Graphic created by Hard Pass Creative

2016 was a memorable year for Molly Hudelson. Her music publication, Circles & Soundwaves, was celebrating its fifth year. It was the first year she took on the role of Senior Tour Crew for animal rights nonprofit organization PETA, where she spent her summer traveling with the Vans Warped Tour. She got to see her favorite band since 2003, Good Charlotte, perform numerous times. She introduced her audience to The Time I Cried At A Show, a guest blog where music industry professionals shared a story about a concert that left an impression.

It was also the year Molly and I met.

I had spent the majority of the Milwaukee date of Vans Warped Tour on the third floor behind the stage of the then-Marcus Amphitheater interviewing artists for a different publication. I had finished my work day minutes before Good Charlotte took the Left Foot stage, and watched them from a balcony while Molly was in the photo pit. Hours later, we were introduced.

Around the same time that Black is the New AP Style debuted, Molly announced The Time I Cried At A Show. She was inspired by a recent editorial she wrote about her love for Walk The Moon.

“This piece came to me when I realized that despite Walk the Moon being my most-listened to artist on Spotify over the past two years, I’ve never written anything about them for C&S,” she said in the original post announcing the feature. “I realized I had no reason not to write about this band that I loved, and when I did write about them, it felt good.”

Artists, venue staff, publicists, photographers and more contributed to The Time I Cried At A Show for a year and half, including the time Molly cried at a Good Charlotte show and the time I cried at a Motion City Soundtrack show.

After seeing them every date that they played Warped Tour, she saw Good Charlotte twice later that year in New York and New Jersey. She attended the show as a member of the press in New Jersey, and after writing her review, she knew she needed to write an additional piece that wasn’t so objective.

“I felt like I still had something to say about the show and how significant that was for me,” she said. “In a way it felt really full circle.”

A year and a half after introducing The Time I Cried At A Show, she decided to end Circles & Soundwaves. I felt so strongly about the feature that I did not want to see it end, and reached out to ask if Black is the New AP Style could continue its story. Initially I was not the only person to ask about the feature, but with Molly’s blessing, I have been receiving submissions ever since.

“Any would have done it justice, but knowing the piece that you wrote made me feel like you were the right person to trust with that series,” she said.

Currently, Molly is available for hire as a music photographer/videographer. Her byline can occasionally be found on sites such as Substream or LADYGUNN, but she prefers working with artists in a more direct, visual format. She is also the host of Generation GC, a deep-dive podcast on Good Charlotte’s discography. I was honored to be its first guest, discussing their debut single, “Little Things”.

To end our conversation, I asked Molly the question that seemed most fitting - when was the last time she cried at a show?

In another full circle moment, her answer was Good Charlotte. She saw lead vocalist Joel Madden and guitarist Benji Madden celebrate the release of their latest album, Motel Du Cap, with a performance at the GRAMMY Museum’s Ray Charles Rooftop Terrace in October 2025.

“Their newest record is so special to me,” she said. “In some ways it has that same energy of that first record that is so earnest… [it] made me really happy to think about how much that band means to me and how special that I can have a band that I can look to for that many years that still means so much to me.”

Thank you, Molly, for letting Black is the New AP Style continue the legacy of The Time I Cried At A Show.

Before stepping into the spotlight as an artist, Nian Tong built an impressive career behind the scenes of the music industry. He has worked with major Chinese artists, collaborated as a musical theatre orchestrator and composed original stage works before deciding to release his own music.

Tong is a self-described introvert, so he never imagined a scenario where he would be performing on a stage. In fact, he had never sung in front of an audience until last year. After moving to London in 2023, however, his outlook changed.

“I saw the openness and inclusiveness of the music and cultural scene,” he said. “So I decided to push myself and try an open mic. The reaction that night really surprised me and it made me aware of the uniqueness of both my music and my personality.”

He remembers thinking that night, ‘Oh… this is actually something I can do, and something I might even be good at.’ Something about London made him want to step outside his comfort zone.

Thankfully, he already understood music on a practical level. From the initial idea to the final release, he had already found his trusted collaborators and sense of songwriting. Creating music was something that he already felt comfortable with, and by having that sense of comfort, he brought a certain perspective to songwriting for himself.

“Having worked with a wide range of people, from hobbyists to label artists, I developed a more objective way of seeing myself,” he said. “I have a clearer understanding of my strengths, my weaknesses and what I can realistically expect as an artist.”

