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13 Dec 2022

Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2022: No. 8 — Jack Harlow

For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard is counting down our staff picks for the top 10 pop stars of 2022 all this week. At No. 8, we remember the year in Jack Harlow — who built on the momentum of his previous couple years and made the leap to full-on pop stardom.

Jack Harlow possesses a disarming self-awareness of his charm, his moment, and his detractors. In his 2020 single “Rendezvous,” the Kentucky rapper unloads on the idea that he hadn’t earned his status: “Kills me when they act like this was overnight/ Like we didn’t do a tour in a tiny van.” The couplet documented life in the short time after the release of “What’s Poppin,” his breakout single that helped propel him into the mainstream consciousness. It basks in stark contrast to an epiphany buried in his “First Class” line, “They say, ‘You a superstar now,’ damn, I guess I am.” Two years after the release of his debut album, That’s What They All Say, Harlow is an undisputed commercial hip-hop force, dictating when and where lightning struck in 2022. 

Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2022:
Introduction & Honorable Mentions | Rookie of the Year: Steve Lacy | Comeback of the Year: Sam Smith | No. 10: Nicki Minaj | No. 9: Future

In January, Harlow captioned an Instagram post, “More inspired than I’ve ever been…never had a better pen…never felt truly understood until now….I knew I was a star but I finally got the evidence.” As this year unfolded, it became increasingly clear that the crux of Harlow’s star power isn’t how brightly he beams but his inclination to remain part of a constellation. He clocked his first career No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in October 2021 alongside Lil Nas X for “Industry Baby,” simultaneously nominated for a Grammy and targeted by homophobes. Harlow promptly shot down any notion that he shouldn’t have aligned with an LGBTQ+ artist: Black members of the hip-hop community warmly welcomed him, a white rapper whose fan base is shouldered by Black women, so it was unsurprising to see him wear a Lil Nas X graphic tee to June’s BET Awards to protest his friend’s snub.

February netted Harlow a deal with New Balance, a start in the NBA Celebrity All-Star Game, and the release of “Nail Tech,” his first solo drop since That’s What They All Say. The ostentatious single earned praise from Kanye West, a childhood idol of Harlow’s, and found Harlow again venting about his inbetween position in the first verse, “I love music and stress ‘bout it,” and second, “I’m not on top of this s–t yet, but I’m that guy, though.” The single wasn’t as sticky as the quotable lyrics and TikTok tease promised, however. “Nail Tech” spent one week on the Hot 100 at No. 18, and it was something of a distant memory by the end of March. 

Harlow was cast in the remake of White Men Can’t Jump, ambitiously tackling Woody Harrelson’s iconic 1992 role as his film-acting debut – but “First Class” will be remembered as his leading man turn. The TikTok snippet racked up 69.2 million views, the first rock in an avalanche that ended with “First Class” debuting at No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart dated April 23 with the biggest streaming week of the year (54.6 million total). The lavish earworm’s backbone is the sampling of Fergie’s 2007 No. 1 smash “Glamorous” featuring Ludacris. Harlow, as he told Jimmy Fallon while co-hosting The Tonight Show in October, went from wanting to perform “Fergalicious” for his fifth-grade talent show to performing “First Class” with Fergie to open August’s 2022 MTV VMAs, which he also co-hosted with LL Cool J and Nicki Minaj.

Suddenly, it felt as if Harlow had been around forever, but there were endearing reminders that the spotlight was new to him. To start May, he ended a red carpet interview with Emma Chamberlain at May’s Met Gala by awkwardly saying, “Love ya!” Come Home The Kids Miss You was given a lukewarm reception by critics struggling to put a finger on Harlow’s identity. Arguably, the 15-track sophomore offering serves as a transparent portrait of Harlow as he works through that very question.

Come Home made up for that by yielding three 2023 Grammys nominations: best melodic rap performance (“First Class”), best rap song (“Churchill Downs” featuring Drake) and best rap album. This album’s (or any album’s) quantifiable success is not Harlow’s end game, though: As he expressed in his Rolling Stone April cover story, which announced Come Home The Kids Miss You’s impending May 6 arrival, he’s in it to become the best. He even quit drinking to ensure unobstructed clarity as he traded his real estate on the fringes of the mainstream for inescapable fame. Hits didn’t come beyond “First Class” this album cycle, but Harlow bolstered his foundation for the long game.

