Underground Resistance refused photos, wore balaclavas and built its own distribution. How a Detroit collective turned anonymity into independence.
Roland put a stereo chorus inside the JC-120 in 1975, then moved the same circuit into a pedal. How the Boss CE-1 turned an amp feature into the sound of a decade.
A members-only room in a former parking garage, a custom Richard Long sound system and a DJ who retuned it all night. How Paradise Garage made the dance floor an instrument.
A label that began in a kitchen, a cassette series and a six-day convention. How K Records turned Olympia, Washington into an indie scene with its own rules.
A cassette that sounded terrible, a TB-303 used as a funk bass and a Glasgow techno label with doubts about the tempo. How Da Funk was ignored in 1995 and then carried by DJs into a major-label deal.
Big Star recorded Third at Ardent in 1974, saw it rejected, and watched it appear in 1978 in several versions. Here is why no definitive copy exists.
How Planet Rock rebuilt Kraftwerk's Numbers and Trans-Europe Express, hedged with a B-side, and settled for a dollar a record.
The Electric Eels played five shows in Cleveland, lost their last venue to a lawnmower, and became a legend through one Rough Trade single and decades of archival releases.
The Number That Moved the Snare Open any drum sequencer and you will find a dial labelled swing, usually a percentage. Most producers treat it as a feel knob. It is better understood as one of the most successful pieces of interface design in electronic music, because it reduces a drummer's lilt to a single […]
The Room That Was Built for Films Most legends about Hamburg’s Star-Club begin with the Beatles. Start instead with the building. Manfred Weissleder opened the club at Grosse Freiheit 39 on 13 April 1962, and the address was a former cinema. That detail explains almost everything about how the place worked. A cinema is a […
