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Exclusive: Unfolding in New York’s East Village in 1978, the Nova Convention has gone down in history as a legendary counterculture meeting headlined by Naked Lunch novelist William S. Burroughs, and also featuring Patti Smith, Frank Zappa, Allen Ginsberg and Laurie Anderson.

Aaron Brookner and Rodrigo Areias documentary’s Nova ’78 – which debuts out of competition at the Locarno Film Festival in August – revisits the three-day event which ran from November 30 to December 2, 1978 in the Entermedia Theatre, now the Village East by Angelika cinema.

It uses original newly restored and digitized 16mm footage shot at the Nova Convention by Aaron Brookner’s uncle Howard Brookner, Tom Dicillo, and Jim Lebovitz, with direct sound by Jim Jarmusch.

Howard Brookner originally started filming Burroughs for a NYU film project, which evolved into a long-term collaboration, culminating in the 1983 work Burroughs: The Movie, broadcast by BBC Arena and produced by Alan Yentob and the filmmaker.

Alex Braverman’s documentary, “Thank You Very Much,” extends an invitation not merely to revisit the life of Andy Kaufman, but to enter the labyrinthine construction of his public and private existence. The film positions Kaufman from the outset as more than a comedian; he is presented as a persistent question mark in the annals of entertainment, an artist who weaponized bewilderment. Its stated purpose appears to be a deep dive into this singular figure, a performer whose primary medium was the ever-shifting line between authenticity and artifice.

The initial framing prepares the viewer for an encounter with a subject who was as dedicated to provoking discomfort as he was to eliciting any conventional form of amusement, suggesting that the narrative of Kaufman is one of deliberate, often maddening, obfuscation. This cinematic exploration promises a careful look at the architect of so much inspired chaos.

Deconstructing the Man Who Wasn...

The French Riviera is set to host international cinema again this year. Getting featured in the Cannes Film Festival is a lifelong ambition for many filmmakers, and once again, its 78th edition is going to fulfill many of these dreams. The Festival will take place from May 13 to May 24, 2025, and this year is particularly interesting for some new reasons.

One of the reasons is the recent announcement by President Donald Trump about potential tariffs on films from countries across the border. Other than these, there will be the usual glamorous red carpets, neck-to-neck competition, and maybe a bit of political drama as well, which makes the Cannes Film Festival a special event.

Jury of the Cannes Film Festival 2025

The jury lineup is quite stacked this year. It’s French actress Juliette Binoche who is leading the Main Competition jury, and she is joined by a talented team. Halle Berry’s...

French documentary filmmaker Luc Jacquet will head the jury of the second edition of Cannes’ Immersive Competition.

He will be joined by Tania de Montaigne, who co-created the 2024 Cannes immersive winnerColored,UK filmmaker Martha Fiennes, whose second featureChromophobiaclosed Cannes Film Festival in 2005, US artist Laurie Anderson and Japanese video game creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi.

Nine projects are in the running for the best immersive work prize. They include the world premiere of Navid Khonsari’s Lili starring Holy Spider’s Zar Amir Ebrahimi. It is produced by iNK Stories, the Royal Shakespeare Company and Alambic Production.

Also making its world premiere...

Oscar-winning documentarian Luc Jacquet (March of the Penguins) will head up the jury of the 2025 immersive competition at this year’s Cannes film festival, judging VR and interactive works in this year’s lineup (see full list below).

Known for his award-winning documentaries, Jacquet has also worked in immersive formats, including with his recent Terra Incognita exhibit, which took visitors on a virtual journey from Patagonia to the South Pole.

Joining Jacquet on the Cannes immersive jury are Japanese video game designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi, creator of Rez and Tetris Effect; American artist Laurie Anderson, who premiered her latest multidisciplinary work Ark: United States V in Manchester last year; British director Martha Fiennes, known for pioneering AI-driven film environments; and French author and performer Tania de Montaigne, whose work Noire won the best immersive work award in Cannes last year.

Nine works will compete for the prize for best immersive work,...

Projects featuring Daisy Ridley and Zar Amir are among the titles set to screen as part of this year’s Cannes Immersive competition.

This is the second year Cannes has run an immersive programme. 16 immersive works from 9 countries will screen as part of the immersive selection, including nine in the competition.

Ridley features in Trailblazer, an immersive project from filmmaker Eloise Singer. The film was produced by Singer Studios and screens as a French premiere. Zar Amir stars in Lili, an immersive project from Iranian artist Navid Khonsari. The project was produced by iNK Stories, The Royal Shakespeare Company, and Alambic Production. Scroll down for the full line.

