Shoshana Bean, Constance Wu, Hudson Yang, Charlotte Kirk, Kevin Tsujihara, Neil Marshall, Sylvester Stallone, Peter Bradshaw, Power Dining -- Issa Rae, Larry David, Helen Hunt, Jamie Foxx, Brian Grazer, Alicia Vikander brunching at Brentwood Country Mart’s Farmshop, Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Charlie Hunnam, Julie Bowen, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian 

Page 50: Hitched, Hatched, Hired 

Page 53: Emmy Awards -- Phoebe Waller-Bridge 

Page 54: Best Dressed -- Emilia Clarke, Rachel Brosnahan

Page 55: Mandy Moore, Naomi Watts, Michelle Williams 

Page 56: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Gwyneth Paltrow

Page 57: Julia Garner, Billy Porter, Sophie Turner, Kristen Bell 

Page 58: On the Carpet and Inside the Parties -- Jared Harris and Craig Mazin, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and boyfriend Martin McDonagh, Peter Roth with wife Andrea and Ann Sarnoff and husband Richard, Ted Sarandos and Jason Bateman, Billy Porter, Michelle Williams and John Landgraf, George R.R. Martin 

Page 59: Ava DuVernay and Ethan Herisse and Asante Blackk and Jane Rosenthal, Bob Greenblatt and Stephen Loguidice, Rachel Brosnahan, Joey King and Patricia Arquette, RuPaul, Jodie Comer 

Page 60: Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Anna Chlumsky, Peter Dinklage and David Benioff, Eugene Levy and Deborah Devine and Ben Stiller, Charlie Collier, Jeremy Strong and Jesse Armstong and Casey Bloys, Sophie Turner and Nina West, Lena Waithe and Ben Whishaw and Latesha Gillespie and Charlie Barnett 

Page 61: Kelly Kahl and Thom Sherman and their wives, Jeff Bezos and Bethenny Frankel, Norman Lear and Karey Burke, Jharrel Jerome and Korey Wise, Zendaya, Jeff Shell and daughter Anna, Rambling Reporter Emmy Edition -- Ted Sarandos, Jharrel Jerome, Korey Wise, Game of Thrones cast

Page 62: Regina King, Tony Shaloub and Alex Borstein, Robin Wright, Iain Glen and Kit Harington, Jaboukie Young-White, Seth MacFarlane, Adam Devine, Samantha Bee 

Page 64: THR and SAG-AFTRA Nominees Night -- Sterling K. Brown and Mandy Moore and Susan Kelechi Watson and Chris Sullivan, Michael K. Williams, Clea Duvall and Natasha Lyonne, Anthony Carrigan and Jared Harris and wife Allegra Riggio, Jennifer Salke and Bert Salke and Pearlena Igbokwe, Chris Silbermann, Lea Michele, Jeremy Gold and Marci Wiseman and Craig Erwich, Sarah Snook and Nicholas Braun, Aaron Paul and Joey King, David Nevins and Matthew Belloni and Josh Sapan 

Page 66: The Business -- Bill Damaschke 

Page 68: Digital -- Gamer’s Plight -- retire at 25? 

Page 70: TV -- Shane Gillis, SNL and the art of the post-racist-rant apology 

Page 72: Are Hollywood “Loan-outs” done for? 

Page 76: How to throw a viewing party for your own show, Power Shopping -- Cardi B., Ryan Murphy, Larry David, Cameron Diaz, Mark Wahlberg, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Kristen Stewart, Kate Hudson, Style News and Notes -- Teressa Foglia, Gerard Butler, Owen Wilson, John Mayer, Will Smith

Page 78: Becoming Judy -- designers Jany Temime and Jeremy Woodhead transformed Renee Zellweger into Judy Garland 

Page 82: Glam Squads -- Zendaya 

Page 83: Zendaya with makeup artist Sheika Daley and hairstylist Ursula Stephen 

Page 85: Margot Robbie with Bryce Scarlett and Pati Dubroff, Zazie Beetz, Rachel Brosnahan 

Page 86: Cynthia Erivo with makeup artist Terrell Mullin and hairstylist Coree Moreno 

Page 87: Emilia Clarke, Cynthia Erivo, Scarlett Johansson, Nicole Kidman, Brie Larson 

Page 88: Jennifer Lopez, Lupita Nyong’o

Page 89: Rachel Brosnahan with hairstylist Owen Gould and makeup artist Lisa Aharon, Florence Pugh, Margot Robbie 

Page 90: BTS Emmys -- Michelle Williams’ winning glam slam 

Page 91 -- Saoirse Ronan, Hailee Steinfeld, Charlize Theron, Zendaya 

Page 92: Comedy’s Civil War -- Shane Gillis’ SNL firing has exposed a growing rift in the stand-up world over what’s legitimate envelope-pushing and what’s just plain racist 

Page 94: Reviews -- The Politician 

Page 95: Fall TV Roundup, THR’s Social Climbers -- Actors -- Cole Sprouse, Tracee Ellis Ross, Unscripted TV -- American Ninja Warriors, TV Personalities -- James Corden 

Page 97: Backlot -- Elizabeth Banks on fighting to direct and her picks for president, Film Row gives assistants face time with top execs 

Page 98: A new film takes the case of Eric Garner -- who was killed by NYPD officers in 2014 -- to court 

Page 100: Armando Iannucci embraces his softer side for a timely David Copperfield starring Dev Patel 

Page 102: Has Korean filmmaking become a victim of its own success? 

Page 104: 90 Years of THR -- In the early 1960s Marilyn Monroe’s hairstylist was ‘God’

[butmostlyme97]

New Waitress audio+WANTS

This is my new release

Waitress, January 12th 2019, San Antonio Majestic Theatre E (Tracked, Untracked)

Christine Dwyer (Jenna), Maiesha McQueen (Becky), Jessie Shelton (Dawn), Steven Good (Dr. Pomatter), Jeremy Morse (Oagie), Matt DeAngelis (Earl), Ryan G. Dunkin (Cal), Richard Kline (Old Joe), Rheaume Crenshaw (Nurse Norma), Grace Stockdale ( Mother), Adam J Levy (Father), Alex Tripp (Francine), Gerianne Perez ( Club Knocked up Solosit)

Ensemble: Kolby Kindle, Kevin Zak, Rheaume Crenshaw, Grace Stockdale, Alex Tripp, Gerianne Perez,

Nft till March 13 2019 unless done by me

Wants:

