When most people hear the name Yoko Ono, their first thought is often “the woman who broke up the Beatles.” It's an oversimplification that has clung to her name for decades, obscuring a rich and radical career in avant-garde art, experimental music, and activism. In truth, Yoko Ono is one of the most misunderstood and underappreciated cultural figures of the 20th and 21st centuries. To reduce her to a footnote […]
If rock music were a dusty thrift store full of forgotten gems, broken radios, velvet jackets, and acid-stained notebooks, then The Brian Jonestown Massacre would be the slightly unhinged shopkeeper handing you a tambourine and inviting you to a séance behind the curtain. Founded in the early ‘90s by the infamous Anton Newcombe, BJM didn’t just form a band — they summoned a swirling, psychotropic entity. The name alone is […]
Step aside, Beethoven. Take a seat, Duke Ellington. Today we’re talking about Moondog — the blind, self-fashioned Viking who pounded the streets of Manhattan with a staff, a beard like a Norse god, and a mind full of music that defied every tidy label and genre box the 20th century tried to impose. Born Louis Thomas Hardin in 1916, Moondog was a composer, poet, street performer, and proto-minimalist who saw […]
In the pantheon of punk rock, few bands have managed to maintain both relevance and irreverence quite like NOFX. For over four decades, this quartet of musical misfits has carved out a unique space where technical proficiency meets juvenile humor, political commentary meshes with self-deprecation, and DIY ethics coexist with commercial success. Founded in 1983 in Los Angeles by vocalist/bassist Fat Mike (Mike Burkett), guitarist Eric Melvin, and drummer Erik […]
There are bands you put on while doing the dishes.There are bands you put on while driving at night.And then there’s Ash Ra Tempel—the band you put on when you want your soul to detach from your body, cruise past Saturn, and politely ignore time as a concept. Founded in 1970 by guitarist Manuel Göttsching, drummer Klaus Schulze, and bassist Hartmut Enke, Ash Ra Tempel was Germany’s answer to the […]
Some jazz cats blast through the air like lightning bolts — fierce, fiery, untamed. But then there’s Gerry Mulligan, who’s more like a mischievous breeze whistling through the alleyways of sound. He didn’t just play the baritone sax; he romanced it, coiled his long limbs around it like a dance partner, and whispered secrets into its brass heart that still echo in smoky corners of old clubs and restless record […]
Let’s be honest: if you met a woman who wore flowing robes, played jazz harp, ran an ashram, and claimed to receive music directly from the divine… you might assume she was either an interdimensional being or your coolest aunt on ayahuasca. But Alice Coltrane was both—and more. She didn’t just push jazz into new spiritual realms; she dragged it there in a chariot made of stars, incense smoke, and […]
Some musicians arrive like thunderclaps, all ego and elbow, pounding their genius into the earth like tent stakes at a festival of self-importance. But Harold Budd? He arrived like mist. Or maybe like the memory of mist. The kind that hovers quietly just above the ground, humming to itself, unbothered by gravity or genre. Budd called himself a "minimalist" with a grimace, as if the word were a beige carpet […]
Imagine standing at the edge of a fading photograph. The colors are muted. There's a scratchy hiss where silence should be. Somewhere in the background, a saxophone weeps gently for the 20th century. This is where William Basinski lives—a place halfway between memory and erosion, nostalgia and noise. Born in Texas in 1958 with cheekbones worthy of a New Wave poster and the heart of a haunted archivist, William Basinski […]
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