Pop loser, you weekly music roundup. by Audrey Vann   Welcome back to Pop Loser, you weekly music roundup! This week, THING Festival announced an indefinite hiatus, Brandi Carlile announced her Super Bowl debut, and Paul Anka an nounced that he once saunaed with Frank Sinatra (read on to learn about his big takeaway from the experience). Plus, I interviewed the undisputed King of Christmas, John Waters, about his string of novelty singles, holiday traditions, and the time he accidentally consumed 14 doses of THC. Get Pop Loser in your inbox every week. This Week in Music: This week in Strangerland, the staff has compiled a big ol’ list of upcoming concerts we recommend this December and January. There is a lot of good stuff coming up this month that is not holiday music, including Mt. Fog, Jay Som, and Takuya Nakamura. In other local music news, the Vera Project (in collaboration with Denton, Texas, art collective Good/Bad) has revealed the lineup for their 14th annual Rock Lottery, featuring members of local bands like Gender Envy, RUB, somesurprises, Afrocop, Naked Giants, and more. Back in March, Stranger managing editor Megan Seling wrote about her day watching the magic happen during Seattle’s most spontaneous day in music. THING Festival has announced an indefinite hiatus. The organizers announced on Thursday that the festival will not be returning in 2026. “We intend for it to return in the future and will use this time to recalibrate its vision,” writes STG Chief Programming Officer Adam Zacks. “We want to take time to do THING right and ensure it’s the best it can be.” THING Festival launched in Port Townsend in 2019 to fill the Sasquatch Festival–sized gap in the market. It’s since moved to Carnation, and this past year, it went from one massive festival to a multi-weekend series. Ravensdale, WA’s own Brandi Carlile will play the Super Bowl pregame show this coming February, alongside Charlie Puth and Coco Jones, with halftime entertainment from Bad Bunny. (This is the only time Pop Loser will be mentioning football, I promise.) Warner Music Group signed a deal with the devil. The major label has joined forces with AI song generator Suno, whom they were suing for copyright infringement just last year. Pitchfork reports, “The new partnership, which settles their prior litigation, is designed to help Suno move toward a licensed model where users will pay to download songs made on its platform with artificial intelligence.” Apparently, this means that artists will be compensated and retain “full control” over how their music, likeness, and other copyrights are used. Is this good or bad? Only time will tell. Paul Anka breaks his silence on Frank Sinatra’s penis. While promoting his upcoming HBO documentary, Paul Anka: My Way, the 1950s teen dream confirmed the long-running lore about Ol’ Blue Eyes, telling Page Six that he once saunaed with the Rat Pack. "Yeah, it was huge,” Anka revealed, also stating that he had "had trouble with eye contact" with Sinatra while in the sauna. Want more of this? Get it sent right to your inbox. Interview: Rockin’ Around the Electric Chair with John Waters GREG GORMAN John Waters is an icon—a pencil-thin mustache, dark sunglasses, a transgressive catalog of films, and an overall dedication to filth. But, on his string of novelty singles on Sub Pop Records (“Jingle Bells” / “It's a Punk Rock Christmas” and "John Waters Covers Little Cindy 'Happy Birthday Jesus'” / “A Pig Latin Visit from St. Nicholas”), Waters has an outlet to transform into new characters and direct himself à la Cindy Sherman. Gather around the electric chair, children, because the man with the bag has landed! (The man is John Waters, and the bag is full of filthy jokes.) How do you decorate for Christmas? Traditionally and very untraditionally. We decorate, but I don't have a tree. I decorate Divine’s electric chair from Female Trouble. I have lots of Christmas decorations. Many of them have been made by fans, and they're great—some have Divine or Edith on them. A fan made me a statue of Divine knocking over a Christmas tree. It has batteries, and all the lights blink and everything. That, I think, is my favorite one. I also have decorations that my mom made for me. I mix them as I do with my real life: I mix the good taste and turn it into bad taste, hopefully to get you to notice that everything can be pleasing. In a recent interview, you mentioned that you used to take speed and steal Christmas gifts out of people's cars and unwrap them. Do you remember or did you keep any of the gifts you stole? We would throw them out the window! Or worse yet, if they had a gift slip, we would take them to the store and get the money! An old friend reminded me recently that she stole a blouse with someone’s mother's monogram on it. She wore it to school the next day and covered it up with a sweater. It was really terrible. It just proves that there is no such thing as karma. What's the most memorable Christmas gift that you've ever received? Well, I still go to sleep sometimes with a beautiful cashmere blanket that Divine gave me a long time ago. But don't ever give cashmere! It just calls moths to your house. Cashmere is a moth Woodstock waiting to happen. How do you feel about fruitcake? Well, I tried to make a movie that was called Fruitcake—that has almost happened three times. It's a children's Christmas special. I hope I get to make it one day. I personally have never eaten a piece of fruitcake in my life. I don't crave it… let's put it that way. Well, hopefully now that you've said that, people don't bring a bunch of fruitcakes to your shows! I won’t eat anything a fan ever gives me. I did it once, and I was in the hospital for three days. Oh my god! What did you eat? I ate 14 doses of THC, not realizing it. They thought I had a stroke—I thought I had a stroke! It was a nightmare. Never eat food from fans! Read the entire interview here. Music Events Worth Your Hard-Earned Money This Week Rochelle Jordan Dec 4, Barboza, 7 pm, 21+ The Muppet Christmas Carol in Concert with the Seattle Symphony Dec 5-7, Benaroya Hall, various times, all ages Alaska Presents: A Very Alaska Christmas Show Dec 5, Neptune Theatre, 8 pm, 18+ 19th Annual Tom Waits Night Dec 6, Conor Byrne Pub, 8 pm, 21+ Matt Rogers: Christmas in December Dec 6, Neptune Theatre, 8 pm, all ages The Snowman in Concert with the Seattle Symphony Dec 6, Benaroya Hall, 11 am 1 pm, all ages Wimps, Mark Robinson, and Pitschouse Dec 9, Sunset Tavern, 7:30 pm, 21+ We can tell you how to spend your hard-earned bucks, straight to your inbox.  The Songs That Keep Me Up at Night “The Man I’m Supposed to Be” by Bill Callahan Wow, Pop Loser recommending a song by a man singing about the bad things he’s done? Believe me, I’m surprised, too. However, Smog frontman Bill Callahan’s lead single from his forthcoming album, My Days of 58, is refreshingly honest and vulnerable for this type of song—it’s sort of like a Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters, Sun Kil Moon) song with actual self-reflection and regret. Callahan sings, “I've been living too long in my head / not loving you enough in our bed / From now on, I start living my life / As if the next day I'll be dead.” Men, take notes! “I Lived in Trees” by Mark Fry Considering that Mark Fry’s 2011 album, I Lived in Trees, was released nearly 40 years after his debut, Dreaming with Alice, I had never considered listening to it—I had the wrongful assumption that it strayed far from the ‘70s psych-folk sound I had grown to love. But when my best friend played me the album during breakfast one morning over the weekend, I was stunned. I Lived in Trees, particularly the title track, combines just about every beautiful sound you can think of—bird chirps, gentle piano, autoharp, harmonium, flute, and bells—alongside Fry’s timeless coos, reflecting on his life: “When I was a boy I lived in trees / hidden in the leaves / looking down on my world / dreaming down on my world.” For fans of Robert Wyatt, Nick Drake, and Vashti Bunyan’s Heartleap. Want more weekly music news and recommendations? Get Pop Loser in your inbox every week.  ...read more read less