Weekly digest #11
Featuring The Cure, Pearl Jam, Pet Shop Boys, Hüsker Dü, Pulp, and more
Welcome to Fire Red Sky’s latest weekly digest of punk rock, alt rock and indie music news and writing.
It’s a light read, a quick catch up on the week that lands with you every weekend.
The links are mainly taken from my social media feeds, so if you want more of this sort of thing than you can follow me on Facebook, Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon (I’m also on Instagram).
Headlines
Robert Smith celebrates The Cure’s first UK #1 album - cover art for Songs of a Lost World pictured above - in 32 years (Stereogum)
The Beatles, The Black Keys, Green Day, Idles, Pearl Jam and St. Vincent will compete for Best Rock Performance at the 2025 Grammys (Pitchfork)
Bon Iver launches website hosting covers of his songs (Pitchfork)
Quicksand’s Sergio Vega and wife Annette launch new band Strict, share “Say It” video (Brooklyn Vegan)
FEAR to release final LP (Punk News)
New releases
Fucked Up release surprise new album Someday (pictured above) featuring High Vis, Fiddlehead, Rifle vocalists (Stereogum)
Bane's debut album, It All Comes Down To This, has been remixed and remastered for its twenty-fifth anniversary (Scene Point Blank)
Bay Area hardcore band Spy sign to Closed Casket, share “On The Brink” (Brooklyn Vegan)
Dean of Dead Milkmen releases space rock, avant-garde, and post punk influenced solo EP (Punk News)
Dutch post-punk outfit Rats On Rafts share “Japanese Medicine” (Stereogum)
Listen/watch
Green Day’s 2004 ‘American Idiot’ performance on ‘Letterman’ re-uploaded to YouTube after Trump’s election win (NME)
Watch The Cure play Songs Of A Lost World in full and celebrate ‘Seventeen Seconds’ at spectacular London Troxy show (NME)
Punknews Podcast - Jim Lindberg of Black Pacific and Pennywise (Punk News)
Watch Michael Stipe and Jon Bon Jovi perform R.E.M.’s ‘The One I Love’ (NME)
Listen to Pet Shop Boys’ cover of ‘All The Young Dudes’ and electro-pop single ‘New London boy’ (NME)
Long reads
Rage Against The Machine’s The Battle of Los Angeles is an urgent call to arms (Consequence of Sound)
The Archivist: Mark Webber of Pulp’s Baker’s Dozen (The Quietus)
5 Albums I Can’t Live Without: Greg Norton of UltraBomb/Hüsker Dü (Spin)
Anger is an energy! Stars and writers on the songs that define punk spirit (The Guardian)
List Season comes early with Uncut’s Top Albums of 2024 (Brooklyn Vegan)
Elsewhere on Substack
And finally…
Robbie Williams on the power of Placebo’s ‘Nancy Boy’: “We all need heroes to relate to” (NME)
Do you have a Substack article, news tip or other piece of writing you’d like to be considered for the digest? Send it to tangleofwires@gmail.com (same goes for press releases etc.)
Loving the new Cure!