By Bryce Horowitz

If you haven’t heard of the band “Glass Animals”, then get on it!

I hadn’t heard of them till this past weekend in Chicago. I was just chilling on a boat with my boy Matt Robinson when this song came on and I knew from the beginning that there was something special about them.

Glass Animals is carried by the main guy Dave Bayley, who writes and produces all of their music. Dave Bayley was born in Massachusets, Lived in Texas till the age of 13, and has lived in Oxford, UK since. Bayley considers himself as “A little blonde Jewish boy from Texas. That’s it”

The group has been friends since 13, but formed when he was in Med school for Neuroscience at Oxford, pretty smart guy ehhh?

In 2016, the band released an album called “How to Be a Human Being”, Which I consider to be one of the greatest albums of all time. In preparation for this album, Bayley met hundreds of strangers, some of whom would tell him their darkest secrets. Although each song on the album originated from some of these stories, Bayley wants the lyrics to be open to psychological interpretation.

Trust me, there are some NUTS stories on this album. “Mama’s Gun” is a song that focuses on mainly mental health (Schizophrenia) and samples “Mr. Guder” by The Carpenters.

“Mama’s Gun” is developed from a story they were told by a Taxi Driver and goes like this: “So I was in a taxi driving through Atlanta. We drove past a strip club and the taxi driver turns and says, ‘I’ve got a good story about a strip club’. She explained she used to be a long haul truck driver, and, to get her jobs done faster, used to take crystal meth to keep her awake. She wouldn’t have to stop once for a week. One day she took too much meth and blacked out, and woke up in a strip club having no idea where she was, she even had to ask the stripper what state she was in. Basically this poor lady, the taxi driver, she’d blacked out for a month. She didn’t what state she was in, she didn’t know she had blacked out for a month, didn’t know where the truck as she was driving. And she woke up knowing she’d done something really truly awful. She thinks she murdered someone. And she will always think she murdered someone and feels incredibly guilty, but there’s no way of knowing, she’ll never know. That weird feeling of not knowing and never being able to know something I wrote about in a track called ‘Mama’s Gun’.”

Glass Animals has now released 3 albums, most recently “Dreamland” on August, 7th. Dreamland is an autobiographical record containing some of Bayley’s most personal stories. “Dreamland” developed after the drummer Joe Seaward got into a horrific biking accident in Dublin a few years ago. Seaward had to relearn all of his motor skills, during this time it forced Bayley to reminisce on the past instead of the future. Bayley said, “I can’t really imagine going back to medicine, I would love to keep doing music.”

With normalcy tough to find these days, it helps to be able to turn on the television and watch some of the best athletes in the world dunk, shoot and pass our worries away for a couple hours. That’s why I was glued to my TV last night as Zion, LeBron and even Alex Caruso put on a show inside the Orlando bubble as the NBA returned to action.

What began as a strange experience watching basketball without fans became somewhat normal as the threes rained down and dishes were served. Oh, and betting on the games helps too.

And the most compelling part of watching professional basketball again? Watching NBA players take this unique opportunity to showcase important issues that need to remain in the social conversation. With Black Lives Matter emblazoned on the court and statements like Equality and Say Her Name on the backs of their jerseys, it’s extremely inspirational to watch these rich, strong millionaires use their large and influential platform for good.

While I am a bit biased and hope LeBron gets his 4th championship, I can’t wait to see how the rest of this season unfolds. It’s just great to have sports back to keep us entertained as the world slowly burns down around us. In Luka Dončić we trust!

With the announcement of the 2020 Mercury Awards came the typical debates over which albums got snubbed. But one notable record, Rina Sawayama’s incredible debut SAWAYAMA, was omitted for a particularly strange reason.

According to the Mercury Awards rules: “Artists must be of British or Irish nationality. Artists are of British or Irish nationality if they hold a passport for either the United Kingdom or Ireland and/or a birth certificate from the United Kingdom or Ireland (‘British’ or ‘Irish’ respectively).”

Sawayama, who has lived in the UK for 25 years since moving from Japan, maintains immigration status, or indefinite leave to remain (ILR). Due to this minor stipulation, Sawayama’s incredibly unique record isn’t eligible for the prize awarded to the top album in British music each year.

It’s worth noting that Elton John called SAWAYAMA the “strongest album of the year by far.” Hey Brits, maybe you should fix this rule and appease myself, Elton and the rest of the Pixels with a Merucry nom!