The immersive competition jury will be chaired by French director Luc Jacquet. He will be joined by American artist Laurie Anderson, French writer Tania de Montaigne, British director Martha Fiennes and Japanese video game creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi.

This year’s event will...

One of the most memorable highlights of “Thank You Very Much,” Alex Braverman’s consistently engaging documentary about comedy legend Andy Kaufman, doesn’t directly involve Kaufman at all.

Well, technically it does — but in the circuitous, convoluted way that only he could design. It’s an audio recording of actor Judd Hirsch, who is so furious he seems ready to explode. His complaint? That a two-bit, no-talent buffoon named Tony Clifton has taken over the set of his 1970s sitcom “Taxi,” which co-starred Kaufman. The fact that Hirsch knows Clifton is one of Kaufman’s alter egos hasn’t remotely mitigated the problem; he’s genuinely angry at Clifton — a guy who doesn’t, in any traditional sense, actually exist.

If there is a moment that distills Kaufman’s unique genius, surely this is it. In other hands, the whole situation would look like a dopey and inexcusably indulgent prank.

Just four days after his surprise reunion with R.E.M. at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia, Michael Stipe performed at the annual Tibet House benefit at New York’s Carnegie Hall on a packed bill that also included Patti Smith, Jackson Browne, Laurie Anderson, Gogol Bordello, Orville Peck, Allison Russell, the Philip Glass Ensemble, Angélique Kidjo, and Tenzin Choegyal.

Stipe delivered stunning renditions of David Bowie’s 1970 classic “The Man Who Sold the World” and “No Time for Love Like Now,” which he co-wrote with the National’s Aaron Dessner...

Here’s a question: You have a Hollywood star making their West End debut in London, with very little theatrical experience. What do you do to allay any misgivings — in the actor herself, or her audience? You give her a handheld microphone, of course, for the entire play.

Well, no, you don’t.

Alongside the practical rebuttals (many actors these days have concealed mics), there are stronger conceptual justifications for Daniel Fish’s move. With her buzz cut and Bikini Kill T-shirt, Brie Larson’s Elektra is presented as a rebel, a provocateur, and the kind of obsessively angry soul who might well carry her microphone around town in order to besmirch her mother and berate the world. She even has some Laurie Anderson-like amp effects for good measure, especially when mocking mom, and it’s true that her spitting into the mike at the mention of anyone she loathes is strangely satisfying.

Illustrations by Stephanie Lane Gage.As one year draws to a close and a new one begins, we reflect on the releases, restorations, soundtracks, posters, criticism, and more of 2024.Fantasy Double Features of 2024In our seventeenth annual contributors poll, something old and something new.Essential Reads of 2024Highlights from the year’s publishing on Notebook.Fire of Wind.The Best Films of 2024 by Leonardo GoiThis is not a year-end list.A Traveler’s Needs poster by Brian Hung.The Best Movie Posters of 2024 by Adrian CurryOur columnist unveils his favorite designs of the year.Clockwise from top left: Boy Kills World, Life After Fighting, Blade of Fury, Black Storm.The Best Action Scenes of 2024 by Jonah JengA survey ranging from dystopian melees to period set pieces, Qin Pengfei to Bren Foster, France to Japan.Aggro Dr1ft.The Soundtracks of 2024 by Robert BarryIn Aggro Dr1ft, Longlegs, Challengers, and others,...

Nothing, positively nothing, good comes out of purchasing a decades-old farmhouse in the middle of Wales. Or anywhere else, for that matter. In Bryn Chainey’s contribution to the ever-expanding folk horror sub-genre, Rabbit Trap, Darcy (Oscar nominee Dev Patel) and Daphne Davenport (Rosy McEwan), a sound recordist and an experimental/electronic music artist (imagine a cross between genre pioneers Brian Eno and Laurie Anderson), respectively, purchase said farmhouse somewhere in Wales circa 1976, ostensibly so Daphne can complete work on her latest album and Darcy, husband and chief assistant, gathers sounds from the natural and human-made world outside their farmhouse. The “nothing good” part happens almost immediately: rambling through the nearby woods, Darcy crosses a mushroom circle, records strange, discordant sounds, and experiences a...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Illustrations by Stephanie Lane Gage.When making my sound work, I always try to bend the material in front of me to find alternative possibilities of context or (re)context. Here, I was drawn to so many personal favorites, moods, and textures that these 70-odd minutes are more akin to a year-end work of catharsis. The result is as much a personal mix as a 2024 roundup.This was aided by a number of films with great music supervision, particularly four heavy hitters: Love Lies Bleeding (all films 2024), Civil War, Dahomey, and Janet Planet. Artists like Throbbing Gristle, Anna Domino, Silver Apples, Suicide, Dean Blunt, and Laurie Anderson offered a huge prop of character within these films. They could set each film in a specific time and place, or, in the case of Civil War, give a punk, psychedelic energy to a near-future world.Staying through the end credits is important...

