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      Herbie Flowers, ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ Bassist, Dies at 86

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      A celebrated session musician who appeared on a host of classic rock albums, he made his most lasting mark with his contribution to Lou Reed’s most famous song.Herbie Flowers, a prolific British session musician who rode a handful of notes to rock immortality with his indelible bass line on Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” — just one of the many landmark recordings on which he supported a constellation of rock stars — died on Sept. 5. He was 86.Family members announced his death on social media. The family did not say where he died or cite a cause.Mr. Flowers, a bassist who also occasionally played tuba, began his career as a session musician in the late 1960s. He carved out his sliver of rock glory by playing on more than 500 hit albums by the end of the 1970s, according to the BBC.The classic albums Mr. Flowers played on could have filled a dorm room shelf in the 1970s and ’80s. Among them were Elton John’s “Madman Across the Water” and Harry Nilsson’s “Nilsson Schmilsson,” both from 1971; Cat Stevens’s “Foreigner” (1973); and David Bowie’s “Diamond Dogs” (1974).He joined forces with three-quarters of rock’s equivalent of the royal family, recording with Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. He also recorded with Dusty Springfield, Serge Gainsbourg and David Essex, whom he joined on the sinewy 1973 hit “Rock On.”Despite his proximity to fame, Mr. Flowers described himself as little more than a hired hand.As a studio musician, he once told Bass Player magazine, “they play you the song or sling you a chord chart, and you come up with what you think are fancy bass lines.” You “get your job done as quickly as you can,” he added, “and as soon as they say ‘Thanks very much,’ get the hell out of there.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      5 of My Most Anticipated Albums of the Fall

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      A new indie-rock supergroup, a fruitful (if unexpected) partnership, an alt-rock icon going solo and more.Kim Deal has been a one-of-a-kind mainstay in underground rock, first with Pixies and then the Breeders, but she’s never released a full solo album until now.Alex Da CorteDear listeners,Fall is a perennially busy season for new music releases, and the deluge can be a bit overwhelming. Fear not: Today I’m here to help.For the Times’s annual Fall Preview, out in print on Sunday, I listened to a bunch of upcoming releases, and this playlist is a brief collection of my recommendations — five albums that, I can now confirm, are worth getting excited about. Some of these LPs showcase familiar names pushing themselves in new directions (Kim Deal is finally releasing her first solo album!) while others (from the English folk singer Laura Marling and the New York post-hardcore group Drug Church) find artists finally coming into the peaks of their powers, perfecting unique sounds they’ve established across previous albums.We’ve also got a power duo (the R&B auteur Dawn Richard and the experimental composer Spencer Zahn) and a power quartet (a new coalition of indie-rock lifers who have named themselves, fittingly, the Hard Quartet). There’s a little something for everyone on this playlist. Check it out and spring forward into fall.You call it superstitions, I call it traditions,LindsayListen along while you read.1. Kim Deal: “Crystal Breath”Since her earliest days in Pixies and her long-running alt-rock group the Breeders, Kim Deal’s hazy, cotton-candy voice has been a one-of-a-kind mainstay in underground rock, but she’s never released a full solo album until now. At turns abrasive and achingly sweet, “Nobody Loves You More” is pure Deal, whether she’s offering her own off-kilter version of yacht rock on the lead single “Coast” (which I shared in a previous Amplifier) or turning more experimental on the angular, staticky “Crystal Breath.” Even at its most infectious, a misty melancholy hangs over the album; it marks Deal’s last collaboration with her friend and longtime engineer Steve Albini, who died suddenly in May. The lilting, pedal-steel-kissed standout “Are You Mine” sounds like a simple, doo-wop-inspired love song but turns out to be an ode to Deal’s late mother, who struggled with dementia. Even in the midst of all that loss, “Nobody Loves You More” heralds, for the 63-year-old Deal, a fruitful new beginning. (Nov. 22; 4AD)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Weeknd, FKA twigs, Soccer Mommy and More New Music

