Now that rock n’ roll has been an established cultural staple for three generations, it has become regarded as conventional wisdom that some musical approaches and forms have reached a pinnacle in the songbooks of a select group of performers; Bob Dylan, for example, has established himself on a plain all his own with his commentaries upon the human condition and detached delivery of every subject from love to death to violence. He has separated himself emotionally from the world...

With so many triumphs and disappointments – so many excellent successes and spectacular disappointments – dotting his career that have always depended upon how many pieces his heart was broken into at the time – it seemed perfectly reasonable to believe that Matthew Sweet would enjoy a perfectly average, respected but not lauded career for as long as he chose to keep releasing records. Sunshine Lies illustrates, however, that time catches up with us all. Matthew Sweet’s newest offering is...

At even the mention of the possibility of a Meatmen DVD release, there will surely be a series of gasps and shivers. Since appearing in 1978 with a sound that instantly allied itself with the then radical and publicly terrifying punk rock masses, The Meatmen and especially the band’s front man Tesco Vee sealed their respective fates as reviled. What they didn’t count onwas making even “the rowdy bunch” that comprised the punk rock community of the day squeamish too;...

Very few genres in the known pop diaspora are so dependent on sloganeering as a device to define itself than punk rock. ‘Say it with bricks,’ 'Anarchy Is The Key,' ‘Do It Yourself is the melody,’ and ‘Keep warm this winter – make trouble’ are all chestnuts that punk continues to use as defining points for itself (they all happen to appear on one of the T-shirts in my closet too) as important as the one Susan Dynner uses to...

In these uncertain times for the music industry, an ever-growing number of musicians are choosing to remove themselves from the machine and have opted to do it for themselves. Each of those defectors remembers the days before a larger figure got involved and offered to help do on a larger scale what most bands were doing for themselves already: try to get their music in front of as many ears and eyes as possible via self-promotion and performance. Radiohead was...

This is Part 2 of our coverage of the Metal Masters Tour featuring Judas Priest, Heaven and Hell, Motörhead and Testament. Check out Part 1 here. After totally kick-ass sets by both Testament and Motörhead, I decided I had just enough time to grab a quick beer and hit the merchandise booth. And as I walked through the concourse I couldn't make it more than a few yards without spotting someone who is part of Bay Area Metal history. Members...

The very first time I saw Nine Inch Nails was in 1990 after I had worn out their first vinyl single, Halo 1, Down In It. The show was at the Masquerade in Atlanta and it would later be infamously known as Sweatfest, for very good reason. Little did I know that what I witnessed there would become the phenomenon that is still going strong nearly twenty years and 26 releases, or “Halos,” later. Nine Inch Nails experienced a rebirth...

After so long an absence, in cases like that of New Kids On The Block it pays to get the glib witticisms out of the way as early as possible. In that spirit, “The appearance of a new NKOTB album now – as the music industry experiences the greatest recession in its history – seems almost biblical in its connotations. After the plague of illegal downloading; after the boil infestations that were the original wave of electro clash and Sean...

This is coverage of Day 3 of the 2008 Outside Lands Festival. Click for coverage of Day 1 and Day 2. Sunday afternoon had rolled around and the park was packed with people drinking wine, smoking pot (I can only assume they all had glaucoma), and talking about Burning Man. Welcome to San Francisco. As the sun set in the park, warm sweatshirts came out, and Johnson cooed, “I don’t want this feeling to go away” (on the song “Upside...

This is coverage of Day 2 of the 2008 Outside Lands Festival. Click for coverage of Day 1 and Day 3. According to Google Maps, the distance between the eastern end of Speedway Meadow (where the box office was located)and the western end of the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park (where Radiohead had just played the first-ever night concert just a few hours before) is just about eight tenths of a mile. This means that by the end of...