The rapper also earned co-signs from his formative heroes, such as Justin Timberlake, Lil Wayne, and Pharrell and Drake, via guest appearances on the Come Home tracklist. In particular, Harlow has proved himself Drake’s heir apparent as rap’s resident flirt – an idea illustrated by adoring fans swarming him and Aubrey at the Kentucky Derby, where the “Churchill Downs” video was filmed. Harlow had his whole team in his Churchill Downs box, including his childhood best friend-turned-photographer Urban Wyatt, comedian Druski and sports journalist Taylor Rooks. The aura around “Churchill Downs” solidified him as a main character who doesn’t suffer from main character syndrome. All Harlow ever wanted was to be loved by Louisville and put Kentucky on the map, and it was never more reciprocal than on that May afternoon. 

Harlow looked right at home on every stage he commanded through the back half of the year, tangibly executing his much-quoted “Industry Baby” bar, “I didn’t peak in high school, I’m still out here gettin’ cuter.” He didn’t miss a beat during a surprise performance of “First Class” at the 2022 Billboard Music Awards, and then his Generation Now boss DJ Drama welcomed him to the BET Awards stage to deliver “First Class” with Brandy (as well as Come Home deep cut “Poison” with Lil Wayne) in June. His headlining Come Home The Kids Miss You World Tour kicked off in July, upgrading to arenas from the more intimate 2021 Creme De La Creme Tour. Still, he wasn’t too busy to be there for his Louisville day-one EST Gee’s September single “Backstage Passes” and its Lyrical Lemonade video directed by Cole Bennett, who directed Harlow’s seminal 2020 “Whats Poppin” video.

Harlow’s mainstream glow-up hit its apex when he pulled double duty as host and musical guest on the Oct. 29 episode of Saturday Night Live. His magnetism radiated during a monologue aimed to again reclaim criticisms lobbed his way — comparing his signature curly hair and scraggly beard to Narnia’s Mr. Tumnus and joking about people who “have even gone as far as to accuse me of being white.” The vast exposure afforded him more opportunities to be transparent, and people couldn’t help falling in love with Harlow’s authenticity.

Harlow’s dad, Brian, “built houses with his hands,” and Harlow didn’t skip any steps in building his empire. En route to mastering his craft, he also mastered the art of manifestation: In January 2018, he played to an audience of seven in Madison, Wisconsin; next week, he’ll check off a bucket list item by playing Louisville’s KFC Yum! Center on Dec. 18. He named a Come Home track after Dua Lipa, telling The Breakfast Club he “admired her” then got her permission to release it over FaceTime. Seven months later, the Atlantic labelmates are reportedly romantically linked. Maybe Harlow doesn’t dictate how he captures the zeitgeist anymore – the final step of pop stardom initiation is to find your alleged love life in the tabloids, after all – but he’s never subscribed to outside noise.

The people rooting for the lovable underdog are complemented by the inevitable crowd watching for Harlow’s downfall. The relentless pursuit of power that Harlow detailed to Zane Lowe in May doesn’t figure to be his fatal flaw, because he thrives in sharing the wealth with his people — the day-ones, predecessors and peers. Harlow has always understood his place in hip-hop’s sprawling story, and if 2022 taught us anything, he won’t waste his turn with the pen.

13 Dec 2022

‘The Voice’ Finalist Bodie Puts a Soulful Spin on Harry Styles‘ ’Late Night Talking’: Watch

The Voice is down to its final contestants ahead of tonight’s live finale. During the Monday (Dec. 12) episode, Bodie dialed up the soul for his rendition of Harry Styles‘ “Late Night Talking” and turned the hit into a sultry pop track that fit his unique style.

Bodie kicked off the performance on The Voice stage solo with trilling piano notes to accompany him, and started by singing the track’s chorus, and then going into the first verse. The singer injected the lyrics with several immaculately placed vocals runs before upping the ante — and the tempo — halfway through the showcase, when dancers clad in monochrome blue and orange suits, much like Styles’ fashion.

“We’ve been doin’ all this late night talkin’/ ‘Bout anything you want until the mornin’/ Now you’re in my life/ I can’t get you off my mind,” Bodie sang, clad in a gray suit decorated with sequined stars.

