For Those About To Rock

'The Larry Sanders Show' delivers '90s nostalgia

Jeffrey Tambor, Garry Shandling and Rip Torn pose for a 1990s publicity photo for HBO's "The Larry Sanders Show."(Courtesy photo)

What’s trending culturally right now feels like artifacts pulled from a time capsule sealed in the 1990s:

• Pokémon is the hottest game in the nation.

• Pop punk rockers Blink-182 have the No. 1-selling album on the Billboard charts.

• Two of the biggest names in politics right now are Clinton and Gingrich.

To quote a Blink-182 hit from that era: What’s my age again?

Fully submerged in our retro-’90s deep dive, it feels like proper time to binge watch “The Larry Sanders Show,” especially months after the death of its star, Garry Shandling (right).

“The Larry Sanders Show” ran for six seasons on HBO, a behind-the-scenes, half-hour comedy about production of a fictitious talk show of the same name. Many critics consider it the high-water mark of Shandling’s career.

As someone who never saw the show during its run, there’s something satisfying about watching Shandling in his signature work. It was ahead of its time so much that he told Jerry Seinfeld in an episode of “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” prior to his death that it was a difficult show to sell because its mockumentary, behind-the-scenes style didn’t have a precedent at the time.

Now such comedies are commonplace. It feels like a less silly spiritual ancestor of “30 Rock” in the way it shows the behind-the-scenes drama of a variety show, but like a sibling of “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” because of the frequency with which Sanders’ actions blow up in his face.

While trailblazing in some respects, the show has not aged well in others. Unlike “30 Rock,” which showed rare snippets of the variety show it produced, “Sanders” gives more than passing glances at its show within in a show. Larry engages with guests as well as delivers opening monologue bits referencing 1990s news of the day. “No flipping,” Larry tells his would-be viewers as he heads into commercials, a funny idea considering the actual program is on HBO.

The show is so old that it talks about being in competition with the first run of the “The Arsenio Hall Show,” a show that returned to the airwaves for a single-season run on CBS in 2013-14. A young Dana Carvey appears as an upstart comedian filling in for Larry as a guest host. Janeane Garofalo, in one of her earliest screen roles and more recently for her political commentary, has a recurring spot as a member of the show's staff.

Perhaps the greatest and saddest way the program shows its age is its guest appearances by a sobering parade of deceased comics and celebrities, including Robin Williams, Phil Hartman, John Ritter, Bruno Kirby, Ed McMahon, Chris Farley, Warren Zevon and others. Even film critic Gene Siskel pops up.

Also, of course, there’s Shandling himself, the not-so-calm at the center of the storm roiling with anger under the surface as the title character. It’s a strong performance that blurs the line between fiction and fact. Even if he faded from the mainstream after the show’s conclusion, he left a powerful mark on television.

While admirable for the elements that made it ahead of its time, the show’s full-bloom nostalgia makes it a complicated title to suggest to other newcomers in 2016. While I smirk at the sight of Hartman, whose shocking death I still mourn, I suspect those unfamiliar with his great work on “Saturday Night Live,” “NewsRadio,” “The Simpsons” and more might not get the same thrill from seeing him once more.

Maybe that’s why I find “Sanders” bittersweet, but enjoyable. I’m old enough to remember Hartman as well as Ritter, Farley and even Siskel. Though some of the jokes are dated, it’s the characters and the issues they face that make it entertaining. Shandling, along with Rip Torn, as producer Arthur, and Jeffrey Tambor, as his nauseating sidekick Hank, make for a colorful, entertaining trio at the heart of the show.

So even if time has passed by “The Larry Sanders Show” in some respects, it’s still a time capsule worth opening.

No flipping.

Robin Williams on the show (NSFW language):

Bruno Kirby and Steven Wright make guest appearances:

Jeffrey Tambor recreates Hank's often-used opening credits dialogue for an episode of "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon"

Lannister twins face dark future after ‘Game of Thrones’ finale

Cersei Lannister (Lena Headley) looks out at King's Landing from the Red Keep in the most recent episode of HBO's "Game of Thrones." (HBO images)

At times uneven and oddly paced, the sixth season of HBO’s blockbuster “Game of Thrones” wrapped Sunday with an explosive final episode.

For those who haven’t watched all of the most recent season as well as any corresponding books in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, here’s a spoiler warning.

While the Stark family is the beating heart of the series — they’ve been the focal point since the first episode — I continue to be fascinated by the Lannister children.

Though youngest sibling Tyrion, played by Peter Dinklage, is my favorite, I feel that the finale tipped its hand toward its endgame with the elder twins, Cersei, played by Lena Headley, and Jaime (right), who Nikolaj Coster-Waldau plays.

Cersei’s always been manipulative and cunning, but crossed an irredeemable line in the season finale, bringing an abrupt and cataclysmic end to her trial for incest and regicide. In conspiracy with Qyburn, the resident Dr. Josef Mengele of “Game of Thrones,” she used hidden casks of wildfire, the universe’s more-potent-than-fire substance, to blow up a sept, a holy building, and everyone inside it. Those inside included anyone suspecting her of wrongdoing as well as many rivals, politicians and claimants to the throne.