Mean Girls | December 2, 2018 | Broadway | Matinee | mp3 untracked

​Cast Info: Erika Henningsen (Cady Heron), Becca Petersen (u/s Regina George), Ashley Park (Gretchen Wieners), Jonalyn Saxer (u/s Karen Smith), Tee Boyich (u/s Janis Sarkisian), Brendon Stimpson (u/s Damian Hubbard), Jennifer Simard (Mrs. Heron/Ms. Norbury/Mrs. George), Rick Younger (Mr. Duvall), Kyle Selig (Aaron Samuels), Cheech Manohar (Kevin Gnapoor), Myles McHale (Coach Carr/Glen Coco/Math Moderator), Stephanie Lynn Bissonnette (Dawn Schweitzer), Collins Conley (Lizzie Therman/Caroline Krafft), Ben Cook (Tyler Kimble), DeMarius R. Copes (Christian Wiggins), Kevin Csolak (Shane Oman), Riza Takahashi (Sophie Kawachi), Devon Hadsell (Caitlyn Caussin), Curtis Holland (Jason Weems), Nikhil Saboo (Marwan Jitla), Ixchel Cuellar (s/w Taylor Wedell), Britt Nicholas (s/w Rachel Hamilton), Bria Jene Williams (Grace Akinola), Gianna Yanelli (Sonja Acquino)

Notes: I'm fairly certain this is the first time Tee and Brendon were together. Starcuffedjean’s master

Newsies | August 4, 2013 | Broadway | MP3 tracked

Cast Info: Brendon Stimson (us Jack), Caitlyn Caughell (us Katherine), Stuart Marland (us Pulitzer), Ben Fankhauser, Andy Richardson, Joshua Colley, LaVon Fisher-Wilson, JP Ferreri (us Buttons/Scab), Stuart Zagnit (us Snyder), Julian DeGuzman (us Oscar Delancey)

Anastasia | November 25, 2018 | Broadway | m4a untracked (2)

Cast: Christy Altomare (Anya), Zach Adkins (Dmitry), John Bolton (Vlad), Max Von Essen (Gleb), Lauren Blackman (u/s Countess Lily), Judy Kaye (Dowager Empress)

Notes: requiemtrading's master. Zach's last show

Mean Girls | November 15, 2018 | Broadway | Devon's debut as Adult Women (the first time the roles has been played by other than Kerry or Jennifer)

Waitress | November 25, 2018 | Manila | m4a untracked | Limited Trade

Cast Info: Jonna Ampil (Jenna), Maronne Cruz (Dawn), Bituin Escalante (Becky), Bibo Reyes (Dr. Pomatter), Nino Alejandro (Ogie), George Schulze (Earl), Dean Rosen (Cal), Steven Conde (Joe)

2018.07.21 M | Broadway | Untracked | Limited Trade |

Kennedy Caughell (u/s Carole King), Genie Klein (Liz Larsen), Sara Shepard (u/s Betty), Evan Todd (Gerry Goffin), Kara Lindsay (Cynthia Weil), Paul Anthony Stewart (Don Kirshner), Ben Jacoby (Barry Mann)

Notes: Kennedy's Carole King Debut

2017.08.07 | St. Louis MUNY |

Jay Armstrong Johnson (Jack Kelly), Davis Gaines (Joseph Pulitzer), Tessa Grady (Katherine Plumber), Ta’Rea Campbell (Medda Larkin), Daniel Quadrino (Crutchie), Spencer Davis Milford (Davey), Gabriel Cytron (Les)

Anastasia - Broadway - November 30, 2018 - M4a (Untracked) - GIFTED UPON REQUEST

cast: Christy Altomare (Anya), Cody Simpson (Dmitry), John Bolton (Vlad), Max von Essen (Gleb Vaganov), Judy Kaye (Dowager Empress), Vicki Lewis (Lily)

notes: 2nd performance of Cody Simpson! The key for My Petersburg has been lowered to fit his voice. It's actually a nice change of pace to hear.

Cats with Jonalyn Saxer as Demeter

Mamma Mia at Sacramento music circus

Wicked with Allison bailey and Jackie burns

[yungjustus]

Jewish actors

Actors of fully Jewish background: Logan Lerman, Natalie Portman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mila Kunis, Bar Refaeli, James Wolk, Anton Yelchin, Paul Rudd, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Julian Morris, Adam Brody, Kat Dennings, Gabriel Macht, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Erin Heatherton, Lisa Kudrow, Lizzy Caplan, Gal Gadot, Debra Messing, Jason Isaacs, Jon Bernthal, Robert Kazinsky, Melanie Laurent, Esti Ginzburg, Shiri Appleby, Justin Bartha, Margarita Levieva, Elizabeth Berkley, Halston Sage, Seth Gabel, Corey Stoll, Mia Kirshner, Alden Ehrenreich, Debra Winger, Eric Balfour, Emory Cohen, Scott Mechlowicz, Odeya Rush, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson is Jewish, too (though I don’t know if both of his parents are).

Actors with Jewish mothers and non-Jewish fathers: Jake Gyllenhaal, Dave Franco, James Franco, Scarlett Johansson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Daniel Radcliffe, Alison Brie, Eva Green, Joaquin Phoenix, River Phoenix, Emmy Rossum, Ryan Potter, Rashida Jones, Jennifer Connelly, Sofia Black D’Elia, Nora Arnezeder, Goldie Hawn, Ginnifer Goodwin, Amanda Peet, Eric Dane, Jeremy Jordan, Joel Kinnaman, Ben Barnes, Patricia Arquette, Kyra Sedgwick, Dave Annable, and Harrison Ford (whose maternal grandparents were both Jewish, despite those Hanukkah Song lyrics).

Actors with Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers, who themselves were either raised as Jews and/or identify as Jews: Ezra Miller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Alexa Davalos, Nat Wolff, Nicola Peltz, James Maslow, Josh Bowman, Andrew Garfield, Winona Ryder, Michael Douglas, Ben Foster, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nikki Reed, Zac Efron, Jonathan Keltz, Paul Newman.

Oh, and Ansel Elgort’s father is Jewish, though I don’t know how Ansel was raised. Robert Downey, Jr. and Sean Penn were also born to Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers. Armie Hammer and Chris Pine are part Jewish.

Actors with one Jewish-born parent and one parent who converted to Judaism: Dianna Agron, Sara Paxton (whose father converted, not her mother), Alicia Silverstone, Jamie-Lynn Sigler.