“Late Night Talking” was released as the second single from Styles’ third album, Harry’s House, on June 21. The track peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September, and spent a total of 24 weeks on the chart.

Bodie is on Team Blake, and is currently up against contestants Morgan Myles, Brayden Lape, Bryce Leatherwood and Omar Jose Cardona. On Tuesday’s finale of The Voice, the singer will perform a duet with Blake Shelton and will see if he becomes the season 22 champion.

Watch Bodie’s performance in the video above.

13 Dec 2022

Genius Sued Google for Copying Its Lyrics. Now the Supreme Court Might Be Interested

The U.S. Supreme Court looks like it might be about to jump into a lawsuit filed by the music database Genius that accuses Google of illegally copying the site’s lyrics and posting them in search results.

After a lower court dismissed the case in March, Genius – a platform that lets users add and annotate lyrics – asked the high court to hear the case and overturn the ruling. Though it called the ruling “unjust” and “absurd,” such petitions are always a long shot; the Supreme Court takes less than 2% of the 7000 cases it receives each year.

But the odds for Genius just got better. In an order Monday, the justices asked the U.S. Solicitor General to file briefs in the case “expressing the views of the United States” on whether or not the court should hear the case against Google.

That kind of request (a “call for the view of the Solicitor General,” or CVSG, in SCOTUS parlance) indicates that the justices think the issues in the case might be significant enough for the court to tackle. Genius has warned that the ruling for Google threatens “a vast swath of internet businesses”; Google says that’s “alarmist hyperbole” and the case does not deserve the high court’s time.

Neither Genius nor Google immediately returned requests for comment on Tuesday.

Genius sued the tech giant in 2019, claiming Google had stolen the site’s carefully-transcribed content  for its own “information boxes” in search results, essentially free-riding on the “time, labor, systems and resources” that goes into creating such a service. In a splashy twist, Genius said it had used a secret code buried within lyrics that spelled out REDHANDED to prove Google’s wrongdoing.

Though it sounds like a copyright case, Genius didn’t actually accuse Google of stealing any intellectual property. That’s because it doesn’t own any; songwriters and publishers own the rights to lyrics, and both Google and Genius pay for the same licenses to display them. Instead, Genius argued it had spent time and money transcribing and compiling “authoritative” versions of lyrics, and that Google had breached the site’s terms of service by “exploiting” them without permission.

But in March, that distinction proved fatal for Genius. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dismissed the case, ruling that only the actual copyright owners – songwriters or publishers – could have filed such a case, not a site that merely transcribed the lyrics. In technical terms, the court said the case was “preempted” by federal copyright law, meaning that the accusations from Genius were so similar to a copyright claim that they could only have been filed that way.

In taking the case to the Supreme Court in August, Genius argued the ruling would be a disaster for websites that spend time and money to aggregate user-generated content online. Such companies should be allowed to protect that effort against clear copycats, the company said, even if they don’t hold copyrights.

“It serves no public purpose … to bar these companies from enforcing their contracts so that behemoths like Google can vacuum up content and increase their internet dominance,” Genius wrote. “Big-tech companies like Google don’t need any assists from an overly broad view of copyright preemption; they already control vast swaths of the internet, to the public’s detriment.”

Google obviously disagrees. In a response to the Supreme Court, the company urged the justices to avoid the case and reject Genius’s “alarmist hyperbole,” arguing that the lower ruling was “plainly correct.” Google said Genius was trying to use an agreement “inconspicuously tucked behind a tiny link” to create “pseudo-copyright” control over songs written by other people.

“Genius does not own the copyrights to any of the lyrics. Genius nevertheless wants to prevent any website visitor from reproducing or publicly displaying the lyrics,” Google’s lawyers wrote. “Its solution? Ignore the true copyright owners and invent new rights through a purported contract.”

13 Dec 2022

Hear an Exclusive Clip From Soulwax’s Score for ‘Grand Theft Auto Online: Los Santos Drug Wars’

The themes are heavy, but Soulwax is keeping the vibe light with their contributions to the soundtrack for Grand Theft Auto Online: Los Santos Drug Wars.

A sprawling update to the game, out Tuesday (Dec. 13), is accompanied by a flurry of original compositions by artists including Soulwax. The duo’s work on the game includes “Autoclown,” a bouncy production by the Belgian electronic icons that mimics the psychedelic themes of the game itself. Hear an exclusive clip from this track below.

