In the world of rock and roll, desire comes in two forms. First, in raunchy songs like Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” desire is instinctual, libidinous, and destined to be fulfilled. But among bleaker artists like The Cure and The Killers, desire is elusive, born out of…

Following the success of debut LP Anthem of the Peaceful Army, in 2018, Greta Van Fleet suddenly arrived at the golden gates of rock and roll superstardom. But that arrival was met with mixed reactions. Some fans heard the Frankenmuth, Michigan band’s uncanny sonic resemblance to Led Zeppelin—the reverberating echo of Jimmy…

Recipes are tricky things. A pinch too much of one ingredient and you’ve gone from flavor town to gak-ville in the blink of a taste bud. Even when the individual ingredients are delicious, sometimes the combination of flavors only appeals to a very specific palate. Tonic Immobility, the fifth…

One of the reasons it’s so important for everyone to continue wearing masks at this point in the pandemic is to mitigate the number of people from transmitting the virus to one another—as the chance the virus could mutate into something nastier becomes greater. Taking mutation into consideration, it’s great…

Taj Mahal performs at The UC Theatre in Berkeley during a livestream concert on March 13, 2021. Courtesy: Mandolin. Not every band can pull off a livestream. Often raw musical emotion simply doesn’t translate to the computer screen. The improved sound quality can reveal any number of botched notes,…

Graham Wilkinson, courtesy: Dawnerin Wilkinson. If anything else is as American as mom and apple pie, it’s strumming your acoustic guitar in a pasture decked out in a cowboy hat and boots. “Cuts So Deep,” the new video and title track of the new album by Austin singer-songwriter Graham…

Kings of Leon achieved total radio saturation in 2008 with hits like “Sex on Fire,” “Use Somebody” and “Notion,” all of which reached No. 1.  The band founded by three brothers and a cousin in 1999 enjoyed tremendous success, blending The Edge’s layered guitar sound with southern college rock…

It’s a safe bet that whatever apocalypse befalls our planet, the catastrophic end of everything will be survived by cockroaches, tardigrades and grunge progenitors the Melvins. The band’s core duo of guitarist-singer King Buzzo (Roger Osbourne) and drummer Dale Crover have carpet-bombed rock and roll with more than a hundred…

Paul Leary of the Butthole Surfers, courtesy. Few stories in the annals of rock and roll rival the legend of the Butthole Surfers. The band of mega-misfits from San Antonio, which launched its career in 1981, embodied the ethos of excess in the triptych pleasures of sex, drugs and…

The world of rock and roll is full of stories: rags to riches, burning out instead of fading away, beating the devil in a fiddle contest and so on. Rock is almost as much a literary genre as a musical one. Craig Finn and his band The Hold Steady…