His move to London is documented in his single, “What’s On Your Mind”, inspired by a long-distance love that never quite materialized. Tong usually writes from personal experience, so documenting a particularly vulnerable moment is nothing new to him. Songwriting is his way to process his feelings and make sense of his experiences.

“Vulnerability is simply part of that honesty and I think listeners connect most when something feels genuine,” he said. “I hope the song feels comforting in an interesting way. It comes from a place of uncertainty and vulnerability that many people are experiencing today but musically it carries a sense of lightness. I like the idea that listeners can sit with those emotions while still feeling uplifted, maybe even smiling or laughing at something that once felt painful.”

“What’s On Your Mind” will be one of four songs off the upcoming EP, Gradually. Tong said the songs are incredibly different from one another but share a similar theme of love and emotion in the digital age. His creation process has grown and matured alongside him, and exploring a more modern palette has him excited to share this release.

From happily behind-the-scenes to happily preparing for his first headlining show, Nian Tong has found where he belongs thanks to that London move. He sees himself differently, both as an artist and as an individual, and that confidence won’t be wearing off anytime soon.

I think I always knew I wanted to sing.

When I was a kid, I went to see Céline Dion perform and something about that experience lodged itself deep inside me. I just remember the feeling. Watching her on stage, hearing her voice fill the room; I felt something click into place. It wasn’t admiration so much as recognition. I knew that I needed to sing too.

Music was always around me. My dad is a singer-songwriter, so songwriting and performance were part of the landscape of my childhood. I’d been writing songs for as long as I can remember, often without thinking too hard about where they might lead. Music was something I did because it felt natural, because it helped me process things, because it gave shape to emotions that didn’t always have clear words attached to them.

The moment I knew I wanted to take music seriously came much later.

In the fall of 2021, I quit drinking. That decision cracked something open in my life. Suddenly, I had a lot of space - mental, emotional, creative - that I didn’t quite know what to do with yet. I was looking for something to focus on, something that could help me make sense of the personal changes I was going through. I needed an outlet.

Around that time, I got my piano tuned.

I remember sitting down to play it, my hands on the keys, feeling another kind of click. It was like realizing I’d found my next creative home.

Making music wasn’t just something I enjoyed anymore; it was something I needed. It became a way to hold what I was carrying, to tell the truth about where I was and who I was becoming.

Since then, songwriting has been that home for me. A place where ideas can land, where emotions can be explored without needing to be resolved and where each new song feels like a marker of this chapter of my life.

Photo courtesy of David McDonald

Something that always stuck with us when we were younger was the Grateful Dead. They would have everyone around and some of the guys in the band were concerned with the company Jerry kept, like the Hell’s Angels. He would say everyone has a seat at the table, and if we deny someone a seat at the table now it’s going to create a growing problem. That’s what breeds hate; you divide, and if you divide the thing you hate, it’s coming back twice as hard.

When you look back on our parents' generation, they were in a much more rough circumstance so their outlooks are more binary and rough. This or that. Now it’s a whole new world. It’s not this or that; there’s a dimmer switch. There’s no on or off, there’s every increment in between that. We can go anywhere, it’s just waking up to the brilliance that is humanity.

We do find, as a whole, humanity is waking up to realize that we’re not categories. We’re waking up to realize that we aren’t just words. All these stories and this dumb stuff we’ve all done in the past were actually the cutting edge of consciousness in the universe. This is the cutting edge machine. We’re not pigeon holed and each individual human is a master artist, whatever that may be. It doesn't have to be drawing or music; we’re such complicated, sensitive and in-depth creatures. It’s not as if you’re good at piano you can’t be good at guitar. We have the capacity to be great at creation itself. To be great at everything.

It’s almost like we’re a baby about to be birthed into the new world; we don’t know what that new world is, so we might tend back to comfort. Unfortunately, our comfort right now as humans is war and hell and division. We were about to get into infinite creativity, and that’s just as terrifying, but there’s a whole lot less bloodshed and suffering. We don’t have to suffer as humans any longer. We feel shame and guilt about things. We’re trying to hide and deny that growth when we shove it down. It doesn’t go away, it grows bigger and eventually that little kitten now is a huge tiger.

There’s horrendous things that go on in this world, but if we were able to get the backstory of every single human and see what they went through - no matter how horrific their actions are - you would be able to understand and empathize why they’re in the position they’re in. That’s such a hard thing to do because we just want to say no and cut it off. Unfortunately that means ‘if I hate war so much I’m going to kill war’ and you could turn into war.

