#soxfest

#soxfest

"We believe our company will be a force in contributing to how the next iterations of cultural development in Boston will be implemented," Banfield said in a statement.

The Orioles played the Nationals this weekend at Camden Yards, as the club unveiled new additions to one of the best parks in the sport. Instead of pumping out another Spring Training game in Sarasota, they went back home with just days before the season begins in earnest.

Saturday's lineup features headliners Mumford & Sons along with The Offspring, Chaka Khan, and The War on Drugs, among others, creating a diverse musical experience.

Participants gathered at Constitution Beach, where dozens of "splashers" ran into the freezing water to raise money for the Better Beaches Grant Program. The program provides small grants to individuals and organizations that host free public events and activities each summer on Department of Conservation and Recreation beaches from Nahant to Nantasket.

Band of Skulls emerged from Southampton, England with a gritty, blues-soaked take on garage rock that felt both scrappy and deliberate. Their breakout album Baby Darling Doll Face Honey introduced a sound built on thick riffs, tight rhythm work, and a push-pull vocal dynamic that gave the songs real tension.

The Hotelier recently announced they'd celebrate a decade of their essential third album, 2016's Goodness, with a few shows this year, including NYC's Bowery Ballroom on June 25. Tickets to that sold out, so they've added a second NYC show the next night, on June 26 at Bowery Ballroom.

There's no greater sports town in all of America than Boston.

The Globe broke the story Thursday afternoon, writing that local real estate developer Samuels and Associates would take over the food hall and keep it as Time Out Market. The news comes a week after the London-based media brand announced it would close the popular food hall on Jan. 23, shocking much of Boston that the city's first major and modern food hall was shuttering so abruptly after opening to much fanfare in 2019. The reason for the closure, a Time Out spokesperson said, was due to lower foot traffic following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Four events - Field Day, Cross the Tracks, City Splash and Mighty Hoopla - will take place from May 23-31. Summer Events Ltd, which runs the Brockwell Live series, submitted its first full planning application in 2025. This was the first time that planning permission had to be granted for the festivals to run in the park - until the legal battle which was won by anti-festival campaign group Protect Brockwell Park (PBP) in 2025.

The Mosswood date marks the first Bay Area show in four years for Pavement. Founded in Stockton but now spread all over the country, the indie-rock stalwarts staunchly, if obtusely, reflected their Northern California roots in ragged-but-right aesthetics and songs like "Two States" and "Unfair." (In 2022, during the band's three-night run at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco, singer Stephen Malkmus changed the lyrics during "Fillmore Jive" to take a jovial swipe at Mill Valley.)

A band called Ad Nauseam is dead set on keeping grunge alive in Portland, but no local venue will return their calls to play a show. Like the most iconic grunge acts, Ad Nauseam has deep PNW roots. They deliver sludgy, whining guitar licks and haunting, sandpapery vocals. They've even got an angsty tune called "Scab Pimple" for goodness sake. So why can't they land a gig? Well, it might be because all four band members are between the ages of 10 and 16.

This is by far the biggest release week of the year so far. Amanda and I highlight 12 new releases below, and Bill tackles another five in Indie Basement, including Cardinals, Luke Temple & The Cascading Moms, The Paranoid Style, the Wall of Voodoo 1983 demos collection, and the expanded reissue of Velocity Girl's ¡Simpatico!. And in addition to these reviews, Dave and I talked a lot about all this new music on today's episode of BV Weekly.

The album, he added, "changed our lives. It put us on a map. It gave us a new, broad audience of people that found something in it that they connected with. People have grown up with this record, right alongside us growing up, and I feel like it's important to celebrate it. It's important to acknowledge to people that we appreciate that, despite the obvious commerce involved."

The night before Music's Biggest Night, Pitchfork continued its streak of ringing in the new year with fun, undeniably risk-averse things we've never done before. At El Cid, a historic open-air venue in LA, we threw our first-ever Best New Music party in collaboration with Hennessy. Co-hosted by PinkPantheress, FKA twigs, Kaytranada, Perfume Genius, and Pitchfork editor Mano Sundaresan, the party brimmed with talented artists shaping the future of music.

"We cannot rely on institutions to save us. We can only rely on ourselves and the community we have to fight for trans America - and that now includes throwing a badass 3-day benefit music festival," said Jael Holzman of Ekko Astral. "Let this incredible lineup be seen as a way of using art as a cultural battering ram against the people trying to erase us."

Portland-area festival Pickathon holds its 2026 edition on July 30-August 2 at Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley, OR. Festival passes and single-day tickets are on sale and they've just announced this year's lineup. The 2026 lineup features a selection of "legends" as headliners: Steve Earle, Marcos Valle, Built to Spill, Shakey Graves, Meridian Brothers, Alela Diane, Acid King, Mexican Institute of Sound, and Clinton Fearon.

hemlocke springs' fantastic debut album, The Apple Tree Under The Sea, is out today via AWAL - you can read our review in Notable Releases. To celebrate the release, she's releasing a new video of the final track, "be the girl!," a euphoric bop. It's directed by Quinn Whitney Wilson and premieres at 12:59 PM ET.