As part of the collateral damage, the king, her last remaining child, son Tommen, jumped out of a window to his death, leaving her as queen by default and elevating creepy Qyburn to second in command.

It feels as if we've reached the boiling point on plot developments that heating since the pilot, when Jaime chucked Bran Stark out of a window to keep his sister-loving ways a secret. It’s difficult to paint “The Kingslayer” as sympathetic, considering he attempted to murder Bran, assassinated the “Mad King” Aerys, has killed scores and raped Cersei on the floor of the sept next to the corpse of their eldest son, the rotten King Joffrey.

Both have done heinous things, but Cersei’s act of mass murder pushed her across the moral event horizon. Dressed in black “Maleficent” fines, she was funereal as she became the queen of Westeros as well as its villainous (villainess, too) final boss.

Queen is a mantle she wanted, but lost all three children getting there. She flashed a wicked smile as she watched her enemies die across the city.

She is the woman who quipped the show’s title – “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die” – but who could have foreseen she would put such an emphasis on the death part?

Cersei's become a terrorist (left) and that’s not a word to be used lightly. She demolished a church and murdered dozens to free herself from the possibility of a guilty verdict.

Whether Jaime knows this is yet to be seen. It was clear from the episode’s penultimate scene that regardless of how much he knows, he finds his new, all-powerful queen worrisome.

Earlier in season six, Jaime made part of his political pitch to peacefully take over the castle of Riverrun by saying he will do “whatever it takes” to get back to Cersei. Now, he's in an impossible spot.

George R.R. Martin, the creator of this universe, has said that, like William Faulkner, he believes the only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.

I want Jaime to find out what Cersei did. This would be juicy for the show's well-matched, but kinda icky power couple. More than 20 years after Jaime assassinated Aerys to save the citizens of King’s Landing from death by wildfire, his sister and lover weaponized the same substance to carry out a brutal, unforgivable attack.

With the upcoming final season to be split into two parts, the stakes rise as we steer toward the series finale.

So I want to see Jaime to face a choice between what’s best for the Seven Kingdoms and his love for Cersei. It will be a much harder decision than killing the Mad King. But I expect the fate of Westeros to hang in the balance.

Since his journey over the course of the series has been one of redemption – he has not killed any Starks since he vowed to Catelyn Stark he would not, he took Riverrun without bloodshed, he let Brienne escape after the takeover – I think if the moment comes, he will kill his twin sister and earn a new moniker: “The Queenslayer.”

Beyoncé's 'Lemonade' album, film push boundaries for music

Beyoncé performs at Pavilhão Atlântico in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2009. The New York-based R&B and pop star released her sixth album, Lemonade, last month. (Courtesy photo/José Goulão)

What defines an album has moved beyond the constraints of its format.

It’s nothing new, really, to connect visuals to an album or even a movie.

Yet something about Beyonce’s latest project, Lemonade, which arrived via a one-hour film on HBO, delves deep into infidelity and relationships in a way that feels bold, intimate and fresh.

Lemonade — named, I assume, after the adage about turning lemons into a sweet drink — fills a popular narrative about break-up albums and records about marital trouble. There’s something romantic, if you’ll pardon that word in this instance, about the narrative of such albums. It parallels the American dream – Anyone who works hard and pays their dues can vault over even the highest obstacles.

People identify with wanting to turn tears, sadness and a broken heart into something better. In the case of Lemonade, it’s about martial issues, but it’s also a concept album and a video musical. It redefines not just break-up albums, but gives a window into where albums and music might go.

For Lemonade, Beyoncé frames the entire record and companion film of same name around an affair.

Whether an affair between Jay Z and Beyoncé is real or imagined is irrelevant. I found myself thinking of the words of piano rocker Ben Folds, who once said nothing is against the rules in creativity.

“If I feel that I want to write in first person and completely make it up, then I’m going to do it,” Folds said. “And I realize that it’s a powerful, uh — The ‘I’ in songwriting is powerful because people tap into the celebrity of it. … (People say,) ‘The guy that’s singing that actually did that.’ ”

Throughout the picture, voiceover serves as the connective tissue between songs. The interstitial moments give it the feeling of a musical, pushing the story forward between bursts of song. Through those snippets of voiceover, some of which cribbed from Kenya-born poet Warsan Shire, Beyoncé's narrator moves through 11 self-decided stages of recovery from cheating.

“With every tear came redemption and my torturer became my remedy,” her character says in the final chapter’s voiceover.

“Formation,” the song which caused an outcry in February after its performance at halftime of Super Bowl 50 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, closes the record. After Bey's character moves through the stages of grief, loss and rediscovery, “Formation” reads as a powerful closing statement. The first verse, in which she states where she comes from and talks about her body, reads as pride and confidence after a record of heartbreak, pain and rising out of the ashes.

