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Music News: Paul Westerberg releases bizarro new song

Paul Westerberg performed onstage during Day 1 of the 2014 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club on April 18, 2014 in Indio, Calif.
Paul Westerberg performed onstage during Day 1 of the 2014 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club on April 18, 2014 in Indio, Calif.Karl Walter | Getty Images for Coachella 2014

by Jay Gabler

July 10, 2017

What would it sound like if the Replacements made their own Magical Mystery Tour? Maybe something like "2HAWK_1," a new song released online by Paul Westerberg. The song, a grungy slice of psychedelia with surreal lyrics about a "bad ungrateful bunny" (?), appeared on Soundcloud and on a new website sharing the name of Westerberg's publishing company Dry Wood Music.

Meanwhile, the Replacements' social media accounts have also sprung back to life with a 1986 photo of the band. "It's likely this is the first warning of news to come on a new — and long overdue — archive live recording series from the band," speculates the Star Tribune.

Gap in-store playlists surface online

Where would you hear XTC, Deee-Lite, Jon Secada, and Bonnie Raitt all in the same hour? No, not at an Elton John tribute show: at the Gap, circa 1992. Former Gap employee Mike Bise saved all the in-store playlists from his tenure at the clothing retailer, and has posted the lists from 1992 to 2006.

As City Pages notes, "the 'Gap sound' was upbeat but relaxed, an unmistakable mix of perky U.S. alt-pop, smooth contemporary British R&B, and ethereal trip-hop. If the Stereo MC's had never existed, the Gap would have had to invent them."

Yellow Submarine to get comic-book treatment

The BeatlesYellow Submarine turns 50 years old next year, and the band will celebrate by releasing a comic-book adaptation of their animated film. "Incoming MAD Magazine editor Bill Morrison wrote and illustrated The Beatles: Yellow Submarine, which follows the band and the titular nautical craft as they encounter the Blue Meanies," notes Rolling Stone.

Gwen Stefani sued over concert stampede

North Carolina music fan Lisa Stricklin is suing Gwen Stefani and the promoter Live Nation over an accident that happened at Stefani's Charlotte concert on July 23, 2016. Stefani encouraged fans sitting on the PNC Music Pavilion's lawn section to move closer to the stage, resulting in what Stricklin's suit refers to as "a stampede rush" that left her with a broken leg. Stricklin is seeking $150,000 plus unspecified punitive damages. (Billboard)

Today's U2 news

It's official: the biggest tour of 2017 is U2’s Joshua Tree Tour. During the band's jaunt across the globe, they'll play to 2.4 million paying customers. About 67,000 of them will be in Minneapolis on Sept. 8, when the tour hits U.S. Bank Stadium. (Billboard)

In London on Saturday, Noel Gallagher joined U2 for a performance of Oasis’s "Don't Look Back in Anger," a song that's become an anthem of support for the victims of this spring's Manchester concert attack. "Thank you for bringing your High Flying Birds with us," Bono said to Gallagher before the song. "May you take us somewhere else, somewhere only you can." (Rolling Stone)