Your July Forecast: Do you believe in magic? Well, you’d better, because we’re on magical Moon time the first week of July. Anything goes—and we do mean anything—on this July 4 holiday weekend, as Jupiter aligns with Mercury in fire signs. Embrace the turbo-charged energy on July 5, thanks to the shift in both Mercury and […]
The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond, the newly released Gallery Books memoir from pioneering music executive and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, would have been an amazing read even if it had stopped before Blackwell discovered a teenage Steve Winwood blowing minds in a London club in 1964, happened upon a struggling Jamaican […]
By late 2021, the odds of a Porcupine Tree reunion seemed beyond slim. It had been 12 years since the alt-prog band’s 10th LP (and apparent swan song), 2009’s The Incident, and singer-songwriter Steven Wilson realized his rabid audience wasn’t counting on a follow-up. “Fans had probably given up on [us] ever making another record,” he tells SPIN, his polite […]
In the late 1990s, on one of their earliest tours, the Drive-By Truckers nearly met a grisly fate. After a short stay in Lansing, Michigan–during which the local headliners all had the flu and spent the night puking backstage–the band had to make their way to Buffalo, and not even an hour into the drive […]
In the early evenings of late January 1991, after local news and Wheel of Fortune, the majority of American families tuned in to CNN’s coverage of Operation Desert Storm, the first ever real-time, front line broadcasts in the history of combat. This was groundbreaking stuff, honest-to-goodness live war, featuring play-by-play from on-site reporters and color […]
During the second half of the 20th century, Washington, D.C.’s K St. had been hijacked by the lobbying industry. As such, a walk down K today might conjure up ideas of sharks in suits swimming around the Capitol, baiting the halls of Congress with money. But in between 12th and 13th St., something different has […]
When the most recent Pretty Reckless album was released in 2021, we went deep with singer/bandleader Taylor Momsen. In the interview, she told us influential Soundgarden was on her and how being on tour with the band in 2017 and opening for them the night of Chris Cornell deeply impacted her. In fact, Soundgarden guitarist […]
On the other end of the phone, I heard the gravel-toned voice belonging to 72-year-old beloved, legendary actor, musician, and philanthropist Jeff Bridges. All it took was his “Good morning!” to conjure the image of him behind the wheel of a well-worn country pick-up truck, waving, as he ambles up my make-believe driveway toward my […]
Some forms of self-expression are inherently collaborative, and others are clearly a solo effort. How many photographs or paintings were made by more than one person? But music is usually, to a greater or lesser degree, a team effort. Even artists who compose and arrange alone usually then work with a producer and engineer, or […]
The time has come to cut the crap and get your head right about Combat Rock. Why this album — the amalgamation of pretty much everything that made The Clash cool — does not get its proper due in the same way the first album and London Calling do is beyond comprehension. Originally mapped out […]