It also sounds like a record only Beyoncé could have made. Her film and the narrator she portrays brings the project into full view in a way the music alone could not. By showing couples at different ages as well as her own home movies and making nods toward her parents’ 2011 divorce, Beyoncé’s Lemonade film either feels like a piercing self-examination.

Video is a field she’s dabbled in before. Her surprise, self-titled 2013 album sold with an accompanying music video for each song. She’s not breaking new ground here, but the idea of such an immersive experience is an area she can afford to explore more easily than others.

Musicians on film and video is nothing new. The Beatles were the subjects of A Hard Day’s Night more than 50 years ago. Elvis Presley starred in movies. Music videos help promote sales. Kanye West made a short film for the music video for “Runaway” in 2010 and even “Weird Al” Yankovic rolled out his last album, 2014's Mandatory Fun, with a series of music videos.

But what Beyonce’s done is use video not just as a marketing tool, but as an essential part of the experience and understanding of the record. It’s impossible to uncouple the film from the music.

She’s testing the boundaries of what an album can be while simultaneously delivering her most insightful and personal work yet.

The project’s title might be referencing turning lemons into lemonade, but it’s hard to think Queen Bey isn’t trying to do the same for the music industry, too.

Paulson makes 'People v. O.J.' worth watching

Sarah Paulson appears as prosecutor Marcia Clark on the FX show "American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson." (FX photo)

With only the season finale left, my latest pop culture obsession is FX's “American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson.”

I didn’t expect to like this series. I didn't think there were depths left to plumb.

I didn't see all the tendrils that spiral out to the modern day, the way it helped spawn reality TV and gave us the Kardashians. It's astute in noting the racial divide between the police and the people given the Black Lives Matter movement.

What's made it compelling is that in addition to a puzzling nostalgia for slow, white Bronco chases, the Ryan Murphy-created series has developed the courtroom players into rich, three-dimensional people.

The show aims for factual, down to the placement of props and clothes worn, but takes fictional liberties, too, such as the departure of prosecutor Bill Hodgman (Christian Clemenson) or the most recent episode’s meltdown between prosecutor Christopher Darden (Sterling K. Brown) and defense attorney Johnnie Cochran (Courtney B. Vance).

But perhaps the character — and, appropriately, the real-life figure — who benefits most from revisiting the “trial of the century” is prosecutor Marcia Clark, played by Sarah Paulson.

It’s difficult to single out one actor or actress in an ensemble that includes Cuba Gooding Jr. as Simpson, John Travolta as defense lawyer Bob Shapiro and Nathan Lane as defense attorney F. Lee Bailey among other familiar faces, but Paulson’s work on “American Crime Story” is exemplary. It’s an engrossing performance that deftly balances the ferocity required to try a double-murder with sympathetic moments that flesh out her character.

“She delivered the feelings on the inside so beautifully, with so much nuance,” the real Clark told New York magazine earlier this year.

In another interview with Vulture, Clark showed surprise that the show delved into that balance.

“It's a murder trial and it's not a dinner party,” she said. “At the end of the day, at the end of the trial, I was in a lose-lose position. If I go soft-voiced and, you know, very ladylike, they call me a cream puff and say, 'She's not up to the task.' I go in and I'm tough and I'm strong and I'm a b----.”

Although having such a capable actress play Clark’s role helps, Murphy and the other writers behind the show have offered a much more sympathetic perspective of Clark than there was when the trial unfolded. One episode, “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia,” put the spotlight on Clark, showing a system and a trial beating her down so that even her hairstyles were matters of national debate and discussion.

Going through a divorce at the time of the trial, the episode shows Clark dealing with that battle in addition to finding a schedule to take care of her children and just the general sexism of her job.

But time and the show have warmed up to a viewpoint on Clark as a feminist heroine. In fact, the show made this claim unabashed in its most recent episode.

“Women who work in male dominated-professions, I think, are tougher than most,” said Judge Lance Ito (Kenneth Choi), cutting to Clark in case viewers didn’t pick up the subtlety. Ito was speaking of his wife, who was the subject of a recorded tirade by a witness, Officer Mark Fuhrman (Steven Pasquale).

The lens changed focus, shifting to Darden just behind her then cutting quickly back to Ito to finish his thought. “And if they are successful, they are almost always targets for this kind of treatment,” he said before the angle switches back again to Clark, seated at the table.

It was the show laying bare its agenda, but it's provided a fresh view on a trial and a moment in time that ripples out to today.

Although – spoiler alert – the trial did not end in Clark's favor, the real Clark has gone on to a new career as a crime fiction writer.

With the verdict remaining in the season finale set to air Tuesday, much like the process to get there, it won't be the outcome that is amusing, but the journey there that makes the show worth watching.

Thanks to performance's such as Paulson's, it's been a slow, white Bronco journey worth revisiting.

