Weekly digest #36
Featuring Talking Heads, Bad Religion, Sparks, Queens of the Stone Age, Superchunk, and more
📷 Saoirse Ronan in the new music video for Talking Heads’ ‘Psycho Killer’
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 Sunday morning.
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
Talking Heads release the first official video for 'Psycho Killer' (Open Culture)
Queens of the Stone Age release Alive in the Catacombs concert film and accompanying documentary (Consequence of Sound)
Dropkick Murphys to release new album, share ‘Who'll Stand With Us?' video (Punk News)
The National’s Matt Berninger shares update on sitcom and reveals “a catalogue of everything” book is on the way (NME)
East Bay Ray re-mixing / re-mastering Dead Kennedys catalogue (Punk News)
New releases
Diaz Brothers return with new album The World is Yours (The Punk Site)
Superchunk announce album, Songs in the Key of Yikes, release new song (Consequence of Sound)
Brooklyn’s Cash Bribe release ‘Bay of Pigs’ from upcoming EP Demonomics (Punk News)
Narrow Head frontman announces solo project Nihilistic Easyrider, album features Momma, Graham Hunt and more (Stereogum)
Chicago ‘lipstick punk’ band Sweetie releases new music video paying homage to John Waters, Divine, and all things queer and weird (Dying Scene)
Listen/watch
Bad Religion stream 'Decades' series (The Punk Site)
Tony Hawk featured on Amoeba Music’s 900th episode of ‘What’s In My Bag?’ (Punk News)
Watch Pulp’s deeply delightful three-song performance on Jools Holland (Stereogum)
Bush unleash ‘The Land of Milk and Honey’, first official single from upcoming album (Consequence of Sound)
Napalm Death and Thurston Moore cover Ramones’ 'Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue' (Brooklyn Vegan)
Liverpool tide
From PJ Harvey to the Manic Street Preachers to The Bangles and beyond, Liverpool’s provided plenty of lyrical inspiration.
Long reads
Turnstile’s Brendan Yates on how his band reimagined hardcore punk by following their intuition (The Independent)
‘Yes, there was a riot, but it was great’: Cabaret Voltaire on violent gigs, nuclear noise – and returning to mark 50 years (The Guardian)
Garbage’s Shirley Manson: “I don’t have to be young, I don’t have to be sexy – if you cancel me, you cancel me” (NME)
The ones we love: all 16 of R.E.M.’s albums – ranked! (The Guardian)
Every Sparks album, ranked (Spin)
Elsewhere on Substack
And finally…
Nosferatu 1922 original to be set to Radiohead’s Kid A for new cinema release (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.)
Feel no fear
In some ways the first couple of weeks of the New Year are the best part of the whole 12 months. It’s a time when resolutions and would-be revolutions have yet to be tarnished or pushed off course by life’s headwinds.