melvins

From the Sonics to the birth of Sub Pop, this is the history of Pacific Northwest punk. See how the genre transformed over the years.

“When Damaged came out, it perfectly represented the depths and darkness of my particular teen angst,” Adam Grossman, guitarist for Angkor Wat, Skrew and Ministry, tells Alternative Press. “It was the soundtrack of my life at that point in time.” Any musician involved in the most extreme forms of musical expression owes their existence and […]

Despite the grousings of certain members of punk’s first generation, grunge most certainly earned its place on rock’s historical timeline, the perfect antidote to the cliche-ridden joke hardcore became fairly quickly: Everyone attempting to run the 100-yard dash in two seconds? Why not take a nice, leisurely stroll, instead? Most know that meat turns out […]

When it initially blasted into the world from New York’s Lower East Side almost concurrently with punk in 1977, it was dubbed no wave. Village Voice critic Robert Christgau referred to it as “skronk,” an onomatopoeia based around the general guitar sound. He uncharitably dubbed its ’80s practitioners “pigfucker” bands. This writer’s personal name for […]

“It should not take a bush league punk-rock musician to point this shit out,” announces punk icon Jello Biafra, born 62 years ago in Boulder, Colorado, toward the end of our three-hour conversation. And what “shit” would Jello Biafra be talking about? For a start, how about the Interstate Crosscheck program, voter fraud, the rise […]

Welcome to Alternative Press’ 15 best punk albums of 1989. It’s easy to look at the final year of the decade and see it as transitional. But there are portents of the future all over this list. Yet, truth be told, haven’t we seen that with all these lists? As we’ve worked on this series, […]

While most people associate Nike with basketball and hip-hop culture, they’ve taken inspiration from the extreme aesthetics of punk and metal, too. Sure, the Air Jordan 1 is the most recognizable shoe due to the mass association with rappers, but the company has been linked with metal for a long time. Look at any photo […]

Most of us already know that life isn’t about rainbows and unicorns. Nope. You can fall to your death sliding down a rainbow. You can get gored by a unicorn having a bad day. Life can be very sad, ugly and violent. And these 15 crime-inspired songs capture the essence of some of the worst […]

Curiosity about the human mind has led to a mass interest from people about why some decide to become murderers. Countless musicians have used the gripping stories of well-known serial killers for their songs. Whether they’re based on the infamous true crime accounts of notorious killers such as John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy and Jeffrey […]

Rock music is a full-contact sport. Sure, you can knock down your feeling of FOMO with the internet and your favorite device. But it’s never loud enough. It’s never in breathtaking detail. It’s never, you know, real. So when a band like searing noise-rockers the Jesus Lizard decide to get together, it feels like a […]

A show poster for sludge godfathers the Melvins seemingly presents a pretty grotesque illustration of late grunge paragon Kurt Cobain and his well-known widow Courtney Love, as pointed out by Consequence of Sound. See the image below. Read more: Courtney Love warned us about Harvey Weinstein The poster displays what appears to be the Nirvana […]

A trove of early Nirvana demo tapes has surfaced online, the late-'80s recordings of Kurt Cobain and co. being shared on YouTube by a musician who says they were personally given to him by the late frontman. Hear them below. Read more: Hear Nirvana's “Teen Spirit” as a pop-punk jam The four tapes' audio was […]

The Melvins will be embarking on a 51-date tour of the United States in an attempt to set a Guinness World Record for fastest tour of the US by a band. The group, who'll be performing with their Melvins Lite lineup of Buzz Osbourne, Dale Crover and Trevor Dunn, will perform a show in each […]