Author: Charlie Curnow

Talking Heads released Tentative Decisions in March, a 3-disc collection that charts the rapid evolution of the band’s original trio of David Byrne, Chris Frantz, and Tina Weymouth.

Building on an 11-song collection released last year for Record Store Day Black Friday, the new set adds 15 unreleased demos made for CBS in September 1975. As well as more than a dozen unreleased live recordings from the band’s first two years in New York. 

The earliest recordings in the collection reach back to The Artistics, the band Frantz and Byrne formed while they were students at the Rhode Island School of Design. Recorded in 1974 at Frantz’s apartment on Benefit Street in Providence, the demo represents the earliest known recordings of “Psycho Killer” and “Warning Sign.”

In the liner notes, Frantz says the group’s original aspiration at that time was to become the RISD house band. Entertaining friends with covers of the Kinks, Motown and Al Green. But that all changed when the band started writing their own songs.

One day, Byrne knocked on the door of the painting studio Frantz and Weymouth shared and played them the first verse and chorus of “Psycho Killer,” which Frantz says “sounded promising.” Byrne asked Weymouth, who spoke French, to write lyrics for the bridge while Frantz added some verses, and so the band’s next chapter began.

After relocating from Rhode Island to New York City in early 1975, Talking Heads began recording early demos with their friend J.R. Rost to get an idea of what they sounded like. Those recordings open this collection.

That September, at the request of Mark Spector, they recorded an album’s worth of demos at CBS Studios.

While the session didn’t result in a contract, it did preserve early versions of songs that would form the backbone of the band’s first two albums. Including “Don’t Worry About The Government,” “The Book I Read,” “Thank You For Sending Me An Angel,” and “Stay Hungry.”

A cache of live recordings in the collection from 1976 and 1977 also captures the band at key moments. Including an October 1976 performance at Max’s Kansas City that took place just a few weeks before the group met with Seymour Stein and signed to Sire Records. As well as a January 1977 show at The Jabberwocky Club in Syracuse would be among the last by the original trio before Jerry Harrison joined in March.

At AllMusic, critic Fred Thomas remarks on the set that Byrne, Frantz and Weymouth were onto something even in their band’s earliest incarnations. Approaching music with the same openness to exploration and possibility they had as art school students.

With the raw fidelity of these recordings and performances that are sometimes more muted than their studio counterparts, Thomas says, it’s fascinating to hear how green the Talking Heads were when they were first starting out. And yet how strong their ideas already were.

Or as the graphic designer-esque all-type, long-copy cover art for “Tentative Decisions” says, “this collection traces the band’s progression from raw punk minimalism to a more structured, angular musical approach the reflects broader shifts in post-punk aesthetics of the late 1970s.”

What’s happening with the New York Mets as we burn through the remaining weeks of summer? To begin, they’re now 59-71, 16 games behind the Atlanta Braves in the National League East. They’re also 11 games out of the last NL Wild card spot behind the San Diego Padres.

Zoom in, though, and it looks a little different. Before Wednesday’s game against the Padres, they were 10-4 over their last 14 games and 14-8 over their last 22. Tying those same Padres for the best record in the majors over the shorter span. As of Wednesday, the Mets had also hit 58 home runs over their last 41 games since July 1, the fifth most in the majors during that period.

And as of this writing on August 23, Andy Green, who was named interim manager for the remainder of the 2026 season, has finally achieved a winning record at 24-23.

Overall, there are a lot of new parts. On the player side, the Mets have had eight players make their Major League debut this year: OF Carson Benge, OF A.J. Ewing, LHP Nate Lavender, OF Nick Morabito, RHP Matt Seelinger, LHP Zac Thornton, RHP Jack Weisenburger and LHP Jefry Yan. They had nine players make their Major League debut in 2025.

But there are also signs of components snapping into place. Since May 1, Benge was hitting .290/.353/.444 with a .797 OPS before Wednesday’s game after batting .189/.247/.278 with four extra base hits and six RBI in his first 28 games of the season. His 18 steals were the fifth most by a Mets rookie in franchise history.

And in 30 games following the All-Star break, Francisco Lindor, now in his sixth season for the Mets, was batting .270/.373/.504 as of Wednesday with 18 runs, four doubles, one triple, seven homers, 18 walks, 20 RBI and an .817 OPS.