In case you need a reason to look forward to 2025, Blondie have continued to tease their upcoming album.

Over on Bluesky, Blondie co-founder and guitarist Chris Stein shared the latest update on the new album. “With John Congleton. New Blondie record next year,” he wrote in the caption of a black-and-white photo of lead singer Debbie Harry and the Grammy-winning producer in the studio.

Congleton was the primary producer on Blondie’s most recent album, Pollinator, which was released in 2017.

This past October, Stein hinted at the project’s impending release when he posted an Instagram photo of Harry in the studio. “New Blondie album next year,” he wrote.

Several months before, Stein confirmed in a BBC Radio 6 appearance that they were mixing a new record.

No further details have been revealed at this time, but Pollinator featured appearances from Joan Jett, Laurie Anderson, and John Roberts. Co-writers included Johnny Marr,...

Next year marks the 50th anniversary of Patti Smith’s debut album Horses. To commemorate that moment , an array of indie and alternative rockers will gather at New York’s Carnegie Hall on March 26 for a Smith tribute concert.

The lineup for “People Have the Power: Celebrating the Music of Patti Smith” will, so far, include Michael Stipe, Kim Gordon, Matt Berninger of the National, Karen O, Sharon Van Etten, Ben Harper, Courtney Barnett, the Kronos Quartet, Angel Olsen, and the Kills’ Alison Mosshart. Additional artists are expected to be announced in the months ahead.

Anohni and the Johnsons, Jessica Pratt, and Waxahatchee will appear at Big Ears Festival next year.

Taking place on March 27 through 30 in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, the stacked lineup also includes Rufus Wainwright, Esperanza Spalding, Taj Mahal, Lankum, Yo La Tengo, Sun Ra Arkestra, Cassandra Jenkins, Wilco’s Nels Cline, and many more.

Also featured in the festival is the premiere of Jonny Greenwood’s eight-hour pipe organ piece 133 Years of Reverb — performed by James McVinnie and Eliza McCarthy — and the Philip Glass Ensemble, who will play Glass’ 1974 piece Music in Twelve Parts.

Each week, Consequence celebrates New Music Friday by highlighting newly released albums to stream. This week has it all, from legends returning to future stars making major statements. We’re spinning new albums from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Duster, Noah Kahan, Tycho, Wunderhorse, and lots more; here are 10 new albums to stream today.

Duster — In Dreams

Fresh off a significant boost on TikTok, California slowcore legends Duster have surprise released a new album called In Dreams. The LP serves as a welcome return to their signature moving, atmospheric sound, showing that the group has plenty of gas left in the tank.

Stream: Apple Music | Spotify

Buy: Vinyl | CD

Laurie Anderson — Amelia

The incomparable Laurie Anderson has had the concept for Amelia for nearly two decades: a record fusing oratorio and old-time radio dramas to chart the course of Amelia Earhart’s doomed transatlantic final flight. With Czech orchestra...

Laurie Anderson has recruited Anohni for “India and On Down to Australia,” the latest single from her upcoming album, Amelia. Stream the new song below.

An expansive orchestral track, “India and On Down to Australia” was built from one of Anderson’s unreleased songs, “Rumba Club,” and furthers the concept album’s theme of capturing Amelia Earhart’s final flight. “We land at Dum Dum Airport Calcutta,” Anderson sings. “Streets are wide/ White bulls are walking everywhere/ Passed the many mouths of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers.”

Get Anohni and the Johnsons Tickets Here

In a statement about the track, Anderson explained it came together during “pandemic times.” The orchestra recorded their part first, followed by Anderson adding her vocals and sprinkling in electronics.

“And I thought, ‘I need to make the story a little bit bigger, so I’m going to find a bridge between the electronic viola...

Austin trio Loma has never really sounded like a live band, often reliant on overdubbing multiple instruments to create their singular sound. Nor have they limited themselves to standard rock instrumentation, with clarinet, viola, and field recordings featured prominently in the mix on their third studio album, How Will I Live Without a Body?

Where 2020’s Don’t Shy Away played with ornate arrangements that leaned toward British art rock and psychedelia, parts of How Will I Live Without a Body? were recorded in the English countryside (in addition to Texas and Germany), where a ruined chapel was used to record vocals due to its natural reverb. Indeed, Loma can do a lot with very little. The drums on “Arrhythmia” build up to the clatter of what sounds like running horses as singer Emily Cross harmonizes with herself, creating an atmosphere that’s more important than any single lyric.

Though...

Laurie Anderson will return this summer with Amelia, her first new album in five years.

