Michael Azerrad

Brooklyn's Deveykus Combine Doom Metal With Jazz, Traditional Jewish Music, and Chutzpah

Free Will Astrology: January 23-29, 2013

Q&A: Calvin Johnson Of The Hive Dwellers On Running K Records, Beat Happening, And How He's Always Wanted To Play Staten Island

Calvin Johnson is one forward-looking dude. He brought strict punk rock ethos and DIY aesthetics—supporting community, contributing to 'zines, booking shows—to underground rock, and played an integral role in revolutionizing it. Johnson's K Records (which he launched in the early '80s) w ... More >>

Q&A: Grant Hart On His Double Album The Argument, Bob Mould's Memoir, And The Conditions For A Hüsker Dü Reunion

As Grant Hart bravely dealt with a godawful fire that nearly gutted his boyhood home in his native South St. Paul last year, the drummer/guitarist and visual artist—formerly of American noise-pop legends Hüsker Dü—found an emotional outlet, positing his brilliant pop songsmithery towar ... More >>

Mission of Burma

The 10 Best Cover Songs Of 2011

Tell your children not to walk Wye Oak's way. ​2011 was a year of looking back relentlessly, whether you were awash in Remember The '90s nostalgia or getting down at a New Kids On The Block show or watching Lady Gaga try to bring back the variety-hour era with her whacked-out Thanksgiving spec ... More >>

Q&A: Sebadoh & Dinosaur Jr.'s Lou Barlow On '80s Hardcore, Signing With SST Records And How Evil J Mascis Used To Be

via Sub Pop RecordsSebadoh.​The staggering gamut of cred Lou Barlow boasts in the hardcore, post-punk, lo-fi and indie rock realms toes past the line of the ridiculous and the legendary. In the early '80s, Barlow obliterated his guitar in the cataclysmic Massachusetts hardcore band Deep Wound ... More >>

Q & A: Meat Puppets' Curt Kirkwood On Arizona Punk, SST Records, His Brother Cris Being Clean, And Not Making It Into Our Band Could Be Your Life

​The Meat Puppets' thirty-year journey can be divided into a trio of disparate trajectories: the mind-melting Deadhead-cum-hardcore desert-rock genius of their SST Records years (1982-89); the glossy, muscular grunge-lite of the successful major-label stint they enjoyed in the 90's (thanks in ... More >>

Q&A: Bob Mould On See A Little Light, Blowoff, Hüsker Dü And Being "Pretty Fuckin' Out" At 51

Brendan McWeeney​When Bob Mould—ex-"miserablist" and noise-pop architect behind Amerindie rock gods Hüsker Dü and alt-pop gurus Sugar, as well as under his own name—writes in his brutally honest autobiography tour de force See A Little Light of a revelatory moment in 1998 when he ... More >>

The Top 5 Moments From Taylor Swift's New Journey To Fearless DVD

​Early this year, Never Say Never took us backstage as teenpop heartthrob Justin Bieber worked his way to a sold-out Madison Square Garden tour finale, juxtaposing current success with clips of baby Bieber playing drums, doing cute things, and wowing crowds at Ontario open mics. Journey to Fea ... More >>

Live: They Might Be Giants And Patton Oswalt Cheer Up The Waterlogged At The Waterfront

They Might Be Giants w/Jonathan Coulton, Eugene Mirman & Pretty Good Friends Williamsburg Waterfront Friday, July 29 Better than: Funny you should ask. Around the 30-minute mark of the the heavens' continued urination on the gathered masses at the Williamsburg Waterfront on Friday, comedian Todd ... More >>

Live: Getting The Warm And Fuzzies With Dinosaur Jr.

Dinosaur Jr., Fucked Up, Off Terminal 5 Thursday, June 23 Better than: You and your friends sitting around, telling each other how much you appreciate each other. Keith Morris is a founding member of both Black Flag and The Circle Jerks, the co-author of a song called "World Up My Ass," and a pi ... More >>

Watch Videos From Last Night's Our Band Could Be Your Concert

Above, the ever-fierce Merrill Garbus (dba tUnE-yArDs) takes on Sonic Youth's "The Burning Spear" at last night's Our Band Could Be Your Concert, the multi-act musical tribute to the bridge between the DIY pioneers chronicled in Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life and indie acts of today. ... More >>

Q&A: Ted Leo, Dan Deacon And Wye Oak's Jenn Wasner On Our Band Could Be Your Life, Bus Tours And Cherished Cassettes

Ted Leo; Dan Deacon; Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak.​Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life is one of the definite accounts of the 1980's independent rock scene and the rise of alternative culture. But unlike many cultural historians, Azerrad has little use for nostalgia. When the Voice talked ... More >>

Indie's New Guard Celebrates Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life

His book mapped their lives

This Week In The Voice: Joey Ramone Celebrated, Indie Rock's Origins Saluted, And The Wonderful World Of Danzig

​This week in the print copy of the Village Voice, which can be found at a red newsbox near you: Peter Gerstenzang talks to the performers at Thursday night's celebration of Joey Ramone's birthday; Michael Tedder talks to Our Band Could Be Your Life author Michael Azerrad, whose history of the ... More >>

Ted Leo, Titus Andronicus, Tune-Yards, And Dan Deacon Lead Bonkers Our Band Could Be Your Life All-Covers Tribute Show

​This show is crazy: To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life -- an exhaustive history of '80s-indie giants from Sonic Youth to Fugazi to Black Flag -- the Bowery Ballroom is hosting a one-night-only parade of modern alt. superstars covering the bands ... More >>

Alex Chilton Tribute Roundup: The Rockers, The Critics, The Congressmen

With apologies to our own Rob Trucks, you ain't gettin' more surreal in terms of Alex Chilton tributes today than the above brief speech from Steve Cohen -- make that Congressman Steve Cohen, D-Tennessee. He quotes from "The Letter" and everything. Very sweet, very bizarre. But of course he's not ... More >>

The Top 10

Arguing about mellow indie rock, Lady Gaga, and the real grizzly bears

On Todd P's Unamplified Acoustic BBQ at Fort Tilden Beach on Sunday, From Which We Only Just Recovered

Todd P's Unamplified Show Acoustic BBQ Fort Tilden State Park Sunday, June 14 If the mind-melding absurdity of Sunday's unamplified acoustic all-day show at Fort Tilden National Park could be summed up in a scene, it'd have to be when Phosphorescent's Matthew Houck was in the middle of his gorgeo ... More >>

Jeffrey Lewis Can't Lose

Tales of (very minor) stardom with the anti-folk/comic-book luminary

Long Lost Fortress of Solitude Mix CDs Found, Replicated

The Millions posts listenable soundtracks (via Pandora radio) to three books: Legs McNeil'sPlease Kill Me (MC5, Stooges, Velvet Underground, Ramones, Sex Pistols), Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life (Mission of Burma, Minor Threat, Husker Du, The Replacements, Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfer ... More >>

Bob Mould

Rewriting History

These girl groups aren't everything they're cracked up to be, but Jen Trynin comes close

The Covers Album

Don't look back: From nostalgia-peddling dreck to sci-fi satire, the peril-fraught subgenre of the rockstar movie

Let's Run the Tape

A German TV network uses a marathoner to win the anti-convention footage race

Letters

Letters

Minstrels All

Getting Their Hands Dirty

Michael Azerrad Chronicles Indie Rock His Way