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WYO Explores the Pull of Gravity on "Changes"
Cinematic textures amid cool pop flavors.
07.03.2019
WYO
Monika Sed
Indie-pop outfit WYO just dropped their sophomore album, entitled Changes, featuring ten-tracks of lushly textured music narrating the tale of a couple trying to stay together even as circumstances conspire to divide them.
Vocalist Andy Sorge explains, "Changes explores the many colorful phases of a relationship and of life. From the album's start to finish, each song represents a new season of 'change.' It displays a wide range of nuanced emotion from song to song that follows the raw intricacies of both being in and out of phase with your partner, and being on and off course with life."
Currently based in L.A. via Jackson Hole, Wyoming, WYO is comprised of Andy Sorge (vocals, keyboards) and Scott McKay Gibson (multi-instrumentalist). Since releasing their debut album, Untamed, in 2018, WYO has shared the stage with Robert Earl Keen, Avi Buffalo, The Fruit Bats, and Whitehorse, along with composing soundtracks for films, documentaries, and commercials.
WYO - Moonlight youtu.be
Showcase tracks on Changes include "Don't Stop," opening on gleaming guitars riding a driving rhythmic pulse."Moonlight" ripples with effervescent colors flowing into an indie-pop melody rife with underlying seduction.
"Hot Lights" features glistening keyboards atop a hefty throbbing rhythm. Crying guitar accents infuse the tune with yearning , leading to an irresistible chorus. "Do It Alone" offers bluesy savors, while Sorge injects the lyrics with nuances of smoldering tumescence.
"Queen of the Bees" rides tropical hues. "Stay Awake" blends lingering pop sensibilities with retro-flavored guitars, simultaneously suggestive and dangerous.
Imagine a superlative balance of Coldplay and George Strait, with hints of Maroon 5 laced in for good measure. That's WYO—cool, silky, and zesty.
Follow WYO Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
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- EXCLUSIVE ALBUM PREMIERE: “Changes” by WYO | Performer Mag ›
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- Los Angeles Based Indie-Rock Band WYO On Wyoming Sounds ... ›
- WYO - Home | Facebook ›
- WYO (@wyotheband) • Instagram photos and videos ›
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- WYO the Band: Home ›
Culture News
"I Stand With Bubba": NASCAR Fans Show Support for Bubba Wallace
The only Black Driver in the top tier of NASCAR, Bubba Wallace is standing strong
06.22.2020
Update 7/6/2020: On Monday morning President Trump tweeted about the noose incident, referring to the mistaken intent of the noose as a "HOAX" and wondering if Bubba Wallace had apologized to "those great NASCAR drivers & officials who came to his aid." President Trump also asserted that the incident, along with NASCAR's decision to ban the confederate flag had resulted in the association losing viewership for their races, yielding what Trump termed their "lowest ratings EVER!"
Has @BubbaWallace apologized to all of those great NASCAR drivers & officials who came to his aid, stood by his sid… https://t.co/XGPapgYIAA— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump)1594038787.0
<p><strong>Update 6/23/2020:</strong> On Tuesday <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/23/us/nascar-noose-not-hate-crime-bubba-wallace/index.html" target="_blank">the FBI announced their conclusion that the noose left in Bubba Wallace's garage stall</a> had been tied into the garage's pull rope long before Bubba's car and team were moved into that stall, and that other garage pull ropes were similarly tied.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - undersecond12 - under_second_paragraph --></p><p>The specific circumstances that led Bubba and his team to only notice the noose a few days after they were given that stall are not clear at this time, but this new evidence suggests that there was no effort in this case to target Wallace with a threat of hanging. It should be noted though that Wallace would not have been the first Black NASCAR driver to receive such threats. <a href="https://www.cbssports.com/nascar/news/willy-t-ribbs-indy-500s-first-black-driver-was-not-shocked-by-noose-in-bubba-wallaces-garage/" target="_blank">Willy T. Ribbs, who was a top-tier driver in the 1980s seemed to find nothing surprising in the possibility</a>, saying "I was getting death threats, so a rope would've been a piece of cake for me."<br></p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - undersecond12 - under_second_paragraph --></p><p>Unfortunately the relief that should have come with this innocent explanation was undermined by the prior distribution--more than a day before the FBI released their conclusion—of <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nascar-noose-bubba-wallace/" target="_blank">false, racist attack stories claiming that Wallace had confused a basic car part for a noose</a>.</p><p>This is a lie. The noose found in the stall was a rope tied in the form of a noose—a noose, in other words...</p><h2>On Sunday June 21st a noose was found in the garage stall of NASCAR driver Darrell "Bubba" Wallace Jr. at the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama.</h2><p>Wallace is the only Black competitor to drive full-time in the NASCAR cup series—the highest tier of NASCAR racing—and the noose seems to be a direct response to his recent efforts to reform the sport and use his platform to promote racial justice.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - undersecond12 - under_second_paragraph --></p><p>In a clear threat of lynching, the noose appeared in Wallace's stall less than two weeks after his successfull campaign to get the Confederate flag banned from NASCAR events–which also coincided with the unveiling of his new Black Lives Matter-themed car.