Welcome back, friend, to the newsletter and podcast that puts the UTP in perfect utopia: The Uffda Times-Picayune.

This one would be a good one to read and follow along with the voiceover, especially for the third article. I’m getting better at podcasting!

As our brave and noble movement of journalistic malpractice marches forward and onward to victory over the dreaded menace, truth, we’ve also picked up a number of new readers and listeners that must be reminded of just what the hell we’re all doing here, and who better to do it than the propaganda arm of UTP, the Ministry of What’s It To Ya and Nunya Business (WITY-NB):

NOAH THE EDITOR was born some time ago along the sacred mountainside of suburban Denver. The Glorious Editor was born of a sunbeam, carried by a flock of pigeons, before the infant Editor completed their first of sixty-seven most glorious perfect 300 games of bowling at the Bowling Alley of the Revolution.

So anyway. Welcome to my personal mouthpiece for infodumping (did you know I wrote nine newsletters about Mormons?), complaining, opining, trying creative writing, and really whatever I want. Don’t take it too seriously.

Hell has frozen over in Minneapolis. Ice is on the streets, despite the city’s promises to do what they can keep it out. It’s gotten mighty slippery out there. Keep an eye out for yourselves and others!

Not only does your face hurt if you walk outside, but we also have a development on the Eddie Kingston-Samoa Joe storyline in AEW. They had their big promo, which they had hyped up on Collision on Thanksgiving, on this week’s Dynamite, and I couldn’t have been more disappointed. Eddie needs to be going after the Death Riders, not wasting his time with The Opps and Hook. I know Hook betrayed him, but they also weren’t really friends? Like they were teammates for like a month and two TV appearances. Just really disappointing. At least we’ll probably get an MJF return in the next 1, 2, 3 weeks.

In this edition of UTP, I review the national tour of The Phantom of the Opera that stopped in Minneapolis, we give the green monster a run for their money as we do Noah’s iPod 2025 Wrapped, and I address the wrestling songs on my other wrapped top list. This is UTP Soundwaves, where we chat everything music. Thanks for reading (and listening!).

It’s not spam if you send it to your friends. Give them a phone call. Why don’t you call anymore? Should we be getting landlines?

UTP AT THE THEATRE

PHANTOMS AT THE OPERA

This past long weekend I had the privilege to attend the traveling production of perennial UTP person of interest Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1980’s 1890’s fever dreamThe Phantom of the Opera.

Phantom is my partner’s favorite musical. One of our first experiences with musicals together was when I showed her the theatrical Jesus Christ Superstar, and she showed me the 2012 Royal Albert Hall anniversary production of Phantom. We had the pleasure of seeing the 50th anniversary production of JCS at the Kennedy Center in 2022, and we saw the non-equity tour at the DECC in Duluth in February 2024. But we haven’t had the chance to see Phantom.

I’ve since seen the 2012 version of Phantom multiple times, the film version once, and shockingly good high school productions on YouTube. I’ve watched the horrific sequel Webber based on a 1999 Phantom fanfic, Love Never Dies, where the Phantom leaves the catacombs beneath the Parisian opera house and moves to, I shit you not, Coney Island.

I’m not going to re-litigate Phantom. The story is relatively simple (even though I probably had to see it like 5 times to fully grasp what the hell was going on). Two buffoons buy an opera house, with an established pair of stars, when a mysterious playwright who lives in the catacombs of the opera, known only as the Phantom of the Opera, uses written threats and dubiously supernatural techniques to frighten the owners into substituting another cast member, the soprano Christine Daaé, who had a young love fling with the opera’s newest patron the Vicomte de Chagny Raoul. Drama ensues.

Phantom is fun (and confusing if you are stupid, like me). This production was among the best of the best. In fact, Emily said that of the four times she’s seen it live, this was the best version.

I was not a theater kid; band was my jam. But I did play in pit orchestra, including the single worst pit of all time for The Music Man. People thought our playing was a joke. One instructor affiliated with the production famously called us (in retrospective) the “worst pit orchestra ever.” I did play a Phantom medley in concert orchestra, but that was my only experience prior to meeting Emily. That and the drum corps version (which was so popular they did it two years in a row).

But despite my lack of theater kid credentials, I can appreciate this production’s extraordinarily intricate tech. We got the full chandelier experience, explosions, swinging, and all. The Phantom’s eerie voice was piped in using surround sound speakers around us. The way the curtains were so intentionally used as set devices, both in diegetic (Phantom has multiple musicals-within-a-musical) and non-diegetic senses (dynamic curtain draws and lifts seamlessly took us from place to place) was truly enamoring. This production did NOT fuck around.