It’s not empathy or destruction; there’s so much more subtlety in between those poles. We almost feel like we’re just going through the trauma. If we don’t have empathy for each other, we’re in big trouble. Of course, there’s tons of things we don’t agree with, but we can’t just shoot it off and stuff it down. It’s going to create pressure. Forgiveness is big time. If someone is written off forever that means that you’re going to write yourself off forever too. You can’t hold yourself in the light and somebody else in darkness. You can’t do that and expect to be light when you’re holding somebody in darkness. That’s not how it works.

Everyone loves a redemption story. That’s the whole story of humanity, and it’s so hard to speak about this stuff without staking down a claim, but you’ve got to keep the dialogue open. It’s like tennis: you don’t just hit the ball over and it falls away. The person on the other side hits it back. You don’t necessarily want your point to win, you want to keep this interaction going so that we can understand each other. You realize if anyone spoke long enough and put down their belief system and all their defenses that you’re looking at yourself and every other human being. It’s just that they have different circumstances and different stories and different beliefs than you. That doesn’t mean it’s good, bad or otherwise; the best outcome for humanity is we all come together and share our strengths and weaknesses.

Mountain Head’s entire mission is creating what we think is missing out there musically. Our music is its own style; the way we sing, the way we play, it’s our own thing. All our songs are pointing to this present moment, being here now. The creativity shining a light on being yourself.

We did not come up with this, but we perform a symbolic ceremony that we call “Going Eagle”. We learned it through a calm nervous system, trial and error, and intense amounts of terror, fear and uncertainty. Have you ever noticed on totem poles that eagles are always at the top? We found out that the eagle supports the brain ascending up the totem pole to get to the eagle space. Now you have the full overview of everything that’s happening on the ground.

There’s too much animalism in humanity right now. When we came to Earth we started watching the animals and we started copying them. That’s not our job. We need to learn how to tame that beast in us so we can ascend up to the eagle. You can look at the overview and then you can come back to the ground and hunt, but you don’t want to do those out of order. You need to know that you can be that but you need to know how to reign it in.

In the blink of an eye, Anh Le had her world flipped upside down. It started the day she took the Law School Admission Test. A get-together to celebrate the completion of the test brought forth some unsavory news about the person she had been seeing for the last five years. Before she had time to fully deal with the breakup, her father became ill and required her to move from New York to Pennsylvania to assist her family. The only way for her to process her emotions was through songwriting.

She said it wasn’t really a choice for her to write songs about that moment in her life; the songs just came to her. Whether she was sitting in the hospital with her family or sitting alone in the replica of her Wisconsin childhood bedroom, she felt one with her pen. By the time each and every emotion made its way onto a page, she knew she had a full-length album in the works.

“I ended up finding out I was being very thoroughly misled about so many things,” she said. “It just shattered this illusion of this love story that I was so attached to, that really defined me for so long.”

At the time, she convinced herself that she was fully prepared to quickly release music. Was that thought partly based on the idea that this person that wronged her would surely hear it and know the damage they caused? Yes. Is that why she ultimately waited a year before slowly releasing each song? Also yes. Those feelings pushed her to complete the music, but as she sat in those feelings, she knew she needed the time to perfect them.

During that time, the song “Gut Feeling” presented itself. She was working through her emotions, having conversations with herself and searching for a clarity that led her to the lyrics. In the middle of writing it, everything about it felt like the first single. Eventually, she was honing in on the lyrics with the intention of sharing it with her audience first. “The Plot” and “Corrine” would follow, almost creating a trilogy to tell the beginning of her story.

“It feels like a hero’s journey, where the first three songs lay out who I thought that I was a couple of years ago,” she said. “The next three feel like it represents the thick of what will happen, and then the third three is everything that I’ve decided since then and how I’ve chosen to move on from that time; the person I’m meant to be coming out of it.”

In order to perfect the songs, she wanted to tackle production on her own. Initially she felt bad as she has worked with producers in the past that she loved working with and plans to do so again, but a newfound confidence from her time spent in Pennsylvania made her want to step out of her comfort zone.

It started with driving on the highway. The second time she had ever driven on the highway, in fact. Although she received her driver’s license as a teenager, she had never really driven anywhere far or without someone in the passenger seat. After moving to New York, driving wasn’t necessary, but when she found herself in Pennsylvania and taking care of her father, she had to conquer her fear.

