Weekly digest #55

Featuring Billy Bragg, Sweet Pill, The Smiths, Soft Cult, Beck and more

📷 Still from Billy Bragg’s ‘City of Heroes’ video

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

Billy Bragg shares new anti-ICE protest song ‘City of Heroes’ (Brooklyn Vegan), while NOFX drop the political anthem ‘Minnesota Nazis’ (The Punk Site)

Simon Reynolds documents the rise of shoegaze and slacker rock in new book (The Quietus)

Netflix Doc to cover Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Slovak (Spin)

Placebo make theatre debut with score for Brecht production by Royal Shakespeare Company (The Guardian)

Beck releases new covers and rarities album Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime (Consequence of Sound)

New releases

Sweet Pill share video for ‘Slow Burn’ from forthcoming sophomore album Still There’s a Glow (Punk News)

Head Crack’s new EP Zero 2 Dust is old-school thrashy hardcore excellence (Stereogum)

Boston post-hardcore band the Saddest Landscape announce new album co-produced by Steve Albini (Pitchfork)

UK indie-country band Brown Horse announce new album Total Dive (Brooklyn Vegan)

Jangly Montreal indie-pop band Prism Shores announce new album Softest Attack: Hear ‘Kid Gloves’ (Stereogum)

Listen/watch

UltraBomb share new song ‘Checked Out’ ahead of third album release (Punk News)

Dream Fatigue announce new EP No Requiem: Hear ‘Spun’ (Stereogum)

Watch Geese perform ‘Au Pays du Cocaine’ and ‘Trinidad’ on Saturday Night Live (Pitchfork)

Sprints cover Le Tigre (Punk News)

Watch Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard cover Morrissey with The Smiths tribute band (NME)

Long reads

Artists on their first gigs and why independent venues matter: “It’s where you’ll learn the most valuable lessons” (NME)

Deep Cut Friday: ‘Paint a Vulgar Picture’ by The Smiths (Spin)

Softcult use soft power to build a better world (Consequence of Sound)

Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus: “Bass players are just cool. We’re the one that brings it all together” (The Guardian)

Marmozets talk returning after eight years with new album CO.WAR.DICE.: “Life always throws things at you, it’s about how you deal with it” (NME)

Elsewhere on Substack

May 1991 Journal Entry from a Buffalo Tom Tour

And finally…

TikTok virality gives Jeff Buckley his first US Top 100 hit 29 years after his death (The Guardian)

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.)