“My hand broke, ‘coz I was trying to keep my head from hitting the metal,” says Amanda Shires, wildcat of alt-country-rock. She splays her claws and runs a finger up the damage zone. “Feel any different playing instruments after?” I ask. After all, she’s been a pro-fiddler since joining the Texas Playboys at 15. “Yeah, […]
Pavement told fans its one-off October 2024 performance in New York would be its “last show for a long time,” but Stephen Malkmus and company did play two festivals, a warmup club gig and CBS’ The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in 2025 while helping promote the off-kilter film Pavements. In a surprise move, the […]
Lorde, A$AP Rocky and Stray Kids will delight the throngs at the Governors Ball festival from June 5-7 at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, N.Y., as part of a youthful, genre-agnostic lineup. Beyond rapper Baby Keem, who hasn’t performed live in several years or released new music, also set to appear are Kali Uchis, […]
A quarter century since the passing of his father — beloved Cockney poet, punk, and actor Ian Dury — there is much that unites the sound of vocalist-composer Baxter Dury to his dad. And more that does not. Especially now that Baxter’s dry, witty brand of sing-speak is married to the bubbling-over electronic music of […]
Billy Joel has been off the road since last February while recovering from the brain disorder normal pressure hydrocephalus, but the 76-year-old ailing music legend stunned fans on Jan. 2 in Wellington, Fla., when, with the help of a cane, he walked onstage to join the longtime Joel tribute band Turnstiles and perform his songs […]
A$AP Rocky has dropped another new single, “Punk Rocky,” ahead of the Jan. 16 release of Don’t Be Dumb, his first album in eight years. The accompanying video stars Winona Ryder, Danny Elfman, Thundercat and A$AP Nast and introduces five of Rocky’s six Don’t Be Dumb-specific alter egos, who are apparently named GR1M, RUGAHAND, BABUSHKA […]
Some nights, a bouzouki cuts through the kick drum, clear and played live. That detail anchors the live set from Zehavi (Sagi Zehavi), an electronic artist who grew up sharing one crowded room in an impoverished neighborhood and found his early momentum busking on that same instrument. His music blends club energy with Mediterranean and […]
Epiphanies come, as epiphanies do, in unexpected and often far-flung settings. For trumpeter Amir ElSaffar, three such horizon-openers converge in his latest album, New Quartet Live at Pierre Boulez Saal. Recorded at the famed Frank Gehry-designed concert hall, it’s a scintillating performance in which he is joined by Ole Mathisen on saxophone, Tomas Fujiwara on […]
I remember the confusion and excitement I felt seeing “Captain” Lou Albano of the WWE (formerly called the WWF) appear in Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” music video when it premiered in December 1983. Why was a wrestling star in a Cyndi Lauper video on MTV? It turns out that Albano and […]
Mark Feld was born in London in 1947, and adopted the stage name Marc Bolan as a teenager. Like many British rock stars of his generation, Bolan flirted with different sounds as he adapted to the rapidly changing times, starting a skiffle band as a child before becoming a mod and then a psychedelic folkie. […]