Ever have one of those days when you stop, after the lunacy and hectic pace of the day has seemed to calm down for a minute, and look around at the mess your life has created (either personally or professionally, the source of the indignities you've had to live with is irrelevant) around both itself and you? At that moment, everything seems at its most hopeless and you feel compelled to collapse from exhaustion/resignation/misery/self-loathing because it seems like a viable...
Remember back when 'punk' wasn't synonymous with a music genre? Around 1075 or '76, 'Punk' didn't have anything to do with music as a stylistic term – there was just this group of bands in the Bowery who were starting to make some noise and get a bit of notice for it, and a little magazine which happened to be called Punk that happened to be writing about them. The bands didn't have a whole lot in common other than...
How many bands can say that they had a three-year period as tumultuous as Pearl Jam did between 1993 and 1995 and were still a band by the end of it? The number can't possibly be too large because the sequence of events through that period of time in Pearl Jam's chronology was truly extraordinary; in '93 Pearl Jam surpassed every expectation anyone could have had for a follow-up to Ten with Vs., only to be saddled with being the...
The wonderful thing about a record is that, after it's out, it remains there for listeners to find when they're ready to hear it. First impressions aren't ironclad either; as time passes and tastes change, a particular album may begin to sound better. Such is exactly the case with Vitalogy for me. When the record first came out in November of 1994, Pearl Jam was already treading a pretty fine line in my eyes; Ten didn't thrill me like it...
Currently skipping across the globe on their first world tour, Kopek seems like an unlikely group to hit such international stardom so early in their existence. Formed in 2002 and apparently finding their singer with a local music magazine ad, Kopek were regular contestants in local battle-of-the-bands competitions. Working their way up the battle-of-the-bands circuit (yeah, who knew those still existed, right?) all the way up to a global battle-of-the-bands where they won $100,000 and a world tour, Kopek showed...
Awright youse, We're gonna have lotsa funnis week but, first, we gotta bow're heads fer a minit. One of our own checked out'is week, an' we need ta have a moment o' silence fer Poly Styrene, who useta be da singa fer X-Ray Spex, but fell ta cancer this past Monday. She's survived by her step-father John Lydon and mother Nora Forster. Bow yer heads fer a moment o' silence.... Awright, le's get ta business – we go work ta...
We can confirm that the beautiful Poly Styrene, who has been a true fighter, won her battle on Monday evening (4/25/11) to go to higher places. Poly Styrene was born Marianne Elliot Said on June 3, 1957. She passed away due to cancer. Poly Styrene was a punk amongst punks. A groundbreaking presence that left an unrepeatable mark on the musical landscape, she made history the moment she uttered, “Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard...
Sometimes the most difficult records to review are those which see a band reaching out artistically to examine several sounds at once but do it so well that they feel as though they should be the work of more than one band – or at least the work of one band on more than one album. Such is exactly what happens on Tin Horn Prayer's new album, Get Busy Dying; depending on which side of the 12” LP a listener...
As a member of The Band, Robbie Robertson wrote dozens of classic songs, including "The Weight,” "Up on Cripple Creek" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” He also worked regularly with Bob Dylan – playing guitar on several tracks on 1966's Blonde on Blonde and touring with the singer on his infamous 1966 "electric" tour (among others) – and recorded 1974's Planet Waves and 1975's The Basement Tapes along with both Dylan and The Band. Since breaking up...
Hey there junky, Awright, firs' an' foremost, we gotta give the man his due – Happy Birthday Iggy Pop! On'is day in 1947, missus Louella Osterberg screamed out one o' the most enduring self-proclaimed idiots inna world, named 'im after his Daddy an' turned 'im loose onna world. We owe 'er a debt o' thanks! Here's to ya Ig, hope yer gettin' some tonight. Anyway, onta business. I figure, jaw-bonin' about that's gotta be gettin' ya nervous, ain't it junky?...