Weekly digest #77

Featuring Jennifer Finch, Grey Area, Swervedriver, The Specials, Swapmeet and more

📷 L7’s Jennifer Finch (by Jennifer Finch)

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.

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

Jennifer Finch, L7 bassist and pioneering figure in LA punk scene, dies at 59 (NME)

The Shins celebrate 30th with previously unreleased songs (Spin)

Sony Music to shutter newly unionised punk merch warehouse (Pitchfork)

The Simpsons’ episode featuring Michael Stipe nominated for an Emmy (REMHQ)

The B-52s to release expanded edition of Mesopotamia (Punk News)

New releases

Grey Area return with ‘You and I’ (Punk News)

“When dread finds you amid brilliant sunshine, it feels disorienting, confusing, and chaotic”: Ceremony drop new single, ‘Dark Summer’ (Kerrang)

Generacion Suicida are here to depress the punks (Stereogum)

Swapmeet release lovely debut album Mount Zero (Consequence of Sound)

Fenne Lily shares ‘Thank You Sorry’ (Stereogum)

Listen/watch

Swervedriver talk ‘Raise at 35’ Tour, shoegaze revival, more (Brooklyn Vegan)

Beck, Karen O, Bill Murray, Jenny Lewis, Devo & more played ‘Music from the Films of Wes Anderson’ at Hollywood Bowl (Brooklyn Vegan)

Rufio return with new single ‘Maps’, announce From the Outside EP (The Punk Site)

Placebo’s Brian Molko, Peaches and Nadine Shah cover David Bowie classics at London Southbank Centre ‘Ziggy Stardust’ celebration (NME)

Quicksand return with new album Bring on the Psychics (The Punk Site)

Long reads

‘Ghost Town’, ‘At the Club’ and Britain’s Summer of Discontent (The Quietus)

5 albums I can’t live without: Darryl Jenifer of Bad Brains and the Weather Channel (Spin)

‘More real than anything you’ll see scrolling’: the radical resurgence of UK fanzines, 50 years after punk (The Guardian)

Ed O’Brien on Gaza, his new solo album and the future of Radiohead (Los Angeles Times)

Kid friendly: the Dropkick Murphys (Spin)

Elsewhere on Substack

So long, Jennifer. I love you.

And finally…

Turnstile take over Baltimore Orioles game on night honouring hometown hardcore band (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.)