Category Archives: The TVD Storefront

VIA PRESS RELEASE | He screamed his way into metal history. Then cancer tried to silence him for good. Now, for the first time, Chuck Billy—the iconic frontman of Bay Area thrash legends Testament—tells the whole truth in his unflinching memoir, Holding My Breath: The Two Testaments of Chuck Billy, publishing November 10, 2026, from Permuted Press.

This is not your typical rock memoir. Structured as two interlocking testaments, the book traces the full arc of a life lived at maximum volume—and then something louder than any riff: the fight to stay alive. The Old Testament plunges readers into the explosive birth of Bay Area thrash metal, the formation of Testament, the rivalries, the brotherhood, and the reckless, glorious chaos of becoming one of the genre’s most powerful voices.

The New Testament is something rarer and more raw—a frontman at 38, blindsided by a devastating cancer diagnosis, drawing on his Native American and Mexican-American heritage, spiritual healers, visions, and the fierce love of a metal community. At the center of that community: the legendary Thrash of the Titans benefit concert—one of the most galvanizing moments in heavy metal history—which rallied old rivals into brothers and helped ignite a genre revival while keeping Chuck Billy in the fight.

“This book is about two versions of me that are really just one story,” says Billy. “The guy who thought he was invincible, and the guy who learned how fragile life really is.”

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Celebrating Bill Ward, born on this day in 1948. —Ed.

Is Black Sabbath the dumbest band in rock history or what? Even as a wee lad “Iron Man” struck me as the work of a band that was slow, and I don’t mean slow as in sluggish in tempo but slow as in dim in cerebral wattage—heavy metal half-wits who wore boots because the alternative was those shoes with Velcro straps on them. They reminded me of the weird kid down the street who chewed then swallowed the heads off a full battalion of little green plastic army men but continued to play with them, despite the fact they were dead.

And I’m not alone: rock crit Robert Christgau gave Sabbath’s debut LP an unprecedented “E,” and when I asked my younger brother to sum up Black Sabbath he said simply, “Apparently the Devil likes doofuses.” Personally I lay the responsibility for this perception of the band from Birmingham as English oafs at the feet of Geezer Butler, whose wooden, stilted, and startlingly stupid lyrics make the boneheads in Bad Company look like MENSA material in comparison.

Let’s be honest: The Geez’s “I’m living easy where the sun doesn’t shine” may well be the most unintentionally hilarious rock lyric of all time (what, has he rented a penthouse in a giant’s bunghole?) And “I looked through a window and surprised what I saw/A faerie with boots and dancing with a dwarf” runs a close second. Then there’s “Into the Void,” wherein Butler comes up with the bright idea of sending freedom fighters to the sun to escape a doomed Earth, which ought to work out just dandy until they spontaneously combust.

But if I’m coming off all condescending (and I am) the joke’s on me, because Black Sabbath must have had something going for them (I know I’m talking past tense when they’re still around, but are they really?) or they wouldn’t have spawned a thousand heavy metal, doom metal, sludge rock, thrash, goth, and stoner rock bands, to say nothing of that Satanic duo Loggins and Messina. And that something wasn’t the dumb lyrics but duh, the music, which was murky, heavy-as-Leslie-West, and doom-laden, and kicked the bats out Hell because frankly Black Sabbath made a scarier noise and Ozzy was more than happy to bite the head off any bat that thought different.

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The 6-song EP can be a splendiferous thing, especially when is loaded with songs by The Wedding Present. Back in 1995, this august UK band released “Mini,” a set with a loose driving theme, and now, 30 years later, we have “Maxi,” a fresh half dozen from the current lineup, led as always by David Gedge, with the contents covering the same subject from six distinct angles.

The red and black 12-inch vinyl released by Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records is sold out on Bandcamp, but copies are still available in brick-and-mortar stores. A 10-inch pressing is also out now through the band’s label Scopitones, but it is going fast. Compact discs and digital downloads are also there for the purchasing.