[demitgibbs]

Q&A: Gary Trainor Talks ‘School of Rock: The Musical’

Broadway legend Andrew Lloyd Webber’s high-octane Broadway and West End hit School Of Rock – The Musical is coming to Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County. The smash-hit musical will play a limited one-week run, April 9 – 14.

School Of Rock – The Musical is based on the hit 2003 film of the same and features music from the movie, as well as an original score by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Glenn Slater, a book by Julian Fellowes, choreography by JoAnn M. Hunter and direction by Laurence Connor.

The full cast of School Of Rock – The Musical national tour stars Merritt David Janes as Dewey, Lexie Dorsett Sharp as Rosalie, Madison Micucci as Patty, Layne Roate as Ned, Gary Trainor as Dewey Alternate, Deidre Lang as Ms. Sheinkopf, Arianna Pereira as Shonelle, Leanne Parks as Katie, Alyssa Emily Marvin as Marcy, Dylann Trueblood as Mason, Camille De La Cruz as Tomika, Cameron Trueblood as Freddy, Mystic Inscho as Zack, Sammy Dell as Billy, Julian Brescia as Lawrence and Sami Bray as Summer. The adult ensemble features John Campione, Matt Caplan, Alison Cusano, Christopher De Angelis, Liam Fennecken, Brian Golub, Lizzie Klemperer, Sinclair Mitchell, Jonathon Timpanelli, JP Qualters and Khalifa White. The kid’s ensemble features Bella Fraker, Eamonn Hubert, Jacob Moran, Blake Ryan, Isabella Rose Sky and Gabriella Uhl.

#td_uid_1_5ca610b29fae9 .td-doubleSlider-2 .td-item1 { background: url(https://hotspotsmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Gary-Trainor-School-of-Rock-160x120.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat; }

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Gary Trainor

It was a pleasure to sit down with Gary Trainor, who plays the lead role of Dewey in certain performances for this Hotspots exclusive interview.

At what age did you begin performing and how did it happen?

I started performing when I was about 7 years old in Northern Ireland, and have been hooked ever since.

What was your first professional role?

I went to drama school in London and when I finished that degree at 21 I did a show called the Oxford Passion that I got paid for.

How did you get cast in this Broadway Across America’s production of School of Rock?

I was in the original West End show and I was the Dewey alternate there, and then took over the lead full time. Eventually I took a break, and after resting, I was interested in coming back to School Of Rock and they picked me for the tour.

Other than this role, what has been your favorite to play?

I played Donnie Kirshner in Beautiful in the West End and that was a lot of fun. I also liked Stones in his Pocket on Broadway, which I did in 2011.

What is your fantasy role?

I would have said Dr. Who in the past, but now that roles are diverse I can be Dr. Who’s sidekick. Either that or Mrs. Doubtfire.

How fun is it to work with the talented group of kids in School of Rock?

It’s amazing, as you get to be the big brother or the fun uncle. They are so talented and fun, and the energy they have is infectious. These kids are so professional, it amazes me.

What should our readers expect from this production of School of Rock?

They should expect to be entertained, to laugh, and to be shocked a bit. You are going to see these kids take a journey and you are going to get your face smashed by some amazing rock. The people that come to our show are from the ages 4 to 104. There really is no age limit!

On a personal level, I am having the time of my life on this show and exploring parts of America I thought I would never see. I am looking forward to coming to Florida to get some sun on this pasty Irish skin.

School Of Rock – The Musical opened on Broadway to rave reviews on Sunday, December 6, 2015. This Ben Brantley New York Times ‘Critics’ Pick’ “is an inspiring jolt of energy and mad skillz,” raves Jesse Oxfeld of Entertainment Weekly. And in his four-star Critics’ Pick review, Time Out’s David Cote proclaimed, “School’s IN – forever!” School Of Rock – The Musical was nominated for four 2016 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Score (Lloyd Webber and Slater), Best Book (Fellowes), and Best Leading Actor in a Musical (Alex Brightman). School Of Rock – The Musical also won the 2017 Oliver award for Outstanding Achievement in Music.

Based on the hit film, School Of Rock – The Musical is a hilarious new musical that follows Dewey Finn, a failed, wannabe rock star who decides to earn a few extra bucks by posing as a substitute teacher at a prestigious prep school. There he turns a class of straight-A students into a guitar-shredding, bass-slapping, mind-blowing rock band. While teaching these pintsized prodigies what it means to truly rock, Dewey falls for the school’s beautiful, but uptight headmistress, helping her rediscover the wild child within.

Tickets to School Of Rock – The Musical start at $34 and are available through the Arsht Center Box Office in person at 1300 Biscayne Blvd. Miami, by calling 305.949.6722, or online at arshtcenter.org.

For more information go to: ustour.SchoolOfRockTheMusical.com.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2019/04/04/qa-gary-trainor-talks-school-of-rock/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/183938331485

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Vol. 4, Number 11

Blink and 2018 is just about over, at least in terms of music releases, at least if you don’t follow best ofs, mainstream hip hop or holiday music. As we close in on another year of amazing music—but what year isn’t, really?— Dusted takes a moment to dig through the piles and write some short, mostly positive reviews of albums that might have gotten slept on. As usual, writers follow their interests through expansive drone, transcendental folk, incendiary free-jazz, metal, punk and gospel-tinged Americana. Contributors this time included Ethan Covey, Justin Cober-Lake, Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer and Jonathan Shaw.

Bitchin Bajas — Rebajas (Drag City)

Bitchin Bajas are a band made for deep exploration. Their hallucinatory, drone-based excursions are like an old couch — sink in, stretch out and stay a while. Rebajas, released this fall by Drag City, makes that task simple. The seven CD set features most everything the band has released since their debut in 2010: eight full albums and their contribution to various split albums. If you’re dipped into Bitchin Bajas previously, you’ll know what you’re getting. (And if you haven’t there’s little chance this package, or this review of it, is where you’d start.) That said, for those with a long drive, or a monk-like attention span, settling in and tracking the territory of the band’s evolution is rewarding. While the themes — of drone, calm, repeating bass and synth figures — remain constant, the band isn’t a one trick (or one note?) pony. Deep listening uncovers the variety between shorter, bloop-and-hum pieces from Tones/Zones (Disc 1) and the meditative, cycling layers of “2303” from last year’s Bajas Fresh (Disc 7). And there are moments that peek up from the soup: “Bajas Ragas” adds hand percussion and a loping bass line for one of their most engaging concoctions—fit for a slow-motion dance floor in a submerged city of the future. Missing, unfortunately, is their 2016 collaborative album with Bonnie “Prince” Billy, the excellently-titled Epic Jammers And Fortunate Little Ditties. As is this intriguing gem of Rolling Stones covers. Yet, with just shy of seven hours of music, I doubt many will sweat their absence. There’s more than enough to disappear into. And, if this review hasn’t spelled it simply enough, this is quite possibly the trippiest music out there. So, set your intentions and bon voyage.  

