A previously unreleased George Harrison demo called ‘Cosmic Empire’ has been unveiled as part of the rollout for the 50th-anniversary edition of his classic LP All Things Must Pass. Check out a lyric video for the acoustic track below.
All Things Must Pass: 50th Anniversary Edition arrives on August 6 via Capitol/UMe. The deluxe reissue, executive produced by Harrison’s son Dhani and mixed by Paul Hicks (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, John Lennon), will include all 30 demos that Harrison recorded during the album session with co-producer Phil Spector.
“Since the 50th-anniversary stereo mix release of the title track to my father’s legendary ‘All Things Must Pass’ album in 2020, my dear pal Paul Hicks and I have continued to dig through mountains of tapes to restore and present the rest of this newly remixed and expanded edition of the album you now see and hear before you,” Dhani Harrison said in a statement. “Bringing greater sonic clarity to this record was always one of my father’s wishes and it was something we were working on together right up until he passed in 2001. Now, 20 years later, with the help of new technology and the extensive work of Paul Hicks we have realised this wish and present to you this very special 50th Anniversary release of perhaps his greatest work of art. Every wish will be fulfilled.”
Dave and Stormzy have joined forces for a new song called ‘Clash’. Featuring production from Kyle Evans, the track marks the first-ever collaboration between the two London artists. Listen to it below.
Dave’s debut album Psychodrama arrived in 2019 and took home the 2019 Mercury Prize as well as Album of the Year at the 2020 BRIT Awards. Earlier this week, the rapper announced its follow-up, We’re All Alone in This Together, will be released on July 23. Stormzy’s last album was 2019’s Heavy Is the Head.
Brisbane trio The Goon Sax – Louis Forster, James Harrison, and Riley Jones – were in high school when their debut album, 2016’s Up to Anything, was released, and they were still in their teens when its follow-up came out two years later. All three members take turns writing, singing, and playing each instrument, and 2018’s We’re Not Talking saw them honing in their endearingly raw brand of guitar-pop as well as their conversational style of songwriting and delivery – in conversation with each other and the listener, certainly, but also with the greater lineage of alternative and pop music that they both are influenced by and belong to. Their new album and first for Matador, Mirror II – out today – is a marvel of craft, dynamism, and emotion: aided by producer John Parish (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding, Dry Cleaning), they’ve managed to expand on the eclecticism of its predecessor while delivering their most infectiously catchy collection of songs yet, a record as mature as it is playful and as relatable as it is surreal and larger-than-life. Despite the group’s diverse sensibilities and idiosyncratic taste, they’ve come through sounding more confident and in sync than ever.
We caught up with The Goon Sax for this edition of our Artist Spotlight interview series to talk about the process of making Mirror II, how their different perspectives fed into the album, and more.
It took you three years to write and record this album, and you spent quite a bit of time apart during that period. I’m wondering if that affected your creative process in any way compared to your previous releases.
Louis Forster: Yeah, I think it did. When we’re together, we kind of share what we’re listening to and what we’re experiencing constantly, and I think that was the first time that all three of us went off entirely in our own directions and spent some time alone, just discovering new things independently of each other. And I think it was important for us all to do that alone and it gave us more of a personal identity within the record, but also changed the way that we play together and slot in together, in that we maybe have more of an idea about ourselves – not just the band as a whole, but the parts that make it up, and how we can be the strongest and push each other the furthest.
Yeah, I think it was really valuable. I didn’t even realize it at the time, you know, I’m kind of realizing that more now, even talking about it over these interviews. I’m like, “Oh yeah, all of those sounds on the record that are from Riley and Jim doing that and playing in this band and jamming with this person,” and then I’m like, “Oh, and all those other sounds and literary references are from things that I got into or shows that I went to overseas.” And the way they came together, I think I was too close for a long time to really see how that happened.
Riley Jones: I think it just happens very naturally, and then when you look back you can kind of connect all the dots. But at the time, you’re just doing whatever feels right.
You’ve said that it was almost like going back to square one with this album, and musically, it feels like a new beginning as well. Do you feel like that approach helped you reconnect with your roots, in a way, or did it also bring out new things that you didn’t realize were there before?