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“When Rockstar approached us to be a part of Grand Theft Auto V, we were really excited about the opportunity,” Soulwax tell Billboard in a joint statement. “We had such a great time making and selecting tracks for the original Soulwax FM that we ended up creating a ton of ideas that we couldn’t fit in the final mix. So when the team came to us again to work on GTA Online, we went back to those initial ideas and started shaping them into a new score for Los Santos Drug Wars.”

Soulwax FM refers to a radio station featured in Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online, with GTA developer Rockstar Games having heavily incorporated electronic music into the game over the years, with appearances, radio stations and soundtrack contributions by prestige artists including The Blessed Madonna and Moodymann. In 2021, the game Rocktstar Games also partnered with Ibiza-based club brand CircoLoco for its joint venture, CircoLoco Records.

“We’re so excited to be working with Soulwax again,” Ivan Pavlovich, vice president of music at Rockstar Games, tells Billboard. “Soulwax FM’s driving dance and left field lost gems have made it such a classic station, and their music is the perfect vibe for the wild, psychedelic experience that is Los Santos Drug Wars.”

Part two of Los Santos Drug Wars is set for release in early 2023.

13 Dec 2022

Here’s the Date & New Location of the 2023 Tony Awards

The 2023 Tony Awards will be held on June 11, 2023, from a new venue – the United Palace in New York. With nearly 3,400 seats, the United Palace is Manhattan’s fourth largest theater. It opened in 1930 as one of five Loew’s “Wonder Theatres,” premiere vaudeville and movie houses.

“We are excited to bring the Tony Awards to the historic United Palace for the first time,” Heather Hitchens, president and CEO of the American Theatre Wing and Charlotte St. Martin, president of The Broadway League, said in a statement. “As we celebrate the best of this Broadway season and 76 years of the Tony Awards, we look forward to ushering in a new golden age for the show from this majestic, golden age theater.”

Radio City Music Hall has been the Tony Awards’ home in all but five years since 1997. The show was held at the Beacon Theatre in 2011-12 and 2016, The Gershwin Theatre in 1999 and the Winter Garden Theatre in 2021.

The 76th Annual Tony Awards will air on CBS, its network home since 1978. The show will also stream live and on demand on Paramount+.

The Tony Awards eligibility cut-off date for the 2022-23 season is Thursday, April 27, 2023.  Nominations for the 2023 Tony Awards will be announced on Tuesday, May 2, 2023.

The Tony Awards are produced in collaboration with Tony Award Productions, a joint venture of The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing, and White Cherry Entertainment. Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss are executive producers for White Cherry Entertainment. Weiss will serve as director. 

Ariana DeBose hosted the 75th annual Tony Awards, which were held at Radio City on June 12. A Strange Loop was the top nominee with 11 nods. The Lehman Trilogy and a revival of Stephen Sondheim’s 1970 classic Company were the top winners, with five wins each.

The Antoinette Perry “Tony” Awards were founded by the American Theatre Wing in 1947.    

13 Dec 2022

The 25 Best Pride Songs of 2022: Staff Picks

Trying to capture what a “queer song” sounds like in 2022 is a lot like trying to explain what the color yellow is — all in all, it’s not possible. That’s because, simply put, songs by queer artists released throughout 2022 run the gamut of popular music, from thundering electro-pop, to sultry R&B, to funkwave, hip-hop, Latin, indie rock, disco and much more. Gone are the days where openly-LGBTQ people — both artists and listeners — were siloed off into one stereotypical genre landscape, now replaced by an audience who are listening to a vast array of musical genres, and a bevy of artists ready to show off their skills in nearly every musical field.

The result of that evolution is not only a diverse landscape of music created by queer artists, but a new frontier of pathways toward success. Along with showing off the musical flexibility of a community trying to survive amidst less-than-ideal circumstances, 2022 also proved that massive mainstream success is not exclusive to a single queer artist at a time. Whether it’s topping the Billboard Hot 100, charting for the very first time as a solo artist, or even successfully reinventing your sound, 2022 was a year defined by queer artists pushing their limits to discover new avenues toward the promised land of “making it” in the music industry.

But which of these songs managed to stand out from the rest this year? Below, check out Billboard‘s picks for the 25 best songs released by LGBTQ artists in 2022 (listed in alphabetical order).

