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Among the brilliant first four Talking Heads albums, More Songs About Buildings and Food has always been a dark horse candidate for the all-around greatest. Released 47 years ago this month, it sounds more electable now than ever. With its lean muscularity, panic-attack propulsion, weird ambiance, highwire anxiety, paranoid prescience and formal coherence, it comes across as the Sgt. Pepper of media-age alienation.

That alone would merit a shout-out for More Songs About Buildings and Food (Super Deluxe Edition), yet another super-sized major label classic album vault-scraping. But there’s context,...

King Crimson are recording their first new album since 2003’s The Power to Believe. Vocalist/guitarist Jakko Jakszyk revealed that recording was underway in a new interview with Goldmine.

While Jakszyk couldn’t give a timeline of its completion, he did state that the album will feature King Crimson’s most recent lineup of Jakszyk, Robert Fripp, Mel Collins, Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto, Gavin Harrison, and Jeremy Stacey — the ensemble having most recently performed and toured together in 2021.

“As we speak, we’re doing a King Crimson studio album,” said Jakszyk, who joined King Crimson in 2013. “When that will come out and what format or how — that’s beyond my brief. But yeah, we’ve been doing it piecemeal, and then a couple of months ago, the management said, ‘Can we?’ So, yeah. I’ve been recording that with a view to it coming out in some format at some point.

When Soul to Squeeze arrives on Amazon Prime on 10 July it offers more than a conventional thriller. The film charts the experience of Jacob Stafford, played by Michael Thomas Santos, who volunteers for an experimental therapy aimed at curing his psychological distress. Viewers follow Jacob into a fragmented reality that unfolds within a single location. A house conceals a tunnel into his subconscious mind.

Director and writer W.M. Weikart framed the project around a gradual transformation of aspect ratio. The screen begins in a boxy 4:3 format and widens throughout the story to a full 2.35:1 by the final frame. This technical choice echoes Jacob’s own expanding perception as he confronts memory lapses, distorted time and unsettling revelations.

Weikart is no stranger to visually inventive work. His previous credits include the official music video for “Wasteland” by New Originals, featuring Daru Jones, Adrian Belew and Jerry Harrison, and the animated short Yellow,...

Beat, the supergroup celebrating ’80s King Crimson, have announced a new live album, Beat Live, out September 26th. The track “Neal and Jack and Me” can be streamed now.

The release captures Beat’s 2024 concert in Los Angeles — previously the focus of a livestream performance — along with additional recordings from the band’s massive North American tour last fall.

The outing saw classic King Crimson members Adrian Belew and Tony Levin teamed with guitar virtuoso Steve Vai and Tool drummer Danny Carey. Taking their name from the seminal 1982 King Crimson album, Beat revisited the progressive rock band’s output during that decade, specifically 1981’s Discipline, the aforementioned Beat, and 1983’s Three of a Perfect Pair.

Belew reflected in a press release: “You’re walking on stage with three virtuoso musicians, world class professionals who have seen it all but are still having fun playing this music which is timeless and...

For more than a decade, heritage rock artists have been juicing their live shows by recreating their vintage albums start to finish. That list includes Neil Young (Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere), Bruce Springsteen (The River), U2 (The Joshua Tree), Sonic Youth (Daydream Nation), and Steely Dan (every one of their records). This fall, Patti Smith joints the list when she’ll be playing all of Horses to mark its 50th anniversary. An entire Canadian company, Classic Albums Live, is devoted to this trend, with a group of largely unknown musicians covering all of Rumours,...

Beat, the supergroup celebrating ’80s King Crimson, have announced a livestream of their upcoming concert in Los Angeles on November 10th.

The gig falls amidst the band’s massive Fall North American tour, which continues Wednesday (October 30th) in Indianapolis and runs through December 18th in Highland, California (get tickets here).

