Aurelia Butler

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    A Strokes Tribute Band Is Part of a Fresh Wave of Latino Fandom

    The members of the Strokes tribute band Juicebox, like the crowds they draw, are predominantly Latino.On a Friday night, at the center of the Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet, a large stage at this open-air California market stood in front of an expanse of picnic tables and food vendors.The swap meet, at the border of Los Angeles and Orange Counties, usually hosts tribute bands that pay homage to Rock & Roll Hall of Fame-enshrined acts like Metallica or Mexican American icons like Jenni Rivera. But that evening in March, Juicebox, Southern California’s leading Strokes tribute band, had gathered an enthusiastic, multigenerational audience ready to celebrate the group that has come to symbolize stylish downtown New York City rock in the early 2000s. There were leather jackets everywhere.Deep into the show, when the group played “50/50,” a forgotten track from the Strokes’ 2013 full-length “Comedown Machine,” a mosh pit started, earning the crowd a warning from the venue. As Juicebox left the stage after performing 47 singles, album cuts and B-sides over three sets, chants began, calling out for one more: “¡Otra! ¡Otra! ¡Otra!”The members of Juicebox, like the crowds they draw, are predominantly Latino, though the band’s founder and drummer, Jason Wise, is a 38-year-old self-described “Jewish dude” from Queens. He moved to Los Angeles in 2010 and fell in with a group of mostly Latino musicians he met through Craigslist who loved early 2000s rock bands as much as he did. Six years ago, Wise started Juicebox, which now features the lead vocalist Edgar Rene Espino, the guitarists George Campos and Renzon Sanchez and the bassist Tony Perez (who recently took over for John Leal). It usually plays twice a month, booking gigs across Southern California.Wise discovered the Strokes when he was in his midteens and they’ve been his favorite band ever since. “They are a big part of who I am as an individual and to be able to be part of spreading the fandom and the love of the Strokes to other people is something that I’m not tired of doing,” he said. “If I wasn’t in this band, I would go to these shows.”Juicebox, from left: George Campos, John Leal, Edgar Rene Espino, Jason Wise and Renzon Sanchez. Wise started the band six years ago.Saul Barrerala for The New York TimesThe Strokes themselves remain a major act in Latin America, which has a long tradition of supporting rock music. When the band performs “Reptilia” for festival crowds, it’s greeted with stadium-size fútbol chants.It’s not surprising that a place like Los Angeles County — where 49.1 percent of respondents (or more than 4.9 million people) in the 2021 census identified as Hispanic/Latino — is home to a large number of Latino Strokes fans.But Jeanette Diaz, a journalist and publicist from Los Angeles, believes that the pull of the Strokes is especially strong among the first-generation American children of immigrants, who can have complicated feelings about their identities and which culture they belong to. The band “could just do what they wanted to do and it was accepted, and a lot of people try to find that,” Diaz said. “It’s this idea of fitting in on your own terms, which a lot of Latin kids craved, maybe subconsciously.”Some members of Juicebox say they feel a closeness with the Strokes that comes partly from representation. (The drummer Fabrizio Moretti was born in Brazil, and the guitarist Albert Hammond Jr.’s mother is from Argentina.) “I see pictures of Fab and I’m like, I play soccer with that guy, he looks like someone I know,” said Sanchez, the Juicebox guitarist whose own background is half Lebanese and half El Salvadoran. “And a guy like Albert, who has big curly hair, that’s my brother. I can see myself in the Strokes.”Fans at a Juicebox show in late May.Saul Barrerala for The New York TimesThe most obvious antecedent to this fandom is the one for the Smiths, the maudlin but melodious Manchester band that broke up in 1987 but continues to enjoy a passionate following among Mexican Americans today. This relationship has been covered in articles, documentaries and books for over 20 years, and it too has inspired tribute bands, including the long-running Sweet & Tender Hooligans, fronted by Jose Maldonado, who is often called “the Mexican Morrissey.”José G. Anguiano, an associate professor of Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies at California State University, Los Angeles, said he has seen similar phenomena in the region’s goth, metal and rockabilly worlds. “As people have moved away or they’ve aged out of certain subcultures or music scenes, it does seem like in Los Angeles, Latinos have moved in to take the reins,” he said. “What’s really cool is they’re taking the reins, not just in terms of being fans, but also fronting these tribute bands and producing their own music. They’re fully participating in every sense in these subcultures.”In 2022, the rising El Monte, Calif., band the Red Pears covered the Strokes’ “Automatic Stop” for Unquiet Live’s YouTube channel. In the video, their guitarist and vocalist, Henry Vargas, introduced the song as being by “Los Estrokes.” The Red Pears never thought it was strange that they knew so many Latino people who were into the Strokes because they all came to the group through Latino friends. But it was each band member’s individual love of the Strokes that helped bring them together and shape their sound.“In our city there was a lot of punk, ska and metal bands,” Vargas said in an interview. “We were the only ones that were branching out, trying out different stuff.”Before joining Juicebox in 2022, Espino, the band’s lead singer, was in a different Strokes tribute band for six years, but he’s never seen the real deal play live. He said he’s always been a bigger fan of the Arctic Monkeys, whose frontman, Alex Turner, famously started an album with the lyrics, “I just wanted to be one of the Strokes.”“I’m living his life right now,” Espino quipped.Sanchez, 26, is the Juicebox member most interested in re-creation. In a skinny tie or a polo shirt, he plays a white Fender Stratocaster at nearly chest-level, just like Hammond Jr. His mind was blown open by the Strokes when he was 14, after two brothers he used to be in a band with introduced him to the song “The Modern Age.”But an even younger cohort has recently embraced the Strokes through the Rick Rubin-produced album “The New Abnormal,” from 2020, which spawned a TikTok hit in “The Adults Are Talking.”“I didn’t know how they’re doing it, where they sound like they’re not trying, but they’re really trying,” Miguel Ponce, a D.J. and promoter, said of the Strokes.Saul Barrerala for The New York TimesOn a Friday night in late May, a crowd packed Knucklehead, a dive-y bar on an unglamorous block in Hollywood. Juicebox was on the bill alongside an Arctic Monkeys tribute band called Polar Primates for Room on Fire, a club night dedicated to early 2000s indie and alternative music. The Strokes’ time playing tiny New York City venues like the Mercury Lounge looms large in their history, but in reality, it lasted for barely a blip. Juicebox shows like this one let fans who were born too late or on the opposite coast reimagine themselves in that moment.During a phone interview a few days earlier, Room on Fire’s D.J. and promoter, Miguel Ponce, 29, explained that he learned about the Strokes from a friend on his high school baseball team, but it took a little time before he truly got it. “I heard the song ‘Ize of the World’ and I don’t know what it was, but all of a sudden it hit like a spark, dude,” he said. “I didn’t know how they’re doing it, where they sound like they’re not trying, but they’re really trying.”Ponce started Room on Fire in March 2022, but the early installments didn’t draw much of a crowd. After he had Juicebox play for the first time this past January, the party began to take off. “I started seeing the true potential of what I can do,” he said.Before the pandemic, Ponce used to book shows with local acts in Downtown Los Angeles. He already knew how much of an influence the Strokes had. “Most of the indie bands, they would dress like Julian Casablancas,” he said. “There’s no shame in that.” More

