Punk
Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché Is Hardly Cliché: SXSW Review
Editor’s Note: The following review is as part of our coverage of the 2021 South by Southwest Film Festival. Stay tuned for further reviews straight outta Austin — well, virtually, of course. Below, Rachel Reeves checks out the new rock doc on Poly Styrene. The Pitch: Marianne Elliott-Said, aka Poly Styrene, is a punk rock icon. She was the first woman of color to front a successful UK punk band. She defied stereotypes and inspired countless women to do the same. She was also a highly flawed individual who struggled with mental health issues, a misogynistic industry, her personal identity and relationships. She was all of these things and so much more. Now, years after her passing, Styrene’s daughter Celeste Bell and co-director Paul Sng have released an incredibly personal tribute to...
Fiddlehead Announce New Album Between The Richness, Share “Million Times”
Back in 2018, Fiddlehead made waves in the hardcore scene with their terrific debut album Springtime and Blind. Now, the melodic hardcore band that features members of Have Heart and Basement have announced its follow-up, Between The Richness. It’s won’t arrive until late May, but they’re previewing it today with an excellent lead single called “Million Times”. Although the members of the band come from the hardcore scene and play a style of music that can more or less be described as such, Fiddlehead don’t make fast, rowdy, or angry music. Their songs are often energetic and loose, but they pull a lot from the Revolution Summer emotional hardcore wave of the mid-to-late ’80s: bands like Rites of Spring, Dag Nasty, and later Fugazi and Dischord Records. These aren’t songs for mos...
Danny Boyle Shares First Look at Sex Pistols TV Series
Louis Partridge as bassist Sid Vicious, Anson Boon as singer John Lydon, Jacob Slater as drummer Paul Cook and Toby Wallace as guitarist Steve Jones, photo by Miya Mizuno for FX Danny Boyle has shared the first look at his upcoming TV series about Sex Pistols, which is slated to premiere on FX. Entitled Pistol, the six-episode limited series is based on the 2017 memoir Lonely Boy: Tales From a Sex Pistol by Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones. As such, the show will center around Jones’ journey from his West London council estates home to the iconic Sex boutique owned by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, an epicenter of early punk culture. From there, Boyle will trace the relatively short but furious rise and fall of Sex Pistols. Toby Wallace (Babyteeth) will play Jones, ...
The Offspring Announce New Album Let the Bad Times Roll, Share Title Track: Stream
The Offspring will return on April 16th with their tenth studio album. Entitled Let the Bad Times Roll, it serves as the long-awaited follow-up to 2012’s Days Go By. As was the case for Days Go By, The Offspring recruited Bob Rock to produced Let the Bad Times Roll. The new album spans 12 tracks in total. The title track serves as the lead single and is streaming below. “Coming For You”, a song originally released way back in 2015, also appears on the tracklist, as does a newly recorded version of the band’s 1997 classic “Gone Away”. Last year, The Offspring released a quarantine cover of Tiger King’s “Here Kitty Kitty”, and celebrated the holidays with their own version of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”. [embedded content] Let the Bad Times Roll Artwork: <img data-attachment-id=&q...
Less Than Jake on 25 Years of Losing Streak
Kyle Meredith With… Less Than Jake Listen via Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Play | Stitcher | Radio Public | RSS Less Than Jake frontman Chris DeMakes sits down with Kyle Meredtih to talk about the band’s new album, Silver Linings, and the need to bring positivity and fun in the current era. The ska-punk legend also discusses being a legacy band, co-founder Vinnie Fiorello leaving in 2018, writing songs about their friends, and having Matt Yonker behind the drum kit. DeMakes also hits on Losing Streak’s 25th anniversary, the band’s upcoming 30th anniversary plans, Chris DeMakes A Podcast, writing jingles for people, and his newly published biography. Kyle Meredith With… is an interview series in which WFPK’s Kyle Meredit...
Jeff Rosenstock Shares New Song “Illegal Fireworks And Hiding Bottles In The Sand”: Stream
With mere hours to go until New Years Eve, Jeff Rosenstock dropped not one, but two (!) brand new songs to bid farewell to 2020. They’re called “Illegal Fireworks And Hiding Bottles In The Sand” and “Caring”, and you can stream them below via Bandcamp. Technically “Caring” hit the web first on December 30th. The acoustic duet sees him teaming up with his old bandmate and longtime friend Laura Stevenson for a sweet ballad about writer’s block, longing, and trying to get your creative muscles going again. “Illegal Fireworks And Hiding Bottles In The Sand” followed suit on New Year’s Eve. Over fuzzy, warm, reverb-drenched shoegaze, Rosenstock sings about the comfort of falling asleep to the thought of a loved one. It’s a completely different sound than the previous song, but it’s sweet noneth...