The cast was incredible. Isaiah Bailey delivers an all-time great performance as the titular Phantom, a character who is functionally an incel terrorist that does double-duty as an all-time favorite of the romance genre; he’s a misunderstood softie who is only evil because society forces him to be, secluded away hiding his talents and skills. Bailey is perfect opposite Jordan Lee Gibert’s Christine, and I would say that the casting is damn near perfect. You’d think Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the musical for these people.

“I don’t get it. Why am I supposed to care about him? He killed people!” - my brother after the conclusion of the 2012 version.

Our showing was marred by a technical issue, though. In the midst of the beginning of the final descent into the Phantom’s lair, I think the boat (an all-time silly Broadway prop) got its wheels jammed or something? They stopped the show and lifted the lights for about 8 minutes, but honestly, I don’t think a single person cared because the intricate production is worth the wait. No one wants to see half-assed Phantom of the Opera.

Less interestingly, an opp from my past sat down right in front of us. A ghost from my past. A phantom at the opera, if you can believe it. I don’t believe in real ghosts, but I sure as hell believe in metaphorical ones.

Anyway, the real Phantom of the Opera was fucking awesome. 5 stars. The only downer was that the production was priced appropriately… around $90/ticket. But if that’s what it takes to pay the high quality union crew, then that’s fine with me.

SHAMELESSLY RIPPING OFF THE GREEN MONSTER

NOAH’S IPOD WRAPPED 2025

I had a humorous idea on my personal Instagram story: what if I had a Spotify Wrapped, but for the music that’s just on my iPod? Well here you go.

My partner Emily got me a purple iPod Nano for my birthday earlier this year. When I was a kid, all I fucking wanted was an iPod, and finally, I had one.

The timing was nice—King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, my favorite band, left Spotify after widespread reporting about the CEO’s personal financial investments in drone warfare companies. So I loaded it up with a who’s who of music from my Spotify time, and also old music I’ve had in my personal data archive, which goes back to… 2010? 2009? Idk, but it’s been a while.

I want to point out something kind of funny in all this: my family never had any Apple products growing up (or today). I explored too many places I didn’t belong on the internet with old Windows XP business laptops my dad bought. My first smartphone was a then-seven-year-old Google G1, the first-ever Android phone, hacked of course.

So you’ll imagine my surprise when I use an old MacBook of Emily’s to start writing and doing *gestures to podcast and newsletter home studio*, plug the iPod in, and find out that actually, you can’t use an iPod on modern Apple hardware: iTunes no longer exists. It literally only exists on Windows in 2025.

I have an 8GB model, which fits roughly 1000 songs. I’ve filled the whole thing up, but have a “to-go” playlist of 16 songs I listen to most often. Consider this the definitive THE TOP 16 SONGS ON THE ONLY PLAYLIST ON MY IPOD, you won’t believe number 15!

In a humorous ironic twist revealing that I have no values, I’ve made this a Spotify playlist.

* “Phantom, Pt. II” by Justice from Cross (2007)

French electro duo Justice was the first grown-up music I really found on my own. I was on a certain website known for funneling young men into right-wing identity crises, which I thankfully never went down, but the song was featured in a meme on the /video games/ board of said website. Since that night in 2010, or whatever, I’ve loved this song and the band.

I love Phantom Pt. II because, despite having no words, it’s infectiously catchy and easy to dance to. Easy number one and keeps me checked in for the whole album. I was also supposed to see Justice live this year but had fucking shingles. Fuck you, 3rd Grade Noah, for getting chicken pox even though I was vaccinated.

* “Nouveau Americain” by Brazilian Girls from New York City (2008)

This song is a fucking banger. You may recall a while back I did a whole UTP Soundwaves article interrogating the presence of music from the Grand Theft Auto games on my various playlists. Well here’s another one.

It’s from the Grand Theft Auto IV expansion The Ballad of Gay Tony, which oddly had a very influential impact on me because I often think about the trailer for Gay Tony that featured Roxette’s “The Look,” one of many (un)ambiguously queer songs I can point that I enjoyed growing up.

I love this song’s fast drive, wub-wub-wub-bubba-bub bass, the ethereal piano, ambiguously foreign lyrics and vocalist. Just a banger all around.

