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DANIEL BROCKMAN
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Sharper image
For a kind-of goofy metal dude, Alex Citrone is pretty serious — especially when he talks metal, and especially when he's talking about his band, Boston shred titans Razormaze.
Kanine Records
For those of us of a certain age who remember when school dances had a strict four-fast-songs-then-one-slow-one policy, the memory of bouncing around to "Let's Hear It for the Boy" with the anticipation of "One More Night" or "Take My Breath Away" still makes our palms sweat with hormonal anxiety.
Cold spell
When I am finally able to get through to the cell phone of In Solitude's tour manager, they have emerged from a massive dust cloud, their metal-mobile finding civilization after a long spell traversing the deserts of Arizona with no idea where they are going.
Revenge of the Nerds
ADAM YAUCH, a/k/a MCA, was likely inspired to pen those words, that appear in a tossed off couplet in the middle of what would wind up being one of the band’s final singles, by his immersion in the world of illness.
Retromaniac
Quick, try to think of futuristic music that has nothing to do with the music of the past. Can't do it?
Has our lust for convenience turned rock and roll into background music?
Most people seem content to toss into the void of obscurity the record-store clerk and even the record-label executive, letting them join the silent-movie matinee idol and the jazz-era singing star on the slow-moving boat of the damned-to- irrelevance.
Punk metalurgy
In the mid-'80s it was considered you-put-your-peanut-butter-in-my-chocolate when bands like Black Flag dared to tippy-toe into metal territory with their punk attack.
Killswitch reborn
Of all rock genres, metal has proven itself to be perhaps the most accepting of the aging of its idols.
Warner Bros. (2012)
The Mars Volta sprang forth from the '90s avant-punk of At the Drive-In.
Still sailin’
Most bands tend to take credit for their successes while chalking up their failures and struggles to a cruel and unforgiving musical environment — but hardcore punk legends Bad Brains aren't most bands.
Interscope/Live Nation (2012)
There was a time in the mid-'90s when it seemed that Madonna was finally acting her age: with the 1994 release of "I'll Remember" and the subsequent greatest-ballads collection Something To Remember, it seemed as if the Material Girl was resigned to a lifetime of mature songcraft and age-appropriate jams that would serve her well into her 50s and beyond.
Sonic bids
When you are surrounded with those jagged barbs of sheer bloody noise for the first time, do you run for the hills or continue to stick your head in the acid bath? It only takes a few seconds of luxuriating in the stinging audio hailstorm that is A Place To Bury Strangers to know how a young Oliver Ackermann reacted to the noise threshold test.
Alternative Tentacles (2012)
In a lot of ways, the legacy of '90s rock is one of sheer ugliness — so many bands found so many ways to make so many genres sound so unrepentantly unattractive, whether it was the sonic miasma that was late-'90s nu-metal or the post-grunge dirty-blues thick sludge that was the prevailing sound of guitar rock throughout the decade.
Hitting up the Metal Alliance Tour
In a culture obsessed with decoding the lyrics and attitudes of modern popular music, nothing gets more closely scrutinized than heavy metal.
Twilight of the gods
In his keynote speech, informally anointed King of Music, Sir Bruce Springsteen, gave some uncle-ly advice to all the young'uns with their deathmetals and their trollgazes who made up the complicated and chaotic mass that was this year's SXSW talent pool/conference of musical commodity farmers: he pointed out that a ticket to a show is "a handshake between the artist and the fan."
Self-starter
If you want to make music — I mean, if you really want to make music — there are several steps.
Epic/Roadrunner (2012)
Lamb of God, like the actual lamb of God, have existed seemingly for the purpose of expiating sins — in this case, the sins of baggy-pants late-'90s groove metal.
Death threat
It makes a certain amount of sense that Boston's Theater District will be visited upon by one of rock's most theatrical groups, GWAR.
For all
Most musicians, at a certain point, discover a paradox at the center of the whole act of musical creation: that seemingly complex music can be simple, and that making simple music is often a complex process. After all, what do you expect in a medium where mathematics and pure emotion are intertwined?
Drag City (2012)
It's a rare thing when you listen to a record and can actually hear drugs spewing from the speakers, but such is the gift of Rad Times Xpress IV , the latest from Jennifer Herrema, the exRoyal Trux chanteuse now doing business as Black Bananas.
[Q&A] Handsome Dick Manitoba on Dictators, White Castle, and being the "heel" of metal / Thursday @ Church- [Q&A] Ross The Boss talks Manitoba, Dictators, Manowar and his quest for the hardest, the heaviest, the fastest, the slowest and the most epic music imaginable
- [R.I.P.] Adam Yauch and the Beastie Boys: Revenge of the Nerds
- The Problem with the Future of Music: Amanda Palmer and the rise of the music biz Super PAC
- [Q&A] Jesse Leach on re-joining Killswitch Engage, the joy of the riff, and keeping the struggle alive
- [Q&A] Dr. Know of Bad Brains on the spirit, the youths, and the works
- DEV: A pop princess gives lessons on how to be a bad bitch
- [live review] Opeth, Mastodon and Ghost shake the Orpheum's foundations whilst questioning metal's central tenets
- [RIP] Jim Marshall: this one goes to el-heaven
- [sxsw2012] St. Amateur's Night with Dev, Kreayshawn, Dragonette, The Cult, Ritualz, and a million "technical difficulties"
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