Hello from San Miguel de Allende!
That is in Mexico, where we came after a raging weekend at the best music festival there is: Corona Capital.
This was my third time going to this festival which has the best line-ups, the best audiences, the best amenities, while being situated in the middle of Mexico City, accessible by various means of public transportation, including ride shares that are under USD 20. My friend Leizer has been hooking us up with this amazing experience since 2016 and this year, there were more people from the United States than ever before.
Backstage, I had a chat with Noel Gallagher (the subject of Episode 23 of the Pictures of Lily Podcast) who repeatedly slung good-natured jabs at me. As Noel said, “You couldn’t buy this lineup,” and he was correct. Check it out, then start planning to come in 2024.
In more good news, this past weekend, dissident Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi was released from prison on bail after 386 days, 252 of which he was in solitary confinement. During this time, Toomaj was beaten and tortured repeatedly and his injuries are finally being seen to. More details here.
Speak soon,
Lily
The latest installment of “The Essentials,” my column at SPIN comes courtesy of the multi-talented Dove Cameron who has a new album out December 1st. She shares her studio session essentials here.
That’s Gavin Rossdale of Bush whom I spoke to for SPIN’s series, “The Why The How” where we broke down the song “Glycerine.” It was kind of a weird interview, but the story turned out better than I expected so maybe it was a better interview than I thought it was. My favorite part was when he said the first time he stepped into an arena was when he played “Glycerine” at Z100’s Jingle Ball. Whole story here.
INXS have released a fan-sourced booked titled Calling All Nations: A Fan History of INXS and I spoke to the group’s Tim Farriss about it for SPIN’s “Read Me” series. If you haven’t listened to INXS’ music in a while, I recommend revisiting. I listened to all of the “This is INXS” playlist on Spotify while reading the book. There are some bangers in their discography.
This fabulous creature is among the nominees for the Recording Academy’s inaugural Songwriter of the Year Grammy Award. I spoke to Justin Tranter about their magnificent mansion in Los Angeles’ Hancock Park neighborhood for Los Angeles Magazine’s November Issue. The expanded version of the story is now readable on the magazine’s site, complete with stunning images by Jen Rosenstein.
Justin also contributed to my “The Essentials” column where they provided a list of glamour go-tos.
This past summer I got to talk to Andrew Ridgeley about the Wham! documentary for SPIN and it brought up 40 years’ worth of Wham! moments, especially early ones in Iran, all of which I spoke to Andrew about. This episode of the Pictures of Lily Podcast includes a bunch of quotes from Andrew that I couldn’t fit into the article, a 15-minute listen.
Just a reminder that there is the entirely optional option to become a paid subscriber or a founding member and access interviews from my 31-year archive including the already posted ones from Oasis, Blur, the Verve and the Cure. Thank you!