Morrissey and Smashing Pumpkins Headline Darker Waves Fest This November

Darker-WavesThis is not a drill. Morrissey and The Smashing Pumpkins are headlining Darker Waves Festival 2026, and the lineup is absolutely stacked.

The fest drops November 14 in Huntington Beach, California, right on the sand at Huntington Beach City Beach. We’re talking oceanside stages, 35+ artists, and a who’s who of alternative and post-punk royalty.

Beyond the headliners, you’ve got Simple Minds, Bad Religion, Adam Ant, The Psychedelic Furs, Soft Cell, The Damned, Manic Street Preachers, Gary Numan, Silversun Pickups, Buzzcocks, EMF, Circle Jerks, Spacehog, and Marky Ramone. Three stages. All day.

If you want in on the presale, sign up for the SMS list at DarkerWavesFest.com. You’ll get a code for early access starting Thursday, April 2 at 10am PT. The first hour, 10am to 11am, gets you the cheapest GA tickets available. After that, prices go up.

Ticket options range from GA all the way to Ultimate VIP, which includes locker access, complimentary drinks and food, elevated views, and AC restrooms. Payment plans start at $19.99 down if you need to spread it out.

There are also vacation packages through Jampack that bundle tickets with beachfront hotel stays at spots like the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach. Those come with a dedicated entrance, re-entry, and fest merch.

This is a rare chance to catch some of the most iconic names in alternative music all in one place. Morrissey alone is a gamble, the guy’s notorious for cancellations, so if you’ve been waiting for the right fest to pull the trigger on, this might be it.

Full lineup and ticket info at DarkerWavesFest.com.

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Head Lopper Returns After 10 Years With Stacked Variant Cover Lineup

head-lopperAndrew MacLean’s sword-swinging barbarian epic is coming back. Head Lopper returns in April with an extra-length issue that kicks off a new story arc, perfectly timed to mark 10 years since the series first launched from Image Comics.

The book follows Norgal, who goes around beheading mythic beasts while carrying around the severed head of a witch named Agatha. She talks. A lot. Think high-fantasy carnage meets buddy comedy, except one of the buddies is a decapitated head.

MacLean delivers what he does best: kinetic action sequences and dark humor that lands. The art is visceral and gorgeous, the kind of stuff that makes you want to flip back through the pages just to catch all the details you missed while your eyes were glued to Norgal’s oversized blade.

The return comes with a murderer’s row of variant covers. Alex Horley (Conan the Barbarian), Jeffrey Alan Love (News from the Fallout), Dylan Burnett (Arcade Kings), Jim Rugg (Street Angel), and James Harren (Rumble, Ultramega) all contributed covers. That’s the kind of artist lineup that makes collectors sweat.

MacLean recently sat down with the Let’s Talk Comics podcast to talk about where the series has been and where it’s headed. After a decade, he’s clearly still got stories to tell about this beheading bastard and his chatty companion.

Head Lopper (2026) #1 hits comic shops April 22. Eight different covers will be available, including retailer incentive variants and a team-up cover with I Hate Fairyland. Digital versions drop the same day on Kindle, Apple Books, and Google Play.

It’s been a long wait, but fans of brutal fantasy and MacLean’s distinctive art style finally get their fix next month.

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Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Music Festival Returns for 2026 with Stacked Lineup

Willie Nelson is scaling back his road schedule, which makes the 2026 Outlaw Music Festival Tour all the more special.

The legendary festival, entering its second decade, just announced a limited run of summer dates featuring Nelson alongside The Avett Brothers, Sheryl Crow, Wilco, Lukas Nelson, and a deep roster of talent including Stephen Wilson Jr., Margo Price, Sierra Hull, Robert Randolph, Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble, and Lily Meola.

“Being on the road and playing for the fans is what I love to do,” Nelson said. “We don’t get to do as many shows as we used to, so every night out there means a little more.”

The tour kicks off July 3 in Irving, Texas, and includes Willie’s annual Fourth of July Picnic in Austin, which will feature special guests Billy Strings and Rodney Crowell. From there, the festival winds through the Midwest and Northeast, hitting venues like Alpine Valley in Wisconsin, Pine Knob in Michigan, and Jones Beach in New York.

Since its debut in Scranton in 2016, the Outlaw Music Festival has become one of the biggest annual touring franchises in North America. The festival has hosted everyone from Chris Stapleton and Neil Young to Tyler Childers and Bonnie Raitt, with each stop featuring local food, drinks, and vendor villages at amphitheaters nationwide.

Rolling Stone called last year’s 10th anniversary run “undoubtedly the most exciting and eclectic multi-artist festival of the 2025 summer amphitheater season by a wide margin.”

Tickets go on sale Friday, March 27, at 10 AM local time via OutlawMusicFestival.com and Ticketmaster. Citi cardholders get early access to presale tickets through Thursday, March 26.

