Home Blog Page 11

Charli xcx Maps Out ‘Music, Fashion, Film Tour’ Across North America

Eric Alper
-
0
Charli xcx Maps Out ‘Music, Fashion, Film Tour’ Across North America

The BRAT era is winding down, and Charli xcx is already onto her next chapter. The British pop star has announced a run of North American headline dates tied to her new album ‘Music, Fashion, Film,’ set for release July 24, layering arena shows on top of a string of previously announced festival appearances.

Promoted by Live Nation, the Music, Fashion, Film Tour rolls through North America from September into October, with two-night stands at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center and Los Angeles’ Kia Forum, plus stops at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, Atlanta’s State Farm Arena and many more. Fans hoping for the artist presale need to sign up by Wednesday, June 10, with remaining tickets released during the general onsale on Friday, June 12.

The new album includes the tracks “SS26” and “Rock Music,” and its artwork, shot by Aidan Zamiri, features an eye-catching trio of John Cale, Marc Jacobs and Martin Scorsese. It’s exactly the kind of art-world swing that has made Charli one of pop’s most fascinating figures.

This tour also comes with some thoughtful fan-first touches. Charli is introducing “Angel Tickets,” a limited batch of $20 tickets dropping in August. They must be bought in pairs, with a maximum of two per order, and seat locations stay a mystery until the day of the show, revealed at venue box office pickup. Spots may land anywhere from limited view to the GA Floor.

A limited number of charity tickets will also be available in the first five rows of each venue, with 50% of the net proceeds going to the Transgender Law Center to support its mission of ensuring transgender people can live freely, safely and authentically.

The new dates build on a momentum that few in pop can match right now. The run follows the smash success of Charli’s BRAT album and its Sweat tour with Troye Sivan, which grossed an average of $1.3 million and sold 13,532 tickets per show across 21 dates, as reported to Pollstar.

Charli xcx Live Dates 2026:

Fri 31 Jul 2026 – Chicago, IL – Lollapalooza

Fri 07 Aug 2026 – San Francisco, CA – Outside Lands

Fri 28 Aug 2026 – Reading, UK – Reading Festival

Sat 29 Aug 2026 – Leeds, UK – Leeds Festival

Fri 11 Sep 2026 – Philadelphia, PA – Xfinity Mobile Arena

Mon 14 Sep 2026 – Brooklyn, NY – Barclays Center

Tue 15 Sep 2026 – Brooklyn, NY – Barclays Center

Mon 21 Sep 2026 – Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena

Thu 24 Sep 2026 – Boston, MA – TD Garden

Mon 28 Sep 2026 – Washington, DC – Capital One Arena

Fri 02 Oct 2026 – Austin, TX – Austin City Limits Music Festival

Tue 06 Oct 2026 – Atlanta, GA – State Farm Arena

Fri 09 Oct 2026 – Austin, TX – Austin City Limits Music Festival

Wed 14 Oct 2026 – San Diego, CA – Viejas Arena

Sat 17 Oct 2026 – Los Angeles, CA – The Kia Forum

Sun 18 Oct 2026 – Los Angeles, CA – The Kia Forum

Wed 21 Oct 2026 – Glendale, AZ – Desert Diamond Arena

Fri 23 Oct 2026 – Las Vegas, NV – MGM Grand Garden Arena

Blues Guitarist Sue Foley Celebrates Six-String Heroines in New Book ‘Guitar Women’

Eric Alper
-
0
Blues Guitarist Sue Foley Celebrates Six-String Heroines in New Book ‘Guitar Women’

Every generation carries its myths about the guitar, about who gets to hold it and who gets to define it. Canadian blues guitarist Sue Foley takes those myths apart in her new book ‘Guitar Women: Conversations & Life Lessons with Six-String Heroines,’ out June 9 via Sutherland House.

The 406-page book moves beyond the old assumptions through intimate conversations with women who shaped the instrument’s sound and story. Part oral history, part memoir, and part cultural reckoning, it spans generations and genres, featuring artists like Bonnie Raitt, Nancy Wilson, Charo, Suzi Quatro, Joan Armatrading, and Sharon Isbin.

Foley writes from the inside, drawing on her own experience as a touring guitarist to meet these artists as a peer. The result is a collection of deeply human accounts of persistence, artistry, and devotion to the instrument, shared in the players’ own words. Taken together, they reveal a richer, more truthful lineage of the guitar, one told through the lives of the women who have always been at its heart.

Foley brings serious credentials to the project. She has released 15 albums since her debut ‘Young Girl Blues,’ won a Blues Music Award in the Koko Taylor Award category in 2020, and recently defended her PhD thesis on women and the guitar. That blend of stage experience and scholarship makes her an ideal guide for a book this ambitious.