LF: I think it definitely did both of those things. Initially we kind of pushed our sound as far as we could possibly take it, until we almost sounded completely recognizable. It was like we kind of tore the band apart until there was almost nothing left. And I think then we got back into a lot of things that we were listening to when we first started the band, and they helped us understand the free-jazz and no-wave and disco influences, or even hip hop influences, and we were able to make sense of them through the lens of the stuff that we were into when we started. It’s like, when you completely lose yourself, it means that you have to find the essence of who you are. There’s a point of expansion when you’re changing so much, which you constantly feel like you’re building on yourself, but then – I think our record is a lot about that, too: it’s about changing and allowing yourself to change and accepting that every version of yourself is valid, every outfit you put on might feel like a different person and that can be 10 people a day, and they’re all real. But there does come a point where you do sometimes wonder, you know, who am I?
RJ: I think I feel quite differently. I kind of seem to subscribe to a collective consciousness that I’m pretty sure informs all of my decisions, so I just like to trust the initial idea that comes up. Especially with this band, every decision that we made felt really intuitive. It felt like, once we got to the right option, we all unanimously knew that that was what was the song had to be. It’s almost like the songs had a voice of their own and knew what they wanted. I think when you’re collaborating, it’s easier to tap into that shared conscious creative space, because there’s the three of you interacting in a room, but then the sounds that you make are the sum of all of the parts together. There are lots of subtle ways of playing that really change the feeling of things; I think that’s what writing this album for so long for me really set in stone, was that there are lots of things out of our control, actually, or that we don’t even realize we’re doing. But because we’ve been playing together for so long, it’s come to a really solid understanding of each other as musicians.
LF: Yeah, totally agree.
James Harrison: Yeah, I think we know how to build each other’s songs, but also, like, fit into each other’s songs. Which is really important, for me, and I think for all of us. I really have enjoyed honing that skill of learning how to get the emotive parts of these guys’ songs.
RJ: James definitely brings the emotion. Like, you can kind of see when he’s playing his bass or guitar, he’s always conjuring something that seems like it’s really powerful and he’s not sure if his body will be able to handle it, but somehow he pulls through, and the song – it just cuts, you know, it’s just so much more emotional than you thought it could be.
LF: I remember me and Riley having a conversation on the phone almost a year ago now, where we were talking about how the moments that we’re most proud of in ourselves on this record are where we really expanded each other’s songs. Whether sometimes that is just kind of slotting into something and taking up barely any space but holding down a foundation for the melody, or writing a riff that completely changes something, you feel so much gratitude when your friends have written something beautiful and they give you the opportunity to play on it and to contribute to that. It’s such an honour.
RJ: I think so. I think in this album you can hear that we had more trust in each other, or more playfulness towards working on our own songs as well. We took three years to just try things and to see if they sank or swam – and sometimes they did sink; there’s about 10 songs that we didn’t record. I don’t think they necessarily sunk, but I think we all felt in the end that we could do better, which is also a sign of a good working relationship.
I’m curious about how that extends to the themes that you explore – Louis, I think you’ve used the phrase “genuine dreaminess” to describe the album, and I think the word “genuine” is interesting, because to me, it feels like the dreamy or the surreal elements on the album are grounded in reality and genuine emotion. What do you think it is that keeps you grounded in that, instead of using the dreaminess as an escape and going completely in the other direction?
LF: You know, it’s really hard talking about lyrics, because I think we all write pretty separately and approach lyrics a little bit differently. And I can really only speak from my own writing on this record, where there were moments where I was writing a song to try and create a space for myself to escape into when I was frustrated with the real world. But at the same time, I think those spaces needed to have very real-world elements to allow that full catharsis, otherwise it would feel a little bit too removed and I don’t think it would have this guttural feeling to it. I think both are always important, and for me it’s important to toe that line. I think it was Riley who said the “genuine dreaminess” thing, and I’ve thought about that a lot as well. I think what’s genuine and what’s natural was something that we thought about a lot on this record.
