There are voices in rock and roll that don’t just sing—they summon. Mike Peters had one of those voices. For more than forty years, he stood at the front of The Alarm like a man holding the line against the dark, fist clenched, jaw set, every syllable a small act of defiance.

On Transformation, that voice rises one final time. I have been with this band since I was a fourteen-year-old kid wearing the grooves off Declaration in 1984, learning every word of “68 Guns” like it was scripture taped to my bedroom wall. I am telling you now, with my hand on the record: this is the most quietly devastating, most stubbornly hopeful thing The Alarm has ever put to tape. This isn’t a swan song. It’s a stand.

Cut between October 2024 and January 15, 2025—the night before Peters began CAR-T therapy for Richter’s Syndrome—Transformation was made by a man who fully believed he was going to win. You can hear that belief in every chord, every cymbal crash, every time he leans into a chorus like he’s still got a mountain to climb.

The copy I am holding is the standard black vinyl pressing, not the limited white-and-clear edition with the signed card, and even without that collector’s flourish, the package is a knockout. The cover appears to be an MRI scan of Peters himself, a ghostly blue-green portrait of the body that was waging the war—it took me a long moment to realize what I was looking at, and then it took my breath.

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Hailing from Vancouver, the Modernettes stand as one of Canada’s consistently undersung early punk bands. They released their debut recording, the EP “Teen City,” in 1980 on Quintessence Records. Energetic catchiness is the default mode as the six songs straddle the power pop and new wave. If falling a little short of a masterpiece, the set is still a worthwhile acquisition, so it’s sweet that the 45th Anniversary Edition Custom Vinyl is out now from Porterhouse Records.

If the Modernettes don’t get enough credit, they are far from forgotten. If the discography is slim, nearly everything has been reissued at least once. The band’s classic trio lineup was in place for the debut, consisting of John Armstrong, aka Buck Cherry, on guitar and lead vocals, Mary Armstrong, aka Mary-Jo Kopechne, on bass and vocals, and John McAdams, aka Jughead, on drums and vocals.

Buck Cherry had previous experience playing guitar in Active Dog, a short-lived band that released one 45, “Rat Race” b/w “Good Filthy Fun” in 1979 and landed one song, “Fun While it Lasts,” on the compilation Vancouver Complication alongside such heavy-hitters as D.O.A., Subhumans, Pointed Sticks, No Fun, and Dishrags.

Did Active Dog land on a Killed by Death boot? Yes indeed, #17, in fact, plus Bloodstains Across Canada and Hyped 2 Death #5. Wasted Lives, with Mary-Jo Kopechne on bass, were also included on Vancouver Complication. Kopechne also played in Big Black Puppets prior to the formation of the Modernettes. A split 45 featuring Wasted Lives and Big Black Puppets was released in 1979.

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WORDS AND IMAGES: SEAN McKRACKEN | Picture this: the sun dips into the Pacific, a rum punch sweats in your hand, and somewhere on the lido deck, WAR rips into the opening notes of “Low Rider” while eight thousand fans, arms in the air, belt every word back at the band. That is not a daydream. That is a Tuesday on the Old School Cruise, and after sailing back-to-back voyages this past April, I can tell you with full confidence that this is the most fun you can legally have on a boat.

At the end of April, Concert Cruise Events ran back-to-back sailings of the Old School Cruise—the first, a three-day trip to Ensenada, and the second, a five-day run to Cabo San Lucas. Between the two cruises, roughly 8,000 fans were partying and soaking in one of the most unique music experiences around. By the time the gangway closed on the second sailing, most of us were already plotting how to get back on board for the 2027 voyage.

As you board either of the two cruises, the trip kicks off with a party in the Atrium where cruise staff pass out rum punch so everyone can start the party off right. As we pulled away from port, WAR launched the cruise with every hit they’re known for, including “Low Rider,” “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” and so many more. Later that night, Lisa Lisa, Heatwave, Bloodstone, Club Nouveau, and The Intruders kept the party going late into the night. The final show of the evening was a fun, intimate set with Big Mountain.

