Tagged: michaelazerrad

One of the most interesting new music-related websites to emerge of late is the Talkhouse , a site based around the idea of musicians writing about other musicians. It's already hosted some fascinating writing — who wouldn't want to read Laurie Anderson on Animal Collective, or JD Samson on Bat for Lashes? — and there's the promise of more to come, with a new piece published every day. The Talkhouse is edited by Michael Azerrad, who wrote the fantastic Our Band Could Be Your Life , as well as [...]

Photo via Under The Radar . Music writer and author Michael Azerrad has written a piece for Billboard in which he discusses what he sees as the current state of music writing. Specifically, he talks about how world of music criticism and journalism (he's quick to draw an important distinction) has been affected by the rise of the internet. In the column, the renowned journalist and Nirvana biographer argues that since the Internet has given anyone with an ethernet cable the ability to be a [...]

It's World Book Day today, but the last thing you need to read (ha!) is another tedious article about how The Dirt is great (and Nikki Sixx has shat all over its legacy with the nonsense that is The Heroin Diaries , FYI) or how insightful the now 15-years-out-of-date The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell is. No, we harangued the TH editorial team for our picks of slightly less obvious picks. -- Top 6 Books about ROCK that aren't the bleeding obvious [...]

Pensavamo che una delle cose migliori da fare per chiudere il 2011 fosse una lista di libri, senza graduatoria, semplicemente io, Emiliano ed Irene abbiamo messo su il nostro contributo dei libro del 2011 che ci sono piaciuti di più. In calce ad ogni post c'è la firma del colpevole della scelta. Il tempo è un bastardo di Jennifer Egan (A Visit from The Goon Squad) Questo è un libro che va letto prima che diventi - come annunciato - una serie tv della HBO. I capitoli [...]

Ted Leo , tUnE-yArDs , Dan Deacon and many others paid tribute to '80s punk icons featured in Michael Azerrad's book "Our Band Could Be Your Life." For many, including myself, Michael Azerrad's "Our Band Could Be Your Life" is as close to a rock and roll bible as any book has ever come. Azerrad's work — a collection of stories about '80s punk icons Black Flag , Minor Threat, Sonic Youth , Minutemen, Dinosaur Jr , Fugazi, [...]

"I was born in this town / live here my whole life / probably come to die in this town" Eilen New Yorkin Bowery Ballroomissa juhlittiin Michael Azerradin 10 vuotta täyttänyttä, hienoa Our Band Could Be Your Life -kirjaa. Nykypäivän indietähdet (mm. Dirty Projectors, Ted Leo, Titus Andronicus, Dan Deacon) tehtävänä oli coveroida kirjassa käsiteltyjen bändien musiikkia. Annie Clark/St Vincent otti käsittelyyn Big Blackin ja tuotti tylyäkin tylymmän version Kerosene -kappaleesta. Näin sitä pitää! [...]

Click here to view the embedded video. Titus Andronicus opened up their set of Replacements covers at the Our Band Could Be Your Life 10th anniversary show with a rendition of "Kids Don't Follow" featuring Craig Finn of the Hold Steady taking on the role of the Minneapolis police officer. Watch out for some crowd diving from Finn half way through. More photos and video of the event coming soon.

It's ten years since Michael Azerrad first published his defining DIY '80s scene portrait Our Band Could Be Your Life , which covered an independent music culture that changed irrevocably a decade before that with the release of Nevermind . Round anniversaries make apt opportunities for retrospectives, and in the case of Our Band , this year has been a sort of meta-reflection: between a panel at SXSW, and last night's show at Bowery Ballroom, 2011 has seen a few organized moments of the present "indie" culture celebrating and reflecting on how the blueprint Michael [...]

It's ten years since Michael Azerrad first published his defining DIY '80s scene portrait Our Band Could Be Your Life , which covered an independent music culture that changed irrevocably a decade before that with the release of Nevermind . Round anniversaries make apt opportunities for retrospectives, and in the case of Our Band , this year has been a sort of meta-reflection: between a panel at SXSW, and last night's show at Bowery Ballroom, 2011 has seen a few organized moments of the present "indie" culture celebrating and reflecting on how the blueprint Michael [...]