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      Hear tracks by Soccer Mommy, FKA twigs, Reyna Tropical and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.The Weeknd, ‘Dancing in the Flames’It’s back to the mid-1980s synth-pop of Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson and Eurythmics in the new song by the Weeknd, abetted by the symmetry-loving production of two more producers, Max Martin and Oscar Holter. Pointillistic keyboard notes bounce in stereo over programmed drums, full of major-key optimism, as the Weeknd sings about a romance that’s like fast, reckless driving: “I can’t wait to see your face/crash when we’re switching lanes,” he sings in his sweetest falsetto. A tolling keyboard coda suggests an unfortunate outcome — made explicit in the video — no matter how catchy things were. JON PARELESSoccer Mommy, ‘Driver’The grungy chug of Sophie Allison’s guitar brushes up against a lilting vocal melody on “Driver,” the third single from “Evergreen,” the upcoming album from the singer-songwriter who records as Soccer Mommy. “I’m a test of his patience with all that I do,” Allison sings of a lover who calms her clanging neuroses. “’Cause I’m hot and he stays cool, I don’t know why.” LINDSAY ZOLADZFKA twigs, ‘Eusexua’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Michael Tilson Thomas Leads Mahler at the New York Phil

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      The conductor led the New York Philharmonic in Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, an inspiring opening night for a season starting off unsettled.Back in 1996, when he was just beginning his landmark tenure on the podium of the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas conducted the New York Philharmonic in Mahler’s Fifth. In the mold of his mentor, Leonard Bernstein, he was already renowned as a specialist in that composer.“Some people can conduct Mahler and some cannot,” Alex Ross wrote of the performance in The New York Times. “Mr. Thomas certainly can.”As he proved again on Thursday, when he led the Philharmonic in the same symphony at David Geffen Hall. Thomas, at 79, still has both the patience and the passion to take us through Mahler’s sprawling, sometimes shaggy structures.That is even more impressive now. It has been more than three years since Thomas was first treated for glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, and he is still relishing his work. In April, he even took on a new teaching role at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.Concerned eyes are always on him, of course, especially after reports in May that he appeared confused during a performance of Mahler’s Third Symphony in London. But on Thursday, other than some slow paging through his score between the second and third movements, and some stiffness getting on and off the podium, Thomas seemed alert and ardent, even hopping a few inches into the air at one full-hearted moment.It was an inspiring opening night for a Philharmonic season that is starting off with some of the unsettled quality of a Mahler symphony.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Oasis Reunion Brings Back Spotlight on the Gallagher Hairstyle

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      News of a new tour put the band — and the rough-hewed hairstyles popularized by its sibling frontmen, Liam and Noel Gallagher — back in the spotlight.For the legions of Oasis fans who thought a reunion would never happen after the band broke up 15 years ago and vowed to regroup only when hell froze over, the recent announcement of a 2025 tour came as something almost life-altering. The news was also a boon for a smaller, though no less passionate, group of rock exegetes: those who tracks the history of music and culture through hair.That hair is foundational to pop identity is beyond dispute. Think, at random, of Little Richard’s lacquered pompadour; James Brown’s conk; the Beatles’ mop tops; Sinead O’Connor’s shaved head; Johnny Rotten’s mohawk; Boy George’s plaits; the jet-black nimbus — part bouffant, part rat’s nest — of the Cure’s lead singer, Robert Smith. Think Billie Eilish’s slime-green roots.“Hair is essential to rock ’n’ roll as a music and to rock stars as idols,” said Joe Levy, a former executive editor at Rolling Stone and the curator of a forthcoming photographic history of rocker hair and style for the Illuminarium theater in Atlanta. “It’s a flag of freedom.”From left, Liam and Noel Gallagher in August. Simon Emmet/EPA, via ShutterstockSurely it was that for the brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher in the long-ago 1990s, when they formed Oasis in Manchester, England. They wore hairstyles that could be described as tough, northern-English versions of the ’60s mod cuts popularized by the Beatles (a band Oasis plundered from liberally and without compunction.)“It’s this very English kind of look that morphed from ’60s Stones and Beatles, the mods, into this Gallagher version with bangs, side burns and a short crop at the top,” said Guido Palau, a go-to hairstylist for designers like Kim Jones and Marc Jacobs and a man Vogue once deemed to be among the most in-demand coiffeurs in the world.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Screamin’ Scott Simon, Longtime Sha Na Na Keyboardist, Dies at 75

