Rick Astley has announced details of a UK and Ireland arena tour taking place in April 2026. The run begins at Glasgow’s OVO Hydro on April 10th and will include 12 shows, finishing at London’s The O2 on April 25th. Astley will be joined on the tour by special guest Gabrielle.
Alongside the tour, Rick Astley will publish the paperback edition of his autobiography, Never, on October 9th, 2025, via Macmillan. The book was originally released in hardback in 2023 and became a Top 10 Sunday Times bestseller. Never is Astley’s first and only official autobiography.
Tour Dates:
04/10 – Glasgow – OVO Hydro 04/11 – Newcastle – Utilita Arena 04/13 – Belfast – SSE Arena 04/14 – Dublin – 3Arena 04/16 – Liverpool – M&S Bank Arena 04/17 – Manchester – Co-op Live 04/18 – Leeds – First Direct Arena 04/20 – Bournemouth – International Centre 04/21 – Cardiff – Utilita Arena 04/22 – Nottingham – Motorpoint Arena 04/24 – Birmingham – bp pulse LIVE 04/25 – London – The O2
Tickets go on general sale at 9:30am on September 5th, 2025. Get more details from the Official Rick Astley Website.
Continuing the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Steven Spielberg’s classic 1975 summer blockbuster, Jaws, UMe is releasing Jaws (Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) in Dolby Atmos. The GRAMMY-winning album recording, with music by legendary composer John Williams, has been mixed by Atmos pioneer Steve Genewick from the multi-track masters in collaboration with reissue producer Mike Matessino. Fans can now dive deeper than ever into the music, hearing every layer with crystal clear precision and immersive depth.
Listen to Jaws (Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) in Dolby Atmos now, HERE.
Brand new stereo mixes of the soundtrack album recording will be released by UMe to all digital partners on October 17. A “Shark Infested” Water-Filled LP with these new mixes will be released as a collectible numbered edition – up to 1,975 – on the same date. An unnumbered pressing will be released on November 21, 2025. The perfect collector’s item for film and vinyl buffs alike, this release has real water sealed and pressed between two translucent vinyl discs. Order the new stereo mixes, both digitally or physically, HERE.
On CD, a 50th Anniversary Special Edition 3-Disc Set is now available from soundtrack specialty label Intrada. This release pairs the GRAMMY-winning soundtrack album with the Academy Award-winning film score recording (licensed from Universal Studios), and includes exclusive extra tracks from both recordings. The film score recording has also been released digitally from Back Lot Music and on vinyl from Mondo.
Check out the special website Jaws50Music.com for links and information about all of the Jaws soundtrack releases.
August 29 marked the start of the theatrical re-release of Jaws in cinemas from Universal Studios, including IMAX, 3D and 4DX presentations. On September 14, the anniversary celebration continues with the opening of JAWS: The Exhibition at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles. The movie has also been released in a new 4K UHD edition from Universal Studios Home Entertainment, which includes the feature length documentary Jaws@50: The Definitive Inside Story. The legendary John Williams score continues to be played live-to-picture at Jaws in Concert in cities around the world.
“JAWS” (Music From the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
The breaking point is nothing but a glimmer of faint light way out on the horizon behind Kristen Ford. On her newest album, Pinto, the queer, biracial, L.A. songwriter blasts way beyond the point of caution and unveils a wild landscape of visceral emotion. Listen to the album HERE.
Ford’s world is one of the deepest feelings: whether fuming at queer repression, falling head over heels in love, or learning to finally and wholeheartedly practice true self-acceptance. Pinto is a place where she can be candid enough to openly share her losses while being mindful enough to acknowledge her wins. In revealing both her scars and her successes, Ford raises a spirited cry that invites the listener to boldly embrace themselves, to take up space, and to loudly state that “enough is enough.”
The lessons that Ford explores on Pinto are those learned the hard way: from helplessly watching the state-sanctioned suppression of queer rights in the US, through finding new love after a gut-wrenching divorce, and from the daily microaggressions that come with being sold a patriarchal expectation of ‘womanliness’.
With a series of acclaimed releases under her belt, no one could accuse this veteran songwriter of lacking poetic nuance, but it is hard to ignore the raw and undiluted messages that are contained within Pinto. “You can’t control me, my pride or my joy, I don’t owe you a damn thing, if I’m a girl or a boy” she rages in her honeyed-husky vocals on “Wild Heart.”
Elsewhere, she sneers “Raise your glass to the mighty Mississippi, and God bless a Southern man, how quickly you forget my great great great grandmother, she died picking cotton on stolen land” on “White Man’s Dream.”