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    David LaFlamme, Whose ‘White Bird’ Captured a 1960s Dream, Dies at 82

    As a founder of the San Francisco band It’s a Beautiful Day, he was at the center, if not in the forefront, of the Haight-Ashbury acid-rock explosion.David LaFlamme, who infused the psychedelic rock of the 1960s with the plaintive sounds of an electric violin as a founder of It’s a Beautiful Day, the ethereal San Francisco band whose breakout hit, “White Bird,” encapsulated the hippie-era longing for freedom, died on Aug. 6 in Santa Rosa, Calif. He was 82.His daughter Kira LaFlamme said the cause of his death, at a health care facility, was complications of Parkinson’s disease.Mr. LaFlamme had seemed an unlikely fit for the role of flower-power troubadour. He was a classically trained violinist who had performed with the Utah Symphony Orchestra. He was an Army veteran. “When I was a young man, I carried my M-1 very proudly and was ready to do my duty to defend my country,” he said in a 2007 video interview.But the times were the times, and in 1967, the year of the Summer of Love, he and his wife, Linda, a keyboardist, formed It’s a Beautiful Day. The band bubbled up from the acid-rock cauldron of the Haight-Ashbury district, which also produced the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and other groups.The band never found the commercial success of its hallowed San Francisco contemporaries. Its debut album, called simply “It’s a Beautiful Day” and released in 1969, climbed to No. 47 on the Billboard chart. “White Bird,” sung by Mr. LaFlamme and Pattie Santos, did not manage to crack the Hot 100 singles chart, perhaps in part because of its running time: more than six minutes, twice the length of most AM radio hits.Even so, the song became an FM radio staple, and an artifact of its cultural moment.The LaFlammes wrote the song in 1967, when they were living in the attic of a Victorian house during a brief relocation to Seattle. The lyrics took shape on a drizzly winter day as they peered out a window at leaves blowing on the street below.White birdIn a golden cageOn a winter’s dayIn the rain“We were like caged birds in that attic,” Mr. LaFlamme recalled. “We had no money, no transportation, the weather was miserable.”He later said the song, with its references to darkened skies and rage, was about the struggle between freedom and conformity. In an email, Linda LaFlamme said that she considered it a song of hope, and that the only rage they had felt was about the Seattle weather.Still, the song, with its pleading chorus, “White bird must fly, or she will die,” seemed to echo the mounting disillusionment of 1969, as marmalade skies turned into storm clouds with the realities of drug addiction and social turmoil, as epitomized by the bloodshed at the Altamont rock festival that year.“It was a very solemn period of music on that first album,” Mr. LaFlamme said in a 2003 interview published on the music website Exposé.“If I would have kept going that way,” he added, “I would have ended up like Jim Morrison, getting more and more into that personal torture trip.”It’s a Beautiful Day’s debut album, released in 1969, reached No. 47 on the Billboard chart. But the band never found a fraction of the commercial success of some of its fellow San Francisco bands.Columbia recordsDavid Gordon LaFlamme was born on May 4, 1941, in New Britain, Conn., the first of six children of Adelard and Norma (Winther) LaFlamme. He spent his early years in Los Angeles, where his father was a Hollywood stunt double, before settling in Salt Lake City, where his father became a copper miner.David was about 5 when he got his first violin, a hand-me-down from an aunt.“I began fooling around with it on my own and taught myself to play ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,’” he said in a 1998 interview. Formal training followed.After joining the Army — he was stationed at Fort Ord, near Monterey, Calif. — he suffered hearing damage from the firing of deafening ordnance. He ended up in a military hospital in San Francisco, then put down roots in the city after his discharge in 1962.He found lodging in the same house as his future wife, Linda Rudman. “By the second day that I was there, she and I had already written a song together,” he said.In 1967, Mr. LaFlamme formed a band called Electric Chamber Orkustra, also known as the Orkustra, with Bobby Beausoleil, a young musician who played bouzouki and would later be convicted of murder as a follower of Charles Manson. A run with Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks followed before the LaFlammes formed It’s a Beautiful Day.The band got its break in October 1968, when the promoter Bill Graham had it open for Cream in Oakland. It’s a Beautiful Day signed with Columbia Records soon after.The band’s second album, “Marrying Maiden,” rose to No. 28 on the album charts. But by then the LaFlammes had split up and his wife had left the band. (They divorced in 1969.)It’s a Beautiful Day carried on with varying lineups and released three more albums, including “At Carnegie Hall” in 1972, before disbanding a year later.In addition to his daughter Kira, from his first marriage, Mr. LaFlamme is survived by his third wife, Linda (Baker) LaFlamme, whom he married in 1982; his sisters, Gloria LaFlamme, Michelle Haag and Diane Petersen; his brothers, Lon and Dorian; another daughter, Alisha LaFlamme, from his marriage to Sharon Wilson, which ended in divorce in 1973; and six grandchildren.Mr. LaFlamme released several albums over the years, including a solo album in the mid-1970s called “White Bird,” which included a disco-ready version of the original single. It actually outperformed the original, peaking at No. 89 on the Billboard Hot 100.But, he said in 1998, “It was a very difficult period musically, because during that period disco music ruled the earth.”“It was really the day the music died,” he said. More

