John Van Hamersveld is an art-school-trained modernist with roots in the California surf culture who was set loose in psychedelia, which he called “hippie moder...
Carol Kaye started as a jazz solo guitarist, working the club scene of 1950s LA, when she was asked to work on some studio tracks for Sam Cooke. Though she love...
Jayne County set a pre-punk standard for outrageous rock & roll stage antics and regalia with her then bands Wayne County & the Electric Chairs and Quee...
Circus performers were, in some ways, the punk rockers of their day, and nobody was more punk than Lillian Leitzel. Feisty, fearless, tiny and yet unbelievably ...
The Philadelphia recording studio Sigma Sound almost single-handedly defined the pre-Disco sound of the 1970s, with the smooth, soulful outpourings of the O’Jay...
Co-founder (with Bob Geldof) of Band Aid and Live Aid, the multi-talented Glaswegian Midge Ure once turned down an offer to join what became the Sex Pistols. Al...
Maggi Ronson was in awe of her big brother, Michael “Mick” Ronson. Long before he became world famous as Bowie’s sidekick guitarist, Mick Ronson was in the Rats...
The fearless Pamela Des Barres has met many of her own personal heroes, including Dylan, Zappa, Cohen, Nureyev, Brando, Dion, Prince, McCartney, Harrison, Starr...
The talented singer, songwriter and performer was friends and collaborators with both Lou Reed and John Cale before embarking on a solo career that has spanned ...
As part of the No Wave group Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Lydia Lunch (nee Koch) made her early mark on the NYC scene at around the same time the punk movement ...
Dylan Thomas died 66 years ago last Saturday. The Welsh poet is known as much for the theatrical readings of his own poems as he is for his prodigious drinking....
Ever since Ric Ocasek died two months ago (on Sept. 15), Bebe Buell has been trying to process the loss of one of her dearest friends and the guiding force of h...
Elizabeth Hand, a much-acclaimed novelist and essayist, offers an appraisal of Debbie Harry’s new memoir and discovers that the Blondie icon is really ’the girl...
Once described as ‘half Waylon and half Johnny Rotten,’ Dan McLain was a mortal drummer from San Diego who transformed himself into Country Dick Montana, drivin...
