WHO: Mikey Erg WHAT: Tentative Decisions WHY: It’s about time you found out that Mikey Erg is probably playing drums for your favorite band, or he has in the past, or he probably will be in the future. Step aside, Josh Freese, there’s a new go-to punk rock drummer in town. The Man (yes, we’re going to capitalize that for Mr. Erg), has been a punk rock institution for years. He’s fronted the wonderful Ergs!, he drums for the LLC...

Artist: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Album: Skeleton Tree Label: Bad Seed Ltd./Kobalt/Sony Music Since he first broke free of the Birthday Party in 1984 and picked up with the Bad Seeds, Nick Cave has developed and honed an absolutely hypnotizing and disparate body of work (from angry and occasionally manic with Grinderman to soulful on The Boatman’s Call to a bluesy, rootsy and gothic beast on Murder Ballads and Abattoir Blues, and that’s really only the fastest. barest...

Empowered Unchained Volume 1 by Adam Warren You want to learn a thing or two about comics, go ahead and read Adam Warren. The man gets punk rock DIY with his “mainstream” comics. Or about as mainstream as one can get without getting jumbled up in the messy tripe that the “big two” are involved with. I say punk rock, because Adam Warren has figured out how to make it in comics on his own terms, and completely in control...

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World Vol. 2 Hardcover by Bryan Lee O’Malley Our CNN-like coverage of Scott Pilgrim continues. There are few things as joyful as reading and rediscovering this book. Especially in this new hardcover deluxe format. Having gotten into the series after being blown away by the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, it’s very easy to simply proclaim that the books are better than the movie. Not so. The books tell a different story than the comics....

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into David Bowie’s Let’s Dance LP. To begin with, I have to confess that I disliked Let’s Dance from the time I first heard it until early 2016 – right around the time I first saw the Five Years documentary. In Five Years, both Let’s Dance and the album’s producer, Nile Rodgers, played significant roles and seeing that presentation was what convinced me to revisit the album. Because of that film and the...

We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement by Andi Zeisler Have you ever looked at how feminism is being represented in pop culture and smelled a rat? Have you ever felt alone in this feeling? I certainly do. Well lucky for me We Were Feminists Once Came along and assured me that I’m not taking crazy pills. It’s frustrating talking to Beyoncé-adoring feminists at a party about how problematic she...

WHO: THE OTTOMANS WHAT: Their SELF-TITLED debut WHY: There are some changes brewing here at Ground Control Magazine and this includes a new partnership with Red Sound Records. If you didn’t know yet, Red Sound Records is an online label focused on distributing free music, plain and simple. The bands control the process from beginning to end, and pass on the savings onto you. Or something like that… Having gone dormant for a while, Red Sound Records is back with an...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into a vinyl copy of David Live 2LP by David Bowie. It’s incredible how good, interesting, revealing and even informative an album can be, while simultaneously being critically abhorred. How such things happen is anyone’s guess, but they do – a perfect example is the live album that David Bowie released in 1974, David Live. David Live was Bowie’s first official live album. The album compiled tracks from a two-night stand at th...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into a vinyl copy of Diamond Dogs by David Bowie. While it might  not sound like the greatest endorsement of an album’s quality or of the creative foresight possessed by an artist on the surface, the adage that Diamond Dogs exemplifies first is “Just because an idea doesn’t work out in its intended manner does not mean it should be thrown away and forgotten.” The manner in which David Bowie’s eighth album lives that...

Harrow County, Vol. 1: Countless Haints by Cullen Bunn & Tyler Crook I knew from reading Cullen Bunn’s book The Sixth Gun that the man knows how to put a story together. Harrow County is no different. And just like the Sixth Gun, this book knows how to play to the horror crowd and take it up a couple notches. Harrow County is full of things a horror fanatic is looking for. Old-timey backwoods setting? Check. Ghosts? Check. Witches? Check....