Culture

Lost in Concert Volume One

Fund This: Lost in Concert, Volume One

Since 2010, Lost in Concert has been in the cataloging business. A group of writers and photographers who share a love for live music, the site has made it its mission to attend shows and bring the concert experience back to those who couldn’t be there. Its vivid photography and clear, enthusiastic words give readers the feeling that they were, sharing that special “had to see it” feeling that only a live show can give.

Cramp, Slash & Burn: Punk and glam through the lens of rock photographer John Scarpati

Cramp, Slash and Burn: When Punk and Glam Were TwinsJohn Scarpati: Cramp, Slash & Burn: When Punk and Glam Were Twins (6/22/12)

As a photographer, John Scarpati is well known for his work on album covers, each a dynamic and living piece of art. During the 1980s in Los Angeles, he was the music photographer, an anthropologist of the Sunset Strip, his lens documenting the fashion, sounds, and faces in the era of outrageous musical fashion. Now Scarpati has collected those images in a book, Cramp, Slash & Burn: When Punk and Glam Were Twins.

Stones Throw Records Founder Peanut Butter Wolf

Fund this: Stones Throw documentary gets Kickstarted

When Peanut Butter Wolf started Stones Throw Records in 1996, his friend and rap partner Charizma had just been killed. What started as a cathartic way to release the music they recorded together soon grew into something much larger, a record label releasing an eclectic range of music, with artists as diverse as Madlib, Mayer Hawthorne, and Omar Rodriguez Lopez on their rolls.

Pussy Riot

More bullshit: Pussy Riot members sentenced to two years in jail

Despite a global outcry and support from high-profile musicians such as Paul McCartney, Madonna, and Sting, three members of Russian punk collective Pussy Riot were sentenced today to two years in jail for storming a Moscow church altar and performing an anti-Putin protest song.

Unearthing

Need a weird X-mas gift? Pre-order limited editions of Alan Moore’s Unearthing

Regarded as one of the greatest graphic-novel writers ever, Alan Moore (V for Vendetta, Watchmen) has delved into the world of biography with Unearthing, an expansive narrative art-book. With photography by Mitch Jenkins, Unearthing “maps the lifetime of author, orientalist, and occultist Steve Moore, while simultaneously investigating the extraordinary history of South London with which that life has been intertwined.”

Maynard James Keenan

Interview: Maynard James Keenan’s desert adventures — in winemaking

This content appears in the July/August iPad edition of ALARM Magazine. Download it for free and keep reading!

Puscifer: Conditions of My ParolePuscifer: Conditions of My Parole (10/18/11)

“Man Overboard”

Puscifer: “Man Overboard”

While the world’s been caught up with his musical prowess, Maynard James Keenan — the essential vocalist for Tool and A Perfect Circle and the creative lead for Puscifer — has spent the past decade teasing secrets from the soil of Verde Valley, Arizona, bottling stories squeezed from the vine.

A Place to Bury Strangers / Death by Audio

Studio Visit: Death By Audio with A Place to Bury Strangers

This content appears in the July/August iPad edition of ALARM Magazine. Download it for free and keep reading!

WorshipA Place to Bury Strangers: Worship (Dead Oceans, 6/26/12)

“You are the One”

A Place to Bury Strangers: “You are the One”

All Oliver Ackermann ever wanted was to make music. The Virginia-born, RISD-educated, Brooklyn-based guitarist has spent the past 35 years forcing his way toward that goal. The result: Death by Audio, the Williamsburg recording space / venue / effects-pedal company that houses the songwriter and assorted friends as well as his noise-rock band, A Place to Bury Strangers.

The Graphic Canon, Vol. 1: Dangerous Liasons

Book review: The Graphic Canon Vol. 1

The Graphic Canon, Vol. 1 Russ Kick: The Graphic Canon Vol. 1 (Seven Stories, 5/22/12)

Graphic-novel adaptations of classic literature are a dime a dozen these days, but rarely have they been organized or anthologized so well as in The Graphic Canon. The first volume of The Graphic Canon (“From The Epic of Gilgamesh to Shakespeare to Dangerous Liaisons”) is chock full of comic-book goodness and covers a lot of ground, especially considering that this is just the first part of the so-called canon.

Featuring graphic-novel re-tellings of everything from Babylonian tablets to a Japanese Noh play, Canon (and its two later volumes, which focus on the 19th Century and modern literature respectively) certainly addresses a wide breadth of content, even if the graphic-novel form makes for some sacrifices in terms of depth. After all, it’s hard to get a true sense of Popol Vuh in so few pages, but these abridged classics often work as entertaining new tales in their own right.