Music Features

Half Waif, Ben Gibbard, and 5 Other Live Streams to Tune Into Now

Get your best headphones, crack open a cold one, and enjoy these livestream shows, straight from one artist's living room to yours.

Half Waif: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Now that we're all stuck at home, musicians are turning to livestreams in order to share their art with the world. Here are some incredible livestreams to check out this week and next:

Friday, 3/27: Half Waif, the dreamy electro-pop outlet of Pinegrove's Nandi Rose Plunkett, is performing her ethereal new album "The Caretaker" this Friday at 7:30 PM. Tune in here. Plunkett also recently wrote a column for NPR about how she's staying sane during quarantine—which involves spending a lot of time on her couch.

Half Waif: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concertwww.youtube.com


4PM Daily:Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie has been doing daily livestreams, and he just released a song called "Life in Quarantine."

Benjamin Gibbard - Life in Quarantine (Official Audio)www.youtube.com


Saturday, 3/28: Bands including indie outlet WD-HAN will be gathering for a festival called Doomed Fest on Saturday, March 28th and Sunday, March 29th, starting at noon EST daily. Tickets are $10 and all proceeds go towards supporting performers.

Sunday 3/29: Elton John is bringing Billie Eilish, Mariah Carey, and Alicia Keys (all in the safety of their own homes) together for the iHeart Living Room Concert for America, airing 9PM Sunday.

Sunday 3/29: Jay-Z's streaming platform Tidal will be bringing a coterie of illustrious artists together this weekend for free livestreams, including Beyonce and Rihanna for their Sunday R&B sessions.

Rihanna - Diamonds (Acoustic Live)www.youtube.com


Wednesday 4/1 (and every Wednesday and Friday): Indie band San Fermin is doing IGTV livestreams every Wednesday and Friday at 3PM EST. They also just released the second installment of their dual album, The Cormorant, along with a new video for "Freedom (Yeah Yeah Yeah)." Tune in to the livestreams here.

Thursday, 4/2: The musician Mike Broussard is doing livestreams every Thursday at 1PM EST. Experience his rollicking, expansive ballads by tuning in here.

Marc Broussard-Solo Acoustic (Round 2)www.youtube.com


April 4th: Actor and musician Michelle Creber will be performing a livestream concert on April 4th. She also just released a new music video for "Storm" and dropped a moving, cinematic new single called "False Empire."

STORM (music video) - Michelle Creberwww.youtube.com


Have a livestream you want featured? Email eden@popdust.com.

MUSIC

Interview: Derek Sanders of Mayday Parade Releases New Solo EP

The emo-veteran sat down with Popdust to talk about how his wife inspired the project.

Derek Sanders - But Lauren (Official Music Video)

Derek Sanders and the emo-veterans of Mayday Parade have been at it for over a decade.

Sanders, who remains the band's frontman and prominent songwriter, has continued to churn out emotionally blunt power ballads since the band's breakout in 2007. "Give me your misery / all of it give it to me / I can hold onto it for you / I just want your energy," he cries out on 2018's "Piece of Your Heart." When reflecting back on some of band's most emotional moments, it makes perfect sense that for Valentine's Day this year, Sanders finally realigned his focus to sing directly to the woman that inspired most, if not all, of Mayday's fervent material. "She's always been an incredibly important person in my life even in the years we weren't dating," Sanders told me. Longtime high school sweethearts, they bonded over their mutual love for "But Lauren," by Goodbye Love, Sanders' favorite local band in Tallahassee. Sanders was additionally inspired by the emo-godfathers of the early aughts: Jimmy Eat World, Saves The Day, Something Corporate.

So for Sanders' new solo EP, My Rock and Roll Heart, which released today, the 33-year-old singer selected five of his old favorites and repackaged them with his own little twist. We spoke more with Sanders about the project, the future of Emo, and his budding solo career.

Is this project an indicator of a bigger solo career for you? Will you release original material as a solo act?

"I don't really know how I'm gonna go about it, but this whole product has been something I've been working on for a couple years and just taking my time to get it all ready. Mayday Parade is still first and foremost for me and remains my main focus, but I do plan to get back in [the studio] and put together some original songs, maybe release an EP."

What made you decide now was the time to go solo?

