6.5.2012

On the cusp of their 30th anniversary, the Godfathers of Grunge are too busy for nostalgia trips Inside Atlanta’s The Loft—a barely lit, industrial concrete rectangle of a rock club—the Melvins strut...

About 10 years ago, when Rodney Crowell started the memoir that would be published last year as Chinaberry Sidewalks, he was talking about the challenges of writing prose with his pal Mickey Raphael,...

No one could be blamed for missing them. With their nondescript Montegut, La., headquarters housed in an antiquated wooden warehouse behind a battered old gas station, there was little to identify the...

In the summer of 2010, a group of Russian spies were arrested in their homes across the United States. This is a true story, albeit one that seems to belong to an era at least 30 years dead. When the...

I make the following argument knowing full well that it’s in vain. Music is going digital, and there’s nothing I can do about it. In the future most music will arrive via downloads or more likely will...

As a member of the Wolfgang’s Vault family, Paste has access to a rich archive of historic audio interviews from a variety of sources. Many of these interviews have never existed in text form. Our...

If there was ever a fitting time for The Beach Boys to throw in the towel, it was 2011—following the release of The SMiLE Sessions, the landmark, oft-bootlegged leftovers from Brian Wilson and...

Regina Spektor songs typically either leave you weeping in the fetal position or running for the door. The Russian-born NYC singer-songwriter just has that effect on people: She’s a skilled pianist...

Rarely does a debut album feel like home, but on Difficulty, Big Science’s first full-length, the Chicago band communicates a certain Midwestern displacement, a gentle-jangled despair coming from...

New York’s Liars have the much-coveted ability to hop between genres without sounding overextended or plagiaristic. Since their dance-punk debut They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on...

“Any ol’ shmuck can be a rockstar,” Alex Ebert of Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros once said. And in a sense, that’s probably true. While any ol’...

Rhett Miller’s solo career actually goes back farther than his nearly two decades as frontman for the Old 97’s. The songwriter’s 1989 debut Mythologies is a pubescent preamble to Stewart Ransom...

When you think about it, it’s kind of absurd that The Hives are even still around at this point. The Swedish garage-punk band’s fantastic breakout record, Veni Vidi Vicious, dropped in 2000, after...

For a decade now, The Walkmen have cultivated a distinct sound. Paul Maroon, Walter Martin, Matt Barrick, Peter Bauer and Hamilton Leithauser consistently produce albums with a mix of jangly post-punk...

With a brazen swagger drawn from Alejandro Escovedo’s punk roots, the 61-year-old songwriter/yowler declares, “I can take a punch, I can take a swing…” on Big Station’s opening “Man of the...

I wish The O.C. was still airing for a myriad of reasons, including Kirsten’s perpetually worried face and Ryan’s short-lived choker. Another is that so the closing track, “Surfing the Human Heart,”...

Rock ‘n’ roll has been inspired by crazier things than a Mother Teresa quote, to be sure, but the Rocketboys aren’t really about crazy. On their latest album, Build Anyway, the guys are about...

Only Neil Young could take the campfire chestnut “Oh, Susannah” and turn it into something that demands The Frug. But Young opens Americana, his...

In 2004, the Zach Braff film Garden State turned The Shins’ first record into a “life-changing” phenomenon. Since then, numerous film’s soundtracks have tried to recreate that rom-com/indie-pop...

When Dick Clark died a few months ago, one of the most widely-circulated videos posted in his honor was a clip of Public Image Ltd.‘s 1980 appearance on American Bandstand. The group performed...

With Hogan, “Pain” worth the wait When Kelly Hogan’s last solo record was released, Ground Zero was still smoldering in Manhattan. More than a decade has slipped by since then, but in the meantime...

About five years ago, Oren Peli took a moderately clever idea and executed it moderately well, giving birth to the unlikely and lucrative Paranormal Activity franchise. Now, for his first feature...

As crowd-pleasing as it is irreverent, France’s box-office smash The Intouchables, about a quadriplegic aristocrat and his ex-con caretaker, arrives stateside with an American remake already in the...

If the works of Jay and Mark Duplass boast a visual trademark, that trademark would be the “punch zoom.” In pertinent moments throughout all the Duplass films, starting with their mumblecore debut The...

Somber, thoughtful, elegiac, Oslo, August 31st asks why life is worth living when it’s been squandered. It’s not as if the main character, Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie), has had the most difficult...

Joe Fine, the central character in the family drama Mighty Fine, is a tragic figure. He’s a seemingly successful businessman (played by Chazz Palminteri) who uproots his Jewish family from Brooklyn to...

Police officers in the Child Protection Unit lead incredibly difficult lives and operate much like a dysfunctional family. At least, that’s what Polisse, the winner of the Jury prize at the 2011...

“The Samaritan” is a con, the signature grift of career criminal Foley (Samuel L. Jackson) before the cruel personal and professional consequences of his partner’s debt and greed land Foley in jail...

Walk into any comedy club or check out any sitcom, and at some point, a guy will question a woman’s sanity. Women and men both dismiss it as lighthearted fun, but what if there existed a world where...

There would seem to be plenty to get excited about in Derick Martini’s second feature film, Hick (based on the novel by Andrea Portes). If the plot is not especially enticing (a young girl from a hick...

When NBC announced that Awake would only receive one 13-episode season, I’ll admit to being pretty disappointed. Awake is, in my opinion, the best drama to come out the 2011-12 season on television,...

The final episode of Modern Family’s third season had a number of surprises for viewers, not the least of which was an added element of pathos with Mitchell’s and Cam’s struggles to adopt a second...

I thought The Walking Dead wasn’t coming back until October, but the zombies are on the march once again. Poor Sam, who’s afraid of his father, his own shadow and girls, bears witness to the army of...

Synthetic electronic sounds / Industrial rhythms all around.When I first met Dance Dance Revolution producer Naoki Maeda he explained to me why his popular toe-tapping videogame featured hyperactive...

Bee LeaderPlatform: iOSDeveloper: FlightlessRelease Date: 5/24/2012Price: $0.99 Repetition isn’t usually the kind of thing we look for in games. Just when we thought technology was getting us to the...

French philosopher Paul Valery once said “The future is not what it used to be,” and he died in 1945, before the introduction of such world-changing inventions as the atomic bomb and the electric...

Having just won Group of the Year at the 2012 Juno Awards and New Group of the Year in 2010, Hamilton, Ontario-based indie rockers Arkells plan to spend their spring and summer touring around North...

It’s hard to believe Ben Kweller is only 30 years old, since he began playing in his band Radish back in 1993 and just released his fifth studio album, Go Fly a Kite. And how he manages to channel the...

With eight people in the band, it’s no surprise to hear that River City Extention’s upcoming album, Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Your Anger—recorded over 25 days in Chicago and due out June 5—is a...

With Idle Warship, Talib Kweli and Res continue a longstanding collaboration that dates back more than a decade. Res, a Philadelphia neo-soul singer in her own right, has worked with Kweli on every...

When Rich Aucoin takes the stage, he doesn’t just perform. He promises that you won’t forget his name by the time he’s done with his unforgettable act. The Nova Scotian artist is an infectious...

“That Wasn’t Me,” a track off of Brandi Carlile’s forthcoming album Bear Creek, summons goosebumps upon listening to a stripped-down, haunting song. The Washington-based singer/songwriter calls it “a...

After a warm introduction from Bill Graham, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers took to the Winterland stage the night before the revered venue would be closed forever with a capstone set by the Grateful...