the velvet underground

It’s often difficult to figure out an artist’s true identity at face value. Press interviews and social media offer a more transparent lens into the worlds of our favorite artists. Even so, the bigger — and more complicated — picture can often remain out of view. Because these intimate yet truthful depictions of our favorite […]

There are a lot of people out there who know what punk rock is but have no idea how to explain it to a novice or an outsider. It would seem simple enough to define it as “three-chord teenage rebel music,” but what about all those songs that have four or more chords? Or all […]

“People were commenting about this one photo I took of Marginal Man that was in the inner sleeve of their record [Identity, Dischord Records, 1984],” mused veteran Washington, D.C. punk/alt-rock photographer Jim Saah via telephone. He was reflecting on an exhibit at D.C.’s Lost Origins Gallery celebrating his new book In My Eyes: Photographs 1982-1997 […]

Two U.K. televisual musical moments from the turn of the century, both involving stripped-down young rock ‘n’ roll bands: First up, the White Stripes on long-standing U.K. pop showcase Top Of The Pops, in February 2002. “Fell In Love With A Girl” began its chart-shaking international climb, and Jack and Meg White entered English living […]

September 1963: A young R&B combo called the Rolling Stones are rehearsing, preparing for a recording session. Their manager, former Beatles publicist Andrew Loog Oldham, was tearing his hair out. They were about to record their second single, a follow-up to their modestly successful remake of Chuck Berry’s “Come On.” But they had one problem: […]

Alternative Press’ native home of Cleveland, Ohio, stands alongside New York City and London as one of punk’s birthplaces. Yet, few outside of U.K. music journalist Jon Savage, in his crucial ‘70s punk history England’s Dreaming, acknowledge this. But how could Cleveland—a torched-and-trashed post-industrial landscape by the ‘70s, famed for the Cuyahoga River being so […]

A greasy R&B riff rips from the speakers, coated in more fuzz than a peach orchard wearing a 50-year-old wool sweater. A singer with a sneer that could wilt Elvis’ upper lip indicates he’s gonna tell you a story about his town. He snarls about hanging out by the notoriously polluted Charles River, “along with […]

Welcome back to AltPress Weekly. It’s hard to believe we’re already at our fourth installment of our weekly roundup, which gathers up everything we want you to check out. Each week, we showcase longtime favorite tracks and brand-new cuts. We also focus on all the things happening at Alternative Press, as well as the latest […]

Lester Bangs, the greatest rock journalist ever, felt eternal Lower East Side musical royals the Velvet Underground were “our Beatles and Bob Dylan combined” and that “modern music begins” with them. He wasn’t wrong. They existed only for a handful of years—1965 to 1970. But five years was enough for them to create virtually everything […]

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 […]

Record stores are magical places. A good, well-stocked and curated record shop with a knowledgeable staff can influence tastes, expand horizons and serve as the hub for a local musical community. It can be a community center, a place to meet with your friends, promote your band’s upcoming shows by hanging up flyers, even sell […]

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 […]

As we exited the ’90s and entered the new millennium, pop divas, prefabricated boy bands and rappers bragging about conspicuous consumption and how poorly they treated women ruled the airwaves. Meanwhile, what passed for “rock” was the white guys who beat you up in high school P.E. class who’d discovered hip-hop and figured it’d sound […]

Akron, Ohio born and bred Christine Ellen Hynde has led the Pretenders from the top of the charts since the band’s debut single, a 1979 rethink of Ray Davies’ “Stop Your Sobbing” that killed the Kinks’ 1964 Mersey Beat-ish original on contact. Sort of a spiritual big sister to Joan Jett, she led that gang […]

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 […]

Oftentimes, there simply isn’t a guitar chord ugly enough to convey what you want to say. And that’s why we have noise-rock glory. Sometimes torturing a guitar just sounds better than happily strumming it. This fact has been proven time and time again. And in 2020, these 10 noise-rock tracks were built to defy your […]

Dave Navarro and Billy Idol's Billy Morrison have banded together to present a new mental health awareness show called 'Above Ground.' The charity event will benefit the Recording Academy's MusiCares Foundation, and will feature special guest performances from Corey Taylor, Courtney Love and more. Read more: Movements, Halflives, more discuss mental health in the music industry […]

[Photo by: The Velvet Underground/Facebook] Last month marked 50 years since the Velvet Underground released their monumental second album, White Light/White Heat. Issued Jan. 30, 1968, the six-song cornerstone of lo-fi, experimental proto-punk did little (commercially) for the band upon release, but formed long-lasting waves of influence in the budding worlds of punk, noise, indie […]

[Photos by: finnwolfhardofficial/Instagram, The Velvet Underground/Doug Yule/Facebook] Last night in Brooklyn, Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard's band, Calpurnia, performed an epic cover of a classic the Velvet Underground track. Check out the video below. Read more: Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard’s band, Calpurnia, are recording an EP The Vancouver-based band performed at Rough Trade NYC, playing […]