A concise synopsis of The Wedding Present would, of course, situate them as top-tier indie pop specialists with an aptitude for guitar jangle at its most sublime and, occasionally, hyperactive. The other main characteristic is the band’s founder and constant frontman, David Gedge’s handiwork with a love song, and in fact, a whole big book of love songs.

Part of what makes this inclination for the amorous so impressive is how the songwriting has developed within the band’s indie-pop sound, which is very British and robust enough to be described as melodic rock (never have they been twee). The Wedding Present is not a band of grand stylistic detours and/or trend-hopping, although this shouldn’t suggest that the discography is predictable. Recognizable, sure, but predictable? No.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Tom Petty Estate unveils the release of Live at the Paradise Rock Club, 1978. A total of just 3,000 copies pressed on 180g pink and green split dye color vinyl will be available; purchase HERE. This bootleg-style recording captures the punk rock energy and raw talent of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at the very beginning of their explosion into stardom.

This recording takes fans back to the Heartbreakers’ earliest days as the band marks its 50th anniversary, a celebration that will extend throughout the coming year. Recorded live on two-track during a wild stop in Boston on the “You’re Gonna Get It!” tour and broadcast by WBCN-FM, the Paradise Rock Club show captures that electricity in real time, the sound of a band the world was just beginning to discover.

“This glimpse of the past shows the power of the band and the acceptance of the band by the city leading to a great fan base there that only grew as we moved on to play both the Old Garden and also Fenway in the ensuing years,” said Alan “Bugs” Weidel, the Heartbreakers’ longtime equipment manager and Petty’s trusted right-hand man. “The band developed a love of Boston and the fans there that made it a memorable place we were always excited to visit. So listen and imagine yourself in that small venue, discovering one of the all-time great bands.”

The Tom Petty Estate is releasing the fan-favorite concert officially for the first time, featuring audio restoration by longtime engineer Ryan Ulyate. The LP features nine performances, including five classic cover versions, with hits such as “Breakdown,” “Don’t Bring Me Down,” “Too Much Ain’t Enough” and more. Each copy includes artwork based on an original Shelter Records acetate found in Tom’s personal archives.

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Remembering Darryl Hunt, born on this day in 1950. —Ed.

Before I get to my review, a bit of stereotype slinging. About the Irish, who are oft said (you can ask anybody) to have produced the greatest drunken poets the world has ever seen. Here in the States, a drunk is a drunk is a drunk. In Ireland, if you believe the hype, every drunk is a poet and every poet is a drunk, and when the pubs close every last inebriated man, woman, and child who spills into the dimly lit street to stagger home or fall fecklessly into the filthy gutter is conjuring brilliant quatrains in their brain.

It’s obviously shite, and to the part of my lineage that is Irish (or is it Scottish, who knows?) offensive even, but I do believe the Irish harbor a romantic soul and love their whiskey as much as they love a gift for high-blown (Oscar Wilde and Brendan Behan, anybody?) speech. So just for argument’s sake, who is the greatest drunken Irish poet of them all? My vote goes to The Pogues’ Shane MacGowan, hands down.

He may be a spent force now; it’s been years since he wrote any new songs (that we’ve heard, anyway); his voice is every bit as much a ruin as the Acropolis; and the last time I saw him perform he hung precariously onto the microphone stand like a sailor clinging to the ratlines for dear life in the face of 90 mph typhoon winds. But the fact that he continues to draw breath at all is in itself a miracle.

I have done the math, and more whiskey has passed MacGowan’s lips over the course of his lifetime than was imbibed by F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Jones, Malcolm Lowry, and Dylan Thomas put together. Despite this dubious achievement, he has written some of the best poetry ever set to music, and has brought more happiness to mankind than a regimen of teetotalers.

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PHOTOS: MATTHEW BELTER | The first time I heard Howard Jones, I was a kid sitting too close to a stereo speaker, trying to figure out how a single guy with a stack of synthesizers could sound so big. The second time mattered more. April 28, 1992. The Variety Arts Theater in Los Angeles was one of my first dates with my future wife. He walked out with nothing but a piano and Carol Steele on percussion, and over the course of one evening, he quietly dismantled every lazy assumption the world had ever made about “synth-pop.”