RJ: For me, genuine dreaminess is about – when you reflect on anything, if you look back into the past, your recollection is always going to be very dreamlike. Because it’s super guided by your subconscious, the things that stick in our minds and things just slip away forever. Louis talks about how this album has more of an emphasis on subconscious in relation to other people, like with ‘Psychic’, for example, and with most of the songs. I think that’s kind of the key theme of the album, is this, like, subliminal communication. So I think the genuine dreaminess comes from just accepting your consciousness as a dream, like a daydream when you’re awake and then a night dream when you go to sleep. And then there’s some part of you which can acknowledge the different states, but the dream… I guess we can consider dreams as something that exists more inside of ourselves or comes out of us. And I think that’s like songwriting, really.
LF: I think that’s also trusting the subjective as well, where dreams and memories are kind put through the filter of your own brain and your own subconscious. I think there were ways in which maybe our songwriting isn’t straining to remember exactly how something happened, but it’s trusting in the blurriness of memory or dreams or drunkenness as being valid states.
RJ: And it’s not trying to sugarcoat them as well. I think on this album we’re not trying to appear a certain way, but we’re just trying to explore all these different facets or relationships or feelings, but not necessarily in a good way or a bad way.
LF: I think it’s really productive to throw out the idea of presenting yourself. A lot of the time people can get caught up in wanting to present themselves in a likable way, but I think it’s really important to explore, you know, the petty moments or the unjustified moments and look at them for what they are, rather than getting hung up on the character that you’re presenting as being likable. I think it’s very freeing if you don’t do that, because the subconscious is a lot of good and bad and everything in between all the time, and it’s important to acknowledge that. I hope that it comes across that we are trying to show that with some sense of perspective and not every thought on the record or every line is entirely what we believe. It can be something that somebody else has said, or a thought that we had for a second that then we were like, “That’s crazy,” or “That’s not right.”
RJ: Or “I was just high!” [laughter].
LF: Yeah, yeah, totally.
How do you choose which perspective or moment to try and capture, then? Because there is a kind of selective process, and in some ways it seems like you have chosen the songs or the moments that do take an almost transcendental quality.
JH: I think a lot of the songs are quite transcendental. Even in the live show we’ve tried to make it really epic and bigger than maybe ourselves, or larger than life. And that’s kind of how I felt in some of my lyrics, just observing when I feel out of my body because of the things around me or the thoughts in me.
You obviously went into these songs with different perspectives, but was there something that after the fact you realized was kind of a common through-line in your writing?
LF: It’s something we talked about a lot throughout the process of making the record, was the supernatural and love as this supernatural and powerful idea. We express it in very very different ways, but I think it’s definitely there for all of us. And I think our songs are very genuine and emotional, but there’s also a silliness and a playfulness to them. We all like pop music and rock and roll when it’s silly, in the way that T Rex is silly or in the way that Kylie Minogue is silly. And it’s so genuine at the same time, it’s completely heartfelt, but I think you can almost be more genuine and more emotional when you don’t constantly take yourself too seriously and you’re hung up on some really truthful, honest essence of yourself, but you allow yourself to go into the more far-flung corners of your personality that you maybe don’t feel all the time that are at times, you know, exuberant or whatever.
RJ: I think that a big part of it is filtered through the part where we come together at the end. It’s like you’re bringing your idea to the tribunal, in a way, and then some things stick because they feel good in the context of playing it together. We all have so many ideas for songs – Louis writes hundreds of songs; James writes hundreds of parts. And I – I don’t write songs very often, actually, but I play music a lot [laughter]. But when we come together, that’s when you know what works.
Sometimes I have ideas, more, like, aesthetically, or more in terms of the feeling of the sounds. It’s also interesting the the language that we use to communicate with each other what we mean. Because James has some music theory knowledge, but it’s not really of any use to me and Louis. We talk about music in symbols, and we talk about it maybe even more than we do the playing, which is interesting. It’s the same with the concepts: We talk about what we want to express a lot. And I think when we apply that to the music, it’s not really a conscious thing anymore; it’s just something that’s hopefully sunk into our bodies and will come out in some way.
JH: When we’re together, we really get to understand the meaning of each other’s songs and where each of us is at. So I think that’s what ties some of the lyrical concepts together, because even if we weren’t thinking of each other when we wrote them, it’s something that we all take on in practicing them.