13 Dec 2022

Adam Lambert Yearns for an ‘Ordinary World’ With Haunting Duran Duran Cover Off Upcoming Album

Pop-rock superstar Adam Lambert knows his way around a good cover. And on Tuesday (Dec. 13), the singer continued the trend with his latest ode to some ’80s rock icons.

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Lambert unveiled his cover of Duran Duran‘s 1993 hit single “Ordinary World,” in which the American Idol alum slows the track down to create am almost eerie version of the grief-stricken original track. Backed up by a smooth piano and some orchestral strings, Lambert carefully croons out the aching lyrics of the track, never going as far as emulating Simon Le Bon’s signature vocal, but paying homage all the same. Lambert is set to debut his live rendition of the song on Wednesday’s season 22 finale of The Voice.

The singer also announced that the new track was just a taste of what fans could expect off of his forthcoming sixth studio album, High Drama. Due out on Feb. 24 via BMG, the album is set to show off Lambert’s skillset as a cover artist, as he delivers his own versions of songs such as Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero,” Sia’s “Chandelier,” Billie Eilish’s “Getting Older” and many more.

This is not the first song off of the upcoming project that Lambert has shared. Back in October, he released his rendition of the Noël Coward classic “Mad About the Boy” in tandem with a new documentary about the famed playwright and director, Mad About the Boy — The Noël Coward Story. Lambert’s version will appear as the final track on his new album.

Check out the video for Lambert’s “Ordinary World” cover above, and pre-order his new album High Drama here.

13 Dec 2022

Offset Is Paying Tribute to Takeoff in an Epic Way Using a Classic Jackson 5 Song

Offset has found a moving way to pay tribute to his late cousin and Migos bandmate Takeoff during his live shows. The rapper posted a video of his homage on Sunday (Dec. 11) in which he kicks off a recent concert by projecting a giant image of Takeoff (born Kirshnik Khari Ball), 28, on the screen behind his DJ while the Jackson 5’s 1971 classic heartbreak ballad “Never Can Say Goodbye” blasts over the PA.

“Before every who I love you bra,” Offset wrote in the caption to the post, which elicited some additional words of support from Tyrese (“Praying for you bro everyday… So sorry this all happened I’m so sorry”), Rich The Kid (“I love you bro this beautiful”) and Ty Dolla Sign (Love king !!!!”), among others.

Takeoff was killed in Houston on Nov. 1 while attending an afterparty at a local pool/bowling alley also attended by his uncle and fellow Migos member Quavo. On Dec. 2 Houston Police announced that 33-year-old Patrick Xavier Clark was arrested on the east side of Houston and charged with murder, while another man, 22-year-old Cameron Joshua, was arrested and charged with the unlawful carrying of a weapon; Clark is being held on a $2 million bond.

Houston PD’s Sgt. Michael Burrow said during the news conference that Takeoff was an “innocent bystander” of the argument at the party that led to the shooting. “The event was a private party, there was a lucrative dice game that went on at the event, there was an argument that happened afterwards outside the bowling alley which led to the shooting,” he explained.

Last week, Clark’s attorney said the deadly shooting was a tragedy, but that his client says he’s innocent of the crime. Court records indicate Clark was arrested as he was preparing to leave the country for Mexico after getting an expedited passport and that he had a “large amount” of cash. TMZ reported on Tuesday (Dec. 13) that Clark asked a judge to reduce his bail to $100,000 so he can afford to be out as he awaits trial; Clark also reportedly wants to stay with his parents if his bond is reduced and has agreed to wear a GPS monitor and abide by any curfew imposed by the judge.

Check out the tribute below.

13 Dec 2022

Concert Venues Are Still Closing After the Pandemic — My Local Club Just Shut Down

DENVER — Tennyson’s Tap was the kind of music club where, on packed nights, the lone frazzled employee serving drinks, running sound and manning the door might ask one of the bands to help out and collect the $5 cover charge. I know because I sang in one of those bands, Smaldone Faces, and our bassist Luke and I pretty much let everyone in for free.

The Tap, at 4335 W. 38th St. in Denver, specialized in whiskey and scruffy musicians of every conceivable genre — my two bands that played there did country, punk and metal covers, and we opened for screamo indie-rockers, jazzy improvisationalists and dreadlocked funk-and-reggae combos. The bar smelled like cigarettes and beer, and had a capacity of about 90, but when we drew our crowds of 20 or 30 people, it roared like Springsteen at the Roxy.