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    At This Movie, Their Phones Won’t Bother You. Their Barking Might.

    A cinema chain in Britain is welcoming dogs to select screenings. They don’t need their own tickets, and they don’t need to turn off their cellphones.Kab, a 2-year-old Doberman wearing a blue bandanna, is noticeably anxious.Sometimes called “cupcake,” he is roughly the size and weight of a teenage boy and has the energy to match. At the moment, he is being led around the courtyard of a cinema in East London by one of his owners, Luisa Fulcher, to walk off his jitters and allow for one last bathroom break before he and a handful of other dogs settle in for something unusual: their first moviegoing experience.Last weekend, Curzon Cinemas, a chain with 16 locations in Britain, began allowing dogs to attend select movie screenings with their owners, starting with “Strays,” an expletive-laden, live-action comedy that follows a group of dogs (voiced by actors including Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx) that unite to seek revenge on an owner.Luisa Fulcher, center, and her dog Kab were among the attendees at Saturday’s screening. “Nowadays pets are part of the family,” she said.Mary Turner for The New York TimesLondon is a paradise for pooches, which are regularly found at the feet of their owners at restaurants, pubs, on trains and in many other public places. Movie theaters may be next to welcome dogs, thanks in part to the pandemic.In Britain, which has a population of about 67 million people, there are an estimated 11 million pet dogs, according to a report this year by the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, a veterinary charity. Pet ownership surged during the pandemic, and now that workers are being encouraged to return to the office, some pets and their owners are struggling with the transition.“A lot of people got dogs during the pandemic, and they want to come and see a film with their dog,” said Jake Garriock, the head of publicity at Curzon. He said the new screenings were part of a larger program designed to let customers watch films in ways that best suit them, such as screenings for infants that feature reduced volume and increased lighting.For now, Curzon is allowing dogs of any breed at only one screening a week, at only one of the chain’s London locations, said Mr. Garriock. (And no, separate tickets are not required for dogs.) They’re not allowed on the seats, and their owners must clean up any accidents.Curzon is not alone in welcoming dogs. Picturehouse Cinemas, another British chain, has offered pup-friendly screenings since 2015, and there are numerous independent movie theaters in Britain that do so. (Most cinemas, however, allow only service dogs.)Back outside the theater, Ms. Fulcher said she had brought a bone for Kab, who was now whimpering for attention and playfully jumping on this reporter.Rebecca Minty and her dog, Lottie, also attended the screening.Mary Turner for The New York Times“I think that it’s a great idea because nowadays pets are part of the family,” she said of the theater’s new screenings. “They are not just pets anymore. It’s like your little baby.”For other dog owners, the screenings provide a new freedom. Ziad Dajani said he and his partner had not been to the movies together in four years because of Tarçin, their 8-year-old Australian Labradoodle, who suffers from separation anxiety. “We’re his hostages, basically,” Mr. Dajani said. “So we can’t leave him alone for a minute. Someone has to be with him all the time.”Standing in line to purchase snacks for the screening were a few other dog owners, including Rebecca Minty and her daughter. With them was Lottie, who was lying on the floor and not particularly bothered by anything or anyone. Ms. Minty said Lottie, a 7-year-old working cocker spaniel who does not work, was taken on a long run before coming to the theater in an effort to keep her calm.Inside, the screening was like any other, except for the rustling of collars and the occasional bark. The movie’s sound level was also dialed back.“It’s vital that cinemas reduce the sound at dog-friendly screenings, otherwise the volume could cause them distress and even pain,” Dr. Katherine Polak, a veterinarian and a vice president at Humane Society International, said in a statement. “In principle, it’s similar to cinemas that offer baby-friendly screenings that also reduce sound and accept that some level of disruption is likely.”Paget Fulcher, Kab’s other owner, said after the screening that Kab had behaved well despite the challenges. “Most of the time, he was laying down on the ground, playing with a toy that we brought for him,” he said. “It was all good. Nothing bad happened. I think we’re very happy with how it went.”A dog’s behavior at home offers clues as to how the animal might handle a movie screening, according to Graeme Hall, a British dog trainer known as “The Dogfather” who hosts the Netflix show “Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly.”“Some dogs seem to like watching the television, and some dogs don’t notice,” said Mr. Hall, who advised monitoring a dog for signs of stress, including making sounds, yawning, licking their lips and pinning back their ears.Mr. Spandley and his dog Jeff leaving the cinema (for which Jeff did not need a ticket).Mary Turner for The New York TimesHe also said dogs take their cues from their owners. “We know for a fact that dogs are constantly looking at our facial expressions and body language, the little sounds we make, even our breathing patterns,” he said. “If you’re having a good time, there’s a very good chance that your dog will pick up on that.”Mr. Garriock acknowledged that not everyone might enjoy going to a movie with dogs in the audience.“Obviously, there’s plenty of screenings where they won’t be interrupted by dogs,” he said. “If you like cats, then you can head to one of the other screenings.” More