LF: That’s something that I really realized with this record: Riley has such a different way of writing to me and Jim. She doesn’t sit down every day with a guitar for two hours; the songs almost feel like they were already written inside you in a very subconscious way. I remember you just saying, “I’m gonna sit down and write a song,” and then you do.
RJ: [laughs] Yeah.
LF: I can never confidently say that. Because it’s like you know that the song is ready; I’ve always taken it that way. It’s like, “This song’s cooking, and I’m going to sit down on this keyboard and get it out of the oven. And then in half an hour, it’ll be more or less close to done.” Which is a very enigmatic process of writing. I’ve never really seen anybody do that.
RJ: I feel like they have to come from somewhere, don’t you think? I feel like they’re written and I just have to find them. Do you think that they come out of, like, the sky? [laughs] I don’t know, where do your songs come from?
LF: I think that they come from another place as well. I’ve always seen songs kind of like fishing, like you’re casting a line into this murky… I don’t know, to me it’s a very supernatural thing, and maybe the closest thing to contact with some kind of spiritual body, where you feel like you’re drawing something out of another place and sometimes you really catch something. Sometimes you think you’ve caught something and then you lose it, you know.
That intuitiveness is something I can hear in the music as well, and a lot of these songs take the form of conversations. Do you think that’s also a result of that collaborative process and your dynamic as a band?
LF: Yeah, I think they’re a conversation in every sense, even musically sometimes. There’s songs I’ve noticed where Riley and I are both playing guitar, and Riley’s guitar style is, to me, somewhere like Keiji Haino playing Keith Richards riffs, where it’s so loose and atonal but at the same time really melodic and kind of falling in and out of structure, whereas I feel like my guitar playing is so tight and metric and restrained. And I think that’s always a conversation between this spiralling, wheezing thing and this tight structure, and they kind of flow in and out of each other. And we’ve really allowed each other to be pretty uncompromising with that stuff and understood how it exists together, but also accepting that in some moments it doesn’t work. It’s not just saying, “We should all do whatever the fuck we want and not listen to each other.” But I think our playing has become so much more of a conversation, sometimes, where one person is maybe more dominant for a moment and is telling the story and someone else is just sort of sitting back and going, “Yeah, uh huh, yeah.” [laughter]
RJ: Yeah, sometimes. It takes a while to work out what really serves the song. Sometimes you really have to pull back and that’s all it needs.
LF: Again, I can’t speak for Riley and Jim’s lyrics, but my lyrics, I don’t think there’s any song on our record that’s just my perspective or one person’s perspective. I think I became a lot more interested in the way those blend together and there being a much more loose idea of truth. Because that’s ultimately what a relationship or a dynamic or a moment is: it’s two people or many people’s perspectives all at once. And we’re always singing on each other’s songs – I think ‘Carpentry’ is the only song on the record that’s just sung by one of us. So I think in that way as well, there’s always a feeling that’s there’s two people or two voices or characters in the space.
To bring things together, I wanted to relate this to the album title – I hope it was Riley this time who said this, but you’ve talked about how it started as something almost arbitrary and then became about “reflecting on reflection,” and how we find ourselves through other people. In what ways would you say that you’re influenced by each other, and beyond that, also see yourselves more through each other and working with each other?
RJ: It’s very… complex. We’ve known each other for so long now, we’ve spent so much time together. It’s kind of like beyond friendship. It’s more like family, but it’s also something else. Like, I wonder sometimes how I how I exist outside of this context, because it’s such a huge part of my life. And I think that I maybe lean on James and Louis just as I go about, you know, doing my thing in the world. I kind of always know that they’re there in some way. And I think that they’re a huge part of how I present myself too, not because I always say, “Yeah, I’m in this band” to everybody I meet. Which, actually, I kind of do. [laughter] But just in terms of their demeanors; it’s something that I definitely carry with me. Like, the people that you get to understand first kind of inform your understanding of everybody else in the world.
