Taylor Just Showed Up To Pride Month

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Some fans might be surprised to see Taylor Swift show up to sing at the Stonewall Inn for a celebration honoring both Pride Month and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. But if you’re surprised, you haven’t been paying attention.
Taylor Swift has been notoriously apolitical in her career up until last fall, but this month she’s speaking out – she wore a rainbow colored leotard to perform at Wango Tango June First, where she told the audience she believes in equality, encouraging them to stand up for each other and stick together.
Now she’s taken that message a step further with her new song, You Need To Calm Down, which shouts out her gay fans, and a video that features prominent gay, trans, and non-binary celebrities and entertainers. At the end of the video she includes the message “Let’s show our pride by demanding that, on a national level, our laws truly treat all of our citizens equally. Please sign my petition for senate support of the equality act on change dot org.” You can access her petition here.
As far back as April Tay was showing support for equality. That’s when she donated $113,000 to an LGBTQ rights advocacy group, the Tennessee Equality Project, in her home state. She even included a handwritten note thanking them for the work they do.
It’s easy to criticize Taylor for taking such a long time to start using her voice to call for social change but in this case it truly is better late than never. I hope she continues to speak up!
Celebrate Pride Month with LiveXLive’s Pride station and hear Taylor Swift’s new song on Today’s Hits! 

Silversun Pickups: We’re Basically BFFs

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We love Brian Aubert and Nikki Monninger of Silversun Pickups so much that we invite them to the LiveXLive studios whenever they’re in the neighborhood. They recently popped in for the third time to share some of their favorite music, including tracks from their brand new album “Widow’s Weeds.” They busted out all kinds of great songs for us, from the Beatles to Daft Punk to Hall & Oates to Donna Summer, plus they let us in on some fun facts about their band and their current obsessions.

 

Here are the top 5 things we learned:

  1. Brian is fascinated by David Bowie’s “Labyrinth”-era teeth and codpiece (Same, Brian. Same.)
  2. When listening to music, Nikki hears the bassline first. She collected songs with basslines she loves to inspire her before recording “Widow’s Weeds.”
  3. Brian and Nikki have heard their music being played in bars all over the world…but they don’t always recognize their own songs.
  4. In L.A., Brian and his friend have a DJ gig where they exclusively play songs from old movie soundtracks.
  5. Nikki likes to look at maps of Westeros from her favorite series, “Game of Thrones.”

 

Hear all of Brian and Nikki’s music picks, plus the stories behind them, on Silversun Pickups: I Am The DJ.