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    What Hollywood Gets Right and Wrong About B’nai Mitzvah

    The Jewish ceremony can be the setting for a sharp look at growing up. But it has too often been used for glosses that ignore the rite’s deeper meaning.In the Jewish faith you become an adult at the most awkward possible moment: when you turn 13. Sure, in the eyes of God and your Hebrew school, you are mature enough to read from the Torah and embrace the responsibilities of grown-up life. But in reality you’re probably a scared kid for whom true maturity is far off, despite all those uncomfortable hormones.That was the case when I was bat mitzvahed in 2013 — mortifyingly (but also with a hint of pride) getting my first period shortly before the event — and that’s the case in the new Netflix film “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” based on the 2005 young adult novel by Fiona Rosenbloom.The movie, directed by Sammi Cohen, is the story of Stacy Friedman, played by Sunny Sandler. (Sunny is the daughter of Adam Sandler, who plays her dad in the film. Her real life-sister, Sadie, has been cast as her movie sibling, Ronnie. Their mother, Jackie Sandler, also in the cast, portrays a different girl’s mom — the role of Stacy’s mom went to Idina Menzel, who played Adam’s wife in “Uncut Gems.” Got all that?)Stacy has long dreamed of a blowout bat mitzvah alongside her best friend, Lydia Rodriguez Katz (Samantha Lorraine), but the messy realities of middle school meddle with their party plans. There are ill-advised crushes, moments of embarrassing flirtation and the kind of humiliating cruelty that only a 13-year-old with a grudge can muster. Eventually, Stacy takes the bimah at her bat mitzvah to read her Torah portion, and she learns the kinds of life lessons that come when you’ve emerged from the navel-gazing cocoon of youth.Sunny Sandler in “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah.” The film is based on the novel by Fiona Rosenbloom.Netflix“You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah” proves, as other movies and shows have before it, that when a bar or bat mitzvah is depicted onscreen, it can often be a savvy vessel for exploring the funny, strange or even traumatic transition from childhood to teenagedom.“Figuring out, who am I, who I want to be — such a Jewish experience,” Cohen, who uses they/them pronouns, told me in an interview, adding that it’s “also just a human experience.”“We don’t all have a bat mitzvah,” she continued, “but we all feel awkward when we have to step out in front of our friends and family and try not to make a mistake.”At the same time, Hollywood can get too caught up in the lavish spectacle of these affairs, with depictions that sap them of their cultural or emotional significance in favor of gags about the superficiality of the post-service party. The spoiled bar or bat mitzvah boy or girl is a trope that comes up repeatedly. In a 2000 “Sex and the City” episode, Samantha (Kim Cattrall) faces off against a rich brat (Kat Dennings) who is hiring a publicist for her bat mitzvah party. “I want it all, I want it now, and I want you to get it for me,” the girl says.During a 2012 episode of “30 Rock,” Tracy (Tracy Morgan) and Jenna (Jane Krakowski) humiliate themselves at a bar mitzvah playing Transformer robots for the demanding son of their accountant. The films “Starsky & Hutch” (2004) and “Safe Men” (1998) found gags in criminals attending bat and bar mitzvahs.From left, Jami Gertz, Jeremy Piven and Daryl Sabara in “Keeping Up With the Steins” (2006). Financial anxiety is a common theme of bar or bat mitzvah movies.Eric McCandless/Miramax FilmsThe b’nai mitzvah party gone wild — celebrating a bat or bar mitzvah — is another staple of the genre. “Keeping Up With the Steins” (2006), directed by Scott Marshall, starts from a place of absurdity with an outlandish “Titanic” movie-themed soirée attended by the Fiedler family. The dad, an “Entourage”-era Jeremy Piven essentially playing a flavor of Ari Gold, does all he can to match the grandiosity of that event for his son. In the process he reconnects with his own father (Garry Marshall), a reunion facilitated by his child (Daryl Sabara). It’s a thin narrative that uses the hook of the over-the-top bar mitzvah for a trite family tale.Financial anxiety is a feature of similar narratives, and it is possible to find nuance in the strange mix of faith and capitalism that b’nai mitzvah spur in Jewish American culture — mostly when the writers, directors and performers lean into what a confusing time it is for the teenagers for whom these ceremonies are ostensibly intended.Sami Rappoport as Becca, a popular girl entering her bat mitzvah reception on “Pen15.” The episode focuses on a gentile’s experience of the event. HuluThe Hulu series “Pen15” is a masterpiece of discomfort — augmented by the fact that its creators and stars, Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine, are 30-something actors playing 13-year-olds in middle school. Their characters are not Jewish, but the gawky unease they cultivate is on full display during the episode chronicling the bat mitzvah of a popular girl named Becca (Sami Rappoport), a moment that coincides with their class learning about the Holocaust. The lesson about genocide makes Anna (Konkle) contemplate the very existence of God. The occasion brings on a different kind of unease for Maya (Erskine), who is desperate to impress Becca with a fancy gift despite the fact that it’s a stretch for her parents. “Pen15,” which takes place in the early 2000s, nails the cringe-worthy elements of bat mitzvah-going, whether it’s Becca entering her party belting a song from “Damn Yankees” or the mechanical slow dancing. But at the same time it explores how fraught the tradition can be when it comes to social class.Still, the episode focuses on an outsider’s experience of a bat mitzvah, not an actual Jew’s. So does Cooper Raiff’s 2022 directorial effort, “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” in which he also stars. It’s a bar mitzvah movie with thin acknowledgment of Jewish tradition. Raiff’s aimless college grad Andrew — who is not Jewish — gets a job as a party starter for b’nai mitzvah receptions. It’s a good backdrop for Andrew’s own insecurities; he knows just as little about life as the much younger people around him. But it’s also just that: a backdrop.Cooper Raiff, director and star of “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” another view of the event from an outsider’s perspective. Apple TV+To find a movie that incorporates a bar mitzvah in the fabric of its Jewishness, look to the Coen brothers’ “A Serious Man” (2009), a chronicle of Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a professor in 1967 Minnesota. Larry’s son Danny (Aaron Wolff) gets extremely stoned before his bar mitzvah. It’s the kind of stupid thing a little twerp would do, but the disorienting way the Coens film this sequence — with fuzzy visuals and oblique angles — feels like an introduction to a faith of questioning that can itself be disorienting, especially as Danny meets with the aged Rabbi Marshak (Alan Mandell), who starts reciting Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love” as a prayer.For an even bleaker depiction, there’s Todd Solondz’s “Life During Wartime” (2010), where the bar mitzvah of Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder) coincides with horrific realizations about his father. Timmy’s perception of becoming a man, as he describes in a speech he’s writing for the occasion, is standing up for yourself even if it means getting “just plain tortured.” Solondz’s view is clear: Growing up is pain. There’s less of an engagement with the nature of Judaism here than there is in “A Serious Man,” but Solondz scores sequences with Avinu Malkeinu, a Jewish prayer of repentance usually uttered on the High Holy Days, which serves as a reminder of the human failure on which the director fixates.Aaron Wolff, center, as a bar mitzvah boy who gets stoned before going on the bimah in “A Serious Man.”Wilson Webb/Focus FeaturesIt’s hard to get darker than what Solondz delivers, but even some of the cheeriest b’nai mitzvah stories can have a touch of the grim. In “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” Stacy lashes out at Lydia over a boy, spreading gossip about her and making an embarrassing video that ends up being played on Lydia’s big night. Her petulant acts may seem minor but they have real stakes, as anyone who has ever been betrayed by a friend knows. “Real kids are complicated and messy,” Cohen told me.And it’s true. I have warmly nostalgic memories of my own bat mitzvah that are mixed up with more complicated feelings. I think about a connection to faith that I let lapse and relatives who are no longer alive. I think about the friends with whom I have lost touch. I remember the world in front of me and it being exciting but also so scary. That’s the thematic potential in a b’nai mitzvah, and it’s nice to see that occasionally filmmakers get it right. More

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    Oliver Anthony Says ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ Is Not a Republican Anthem