Out Aug. 30 via Nonesuch Records, Amelia was influenced by aviation legend Amelia Earhart, the first woman to cross the Atlantic who disappeared on her 1937 flight around the world. You can hear a first taste of the album, the meditative track “Road to Mandalay,” below.

“The words used in Amelia are inspired by her pilot diaries, the telegrams she wrote to her husband, and my idea of what a woman flying around the world might think about,...

Laurie Anderson is back to announce Amelia, her first album in six years, due out on August 30th via Nonesuch. She’s also offered the album’s first preview, “Road to Mandalay.”

Amelia is a concept album comprised of 22 songs tracking the renowned aviator Amelia Earhart’s final flight. Laurie Anderson previously conceived Amelia for a performance at Carnegie Hall in 2000, and the artist recently updated the composition and performed it across Europe. She recorded Amelia with the Czech orchestra Filharmonie Brno, who were conducted by Dennis Russell Davies — collaborators included Anohni, Gabriel Cabezas, Rob Moose, Ryan Kelly, Martha Mooke, Marc Ribot, Tony Scherr, Nadia Sirota, and Kenny Wolleson.

The project tracks the origins and subsequent misfortune of Amelia Earhart’s transatlantic flight, which crashed in an unknown locale and left the pioneering pilot stranded. “The words used in Amelia are inspired by her pilot diaries, the telegrams she wrote to her husband,...

Renowned opera director Yuval Sharon returns to The Industry, the company where he began his career, for The Comet / Poppea. The new piece is quite the mashup, weaving together Monteverdi’s 1643 opera The Coronation of Poppea and W.E.B. Du Bois’ short story The Comet. The work — composed by George Lewis with a libretto by Douglas Kearney — opens Friday and runs through June 23 at Los Angeles’ Geffen Contemporary at Moca.

“The juxtaposition of these two pieces allows us to create a kind of constantly shifting relational field between this baroque opera and a contemporary aesthetic,” Sharon says of his latest collaboration. “We’ve created a space for these worlds to bleed into each other, to somehow contradict each other and contrast with each other, sometimes resonate with each other, to rhyme with each other.”

Monteverdi’s Poppea focuses on the titular character’s efforts to become queen by convincing...

After decades of creating subversive art and music, Yoko Ono will receive a lifetime achievement award. MacDowell, an organization that offers artists residencies, will honor the artist with its Edward MacDowell Medal at an event in Peterborough, New Hampshire, this summer.

Ono, 91, is not expected to attend the ceremony, though. Her longtime manager, David Newgarden, will accept the award on her behalf during the presentation on July 21. The event will include an opening of MacDowell’s studios.

“It’s an incredible honor that my mother, Yoko Ono, will be awarded the MacDowell Medal,...

The Visions du Réel film festival’s greatest singularity is two-fold: its lack of pretense and judicious curatorial eye. The first is, of course, directly related to the other. In centering the festival on the quality, even radicalness, of film praxes, instead of a locus for glamour and business, VdR makes room for cinematic pearls to emerge. Those pearls may not be programmed at any other film festival, and in the quiet Swiss town of Nyon, a 15-minute train ride from Geneva, they amounted to a stunningly consistent lineup.

One of the most sparkling pearls in that lineup was the unclassifiable The Documentary Journey of Madame Anita Conti. Director Louise Hémon’s medium-length film relies on narration from a text by French explorer and photographer Anita Conti’s travel diary from her time on a fishing boat in open sea in 1952—along with an audio interview with Conti, 16mm footage from the expedition,...

Loma — the indie trio featuring members of Shearwater and Cross Record — have announced How Will I Live Without a Body?, their first album in four years.

Ahead of the LP’s June 28 arrival on Sub Pop, the band has shared the first single, “How It Starts,” along with a video directed by and starring Loma’s Emily Cross.

The follow-up to 2020’s acclaimed Don’t Shy Away, How Will I Live Without a Body? takes its title from artificial intelligence, specifically an AI trained on the work of — with her permission — avant legend Laurie Anderson.

Favoriten.Speaking at the press conference to inaugurate the 74th Berlinale, actor and competition jury president Lupita Nyong'o said that she had heard one remark repeated since she had arrived in the German capital: “how political the Berlinale is.” She was not alone in being “curious to learn what that meant.”When we expect the Berlinale to be political, what indeed do we expect? Dependent on nation-states and multinational corporations for funding, major film festivals like the Berlinale are only politically outspoken, today, when it is convenient or uncontroversial. Given that the Berlinale is typically perceived as more political than Cannes and Venice, the hypocrisy of that reputation combined with the sad reality of the institution’s commitments under late capitalism can be—for cinephiles who are dedicated both to radical film and radical politics—a bitter pill to swallow. At the height of the festival, the United Nations estimated...

