Weekly digest #26
Featuring The Damned, Frightened Rabbit, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Tubs, Car Seat Headrest, 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 (…more or less).
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
Brian James (pictured above), The Damned’s founding guitarist, dies at 70 (Brooklyn Vegan)
Former Yuck frontman Daniel Blumberg wins 2025 Best Original Score Oscar for The Brutalist (Brooklyn Vegan)
Thom Yorke shares menacing live performance of ‘Back in the Game’ collaboration with Mark Pritchard (NME)
Thurston Moore appears on YouTube/TikTok series Track Star (Stereogum)
The Armed to play Bernie Sanders rally in Michigan (Pitchfork) and Laura Jane Grace to open for him in Wisconsin (Punk News)
New releases
Owl John – the solo project of Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchison – reissue album with zine and unseen photos (NME)
Night of the Living Dead Boys album to document one-off CBGBs gig with John Belushi and Jerry Nolan (Scene Point Blank)
Robert Forster announces new album Strawberries (Stereogum)
Thirsty Curses declare Music Is A Scam on new album that pulls from punk, alt-country, rock and power pop (The Punk Site)
Members of Sonic Youth, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and more contribute to NYContinuity Comp (Stereogum)
Listen/watch
Car Seat Headrest announce new album The Scholars: hear 'Gethsemane' (Stereogum)
Suzanne Vega announces new album Flying with Angels: hear 'Speakers’ Corner' (Stereogum)
Watch a trailer for fake Pavement biopic Range Life that’s part of Alex Ross Perry’s very meta PAVEMENTS movie (Brooklyn Vegan)
Jello, Cavalera Brothers, Necrot play 'Nazi Trumps, Fuck Off' live (Punk News)
Watch Courtney Love cover Bob Dylan’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ (NME)
Long reads
Porn rock: the obscenity trial of Jello Biafra (Spin)
The Tubs on how Hüsker Dü, The Housemartins, SZA and more influenced their new album Cotton Crown (Brooklyn Vegan)
The Last Dinner Party shout out grassroots music venues as they win Best New Artist at the BRIT Awards 2025 (NME) and talk music and mental health (NME)
Tibet House 2025 in pics: Michael Stipe, Patti Smith, Orville Peck, Arooj Aftab, Jackson Browne, more (Brooklyn Vegan)
The return of the protest song: punk aesthetics in an age of a resurgent authoritarianism (Indonesia Melbourne)
Elsewhere on Substack
And finally…
Nick Cave details new passion is Staffordshire-style ceramics: “There’s no irony to it” (Consequence of Sound)
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.)
Strung out on punk rock
A little after midnight last night a billowing, bullying thunderstorm stuck. It rattled the blinds, buffeted doors and snuck rain through half-closed windows.