    “I wrote this song about those people,” Oliver Anthony said of his No. 1 hit, after presidential candidates answered a question about his Billboard hit at their first debate.The singer Oliver Anthony, whose song “Rich Men North of Richmond” has soared to the top of the Billboard singles chart, released a YouTube video on Friday denouncing Republicans and conservative outlets for co-opting his song.“It was funny seeing that presidential debate,” Anthony said. “I wrote that song about those people.”A clip of Anthony performing was played by Fox News moderators at the start of the Republican presidential debate on Wednesday night in Milwaukee, after a series of videos of Americans lamenting conditions under President Biden, including inflation and homelessness. The clip showed Anthony — with guitar in hand and two dogs at his feet — singing: “These rich men north of Richmond / Lord knows they all just wanna have total control.”The song, which Anthony uploaded to YouTube earlier this month, had caught fire with conservative figures like Matt Walsh and Laura Ingraham, who described it as an authentic expression of working-class American life. Widely perceived as a conservative anthem, it also drew critiques from some on the left, who called the lyrics racist.At the debate, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida was the first to respond to a question asking why the song had struck a chord with so many Americans.“Our country is in decline,” Mr. DeSantis said. “This decline is not inevitable. It’s a choice.” He added, “Those rich men north of Richmond have put us in this situation.”Anthony said Friday it “cracks me up” that the candidates had been forced to listen to his song onstage, because he was singing about powerful people like them.The new video showed him behind the wheel of his truck, as heavy rain pelted the windows. “That song has nothing to do with Joe Biden,” he said. “You know, it’s a lot bigger than Joe Biden.”Anthony, who is from Farmville, Va., also said that he was fed up by what he perceived to be the weaponization of his music by both the right and left.“It’s aggravating seeing people on conservative news try to identify with me like I’m one of them,” he said. “I see the right, trying to characterize me as one of their own. And I see the left trying to discredit me.”The left, he added, had misinterpreted his lyrics as being attacks on the poor when, he said, he was trying to defend them. “I’ve got to be clear that my message like with any of my songs, it references the inefficiencies of the government.”Reason, a libertarian magazine, had lauded what it perceived as Anthony’s anti-tax message. But liberal commentators were troubled by a lyric about the “obese milkin’ welfare.” The folk singer Billy Bragg even wrote his own version of the song and cautioned Anthony about punching down.At first, Anthony appeared to welcome the attention from conservatives. He granted Fox News the right to use it in the debate, Politico reported. And he gave an interview to the network, saying that he had been motivated to write the song because of his own struggles, which he assumed were shared by others.“It resonates the suffering in our world right now, like even in our own country,” he said then. “We’ve had years of people feeling depressed and hopeless and every time you look at the T.V. or get online everything’s negative.” He added that “corporate media and education” had helped to sow division.Anthony returned to that theme in his video on Friday, saying that despite how it may appear, his music had actually united people.“It’s driving people crazy to see the unity that’s come from this from all walks,” Anthony said. “This isn’t a Republican and Democrat thing. This isn’t even a United States thing. Like, this has been a global response.”Anthony, who could not immediately be reached for an interview on Friday evening, described himself as a “nobody” who through some divine intervention had been tasked with sending a message that things needed to change. Before his meteoric rise to fame, he was an unknown songwriter. Although he performs as Oliver Anthony, his full name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford.“I don’t know what this country is going to look like in 10 or 20 years if things don’t change,” he said. “I don’t know what this world is going to look like. And like, something has to be done about it. You know?” More

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    ‘Bottoms’ and the Tricky Tone of a Horror-Indie-Drama-Action-Teen-Sex Comedy

    The director Emma Seligman took a big leap from her buzzy feature debut, “Shiva Baby.” But this is the film she wanted to make all along.In “Bottoms,” a pair of teenagers start a fight club in their high school gym. The twist: The pugilists are lesbians, and they are whaling on each other — in the guise of self-defense — as a way to attract the hottest cheerleaders. (It’s a satire on many levels.)The writer-director Emma Seligman had the idea and sold the script — to Elizabeth Banks’s production company — even before her feature debut, “Shiva Baby,” put her on the indie filmmaker map in 2021.