Finnish Rockers Lobster Crank Up the Heat on “The Boys of Summer”

Eric Alper
-
0
Finnish Rockers Lobster Crank Up the Heat on “The Boys of Summer”

Lobster are making up for lost time. The Finnish rock band returned in April after a three-year hiatus, reignited by a rediscovered joy in making music, and they’re keeping the momentum going. After marking their comeback with the single “Baby I’m Yours Tonight,” they’ve now taken on Don Henley’s iconic 1980s hit “The Boys of Summer.”

The same genuine, human, and approachable energy that fueled their spring return gets pushed even further here. In Lobster’s hands, “The Boys of Summer” becomes a hard-rocking, high-octane reinterpretation that respects the classic melody while dragging it firmly into the present with a much heavier approach.

The band also dropped an action-packed video for the track, its eventful story keeping viewers hooked right to the final second. The single puts Lobster’s trademark strengths front and center, with powerful vocals, driving guitar riffs, catchy harmonies, and a rock-solid rhythmic foundation.

“The new single was made with a spirit that is, above all, a lot of fun to play, and one that is guaranteed to put listeners in a good mood,” says drummer Zeko Takamäki.

Lobster once again brought in some of the industry’s most respected professionals to polish the sound. The track was mixed by Mikko Karmila at Finnvox and mastered by the legendary Björn Engelmann at Cutting Room, whose résumé includes ABBA, Roxette, and Rammstein.

Founded in 2015, Lobster have released three full-length albums over their career, ‘Carousel’ (2016), ‘Killing Silence’ (2018), and ‘Love, Respect & Rock’n’Roll’ (2023), and this latest single makes a strong case that their best chapter may still be ahead.

Video: Relive Radiohead’s Mesmerizing 2017 Coachella Headline Set

Eric Alper
-
0
Video: Relive Radiohead’s Mesmerizing 2017 Coachella Headline Set

Radiohead turned their 2017 Coachella headline set into a sonic labyrinth, drawing the Indio crowd deeper into their world with every note. Under a starry April sky, the British band, whose experiments reshaped the musical landscape, wove a tapestry of emotion and introspection built from atmospheric guitar swells and intricate rhythms. Thom Yorke moved across the stage with hypnotic grace, his piercing vocals seeming to drift in from another dimension, and at one point he paused to thank the crowd, sparking a wave of applause that became the set’s warmest moment. Jonny Greenwood layered the melodies with extra depth while abstract visuals played across the screens like reflections of the band’s own thoughts, deepening an already immersive experience. On one of the world’s most influential festival stages, Radiohead delivered a performance that felt like pure enchantment.

Reggae Favorites The Aggrolites Return With New LP ‘Super Atomic’

Eric Alper
-
0
Reggae Favorites The Aggrolites Return With New LP ‘Super Atomic’

The Aggro-Nation can rejoice. The Aggrolites have returned with their new LP ‘Super Atomic,’ out now on Pirates Press Records, and LA’s finest purveyors of Dirty Reggae sound sharper than ever.

In the years since 2019’s ‘Reggae Now!,’ the band have stayed on the road almost without pause, circling the globe and spreading the Aggro Sound far and wide. “Since ‘Reggae Now!,’ our band has stayed committed to live entertainment,” says lead singer Jesse Wagner. “Refining our musical chemistry and continuing to carry the torch for Dirty Reggae.”

That relentless touring honed their famously tight playing to a razor’s edge, and they carried it straight into the studio. The follow-up to their beloved comeback record arrived bigger and more intentional, built on lyrics that balance grit with uplift. The band pushed one another hard, treating recording less like experimentation and more like execution, with every part forced to earn its place. The songs were written to land live, and that energy guided everything.

The high-octane grooves still leave room for melody and hooks, and the band approached the whole thing with fresh clarity and confidence. Lead single “Till the Wheels Fall Off” sums it up. “It’s about commitment, to the grind, to the music, to the vision. It’s all gas, no brakes,” Wagner says. “That song captures our live energy better than anything we’ve done. It’s a ride-or-die anthem. Keep going, no matter what.”

Elsewhere, Wagner describes “Musical Muse” as a love letter that became a song dedicated to the one thing that keeps him creating. “It felt like the words were being given to me. That’s why it says, ‘You write for me the sweetest song.’ That line is literal.” Throughout ‘Super Atomic,’ the groove remains the band’s guiding compass, and the result is a record that hits with real force.

NFB and Montreal Jazz Festival Team Up for Free CINÉJAZZ Film Series

Eric Alper
-
0
NFB and Montreal Jazz Festival Team Up for Free CINÉJAZZ Film Series

Jazz and cinema make a perfect pairing, and Montreal is about to prove it. The National Film Board of Canada and the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal have teamed up for CINÉJAZZ, a free program of music-centered films running June 26 through July 4 at 3 p.m. at the Alanis Obomsawin Theatre.

