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...

Ever been in a situation where, while you're sure you know where you are and are well familiar with those around you, you can't get a sense of place and feel like a stranger in a strange land? It can be a more disconcerting sensation than being hopelessly lost sometimes. Such is exactly the sensation one gets when listening to Floored By Four's debut; the collection of artists involved are well-established and have historically had a very intimate relationship with...

Something needed to change about how The Creepshow was working. While the band has never let their fans down (quite the opposite – they've overcome every adversity placed before them gracefully, in fact), something had to change because – to be perfectly blunt – everything already had; when the band first appeared five years ago, they asserted themselves triumphantly as a premier-grade horrorbilly act. They came out of the gate strong with their debut album, Sell Your Soul, flanked by...

Having celebrated its' thirtieth anniversary in operation this year, the members of Bad Religion must have begun to take stock of where they were in their careers right now, where they'd been and where they might be headed. Who wouldn't? Thirty years is a milestone that most bands don't achieve. Something about the fact that they've not only outlasted but outlived many of their peers must have been on the bandmembers' collective mind when the writing and recording of The...

Hey out there,So how's it goin' 'ere? What's new and exciting in your life? I'm askin' because, you know? I feel like I'm talkin' to myself wit' youse. I mean, here I am peddlin' dubiously acquired music at 'chu, an' I don' even know whatcher thinkin'. Are you likin' it? Am I givin' you da right fixes? See, I'm askin' because I don' know – I'm just grabbin' the shit that I think is good. So I tell you what...

As inconvenient or unfashionable a truth as it might be, most bands do not simply appear as great, dynamic entities from nowhere. That isn't to say a listener wouldn't be able to recognize a group's promise or get a sense that they might be capable of making profound artistic and cultural waves eventually, but it's unreasonable to expect that a band would simply change out of the gate at the pinnacle of its' powers; for every Nevermind, Badmotorfinger, Dirt, Dookie...