Weekly digest #48

Featuring Mani, Huggy Bear, Blondshell, Fleet Foxes, The Last Dinner Party and more

📷 Mani on stage with Primal Scream in 2009 by LivePict.com

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 (and, given that things are been a little all over the place for a while, you can - once again - be as surprised as me that this week it’s actually on time).

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

Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield obituary (The Guardian); Mani’s writhing, relentless bass was the Stone Roses’ secret sauce – it taught indie kids how to dance (The Guardian)

CBGB: A New York City Soundtrack 1975-1986 box set announced (The Punk Site)

Kings Of Leon have written a Christmas song (NME), as have The Bouncing Souls (Scene Point Blank) and Teen Mortgage (The Punk Site)

Huggy Bear announce Peel Sessions release Basic Strategies for Going Out (Punk News)

Virtual Nick Cave exhibition Stranger Than Kindness opens its online doors (NME)

New releases

London art punks Man/Woman/Chainsaw sign to Fiction Records and release euphoric new single ‘Only Girl’ (NME)

Baltimore hardcore band War On Women share ‘Precious Problem’, their first new single in five years (Scene Point Blank)

London shoegazers Whitelands have another preview for their upcoming second album on Sonic Cathedral records - ‘Songbird (Forever)’ (Stereogum)

Italian psych-garage band Bee Bee Sea release Stanzini Can Be Allright album (The Punk Site)

Liverpool resident Hank Bee announces new EP A Sudden Hankering: Hear ;Corner’ (Stereogum)

Listen/watch

My Bloody Valentine reunite for first concert in seven years (Consequence of Sound)

Fleet Foxes come full circle with Elliott Smith cover (Spin)

Blondshell lists her 5 favorite ‘winter’ albums (Brooklyn Vegan)

Radiohead play ‘Kid A’ and ‘Talk Show Host’ for first time on 2026 European comeback tour (NME) and then deliver a spell-binding, hit-packed set in London (BBC)

Watch The Cure’s trailer for ‘The Show of a Lost World’ live movie as cinema tickets go on sale (NME)

Long reads

Let It Be replaced, again - what can a lifelong fan of The Replacements discover in the latest re-issue? (Spin)

Behind the scenes with R.E.M.‘s Mike Mills and violinist Robert McDuffie in Macon (GPB)

‘Like a horror movie’: The New Pornographers’ A.C. Newman talks ex-drummer’s arrest (Rolling Stone)

The Last Dinner Party’s second course (Spin)

The story of LCD Soundsystem’s iconic ‘Losing My Edge’: “It’s so unbelievably meta” (NME)

Elsewhere on Substack

TRIBUTE: Where Angels Play—The Magic of Mani.

And finally…

David Duchovny has only just heard Catatonia’s X-Files’ song ‘Mulder And Scully’ (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.)