The screenings take place inside the NFB’s Îlot Balmoral headquarters, just steps from Place des Festivals at the heart of the Quartier des Spectacles. The series gives filmgoers a chance to dig into the cultural forces behind jazz on screen, with a lineup of acclaimed music documentaries alongside a landmark of Quebec cinema.

Before each feature, audiences will see “Oscar,” Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre’s touching MJSTP Films/NFB co-produced short portrait of Montreal jazz legend Oscar Peterson. It’s a fitting overture for a program this rich.

The opening night film, “RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World,” tells an essential and long-overlooked chapter of American music, the Indigenous influence, featuring icons like Charley Patton, Link Wray, Jimi Hendrix and Robbie Robertson. The series moves through “Maroon: On the Trail of Creoles in North America,” which traces the Creole roots that helped birth jazz, and the intimate 1965 Direct Cinema classic “Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen,” which catches the poet at the dawn of his career in his hometown.

The final weekend brings “The Cat in the Bag,” Gilles Groulx’s defining work of Quebec cinema scored with music from John Coltrane’s ‘Blue World,’ followed by “Show Girls,” a celebration of Montreal’s swinging Black jazz scene from the 1920s to the 1960s, told through three women who danced in legendary clubs like Rockhead’s Paradise.

The screenings unfold during one of the world’s great music gatherings. Recognized by Guinness World Records as the largest jazz festival on the planet, the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal has spent over 40 years bringing living legends and rising stars together, with more than 350 concerts across ten days, two-thirds of them free open-air shows.

CINÉJAZZ Screening Schedule:

Friday, June 26 — RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World by Catherine Bainbridge and Alfonso Maiorana (1 h 42 min)

Saturday, June 27 — Maroon: On the Trail of Creoles in North America by André Gladu (1 h 25 min)

Sunday, June 28 — Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen by Donald Brittain and Don Owen (44 min)

Friday, July 3 — The Cat in the Bag by Gilles Groulx (1 h 13 min)

Saturday, July 4 — Show Girls by Meilan Lam and Robert Paquin (52 min)

K-Pop Powerhouses Le Sserafim, Illit, and Katseye Join Forces on “Iconic By Mistake”

Eric Alper
-
0
K-Pop Powerhouses Le Sserafim, Illit, and Katseye Join Forces on “Iconic By Mistake”

Three of the biggest girl groups on the planet just made fans’ wildest crossover dreams come true. Le Sserafim, Illit, and Katseye have teamed up for the surprise collaborative single “Iconic By Mistake,” arriving June 12 via Source Music / BeLift Lab / Hybe x Geffen Records.

Bringing together three globally recognized acts, the project marks a rare meeting of distinct artistic identities, each celebrated for its own style, vision, and growing worldwide impact. It’s the kind of summit that doesn’t happen often, and the anticipation has been building fast.

Each group has built its own dedicated global following on its own path, and “Iconic By Mistake” pulls those threads into a single track that spotlights the collective energy of a new generation of girl groups. The release plays as a celebration of individuality, confidence, and creative expression, three unique perspectives sharing one stage.

Coming together in a fusion of styles, Le Sserafim, Illit, and Katseye redefine what it means to become an icon on their own terms. The partnership promises a fresh, dynamic sound, and the buzz alone has positioned “Iconic By Mistake” as one of the season’s most hotly awaited drops.

Video: Revisit Noel Gallagher’s Triumphant 2012 O2 Arena Show in London

Eric Alper
-
0
Video: Revisit Noel Gallagher’s Triumphant 2012 O2 Arena Show in London

Noel Gallagher proved he could fill a room on his own terms at London’s O2 Arena on February 26, 2012, a standout night from the inaugural High Flying Birds Tour that was later immortalized on the live video album “International Magic Live at The O2.” Riding the momentum of his self-titled debut, Gallagher led the band through a set that blended his new anthems with iconic Oasis hits, delivering powerful renditions of “Everybody’s on the Run,” “If I Had a Gun…,” and “AKA… What a Life!” alongside crowd-uniting classics like “Supersonic,” “Half the World Away,” and a roof-raising “Don’t Look Back in Anger.”

Indie-Pop Standout Rachel Bochner Reckons With Her Past on “Happier You’re Gone (SASE)”

Eric Alper
-
0
Indie-Pop Standout Rachel Bochner Reckons With Her Past on “Happier You’re Gone (SASE)”

Sometimes the hardest goodbye is the one you say to yourself. Brooklyn artist Rachel Bochner makes that idea sing on her new single “Happier You’re Gone (SASE),” a sharp, emotionally charged piece of indie-pop that turns the wreckage of heartbreak into something liberating.

