The important question about Ian Curtis is not so much "why?" as "who?"  What bizarre concoction of humanity led to that pale glare through sad eyes, that earnest intensity, that rigor-mortis twist, those haunting, opaque lyrics? I didn't get the answer from Anton Corbi...

Typically, I leave the wacky, zany 50s/60s-style rock 'n' roll nostalgia to my colleagues on and off the air, but this LP, which originally belonged to my Mom, has had a substantial impact on my life and the lives of those I've shared it with.  Terry Folger in particular was obsess...

More and more, Black Metal (and its many assorted sub-sub-genres) pushes my other musical interests out to the periphery—aggressive little fucker that it is.  As I get older, I get narrower, rather than more open-minded; you figure out what you like and you roll with it, I guess.  Will...

The ground is covered with a layer of snow, under that a slippery-thick layer of ice, and North Jersey looks about as much like the suburbs of Stockholm as it's ever going to.  When I think of Sweden, I think of thrashy, amphetamine-charged Death Metal, monumental acid rock, and Liv Ullman...

One would be hard pressed to think of a more contraindicated name for a Black Metal band than Lifelover.  This Swedish band, however, seem to have made very few decisions based on genre convention:  their logo is readable, their sleeve artwork conveys a thoughtful, artsy melancholy (with...

(also see my music list below the fold) Year-end top-ten lists can be so...contemporary.  We have over a half-century of television, nearly a century of film, and centuries of art and music to explore and discover.  When faced with the staggering maw of creative history, whatever jazzed yo...

Everyone that I've ever met from Sydney has been pretty badass.  They're tall, sturdy, a little bit streety, a little bit nuts, will party you under the table and fuck you 'til you're exhausted (as applicable.)  My old Australian girlfriend Nicole would never sniff drugs; she went straight...

I'd been waiting anxiously to see director Koen Mortier's Ex Drummer , ever since this tantalizing review appeared in the pages of Film Comment earlier this year.  The film is nothing short of an inescapable rush of insanity and brilliance, setting a new high bar for nasty, cutting-edge cinema....

[one mp3 below] Tommy N. was a friend of mine in junior high school.  I say "friend," though in my weakness and ignorance I picked on Tom, at least verbally, as the pecking order in our school dictated that I was a dork, though somewhat less of one than Tom was.  His hair was gre...

Steve M.'s house was the party house.  Through Steve and his sister J., a wildly diverse collection of disenfranchised suburban teens and twentysomethings had gathered there, some from "broken" homes, some runaways, some kicked out—others just looking for a good place to party. ...