Steve Albini

The Five Best Shows in Los Angeles This Week: Garbage, Nick Lowe, Culture Collide

Tuesday, October 2 Garbage WILTERN When they formed in 1994, future chart fixtures Garbage had the makings of a sterile vanity project. Created by veteran studio rats (including Butch Vig, producer of Nirvana's Nevermind), with a grafted-on unknown vocalist, their formula appeared better suited to ... More >>

Music Picks: Culture Collide, Nick Lowe, Screaming Females

What's Nirvana's Best Album? Hint: It's Not Nevermind

See also: The Most Important Album of the Last 25 Years Isn't Nevermind, It's Guns N' Roses' Appetite For Destruction If you aren't familiar with Nirvana's sophomore release, 1991's Nevermind, you were probably born after the Y2K scare or believe that music peaked when Rush released Moving Picture ... More >>

Top Five Best Post-Hardcore Records

See also: At the Drive-In Speaks At the Drive-In Interview Outtakes Refused and At The Drive-In reunited for Coachella. Now Quicksand is getting into the act, reuniting to play FYF Fest. People are nostalgic for the post-hardcore bands of yesteryear? Apparently. For those not in the know, post-ha ... More >>

Music Picks: Hugh Cornwell, Carlos Guitarlos, Zakir Hussain's Masters of Percussion

Also, Charlene Soraia, Chuck Loeb, the Head Cat, Feed Me and others

Music Picks: Smokeout Festival, Mike Miller Group, Zola Jesus, Saul Williams

Also, New Multitudes, Cool Moms, Alpha & Omega, Cloud Nothings and others

Short Attention Span Dinner Theater: Your Week in Food, 1/23-1/27

In which we highlight the past week in food, either at home or abroad. "I'm not sure that what you're looking for exists." Bouillabaisse: Meant for the Poor, Now for the Rich. "And so, he borrowed the three-inch rock from an 'American collector' and tossed it in a barrel full of Cabernet Sauvign ... More >>

Steve Albini Has A Food Blog

Crotchety genius Steve Albini* has a food blog. It's called Mario Batali Voice. Why? As Albini explains it on the blog: "This is what I made Heather for dinner. The name comes from the way I bring her food in bed and present it to her using an imitation of Mario Batali's voice from TV. When she post ... More >>

RIP: Influential Guitar Maker Travis Bean Is Dead

Guitarmaker Travis Bean died earlier this week at his home in Burbank. His guitars were played by everyone from Jerry Garcia to Steve Albini to Slash, and were known for their sustain and durability. You just can't break one of them. Born in San Fernando, his eponymous Valley-based company was fo ... More >>

Wanna Hear What Pulp's "Disco 2000" Sounds Like in 2011?: New Video from their Comeback Gig!

Who else could that be onstage?: Pulp, 2011​There are those who think of Pulp as a 1990s Britpop band that duked it out (and continues to duke it out) with the likes of Oasis and Blur for the dubious title of "Best Britpop Band of the 1990s." Those people, of course, are very, very wrong. Pu ... More >>

Short Attention Span Dinner Theater: Your Week in Food, 5/16-5/20

Flickr/Lauren Manning​ In which we highlight the past week in food, either at home or abroad. "My friends, the ones eating monkfish, assume that I was talking to a dealer. In a manner of speaking, I was." Nathan McCall: The Butcher of Hillhurst Avenue. "It's self-heating. (That's halfway b ... More >>

Indie Rock Food Blogs: The Steve Albini Interview

mariobatalivoiceSkirt Steak with Jasmine Rice and Apple-Wine Chutney, Albini-style.​ Back in March, when we wrote about the Monsters of Folk crème brûlée blog, we said that famous recording engineer, musician, wicked amateur poker player, and gourmand Steve Albini should have a food blog ... More >>

Music Picks: Roseanne Cash, Theophilus London, Acid Mothers Temple

Also, George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, Raphael Saadiq, Wu Man and others

Indie Rock Food Blogs: Crème-brû-log Should Be Just The Beginning

A James-approved specimen from Miel in Nashville​ We were happy to learn that Monsters of Folk principles Jim James (My Morning Jacket) and M. Ward (She & Him) have a food blog. James is from Louisville, KY, our hometown. We were first exposed to his sweet, billowing voice at an all-ages sho ... More >>

With Godspeed on Our Side

How did an experimental political punk octet become the hottest ticket of the winter?

