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First Stream: New Music From Trippie Redd, Kali Uchis, The Kid LAROI and More
Billboard

“Last year, Mac DeMarco challenged himself to start driving and not return home until he had created a new album. “Maybe it’s the last couple of years, or maybe it’s my age now, but the idea of forgoing any sort of normalcy or comfort and making my entire life, for a segment of time, completely insane feels very inspiring to me,” he explains in a press release. “I stayed out on the road doing this for almost four months.” He came back with Five Easy Hot Dogs, a charming instrumental exercise that plays out in the order of his trip, and feels like a sumptuous conversation with a curious soul who happens to be an acclaimed, still-evolving indie singer-songwriter.”

How to Quit Smoking and Record an Album While On a 7,000 Mile Road Trip, According to Mac DeMarco
GQ

“Around this time last year, Mac DeMarco started off on what can properly be called a Great Big Adventure. As a mainstay of the music scene since 2012, he’s already spent a lot of time on the road touring his easy-going indie rock tunes like “My Kind of Woman” and “For the First Time.” But after two years cooped up at his home in Los Angeles during the pandemic, he had a backed-up well of wanderlust. So after finishing a show in San Francisco, he sawed a kick drum in half in Golden Gate Park, packed it up with a portable recording rig in the back of his Land Cruiser, and hit the road. “I didn’t have a plan, I didn’t know where I was gonna go, and I didn’t know when I was gonna come back,” DeMarco told me”

The 34 Most Anticipated Albums of 2023
Pitchfork

Mac Demarco: Five Easy Hot Dogs

“Mac DeMarco recorded his new album, Five Easy Hot Dogs, on the road. “The plan was to start driving north, and not go home to Los Angeles until I was done with a record,” he explained in a press statement. Each song on the album, as a result, is named after the city in which it was recorded, including three in DeMarco’s native Canada—Victoria, Vancouver, and Edmonton. Five Easy Hot Dogs follows DeMarco’s 2019 record Here Comes the Cowboy”

Special Interest Is The Last Band Standing
SPIN

“Special Interest’s breakthrough sophomore album, The Passion Of, was released in June 2020 — in the midst of a summer that marked nationwide social uprisings and innumerable protests against police brutality and the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. It was a time laden with intense strife, anger, and grief. The no-wave punk quartet debated whether or not it was the right time to release a new album, but they ultimately decided to do it. People could use it as a motivational soundtrack to fight against the fucked up shit going on, to put it succinctly’

Mac DeMarco Announces New Album Five Easy Hot Dogs
Pitchfork

“Mac DeMarco has announced a new album of instrumentals recorded on a 2022 road trip. He made Five Easy Hot Dogs during a jaunt from his Los Angeles hometown to a cabin in Utah, which he conceived as “kind of like being on tour, except there weren’t any shows, and [he’d] just be burning money.” The song titles correspond to the cities where they were made, and it arrives on January 20, with vinyl editions following on May 12. Check out the tracklist below”

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard: “Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava”
Pitchfork

“Certainly, this is one of their loosest, most sprawling records, with almost every track exceeding seven minutes; on the other hand, even the most outré odysseys are less a product of improvisation than intricate arrangement. When the Afrobeat-steeped “Ice V” and the dizzying 13-minute showstopper “Hell’s Itch” settle into their fleet-footed grooves and start introducing new ideas every 16 bars, the effect is less like a band showing off their chops and more like rotating MCs chiming in with a few rhymes on a posse cut. And where past Gizzard epics have embraced a racetrack construction, whipping in and out of recurring motifs at regular intervals, the mischievous “Magma” is built more like a spiral staircase, its guitar accents and frisky rhythms swirling skyward en route to the cataclysmic, wah-wah-splattered finale…”

Ezra Furman tells us about her Top Five Records of 2022
Brooklyn Vegan

“As is widely known, I have the correct music taste,” Ezra Furman says, tongue perhaps in cheek, in presenting us with her list of favorite music of 2022. “Other people are in error. For example, the number one album of 2022 seems to be something called Mind-Nights by Tailor Swift. The most talked-about artist of the year is Conye West, who very clearly said ‘slavery was a choice’ in 2018, giving decent people reason to ignore him forever, and yet he is still selling lots of records and commanding the public eye. Meanwhile the transgender rock’n’roll artists creating the great classics of our era (Alex Walton, Asher White, Harmony’s Cuddle Party) go mostly unheard and unheralded.”

