Wilco (Band)

GUITAR HEROES

Shahzad Ismaily teams up with three guitar greats

Phosphorescent - Bowery Ballroom - 4/18/13

Spacing Out With Karlheinz Stockhausen, Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Nico Mulhy

Space was the place for a pair of stellar yet utterly different multimedia works that enjoyed their New York premieres this week. Way Uptown, installation artist Rirkrit Tiravanija transformed the Park Avenue Armory into a sternly minimalist lunar viewing station for Karlheinz Stockhausen's eight-ch ... More >>

Five Splendid Pairings For the Adventurous Winter Jazzfest 2013 Attendee

In her autobiography I Put a Spell on You, Nina Simone recalled the Greenwich Village of the '50s and '60s as a scene where beboppers, folkies, blues devotees and bohemians of all stripes would seek out their music in close proximity. Decades later, Winter Jazzfest takes stock of a new historical mo ... More >>

The Least Likely Music Headlines of 2013

For the last six months, the Sound of the City Supercomputer (a 1998 Compaq Presario) has been analyzing the structure and content of every pop news headline in the world in order to create a highly detailed predictive model of the music industry. While this project has important practical uses, suc ... More >>

Summer Music Guide: Death Grips' Disappearing Act

Musical Line-Up Announced for the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party -- Free Concerts!

Today the musical line-up for this year's Big Apple Barbecue Block Party was announced. The event -- the 10th annual -- takes place this year on Saturday, June 9 and Sunday, June 10. Three bands will be playing each day, and the music, if not the barbecue, is free. The Block Party takes place in Ma ... More >>

Q&A: Mike Watt On Snapping Pics In San Pedro For on and off bass, The fIREHOSE Reunion, And Playing Stooges Covers

For the past three decades, the flannel-flyin' and econo-jamming godhead Mike Watt has staunchly adhered to his and late, great best friend and fellow Minuteman D Boon's credo "punk is whatever we made it to be while projecting an air of sincerity that is just plain righteous. And in all of Watt's p ... More >>

Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo Unveils a 30-Years-in-the-Making Solo Debut

Lee is free

Q&A: Dave Shuford On The Bargain Bin, Writing Urban Country Music, And His New Band Rhyton

Dave Shuford has been ingrained in the New York City soundscape for decades as part of the experimentalist collective mutants No Neck Blues Band, which ruled both downtown's now-departed avant-garde roost The Cooler and their Harlem practice pad the Hint House. In recent years, less activity on th ... More >>

Confuse the Market: Post-Crossover, Indie Retreats

Six Songs Michele Bachmann Could Have Signed Off With That Weren't Train's Beejers-And-Burning Man Ode "Hey, Soul Sister"

After a dismal showing at yesterday's Iowa caucuses, one-time Republican Presidential front-runner and "interesting person" Michele Bachmann announced today that she was ending her campaign to be sworn in as Commander-in-Chief next January. Once the brief press conference disseminating the news ende ... More >>

Animal House: Matt Damon Needs Your Love in We Bought a Zoo

Oh, don't be such a cynic

Rhett Miller

Holiday Guide: Yo La Tengo Celebrates 10 Years of Hanukkah Miracles

Next year, in Hoboken

Live: Tinariwen Get Down To Business At Webster Hall

Tinariwen w/Sophie Hunger Webster Hall Saturday, November 19 Better than: Contemplating Gaddafi's other legacies. When Tinariwen leader Ibrahim Ag Alhabib comes out after a few songs sung by bandmate Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni, he shatters any notions of an international cool barrier. Maybe it's ... More >>

Justin Vernon Announces New Bon Iver Album

​If you had asked us after 2007's For Emma, Forever Ago, or even after 2009's auto-tune adorned EP, Blood Bank, we probably would have told you Bon Iver would be crazy to put out an album during the summer. Justin Vernon had made a name for himself by capitalizing on heartbreak, exorcizing awa ... More >>

Southern Soul Guide: Sweet Angel, Mel Waiters, and Luther Lackey

A pack of thoroughly modern throwbacks

In Praise of Bill Frisell, Nels Cline, and the Graceful Despair of Marc Ribot

Winter Guide: Iron & Wine Hop on Pop

Your fake name is good enough for him--Sam Beam chats about his new album

Q&A: Radiohead Drummer Phil Selway On Why He Made A Solo Album (And Why It Came Out On A Plain Old Record Label)