The songs didn’t need the machines. They never had. Listening to that show—which would later become Live Acoustic America—I understood, maybe for the first time, that what I’d loved about Howard’s records all along was his songwriting. The keyboards were just the delivery vehicle.

That memory is why this conversation felt particularly good to have. Howard is heading back out across North America this summer with the Things Can Only Get Better tour—twenty-one dates kicking off July 19 in Napa and rolling east through August—and for the first time, he’s curated the bill himself.

Wang Chung, The English Beat, and Modern English are riding shotgun. Richard Blade is hosting. Four British acts who came up together in the early ’80s, finally on the same buses, in the same backstage hallways, on the same stages—full sets, no second-tier slots, no “opening act” treatment. It is, by Howard’s own description, his mini-festival. And it is exactly the sort of bill that anyone who wore out the grooves of Human’s Lib in 1984 would have drawn up on a napkin and quietly tucked away as a fantasy.

What struck me most, talking to him from his studio across the Atlantic, was how little distance there is between the man on the records and the man on the phone. He is unhurried, generous with his answers, and openly Buddhist about the work—he chants every day, he says, that he’ll go out there and really see every person in the room.

He talks about kindness the way other artists talk about chord changes. He’s also, I’m delighted to report, a full convert to vinyl, engaged with the Voices Around the World project for schools, and—if I have anything to say about it—now officially on the hook to finally press Live Acoustic America on wax. He said he’ll talk to Cherry Red. I’m holding him to it.

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So I was speeding down the highway when Tim Wilson’s “Booty Man” came on the radio and I was so horrified I put my hands to my cheeks and screamed like that kid in Home Alone before plowing through a guardrail and plunging off a very, very high cliff, and I’d be writing this from Rock Critic Hell if my car hadn’t run out of gas halfway down and stopped dead.

That’s what happens when you refuse to fill your gas tank because gasoline costs $98.64 per gallon, thanks to your wonderful President, the orange fuckface.

Still, it was embarrassing. I had to call Triple A, who said they’d send somebody from their Emergency Moron Management Team to help me out. Then I called my buddy Steds and explained what had happened. I said, “What kind of a maniac would play a song that dumb on the radio? It’s the height of irresponsibility!”

To which he replied, “I’ve been reading up on this, and it’s quite possible nobody played it. Turn your radio dial.”

I did. I counted a total of 31 radio stations, and every single one of them was playing Tim Wilson’s “Booty Man.” Alternative rock, Christian, contemporary country, urban storm, political talk radio, smooth jazz, adult contemporary, sports talk radio, and some station that I think is run by and for dogs; the format didn’t matter. It was “Booty Man” from 87.9 to 108.9.

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WORD & IMAGES: MATT MARTINEZ | Sick New World returned to Las Vegas, NV, for its third official installment, after an unfortunate cancellation of last year’s festival. Sick New World is a heavy metal festival that favors the nu metal and industrial side of the genre, featuring approximately 50 bands performing across four stages in a single day, with nonstop music and excitement. Metal fans descended upon Las Vegas for another year to raise heavy metal hell in Sin City.

Doors opened at 10 am for fans to enter the festival grounds, and we were held in one of the main food court areas for a short while while they finished setting up. While we waited, stilt performers and The Street Drums Corp performed under the iconic welcome arch to keep fans entertained before the music started. At 11 am, the ropes dropped, and fans quickly ran towards the stages they planned to camp at for the entire day, to be as close to the headliners as possible.

The four stages, all featuring the bands, were the Green and Purple Stages, which were our headline stages, as well as two side stages, the Diablo and Spiral Stage. Kicking off the entire festival was Los Angeles locals Speed of Light on the Purple Stage. I was fortunate to see them a couple of years ago on a small club stage in LA, and I was excited to see the recognition they were getting, being trusted to open the entire festival.