Trailer for the season finale:

Lacking new superstars, rock 'n' roll's future murky

Alabama Shakes singer Brittany Howard sings and plays guitar at Norwegian music festival Øyafestivalen in 2013. Howard and the Shakes are nominated for four Grammy Awards during Monday's ceremony. (Courtesy photo/Jørund Føreland Pedersen)

A music-related game I played recently: Name the biggest rock band to release its debut album from 2005 to present.

Did you say Arcade Fire? Its immaculate debut, Funeral (right), came out in 2004.

How about The Black Keys? Negative buzzer. The Big Come Up dates to 2002.

The National? Well, it’s true the band is pretty big now, but its self-titled debut dropped in 2001.

This system of dating isn’t empirical evidence that rock ’n’ roll is in decline, but it does speak to a lack in the level of notoriety of rock stars during the past decade.

I’m loathe to proclaim that “rock is dead,” however. On a mainstream level, it’s having an identity crisis as the genre sails into in its seventh decade. Some critics thirst to be the first to trumpet the “death of rock” or the “end of guitar music,” but these outbursts are short-sighted click bait.

That said, having widespread appeal ain’t what it used to be for rock. Take, for instance, Alabama Shakes, nominated for four Grammy Awards at Monday’s annual ceremony, including the coveted Album of the Year for last year's Sound and Color. The band is in contention as biggest new rock band of the past decade, releasing its debut, Boys and Girls, in 2012.

Other rivals for that mantle include Alt-J (first album in 2012), Arctic Monkeys (2006), Bon Iver (2007), Cold War Kids (2006), Fleet Foxes (2008), Imagine Dragons (2012), Mumford & Sons (2009), Tame Impala (2010), Vampire Weekend (2008) and The xx (2009). That doesn’t even count solo artists.

Does a decade not sound like enough time to make it big? Maybe, but let’s keep in mind that three of the biggest new rock stars of the Aughts were John Mayer, Jack White and Coldplay’s Chris Martin, who released their first albums in 2001, 1999 and 2000, respectively. Their rises to fame came quickly.

One trend of the 2010s is that indie rock is supplanting harder rock as the mainstream form. That isn’t to say the likes of Foo Fighters (right) or Mastodon don’t exist, but that, on a mainstream level, rock has settled into a more all-encompassing definition.

As the genre ages, its reaching a point where artists are revisiting previously explored areas. Arctic Monkeys nail a post-punk sound, a flavor of rock popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Tame Impala mines the fertile ground of '70s psychedelic rock.

Bon Iver, with its wintry rhythms and falsetto croon, is the closest on the above list to an innovator, alongside Vampire Weekend, which proved trust-fund kids can make their pop rock sound feel so natural — with a dash of Peter Gabriel, too.

There’s also the reality that making a tremendous splash in the mainstream is both, somehow, easier and harder than ever. Social media and the availability of music via streaming services has served to make music more of a niche product, but also allowed for megawatt superstardom like we’ve never had before in human history.

Music superstars in 2016 reach a wider audience than ever. Last year, Adele broke the record for albums sold in a single week at more than 3 million. Katy Perry has an audience of nearly 82.4 million on Twitter and Taylor Swift has 70.9 million followers, both beating out President Barack Obama’s puny 69.7 million.

But we're also in an era where an album can reach No. 1 in sales by moving just 30,000 copies in a slow week.

Although this evidence is anecdotal, the point is that massive stardom to a worldwide audience is still possible for musicians, but that separation into niche markets is on the rise, too.

What rock needs to evolve and survive is innovation. Revisiting its own history has a nostalgic appeal, but its survival depends on creating and celebrating new sounds and new territories. Rock’s reached an age where, in a mainstream way, it feels directionless.

If it doesn’t adapt and change, it will become locked in a self-congratulatory nostalgia loop, which has its appeal, too, but that’s a locked groove. There’s no future there.

Despite being nominated for Grammys and being good at what the band does, Alabama Shakes’ material feels like a place we’ve been before, a Southern-fried blast of bluesy rock. With her gruff voice and blues chops, singer Brittany Howard is reminiscent of one of rock's pioneers, Big Mama Thornton.

There are artists still pushing boundaries — Deafheaven, Swans, Sigur Rós, to name a few — challenging our notions of what rock is and what it can be.

That’s what rock will need if it’s going to survive and continue to thrive as a mainstream genre.

Disturbing lack of faith in Abrams to lead 'Star Wars'

J.J. Abrams is seen in 2012. Abrams is the director, co-producer and co-producer of "Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens," which opens in theaters next week. (Courtesy photo/Joi Ito)

I’m not saying it was a major life decision, but deciding to see the upcoming “Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens” film put me in a tough spot.

I’m a devoted fan of the George Lucas-created world, including parts of the now-abandoned Expanded Universe of tales that are neither motion animated nor live action.

But I also made a vow in 2009 never to see anything else involving J.J. Abrams, director, co-writer and co-producer of the seventh and latest live-action, big-screen installment in the space opera film series.

