Three years ago, Bea Kristi uploaded a low-fi love song called “Coffee” to YouTube. Little did most listeners know it was the first song she’d written, ever. “I came home from school one day, and I think my dad had noticed that I was getting depressed and kind of bored, …
Read More »Song You Need to Know: Sports Team, 'Fishing'
Sports Team are a great six-piece English rock band who formed when they were students at Cambridge. The crisp, jagged tunes on their debut LP, Deep Down Happy, recall Franz Ferdinand or the early Arctic Monkeys; their weird-angled guitars can evoke Pavement or Silkworm; their clever critiques of British life …
Read More »How One Arkansas Venue Hopes to Stage America's First Pandemic Concert
Ever since touring promoters Live Nation and AEG made the unprecedented decision to cancel and postpone tens of thousands of shows starting in mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic, the United States has not held one major concert with a live audience. As stay-at-home orders close in on their eighth …
Read More »Flashback: Warren Zevon and Neil Young Duet on 'Splendid Isolation' in 1993
Neil Young may be isolated away from the world in the remote Colorado home he shares with his wife, actress Daryl Hannah, but he’s still found ways to be there for his fans. During the past few weeks, he’s released three excellent Fireside Sessions, performing rarities and offering glimpses of …
Read More »Mark Lanegan on Why Kurt Cobain's Death Still Haunts Him, How Courtney Love Saved His Life
For a quarter of a century now, Mark Lanegan has been running away from his past. From the mid-Eighties until 2000, he fronted Screaming Trees, a hard rocking, neo-psychedelic band that got swept up in the major labels’ Seattle-grunge gold rush and crossed over into the mainstream with “Nearly Lost …
Read More »Raised on Motown, Rising Indie R&B Star Lila Drew Wants a Classic of Her Own
Lila Drew’s parents aren’t musicians, but they instilled a deep love for music history into the artist from a young age. “I grew up listening to everything from Led Zeppelin to Public Enemy to Smokey Robinson,” the London-born, Los Angeles-raised singer-songwriter says. Her dad has maintained a massive record collection, …
Read More »Grimes: Live From the Future
1 :45 p.m. on a Thursday, and Claire Boucher just woke up. She didn’t sleep well. Twenty-six-weeks pregnant, the arc of her belly currently nudging against a black Marvel Comics T-shirt, she had the distinct feeling last night that her fetus, which is in an uncomfortable, feet-down breech position, was …
Read More »Taylor Swift: 'Miss Americana' Director Talks Trauma, Courage and Her All-Female Crew
There were only two men on the crew for Taylor Swift documentary Miss Americana — and one was an assistant. “I always have a male production assistant because I feel like it’s important to show that men can get coffee for women,” director Lana Wilson tells Rolling Stone. “I’ve usually …
Read More »Moon Tooth's Heavy-Metal Heart and Soul
Late one weeknight in October, as the Long Island band Moon Tooth was setting up on the stage of Brooklyn metal haven Saint Vitus, the background music on the PA abruptly shifted from sludgy hardcore to the crisp, neo–James Brown funk of Mark Ronson and Mystikal’s “Feel Right.” A stocky, …
Read More »Tina Turner on Her Journey to Broadway
Tina Turner appeared on the second cover of ‘Rolling Stone’ on November 23rd, 1967 — the first frontwoman in the publication’s history. Now ‘Tina,’ the musical based on her life and music, opens on Broadway November 7th. In anticipation of the queen of rock & roll’s Broadway debut, Turner — …
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