Over roughly the past decade, the most popular conversational topic among music fans living in Boise is how the city’s live-music scene continues to build in size and strength, attracting more national acts to perform here than ever before. Locals begrudgingly admit the growth is due to the influx of fresh transplants and the economic boon those newcomers have bequeathed to a city, even if it might forever be referred to as a merely “up-and-coming” place.
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With Nirvana’s In Utero celebrating its 30-year anniversary, check out my argument — itself three decades in the making — on why the band’s best record changed rock music forever. Read the treatise, accompanied by Anton Corbijn photos, on FLOOD.
If you check out this website, you probably know it’s almost exclusively focused on music. But we’re making an exception here, because Nicolas Cage is about as rock and roll as they come. (And, for the record, his characters actually do sing sometimes, too.)
When Cage legendarily shelled out millions, as if he were allergic to money, he bought dinosaur skulls, a two-headed snake, a haunted house and shrunken pygmy heads.
That’s pretty metal, in our book. Plus, if Cage can be a presenter at Revolver‘s Golden God Awards, he’s allowed to be part of the Bad Penny family.
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Bill Burr is splitting the Internet again. A bit about abortion on his latest comedy special, Live at Red Rocks, is tearing up social media. But, as usual, anyone shocked over the always-hilarious, always-controversial comedian is clearly not a fan.
In his latest special, Bill Burr closes by saying, “I know I said I lot of divisive sh– here tonight. So, before I get out of here, let’s bring the room together. It’s a very divisive time. Everyone wants to feel safe. Let’s do a nice, normal, mainstream topic so everybody can drive home happy, no fights. All right? Sound good? All right, great. Let’s talk abortion.”
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Almost eight years after Isis pulled back the curtain on what stands as their strongest release to date, Oceanic, debate over its lyrical content lingers like an ebbed wave on the shore. Continue reading
Eleven years ago, I studied for five months in Santiago, Chile. As part of my education regiment, I chose a class on the history of rock and roll. You might think that’s as much as a cop-out as taking a class in bowling or frisbee golf. But as someone who had mostly shunned classic rock till that point, I actually learned a lot. My teacher was obsessed with Deep Purple and Cream, and explained to us how Ozzy Osbourne was rock’s first psicótico.
I like to think I returned him the favor by teaching him a bit about Nirvana, of whom he wasn’t much aware, in my final paper. The self-generated topic: How Nirvana ushered indie-rock, rougher production values and anti-corporate attitudes into the mainstream with In Utero. El profesor told me I worked harder than any of his Chilean students in the class, and that I nailed the exam (70 out of 70), too.
These days, my Spanish is a bit rusty, so I couldn’t tell you what most of the paper means. But here it is for your archival viewing pleasure. PDFs are included in case the images are too taxing on yer eyes:
The Bad Penny (beta) 