Alice in Chains‘ Jerry Cantrell knew late Pantera drummer Vinnie Paullonger, he says, “than I’ve known the guys in my own band.” It was a relationship that began when Cantrell, Paul and Paul’s brother/bandmate Dimebag Darrell were living in Texas in the mid-Eighties, and continued as they all rose to …
Read More »Review: Death Grips' 'Year of the Snitch' Is a Punk-Rap Disruption
The sixth album from noise-punk-rap cyber-transgressives Death Grips is one of their least aggressive offerings to date, but still quite disruptive. Special guest DJ Swamp, the enfant terrible of the Nineties turntablism boom, is almost like a fourth member of the band, squiggling and squarking all over Year of the …
Read More »Han Solo's 'Return of the Jedi' Blaster Sells for $550,000 at Auction
The blaster Harrison Ford’s Han Solo wielded in the Star Wars film Return of the Jedi sold for $550,000 at a Las Vegas auction Saturday. The prop weapon was the top-selling item in a Hollywood-themed lot offered by Julian’s Auctions. The auction house added that Ripley’s Believe It or Not …
Read More »Hear Amy Helm's Cathartic, Harmony Rich 'This Too Shall Light'
Last year, as Amy Helm was amassing material for her second solo album, she had one song that kept gnawing at her. Co-written by Mike “M.C.” Taylor and the National/Bob Weir sideman Josh Kaufman, “This Too Shall Light” was equal parts swinging groove and the spiritual heaviness that Taylor brings …
Read More »Pusha-T Plots U.S. Tour
Pusha-T announced a headlining U.S. tour. The rapper/G.O.O.D. Music president will promote his recently issued third LP, the Kayne West-produced Daytona, on the brief trek, which launches August 3rd in St. Louis, Missouri and wraps October 13th in Oakland, California. Fellow G.O.O.D. Music emcees Valee and Sheck Wes – who …
Read More »The Battle of Woodstock, Part III: Styles Make Fights
(The third in a series of diaries from the oddest congressional race in America) Friday, June 8th, Kinderhook, New York. Dave Clegg, the Woodstock-based trial lawyer who’s running for the seat in New York’s 19th district, tells a story about going to Washington for a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee training …
Read More »Miguel Announces 'The Ascension' North American Tour
Miguel will continue to showcase his 2017 album War & Leisure on his newly announced The Ascension North American tour. After wrapping upthe War & Leisure trek in April, the latest slate of 26 dates kicks off late summer with an August 23rd show in Boston and works its way …
Read More »Review: R&B Singer Jacquees Takes It a Little Too Slow on '4275'
Up and coming crooner Jacquees possesses one of the great tones in contemporary R&B – glinting and willowy, his voice skims over beats with guileless, melismatic charm. But on his debut album his musical choices are as single-minded as his voice is elastic. He slips from one romantic conquest to …
Read More »Caroline Rose Is Making Fun of Everything
Caroline Rose is looking for optimal fun. This is why, on a visit to the Toledo, Ohio, zoo, she steers us to an elevated wooden walkway where we can feed giraffes. “I know their tongues are, like, this big,” she says. It’s a morning off on Rose’s year-plus tour for …
Read More »Death Cab for Cutie Preview New Album With Simmering 'Gold Rush'
Death Cab for Cutie grapple with the inevitability of change in the video for their new song “Gold Rush.” The track marks the first single off the group’s upcoming albumThank You for Today, out August 17th via Atlantic. “Gold Rush” is a rumbling alt-rock ballad that finds singer Ben Gibbard …
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