* “Murder on the Dancefloor (Extended Album Version)” by Sophie Ellis-Bextor from Murder on the Dancefloor (2001)

Oh, you fuckin’ know I had to go for the extended version. I really enjoyed Saltburn (2023). It was gut-wrenching, identity-affirming, repulsively-erotic, and the iconic last sequence set to this song as Barry Keoghan flops and hangs around the Saltburn estate. I have cleaned my house dancing to this song so many times.

* “Cool as Kim Deal” and “Not If you Were The Last Junkie on Earth” by The Dandy Warhols from The Dandy Warhols Come Down (1997)

The next song(s) is actually a double feature from ‘97. “Cool as Kim Deal” is super catchy, with “bah-buh-ba-bahh” and “aaaahhhs” and a droning rock organ beyond an extraordinarily simple rhythm section. Who doesn’t want a cool girlfriend? I mean, come on. Have you heard The Breeders?

I think this song pairs well with another one on the album, “Not If You Were The Last Junkie on Earth,” which begins with “I never thought you’d be a junkie because heroin is so passé.” Gotta love Gen-Xers.

* “The Rockafeller Skank” by Fatboy Slim from You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby (1998)

RIGHT ABOUT NOW, THE FUNK SOUL BROTHER. CHECK IT OUT NOW, THE FUNK SOUL BROTHER. RIGHT ABOUT NOW, THE FUNK SOUL BROTHER. CHECK IT OUT NOW, THE FUNK SOUL BROTHER.RIGHT ABOUT NOW, THE FUNK SOUL BROTHER. CHECK IT OUT NOW, THE FUNK SOUL BROTHER.RIGHT ABOUT NOW, THE FUNK SOUL BROTHER. CHECK IT OUT NOW, THE FUNK SOUL BROTHER.

For real, this is my favorite song to play in the now-dead 2021 DJ rhythm game FUSER, much to the chagrin of my loved ones who have had to endure one of my “sets.” I hope you’re ready for Ginuwine’s “Pony” mixed with Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby.”

I can’t find it, but there was a livestream a couple years ago where a guy was trying to recreate “The Rockafeller Skank” on a modern DAW and Norman Cook (AKA Fatboy Slim) was in the chat literally walking him through it. Crazy stuff.

* “Metal” and “M.E.” by Gary Numan from The Pleasure Principle (1979)

If Slint touched Apollo by inventing grunge and math rock in Louisville in the late 80’s, Gary Numan did the same with The Pleasure Principle by so naturally including the synthesizer as another instrument. It’s insane this was still the 70’s. I love both these songs because I discovered them from the Nine Inch Nails cover of “Metal” which includes both songs. They just go so hard.

* “von dutch” by Charli XCX from brat (2024)

For this humble music critic, Brat Summer never ended. “von dutch” topped my Wrapped for a second year, and it only makes sense that it’s here too. This song is perfect. It has no faults. It is just under three minutes of the greatest pop song ever.

I’d be remiss not to mention that I did mod this into my WWE 2K24 game and have a brat-themed wrestler who looks shockingly like me, aptly named “Noah XCX,” which the game announces exactly the way you’d expect.

* “6 Underground” by Sneaker Pimps from Becoming X (1997)

The late-90s strikes again on this list with a certified platinum Noah favorite. A GTA V song that has somehow permeated nearly every playlist of mine is one of my favorite songs ever. I waxed poetic about it in the GTA article so go read that.

* “In Undertow” by Alvvays from Antisocialites (2017)

I got into Alvvays at a very important time. The first semesters I had at the U of M were liberating—I was finally out of Dodge. The bedroom pop band came to my attention when my good friend RD (hey, RD!) asked me to go to their concert at First Ave. It was really good.

I love this song because it’s a break-up song the lead singer wrote about the guitarist—although they aren’t breaking up. It's an exercise in simulated loss and grief, but the song feels like a breath of fresh air. A turning of the pages. The beach receding back to the ocean as another wave crashes against the shore.

* “Voodoo People” by The Prodigy from Music for the Jilted Generation (1994)

So there’s this movie called Hackers (1995) and it fucking rules. We get non-binary Matt Lillard, Hollywood-ass hacking scenes, and the raddest fucking rollerblading montage ever to “Voodoo People.” It’s the climax and our hacking heroes have to do the plot to make the movie end, which has to happen in phone booths at Grand Central Terminal for some reason.

I think about the shot in front of Grand Central and the MetLife Building every time I hear this song. Can you tell I really like the 90’s?