So, you might say ... I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

You might think that's a silly thing to stick to and the older I get, the more I agree. However, when you make a vow in print where thousands of people can read it, you have to back up your big mouth with action.

So that means I haven't seen “Super 8,” “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” “Star Trek Into Darkness,” “Revolution,” “Almost Human,” “Fringe” or anything else with Abrams' name on it in the past six-and-a-half years.

I tired of seeing him resort to what I saw as the same bag of infuriating tricks — and I’m not talking about his well-known love of lens flares.

Whether as writer, director or producer, I saw lazy writing in his material. He had a hand in “Armageddon,” which alone should’ve been enough to derail his entire career.

“Lost” infuriated me and I didn’t even come anywhere near the finale. I watched part of the first season, worried they were opening too many Pandora’s boxes they never planned to solve — or, worse yet, the show would be canceled before they could. So I gave up early.

He loves to use time travel. He even shoehorned it into college drama “Felicity” of all places. He loves destroying landmarks, decimating the Arc de Triomphe, Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building in separate movies.

Clichés, MacGuffins, unexplained phenomena, time travel. As his offenses piled up in my brain, I decided I’d had enough.

However, I believe there’s good in him. I’ve felt it.

I can’t imagine a world where this movie is in theaters and I skip it because of a grudge against its director. I’ve seen every live-action “Star Wars” picture and I watched every episode of the 2008-14 “The Clone Wars” on Cartoon Network and Netflix.

Disney broke my heart when it decided to abandon the Expanded Universe for new storylines. Although I understand why, I am disappointed that the war with the violent, sadistic Yuuzhan Vong (left) now takes place in an alternate, noncanon timeline.

So I am going to go back on my word. My love of “Star Wars” trumps my distaste for Abrams’ previous work.

I love this universe and its characters too much to let it pass without seeing it in the theater. I went to a midnight showing — not in costume — for “Revenge of the Sith” in 2005. That's the level I'm on.

Also, as a film fan, I’m curious to see this movie. I want to see Adam Driver as Kylo Ren, who, if I’m reading the trailers right, appears to be a Darth Vader fanboy at dangerous levels.

Driver’s done remarkable, nuanced work during the past few years on HBO’s “Girls.” I have to imagine he’s going to make a great villain, even if I think his medieval claymore-style lightsaber looks impractical for fighting.

I'm also curious why we haven’t seen Luke Skywalker in any of the trailers or promotional material yet. Here's some fun, boundless speculations: 1) He’s gone to the Dark Side and is leading Ren. 2) He’s been in hiding since the end of “Return of the Jedi.” 3) He’s running a Cinnabon in Nebraska with Saul.

All kidding aside, it’s time to let my Abrams grudge go. As someone who also wrote about giving things a chance and not judging a book by its cover, it’s possible I’ll like the new “Star Wars.”

Even if the worst happens and it's terrible or I roll my eyes at Abrams' tricks, after the prequel trilogy, the franchise has proved it's bulletproof. Even another milquetoast outing can't destroy this series.

And lastly, I can’t give in to fear. Fear is the path to the Dark Side.

So when it comes to “The Force Awakens,” let’s all hope the Force is strong with Abrams.

"Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens" opens in theaters Dec. 18.

Treasure Island festival introduces comedy; Artist naming trend frustrates

Matt Berninger of Brooklyn-based indie rock band The National sings at the Outside Lands Music Fesitval in 2013. The National returns to the Bay Area on Sunday as the headlining act of the second and final day of the Treasure Island Music Festival.

Entering its ninth year, something funny is afoot with this installment of the Treasure Island Music Festival.

This weekend's 2015 event introduces The Blah Blah Blah, a comedy venue which will feature the likes of Jonah Ray from the “Nerdist” podcast, “Orange is the New Black” alum Lauren Lapkus and Tim Heidecker of “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!”

Does anybody remember laughter?

It marks the first time in the festival’s history that it will have acts performing simultaneously, previously a chief selling point of the event. The festival takes place Saturday and Sunday on Treasure Island.

However, with two stages operating simultaneously, the music will continue not to overlap.

Topping this year’s bill on the music side for the two-day event are Toronto electronic dance music artist deadmau5 and Brooklyn-based indie rockers The National along with support from the likes of Scottish synthpop band Chvrches, Atlanta/Brooklyn hardcore hip-hop duo Run the Jewels (right), Philadelphia indie rockers The War on Drugs and Santa Cruz-based electronic group Sound Tribe Sector 9.

Robyn’s latest project, La Bagatelle Magique, was initially announced as part of the lineup, but the Swedish pop singer canceled all of the group’s existing dates after finding it “much harder singing these songs on stage than I thought.” The La Bagatelle Magique material was created with producer Christian Falk, who died last year. English experimental R&B artist FKA Twigs stepped into her place on the lineup.

