Friday, July 03, 2020

Around the Tubes: July 3, 2020


I have gotten a plethora of cool press releases have been flooding my inbox recently that you may find interesting. This post will include blurbs on The Avett Brothers, The Great, Outcry, Bob Marley, The Go-Go's, Benee, PJ Harvey, Liela Moss, and Carl Reiner. 

- The Avett Brothers release the official music video for their song “We Americans.” The song was part of their most recent album Closer Than Together released on October 4, 2019.  Check out “We Americans” music video here!  The lyrics of the song touch on many moments in America’s history. See lyrics here.  The paintings that create the imagery for the video were done by Jason Mitcham. The band previously worked with Mitcham for their 2015 video for “Head Full Of Doubt/Road Full of Promise.”    The band announced Closer Than Together back in June 2019 with a mission statement for the album. Read here.

Hulu has renewed The Great, from Tony McNamara (THE FAVOURITE), for a 10-episode, second season. The first season debuted on Hulu on Friday, May 15.  The Great is a satirical, comedic drama about the rise of Catherine the Great from outsider to the longest-reigning female ruler in Russia's history. With only occasional historical facts, the series stars Elle Fanning as Catherine, Nicholas Hoult, Phoebe Fox, Adam Godley, Gwilym Lee, Charity Wakefield, Douglas Hodge, Sacha Dhawan, Sebastian de Souza, Bayo Gbadamosi and Belinda Bromilow.  The Great is created, written and executive-produced by Oscar-nominated writer Tony McNamara and executive-produced by Marian Macgowan, Thruline’s Josh Kesselman and Ron West, Echo Lake’s Brittany Kahan Ward, Doug Mankoff and Andrew Spaulding, Elle Fanning,  Mark Winemaker and Matt Shakman.  The first season of The Great was one of the top performing original comedies on Hulu in 2020 and continues to grow Hulu’s highly successful slate of female-driven comedies, including Dollface, Shrill and the upcoming Love, Beth (working title) starring Amy Schumer. 

SHOWTIME will release the premiere episode of its new docu-series OUTCRY for free online sampling, on streaming platforms and on demand beginning at midnight on Sunday, July 5. The five-part investigative documentary seriesdirected and produced by Emmy® Award-winning filmmaker Pat Kondelis, examines the gripping story of high school football star Greg Kelley’s controversial conviction for child molestation and the quest for truth and justice that followed in the wake of his sentencing. The first installment will be available on YouTube, as well as across multiple television and streaming providers’ devices, websites, applications and authenticated online services and their free On Demand channels.  OUTCRY will officially premiere on SHOWTIME on Sunday, July 5 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. New episodes will debut every Sunday through August 2, while the entire series will release for on-demand streaming or download on the SHOWTIME and SHOWTIME ANYTIME® apps and partner on-demand platforms July 5.

 In observance of the late and legendary Bob Marley's 75th Birthday,  and in honor of the July 1 International Reggae Day celebrations, an official music video for Bob Marley's "No Woman No Cry," premiered today. Directed by Kristian Mercado Figueroa and shot in Jamaica and New York City, the powerful visual explores two tales of a family divided by country but connected by their love and want for a better life for their children. We see a strong and loving Mother strive to look after her children in their homeland. At the same time, the Father works tirelessly, isolated in New York City, working as a taxi driver to better provide for his family back home. The video shines a light on the importance of family and connection while confronting the genuine struggles many families face in the modern world, often forced apart due to poverty. The video for "No Woman No Cry" debuted on Bob Marley's Official YouTube Channel. Watch HERE.  For more information on children and women-focused programs and resources, please visit:


- SHOWTIME has released the trailer for the upcoming feature-length documentary THE GO-GO’S, hailing from director Alison Ellwood (HISTORY OF THE EAGLES, American Jihad). An official 2020 Sundance Film Festival Selection, the film chronicles the first all-female band to play its own instruments, write its own songs and soar to No. 1 on the album charts. Featuring candid testimonies from the group members, Ellwood’s documentary charts the meteoric rise to fame of a band that not only captured but created a zeitgeist. THE GO-GO’S premieres on SHOWTIME on Saturday, August 1 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.



- The Go-Go’s, the iconic all female L.A. punk band, will release their first new recording in nearly 20 years, “CLUB ZERO,” on July 31st on UMe. The band can be seen working on an early version of the song in their new documentary THE GO-GO’S, directed by Alison Ellwood (Laurel Canyon, History of the Eagles) which premieres August 1st at 9 pm ET/PT on SHOWTIME. View the official trailer HERE and music, HERE.  Propelled by the spirited, melodic punch we’ve come to expect from the Southern California band, as well as a catchy, call-to-action chorus, “CLUB ZERO” will certainly join the ranks among an esteemed catalog of Go-Go’s classics.

BENEE performs her worldwide smash “Supalonely” with Gus Dapperton on The Ellen DeGeneres Show—watch the performance HERE!  “Supalonely” feat. Gus Dapperton has amassed over 980 million streams to date and 4 million in global consumption. The song is now Gold Certified in the U.S. It peaked in the Top 10 on Spotify’s Global Top 50 Chart, as BENEE currently sits as “The 86th Most Listened To Artist In The World” on the platform. “Supalonely” continues to climb the U.S. Top 40 Radio Chart, currently charting at #13. Within a short time, BENEE has gone from canvasing Soundcloud with covers out of her teenage bedroom to rising on the charts and amassing over 1.3 billion streams across her catalogue.