Get Beat Tickets Here

For those unable to attend those dates, the L.A. livestream is an ideal way to experience Beat from the comfort of your own abode. The group features classic King Crimson members Adrian Belew and Tony Levin alongside guitar virtuoso Steve Vai and Tool drummer Danny Carey. Taking their name from the seminal 1982 King Crimson album, Beat revisit the progressive rock band’s output during that decade, specifically 1981’s Discipline, the aforementioned Beat, and 1983’s Three of a Perfect Pair.

“The 1981 through 1984 King Crimson created a music all its own,” commented Levin in the initial tour announcement.

Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox offered up a Halloween edition of their “Sunday Lunch” series over the weekend. The video features the married couple performing a cover of the David Bowie classic “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps).”

The King Crimson guitarist and the new wave singer have mostly been posting archival “Sunday Lunch” episodes in recent months, but the Bowie cover is a brand new performance. In the video, both Fripp and Toyah wear makeup inspired by the Scary Monsters album cover, with Toyah looking eerily similar to Bowie.

Get Beat 'King Crimson' Tickets Here

Aside from the makeup, Toyah sports a black blazer with nothing underneath, singing the 1980 song as Fripp plays guitar. The video wraps up with Robert saying in a creepy voice, “Welcome to Toyah and Robert’s scary ‘Sunday Lunch,'” with Toyah playfully kissing the prog-rock pioneer on the side of his head.

New editions...

Tool famously kept their music off digital platforms until finally making their catalog available to streaming services in 2019 upon the release of their latest album, Fear Inoculum. Looking back, singer Maynard James Keenan feels it was a big “mistake” for the band not to embrace the digital revolution earlier.

In a new conversation with rock personality Allison Hagendorf (watch below), the Tool vocalist was asked about the band’s decision to keep their music strictly on physical formats while most other music acts readily made their music available on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.

Get Sessanta V2.0 Tickets Here

Keenan emphasized that it wasn’t his choice to do so, insisting he had wanted to the band to go the digital route for 20 years, and that his bandmates finally “caved.”

“I feel like we missed the boat. Like it started with downloads, you know, 24 years ago,” Keenan told Hagendorf,...

Legendary bassist Tony Levin, best known for his work with King Crimson and Peter Gabriel, has announced the new album Bringing It Down to the Bass. The LP features contributions from Robert Fripp (King Crimson), Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater), Vinnie Colaiuta, and more.

The album arrives via Flatiron Recordings on September 13th, one day after Levin kicks off the highly anticipated “Beat” tour celebrating the music of King Crimson with Adrian Belew, Danny Carey, and Steve Vai. According to Levin, the album is a long-time coming, as he’s been working on a number of the songs for years, if not decades.

Get Beat Tickets Here

“It could have been done a long time ago, frankly,” Levin said in a press release, “but it’s because of a problem I have, which is a very good problem to have. And that’s that I have a lot of touring and...

Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, Danny Carey, and Steve Vai — collectively performing under the supergroup name Beat — have extended their Fall 2024 North American tour celebrating the music of King Crimson with an additional 21 dates “due to overwhelming demand.”

The tour originally was scheduled to run from a September 12th show in San Jose, California, through a November 10th gig in Los Angeles. Now, an entire new leg has been added, running from November 18th in Thousand Oaks, California, through December 18th in Highland, California. Newly added cities include Seattle, Brooklyn, St. Louis, and San Antonio, among others.

Get Beat Tickets Here

An artist pre-sale for the new dates starts today (June 25th) at noon Et / 9 a.m. Pt using the code Beattour via Ticketmaster. Fans can also look for deals or get tickets to sold-out dates via StubHub, where your purchase is 100% guaranteed through StubHub’s Fan Protect program.

The tour...

Rock’s friskiest couple Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox are back with a brand-new edition of their “Sunday Lunch” performance series. This time around, the King Crimson guitarist and the new wave singer deliver a lickin’ good version of the Iggy & The Stooges classic “Search and Destroy.”