“I really love teen adventure movies,” Seligman said in a phone interview, “and giving queer kids the chance to be in that story.”Seligman, 28, grew up in Toronto in a family of film buffs. “Everyone here is always just talking about movies,” she said. By 10, she was a judge at a children’s film festival; later she got involved with the Toronto International Film Festival. She studied the subject at New York University, where she met the two stars of “Bottoms” — Rachel Sennott (who co-wrote the film) and Ayo Edebiri, a breakout actress from “The Bear.” (Seligman has an eye for talent: “Bottoms” also features Nicholas Galitzine, of “Red, White & Royal Blue,” as a quarterback boyfriend; and the former N.F.L. player Marshawn Lynch as a teacher with questionable methods.)“Shiva Baby,” about a young woman who encounters her sugar daddy at a shiva, was based on Seligman’s experience of Jewish life and on her college milieu. “I went on one sugar date,” she said. “Not everyone was doing it, but so many people were doing it to the point where it was so normal.” (It wasn’t ultimately her thing.) “Bottoms,” though it exists in a heightened world, is also personal. “It’s just wanting to see yourself,” said Seligman, who is gay. As she recalled Banks telling her: “You can’t underestimate how much young people want to see themselves onscreen.”These are edited excerpts from the conversation.“Shiva Baby” had a small cast and essentially one set. “Bottoms” has an ensemble and multiple locations. How did you prepare to scale up?The jump was quite challenging. I knew there were going to be a million and one lessons I was going to have to learn, but I just didn’t know what they were going to be. It’s like knowing you’re about to get hazed but not knowing how.I tried to have conversations with as many directors as I could to get their advice — Adam McKay, Greg Berlanti, who directed “Love, Simon,” and Atom Egoyan. It was helpful, but most of them were like, “You’re not going to know until you’re just doing it.” I went to [Elizabeth Banks’s] house before we shot, and we talked about costume and hair and improv — it wasn’t her giving didactic advice. It was me asking: “As a director, how do you prepare to do this?” And everyone was like, stop asking questions. Stop getting in your head.Edebiri and Sennott in “Bottoms.” Seligman said she “wanted to satirize the way female friendship is often shoved down our throats onscreen with teen girls.”via Orion Pictures IncRachel Sennott has starred in both your films. What clicked with you two?Neither of us were in the industry or came from industry families. Her level of ambition and organization and her intense work ethic was really inspiring. It’s a wild thing to be like, “I’m going to devote all this time to writing two screenplays, when there’s nothing in the world telling me that this will work out.” Her energy was: “It’s not crazy, we will do it, and we will make a living.” It’s rare for someone to want to see you succeed as much as they want themselves to succeed.How did you envision Ayo Edebiri in this role?I met Ayo at a party before I met Rachel. I had a vague idea of “Bottoms” in my head. And I was like, “Oh, if I ever made that high school movie, that girl would be so funny in it.” It’s been really incredible to watch her grow into the success that she’s become. It’s not a surprise at all to me, but I feel a little bit like I have street cred because I’m like, “Yeah, I knew.” She’s just so funny. We finished “Bottoms,” and “The Bear” came out a month later and her world changed.Where did you want to focus your satire?The way queer teen characters are always so innocent in teen movies. Whether they’re being traumatized or finding love, they’re so sweet and often don’t have any sexual thoughts at all — or if they do, they’re not expressing it, or they’re not talking in a vulgar way. And we also wanted to satirize the way female friendship is often shoved down our throats onscreen with teen girls — characters that are like, “I love you, queen! You’re the best thing ever!” We wanted to make fun of that.“Bottoms” builds on a lot of the teen movie canon, starting with “Heathers.” What else did you use as a reference?We pulled from that era of the ’90s — I guess “Heathers” is the ’80s — but that kind of female, campy, driven, high school and murder [comedy].“Bring It On” was a big reference. That movie strikes such a beautiful tone of campiness while caring deeply about the characters — it’s right on the edge. “Pen15,” definitely — looking at the show about this beautiful female friendship, that was so ridiculous and stupid at the same time, and so relatable. That came out right around when we started writing. “Wet Hot American Summer” was a big one. There’s not murder in that. But they do get addicted to heroin for the day. And Liz is in it, which is also great.How did you find the right tone?It took a long time to figure that out. I don’t think Rachel and I originally intended to have the audience care about the characters that much. We actually felt like in female comedy, there’s too much stress on, “Care about these girls” and “Care about the friendship.” We wanted to give the female characters a chance to be so [terrible] that you’re not supposed to care about them at all. But I think over the years, as we would get notes from our producers or the studio, we let up a little bit.I really think tone is always the trickiest thing to master. And I would love one day to do a movie that’s just one genre, to see if it’s any easier than a horror-indie-dramedy-action-teen-sex-comedy, or whatever we did. More

