HOT: Peeving Las Vegas
Punk band NOFX can kiss their Vegas retirement residency dreams goodbye after a recent appearance at the Punk Rock Bowling & Music Festival in Las Vegas. After frontperson Fat Mike jokingly celebrated playing “a song about a Muslim” and not getting shot, guitarist Eric Melvin bantered, “I guess you’re only getting shot in Vegas if you’re a Country band,” referring to the shooting at a Country music festival last fall that left 58 attendees dead. Mike then added, “At least they were Country fans and not Punk Rock fans.” NOFX and Fat Mike’s cover band, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, were immediately kicked off of the bill of the Camp Punk in Drublic festival in Columbus, Ohio, which the group helped start. The band issued a refreshingly unambiguous and thoughtful apology, saying, in part, “There’s no place here to backpedal… we crossed the line of civility.” In a week where one of the major public partisan battles was whether it's OK to call a black person an ape or a woman a cunt, perhaps NOFX has brought people together — it's hard for anyone to argue their comments weren't remarkably offensive any way you slice it.
WARM: Stream On
After instituting a well-intentioned but ill-considered “hate content and hateful conduct” policy that removed artists accused of criminal abuse or other crimes — like R. Kelly and XXXTentacion — from official playlists, Spotify had second thoughts and rescinded the "hateful conduct" part, which many claimed was subjectively implemented and unfair. In a statement, Spotify admitted to not evaluating the policy thoroughly enough, though by suggesting the backlash was due to “vague” language and the public’s “confusion and concern,” the company seemed to deflect full responsibility. The company’s walk-back also seems to have been motivated by fear of further PR and financial damage. Anthony Tiffith, CEO of the Top Dawg label (home to Kendrick Lamar), told Billboard he and others in the industry informed Spotify that they would pull their music from the streaming platform because the policy appeared to target the Hip Hop community.
COLD: A Wee Eccentric
The Flaming Lips have been responsible for some of the strangest merch imaginable over the years. The band that once released an edible “gummy fetus” containing a three-track EP on a USB drive has also been known to press weird liquids into its vinyl, like beer and blood. Frontperson Wayne Coyne told NME for their next release — another collaboration with Miley Cyrus — the Lips are considering embedding Cyrus’ urine into the platter, mixed, of course, with some glitter.
