Iron Maiden rocker Bruce Dickinson has revealed the surprising reason behind his decision to take up fencingCredit: GettyBruce has told how he used the sport to help him fend off sex-hungry groupiesThe rocker spent months training with Team GB and represented a semi-pro club – and was once an outside contender for the OlympicsCredit: Getty – Contributor
Run to the Hills singer Bruce — worth about £100million – was at one point ranked No7 in the UK and an outside contender for the Olympics.
He tried fencing as a teenager and then took it up as a hobby in 1983 to distract himself from the temptations of sex, booze and drugs after finding fame.
He spent months training with Team GB and represented a semi-pro club.
Asked why he picked up the blade, he told Classic Rock mag: “I was busy sh*****g everything that moved and none of it was healthy.
“I remember something that (The Who guitarist) Pete Townshend once said about groupies — ‘The moment you realise you can click your finger and manipulate people into having sex with you, that’s the moment you’re going down the slippery slope’.
“You can’t believe women are throwing themselves at you. You think, ‘Well this is nice’. And it is. It’s f*****g great. But there’s a dark side to this.
“Where do you stop? When does it become a prop, like alcohol or cocaine?
“So that’s when I started doing extracurricular activities like fencing.
“I was thinking, ‘I’ve got to do something to keep my brain clean’.”
Bruce, also a qualified pilot who flies Iron Maiden’s private 747 on tour, still takes part in fencing competitions for his age group.
The band has sold more than 130million albums since forming in London in 1975.
When Xavier “X” Atencio was plucked by Walt Disney in 1965 to be one of his early theme park designers, he was slotted on a number of projects that placed him out of his comfort zone.
Atencio, for instance, never would have envisioned himself a songwriter.
One of Atencio’s first major projects with Walt Disney Imagineering — WED Enterprises (for Walter Elias Disney), as it was known at the time — was Pirates of the Caribbean. In the mid-’60s when Atencio joined the Pirates team, the attraction was well underway, with the likes of fellow animators-turned-theme park designers Marc Davis and Claude Coats crafting many of its exaggerated characters and enveloping environments. Atencio’s job? Make it all make sense by giving it a cohesive story. While Atencio had once dreamed of being a journalist, his work as an animator had led him astray of a writer’s path.
Atencio would not only figure it out but end up as the draftman of one of Disneyland’s most recognizable songs, “Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me).” In the process, he was key in creating the template for the modern theme park dark ride, a term often applied to slow-moving indoor attractions. Such career twists and turns are detailed in a new book about Atencio, who died in 2017. “Xavier ‘X’ Atencio: The Legacy of an Artist, Imagineer, and Disney Legend” (Disney Editions), written by three of his family members, follows Atencio’s unexpected trajectory, starting from his roots in animation (his resume includes “Fantasia,” the Oscar-winning short “Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom” and even stop-motion work in “Mary Poppins”).
For Pirates of the Caribbean, Atencio is said to have received little direction from Disney, only that the park’s patriarch was unhappy with previous stabs at a narration and dialogue, finding them leaning a bit stodgy. So he knew, essentially, what not to do. Atencio, according to the book, immersed himself in films like Disney’s own “Treasure Island” and pop-cultural interpretations of pirates, striving for something that felt borderline caricature rather than ripped from the history books.
Xavier “X” Atencio got his start in animation. Here, he is seen drawing dinosaurs for a sequence in “Fantasia.”
(Reprinted from “Xavier ‘X’ Atencio: The Legacy of An Artist, Imagineer, and Disney Legend” / Disney Enterprises Inc. / Disney Editions)
Indeed, Atencio’s words — some of those quoted in the book, such as “Avast there! Ye come seeking adventure and salty old pirates, aye?” — have become shorthand for how to speak like a pirate. The first scene written for the attraction was the mid-point auction sequence, a section of the ride that was changed in 2017 due to its outdated cultural implications. In the original, a proud redheaded pirate is the lead prisoner in a bridal auction, but today the “wench” has graduated to pirate status of her own and is helping to auction off stolen goods.
At first, Atencio thought he had over-written the scene, noticing that dialogue overlapped with one another. In a now-famous theme park moment, and one retold in the book, Atencio apologized to Disney, who shrugged off Atencio’s insecurity.
“Hey, X, when you go to a cocktail party, you pick up a little conversation here, another conversation there,” Disney told the animator. “Each time people will go through, they’ll find something new.”
This was the green light that Atencio, Davis and Coats needed to continue developing their attraction as one that would be a tableau of scenes rather than a strict plot.
Tying it all together, Atencio thought, should be a song. Not a songwriter himself, of course, Atencio sketched out a few lyrics and a simple melody. As the authors write, he turned to the thesaurus and made lists of traditional “pirating” words. He presented it to Disney and, to Atencio’s surprise, the company founder promptly gave him the sign off.
“Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me),” Atencio would relay, was a challenge as the ride doesn’t have a typical beginning and ending, meaning the tune needed to work with whatever pirate vignette we were sailing by. Ultimately, the song, with music by George Bruns, underlines the ride’s humorous feel, allowing the looting, the pillaging and the chasing of women, another scene that has been altered over the years, to be delivered with a playful bent.
The song “altered the trajectory” of Atencio’s career. While Atencio was not considered a musical person — “No, not at all,” says his daughter Tori Atencio McCullough, one of the book’s co-authors — the biography reveals how music became a signature aspect of his work. The short “Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom,” for instance, is a humorous tale about the discovery of music. And elsewhere in Atencio’s career he worked on the band-focused opening animations for “Mickey Mouse Club.”
“That one has a pretty cool kind of modern instrument medley in the middle,” Kelsey McCullough, Atencio’s granddaughter and another one of the book’s authors, says of “Mickey Mouse Club.” “It was interesting, because when we lined everything up, it was like, ‘Of course he felt like the ride needed a song.’ Everything he had been doing up to that point had a song in it. Once we looked it at from that perspective, it was sort of unsurprising to us. He was doing a lot around music.”
Xavier “X” Atencio contributed concepts to Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, including its famous one-eyed cat.
(Reprinted from “Xavier ‘X’ Atencio: The Legacy of An Artist, Imagineer, and Disney Legend” / Disney Enterprises Inc. / Disney Editions)
Atencio would go on to write lyrics for the Country Bear Jamboree and the Haunted Mansion. While the Haunted Mansion vacillates between spooky and lighthearted imagery, it’s Atencio’s “Grim Grinning Ghosts” that telegraphs the ride’s tone and makes it clear it’s a celebratory attraction, one in which many of those in the afterlife prefer to live it up rather than haunt.
Despite his newfound music career, Atencio never gave up drawing and contributing concepts to Disney theme park attractions. Two of my favorites are captured in the book — his abstract flights through molecular lights for the defunct Adventure Thru Inner Space and his one-eyed black cat for the Haunted Mansion. The latter has become a fabled Mansion character over the years. Atencio’s fiendish feline would have followed guests throughout the ride, a creature said to despise living humans and with predatory, possessive instincts.
In Atencio’s concept art, the cat featured elongated, vampire-like fangs and a piercing red eye. In a nod to Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Black Cat,” it had just one eyeball, which sat in its socket with all the subtlety of a fire alarm. Discarded eventually — a raven essentially fills a similar role — the cat today has been resurrected for the Mansion, most notably in a revised attic scene where the kitty is spotted near a mournful bride.
Xavier “X” Atencio retired from Disney in 1984 after four-plus decades with the company. He drew his own retirement announcement.
(Reprinted from “Xavier ‘X’ Atencio: The Legacy of An Artist, Imagineer, and Disney Legend” / Disney Enterprises Inc. / Disney Editions)
Co-author Bobbie Lucas, a relative of Atencio’s colloquially referred to by the family as his “grandchild-in-law,” was asked what ties all of Atencio’s work together.
“No matter the different style or no matter the era, there’s such a sense of life and humanity,” Lucas says. “There’s a sense of play.”
Play is a fitting way to describe Atencio’s contributions to two of Disneyland’s most beloved attractions, where pirates and ghosts are captured at their most frivolous and jovial.
“I like that,” Lucas adds. “I like someone who will put their heart on their sleeve and show you that in their art.”
Rapper RBX has sued Spotify, alleging that the Swedish audio company has failed to stop the artificial inflation of music streams for artists like Drake and is hurting the revenue other rights holders receive through the platform.
RBX, whose real name is Eric Dwayne Collins, is seeking a class-action status and damages and restitution from Spotify. RBX, along with other rights holders, receive payment based on how often their music is streamed on Spotify, according to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in L.A. on Sunday.
Spotify pays rights holders a percentage of revenue based on the total streams attributed to them compared with total volume of streams for all songs, the lawsuit said.
The Long Beach-based rapper said that rights holders are losing money on Spotify because streams of some artists are being artificially inflated through bots powered by automated software, even though the use of such bots is prohibited on the platform, according to the lawsuit.
For example, the lawsuit notes that over a four-day period in 2024 there were at least 250,000 streams of Drake’s “No Face” song that appeared to originate in Turkey, but “were falsely geomapped through the coordinated use of VPNs to the United Kingdom in attempt to obscure their origins.”
Spotify knew or should have known “with reasonable diligence, that fraudulent activities were occurring on its platform,” states the lawsuit, describing the streamer’s policies to root out fraud as “window dressing.”
Spotify declined to comment on the pending litigation but said it “in no way benefits from the industry-wide challenge of artificial streaming.”
“We heavily invest in always-improving, best-in-class systems to combat it and safeguard artist payouts with strong protections like removing fake streams, withholding royalties, and charging penalties,” Spotify said in a statement.
Last year, a U.S. producer was accused of stealing $10 million from streaming services and Spotify said it was able to limit the theft on its platform to $60,000, touting it as evidence that its systems are working.
The platform is also making efforts to push back against AI-generated music that is made without artists’ permission. In September, Spotify announced it had removed more than 75 million AI-generated “spammy” music tracks from its platform over the last 12 months.
A representative for Drake did not immediately return a request for comment.
RBX is known for his work on Dr. Dre’s 1992 album “The Chronic” and Snoop Dogg’s 1993 album “Doggystyle.” He has multiple solo albums and has collaborated with artists including on Eminem’s “The Marshall Mathers LP” and Kris Kross’ “Da Bomb.” RBX is Snoop Dogg’s cousin.
Artificial intelligence continues to change the way that the entertainment industry operates, affecting everything from film and TV production to music. In the music industry, companies have sued AI startups, accusing the businesses of taking copyrighted music to train AI models.
At the same time, some music artists have embraced AI, using the technology to test bold ideas in music videos and in their songs.
