There is a fair amount of audacity in releasing a double disc collection of live music—one that stretches across six sides of 180 gram black vinyl. But audacity, the willingness to say “fuck it, let's do it,” has been a large part of the draw of the Fiery Furnaces. To release a record like this makes sense if you're Miles Davis, or if you've just recorded an all-star concert for Bangladesh—but like I mentioned, for the Fiery Furnaces, it is...

(This is Part 2 of 2 of our Rock The Bells festival coverage. You can view Part 1 here.) It was time for hosting duties to switch up. Supernatural was done for the day, and Cypress Hill's B-Real made his entrance singing the chorus to his group's “Hand on the Pump,” which not coincidentally featured heavily in the first performance from the duo he was about to announce. Blasting onto stage came Method Man & Redman, taking their cue from...

Every once in a while an opportunity to witness something incredibly unique and perhaps even give you a glimpse into the past to a time where you were most likely too young to go to shows, or, more likely, not even alive. Tonight in San Francisco, your chance to witness history is happening at The Fillmore: Pioneers of Punk San Francisco Bay Area 1976-1979, featuring Flipper, The Mutants, The Avengers, Negative Trend, Target Video 77 and MC Neil Hamburger. Now...

Murs almost didn't make the plane. My Rock The Bells adventure started long before I made it to Chicago. It started in the security line at the Long Beach Airport, when the courtesy announcements read a list of names—mine and few others, including one Nick Carter. Those of us listed named were in danger of missing the evening flight to Chicago. This was a problem on more levels than one, since Nick Carter is the birth name of rapper Murs...

(This is Part 3 of 3 of our Download Festival coverage. You can view part 1 here and part 2 here.) Resident photographer extraordinaire Muhammad Asranur made his way to the San Francisco edition of the Download Festival, which featured bands such as The Jesus and Mary Chain, Gang of Four, Yeasayer, M83, Brand New, Mates of State and bunch more. He got shots of 15 bands so each post will feature 5 bands total. Part 3 includes: feat. The...

(This is Part 2 of 3 of our Download Festival coverage. You can view part 1 here and part 3 here.) Resident photographer extraordinaire Muhammad Asranur made his way to the San Francisco edition of the Download Festival, which featured bands such as The Jesus and Mary Chain, Gang of Four, Yeasayer, M83, Brand New, Mates of State and bunch more. He got shots of 15 bands so each post will feature 5 bands total. Part 2 includes: Brand New,...

(This is Part 1 of 3 of our Download Festival coverage. You can view part 2 here and part 3 here.) Resident photographer extraordinaire Muhammad Asranur made his way to the San Francisco edition of the Download Festival, which featured bands such as The Jesus and Mary Chain, Gang of Four, Yeasayer, M83, Brand New, Mates of State and bunch more. He got shots of 15 bands so each post will feature 5 bands total. Part 1 includes: Datarock, The...

(This is part 2 of our coverage of the 2008 Rockstar Mayhem Festival. Part 2 can be viewed here.)  I'm not quite ready to say that the Rockstar Mayhem Festival has taken the place of Ozzfest as the premier summer metal festival, but I will say that Sharon and Ozzy need to turn around and take a look at who is running full force behind them, because Rockstar is right on their asses, and seems ready to take over the...

Sometimes a band that you thought you had pegged will turn around and surprise you by totally reinventing its sound between records (also known as when you weren’t looking) and so, when a new album eventually appears, you’re totally caught off-guard by what you hear. That moment of initial confusion—when that first song starts and you don’t know what you’re listening to right away because it’s just so different—can be incredibly exciting because your brain works frantically to reassess this...

To quote Magnum P.I., “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right…” how does a re-issue of a gimmick get made without getting called a farce? From day one, Me First And The Gimme Gimmes was based on the flimsiest of ideas – taking the staple songs of the contempo-casual elite (including Paul Simon, John Denver, Billy Joel, Elton John, Carole King, Neil Diamond and more) and giving them a more sneering punk rock treatment – that only worked because...