More people are familiar with the cover art from Daniel Johnston’s sixth album, the 1983 self-released Hi, How Are You, than they are with the singer-songwriter himself. The front image, a black-and-white line drawing of a frog-like creature with eyes on long stalks (known as “Jeremiah the Innocent”), was emblazoned on a T-shirt worn by […]
I have an on-again, off-again love-hate relationship with the genre tag of “alternative rock.” In my younger days, I loved it — I had an affinity for anything that was placed into that overflowing and rather vague bucket of alternative. Growing up in the 1980s, the thoughtful and poetic lyrics of many of the artists […]
Nick Cave was in a tailspin that threatened his life while making Tender Prey, his acclaimed 1988 album with The Bad Seeds. The sessions, which involved half a dozen studios in four countries, were marred by drug withdrawals, altercations between band members, and Cave’s arrest that year for heroin possession. And its cacophonous tracks sounded […]
