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Mike Watt Reflects on D. Boon's Death and How Thurston Moore Helped Him Cope

Stephen Lovekin, Getty Images Mike Watt has been pounding the bass for more than 30 years as a founding member of the Minutemen and Firehose while collaborating with acts as varied as Sonic Youth and the Stooges. Now, as the punk stalwart reaches middle age, his new project brought him all the way back to the beginning. "They asked me to ...

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Social Distortion's Mike Ness Loves 'Tearing Down' Punk Stereotypes -- New Video

Peter Wafzig, Getty Images Mike Ness has spent over 30 years refining his vintage punk sound. With the band Social Distortion, the veteran songwriter forged a unique brand within the genre that borrowed from the guitar gods of his youth. The process all started back in the heyday of punk. "By the mid-80s, at least in Los Angeles or the ...

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Elbow's Guy Garvey Gets Tea-Time Songwriting Pointers From Peter Gabriel

Simone Joyner, Getty Images After more than 15 years together, Elbow were launched into the mainstream of British rock with their album 'The Seldom Seen Kid,' which won the Mercury Prize in 2008. But when lead singer Guy Garvey set out to write the next chapter, he wanted to revisit his roots. "We think of ourselves as music lovers before ...

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Sebadoh Mull New Album While Dinosaur Jr. Take the Anti-Pixies Reunion Route

Roger Kisby, Getty Images When discussing the origins of the modern lo-fi movement, Lou Barlow's name is sure to come up. By fronting the influential indie group Sebadoh and playing bass for Dinsosaur Jr. with J Mascis, he has cultivated this now-trendy genre through hours of four-track recordings since the early '80s. Nowadays, he admits he ...

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Black Lips Say They're 'GG Allin Light,' Credit Him for Bodily-Fluid-Filled Shows

Beryl Fine Throwback garage rockers Black Lips decided to class it up a bit on their new album, 'Arabia Mountain,' and work with producer Mark Ronson. But the mirth and mayhem that usually surrounds the band may have infected the superstar producer -- literally. "Yeah, we all got very violently ill," Black Lips singer Cole Alexander tells ...

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Battles Carry On as a Trio, Condemn 'Ridiculous, Boring' Math-Rock Label

Gino DePinto, AOL Battles came together in 2002 as a veritable super group of seasoned musicians and veterans of the '90s avant-rock and hardcore scenes. The original lineup included Ian Williams from Don Caballero, drummer John Stanier of the pre-grunge band Helmet, Dave Konopka of the spazz-rock group Lynx and multi-instrumentalist and ...

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Cults Band Together to Sample Religious 'Crazies' for Self-Titled Debut

Columbia Music fans were atwitter when Cults first posted a few songs on the Web about a year ago. At the time, the duo of Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin were just film-school students experimenting with music, but their un-searchable name and eerie, ethereal pop tunes quickly garnered plenty of buzz. The songs were a mix of '60s ...

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