* “Plush” by Stone Temple Pilots from Core (1992)

I love this song. Even though it’s so obviously trying to cash in on Eddie Vedder’s unintelligble singing throughout the legendary Ten (1991), infamous piece of shit (he still is, but he used to be, too) Scott Weiland. But ya know, I love this stupid song. Especially when I was like, 12.

* “The Concept of Love” by Hideki Naganuma from Jet Set Radio Future (2001)

UNDUHSTAH UNDUSTAH. UNDUHSTAH UNDUHSTAH. UNDUHSTAH UNDUHSTAH THE CON-CEPT OF LOVE!

Curveball! This is from a video game: the cult classic rollerblading (lmao two songs related to rollerblading) graffiti game Jet Set Radio Future. The Jet Set Radio games are infamous for their Naganuma-penned soundtracks, which frankly feature only fucking bangers. This was one of two games packaged with the original Xbox I had when I was like, 4?, so this one is really lodged in there.

* “Neverender” by Justice & Tame Impala from Hyperdrama (2024)

I didn’t mention it when I talked about “Phantom Pt. II,” but Justice has enjoyed a new mainstream level of success that would have floored 2013 Noah. I was desperate for anything new; they had only done Cross (2007) and Audio, Video, Disco (2011). I actually joined Spotify to hear their second live album Access All Arenas (2013) the moment it came out.

“Neverender” is catchy, has that warm Justice glow to it, and featuring everyone’s other favorite Australian psychedelic rock project Tame Impala is a treat in itself.

* “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” by Nirvana from MTV Unplugged in New York

My first unhealthy interest in the darker side of the 90’s started like any good Gen Z/elder millennial when I was going through puberty and was obsessed with Nirvana. I was learning guitar, and their riffs are infamously easy, catchy, and recognizable. There’s more to this story that’ll come in my oral history of Facebook, but I had a certain affinity for their edition of MTV Unplugged, probably thanks to my late mom, who always found an emotional outlet in latching on to celebrity tragedies, usually from addiction. Especially Kurt Cobain and Michael Jackson.

If you haven’t watched this one, please do. It’s the last song and is a cover of a blues standard, but Rolling Stone has called it the greatest rock performance of all time, and I’m inclined to agree. The last chorus, when Kurt’s voice gets raspy, his eyes get wide, and he hits the “don’t lieeeeee to me” for the last time. He’s singing a song about someone’s concern about reckless behaviors, much in the same way people who surrounded Kurt were concerned for his health and safety in the months and weeks leading to his death.

Anyway, if I’m in the right mood this song will break me. I don’t usually listen to it, but we don’t have an algorithm or data that’s been harvested. Just vibes and a purple iPod Nano and the hope I’m not paying too much attention to the music when I’m iPod-ing it up. Wrap that in a box! Word to your mother.

ENDEARING OR EMBARASSING?

ADDRESSING THE WRESTLING THEME SONGS ON MY SPOTIFY WRAPPED

For a similar and much shorter last feature, I wanted to highlight and address something I observed when reading my 2025 Wrapped: three wrestler walk-out songs were in the top ten.

I wanted to talk about them individually and explain why they’re here. As we talked about in the past few weeks, wrestling rules because of the pageantry, and the walk-outs are, imo, like 90% of my favorite parts. The songs set the tone, the crowd pops fuel excitement. The announcers make stupid-ass comments. It’s high drama. It’s anime.

I’m also a dork who will listen to the music when I am doing something that isn’t watching wrestling, which isn’t that embarrassing except when the song has the wrestler’s name as a chant in the song itself. Anyway, let’s do this.

* “C.U.R.I.O.S.I.T.Y” by ONE OK ROCK ft. Paledusk, CHICO CARLITO, walk-out song of “The Rainmaker” Kazuchika Okada

47 listens and #8 most-listened song of 2025

Earlier this year, Japanese wrestling superstar “The Rainmaker” Kazuchika Okada came out to a different song. We heard his signature coin flip, but instead of the instrumental theme he’s had for at least a decade, a new, but somewhat similar-sounding song came on.

I liked that it was fast, dramatic, had words, and also featured a lot of my favorite nu metal tropes.

The words are…embarassing. The song is from ONE OK ROCK, an actual, successful Japanese metal band that Okada is apparently personal friends with. Okada is like, John Cena levels of celebrity in Japan, and he’s infamously the most expensive AEW wrestler, with a contract estimated at over $10 million.