</p><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/jun/22/bubba-wallace-noose-nascar-fbi-investigation-confederate-flag-ban" target="_blank">The incident is now being investigated by the FBI</a>, and by Monday morning news of the racist intimidation tactic had already inspired a wellspring of support for Wallace on Twitter with the hashtag #IStandWithBubba.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - undersecond12 - under_second_paragraph --></p><p>This show of support is encouraging given the nature of NASCAR: <a href="https://insights.digitalmediasolutions.com/articles/nascar-marketing#:~:text=The%20NASCAR%20fan%20base%20makes,ages%20of%2018%20and%2044" target="_blank">a sport with a largely white fan-base</a> and <a href="http://prohibition.themobmuseum.org/the-history/prohibition-potpourri/nascar-and-prohibition/" target="_blank">roots in the "southern heritage" of bootleggers</a> (picture the General Lee from <em>Dukes of Hazzard</em>…). Nonetheless, there are many holdouts—notably the people who <a href="https://www.espn.com/racing/nascar/story/_/id/29344050/nascar-sees-confederate-flags-fly-talladega-superspeedway" target="_blank">flew a Confederate flag banner over the speedway sunday</a>, trailing the motto "DEFUND NASCAR."<br></p><p>Until recently Wallace had largely avoided engaging with the politics of American race relations, preferring not to invite these sorts of hateful reactions. He had a hard enough time finding sponsors as a Black driver without the added controversy.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - undersecond12 - under_second_paragraph --></p><p>But that <a href="https://www.wsls.com/sports/2020/06/12/ap-interview-nascars-bubba-wallace-finds-voice/" target="_blank">reportedly changed for Wallace when he saw the video of Ahmaud Arbery</a> being chased down and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/us/mcmichaels-hearing-ahmaud-arbery/index.html" target="_blank">killed by two white men for the crime of going for a run</a>. It was at that point that he decided he had to use his platform to make a difference.</p><p><a href="https://www.popdust.com/jimmy-fallon-blackface-2646105674.html" target="_self">The horrific killing of George Floyd</a>—and the <a href="https://www.popdust.com/martin-gugino-trump-2646166462.html" target="_self">dramatic protests against police brutality</a> that kicked off shortly after—became a further inflection point, and Wallace was motivated to make a public stand for justice and for reform within his sport. In his words, "You have to stand up for what's right ... it's part of becoming an athlete and the pedestal you get with that."</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - undersecond12 - under_second_paragraph --></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5ebd8ad3f35e34b082ec022a1c38dc8a"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lSxZ8qBJGHU?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Bubba Wallace emotional as NASCAR's drivers, Richard Petty stand with him | NASCAR ON FOX</small>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSxZ8qBJGHU" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
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</p><p>The son of a Black social worker and a white business owner, Wallace claims that his own experiences of racism—particularly at the hands of law enforcement—have not been "as bad as other African Americans in the community," adding, "The encounters I've had were very few, but they were powerful."<br></p><h4>The Noose Left in Bubba Wallace's His Garage Stall</h4><p>He recalls being asked if he could afford the car he was driving and an officer suggesting that he must sell drugs. As upsetting as that kind of profiling is, it pales in comparison to the terrifying history of lynching in America that the noose left in his garage invokes.<br></p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - undersecond12 - under_second_paragraph --></p><p>Frequently treated as a morbid form of public spectacle and entertainment, lynching was the murder primarily of Black men, often by hanging, by a group of white people, often in <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/122110/i-dont-want-be-excuse-racist-violence-charleston" target="_blank">retaliation for a supposed crime against the "virtue" of a white woman</a>.</p><p>While not technically legal, lynching was often tacitly endorsed by media and law enforcement as a means to control Black people, particularly in the former slave states of the American south in the decades after the Civil War.</p><p>From the 1880s to the 1960s, <a href="https://www.naacp.org/history-of-lynchings/" target="_blank">nearly 3,500 Black Americans were lynched</a> in officially recorded incidents. In Alabama alone—though not the worst state in these terms—there are <a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/shipp/lynchingsstate.html" target="_blank">records of at least 299 Black people being lynched</a>. Of course it's impossible to say how many lynchings have gone unreported.</p><p>Recently this evil history has been dredged up by <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8444799/SIX-people-color-dead-string-hangings-death-George-Floyd.html" target="_blank">the incidence of several public hangings of Black men across the US</a>. While the circumstances of most of these hangings remain unknown, their co-occurrence with the dramatic Black Lives Matter protests suggests the possibility of racist retaliation and intimidation—exactly the kind of social control that lynchings were used for.