In the early days of April, Reade Wolcott entrusted with me something she has been keeping secret for years. “The number of people who know right now that I’m trans I can count on two hands,” she says over Zoom. We are separated by time zones and distance, she’s in L.A. while I’m in Toronto, […]
Few punk bands from the ‘90s have adjusted to the new livestream culture as well as MxPx has. As soon as things started shutting down due to the COVID-19 pandemic just over a year ago, frontman Mike Herrera started taking to Facebook Live to perform some acoustic tunes (which eventually became the Life in Quarantine […]
If you haven’t heard of the Living, you’re not alone. The Seattle-based band formed in the early ’80s, recorded some songs in 1982 and that was that. Open and shut case, right? Not when you dig deeper. The quartet featured vocalist John Conte, bassist Todd Fleischman, drummer Greg Gilmore and 17-year-old guitarist Duff McKagan, who’d […]
The collapse is nigh. Everything means nothing. Superstructures blot out the sky. People shout invectives through N95s across divisions of understanding. The pandemic has rendered even the most quotidian errands potentially perilous. On top of it all, we are flattened to an austere mode of living, a kind that provides a springboard for the musings […]
On April 10, 2001, Thursday released Full Collapse on Victory Records. At the time, a handful of punk and alternative publications thought the New Jersey-based rockers might be on to something, but mainstream outlets like Rolling Stone and Pitchfork found it to be underwhelming and confusing. It sold under 1,000 copies the week of its release and caused […]
“Nobody wants to hear that shit,” Greta Van Fleet’s Sam Kiszka says, playfully interrupting a question about progressive rock. He has a point: Most people don’t. Outside of the cape-wearing allegiant, prog remains one of music’s most derided movements — still a frequent target of critical mockery, decades after its zenith of influence. But Greta Van […]
Gallant works right up to his deadlines. As a newly independent artist, it’s clear the R&B singer wants his reemergence to be perfect. “I’m still going through mixes the day before it’s supposed to go live on Spotify,” Gallant tells SPIN of his new Neptune EP. During our chat over Zoom (he’s stationed at his […]
In The Future Is Unwritten, Julian Temple’s 2007 documentary on the late Joe Strummer, there are scenes in which the former Clash frontman’s friends gather around a campfire to reflect on the rock ‘n’ roll legend born John Mellor. When news arrived that George Harrison’s reactivated Dark Horse Records was releasing the new Joe Strummer […]
A year of pandemic has stolen countless experiences from us—and one of them was seeing Saint Maud, the year’s most quietly unsettling horror film, on the big screen. After a planned theatrical rollout was waylaid last spring for obvious reasons, director Rose Glass’s profoundly creepy and compelling portrait of possession, religious fanaticism, and psychosis recently […]
What’s a musician supposed to do during the pandemic when the stages of the world have gone silent? If you’re Judith Hill, you record the album you were born to make. “Funk is the party in the midst of a burning fire,” says Hill, seated in a chair in the backyard of her Los Angeles […]