Matt Wake

Ritual de lo Habitual, the bacchanalian, crushing Jane’s Addiction album that pushed “alternative rock” towards the masses, turns 25 years old this week. The multi-platinum LP's hit shoplifting anthem “Been Caught Stealing” spent weeks atop the modern rock chart. The blissed-out epic “Three Days” blew minds. The Ritual album cover,......

Joan Jett’s 1982 "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" isn’t just better than the English band Arrows’ mid-'70s original — it kicks its ass, steals its wallet and makes out with its girlfriend. In similar fashion, Ike and Tina Turner set gospel-sex fire to Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary," and Jeff Buckley’s......

As any good music geek knows, YouTube is a treasure trove of isolated tracks — a single vocal or instrument lifted from a familiar song, sometimes from the master tapes, sometimes pulled out of the mix by an enterprising amateur sound engineer. It's a fascinating, stark and entirely new context......

I think about the possibility of the Appetite for Destruction lineup reuniting more often than I think about many of my dead relatives. So pop-culture website Uproxx’s three-part mini-documentary, One Man's Plan to Reunite Guns N' Roses, grabbed my fascination by its imaginary leather pants within seven opening seconds: A mid-'80s clip......

They’re located under the conical Capitol Records Building: eight echo chambers, which guitar innovator Les Paul designed for Capitol Studios in the 1950s. Country music maverick Dwight Yoakam makes tasty use of them on his vibrant 15th studio album, Second Hand Heart. Yoakam’s limber vocals ripple with crystalline, rich tone,......

Bob Dylan’s Chronicles: Volume One is a legitimately fascinating read, and that’s partly because Dylan is the type of artist few fans and critics ever expected to pen a memoir. A neon extrovert like David Lee Roth writing an autobiography? Sure. But a press-shy artiste like Dylan? Never! The rest of......

“No, you know, I don’t think about STP. Actually the only time it enters my mind is when I get a check.” That’s Scott Weiland’s answer when asked if the decidedly rock direction on his new solo album had anything to do with wanting to remind Stone Temple Pilots —......

Andy Hill and David Tokaji were so jazzed about going to see The Rolling Stones’ 2006 Dodger Stadium show, the anticipation grew beyond guessing whether or not the band would perform “Dead Flowers.” Or “Tumbling Dice.” Or any other Stones song in existence. “It reached such a pitch that we......

A few things you can easily find in classified ads: phone sex, apartment rentals, tarot card readers, telemarketing jobs and a used Toyota Camry with low mileage. Look a little closer, and you might also find your path to rock 'n' roll glory. OK, answering most musician classifieds won’t automatically......