Light in the Attic Records has announced a new Lou Reed tribute album. Titled The Power of the Heart: A Tribute to Lou Reed, it’s out on April 20th, but Keith Richards’ cover of “I’m Waiting for the Man” is out today in celebration of Reed’s birthday, which falls on March 2nd.

In addition to Richards, The Power of the Heart also features contributions from Angel Olsen, The Afghan Whigs, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Rosanne Cash, and Lucinda Williams, among others. See the artwork and full tracklist below.

The Power of the Heart will be available on silver nugget vinyl exclusively for this year’s Record Store Day in addition to CD and digital platforms. All physical formats will include photos of Reed taken by Mick Rock and Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, as well as liner notes penned by the album’s producer, Reed’s close collaborator Bill Bentley.

For the last 37 years, Tibet House US has celebrated the Tibetan New Year (Losar) with an all-star benefit concert at Carnegie Hall. Revered as one of New York City’s longest-running cultural events, this year’s concert took place on Monday night (February 26th) with performances from the likes of Joan Baez, Maggie Rogers, Maya Hawke, Gogol Bordello, and many more.

As part of the enduring mission of Tibet House US to “protect, preserve, and empower the unique Tibetan culture,” the 2024 edition of the Tibet House Benefit Concert opened as per usual with entrancing chants from Tibetan Monks. Tibet House President Bob Thurman (and Hawke’s grandfather) gave opening remarks before one of the evening’s co-artistic directors, Laurie Anderson, took the stage. Accompanied by Martha Mooke, Shazad Ismaily, Tenzin Choegyal, and Gina Gershon on the jaw harp (!!), Anderson performed her Big Science B-side “Walk the Dog.”

Choegyal stayed on...

Joan Baez has kept a relatively low public profile since wrapping up her Fare Thee Well tour in 2019, performing only on special occasions. One of those took place Monday night at the annual Tibet House benefit at New York’s Carnegie Hall, where she topped a bill that included Maggie Rogers, Laurie Anderson, Maya Hawke, the Philip Glass Ensemble, Tenzin Choegyal, and the Scorchio Quartet.

Her mini set kicked off with Steve Earle’s “God Is God,” which she recorded on her 2008 LP Day After Tomorrow. She then brought out...

Jerusalem Film Festival Artistic Director Elad Samorzik has announced his departure from the role later this year after ten editions in the role, to be replaced by Orr Sigoli.

Sigoli and Samorzik will work together on the next edition, scheduled to unfold from July 18 to 28, with the latter continuing to working for the next few months as Outgoing Artistic Director.

“After a decade at the festival, I have decided to leave my position and move on to new challenges. It was an incredible honor to serve as Artistic Director of the Jerusalem Film Festival for so many years and work with a team that became such a meaningful part of my life,” said Samorzik.

“I have known Orr Sigoli for many years; he is a true cinephile and I am certain that the festival will benefit greatly from his deep commitment to the art of film.”

Samorzik took up the...

Ice Cube said he never expected to be onstage accepting a gilded gramophone with his fellow N.W.A members, but that’s what happened Saturday when he, Mc-Ren, DJ Yella and the mother and son of late rapper Eazy-e received a Lifetime Achievement Grammy at the Recording Academy’s Special Merit Awards.

“My man, Dr. Dre, is not here. He wanted to make sure I let you know he’s not hating. He a billionaire. He got shit to do,” Cube said to laughter and applause. He thanked Dre for his “brilliance,...

One of the most exciting categories this year at the Grammys is Best Melodic Rap Performance, where there’s one glaring omission: Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice’s “Barbie World.” The big hit from “Barbie” was relegated to Best Rap Song, showing a lack of enthusiasm from voters (who likely voted for it in the songwriting category due to its high alphabetical placement on the ballot). But the song’s miss ended up making the category way more interesting with a couple of hits now duking it out for the win. With big names in the category such as Drake and Sza, let’s consider who will ultimately be crowned the winner come February 4.

Let’s start with the song that has the least chance of a win: Burna Boy and 21 Savage’s “Sittin’ on Top of the World.” While the track was a big hit for Burna, it...

The biggest Grammy Award of the night is Album of the Year, meant to honor complete pieces of work that defined the music scene and impacted the culture throughout the eligibility period. The award has gone to some of the most influential records of all time, including The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and Adele’s “21.” While some years are more uncertain than others, this year the category seems to be a two-horse race, although a few other players might sneak their way through as well.

The frontrunners here are Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” and Sza’s “Sos.” Both records are massive commercial successes, finishing 2023 as the second and third biggest albums of the year, respectively. Both have also managed to be career peaks for these already uber-popular stars.