The next morning started early with the Funky Brunch, where the Mike Torres Band played covers while everyone tucked into mimosas and ocean views. Daytime sea-day performances included Club Nouveau, who were joined by nine-year-old Oliver Kai—a kid who absolutely killed a cover of Prince’s “1999.” Other old-school favorites that played that day included Lighter Shade of Brown, Bloodstone, and many more.

Day three of the first cruise was the stop in Ensenada. Things kicked into high gear later with The Miracles, followed by Keith Sweat in front of a crowd that was packed wall to wall. The rest of the night rolled on with sets from WAR, Trinere, and more.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Ten years ago, The Tragically Hip took the stage for the final time in their hometown of Kingston, Ontario. That extraordinary night has since become woven into Canada’s cultural fabric, and now, the band is set to honor its legacy with the release of a landmark live album (August 21) and exclusive CBC rebroadcast/global live stream of A National Celebration (August 22 at 7 p.m. local time)—the band’s last show.

The album, Live July 22 – August 20, 2016, arrives August 21, 2026, via UMe. Featuring recordings from the band’s unforgettable final cross-Canada tour, the collection captures The Tragically Hip’s last stand in real time, powerful, unfiltered, and preserved in Dolby Atmos for generations to come. Fan favorites “Fifty-Mission Cap” recorded in Edmonton and “Locked In The Trunk Of A Car” from the final night in Kingston are out now.

The Kingston finale marked the closing chapter of the Man Machine Poem Tour, a 15-date, coast-to-coast farewell that reached millions. One-third of Canadians tuned in at a fever pitch; they filled arenas, gathered in public squares, and watched from living rooms and on their phones. As CBC’s historic 2016 broadcast unfolded, the nation stood still. It was more than a concert; it was a shared heartbeat.

Billed as A National Celebration, the final Kingston show had Canadians and fans worldwide come together to honor a band whose songs are stitched into the collective subconscious of this country. CBC will rebroadcast the concert, commercial-free, as it originally aired at local time (7:30 NT), nationwide on both services. It will be available globally on CBC Music’s YouTube channel and throughout North America on SiriusXM on CBC Radio One (ch 169) and Canada Talks (ch 167).

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Bob Dylan turns 85 on May 24. June 20 will mark the 60th anniversary of the release of Blonde on Blonde, perhaps Dylan’s most ambitious album and the one that concluded the trilogy of albums that was the peak of his legendary rise to mythical musical supremacy in the 1960’s. Dylan is still going strong today and is in the middle of the so-called “never-ending tour.”

A recent box set of his music—yet another laudable archival project in his long-running Bootleg Series—magnificently frames the era when Dylan, the musical artist, was being born and then exploded like a comet in the early ’60s. There have been some exceptional bootleg series releases, but this one is truly consequential and could not have come at a more opportune time.

The Bootleg Series Vol. 18: Through The Open Window, 1956-1963 is available in various formats, including an eight-CD box set with 139 tracks and a 4-LP Highlights package with 42 tracks. Both will be covered here.

The release doesn’t just cover Dylan’s emergence as a musician and songwriter, but also places his music and its significance in the context of the folk revival and the fertile, historic Greenwich Village folk scene of the early ’60s. It also reflects the watershed protest voice of a generation of songs that Dylan himself called his finger-pointing songs. Dylan was never comfortable with the protest-singer/voice-of-a-generation label and quickly shed that sobriquet as his songwriting matured.

Dylan fans who relish collecting and hearing his unreleased recordings will be thrilled by the overflowing bounty of never-before-released recordings included in this set. The eight-CD set includes a whopping 59 previously unreleased recordings.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Gary Stewart’s quavering vibrato and heart-tugging, cry-in-your-beer songs like the Top 10 country hits “Drinkin’ Thing,” “Out of Hand,” and the chart-topping “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles),” earned him a lasting place in country music history as The King of the Honky-Tonks. More than two decades after his passing, Stewart’s fans, new and old, can discover an untold chapter of his incredible story on One Track Mind, a collection of rare and previously unreleased recordings from Delmore Recording Society, to be released July 17.

