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20 Hilarious (And Often Adorable) Photos of Debauched Rock Stars With Cute Kids

By Tom Hawking on

Many awesome Stooges-related things have come out of the last week or so, not least the band’s new album (which is actually quite good) and their killer performance at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge. But perhaps most awesome of all is the photo that’s been making the rounds of Iggy clutching two kids in junior versions of his trademark sequined jeans. They look terrified, he looks delighted, and the whole thing is many kinds of awesome. So, in a similar spirit, here’s a selection of other debauched rock stars with cute kids. You’re… Read More

Music

The Unread Biographies of Famous Musicians

By Tom Hawking on

Late last week, we read with interest in the NME that Nick Cave the musician was exhibiting at Grand Central. How was it, we wondered, that it had escaped our notice that Cave was working on an immersive site-specific sculpture featuring dancing horses? Happily, over the weekend we did some research and brushed up on our Cave biography, along with that of some of our other favorite musicians. Read on, and learn some things that you’ll never have imagined could possibly be true! … Read More

Music

Fascinating Photos of Great Musicians’ Earliest Musical Endeavors

By Tom Hawking on

Everyone has to start somewhere, and all that. We’re always fascinated by the idea of looking into the history of our favorite artists, be they musicians, writers, filmmakers or whatever else, and as such we found ourselves seeking out the earliest musical endeavors of some of our favorite musicians. We thought we’d share some of the fruits of our searching with you — fascinating photographs of famous musicians in the earliest stages of their artistic… Read More

Celebrity

10 Profane Pearls of Wisdom from Nick Cave’s SXSW Panel

By Jason Bailey on

AUSTIN, TX: Just as his Tuesday morning “conversation” panel at SXSW was beginning, singer/songwriter/author/screenwriter Nick Cave looked down at the bank of snapping photographers in front of the stage and asked, not unreasonably, “Are you guys gonna be doing that the whole fucking time?” He then came up with a solution: “Shall we do that now, and then we’ll talk?” So he and his moderator, writer Larry Ratso Sloman, spent a minute or so animatedly posing for photographs (the images here were taken during that portion). And then they got down to business, discussing his influences, biography, and theories on writing. … Read More

Music

The Most Beautiful Song Lyric Tattoos We’ve Ever Seen

By Tom Hawking on

Song lyrics are clearly a popular choice for tattoos, but the vast majority of lyrical quotes are pretty much plain old script tattoos. We have nothing against this, but it’s interesting to see tattoos where lyrics are combined with an artistic flourish, so we’ve gathered some examples of truly beautiful work that we thought we’d share with… Read More

Music

Embracing the Absurd: Nick Cave and Growing Old Disgracefully

By Tom Hawking on

“All that’s sacred comes from youth,” sang Eddie Vedder way back in 1995, and whatever your views on the merits of Pearl Jam’s music, there’s rarely been a more succinct summation of rock ‘n’ roll’s constant obsession with youthful vigor and the next big thing. Ever since its earliest days, rock music has been an art form based around mythology of iconoclasm and rebellion, its history laden with periodic revolts against the old and declarations of some sort of cultural year zero when everything is new again.

This, of course, raises the question of what happens when rock ‘n’ roll’s protagonists get old. We’ve been thinking about such things this week with the arrival of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ new album Push the Sky Away, a record that continues Cave’s latter-day obsession with being rock ‘n’ roll’s dirtiest older man. … Read More

Music

The Enduring Mysteries Behind 10 Great Love Songs

By Tom Hawking on

A few weeks back, we looked at the true stories behind some of our favorite love songs. It’s always fascinating to hear a definitive account of what inspired one of your favorite tunes, but it can be equally enthralling to try to puzzle it out on your own. And, of course, in some cases that’s all you can do, because it may well be that the songwriter in question isn’t providing any answers. So it goes with these tunes, which are all the more fascinating because of the mystery surrounding exactly who they’re about. … Read More

Music

The 10 Albums You Need to Hear in February

By Tom Hawking on

Right, so January is over and done with, and it’s time to get back into the usual music industry swing of things (at least until everyone goes to get wankered at SXSW, anyway.) There are plenty of decent records to be heard in February 2013, so without further ado, here is our regular monthly roundup of the albums we reckon are going to be worth hearing over the next four weeks, from brainy electronica to decidedly brainless sea shanties, with a whole bunch of other stuff in between. If there’s anything we missed, do feel free to take to the comments section and let us know! … Read More

Music

Crazy Musical Instruments Made from Household Objects

By Tom Hawking on

We were fascinated to see a new video from The Creators Project recently — it explores the work of South Korean artist Viktor Jan, and specifically a home-made Traktor controller he’s made that starts or stops various loops as you put them in and take them out of a kitchen saucepan. The device blurs the line between art and utility, but it does call to mind all the weird and wonderful ways you can make music if you step outside the idea of using the same prefabricated instruments that everyone else does. Here are some other weird and wonderful homemade instruments — some are used by famous musicians, and others are pleasantly bizarre YouTube discoveries. … Read More

Music

The Real-Life Stories Behind 10 Famous Love Songs

By Tom Hawking on

This week sees the release of the new solo album from Christopher Owens, formerly of Girls and now of lovelorn solo balladeering endeavors. The album’s called Lysandre and is particularly notable for being based around a narrative thread about Owens’ love affair with the girl of the same name. The story behind the record is an interesting one, and it got us thinking about the real-life stories behind some of our other favorite love songs, and we’ve related a selection of the best of them… Read More