The Diablo and Spiral stages featured continuous bands and were positioned so that the music from one stage never overpowered the other. The Diablo stage features the heavier side of Sick New World, with hardcore, beatdown, and metalcore bands sending fans into an intensely raging circle pit throughout the day. Some of the featured acts included Flatwounds, Showing Teeth, The Dark.FM, Bloodywood, Norma Jean, Speed, Sunami, Health, Terror X Pain of Truth, Wage War, Poison The Well, and closing out the stage was Underoath.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Stax Records and Craft Recordings announce a long-awaited wide vinyl reissue for Stax Does The Beatles.

Released nearly two decades ago on the influential Memphis soul label, Stax Does The Beatles boasts members of the iconic label’s roster putting their indelible touch on Beatles classics. Among the highlights: Otis Redding’s exhilarating take on “Day Tripper,” Isaac Hayes’ epic (at 11-plus minutes), heart-tugging version of “Something,” Carla Thomas’ live, velvety interpretation of “Yesterday,” and Steve Cropper’s upbeat, brass-laden adaptation of “With a Little Help from My Friends.”

Available for pre-order now, Stax Does The Beatles returns to vinyl for the first time since its limited Record Store Day 2019 exclusive pressing. This newly curated edition distills highlights from the original CD release by Stax luminaries into a streamlined 1-LP format, offering a focused listening experience. Stax Does The Beatles is pressed on black vinyl, while fans can also find exclusive variant drops: a rich Translucent Ruby (Barnes & Noble exclusive), sunny Eggdrop Yellow (indie retail exclusive), and Silver Smoke (Stax Records/Craft Recordings exclusive).

The Beatles’ impact across several music genres is sprawling to say the least, influencing everything from rock to soul—and the legendary musicians at Stax Records were likewise inspired by the Fab Four. From the mid-1960s onward, Stax artists had begun covering Beatles tracks for the label, with their output peaking towards the late 1960s and early 1970s. Released widely on vinyl for the first time, this eight-track LP includes vocal and instrumental performances alike from legendary Stax Records artists, who imbue The Beatles’ catalog with a rousing mix of soul, funk, and R&B.

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Celebrating Bernard Butler, born on this day in 1970. —Ed.

When Suede released their eponymous 1993 debut, Glam fans took notice. No they didn’t. They leapt to their feet and dug through their closets for their six-inch platform Ziggy Stardust boots and moth-balled space age Brian Eno ultra-high collars before sprinting, or more accurately tripping and wobbling—have you ever tried to run in six-inch platform boots?—to loot the make-up counters of every store in London. Finally, they managed to lose (in six minutes flat!) the eighty pounds necessary to squeeze themselves into their old designed-for-skeletons glam attire. Depending on your point of view, it was a glorious moment or a bleeding horror show.

Actually, of course, none of this happened, because while Suede had that classic Glam sound, they didn’t necessarily look the part. They were, for the most part, Glam in mufti, and dressed, for the most part, in fashionable black, with the notable exception of vocalist Brett Anderson, who had that vintage Brian Ferry look—sans the 1940s tailored suits and jaded sophistication—down flat.

But none of this has anything to do with Suede, which ranks amongst the finest LPs of the Britpop era. By turns lush, romantic, low key, high strung, guitar heavy and flat-out metallic, the album’s songs are showcases for Anderson’s vocals, which tend towards the histrionic fabulous. His voice is the Glam glue that draws it all together—Bernard Butler’s guitar shapes the music, for sure, but it’s primarily Anderson’s arch delivery that sets the band squarely in the Great Glam Tradition.