One Track Mind finds Stewart toward the beginning of his career as a songwriter—newly arrived in Nashville from Fort Pierce, Florida, signing first with Cedarwood and then Forrest Hills publishing. These recordings—songwriting demos, an informal home tape, even a lone acetate—have been preserved from archival sources by producer Mark Linn and Stewart’s close friend Tommy Schwartz. Working primarily with early songwriting partner Bill Eldridge, several tunes heard on this collection would be recorded by luminaries of the genre, including Del Reeves (“One Track Mind”), Cal Smith (“You Can’t Housebreak a Tomcat”), Jack Greene (“There’s a Whole Lot About a Woman (A Man Don’t Know)”), and Nat Stuckey (“The Snuff Queen”). But no one sang these songs quite like Gary Stewart.

Those who know Stewart through his most famous recordings—namely, a near-decade run as a recording artist for RCA Victor in the ‘70s and ‘80s—will find unique and revealing detours on One Track Mind. The version of “The Snuff Queen” heard here, different from the one released as a single by Kapp in 1970, offers just Stewart’s voice and guitar, digging into a dark country-blues groove. “Beautiful River” Is a gorgeous, unfinished ballad recorded in the trailer he shared with Mary Lou, his beloved wife of more than 40 years; it features fingerpicked guitar and a soft, drifting whistle throughout.

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Wide of range and stylistically diverse, the output of the Sublime Frequencies label is a vast repository of global revelations. The latest addition to the catalog exemplifies the sense of discovery that has become the undertaking’s norm. Himba Hymn: Ghosts Of Namibia’s Skeleton Coast sheds considerable light onto a style of music heretofore unheard beyond its country’s borders. Recorded and produced by esteemed and dogged musical researcher Ian Brennan, these wild sounds flower out there far beyond any reasonable expectations, available now on vinyl and digital.

For many, the persevering interest in global sounds stemmed from, if not boredom, then certainly sustained restlessness with an overabundance of variations on the same old thing. And that thing was a deluge of different sub-things: pop-rock, alt-rock, indie, punk, Americana, electronica, etc.

Often described as a musical boom period, the 1990s were also a time when interested listeners began seeking something other than the standard contemporary kicks. There was the impulse to give earlier eras and styles a deeper investigation, a curiosity that wasn’t anything particularly new, especially regarding the music of distant cultures.

The reason the Nonesuch Explorer Series released recordings from 1967 to 1984, with numerous reissues to follow, was clearly due to unflagging consumer interest. And Nonesuch Explorer wasn’t alone, as Folkways broadened outward from US shores, and the 1980s brought an influx of labels including World Circuit, Hannibal, Original Music, Shanachie, and more.

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AUSTIN, TX | The Dave Matthews Band transformed the Moody Center into something far beyond a concert Monday night. What unfolded over the course of the evening felt wild, emotional, deeply human, and completely consuming—the kind of performance that grabs hold of you somewhere deep inside and refuses to let go long after the final note fades.

Even before arriving at the venue, the night already weighed heavily on me.

I had originally applied to shoot the show over a month earlier, only to withdraw because I was supposed to have eye surgery. When the surgery was postponed, I couldn’t shake the feeling in my heart and gut that I was supposed to be there. At the last minute, knowing full well I was crazy and it probably wouldn’t happen, I just said screw it, I’m asking again, because that’s just kind of what I do; if I feel it, I take the shot, so I asked if I could be put back in for approval. They said yes and put me back in, so I knew the Universe could now do what it may.

Monday morning, I packed my gear. Cameras. Extra clothes. Batteries. Everything. Not because I was certain—but things happen when they are meant to be, not when we expect, sometimes—and for some reason, through it all, there was this stubborn little flame inside me that refused to die. Then, sometime around 11 a.m., my phone rang, and suddenly the impossible became real. I remember chuckling to myself because I just kind of already felt it.

Walking into the Moody Center that night already felt special. It was my first time photographing there, and the building itself carried this massive energy before the band even appeared. But nothing—absolutely nothing—prepared me for the atmosphere once Dave Matthews Band took the stage.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Originally released in 2006, Kiss of Death is a ferocious reminder of Motörhead’s uncompromising, no-frills spirit—and a timely nod to the legendary status they’ve earned as one of the greatest hard rock bands of all time.

