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.
Most scenes announce themselves. They get a club, a compilation, a name coined by a journalist who needs a headline. Louisville, Kentucky did almost none of that, and somewhere in the gap between roughly 1985 and 1995 a handful of teenagers from the same river city quietly assembled the vocabulary that math rock and post-rock […]
How Brixton’s Windmill, a flat-roofed council-estate pub, became the incubator of South London’s guitar scene, from black midi to Black Country, New Road.
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, […]
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.
From SummerStage and Celebrate Brooklyn to Pier 17 and Hudson Yards, the 2026 summer rock and indie festival calendar across Manhattan and Brooklyn.
From Verboden in May to Khatsahlano in July, the Vancouver festival calendar for rock and indie in 2026.
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.
An explorer's guide to the small clubs and music halls keeping Boston's indie scene alive in 2026: The Sinclair, The Middle East, Lizard Lounge, Brighton Music Hall, O'Brien's Pub, and The Lilypad.
