Mötley Crüe performs during Aftershock Festival at Discovery Park in Sacramento, Calif. on Oct. 13, 2024. AFTERSHOCK 2024: • Slayer reunites for explosive Thursday headlining set • Slipknot rocks like its 1999 on fest’s second day • Iron Maiden, Judas Priest lead British invasion on day 3 SACRAMENTO —…

Reichsparteitag (“imperial party congresses) in Nuremberg, Germany in 1938. Tom Morello is right. If you’re with Nazis and you don’t call them out, you might be a Nazi. Photo by Imagno/Getty Images. Nazis were in the news again this week… every week, it seems. When we want to show…

Ana Tijoux photographed at BottleRock Napa on May 29, 2022. Nate McKinley/STAFF. NAPA — Even successful songwriters like Ana Tijoux sometimes question whether what they’re doing is impacting people the way it should. The Chilean-French singer and rapper hasn’t released an album of her own since 2014. Although that’s about…

Grandson (Jordan Benjamin) performs at Slim’s in San Francisco on April 3, 2019. Joaquin Cabello/STAFF. Jordan Benjamin, better known to his fans as grandson, is feeling relaxed in the hours before he’ll open for pop-punk queen Avril Lavigne at a packed arena in Ontario, Canada. BottleRock Napa Valley 2022…

Lil Nas X. Let’s go over this again: The reason this column is called RIFF Rewind is because back in 2018 I listed my top five (or so) songs of every year from 1967 to 2018. I don’t know how I actually finished the project, but I did it.…

Jake Clemons, courtesy. Jake Clemons loves to connect with people. A couple of years ago, he did a national tour of … living rooms, performing intimate shows in fans’ homes for as few as a couple dozen at a time. This, after replacing his legendary late uncle, Clarence Clemons,…

The Struts have finished their third LP, Strange Days. They’re established and not going away. So, the way I see it, rock fans have a decision to make. Strange Days The Struts Interscope, Oct. 16 6/10 The choices seem to be: 1) Embrace them. Freddie Mercury died nearly 30…

Pete Seeger, photographed in 1964 at a BBC performance, wanted to recruited you. Last year, I opened my International Workers’ Day column by making snarky jokes about the United States not participating and instead opting to have our own Labor Day. All of which I still stand by. Well,…

Cultural phenomenon Ozzy Osbourne is a hard man to pin down. Is he the originator of the look and feel of heavy metal? A guy who managed to be in the right place at the right time? A doddering madman, deteriorated by decades of drug excess? Ordinary Man Ozzy…

Disturbed, Courtesy: Travis Shinn. Last weekend was Groundhog Day, my mom’s birthday, and nothing else. Next weekend is—sigh—Valentine’s Day. That means we’ve got a weekend in the middle here that doesn’t have an obvious hook for a column topic. I could do the whole February thing, though that doesn’t…