A 23-year-old hacker has been sentenced to 18 months in prison, after stealing unreleased material from Kanye West, Frank Ocean, Post Malone, Ed Sheeran and more. As reported by the Associated Press, Adrian Kwiatkowski – from Ipswich in eastern England – illegally accessed cloud-based accounts owned by a number of artists, and subsequently made electronic copies of their unfinished songs. He then sold the material for cryptocurrency, raking in an estimated USD$147,000 (£131,000). Kwiatkowski was caught after Frank Ocean’s representatives launched a complaint with the New York District Attorney’s office in 2019. They claimed that someone online, who went as...
Johnny Depp and Jeff Beck are suing a professor and folklorist, Bruce Jackson, over his allegations the pair’s song ‘Sad Motherfuckin’ Parade’ plagiarises an old poem titled Hobo Ben. Per Rolling Stone, Jackson accused Depp and Beck of pulling lines from the poem back in August, which he references in his 1974 book about toasts, Get Your Ass In The Water And Swim Like Me. The lyrics to ‘Sad Motherfucking’ Parade’ and ‘Hobo Ben’ overlap a number of times, with the lines “I’m raggedy, I know, but I have no stink / God bless the lady that’ll buy me a drink,” and...
Paramore opened their headline set at When We Were Young Festival by giving ‘All I Wanted’ its live debut – check out footage and the complete setlist below. READ MORE: Paramore’s ‘This Is Why’ is a snarling, defiant middle finger to the haters The emotional track featured on Paramore’s third album, 2009’s ‘Brand New Eyes’ but has never been performed live before. Elsewhere during Paramore’s closing set at When We Were Young, the band played ‘Here We Go Again’ from their 2005 debut ‘All I Know Is Falling’ and ‘Paramore’ track ‘Last Hope’, both for the first time in...
Promoters have announced the first batch of artists set to perform at next year’s South By Southwest (SXSW), with a stonking 191 names featured on the bill. READ MORE: SXSW 2022: the most exciting artists we caught at the returning Austin festival Among them are the likes of Algiers, Flowerkid, Kalush Orchestra and Jaguar Jonze, as well as a slew of acts – 41 altogether – hailing from the UK. Local exports will include Coach Party, Crawlers, Demob Happy, Exit Kid, Folly Group, The Golden Dregs, Jane Weaver, The Lounge Society, The Orielles, Poster Paints and Steam Down. SXSW...
In partnership with Secret Sounds The 1975 have added a second Melbourne date, and upgraded their Adelaide venue, following high demand for the Australian and New Zealand leg of the ‘At Their Very Best’ tour. READ MORE: New song ‘Part Of The Band’ finds The 1975 ripping up their own rule book The run, announced last week, will mark The 1975’s first tour of two countries in three years. They were initially slated to play one show each in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, but have now added a second Melbourne show to their schedule after the first sold...
In the lead-up to Paramore’s second headline set at the inaugural When We Were Young festival, frontwoman Hayley Williams shared a heartfelt letter with her fans and supporters. READ MORE: Paramore’s ‘This Is Why’ is a snarling, defiant middle finger to the haters The hotly anticipated festival – co-headlined by My Chemical Romance and described as “an epic line-up of emo and rock bands from the past two decades” – debuted in Las Vegas yesterday (October 22). The first event was initially set to go down on Friday (October 21), but was cancelled an hour before gates opened due to...
Rapper Lil Durk – real name Durk Banks – has been cleared of the attempted murder charges that were brought against him in Atlanta in 2019. In May of that year, the rapper turned himself in to the Atlanta Police Department, who had issued a warrant for his arrest in connection to a February shooting outside restaurant The Varsity. He and the late rapper King Von (who died in November 2020) appeared in court, where they were charged by a Fulton County judge with conspiracy to attempt murder, aggravated assault, participation in street gang activity, possession of firearm during the...
L.S. Dunes have returned with their third single, a raging assault on political fanatics titled ‘Bombsquad’. READ MORE: My Chemical Romance live in Cornwall: giddy rock’n’roll from returning emo heroes In a press release, frontman Anthony Green (formerly of Circa Survive) said the lyrics for ‘Bombsquad’ stemmed from a poem he’d written in the wake of the United States Capitol attack – when on January 6, 2021, far-right zealots violently stormed the Capitol building in Washington, DC to “protest” Donald Trump’s loss in the previous year’s Presidential election. “In the midst of the pandemic,” Green wrote, “people were trying...
Los Angeles trio MUNA appeared on the latest episode of CBS Saturday Morning, performing three songs from their recent self-titled album. READ MORE: MUNA – ‘MUNA’ album review: a field of sunflowers from poisoned ground The outfit – who are signed to Phoebe Bridgers‘ Saddest Factory Records – picked ‘Solid’, ‘Kind Of Girl’ and the popular ‘Silk Chiffon’ for their set, for which they were flanked by their touring drummer and backup guitarist. Watch the performances below. Advertisement Released in June, MUNA’s self-titled LP was their first under Bridgers’ new label, having left RCA after 2019’s ‘Saves The World’. It...
Sløtface have shared an anthemic new single called ‘Happy’ – check it out below. READ MORE: Sløtface tell us about their two new sci-fi, HAIM and Caroline Polachek inspired singles Described in a statement as “a call to arms in times of trouble”, the latest single is taken from a new EP, which will be released in February 2023. As well as ‘Happy’, the EP will also feature the recently released double A-side ‘Beta / Come Hell Or Whatever‘. Speaking about the new single and EP release, Shea said: “For this upcoming EP the main themes I’ve been exploring...