K. Got to airport 3 hrs before flight. Easy check-in but then realized I forgot my smokes. Got one off a pensive dude who seemed glad I interrupted his train of thought. Joey C arrived and we chatted about my Amoeba show and how exciting it is to play South America. My first time, Joey's second or third. Troy arrived next and the three of us went through security easy peasy. Had Lo Mein and eggplant sandwiches at the Lounge....

K. Got to airport 3 hrs before flight. Easy check-in but then realized I forgot my smokes. Got one off a pensive dude who seemed glad I interrupted his train of thought. Joey C arrived and we chatted about my Amoeba show and how exciting it is to play South America. My first time, Joey's second or third. Troy arrived next and the three of us went through security easy peasy. Had Lo Mein and eggplant sandwiches at the Lounge....

A pro in the music business makes it look easy but, for a real pro, it is easy. They have the music imbued so deeply in their fiber that all they have to do is walk on stage, or into a studio, and the magic just happens. They just have fun and we get pure musical pleasure. Jerry Lee Lewis is a real pro and on his new duets album, Mean Old Man, he proves it. The main emotion that...

Remember your favorite Nineties alternative rock band? I’ll give you a minute. Got it?  Was it Nirvana ― with their disposed "Smells Like Teen Spirit" ― or maybe Hole? Maybe Weezer made the list, or perhaps the Smashing Pumpkins. There might be some Red Hot Chili Peppers single fixated in your mind at this exact moment. 
 Now put that band in the context of the present, and I’ll bet you my my entire music collection that there’s a mote...

K. Got to airport 3 hrs before flight. Easy check-in but then realized I forgot my smokes. Got one off a pensive dude who seemed glad I interrupted his train of thought. Joey C arrived and we chatted about my Amoeba show and how exciting it is to play South America. My first time, Joey's second or third. Troy arrived next and the three of us went through security easy peasy. Had Lo Mein and eggplant sandwiches at the Lounge....

Are we dancin' this dance again awready? Awright youse, this is gettin' a little ridiculous – wasn't I jus' 'ere? Well, lucky fer youse, the music business is feelin' generous this week so I tracked down about forty new tunes 'at fell offa the back o' the truck. Big tunes, little tunes, all kindsa shit – an' ya know what? Ain't some o' the bes' songs by the smaller acts 'is week? Well, not smaller acts exactly, jus' the ones...

In his life (as well as over the course of the thirty years since it was abruptly ended), John Lennon was many things to many people. From 1962 forward, he's been regarded as a singer, a guitarist, a brilliant songwriter, a genius, a tortured soul, misunderstood, an icon, an activist, a free and progressive thinker, a symbol, a husband, a father, a son and (at least in the minds of some fans) a holy ghost – to name only the...

Time is a funny, most inspiring thing. If one trips through the volumes of history, it's possible to find discussions about time and the passage of it in the discourses of the greatest thinkers in human history and each one of them has a slightly different take on the subject – but the one constant that everyone is able to agree on is that time passes, and it passes at a rate greater than one with which anyone is comfortable....

Since the genre really began to take shape in 1974, the boundaries, forms and shapes of punk rock have been torn down, torn apart and reassembled and rebuilt so often that it was become difficult to gauge what “is” and “isn't” punk rock anymore.  The problem isn't exactly that the genre has become scattered or overly diffuse really, just that different ideas and forms regarded as integral to the music have cycled to the forefront or become more prominent while...

After selling out stadiums in Japan and selling millions of records over the last 25+ years, X Japan have finally brought their over the top live show to the shores of North America, and their stop in Oakland on September 29, 2010 was nothing short of spectacular.

 X Japan continues its' run in America with shows in Chicago on September 6, and New York on September 10. Tickets for both shows can be purchased at www.ticketmaster.com Photos:Raymond Ahner's photo essay...