On Wednesday, Mets owner Steve Cohen said he thought head of baseball operations David Stearns probably took on “too much risk” between last season and this one. Turning over what seemed to be half the team and most of the franchise’s coaching staff.

But he also said that it’s “fun to see some of these younger players come up.” Expressing hope that the current winning streak will carry the team through the end of the year, and give everyone good feelings for next year.

What Mets fans would really like to see, of course, is a turnaround akin to the one the Boston Red Sox have pulled off this season, going from last place in June to holding a Wild Card spot in their league. Not next year, but this one.

But with so few weeks in the season left, would that be a little too amazing?

What to make of the New York Mets in these opening weeks of the back half of the 2026 season? Well, they’re still in fifth place in the NL East, 18.5 games behind the Braves. In terms of the playoff picture, they’re 12 games behind the Arizona Diamondbacks, in front of only the Colorado Rockies in the National League.

Andy Green has been named Interim Manager for the remainder of the season. He joined the Mets organization in 2023 and previously served as Senior Vice President, Baseball Development. He also managed the San Diego Padres from 2016-19, guiding the club to a 274-366 (.428) record.

The 48-year-old Green started as a player, playing parts of four Major League seasons with the Diamondbacks (2004-06) and appearing in four games with the Mets in 2009. The Mets are 9-13 since Green took the helm.

But let’s focus on the bright side. Carson Benge was batting .295 (18-61) with eight runs, three doubles, two homers, eight RBI, seven walks, five steals with a .362 OBP, a .443 SLG and a .805 OPS before Friday’s game against the Dodgers. His .263 batting average was second in the NL among qualified rookies. He’d also collected 98 hits this year, which was fourth among all rookies.

Benge had also recorded 16 steals this season, the second-most by any rookie this year. The record by a Mets rookie is 24 set by Mookie Wilson in 1981.

Over the last four games, Francisco Lindor, was 8-15 (.533) before Friday’s game with two runs, two doubles, one homer, four RBI, three walks and a 1.478 OPS. He owned a .240/.315/.434 slashline against right-handed pitching this year.

In 17 games in July, Lindor was batting .270/.352/.460 with three doubles, three homers and an .812 OPS after returning from injury.

And so with the August 3 trade deadline now even closer, the contrast between the bleak standings and these individual hot streaks draws a clear line in the sand for the Mets front office.

While the Mets seem poised to sell off short-term pieces, the performances of a resurgent Lindor and a record-chasing Benge prove that the cupboard isn’t entirely bare. Offering hints of who is untouchable as the roster undergoes its next transition. And perhaps, who should be.

The New York Mets are fifth in the NL East at 34-41. In terms of the National League wild card picture, they’re 5.5 games behind the Chicago Cubs, with every team other than the San Francisco Giants and the Colorado Rockies in front of them.

One bright spot for them though is relief pitching. As of June 18, their bullpen had posted a 3.34 ERA so far as a group, ranking fourth in the majors and third in the National League. And they’d struck out 324 batters this season, the most in the MLB.

Overall, Mets pitchers had 672 strikeouts this season as of the same date, which was the fourth-most in both the majors and the NL. It was also their fifth-most in franchise history through the team’s first 74 games of a season.

Before the June 18 game, Devin Williams was unscored upon in 15 of his last 17 appearances dating back to April 26, with 24 strikeouts during that span. His 37 strikeouts were tied for 11^th among NL relief pitchers.

Luke Weaver hadn’t allowed a run over his last 17 appearances as of the same date. He’d thrown 19.0 scoreless innings, allowing 10 hits and four walks. And he’d struck out 22 batters in that span.

He was 2-1 with a 2.32 ERA for the season with eight walks and 30 strikeouts in 28 appearances. Recording six appearances of at least four outs, each of them scoreless.

And what about offense? Well, one reason for hope might be Juan Soto. As of June 18, he had reached base safely in 10 straight games, batting .382 with six runs, three doubles, two homers, seven RBI, 10 walks, a .523 OBP and a .647 SLG.

His 259 career home runs were the 11^th-most in Major League history prior to turning 28. Those 259 home runs were also 24^th among active players and 21^st all-time amongst players born in the Dominican Republic.

