AltWeeklies Wire
What do you do when one of your favorite bands becomes an utter embarrassment?new
When I was a teenager, I filled notebooks with annotations for the lyrics to Operation: Mindcrime, the third album by Queensrÿche. I lined up four hours before doors opened (and three hours before anyone else showed up) to see them play at a theatre in Kentucky...
Tags: Queensryche
Monumentour: My Rock, My Salvationnew
How this summer's Monumentour testifies to the resilient role of rock 'n' roll.
Tags: Fallout Boy, Monumentour
The strangely similar career paths of Vampire Weekend and Blur's Damon Albarnnew
During a concert last fall at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Vampire Weekend diverged from their own material exactly once, covering Blur's Dadaist jock jam "Song 2." The choice was a surprisingly big, crunchy move for a band whose sound typically veers toward the airy and nuanced...
Tags: Vampire Weekend, Damon Albarn
Future Islands' Roots Run Back to North Carolinanew
Since an appearance on David Letterman, the band’s rise has been meteoric.
Tags: Future Islands
After a sex change for its singer, Against Me! returns reinvigoratednew
Laura Jane Grace is the first rock musician to come out as transgender in the midst of fame.
After centuries of silence, Afro-Colombians add their distinct voices to pop culturenew
"More than for us as artists, it's for the people of Chocó. To be able to tell the people in the world that Colombia is much more than cocaine, than marijuana and coffee and violence, right?"
Tags: Afro-Colombians
How the Internet, like George Clinton before it, has reinvigorated samplingnew
"We never mind them sampling or covering a song. You're not supposed to get sued all over the place for doing it. We'd rather be doing it together." —George Clinton
Tags: Sampling
Why Your Band Should Forgo "Fuck" for its Namenew
The F-named band has become not the face tattoo of band names but instead the trucker's cap of band names.
Tags: Bands Named Fuck
Unlikely hitmaker Ke$ha crashes the club-pop party with purposenew
Ke$ha is a big, black fly in the pristine, pre-packaged pop ointment: She dismantles modern pop using the same tools that built it. And she is, at the moment, our strangest pop star.
Barren Girls' Hell Hymnsnew
This four-song debut EP, every bit a punk record, preserves a rookie band's steady first steps.
Three area programs deliver music (and more) to kids, in spite of threatened arts budgetsnew
The Chorus Project, Girls Rock NC and KidZNotes showcase the range of opportunities and impacts such arts programs can have.
Now that we're all curators, what is Diplo?new
More than a decade after Hollertronix 1, it often seems like Diplo now needs us more than we need him.
Tags: Diplo
After three decades, Yo La Tengo isn't ready for definition just yetnew
"I've always felt that if we're playing it, it's us. It's a legitimate part of our lives and our personalities, and something that we feel so strongly about that we committed it to a record."
10 things to listen for in 2013new
Ten stories and themes which will herald importance for area music lovers in the near future.
Tags: 2013 Music Preview