In the working-class city of Commerce, where cars speed past on highways and the Citadel Outlets tower over neighborhoods, there is a steakhouse named Stevens. By day, it’s a classic and charming old restaurant where working people go for quiet, hearty meals.
But every Sunday night, the outside world disappears.
As waiters whisk about in starched button ups, couples lead each other by the hand toward the dance floor in the restaurant’s ballroom, where Stevens’ tradition of Salsa Sundays has been bringing the community together for 73 years.
At 7 p.m. every Sunday, beginner lessons start at Stevens Steakhouse.
(Emil Ravelo / For The Times)
An eight-piece band plays brass, electric guitar, bongos and timbales, filling the room with music as dancers twirl in a dizzying array. One attendee, 29-year-old Amy Hernandez, greets a few familiar faces before she steps onto the dance floor, spinning in confident steps with a wide smile on her face.
Hernandez is part of a revival that’s been getting younger people excited about salsa music — and flocking to Stevens. She grew up watching her father dance salsa, but started diving back into the genre on her own to find comfort during the L.A. wildfires earlier this year. She credits Bad Bunny’s “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” for re-sparking her interest.
“It was very healing for me,” she says of the album, which blends old-school Puerto Rican boricua samples with Latin dance and reggaeton influences for an emotional imagining of Puerto Rican identity.
For decades, Stevens has brought friends, couples, and families together for live music and dance.
(Emil Ravelo/For The Times)
When college friends recommended Stevens as an affordable place to dance, Hernandez mentioned it in passing to her dad. “He laughed and said, ‘I remember that place. I used to dance there too,’” Hernandez says.
The increasingly mainstream artists of Latin fusion genre reggaeton are returning to tradition. Along with the music of Bad Bunny, who’s headlining the upcoming Super Bowl halftime show, you can find classic salsa references in reggaeton star Rauw Alejandro’s latest album “Cosa Nuestra,” and in Colombian pop star Karol G’s multi-genre summer album “Tropicoqueta,” which will be at the center of her headlining Coachella set.
“You can feel the younger energy,” says longtime Stevens salsa instructor Jennifer Aguirre. “It makes me really happy to see a younger generation take on salsa. Because I was worried for a bit. I didn’t know how salsa is going to continue.”
Los Angeles has a unique relationship with salsa, the Afro-Caribbean dance born from Cuban mambo. In cities like Miami and New York, salsa arrived with Cuban and Puerto Rican immigrants. Instead, L.A.’s salsa influence came from Golden Age Hollywood, where Latin dance in movies produced a singular, flashier Angeleno style, characterized by quick turns and theatrical movement, according to salsa historian Juliet McMains.
The 1990s were another high for the genre, when West Coast pioneers like the Vazquez brothers and their first-of-its-kind dance team Salsa Brava sparked a local dance craze. The Vazquezes introduced the “on-1” step and innovated a flashier, dramatic style of salsa in L.A. that brought crowds to competitions and congresses through the 2000s. Legendary late promoter Albert Torres founded the L.A. Salsa Congress in 1999, the first congress on the West Coast, drawing a worldwide audience for Angeleno salsa.
Opened in 1952 by Steven Filipan (and located on Stevens Place), Stevens in Commerce became a local hub for Latin music. “The interesting part was that the area wasn’t Latin at all,” says Jim Filipan, Steven’s grandson and now the third-generation owner of the restaurant. “My grandfather had a foresight that this genre would be the future.”
Jim recalls his childhood growing up in the restaurant. “We would have hundreds of people on Sundays,” he says. “The ballroom, the restaurant, everyone was dancing salsa, and it was incredible. My dad took over in the ‘70s, and I was running it with him in the ‘90s.”
Yet by the 2010s it was apparent that another genre was taking hold of the Latin dance scene: bachata, ushered in by smooth-singing New York stars like Prince Royce and Romeo Santos. Salsa quickly went from being considered hip to rather old-fashioned.
During a Stevens dance lesson, guests learn how to spin on the dance floor.
(Emil Ravelo / For The Times)
Aguirre witnessed the genre lose interest firsthand. “It was like an immediate switch,” Aguirre says. “Salsa just wasn’t as popular anymore, and people would walk over to the other side of the restaurant to take the bachata lessons.”
The pandemic also dealt a large blow to local salsa clubs, as peers in the long-standing dance club industry fell to lower attendance rates and rising rent. And in the last year, two historic venues, the Conga Room and the Mayan, closed permanently.
Stevens almost had the same fate. The financial burdens during the pandemic made Jim consider closing for good. But he couldn’t help but consider the responsibility of his family’s legacy and the special place Stevens holds for local dancers.
“It’s very emotional for me because I have four generations in this restaurant, and now my daughter works here,” he says.
When Stevens reopened, the community came back in droves, ushering in a new era of excitement for salsa.
These days, at the beginning of every class, dance instructor Miguel “Miguelito” Aguirre announces the same rule.
“Forget about what happened today, forget about your week, forget about all the bad stuff. Leave it at the door,” Aguirre says. “It’s going to be better because we’re going to dance salsa.”
Dance instructor, Miguel Aguirre, right, mans the DJ booth alongside DJ Pechanga, another longtime employee of Stevens. Every weekend, the duo brings Latin music to the forefront of the space.
(Emil Ravelo/For The Times)
Aguirre has taught salsa at Stevens for 30 years. In many ways, the steakhouse has shaped his life. It’s where he discovered his love for teaching dance and much more.
“I started coming here in the ‘90s, sneaking in through the back door. I was a teenager, so not old enough to show my ID, but one day, Jim just said, ‘You guys cannot come in through the back anymore. You can come into the front,’” Aguirre says. “And then one day he said, ‘Hey, we are missing the instructors. They’re not coming in. Can you guys teach the class?’ And, I’m still here.”
Jennifer Aguirre, a fellow dance teacher at Stevens, is his wife. She met him one day at Stevens’ annual Halloween party.
“He asked me to join his class because they ‘needed more girls,’” Jennifer says, laughing.
Now Jennifer teaches the beginner’s class, while Miguel is on intermediate. But once 10 p.m. hits, it’s social dancing time. The whole floor comes together and a familiar community converges. If attendees are lucky, they might catch Jennifer and Miguel, a smooth-dancing duo, letting loose, stepping and dipping effortlessly.
On a recent Sunday night, the low-lighted ambience of the restaurant met the purple lights of the dance room, with people sitting all around for a peek at the moves on display. Buttery steaks and potatoes cooking in the kitchen tinged the air as the dance floor came alive with women spinning in dresses and men in shining shoes gliding to the rhythm of the music. Miguel Aguirre manned the DJ stand, asking two singles if they knew each other and encouraging them to dance.
Gregorio Sines was one of the solo dancers on the floor, swaying partners easily under Miguel’s encouragement. Years ago, his friend, who frequented Stevens, dragged Sines out to dance socials, telling him it would be the best way to meet people and open up.
As someone who began with anxiety to dance in front of others, Sines now performs in Stevens’ dance showcases. He says consistently returning to the steakhouse’s historic floor and immersing himself in the supportive community not only changed his dance game, but brought him out of his shell.
“I tell anyone, if you’re scared to dance, you just have to get out there,” Sines says. “There’s a community waiting for you.”
Universal Music Group said Wednesday it has reached licensing agreements with artificial intelligence music startup Udio, settling a lawsuit that had accused Udio of using copyrighted music to train its AI.
Users create music using Udio’s AI, which can compose original songs — including voices and instruments — from text prompts.
Udio has agreed with UMG to launch a new platform next year that is only trained on “authorized and licensed music,” and will let users customize, stream and share music.
“These new agreements with Udio demonstrate our commitment to do what’s right by our artists and songwriters, whether that means embracing new technologies, developing new business models, diversifying revenue streams or beyond,” Lucian Grainge, UMG’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement.
Udio declined to disclose the financial terms of the settlement and licensing agreements. UMG did not immediately return a request for comment on the terms.
Artificial intelligence has brought new opportunities as well as challenges to the entertainment industry, as AI startups have been training their models on information on the internet, which entertainment companies say infringes on their copyrighted work.
In the music industry, music businesses have accused New York City-based Udio and other AI music startups of training on copyrighted music to generate new songs that are based on popular hits without compensation or permission.
UMG, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and other music businesses sued Udio last year. In the lawsuit, Udio was accused of using hits like The Temptations’ “My Girl,” to create a similar melody called “Sunshine Melody.” UMG owns the copyright to “My Girl.”
“A comparison of one section of the Udio-generated file and ‘My Girl’ reflects a number of similarities, including a very similar melody, the same chords, and very similar backing vocals,” according to the lawsuit. “These similarities are further reflected in the side-by-side transcriptions of the musical scores for the Udio file and the original recording.”
Udio said on its website at the time that it stands by its technology and that its AI model learns from examples, similar to how students listen to music and study scores.
“The goal of model training is to develop an understanding of musical ideas — the basic building blocks of musical expression that are owned by no one,” Udio had said in a statement. “We are completely uninterested in reproducing content in our training set.”
On Wednesday, Udio’s CEO and co-founder, Andrew Sanchez, said he was thrilled at the opportunity to work with UMG “to redefine how AI empowers artists and fans.”
The collaboration is the first music licensing agreement that Udio has reached with a major music label.
“This moment brings to life everything we’ve been building toward — uniting AI and the music industry in a way that truly champions artists,” Sanchez said in a statement. “Together, we’re building the technological and business landscape that will fundamentally expand what’s possible in music creation and engagement.”
Udio said that artists can opt in to the new platform and will be compensated, but declined to go into the specifics or the artists involved.
Udio, launched in 2024, was co-founded by former Google DeepMind employees. Udio’s backers include music artist will.i.am, Instagram co-founder and Anthropic’s chief product officer Mike Krieger and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Udio said millions of people have used Udio since it launched in 2024. Users can access the platform through its app or website. The company did not break out specifically how many downloads or website users it has.
Udio has had 128,000 app downloads in Apple’s App Store since its app was released in May, according to estimates from New York-based mobile analytics firm Appfigures.
On Thursday, UMG also announced a partnership with London-based Stability AI to develop music creation tools powered by AI for artists, producers and songwriters.
This singer is none other than Terence Trent D’ArbyCredit: GettyThe artist changed his name to Sananda MaitreyaCredit: Getty
His singles Sign Your Name, If You Let Me Stay, and Wishing Well all stormed up the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.
Sananda created The Sugar Plum Pharaohs as part of his new identity and to separate from his past as Terence.
The band was featured on the 2019 live album Live From The Ruins.
In a new post, Sananda shared a clip of the band performing at their latest gig.
He wrote: “The Sugar Plum Pharaohs & I would love to THANK THE DENIZENS OF LIVERPOOL for last evenings great hospitality.