“The only thing that stopped me was my own mind,” she said. “It had been such a big road block personally for me, and I think my relationship with producing and my own music shifted around then too.”

She started small - driving to the mall and back - and one day she felt like she could conquer anything. That included juggling law school and creating her album at the same time.

“It’s going to be really hard,” she said. “Challenging in many ways I can’t even imagine and predict now, but I think it just felt like this was where it was pulling me towards.”

Her journey thus far had been a musical one, but pre-ÊMIA she found passions in political science, speech and debate. An integral moment that made her want to pursue something outside of music came from watching the struggles of her non-verbal, autistic brother as he and their family took on the public school system. Le was a major advocate for his education, partly due to the language barrier between district officials and Le’s mother. They thankfully had assistance from advocates who knew laws and templates guaranteed to make a difference, and seeing their dedication make an impact on Le.

In a way, law school is another form of creativity for her. One side is logical while the other is ruleless. One is structured and one is chaotic. She sees creativity in both, and believes that in the end they will balance each other out.

Le believes that having a background in the music industry did prepare her for law school. Nothing comes as a surprise to her; she knows a thing or two about self-taught, independent, last-minute curriculums that may or may not impact her future. The last year challenged her in ways she couldn’t imagine, but being on the other side of it has made her all the more ambitious. To her, becoming a lawyer while writing, recording and producing her debut full-length are two sides of the same coin.

In November of 2005, I was born into a very musical home. Actually, before I was even born, my parents, who had their degrees in music, were playing Portuguese music to me through headphones on my mom’s stomach.

A lot of my confidence in music ties back to the way I was raised. Before I even turned 10, my dad curated a special playlist for my younger sister and me to fall asleep to every night. That playlist defined a lot of my taste in music going forward. I remember we even had an iPod, like, one of the really old ones that only played music for the car because we’d rarely ever listen to the radio. It was always some obscure indie music my dad was into.

Music was always playing around the house. I don’t think I’ve ever lived without a piano taking up a crucial space in the living room, where in another house you might’ve had a TV instead. A lot of people who don’t grow up this way but want to pursue music tend to feel embarrassed to sing too loudly in their room or play the piano, knowing the whole house could hear it, but it never felt like that for me. Before I even learned to play any instruments, I listened to my parents play. My dad would always play this one melody on the piano that he composed, which, if I heard it today, I could still sing along with it.

Because of these experiences, once I had picked up piano lessons, then eventually singing lessons, then eventually guitar lessons, it didn’t feel like there was ever a wrong or right time to practice. I didn’t need to be home alone to start belting Demi Lovato in my room. The same went for my sister, and we spent a lot of time singing and playing songs together, which we still do today.

Throughout elementary school, I switched around constantly between what I wanted to be. In the first grade, I wanted to be a basketball star…big dreams. Later on, once I had started voice lessons, I pictured myself as a singer, yet that didn’t last long. By the seventh grade, I had decided to be a photographer, and by the 11th grade, I was pretty sure I was set to become a film director.

During high school, I started taking songwriting more seriously. I was always the kind of person to see something or hear something and say, “I really want to do that myself”, so I did. I picked up the guitar, which I had maybe two months' worth of experience on, and I started teaching myself. The first song I learned on my own, though it was pretty ambitious, was “Blackbird” by The Beatles.

Then, I discovered Lizzy McAlpine and Phoebe Bridgers’ music, and that’s when my attitude completely shifted towards songwriting. I wanted to sound exactly like them. During the COVID quarantine, I had so much time to learn essentially every single song they both ever wrote on the guitar. That led me to write my own stuff, though a lot of them ended up sounding like copies of Lizzy’s music, but we all start somewhere.

Gradually, I started showing these songs to my singing teacher at the time, and every song was a more improved version of the last. I started to feel like maybe I was actually good at this. This was definitely the moment I knew I wanted to make music.

Still, I was only 15 at the time, and actually, I really had no idea what I was meant to do in my life. I studied film for two years in college before I realized that, even though it was fun to make movies all this time, I just wanted to study music.

Throughout this realization, I kept writing songs. I’d record them, but they’d never go anywhere. Finally, after my last year in college, my first single debuted on all streaming platforms. Seeing my name there, with my song title, with my picture, with my description… that was the coolest thing ever. That’s when it solidified for me. I want to make music. I want this to be my life.