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - undersecond12 - under_second_paragraph --></p><div id="3c9ad" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="cf05c0d834637d06e3ec7de9bfe0e234"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1274870062567096320" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Nothing says "I don't know what these phrases actually mean but the left gets their way when they use them" quite l… https://t.co/W3fNLbB30X</div> — Faith Naff #BlackLivesMatter (@Faith Naff #BlackLivesMatter)<a href="https://twitter.com/FaithNaff/statuses/1274870062567096320">1592787683.0</a></blockquote></div><p>These incidents have opened the question of whether we can really refer to lynching in the past tense. While it's generally regarded as a relic of a crueler era of American history, recent <a href="https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/news/local/noose-found-hanging-in-deer-isle-escalates-racial-tension-in-town/97-0cb13590-45e9-4ebf-9256-e4749f94d859" target="_blank">displays of nooses</a> and <a href="https://pamplinmedia.com/scs/83-news/469719-380199-in-racist-display-toy-monkey-hung-by-noose" target="_blank">racist effigies</a> have made it clear that the concept still looms large in the minds of white supremacists.<br></p><h4>The Deeper Problem of Covert Lynching</h4><p>But the problem goes much deeper than these more obvious acts of racism. Considering the ways that the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html" target="_blank">war on drugs</a>, the war on terror, and the war on undocumented immigration have been leveraged against Black and brown communities—and <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/01/31/the-fbi-has-quietly-investigated-white-supremacist-infiltration-of-law-enforcement/" target="_blank">the deliberate infiltration of many police forces by white supremacists</a>—there is a sense in which <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0603-police-killings-lynching-legacy-20200531-pady24plgredhnwt3xdlyh6rdi-story.html" target="_blank">police violence targeting Black and brown men is functionally indistinct from lynching</a>.</p><p>Whether we're talking about <a href="https://psmag.com/social-justice/the-real-intention-behind-the-recent-ice-raids-is-intimidation" target="_blank">ICE raids</a>, public hangings, or <a href="https://www.popdust.com/derek-chauvin-hat-2646109506.html" target="_self">aggressively pinning a man's neck beneath your knee</a> for the alleged crime of buying food with a phony $20 bill, the violence serves to scare oppressed minority communities into deference and silence.</p><p>Perhaps it's the apparent failure of of police violence to achieve that deference amid the Black Lives Matter protests that has motivated the recent resurgence of more overt displays of racism—like leaving a noose in a Black driver's garage when he starts to speaks out.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - undersecond12 - under_second_paragraph --></p><p>Whatever the rationale, these incidents plainly discredit claims that the backlash against Black Lives Matter has any real foundation outside of racism. Amid fights to save statues of Confederate generals and wave the Confederate flag in order to preserve <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20190201/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy" target="_blank">some abstract sense of history and "heritage,"</a> these nooses and hangings remind us of the stark reality of what that history was and how the heritage of white supremacy lives on.</p><p>While many white people have tried to argue that they just think "all lives matter," that is a statement denying the existence of the problem—namely that <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-backlash-against-black-lives-matter-is-just-more-evidence-of-injustice-85587" target="_blank">Black lives continue to be disproportionately abused, neglected, undervalued, and thrown away in our society</a>. Shouting "all lives matter" only serves as a denial of that reality, and denial will only allow that inequality to perpetuate and oppress future generations.<br></p><p>The<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/18/politics/protests-polling-support-movement-policies-kaiser-quinnipiac/index.html" target="_blank"> popularity of that denial is slowly (much too slowly) beginning to wane</a>, but it still gives cover and comfort to people who want to bring back nooses and "put them in their place." Fortunately Bubba Wallace is not the kind of person who is easily intimidated or deterred.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - undersecond12 - under_second_paragraph --></p><p>In a statement that Wallace posted to his Twitter Account, he affirmed "This will not break me, I will not give in nor will I back down. I will continue to proudly stand for what I believe in."</p>
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TV Reviews
HBO's "I'll Be Gone In the Dark" Is a Complex Portrait of Serial Killer-Hunter Michelle McNamara
The improbably fascinating "I'll Be Gone In the Dark" subverts traditional serial killer narratives.
07.05.2020
Michelle McNamara
In the years leading up to her death, Michelle McNamara haunted message boards, libraries, and Sacramento families to get to the bottom of the case that obsessed and consumed her.
McNamara, a true crime blogger whose interest in serial killers morphed into a compulsive desire to hunt and catch them, is the subject of a new HBO documentary series. The first episode, which premiered last Sunday, presents a small window into the mind of a woman who hunted serial killers until she accidentally overdosed on sleeping pills.