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    in Music

    A Crash Course in the Elephant 6 Recording Co.

    A new documentary explores the lo-fi psychedelic music made by bands including Apples in Stereo, the Olivia Tremor Control and Neutral Milk Hotel.The Apples in Stereo, one of the anchors of the Elephant 6 scene that’s the focus of a new documentary.Tim BarnesDear listeners,Today’s Amplifier is a celebration of the Elephant 6 Recording Co., a humble but hugely influential music scene that grew in the 1990s out of two small Southern cities — Ruston, La. and later Athens, Ga. — and serves as the subject of “The Elephant 6 Recording Co.,” a spirited new documentary directed by C.B. Stockfleth that tells the stories of some of its most enduring bands, like Neutral Milk Hotel, the Apples in Stereo and the Olivia Tremor Control.If none of those names means anything to you, fear not: You’re only 25 minutes and eight songs away from knowing exactly what I’m talking about.The Elephant 6 story begins in Ruston, a sleepy college town where there was little to do but dream, hang out with friends and, when you got bored enough to try to figure out how, make music. One of my favorite things about the film is the way it captures the necessity of creativity and a do-it-yourself ethos in places where there isn’t a lot of pre-existing art or culture. “I feel like kids in places like that tend to get deeper into the things that they love — tend to go further into them, tend to lose themselves more in them because they need to,” Julian Koster of Neutral Milk Hotel says in the doc. “They have to escape into something.”Eventually, those kids cobbled together enough money to buy instruments, microphones and most crucially, four-track tape machines. In the film, Kevin Sweeney of the band the Sunshine Fix gives perhaps the most succinct summary of the Elephant 6 sound that I’ve ever heard: “Those guys were just trying to record ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ or ‘Pet Sounds’ on their cassette machines,” he says. After some consideration, he adds, in disbelief, “And they did!”A whole group of them relocated from Ruston to Athens, where the independent-minded bands who had come before — like R.E.M. and Pylon — had created an infrastructure where artful music could thrive and find its local audience. “It just seemed like a beacon for weirdos,” says the Elephant 6 musician Heather McIntosh.Sometimes called the Brian Wilson of the scene, Robert Schneider, the helium-voiced lead singer of the Apples and the producer of many of the early Elephant 6 albums, set up his own low-budget recording space that he called Pet Sounds Studios. (Although, as someone points out in the documentary, it acquired the nickname “Pet Smells,” because of all the cats that lived there.)“The Elephant 6 Recording Co.” is a vivid time capsule of musical community before the internet, before tape trading became a thing of the past and before indie rock became such a marketable commodity. Neutral Milk Hotel emerged as the scene’s breakout star when it released the critically adored 1998 album “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” but the group’s frontman, Jeff Mangum, fled the public eye and stopped releasing new music. (Still publicity shy, he’s the only major member of the collective who isn’t featured in the film.)Inspired by the movie, today’s playlist is a crash course in the Elephant 6 sound, which would go on to inspire the next generation of indie musicians and beyond. Though many other artists would be associated with the collective in later years, I’ve stuck to four of the original and most recognizable bands from that scene — the Olivia Tremor Control, the Apples in Stereo, Elf Power and Neutral Milk Hotel — selecting an earlier and later song from each.Get ready to lose yourself in a utopia of psychedelic pop-rock, layered and collagelike production, and the intoxicating ambition of a bunch of musicians trying to craft their own “Pet Sounds” with whatever they had on hand. (The film, which premieres this weekend, will be available on video on demand starting Sept. 1.)Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. The Olivia Tremor Control: “Jumping Fences”The Olivia Tremor Control melded psychedelic experimentation and pure pop melody, fronted by longtime friends Will Hart and Bill Doss, who died in 2012. The band’s 1996 debut album, “Music From the Unrealized Film Script: Dusk at Cubist Castle,” is one of the high-water marks of the Elephant 6 scene, and the jangly, tuneful “Jumping Fences” demonstrates why. Like many 19-year-olds who came before me and, hopefully, many who will follow, it blew my mind when I first heard it in college. (Listen on YouTube)2. The Apples in Stereo: “Glowworm”Fronted by Schneider and formed when he was temporarily living in Denver, the Apples in Stereo are the most sugary sweet of the Elephant 6 bands; their infectious tunes recall the sunshine pop of the ’60s coated with layers of tape hiss. After a run of singles and EPs, “Fun Trick Noisemaker,” the Apples’ 1995 debut that features the bouncy fan favorite “Glowworm,” was the first full-length LP to bear the Elephant 6 stamp. (Listen on YouTube)3. Elf Power: “Jane”Though the dream-pop group Elf Power recorded this 1999 song in New York with the accomplished producer Dave Fridmann, its introverted titular character still captures that imaginative, small-town spirit out of which so many Elephant 6 bands sprung: “Jane was the one who would always have her fun when she’s lying on her bed, making visions in her head,” the frontman Andrew Rieger sings. Sounds like Jane’s about to start a band. (Listen on YouTube)4. Neutral Milk Hotel: “Song Against Sex”Neutral Milk Hotel’s first album, “On Avery Island” from 1996, overflows with ideas, lo-fi resourcefulness and ramshackle energy. On its lead track, “Song Against Sex,” Mangum creates one of his soon-to-be-signature surrealist musical frescoes, while regal blasts of horns and crashing percussion give the song an antic maximalism. (Listen on YouTube)5. The Olivia Tremor Control: “A Peculiar Noise Called ‘Train Director’”The Olivia Tremor Control pushed even further into the realm of psychedelia on its great second album, “Black Foliage: Animation Music Volume One,” from 1999. On this track, hooky melodies and moments of pop lucidity suddenly burst forth from textured cacophony. (Listen on YouTube)6. The Apples in Stereo: “Please”Here’s an effervescent fuzz-pop gem from the Apples in Stereo’s 2002 album, “Velocity of Sound.” One of the longest running Elephant 6 bands, the Apples have also had some of the most high-profile cultural crossovers: cameos on “The Powerpuff Girls” and, later, “The Colbert Report.” Just as unexpectedly, Schneider is now a mathematician who teaches at Michigan Technological University — and, to the surprise of his students, moonlights as an influential indie musician. (Listen on YouTube)7. Elf Power: “All the World Is Waiting”Elf Power is perhaps the most prolific of the major Elephant 6 bands; last year, the group put out its 14th album, “Artificial Countrysides.” I love this warped, stomping tune from Elf Power’s 2006 release, “Back to the Web”; its music video, filmed in Athens, captures the communal zaniness of the Elephant 6 scene. (Listen on YouTube)8. Neutral Milk Hotel: “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea”Mangum’s fervently beloved 1998 album brought more attention to the Elephant 6 scene than anything had before — maybe more attention than it could handle. Something changed after “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” a visionary, heart-on-its-sleeve album that continues to find new listeners in new generations; this was clear enough when the band finally reunited in 2013 for an extensive world tour. The album’s title track, which on the record features little more than four frantically strummed guitar chords and Mangum’s keening wail, has since become the unofficial anthem of Elephant 6 and all it represented. When “The Elephant 6 Recording Co.” premiered last week in Los Angeles, an accompanying tribute concert ended with a group singalong of this tune. (Listen on YouTube)How strange it is to be anything at all,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“8 Songs That Explain the Elephant 6 Recording Co.” track listTrack 1: The Olivia Tremor Control, “Jumping Fences”Track 2: The Apples in Stereo, “Glowworm”Track 3: Elf Power, “Jane”Track 4: Neutral Milk Hotel, “Song Against Sex”Track 5: The Olivia Tremor Control, “A Peculiar Noise Called ‘Train Director’”Track 6: The Apples in Stereo, “Please”Track 7: Elf Power, “All the World Is Waiting”Track 8: Neutral Milk Hotel, “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea”Bonus tracksWant to feel old? Friday is the 10-year anniversary of Miley Cyrus’s most infamous Video Music Awards performance, which sent waves of moral panic throughout the nation in 2013. Exactly a decade later, she’s released a more wizened and reflective ballad, “Used to Be Young,” which I wrote about in the Playlist. This week’s roundup of new music also features new tracks from L’Rain, Zach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves and Al Green’s gorgeous cover of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.” More