All of this to say, I’ve been constantly learning about myself and what motivates me to work towards something. There are a lot of ways to get discouraged, to feel like everyone else is doing it better than you and even to sometimes doubt whether a passion of yours is really something you want to commit yourself to. It can be a lot of work, but then I go see an artist I like performing live, and I’m like, “Wow. I really want to be up there too one day”, and then I know it’s real.

Disney On Ice showcases world-class figure skating, high-flying aerial acrobatics, dazzling special effects, engaging interactive moments and enchanting music. Their latest production, Jump In!, invites the audience to celebrate the magic of memories alongside their latest gadget, the Magical MousePad.

The Magical MousePad has all sorts of apps to choose from - a blue and white snowflake, a yellow sun, a glowing stingray - all with the ability to transform the room into an iconic Disney film. Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy journey into the heart of unforgettable tales of the high seas, the bustling metropolis, vibrant countries and more with the help of their enchanted tool.

The all-star cast includes over 50 Disney stars, and is the only place audiences can see Anxiety alongside Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Anger and Fear from Inside Out 2, as well as multiple new characters from Moana 2.

Even though the clock has already struck midnight and a brand-new year has been welcomed in, it’s not too late to add a touch of Disney magic to any New Years resolutions. Disney On Ice: Jump In! is all about making memories, so here are 10 magical ideas to spark joy, imagination and adventure all year long!

Graphic created by Hard Pass Creative

Black is the New AP Style is turning 10 years old, and we’re celebrating all year long! 

First things first, say hello to our anniversary artwork. Here are some fun facts about it:

After the tragic loss of Strange Boutique’s seminal guitarist Fred “Freak” Smith, bandmates Monica Richards and Steve Willett reunited to play a show in his honor. Despite more than two decades since their final performance at the original Black Cat in Washington, D.C., playing together again felt like more than a one-night special event.

The next day, the two sat down and discussed the overall joy felt the night before. Being on stage made them happy. Dennis Kane, who had been a friend and protégé of Smith’s, took extra care of the songs with his own guitar playing. The audience seemed genuinely thrilled to see these songs shared in a live environment again. The band came to the same conclusion: they were more than ready to make new music together.

Kane and Willett wrote and recorded demos in D.C. before sending them to Richards in California, who in turn would send back lyrical and melodic sketches of what she wanted to add.

“It was a thrill to hear what she would add to the demo,” Willett said. “It was always the icing on the cake.”

Two years of writing, recording and working around one another’s schedules proved that this was meant to be. Willett said that it was magical and rewarding to have new music that still sounds like Strange Boutique. It was a sound that could not be replicated with their other musical endeavors, yet it was so easy to slip back into. It felt completely natural.

“If we learned anything from the experience I’d say it’s that when we feel our feet are to the fire, we can dance,” Willett said.

“I felt very happy about [Strange Boutique’s return], and I know Fred would feel happy and proud if he was here,” Richards added.

Their most proud moment during the creation process was watching the string quartet give the songs an entirely new sound. They had initially decided to add strings to “Under Surface”, a song that they felt was unusual for them and needed to step outside their comfort zone of bass/drums/guitar. Kane wrote the score, which led to the decision that it would make sense to add strings to more than one song.

“The day in the studio with the string section was such a positive experience,” Willett said. “A minute into the first take, all the anxiety and questions about whether or not it would work just disappeared. Hearing the string section do their parts for the first time was so incredible; they added so much depth and extra color. It really brought those songs to life. Suddenly, they just worked in a way they hadn’t before.”

When Richards heard the final mixes, she knew they were onto something. She always writes lyrics with an overarching theme or story, yet this time she went with how it felt to listen to the album all the way through.

“Doing a track listing takes time to feel the rhythm, the highs and lows,” she said. “Not a linear story exactly, but how it feels in the gut.”

When Willett sent Richards the first demo of what would become “Whistle, And I Will Come To You”, her first take at a vocal melody was powerful. Willett said that it seemed to express a sense of hope and defiance and desperation. Being one of the last songs written for the album, it felt like the most natural way to close it out. When he first heard the lyric, “let the lonely heart sing”, he knew they had their album title.

Let The Lonely Heart Sing is being heard in a much different time than its predecessor, The Kindest Worlds. Long gone are the days filled with less technology and more tangibility. However, the global connection has given an underground band a larger chance of being discovered.

“People feel they have discovered us on their own, and they connect to our songs,” Richards said. “It makes it all feel timeless, in a way. The current scene, standing in front of kids who have discovered us recently and are SO into it! That makes me very happy!”