09/27/2009 - 3:41pm
The rediscovery of the band Death earlier in the year has proven something of a revelation. Years before Bad Brains, years anyone was using the word "punk" to describe to a mass musical movement, three black kids from Detroit were rocking manic,...
09/20/2009 - 7:46pm
Nobody can deny that Pearl Jam are a truly impressive rock band. Vedder and company have been playing music together for almost two decades. And despite spending most of it as one of the biggest music acts in the world, they’ve managed to steer far...
09/13/2009 - 8:42pm
"Solidarity is not a matter of sentiment but of fact, cold and impassive as the granite foundations of a skyscraper. If the basic elements, identity of interest, clarity of vision, honesty of intent, and oneness of purpose, or any of these is...
09/06/2009 - 9:13pm
It was about March, and I was standing in a dingy, mold-infested basement in South Chicago trying to stop my allergies from acting up. A few large-ish speakers were crammed into one side of the room while kids set up drum sets and tuned their...
08/30/2009 - 8:57pm
For the past two months, news within the music world has been dominated by two initials: MJ. The world watched as Michael Jackson was rushed to a hospital in LA and was reported to be "not breathing." It recoiled in shock when it was reported...
08/23/2009 - 9:40pm
By now the debate around healthcare reform in this country has reached a cacophony. There are the usual suspects: the wheeling and dealing on Capitol Hill, the polished spin of the pundits, but with the added fun of the Palin-clones invading town...
08/16/2009 - 8:22pm
It's difficult to not suffer from Woodstock overload at this point. The past weeks have seen endless attempts to cash in on the fortieth anniversary of "three days of peace and music." Rhino records has released a six-disc collection of the...
08/09/2009 - 11:08am
It's already apparent that Baatin's legacy is bound to share the same path as J Dilla's: an artist who radically pushed the boundaries of his art, whose due only comes after it's too late. Indeed, it's more than just mere coincidence that the two...
08/02/2009 - 9:37pm
There is a lot of sound and fury over the upcoming stage version of American Idiot. Unfortunately, it signifies nothing. The recent announcement that Berkeley Repertory had at long last assembled the creative team for the opener of their '09/'10...
07/25/2009 - 9:51pm
By now we've all heard ad nauseam that President Obama is a "fan" of hip-hop. He has Jay-Z on his iPod, he loved its "entrepreneurial spirit," and, is still famously being referred to as "the first hip-hop president."
But if anything can be taken...
07/17/2009 - 7:52pm
No matter what you thought of Vibe magazine--whether you found their coverage insightful or passe, tantalizing or unbearably boring--there is one thing all sides can agree on: as the American economy continues to flounder, Vibe's June 30th demise...
07/07/2009 - 9:23pm
WARNING: the following sentence may cause you to vomit a little bit in your mouth.
Creed have reunited and are releasing a new album.
When these four "good Christian lads" rocketed to the top in the late '90s, it was because there was damn little...
06/30/2009 - 6:35pm
The last 15 years of Michael Jackson's life are almost enough to obscure the true greatness of this artist. During that time, we saw the handsome, charming pop star go through myriad plastic surgeries that made him look more like a latter-day Peter...
06/22/2009 - 9:54pm
As the evening continued (and the alcohol flowed), my conversation with Son of Nun drifted into even deeper territory. To SON, one of the underground's most socially active rappers, the correlation between art and politics is never static. It is...
06/08/2009 - 8:44pm
Call it a hazard of the profession. I’ve interviewed many artists in all different genres, and while all have been more than willing to open up about their music, cracking into their opinions about all the myriad issues that surround us—politics,...
