Wormrot is selling some of its merch and used guitar gear online, such as the pedal pictured above. When making the announcement, the band cautioned, “Also do your own research. Don’t DM to ask what a HM-2 does.” I do have a question, though: aren’t all four of the HM-2’s dials supposed to be all the way to the right?
Gob claims to be the world’s first sustainable and 100% plant-based earplugs. More info is online. I have a ton of normal earplugs at home and I get annoyed when I forget to bring some with me and have to get more when I go to a show.
Freddy Lim (林昶佐) made a splash on social media, Wu Chi-ling and Chao Yen-hsiang write for Focus Taiwan, after playing a show with his metal band Chthonic. Lim is an unusual performer as he is Taiwan’s ambassador to Finland. The show was “F:F:F-Formosa:Finland:Fest,” a cultural exchange event.
Billboard has an updated formula for how it counts album streams: The Billboard 200 and Hot 100 count one album “unit” as 1,000 paid/subscription streams or 2,500 ad-supported streams, Mandy Dalugdug writes for Music Business Worldwide. YouTube doesn’t find that fair and will stop sharing data with Billboard.
Charitable giving and volunteering are ways to make the world a slightly better place, especially around holidays. At Synchtank, Emma Griffiths has a list of several international music-related charities.
Book Your Own Fuckin’ Life was an invaluable resource for touring bands back in the pre-Internet days, and Kevin Warwick has a history of the publication for Vice.com. Like countless others, I used it to book tour dates back then. I learned a few things reading the article, for example that the magazine went online for a time after it was no longer in print.
Tahnee Cain & Tryanglz were an ’80s band (pictured above) that had three tracks on the soundtrack to one of my favorite films, The Terminator. Cain jumped into the comments on Reddit more than once to correct information on her band and shared a SoundCloud link to the group’s unreleased album.
Rest in Peace
Adam Bass of Ladies’ Choice passed away in November. A tribute on Instagram described him as a staple of the Seattle music scene.
Jimmy Cliff died in November following an illness, his family announced on social media. He was a beloved vocal star of reggae music whose career stretched back decades. His song “Vietnam” is one that Bob Dylan called “the best protest song ever written,” Mark Savage writes for the BBC.
Billy Groody was a co-founder of The Communion who passed away in November after a fight with cancer. The band shared the news on social media, and there’s an obituary as well. This is the second loss in the band after Lee Altomare passed in 2010. The guys in The Communion and their music are well liked by many in the underground, including me.
Steve Cropper was a guitarist in Booker T. & the M.G.’s and “the architect of the Stax Records sound,” his family writes announcing his passing on social media. He died in December in Nashville at 84. He helped create a string of hits and held several awards in his career.
Perry Bamonte was a guitarist, bassist, and keyboardist for The Cure. He died in December, Maria Sherman writes for AP. His last gig with the group was “The Cure: The Show of a Lost World,” which launched the latest album from the band.
Mont Sherar‘s name is deeply connected with Killing Joke but also post punk and industrial music culture. He died by suicide in 2024, and now his wife Pia is exploring what to do with his archive, which includes an unfinished autobiography.
Live photo: Tahnee Cain’s SoundCloud
