Like Mission of Burma or Minor Threat, Bush Tetras are a band whose influence vastly exceeds the quantity of their initial output. They shaped the no wave scene of the early 1980s, made Thurston Moore […]
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Mark McGuire: A Pocket Full of Rain
While writing Prefab Sprout’s 1984 debut, Swoon, bandleader Paddy McAloon hatched a character named Green Isaac. “I was fooling around with the word ‘green’,” McAloon said later that year, highlighting his idiosyncratic writing process. “In […]
Will the Real Ms. Biljana Electronica Please Stand Up?
At first, people were delighted. Then they were confused. Now, they’re starting to see a larger narrative take shape. But not everyone appreciates it. This is the journey (to date) for comedian Kyle Gordon’s “Planet […]
Friends Remember O’Shae Sibley: ‘He Reminded Me of What I Wanted to Be’
The name O’Shae, when said repetitively in chant, gives a beat for a vogue, simultaneously sounding like the West African Yoruba word asé, meaning “it is so,” similar to “Amen.” The name O’Shae, said to […]
Florry: The Holey Bible
Like tourmate MJ Lenderman and his other band Wednesday, Florry are a part of a crop of rising DIY rock acts whose influences are more in the vein of Kris Kristofferson or Drive-By Truckers than […]
Iceboy Violet: Not a Dream But a Controlled Explosion
Iceboy Violet found a lifeline in noise. They were 18 years old and making hip-hop beats influenced by Madlib and Dilla—satisfying enough on a formal level, perhaps, but there were deeper, more conflicted emotions that […]
Art School Girlfriend: Soft Landing
As Art School Girlfriend, Polly Mackey blends her experience in the shoegaze band Deaf Club with her love of electronica: Guitars are processed to sound like synths, synths function like lead guitars, and drums flip […]
Migrants Are Stuck in NYC’s Shelter System. What’s the City Doing to Get Them Out?
It’s midday in midsummer and dozens of men and women are crouching, splayed out on cardboard, or standing in midtown Manhattan, beaten down by the heat. After a journey that’s taken many of them across […]
Extreme Heat Is F-cking With Our Heads
Over the past several years, increasingly destructive hurricanes, wildfires, blizzards, and other extreme weather events have made it clear that the effects of climate change aren’t some future hypothetical, but our current reality. Not to […]
Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon
When Pink Floyd first premiered what would become the most successful rock album of all time, it was quite literally too big for the system to handle. A half-hour into the band’s concert in Brighton […]
Two Teens Hitchhiked to a Concert. 50 Years Later, They Haven’t Come Home
O n the morning of July 27, 1973, two Brooklyn teenagers set out for central New York to attend one of the biggest concerts in rock history. They were never seen again. Or were they? […]
Homeboy Sandman: Rich
Homeboy Sandman raps like no one is listening. After more than 15 years in the industry, the dependable Queens emcee has arrived at a songwriting practice that sounds more like journaling than performing for an […]