Pinto is undoubtedly Ford’s most political, most pointed, and most energizing outing yet. What sets Ford apart from her similarly enraged songwriting allies is her unique ability to craft these feelings into candy-coated rock that uses its sweet exterior to deliver these bitter truths. Whether it’s the realities of living outside the “good ole boys party” contrasted against the crunchy guitar bounce of “White Man’s Dream”, or the plight of the lost millennial on the undeniably smile-inducing single “Here’s To You Kid”, Ford deftly navigates uncomfortable topics with clarity and purpose. Elsewhere, she breaks the tension by making space for moments of queer joy on “The Fall” and “Brand New Pair (Alright),” and radical self-acceptance on “Grrrl In The Mirror.”
It was at a Ford show in 2022 that she first caught the ear of legendary songwriter Ani DiFranco. It was to be another pivotal DiFranco moment for Ford, who credits attending an Ani show at age 15 as the spark that led her to become a songwriter. Over the preceding months, the two struck up a working relationship that has since seen them tour together and co-write four of the twelve songs that will appear on Pinto. Their connection continues with the release of Pinto, which arrives on August 22nd via DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records.
Pinto would not be the dynamic, ass-kicking, name-taking, barnstorming experience it is without the team of trusted collaborators that Ford carefully assembled to bring this album to life. Initial tracking began with engineer Matty Alger at The Cabin in Ford’s then-hometown of Nashville, Tennessee, took a Louisiana detour for overdubbing at DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Studios before arriving at John Driskell Hopkins’ Brighter Shade Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. Hopkins, who is perhaps best known as a founding member of Zac Brown Band, has also built a distinguished career in his own right as a songwriter and producer. With Pinto he takes on the role of producer (alongside Ford and co-producer DiFranco), wrangling all these parts into the carefully crafted final album, while also co-writing the uplifting ballad “Richest In The World” and lending his rich baritone voice to that song and others on Pinto.
The final polish arrives courtesy of multi-platinum GRAMMY-winning mastering engineer Randy Merrill (Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan, Olivia Rodrigo) at Sterling Sound in New Jersey.
In its journey traversing the nation, Pinto is dappled with color and flavor as varied as America and reflects Kristen’s experience as a lost millennial, roaming endless freeways in search of the truth. The truth, as far as Pinto is concerned, is that YOU still matter. Working people, women, queer people, immigrants, creators in their 30s and beyond, still matter. We didn’t time out on that. It is an album that embodies Ford’s belief that “the rulebook has been thrown out by the current administration, but we can turn this disorder back on them and boldly create the world we want.” Or, as she puts it in her less guarded moments, “it’s time to be louder, be bigger, be brasher motherf*cker!”
Kristen Ford is currently on a wide-ranging US tour that takes in dates in over fifteen states and includes shows with Rachel Sage, Tom Goss, Mya Byrne, and more.
“It’s a highway, filled with deep, exotic colors and beautiful delicate things as well as the perils that come from moving so fast,” says Dar Williams, describing modern life. On her 13th album, Hummingbird Highway, out September 12 on Righteous Babe Records, Williams celebrates the colors she glimpses from her vantage as a touring musician. “I was a kid from the suburbs who listened when her hippie teachers said to get out in the world,” Williams muses. Hummingbird Highway is the latest chapter in a richly unfolding story. Drawing on her experience as a playwright, Williams populates her latest album with nuanced characters that come alive in the space of a few minutes.
On the title track, Williams sings from the perspective of a child speaking to her peripatetic and sometimes struggling parent. Blooming columbines, china blue teapots, and cinnamon bark number among the “treasures” in her life, despite the “pirates” that she imagines populating her worldly parent’s life. “The pirates can be all sorts of things living inside and outside your head. The child, for better or worse, knows that there is joy, unpredictability, and instability on the home front. She’s rooting for the joy.”
Since 2013, Williams has been leading songwriting workshops where she teaches students to let songs find their own trajectories. While writing the breezy bossa nova “Tu Sais Le Printemps,” (single release 7/29/25) Williams questioned why she was writing a light, flirty song amidst many gloomy news stories. “I was having coffee with some of my fellow retreat leaders and Beth Nielsen Chapman, telling them about my ‘frilly’ song, and Beth said, ‘That’s just what I want to hear right now!’ It was a nice moment to follow my own advice and let the song find its way.”