It's completely enthralling, a marked subversion of typical serial killer narratives as well as a commentary on their devastating and peculiar appeal.
I'll Be Gone In the Dark (2020): Official Trailer | HBO www.youtube.com
<h4>Michelle McNamara: Mother by Day, Hunter By Night</h4><p>McNamara was born in Illinois, attended Notre Dame and received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota. She then moved to Los Angeles to write for film and TV.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - undersecond12 - under_second_paragraph --></p><p>In 2006 she published her first post on <em>True Crime Diary,</em> the website that would quickly gain a cult following. After investigating and writing about a huge number of killers and criminals on the site, McNamara would eventually zero in on one killer: a rapist and murderer known as the East Area Rapist, Original Night Stalker, and eventually by the title McNamara coined: the Golden State Killer. </p><p>After publishing articles about the killer in <em>Los Angeles Magazine </em>in 2013 and 2014, McNamara began a book about her research. But she died in 2016 after overdosing on a mix that included Adderall, Xanax, and fentanyl. </p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - undersecond12 - under_second_paragraph --></p><p> After her death, the book was completed by her husband, Patton Oswalt, and several true crime writers. Now that memoir, <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27ll_Be_Gone_in_the_Dark" target="_blank" title="I'll Be Gone in the Dark">I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer</a></em>, has been brought to the big screen. </p><p>The HBO docuseries about Michelle McNamara heavily features Patton Oswalt, whose earnest supportiveness of his wife's efforts provide the bittersweet heart of the story.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d655ec5ef476f0e0d50cee9a0101cbf9"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C7DLyeWSKyQ?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Patton Oswalt On How It Felt To Make The Docuseries "I'll Be Gone in the Dark"</small>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7DLyeWSKyQ" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
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<!-- End Ezoic - undersecond12 - under_second_paragraph --></p><p>Though interesting on their own, none of these facts explains the nail-biting, thrilling draw of Michelle's story better than the approach Michelle herself took to crime-solving. McNamara worked in the business of facts and clues, but she was drawn in and enthralled by the killer's humanness, fascinated by his quirks and interested in the psychological gaps that would have allowed him to rape and kill so ruthlessly despite being human. She wanted to understand him: how he thought, where he walked, what she might have done were she in his place.<br></p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - undersecond12 - under_second_paragraph --></p><p>Perhaps that was the source of her fascination—her interest in his humanness. "I'm obsessed," <a href="http://truecrimediary.com/index.cfm?page=cases&id=124" target="_blank">she wrote</a> in one blog. "It's not healthy. I look at his face, or should I say someone's recollection of his face, frequently… I know the strangest details about him… He often first appeared to people hazily, as they were feeling their way out of a sound sleep, a silent hooded figure at the end of their bed."</p><h4>One Case Closes, and Another Opens</h4><p>McNamara died before she could see the Golden State Killer arrested, but in 2018, authorities arrested a man named Joseph James DeAngelo, who was charged with 13 counts of murder—and who pled guilty to 23 rapes and murders. It's believed that he committed over 50 rapes during his reign over California.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - undersecond12 - under_second_paragraph --></p><p>Police said McNamara's tips didn't lead directly to arrests, but they did help increase interest and aided police in synthesizing the vast amount of clues the killer had left behind. Among her other achievements, McNamara had theorized—correctly—that the killer would be found by DNA evidence and that he was an ex-cop.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQzMzYxNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NDUyNjI0Mn0.A41pKBQ6fQtDe8mzDv6kESOs3GjICLgwikHGcJaHVcQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="4f05a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2d78f477cad8e3f993ac38b1322b9899" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="I'll be gone in the dark">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">I'll Be Gone In the Dark</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit..."><a href="https://images.thestar.com/Id3rSQqr9IpHno-6wOZhO3G-tK8=/1086x545/smart/filters:cb%281593016109626%29/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/entertainment/television/2020/06/24/hunt-for-golden-state-killer-recalled-in-hbos-ill-be-gone-in-the-dark/i_ll_be_gone_in_the_dark.jpg" target="_blank">Thestar.com</a></small></p><p>In an era where the roles of police are being questioned and widely criticized, McNamara's sleuthing work is a fabulous and fascinating example of the power of people-led awareness and justice efforts on a crime where police had all but given up. The fact that the Golden State Killer was a former policeman also seems appropriate for the modern era, where police's abuses of power are coming into the light. <br></p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - undersecond12 - under_second_paragraph --></p><h2></h2><p>Michelle's determination to find justice for people she didn't know, and her ability to act on an obsession that most of us merely entertain through late-night Wikipedia searches (not full-on sleuthing endeavors), make for cathartic viewing, to say the least. It's also bittersweet, knowing Michelle herself didn't live to see her efforts come to fruition. </p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-632"></div>
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