One of the weekend’s more interesting musical moments could come late Saturday night, when the supergroup Big Grams, a collaboration between Phantogram and OutKast’s Big Boi, is scheduled to perform. The two sides met during the 2011 installment of the Outside Lands Music Festival in Golden Gate Park and have worked together several times since, but just released their self-titled, debut EP under the Big Grams moniker last month.

Big Boi is no stranger to the Treasure Island festival, headlining last year with the other half of Outkast, André 3000. While that served as a reunion of sorts and a decade-late victory lap for their Grammy Award-winning Speakerboxxx/The Love Below double album, Big Grams represents a new, experimental project for the Atlanta rapper.

For more information, visit TreasureIslandFestival.com.

What's in a name?

Among the performers at this year’s festival is Hudson Mohawke, an artist whose handle is a reminder of a naming trend that makes me shake my head.

It’s fashionable to rhyme with, steal or use spoonerisms – switching around the initial sounds of names – these days: Hudson Mohawke, Hoodie Allen, Salvia Plath, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., R.L. Grime, Chet Faker, Aero Flynn, Joanna Gruesome, Truman Peyote, Com Truise, Jichael Mackson, Cerebral Ballzy, Flosstradamus, ill.Gates.

Sadly, I made none of those up. Do a search for them yourself on Google.

Like fashion, band and artist names go through trends. In the 2000s, we had a swath of “The” bands: The White Stripes, The Strokes, The Hives, The Vines, The National, The Shins. At another point, hot names were locations: Chicago, Boston, Kansas, Berlin, Europe, America, Alabama, Asia.

My objection to the current trend is that not only is it confusing, it’s lazy and its purpose is short-sighted. It might make for a laugh the first time you see an artist’s name, such as ill.Gates, which makes me picture Bill Gates dressed to flash more ice than Rick Ross.

But over the long-term, it’s cyclical to the point of absurdity. What does our pop culture future look like when we are stuck in its past?

I get irritated when I see Chet Faker's name because I bet many of his fans have no idea that’s a reference to late, great trumpeter Chet Baker. Nor do I imagine many care. But if most people don’t get the reference, what was the point of the joke?

The same is true of Joanna Gruesome. Is Joanna Newsom, an exquisite harp player and songwriter who hails from Nevada City, a ripe target for such silliness? I can't fathom what she's done to be a target of derision, so perhaps it's a strange homage.

Either way, just like location bands or the “The” groups, I know that this, too, shall pass. It can’t come too soon.

Colbert, Fallon enter new era for late-night talk shows

Stephen Colbert, right, talks with George Clooney on Tuesday during the first episode of "The Late Show" with Colbert as host. Colbert enters an over-the-air network battle against Jimmy Fallon, who is changing the landscape for late-night talk show hosts. (CBS photo)

While the transformation of the late-night talk show landscape isn’t complete, it took a giant leap into the future Tuesday when Stephen Colbert took over as host of “The Late Show.”

We're a generation after CBS created the show to stick a fork in the eye of NBC for a poor handoff between Johnny Carson and Jay Leno. For years, Carson's "The Tonight Show" successor was expected to be David Letterman.

Colbert waved to time-slot rival Jimmy Fallon in his premiere as a nod to viewers that this is not the acrimonious ratings war Letterman fought with Leno.

On opening night, Colbert trounced Fallon in the ratings, but that’s to be expected from a series premiere. While Colbert told his second audience Wednesday that the first night almost didn’t make it to air because of technical difficulties, Fallon was just a few remote clicks away, doing what he’s done since he took over from Leno last year: Redefining what it means to be a late-night host.

Fallon opened the night with Justin Timberlake (right) in their continuing “History of Rap” series, with the pair performing snippets of classics throughout hip-hop history. This installment touched on everything from LL Cool J’s “Rock the Bells” to Drake’s “Know Yourself” to the closer, the Beastie Boys' "Fight for Your Right."

Later in the broadcast, Fallon lost a lip-sync battle against daytime talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, who dropped the mic triumphantly after a reading of Rihanna’s “B— Better Have My Money.”

For a man who entered the late-night game best known for laughing at his own jokes on “Saturday Night Live,” as well as a string of lackluster big-screen appearances that left him teetering on the edge of irrelevance, Fallon has come to represent a new wave in his field.

He’s not Carson, a witty, professional, jack-of-all-trades showman, and he’s not Leno, whose opening monologue was his biggest strength. He doesn't dip too heavily into politics, as Colbert did on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" with his right-wing parody character who shared his name.

But he is coming to define what it means to be a late-night host in the 21st century and in the 2010s, in particular, a man attuned to his time.

Fallon doesn’t seem to care if he’s even the star of his own show. He shares the stage with The Roots, the no-contest winner for greatest house band in late-night history. The fact the band is as game as the host to try new things makes them the perfect fit for the show.

Though Fallon is a soft interviewer, he knows his audience. He thinks beyond the hour his program airs, capturing the culture with bits that go viral. His lip sync battles, “Wheel of Musical Impressions” and unexpected moments – “Harry Potter” actor Daniel Radcliffe rapping every word of “Alphabet Aerobics” by Sacramento’s Blackalicious, for one – are his bread and butter. He’s not content to sit behind the desk and hear his own voice. He’s more likely to ask a guest to play a silly game or tell a comedic anecdote.

