Back in 2001, there was still mystery left in the Pixies. Frank Black (not, as he seems to call himself now, Charles Thompson) had only just reached the point where he could say the name of his former band out loud; he still hadn’t spoken to his ex-bandmate Kim Deal in almost a decade. Whispers of a reunion were growing louder, sure, but certainly nobody I knew was ready to believe them. And when an article appeared in Mojo that March, it was still …

Stunning. It’s the best word I can find for this unprecedented collection of music, 49 precious, newly discovered recordings by one of America’s most treasured musical giants. And while I’ll admit to being a bit of a Johnny Cash fanboy (these days, who isn’t?), this is one case where hyperbole is impossible. If you’re a fan of Cash to even the slightest degree — just an interest in his life or a desire to dig beyond his greatest hits is all that’s necessary …

Conventional wisdom says that the ’80s weren’t kind to rock. For the most part, that’s a bit of an exaggeration; any decade which managed to yield classic albums like Fire of Love, Rain Dogs, Imperial Bedroom and Surfer Rosa couldn’t be all bad. What the ’80s really weren’t kind to, however, was Rock with a capital “R”: those graying, fading superstars who had seemed so hip and dangerous in the 1970s, only to be revealed ten years later as charlatans in banana-yellow slacks. …

Of all the overused, overemphasized, overrated terms in modern indie music, “honesty” must be close to the top. An unfortunate outgrowth of the 1980s’ integrity-obsessed first wave of alternative rock (in the same way that gonorrhea can be an unfortunate outgrowth of sex), “honesty” has served as many a wannabe critic’s highest standard of quality, its absence the cruelest and most demeaning of epithets.
Take a perfectly good, kick-ass rock’n’roll band, who maybe just happen to like a little semi-ironic Spandex in their stage gear, …

I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but here it is: I, like many music listeners, spent far too many years believing Eddie Floyd’s classic, “Knock on Wood,” was recorded by Wilson Pickett. Now hold on for a second; before you accuse me of a lack of R&B credibility and storm away, the fact is, my embarrassingly long-lived mistake wasn’t too far off the mark.
Anchored by a hard-driving horn refrain and that chunky, funky Steve Cropper guitar, “Knock on Wood” is a dead ringer for …

Lately I’ve been reading Bob Dylan’s memoir, Chronicles. It’s fascinating stuff, of course; a vivid, evocative portrait of the artist’s formative years. But what really gets me is the way he tells it. Dylan’s prose — the breathless rush of words, the exuberant citing of influences from Hank Williams to Balzac — perfectly captures the feelings of a young, hungry, and unbelievably talented poet, hurtling forward to his artistic peak.
At times the youthful folksinger seems literally aflame with a kind of Biblical portent: …

Some great voices are instruments of artistry. Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye — these are all composers, pop artistes; their legendary vocals just one element of their equally legendary visions. Other great voices, however, are something else entirely: they, themselves, are the instruments. Otis Williams belongs decidedly to the second category. A founding member of legendary soul quintet the Temptations, his powerful, melodic baritone sounded great on classics like “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” and “Just My Imagination”…but it was arguably …

The first track off The Sounds’ sophomore effort, Dying to Say This to You, is entitled “Song with a Mission.” So to start, let me just get this out of the way: no band whose album art resembles an American Apparel ad as closely as this one should ever be allowed to lay claim to a “mission.” Ever.
Unless, of course, that mission is just to make a helluva catchy pop album… in which case our hypothetical band would be in mighty good company. Right …

Ladies, ladies, ladies…when will you ever learn? Rock singers are appealing, sure: they sweat and they strut and they wear their jeans skin-tight (the better to accentuate their stuffed crotches). Maybe they’re even a little sensitive, too, with their liner note dedications and their power ballads. But once the break-up comes around — and come it will — you’ll be spending the rest of your life hearing about what a bitch you were, and it’s safe to say that no amount of free backstage …

They started as just another satellite in Josh Homme’s Desert Sessions orbit; eight years and one messy divorce later, the Eagles of Death Metal are a full-fledged “movement and phenomenon onto itself,” as mustachioed singer/guitarist Jesse “Boots Electric” Hughes puts it. We talked to Hughes for fifteen minutes at the cusp of the Eagles’ spring tour with the Strokes, touching on everything from groupies to girl-phobic indie kids and Rick Springfield. The resulting interview may not be as lengthy as some of the …