Some festivals are built around a headliner. Power to the People was built around a cause. On Saturday, October 3, with the midterm elections a month away, Tom Morello filled Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland, with generations of performers from rock, punk, folk, and hip-hop, then asked every person who came through the gates to do more than sing along: register, organize, and show up.
A share of every ticket went to VoteRiders and HeadCount, dozens of nonprofits set up shop in the Freedom Village behind the lawn, and the artists spent the day wandering into each other’s sets like one big extended family with something to say. It was loud, joyful, defiant, and at times genuinely moving—a reminder that music has always been one of the best ways to bring people together, pointed in the same direction.
The day started on the grass. The lawn filled first, and by the time the first few bands hit the stage, it was packed, blankets and bodies stretching up the hill. Nobody was easing into this one.
The Last Internationale owned the main stage from the jump. Delila Paz sounded amazing and carried the kind of presence that makes an opening slot feel like a headline set, and when guitarist Edgey Pires launched himself off a speaker mid-song, it was killer. Morello has championed this band for years, and there was no better way to open the Pavilion stage at his festival.
The Linda Lindas came out fun, lively, and spunky, and they were the ones who really kicked off the day’s energy for me—no small feat, considering I was running on zero coffee. Their punk is pure joy, and the crowd fed off every bit of it.
It was in the late ’80s that many young underground rock listeners first encountered the name Glenn Branca, largely due to the composer/guitarist’s association with Sonic Youth. For folks under the sway of Evol, Sister, and Daydream Nation, those LPs served as a gateway into a subterranean, art-drenched New York City that was extremely alluring, especially to suburbanites who perceived their immediate surroundings as being conspicuously lacking in worthwhile cultural activity.
Casper, WY | Listening parties turn new releases into community building at Sonic Rainbow: Coming together to jam to the new releases has become the norm at Sonic Rainbow in downtown Casper, who have been regularly hosting pre-release listening parties for new records. “I see a lot of these record store listening parties, like on Instagram and stuff, and the Wyoming section. This is the only one that’s ever on there. So, it feels really special to be able to have it here,” said Hannah Scott, who attended a release party for Remi Wolf’s new album Mud Thursday evening. These pre-release listening parties, held in collaboration with the Record Store Day event, have 
Vashon Island, WA | ‘A place where you can experiment’: King Tide Music opens. Last December, islander Ryan Gray approached Ballast bandmate Shawn Carkonen with a vision: a community space dedicated to all things music. He was tired of ordering equipment from online retailers like Amazon, Gray said, and wanted to carve a place for the island’s musicians to try out instruments, listen to records and geek out over music. Less than a year later, that vision has become King Tide Music, slated to open its doors to the island on Oct. 2. “We want to be the island staple for music for years to come,” Gray said. The name is inspired by king tides, when some of the year’s highest tides are followed by unusually low tides that expose wide stretches of beach. “It [king tides] uncovers things you didn’t know were there, that 
Lucky for us, there is no justice under the human sun, because Fly Like an Eagle is almost as guilty a pleasure as, I don’t know, Frampton Comes Alive or Hotel California, just two of the LPs Fly Like an Eagle beat out to win Rolling Stone’s award for Best LP of 1976. It also won out over Night Moves and Boston. You’ve got to hand it to The Steve Miller Band; rolling over that kinda competition is, by anyone’s standards, an extraordinarily unimpressive accomplishment.
AC/DC played primal, zero-frills, straight-ahead hard rock that led morons (like the younger me) to conclude their music was for dummies. Frank Zappa (my then idol) played cerebral brain music. AC/DC just punched you in the solar plexus. Theirs was gut music, like Iggy and the Stooges or a souped-up, oversexed early Black Sabbath.
Baltimore, MD | Dig The Grooves of Baltimore’s Famous Record Store: For over 30 years, there has been one record store that stands out amongst them all. Starting in 1993, The Sound Garden record store is home to over 100,000 new and used vinyl records, CDs, DVDs, video games, and Blu-Rays. Store owner and founder Bryan Burkert used to visit his hometown’s store in Buffalo once or twice a week before moving to Baltimore after graduating from college. Originally planning on going to law school, he decided to open up The Sound Garden when he was not able to find a record store that he liked in Baltimore. The 6,000-square-foot location has been a prominent staple in the Baltimore community, serving as the biggest record store and what Rolling Stone Magazine called “
Evanston, IL | Two years old and three times the size: Dozens of people fill Animal Records as the store celebrates its second anniversary and grand reopening. The vintage record (and CDs) store moved to a new space at 620 Grove St., which is almost three times its original space next door. “I think 
