Rock journalist Rob Kern, an avowed metalhead, chronicles his journey across a blistering sunscape of Chicago music in 33 Days in the Hole, now available in eBook format.

Broad and spacious as all hell, Astra’s The Black Chord is retro in excess. The San Diego outfit employs all manner of guitar and analog synths to get the job done

Former Journey drummer Steve Smith joins his old bandmate Neal Schon as part of this week’s all-star tribute concert honoring Ronnie Montrose on Friday, April 27, 2012

The next step beyond the ‘new’ garage rock movement? Successors to The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Hives, etc? Man, this tune really reminds me of the New Wave era.

Sweet answers the question once and for all: What would happen if some combined the glam of T. Rex, the metal of Slade and the modernity of Jay Z? What’s that? You said you never asked that particular question?

Clarinetists don’t typically have a reputation of being adventurous (our own Mort Weiss notwithstanding), but it isn’t for the lack of such practitioners as Ben Goldberg and Chris Speed working hard to punch holes into those perceptions. Add Aaron Novik to that list of clarinet insurgents. Novik, who once studied under Greenberg, has likewise reached back to ancient Hebrew music [...]