Sporting matching mohawks, the married pair pay homage to the godfather of punk, Iggy Pop, with a playful rendition of the Raw Power tune. Robert plays the song’s iconic guitar licks while Toyah sings and dances seductively around her husband. It all culminates with Toyah slowly licking the side of Robert’s face.

The ever-youthful Robert and Toyah just celebrated their 78th and 66th birthdays on May 16th and May 18th, respectively. They’ve been entertaining fans with their “Sunday Lunch” series for four years now.

‘Search and Destroy” follows performances of blink-182’s “Dammit,” Beastie Boys’ “(You Gotta) Fight for Your...

In an era where music production is often tempo’d to a click track, Tool remain steadfast in keeping their rhythm tracks as organic as possible.

Drummer Danny Carey revealed that the band has never recorded to a click, explaining why Tool opt for an old-school “live in the studio” approach to recording drums in a new interview with YouTuber Rick Beato (as transcribed by Metal Injection).

“We go to a big room to capture the drums… We’ll go to a place like Ocean Way or O’Henry — someplace that has a million dollars worth of microphones and a big beautiful room,” Carey said. “And then, our goal is just to capture the drum tracks, and we all play together. We’ll agree on a tempo, and we’ll start a click in our heads. And then, as soon as I count it off, we’re just playing.”

To be fair,...

Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, Tool drummer Danny Carey, and guitar virtuoso Steve Vai, performing under the moniker Beat, will celebrate King Crimson on a Fall 2024 North American tour.

The extensive trek kicks off September 12th in San Jose, California, and runs through November 8th in Las Vegas. In between, they’ll play shows in Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, Atlanta, Charlotte, New York, Toronto, Nashville, Minneapolis, and beyond.

Get Beat Tickets Here

An artist ticket pre-sale is already under way using the code Beattour, and general ticket sales start Friday (April 5th) at 10 a.m. local time via Ticketmaster. Fans can also look for deals or get tickets to sold-out dates via StubHub, where your purchase is 100% guaranteed through StubHub’s Fan Protect program.

The tour will see the all-star ensemble — guided by King Crimson members Belew and Levin — reinterpret three of the band’s ’80s albums: Discipline, Beat, and Three of a Perfect Pair.

King Crimson’s beloved Eighties albums Discipline, Beat, and Three of a Perfect Pair will be brought back to life in the fall on a special tour featuring guitarist Steve Vai, Tool drummer Danny Carey, Crimson singer/guitarist Adrian Belew, and Crimson bassist Tony Levin. The Beat tour kicks off September 12 in San Jose, California, and wraps up November 8 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Ticket sales begin April 5.

Crimson founder Robert Fripp reanimated King Crimson in 1981 after a seven-year hiatus. The only member from the Seventies version he brought back into...

After 21 years of bitter estrangement, Talking Heads have agreed to come together for the first time since their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But don’t get overly excited. They aren’t booking a reunion tour or a headlining slot at Coachella next year. Instead, they will appear together at a 40th-anniversary screening of Stop Making Sense at the Toronto International Film Festival. Spike Lee will moderate a post-screening Q&a.

Talking Heads haven’t played a full concert together since the end of the Speaking...

Back in January, Les Claypool announced that he’d be taking his Fearless Flying Frog Brigade on their first tour in 20 years. The musician is keeping the reunion excitement going even further with additional 2023 shows through October.

Claypool and company are already in the thick of their previously-announced 42-date trek, which wraps up in Phoenix on July 15th. The Frog Brigade will get things going again in Oakland on October 11th, making stops in cities including Albuquerque, Denver, Chicago, and Cincinnati before the finale on Halloween in Nashville.

The Frog Brigade touring lineup includes Claypool on bass, Sean Lennon on guitar, Harry Waters on keys, Paulo Baldi on drums, Mike Dillon on percussion, and Skerik on horns. Each night, the band’s set will feature a performance of Pink Floyd’s Animals in full, reprising the Frog Brigade’s rendition of the LP that was included on 2001’s Live Frogs Set 2 recording.

