Clothing that bears the name of a city near or far has become a closet staple for many consumers in recent years, evolving from impulse purchases to mainstream fashion.
A special 50th anniversary Punk Rock history event at The New Farm featuring bands and musicians from the dawn of the punk rock revolution of San Francisco. NO ALTERNATIVE, SLEEPERS AD, SOCIETY DOG plus AVENGERS guitar player GREG INGRAHAM performing with JEAN CAFFEINE, THE DEAD SAILOR GIRLS & INSECT LOUNGE.
Before the availability of the tape recorder and during the 1950s, when vinyl was scarce, ingenious Russians began recording banned bootleg jazz, boogie woogie and rock 'n' roll on exposed X-ray film salvaged from hospital waste bins and archives.
You could go anywhere in America and argue with some success for the cultural impact wrought by most of the once-subcultural stars of Lizzy Goodman's oral history of New York's post-9/11 rock scene, 'Meet Me In The Bathroom.' Or, for God's sake, Jeff Chang's history of hip-hop, 'Can't Stop Won't Stop.' But to explain this era to someone who hasn't devoted their psyche or youth to 'indie rock,' you'd need to spend a whole dinner, and maybe a few drinks afterwards, justifying why the tentpole events that 'Us v. Them' returns to multiple times in its 300-page run mean anything.
My driving belief is that we need to be able to communicate, to touch humanity, to try to connect to each other in some way, but I'm also not trying to forgive or underplay the extremities. There was fighting either between different factions or just for fun. Initially, what I saw was deeply shocking. When you're in those environments, it's so venomous and hateful.
It started as the only punk rock club in town, and for two to three years, it was the only place you could go, which was good because you'd see everyone you knew. The arrangement was practical and symbiotic: the restaurant profited from the punk crowds while the venue provided a crucial gathering space for the emerging underground music scene.
The category's been going around social media for a bit, but there's even a domain exclusively for Cigarette Mom Rock. There, the meaning of the genre is described as a "feminine counterpart to 'divorced dad rock,'" but is also meant to conjure up images of your own hard-working '90s mom, driving you to baseball practice with the windows down and a cigarette in one hand.
The new album Everything Must Go arrives on April 24 via Bad Time Records and Community Records, and first single 'Free Dom' is out now. It finds Bad Operation doing what they do best, fusing 2 Tone's influence with fresh, urgent new ideas and coming out with something danceable, catchy, and powerful.
Panopticon and Catharsis are doing a short co-headlining East Coast tour together this fall! The tour kicks off in Boston on October 8 before hitting Brooklyn's Market Hotel on October 9 and then shows in Philly and Baltimore. Tickets go on sale Friday (3/6).
But mainly, it's the result of the New Orleans duo's unique stamp on the sound of underground punk: Honeywell, often in a leather vest, howls with a pack-a-day voice over racing, lo-fi guitar, while RJ Santos, always sporting a dapper suit and tie, plays pedal steel. It's garage punk with an old-school country twang; as their personality seeps through the sound like dye, it takes on the color of music's sepia-toned past and technicolor present.
There isn't one songwriter, and so the flavour of the band is always going to change, says Dave Vanian, reflecting on 50 years of the group of which he has been the sole constant member, the Damned. Captain Sensible is a great fan of syrupy pop music and prog and glam rock. So his writing is very poppy, melodic and quite wonderful.
Dry Cleaning singer Florence Shaw likes to keep some distance between her vocals and the rest of the band. Shaw's curious confidences, spoken-word confessions, and bemused monologues appear to have only a passing relationship to the propulsive rhythms and brittle riffs that frame them. That dissonance can be striking at first, but it grows restrictive-stark contrast can only take you so far.
It only takes 33 seconds for Jason Williamson to drop an F-bomb on "The Good Life," the first track from The Demise of Planet X, Sleaford Mods' first record in three years. This latest record, released January 16, isn't much of a departure from the duo's signature sound: Williamson furiously yelping and rapping over Andrew Fearn's driving electronic beats. For a group that has always trafficked in anger, a world unraveling into chaos is perfect fodder for a Sleaford Mods record.
Michigan screamo band Youth Novel returned from hiatus with their excellent self-titled album in 2021, but then members turned their focus towards Heavenly Blue (now known as Heaven's Blinding Hue), who released their debut album We Have the Answer in 2024. But now, Youth Novel are back once again with their new album I Went Through This Experience Smiling. Picking right up where the band left off, it's an intense listen, as pulverizingly heavy as it is deeply beautiful.