LF: I totally second that. Sometimes the clothes I wear are informed by the fact that I’ll be standing next to Jim and Riley and what they’re wearing. It’s a conversation where we’re responding to each other in every element of ourselves. And recently, Riley’s been in the UK for a while and we haven’t been doing so much band stuff physically, and I noticed – I don’t know, it’s different when you’re not existing in the context of each other. But at the same time, I completely agree with what Riley says, it is always there.
We really learned how to play music from playing together, and there’s a lot of instruments that we play in this band that none of us really played a whole lot before. I feel like I learned how to play lead guitar over Riley’s drumming and Jim’s bass playing, and I think that’s true for all of us. It’s like going to primary school together and learning how to read and write from reading each other’s texts or something.
JH: I’d have to also third all of that. [laughter] You guys have put it really nicely.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Martin Scorsese’s Hugo is, on the surface, a movie about the adventures of a young orphan in 1930s Paris. Hugo Cabret searches for the mystery of his father’s death and instead finds the keys to a whole new world – the magical world of movies. Along the way, he meets Isabelle, a precocious girl whose godfather Georges works at the train station where Hugo lives. As it turns out, Georges is in fact Georges Méliès, one of the founding fathers of cinema.
The film is a nostalgic love letter to cinema, both in its story and the techniques it employs to immerse the audience. Based on Brian Selznick’s 2007 historical fiction novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Scorsese’s film makes excellent use of its vibrant characters. The precocious, adventurous children and the secretive, surreptitious adults around them have a lot to say about the world they live in and the way they see it.
Isabelle: This might be an adventure, and I’ve never had one before – outside of books, at least.
Station inspector: Where do you belong, then? A child has to belong somewhere!
Hugo: I’d imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured if the entire world was one big machine… I couldn’t be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason too.
Georges: Come and dream with me.
Hugo: Maybe that’s why a broken machine always makes me a little sad – because it isn’t able to do what it was meant to do. Maybe it’s the same with people; if you lose your purpose, it’s like you’re broken.
Lisette: Don’t forget to smile. Station Inspector: Which one? I’ve mastered three!
Georges: If you’ve ever wondered where your dreams come from, you look around… this is where they’re made.
Hugo: I thought if I could fix it, then I wouldn’t be so alone.
Hugo: He said it was like seeing his dreams in the middle of the day. The movies were our special place.
Isabelle: Oh, this is superlative!
Isabelle: Oh, well, it’s a terribly long story filled with circumlocutions.
Isabelle, reading from “The Invention of Dreams”: “The filmmaker Georges Méliès was one of the first to realize that films had the power to capture dreams.”
Half Waif, the project of Hudson Valley, NY-based artist Nandi Rose, has released her fifth album, Mythopoetics, via ANTI-. The follow-up to 2020’s The Caretaker was preceded by a series of singles, including ‘Horse Racing’, ‘Swimmer’, ‘Take Away the Ache’, ‘Orange Blossoms’, ‘Party’s Over’, and ‘Sodium & Cigarettes’. For the 12-track LP, Rose once again collaborated with multi-instrumentalist, film composer, and producer Zubin Hensler. “This is the record I’ve been trying to make for 10 years,” she said in a statement. “My voice is changing, and my confidence has reached a point where I feel that I can sing however I want; I’ve finally come to a place where I don’t have to conform to what I think other people want it to sound like.”
The Goon Sax – the Brisbane trio of Riley Jones, Louis Forster, and James Harrison – have dropped their third album and first for Matador, Mirror II. Recorded with longtime PJ Harvey producer John Parish at Geoff Barrow’s Invada Studios in Bristol, the album features the previously unveiled singles ‘Desire’, ‘Psychic’, and ‘In the Stone’. “The first two albums are inherently linked,” Forster said in a press release. “They had three-word titles; they went together. This one definitely felt like going back to square one and starting again, and that was really freeing.”
Vince Staples is back with a self-titled record, the rapper’s first full-length since 2018’s FM!. Out now via Blacksmith Recordings/Motown Records, the project was produced by Kenny Beats and was led by the singles ‘Law of Averages’ and ‘Are You With That’. In press materials, Staples said the new 10-track LP “really gives much more information about me that wasn’t out there before. That’s why I went with that title. I feel like I’ve been trying to tell the same story. As you go on in life, your point of view changes. This is another take on myself that I might not have had before.” He added: “I’m a mind more than I am an entertainer to a lot of people. I appreciate that my fanbase is willing to go on this ride with me. I’m ready to diversify what we’re doing and see how we affect the world.”
