Music Features

On May 16th, 1974, Ry Cooder and Leon Redbone wrapped up a gig at New York City’s Bottom Line, but the crowd was told to stick around for a surprise. It was 2:15 a.m., and a man with a guitar appeared onstage. “This one is called, um … this one’s …

The Philly-based band Big Nothing is something of a modern indie-rock supergroup, bringing together former members of Crybaby, Young Livers, Casual and Spraynard. But their sense of recent rock history can’t be denied. On “Carried Away” and other songs on their debut album, Chris, they adhere to what have become …

The Grateful Dead ceased to exist the minute Jerry Garcia died on August 9th, 1995, but they still had an enormous audience and the remaining members spent the next two decades trying to find ways to keep the music alive on the road. They called themselves everything from the Other …

Ryan Tedder has written songs for some of the most popular artists in the world: Beyoncé, Adele, Taylor Swift. Still, he’s never had an experience quite like the first time he hit the studio with Lil Nas X. “He was holding a bunch of horse balloons that his label had …

The set of Hadestown, the Broadway musical up for 14 Tony Awards on June 9th, incorporates wildly swinging lamps and a trap door that hurls people into the underworld. But as the show’s auteur, Anaïs Mitchell, demonstrates, the show wasn’t always so hi-tech. Putting down the iced beverage she’s sipping …

As the director of publicity and marketing at Payday Records in the early 1990s, Vikki Tobak worked with acts like Jay-Z and Gang Starr as they were beginning their careers. “There was this inflection point where hip-hop started to realize its power,” Tobak says. “[Artists] realized that images — what …

“It’s self-explanatory,” Wynton Marsalis says, pointing toward the papers in front of him. “Basically, if you look at what I wrote, that says everything you need to know.” The trumpeter had entered only about 30 seconds before, walking into a small conference room at the New York offices of Jazz …

It was sad but fitting that news of the passing of Gary Stewart, a bedrock force in the modern age of rock & roll reissues, broke on Friday morning, April 12th — 24 hours before the doors opened for this year’s Record Store Day. Because for Stewart, every day was …

Jenny Lewis’ stellar songwriting chops were visible back in 2001 on Takeoffs and Landings, the first LP by Rilo Kiley, the band she co-fronted with Blake Sennett. They’ve only grown stronger since — and as her take on the Traveling Wilburys’ “Handle With Care” proved, she’s got a way with …

Perhaps the best, and certainly the most weirdly-grooving of the four tracks Vampire Weekend have trickled out in advance of their forthcoming Father Of The Bride LP, “Sunflower” opens up with a swirl of tag-teaming guitar and bass runs, which are soon mirrored by wordless vocals. Internet guitarist-vocalist Steve Lacy …