Michael R. Jackson is the author and composer of A Strange Loop, the hit Broadway show that I have not stopped thinking about. I left the play, stumbling onto a hot Avenue, bewildered, tickled, and ruminant. The play’s writing had a mastery to it, a hard rhythm that was still pulsing in my heart, and […]
I was born in Detroit in the 1980s, and it was a wild place back then. My mom worked for Michigan Bell, like “Ma bell, got the ill communications” (Beastie Boys “Get It Together” ft. Q-Tip from Ill Communication). My parents got me out of there when I was young, and we moved to Pennsylvania […]
Few acts from the original punk era are more deserving of a comprehensive box set than Blondie. And the hype is well-earned with Against The Odds 1974-1982, a historical juggernaut documenting the first eight years of CBGB’s most successful export. This 8-CD (or 10-LP) collection documents the band’s sonic evolution as it happened — how […]
On a Tuesday afternoon, during the lunchtime rush at Los Angeles’ über-trendy Highly Likely Café, the strains of Iranian singer Googoosh’s song “Talagh” come through the speakers. The song, whose title means “divorce,” is sung in Farsi. It slips in between modern-day songs that would be found on NPR’s New Music Friday playlist and the […]
Name Sammy Hagar Best known for Making tequila and bringing it to the masses—plus I’m a singer and songwriter. Current city San Francisco Really want to be in In Cabo eating tacos, drinking margaritas and jamming on stage with friends at the Cabo Wabo Cantina! Excited about I’m excited that my new album with The […]
It is crystal clear from the happy face beaming in front of me that London-based, 12-year-old phenom Nandi Bushell is not tired of doing press interviews. “I like them, actually,” she says with a bright smile, her father John at her side, “because I get to tell people like you about my new single and […]
“Music on stage was always our playground, always our candy field, always where we were the happiest,” says Bob Cowsill, sitting on a sofa in a Louisville, Kentucky dressing-room trailer with his sister Susan and brother Paul. “Even if everything around us might not have been happy at all,” he adds. Yes, those Cowsills. “The […]
John F. Kennedy once pondered: “What’s the use of being Irish if the world doesn’t break your heart?” The Irish interpretation might be: Feel and live every moment, and don’t go down without kicking and screaming. Since becoming a band in 1996, Boston-based Celtic punks Dropkick Murphys have made a career out of kicking and screaming […]
Plopped onto 120 acres less than a mile from Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., Disney Springs is, according to its creators, “a themed retail, dining and entertainment center inspired by Florida’s charming waterfront towns.” This “sprawling promenade” divided into “four distinct neighborhoods” hosts such lovable establishments as Maria & Enzo’s Ristorante (“savor authentic Italian […]
“When I entered the eighth grade in the fall of 1992, it felt like Pearl Jam was the biggest band in the world,” writes Steven Hyden in his new book about the legendary band, Long Road: Pearl Jam and The Soundtrack of a Generation (Sept. 27). Hyden wasn’t too far off. In 1992, the band […]