Fallon feels like the torchbearer for a new age of late-night talk shows. Within a year, Comedy Central lost both Colbert and “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart, a crippling blow to a network which is set to answer with relative unknown Trevor Noah later this month. Stewart is now an executive producer of Colbert’s new program when he’s not pretending to crack John Cena in the ribs with a folding chair.

Throw in TBS’ goofy Conan O’Brien and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, who earlier this week had on terrorist-thwarting, Travis Air Force Base-bound Airman 1st Class Spencer Stone, and we have almost a whole new slate of late-night talk show choices.

What viewers expect has changed. Fallon’s found the recipe for making his mark on the culture. He’s the closest to recapturing the spirit of his predecessors in creating indelible moments that people relive or discuss the next day.

With just two episodes under his belt as I write this, it’s too early to tell what kind of host Colbert will be, but something tells me CBS will give him a better chance to follow Letterman than NBC did for O’Brien to replace Leno.

It will be exciting to watch Colbert take on Fallon. He will have to carve out his own niche against Fallon’s carefree optimism. I’m curious to see how that plays out, but I bet Colbert, a man so fearless he dissed former President George W. Bush to his face, is up to the task.

Follow Nick DeCicco on Twitter @ndeciccodr.

N.W.A. film, Kendrick Lamar expose irksome issue about race, entertainment

A fan holds up a lighter as Kendrick Lamar performs in March at the Pot of Gold Music Festival in Arizona. Almost two weeks ago, Lamar electrified crowds at the Outside Lands Music Festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. (Courtesy photo/Nicholas Balanon)

The sun set on Golden Gate Park, but Kendrick Lamar lit it up.

The Compton rapper dazzled for more than an hour nearly two weeks ago during San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music Festival, playing a healthy helping of his acclaimed 2012 album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City and March’s To Pimp a Butterfly.

As he played his first song, “Money Trees,” an observation popped into my head that I haven’t been able to ignore.

A crowd of mostly white faces rapped along to every word of “Money Trees,” which kicks off with a home invasion and later mentions the deaths of Lamar’s Uncle Tony and a friend in between references to Halle Berry and Vallejo’s E-40.

In fact, much of Good Kid and Butterfly depict poverty, violence, alcoholism and issues of race in America. Lamar took a desperate life situation and turned it into poetry on Good Kid, while he explores contemporary issues about race that face African-Americans on Butterfly.

There was something that unnerved me about it, watching thousands of white people dine on his life-and-death struggles as entertainment.

That’s what struck me as I rapped along to “M.A.A.D City,” one of Lamar’s most famous tracks, singing how if certain gangs got along, “they’d probably gun me down by the end of this song.”

Only days later, on the eve of the release of the new film “Straight Outta Compton,” Lamar interviewed the surviving members of N.W.A. in a video for Billboard.com. Almost 30 years after N.W.A., Lamar, who hails from the same place, also is rapping about the same issues, depicting in a raw and real way the brutality of poverty, crime, violence, alcoholism and more.

The more I thought, the more I expanded this idea. The challenges of the lives of the poor — which, in America, is overwhelmingly people of color — are a source of amusement for the rest.

What is one of the most acclaimed television shows of all time? “The Wire,” for depicting in nuanced detail crime in Baltimore and the many facets that play into it. It has one of the biggest African-American casts in television history. From blackface to minstrelsy to spirituals to jazz to hip-hop, America has a historical precedent of seeing African-Americans as a form and source of entertainment.

It’s not limited to creative endeavors. Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Oscar Grant — they’re part of a culture that turns their deaths into headlines, but also its own sort of entertainment, analyzing the nature of their deaths, debating the reactions and creating fodder for the 24-hour news cycle.

It’s not so far removed from the barbaric gladiators of ancient Rome with thousands sitting in the Colosseum watching blood sport for fun. The television puts us at a safer remove and the Colosseum is now the whole country, the whole world.

The paradox of this is we, as a culture, need talented people such as Lamar, other rappers and anyone who tries to escape these issues by going into entertainment to speak their truth and inform society. Maybe they start the conversation and it still ends as entertainment for primarily white people.

But they have to start it.

With any luck, Lamar, “The Wire,” the “Straight Outta Compton” film, N.W.A. and more can help expand the dialogue and alter perceptions about people of color and how they’re treated.

It’s wrong to assume none of the thousands of festivalgoers do nothing to change race relations and institutionalized racism in America. I’m sure some fight passionately for greater equality, understanding and racial harmony.

But the fact that Lamar and N.W.A. are rapping about the same issues nearly three decades apart also tells me that not enough is changing and not enough is being done.

And that’s where I hope things change.