The 2023 installment of the “Celebrating David Bowie” tour has been rescheduled after vocalist Peter Murphy underwent an “an unexpected medical procedure.”

An announcement on Murphy’s Instagram confirmed that the Bauhaus frontman’s recent unspecified procedure “prohibits his ability to travel as planned” but “he is recovering well, will fully recover, and be ready to tour the US with the group this Fall.” The post also listed several “initial” dates that had been moved to October and November, while also noting that all tickets purchased for the previously announced shows will be honored at their new corresponding date.

The revised run now kicks off in Tacoma, Washington on October 10th and concludes in Cincinnati on November 22nd. The updated itinerary also suggests the singer will be returning even stronger with more cities, including Chicago, added to the ensemble’s tour stops. Check out the full live stretch below.

Tickets for...

David Bowie’s archive of more than 80,000 pieces was gifted to Britain’s Victoria & Albert Museum, the London institution announced Thursday, according to AP.

The vast archive contains costumes, photos, letters, musical instruments, and more from the musician’s estate and will be on display in 2025 at The David Bowie Centre for the Study of Performing Arts in Stratford. The new building, which was also unveiled today, is an extension of the V&a’s East Storehouse and is being built on the site of the 2012 London Olympics.

The...

Bauhaus singer Peter Murphy will front a David Bowie tribute tour kicking off in April 2023.

“Celebrating David Bowie” is an annual tour conceptualized by Angelo “Scorte” Bundini. This year’s outing will “interpret Bowie’s greatest hits with a special emphasis on Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust proto punk era, his Berlin trilogy records, and his later Trent Reznor infused years.”

Alongside Murphy and Bundini, the 2023 touring lineup features Adrian Belew (King Crimson), Royston Langdon (Spacehog), Matt McJunkins (A Perfect Circle), Jeff Friedl, Ron Dziubla, and Eric Schermerhorn.

“This new show represents two sides of Bowie,” explained Scorte (via Rolling Stone). “With Peter Murphy, we have the dark baritone shrouded in mystery and wonder. With Adrian Belew, the tuneful tenor gleefully singing Bowie favorites while delivering the otherworldly guitar playing he is revered for.”

Check out the full tour schedule below; on-sale ticket information is still forthcoming.

Celebrating David Bowie 2023 Tour Dates:

04/05 – Houston,...

The Bauhaus reunion tour of 2022 may have imploded after a mere 13 shows, but frontman Peter Murphy will be back on the road in April to front the Celebrating David Bowie tour alongside guitarist Adrian Belew, Spacehog’s Royston Langdon, a Perfect Circle bassist Matt McJunkins, guitarist Scrote, Devo/A Perfect Circle drummer Jeff Friedl, saxophonist Ron Dziubla and guitarist Eric Schermerhorn. It kicks off on April 4 in Houston, Texas, and wraps up on May 8 in Tacoma, Washington.

“Such a surprise to be invited to celebrate Bowie in this outing, and alongside a great lineup,...

Toby Amies on Robert Fripp and In the Court of the Crimson King: King Crimson at 50: “It’s an interrogation into what I find around me and the circumstances in which I find myself and especially the relationships that I observe and I’m involved in.” Photo: Toby Amies

Toby Amies’s perceptive and imaginative In the Court Of The Crimson King: King Crimson At 50, captures the essence of the individual current and former members of King Crimson through candid and forthcoming on-camera interviews, sound checks, and the cost of being on the road. The director pulls the curtain back with precision to give us a distinctive look into Robert Fripp the master himself, the groups leader and disciplinarian.

Toby Amies with Anne-Katrin Titze on In The Court Of The Crimson King: King Crimson At 50: “I was in a very interesting position making this film because on the...

By 1983, the original Star Wars trilogy had space-docked, and George Lucas began thinking about alternative entertainment delivery systems for the galaxy far, far away. His first TV movie, Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure (1984), was such a hit with kids, ABC secured the rights to two animated series. Star Wars: Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3Po and its sister series The Ewoks and Droids Adventure Hour are set between the events of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. They were designed to capitalize on the characters’ popularity with children. The best way to start is with catchy tunes.