One might think this stark contrast between team record and individual brilliance puts the Mets management in a fascinating position as the trade deadline approaches on August 3.

With elite assets like a lockdown bullpen and a surging Juan Soto, the front office has to decide whether to push their chips in for a wild-card run. Or leverage these staggering individual stats for a future haul.

Which means the next few weeks could determine whether these bright spots are the catalyst for a summer comeback. Or simply the silver linings of another lost season.

“Mutiny After Midnight” is the new album by Johnny Blue Skies, the alter ego of Sturgill Simpson. It was recorded with the Dark Clouds, Simpson’s new band.

After being briefly leaked by Simpson himself on YouTube on March 1, 2026, it received a CD, vinyl and cassette physical-only release on March 13. Debuting at a surprise number three on the Billboard 200 chart. It was then released to streaming in an expanded edition on Monday, June 8 in honor of Simpson’s 48^th birthday.

The expanded edition includes two new tracks. A cover of William Bell (and Otis Redding’s) “You Don’t Miss Your Water” in the sixth position. And a cover of Procul Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale” in the final, twelfth position.

Back in February, Simpson described his process for recording the album in a letter to fans. Every day he and the band would start from scratch with a basic groove. Simpson then wrote the songs and lyrics in the moment on-the-spot. And everyone established their individual parts servicing the songs and not “the individual ego.”

The songs on the album break down into two categories, according to Simpson. The dark state of the world and the bright state of love. Light lives in darkness just as darkness lives in light, Simpson says. And he’s come to find over time that “it’s far easier to just embrace contradictions rather than attempting to resolve them.”

Hence the name “Johnny Blue Skies & the Dark Clouds.”

Simpson says categorizing the music will be tricky. But the term “American Music” pretty much says it all. The simple goal the band set out to achieve was to create a dance record.

The “mutiny” of the album is a protest against oppression and suppression, Simpson says. And the only tried and true antidote to that “is pure unfiltered, unapologetic, relentless disco-hedonism.”

Simpson says initial musical inspiration came from endless hours on the tour bus watching old clips of the great fusion-funk band Stuff, and revisiting off-the-beaten track concept records like Marvin Gaye’s “In Our Lifetime” (1981). In which an artist’s response to the seeming end of the world, according to Simpson, is “Let’s dance and make love.”

And so from its unconventional release strategy to its spontaneous, groove-heavy recording process, “Mutiny After Midnight” would seem to be a testament to Simpson’s artistic evolution.

By channeling the spirits of past R&B and funk legends, Simpson’s created an album that balances both light and dark, ego and collaboration, and protest and pleasure. Existing comfortably in the tension between these extremes.

He set out to make a dance record, and ended up making something much deeper. A mirror for our own dualities.

A recent article at Bloomberg Businessweek details an ongoing turnaround at bookselling chain Barnes & Noble. An effort the publication dubs a “radical retail experiment.”

Central to this turnaround are efforts by the only remaining US national bookstore chain to occupy a “singular middle ground” between Amazon and indie bookstores.

Currently, more than 70% of books are purchased online, the article notes. And well over half of all books are purchased on Amazon. Meanwhile, only 10% of Barnes & Noble’s overall sales are made through its website.

Online and social media trends, however, have become central to the chain’s retail strategy. Several years ago, for example, people started appearing on TikTok in Barnes & Noble stores across the country armed with shopping baskets and timers. As well as game plans for how they were going to hoard as many books as possible.

Known as the Birthday Book Challenge, this trend grew organically out of a formal partnership between TikTok and Barnes & Noble. And with the force of the algorithm, the dare went viral, with friends and family members often picking up the bill for birthday hauls.

Online communities such as Goodreads, Reddit threads and book-recommendation apps and influencers are also bolstering the retail chain. Right now these all converge on BookTok, the corner of TikTok devoted by all things books.

Within BookTok, readers frequently find new books by way of personalities instead of traditional reviewers, who tend to focus more on the usual suspects of publishing. Genres and formats once met with dismissal, such as romantasy and Jane Austen novels, are finding enthusiastic new audiences. By keeping up with these trends, Barnes & Noble has been able to keep pulling in the terminally online.

