Each year, tens of thousands of albums are released worldwide. And each year, about this time, every publications, radio station, TV channel, dude with a blog, record store clerk, iPod-sporting teen, etc. has a list as to what his or her favorite releases of the past 12 months are. The problem is that each of […]
The green room of Cardiff’s Millenium Stadium could have been any on Oasis’ massive world tour in support of “Don’t Believe the Truth,” the band’s sixth LP. Band mates mull around among venue staff members, journalists trying to peg down an unknown side of the infamous Gallagher brothers, and a constant flow of onlookers. It’s […]
This month, R.E.M.’s “Automatic For the People” turned 15 years old. There is a good reason that college dorms come with furniture – the kids shouldn’t need to worry about that stuff yet. There’s no reason to invest in a matching couch/love seat set, or a designer coffee table and that perfect lamp, when legally […]
Another year, another column about The Stooges and The Cure not being nominated for the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame. It’s a shame that this has become an annual occurrence. One has to question whether the Hall now is leaving the pair off the list of nominees because it’s become an even bigger deal […]
Go ahead, name your price to keep reading this column. What’s that, $1? Sold to the kid in the back wearing the Napster shirt. Sorry, couldn’t hear you, sir … 30 cents a paragraph? Deal. Next … wow, $50! Thanks, mom. And for you, Mr. Yorke … one penny? That sounds reasonable enough, just as […]
If you like this column – that is, if it strikes an emotional chord, unlocks a part of you, says what you’re feeling, or connects to a part of your subconscious the way that a song can – please do not punch the nearest person in the back of the skull. Or slam into them […]
Somebody needs to sit down with The Broken Social Scene and go over the meaning of the word “new.” Because with the release last week of “The Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew, ‘Spirit If’”- the first in a “new” release series of solo work by each BSS member – it seems that the band […]
Although performers, politicians, journalists and general people of the arts get significant credit for the advancements of societal beliefs, they pale in comparison to the rebel rousing effects of good science. For the legions of brazen, tell all Hunter S. Thompsonites, there only can be one Charles Darwin. Each Beatle and every member of the […]
If The Ramones thought that high school was oppressive in 1979, they’d be shocked today. The metal detectors. The drug screens. The police-issued tickets for skipping classes. Education has become everything that the pioneering punks railed against during “Rock’n’Roll High School,” and much more. Today, rockstar peers are taking to the classrooms with heightened notoriety. […]
The best thing about schools across the country getting the fall semester under way this week is that there’s less time for students to hang out in recording studios. Not because people who spend their youths as entertainers have the propensity to end up passed out in the front seats of cars after a weekend […]