RiYL

A trip to India changed everything for Sonia Kreitzer. It’s the kind of cinematic-style quest for knowledge so many seek out and so few actually achieve. For the singer, who opted the stage name Doe Paoro, the trip came at the most vital of times. Struggling to make ends meet as a part-time singer and full-time waitress in New York, Kreitzer was attempting to make peace with her plan to throw in t...

Eight albums into her career, Marissa Nadler is still discovering aspects of her musical life. For My Crimes finds the Boston-based musician fighting impulses to overthink and overdo. The metaphors and endless layers of music are stripped away for something that cuts even closer to quick. Of course, the ethereal melancholy that has defined much of her work is still present, and the the record find...

After that first breakup, the press tends to regard everything as a reunion show. As Matt Pryor and Jim Suptic are quick to note, however, The Get Up Kids have been around as long in their current iteration as they were the first go-round, at 10 years a piece. Reforming has clearly given the legendary emo band a second lease on life, however. This year, the group released Kicker, its fist album of...

The van is running late. Never underestimate the traffic in from D.C. When Malka Spigel and Colin Newman do finally arrive, they’re both a bit wiped. Another late night on tour, getting in after last call, but the couple are both excited and slightly melancholy to play the final show of the tour. It’s Immersion’s first in the U.S., celebrating their first LP in a decade and a half. Spigel and Newm...

The Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, three top 10 solo hits and one of the defining voices of his generation — but through it all, Michael McDonald has remained utterly humble. He didn’t feel he had the chops to make it as a full time studio musician, he tells me toward the beginning of our chat, so he sought a different path. Plan B gave the world “What a Fool Believes,” “I Keep Forgettin’,” “Takin’...

A few hours before the kickoff of the Posies’ 30th anniversary show at the Bowery Ballroom, Jon Auer is feeling reflective. It’s the perfect moment for the musician to examine a long and fruitful career that’s found him performing as the member of a half-dozen bands, producing countless records and spending 17 years playing guitar for the final iteration of the legendary group, Big Star.  But The...

It seems Matt Costa has a guitar within arm’s reach at any given moment. As I fumble around setting up my recording rig, he pulls the acoustic out of the case and begins strumming, absent-mindedly. Prior to this year’s release of Santa Rosa Fangs, it had been a full five years since Costa released an LP under his own name. But it’s clear that music is never too far from his mind, as he fiddles aro...

When she arrives, Lizz Winstead is quick to note that she’s a bit frustrated at having missed Trump’s latest impromptu press conference. Not so much for the content — not rational thinking person could make that argument — just for the Twitter jokes. The comedian has made a career out of poking fun at the political, from co-creating The Daily Show, to cohosting an Air America radio show with rappe...

Backstage at the Murmrr theater, the band is about to sit down to eat some fancy local Brooklyn pizza. It’s a strange space — a plush 700-seat theater that also serves a synagogue, the occasional Star of David on the wall the remind you that you’re a holy place. Damien Jurado seems eager to talk, in spite of being at the tail end of his East Coast tour (in a few days, it will be the same thing all...

Released in June, Shannon in Nashville finds the singer embarking on her own for the first time, after a half-dozen albums with backing band, The Clams. But Shannon Shaw still had plenty of support. The singer/bassist’s solo debut was produced by Black Key Dan Auerbach, who played on the album, alongside an all-star cast of Nashville studio musicians. But Shaw’s smoky vocals and dreamy songwriting...

Asked how long he’s been Alexander Orange Drink, Alex Zarou Levine pulls a packet out of his backpack and tosses it on table in front of him. “That’s my orange drink,” he says. The musician laments for a moment that the name is no longer a secret, because it’s 2018 and secrets don’t exist anymore. But Levine and his Brooklyn-based band of brothers, The So So Glos have never been afraid to wear the...

When Richard Elfman laughs, he commits his entire body to the act. It’s deep, hearty and infectious. The consummate entertain and raconteur, Elfman pours us both a glass of scotch, describing his last big barbecue and inviting me to his next, should I pass through the parts again. A number of recent guests also happened to appear his his upcoming film, Hipsters, Gangsters, Aliens and Geeks. It’s w...

In 2016, Tony Millionaire drew his final Maakies. For nearly a quarter of century, the strip ran weekly in alternative papers like The New York Press, LA Times and Seattle’s The Stranger. While he’d flirted with the idea of doing it for as long as he was still able to hold a pen, the newspaper industry imploded around him, leaving him with too few places to syndicate the strip. During its life, th...