The chain is also finding opportunity in so-called “bookstore deserts.” Such as Visala, CA, a rural city of 150,000 that hadn’t had a bookstore since Borders closed in 2011. These locations may open with more generic inventory before they home in on what sells best. Whether that’s books or other merchandise.

In Visalia, for example, books about agriculture are much easier to spot. But the store location also places a much larger emphasis on what might be called “lifestyle pursuits” beyond the literary, including gifts, games, greeting cards and toys. As well as an entire Harry Potter section with Lego and crochet kits, and plush figurines in addition to books. Annual memberships give frequent local visitors discounts, loyalty points and free shipping.

All of which illustrates what Barnes & Noble’s “singular middle ground” might actually entail. Instead of viewing online trends purely as a threat, the chain has leveraged them to turn internet culture into foot traffic. Revitalizing its brick-and-mortar spaces, and customizing inventory to fit the unique pulse of each community it enters.

The question now, perhaps, is how permanently this hybrid approach can truly hold off the convenience of e-commerce.

“Play Monk” is the new album by European jazz group Ahmed.

The quartet has already released six albums dedicated to reimagining the work of American double-bassist and oud player Ahmed Abdul-Malik. With this new release, they now turn to the material of Malik’s bandmate Thelonious Monk in their search for what they call “future music,” according to their Bandcamp page.

Before going on to develop his own groundbreaking approach to jazz, Abdul-Malik worked in Thelonious Monk’s late 1950’s quartets, appearing on seminal Monk recordings. Including “Thelonious In Action” (1958) and “Misterioso” (1958). As well as the more recently unearthed “Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall” (2005).

In the music of both Monk and Abdul-Malik, fragments of time are scattered and re-arranged in the present, the group says. An idea that’s also central to the work of the Ahmed quartet.

All four members of the Ahmed quartet have engaged with Monk’s standards in various individual and collective ways over four decades. But “Play Monk,” recorded in the same three-day London studio sessions as the group’s 2025 album “Sama’a (Audition),” is the first released documentation of the group’s versions of Monk’s music which began with a spontaneous interpretation of “Evidence” in Novara, Italy in 2023.

Across 2 discs, Ahmed atomize Monk’s standards. Transforming each composition into a shifting quantum time artifact. Into the fissures of Monk’s form, the group pours their own play. Colliding and dancing with Duke Ellington, Cecil Taylor, Caribbean diasporic music, European improvisation and Jah Shaka.

The cover art was designed by Maja Larrson. And features a photograph of Thelonius Monk at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco in 1968 by Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter (1913-1988). A British-born jazz patron, photographer and writer who was a leading patron of bebop, and a member of the Rothschild family.

The album’s cover design places the Monk photograph sideways. So both his profile and the masts of the ships in Fisherman’s Wharf point arrow-like, to the right. Onward.  

“GarciaLive Volume 22: September 25^th, 1971,” the latest addition to the Jerry Garcia vault series, was released earlier this month.

Capturing almost every note across the early and late shows at San Anselmo’s intimate Lion’s Share, it’s a rare slice of two-guitar alchemy between Grateful Dead founder Jerry Garcia and keyboardist Merl Saunders. As well as a document of a parallel musical life for Garcia at the time.

Somewhat of a local phenomenon in small Bay Area musical clubs, Garcia and Saunders were joined that evening by rhythmic anchor and bassist John Kahn, and Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann. As well as Tom Fogerty on rhythm guitar, who had recently departed from Creedence Clearwater Revival.

The quintet specialized in power pockets and strong grooves. Which gave Garcia space to elaborate and extend his musical knowledge, free from the expectations that followed him elsewhere. The key ingredient was fun.

This setlist brims with rarities born from the band members’ restless energy for exploration. Including an opening 10-minute Saunders original that dissolves into an ethereal instrumental reading of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” A tender Garcia vocal on Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “One Kind Favor” contrasts with romping blues and the rare Jesse Winchester gem “Biloxi.”

The late show carries the same adventurous spirit, moving from the bluesy shuffle of “Hi-Heeled Sneakers” into an expansive “Summertime.” Fogerty steps forward with ‘50s R&B fire on “Annie Had a Baby” and “W-P-L-J,” the latter once called by Garcia one of his “junior high anthems.”