With help from Williams’ collaborators, the other songs found their paths as well. Mainly produced by Ken Rich at Brooklyn’s Grand Street recording (with two tracks produced by Dave Chalfant in Western Massachusetts), the Hummingbird Highway sessions were a microcosm of the interdependence that provided inspiration from inception to full production. These songs are ecosystems that thrive on co-creation. Daisy Mayhem brings roots-rock energy to the bluegrassy “Put the Coins on His Eyes,” while long time touring-mate and collaborator Bryn Roberts creates both the hooks and immersive sonic landscapes of every musical genre. Simpatico “studio magic” can be heard in the happy rowdiness of the Richard Thompson cover, “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight,” as well as in the contemplative “Sacred Mountain” where Williams wraps a halting melody around the narrator, a Buddhist who struggles to reconcile inward contemplation and political action. Through gray skies, snow pigeons, and petitions to stem industrial pollution, the character moves through shifting mindsets to work towards “what we see; what we breathe in time.”
Williams sees and breathes the way people connect with one another, as chronicled in what she calls her “take on urban planning,” What I Found in a Thousand Towns (Basic Books, 2017). “I traveled and watched how other people created these cool things like town-wide science fairs and hilarious celebrations of potatoes and chili, often going hand-in-hand with providing serious resources like food banks and free clinics,” she recalls. Along the way, she’s seen the devotion of strong unions (as in “Put the Coins On His Eyes”) and congressional reps alike. “Maryland, Maryland” was inspired by conversations with her friend, Rep. Jamie Raskin, about what a new state song would include. “In the end, my definition of a Maryland song was song about Jamie, who is a proud, patriotic son of the state.” As Williams continuously takes in the social landscapes of towns and cities, she has also taken them home, helping to start a thrift sale, chairing a community board, and helping to organize group sings in her New York hometown. “For someone who’s seen a lot of pavement and airports along with all the great places where I’ve played, it’s especially nice to come home,” she says.
As hummingbirds and folk singers fly, they gain perspective and not just distance. She finds that wise perch on “Olive Tree,” a single out on August 26. With production of stirring percussion and twinkling keys, she considers everything that’s led up to our current moment. Williams observes “all of these strangers and friends” talking about world events at parties and dinner gatherings and thinks back to all the iterations of those conversations from Aristotle on. In a moving verse, she conjures a time in 1913 when California Berkeley scientists planted an olive grove in the United States and imagined the generations who would meet in the olive trees’ shade for “over one thousand years.” When Williams promises “I’ll meet you here under an olive tree,” we all know that both she and we will, wherever and whenever we continue to foster olive trees and a human-scale, deeply-rooted democratic society.
Longtime listeners know that Williams and her music are always up for those kinds of conversations that glimpse the brightest colors, woven into the larger context of time. “As I’ve gotten older, I feel more comfortable holding a lot of different threads in my hand to create more complicated patterns. Time has given me a better ability to hold a bunch of colors and temperaments and see what happens, where they become interesting new stories and also where I need to stop and untangle the themes and characters. It’s daunting, and I’ve learned that, you know, daunting is fine, just keep going.”
Foxy Shazam have long been celebrated as one of the purest, most joyful forces in rock and roll, keeping the spirit of the genre alive at a time when the world needs it most. Today, the band has revealed details for their highly anticipated 10th studio album, Box of Magic, arriving October 6th.
The nine-track collection promises a kaleidoscope of imagination, joy, and fearless unpredictability. Box of Magic sharpens Foxy’s edge with glitter and grandeur, offering a blazing comet of sugar-coated chaos, nostalgic twists, and dream-like turns.
For longtime fans, it’s everything you could hope for; for those new to the band, it’s the perfect invitation into the Foxy Shazam universe. Eric Nally shares:” A box has six sides, there are six members in Foxy Shazam. What happens when we come together is magic.”
On Box of Magic, Foxy’s strangely inspiring lyrics rhapsodize in honeyed melodies, lush orchestrations, and soaring vocals that inspire pure feel-good moments. Behind the curtain, this was serious work crafted at the legendary EastWest Studios in Los Angeles, where icons from Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley to The Beach Boys, Dolly Parton, Michael Jackson, and Rihanna have all recorded career-defining music. That history and magic are woven into the very fabric of Box of Magic, Foxy Shazam’s 10th studio album, which now takes its place as a shining star in the band’s catalog, worthy of its birthplace.
