14+ hour, 28+ min ago   (547+ words) The Beta Band are together again after more than 20 years, making this a particularly good time to revisit the gloriously strange story of how they got here. Frontman and founding member Steve Mason tells that story in ‘Failure Is Always…...

15+ hour, 59+ min ago   (654+ words) Frank Zappa returned to Hollywood’s TTG Studios in October 1966 with The Mothers of Invention, a television crew, dancers, underground personalities and enough unpredictability to make the room feel closer to a happening than a conventional recording session. Six decades later,…...

3+ day, 20+ hour ago   (638+ words) How ‘Whip It’ Turned Devo’s De-Evolution Theory Into New Wave’s Sharpest Concept That Eric Alper Devo began as a theory before it ever became a band, which is a fairly unusual way to build a career in rock and roll....

3+ day, 20+ hour ago   (228+ words) The Group Almost Refused to Record Their Most Famous Song A Classical Composer Ended Up Credited on the Album The track “It’s Nasty” interpolates Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” right in its opening moments, earning Copland a writing…...

4+ day, 12+ hour ago   (569+ words) Death Valley Dreams Give Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” A Dark Alternative Makeover That Eric Alper Death Valley Dreams have taken on Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game,” reshaping the enduring song with shimmering guitars, synth textures and the shadowy atmosphere that defines…...

4+ day, 13+ hour ago   (450+ words) That Eric Alper $372,000 against a $66,000 estimate, that was the price Lucien Smith’s Two Sides of the Same Coin fetched as the opening lot of a 2014 Sotheby’s contemporary art auction in London, a sale that captured just how fast the young…...

5+ day, 14+ hour ago   (575+ words) Balourdet Quartet will release ‘Strange Machines’ on October 2 via Phenotypic Recordings, an album that stretches across nearly six centuries of music while exploring artificial intelligence, memory, machinery, mortality and the future of the string quartet. Listen here. That curiosity took…...

5+ day, 15+ hour ago   (243+ words) Melissa Auf der Maur Opens Her ’90s Rock Archive In New Photo Book 'My ’90s Rock Photographs' That Eric Alper The archive catches wonderfully specific moments: time with Frances Bean Cobain, hanging out with Pavement, Sonic Youth and Beck, riding in a…...

5+ day, 19+ hour ago   (696+ words) How ‘Ghosts’ Turned Art Rockers Japan Into an Unlikely Chart Sensation That Eric Alper Picture a group of schoolmates from Catford picking up instruments mostly as an excuse to avoid actual homework, then somehow ending up as the most quietly…...

6+ day, 8+ hour ago   (673+ words) Martin Guitar has launched ‘Martin Stories,’ a new artist-focused podcast built around the musicians, collectors and creators whose lives and careers have been shaped by the company’s instruments. Hosted by Jimmy Leslie, Frets Acoustic Editor at ‘Guitar Player,’ the series…...