In Sza’s case, “Sos” was her sophomore album and served as proof that...

The life and accomplishments of Brian Eno are prodigious enough to fill several films, but until hearing the pitch for “Eno,” the composer, producer, self-professed “non-musician” and visual artist associated with groups including Roxy Music and U2 was resistant to be the focus of even one. “I usually can’t stand docu-bios of artists because they are so hagiographic,” Eno says.

Rather than charting a chronological path through Eno’s career, documentarian Gary Hustwit proposed using generative artificial intelligence to create a film that would literally be different for every audience that screened it. “The use of randomness to pattern the layout of the film seemed likely to override any hagiographic impulses,” Eno says.

Hustwit and Eno had collaborated before; Eno scored the filmmaker’s 2018 documentary “Rams,” about German industrial designer Dieter Rams. By the time he turned his attention to “Eno,” however, Hustwit had grown restless with the traditional...

The Grammys have announced the music legends who will receive Lifetime Achievement Awards on February 3 at the Special Merit Awards Ceremony taking place at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles, California. The 2024 Grammy Awards will follow on February 4.

Laurie Anderson will be honored for her “groundbreaking works that span the worlds of art, theater, experimental music, and technology,” as the Grammy announcement states.

The gospel group The Clark Sisters are “credited for helping to bring gospel music to the mainstream” and “are considered pioneers of contemporary gospel.”

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Gladys Knight has seven competitive Grammys and “has enjoyed number-one hits in pop, gospel, R&b and adult contemporary, and has triumphed in film, television and live performance.”

N.W.A. — the pioneering rap group made up of Eazy-e, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, DJ Yella, and Mc-Ren — “developed a new sound, which brought in many of the loud,...

Hip-hop trailblazers, the Queen of Disco, and a country legend are among the artists set to receive the Recording Academy’s 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award.

N.W.A, Donna Summer, and Tammy Wynette lead this year’s honorary slate, and will be celebrated at the Recording Academy’s Special Merit Awards Ceremony on Feb. 3, the day before the 2024 Grammys. Other honorees include avant-garde great Laurie Anderson, the “Empress of Soul” Gladys Knight, and the celebrated gospel group the Clark Sisters.

In addition to its Lifetime Achievement Award winners, the Recording...

Avant-garde composer-performer Laurie Anderson, R&b icon Gladys Knight, groundbreaking rap group N.W.A, disco queen Donna Summer and country legend Tammy Wynette are among this year’s Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award honorees, the academy announced today.

Also included on the list: gospel vocal group The Clark Sisters and, in the non-performing categories, Peter Asher, the longtime, prolific producer of such artists as Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor; hip hop pioneer DJ Kool Herc; and entertainment attorney Joel Katz. Those three will receive Trustee Awards.

Technical Grammy Award honorees are Tom Kobayashi and Tom Scott, while “Refugee,” written by K’naan, Steve McEwan, and Gerald Eaton (a.k.a. Jarvis Church), is being honored with the Best Song For Social Change Award.

“The Academy is honored to pay tribute to this year’s Special Merit Award recipients — a remarkable group of creators and industry professionals whose impact resonates with generations worldwide,...

Wilco have enlisted Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Nick Lowe and the Straitjackets, and Iris DeMent for the 2024 Solid Sound Festival. The three-day event will take place June 28 through 30 at Mass MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts.

Wilco, as always, will play host and headliners, while a few of its individual members will play additional sets, too. Frontman Jeff Tweedy will helm a “Jeff Tweedy and Friends” performance, while guitarist Nels Cline and drummer Glenn Kotche will perform with Darin Gray and Chris Corsano as the Saccata Quartet.

The Solid Sound 2024 lineup also features Dry Cleaning,...

Wilco have revealed the lineup for their 2024 Solid Sound Festival — happening from June 28th to June 30th at Mass MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts.

The festival will feature performances from Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets, Wednesday, Hailu Mergia, Ratboys, Horsegirl, Dry Cleaning, Water From Your Eyes, and more, along with multiple headlining sets from Wilco and its band members’ solo projects.

“Solid Sound continues to offer some of the most unique non-musical programming at any festival,” a press release states — highlighting acts like a live presentation of Hrishikesh Hirway’s Song Exploder podcast, John Hodgman’s Comedy Cabaret, Substack Pop-Up interviews, and more.

Tickets for the festival are on sale now.

All tickets will also grant festival-goers full-day access to Mass MoCA. The museum will feature temporary exhibitions from Laurie Anderson, Osman Khan, Elle Pérez, Amy Yoes, and Jason Moran during the festival — along with...