Along with the Box of Magic announcement, Foxy Shazam also released a magnetic new single, “You Know My Name,” joined by the iconic Corey Feldman for both the song and video. “You Know My Name” unfolds like an abstract biopic paying homage to the King of Pop. For the accompanying video viewers follow the band and Feldman through a rolling, vibrant, joyously chaotic performance inspired by the life of the King of Pop. Brilliantly shot and as thrilling to watch as the track is to vibe to, the video adds another instant classic to the ever-expanding Foxy Shazam cinematic universe.
Tracklisting 1 – It’s Not the End of the World 2 – You Know My Name (feat. Corey Feldman) 3 – What’s It To Me 4 – Happy Happy Birthday 5 – Just Loving This Life 6 – Ooo Baby 7 – Too Fast to Let Go 8 – Magic 9 – Lightning in the Summer Heat
Savannah Georgia’s Delta Circle continues moving forward with three impressive awards; ISSA’s USA Entertainer Of The Year, CMA of Texas Americana Band of the Year and closer to home Connect Savannah’s Best Singer/Songwriter/Best Album categories.
The four piece combination Southern Rock Americana band continues to draw crowds from all across the southeastern seaboard plus additional cities deeper inland within the south.
September finds the group with eight performance dates starting with Red Stag Tavern (Vidalia Ga) Rooftop Barat Poseidon (Hilton Head Island) Candlelight Lounge (Savannah) Flashback’s (Richmond Hill Ga) Soundcheck Saturday (Lawrenceville Ga) Gators & Gypsies (Statesboro Ga) The Block Party (Hinesville Ga) and ending at Connect Savannah’s Fall Festival.
Portland, Oregon-based indie-rock outfit Bonus Room premieres their single, “Riot Gear,” a track from their forthcoming EP, entitled Bunk, which refers to the non-stop babbling of many political speeches. The term came from the mind-numbing speech given in 1820 by Congressman Felix Walker in Buncombe County, North Carolina.
Formed during the pandemic, Bonus Room is made up of Chris Lee (vocals, guitar, keys, percussion), Derrin Brice (guitar, vocals, keyboards), Wes Phillips (guitar, engineer), Erik Brownfield (bass), and Ben Dorothy (drums).
The band’s sound blends elements of post-punk, psych-rock, and dance-tinged doom, reflecting the group’s eclectic musical backgrounds.
When the band gets together in their basement studio, known as the Starlight Underground, they channel the impetus of everyone from the Talking Heads to Gorillaz.
The intro of “Riot Gear” features the voices of chanting protestors, and then rolls into a waying, almost teeter-tottering rhythm topped by quasi-discordant, chugging guitars that infuse the tune with edgy tension. The lyrics bare the combative disbelief found in CSN&Y’s “Ohio” and the foreboding disquiet of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth.”
More than just a socio-cultural commentary, “Riot Gear” inhabits the gulf between the everyday and stark, mind-boggling reality.
Graham Greene, who died in Stratford, ON, after a long illness on September 1, was a giant of the stage and screen in Canada and abroad.
At the Royal Alexandra Theatre in 1991, he starred in Tomson Highway’s Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, the first show written by an Indigenous author and performed by an all-Indigenous cast to play at the 118-year-old venerable venue.
Greene starred as Pierre St. Pierre, a role he originated in the play’s 1989 premiere in a production by Native Earth Performing Arts and Theatre Passe Muraille. Greene won a Dora award for his work. Remounted by Mirvish and the National Arts Centre two years later, Dry Lips was a groundbreaking even, ushering into the mainstream the Indigenous theatre movement that had been percolating for many years in smaller venues across the country.
Greene was a major member of the Indigenous theatre movement in those years, a movement that would also have a big impact on film and television.
Greene was an Oneida born in Six Nations in 1952. After a peripatetic working life in various jobs, he found the theatre and began acting. He worked with many companies, but especially Native Earth Performing Arts, where Tomson Highway was the Artistic Director from 1986 to 1992.
It was in the time between Dry Lips premiere production and its return at the Royal Alex, that Greene auditioned, booked and filmed the Academy Award-winning Dances with Wolves (1990). When Greene was nominated for an Oscar for his role, he was deep in rehearsals for Dry Lips.
Greene performed for many more years on stage and built an illustrious career film and television, acting in dozens of major works, never leaving his home in Canada and staying true to his roots.
It is therefore fitting that he be honoured with the traditional theatre marquee dimming on the same day that TIFF takes over the Royal Alex and Princess of Wales Theatres for its 50th anniversary festival. The marquees of both the Royal Alex and Princess of Wales Theatres on Thursday, September 4th at 9:30 pm, when both theatres will be screening TIFF films.