Bochner has built her reputation on candid lyricism and a willingness to dig into the messier edges of love, identity, and self-discovery. This single pushes that further. What first reads like a breakup song reveals itself as something more layered, a confrontation with the past self who stayed too long, ignored too much, or simply didn’t know better yet.

The meaning stretches in more than one direction. It could be aimed at a former lover, or at a more complicated internal farewell, but it ultimately lands as a letter of good riddance. “A post-breakup note, or a ‘see-you-never!’ to a formerly destructive self,” Bochner explains. After finishing the track she added “SASE,” for self addressed stamped envelope, to the title as a knowing detail for anyone paying close attention.

The song grew from a vivid dream in which she met a previous version of herself, and it captures a striking realization: she’s happy that earlier self happened, but much happier she’s gone. That duality gives the track its resonance, balancing raw vulnerability with hard-won resolve. Produced by Jackson Hoffman, it leans into an indie-pop landscape with alternative edges, pairing emotional weight with a textured, expansive backdrop that keeps Bochner’s voice front and center.

The single opens a window onto her upcoming album, a body of work rooted in the aftermath of a long-term relationship and the messy process of self-redefinition that followed. As a queer artist, Bochner’s experience sits at the heart of that shift. “I didn’t realize I was queer until my mid 20s,” she says. “Despite my best efforts, the life I’d spent years building no longer felt like home, it became a hand-built prison. Accepting that meant facing I had no choice but to leave it behind.” That turning point shapes a record moving through grief, identity, and the slow arrival of acceptance.

With “Happier You’re Gone (SASE),” Bochner does more than revisit the past. She rewrites her relationship to it, and hands listeners permission to let go, evolve, and find peace in who they’ve become.

SiriusXM Brings Every FIFA World Cup 2026 Match Live With FOX Sports Commentary

Eric Alper
-
0
SiriusXM Brings Every FIFA World Cup 2026 Match Live With FOX Sports Commentary

Soccer fans, your summer just got a soundtrack. SiriusXM will carry live broadcasts of every single FIFA World Cup 2026 match, all 104 of them, powered by FOX Sports commentary, from the opening match on Thursday, June 11 through the Final on Sunday, July 19.

The English-language broadcasts come courtesy of FOX Sports, airing primarily on FOX Sports on SiriusXM (channel 83). When two matches kick off at the same time, the second will land on SiriusXM FC (channel 157). Every bit of it is available in the car and on the SiriusXM app.

American listeners get a front-row seat for the home team. The U.S. Men’s National Team open their Group D campaign against Paraguay on Friday, June 12 at 9:00 pm ET, then face Australia on Friday, June 19 at 3:00 pm ET and Türkiye on Thursday, June 25 at 10:00 pm ET, all live on channel 83.

Around the matches, the 24/7 SiriusXM FC channel delivers daily coverage from morning through night, keeping fans current on every result and storyline. The analyst bench is deep this year. Former USMNT head coach Bob Bradley, who steered the U.S. to the Round of 16 at South Africa 2010, joins the team alongside USMNT defender Walker Zimmerman and former England player Wes Brown, a veteran of the 2002 and 2010 tournaments.

They line up next to a roster loaded with pedigree, including National Soccer Hall of Famers Tony Meola and Eric Wynalda, Brazil 2014 veteran Omar Gonzalez, former U.S. internationals Brian Dunseth and Dax McCarty, and a long list of coaches, executives and journalists from both sides of the Atlantic.

The fun spills onto the music channels too. More than a dozen current and former players will take over as Global Soccer Guest DJs, spinning their favorite tracks and swapping stories from on and off the pitch. The lineup includes USMNT members Mark McKenzie, Miles Robinson, Matt Freese, Matt Turner and Max Arfsten, international stars like Leonardo Campana, Miguel Almiron, Kamal Miller and Derrick Etienne Jr., and FOX Sports lead studio analyst Alexi Lalas. Catch their sessions on channels like Hip Hop Nation, Caliente, 90’s on 9 and The Heat throughout the tournament.

This year’s World Cup is one for the history books, the first held across three host nations, with the United States, Mexico and Canada welcoming 48 teams for 104 matches across 16 venues. In the U.S., 11 cities are on the schedule: Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York New Jersey, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle.

1...101112...3,780Page 11 of 3,780

Follow us on Instagram @thatericalper

That Eric Alper

Eric Alper is a 6-time nominee for Publicist of the Year during Canadian Music Week and has overseen the publicity campaigns for over 183 JUNO Award-nominated albums (and 16 in 2025), 45 Grammy-nominated albums, including 47 JUNO Award, 58 Canadian Folk Music Award, 126 Maple Blues Award-winning albums and is also truly honoured to work with some of the biggest and most important artists of our time.

Contact me: eric@thatericalper.com

Popular posts

Popular category

© Copyright - That Eric Alper