It’s a big day for music news. Finn Wolfhard’s band of merry Vancouver teens, Calpurnia (named after the Finches’ absolute angel of a housekeeper in To Kill A Mockingbird, don’tcha know), have gone from covering their favourite bands to releasing original songs like last month’s indie rock City Boy and today’s slide guitar party, Louie. Inspired by a love of Lou Read, the track will open their debut EP, Scout, due on 15 June via Paradyse and Transgressive Records.
Nicki Minaj just announced that she’ll be sharing two new songs — Barbie Tingz and Chun-Li — on Thursday, with some killer visuals. The former seems to be a Marie Antoinette-inspired fancy number, while the latter (more exciting but treading the line between appreciation and appropriation) sees Nicki dressed like the iconic Street Fighter Chun-Li, hair buns and all. Here’s hoping a video game music vid will follow, in which Nicki takes out all the men who have ever wronged her.
Back in the real world, a man robbed a Connecticut bank in what was reportedly an attempt to impress
Taylor Swift
. After stealing $1600 with his face completely exposed, he drove to Tay Tay Swift’s Rhode Island mansion and threw the cash over the fence into her garden. The popstar didn’t immediately jump the fence and into his arms while suggesting they run away together, so he figured she was out and gave up, getting caught and arrested on the drive home. Look what you made him do!
Not one to keep things to herself, during an interview on Sirius FM,
Cardi B
just told the world how much she’s getting paid to play Coachella next weekend. At $140k for two shows, it’s more than the rest of us are on, but decidedly less that you’d expect one of the biggest stars in the world to be making. Apparently the California festival booked Cardi six months ago, before she had risen to her current levels of fame via the cover of i-D, which shows that it really does pay to get in there early.
While we’re at it, it seems that Coachella’s bookers Golden Voice are pretty controlling, making acts sign what they’re calling a “radius clause”, which prevents them from playing anywhere nearby (within 1300 miles of the site, to be exact) between December 2017 and May 2018. This massively fucks over neighbouring Oregon fest Soul’d Out Music Festival, who are left with almost nobody to book. Their promoters are suing.
Handsome
Harry Styles
played Manchester Arena last night, the site of the horrific bombing that took place after an
Ariana Grande
concert last year. He and his fans paid tribute to the 22 victims of the attack with a moving rendition of
Just A Little Bit Of Your Heart
— the ballad he wrote for Ariana two years ago.
Ordained minister
Kesha
married marries a couple Vegas-style in the new video for
I Need A Woman
, the cover she laid down for the
Universal Love
album of reimagined romantic songs
we told you about
last week. “Kesha is amazing because of all the things she’s done,” they say in the short, reflecting on the time they saw her defy protesters and perform at Pride wearing a rainbow cape. The big day was on 26 March, the anniversary of the first same-sex marriage license issued in the US. Super special.