Ethan Covey

 Nathan Bowles—Plainly Mistaken (Paradise of Bachelors)

Plainly Mistaken by Nathan Bowles

Nathan Bowles, banjoist, percussionist and citizen of New Weird America, departs from his plain-spoken directness in this fourth album and makes a welcome detour into open-ended psychedelia. Right from the dreamy, drifty “Now If You Remember,” you sense a soft-focus open-ness to otherworldly experience. The cut, written by the seven-year-old Jessica Constable and included on Julie Tippett’s 1976 Sunset Glow, shifts and shimmers in ways that Bowles percussive banjo ditties have rarely done. Yet the album’s transcendental heart comes in “The Road Reversed,” where a pounding, dancing rhythm kicks among long, velvety bowed tones, and banjo notes bend into raga-like half-tones. Folk Americana frolics amid deep-toned Eastern meditation, and where one begins and the other ends is hard to say and, also, beside the point. There are, for sure, some traditional touchpoints—“Elk River Blues” (a tune by Ernie Carpenter that Bowles revisits here), “Fresh and Fairly So” and “Stump Sprout” will all satisfy fans of the twang and the twitch. Yet what lingers, for me, are the ones that stray from past experience, the slow, solo ambiguities of “Umbra,” the shadowy flurries and shifting dissonances of “Girih Tiles.” What Bowles’ well-turned work has lacked till now is mystery, and here it is at last.

Jennifer Kelly

 Mike Farris — Silver & Stone (Compass)

Mike Farris's long, strange career flamed briefly with the alt-rockers Screamin' Cheetah Wheelies in the 1990s. After that, Farris rejected his rock 'n' roll lifestyle and grungy sound in a move toward gospel and soul. The surprise of the transition wasn't the partier-to-Christian story but the discovery of how strong Farris's vocals are. On Silver & Stone, he has less of a gospel focus, but down in some swampy soul music (with bits of brighter pop), he shows off that voice. He's willing to take on Bill Withers (“Hope She'll Be Happier”) and Sam Cooke (“I'll Coming Running Back to You”) — not tasks usually recommended — and he comes out of it just fine.

The album fits a sort of arc for his solo career. It lacks the new-convert punch and joy of Salvation in Lights, but it shifts into more thoughtful reflection. Where he had been celebrating, now he's considering how to live. The explicit religion has mostly disappeared, but Farris's songs still run on hope and a big heart. The sorts of ideas at work on Silver & Stone synthesize on “When Mavis Sings,” a tribute to Mavis Staples and serves as a sort of musical and personal model. Farris, whether in rock or soul, the church or the club, presents a focused vision with enough groove to carry it through.

Justin Cober-Lake

 Tim Feeney — Burrow (Marginal Frequency)

MFCS K | Tim Feeney - Burrow by Marginal Frequency

Burrow can be read as both an explanation and an instruction. Percussionist Tim Feeney begins each of this tape’s four pieces (two per side, and if you purchase a download you’ll get a file of each side, not each piece) in similar fashion, beating out a pattern with minimal variation. As the performance progresses monotony gives way to fascination as Feeney slowly reveals a beat’s potential variations. At a certain point things change. Are you hearing more because he threw something on the drum skin, or because your concentration is unlocking that drum-strike’s secrets, or maybe both? Treat this tape like a meditation guide, one that helps you to dig into the sound and see what treasures you find.

Bill Meyer 

 Forever House — Eaves (Infrequent Seams)

Eaves by Forever House

Forever House makes wildly complicated songs whose improvisatory flights and furies are held together, barely, by Meaghan Burke’s keening, swooping melodies. A lurid aura hangs over these difficult, jarring compositions, witchy incantations invoking freaks, body doubles and spiders. Burke’s voice is velvety dark, draping over odd-shaped rhythms, jutting stabs of violent sound. The drumming is particularly good in an off-putting, against-expectations manner; along with throbs of cello and throes of feedbacked dissonance, it constructs a weird fun house architecture where everything tips and distorts and unsettles.

Forever House’s oddities work because they’re powered by formidable skills – this is a band with a serious NY downtown pedigree. Burke, a cellist and composer, commutes between classical orchestra work and solo material that skitters along the boundary between archaic pop and free-wheeling art song. Both guitarist James Moore and bassist James Illgenfritz have played with John Zorn, as well as other downtown luminaries (in Illgenfritz’s case Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Elliott Sharp and Pauline Oliveros and others, in Moore’s with the electric guitar quartet Dither). Drummer Pete Wise has left less of an internet trail but seems to have Bang on a Can connections. You get the sense that Forever House is their spooky busman’s holiday, a chance to play against type and raise some unruly ghosts. Boo!

Jennifer Kelly  

 German Army — Kowloon Walled City = (Null Zone)

Kowloon Walled City by German Army

German Army is neither an established military entity nor some reenactment clique, but a low-flying, California-based combo that (according to their Facebook page) “uses art to document disappearing cultures and wildlife while critiquing imperialism in all forms.” Kowloon Walled City certainly qualifies as a disappearing culture, since most of the semi-autonomous, mob-run neighborhood that sat at the edge of Hong Kong’s airport has been cleaned up or knocked down. Since there’s nothing particularly Chinese-sounding about this tape’s perky synth/drum jams and the rare spoken vocals are in distinctly American-accented English, the proclaimed mission may be a failure or just a red herring. But if you need some catchy tunes limned with coded mystery to jam in your old jalopy (if you have tried to get a car stereo with a tape deck in the last ten years, you know what I’m talking about), German Army is at your service.

Bill Meyer

  Gong Gong Gong—Siren (Wharf Cat)

Siren 追逐劇 by Gong Gong Gong 工工工

Two songs from the duo of Joshua Frank and Tom Ng make a case for an intriguing Beijing punk-noise underground. The a-side, “Siren” abstracts the electric blues into a single clattering guitar riff, a zooming, looming roar of bass and a searing call (no response) vocal from Ng, in sing-song-y Chinese. “Something’s Happening” is meatier and more conventionally rock, still built on sharp, stinging guitar clamor, but buzzing with Hendrix-y solo-ry (if Hendrix played the bass). Both tracks employ the minimum number of parts to maximal impact, the construction loose enough for friction, sparks and gnashing aggression.

