little richard

Welcome to Alternative Press’ 10 best punk vocalists of the ‘10s. As we noted when counting down punk’s greatest guitarists of this period, the genre was 35 years old in 2010. Punk rock had a history and a tradition by now, as well as a rule book it was never supposed to have. Which, of […]

Elvis Presley portrayed by actor Michael St. Gerard performing “Baby Let’s Play House” in 1955 in the 1990 ABC TV series “Elvis”: Rockabilly is the original punk rock, from back in the dawn of rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s. Nothing is more rebellious and life-affirming than some greasy hillbilly gittin’ real, real gone on […]

Rock ‘n’ roll had, for the most part, lost its “roll” by 1970. It became rock music—self-serious, dour, pompous, filled with pretensions to being “art.” It ceased being fabulous teenage noise, filled with Chuck Berry’s playful swagger and Elvis’ hypersexualized pelvic thrust and rebel sneer. Kids wanted something loud and flashy, full of energy, something […]

Kid Congo Powers has been one of punk rock’s most valuable players since 1979. That was the moment when boho poet/Slash journalist/Blondie fan club president Jeffrey Lee Pierce handed an open-tuned electric guitar to the Ramones fan club president, who’d previously been one of the suburban teenage habitues of influential local DJ Rodney Bingenheimer’s storefront […]

When the ball dropped in New York City’s Times Square at the stroke of midnight Dec. 31, 2009, punk rock had been around 35 years. (Or 33, depending on if you date the subculture from when the Ramones began playing gigs or from the mythic Punk Year Zero of 1977.) It was well into its […]

There are three types when it comes to songs in feature films: The first is the song that you just know isn’t only going to be nominated for an Academy Award but in all likelihood will win it; the second is the song that’s snubbed by the Academy in a year jam-packed with standard Oscar […]

Sylvain Sylvain Mizrahi—born in Cairo, Egypt on Valentine’s Day, 1951—died Wednesday, losing a battle with cancer. He was 69. You knew him as Sylvain Sylvain, or Syl Sylvain, the corkscrew-haired guitarist bopping at stage right in vintage videos of punk-rock architects the New York Dolls. “As most of you know, Sylvain battled cancer for the […]

Each year comes with loss and change. 2020, in particular, has been one with an overwhelming amount of grief. It’s hard to know what to say when you lose people you admire, whether you know them personally or were inspired by the art they created. Hold the people you care about close and thank them. […]

Jordan Benjamin is at a point in his career where he can be honest about his influences. Yes, his debut full-length and conceptual introduction as grandson, Death Of An Optimist, gave the music industry a shake upon its arrival on Dec. 4. And surely a lot of it was born out of him searching deeper into […]

Richard Wayne Penniman, known to the greater world as Little Richard, died this morning at his home in Tennessee. He was 87. With a bevy of hit singles, Richard sealed his history as a rock ‘n’ roll icon just as the nascent genre was starting to take shape. Little Richard’s singles are crucial to the […]