In 1979, Joan Jett was at cross-roads. The all-girl band she had founded, The Runaways, had broken up. Jett wanted to pursue a solo-career but knew this would take her away from her home in Southern California. The Runaways had experienced success, spurred on by being the opening act for bands like Ramones and Cheap […]
By the time that Armenian-American rockers System Of A Down released their split double album Mezmerize and Hypnotize in the spring and fall of 2005, they were riding high on a tidal wave of success. After years of hard work and touring, their eponymous debut became a platinum hit, the follow-up Toxicity went #1 and […]
At the start of 1980, the fate of synth-pop superheroes Devo was uncertain. Demo tapes had already garnered the Akron, Ohio natives a glittery fan base including David Bowie and Iggy Pop, and saw their 1978 Warner Brothers debut Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! produced by none other than maverick Brian […]
IMDB has it wrong. Ice Cube’s first film was released on May 16, 1990. At 20-years-old, the most volatile lyricist from America’s most dangerous music group, N.W.A., branched out on his own for the first time with Amerikkka’s Most Wanted, a visceral depiction of life as a Black man in America. Ice Cube – Amerikkka’s […]
One of the most remarkable careers in heavy metal and, later, progressive rock, was launched 25 years ago with Opeth’s watershed debut album, Orchid, but of course, none of that was apparent, at the very start. In fact, Opeth’s chief architect, vocalist, guitarist and songwriter, Mikael Åkerfeldt, wasn’t even present when his future group was […]
Speaking about the three years following the release of In the Court of the Crimson King, King Crimson leader Robert Fripp chose his words carefully. “The time was spent preparing for the present, I suppose,” he told Rolling Stone’s Cameron Crowe for a 1973 feature. “This band is right for the present, just as the […]
Nick Hakim is one of the most exciting artists making music right now. The records he makes could only come from someone with a long-term auditory diet of unfiltered soul, guttural grit and cosmic slop. In anticipation of his new album, Will This Make Me Good, we chatted about building his sound & sampling records […]
For the past five decades, Brian Eno has been a legendary presence in the music world through his groundbreaking solo projects and work as a producer of numerous iconic albums. Collaborating with legends such as David Byrne, Bowie (during the brilliant Berlin years), Peter Gabriel, Grace Jones, even Bono, he has cultivated a catalog of […]
Listening — at least theoretically — will always be the main reason why we collect records, but where’s the fun in hoarding mass amounts of heavy, unwieldy physical products if you don’t get physical ~physical~ with them? Now that most of us are stuck indoors without much to do let’s pass some time by grabbing […]
Dire Straits was an incredibly successful band by any standard in the spring of 1985, but still fell somewhere short of being a household name. Mark Knopfler and company had released four studio albums, all of which had done well and generated an impressive amount of acclaim. But record labels were at the top of […]