With Willie slowing down his touring pace, this summer might be one of the last chances to catch the 93-year-old icon in his element, surrounded by a community of artists who carry the outlaw spirit forward.

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Aidan Langford Returns to Acting in Netflix’s “Roommates” After Stepping Away to Focus on Music and Art

After taking a break from the screen to chase his music and painting dreams, 24-year-old actor Aidan Langford is back, and he’s landing right in the middle of a Happy Madison comedy.

Langford stars in Netflix’s “Roommates,” dropping globally on April 17th. The film comes from Happy Madison and features Sadie Sandler and Chloe East as college roommates whose friendship devolves into passive-aggressive warfare. Langford plays Alex, whose relationship with his sister Devon (Sandler) shifts when she heads off to college. The role also marks an unexpected coming-out journey for his character as he gets caught between Devon and her chaotic roommate Celeste (East).

You might remember Langford from his earlier work in Dolly Parton’s “Heartstrings” on Netflix, Yen Tan’s indie drama “1985” with Cory Michael Smith, or Amazon’s “Bosch.” The Stella Adler-trained actor got his start in Dallas theater as a kid and has worked alongside heavyweights like Melissa Leo and Virginia Madsen.

Langford walked away from all that to pursue other creative outlets. He’s been grinding on his music (three singles out, an EP in the works leaning into early 2000s indie rock) and working toward his BFA in painting. He’s also passionate about LGBTQ rights, which makes his return with this particular role feel pretty intentional.

The “Roommates” cast is stacked with names like Natasha Lyonne, Nick Kroll, Carol Kane, Janeane Garofalo, Storm Reid, and Bailee Madison. Director Chandler Levack helms the project with a script from Jimmy Fowlie and Ceara Jane O’Sullivan.

For indie creators who’ve ever stepped away from one art form to chase another, Langford’s journey hits different. Sometimes you need to disappear into your painting studio or your music project before you can come back to the thing that started it all. This feels like one of those full-circle moments.

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Indigenous Documentary “təm kʷaθ nan – Namesake” Heads to Hot Docs with Powerful Story of Reconciliation

A small coastal city grapples with its colonial past in “təm kʷaθ nan – Namesake,” a documentary tracking what happens when the Tla’amin Nation asks Powell River, BC to reconsider the name on its welcome sign.

The film just landed a spot at Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival, where it will world premiere in the Canadian Spectrum competition section. Screenings are set for April 29-30, 2026 at TIFF Lightbox in Toronto.

The story centers on a request that cuts deep. The city is named after Israel Wood Powell, who served as BC’s Superintendent of Indian Affairs for 17 years and played a key role in establishing residential schools, banning the potlatch, and seizing Tla’amin territory. Now the Nation is asking, what if we called this place something else?

Co-directors Eileen Francis and Evan Adams have been filming since 2022, capturing community meetings, heated debates, archival footage, and the oral histories that tell a different version of this place’s story. The result is 76 minutes that sit in the tension between who gets to name a place and what those names mean.

“This film comes from this place,” says Francis. “It was important for it to take root here first, with the people and conversations that shaped it, and with the history that continues to be felt.”

Adams puts it plainly: “It sits in the tension between memory and responsibility. It does not turn away from difficult truths, and it asks what it means to live well with each other in a place where we have different histories.”

The Tla’amin Nation is a self-governing First Nation with over 1,200 citizens on BC’s upper Sunshine Coast. Under its Treaty and Constitution, the Nation governs its own lands, resources, and services, guided by ancestral teachings and relationship to the land.

The documentary was supported by TELUS originals, part of a funding program aimed at locally-rooted stories from BC and Alberta. It’s exactly the kind of small-town, nationally relevant conversation happening across Canada as communities reckon with reconciliation in real time.

The film is in English and ʔayʔajuθəm. More info at namesake.film.

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Adobe Jacks Up Creative Cloud Prices, Here’s What Indie Creators Need to Know

Adobe just dropped a bomb on Creative Cloud subscribers. The company’s rebranding Creative Cloud All Apps as “Creative Cloud Pro” and bumping the price to $69.99/month, a significant jump from the current pricing.

The change hits existing subscribers in April 2026.

Here’s the deal. Adobe’s spinning this as adding value, unlimited AI generations, premium features like text-to-video in Firefly, access to partner AI models from Google, OpenAI, and Flux, plus something called Firefly Boards for collaborative mood boarding. You still get all the core apps: Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Lightroom, Adobe Express, and the usual 30,000+ fonts and stock assets.

But let’s be real. For indie creators already stretching budgets, this stings.