Kevin WestenbergMore than happy to outsource the drums for this one​Almost exactly a decade ago, the purring electronics of Kid A threatened to marginalize real-life Radiohead drummer Phil Selway's role in the band he'd initially co-founded in name of alt-rock--the sort of alienated-by-technol ... More >>

The Latest M.I.A. Mega-Profile Fixates On Ice Cube (?) Instead Of Truffle Fries

​One thing rings very true after reading Gary Shteyngart's GQ profile of M.I.A.: Neither the magazine nor the interviewer had any interest in giving her the Hirschberg, as it were. Gary Shteyngart--the much-lauded young writer releasing his third novel next month--brings up Maya's relationship ... More >>

Everyone Is Trying To Impersonate Craig Finn All Of A Sudden

​Yes, America, someone has started a fake Craig Finn Twitter feed. Results thus far are a bit uneven (boooooo), but the Hold Steady frontman certain has a vivid style to play with -- what the Times' Ben Ratliff describes, in his review of the band's new record, Heaven Is Whenever, as "typicall ... More >>

Is This the Infamous "Mike's Apartment," aka New York's Newest Hotspot?

​Earlier this morning, Gawker introduced the world to "Mike's Apartment," the supposed newest addition to the NYC nightlife scene. In a "reasonable-sized studio/loft downtown somewhere," goes the joke, the city's fashionable elites are gathering, fleeing the depredations of the Box and the shu ... More >>

On NYCTaper and the Proud, Obsessive Lineage of Local Audio Hoarders

Thanksgiving Playlist 2009: 100-Plus Songs Better Than Your Grandma's Lumpy Squash

Two years ago, William Bowers compiled this playlist. Any further additions? This holiday's abstract mandate can be sorta barren for us patriotically-challenged atheist vegetarians who maintain cosmic equidistance from our bloodkin. The term for it is even weird: "Thanksgiving" is a syntactical c ... More >>

In Defense of Pearl Jam's Backspacer

Seattle's second-favorite sons gamely redefine their Target audience

News Roundup: Them Crooked Vultures, Miley Cyrus, the Walkmen, Yellow Submarine Remake

​--Them Crooked Vultures surprised fans by playing Belgium's Pukkelpop music festival yesterday (check out fan reports here). The band played the second stage between sets by Beirut and Wilco. The night before, the Dave Grohl/Josh Homme/John Paul Jones supergroup played their second gig at a s ... More >>

Brightening the Brilliant Corners

Marco Benevento plumbs jazz and pop, wild improv, and sweet melody

Ugly, Dirty, Redundant, and Toxic

Tales of disgust, depression, and ballot regret we're already feeling

Spacey dudes from nowhere get high and indulge

David Vandervelde's The Moonstation House Band and Richard Swift's Dressed Up for the Letdown

Sliptease

Post-jam auteurs struggle to find themselves; their fans know the feeling

Dissonant Odes to a Jazz Piano Great Push the Edges but Preserve the Melodies

Chelsea Mourning

Nightclubs get the whip, but the cabaret law is still kicking

Looking for Blind Joe Death

Earthly appetites: The brilliant and curious career of steel-string demigod John Fahey

Three Times a Crybaby

Here's more non-bad publicity for a guy who never sees it that way

Extraordinary Machines

We didn't get what we wanted but we haven't entirely lost what we had

The Naked and the Cred

Filler Bummer Hummers in the Hot White Summer With a Midlife Diplomat

Don't Lick His Queen

The Lactose-Intolerant Detective; Trio's Honky-Tonk Blues

Outdoor Concerts & Music Festivals

Letters

Jammed for All Time

The Improvisational Rock Scene Isn't Just for Hippies Anymore

Sonic Euthanasia

Letters

Live and Erect

Rock And Rap Shows Bed-Spring Into Action

Roto-Roots Rock Flushes Your Troubles Down the Drain

Jazz's New Wing

A Terrible Beauty

Songs for Woody