An Oral History of The Clash’s “The Magnificent Seven”
“It’s perfect,” Joe Strummer insisted about The Clash’s fourth album, the sprawling, 36-song triple album set, Sandinista!, over beers in an East Village bar back in the early 1990s. While Strummer’s tongue was firmly in cheek, he wasn’t backing down on his claim. He loved his former band, and Sandinista! loomed large in the legend about everything they stood for – the good and the bad, planting feet firmly in the future while still honoring the past, not to mention both their collective creativity and rock star excess – and still stands today as a remarkable, if beguiling, achievement. Featuring forays into everything from jazz and gospel to hip-hop and rockabilly, Sandinista! was the ultimate rock and roll indulgence by a band that had only just started to crack the big time after releas...
Top 50 Songs of 2020
The 2020 edition of our Annual Report continues today with our Top 50 Songs of 2020. If you haven’t already, check out our Top 50 Albums of 2020, which came out earlier in the week. Also, be sure to tune in next week as we begin handing out our annual accolades and continue looking back on the strange year that was 2020. Upon being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame some years ago, Tom Waits said, “We love music, but what we really want is for music to love us back.” Believe it or not, it felt like music did that in 2020. For me, anyway. I know that it’s easy to see the world through pandemic goggles right now or strictly through the lens of racial injustice or political turmoil. Tragedy and frustration that keeps piling on can definitely cloud our vision or color our window on t...
Top 50 Albums of 2020
As we return from Thanksgiving and head into December, our Annual Report will spend the next few weeks looking back upon the strange year that was 2020 and the music, film, and television that came with it. We begin today with our Top 50 Albums of 2020. You’ve heard it from me dozens of times already: 2020 has not been a normal year. And by that, I mean absolutely nothing has been normal. The music world hasn’t been immune, of course. I’ve spent more time cancelling flights and accommodations and trying to get tickets refunded than I actually did watching live music this year. Instragram became a concert venue, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions had no performances, and livestreams (which are pre-taped) seem to be the often-underwhelming future of live music at least for the forseea...
Saves the Day Cover Misfits Songs “Some Kinda Hate” and “Where Eagles Dare”: Stream
Just in time for the spooky season, Saves the Day have covered two Misfits songs, “Some Kinda Hate” and “Where Eagles Dare”. These new renditions appear on a split EP they recorded with Senses Fail titled Through Being Ghoul, which is indeed a play on Saves the Day’s iconic Through Being Cool album from 1999. (The band’s press photo seen above is also a nostalgic throwback.) “Some Kinda Hate”, taken from the Misfits’ 1985 Legacy of Brutality compilation, and 1979’s “Where Eagles Dare” are both given new life here with full band instrumentation and modern production. If you’re wondering whether Saves the Day frontman Chris Conley could adequately capture Glenn Danzig’s signature vocal growls, fear not: he imbues the two tracks with a healthy mix of emo and punk weirdo. It’s an appropri...
The Pogues’ Shane MacGowan Jokes and Drinks in the First Trailer for New Documentary Crock of Gold: Watch
The Pogues had a brief, furious run of success, spurred on by a genius frontman who seemed to have trouble staying hydrated. Now you can get vicariously sauced with the new documentary Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan, available in wide release starting December 4th. From 1984 to 1991, MacGowan and the Pogues explored the punk rock side of traditional Irish music, reinventing both genres in the process. They were appointment viewing whenever MacGowan showed up, which became increasingly rare towards the end of his tenure. In 1990 he was so unreliable that the band couldn’t tour for their album Hell’s Ditch, and in 1991 they gave him the sack. His war on sobriety intermittently continued until 2016, when he detoxed during a lengthy hospital stay. Reportedly, he’s be...
Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten Says He’s Voting for Trump in 2020 Election
John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten, photo by Amanda Koellner In case his T-shirt didn’t give it away, former Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten, a.k.a. John Lydon, will support Donald Trump in the upcoming US presidential election. In a wide-ranging interview with The Observer, Lydon said he’d “be daft as a brush not to” support Trump, adding, “He’s the only sensible choice now that [Joe] Biden is up – he’s incapable of being the man at the helm.” He cited Trump’s handling as the economy, and said he also sympathizes with Trump over being labeled as a racist. “I’ve been accused of the very same thing, so I’m offended for anybody who’s called that.” (In 2008, Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke accused Lydon of an “unprovoked racist attack” that resulted in Okereke suffering severe fac...