The Wallflowers have returned with their first new album in nine years. Jakob Dylan and company’s latest LP, titled Exit Wounds and out now via New West, follows 2012’s Glad All Over and includes the previously released songs ‘Roots and Wings’ and ‘Maybe Your Heart’s Not in It Anymore’. The record was produced by Butch Walker, mixed by Chris Dugan, and features singer-songwriter Shelby Lynne on four tracks. “The Wallflowers have always been a vehicle for me to make great rock ‘n’ roll records,” Dylan said in a statement. “And sometimes the lineup that makes the record transfers over into touring, and sometimes it doesn’t. But my intention is always to make the Wallflowers record I want to make, using the musicians I have beside me. This was not the type of thing where it’s a rotating cast and you call a different drummer for each song, or you pull out the Rolodex and ring the local session guys. The record was made as a band – the five Wallflowers.”
Other albums out today:
Twin Shadow, Twin Shadow; Museum of Love, Life of Mammals; Charlotte Day Wilson, Alpha; Koreless, Agor.
Casinos have always been associated with style and, when depicted in the media, players are often dressed in their finest attire. Historically, gambling houses were places of opulence, where the upper classes went to mingle and enjoy some downtime. Over the years, casinos have opened up to a wider clientele, but notions about gambling fashion have remained. Here are a few ideas about how to style yourself for the casino.
Where are You Going to be Playing?
Before you think about how to dress, you should consider where you’re going to be playing. The majority of casino players are online in 2021, thanks to the incredible rise of online casinos. The reasons for this are numerous, but it has a lot to do with the availability of these sites. Now there are pages like this one that exist purely to tell players where the best sites are. When these aggregator sites come about, it’s indicative of a flourishing industry.
Of course, if you’re playing online, it doesn’t really matter what you choose to wear. If you want to get in the mood for the games and dress up, you certainly could do so. Indeed, the live dealers at online casinos are always wearing their best finery. If you want to head down to a land-based casino, you should definitely consider what you are going to wear beforehand.
A Chance to Dress to the Nines
Even non-gamblers enjoy a trip to the casino because it provides a chance to dress in extravagant threads. Some casinos have specific dress codes that players need to adhere to, so it is well worth checking this out before going anywhere. High-end places require men to dress in a suit or tuxedo, or at least a smart shirt with a sports jacket. Women normally wear evening dresses and floor-length gowns, but they can also go for suits if they wish to do so. In semi-formal gambling houses, you may also see women in cocktail dresses.
The Most Stylish Players
When choosing what to wear at a casino, many people look to Hollywood and some of the most famous casino-goers of all time. Both men and women can find inspiration from various James Bond films, where there tend to be casino scenes. In Casino Royale, for instance, Eva Green was sporting a purple halter backless evening dress, while Daniel Craig wore a charcoal grey Brioni suit. Other casino legends like Frank Sinatra can also provide some ideas about how to dress for the tables.
Different casinos have diverse rules when it comes to dress, and you should always attire yourself in line with the establishment. If you want to wear the most exquisite clothing imaginable, choose a high-end casino where this sort of dress is essential.
From weddings to graduation parties, bachelorette, birthdays, and anniversaries, special events and celebrations are part and parcel of life. Whether corporate or social, these events have one thing in common. The main idea is to make the day feel special to both the host and the guests while leaving a lasting memory of the special day.
When you have an upcoming event to plan or host, you will have a lot running through your mind. In this state, it is not unusual to skip some of the most essential details that your event depends on to achieve the intended goals and fulfill the purpose. This is why event planners will often start by creating a checklist at least a few weeks or months before the d-day depending on the size and type of the occasion. In case you are planning a big event soon, here is a list of things you might have missed.
1. Reliable Music Entertainment
To be honest, no event is ever complete without a good dose of music, play, and dance as part of the entertainment. The audience as well as the host or guest of honor will need to be entertained for the event to be lively and enjoyable. In most cases, this all boils down to the kind of music you choose for your event.
