Posts by Zach Johnson

Part of what made Faith No More such a great band was their penchant for being weird and subversive while still managing to write some undeniably great and catchy songs in the process. Indeed, it was often hard to tell if they were a great pop band masquerading as an alt-metal band, or a great […]

Continuing our spotlight on Faith No More this week, when looking back at the band’s career, it’s hard to argue their highwater mark was not 1992’s Angel Dust, at least from a creative/artistic perspective anyway. Granted, it’s easy to say in retrospect that was the album where everything really came together for the band, but […]

Alternative metal can tend to be a dubious genre for many people. While generally too heavy for your typical alternative-rock fan to fully appreciate, on the other side, most metal purists would complain the genre isn’t heavy enough, or too “weird” broadly speaking. But for us unicorns who enjoy the heavier side of alternative music […]

Rounding out our salute to the Meat Puppets this week, as a lot of folks know, the band briefly tasted a bit of mainstream success in the 90s with the release of their most successful (commercially, anyway) album, Too High to Die. Propelled by the notoriety they gained from performing alongside Nirvana during their legendary Unplugged […]

Continuing our salute to the Meat Puppets this week, when considering the band’s peak era from a creative and artistic perspective, most fans and critics alike rightly point to 1984’s classic Meat Puppets II album as the pinnacle for the group. It certainly was their most influential and impactful record (Nirvana’s classic Unplugged performance is a good example […]

It’s been a minute since anybody has heard much from the Meat Puppets. Indeed, not only has it been a good 6 years since they released their last album Dusty Notes, but the band has also been absent from the touring circuit ever sense they caught a nasty case of COVID back in 2022. The […]

Rounding out our salute to the one and only Iggy Pop this week, there are plenty of clips out there of the legendary frontman that could easily fall into the “weird” category, but this performance of “Lust for Life” on Top of the Pops from 1977 really takes the (weird) cake. From his dancing with […]

Continuing our tribute to Iggy Pop this week to help celebrate his 78th birthday, there’s a reason why he earned the reputation as the “Godfather of Punk”, and his original band (The Stooges) had a lot to do with that. Granted, it could be argued that his performances as a solo artist in the mid/late […]

In honor of Iggy Pop’s 78th birthday today, this week we’ll be spotlighting some choice performances from his legendary career. And if there’s one thing Iggy has always been known for (besides being the Godfather of Punk and all), it’s been his notoriously unhinged live performances over the years. Simply put, nobody has consistently brought […]

If there’s one thing seemingly missing from Coachella lineups of late, it’s a lack of truly weird or avant-garde acts featured on the bill. Granted, they still occasionally sprinkle in some nonmainstream artists into the mix (they had Bjork on the bill in 2023, for example), but lately, there seems to be a general aversion […]

Continuing our spotlight on Coachella’s glory days this week, if there was one year in particular when it felt like the festival made the big leap from the up-and-coming event that it was in the early 2000s to the world-renowned premier attraction it became, it was probably 2004. In addition to expanding the lineup to […]

With the annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival off to a somewhat rocky/underwhelming start this past weekend, it seems like a good time to spotlight some classic performances from back when the festival wasn’t a total shitshow. Granted, that may be a little harsh (I guess if you can brave the multi-hour traffic jams […]

Although Black Francis will always be synonymous with the Pixies, too many people often overlook his solo career which took flight immediately after their breakup in the early 90s, which often yielded some delightfully eccentric (not to mention stellar) results. This is particularly true in the case of his first two solo albums (released under […]

When thinking about peak-era Pixies or the Pixies in their prime, most fans and critics (including this one) point to their 1989 album Doolittle as representing their best work.  Granted, plenty of people would be fully justified in voting for 1988’s slightly more raw/eccentric Surfer Rosa, or maybe even the somewhat underrated Trompe le Monde […]

The one and only Black Francis celebrated his 60th birthday yesterday (April 6th), so as a bit of a belated birthday tribute, we’ll be spotlighting some choice performances from his highly influential and delightfully quirky career over the next few days. Indeed, Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV has gone by many pseudonyms over the years, […]

With the rainy and gloomy days of April now upon us, certain music just feels tailor-made for melancholy mornings vibing out at your local coffeehouse. And for this writer, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better soundtrack for those (mildly pretentious) settings/vibes than Portishead’s classic debut record, Dummy. A fantastic headphones album, it’s got some […]

With Beth Gibbons out doing her solo thing supporting her pensive new album Lives Outgrown, it seems like a good time to dust off some of those classic Portishead records that helped make her a household name in trip-hop circles back in the 90s. That said, while everyone agrees that Portishead’s highwater mark was achieved […]

As covered in the compelling new documentary Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius), Sly Stone produced an incredible amount of creative and influential material in a relatively short amount of time, before he steadily retreated from the limelight (for a variety of reasons) throughout the 70s. Indeed, although his output (and the quality […]

Continuing our salute to the legendary Sly Stone this week, for today’s Tuesday’s Gone, we’re turning the clock all the way back to 1969, when Sly and the Family Stone were effectively in their prime. It was the same year they released what many critics and fans alike (including this one) consider to be their […]

It’s hard to believe the incomparable Sly Stone recently celebrated his 82nd birthday (on March 15th). Granted, making it into your eighties is a modest accomplishment in and of itself for most everybody, but it’s particularly rarified air for legendary artists that have lived as hard and fast as Sly has over the years. Indeed, […]