Music Picks: Laurie Anderson, Onibaba, Superchunk

Also, Hoodoo Gurus, Die Antwoord, Jonsi and others

Jon Spencer, Extra Wide

Blues Explosion revisited onstage and in recordings

Ready for His Retouch: David Yow Adjusts the Picture as He Prepares for the Jesus Lizard Reunion

The singer hadn't seen original drummer Mac McNeilly for 12 years: "We hugged for, like, three minutes and just giggled."

Rock Picks: Iron & Wine, Mika Miko, the Vaselines, Extra Golden

Leslie & the Badgers, Scout Niblett, Theresa Andersson, Meat Puppets and others

LA Weekly's Interview with Will Oldham: On Acting, Hollywood, the Nature of the Press, and Facebook

Yesterday Will Oldham, aka Bonnie Prince Billy, did an instore performance at Amoeba Records on Sunset, and West Coast Sound's Nikki Darling was there to report on the scene: Will Oldham gets French pedicures and shows them off while wearing flip-flops and Hawaiian board shorts. That's the first ... More >>

Let the Listing Begin: Ten Great Folk Records of the Past Decade

You're going to be seeing a lot of lists in the next few weeks. Lists of bests and worsts of year, lists of disappointments, lists of dance mixes and YouTube clips. We figured we'd begin our weeks of lists with one that captures not the year in music, but one aspect of the decade in music: new wei ... More >>

Rock Picks: Digable Planets, Pigeon John, the Wedding Present, Prima Donna

Also, Josh Rouse, the Raconteurs, Chicha Libre and more

Rock Picks: R.E.M., Von Bondies, Ladytron

And other May 22-29 shows

Rock Picks: Meat Beat Manifesto, Jay-Z, Eels

Plus other music shows for April 10-17

John Loder, the "ninth" member of Crass

With The National, I traveled to the never fashionable north London district of Wood Green to visit the home and studio of Southern’s founder John Loder, Crass's "ninth member," a producer when no one else would record them and a business partner when no one else would touch the results.

Naked Raygun, Knitting Factory, 12/7

Naked Raygun Knitting Factory, Dec. 7 "Anyone ever tell you you look like Steve Albini?" "We were just talking about Albini! Did you know that he re-recorded Cheap Trick's album In Color back in '99 or something - when he was working with them on a new album?" "No! That's my favorite Cheap Trick ... More >>

The World According to Hutz

Sufism, Chernobyl, Little Richard madness and other adventures in cultural fusion with Gogol Bordello’s mastermind

Film Reviews

Including Danielson: A Family Movie, Guru, Primeval and more

Rock Picks

For the week of Jan 12 – 18

Gild That Lily

Joanna Newsom’s new record is too beautiful

Music Picks

For the week of May 25 - 31

So Alive

With their debut, the Living Things pose the question: Is the world ready for political glitter?

Satire, Punk and Politics

Or, black people don’t like George Bush

Shellac

High On Fire, Drunk On Jack!

Metal’s heaviest sludgesters just don’t give a [fudge]

Trendscendence

New Stuff We Like

The Revolution Will Be Posterized

Present Perfect

Pink Flag Burning

Sugar 'n' Spikes

Flannel Surfing

Letters

Starters Alternators

The Misfits

Aged Children

Blows Against the Empire

Too Beautiful

Can Blue Men Play the Whites?

Third Ear

In the Realm of the Senses