“It is NEVER NOT A PRIVILEGE to entertain the Liverpudlian Spirit. A Scouser’s embrace is a thing to cherish & hold close to the heart.
“We LOVE YOU, & hope to see you all again sooner rather than later.
“LONG LIVE THE RUTLES!”
PAST SUCCESS
His debut album Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D’Arby went five times platinum, selling 1.5 million copies and earning him a Grammy.
And he had no bigger fan than himself.
In typically humble style he declared the work “the most important album since Sgt Pepper“.
But his follow up album, Neither Fish Nor Flesh, failed to hit the high notes and he fell out with his record company, blaming their “wholesale rejection of it” for its commercial failure.
He became Sananda Maitreya, a moniker which came to him in a series of dreams in 1995, and officially changed his name in 2001.
Claiming his second album had killed his stage persona, he said: “Terence Trent D’Arby was dead… he watched his suffering as he died a noble death.
“After intense pain I meditated for a new spirit, a new will, a new identity.”
Speaking on another occasion about his name change, he said his alter-ego had joined the 27 Club, referring to the tragic artists who died at that age, including Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse.
He said: “It felt like I was going to join the 27 Club, and psychologically I did, because that is exactly the age I was when I was killed.”
His debut album went five times platinum and earned him a Grammy.Credit: News Group Newspapers Ltd
President Trump’s favorite musical is, famously, “Les Misérables,” but few fans have been storming the barricades to get into the Kennedy Center this season.
The Washington Post reports that sales for the current season of music, dance and theater at the Washington, D.C., cultural institution have declined dramatically since the president’s inauguration and his subsequent takeover of the Kennedy Center’s leadership.
The Post cites data showing the Kennedy Center has sold only 57% of its tickets from September to mid October, many of which are believed to be comped giveaways. That contrasts with a 93% ticket sale rate through the same period last year.
The venues surveyed include the Opera House, the Concert Hall and the Eisenhower Theater, with performances by the National Symphony Orchestra, touring Broadway musicals and dance troupes. Out of 143,000 possible seats for the current season, 53,000 have not yet sold. When fans have bought tickets, they’ve spent less than half as much money from September to the first half of October 2025 compared with the same time last year — the lowest total since 2018 other than the height of the 2020 pandemic.
After Trump’s election, he appointed Republican diplomat and former State Department spokesperson Richard Grenell to lead the Kennedy Center, whose board elected Trump as its president. The new leadership fired several longtime staffers, and prominent board members and leaders like Ben Folds left the organization.
““I couldn’t be a pawn in that,” Folds told The Times. “Was I supposed to call my homies like Sara Bareilles and say, ‘Hey, do you want to come play here?’”
Artists that do perform at the Kennedy Center have noted a change in the audience. Yasmin Williams, a singer-songwriter who performed in September after a contentious email exchange with Grennell, said that “During my Kennedy Center show on Thursday night, a group of Tr*mp supporters boo’d me when I mentioned Ric Grenell and seemed to be there to intimidate me,” yet “playing that Malcolm X video in that space and forcing this current administration to reckon with the damage they’ve caused, while also promoting joy and the power of music to the audience … this is why I do what I do.” (Kennedy Center spokesperson Roma Daravi told the Post that “This is an absolutely ridiculous claim.”)
Grennell, for his part, said on X that that “We are doing the big things that people want to see. We are seeing a huge change because people are recognizing that they want to be a part of something that is common-sense programming.” In August, Trump announced his picks for Kennedy Center honors, including actor and filmmaker Sylvester Stallone, glam-rockers KISS, singer Gloria Gaynor, country music star George Strait and English actor and comedian Michael Crawford.
A little over a year ago, Madi Diaz lay in bed in an apartment near Dodger Stadium sweating out a gnarly case of COVID-19.
The Nashville-based singer and songwriter had traveled to Los Angeles to record the follow-up to her album “Weird Faith,” which came out in early 2024 and would go on to earn two Grammy nominations, including one for a beautifully bummed-out duet with her friend Kacey Musgraves. But after three or four days of work in the studio, Diaz became sick just as the Dodgers were battling the Mets in last October’s National League Championship Series.
“I could literally see the stadium lights — there were drones everywhere and people honking and lighting things on fire,” she recalls. “I was just like, Why, L.A. — why?”
Her suffering in a city she once called home was worth it: “Fatal Optimist,” the LP Diaz eventually completed in time to release this month, is one of 2025’s most gripping — a bravely stripped-down set of songs about heartbreak and renewal arranged for little more than Diaz’s confiding voice and her folky acoustic guitar.
In the album’s opener, “Hope Less,” she wonders how far she might be willing to go to accommodate a lover’s neglect; “Good Liar” examines the self-deception necessary to keep putting up with it. Yet Diaz also thinks through the harm she’s doled out, as in “Flirting” (“I can’t change what happened, the moment was just what it was / Nothing to me, something to you”).
And then there’s the gutting “Heavy Metal,” in which she acknowledges that enduring the pain of a breakup has prepared her to deal with the inevitability of the next one.
“This record is me facing myself and going, ‘I have to stay in my body for this entire song,’ ” Diaz, 39, says on a recent afternoon during a return trip to L.A.
What makes the unguardedness of the music even more remarkable is that “Fatal Optimist” comes more than a decade and a half into a twisty-turny career that might’ve left Diaz more leathered than she sounds here.
Beyond making her own albums — “Fatal Optimist” is her sixth since she moved to Nashville in 2008 — she’s written songs for commercials and TV shows and for other artists including Maren Morris and Little Big Town; she’s sung backup for Miranda Lambert and Parker McCollum and even played guitar in Harry Styles’ band on tour in 2023.
Yet in a tender new song like “Feel Something,” about longing to “be someone who doesn’t know your middle name,” Diaz’s singing reveals every bruise.
“Music is a life force for Madi,” says Bethany Cosentino, the Best Coast frontwoman who tapped Diaz as a songwriting partner for her 2023 solo album, “Natural Disaster.” “She has to do it, and it’s so authentic and so real and so raw because it’s not coming from this place of ‘Well, guess I gotta go make another record.’ ”
“If she doesn’t put those emotions somewhere,” Cosentino adds, “I think she’ll implode.”
Which doesn’t mean that putting out a record as vulnerable as “Fatal Optimist” hasn’t felt scary.
“I was gonna say it’s like the emperor’s new clothes,” Diaz says with a laugh over coffee in Griffith Park. “But I know I’m not wearing any clothes.” Dressed in shorts and a denim shirt, her hair tucked beneath a ball cap, she sits at a picnic table outside a café she liked when she lived in L.A. from 2012 to 2017.
“For a second, I was like, Damn, I wish I’d brought my hiking shoes — could’ve gone up to the top,” she says. “I would absolutely have done that as my masochistic 28-year-old self. Hike in the heat of the day? Let’s go.”
Diaz points to a couple of touchstones for her LP’s bare-bones approach, among them Patty Griffin’s “Living With Ghosts” — “a star in Orion’s Belt,” as she puts it — and “obviously Joni Mitchell’s ‘Blue,’ ” she says. “That’s just a duh.”
Like Mitchell, Diaz achieves a clarity of thought in her songs that only intensifies the heartache; also like Mitchell (not to mention Taylor Swift), she can describe a partner’s failings with unsparing precision.
“Some ‘I’m sorry’s’ are so selfish / And you just act like you can’t help it,” she sings in “Why’d You Have to Bring Me Flowers,” one of a handful of what she jokingly calls “folk diss tracks” on “Fatal Optimist.” It goes on: “Bulls— smile, in denial / We’ve been circling the block / We’ve been in a downward spiral.”
“There are definitely a couple songs on this record where I felt apologetic as I was writing it,” she says. “Then when I finished it was just like: It had to be done.” She grins. “They’re tough,” she says of her exes. “They’ll be fine.”
Asked whether any of her songs express her feelings in a way she wasn’t capable of doing with the ex in question, she nods.
“I’d say I could get about halfway there in real life,” she says. “It’s almost like I couldn’t finish the thought within the relationship, and that was the signal that we couldn’t go onward. Or that I couldn’t go onward.”
Has writing about love taught her anything about herself and what she wants?
“I travel a lot — I’m all over the place,” she says. “And I really like to come and go as I please. But it’s funny: In retrospect, I think maybe I was chasing a relationship that was a little more traditional, even though I don’t know if I can actually be that way. So that’s a weird thing to be aware of.”
Madi Diaz in Pasadena.
(Annie Noelker / For The Times)
Diaz grew up home-schooled in a Quaker household in rural Pennsylvania and learned to play piano and guitar when she was young; when she was a teenager, her talent took her to Philadelphia’s Paul Green School of Rock, whose founder was later accused of abuse and sexual misconduct by dozens of former students, including Diaz. (“It was a really toxic place,” she told the New York Times.)
She studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston before dropping out and heading to Nashville, where she started making her name as a singer-songwriter operating at the intersection of country and pop. After a few years of fruitful grinding, she came to L.A. to “see how high the ceiling was,” she says, and quickly fell in with a group of musician friends.
“We used to love going to the Smog Cutter,” she says of the shuttered Silver Lake dive bar, “to have a couple Bud Lights and sing Mariah Carey really poorly.”
Diaz was making money writing songs — Connie Britton sang one of her tunes on the soapy ABC series “Nashville” — but she struggled to achieve the kind of liftoff she was looking for as an artist. “Turned out the ceiling was quite high,” she says now with a laugh.
Along with the professional frustrations came “a nuclear explosion of a breakup” with a fellow songwriter, Teddy Geiger. “They were going through a huge identity shift,” Diaz says of Geiger, who came out as transgender, “and we worked in the same industry, and it just kind of felt like there wasn’t a place for me here.”
Diaz returned to Nashville, which didn’t immediately super-charge her career. “I was bartending at Wilburn Street Tavern and making Jack White nachos,” she recalls. “He would never remember this, but I remember. I was like, This is my life now.”
In fact, her acclaimed 2021 album “History of a Feeling” — with songs inspired by the complicated dynamics of her and Geiger’s split — finally brought the kind of attention she’d been working toward. She signed with the respected indie label Anti- (whose other acts include Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman) and scored the road gig with Styles after he reached out via DM; she also became an in-demand presence in Nashville’s close-knit songwriting scene.
“I don’t know of anybody in town that doesn’t love Madi,” says Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild, who adds that Diaz “has instincts about melodies that are all her own. Sometimes I’m thinking, ‘How’s she gonna fit that into the phrasing?’ But she always does.”
For “Fatal Optimist,” Diaz took an initial pass at recording her songs with a full band before deciding they called for the minimalist setup she landed on with her co-producer, Gabe Wax, at his studio in Burbank.