The subject came up when Copeland spoke with Den of Geek last year about Under the Volcano. Gracie Otto’s documentary is about Beatles producer George Martin’s Air Studios Montserrat, where Synchronicity sessions ultimately troubled the Police’s future. Copeland calls “Trouble Again,” the song he...

The Celebrating David Bowie tribute tour is headed back on the road this fall with a lineup that includes Todd Rundgren, Adrian Belew, Spacehog’s Royston Langdon, Fishbone’s Angelo Moore, and Jeffrey Gaines.

“David Bowie was a master,” Langdon says in a statement. “It’s impossible to put into words quite how much he taught me. It gives me a huge thrill to get to honor Mr. B. & to be a small part of this immense celebration of his life & work with these world-class musicians and everyone, who like...

At one point during In the Court of the Crimson King, a new doc about mighty prog institution King Crimson, former drummer Bill Bruford zeroes in on the core philosophy of the band and its founder, guitarist Robert Fripp. “Change is essential,” says Bruford, who now resembles a pithy, distinguished university professor. “Otherwise, you turn into the Moody Blues, for heaven’s sake.”

Starting in 1969, no one ever confused King Crimson with the far more radio-friendly Moodies. In 2019, the latest incarnation of Crimso, still fronted by Fripp, embarked on a 50th-anniversary tour,...

Can a band that seems to operate under rigidly precise conditions that can appear joyless from the outside still produce music that sparks spontaneous ecstasy in listeners? That’s the sort of question that might not seem unusual if it were a classical ensemble we were talking about, or the ballet. But in a new documentary about the group King Crimson, it’s legendary guitar player Robert Fripp, as tough a taskmaster as anyone in the so-called finer arts, who’s keeping the musicians in his hire perpetually on pointe.

“In the Court of the Crimson King” is really about as good as rock documentaries get, in capturing the essence of a group of musicians and how they relate to each other, the world and a muse whose demands result in literal and figurative calluses. That doesn’t mean that King Crimson is the kind of Everyman group whose struggles...

An upcoming documentary will provide a rare look at the inner workings of King Crimson, one of rock’s most respected but also mysterious bands. Titled In the Court of the Crimson King, after the group’s legendary 1969 debut, the film will premiere at South by Southwest this March, and a new trailer is available to view now.

As seen in the trailer, the film follows the most recent incarnation of King Crimson, a three-drummer “double quartet,” on tour in 2018 and 2019. We see intimate, fly-on-wall footage of the band onstage,...

Under Friday evening’s full moon at FloydFest, rock icons Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew stood on the festival’s main stage with funk/soul act Turkuaz and launched into a 40th-anniversary ode to the Talking Heads’ groundbreaking album Remain in Light. As the two men tore into the classic “Once in a Lifetime,” strangers and friends alike reveled in the celebratory feeling of finally being back together.

“Music feeds something about the human soul, human nature, and people,” Belew told Rolling Stone backstage. “It makes people feel better about themselves,...

Oysterhead, the eclectic musical collective of Trey Anastasio, Les Claypool, and Stewart Copeland, will headline the 2021 Peach Music Festival. After the pandemic canceled the 2020 fest, the Peach, founded by members of the Allman Brothers Band in 2012, returns to Scranton, Pennsylvania, over Independence Day weekend.

This year’s festival dovetails with the 50th anniversary of the Allmans’ seminal live document At Fillmore East, released July 1st, 1971. The Peach will celebrate the album with a tribute set featuring various special guests.

The legacy of the Allman Brothers is well represented on the Peach lineup,...

There is no such thing as a casual Frank Zappa fan — it’s an all-or-nothing proposition. (Really, there’s no such thing as a casual Frank Zappa listener, period: You either immediately recoil from his grandiose, often goofy odes to dancin’ fools and yellow snow, self-promoting pimps and and S&m aficionados … or you end friendships arguing over which bootleg of his Over Nite Sensation ’73 shows is the best.) And on a scale from one to plays-in-a-Joe’s-Garage-cover-band, we’d put Alex Winter’s level of worship somewhere near an eight.