“It’s one of those places where everybody’s right in your face. You don’t just hear the music, you feel it,” says singer and guitarist Aaron Garcia, whose Denver band 78 Bombs played its first gig there. “It’s so comfortable, it’s like an old shoe — an old Chuck Taylor.”

A few weeks ago, I drove by the Tap and the beige-colored, shack-like building was now a pile of collapsed lumber and cinder blocks as tall as the nearby telephone poles. The band I’m currently in, Sid Delicious, played its last gig at the Tap on March 6, 2020, and we soothed our small crowd that was feeling nervous about COVID-19 through the healing power of the MC5’s “Kick Out the Jams.” Cody, the big-bearded sound guy, had assured us that, just as 9/11 had brought people together, live music would never die, and offered plenty of hand san.

The bar closed a week or so later, and remained that way. “LOVE,” read the marquee. Eventually, somebody painted “Thank you!” on the wall outside.

Through quarantine, Fauci, Trump, vaccines, anti-vaxxers and the triumphant return of live music, I drove by, waiting for the band names to reappear on the marquee. But the Tap, like B.L.U.E.S. On Halsted in Chicago, the Satellite in Los Angeles and, this year, Exit/In in Nashville, couldn’t make it — despite the Small Business Administration’s multimillion-dollar grants to thousands of music venues forced to temporarily shut down during the pandemic.

According to the National Independent Venue Association, more than 25 U.S. clubs have permanently closed in 2022.

“For a whole year, I kept that place open and legal and ready to open the doors,” says Dave Fox, one of the club’s co-owners, who also ran a recording studio as part of the same corner complex. “But it was really the landlord’s decision to not proceed with the corner.”

The neighborhood surrounding Tennyson’s Tap is a long-since-gentrified portion of Northwest Denver known as Berkeley, and over the past 20 years, condos and coffee shops have replaced the old hardware store, the family-owned window-repair business and the music shop that used to repair my keyboard after I banged the “E” key too heavily during the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” The previous, longtime property owner suggested to Fox he could keep paying the Tap’s lease, but, according to Fox, new owners went in another direction last year.

(Representatives for the property, listed with the Colorado Secretary of State, did not respond to calls and e-mails about what they might do with the site of the former Tennyson’s Tap.)

In January 2011, Fox and a partner opened the Tap and began booking music. The odd national touring name played there, like metal-and-bodybuilding star Thor, but the club showcased mostly local artists, as many as five per night. A bartender, Cat Ackermann, was also a musician, and inaugurated a karaoke night; Leonard Apodaca, one of the club’s managers, had the idea to merge Taco Tuesdays and dance music, and it became a high-grossing, heavy-drinking success; the bar’s lack of genre discernment drew metal, ska, funk, jazz, reggae and, yes, punk-and-metal cover bands.

“We found the underlying grit in the DJ scene,” says Apodaca, who indulged me when I showed up at the bar on Tuesday afternoons to beg for new gigs, sometimes after we managed only 15 or 20 people at the previous ones. “All those people are used to going to clubs and paying a big cover. One night a week, they didn’t have to get all dressed up, they didn’t have to worry about going downtown. They can just be themselves. The girls would come out in sweatpants and backwards baseball caps.”

Sid Delicious hasn’t played a gig since that March 2020 night at Tennyson’s. A couple of our members were dedicated quarantiners and were reluctant to expose their young kids until they were eligible for vaccines. Then, last summer, we booked a date, but it was on a difficult night, in an inconvenient part of town, and, unlike band-friendly Tennyson’s, required us to rent our own PA, haul it in, figure out how to set it up and sound-check it ourselves.

We eventually canceled the gig. We’re figuring out how to move forward, but the band is adrift without the perfect venue, one like Tennyson’s Tap, where you could rock an hour long set on a tiny stage, closing with Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades,” after which Cody would hand you an envelope containing one or two crisp $100 bills. Of all the things we lost during the pandemic, a dingy old club with a back room for darts was not the most consequential.

Or, maybe, it was.

“It was just a community,” Apodaca says. “It’s all basically dirt now.”

Tennyson’s Tap Denver

What remains of the site of Tennyson’s Tap in Denver.

Steve Knopper