Jennifer Kelly

 Gerrit Hatcher / Peter Maunu / Julian Kirschner — The Raven and the Dove (JAKI)

The Raven and the Dove by Hatcher/Maunu/Kirshner

Chicago’s built on drained swampland, so when the next wave of free jazz rolls up, it can travel. Certainly this trio, which comprises two younger musicians and one more who seems to be doing exactly what he wants with his retirement, covers a lot of ground. Gerrit Hatcher is an extroverted tenor saxophonist with a raw tone and a willingness to depart from his default setting of muscular tune-grinding into passages of tentative flutter and delicate counterpoint. Good drummers never lack for work, so it’s saying something that you can find Julian Kirschner on a Chicago stage pretty much every week of the year. He comes from a post-free jazz conception of his instrument that favors color, space and movement over pulse or swing. Joining these youngsters is Peter Maunu, whose past life playing fusion and new age music seems quite irrelevant to the unpredictable stream of savage scraping, subliminal humming, and acidic rocking that issues from his guitar, violin and mandolin. This group is brand new, but it won’t be for long; they’ve been touring around the Midwest this fall, so you can expect them to add seasoned rapport to band new promises before long. Catch them if you can, and catch this promising debut if you can’t.

Bill Meyer

 Kidd Jordan / Alvin Fielder / Joel Futterman / Steve Swell — Masters of Improvisation (Valid Records)

Masters of Improvisation by Kidd Jordan, Alvin Fielder, Joel Futterman & Steve Swell

It takes a particular orneriness to be a musician in a musical city and stake your claim to a style that the city has never embraced. You can say a lot of things about New Orleans, but it’s never really been a free jazz town. But that hasn’t stopped tenor saxophonist Kidd Jordan, who has made his crust playing and teaching every style that a jobbing musician must play, from playing a particularly uncompromising variety of free jazz. Two of his accompanists here are long-time partners. Drummer Alvin Fielder, who like Jordan is in his 80s, has likewise carried the free jazz torch in southern environs where the muggy air of indifference would douse a fainter spirit. Pianist Joel Futterman is a decade younger and his darting technique and forays inside the piano imply that his roots are sunk in different turf than his mates, but he’s been playing with them long enough to be able to bring empathy as well as energy to the table. New York-based trombonist Steve Swell is the newcomer, and his ability to shift effortlessly between sere exhalations and brash attacks allows him to complicate the combo’s late-Coltrane vibe without betraying it, and then be equally persuasive when they turn around and wring the last blue drops out of Doc Pomus’ “Lonely Avenue.” This concert recording lingers long on the stormy side; go on, stick your face into the wind, you won’t be sorry.

Bill Meyer

 No Love — Choke on It (Sorry State)

Choke On It by No Love

No Love, from Raleigh, NC, play punk rock that conjures the ragged toughness of the mid-1970s NYC downtown scene and the pace of early-1980s Southern Cali hardcore. It’s a potent mix, and when guitarists Seth Beard and Daniel Lupton make a bit of space for vocalist Elizabeth Lynch, the record really kills it. The record’s title track and “Dogs//Wolves” — released back in 2015 as the A-side of a terrific single — are frantic punk burners that scrap and sizzle, teetering on the brink of perilous chaos. The band manages to channel the energy without disciplining it, like the Heartbreakers in those magical months in 1975. “Back Taxes & Anaphylaxis” is even better, mostly because Lynch takes an aggressive lead on the song, showing what she can do. On “Drama Fever,” she manages to keep pace with the guitars’ slashing intensity, but on some of the other tracks, she’s drowned out by all the frenzied riffage. The raw sound of the record gives it a low-grade charm, but the noise sometimes obscures the tunes, which are pretty great. Still, the band’s vigor and verve are undeniable. More, please.  

Jonathan Shaw

 One Tail, One Head — Worlds Open, Worlds Collide (Terratur Possessions) 

Worlds Open, Worlds Collide by One Tail, One Head

Norway’s One Tail, One Head have been playing black metal since 2006, but this year’s Worlds Open, Worlds Collide is the first full-length record the band has ever released. They’ve made a career on their reputation as a live act, pairing their orthodox blackened sound and songs with a stage show only slightly less theatrical than Watain’s (that’s all stage blood, right guys?). It seems that this first LP will be their last, as One Tail, One Head have announced their intent to call it quits after a tour supporting the record. That sense of finality may have prompted the band to round the stylistic bases, pairing truculent, muscular songs reminiscent of the early demos (“Firebirds” is a good example) with more chaotic, swirling work typical of the recent EPs. Songs in the former mode are more successful here, especially the record’s title track, which thunders and crackles with convincing menace. But One Tail, One Head could have given themselves a better sendoff. Few of these tunes feel fully realized, and none is near the equal of the band’s intense performing presence. It’s too bad — but a wise (or wise-ass) kid from Chicago once observed that “breaking up is an idea that has occurred to far too few groups, sometimes the wrong ones.” Via con Satàn, fellas.  

Jonathan Shaw

 Vanessa Peters — Foxhole Prayers (Idol)

Foxhole Prayers by Vanessa Peters

Singer-songwriter Vanessa Peters could have settled for the smart folk-rock she’s been doing for almost two decades, but on Foxhole Prayers she stretches herself, looking at the cultural landscape without relinquishing her personal lyrics. “Carnival Barker” offers her most direct political track, but “Trolls” is more effective, capturing the patience and perseverance needed to defeat the title characters. The song has personal and political resonances, and it's that dual thinking that drives much of the album. “Fight” takes on extra meaning in the context of the album. Peters unveils her own fears and her own need to press on, but with enough space in the lyrics that she could be speaking to herself, a young artist, or someone afraid of venturing into the public eye in any sense; calls to bravery aren't limited to those on stage and Peters situates her song as someone who knows that.  

As her view expands, so does her music, particularly as she incorporates electronic elements into her sound. The dance-pop influences of “Before it Falls Apart” surprise, but Peters' tasteful use of the new sounds allows everything to fit in naturally with what she does. The album, inspired in part by comparing the world of The Greaty Gatsby with today's political climate, has its roots in crisis, hence the title track, and Peters uses her art to search for something better. 

