“There was a site you probably remember called MP3.com, it was like pre-social media,” says Jon Ehrens, 41, thinking back to the music he made in high school. “I needed a name fast because I recorded four songs and just wanted to upload them immediately, and I used the name Repelican.” 25 years later, Ehrens…
In the life and work of artist Shepard Fairey, social justice and the musical counterculture have always collided, igniting many of his most striking images. Most famously, they have come in the form of 18-by-24-inch posters, with messages against police violence, war, and government surveillance, and calling for peace, civil rights, and multiculturalism. There are…
Fine Young Cannibals’ Roland Gift is leaning all the way to the left, so much so that he could be lying down. It’s unclear, as he’s on a video call from his native U.K. and his background is so blurred, he looks like he’s floating horizontally above his sofa. This is not how I expected…
A flame-haired, dirty white-suited Tyler Childers strides with intent through a standing, whooping, exultant ovation in Nashville and takes the stage to give his rejection speech at the Americana Music Association’s annual awards ceremony. Freshly anointed as Americana’s Emerging Artist of the Year, Childers wastes no time ripping the genre a new asshole. After declaring…
Frank Ockenfels III first crossed paths with David Bowie by chance. Ockenfels was assigned to photograph Bowie and his band Tin Machine for an early-’90s iteration of Creem magazine. It was the last of four photo sessions the band had endured that day in Los Angeles, and Ockenfels asked them to remove their shirts. Then,…
After 40 years of cutting-edge music and cultural coverage, SPIN celebrated its milestone birthday in style at Back to Basics’ debut event — a bespoke concert headlined by hip-hop luminaries Clipse and CeeLo Green at the SCOPE Art Show on the sands of Miami’s South Beach. The Dec. 4 Miami Art Week party was thrown…
Bright Eyes will play their twin 2005 albums I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn in their entirety at three special shows next summer — their first to celebrate their back catalog in this fashion. The events will take place May 6 at Red Rocks outside Denver, May 23 at…
The National’s Bryce Dessner, Nick Cave, Miley Cyrus, HUNTR/X, Wicked‘s Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood are among the musicians who received nominations today (Dec. 8) for the Golden Globe Awards, which will take place Jan. 5 live on CBS. Dessner and Cave are nominated for Best Original Song for the title…
Robert Smith has tapped a host of beloved acts for his first stint curating the lineups for the U.K.’s annual Teenage Cancer Trust charity concert series, including My Bloody Valentine, Garbage, CHVRCHES and Manic Street Preachers. The seven shows will be held at Royal Albert Hall in London beginning March 23 with Elbow and MRCY,…
The best thing that happened to pop music in recent years is that Grammy-winning songwriter Amy Allen watched that insipid Twilight saga and was revolted by the sight of the childbirth scene. This experience spurred Allen to leave “real school,” as she calls the nursing program she was enrolled in at Boston College, and go…