While playing a few mixtapes and recorded music from the DJ’s booth might do the trick, sometimes it gets boring and monotonous. In this case, a live band could be all you need to spruce things up. Depending on the guests you expect, you will rarely go wrong considering an orchestra. This means out to several jazz bands for hire so you can choose one that the crowd will best resonate with. Despite your event type, a popular jazz band can be a great way to add fun, energy, and enthusiasm to your big party.
2. Preparation for Overcrowded Sessions
In any case, you should have someone on hand to talk to your visitors. The expected number of guests could be exceeded if your speaker is well-known or has an attractive topic to discuss. Most people fail to consider that the expected guests could exceed the projected numbers. It could be embarrassing if there are empty seats with no occupants, more so if some of your audiences are forced to stand throughout the event. This is why you must be prepared and have a contingency plan in place in case the figures go above your expectations.
3. Dietary Restrictions
People have varied eating preferences in the world we live in. To some, they aren’t actually preferences, but rather limitations brought on by health issues. When you’re organizing an event, make sure to take this into consideration. Most people don’t do this since it’s impossible to predict how many people will take or prefer what’s on your menu. Also, you don’t want to have to make assumptions and come up with either too little or too much food for these people. Don’t put it off until the last minute. Don’t take a chance! It looks bad on you, makes guests feel unwelcome, and the worst part is that it will almost certainly result in complaints. Make a Google form and share the URL with all of your visitors so you know what to expect.
4. Device Charging Points
We live in a technologically advanced society where most people can’t help but bring their phones, tablets, and even laptops wherever they go. While one may argue that power banks exist, we can all agree that people will need to recharge their devices at some point. Even if your event is super exciting, someone with a dead battery may not be able to fully appreciate the pleasure and excitement. This is why as you arrange your plans, you need to make sure there are charging stations available at various points. Also, make sure your visitors can find them easily. They must also be sufficient, as you do not want your guests to form lines and take turns using a single charging station. It can be really humiliating.
5. Readiness for Emergencies
For the most part, an event is meant to be about having fun and meeting new people. Others refuse to plan for emergencies because they do not believe they will occur. However, you can’t predict the future, and it’s never a bad idea to be cautious. Multiple things can happen at a large event, and there may be multiple emergencies at the same time. For instance, someone may have health problems that are unrelated to the party. It would be such a shame if you never anticipated such issues and took the necessary precautions to confront them.
Planning a huge event can be an extremely tedious task. However, it gets easier if you have a comprehensive checklist to guide you. With the above few pointers in mind, you can ensure you don’t miss some of the most important things that make the event fun and enjoyable.
The Go! Team has always had a knack for embracing 1970s and 1980s nostalgia without a hint of mockery or irony. It’s part of what has given their discography — including the highlights Thunder, Lightning, Strike and Rolling Blackouts— a particular kind of endurance. The latest album from the Ian Parton-headed project, Get Up Sequences Part One, is no different. These 10 songs, though at times more streamlined than most of their previous projects, never lack in enthusiasm. The opening track ‘Let the Seasons Work’ feels like an overture that hits on several of the band’s trademark musical devices — shiny horn lines, rolling percussion, laser-shooting electronic sounds. “Stay right here/ ‘Cause it’s coming/ ‘Round again,” Ninja declares as if she’s singing not only of the seasons but of the band itself.
And around again they’ve come. ‘A Memo for Maceo’, despite starting with a winding rush of noise, quickly pivots into a sunny urgent instrumental featuring grooving rhythms and Parton’s playful harmonica. The single ‘Pow’ turns to another time-tested formula: Ninja rapping verses over a catchy hook that are broken up by hard-hitting drumlines. ‘A Bee Without Its Sting’, which features Detroit vocalist Jessie Miller, is among the album’s brightest songs despite its exploration of the darker dynamics of power (“We’ll keep trying to take it away/ After all, it’s all wе can do”).