"It's something that I feel like I've wanted to do for a long time. I kind of always thought I'd do something like this, but once I realized I'd been in Mayday Parade for 14 years I kind of thought, 'Gosh, how did that much time go by!' And it kind of started as a fluke, just for fun. The first song on this EP I recorded just for my wife as a Valentine's Day gift, and it kind of turned into this whole other thing from there. It's also just fun to work on other type of music so it just all kinda came together."

How has your wife influenced this project? Why did you decide now was the time to craft this EP for her?

"I've known my wife since I was 15 years old, and we've been friends ever since then. We dated on and off when we were in highschool, but it wasn't until years later that we reconnected, and she has just always been a very important person in my life. 'But Lauren' especially is meaningful cause I used to sing it to her when we were kids. I kinda just decided to do this last minute."

www.youtube.com

Take me through these covers and why you decided on these particular songs.

"It's just overall songs that I listened to in high school. For me, high school was a big turning point in my life musically, and it inspired me to go on and create the type of music I did with Mayday Parade. So this collection are all bands and songs that mean a lot to me. 'But Lauren,' in particular, was made by a guy named Mike Hanson out of Tallahassee who played music a long time ago, and I really looked up to him, and he never really broke out of Tallahassee, so I'm excited for people now to hear his stuff."

It feels pretty full circle, since Mayday Parade was that band to a lot of kids my age when we were in high school. Why do you think the music during your teenage years is so meaningful and important?

"It's tough to say what it is, but there is just something about it. Most everybody feels that the music in your life that means the most to you kinda ends up being in those years. As you get older, for some reason it's harder to discover a band that really changes your life forever; it doesn't happen as often. But I think a lot of it is just the emotional changes you're going through. Everything feels like such a big deal, and it's hard to see the future. Music becomes incredibly powerful then."

It's funny because Emo is in a bit of a resurgence right now. My Chemical Romance is heading back on tour; you got musicians like the late Juice WRLD and Lil Peep making extremely emotional music. What do you think of modern day Emo?

"I've listened to a bit of it. I host an Emo night every now and then, and the striking thing is the [age range] of people that show up. It's really cool seeing that it's not just a phase for a lot of people."

Where do you go from here, musically?

"This whole year is super busy. Mayday Parade will be releasing new music, and as far as the solo stuff I'm just gonna work in between [Mayday] stuff, but I'm already thinking about what's next. A lot of it isn't set in stone, but that's what's nice about it. I can hop around now and it's not to hard to coordinate."

My Rock and Roll Heart


MUSIC

7 of the Best Anti-War Songs

The best protest music transcends time and is always relevant. Today, we need it more than ever.

Photo by Tong Su (Unsplash)

This morning, Donald Trump authorized a drone strike at Baghdad International Airport that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran's top security and intelligence commander.

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BTS at the American Music Awards

By Featureflash Photo Agency

Congratulations–you've survived 2019

We've been through haunting commercials, traumatically bad movies, and the fall of a favorite childhood author. But through it all, there's been Spotify, judging our music tastes like a disapproving boomer. And yet, we persisted. In alphabetical order, these are the top 50 musical lifelines of the 2010s. In the top 25 are the likes of BTS, Bon Iver, Kendrick Lamar, and Childish Gambino. Among the bottom 25 are FKA twigs, Tayor Swift, Julien Baker, and Charli XCX. Notably absent is anything by Ed Sheeran or Justin Bieber, because we don't believe bad listening habits should be encouraged. Happy listening in 2020!

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Lizzo poses in the press room at the 63rd annual Grammy Awards at the Los Angeles Convention Center on March 14 with both live and prerecorded segments63rd Annual Grammy Awards - Press Room, Los Angeles, United States

Photo by Jordan Strauss/AP/Shutterstock

Lizzo dazzled on her SNL debut this weekend, but fans might have noticed another source of energy and talent emanating from next to the "Truth Hurts" singer as she belted out her tunes.

That would be Celisse Henderson, who shredded on guitar as Lizzo sang.

Lizzo: Truth Hurts (Live) - SNLwww.youtube.com

Henderson is a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist who is a member of the band Ghosts of the Forest. She took center stage during Lizzo's performance, adding a layer of gritty, bluesy rock to the unbelievably catchy song about getting over a man who doesn't deserve you.

