Music producers, artists, and event organizers often talk about how they smoke the competition, but few pull it off quite like Outside Lands. Last weekend, Grass Lands celebrated its fourth year at the Bay Area fest. In that time, the experience has expanded with more partners and offerings, but the best part is festival-goers are able to purchase and enjoy their cannabis freely in a fully compliant zone for smoking. Alive Coverage Now in its 14th iteration, Outside Lands Festival is no stranger to pushing the envelope, but few can assemble the cavalcade of top-shelf cannabis partners who make Grass Lands such a potent festival experience. For instance, Traditional, who is known largely as the godfather of OG growers through most of California, was there with discounted buds in a variety o...
The city of Chicago is creepin’ it real after the reveal of a brand new electronic dance music festival, Necropolis. Scheduled for October 29th and 30th, the Halloween-themed fest comes courtesy of Auris Presents, a leading Chicago promoter responsible for ARC and Heatwave, among other major EDM events in the Windy City. Alison Wonderland, Excision, Getter, Adventure Club and EDM.com Class of 2021 artists Blanke and Lucii have been confirmed for performances at the inaugural Necropolis, which organizers liken to a place “where heavy bass music and the dark fantasies of Halloween collide.” They are announcing a second wave of artists soon, according to a press release shared with EDM.com. Tickets will go on sale Friday, August 19th at 12pm CST. You can sign ...
Amid the fallout of Pollen, the destination events company is now facing a class action lawsuit from former employees, Digital Music News reports. Pollen recently went into administration in the U.K. after receiving droves of complaints from consumers, many of whom allege the company failed to issue refunds for events that had been canceled. The company also drew the ire of a number of its partners, like Drumcode Malta, whose organizers said Pollen’s highly publicized struggles forced them to pull the plug on the festival. As the news circulated, Pollen released a statement attributing its pitfalls to a number of factors, including COVID-19 restrictions and a global economic downtick. The statement arrived days after Live Nation released its Q2 financials, reporting $4.43 billion in ...
Welcome to Fan Chant, a weekly column for K-pop fans, stans, and newbies alike. Each week, I’ll be rolling out interviews, lists, and all kinds of content to keep you in the loop on the latest and greatest from our friends in Seoul and beyond. Also make sure to subscribe to my companion newsletter! This weekend, the city of Los Angeles welcomes the return of KCON, an enormous celebration of music, culture, and community, anchored by performances from some of everyone’s favorite K-pop acts. For the new or uninitiated (like yours truly), it can be a bit overwhelming to prepare for an event featuring so many great artists and groups. This year’s lineup is truly exciting, so we’ve assembled a quick and easy guide to KCON 2022. What Is KCON? Launched a decade ago in 2012 with its flagship event...
Over the past few years, single continuous takes have become a commonplace device in film and TV, an objectively impressive if somewhat overused gimmick that allows storytellers an opportunity to flex their ambitions and maximize the high-wire tension of an emotionally significant scene. “One-ers” can sometimes carry an effect of showboating the longer their runtime, but when executed with near-perfect precision, like in FX’s thrillingly chaotic cooking drama The Bear, the result can be a remarkable thing to watch, to see so many moving parts come together seamlessly. Created by Christopher Storer, The Bear is the perfect show to apply such a technique. The series focuses on the volatile and brilliant chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) as he struggles to run his brother’s Ch...
Dean Fertita is returning with a new solo album. The Queens of the Stone Age member will unveil Tropical Gothclub on November 4th via Third Man Records, and as a preview, he’s shared its lead single “Wheels Within Wheels” today. Known for his work in more garage rock-forward bands — QotSA, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather — Fertita has used Tropical Gothclub as his chance to branch out. After spending much of the pandemic recording demos with no clear goal or vision, the resulting final product exemplifies just how far his range spans. “Tropical Gothclub as a concept is futuristic nostalgia,” he says in a press release (are you there, Dua Lipa?). “Going through the seven stages of escapism, understanding the subliminal messages I’ve been sending and receiving to myself, ...
Sony could soon be following in the footsteps of Valve, Blizzard and Epic Games by creating its own launcher for PC ports of its PlayStation games. The reference to a PC launcher was discovered by data miners who were going through code from Marvel’s Spider-Man: Remastered, a game that launched as a PlayStation exclusive back in 2018 but has since made its way to Windows via Steam. The move probably doesn’t come as a surprise as Sony is moving more and more of its titles over onto PC, with games such as Horizon: Zero Dawn also listed on Steam. It’s unclear for now whether the Japanese gaming giant will indeed create its own launcher and whether PlayStation titles will then move exclusively to it, but if so, it’ll also likely feature a storefront so players can make purchases and ...
Twenty-three switchbacks between Lake Serene and us. The trail comes into a small plain of sorts, a million shades of green interlaced with branches teeming with leaves and wildlife. Trees were growing out of other trees — nature helping itself advance and thrive. A friend of mine had invited me to get out of the city. I increased our ardent pace and didn’t feel any drudge of the ascent. I wanted to feel the chilling water through my muscles and bones. Reaching the summit, I hesitated to dive into the clear water ahead. It was not due to the temperature but a new obstacle I was not accustomed to handling. A curve-sloped rock face that touched the waterline made it difficult to conceptualize how I would get out of the water. There was nervous excitement. My friend dove in first and showed m...
Kid Cudi signaled the end of his tumultuous, 13-year friendship with Kanye West in a recent Esquire interview, saying “It’s gonna take a motherfucking miracle for me and that man to be friends again” in reference to the escalating beef between the two rappers over the past year. In February, West wrote on Instagram that he would not feature Cudi, a frequent collaborator, on his music “because he’s friends with you know who.” The since-deleted post was a reference to Pete Davidson, Cudi’s friend and Kim Kardashian’s first boyfriend since filing for divorce from Kanye West in 2021. Cudi broke his silence on the ordeal in the interview. “Do you know how it feels to wake up one day, look at your social media, and you’re trending because somebody’s talking some shit about you?” he said. “You fu...
The prom queen, characterized by unkempt makeup and a tattered dress while emanating a histrionic vibe, is a pop culture symbol with extensive lineage. Courtney Love used the aesthetic for the cover of Hole’s 1994 alternative classic album Live Through This. In 2021, pop behemoth Olivia Rodrigo deployed it for Sour Prom, her concert film. Most recently, Brittney Parks, who uses the moniker Sudan Archives to record shapeshifting indie-pop, put her own spin on the well-worn motif with Natural Brown Prom Queen. On her second full-length record, Parks discards the typically disheveled prom-queen aesthetic to present imaginative idealism. Tears of makeup aren’t streaming down her face. Instead, Parks joyously assumes the prom-queen title as the person she is today. “Basically, when I go on tour...