The album also contains more sparse and straightforward moments. ‘Cookie Scene’ relies on little more than a bouncing recorder melody and some percussion. Though a fun song — one that listeners could imagine playing hopscotch to — it sounds like a stripped-down version of ‘A Bee Without Its Sting’ (the song still succeeds thanks to Indigo Yaj’s unyielding delivery). Instrumental ‘Tame the Great Plains’, despite its rallying horn lines, never evolves across its three-minute runtime: it’s a song that could be trimmed a minute and be just as effective. That it’s also the album’s penultimate track makes its placement all the more puzzling.
Yet The Go! Team still throws in some twists throughout Get Up Sequences Part One. ‘Freedom Now’ is the most sonically experimental on the album; the song trades in hook-laden melodies for a whirlwind of percussion and teasing vocal samples. The band also doesn’t spare on its trademark blend of go-lucky aesthetics with lyrical depth or emotion. ‘We Do It But Never Know Why’ captures a fresh relationship at a crossroads: “Just let me know/ Say the word and we’ll never be lonely,” Ninja sings, her delivery free of pressure or sadness. The album ends with the thumping ‘World Remember Me Now’, a title that would be too on-the-nose if not for the existential weight of its lyrics. “Flip the calendar and pop the toast/ World remеmber me now,” Ninja sings alongside a parade of steel drums and brass lines that echo her melodies.
In the time between 2018’s Semicircle and this record, Parton suffered severe hearing loss and the loss of his father. These are significant and devastating events, which makes the arrival of Get Up Sequences Part One all the more special: at just over a half-hour, the album packs enough fun to make for an enjoyable listen. Six albums and counting, The Go! Team’s endurance has yet to falter.
Sonic Youth founder Thurston Moore is set to release a new memoir entitled Sonic Life. According to thepublishing industry site The Bookseller, the book will explore the “wild music and endless wonder” of Moore’s life and career and will come out in 2023 through Faber in the UK and Doubleday in the US.
A synopsis reads: “From his infatuation and engagement with the Seventies punk and ‘no wave’ scenes in New York City to the 1981 formation of his legendary rock group to 30 years of relentless recording, touring, and musical experimentation, birthing the Nirvana-era of alternative rock, and beyond, it is all told via the personal prism of the author’s intensive archives and research.”
Angel Olsen has announced a new EP of ’80s covers called Aisles. The project, which is out August 20, features her takes on songs by Laura Branigan, Billy Idol, Men Without Hats, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, and Alphaville. Check out Olsen’s cover of Branigan’s ‘Gloria’ below, and find the EP’s cover artwork and tracklist.
The Aisles EP was recorded in the winter of 2020 with co-producer and engineer Adam McDaniel at Drop of Sun Studios in Ashville. “I told Adam I had an idea to record some covers and bring some of the band into the mix, or add other players,” Olsen said in a press release. “I needed to laugh and have fun and be a little less serious about the recording process in general. I thought about completely changing some of the songs and turning them inside out. I’d come over to find Adam had set up 5 or so synthesisers, and we’d get lost on a part for a while messing with some obscure pedal I knew nothing about. We’d spend a good amount of time going through sounds before finding one or two, sometimes we’d get real weird and decide to just go with it.”
Speaking about her decision to cover ‘Gloria’, she added: “I’d heard ‘Gloria’ for the first time at a family Christmas gathering and was amazed at all the aunts who got up to dance. I imagined them all dancing and laughing in slow motion, and that’s when I got the idea to slow the entire song down and try it out in this way.”
Aisles will be released via Olsen’s new Jagjaguwar imprint somethingscosmic. “I’m very excited to be introducing somethingscosmic, an imprint that will serve as the home for all my covers, collaborations, and one off singles,” said Olsen. “In this time away from touring I have been inspired to create more, and somethingscosmic will give the me flexibility to release when and how I want to with the help from my longtime partners at Jagjaguwar. The hope is that it will become a place for all of my creative endeavors, music and otherwise.”
1. Gloria (Laura Branigan Cover)
2. Eyes Without A Face (Billy Idol Cover)
3. Safety Dance (Men Without Hats Cover)
4. If You Leave (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark Cover)
5. Forever Young (Alphaville Cover)
Half Waif
Vince Staples
The Wallflowers
