Table of contents for October 2023 in Rolling Stone

IF THERE WAS one punk group that positioned itself as a leader of a movement for inclusivity, radical change, and allyship in the early 2000s, it was Anti-Flag. Co-founded by Justin Geever, a.k.a. Justin Sane, in Pittsburgh in 1993, members flitted in and out until the group solidified in 1999. Anti-Flag would go on to draw legions of devoted fans for their progressive messaging and political activism, including anti-war causes and animal-rights advocacy. Geever served as the face, voice, and outward idealism of the group for decades. The band was proud to declare itself a safe space for people of all walks of life, especially women, and became vocal supporters of survivors of violent crime after the murder of a band member’s sister. That idealism would also become a…

I AM ON A DATE WITH JULIA FOX — at least, that’s what it feels like. We’re in the dimly lit VIP suite at Body by Brooklyn, a spa inconspicuously tucked under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Clinton Hill. We’re wearing fluffy terry-cloth robes; there are rose petals inexplicably strewn all over a bubble bath, which neither of us will get into. And about a minute and a half after I meet her, right before we’re about to get massages, she gestures at me to take my bathing suit top off. “Wait, babe, you have to take off the thing,” she says in her signature drawl, a hybrid of Drew Barrymore’s SoCal lilt and deadpan alt-left podcast-host vocal fry. “How are they gonna touch your back through your bathing suit?”…

IN THE MIDDLE of August this year, three legends of the music industry died within 72 hours of each other: founder of A&M Records Jerry Moss; music lawyer Abe Somer; and my father, the “Black Godfather” himself, Clarence Avant. These three men helped define the recording industry of the past six decades, and what’s more, they were inseparable best friends. Somer, Moss, and Avant met in New York City in the early 1960s, and in the six decades since, never left one another’s side, never once let their “soul contract” expire. The synchronicity of them passing in the space of just a few days makes me wonder if they simply couldn’t face being on the planet when one of the others was gone—that’s how close they were. Abe Somer’s…

IT’S A SUNNY afternoon in Los Angeles, but inside a nondescript bar in the Pendry West Hollywood hotel, a lavish champagne-topped celebration, fit for the late hours of the night, is well underway. For just one day, the space has become a stand-in for Voltaire nightclub, an intimate, belle de nuit-inspired venue located in Las Vegas’ famed Venetian resort — and it’s all for Australian pop queen Kylie Minogue. Inside, Minogue is gliding through a room of influencers and journalists, flashing her signature smile. She’s about to announce that she’ll be Voltaire’s inaugural star as she kicks off her first-ever residency this November, though the news feels like Vegas’ worst-kept secret: Rumors of the pop veteran hitting the Strip have been floating around all summer. Still, Minogue is so…

WHEN THE BAND ended their original run with a farewell concert in San Francisco in 1976, Martin Scorsese was there to capture it for his brilliant documentary “The Last Waltz.” The project marked the end of Robbie Robertson’s tenure in the group, but the beginning of a collaboration with Scorsese that endured till Robertson’s death this summer. In the remembrance below, Scorsese explores scenes from his and Robertson’s time together — from traveling across Europe to watching Luis Buñuel films like “Un Chien Andalou” and “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” to listening to composer Michael Praetorius and Van Morrison. Together with the Po-laroids Scorsese provided (above and next spread), it’s a remarkable portrait of a remarkable friendship. MULHOLLAND DRIVE I was mad. All wired. Erratically, but still —…

AT 5:44 P.M. ON FEB. 23, 2022, my phone lit up with a WhatsApp message from a stranger. “Hello Sean Williams,” he wrote. “I have something for you.” Seconds later, the stranger sent a link to a Spectrum 1 News interview with a retired LAPD cop and writer named Cheryl Dorsey. Dorsey had penned a biography titled The CONfidence Chronicles, about a “Black criminal genius” named Maverick Miles Nehemiah, who’d swindled the U.S. government out of $20 million via counterfeit savings bonds in the Eighties. Nehemiah hadn’t cashed the bonds himself, Dorsey told the reporter in the interview. Rather, he’d enlisted three women and three men — the “All-American Team,” as he called them — whose skin color wouldn’t raise the eyebrows of racist bank tellers. Nehemiah had served…