“We did it with no headphones, no click track, no grid,” she says. “It speeds up and slows down, and it goes in and out of tune as instruments do.” (One unlikely sonic inspiration was a singles collection by the pioneering riot grrrl band Bikini Kill, which she hailed for its “still-kind-of-figuring-it-out energy.”)
Diaz describes herself as a perfectionist but says “Fatal Optimist” was about “trying to find our way through the cracks of imperfection to break the ground and sit on the surface. I feel so proud that we let it live there.”
She’s touring behind the album this fall, playing solo shows — including a Nov. 20 date at the Highland Park Ebell Club — meant to preserve the album’s solitary vibe.
“I don’t know if I’d really thought that through when I made the decision,” she says with a laugh.
As good as she is on her own — and for all the torment she knows another relationship is likely to hold — “I’m a die-hard loyalist,” Diaz says. “I’m still looking for connection more than anything else.”
Marella Cruises, TUI UK’s ocean cruise line, has announced the return of its hugely popular music-themed cruise, setting sail in April 2027. The adults-only sailing promises the ultimate retro music showdown at sea and is on sale now
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The new Marella sailings have been announced(Image: PR HANDOUT)
It’s time to leave the kids behind and relive two iconic decades in music aboard the ‘Electric Sunsets 80s vs 90s’ themed voyage.
Marella Cruises, TUI UK’s ocean cruise line, has announced the return of its hugely popular music-themed cruise, setting sail in April 2027. The adults-only sailing promises the ultimate retro music showdown at sea and is on sale now.
Now in its sixth year, the Electric Sunsets concept celebrates two of the most influential decades in pop culture, bringing guests an immersive experience packed with nostalgia, entertainment, and star-studded performances. The headline acts for the 2027 voyage will be announced early next year, with organisers promising a line-up of top artists from both eras.
While this year’s acts will be different, last year the star-studded lineup featured Irish pop group B*Witched, UK R&B pop group The Honeyz, the iconic DJ SASH! and Ibiza in Symphony – a 10-piece orchestra.
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The three-night sailing aboard Marella Discovery will depart Palma on Wednesday, 28 April 2027, calling at Valencia and Ibiza before returning to Palma on Saturday, 1 May 2027. Guests can expect themed parties, live performances, and 80s vs 90s-inspired events across the ship.
Chris Hackney, CEO of Marella Cruises, said: “We’re thrilled to announce the return of our 2027 themed cruise. The battle of 80s vs 90s music remains one of our most anticipated experiences, appealing to both loyal guests and newcomers. Customer feedback shows these eras bring back real nostalgia — and the chance to see top stars perform onboard makes it even more special.”
For those looking to extend their getaway, a limited number of cruise-and-stay packages will be available, featuring hotels in Majorca such as Alua Soul Mallorca Resort, Astoria Playa Hotel, and Hotel Son Matias Beach.
As with all Marella Cruises sailings, the trip is all-inclusive, covering flights, transfers, tips, and service charges. Prices for Electric Sunsets 80s vs 90s start from £799 per person, available to book from Thursday, 30 October 2025.
If you’re a cruise fanatic, then it’s not just the cruise ship and destinations that will likely peak your interest. The real cruise nerds enjoy ticking off different ports across the world.
Recent research from the travel experts at AllClear Travel Insurance has highlighted the world’s top 10 most beautiful cruise ports, examining factors such as how quickly they capture passengers’ attention with their incredible views.
When Gigi Perez took to the stage at the Austin City Limits Festival earlier this month, it felt like the universe was holding up a mirror, reflecting back all the growth she’d done in the four years since her last performance there.
Back in 2021, the Cuban American singer-songwriter had a newly-minted record deal and a handful of viral SoundCloud singles — the wistful acoustic guitar track “Sometimes (Backwood)” and the devastatingly raw “Celene.” The 2021 edition of ACL was the first festival she ever performed, and though her early afternoon slot at one of the smaller stages attracted a few dozen audience members, Perez had spent so many years dreaming of the opportunity that it didn’t matter. She was happy just to be there.
This month, Perez returned to Austin no longer an emerging artist, but as a rising star. Her mega-viral single, the lovesick folk ballad from 2024, “Sailor Song,” had topped the U.K. singles chart and earned more than 1 billion streams on Spotify. On the back of its success, she spent the first half of this year opening for Hozier in support of her 2025 debut LP, “At the Beach, in Every Life.”
So when she took the stage at ACL in October, this time it was for a coveted golden hour set, with a sea of people stretched out before her — and a chorus of voices singing along to her every word.
“It was magical,” Perez told De Los. “There were people there who were actually at my first set in 2021, standing in the front. It meant a lot to me. I think that there’s a shock that I still experience with people coming to my set at a festival.”
At 25 years old, Perez has lived more life than most. Born in New Jersey and raised in West Palm Beach, Fla., the singer grew up in a devoutly Christian Cuban household, the middle child of three sisters.
As a teenager, the religious values she’d been steeped in were beginning to clash with her own realizations about her sexuality — and music provided a lifeline. The queer artists she listened to, like Hayley Kiyoko and Troye Sivan, tapped into feelings she hadn’t been able to articulate, and inspired her to write music that would allow her to express them in her own words.
At 18, just as she was preparing to head to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, her grandmother and uncle passed away, just weeks apart from each other. These dual losses set off a wave of grief and sparked difficult questions about her faith. She was struggling to regain her footing over the next year when, just months into the pandemic, her family experienced the sudden loss of her older sister Celene.
Perez felt unmoored. Her whole life, Celene had been a north star, a guiding light who inspired her to take up music, and who wanted to be a singer herself. Perez did what she knew how: wove her pain and anger and devastation into music, writing the soul-stirring tribute, “Celene.”
“The other day, I thought of something funny, but no one would’ve laughed but you,” she sings. “And mom and dad are always crying. And I wish I knew what to do.”
(Cat Cardenas / For De Los)
Her first original songs gained traction on TikTok, getting the attention of Interscope Records. From there, her career began to take off. She opened for Coldplay and Noah Cyrus, releasing her first EP, “How to Catch a Falling Knife,” in April 2023. Then, just months into a string of performances scheduled in London that summer, the label released her from her contract.
“I remember just being dumbfounded,” she said. “It was this immediate, very deep sense of fear and failure.”
But the funny thing about grief — that all-consuming force that had dragged her out to sea multiple times over the last several years — was that as suffocating as it could be, it was also surprising and unpredictable. So despite the depth of complicated emotions washing over her, Perez was acutely aware that this news was nothing compared to the loss of her sister. “So many things that happen in my life don’t affect me in that same profound way,” she said. “That was one of the things that made me. I don’t know, it’s hard to find the words even now.”
Growing up, Celene had her sights set on Broadway. She introduced Gigi to several musicals, from a bootleg version of “Legally Blonde,” to her first live theater experience in “Wicked,” to the cast album of Lin–Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights.” They played one song from the soundtrack, “Breathe,” on repeat. It’s sung by the character Nina, the daughter of immigrants in Washington Heights, who returns home in shame after having to drop out of Stanford University.
“That’s how I was feeling at the time,” Perez professed.
In London, she listened to the song on repeat. Then, she started writing. From the beginning, her style has always been instinctual; a freeform jam session where she sits at the piano or with her guitar and just lets her ideas flow out. The title came to her first — “At the Beach, in Every Life” — and the song poured out of her, nearly word for word.
“I remember the first time I played those chords on the piano, I had no idea what was going to happen,” she said. “I just knew something was opening up inside me, but I had no idea how deep the well was going to be, or that I was going to be an artist who gets to travel the world. I just had these desires, these visions, but to really live it is something else.”
After finishing out her commitments in the U.K., she moved back home to Florida. From her childhood bedroom, she began to rebuild. She taught herself music production and kept writing more songs. Without intending to, the puzzle pieces of the last few years of her life began to fall into place, and the grief that had consumed so much of her story finally had an outlet.
“At the Beach, In Every Life” details a breaking down of Perez’s walls. Her sadness and regret washes over tracks like “Sugar Water” and “Crown,” building into fiery passion on “Chemistry” and “Sailor Song,” before cresting into the haunting resolution of the title track that closes it out. It’s a portrait of loss and yearning, made up of vivid recollections from her childhood, her family, and her previous relationships. In short, it’s the album she wishes she could’ve listened to five years ago when her pain seemed insurmountable.
“I had just been operating blind for so long,” she said. “Being able to share my experience of loss in this specific way, it’s something that my 20-year-old self would be in disbelief of. At the time, it was like being without air, the isolation was so suffocating.”
Not long ago, Perez’s sadness could sometimes make her self-conscious. She wanted to share what she was going through, but she also didn’t want to be defined by it. “I didn’t want to be that girl who was always talking about her sister, but there was this very genuine desire to cry out for help, or acknowledge her,” she said. “Everyone is different, but for me, I needed to acknowledge her in order to be well.”
Fans of Gigi Perez at the barricade during her performance at this year’s Austin City Limits Festival in Austin, Texas.
(Cat Cardenas / For De Los)
Now, not even five years later, it feels like she’s finally turned the page and started a new chapter. “I’ve been able to build a life around my grief, and honor the loss of my sister in a way that’s helped me,” she said. “I don’t know exactly what healing should look like, but her death affected me and continues to affect me in these very profound ways. This is the best case scenario for me, because I get to share it with others — that’s one of the things that makes it so difficult to navigate: the feeling that no one understands you.”
“Knowing that we’re not alone has really saved my life,” she said. “I used to be the person thinking, ‘What’s the point of being alive?’ But knowing there are other people with the same question, I know now that we can hold each other’s hands through that. That’s given me a purpose and that helps me continue to move through it.”
In the process of writing the album, Perez found ways to bring both of her sisters along for the ride. There are voice memos from Celene, along with a snippet of her singing on “Survivor’s Guilt.” But there’s also “Sugar Water,” a track she co-wrote with her younger sister, Bella, who joins her onstage to perform the song on tour. “Anyone who has two sisters knows the chaos and intensity that can bring,” she said. “But we loved each other, and we still do. My relationship to what it means to be a woman was shaped by having sisters, and Celene and Bella are the closest reflection that I have of myself.”
Amid this wild, almost unbelievable year, Perez has been grounded by her family’s presence. Her mom is part of her management team, and her dad has joined them on the road.
“There’s something to be said about being in it so much that it’s almost hard to physically feel it on the level you want to,” Perez said. But over the last few weeks, as she’s gotten the opportunity to revisit the places where she first found her footing as a performer, she’s had the opportunity to reflect on just how much she’s grown since then.