The vinyl reissue of PJ Harvey’s entire back catalogue continues this summer with RID OF ME and 4-TRACK DEMOS out August 21 on UMe / Island.  Just a year after the acclaimed release of debut album DRY (1992), Harvey returned with her second studio album RID OF ME in May 1993. Produced by Steve Albini it featured the singles “50ft Queenie” and “Man-Size.” RID OF ME charted at No. 3 in the U.K.  4-TRACK DEMOS – released in October of the same year – is a collection of demos written and recorded at Harvey’s home throughout 1991 and 1992.  Self-produced, it presents the songs in a simple first incarnation on a record of “depth, range and conceptual completeness” (Rolling Stone).  Taken together, these two releases made for an astonishing major label debut on Island Records in 1993, a body of work which has lost none of its urgent potency. This period also firmly established Harvey’s creative relationship with photographer and director Maria Mochnacz who shot the artwork for both records and also directed the videos for 50ft Queenie” and “Man-Size.”  Watch fully restored video for “50ft Queenie” Here.

Having last month announced news of her new solo album, Who The Power, that will be released on August 7th via Bella Union, and sharing the video to first single "Atoms At Me", today Liela Moss has shared another new track “Watching The Wolf” and its lyric video. Watch and listen HERE.  Of the track Moss says: “An imagined rebellion created by packs of wolves, who mete out justice when they lure a power-hungry narcissistic wannabe politician to his demise. A modern day folk tale whose villain is a fraud. Useless in the face of an emergency (“now comes the hour, when you're not gonna know what to do”) and utterly inane, he has no idea he is despised by so many, including the animal kingdom.”

The MeTV Network will celebrate legendary writer, director and actor Carl Reiner with a special, month-long presentation of his favorite episodes of 15-time Emmy award-winning sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show. The tribute begins this Sunday, July 5 at 10p & 10:30p ET/PT and will air every Sunday night through July 26 on MeTV.  Born in the Bronx borough of New York, Carl Reiner appeared in several Broadway musicals including “Inside U.S.A.” and “Call Me Mister” before he was cast in the variety show “Your Show of Shows” in 1950. Throughout the series’ four-year run, Reiner honed his writing chops alongside fellow comedy writers Mel Brooks and Neil Simon, and went on to write for the variety TV series “Caesar’s Hour” and “The Dinah Shore Chevy Show.”


Sunday, June 28, 2020

57 Channels and Only This Is On: June 28, 2020



Billions: That was an interesting dinner party. Granted it was weird they brought in the coach from Dare Me just to be Wags’ date for two scenes. Have they just dropped his children storyline already and he is back to dating way too young women? Almost as uncomfortable as Chuck quoting Billie Eilish.

Snowpiercer: So we are finally done with the cop show and the courtroom episode and we finally get an almost entertaining episode. So the shelves are just there for when the train stops working. But that begs the question, when the Earth is habitable again, who opens the drawers?
You can download Snowpiercer on iTunes.

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels: I believe this is the first time the Vega clan was all together since the first episode. Weird Tiego was not madder that his brother killed a cop, but at least for him, the one person that could recant is now dead. But I cannot imagine Margeary Tyrell is happy about this after spending the whole season tearing the family apart. Maybe having them back together will be what defeats her.

Stargirl: Okay, Sportmaster, Tigress, and their kid were entertaining. I am beginning to think the worst thing about Stargirl is, well, Stargirl. I just cannot help thinking how much better the show would have been if they cast a better actress.

The Challenge: Total Madness:e no one played a drinking game for whenever Dee was on screen because you would not even been buzzed. If this really that necessary? Okay, you are never going to have her back, but do you really need to completely cut her out? If there anyone going to be that triggered by the sight of someone who said something vaguely ignorant?

Then that Purgatory has some weird rules. I do not get why both people would get points. Shouldn’t the first person who got their thing on their shelf win get that point? Nany should have been up three-zero. Then in the fourth round, Melissa rolls out of bounds before getting to her shelf but still get a point but Nany does not? Meh. #JusticeForNany
You can download The Challenge: Total Madness on iTunes.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Okay, had to google the Malick boys, one of them turned out to be Powers Booth from the movies and the younger one actually got sacrificed by the older one during the Hive storyline. But that apparently happened right after their father died but if the father does not die I guess the younger one does not get sacrificed so they are really forking up the timeline. That has to bite them eventually.
You can download Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. on iTunes.

Doom Patrol: Watch two of the three released and I do not care how the daughter is messing up the dynamic so far this season. Then in the second episode, they already split up the team with Cyborg going back home and Negative Man going to his son’s funeral. It may be time to break glass and release Mr. Nobody from the painting because he was a much better antagonist. Although, I wonder what Animal-Mineral-Vegetable Man is up to.

Search Party: Before it launched, HBO Max said they were going to release their shows weekly, but then they released their first show Love Life over the course of three week and now we are getting Search Party all at once. So it seems like they are actually going to go with the Hulu release plan of who the fork knows? What was kind of annoying was that there was no previously on for the first episode yet they put a detailed one of both seasons in the second episode that did not even cover the premiere. Why not put that in the first episode page? I spent the first episode completely forgetting that Dory killed her neighbor and stole her tape of them confessing. But I have to say I am enjoying the new season (at least the two I have seen) better than the second season. That lawyer is going to be a hoot.

In the Dark: So it is thirty-five degrees, they are digging a grave for people they just killed, yeah, sure, what a great time to fork up against a tree even though anyone could just walk up on them. And is dude that quick that he can finish in the time someone could walk back from the lookout? And why did no one chase down the old dude? I mean, he is old and shot, no one can catch up to him?
You can download In The Dark on iTunes.

Blindspot: Okay, I recognize the dude at the end but have no clue who exactly why that was. They did that two weeks ago with Rich’s friend.
You can download Blindspot on iTunes.