Relevance: It’s what every musician strives for. But how to stay hip when you’ve been in the game for 20 years? Much less the club-music game, which is both fickle and nic...

There are a lot of serious female shredders out there these days. Perhaps the most mind-blowing of them all is Marnie Stern, whose intimidatingly technical playing I can compa...

From an early age, Andy Warhol collected Hollywood publicity stills. On the other side of the Atlantic, so did Robert Hunter, a British devotee of silent cinema. Hunter’s co...

In 1977, NASA sent recordings into space on board the two Voyager probes. The compendium of sounds — rain, heartbeats and Chuck Berry among them — was meant to give aliens...

For nearly 40 years, musician, singer and performance artist Laurie Anderson has been hauling around truckfuls of equipment for her tours: keyboards, effects pedals, cumbersom...

A few weekends back, I saw flashy Georgia rapper 2 Chainz at the Fillmore in Silver Spring. Everyone looked cute for the sold-out show that night. 2 Chainz lays down one rule ...

Willow Smith is sad. Except she isn’t just locked in her room listening to Radiohead; she’s sampled the band’s song “Codex” (from 2011’s “The King of Limbs”) a...

Being 21, rising New York rapper Azealia Banks tweets a lot. Banks, known for the 2011 viral hit “212,” is openly bi — new terrain for hip-hop. The gay world brings its ...

Last month’s Hurricane Sandy Relief/”SNL” Nirvana + Paul McCartney Frankenreunion was odd: These men invented and reinvented rock ’n’ roll, and their path led …...

Angie Pontani, holder of the Miss Exotic World 2008 title and the New York Burlesque Festival’s Best Body 2007 award, wants to give you a very special Christmas gift. With h...

To me, Christmastime is a pan-denominational opportunity to hope for things — peace on earth, a better new year, seeing people I miss. Here, I made you a mixtape about it: "...

I was walking toward 14th and U last month wearing a dead relative’s fur stole and dangling off the arm of my girlfriend, who looks like Johnny Cash crossed with a circus be...

Patti Smith’s music has been with me since my teens, when I also dutifully consumed Camus and Rimbaud in the classic moody-teen-girl search for meaning. Until Saturday, I’...

I recently Tumbld toward Downed City Rise, where John Davis of Title Tracks (and sundry other great bands) lets you root through his personal shoebox of D.C.-scene memorabilia...

When we left R. Kelly’s sprawling, 22-chapter hip-hopera “Trapped in the Closet,” it was 2007. Main man Sylvester (Kelly) and a dozen other shady characters were trackin...