Around the Tubes: May 14, 2022

              

I have gotten a plethora of cool press releases have been flooding my inbox recently that you may find interesting.  This post includes blurbs on Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Jack Johnson, James Bay, Florence + the Machine, Rolling Stones, Owl City, Ella Fitzgerald, Cold War Kids, and Joy Oladokun.

- Hey Aqua Teen Fam! Everyone’s favorite fast-food trio from Adult Swim creators Dave Willis (“Squidbillies,” “Space Ghost Coast to Coast”) and Matt Maiellaro (“Space Ghost Coast to Coast,” “12 oz. Mouse”) are coming together for the first time on DVD from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment with a complete collection including all 140 episodes from the hit series 11 season run, as well as the first theatrical film titled Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters, plus hours of bonus content. With over 30 hours of content to binge on, Aqua Teen Hunger Force: The Baffler Meal Complete Collection is priced to own at $112.99 SRP for the DVD ($129.99 in Canada). Aqua Teen Hunger Force is also available to own on Digital via purchase from digital retailers.  Three unique detectives, the Aqua Teen Hunger Force, share a rental house in New Jersey. This mystery-solving trio is comprised of human-sized food products: Master Shake, the big-mouthed, self-appointed team leader with a short attention span and no work ethic; Frylock, the only reasonable member of the group, who happens to be a box of French-fried potatoes--spuds with power; and Meatwad, a talented round mound of meat who can take the shape of a hot dog or an igloo. Together, this triple threat tackles unusual cases from the luxury of a neighbor's swimming pool--unless they're confronted by danger. Then, of course, the three run like hell.

- Multi-platinum recording artist Jack Johnson released a second song and title track to his upcoming June 24^th release, Meet The Moonlight, alongside a beautiful new video directed by acclaimed filmmaker Morgan Maassen.  Stream “Meet The Moonlight” here  and view the video here.  The album’s centerpiece, “Meet The Moonlight” presents a quietly hypnotic number that producer Blake Mills refers to as “one of the most spiritually interesting things I’ve ever worked on.” With its sweetly languid rhythms, mantra-like vocal delivery, and otherworldly guitar work, “Meet The Moonlight” serves as a lovely respite from the outside world as Johnson shares another gentle reminder for living well. The track’s spacious arrangement leaves a lot of room for the mystical. Adding to the track’s inspiration, “Whenever I walk outside at night and look up at the stars, it’s always a way to be present instead of worrying about the future or dwelling on the past,” said Johnson. Mills adds, “There’s a chord in the song that wasn’t part of the initial composition; it happened by mistake when we were first playing it. In the end we kept it, because what that chord suggested was all the mystery. To me it represents the whole process of us finding a common ground and working together to keep all those little idiosyncrasies tucked into the mix.”

- Three-time GRAMMY® Award-nominated and BRIT Award-winning multi-platinum singer, songwriter, producer, and guitarist James Bay will release his highly anticipated third full-length album, Leap, on July 8th via Mercury/Republic Records. Pre-order and pre-save Leap—HERE.  For Leap, Bay worked with some of the most sought after producers and songwriters in a mixture of in person and remote sessions in Nashville & London including Foy Vance [Ed Sheeran], Dave Cobb [Brandi Carlile, Chris Stapleton], Ian Fitchuk [Kacey Musgraves, Brett Eldredge], Joel Little [Lorde, Taylor Swift] & Finneas [Billie Eilish, The Knocks]. Check out the full tracklist below! 

- Dance Fever, the highly anticipated new album from Florence + the Machine, is out today. Listen here. The album, her first since 2018, features previously released tracks“My Love”, "Free", “King” and “Heaven is Here,” all of which arrived alongside videos from acclaimed director Autumn De Wilde. Florence appeared on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” this week – watch her perform “My Love” and “King” and chat with Fallon here.

- A legendary event in the incredible 60-year history of the Rolling Stones is released in full for the first time today, Friday, May 13^th, via UMe. Live At The El Mocambo marks the first official appearance of the group's two famous secret concerts at the 300-capacity Toronto club in March 1977.  The album is available on double CD, 4 LP Black Vinyl, 4 LP Neon Vinyl and digitally. It features the Stones' full set from the March 5 show, plus three bonus tracks from the March 4 gig, newly mixed by Bob Clearmountain. Only four of the performances found their way onto the Love You Live album that followed in September 1977, which was dominated by tracks captured on the band's 1975 and '76 tours, with the full set having never been heard before.  As the Rolling Stones gear up for their 60^th anniversary celebrations, Live At The El Mocambo is available now, listen here.

- UMe/Interscope Records releases “All Star (Owl City Remix),” Owl City’s bold reimagining of Smash Mouth’s iconic 1999 hit single, on all digital formats. This fresh take on a perennial classic adds a new layer of sunny electronic pep to a song recognized worldwide for its inherently joyful get-up-and-go disposition. Click HERE to listen now.  Paul Delisle of Smash Mouth states, “It’s a wonderfully creative and unique reimagining of one of our best songs. We Have Always Admired Adam, and it’s an honor to have him remix the mighty ‘All Star’ in his distinctive Owl City sound.”

