In 2019, Tay-K was sentenced to 55 years in prison for his role in the murder of 21-year-old Ethan Walker during a 2016 Texas home invasion. Today, in a separate case, the rapper born Taymor McIntyre was found guilty of murder in the 2017 death of 23-year-old photographer Mark Anthony Saldivar.
“You shake my hand! Say pleased to meet you! Look my in the eye! I don’t believe you!” That’s the part. That’s where I get stuck every time. Can’t get past it. I hear that, and I’m mentally headbutting a turret off a tank. For me, Trapped Under Ice’s “Pleased To Meet You,” from the 2011 album Big Kiss Goodnight, is an absolutely perfect piece of music. Justice Tripp shouts about being nothing like you, and then you want to yell along because you, too, are nothing like you. When TUI play in a big room, everyone in that room, including you, is nothing like you. If I could shoot 10 songs up into space to teach aliens that we’re nothing like you, that would be one of them. Last weekend, I saw a couple dozen hardcore bands at Richmond’s United Blood fest, and I enjoyed all of it. But in the back of my mind, I was really just waiting for the moment that Trapped Under Ice would play “Pleased To Meet You.”
When Circle Jerks put out their 1983 song “Coup D’Etat,” Donald Trump had not yet sicced his supporters on the US capitol building. Attitudes can change after you’ve watched an incumbent president attempt to overturn election results on live TV! And so when the LA hardcore punks performed the song at Coachella Sunday evening, frontman Keith Morris disclosed afterwards: “That song, that last line, ends with ‘kill all.’ That’s a pretty fucking ugly statement… In ugly times. Do not think that we encourage that.” His idea instead: “What we do encourage — what would be totally fucking happening — would be an army of Luigis.”
In the big book of songs about the profession of being a songwriter, few are more candidly bleak than Molly Burch’s “Baby Watch My Tears Dry.” In the track from her 2023 album, Daydreamer, Burch croons, “I overthink like it’s my job/ Trying to please everyone/ So many times I feel I’ve failed to/ Create the things I’m told I’m meant to.” The chorus picks up, but the mood doesn’t, with Burch begging helplessly for “a little reassurance” to keep her from crying an ocean’s worth of tears.
“Cat Guy,” the new song from the great Winnipeg punk veterans Propagandhi, opens with a ridiculous rhetorical question: “If baby Hitler and your family dog were both found drowning in a lake/ And you could only rescue one because — well, that’s never really been explained/ Which pitiful creature would you condemn? Which of God’s children would you save?” You are not meant to take this question seriously. Instead, you are meant to consider the state of a society that asks you to ponder questions like that while real atrocities are still happening.
Portishead played Coachella one time, back in 2008. Back then, Beth Gibbons didn’t play a whole lot of non-Portishead shows, and certainly didn’t perform often on US soil. But lately she’s been on her first North American solo tour supporting her debut solo album Lives Outgrown, and she brought that tour to Coachella on Saturday.
Pulp’s comeback album More is coming this June. The Britpop legends finally announced the record last week with the lead single “Spike Island,” which we liked very much. They teased the song a few times on tour last fall, and on Saturday night they brought it to The Jonathan Ross Show. Unsurprisingly, it sounds awesome, and you can watch it below.
Japanese Breakfast is currently on tour supporting their new album, which Michelle Zauner wrote about melancholy. She picked a fitting cover for her Coachella set Saturday, doing a rendition of Gorillaz’s 2010 highlight “On Melancholy Hill.” She also performed in a shell (because co-shell-a). Ginger Root, who’s been opening for Japanese Breakfast on this tour, also joined in for the cover. (Too bad Japanese Breakfast were scheduled opposite Yo Gabba Gabba!) See a short clip of it below, or watch the full song here.
Travis Scott played Coachella last night, backed by a 60-plus person marching band. The rapper opened his headlining set with the live debut of “Crush,” one of his contributions to Playboi Carti’s new album MUSIC. The first portion of his show was made up of some of his recent guest appearances — like his verses on Carti’s “Backr00ms,” Future and Metro Boomin’s “Type Shit,” Lil Uzi Vert’s “Aye” — and he also debuted a couple of unreleased songs.
Kneecap performed at Coachella on Friday April 11. The Northern Irish rap trio is often outspoken about human rights issues, especially so during live performances — but you may not have been able to tell from the festival’s livestream. Kneecap said afterwards that their onstage digs at Margaret Thatcher and their support for Palestine were censored during the broadcast.