This was supposed to be Ken Cheppaikode’s month to celebrate. The owner and sole employee of punk/garage rock-centric label Dirtnap Records had booked the packed, two-day Dirtnap Festival at the High Noon Saloon in his current home in Madison, Wisconsin, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the imprint, including a reunion of new wave dynamos […]
Grief is a process that everyone goes through, but one that people cope with differently. Artists can often find a way to express their sorrow through their work, to channel pain into something constructive. But after the death of his Nirvana bandmate, Kurt Cobain, in April 1994, drummer Dave Grohl sunk into a deep depression […]
If you’re a Rush fan, you know Hugh Syme and his dynamic covers for the iconic prog-rock band. But there are many more memorable images that Syme has created that you might not realize are his. He has had a long-term relationship with Dream Theater that has lasted nearly 20 years. His work has graced […]
As the world continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, Bandcamp has also continued to do a pretty cool thing. One Friday in March, the distribution platform waived its revenue share so artists could make more money off of their music and merch sales through the site. It was so successful — to the tune […]
With all this talk of Beastie Boys in the context of the Spike Jonze-directed 2020 documentary, Beastie Boys Story, there isn’t a better time to revisit one of the most underrated facets of the band’s legacy. Launching with their seminal third album, Check Your Head, Grand Royal would become a full-fledged boutique label by late […]
The 1990s were a pretty dark time – not exactly dark in the 2020 sense of global pandemics and international demonstrations, but dark in a literal palette. I think about dirty flannel and gangster rap, about children’s cartoons that preached a healthy distrust of commercialism and radio hits that, rather than run from politics into […]
In the early 1990s, the Pacific Northwest in the United States was a hotbed for new ways of approaching traditional frameworks of culture. A generation before, punk had created and perpetuated the idea that you did not need to be a virtuoso or even vaguely proficient to start a band; one just needed the chutzpah […]
Music champions truth. It allows us to navigate the boundaries of our worlds, gives us the courage to shape limitations, and pushes them beyond the scope of our imaginations into the unknown. It is there where we become a part of what makes the music so important to us, allowing it to shape our identities […]
The album art of Mark Wilkinson is among some of the most eye-popping and colorful ever created. His kaleidoscope of colors, attention to detail, and blending of the real with the surreal have made his work stand out from his peers. From the covers of comic book icon Judge Dredd to the metal landscapes of […]
Deftones took a rather winding and deliberate path to greatness, almost sneaking up on music fans who prematurely pegged the Sacramento, California natives as just another nu metal band based on their 1995 debut album, Adrenaline, and overlooked the abundant signs of a singular vision emerging on 1997’s still somewhat inconsistent sophomore album, Around the […]