-  On August 16, 1958, just a few months after Ella Fitzgerald recorded her now-classic album, Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Irving Berlin Songbook, The First Lady Of Song performed selections from that album live at the Hollywood Bowl to an adoring, sold-out crowd. Conducted and arranged by Paul Weston, who also arranged and conducted the studio sessions, this concert marked the only time that Ella performed these iconic arrangements live with a full orchestra.  Widely considered her greatest achievement, Ella’s Songbook records, with peerless renditions of the best songs by America’s greatest composers, are the cornerstone of the Verve catalog and the undisputed standard for jazz vocal recordings. At the inaugural Grammy Awards, her Irving Berlin album won Ella her first Grammy for “Best Vocal Performance, Female,” and was also nominated for “Album Of The Year.” Aside from the lucky audience at the Hollywood Bowl that night, it wasn’t generally known, until the discovery of these tapes, that Ella had ever performed any of the Songbook arrangements in concert, let alone that such a pristine and sonically sumptuous recording existed.  Pre-order the album here: https://EllaFitzgerald.lnk.to/HollywoodBowlPR

- Arkells share their brand new single “Past Life” featuring Cold War Kids, out today on Virgin Music Label. The release is accompanied by their brand new music video, featuring a hilarious guest starring appearance from SNL alum and MacGruber star, Will Forte. Check out the must-see video here.  DOWNLOAD/STREAM “PAST LIFE” HERE.  OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO FOR “PAST LIFE” OUT NOW

- Breakthrough artist Joy Oladokun’s new single, “Purple Haze,” is out today on Amigo Records/Verve Forecast/Republic Records (stream/purchase HERE). The song, about love and the end of the world, made its debut last week on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” (watch HERE).  Of the song, Oladokun shares, “I wrote ‘Purple Haze’ while I was in LA after some wildfires, and I noticed the sky was not the color that it should be. It made me think about the world we live in and all the information we get on a daily basis. It almost feels like we might be on our way out as a species but there are wonderful things like family, friends, partners, dogs - things that inspire us towards beauty and excitement. Even if this all ends, it was worth the experience.”

57 Channels and Only This Is On: May 8, 2022

  

Fear the Walking Dead:  Oh Luciana, why are you lying to Daniel about his daughter just moments after the guy literally murdered a dude who lied about his daughter.  But to be honest, I have no clue what happen to his daughter and part of me thinks she could very well end up in the tower.

 

The First Lady:  I found it interesting that there were multiple wheelchairs in the episode, Betty’s student and Michelle’s dad, but none in the timeline with possibly the most famous wheelchair user.  But I found it odd that this was the marriage origin episode but Franklin did not show up until the scene before the wedding.  Instead Eleanor spends most of the episode at boarding school.  And he was the only actor who played a husband that I actually recognized (reuniting him with his Looking for Alaska co-star who played young Betty).  I wonder if we will get more episodes with the younger versions in future episodes, there are still decades until they move into the White House, but on the other hand, you have Viola Davis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Gillian Anderson, are you really going to sideline them for multiple episode.  But then again, maybe the reason they signed on for a ten episode season was they would get a few episodes off.

 

I did break my one rule of watching based on real events shows/movies, going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole while watching.  I was stuck that Eleanor’s maiden name was also Roosevelt I just had to look right away to see if she married her cousin.  Later in the episode FDR made it a point to mention they were just fifth cousins.  I kind of forgot Teddy, who was actually Eleanor’s uncle, and Franklin were distantly related.

 

The Man Who Fell to Earth:  Honestly, I am kind of more interested with what happened to Newton when he arrived on this planet.  So the scientists took his eyes, when crazy and killed all but one of them.  When is that flashback episode?

 

The Endgame:  Well, at least we learned why the evil lady hated Elana, but I feel like that reveal should have come earlier.  The president seemed like a more formidable big bad.  To learn he was just a puppet just fell flat.

 

The Girl from Plainville:  Elle Fanning was great in the show, but ultimately, this story was not really worthy of an eight episode series when all you have are basically a bunch of text to base the show on.  If you are going to stretch this story to eight episodes, you really needed to have more musical number / dream sequences. 

 

Moon Knight:  If Layla’s sprit animal is a Hippo, why did she get budget Wonder Women wings?  I guess being really hungry would be a lame superpower I guess.  But again, the blackouts were fun in the first episode was funny, but how do you yadda yadda the final battle?  Did they just do that to save the reveal everyone knew coming for the post credit scenes? 

 

The Real World Homecoming: New Orleans:  Oh Julie, not only are you a bigger mess than when you were first time in New Orleans, you got caught admitting you are playing things up for the cameras.  Number one rule of reality television, do not get caught manufacturing drama for camera time.  

 

Survivor:  So we do not get a reaction from Drea about RocksRoy’s all dude’s alliance.  Oh well.But this seems the episode where you really have to put Omar as the frontrunner to win.  Will anyone realize he is playing all sides before it is too late?

 

The Flight Attendant: Guess my prediction that the two kidnappers were the ones who were found in the lake.  So I guess those two are going to be someone we are not familiar with.  But there are certainly trying to make it seem like Cassie’s handler is a bad guy but I am just not buying it.

 

Under the Banner of Heaven:  Yet another episode over an hour.  They really could have cut the homelife storyline, which adds nothing to the show.

 

Halo:  It was a bit strange to have a whole episode without Master Chief, especially after the bif reveal of The Halo last week.  Well no real Master Chief, just a fever dream of him.  I did like there was a video game homage with Kwan keep on respawning after he kills her.  But I missed where Swhere Soren left the planet, and then just showed back up this week.  But I got a good laugh where he got shot, the bunker that was supposed to protect him from the blast has slits that let the flames in, but still managed to walk out of the bunker all right.

 

Big Sky:  Didn’t Jenny just join the force?  A bit weird she became the defacto leader after the chief got shot.  Is there no one with more seniority?

 

The Blacklist:  I am glad they revealed that Aram was still under the influence shortly after Park died, because I pegged it a dream when he was happily riding his bike  It was weird they kept going from Aram’s dream to real life all episode.  I wonder if Samar will be haunting Aram for a couple more episodes because she was there at the end and it would be strange to bring her back just for basically one scene.