Justin Cober-Lake

 Shells—Shells 2 (Gingko)

Shells 2 by Shells

The evidence suggests that Shelley Salant is not a loner. She’s been booking shows in Southeast Michigan for a decade. She’s the sort of record store clerk who greets you with a recommendation that you’d best consider. She’s played guitar in Tyvek and Swimsuit. She’s the sort of person who makes communities happen by doing what she does.

But she also has pretty strong instincts about what makes a guitar worth hearing — liquid tone, phrases that are concise unless they need to wander, pithy hooks, gritty noise and reverb for days. She’s got some things to say on her own, and that’s where Shells comes in. Shells 2 contains 14 tracks, each a brief and lucid lesson about one or more of the aforementioned virtues. Some of them comprise layers of loops, some follow a single snaking line, and a couple have been overdubbed into an approximation of a band. Similarity spotters may point out the bits that sound like Link Wray or Roy Montgomery or the Feelies, but that would require looking past all the bits that sound like Shelley Salant rocking essentially.

Bill Meyer

 Various Artists — Chebran Volume 2: French Boogie 1979-1982 (Born Bad)

This superlative collection of funk, disco and proto-rap documents the cross-hybridization of bootleg tapes of Grandmaster Flash, Eurovision-style dance music and sounds from the African and Arabic colonies that bubbled up in working class neighborhoods at the dawn of the 1980s all over France. Here on cuts like Ethnie’s “De Chagrin En Chagrin” synths take up the serpentine non-western melodies, while Bootsy-style funksters slap and pop out the boogie. Likewise, the ponderous stomp of bass and percussion anchors Ganawa’s “Yamna” in present day disco, but its wheeling woodwinds and haunting call and response transport you to sand swept deserts in North Africa. Ettika, both the track name and the artist name for a one-hitter from the early 1980s, nudges a disco synth into twisty arabesques and flits from French to Arabic in its emphatic, female-powered raps. Forget the melting pot, these cuts bubble like sour dough starter, when errant spores of yeast find a home in a dull white flour soup and create something marvelous.

Jennifer Kelly

 Otomo Yoshihide / Paal Nilssen-Love — 19th of May 2016 (PNL)

19th of May 2016 by Otomo Yoshihide & Paal Nilssen-Love

Conventional wisdom holds that when Paal Nilssen-Love gets on stage with an electric guitarist, fillings will loosen. That certainly holds true when he pairs up with Terrie Ex, his preferred six-string slinger of recent years, and there are parts of this encounter with Japanese guitarist Otomo Yoshihide that could be cited as supporting evidence. Otomo brings plenty of volume, distortion and ferocity; there are passages where it sounds like he’s demolishing some metallic structure while Nilssen-Love erects an impregnable surrounding whirlwind. But neither man stays in one gear, and some of the most involving moments come when they drop to a scrape and a shimmer.

Bill Meyer

[noloveforned]

no love for ned on wlur – october 23rd, 2020 from 4-6pm

artist // track // album // label johnny cash // fuego d'amor // the man in black, 1963-1969 // bear family holy motors // midnight cowboy // horse // wharf cat the cowboys // song for the girls // lovers in marble cassette // feel it the nude party // what's the deal? // midnight manor // new west * johnny thunders // (she's so) untouchable // so alone // sire peach kelli pop // stupid girl // lucky star 7" ep // lauren * staffers // new artifact salesman // in the pigeon hole cassette // ever/never palberta // in my fame - jug! // roach going down // wharf cat teenanger // trillium song // good time // telephone explosion idles // model village // ultra mono // partisan * public eye // soft strain // mood change party cassette // sabotage horrid red // omitted prophets // radiant life // soft abuse mute duo // past musculature plains // lapse in passage // american dreams blue divers // midday dirt // blue divers // bedroom suck alexia avina // fit into // unearth // topshelf * orange moon // propositions // orange moon // el negocito patrick shiroishi, chris jusell, chaz prymek and matthew sage // along the causeway // fuubutsushi // cached.media keefe jackson, jim baker and julian kirshner // then (excerpt) // so glossy and so thin // astral spirits christian scott atunde adjuah // sunrise in beijing // axiom // ropeadope patrick cowley // papa wuzza rollinston (vocal) // some funkettes // dark entries black thought // magnificent // streams of thought, volume three- cane and able ep // republic the sure fire soul ensemble featuring kelly finnigan // impeach the president // impeach the president 7" // colemine resistance revival chorus featuring alba ponce de leon // love army // this joy // righteous babe * sudan archives // war // good music to avert the collapse of american democracy, volume one compilation // good music rachel aggs // back of my hand // tape one cassette // (self-released) omar apollo // useless // apolonio // warner gia margaret // lesson // mia gargaret // orindal flying fish cove // viridian // viridian ep // (self-released) present electric // a song for you // in two moods // paisley shirt snails // my eyes are open // hard wired // glass modern

* denotes music on wlur’s playlist

[biofunmy]

What’s on TV Saturday: ‘The Mighty Boosh’ and ‘Meeting Gorbachev’

What’s Streaming

THE MIGHTY BOOSH Stream on Hulu and Amazon. Before Noel Fielding was serving up baking banter and an impressive array of kitschy shirts on “The Great British Baking Show,” he was one half of the outlandish comedy duo behind The Mighty Boosh. Fielding and his counterpart Julian Barratt created a colorful roster of characters and original skits and songs that became the basis for this BBC Three television series named after the troupe. The show, which aired for three seasons in the early 2000s, follows the misadventures of Vince Noir (Fielding) and Howard Moon (Barratt) as they investigate mutant science experiments at a zoo’s secret lab, save the world from a demonic little old lady and explore another planet for the Fountain of Youth. Along the way, they stumble across new friends and foes, like a beast made of sandpaper, a terrifying green-skinned cockney man with a mint over his eye and a Baileys-drinking, lovelorn merman known as Old Gregg.

What’s on TV

MEETING GORBACHEV 6 p.m. on History. Over the course of three in-depth interviews, Werner Herzog sat with Mikhail S. Gorbachev to talk about the Russian leader’s diplomacy that helped bring an end to the Cold War. The dialogue between the German filmmaker and the former politician (now 88 years old) serves as this documentary’s backbone, in which Herzog examines Gorbachev’s legacy. In his New York Times review of the film, Ben Kenigsberg wrote that Herzog “seems less in his element as an interviewer than he is when parsing historical footage,” but still manages to shape “the film into a study in how world events often come down to quirks of character and circumstance.”

