Matador Records Inc.

How to Take a Roman Candle to the Face: Our Conversation With Iceage

Hurling beers and spitting on bands while they perform is, generally speaking, frowned upon. Shows have been stopped for less. Pfft. Kid's stuff. Doug Smith Elias Bender Rønnenfelt, singer and guitarist of Copenhagen's Iceage, didn't even flinch when a fan decided to let off a Roman Candle in hi ... More >>

Pazz & Jop: Top 40 Albums

"Old-School Three Times Over": Meet Afrika Bambaataa, Cornell Professor

Afrika Bambaataa has been an unofficial professor of hip-hop for so long, it makes perfect sense that Cornell University would appoint the pioneering Bronx-born DJ and founder of the Universal Zulu Nation to a three-year term as a visiting scholar. "Wherever I go on the planet, I'm always teachin' ... More >>

Examining Interpol's Lyrics Ten Years After Turn on the Bright Lights

A work of art's true meaning can take a while to be uncovered. Think of the rich veins of wisdom, long threaded through our cultural bedrocks, that we mere mortals stumbled upon years, after their authors first brought them into the world: the economic allegory at the heart of L. Frank Baum's The ... More >>

Guided by Voices' Robert Pollard & Tobin Sprout Exhibit Artwork in Bushwick

After their much-anticipated 2010 reunion at Matador Records' 21st birthday party in Las Vegas, lo-fi rockers Guided by Voices buckled up and went on a two-year bender of tour dates and recent album releases. Now, with an art exhibition called The Big Hat & Toy Show, frontmen Robert Pollard and Tobi ... More >>

Q&A: Bettina Richards of Thrill Jockey Records On The 20th Anniversary Of Her Label

The iconic and staunchly independent label Thrill Jockey Records may be Chicago-based since the mid '90s, but its roots lie here in New York and along the grimy Path train tunnel where Hoboken stands. Two decades ago, L.E.S. resident Bettina Richards founded Thrill Jockey while working the rounds at ... More >>

Q&A: Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite On How Happy Hardcore Sucks, Not Caring That Instrumental Rock Is Out Of Style, And Covering The Jewish Prayer "My Father, My King"

For the last fifteen years, the sonic-terrorizing Scottish smashheads Mogwai have remained true to their original vision: the cathartic squelching of a loud/soft gargantuan-riff dynamic undeterred by the music fashions and trends dictated by the Bitchfork monarchy. Admittedly an uncool bunch— ... More >>

Live: Fucked Up Bring David To Life At (Le) Poisson Rouge

​Fucked Up Presents David Comes to Life (le) poisson rouge Monday, November 14 Better than: That start-to-finish performance of Pocket Full of Kryptonite at Brooklyn Bowl last month. It took all of about 40 minutes—or, considering the context, until the end of Side B—for Damian " ... More >>

Download Jennifer O'Connor's Biting, Colorful "Running Start"

Amy Bezunartea​Jennifer O'Connor released two confessional, emotionally wrenching records on Matador Records, but when all was said and done the Brooklyn indie-folkie had little to show for it besides exhaustion and an empty bank account. She put music on hold to do odd jobs around the city (" ... More >>

MEOW REMIX

Put another dime in Cat Power’s jukebox

Live: Guided By Voices Reconfigure Time And Space

Guided By Voices w/Wavves, Surfer Blood McCarren Park Saturday, June 18, 2011 Better than: Just hearing the show without seeing it, which is what everyone who lives on my street got to do anyway. It's long been gospel that you can't tell Robert Pollard anything. Attempts by well-meaning biz type ... More >>

Q&A: Bardo Pond On Label-Hopping, Loving Philly, And Being Bummed About Not Going To Vegas

​ The sublimely dissonant psych-smear painted by Bardo Pond for the last two decades has been one huge slice of fuckheaven. While the Killadelphia band brings the noise via mounds upon mounds of distorto-waves, wah-wah swoosh and pedal hopping, its music is actually quite gorgeous, thanks to t ... More >>

Karaoke Underground's No. 1 Hit Songs

Giving indie-rock fans a chance to sing along with their favorites

Asthmatic Kitty Walks Us Through the Release of Sufjan Stevens's Age of Adz

​About three weeks ago, Asthmatic Kitty, the small independent label that is home to Sufjan Stevens and an assortment of smaller acts, sent out a kind of tortured email. It was directed, in theory, at prospective buyers of Sufjan's then-upcoming, now just-released Age of Adz, and laid out all ... More >>

Live Streams From Matador 21 Start Tonight With Pavement, Sonic Youth, And Fucked Up

​It's understandable, your depression/jealousy/irritation at not being physically present in Las Vegas this weekend for Matador Records' bizarrely elaborate Matador at 21 spectacle, featuring just about every major label act you could possibly desire unless you're, like, a die-hard Thinking Fe ... More >>

Unrattled by the Rush: An Oral History of Pavement's New York City

Fall Guide: Interpol Return With Their First Record in Three Years

But don't look for that persona-grooming bassist

Q&A: Barhopping with Unsane's Chris Spencer, Who Made Us Puke. Literally.

Guess which one is Chris. After a five-hour jaunt through various LES watering holes, downing beers and knocking back shots while grilling guttural-throated bawler/guitarist Chris Spencer of Herculean noise-rock face rippers Unsane, yours truly ended the night on the pavement, covered in my own puk ... More >>

Live: The Profoundly Discomforting Perfume Genius At 92Y Tribeca

Mike Hadreas (on the right), telling it like it was​Perfume Genius 92Y Tribeca Tuesday, July 20 The solid 15 seconds of painful, awkward silence between when Mike Hadreas (a/k/a Perfume Genius) sits down and when he actually starts playing piano is your first warning that this is gonna be a n ... More >>

Jay Reatard

R.I.P. Gerard Cosloy's Lovely Austin Home

This photo is filed under "Internal Affairs, Technical Difficulties" on Cosloy's blog​ Our sincere condolences to Matador's Gerard Cosloy, whose motherfucking house burned down this morning in Austin, Texas, taking with it untold amounts of alt-rock memorabilia and most of Cosloy's worldy bel ... More >>

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Meet the Web Sheriff

Fighting music piracy via ominous blog comments and pre-written apologies

More Geek-Snot Anthems From Jay Reatard

Live: Cat Power's Shitty Night

Letters

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