The set closer, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” unfortunately does not survive in the 1/4″ analog reels originally captured by Betty Cantor-Jackson and Bob Matthews. Aside from some unavoidable tape wear on “Biloxi,” however, what remains is an intimate performance in a small Marin County club, now preserved in full color.

Or, as the press release describes, they “stretched the room wide.” A demonstration, perhaps, of what a change in context can sometimes do to help spark something new.

While the New York Knicks might not win a championship this year, they’re currently meeting the base requirement to make basketball history in a great basketball town, Ian O’Connor wrote in a recent article for the Athletic. And that’s to play championship-level ball.

The Oklahoma City Thunder are still the heavy betting favorites to win it all. If waiting on the other side of the NBA Finals, they’ll be more than a handful, O’Connor said. And fixing to go back-to-back.

But right now, the way the Knicks are playing defense and running what coach Mike Brown calls “an equal opportunity offense,” it’s hard to see them losing in the Eastern Conference Finals to the Detroit Pistons. Assuming Detroit, a team defined by a singular force in Cade Cunningham, gets there.

In Friday night’s Game 3 of the conference semifinals against the Philadelphia 76ers, the Knicks won their sixth straight playoff matchup. This one by a 108-94 margin. Despite the home team scoring the first nine points and taking a 12-point first-quarter lead.

Many Knicks teams over the decades would have punted in this situation, O’Connor says. With a 2-0 series lead, the Knicks could or should have said the hell with Game 3, especially with forward OG Anunoby sidelined by injury. And waited to take control of the Sixers on Sunday.

But these Knicks don’t give away possessions, never mind games, O’Connor says. They fight for everything as if everything depends on it.

Despite the team’s recent success, Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson has actually described them as something of a work in progress. Stating that they “still have a lot of room that we can grow.”

But if the Knicks keep getting better and better, they’ll frighten whoever they see in the next two rounds, OKC included, says O’Connor.

Even with the team sharing the ball like mad, Brown also understands Brunson will be the one who makes the team’s first title in 53 years possible. Saying that if he’s Linus, “Jalen’s my blanket.”

A comparison that perhaps shows some of the underlying tension beneath a team whose current success seems to rely in large part on “equal opportunity,” in a league often defined by “singular forces.”

In an article for Fast Company, staff writer Elizabeth Segran details a recent revitalization at Gap. And what lessons it could hold for fellow retail brand Lululemon as it grapples with a recent decline in stock value.

After several years of declining sales, over the past two years, Gap, the legacy apparel retailer founded in 1969, has had hit marketing campaigns every season, Segran says. Tapping stars like Young Miko, Troye Sivan, and Katseye.

Fashion designer Zac Posen created a high-fashion version of the Gap label, GapStudio. Which produced red-carpet garments that were worn by celebrities like Timothée Chalamet and Anne Hathaway. It has also launched collaborations with Béis, Dôen, and Victoria Beckham, all of them huge hits.

Gap president and CEO Mark Breitbard has made it clear that this has been the result of a lot of hard work, Segran says. And has required deep knowledge of the brand.

When Breitbard took his current role in 2020, he inherited some deep structural challenges. The brand had too many stores, many of them unprofitable. It had too much inventory, which resulted in heavy discounting. The quality of the clothing had declined.

Breitbard, a Gap veteran from 2009 to 2013 and then from 2017 onwards who is steeped in supply chains and merchandizing, therefore worked to improve the quality of materials and fit.

And consumers have responded, says Segran. People rushed to Gap to buy 90s-style jeans after the video starring global girl group Katseye that featured retro denim styles, and weren’t disappointed. When Gap created an activation at the Coachella music and arts festival focused on sweats, people loved how cozy they were.

This is an important lesson for Lululemon, Segran says. The brand has had many blockbusters in its past. Including its proprietary buttery-soft Nulu fabric, which is in its famous Align pants that have generated $1 billion for the company.

Lululemon customers come to the brand for its high quality and reputation for innovation. Once the pillar of product is in place, it’s possible to bring the brand back into the cultural conversation.

Gap’s Breitbard notably didn’t push out its recent creative campaigns five years ago, Segran says. Instead, he waited until he believed the foundations of the business were in order.

Or as Bill Bernbach said, “a great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster. It will get more people to know it’s bad.”