Bruce Springsteen on Garland Jeffreys in Claire Jeffreys' Doc NYC Audience Award-winning Garland Jeffreys: The King Of In Between: “He’s in the great singer songwriter tradition of Dylan and Neil Young. One of the American greats!” Photo: courtesy of Claire Jeffreys

Claire Jeffreys brilliant Doc NYC Audience Award-winning (and a highlight of the 14th edition) Garland Jeffreys: The King Of In Between has on-camera interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Laurie Anderson on Lou Reed’s support, Harvey Keitel, Vernon Reid, Alejandro Escovedo, Alan Freedman, Robert Christgau, Graham Parker, Michael Cuscuna, David Hajdu, Roger Guenveur Smith, and Phil Messina sharing their insights on Garland Jeffreys, whom Springsteen calls a great singer songwriter in the tradition of Bob Dylan and Neil Young.

Claire Jeffreys with Ed Bahlman and Anne-Katrin Titze on Garland Jeffreys: “He went out with Bette Midler when she was doing The Continental Baths and he dated Alice Walker of The Color Purple.

Heather Dewey-Hagborg is on a mission to confront the uncomfortable future, especially when it comes to emerging tech. Stranger Visions features portrait sculptures crafted from analyses of genetic material the transdisciplinary artist, educator and filmmaker literally picked up in public places (one person’s discarded cigarette butt is another’s way into a stranger’s DNA). T3511, a collaboration with cinematographer Toshiaki Ozawa (Laurie Anderson’s Heart of a Dog), sees an anonymous saliva sample become fodder for the alchemizing of the perfect romantic partner. Now there’s Hybrid: an Interspecies Opera, perhaps Dewey-Hagborg’s most ambitious work to date. Opening at NYC’s Fridman Gallery on […]

The post “My Film is For the Pigs”: Heather Dewey-Hagborg on Hybrid: an Interspecies Opera first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Heather Dewey-Hagborg is on a mission to confront the uncomfortable future, especially when it comes to emerging tech. Stranger Visions features portrait sculptures crafted from analyses of genetic material the transdisciplinary artist, educator and filmmaker literally picked up in public places (one person’s discarded cigarette butt is another’s way into a stranger’s DNA). T3511, a collaboration with cinematographer Toshiaki Ozawa (Laurie Anderson’s Heart of a Dog), sees an anonymous saliva sample become fodder for the alchemizing of the perfect romantic partner. Now there’s Hybrid: an Interspecies Opera, perhaps Dewey-Hagborg’s most ambitious work to date. Opening at NYC’s Fridman Gallery on […]

The post “My Film is For the Pigs”: Heather Dewey-Hagborg on Hybrid: an Interspecies Opera first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Lou Reed died 10 years ago, in October 2013. But since then, he’s just become a more massive, more famous, more influential figure. His life is one of the strangest music stories ever. Will Hermes tells the whole epic tale in his new biography, Lou Reed: The King of New York. For most people, he’s the black-leather avant-garde rock & roll poet who symbolized NYC with his band the Velvet Underground, in the Warhol Factory scene of the 1960s. “I’m Waiting for the Man,” “Sister Ray,” “Sweet Jane” — these are...

Herbie Hancock, John Paul Jones, and Laurie Anderson are among the artists set to perform at the 2024 Big Ears festival. On Tuesday, the Knoxville, Tennessee-based fest announced its stacked lineup of legends.

The festival is set to be held in downtown Knoxville from March 21 through March 24 with nearly 200 events, including expositions, conversations and film presentations, along with musical performances.

Multi-instrumentalist Fred Frith, band Unwound, Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker, bluegrass picker Molly Tuttle, hip-hop trio Digable Planets, and Samora Pinderhughes are also featured on the lineup, along with the likes of Fatoumata Diawara,...

Nearly 40 years after outré comedian Andy Kaufman’s death from cancer, there remain fans who are certain that a faked demise was Kaufman’s most ambitious and committed hoax.

Until proven otherwise, this is a ridiculous conviction. That said, it’s probably no more or less absurd than believing that Andy Kaufman is a figure who could be explained or even adequately summarized in a conventional documentary. There are some outsized personalities so cloaked in mythology that even the tallest tales about them seem believable, but Kaufman’s personality was so cloaked in subterfuge that any attempt to deconstruct that personality or his behavior is going to come across as a bit within a bit.

This is the problem that Alex Braverman’s new documentary Thank You Very Much runs into. The documentary is filled with fantastic footage from Kaufman’s fearless performances, mostly familiar but still wildly iconoclastic. It...

Philip Glass has compiled 20 of his original etudes in an upcoming book that’s set to arrive October 31st. Written for solo piano, Philip Glass Piano Etudes presents this music in a deluxe boxed set.