As part of our newly updated survey of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, we’re publishing a series of pieces on the making and impact of key records from the list. Talking Heads’ Remain in Light came in at number 39.

When Talking Heads entered Nassau’s Compass Point Studios in the summer of 1980 to begin work on Remain in Light, they were barely on speaking terms and had just a single song, “I Zimbra,” in any shape to record. Years of inter-band squabbles had caused frontman David Byrne to...

Charli Xcx, Laura Jane Grace, David Lynch and more will appear during Bonnaroo’s 2020 Virtual Roo-Ality festival, streaming September 24th through 26th on YouTube.

The event will boast a mix of original programming, new performances and a handful of classic sets from the Bonnaroo archives, including the full-length streaming premiere of what turned out to be the Beastie Boys’ final live show at Bonnaroo 2009. A complete schedule will be announced soon.

Artists set to partake in Virtual Roo-Ality include Jamila Woods, Ashley McBryde, Nathaniel Rateliff, Denzel Curry, Tank and the Bangas,...

Earlier this week, we spoke to Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club drummer Chris Frantz about his new memoir Remain in Love. It’s a fascinating book that explains how the Talking Heads rose out of the Cbgb scene in New York City to become one of the most innovative bands of their era, though it ended all too soon when frontman David Byrne decided to take the band off the road in 1984 and end it forever seven years later.

Their 1983–84 Speaking in Tongues tour — which was captured in the...

Reading a Bonnaroo lineup is like slowly strolling through and all the way down the looking glass — the familiar big-name headliners giving way to a mix of special performances and a broad array of up-and-comers from across the globe and musical spectrum.

The 2020 lineup is no different: Lizzo, Tame Impala, Tool, Miley Cyrus, Bassnectar, Lana Del Rey, Vampire Weekend, DaBaby and Young Thug are among the artists who got top billing this year, while the biggest “surprise” headliner award may go to Oysterhead, the jam supergroup of Trey Anastasio, Les Claypool and Stewart Copeland,...

The Bonnaroo lineup dropped this morning and it’s pretty short on classic-rock acts unless Tool and Oysterhead now fall under that banner. But buried on the fifth line of the Friday section is the news that Turkuaz featuring Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew will perform the 1980 Talking Heads masterpiece Remain in Light. The funk band has been working with the Talking Heads guitarist for a number of years, and they’re gigging all over America this year to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the album.

“It’s been a...

Lizzo, Tame Impala, Lana Del Rey, Tool, Miley Cyrus and Vampire Weekend will headline the 2020 Bonnaroo festival.

Primus, Brittany Howard, Bassnectar, the 1975, Run the Jewels, Flume, Oysterhead, Tenacious D, Leon Bridges, Young Thug and Grace Potter also lead the the 19th annual event, which runs Thursday, June 11th through Saturday the 14th in Manchester, Tennessee.

Tickets — including general admission, VIP and Platinum options — go on sale Thursday, January 9th at noon Et via the Bonnaroo website.

The lineup will also feature Glass Animals, Young the Giant, Dashboard Confessional, Megan Thee Stallion,...

Although it may not be obvious from her intricate art-rock albums, Annie Clark, a.k.a. St. Vincent, is a huge Metallica fan. In fact, they inspired her to pick up a guitar in the first place. Clark was a 10-year-old violin player in Dallas when she first heard Metallica, and she immediately tried to play their heavy melodies on her instrument.

“I was like, ‘The violin fucking stinks,’” she says. Clark switched instruments and even played bass in a Metallica cover band as a teen. So she was psyched...

In this second installment of our two-part deep-dive into the history and influence of King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man,” we look at how various lineups of the band have made the song their own, and how it’s inspired artists from the worlds of prog, metal, punk, hip-hop, and beyond during the past half-century. To read the first part — in which members of the original King Crimson look back on the writing of “Schizoid Man,” and contemporaries recount its initial impact onstage and on LP — click here.

