Red Hot Chili Peppers

The End of the Lower East Side's Last Great Rehearsal Space

Shit music in 17 keys

With "Jane Says," Jane's Addiction Wrote "Modern Rock's 'Free Bird'" (Or So Says Their Bio)

Back in 1991, Perry Farrell created the Lollapalooza Festival as a farewell tour for his then six-year-old band, Jane's Addiction, populating that year's outing with--besides Jane's--Nine Inch Nails, Ice-T & Body Count, Butthole Surfers, Rollins Band, Violent Femmes, and Rage Against the Machine, a ... More >>

A Look Inside Morrissey's Mind

A little while back, during one of his U.S. tours, we had the distinct honor of attending and photographing Morrissey in concert. He played mainly solo stuff, with a few Smiths nuggets mixed in, and we expect more of the same this evening when His Mozzer performs at Radio City Music Hall. Recently, ... More >>

Radio Hits One: Dan Wilson, Linda Perry, And Other Pop Footnotes Turned Hitmakers

It's a familiar scene to anyone who's seen VH1 programs like Behind The Music or Where Are They Now?, or the channel's endless lists of 'one-hit wonders' of the '80s and '90s: a musician whose brief fling with stardom is well behind them sits at the mixing desk of a studio, while the voiceover detai ... More >>

100 & Single: Gotye And fun. Help Alternative Rock Go Pop Once Again

Consider this six-pack of rock acts: Siouxsie and the Banshees, Big Audio Dynamite, the Psychedelic Furs, U2, R.E.M. and Julian Cope. My dream Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? Not quite—it's a list of the first six artists to go to No. 1 on the chart Billboard launched in the fall of 1988, then call ... More >>

Radio Hits One: Foster The People, Cage The Elephant Lead The Charge Of New "The" Bands

Back around 2001, a Transatlantic cabal of music critics led a media hype machine declaring that rock was "back." To further this thesis, it grouped together a disparate set of bands offering variations on the stripped-down "garage rock" template who were often cheekily referred to as the "The" Band ... More >>

The 11 Most Infuriating Songs Of 2011, No. 11: Kreayshawn, "Gucci Gucci"

​If 2011 had one takeaway, it was this: It's really, really easy to write a song that's by-the-numbers lousy. Rebecca Black's "Friday," the mushmouthed ode to getting down on the weekends, is a prime example; made on a budget, it nonetheless had enough brain-sticking properties to get inside t ... More >>

Radio Hits One: VH1 Takes On The '00s Pop Canon

VH1 spent last week counting down what the channel, and its panel of celebrities and "experts," consider The 100 Greatest Songs of The '00s. They certainly haven't been the first to assemble such a list—Rolling Stone and Pitchfork and every blog under the sun had their say about two years ago, ... More >>

Live: The Black Eyed Peas Grandstand, Survive The Rain In Central Park

The Black Eyed Peas The Great Lawn, Central Park Friday, September 30 Better than: Being kettled. Before Friday's Central Park show, the latest Black Eyed Peas news involved the group's announcement that they would be joining Christina Aguilera, Smokey Robinson, and Cee Lo Green on stage at a Mich ... More >>

100 & Single: Considering The Album-Chart Class Of 9/11, 10 Years Later

​A king of hip-hop, retaking the penthouse of the album chart with his latest blockbuster. A middle-of-the-road rock band, reviving a turn-of-the-'90s "alternative" sound that's now squarely mainstream. A sexagenarian legend who debuted in the '60s and who still captures Boomers' hearts and ... More >>

Live: Kreayshawn Lets V-Nasty Steal Her Show At The Highline Ballroom

Kreayshawn Highline Ballroom Thursday, August 18 Better than: no other concert I've ever been to, and I've been to a lot. Maybe Kreayshawn is hip-hop's Andy Kaufman, a high-concept satirist pulling an elaborate cultural prank with her sister V-Nasty acting as the crowd-baiting Tony Clifton. Maybe ... More >>

Live: Kreayshawn Hits The Box For Less Than 15 Minutes

Kreayshawn The Box Thursday, July 21 Better than: Not being in an air-conditioned room. Kreayshawn—an Odd Future outlier and Lil' B acolyte—has skyrocketed upwards since her arrival on May 16, 2011. In the immediate days after "Gucci Gucci" hit YouTube, she spent time in the studio wi ... More >>

