Earlier this month Douglas McCarthy, vocalist and founding member of the English electronic band Nitzer Ebb, died at 58. The group had some tour dates planned through the rest of the year and into 2026, though it was still up in the air whether or not McCarthy would make those shows, ad he’d been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver last year. Today, the surviving members of Nitzer Ebb have confirmed that — save for their scheduled appearance at Eastside Festival next month, which they’ve pulled out of — they’ll continue the rest of their tour dates as planned, with McCarthy’s role filled by fellow founding member Vaughan “Bon” Harris.

It’s a really, really terrible time to be a young transgender person in the United States right now. We’ve heard a lot of firsthand accounts of the current administration’s anti-trans policies from 21-year-old leftist social media personality Vivian Wilson, whose coming-out a trans woman in 2020 seemingly put the nail in the coffin of her fraught relationship with her estranged father Elon Musk. Thankfully, amid all that bullshit, it looks like Wilson’s still been able to have quite a bit of fun lately: She landed the cover of Teen Vogue earlier this year, recently ticked off her longtime bucket list item of doing drag, and now she’s out here posting with the very popular “global girl group” KATSEYE.

Dua Lipa sold out two shows at London’s Wembley Stadium. The pop star has been surprising her tour audiences with covers of artists from the cities and countries she’s singing in, like AC/DC and Natalie Imbruglia in Australia and Lorde and Crowded House in New Zealand. For the first night she brought out the English acid jazz and funk group Jamiroquai for the 1996 hit “Virtual Insanity,” and for the second she was joined by the British brat Charli XCX for “360.”

Earlier this month, Timbaland introduced TaTa, the first signee of the AI entertainment company Stage Zero that he co-founded with Rocky Mudaliar and Zayd Portillo. Now he’s catching heat online after allegedly using producer K Fresh’s music to train Suno AI. After K Fresh threatened legal action, Timbaland shared an apology on social media.

Last year the Jesus Lizard reunited for the release of Rack, their first album in 26 years. Vocalist David Yow has also been busy acting in the forthcoming Toxic Avenger reboot, and he’s in the new red band trailer.

Throughout the years Rage Against The Machine’s Zack de la Rocha has stayed politically active. In November 2023 he marched for Palestine after not showing up to the band’s Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction, and now he’s teaming up with clothing brand Born X Raised for anti-ICE merch.

Patrick Walden, the guitarist of the British rock group Babyshambles, has died. The news was shared on the band’s social media account, and the cause of death has not been disclosed. He was 46.

Should we do a little key? Should we have a little line? Maybe with the new Brat Chuck Taylors? That’s right. Apparently there’s a new Brat collaboration with Converse, for whom Charli XCX has been a brand ambassador over the past year.

We have a couple sagas to deal with in this post. First: the saga that is Machine Gun Kelly’s unlikely bromance with Bob Dylan. What started with Dylan unexplainedly posting footage of MGK to Instagram in February led to the two men seemingly meeting in May. In June, when MGK announced his new album lost americana, it sure sounded like Bob Dylan narrating the trailer.