Sixty years after the birth of rock, and somehow the music has become very much a thinking man's game. Where once young people picked up guitars and turned up the volume for lack of anything better to do with all the excess energy they had, most every band seems to have a plan very carefully mapped out when they start now; they chart a course with a beginning, a middle (wherein the unspoken hope is that perhaps they'll eventually be...

After a band reaches a certain level of success, the popular misconception among the public at large is that said band is set; they've got a core audience of devoted fans and they're not living hand-to-mouth. Things are a little easier right? Well, maybe they are, and maybe they're not. That moment when everything gets “easy” is actually when the going gets exponentially more difficult; the more familiar a band's fans feel they are with the group, the more they...

After so many miles logged and so many projects undertaken (Dim Stars with Richard Hell and the Backbeat soundtrack are personal favorites outside of Sonic Youth, but their mention only scratches the surface of an expansive catalogue), singer/guitarist/sound scientist Thurston Moore has proven he's capable of composing just as many types of music as his imagination can fathom. His body of work is impressive, but equally impressive is the fact that he has never recorded a simple, straightforward and singer-songwriter-ly...

Hey junky,So how're things in yer life? Are ya happy ta be alive're jus' waitin' on a fix? Naw bullshit this time ya addict, I'll jus' get right to it; I got places ta go, people ta see, an' a great big bag o' SWAG ta lay on ya so let's get started. This week, I got a bit o' every flavor inna world an' ya can take some o' it all! Bu'first, le's talk about the picks o' this...

Let's be frank, we all know the title to the new Black Label Society release is lame –  almost as lame as Father Zakk appearing on American Idol – but it's not like BLS is known for subtle album titles, so the moniker is forgivable as it does aptly represent the album. The Song Remains Not The Same is a collection of outtakes from the Order of the Black sessions that sees BLS leader Zakk Wylde re-imagining some of that...

I straight hated Lady Gaga when she first came out, but then I saw her for her artistic and vocal ability on Saturday Night Live (the first time she was on it) and fell in love with her. I currently have a love/hate relationship with her. Lady Gaga is just shy of a musical role model for artists in my eyes. She does deliver on the vocal ability that we have come to expect from her. She even delivers on...

Oh Canada. In all honesty, your music is hit or miss in a hard way. I’m talking full frontal lobe penetration from an M4 Carbine Assault Rifle with a Rail Adapter System and a hollow-point bullets. Classified’s album, Handshakes and Middle Fingers, feels like a medley of some amazing artists that have hailed from the awe-inspiring American music industry. This is Classified's (aka Luke Boyd) fourteenth album and he has brought his skill, fast rapping and amazing beats this time...

I have tried to listen to Gimme Some by Peter Bjorn & John at least fifteen times and I always seem to stall at the same place. I have had the worst time making it past the third track. The album is far from terrible, but certainly a few steps away from the top. And when I say a few steps, I mean they got wasted at the top of the stairs, got into an argument and fell down a...

If they're lucky enough to become successful, every band reaches a point when their lives and the events in them become surreal, because they begin considering things to do with their band that previously seemed so far out of reach, they weren't even worth contemplating. At that point, the group in question has a choice to make: the band's members can either recoil and retreat to a level at which they're more comfortable operating...

It's never easy to know how to feel when hard times hit. On one hand, the first instinct that most people have is to recoil and guarantee that basic needs are met first but, if even that proves to be a difficult endeavor, people just start hoping for relief; looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. This is the sort of turmoil that was on Jason Isbell's mind when writing for Here We Rest began because, according...