Henderson styled her look and guitar after the legendary Sister Rosetta Tharpe, whose gospel and blues recordings were instrumental in shaping rock and roll. As one of the first guitarists to use distortion, she inspired many blues and rock players, and her voice and stage presence helped make her a star.

Seeing Lizzo's pristine, very 21st-century pop mixed with a tribute to one of the greatest rock and roll guitarists of all time gave scope and depth to the performance and helped make it the unforgettable showstopper that it was.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Up Above My Headwww.youtube.com






Celisse Henderson - Stuck On You Blues | Sofar NYCwww.youtube.com


Lizzo, who took to the stage covered in head-to-toe Gucci and hit stratospheric notes from start to finish, also posted a heart-warming tribute to her journey.

Between Henderson's masterful guitar playing, Lizzo's unbelievable pipes and stage presence, and the dancers that lit up the stage, it was a performance to remember.

Lizzo's sets were highlights of Eddie Murphy's star-studded, highly acclaimed, and hilarious SNL episode, which also braided tributes to icons of the past (like Gumby, dammit) with very modern humor.

Eddie Murphy Monologue - SNLwww.youtube.com

MUSIC

Mark Ronson's "Late Night Feelings" Is Soulless Pop

Despite its technical perfection, Ronson's album feels soulless in parts.

Mark Ronson called his new album a collection of "sad bangers," and as promised, Late Night Feelings is full of upbeat tracks about heartbreak.

It features an impressive array of musicians, but even the undeniable talent of each singer and Ronson's proven skill—he's fresh from the success of "Uptown Funk" and "Shallow"—can't save the album from its own soullessness.

Late Night Feelings is plagued by issues that taint many producers' similar albums: It feels like each singer popped into the studio, learned the song, recorded it, and left. In this way, it sacrifices each artist's originality in its effort to package them into Ronson's vision. There isn't the cathartic blood-letting that comes from a cohesive album by a single artist or group. Ronson's album is technically perfect, but often, it's not alive.

One of the greatest missed opportunities comes on the three-song set by YEBBA, the extraordinary Arkansas gospel singer who rose to fame after her mind-blowing Sofar Sounds performance. Like Sia on the unfortunate L.S.D. album from a few months ago, YEBBA's raw vocal talent and singular emotiveness can't shine through her producer's zealousness; instead, she's held back by a straitjacket of beats and unnatural vocal lines. Overall, though a great deal of today's best music involves unexpected convergences of very different genres, Ronson's funk infusions don't always mesh with the styles of his featured artists. It's hard to know where some of these songs are supposed to be played—outside of department store aisles.

In particular, these issues plague "Late Night Feelings" by Lykki Li and "Find U Again" by Camila Cabello. "Nothing Breaks Like a Heart" by Miley Cyrus and "True Blue" by Angel Olsen are stronger, though they still feel overly processed and a bit insubstantial. None of the tracks on the album are without redeeming qualities: The mesh of orchestral elements and glossy, noirish synths are often elegant and refined. Perhaps it's simply the knowledge that Ronson could have done so much better that makes some of these songs feel stale.

The album finds its footing as it goes on. "Why Hide" featuring Diana Gordon takes a piano motif that's oddly evocative of "Somebody To Lean On" and actually gives Gordon's ethereal vocals their due. Gordon's voice is better suited to the track than some of the other singers', or maybe the track is better suited to her style. Either way, the sultry and cohesive tune allows her emotion to shine through and leaves enough space for its lyrics to simmer and resonate.

"2 AM" by Lykki Li is the best track on the album. Melodic, dreamy, and radiant, listening to the song feels like floating under the surface of a swimming pool for a moment, completely escaping the reality of the world above. Its sultry beat, wrenching lyrics, and comfortingly familiar chord progression make it feel like a classic, perfect for late night smokes or long drives spent watching the sky turn from orange to purple to black.

Mark Ronson - 2 AM (Audio) ft. Lykke Liwww.youtube.com

The final track, "Spinning," processes Ilsey's vocals a la Imogen Heap in "Hide and Seek" and places them over a windy synthesizer and a magnetic rhythm. It's beautiful enough to stop the world for a moment. If only all the songs had room to breathe emotion into Late Night Feelings and what it could have been.