For now, she plans on heading back home to Florida once her tour is over to spend time reflecting on everything. “I think that’s when I’ll start to see the confetti fall,” she said. “Life is uncertain, and we never know what it’s going to throw our way, but this was a year that I prayed for. And I think it was a year that a lot of people who love me prayed for too. So for that, I’m very grateful.”
Jack DeJohnette, the prolific and versatile jazz drummer who played with Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Charles Lloyd, Bill Evans, Freddie Hubbard and Miles Davis — including on Davis’ groundbreaking 1970 album “Bitches Brew,” which helped kick off the jazz fusion era — died Sunday. He was 83.
His death was announced in a post on Instagram, which said he died at a hospital in Kingston, N.Y., near his home in Woodstock. DeJohnette’s wife, Lydia, told NPR the cause was congestive heart failure.
As a member of Davis’ band in the late ’60s and early ’70s — a group that also counted Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter, Keith Jarrett and Billy Cobham among its members — DeJohnette pumped out psychedelic rock and funk rhythms that put Davis’ music in conversation with that of artists like James Brown and Sly Stone. In addition to “Bitches Brew,” which was inducted this year into the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry, DeJohnette played on Davis’ “At Fillmore,” “Live-Evil” and “On the Corner” albums, the last of which was panned by critics when it came out but now is regarded as a jazz-funk landmark.
DeJohnette won two Grammy Awards on six nominations; in 2012, he was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment of the Arts.
Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, who played on DeJohnette’s 1992 album “Music for the Fifth World,” called DeJohnette “the GOAT” on social media on Monday and wrote that his “influence & importance to Jazz, and contemporary improvised music can not be overstated.”
DeJohnette was born Aug. 9, 1942, in Chicago. Encouraged by an uncle who worked as a jazz radio DJ, he learned to play piano as a child and went on to play with Sun Ra as he circulated among the forward-looking artists of Chicago’s Assn. for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. He moved to New York in the mid-’60s and joined Charles Lloyd’s quartet before collaborating with Evans and then with Davis.
“We couldn’t wait to play,” he said of his tenure in Davis’ band in a 1990 interview with The Times. “Miles developed our talents by allowing us to progress naturally, having us play his music and accept the responsibility that goes with discipline and freedom. He learned from us, and we learned from him.”
After leaving Davis’ band, DeJohnette continued collaborating with Jarrett, the influential pianist; the two formed a long-running group known as the Standards Trio with the bassist Gary Peacock that focused on material from the Great American Songbook. The drummer also led the bands New Directions and Special Edition and formed groups with Ravi Coltrane and with John Scofield.
In 2016, he released “Return,” a solo-piano album that served as a sequel of sorts to 1985’s “The Jack DeJohnette Piano Album.” According to the New York Times, DeJohnette’s survivors include his wife, who also managed his career, and their two daughters.
All over Los Angeles, Zachary Asdourian hunted for the music of an Iran that could have been.
The co-founder of the L.A. record label Discotchari scoured for dust-caked Persian pop records at Jordan Market in Woodland Hills; scanned the fliers for shows at Cabaret Tehran in Encino, and combed shops in Glendale looking for Farsi-language tapes cut in L.A. studios in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
Most of the songs he and his label partner, Anaïs Gyulbudaghyan, sought were long-forgotten dance tracks, culturally-specific twists to the era’s disco boom. They’re poignant reminders of a time in L.A.’s Westwood “Tehrangeles” neighborhood when, in the years just after the 1979 Iranian revolution, immigrants here made music while their homeland roiled with ascendant theocracy.
Discotchari’s new crate-digger compilation “Tehrangles Vice” collects some of the best of them. Its 12 tracks were made in L.A. and circulated within the Iranian diaspora, then smuggled back into Iran on dubbed tapes and satellite broadcasts. They’re largely lost to time here, but fondly recalled there as bombastic dispatches from a cosmopolitan yet heartbroken immigrant community in L.A.
The music has lessons for artists watching the revanchist conservatism creeping over the United States today.
“These songs were supposed to represent the next step in Iranian music,” Asdourian said. “These artists were geniuses at shaking up what was happening in the ‘80s and ‘90s to produce an Iranian version of it. This music was meant to be heard at a party while dancing and drinking in Tehrangeles, but it also provided solace during the Islamic revolution, the Iraq war and the Iran-Contra affair. For citizens of Iran, this was giving hope as bombs were literally falling.”
The music scene this compilation documents came after a period of more stable relationships between the U.S. and Iran. Thousands of Iranian students immigrated to L.A. in the ‘60s and ‘70s and stayed, some opening restaurants and nightclubs in Westwood, Glendale and the San Fernando Valley where they could hear Iranian music.
“A lot of these clubs in L.A. pre-dated the revolution. Artists like Googoosh were already coming in from Iran to perform. Many musicians who were in U.S. when the revolution happened thought they were having a little sojourn and intended to go back someday,” said Farzaneh Hemmasi, a professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Toronto who wrote the book “Tehrangeles Dreaming: Intimacy and Imagination in Southern California’s Iranian Pop Music” and contributed the liner notes for “Tehrangeles Vice.”
An insert from a cassette tape that Farokh “Elton” Ahi previously worked on.
(Emil Ravelo / For The Times)
“But after the 1979 revolution, musicians in Los Angeles were told by family in Iran not to go back, that they were rounding up artists, that people associated with westernization and immorality will be targeted,” Hemmasi said. “So they stayed and worked.”
One of them was Farokh “Elton” Ahi, who came to L.A. at 17 to study architecture at USC, but left that career to produce for Casablanca Records, the premier disco label of the era. He DJ’ed at Studio 54 in NYC and elite nightclubs in L.A., and produced for the likes of Donna Summer and Elton John at his Hollywood studio, Rusk (Ahi got his nickname from an interviewer who called him “Elton Joon,” a Farsi-language term of endearment).
Even in the decadent disco era, he felt an obligation to champion Iranian music in L.A.
“We wanted kids to enjoy the link between our culture and western culture,” Ahi said. “But we were also trying to bring what was happening in Iran to people’s attention with our music, which was one reason I could never go back there. Kids who had come from Iran loved Prince and Michael Jackson and were becoming super American, so we had to do something to keep them engaged in our music as well.”
During the 1979 hostage crisis, Anglo nightclubs and radio in L.A. were not keen on Persian pop music, to say the least. Ahi led a double life as an Americanized disco producer, while also writing for his immigrant community.
“Those days, because of the hostage crisis, it wasn’t fun and games having Iranian music in the club. People were against Iranians and it wasn’t a happy time,” Ahi said. “But we were making quality music with limited resources. There were not many musicians here who could play Iranian instruments, so I had to learn a bunch of them. I felt a duty to keep our music alive.”
Two ‘80s-era tracks he produced, Susan Roshan’s “Nazanin” and Leila Forouhar’s “Hamsafar,” appear on “Tehrangeles Vice,” which brims with the only-in-L.A. cultural collusion of mournful Persian melodies and lyrics about exile, paired with new wave grit and ‘80s synth-disco pulses. Aldoush’s “Vay Az in Del” has sample-blasted horns right out of the ‘80s TV show that gives the compilation its name. There’s even a strong Latin percussive element on tracks like Shahram Shabpareh and Shohreh Solati’s “Ghesmat,” which showed how Iranian artists dipped into the global crossroads of Los Angeles.
Even if this music didn’t make an impact on the charts here, it found its way back to post-revolution Iran clandestinely, on tapes and music video satellite broadcasts. Club-friendly pop music made in L.A. took on new potency abroad.
“The official culture in Iran in the ‘80s was very sorrowful because of the war, and Shiite Islam was very oriented towards mourning. Ramadan was a sad time with no music,” Hemmasi said. “But in L.A., you’ve got Iranians dancing and singing, which was not happening within the country where people needed to sing and dance even more. This music had a contraband quality that was underground in Iran itself.”
“A lot of Iranian artists wouldn’t like this comparison, but this music was really punk at its core,” Asdourian agreed. “You’d have people standing on street corners in trench coats selling cassettes. People had illegal satellite hookups to hear news and ideology from the diaspora that contradicted what they were being fed. This music was a means to restore values they felt were lost in the revolution.”
Top to bottom, Farokh “Elton” Ahi with record label Discotchari founders Zachary Asdourian and Anais Gyulbudaghyan in Los Angeles.
(Emil Ravelo / For The Times)
As contemporary Angelenos rallying for this era of Iranian music, Asdourian and Gyulbudaghyan of Discotchari will stop at nothing to ship murkily-sourced tapes from Iran, western Asia and the Caucasus for their label. “In January, we went to Armenia and met a guy who knew a guy at a restaurant in Yerevan who had someone drive tapes in from Tabriz in Iran,” Asdourian said. “They sent us GPS coordinates to pick them up, and we ended up in this abandoned former Soviet manufacturing district getting chased by a guard dog. But he had 30 cassettes, all still sealed in their boxes.”
Yet some of the acts on “Tehrangeles Vice” are still active, living and working in California. After a long hiatus, Roshan recently released new music inspired by Iran’s Woman, Life, Freedom Movement, and Ahi is a sound engineer and mixer for film (he worked on “Last of the Mohicans,” which won an Oscar for sound mixing). He recently contributed to a remix of Ed Sheeran’s “Azizam,” which sprinkles Farsi phrasing into upbeat pop and became a global hit. “Ed reached out and asked me to write some melodies that matched Googoosh’s singing to make it more international, we put our minds together and I’m so proud of it,” Ahi said.
As the United States now reckons with its own powerful right-wing religious movement in government, one eager to clamp down on cultural dissent, “Tehrangeles Vice” has lessons for musicians in the wake of a backlash. The compilation is both a specific document of a proud music culture clamping down at home and flowering abroad. But it’s also a reminder that, whether made in exile or played under attack, art is a well of possibility for imagining another life.
“Even if the geographical location isn’t same, for Iranians, L.A. represents this exiled piece of history, an Iran that could have been,” Hemmasi said. “It’s a message in a bottle from another time.”
POP icon Nelly Furtado has announced at she’s no longer going to be performing her music after a huge comeback last year.
It comes after she hit back at a flood of cruel comments about her figure after returning to the spotlight.
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Nelly Furtado is stepping back from performing after a huge comeback last yearCredit: SplashNelly is a pop music iconCredit: Getty
Nelly proudly embraced her natural curves while headlining Manchester Pride earlier this year.
Taking to Instagram, the Grammy winner made an emotional post expressing gratitude for all her career gave her and that she feels it’s now time for her to “step down”.
She celebrated 25 years in the industry, before adding: “I have decided to step away from performance for the foreseeable future and pursue some other creative and personal endeavours that I feel would better suit this next phase of my life.