Mosswood Meltdown 2023: Le Tigre, Gravy Train!!!!, The Rondelles, more
Brooklyn Vegan

“The Mosswood Meltdown returns to Oakland’s Mosswood Park on July 1 & 2. They’ve announced the initial lineup, which is headlined by Le Tigre, and making it even more electroclash are their old friends Gravy Train!!! (featuring Seth “Hunx” Bogart) who are reuniting for their only 2022/2023 show. The initial lineup also includes rare performances by Tina & The Total Babes, The Rondelles, and Quintron & Miss Pussycat, with more to be announced soon”

SXSW adds 301 artists to 2023 lineup (The Zombies, OSEES, Be Your Own Pet, more)
Brooklyn Vegan

SXSW has announced 301 more artists for its 2023 edition which goes down March 13-18, 2023 in Austin. Additions include The Zombies, OSEES, Be Your Own Pet, Catbite, The Lemon Twigs, Warmduscher, Palehound, Party Dozen, We Are The Union, JER, Kill Lincoln, Cheekface, Enumclaw, Adwaith, Obongjayar, Aoife Nessa Frances, Thor & Friends, Chickasaw Mudd Puppies, Death Valley Girls, Dream Wife, Fake Fruit, Gay Meat, July Talk , Girl Scout, Jessica Winter, Patrick Holland, THICK, Bella White, Garrett T. Capps & NASA Country, Mariel Buckley, Pendant, Snooper, and more.

OSEES share “Scum Show” video & KEXP session, announce UK tour
Brooklyn Vegan

“OSEES have shared a video for “Scum Show” from this year’s very punk A Foul Form. Directed by Malo Sutra Fish on a Super 8 camera with hand processing and animation by l’Etna Collective Lab, the video is as raw and visceral as the song itself. You can watch that below.

The band have also shared the video of their recent KEXP session which has John Dwyer and crew blazing through tracks off the new album — watch that below as well”

The Murlocs Keep Glam-Psych Sounds Rolling On For Sold-out Crowd in Portland, OR (SHOW REVIEW)
Glide Magazine

“Opening with the punk-blues intensity of “Living Under a Rock,” the band put forth an immediate wave of energy that set the tone for everything that would follow. As one might expect, much of the set focused on Rapscallion. “Virgin Criminal” and “The Royal Vagabond” each tapped into the band’s droning jangle pop with the latter seeing Ambrose Kenny-Smith bust out his harmonica for a solo finale”

Ty Segall: ‘Staring at myself in the mirror on the wall and being like ‘What the hell’s going on?’
Beat

“At age 35, Segall has released more records than most artists do in a lifetime. He has 14 studio albums to his name, not including the many side projects he’s a part of. 2012’s Slaughterhouse is a wildly noisy rock ‘n’ roll affair, while the next year’s Sleeper has him strumming an acoustic guitar. Some of the loudest music Segall has released has been with the band Fuzz, which has him behind the drum kit, the instrument he learnt before guitar.”

The Murlocs Unleash Electrifying “Living Under a Rock” (Live at the Forum
Vents Magazine

Melbourne’s 60’s tinged psych-rock punks The Murlocs brought their outrageous live show to euphoric crowds at LEVITATION festival last weekend and will perform at Red Rocks Amphitheatre tomorrow alongside King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard with whom they share several band members. In celebration of their national headlining fall tour kicking off a week from today, the band has unleashed the “Living Under a Rock” (Live at the Forum) video.  The electrifying video gives fans and critics an early taste of their explosive live performance.