It takes a minute or so to get into it to the chorus, which is just spelling the word “curiosity” out loud? But the chorus is when the pyro starts, so we do get an awkward 30-seconds where Okada just kinda stands there waiting for the song, which I think builds up the drama. I don’t really get what curiosity has to do with anything, but at least it’s kind of clever:

"C" everything that "U" really fucking "R,"

They don’t censor it though which is funny—if Okada is wrestling you’ll hear an F-bomb on live TV. Anyway, it’s a bona fide anime final battle song and Okada literally once played himself in a wrestling anime, so pretty apt, I’d say.

* “Elevated” by It Lives, It Breathes, walk-out song of Will Ospreay

55 listens, #6 most-listened song of 2025

I won’t spend time justifying this because if you’ve ever watched Will Ospreay come out, and then wrestle a full pay-per-view match, you’ll understand why he’s allowed to have a corny-ass song that has “Os-preay, Os-preay” chants built into it. He’s a real-life superhero and his song just brings me so much joy, in part because of the corniness, part because of more nu metal tropes, but in general it just gets me going.

* “Underground” by Jane’s Addiction, walk-out song of “The Pride of Pro Wrestling” “The Five Tool Player” Anthony Bowens

61 listens, #5 most-listened song of 2025

When Anthony Bowens returned during the Dynasty pre-show in April, it was honestly shocking.

Bowens was one-third of The Acclaimed, a stable with “Platinum” Max Caster and “Daddy Ass” Billy Gun. Their gimmick was that they wear pink, everyone loves them, and their signature taunt is “scissoring” where they take peace signs and slam them into each other. “Scissor me, Daddy Ass” is a phrase seriously spoken and subsequently cheered for by adult, American men. I have a t-shirt that says “Scissor Me” on the front.

Max and Anthony broke up a while back as Max was getting cockier and cockier, and his walk-out freestyle raps (as bad as it sounds, tbh) were getting worse and worse. Anthony was injured (?), I’m not sure, I’m not fact-checking this, and while he was gone Max had started the “Best Wrestler Alive” gimmick, where he trademarked that term and carries the patent around with him in a little frame. He made an awkward ass chant that was hated at first: “Let’s Go Max You’re The Best Wrestler Alive.”

I say at-first, because he started doing these segments on Collision: “Can You Survive Five With The Best Wrestler Alive?” where Max has a five-minute open challenge match that he literally always loses. The Max Caster Open Challenge segment became a highlight of the show, where random AEW stars from across the card, occasionally guest from Japan, Mexico, or the UK, or anyone would beat the shit out of Max Caster for a few minutes. The chant also got super over, and has even been used pejoratively against Maxwell Jacob Friedman (MJF), when he’s being a cowardly heel.

It’s in this context we get the announcement that during the Dynasty: Zero Hour pre-show, Max would have an open challenge. As the clip shows, the lights go out and the beginning of “Underground” starts playing—which we’ve never heard before. “Whose song is this?” remarks Bryan Danielson.

Out comes Anthony Bowens, the first time we’ve seen him in months, and he’s with Billy Gunn! The crowd is cheesing, he gets a massive pop. He kicks Max’s ass. We hear Jane’s Addiction again. Incredible.

We actually don’t see him too much for a while—his “superhero” gimmick didn’t work and he’s now several months into a fall from grace where he has stooped to Max’s level, carrying around magazine covers and awards he’s gotten. The booking moves have been to force The Acclaimed back together by booking them as a tag team, but it’s been tough. But I joked every time his song started that we had to “stand for the anthem” when we heard the first notes and “I TRIED TO FIND SOME LOVE FROM UP HIGH, THERE JUST AIN’T ENOUGH TO GO AROUND.” Goes hard as fuck.

The actual lyrics are corny and not cool at all (“How is New York bro? Is it holding you up, or bringing you down? We’re all hustlers, huslters. I never gave up the Underground”). Buuuut it’s on this list because it’s my morning alarm, lol. I just really wanted to tell that story.

Anyway, that’s our show. Don’t forget to tip your waitress. there’s a production of Jesus Christ Superstar opening in Saint Paul next week. Should I go? I probably should, right? Will you sponsor me? No? Well then we’ll just pull the plug on it—

If you want to give me money to see Jesus Christ Superstar, that’d be cool af, but you can also just consent to me sending you “the news” once a week to your inbox hole. Subscribe to UTP, now.