“I have enjoyed my career immensely, and I still love writing music as I have always seen it as a hobby I was lucky enough to make into a career. I’ll identify as a songwriter forever.”
The star, 46, took over radio stations throughout the 2000s, well-known for her song Promiscuous as well as her feature on James Morrison’s ‘Broken Strings’.
So far this postseason, whenever Dodgers fans heard “Báilalo Rocky” ring through the loudspeakers, that meant two things were coming — pitcher Roki Sasaki was about to throw some vicious splitters in relief, and a Dodgers win was likely just a few outs away.
Sasaki’s walkout music has taken on a life of its own, in part because of the only-in-L.A. culture clash that has a sensational Japanese pitcher embracing a Latin club hit as he dominates the postseason. It’s helped cement Sasaki’s appeal among the Latino Dodgers faithful, and given the song a huge global boost as the Dodgers prepare for the start of World Series today.
Here’s a primer on how Sasaki found his hype track, and how it’s become the breakout hit of L.A. this fall.
So who wrote “Báilalo Rocky?”
The version of the song Sasaki walks out to is by Dj Roderick and Dj Jose Gonzalez and vocalist Ariadne Arana (there’s another popular version by Arana, the Dominican MC Yoan Retro and GMBeats Degranalo).
The song is a super-infectious and chantable dembow-house track, and its Spanish hook — “¡Báilalo, Rocky! / Ta, ta, ta, ta / Suéltale, suéltale” — is an invitation for a guy to dance and cut loose. But here, it’s directed at the young phenom Sasaki to bedevil hitters when he comes out in relief. The way Arana pronounces the hook makes it sound like she’s singing right at the Dodgers’ Roki.
That’s a left-field choice for a 23-year-old pitcher from Japan in his first year in L.A.. How did Sasaki discover it?
Dodgers veteran second baseman Miguel Rojas turned him onto the song during spring training this year, where it became a dugout favorite. (The whole dugout is known to pound on the railing when the track comes on.) Sasaki started using it in April, before a four-month recovery from a right shoulder impingement.
The theme song “was actually MiggyRo’s idea,” Sasaki said to press in Japanese last week. “I’m really happy the fans are enjoying it.”
There’s a delightful incongruity to the modest, laser-focused young Japanese pitcher walking out to a lascivious Latin club banger. But as Sasaki has rebounded from an injury-plagued midseason to become the Dodgers’ lights-out reliever in the postseason, ”It’s been special,” Rojas told press last week. “I feel like it just fits him really well.”
For her part, Arana loves the song’s new life as a hit Dodger theme. “The Dodgers are my team,” she’s said.
Has Sasaki’s blessing boosted the track?
Definitely. The song was already popular in Latin music circles, and it’s become a go-to cover and source material for Latin artists like corridos tumbados singer Tito Doble P and Lomiiel. Even other athletes, like Spanish soccer superstar Lamine Yamal, have gotten in on the track as a meme. It’s racked up tens of millions in Spotify and YouTube plays, where nearly every comment is now Sasaki-related.
In September, Sasaki was pitching for triple-A Oklahoma City and seemed unlikely to win a roster spot back in L.A. anytime soon. Two months later, however, after clutch saves and eye-popping velocity against the Reds, Phillies and Brewers en route to the World Series, he’s having “One of the great all-time appearances out of the ‘pen that I can remember,” as Dodgers manager Dave Roberts called it.
Sasaki’s not the only Dodger with an unexpected Latin walkout track — last year’s World Series hero Freddie Freeman takes the plate to Dayvi and Victor Cardenas’ “Baila Conmigo (ft. Kelly Ruiz).”
But if the Dodgers take home the title thanks to clutch Sasaki saves, Rojas hopes for a full “Báilalo Roki” edit. “I think he deserves a video and the lights go down and all that stuff,” Rojas told MLB.com. “I think that’s the next step for him.”
Every night before going to bed, Ela Minus shuts off her phone.
Oftentimes, the Colombian artist-producer won’t even turn it back on until the following afternoon. One day, in mid-September, when Minus logged on, she received an unexpected flurry of messages from both close friends and people she hadn’t spoken to in years. Each notification was congratulatory, but Minus had no idea what had transpired the night before.
It turns out the Latin Grammy nominations had been announced — and her song “QQQQ,” off her 2025 sophomore album, “Día,” was nominated for Latin electronic music performance.
“I was very confused. Nobody said what was going on in their messages. They were just telling me congratulations,” says Minus, who laughs about the moment over our Zoom call. She dialed in from Mexico City, a few hours before catching a flight to Italy to kick off a new leg of her “Día” tour.
“As soon as I figured out that I was nominated, I turned my phone off again. I needed a second to myself. To be completely honest, it was not even a little bit in my radar. I didn’t even know we submitted anything.”
Since its release last January, “Día” has left lasting impressions on critics and fans alike. In 10 synth-powered tracks, Minus channels her fluctuating emotional state as she navigated a period of reckoning — characterized by a life almost entirely lived in airplanes, hotel rooms and foreign studios — through ominous synthesizer chords and blasts of vigorous dance beats.
Much like her music, her path to Latin Grammy-worthy acclaim has been anything but linear.
“It’s not like I started singing on television, and now I’m at the Latin Grammys. It’s been an interesting path of continuous surprises and unexpected turns,” says Minus. “Not to praise myself, but every time I’ve taken an unexpected turn or been presented with it, something amazing comes out of it.”
“Every time I’m in L.A. for a longer period of time, I feel like I retire into myself more. Staying downtown too, felt very aggressive, yet familiar to me,” says Minus, of how L.A. influenced her latest record.
(Alvaro Ariso)
Minus was born as Gabriela Jimeno Caldas, in Bogotá, Colombia. She got her start in music as a drummer in a local punk band called Ratón Pérez, which she joined at the age of 12. Her percussion skills led to her leaving Colombia to attend the Berklee College of Music, where she double majored in jazz drumming and music synthesis. At school, she was introduced to hardware and software synths, and continued to explore her drumming abilities by experimenting with electronica.
After working as a touring drummer and helping design synth software, Minus’ solo career started to take off with the release of her 2020 debut album, “acts of rebellion.” She created the entire project by herself, from the depths of her at-home studio in Brooklyn. Composed of icy club beats and steadfast synthetics, she describes the album as “sonically concise,” in that she intentionally used limited instrumentation.
When approaching her 2025 follow-up record, she says that she yearned to pick up new instruments, switch up the process and hopefully end up with an entirely different result.
In a sudden turn of events, her rent in New York quadrupled because of COVID-19 inflation rates, and she had to leave the city. She says her life quickly became a “mess.” But her next steps were clear as ever — instead of settling into a new apartment, she took on a nomadic lifestyle, with making new music as her only goal.
“I wanted to start and finish a record in the moment, while all of this is happening, and when I’m feeling this way,” says Minus, who says she was feeling a self-imposed artistic pressure. “I figured I could postpone my personal life out of wanting to make this record.”
Over the course of six months, she hopped from city to city, living out of her suitcase and renting recording studios. She ended up in places like London, Mexico City and Seattle. The repetitious process of packing up and settling into new places allowed her to easily decipher which tracks she wanted to keep pushing and which ones she would leave behind.
Along her journey, she lived in downtown Los Angeles for a short period of time. She says she finds the city to be a bit “alienating” with a “uniquely heavy” energy. To her luck, the city’s ethos aligned with the sonic soundscape she was building out in “Día.”
“Every time I’m in L.A. for a longer period of time, I feel like I retire into myself more. Staying downtown too, felt very aggressive, yet familiar to me,” says Minus, who noted the lack of people walking, the amount of traffic in the streets and the boundless nature of Los Angeles.
The album began at a low point in Minus’ life, where she seems to be going through an identity crisis. Over spacey sirens and an accumulating bass line, on “Broken,” she admits to being “a fool / acting all cool” and being on her knees, without a sense of faith. Throughout the first several tracks, she confronts her inner monologue through candid lyrics, offering herself a reality check.
“Producing beats with really low bass lines feels comfortable to me. It makes me want to open up naturally to get to the point of writing lyrics and singing. When the production is more sparse, like with a guitar, it’s harder to write more vulnerably. It feels kinda cheesy,” says Minus.
“In myself, there’s this constant cohabitation of dark and light and aggressive and sweet sounds,” she continues. So when vulnerable feelings come out, the really hardcore, distorted sounds follow.”
Songs like “Idk” and “Abrir Monte” simulate the experience of being submerged as a muffled, yet pounding bass line takes charge. Other times, as in “Idols,” Minus’ dissected blend of club pop and dark ambient sounds lends a grimy, industrial feel to her mechanical melodies. She captures the commonplace (yet cathartic) experience of losing yourself in a sweaty mass of limbs on a dance floor.
The Latin Grammy-nominated track “QQQQ” marks a turning point in the album. It was a song she wrote in a matter of hours to depict her own mindset change. “I was very aware that [for] the first half of the record, there was a lot of tension. I just needed a moment of release for this [album] to land fully. I needed a moment of uncontrollable sobbing on the dance floor.”
The album ends with her resolving to confront her struggles with self-acceptance, with the frankly written “I Want To Be Better” — which escalates with the feverish punk pulse of “Onwards.”
To her, the album is equal parts apocalyptic and hopeful, reflecting both the chaos of the outside world and her newfound inner peace. Since making the record and performing it frequently, she says she’s internalized the lessons she learned along the way. “When you’re going through something, sometimes the only thing you can trust is time. Your perspective will change, maybe for better or for worse.
“Time heals,” adds Minus. “That’s something I learned for sure.”
Ela Minus will be headlining at the Echoplex in Echo Park on Oct. 29.
“I’m in a huge, massive town I don’t really know,” he says, “and I’m looking for the movie district. And inevitably all the theaters are closed down. They’re all closed down. That’s what the dream is.”
I’m visiting Carpenter at his longtime production house in Hollywood on one of L.A.’s unjustly sunny October afternoons. A vintage “Halloween” pinball machine and a life-size Nosferatu hover near his easy chair. I tell him I don’t think Freud would have too much trouble interpreting that particular dream.
“No, I know,” he says, laughing. “I don’t have too much trouble with that either.”
Nonetheless, it truly haunts him — “and it has haunted me over the years for many dreams in a row,” he continues. “I’m either with family or a group, and I go off to do something and I get completely lost. [Freud] wouldn’t have too much trouble figuring that out either. I mean, none of this is very mysterious.”
Carpenter is a gruff but approachable 77 these days, his career as a film director receding in the rearview. The last feature he made was 2010’s “The Ward.” His unofficial retirement was partly chosen, partly imposed by a capricious industry. The great movie poster artist Drew Struzan died two days before I visited — Carpenter says he never met Struzan but loved his work, especially his striking painting for the director’s icy 1982 creature movie “The Thing” — and I note how that whole enterprise of selling a movie with a piece of handmade art is a lost one.