Adobe knows it too. They’re offering a cheaper alternative called Creative Cloud Standard. It includes the desktop apps, Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, Premiere Pro, but with limited AI features and restricted access to web and mobile apps. No word yet on what that plan costs, but it’s clearly positioned as the budget option.

The AI stuff is the main differentiator. Creative Cloud Pro gets unlimited standard AI generations and premium features like video generation. Standard plan? Limited AI access. Adobe’s basically saying if you want to use their generative tools seriously, you’re paying the premium.

For working creatives who depend on these tools daily, the price hike is a tough pill. Adobe’s betting that the AI features justify the increase, but plenty of artists and filmmakers are already exploring alternatives, Affinity, DaVinci Resolve, open-source options.

The indie community has always found ways to work around corporate price increases. This might just accelerate that trend.

Existing subscribers can manage or cancel their plans anytime through their Adobe Account. The company’s offering support and FAQs for anyone with questions, but the bottom line is clear: pay more or lose features.

Adobe’s gotten comfortable being the industry standard. Maybe a little too comfortable.

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Bi Gan’s Resurrection Lands on Criterion Channel With Critical Acclaim

resurrection-film

Huace Pictures

Visionary filmmaker Bi Gan returns with his most ambitious work yet, Resurrection, now streaming on the Criterion Channel.

The film, which earned the Jury Special Prize at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, blends fantasy, romance, and cinematic history into a dreamlike narrative. It follows a mysterious “dreaming monster” (played by Jackson Yee) pursued by a woman (played by Shu Qi) through a shifting world where humanity has traded dreams for immortality.

Structured as a genre-spanning journey, Resurrection moves through styles ranging from silent-era expressionism to noir and surreal fantasy, creating what critics have described as a visually striking and deeply immersive experience.

The film has received widespread acclaim, with many outlets naming it among the year’s best, praising its ambition and unique approach to storytelling.

A home video release is expected to follow, expanding access to one of the most talked-about international films of the year.

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An Archival Portrait of Leonard Bernstein Gets U.S. Theatrical Premiere at Film Forum

Douglas Tirola’s archival documentary *Bernstein’s Wall* hits Film Forum on April 24, and it tells the story of Leonard Bernstein entirely through the maestro’s own words.

The doc centers on Bernstein’s 1989 Christmas Day concert in Berlin, where he conducted Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” as the Berlin Wall fell. From there, Tirola pieces together a career spanning decades using only television interviews, news footage, home movies, audio clips, and personal letters. No talking heads. No modern narration. Just Bernstein.

The film captures the conductor as celebrity, activist, and closeted cultural diplomat. It’s a portrait of contradictions: the New York Philharmonic maestro who became a household name, the political firebrand who used his platform to fight for causes, and the public figure who navigated his personal life behind closed doors.

*Bernstein’s Wall* premiered at Tribeca in 2021 and went on to play Telluride, CPH:DOX, and AFI Fest. Critics have praised Tirola’s collage approach. Variety called it “galvanizing,” noting how Bernstein evolved from “a dreamy-eyed Hebraic Rock Hudson” into “a towering figure with the bearing of an eagle.” IndieWire described it as “a lovely film that will appeal to Bernstein’s most ardent fans, while warmly inviting neophytes into his world.”

The April 24 opening at Film Forum marks the doc’s U.S. theatrical premiere. A press screening is set for April 8 at 10 AM at the theater. Filmmaker Douglas Tirola is available for interviews.

The film runs 100 minutes and is presented with support from The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Fund.

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Tony Shalhoub to Appear at Lighthouse International Film Festival

Tony Shalhoub is set to attend this year’s Lighthouse International Film Festival, running June 10–14 on Long Beach Island, New Jersey.

The Emmy- and Tony-winning actor will take part in a post-screening conversation following a showing of the 1996 film Big Night, reflecting on his career and creative process. The discussion will be moderated by Jason Alexander, with co-director Campbell Scott also expected to attend.

Shalhoub is widely known for his work across film, television, and theater, including Monk, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and The Band’s Visit. His appearance adds to this year’s lineup, which highlights independent filmmaking and includes special programming like a multi-day masterclass led by Alexander.

Now in its 18th year, the festival continues to spotlight emerging voices while bringing established talent to a more intimate setting for audiences.

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They Called Us Outlaws Doc Series Debuts Prologue at SXSW

they-called-us-outlawsA first look at the upcoming documentary series They Called Us Outlaws premiered at SXSW, where the prologue episode played to a sold-out audience in Austin.

Directed by Eric Geadelmann and Kelly Magelky, the series explores the roots of the outlaw country movement, focusing on 1970s Austin and the cultural shift shaped by artists like Waylon Jennings. The project is presented in association with the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum.

The debut episode serves as an introduction to a planned ten-part series, tracing the spirit of independent artistry that defined the era and continues to influence musicians today.

A wider release for the series has not yet been announced.

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