I can count on one hand all of the cartoonist whose work has unfailingly made me laugh out loud. Ivan Brunetti’s strips are up toward the top. You don’t always feel great about belly laughing at the material, but it’s never not hilarious. For the past several years, however, Brunetti has been conspicuously absent from the comics scene, save for a pair of kids titles for Francoise Mouly’s Toon Book...

The last time we spoke, we were backstage at New York Comic Con. It was a short, manic conversation, with the first Hilo book having only just been published. Two years, later, we’re sitting in a coffee shop in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district — an only slightly less chaotic setting than last time around. Hilo has become become a bonafide success. Earlier this year, Random House released the fo...

“Green Day was the true reason I learned how to play guitar,” Van William says with a smile. “‘When I Come Around,’ when that video came out and Billie Joe was walking around the Bay Area and at one point he took the pay phone off the hook and kept walking. I couldn’t imagine anything more rebellious than that.” The former Waters’ frontman’s music is a bit more mellow than those early days of pop...

We grab a seat on the “punk couch,” an old piece of living room furniture covered in band name tags. Penelope created is as part of an installation, drawing upon her days as the 19-year-old singer of seminal San Francisco punk band, The Avengers. These days, Houston mostly paints during her off hours from the SF library. Her latest project finds her recreating mugshots from nearly 100 years ago. M...

“We kind of want to be more of a factory than a band,” says bassist Charlotte Kemp Muhl, drawing clear inspiration from Andy Warhol’s stomping grounds several decades prior. Uni is, fittingly, one of the most stylish New York bands in recent memory. Muhl (ex-Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger) is joined by former Courtney Love guitarist David Strange and singer Nico Fuzz for a raucous take on vintage 70...

“I felt like it was a noble thing to do, to help people laugh,” says Michael Kupperman. “I’ve had that beaten out of me, a little bit.” The cartoonist sounds a bit defeated, describing earlier work like Tales Designed to Thrizzle and Mark Twain's Autobiography.   It’s not an uncommon sentiment — humor comics are a hell of a tough place to make a living, even after decades of churning away. Kupperm...

I met Matt Groening very briefly years ago, while attending a small indie comics show in Brooklyn. He was there as a fan — and to support longtime friend, Lynda Barry. He came upon a pile of Treehouse of Horror comics, picked them up and pulled out a Sharpie and signed every one, walking away with out a word. This second conversation was a bit more formal: 20 minutes on the phone to discuss his ne...

Matt greets me at the door of the duo’s spacious Brooklyn home. We walk past a fireplace mantel showcasing multiple MTV Moon Men. We chat for a bit about social media, and he shows me snippets of the Matt and Kim Vlog — short videos from the road, designed to connect with the group’s very loyal fanbase. We meet Kim upstairs in a room they’ve converted into a recording studio. Kim wonders half-joki...

Reagan Youth only released a single album during its first incarnation, but the group of anarcho-punks from Queens had a profound impact on the New York hardcore scene. The band called it quits in 1989, as their primary inspiration, Ronald Reagan finally left office. Founding members Dave Rubinstein and Paul Bakija would go onto form House of God with drummer Javier Madriaga. The psychedelic rock...

“I think there’s something radical, defiant and necessary about continuing to tell the truth in a very compassionate way in a world that is screaming and yelling talking points at each other,” Kevin Allison explains. “To me it just seems important right now.” The week we record this conversion, news breaks about child detention centers at US/Mexico border. Even in one of the roughest years in rece...

In the early 90s, Allen Ravenstine quit music. Just like that, to hear him tell it. The founding keyboardist for pioneering art-punk legends Pere Ubu was finished with the industry, opting to fly gliders and ultimately work his way up to commercial airline pilot. 2014’s modular synthesizer documentary I Dream of Wires changed things, however. A jam session with his Ubu replaement Robert Wheeler fo...

“I’m pulled in a million different directions,” says Ian Parton. The musician is describing the inspiration that led to the creation of the Go! Team in the lobby of La Poisson Rouge in Manhattan. It’s the final night of the tour, and he believes the band is really just starting to hit its stride. But two weeks is about all Parton can take, with two kids at home in the U.K. Parton describes the ban...