Radio Hits One: The Foo Fighters Foster The Alternative Generation Gap

​ The Foo Fighters' seventh album Wasting Light became the band's first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 upon its release in April, following a mountain of pre-release hype that included some of the best reviews of the band's career, a documentary about the making of the album, and the inevitable pu ... More >>

Pitbull And Nas: Where They Are Now

by Ian Cohen Timothy Saccenti ​ This week's Voice takes a look at how Pitbull rode a bullish multimedia campaign to a level of chart success and celebrity that far exceeds what he accomplished during reggaeton's heyday. It's every bit as heartening as it is surprising. When you consider the ... More >>

Pyramid Club, 'The Birthplace of Drag,' Considered for Historic Landmark Status

​An area of the East Village bounded by East 2nd and East 7th streets between First Avenue and the Bowery, plus 10th Street on the north side of Tompkins Square Park, is being considered as a possible future East Village Historic District. Today, DNA Info reports that the area for possible lan ... More >>

Q&A: Titus Andronicus' Patrick Stickles On "Practical Righteousness," The Replacements' Goof Songs, And His Band's Our Band Concert Set

​Titus Andronicus frontman Patrick Stickles named his band after one of Shakespeare's most violent, least regarded plays. He writes songs named "Upon Viewing Brueghel's 'Landscape with the Fall of Icarus'." His band's most recent album uses the Civil War as a metaphor for political and persona ... More >>

American Idol: James Durbin's Not-Very-Good Voice Finally Leaves Us

Michael Becker/FOX​ Tonight, American Idol lost James Durbin. I was sorry to see him go, but only because his departure meant that we'll never get to see the live-TV Tourettic freakout that I was really excited about back when he first came into our lives. As it turns out, most people with Tou ... More >>

The Great 2011 Grammy Postmortem: Even If Arcade Fire Made It, "We" Probably Didn't (Right?)

This picture is from Arcade Fire's Tumblr, where it's captioned "Win jumping up and down, thanking the world." Because why wouldn't it be?​Radiohead may have already surpassed last night's Grammys as the au currant news of an indie-rock world that is all of a sudden drowning in good tidings, b ... More >>

Live: Rating Rock the Bells Sets From Slick Rick, Wu-Tang Clan, Lauryn Hill, A Tribe Called Quest, Snoop Dogg, and More

Oh, hey Q-Tip. All photos by Rebecca Smeyne.​On a sweltering Saturday, the seventh annual hip-hop nerd convention Rock The Bells took over Governor's Island. It's a place where people know to "throw a one in the air" for Guru before DJ Premier even asked, a place where you can overhear a convo ... More >>

How to Fix the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Tips on how to expand its reach—or blow it up entirely

On the Jovial Ferocity of Future of the Left

Definitely the most gleefully hostile band at Siren

Laura Peterson Rides Lumberob’s Beats; Tiffany Mills Stretches Tomorrow’s Legs

Game Rebellion Party for Their Right to Fight

Brooklyn crew's furious rap-rock taps a new, fresh vein of gangsta militancy

Picking Apart Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III, Part 3

Bate and Switch

The audience-antagonizing joy and terror of the defiant, ridiculous Mars Volta

What the CIA Had to Destroy

The many reasons this torture evidence was too hot to handle

Prodigy's Unlikely 25th Hour

The Wu-Tang Clan's 8 Diagrams: A Preview

Pharrell and Twista Discover Baltimore Club

Generally Inhospitable Hospital

Supreme discomfort (and love, and togetherness) fills the racks of the East Village's finest noise-rock palace

Things I Learned Watching Cam'ron's Killa Season

MF Doom: Worst Rapper Ever?

Apocalypse Then

Patti Smith revives Horses on stage and disc to honor its 30th anniversary

Shell-Toed Superstar

Nas, Missy Elliot, and the Beasties celebrate the redesign of the Run D.M.C. Adidas

Film

Not Hop, Stomp

Romeo's Tune

Irony is Hell

Punks in the Hall

The Ramones and Talking Heads Battle Their Way From CBGB to Cleveland

Heard It on the X

There Is No Such Thing as Nü Metal, and It Has an X-Tremely Funny Face

Rock 'n' Rai

Music

The 1999 Pazz & Jop Critics’ Poll

Driven To Not Drink

Politics of the pit

African Connection II

Politics of the Pit

Where Do We Go Now? The Aftermath of Rapestock

Fresh Horses and Vegemite

Chillin' With Uncle Sam

Feds to Teens: Just Say No, Dude

Nothing's Shocking