WHAT’S NEW, WHAT’S NEXT, WHAT’S NUTS JORJA SMITH isn’t one to blindly follow her intuition. Sure, her gut has led her to some very good decisions, like the one she made in 2015 to move to London and pursue a career in music shortly after graduating high school. Within just a few years, the British singer and songwriter had star-making guest appearances with Drake and Kendrick Lamar, a coveted spot on the short list for the Mercury Prize, and a Best New Artist nomination at the 2019 Grammy Awards, next to acts like Dua Lipa and Luke Combs. Everything was lining up for her as one of the fastest-rising artists in R&B and pop. Still, she says, she doubted herself, especially as she began to feel lonely in her…

HOLLY HUMBERSTONE is pretty sure the house where she grew up, in the English countryside, is haunted. “There’s this huge basement and just spiders and frogs down there,” says Humberstone, 23. She and her three sisters let their imaginations run wild there while their parents stayed busy as National Health Service medics: “It was like our own little universe.” These days, Humberstone is making a name for herself as one of the most candid new songwriters in pop music. On her debut album, Paint My Bedroom Black, she builds on the diaristic storytelling of her early EPs with full-on love songs like “Kissing in Swimming Pools,” about a real-life relationship. Humberstone admits she took some dramatic liberties writing the lyrics to that song: “I don’t think anybody I know…

FLO MILLI shows up at ROLLING STONE’s New York office one August afternoon and holds court for an hour. After a spirited discussion about Raising Cane’s chicken — Flo has a hack that involves mixing tenders with sauce in a cup — the 23-year-old Alabama rapper lets us in on her newest album, Fine Ho, Stay. Due this fall, it’s the final LP of a trilogy, following 2020’s Ho, Why Is You Here? and 2022’s You Still Here, Ho? Flo (born Tamia Monique Carter) has consistently been one of the most fun listens in rap, rhyming with the candy-colored zeal of a Clueless character — albeit one who spits fire like “I cook like a chef and you bitches my dinner.” Fine Ho, Stay is her most personal to…

MEXICAN AMERICAN POP’S ‘200%’ MOMENT Becky G and DannyLux bridge cultures and make history on two great new LPs By JULYSSA LOPEZ Becky G Esquinas Kemosabe/Sony Latin/RCA DannyLux DLux Warner Latina IT’S OFTEN the case that children of immigrants, especially Latino ones, learn to balance two cultures from a young age. Frequently, they navigate dual worlds, with one foot firmly planted in the place where they’ve grown up, the other fastened in their parents’ homeland — resulting in what can feel like being split in half, caught between double the amount of traditions and customs and pop-culture references. But lately, a younger generation has been recasting complex bicultural identities as the lucky inheritance of “200-percenters,” kids who are proudly 100 percent Latino and 100 percent American. The description was…

ONE GREAT ROCK MOVIE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD Twenty years after ‘School of Rock,’ the filmmakers and cast remember making the hilarious 2003 comedy with a heart of gold IT WAS 20 YEARS AGO this month that Jack Black put on a bow tie, walked into a prep school, and told a bunch of fourth graders to get the Led out. His star turn as the lovable loser in Richard Linklater’s School of Rock helped the film gross nearly $20 million when it opened, breaking the record for music-themed comedies at the time. Over the years, it’s inspired a hit Broadway musical, a TV show, and a children’s book, and helped popularize actual School of Rock programs for kids who want to serve society by rocking. Two decades on,…

What have been the highlights of your offseason Unexpected Tour in China? It’s just incredible to know that somebody even knows my name on that side of the world. But the best thing is I’ve been able to grow my dad skills. I’m getting really good at this dad thing. When did you first fall in love with country music? My senior year at Marquette everyone in the locker room was listening to Lil Wayne and Jay-Z, and I love the hip-hop world as well, but I kept telling them to turn the music down. They said, “Worry about what’s in your headphones.” So I went home and googled, “What’s the most country song?” The first song that came up is “Don’t Take the Girl,” by Tim McGraw. I…