“21st...

At a lengthy press event held at London’s October Gallery in April, King Crimson leader Robert Fripp kept coming back to a few interrelated themes: how happy he was with the band’s current lineup and how — maybe for the first time in Crimson’s 50-year history — outsize egos are entirely absent.

“No one has an agenda,” he said of the seven-member group that will play more than 50 shows this year starting June 10th. “Alternatively expressed, there are no prima donnas in this band.”

Speaking with Rolling Stone in...

For the third year in a row, veteran members of various David Bowie’s backing bands are hitting the road to play music from his vast catalog. This year’s incarnation of the A Bowie Celebration tour is lead by Spiders From Mars keyboardist Mile Garson (who played with Bowie from 1972 all the way to his final live appearance in 2006), guitarist Earl Sick, bassist Carmine Rojas, multi-instrumentalist Mark Plati and guitarist Charlie Sexton along with vocalists Bernard Fowler and Corey Glover.

The setlist switches a bit from show to show,...

Last year’s self-titled LP recast Dirty Projectors as Dave Longstreth’s one-man-avant-pop-band. This suggested two possible blueprints going forward — the other branded on 2009’s Bitte Orca by the gorgeously ping-ponging vocals of his former bandmates Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian. For Lamp Lit Prose, Longstreth melds both strategies in a flood of ideas and magnificent vocal arrangements. The results are by turns dazzling and exhausting.

Partly it’s is an issue of balance. The best moments of Bitte Orca and Swing Lo Magellan are at core collective. Here, the spotlight stays on Longstreth,...

Alan Baraillaro has worked with Pixar for over ten years and is now nominated for his animated short film, Piper. Short but very sweet, Piper delivers a charming dialogue-free tale...

It’s been almost a year to the day since we lost David Bowie, but the rock icon and beloved creative force is still foremost in the minds of those who knew and loved him best. As Billboard reports, on Sunday evening, some of those people — including fans, friends and even former bandmates — gathered together to celebrate what would have been Bowie’s seventieth birthday for a three-hour charity concert at London’s Brixton Academy. It was an appropriately rocking and raucous event.

The show was hosted by actor (and close Bowie pal) Gary Oldman, who took the stage not only to emcee the event, but to rock out to a few of Bowie’s classics, including “Sorrow” and “The Man Who Sold the World.”

Read More: David Bowie’s ‘No Plan’ Music Video Is a Posthumous Tribute to the Departed Space Oddity — Watch

Oldman was joined by other luminaries and performers,...

Greg Lake, the pioneering prog rocker known for his work with King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, passed away Tuesday at the age of 69. Lake’s career spanned a wide chunk of 20th century, and he was active through many major — and important — phases of rock and roll and pop music. Let’s take a look at how his artistry evolved.

1. The Shame, “Don’t Go Away Little Girl” (1967)

Lake picked up the guitar at 12 and played through school, after which he joined The Shame and was featured prominently on their single “Don’t Go Away Little Girl,” which was...

“Well… how did I get here?” – David Byrne, “Once in a Lifetime”

On a sunny July day, I traveled east of Los Angeles proper to the San Gabriel Mission Playhouse, while Talking Heads lyrics ran through my head. IFC’s “Documentary Now!” was shooting a parody of the band’s iconic film “Stop Making Sense,” and invited fans and reporters to don their best ‘80s attire and be the live audience for their spoof concert film.

Read More: ‘Documentary Now!’ Season 2 Trailer

Directed by Jonathan Demme, “Stop Making Sense” was released in 1984 and has been touted as one of the greatest concert films of all time. Lead singer David Byrne’s big white suit, the on-stage minimalism, the driving setlist and special guest performers had a cumulative effect of creating an eclectic yet energetic narrative. Watch a trailer for the film below:

Before the big performance, “Documentary Now!” star/co-creator...