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      A mainstay of the rock ’n’ roll nostalgia band, he also wrote the lyrics to “Sandy,” a song heard in the hit film “Grease.”Screamin’ Scott Simon, who as the dynamic keyboardist for the rock ’n’ roll revival act Sha Na Na regularly paid homage to Jerry Lee Lewis with electrifying versions of “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” — and who also played a vital behind-the-scenes role as the band’s managing partner — died on Sept. 5 in Ojai, Calif. He was 75.His daughter Nina Simon said he died of sinus cancer while in hospice care.Mr. Simon joined Sha Na Na in 1970, a year after the group was formed, and stayed until the group’s final performance, shortly before the coronavirus lockdown in 2020.As both a pianist and a singer, he brought his own theatricality to a group dedicated to turning doo-wop and early rock ’n’ roll songs into dramatic versions of the originals.Wearing brightly colored shirts festooned with images of piano keys and musical notes, he played the piano on “Great Balls of Fire” partly from his knees, sometimes from his bench and occasionally with his feet. He sang the Bobby Darin hit “Splish Splash” in a bathtub, wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, boxer shorts and a towel while plinking a toy piano.Mr. Simon (standing, second from left) with the other members of Sha Na Na in an undated publicity photo. He joined the band in 1970 and remained for 50 years.via PhotofestDuring the group’s accelerated version of Danny and the Juniors’ “At the Hop,” he never stopped jumping or doing the twist as he sang.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sean Combs’s Legal Team Takes His Case to TikTok

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      As the music mogul faces civil lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct, one of his lawyers is defending him — in the court of social media.The typical playbook for a defense lawyer representing a celebrity facing damaging accusations often features a sharply worded denial, promises to eventually reveal all at trial, and perhaps a strategically placed tabloid pushback story.But lawyers defending the music mogul Sean Combs against a cascade of civil sexual misconduct claims have opened up a new strategic front: TikTok.On Tuesday, the singer Dawn Richard filed a new lawsuit against Mr. Combs, accusing him of threatening and groping her. Mr. Combs’s representatives responded with a somewhat traditional statement that called the lawsuit a “series of false claims” brought “in the hopes of trying to get a payday.”Then Teny Geragos hit TikTok. “All right, here we go again, Diddy sued by a former bandmate; I’m his lawyer and here’s why you should care,” Ms. Geragos, a member of the Combs defense team, said in a TikTok posted on Wednesday.Employing a popular format in which a creator speaks in front of various screenshots that help illustrate a point, Ms. Geragos walked viewers through several examples of Ms. Richard, who performed with the groups Danity Kane and Diddy — Dirty Money, expressing support for Mr. Combs. She pointed — literally — to friendly text messages between the plaintiff and defendant in 2020 discussing a possible future collaboration and played a clip from a video interview in which Ms. Richard spoke positively about her time working with Mr. Combs. One of the mogul’s sons, Justin Combs, shared the video to his Instagram.“We want to be able to respond to allegations where people are forming opinions,” Ms. Geragos said in an interview, noting that she is in her 30s and has grown up around social media. “I see where all of the misinformation spreads. I see it happening on people’s phones and in short one-minute clips.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Soprano Who Despises Encores Interrupts Her Co-Star’s

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      Angela Gheorghiu drew criticism after she stormed onstage to stop a tenor’s encore during a performance of “Tosca” in Seoul.It was the third act of Puccini’s “Tosca” at a theater in Seoul, and the South Korean tenor Alfred Kim, responding to enthusiastic applause, was singing a rare encore of “E lucevan le stelle,” one of the opera’s most beloved arias.Then the unexpected happened: The celebrated soprano Angela Gheorghiu, who was singing the title role in a performance on Sunday, stormed onstage and demanded that he stop, according to local media reports and accounts by audience members.“Excuse me,” she said, signaling to the orchestra to pause.When the orchestra continued playing, she also refused to stop. “It’s a performance; it’s not a recital,” Gheorghiu said. “Respect the audience. Respect me.”Gheorghiu, 59, a diva of the old school known for her preternatural voice and strong-willed demeanor, faced an immediate backlash.She initially did not appear for a curtain call. But when she eventually emerged, she was booed, blowing a kiss as she exited the stage after only a few seconds. She was widely denounced by commentators and fans in South Korea. And the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, where the performance took place, demanded an apology.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More