Born on the outskirts of Motown and raised in the shadow of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Joe has been writing about rock music since interviewing Shudder to Think's Craig Wedren for his high school newspaper -- back when bands like Shudder to Think were recording for major labels. He's written for the Cleveland Free Times, Alternative Press, the Village Voice, SuicideGirls and a variety of other online publications and blogs, some of which have not existed in years. He started with Townsquare in 2011 writing for Loudwire and Ultimate Classic Rock, and has been with Diffuser.fm since it launched in spring 2012.
Sessions for Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds' recent 'Push the Sky Away' album, their first in five years, were so fruitful that the band offered an outtake, 'Animal X,' as a Record Store Day exclusive 7-inch single. Reportedly named after an Australian nature documentary series from the ’90s, the tune maintains the basic tenets of the classic Seeds sound, yet the group alters the formula with warped symphonic instrumentation backing Cave's spoken-word meanderings. The resulting tune kind of comes off like a shortened, sped-up and stereophonic version of the Velvet Underground's classic poetry jam, 'The Gift.' Check it out below.
Matt Roberts / Kevin Winter / Brian Killian, Getty Images
Bob Dylan's so-called Never Ending Tour rolls on, and the folk-rock icon has snapped up both Wilco and My Morning Jacket to open a six-week stretch of North American summer tour dates. The stacked triple bill hits the road June 26 in West Palm Beach, Fla., and the trek is scheduled through an Aug. 8 date in Mountain View, Calif. Check out the full itinerary below.
Detroit dance-punkers Electric Six credited an auto mechanic named John S. O'Leary with delivering the guest vocals on their debut single, 'Danger! High Voltage,' but music critics correctly pointed out the voice's real source: Jack White. White was fr
High schoolers dreading the prospect of reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's Roaring Twenties novel 'The Great Gatsby,' take note: Lana Del Rey is a huge fan. In fact, the suave singer contributed the new, original tune 'Young & Beautiful' to director Baz Luhrmann's big-screen adaptation of the book, adding her star power to a soundtrack that also includes songs from the xx, Florence + the Machine, Gotye, Jack White and more.
It was no secret that big-time Rush fanboy Dave Grohl would officially welcome the Canadian prog-rock trio into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame during last night's (April 18) induction ceremony in Los Angeles, but nobody could've expected Grohl, his Foo bandmate Taylor Hawkins and Foo Fighters/Rush producer Nick Raskulinecz to hit the stage in white robes and wigs to cover the Rush classic '2112 Overture' in honor of the band.
Less than a year ago, Lana Del Rey spoke of her desire to quit making music and become a screen writer, revealing that said vocation "will be my happy place." Yet she still continues to churn out tunes, the latest being her cover of 'Summer Wine,' a duet first made famous by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood all the way back in 1967.
Having just wrapped up a string of trans-American tour dates, British rockers Alt-J are currently on the West Coast to play both weekends of the Coachella festival. But they're not resting on their laurels during the days in between. The band booked three gigs in California, and last night (April 18), they appeared on 'Conan.'
Kevin Winter / Frank Micelotta / Stephen Lovekin, Getty Images
Mash-ups, combinations of two or more songs blended together to make completely different tunes, have existed in one form or another since almost the dawn of recorded music. But the modern era of mash-ups took hold in 2001, with one of the first such fusions being DJ Freelance Hellraiser's remix of Christina Aguilera's 'Genie in a Bottle' and the Strokes' 'Hard To Explain.' Hellraiser combined the gritty downtown New York guitars and instrumentation with the pop-diva vocals to create 'A Stroke of Genie-us,' and with that, the so-called mash-up was born.
With the Coachella festival now expanded to two weekends, there are plenty of bands that find themselves stranded in California with nothing to do for the week in between. Fortunately, 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' has been taking in wayward artists and throwing them onstage and in front of their cameras all week long, with Phoenix's performance last night (April 18) the biggest one yet.
Kevin Winter / Frank Micelotta / Stephen Lovekin, Getty Images
We couldn't compile a list of mash-ups without including the master himself, Girl Talk. Most DJs in the scene are quasi-amateur and working on computers in bedrooms somewhere, but Girl Talk is a renowned professional who mixes and mashes on a computer live in front of tens of thousands of fans on the stages of places like Lollapalooza and Coachella
It appears that you already have an account created within our VIP network of sites on . To keep your points and personal information safe, we need to verify that it's really you. To activate your account, please confirm your password. When you have confirmed your password, you will be able to log in through Facebook on both sites.
It appears that you already have an account on this site associated with . To connect your existing account with your Facebook account, just click on the account activation button below. You will maintain your existing profile and VIP program points. After you do this, you will be able to always log in to http://diffuser.fm using your Facebook account.
