Robert Lewis, who has Down Syndrome, is the team manager for the basketball team of Franklin Road Academy in Nashville, Tennessee. In the final minutes of a game against the University School of Nashville, he put himself into the game to play.
Guarding him on the opposing team was Matthew, his own brother. Robert got the ball with seconds left on the clock. Because you’re reading this here, you know what happens next.
Class move on both teams and the fans for the aftermath.
The art collective Kreativiteket put up a street sign in Ørje, Norway, paying tribute to Monty Python’s “silly walks” sketch. Every city needs a sign like this.
What happens when your favourite vinyl start to wear and show their age? Instead of throwing it out, or buying a new one, give your records a good cleaning. Just grab some wood glue and make them like new.
Tom Moon’s book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die is both broad and deep, drawing from the diverse worlds of classical, jazz, rock, pop, blues, country, folk, musicals, hip-hop, world, opera, soundtracks, and more. It’s arranged alphabetically by artist to create the kind of unexpected juxtapositions that break down genre bias and broaden listeners’ horizons— it makes every listener a seeker, actively pursuing new artists and new sounds, and reconfirming the greatness of the classics. Flanking J. S. Bach and his six entries, for example, are the little-known R&B singer Baby Huey and the ’80s Rastafarian hard-core punk band Bad Brains. Farther down the list: The Band, Samuel Barber, Cecelia Bartoli, Count Basie, and Afropop star Waldemer Bastos.
So, get your copy, and press play on this playlist created by Moon himself.
https://open.spotify.com/embed/user/ulyssestone/playlist/4KQDdglJ7HGcqNozbJTlM3
The world is tuning into the feats of athleticism happening in Rio de Janeiro this week during the Summer Olympics. It all kicked off with Friday’s Opening Ceremony, which contained a surprising, musical win. A performance of “The Girl From Ipanema,” the classic bossa nova tune by Antonio Carlos Jobim, was a highlight moment of the ceremony. As we so often see with this moments of cultural zeitgeist, the song saw an immediate spike in online listens.
https://youtu.be/UJkxFhFRFDA
According to Spotify, the song was streamed more than 40,000 times a day after the ceremony. That’s an increase of 1,200% in plays for the tune, which was clocking in about 3,000 plays a day prior to the games’ start.
Shazam has not been quiet about its plans for business growth beyond audio, but today it revealed an unexpected turn in those plans. Shazam will be at the center of a new television game show on Fox and Shazam Entertainment Limited will be a partner on the series. Beat Shazam will task competitors with identifying songs, which is the core user feature for the app. No premiere date has been shared yet.
Concerto for Violin, Rock Band and String Orchestra, the first-ever classical work composed and performed by R.E.M. bassist and songwriter Mike Mills, is set for its recorded release October 14 on Orange Mountain Music.
Mills composed the piece for his longtime friend and new musical collaborator, critically acclaimed violinist Robert McDuffie, with whom Mills has been close since the two grew up up together in Macon, GA. The pair is joined on the recording by the McDuffie Center for Strings Ensemble conducted by Ward Stare, made up of students from the award-winning Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University.
About the piece Mills says, “It is a pleasure and an honor to have composed and to perform this amazing project alongside my old friend Bobby, whose imagination and encouragement got the whole thing off the ground in the first place. I can’t wait to see where it takes us.”
“Mike has created a beautiful and joyful concerto,” McDuffie adds. “It’s a work that goes straight to your heart, and by the end you’ll want to dance and move to the South. I’m delighted and honored (and a bit nervous!) to be making music and sharing the stage with Mike and his amazing colleagues. It’s going to be an awesome ride.”
Concerto for Violin, Rock Band and String Orchestra received its world premiere in June, performed by Mills and McDuffie alongside the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. The pair also performed the piece in Rome, and on August 11 Mills will make his first ever appearance at theAspen Music Festival while McDuffie makes his 40th to perform the Concerto. Mills and McDuffie will then be joined by Chicago’s critically hailed innovative chamber orchestra Fifth House Ensemble (15 strings) for a U.S. tour of the piece beginning on October 20 in Miami, produced by Columbia Artists Management LLC (CAMI). See below for a complete list of upcoming dates.
The Concerto, with orchestration and additional music by David Mallamud, features McDuffie performing on violin; a four-member rock band led by Mills (performing on bass and keyboard) with two electric guitarists and a drummer; and a string orchestra. The Toronto Star hailed the piece’s world debut as “a winning way to introduce symphony to a new generation.”
Mills-the son of a tenor who sang on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and in the Naval Aviation Choir-is a founding member of ground-breaking alternative rock group R.E.M. and a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He first crossed paths with McDuffie when the pair were growing up in Macon, where Mills’ parents were in the choir of the First Presbyterian Church and McDuffie’s mother was the music director.
Nearly 20 years ago, Led Zeppelin introduced BBC Sessions, an acclaimed two-disc set of live recordings selected from the band’s appearances on BBC radio between 1969 and 1971. On September 16, the band will unveil THE COMPLETE BBC SESSIONS, an updated version of the collection that’s been newly remastered with supervision by Jimmy Page and expanded with eight unreleased BBC recordings, including three rescued from a previously “lost” session from 1969.
BBC Sessions was originally released in 1997 and has been certified double platinum by the RIAA. THE COMPLETE BBC SESSIONS builds on that collection with a third disc that boasts eight unreleased performances. In addition, the set includes extensive session-by-session liner notes written by Dave Lewis. For the first time ever, it provides accurate details and notes about all of the band’s BBC sessions.
Musical highlights on this new collection include the debut of a long-lost radio session that has achieved near-mythic status among fans. Originally broadcast in April 1969, the session included three songs: “I Can’t Quit You Baby,” “You Shook Me,” and the only recorded performance of “Sunshine Woman.”
Also included are two unreleased versions of both “Communication Breakdown” and “What Is And What Should Never Be.” Separated by two years, the performances vividly demonstrate the young band’s rapid evolution over a short period of time.
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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
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