On December 12, 1981, a German guitarist sat alone in his Berlin studio and pressed record before heading out on holiday. He wanted something to listen to on the plane. What he captured in a single unbroken take would spend the next decade quietly rewriting the rules of electronic dance music, even though almost nobody […]
A record-store manager with a documentary impulse When Roger Shepherd started Flying Nun Records in Christchurch in 1981, he was not trying to invent a genre. He managed a record shop, he liked the bands he saw play around Christchurch and Dunedin, and he wanted a way to document them before they disappeared. That modest, […]
On the night of July 14, 1973, Clarence White played a pickup set at a bar in Palmdale, California, with his brother Roland. Shortly after 2 a.m. he was loading gear into the car when a drunk driver hit him. He died later that day. He was 29 years old. The obituaries filed him under […]
On 6 July 1992, Warp Records released a compilation with a picture of a sleeping android on the cover. The robot is slumped in an armchair. Two record sleeves lie on the carpet beside it: Kraftwerk’s Autobahn and Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. A third, Pioneers of the Hypnotic Groove, is Warp’s […]
Riff genealogy is usually argued in court. This one was settled backstage, with a shrug and a grudge, and it runs through three artists who could not sound less alike. Start in June 1971. Joni Mitchell releases Blue. Track eight is “This Flight Tonight,” two minutes and fifty one seconds of guitar, voice and Sneaky […
Every scene has a label everyone name-checks and a label everyone actually stole from. In New York house, the first is Strictly Rhythm. The second is Nu Groove, and it was already finished by the time most people learned to say it. Nu Groove opened in New York in 1988, founded by Frank and Karen […]
Rock is not dead, but it is not in charge either. An honest look at a genre that keeps growing its streams while losing its grip on the culture.
From a Fort Greene basement to Saturday Night Live, Geese are the most recent New York band to cross from independent obscurity to mainstream fame.
On September 21, 1991, Nirvana played Les Foufounes Electriques in Montreal to about 150 people, three nights before Nevermind dropped. Inside the setlist and the night.
From Hotel2Tango to Studio PM, Montreal's producers, engineers and string arrangers quietly shaped some of alt rock's most influential albums, from Arcade Fire and The National to Sarah McLachlan and Frank Ocean.