The whopping nine-pound clothbound box includes the printed sheet music — titled The Complete Folios 1-20 — as well as Studies in Time: Essays on the Music of Philip Glass, a collection of original essays by Martin Scorsese, Alice Waters, Laurie Anderson, Ira Glass, Ari Shapiro, Pico Iyer, and many more, putting Glass’ impact into perspective.

Glass began composing these etudes in the early 1990s as a method to, in his own words, “address the deficiencies in my own playing.” The twentieth etude was completed in 2012, and they’ve since become a go-to source for both beginner and experienced pianists.

Pre-orders for the beautifully-designed set are ongoing, and you can see photos of it below.

See where...

Here’s a look at this week’s biggest premieres, parties and openings in Los Angeles and New York, including red carpets for Blue Beetle, Strays and Ahsoka.

Oceana’s Rock Under the Stars

Oceana hosted its fifth annual Rock Under the Stars event on Saturday with a special performance from Gladys Knight and featuring celebrity guests Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson, Mary Steenburgen, Sam Waterston, Sally Pressman, Ed Begley Jr. and Tommy Chong.

Keri Selig, Oceana CEO Andrew Sharpless, Mary Steenburgen, Gladys Knight, Ted Danson and Oceana board president Keith Addis Woody Harrelson and Ted Danson

LA Regional Food Bank’s A Million Reasons Celebration

Ted Danson, Jeff Goldblum, Dylan McDermott, Mary Steenburgen and Sam Waterston supported the LA Regional Food Bank at an event on Sunday.

Sam Waterston, Emilie Livingston, Jeff Goldblum, Mary Steenburgen, Ted Danson, Keith Addis, Dylan McDermott and Keri Selig

HamptonsFilm SummerDocs Joan Baez I Am...

This is Day 106 of the WGA strike and Day 33 of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

A backup singer featured in the Oscar-winning 2013 documentary 20 Feet from Stardom had center stage on Tuesday morning at a musical picket line outside NBCUniversal headquarters in Manhattan. On a crowded thoroughfare at Rockefeller Center, Janice Pendarvis led other vocalists and several dozen SAG-AFTRA picketers in call-and-response verses and choruses of the protest anthem, “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ’Round.”

It was the first of three solidarity marches uniting musicians and actors on SAG-AFTRA’s Tuesday pickets schedule, with events also happening in Nashville and Los Angeles. In New York, Pendarvis marched and harmonized with her 20 Feet co-star Lisa Fischer as well as singer and former RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Peppermint. They were joined on the picket line by Juno and The Umbrella Academy star Elliot Page.

Elliot Page, Peppermint, and Janice Pendarvis were...

BrandAudio, the originators, curators, and producers of the Locarno Film Festival podcast series Futurespectives, requested the festival to cease using the Futurespectives name and format for any future podcast episodes due to the festival’s cancellation of its agreement.

After more than two years of close collaboration between the Locarno Film Festival and BrandAudio, the festival abruptly notified BrandAudio less than a month before festival start that they had unilaterally decided to cancel their co-production partnership and agreement with BrandAudio. As a result of the cancellation, the festival no longer held the rights to carry on using the Futurespectives name and format without BrandAudio due to its co-production agreement.

“We found the festival’s unexpected and abrupt cancellation of our valued co-production relationship most peculiar, and it’s certainly not in keeping with what had been an exceptionally positive, friendly, and future driven two-year long collaboration. We also found such...

The Telluride Film Festival turns 50 this year (though it remains to be seen how many of the chief film festivals in North America will go off without a hitch due to the duo actor/writer strikes currently unfolding), but until we know more, you can feast your eyes on this brand-new, eye-poppingly colorful poster promoting the popular Colorado annual event.

The artists chosen to design the poster is Luke Dorman, the principal graphic designer of the Santa Fe-based Meow Wolf, a hugely attended multimedia arts center that now has outposts in Denver, Dallas-Fort Worth and Las Vegas, with one on the way in the Houston area in 2024. As an homage to the festival’s history, Dorman reconfigured a single moment from each of the 49 installments to include in this half-century poster.

“Fifty years is a momentous milestone,” Dorman said, returning to artists duty after drawing up the 2021 poster. “It’s...

Rufus Wainwright won’t hit age 50 until July 22, technically, but he started the festivities a few days early with “Fifty Isn’t the End,” a three-hour show at Long Island’s East End that was a tribute to Wainwright’s career, his family lineage and, inadvertently, some of the other children of famous musicians who happen to be among his pals.

With a lineup that included Jimmy Fallon, comic Tig Notaro, Laurie Anderson and members of Wainwright’s family, including his sister Martha and his father Loudon III, the show...