“The whole movie business that I knew, that I grew up with, is gone,” he replies. “All gone.”
John Carpenter with John Mulaney, appearing as a part of “Everybody’s in L.A.” at the Sunset Gower Studios in May 2024.
(Adam Rose / Netflix)
It hasn’t, thankfully, made him want to escape from L.A. He still lives here with his wife, Sandy King, who runs the graphic novel imprint Storm King Comics, which Carpenter contributes to. He gamely appeared on John Mulaney’s “Everybody’s in L.A.” series on Netflix and, earlier this year, the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. gave him a Career Achievement Award — a belated lovefest for a veteran who was sidelined after “The Thing” flopped, cast out into indie darkness and was never personally nominated for an Oscar.
The thing that does keep Carpenter busy these days (other than watching Warriors basketball and playing videogames) is the thing that might have an even bigger cultural footprint than his movies: his music. With his adult son Cody and godson, Daniel Davies, Carpenter is once again performing live concerts of his film scores and instrumental albums in a run at downtown’s Belasco this weekend and next.
The synthy, hypnotic scores that became his signature in films like “Halloween” and “Escape from New York” not only outnumber his output as a director — he’s scored movies for several other filmmakers and recently made a handshake deal in public to score Bong Joon Ho’s next feature — but their influence and popularity are much more evident in 2025 than the style of his image-making.
From “Stranger Things” to “F1,” Carpenter’s minimalist palette of retro electronica combined with the groove-based, trancelike ethos of his music (which now includes four “Lost Themes” records) is the coin of the realm so many modern artists are chasing.
Very few composers today are trying to sound like John Williams; many of them want to sound like John Carpenter. The Kentucky-raised skeptic with the long white hair doesn’t believe me when I express this.
“Well, see, I must be stupid,” he says, “because I don’t get it.”
“The true evil in the world comes from people,” says Carpenter. “I know that nature’s pretty rough, but not like men.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Carpenter is quick to put himself down. He always says that he scored his own films because he was the only composer he could afford, and that he only used synths because they were cheap and he couldn’t properly write music for an orchestra. When I tell him that Daniel Wyman, the instrumentalist who helped program and execute the “Halloween” score in 1978, praised Carpenter’s innate knowledge of the “circle of fifths” and secondary dominants — bedrocks of Western musical theory that allowed Carpenter’s scores to keep the tension cooking — he huffs.
“I have no idea what he’s talking about,” Carpenter says, halfway between self-deprecation and something more rascally. “It all comes, probably, from the years I spent in our front room with my father and listening to classical music. I’m sure I’m just digging this s— out.”
Whether by osmosis or genetics or possibly black magic, Carpenter clearly absorbed his powers from his father, Dr. Howard Carpenter, a classically trained violinist and composer. Classical music filled the childhood home in Bowling Green and for young John it was all about “Bach, Bach and Bach. He’s my favorite. I just can’t get enough of Johann there.”
It makes sense. Bach’s music has a circular spell quality and the pipe organ, resounding with reverb in gargantuan cathedrals, was the original synthesizer.
“He’s the Rock of Ages of music,” says Carpenter, who particularly loves the fugue nicknamed “St. Anne” and the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. “Everybody would go back to Mozart or Beethoven. They are astonishing — Beethoven is especially astonishing — but they’re not my style. I don’t feel it like I do with Bach. I immediately got him.”
Carpenter was also a film score freak since Day 1. He cites the early electronic music in 1956’s “Forbidden Planet” and claims Bernard Herrmann and Dimitri Tiomkin as his two all-time favorites. Just listen, he says, to the way Tiomkin’s music transitions from the westerny fanfare under the Winchester Pictures logo to the swirling, menacing orchestral storm that accompanies “The Thing From Another World” title card in that 1951 sci-fi picture that Carpenter remixed as “The Thing.”
“The music is so weird, I cannot follow it,” he says. “But I love it.”
Yet Carpenter feels more personally indebted to rock ‘n’ roll: the Beatles, the Stones, the Doors. He wanted to be a rock star ever since he grew his hair long and bought a guitar in high school. He sang and performed R&B and psychedelic rock for sororities on the Western Kentucky campus as well as on a tour of the U.S. Army bases in Germany. He formed the rock trio Coupe de Villes with his buddies at USC and they made an album and played wrap parties.
He also kept soaking up contemporary influences, listening to Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” while location scouting for “Halloween.” Peter Fonda later introduced Carpenter to Zevon and he wanted the director to adapt the song into a film that never happened (starring Fonda as the werewolf, but “this time he gets the girl,” Carpenter recalls). In the ’80s he blasted Metallica with his two boys and he still loves Devo.
It’s incredibly rare for a film director to score their own films, rarer still for one to spend decades on stage as a performing musician. The requisite personalities would seem diametrical.
“My dad was a performing musician, so it was just part of the family,” Carpenter says. However, until 2016, when Carpenter first toured with his music, he was consumed with stage fright. “I had an incident when I was in a play in high school,” he says. “I went up and I forgot my lines. Shame descended upon me and I had a tough time. I was scared all the time.”
The director credits his touring drummer, Scott Seiver, for helping him beat it.
“Your adrenaline carries you to another planet when that thing starts,” he sighs with pleasure. “You hear a wall of screaming people. It’s a big time.”
He pushes back against the idea that directors “hide behind the camera.”
“The pressure, that’s the biggest thing,” Carpenter says. “You put yourself under pressure from the studio, you’re carrying all this money, crew, you want to be on time.”
He remembers seeing some haggard making-of footage of himself in post-production on “Ghost of Mars” in 2001 and thinking: Oh my God, this guy is in trouble. “I had to stop,” he says. “I can’t do this to myself anymore. I can’t take this kind of stress — it’ll kill you, as it has so many other directors. The music came along and it’s from God. It’s a blessing.”
John Carpenter is grateful but he doesn’t believe in God. He believes that, when we die, “we just disperse — our energy disperses, and we return to what we were. We’re all stardust up there and the darkness created us, in a sense. So that’s what we have to make peace with. I point up to the infinite, the space between stars. But things stop when you die. Your heart stops, brain — everything stops. You get cold. Your energy dissipates and it just… ends. The End.”
This is not exactly a peaceful thought for him.
“I mean, I don’t want to die,” he adds. “I’m not looking forward to that. But what can you do? I can’t control it. But that’s what I believe and I’m alone in it. I can’t put that on anybody else. Everybody has their own beliefs, their own gods, their own afterlife.”
He describes himself as a “long-term optimist but a short-term pessimist.”
“I have hope,” he says, “put it that way.” Yet he looks around and sees a lot of evil.
“The true evil in the world comes from people,” says Carpenter, who has long used cinematic allegories to skewer capitalist pigs and bloodthirsty governments. “I know that nature’s pretty rough, but not like men. You see pictures of lions taking down their prey and you see the face of the prey and you say: ‘Oh, man.’ Humans do things like that and enjoy it. Or they do things like that for power or pleasure. Humans are evil but they’re capable of massive good — and they’re capable of the greatest art form we have: music.”
The greatest?
“You don’t have to talk about it. You just sit and listen to it. It’s not my favorite,” he clarifies, alluding to his first love, cinema — “but it’s the one that transcends centuries.”
Music has always been kinder to him than the movie business. That business recently reared its ugly head when A24 tossed his completed score for “Death of a Unicorn.” (At least he owns the rights and will be putting it out sometime soon.) In addition to the high he gets from playing live, he is currently working on a heavy metal concept album complete with dialogue. It’s called “Cathedral” and he’ll be playing some of it at the Belasco.
It’s essentially a movie in music form, based on a dream Carpenter had. Though not one he finds scary. What scares Carpenter, it seems, is not being in control.
That happened to him in the movie world, it’s happening more and more as what he calls the “frailties of age” mount and it happens in that nightmare about getting lost in a big city and not finding any theaters.
“But I can’t do anything about it,” he says. “What can I do? See, the only thing I can do is what I can control: music. And watching basketball.”
If you watched 54 Ultra’s music video for “Upside Down” and came away thinking it was a relic from 1980s music programs like “Solid Gold” or “Night Tracks” — you’d be forgiven for making the assumption.
Aside from the 25-year-old’s vintage wardrobe, hairstyle, and ‘stache that harks to that decade, the song itself — a silky, boppy ballad that channels the energy of groups like the Chi-Lites or solo acts like Johnnie Taylor — sounds and feels ripped from the era in a manner that’s hard to faithfully re-create these days.
That old-school vibe isn’t exactly how 54 Ultra started off when he began putting out solo music three years ago, but it’s what he’s settled into nowadays. The artist, whose real name is JohnAnthony Rodríguez (and yes, his name is supposed to be written together), hails from New Jersey and is of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent.
The name he settled on, 54 Ultra, came by way of uniting Frank Ocean’s 2011 album “Nostalgia, Ultra” and the historic nightclub Studio 54. It was sometime between 2019 and 2020 that he interned at a few different recording studios, songwriting in his spare time with the intention of writing and producing music for others.
“I remember I was trying to find a way to make a living out of music and introduce myself to other artists,” he says over the phone, recalling all the demos he had recorded and presented to artists he’d cross paths with.
“People would be like ‘Who’s singing this? Who demo’ed this?’ And I’d say ‘It was me.’ And then they’d say, ‘You keep it.’ After that [happened] a couple of times I realized that I might as well put it out by myself.”
His first solo singles, like the high-energy “What Do I Know (Call Me Baby)” and “Sierra,” were firmly rooted in the indie rock family tree. It wasn’t until more recently, first with “Where Are You” and later “Heaven Knows,” that Rodríguez began to explore a more retro and soulful approach.
The latter track made an appearance in a 2024 “rhythm and soul” playlist curated by Mistah Cee, an Australian DJ and music selector, who included the song between Bobby Caldwell’s “My Flame” and Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Devotion.” The segues between tracks are seamless, in no small part due to Rodríguez’s immaculate production and fealty to the tempo of the times. His was the only contemporary track on the playlist, but it fooled many who eventually caught on to the rest of his work.
“On YouTube, I remember that was a nice boost, because people would comment, ‘Who came from Mistah Cee?’ Or, ‘Who thought this was an oldie?’ or whatnot,” he says.
To date, it’s not only Mistah Cee’s most viewed playlist by a wide margin (5.6 million and counting) but also 54 Ultra’s most-streamed song on Spotify with 27 million. “That was a very organic wave of things happening, and I’m very grateful for that also because I didn’t expect [it] at all,” says Rodríguez.