THE DNA OF MURDER WITH PAUL HOLES 7 p.m. on Oxygen. After spending more than two decades trying to catch the Golden State Killer, Paul Holes, an investigator with the Contra Costa County district attorney’s office, finally got a break in the case when he thought to combine DNA collected at the crime scenes with genealogy websites. The innovative scheme, which involved creating an undercover profile on GEDmatch under a pseudonym, led to the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo. Holes has since retired, but he’s gone on to use his expertise to help with existing cold cases as a co-host on the podcast “The Murder Squad,” and now with his own TV show. On “The DNA of Murder,” Holes gives true crime fans a behind-the-scenes look at how he approaches cases, aiding law enforcement agencies with unsolved crimes. On the series premiere, he’ll look into a bludgeoning murder at an Iowa Holiday Inn from 1980.

THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS SCANDAL 8 p.m. on Lifetime. This made-for-TV movie takes a dramatized look at the college admissions scandal that swept up famous actresses and business leaders earlier this year. It follows two wealthy mothers, played by Penelope Ann Miller and Mia Kirshner, willing to do whatever it takes to get their kids into prestigious universities, with a little help from a charismatic admissions consultant named Rick Singer (Michael Shanks).

Sahred From Source link Arts

from WordPress http://bit.ly/2IJRQsI via IFTTT

[bruce-adams]

Gerrit Hatcher and Julian Kirshner, Independent Media Center, Urbana IL Dec. 6, 2017

[londontheatre]

Back Oliver Jackson (Ned Schneebly), front Gary Trainor (Dewey Finn) – Photo credit Tristram Kenton

Having played the role of alternate Dewey since the show’s London premiere, Gary Trainor now leads the cast as Dewey Finn (from 17th May 2017), with Stephen Leask joining the cast as the alternate Dewey.

For a third time since its West End premiere School of Rock – The Musical also recently announced a further booking extension with tickets currently available to 14th January 2018.  Acclaimed by audiences and critics alike, the record-breaking West End production of School of Rock – The Musical opened to rave reviews in November 2016, and last month the show’s ‘kids’ cast were the excited recipients of the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music. In New York, the Broadway production now in its second year, continues to play to packed houses at the Winter Garden Theater.

Read our exclusive Q&A with Gary Trainor – LondonTheatre1.com

Q: You have been part of School of Rock the Musical from the start. What attracted you most to be in the production? Gary: I loved the film when I was younger, I was 17 when it first came out and I would quote the film with my friends at school. When I heard the show had been made into a musical and was coming to the West End I knew I had to get into that audition room. Thankfully with the help and tenacity of my agent, I got my chance, and here we are.

Q: How has the musical ‘evolved’ since the first night of Previews? Gary: Like any show, as it progresses, it will inevitably get tighter and slicker. It is also fantastic to see the children grow in confidence and experiment with how they perform, and also the children musicians get better and better each day.

Q: You first played alternate Dewey, can you tell us about that? Gary: I was delighted to be the alternate Dewey in the original cast, I got to play the part 3 times a week which meant that I was really able to make it my own and had regular performances to improve show on show. I was in all of the same rehearsals as David Fynn who originated the role, and we had a certain amount of collaboration through the process which was so helpful, David is truly a hilarious man onstage and off!

Q: You are now in the lead role as Dewey Finn – what impact has that had on you? Gary: I think the true impact will be felt over the next few weeks, playing 3 times a week up to this point has made me feel match fit as it were. I am sure the greater workload will require more attention to stretching and fitness, as it is such a physical show.

Q: Can you tell us about how Dewey Finn? Gary: Dewey is a failed rocker, but it is all he wants to do. He gets kicked out of his band and threatened with eviction from his best friends girl friend (Ned and Pattie). When a posh prep school ring looking for his friend to temp as a teacher, Dewey takes the opportunity to pretend to be Ned and get the money for the rent. When he arrives at the school he sees that the children are talented musicians and decides to start a band with them secretly to compete in the Battle of the Bands competition. As the show unfolds the kids transform Dewey and vice versa.

Q: Why should everyone get along to see School of Rock? Gary: You will not leave the theatre without a smile on your face; some may even have their faces melted clean off by the awesomeness of the band! It is a show that appeals to people of all ages. It is funny, poignant, exhilarating and a downright great night out at the theatre!

The Cast of School of Rock with Gary Trainor (centre) photo by Tristram Kenton

*****

Gary Trainor’s (Dewey Finn) previous theatre credits include Donnie Kirshner in the West End production of Beautiful The Carole King Musical, I Can’t Sing at the London Palladium, Potted Potter at the Garrick Theatre and on tour in the US and Australia, The Shawshank Redemption at Wyndham’s Theatre, Prophecy for The Old Vic New Voices and at the Public Theatre, New York, Into The Woods at the Landor Theatre and Jago at the Pleasance Theatre in Edinburgh. He has also toured the UK in Buddy, Frankenstein: The Year Without a Summer, Stones in His Pockets, and The Oxford Passion. 

Stephen Leask’s (alternate Dewey) previous theatre credits include Robin Hood at The Egg Theatre, Bath, The Canterbury Tales at The Pantaloons, One Man, Two Guvnors at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, A Little Hotel on the Side for Theatre Royal Bath, The Revenge of Sherlock Holmes at Hoxton Hall, Staunch for Theatre 503, Potted Panto at the Vaudeville Theatre, Newsrevue at the Edinburgh Festival, The Secret Garden for Birmingham Rep and Troilus and Cressida for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Leask is a member of the Merely Players, a theatre company dedicated to producing accessible productions of Shakespeare. His television appearances include Nightmares, Our World War, The Intern, and Eastenders.

Based on the smash hit 2003 film of the same title, School of Rock features music from the movie, as well as new music written by Andrew Lloyd Webber with lyrics by Glenn Slater and a book by Julian Fellowes.  School of Rock – The Musical is directed by Laurence Connor with choreography by JoAnn M. Hunter, set and costume designs by Anna Louizos, lighting design by Natasha Katz, sound design by Mick Potter, music supervision by John Rigby with Matt Smith as musical director.

NEWS! CALLING ALL YOUNG ROCKERS, SCHOOL OF ROCK NEED YOU! OPEN AUDITIONS TO BE HELD IN SHEFFIELD, BIRMINGHAM AND LIVERPOOL Andrew Lloyd Webber’s smash hit West End production of School of Rock – The Musical will hold open auditions on Saturdays 10 June in Sheffield, 15 July in Birmingham and 23 September 2017 in Liverpool, for the opportunity to join the band as part of the kids’ cast of the hit musical currently playing at the New London Theatre. If you’re between 8 – 12 years old and play the drums, keys or the electric or bass guitar, we need to hear from you!

