In my experience, most people haven't heard of the Rentals — and most of those who have heard of them only really know them as "that other band that Weezer's old bass player was in." Or the band who wrote "Elon Musk Is Making Me Sad."
That is all technically accurate. The group was started by Matt Sharp while he was still Weezer's secret weapon. And Elon Musk does make him sad. Since leaving that other band, Sharp has continued to release orchestral synth-y power-pop with a rotating cast of musicians under the Rentals moniker over the last 20 years. The group has included performers like Maya Rudolph, the Haden Sisters, Joey Santiago from the Pixies, Patrick Carney from the Black Keys, and many others.
The spaced-out track above is an instrumental mix of a tune from the band's upcoming sci-fi-themed album, Q36. The band has been releasing a new track every 2 weeks, along with a corresponding limited-edition t-shirt and hitRECORD project. And while I liked the regular version of "Invasion Night," I absolutely love this ambient version of it. Sharp cut out all the the vocals, drums, and bass in order to focus on his synthesizer sounds and the guitar work of Nick Zinner (most famously of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), and the result almost makes me feel like I'm in the head of Major Tom as he floats to his death.
The video that goes along with it was actually part of the Rentals' 2009 album Songs About Time, which included 365 photographs, 52 short films, and 3 EPs, all created in real-time over the course of a year. Read the rest
Some news you may have missed on New Year's Eve -- a federal judge has rejected efforts by Elon Musk's Tesla to dismiss claims brought by two former California employees that the car factory where they worked was a racist environment. The judge's decision clears the way for a trial, which is scheduled for May 11, 2020. Read the rest
Vernon Unsworth is one of the rescue divers who helped free the children who'd been stuck in a cave in Thailand; Unsworth made some pointed remarks about the disutility of Elon Musk's proposal to bring the children out in a miniature sub, to which Musk replied by publicly calling Unsworth "pedo guy" and "child rapist" and then daring Unworth to sue him.
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"Might delete later," adds The Fakening, creator of the abomination.
Previously: Elon Musk but with Elizabeth Holmes' eyes. Read the rest
In Illinois today, a law firm announced they are filing a lawsuit against Tesla to hold the electric car maker accountable for a teen who died in an accident involving a car they say had a defective battery pack. Read the rest
I regret to inform you that Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk is back on his inappropriate for a CEO tweets again. Read the rest
YouTube personality Casey Neistat took a break from his paternity leave to open and test his new (not a) toy, the Boring Company's "Not a Flamethrower."
As you may know, the Boring Company is an Elon Musk entity. Its $500 propane torch (the "flamethrower") is, as Neistat describes it, Musk's "$10 million dollar joke."
He notes that it's simply a roofing torch encased in a plastic air gun shell topped with a bike water bottle holder (to hold the tank of propane), parts he says you can get on the internet separately for much less. Still, he thinks it's "hysterical" and gives it a whirl, melting the cover to his microphone.
Previously: The Boring Company's Not a Flamethrower is a joke compared to actual flamethrowers, Build your own Boring Company flamethrower! Read the rest
The value of Elon Musk's Tesla Motors dropped about $1.1 billion after the close today. When will he, and the adults around him, learn?
Welp. Friday at Tesla and at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission should be interesting. Have fun with that, Board of Directors and SEC officers. On Thursday afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, we regret to inform you that Elon Musk is at it again with the crazy tweets. Read the rest
That sure was an expensive 420 joke. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has agreed to pay $20 million and step down from his role as chairman of the board of the company he founded for three years, in a deal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The worst humiliation Elon Musk will have to face won't be the $20 million fine or the loss of his role as chairman. Elon Musk now has to have a boss. Read the rest
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against entrepreneur Elon Musk alleging securities fraud. The complaint hasn't yet been made publicly available, but likely centers on his harebrained tweeting about taking the company private with foreign money.
Tesla shares are down 5.7%, reports Reuters. That's about $307, as of 4:20 p.m. Eastern time today.
AMAZING UPDATE:
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Elon Musk's SpaceX revealed the name of the person who is set to become the first private space tourist to travel to the moon: Yusaku Maezawa. Read the rest
Angry that cave rescuer Vernon Unsworth made fun of his ridiculous rescue submarine, Elon Musk called him a "pedo" and, later, a "child rapist," then dared him to sue over the remarks. Unsworth has filed his lawsuit.
The defamation lawsuit will extend an episode that has made even Musk’s biggest supporters squirm, with several inside Tesla, Musk’s electric automaker, questioning why he remains so committed to doubling down on what they regard as a self-inflicted embarrassment.
Unsworth is seeking more than $75,000 to compensate for the “worldwide damage” he suffered following Musk’s attacks, uttered by Musk in July to his more than 22 million Twitter followers. Unsworth, through his attorney, said Musk’s claim was baseless and lacked evidence.
“Elon Musk falsely accused Vern Unsworth of being guilty of heinous crimes,” Unsworth’s attorney, L. Lin Wood, said in a statement. “Musk’s influence and wealth cannot convert his lies into truth or protect him from accountability for his wrongdoing in a court of law.”
A similar lawsuit was filed in London, where libel laws are more plaintiff-friendly. Unsworth is British, though, and Musk's remarks are completely bonkers, so it's not as if Unsworth is forum-shopping.
Even if Musk has some oppo-research dirt on Unsworth he's been sat on all this time, and there's no evidence at all that he has, what's the point? Musk's behavior has the air of pathology about it in general, and this only reminds everyone of the whole of it. Read the rest
I own a propane torch, so I know one when I see one. The Boring Company's Not a Flamethrower? It's definitely a propane torch... which, I suppose, means that Musk's marketing department is pretty much on the mark.
To drive the point of the Not a Flamethrower's not being a flamethrower home, the folks at DriveTanks.com subjected the Not a Flamethrower to the Pepsi challenge against a Vietnam-era M9 flamethrower and a XM34. Seeing how much more destructive these two weapons are compared to Musk's torch makes me glad that it's definitely not a flamethrower that the Boring Company was selling. Read the rest
“I suggest that you call people you know in Thailand, find out what’s actually going on and stop defending child rapists, you fucking asshole.”
— Elon Musk, September 4, 2018, to Buzzfeed News. Read the rest
The first paragraphs in this Wall Street Journal story about the Tesla CEO's ego problems are absolutely b🔥o🔥n🔥k🔥e🔥r🔥s.
During a tour this spring at Tesla Inc.’s electric-car factory in Fremont, Calif., Elon Musk asked why the assembly line had stopped. Managers said automatic safety sensors halted the line whenever people got in the way.
Mr. Musk became angry, according to people familiar with what happened. His high-profile gamble on mass-producing electric cars had lagged behind since production began, and here was one more frustration. The billionaire entrepreneur began head-butting the front end of a car on the assembly line.
“I don’t see how this could hurt me,” he said of vehicles on the slow-speed line. “I want the cars to just keep moving.”
When a senior engineering manager involved with the system explained that it was a safety measure, Mr. Musk told him, “Get out!” Tesla said the manager was fired for other reasons.
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Goaded by a tweet from writer Drew Olanoff, Tesla CEO Elon Musk again insinuated that the cave diver who mocked him during the Thailand cave rescue operation is a pedophile. Read the rest