Driven by Lemmy’s unmistakable growl, backed by Phil Campbell’s blistering guitar work, and Mikkey Dee’s razor-sharp precision drumming, Kiss of Death—their 18th studio album—picks up exactly where 2004’s Inferno left off. It’s Motörhead doing what they do best: loud, fast, and relentless.

Leaning into the heavier edge of their sound, the album also features guest appearances from Mike Inez (Alice in Chains) and C.C. DeVille (Poison), and delivers standout cuts like “Sucker,” “Trigger,” and the fan-favourite “God Was Never On Your Side.”

Marking its 20th anniversary, this new edition sees the album newly half-speed mastered from the original tapes, with fresh liner notes from Classic Rock’s Dave Ling paying tribute to the contribution of the legendary Phil Campbell following his recent sad passing. It also includes an exclusive bonus live LP, capturing the band’s 2007 performance at Lowlands Festival in Biddinghuizen, Netherlands, available on vinyl for the first time. The CD edition features three additional bonus tracks.

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Celebrating Pete Townshend on his 81st birthday. —Ed.

Many have called The Who’s 1970 Live at Leeds the best live album of all time. Me, I’ve always scoffed. It made no difference that I’d never actually sat down and listened to it. A good rock critic doesn’t have to actually listen to an LP before passing judgment on it. He simply knows, based on gut instinct and certain arcane and occult clues, whether an album is a dud or not. In the case of Live at Leeds, there are three clues to the album being rated far greater than deserved.

The first is the LP’s inclusion of “Summertime Blues,” a song that has always given me hives and put me off my dinner of Hormel’s Chili on hot dogs, which is the impoverished rock critic’s version of pan-fried foie gras with spiced citrus purée. The second is that Live at Leeds suffers—if only in one notable case—from that early seventies affliction, song bloat.

You know what I’m talking about: live albums where the bands stretch their songs to extraordinary lengths, in some cases obscene two-sided lengths, forcing the stoned listener to stand up, stagger to the stereo in a Tuinal haze, and turn the damned record over to hear the second side. Finally, there was the issue of song selection: six tunes, three of them covers, with none of the covers being particular favorites of mine. And I’ve never been a big fan of one of the originals, “Magic Bus,” either.

Which has always left me to wonder, “What’s in it for me?” And I’m not alone; in particular, Live at Leeds failed to impress those twin pillars of rock criticism, the generally unintelligible Greil Marcus, who called the music dated and uneventful and the ever-crotchety Robert Christgau, who singled out “Magic Bus” for special abuse, calling it “uncool-at-any-length.”

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Drummer William Hooker is a constant traveler on the elevated plains of consciousness, and on Convergence: Live in China, he’s joined for some rich dialogues of blistering potency by guitarist John King. Recorded at the B10 Festival in Shenzhen, China, the hour-long performance is being released by ORG Music, with seven selections on the LP and three more on the CD, and completing the digital download. In totality, it is a whirlwind of powerhouse interaction.

Across the last half-century, drummer, bandleader, and composer William Hooker has risen and maintained his stature as one of the major figures in the fertile and diverse landscape of avant-jazz. A Connecticut-born West Coaster who migrated back East to emerge as part of the New York loft scene, he debuted on record with … Is Eternal Life, a 2LP set released in 1977 on Hooker’s own Reality Unit Concepts label.

Largely a live performance document that includes contributions from saxophonists David S. Ware and David Murray, … Is Eternal Life endures as a crucial document of undiluted exploratory jazz. It took Hooker a while to get another record out, Brighter Lights, released in 1984, also on Reality Unit Concepts, but once he hooked up with the terribly undersung Silkheart label, issuing Lifeline in 1988 and The Firmament Fury the following year, his release schedule picked up considerable momentum.

As it was for many persevering beacons of musical freedom, the 1990s were a discographical boom time for Hooker as he had a slew of stuff in the store racks courtesy of Homestead, Knitting Factory Works, Silkheart, and a bunch of one-shots on various labels, a remarkable stretch that continued deep into our current century.

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