Consequence of Sound (via Slicing Up Eyeballs ) has what looks to be the cover of the Bob Mould autobiography coming out this summer. The book is said to be titled "See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody" and CoS writes that the book should..."hit bookstore shelves everywhere on June 15th through Little, Brown and Company." According to the blurb... "the 288-page hardcover will reveal Mould’s “struggles with homosexuality, intimate relationships and drug and alcohol addiction,” according to the publisher. On the musical side, the book will trace Mould’s “early [...]

My top three fave books on the birth of punk are " Please Kill Me " by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain; Punk! The Definitive Record of a Revolution and Jon Savage's awesome " England's Dreaming ".(Michael Azerrad's " Our Band Could Be Your Life " takes the cake for 1980s American indie punk!) But now I see that University of Minnesota PRess released in August Jon Savage's interview transcripts of that epochal book in " The England's Dreaming Tapes ". From the promo blurb... "Jon Savage’s 1991 book England’s Dreaming: Anarchy, [...]

What better way to celebrate your debut album than to give it away in weekly exclusives? That's just what Popwreckoning favorite Golden Bloom is doing with its new album, Fan the Flames , which drops on August 18th. Popwreckoning has been bragging about the talents of Golden Bloom mastermind and multi-instrumentalist (piano, bass, drums, sax, harmonica) Shawn Fogel for some time, so we're ecstatic to bring you, dear readers, the 8th track from Fan the Flames , "The Mountainside Says" (more on that below). [...]

• Golden Bloom - The Mountainside Says

One of Popwreckoning's favorite bands, Golden Bloom , in part vecause of amazing music they play but also because front man Shawn Fogel is one of the nicest guys we've ever met, will [finally! =)] be releasing their debut full-length, Fan The Flames , on August 18th. The multi-talented instrumentalist Fogel is as comfortable on piano, bass guitar and tenor sax as he is on a keyboard, harmonica, and drums - proven by his numerous side projects. He demonstrates his talents by playing all the instruments on [...]

• Golden Bloom - Doomsday Devices

When I get sick, I tend to read music books. (I don't really know why—maybe because all the plots are basically the same?) And during a recent illness, I broke out Michael Azerrad 's telling of the indie foundational myth, Our Band Could Be Your Life , and it's informed a lot of my thinking lately about the cyclical nature of the genre and our brave new world in which We Are All Indies. Whereas doing it yourself—DIY—was once one option among many and employed for specific aims, now it seems [...]

That dumb British emo-prog band who had the song about killing Michael Azerrad is still trying to bleed dry any publicity said lyrics can give them. Dudes, it's been almost a month already—that's forever in Internet time. If you really want to stay in the game, try writing a song about, oh, I don't know, getting revenge on a "blogsnob," as you put it? [ NME ]

A "proggy emo band" (It's all Rush's fault) known as Tubelord has recently written a song about wanting to kill the author of Our Band Could Be Your Life , Michael Azerrad. This news comes to us via Idolator . I'm now happier than ever that my name is completely without a "swing to it." Excellent. Here's the band's lyrics and their excuse: "I see today, I see you, Azerrad / I've read the clues, they lead me to your head / I'll kill today, I'll kill you, Azerrad." [...]

I've never been a big Smiths fan.  In fact, I'm a borderline hater, which may draw ire from our readership.  But that's neither here nor there.  Rhino is giving Morrissey and...

Big-time rock critic Michael Azerrad's life took an unusual turn recently, when a proggy British emo band called Tubelord* wrote a song about killing him. The murderous ode to him, called "I Am Azerrad," is their next single, and it features these lyrics: "I see today, I see you, Azerrad / I've read the clues, they lead me to your head / I'll kill today, I'll kill you, Azerrad." That seems pretty conclusive to me! At least Azerrad got in some good lines about it when he wrote the [...]

Something for the Christmas list in 2010: Bob Mould is working on an autobiography . The ghosting part is going to be handled by Michael Azerrad, writer of Our Band Could Be Your Life .

And get this, Mould will be working with Michael Azerrad (of Our Band Could Be Your Life , Come As You Are fame). We've always loved the tinny, analog-as-fuck vibe of Husker Du 's work (most notably the barely 20 minutes of Everything Falls Apart ) as compared to his later solo work and fronting Sugar, which was more well-received but reeked of post-Seattle grunge tones. The book is slated for a release in 2010. The memoir will, for the first time [...]

• Sugar - If I Can't Change Your Mind