Seconds Before Landing: The Great Deception (Sbl)

First, let me say that, setting aside a quibble or two, this is almost certainly my favorite album of 2013. And that has less to do with any specific personnel, "song," or individual aspect of the album than it does with the fact that the old adage "they just don't write 'em like that anymore" does not apply here. This is a "progressive" album in every sense of that term, and is somehow able to both evoke the heyday of a particular genre of progressive rock (i.e., have a certain "timeless" quality to it) and to be both timely and relevant in the present.

The primary writer here is John Crispino, about whom little seems to be known except that he is a "composer and musician." (He plays drums, keyboards, and percussion, and provides most of the vocals.) He is joined by a distinguished group of musicians,...

As a passionate fan of Trent Reznor's music for nearly a quarter-century, I knew this review would be quite an undertaking, but now the time has come to step up and swing. My initial thrill came early this year, when Nine Inch Nails' founder announced that his legendary band would not only be returning to the stage in 2013 after a four-year hiatus (and five years away from the studio), but had already been at work on the new album Hesitation Marks, so the excitement and anticipation was understandably high. The title, which refers to the tenuous flesh wounds made by someone contemplating suicide, suggested we were about to visit another very dark corner of Reznor's psyche – an idea reinforced by the return of mixed media artist Russell Mills, who created the cover for the band's darkest, most emotionally devastating album The Downward Spiral. But then came that inevitable...

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

It’s been a little over five years since the last release by Nine Inch Nails, but Hesitation Marks is well worth the wait. Now married, a father of two, and an Academy Award winning composer, Trent Reznor returns with not only a new album, but a new outlook on life. In between the release of 2008′s The Slip and now, Reznor found himself composing the score for David Fincher’s film The Social Network. During that time, he had announced that Nin was through touring and that he was stepping away from the music scene for a while. After scoring Tsn, he formed the band How To Destroy Angels with his wife Mariqueen Maandig, and collaborator Atticus Ross. The Htda project had Mariqueen at the forefront both on the album and via live shows and had a distinct sound that kept it separate from Nin.

Nine Inch Nails has revealed the track listing for “Hesitation Marks,” out Sept. 3. In addition to first single, “Came Back Haunted,” the rest of the titles hint at the sense of restless discontent (to put it mildly) the group is known for, including “The Eater of Dreams,” “Disappointed,” “All Time Low,” “Various Methods of Escape,” and “Black Noise.” Nine Inch Nails head Trent Reznor produced the album with his composing partner Atticus Ross and Alan Moulder. Among the guests are Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham, bassist Pino Palladino, and guitarist Adrian Belew, who dropped out of the band, according to Rolling...

Only a day after the announcement of a new album, a new song, and a new, huge North American tour seemed to indicate that everything within the reformed Nine Inch Nails was looking as optimistic as things within in a dark, goth-industrial band possibly can, now comes the news that Adrian Belew is already out. The King Crimson guitarist played a crucial role in the band getting back together in the first place, with Trent Reznor saying he’d been inspired to “re-think the idea of what Nine Inch Nails could be” after the two considered collaborating on something else ...

As Nine Inch Nails mounts their comeback, the band's longtime fans are being hit with the holy grail of updates: We now have a new song, an album title and a plethora of tour dates.

The totally revamped rock band -- which will now feature Eric Avery of Jane's Addiction, Adrian Belew of King Crimson and Josh Eustis of Telefon Tel Aviv alongside original members Trent Reznor, Alessandro Cortini and Ilan Rubin -- has unveiled "Came Back Haunted," the first Nin single since 2008's "Discipline." The song will feature on the upcoming album "Hesitation Marks," slated for a Sept. 3 release and labeled "frankly f—ing great" by Reznor in a press release.

Nine Inch Nails will also hit the road on a massive world tour with Explosions in the Sky and Godspeed You! Black Emperor on hand to open. It's the first set of concerts since 2009's Wave Goodbye Tour...