Latin soul, of the kind that recalls the doo-wop and boogaloo era of the 1950s and ‘60s, has seen a resurgence in the past few years. Artists like Chicano Batman, Thee Sinseers, Los Yesterdays and the Altons, as well as solo acts like Jason Joshua and Adrian Quesada, have made inroads with listeners and on the radio. Rodríguez is enthusiastic about this opportunity to show different facets of Latin culture and music through this genre.
“I just feel like I’m grateful to be a part of that family, or that idea that people relate all the music together and being a part of that scene is pretty nice,” he says.
Despite his Gen Z status, he notably lacks the “smartphone face” that’s rampant among pop artists and celebrities — and is partial to dressing in an anachronistic way, which he pulls off with gusto. It might be easy to assume his regular getup is a result of wanting to match the music, but Rodriguez insists he was already dressing that way much before he ever considered dabbling in soul. There is a kind of freedom he associates with the wardrobe of that time.
“[The clothes] were never a costume or a gimmick,” he says. “Whether I did music or not, I enjoyed how it fits because that [period] just has the best clothes. I think that was peak menswear. No one cared about any type of gender assignment with clothing; everybody wore what they wanted, and all the measurements were the same … it seemed like everybody had fun back then. They weren’t worried so much about what people thought.”
“[The clothes] were never a costume or a gimmick,” says 54 Ultra of his vintage style.
(Max Tardio)
He shouts out Blood Orange, a.k.a. artist-composer Dev Hynes, as a major inspiration for him. “That’s my favorite guy,” he says. But at the same time, he offers an eclectic list of artists whose music lights fires for his own output; Brazilian musicians like Jorge Ben Jor, Lô Borges and Evinha have made his rotation, along with some moody ‘80s bands like the Smiths, the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees.
“And Prefab Sprout,” he adds excitedly. “That’s my jam. That stuff’s crazy.”
His reputation has grown this past year, putting him in rooms he never expected to be invited to. Earlier this year he found himself producing the song “All I Can Say” for Kali Uchis, off her 2025 album, “Sincerely,” and recently opened for her during a concert stop in San José.
Earlier this month, he kicked off a world tour promoting his latest EP, “First Works,” that will take him from D.C. and Brooklyn to London and Paris. The schedule includes multiple stops in California, including two in Los Angeles: Oct. 26 at the Roxy Theatre and Oct. 28 at the Echoplex.
For Rodríguez, a tour like this is the culmination of everything he’s worked toward in his admittedly still nascent but steadily growing career. He confirms that he’s been chipping away at a debut LP, which will brandish a more “fast and punchy” rock sound that recall his days playing basement shows.
“Anytime anybody asked me what I wanted to do, I would say: ‘I want to perform anywhere I can and for anybody, wherever that may be.’ I’ve always wanted things to resonate, and I’ve always wanted it to make sense.”
Eating dirt is usually not a good thing, but in the new Amazon Prime series “Cometierra,” it’s a superpower.
The supernatural crime thriller, which premieres on Halloween, is based on the 2019 Dolores Reyes novel of the same name. The book follows the story of a young woman who has the ability to communicate through visions with the dead and missing people of Argentina by eating the physical land they trod.
“Cometierra” stars Lilith Curiel with supporting roles from Oscar nominee Yalitza Aparicio and Gerardo Taracena. It follows the same outline of the book but is set in contemporary Mexico to address the themes of state violence, femicide and the missing persons epidemic.
The source material and its new twist were what drew Mexican singer-songwriter Natalia Lafourcade to perform the series’s title song, “La Cometierra.”
“We have this reality in Mexico, there’s violence against many women and there’s the disappeared. It’s a very sad situation that we have, but it’s a fact,” the singer said. “It’s inspiring the way the series develops and how this girl, alongside her neighbors, creates a [positive] tribal strength out of her situation.”
Lafourcade especially liked that the series provides an organic avenue for debate and serves as a call to action to recognize that these are all problems in Mexico, while also showing that there is a deep well of beauty within the country.
“We all have a talent that we can always put forward as a service for our family, our country, just for other people,” she said.
The 41-year-old artist’s recently released single channels the energy of the series and its themes by conjuring a spoken word cadence that culminates in a nursery rhyme chant about the powers of the Cometierra.
“I wanted to make a sound that would be very strong and that would present a reality and that the lyrics wouldn’t be smooth,” Lafourcade said. “But at the same time, it would have hope and light and this feeling of joy for the next generations. So I wanted to have this mix of girls singing in a very naive tone, but also mix in a straight voice telling hard truths.”
The song, while geared toward a Mexican experience, now has a striking relevance in the United States as Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids — largely targeting Latinos — continue to take place across the country and as hundreds of detained people have been unaccounted for.
“I hope that music has this capacity to make us wake up and be conscious of situations,” Lafourcade said. “I have realized there are many themes that you can take through music, but sometimes music can become something that you hear truths that probably are not so pretty.”
Regarding some of the ugly truths of the U.S. at the moment, the “Nunca Es Suficiente” artist said that it’s not right that people should feel shame of where they come from and that communities need to show up for themselves at this point in time.
“Nobody should take our pride for our roots, our culture, our people,” she said. “The young lady [in the show] reaches a point where she’s confused about if she should use her power and give it to her people or not. She feels very afraid and insecure and she’s going through all that. But I love how she becomes a hero of her own power and I think that’s the fate of many of us, the way we can make a twist in the story we’re living every day.”
Kenny Loggins has reacted to Donald Trump using his song ‘Danger Zone’ in the president’s “disgusting” AI-generated video showing himself wearing a crown, flying a “KING TRUMP” fighter jet and bombing a crowd of protesters with feces.
The American singer-songwriter recorded the hit song for the soundtrack of the 1986 Tom Cruise movie Top Gun. He has now called for Trump’s video to be taken down on copyright grounds.
In a statement to Variety, Loggins said: “This is an unauthorized use of my performance of ‘Danger Zone.’ Nobody asked me for my permission, which I would have denied, and I request that my recording on this video is removed immediately.”
He continued: “I can’t imagine why anybody would want their music used or associated with something created with the sole purpose of dividing us. Too many people are trying to tear us apart, and we need to find new ways to come together.”
“We’re all Americans, and we’re all patriotic. There is no ‘us and them’ — that’s not who we are, nor is it what we should be. It’s all of us. We’re in this together, and it is my hope that we can embrace music as a way of celebrating and uniting each and every one of us.”
Well put – especially considering the video has provoked widespread outrage online, with many expressing dismay over the way it shows Trump’s clear disdain for people exercising their right to protest.
Social media users accused Trump of having “the maturity and decorum of a 12-year-old boy”, while others commented: “Can’t believe that’s a president of a country.”
Many posts also pointed out that Trump’s “childish” and “disgusting” AI post revealed a transparent representation of his genuine feelings toward the American people. “It tells you everything you need to know about what he thinks about the people of America who are, in fact, America,” one person commented, while another added: “Him taking a dump on the country is the most honest thing he’s ever posted.”
This is far from the first time that Trump and his administration have used artists’ work without authorisation.
Céline Dion also condemned the use of her song from the Oscar-winning film Titanic, ‘My Heart Will Go On’, which was used at one of Trump’s rallies. Dion’s team questioned the song choice, writing: “And really, THAT song?”
Another band which added their name to the ever-growing list of artists who have sued Trump over the illegal use of their songs in campaign videos was The White Stripes. Last year, the rock band highlighted the “flagrant misappropriation” of their hit song ‘Seven Nation Army’. Jack White captioned a copy of the legal complaint in an Instagram post with: “This machine sues fascists.”
The most recent example to date is Metallica, who forced the US government to withdraw a social media video that used their song ‘Enter Sandman’ without authorisation.
This weekend’s “No Kings” protests saw millions of Americans marching against Trump’s administration, opposing the president’s “authoritarian power grab.”
The 18 October protest, the third mass mobilisation since Trump’s return to the White House, drew nearly 7 million people across all 50 states according to organisers. This figure would make it the largest single-day mobilisation against a US president in modern history.
THE resort town of San Sebastián on the Bay of Biscay is known for its beautiful beaches, and is making plans to keep it that way.
San Sebastián’s city council has announced that it wants to put new rules in place to conserve its famous coast.
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San Sebastián has three very popular beaches and the new rules are to keep them cleanCredit: AlamyDuring the summer, the pretty beaches of San Sebastián can get very busyCredit: Alamy
The first rule is a smoking ban across all its beaches, something that is becoming more common in Spain.
If it goes ahead, San Sebastián will become the second town in the Basque region to fully ban smoking on its beaches after Zarautz.
Beaches in San Sebastián could also have new rules when it comes to pets.
During the summer, dogs will only be allowed to walk on the beaches from 9pm until midnight.
Previously, locals were able to walk their dogs on public beaches between September 1 and May 30 at any time of the day.
Thanks to a growing number of noise complaints, loudspeakers could be joining the ban list too.
The city is inviting its locals to share their thoughts on the new rules from October 20, with the aim of the new rules being fully implemented by June 2026.
San Sebastián has three main beaches, La Concha, Ondarreta, and Zurriola and last year, Which? named San Sebastián Spain‘s ‘best coastal town’.
It was rated on factors like the quality of the beach and seafront, safety, food and drink, accommodation, and value for money.
An overall score was calculated based on satisfaction and the likeliness to recommend each destination, with places ranked out of 100.
La Concha Bay is popular with locals and tourists thanks to its soft sand and mountain viewsCredit: Alamy
San Sebastián claimed first place with an overall score of 88 per cent out of 100. Factors like its beach, attractiveness and food and drink scene were awarded five stars.
The town’s most famous beach is La Concha, a shell-shaped bay very close to the city’s Old Town, while Ondarreta is generally much quieter with calm waters.
Zurriola on the other hand is known for having stronger waves – which makes it a popular spot for watersports.
“As I enjoy views from the open-air bar on San Sebastian’sMonte Urgull hill, I can see the wild Bay of Biscay on one wise, and on the other, a panoramic view of the city and its shell-shaped beach.
“If you want to get out and about, there is so much to keep you entertained in San Sebastian, from surfing on Zurriola beach to enjoying the viewpoints at Monte Urgull and Monte Igueldo.
“A charming funicular railway comes in handy if you don’t fancy hiking up the latter. But the best activity is devouring yet more food in the Old Town, savouring the city’s famous “pintxos” scene.
“Pronounced “pinchos”, and most easily described as the Basque version of tapas, these elaborate, bite-sized treats are around €2.50 a pop and found in every bar.
“And regardless of how full you get, no visit to the Old Town is complete without stopping by La Viña, the restaurant where the now-viral Basque burnt cheesecake originated.”
