Ray LaMontagne Cancels Austin Show to Protest Campus Carry
American singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne cancelled his long-anticipated Austin show yesterday, stating his protesting of Texas’s new campus carry law. The new campus carry law allows licensed permit holders to bring concealed handguns into many performance venues on public university campuses, and that includes the Texas Performing Arts Center. Ray LaMontange said he thinks of himself as a “very open minded human being,” but said, “on behalf of myself and the band…I want to express our collective disappointment in the decision to allow guns on campus, and within a campus venue.” The show was scheduled to take place at the Bass Concert Hall on the UT campus, and had been sold out for months. Anticipation surrounding the event had heightened in the last several months, as Ray LaMontange was forced to cancel his slot at Auditorium Shores during this year’s SXSW festival. The campus carry law has stirred up a lot of controversy on campus, in Austin, and around the state and country; it’s compelled multiple professors to seek job at other universities, and now, inevitably, cancelled shows from protesting musicians. (KUT)
Photo Cred: Thalia Juarez
Weezer’s Pinkerton Turns Platinum…20 Years Later
Cheech Marin once said “better late than never.” Last week, Weezer realized that mantra is a surprising way. Just 8 days before its 20th anniversary, the group’s Sophomore album Pinkerton turned platinum. The album was initially released in 1996 to pitiful reviews and reception by fans and critics who expected frontman Rivers Cuomo to follow-up Weezer’s debut hit The Blue Album with something similar, and, of course, Pinkerton is closer to an antithesis of The Blue Album than a sonically close follow-up. Over time the album has grown to be a classic, and the long overdue platinum status vindicates its favorable place in the minds and hearts of fans and critics alike. (Consequence of Sound)
-Taylor Wallace
