Metallica

Anton Corbijn*
Other artists lined up for the May festival include The Black Crowes, Kygo, Pitbull and Greta Van Fleet.

California’s premiere food, wine and music festival has released the lineup for this year’s Memorial Day weekend festival, May 27-29.

Napa’s BottleRock festival will be headlined this year by thrash legends Metallica, pop superstar P!nk, musical duo Twenty One Pilots and country star Luke Combs. The fest, which includes more than 75 musical acts, also includes The Black CrowesKygoPitbullGreta Van Fleet and Mount Westmore, a new hip-hop supergroup featuring Snoop DoggIce CubeE-40 and Too $hort.

The Napa Valley festival presented by JaM Cellars will also showcase the region’s wine, craft brew and culinary legacy.

“We’re happy to be bringing the first taste of summer back to music fans here in the Napa Valley,” says Dave Graham of BottleRock Napa Valley. “As fans have come to expect, our 2022 lineup has something for everyone, featuring a wide variety of genres that offer legendary performers with some of the most exciting new and emerging artists in the world.”

This year’s festival includes the highly entertaining Williams Sonoma Culinary Stage, showcasing a unique mashup of cooking demonstrations with renowned chefs, celebrities, performers and rock stars. Details on the 2022 Williams Sonoma Culinary Stage will be announced at a later date.

BottleRock Napa Valley will follow all local and state COVID-19 health & safety guidelines in place at the time of the event and will communicate all requirements to ticket holders beforehand.

Tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. Pacific. More details here.

The late Albini pulled his music from the streaming platform in 2022

Steve Albini‘s bands Shellac and Big Black now have their catalogues available for listening on Spotify.

Albini passed away aged 61 earlier this month due to a heart attack. He was well known for being the producer of major albums such as Nirvana’s ‘In Utero‘, Pixies’ ‘Surfer Rosa’, PJ Harvey’s ‘Rid of Me’, Manic Street Preachers‘ ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’ and more.

Back in 2022, the late producer took his music off the streaming platform. He had previously criticised the company for platforming anti-vaxxers such as Joe Rogan, and tweeted later that they were a “terrible company”, adding: “I don’t want to be part of their business”.

He later told Attack Magazine that Spotify was “one of the few places outside of record stores where recorded music can earn anything at all, and for bands [with] more generous, honest relationships with independent labels not part of the ownership trust, then the payments from Spotify, though meager per-play, can add up to a viable income stream. Nobody’s getting rich, but it could pay for the groceries.”

Now, it appears that Albini’s work with his bands Shellac and Big Black are now available to stream on Spotify. This include’s Shellac’s final album ‘To All Trains’, which was announced shortly before Albini’s death and was released last Friday (May 17).

Steve Albini (Photo by Mariano Regidor/Redferns)
Steve Albini (Photo by Mariano Regidor/Redferns)

Tributes have poured in for the legendary producer since the announcement of his death. Our NME obituary hailed him as “a lone voice of anti-industry punk scene ethics, even as he worked with major labels on some of the biggest names in alternative rock.”

Meanwhile, Foo Fighters dedicated a rendition of ‘My Hero’ to the late producer in Charlotte, North Carolina last week.

“Tonight I’d like to dedicate this song to a friend that we lost the other day, who I’ve known a long, long time,” Foos frontman Dave Grohl told the crowd. “He left us much too soon. He’s touched all of your lives, I’m sure. I’m talking about Steve Albini. For those of you who know, you know. For those of you who don’t know, just remember that name: Steve Albini. Let’s sing this one for him.”

PJ Harvey also said he “changed the course of my life” during sessions for her 1993 LP ‘Rid Of Me’., and Joanna Newsom dedicated a version of her song ‘Cosmia’ to him, who engineered her 2006 album ‘Ys’. See further tributes here.

Elsewhere, Yourcodenameis:milo spoke to NME about how the 20th anniversary of their LP ‘All Roads To Fault’ was made all the more profound by the passing of Albini, who engineered the album.

Remembering their time with the punk and production legend, Lockey said: “We paid attention, saw everything he did, asked questions that he would gladly spend ages answering”.

“He once stopped the session and proceeded to give us a lecture on how the peanut built America. He schooled us in billiards, then showed us his favourite cooking shows that he’d recorded. It was all so natural and encouraging, we could do what the fuck we wanted and he’d capture it. That’s the deal, and we fucking loved it.”

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