Tom Abisgold, 13 years old from Cheshire, one of the original West End cast said: “I’ve had the best time ever being part of the band at School of Rock. I made my West End debut playing the guitarist Zack – how cool is that?! When I auditioned for the part I never imagined that I’d be joining an actual band and working with Andrew Lloyd Webber and the rest of the amazing cast and crew. I am so glad that my Mum and Dad encouraged me to audition in the first place. I have been on TV, walked red carpets and won an Olivier award*. It’s been hard work and we practise hard but it’s really a dream come true, and I’d encourage any kid who plays one of the band instruments to come and audition, you’ll have the time of your life!”

Jessica Ronane, Children’s Casting Director, said: “We look forward meeting with the next generation of rockstars, as we continue our auditions in Sheffield, Birmingham and Liverpool. If you can play the drums, keys or the electric and bass guitar, we want to hear from you, and if you’re nervous about skills just get in touch and we can give you more details. Come and ‘pledge allegiance to the band!’”

To register your interest and for more details on what we’re looking for please visit http://ift.tt/2lDsPG9 For further information please contact the team at Jessica Ronane Casting on rock@jessicaronane.com

School of Rock The Musical New London Theatre Running Time: 2 hours & 30 minutes (including interval)

http://ift.tt/2qqRGKO LondonTheatre1.com

[podilatokafe]

awesome jazz: Weinberg, Kirchen, Kirshner – Whip The Apron (2017) 2017 JAKI Sam Weinberg tenor saxophone Charlie Kirchen bass Julian Kirshner drums 1. But What 23:49 2. The Brute Cousin 13:33 ▼ Πηγή: awesome jazz: Weinberg, Kirchen, Kirshner - Whip The Apron (2017)

[londontheatre]

Bailey Cassell (Freddy) photo by Tristram Kenton

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Olivier award-winning production of School of Rock – The Musical today announces that Gary Trainor, having played the role of alternate Dewey since the show’s London premiere, will lead the cast as Dewey Finn from 17 May 2017, with Stephen Leask joining the cast as the alternate Dewey.

For a third time since its West End premiere School of Rock – The Musical recently announced a further booking extension with tickets now available to 14 January 2018. Acclaimed by audiences and critics alike, the record-breaking West End production of School of Rock – The Musical opened to rave reviews in November 2016, and last month the show’s ‘kids’ cast were the excited recipients of the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music. In New York, the Broadway production now in its second year, continues to play to packed houses at the Winter Garden Theater.

Gary Trainor’s (Dewey Finn) previous theatre credits include Donnie Kirshner in the West End production of Beautiful The Carole King Musical, I Can’t Sing at the London Palladium, Potted Potter at the Garrick Theatre and on tour in the US and Australia, The Shawshank Redemption at Wyndham’s Theatre, Prophecy for The Old Vic New Voices and at the Public Theatre, New York, Into The Woods at the Landor Theatre and Jago at the Pleasance Theatre in Edinburgh. He has also toured the UK in Buddy, Frankenstein: The Year Without a Summer, Stones in His Pockets and The Oxford Passion.

Stephen Leask’s (alternate Dewey) previous theatre credits include Robin Hood at The Egg Theatre, Bath, The Canterbury Tales at The Pantaloons, One Man, Two Guvnors at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, A Little Hotel on the Side for Theatre Royal Bath, The Revenge of Sherlock Holmes at Hoxton Hall, Staunch for Theatre 503, Potted Panto at the Vaudeville Theatre, Newsrevue at the Edinburgh Festival, The Secret Garden for Birmingham Rep and Troilus and Cressida for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Leask is a member of the Merely Players, a theatre company dedicated to producing accessible productions of Shakespeare. His television appearances include Nightmares, Our World War, The Intern and Eastenders.

The Cast of School of Rock with Gary Trainor (centre) photo by Tristram Kenton

The adult West End cast of School of Rock – The Musical comprises Gary Trainor as Dewey Finn with Florence Andrews as Rosalie Mullins, Oliver Jackson as Ned Schneebly and Preeya Kalidas as Patty Di Marco. They are joined on stage at each performance by one of three teams of thirteen young performers who make up Dewey’s band. The ‘grown up’ cast is completed by Stephen Leask as the alternate Dewey with ensemble members Jonathan Bourne, Nadeem Crowe, Michelle Francis, Rosanna Hyland, Cassandra McCowan, Joel Montague, Andy Rees, Cameron Sharp, Andrew Spillett, Alex Tomkins and Lucy Vandi and swings, Charlotte Bradford, Jason Denton, Cellen Chugg Jones, Alfie Parker and Tasha Sheridan. They are joined by three teams of thirteen ‘kid’s who make up Dewey’s band.

Based on the iconic hit movie and with a rocking new score by Andrew Lloyd Webber, School of Rock – The Musical follows slacker and wannabe rock star Dewey Finn turn a class of straight-A 10 year old students into an ear popping, riff scorching, all conquering rock band! Dewey poses as a substitute teacher at a prestigious prep school to make ends meet, and when he discovers his fifth graders’ musical talents, he enlists his class to form a rock group and conquer the Battle of the Bands. As Dewey falls for the beautiful headmistress, can he and his students keep this special assignment secret as they learn to fully embrace the power of rock?

Best seats for £10.00 are available every Wednesday evening an hour before curtain to purchase as part of the School of Rock – The Musical Student Rush scheme. These tickets are only available in person from the New London Theatre Box Office.

Based on the smash hit 2003 film of the same title, School of Rock features music from the movie, as well as new music written by Andrew Lloyd Webber with lyrics by Glenn Slater and a book by Julian Fellowes. School of Rock – The Musical is directed by Laurence Connor with choreography by JoAnn M. Hunter, set and costume designs by Anna Louizos, lighting design by Natasha Katz, sound design by Mick Potter, music supervision by John Rigby with Matt Smith as musical director.

Produced by Paramount Pictures, the 2003 hit film School of Rock was directed by Richard Linklater and starred Jack Black in a career-defining performance.

School of Rock — The Musical is produced in the West End by Andrew Lloyd Webber for The Really Useful Group and Warner Music Group & Access Industries with Madeleine Lloyd Webber as Executive Producer.

LISTINGS INFORMATION Venu: New London Theatre, 166 Drury Lane, London WC2B 5PW Now booking to 14 January 2018

http://ift.tt/2oX8FJ3 LondonTheatre1.com