Watch The Murlocs Perform “Living Under A Rock” Live At The Forum
Wildfire Music + News

“Melbourne’s 60’s tinged Psych-Rock outfit The Murlocs recently played at Levitation and will perform at Red Rocks Amphitheatre today alongside King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard with whom they share several band members. In celebration of their national headlining Fall tour kicking off soon, the band has unleashed the “Living Under a Rock” (Live at the Forum) video”

The Murlocs’ Ambrose Kenny-Smith Talks Red Rocks, ‘Rapscallion,’ & New Directions
The Aquarian

“Australian-psych rockers The Murlocs have steadily accrued a dedicated following over the past decade and have largely stepped out of obscurity and into the indie spotlight. With six studio albums and a rigorous touring schedule – including tours with fellow Melburnians King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Uncle Murl are about to embark on a headlining U.S. tour. They glimmer on stage and riff around gloriously. We chatted with the Murlocs’ lead vocalist, harmonica player, percussionist, keyboardist, guitarist, and all around mastermind, Ambrose Kenny-Smith, before they hit the road”

Maps: Bikini Kill Are Back! Kathleen Hanna On The Band’s Unfinished Business
RRR

“Over the last thirty years, Kathleen Hanna has been at the forefront of punk and politics. From pioneering the genre of riot grrrl with Bikini Kill to melding third-wave feminism with electro-pop in Le Tigre, Hanna’s music has always rallied against the norms of the day. But despite the music’s specificity, many of the messages still feel frustratingly vital. Chatting with Maps ahead of Bikini Kill’s 2023 Australian tour, Hanna discusses her frustration with the band’s relevance: “I wish that this band had no business being on a stage again” she tells Fee, “the thing that’s really upsetting is that [we’re] still relevant”

“Living Under A Rock” By The Murlocs
Northern Transmissions

“Australian psych-rock band, The Murlocs will perform at Red Rocks Amphitheatre tomorrow alongside King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard with whom they share several band members. In celebration of their national headlining fall tour kicking off a week from today, the band has unleashed the “Living Under a Rock” (Live at the Forum) video. Frontman Ambrose Kenny-Smith shares, “Some people live a sheltered life by choice and some people are born into it. ‘Rapscallion’ has had enough of living under a rock. It’s time for a fresh start.”

The Murlocs release live video, announce Reddit AMA
Full Time Aesthetic

“Fresh off of performaning at LEVITATION in Austin and with a show at Red Rocks Amphitheater with King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard (with whom they share several members) tonight, 60s psych twinged punk band, The Murlocs, are kicking off their headlining North American tour with a bang and bringing their energetic and outrageous live show on the road, heading to Philadelphia on 11/7 and criss crossing the continent over the next three weeks”

Into the Gizzverse with Shrimp and Juicy
The New Yorker

“King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, the pretty-much-every-genre rock band from Australia, boarded a tour bus in Montreal at 2 a.m. one night this month and arrived in Brooklyn nine hours later. No gig until the following night, in Queens: a rare day off. “I passed out for an hour at the hotel, grabbed a chicken burrito, and here we are,” Ambrose Kenny-Smith, one of the band’s singers and multi-instrumentalists, said that afternoon. “Here” was a skate park under the Kosciuszko Bridge, on the Brooklyn side of Newtown Creek. “On off days, we try to go for a skate,” he said. “It keeps the mental health in check.””

The Murlocs’ Tour Bus Playlist Featuring The Modern Lovers, Randy Newman, and Willie Nelson
Bandsintown

“The Melbourne-based band has put out five studio albums, but their latest is perhaps the most impressive both in music and creativity. Rapscallion, which was released on September 16th on ATO Records, is a 12-track coming-of-age novel in album form. It depicts a wildly squalid odyssey featuring various peculiar characters, partly inspired by frontman Ambrose Kenny-Smith’s own adolescence as a nomadic skate kid. The band self-produced the album at their home studios during the pandemic which helped maintain their DIY approach while applying darker, more primitive themes to their music. Kenny-Smith said that he hopes “when people hear the album they really dig deep into the world of the story we’ve created, and it gives them that same sensation of traveling into the unknown.”

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