I don’t want to put the Kendrick Lamars of the world out of business, nor do I discourage their success. But I hope things improve enough that 30 years from now, as a culture and a society, another generation of Compton rappers aren’t talking about poverty, crime, violence, alcoholism, institutionalized racism and more.

On “M.A.A.D City,” Lamar also hopes “euphoria can slow dance with society,” a long, peaceful dream of harmony.

I hope we all get his wish.

Fan-shot video of Kendrick Lamar's entire Outside Lands performance (NSFW language):

‘Orange Is the New Black’ mixes up heroine, villainess roles

Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), left, backs away from Tiffany "Pennsatucky" Doggett (Taryn Manning) as she attacks with a cross in the first-season finale of "Orange Is the New Black." Since the fight, the two characters have switched roles as the show's villainess and heroine.

In the final moments of the first season of Netflix’s original series “Orange Is the New Black,” its protagonist, Piper Chapman, mercilessly beats another woman.

Chapman, a WASP from New York serving time in Litchfield Federal Correctional Facility for smuggling drugs a decade earlier, whaled on Tiffany “Pennsatucky” Doggett, a homophobic, racist, former meth addict and born-again Christian, leaving fans wondering if Chapman committed murder.

As the years pile up – and here’s a spoiler warning for the third season, which premiered last month – that beating stands as a transformative moment for both characters during the course of the series.

While Chapman started as show creator Jenji Kohan’s self-described “trojan horse,” a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white woman who allowed Kohan to tell the stories of women from a variety of races, sexualities and ages, Doggett entered as a clear villain, an immature, holier-than-thou, unhinged force.

However, at the conclusion of the third season, the roles are reversed. Chapman is more villainous than ever while Doggett has become sympathetic.

The show’s third season has more bugs than Volkswagen, lacking a clear villain, not fully utilizing its flashback format and failing to flesh out new characters beyond two dimensions, among other failings. How skeevy was it every time Red flirted with Healy? Blech.

After three seasons, Chapman seems to embrace the monster inside her. The crime which landed her inside Litchfield seems paltry when stacked against physically assaulting Doggett, lying under oath and becoming the kingpin of a contraband enterprise to smuggle women’s dirty underwear out of prison for profit.

In a telling scene from the second season episode “40 Oz. of Furlough,” Chapman is on a 48-hour furlough from the prison to attend her grandmother’s funeral. She talks with her father, Bill, about how he doesn’t visit her. After Bill says that the person behind bars is “not who you are,” Chapman seethes. “That’s exactly who I am,” she says.

Later, in the same episode, when family friends ask if she’s anxious to get out and return to her old self, she says, “I’m not, actually.”

It’s possible to see “40 Oz. of Furlough” as a funeral for Chapman’s old persona. Clad in all black, the episode is a series of rejections and misinterpretations by people from her life outside Litchfield, from a father who doesn’t accept who she is to her disillusion at a life that has changed while she stood still.

In the third season, gone is her first-season fiancé Larry. By ditching Larry and the domestic storyline, it deepens the reality that Chapman is embracing life behind bars and the realities of her criminal side. That part of her life doesn’t exist anymore.

Doggett, meanwhile, has cleaned up her teeth and her act. During the course of the second season, she befriends Carrie “Boo” Black, the prison’s self-proclaimed butch lesbian.

Doggett’s second-season arc finds her ostracized from her former born-again buddies for being too righteous. She meets with Healy, a prison counselor, to work on her anger. During the course of the season, she begins to drop her ultra-religious facade. In the third season, it’s revealed Doggett was raped when she was younger and, later in the same episode, she is raped again, this time by Officer Charlie Coates at the prison.

However, unlike Chapman, Doggett’s arc is somewhat redemptive. Although Boo and Doggett feed Coates a sedative and plan to sexually assault him as revenge, Doggett backs down. She gets out of her prison work assignment with Coates by feigning a seizure.

The new season ends with many of the prisoners escaping to a nearby lake for a swim. Unbelievable as it is, it feels cathartic.

Yet Chapman is not in this scene at the lake at the end and that’s not an accident. She’s still inside the prison. When nearly everyone else in the cast roster is enjoying the freedom of the lake and the sunshine, Chapman is in the place where she has grown, changed and became herself the most, inside the prison walls.

However, Boo and Doggett are at the lake with the others, horsing around with the friends who alienated Doggett during the second season. They’re embracing the freedom and the hope that, someday, there will be life outside the prison. It's a stretch to call her a heroine at this juncture, but she's a lot closer than Chapman.

That’s a telling stance about where the two women stand after three seasons. Whether “Orange” continues to switch the heroine and villainess roles for Chapman and Doggett remains to be seen, especially what the series will say about redemption and whether it’s possible.

For now, anyway, “Orange” is at least convinced that both Doggett and Chapman are capable of some sort of change, for better or for worse.

Tiffany "Pennsatucky" Doggett (Taryn Manning) talks with Carrie "Boo" Black (Lea DeLaria) during the third-season finale of "Orange Is the New Black."

All images courtesy Netflix