“So Young” is as good as it gets. The song’s fresh melody captures the sound of youth, Anderson goes big time romantic, Butler’s piano adds flavor, and his guitar gives the song just enough muscle to keep it from dissolving into a lovely fey wisp. “Animal Nitrate” is a tougher beast boasting a killer chorus and Anderson singing, “Oh, it turns you on, on/Now he has gone/Oh, what turns you on, on?/Now your animal’s gone.” The ballad “She’s Not Dead” showcases Anderson’s ability to hit those dramatic high notes, while the band produces a Starman solar sound that fits Anderson’s voice like a tailored space suit.

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Today on Radar, I spoke with Genre is Death, an uncompromising noise duo made up of Ty Varesi (guitar, vox) and Tayler Lee (bass, vox).

They moved to NYC in 2023, looking for something beyond what small-town Georgia had to offer. They hit the ground running. A chance encounter with ’80s underground stalwarts Live Skull pulled them into the city’s noise scene and into orbit with Lydia Lunch and The Art Gray Noizz Quintet. In 2025, they toured with Gogol Bordello and shared stages with Bush Tetras and Jon Spencer.

Their debut LP, Attractive People, is out this Friday on In the Red Records, recorded by Martin Bisi at BC Studio in Gowanus. We spoke about their beginnings, their journey to New York, and the making of Attractive People. Tune in.

Radar features discussions with artists and industry leaders who are creators and devotees of music and is produced by Dylan Hundley and The Vinyl District. Dylan Hundley is an artist and performer, and the co-creator and lead singer of Lulu Lewis and all things at Darling Black. She co-curates and hosts Salon Lulu which is a New York based multidisciplinary performance series. She is also a cast member of the iconic New York film Metropolitan.

Los Angeles’ The Electric Prunes came up with a great idea in “free-form garage music.” It makes you think of a collaboration between Sun Ra and The Kingsmen. Unfortunately, something went terribly, terribly wrong when they went into the studio (actually a pair of studios) in late 1966 to record their eponymous debut LP.

Actually, that something was several things, primarily producer Dave Hassinger and the songwriting team of Nancie Mantz and Annette Tucker, whom Hassinger tasked with writing the bulk of the songs for the LP. Forget the fact that The Electric Prunes had songs of their own, only two of which would make it onto 1967’s The Electric Prunes. Hassinger got what Hassinger wanted.

The Prunes were understandably unhappy about this. Said one of the band’s songwriters (Mark Tulin, bass guitar, piano, organ) later, “We had nothing resembling freedom, let alone total freedom, in the selection of our songs. Consequently, there are definitely songs that I do believe didn’t belong on the album…” (Not only that, but they had to fight Hassinger when it came to HOW the songs should be played.)

Tulin might have added that there are songs on the album that don’t belong on ANY album. Not even Blood, Sweat & Tears would have touched the likes of “The Toonerville Trolley.”

So how is it that The Electric Prunes came in at No. 29 on Brooklyn Vegan’s “The 50 Best Psychedelic Rock Albums of the Summer of Love”? Well, I can only assume it made the list because it includes two of the greatest freak-flag-fliers of the acid rock era, “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” and “Get Me to the World on Time,” along with a few other lesser lights that are far from embarrassments.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | BMG and The Montreux Jazz Festival announce the return of their prestigious live collection series, with a brand-new release, Roberta Flack: The Montreux Years.

The album, out June 26th in multiple-format configurations including 2LP heavyweight vinyl, CD, download and all major streaming services, features a sublime collection of Roberta Flack’s Montreux Jazz Festival performances spanning four decades, from her debut appearance in 1971 through to her last in 2008. Fully restored and superbly mastered for the first time by Tony Cousins at London’s Metropolis Studios, the unique recordings come with exclusive liner notes from her long-term manager, Suzanne Koga, and rare, unseen photography.

One of the most distinctive and powerful voices in contemporary music, Roberta Flack rose to global prominence in the early 1970s with recordings that shaped her legacy, including the timeless “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and the era-defining “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” A classically trained pianist and vocalist, she developed an artistry that was both technically refined and emotionally resonant, moving effortlessly between soul, jazz, pop and folk.

Flack also broke records and barriers in the music industry, becoming the first artist to win back-to-back GRAMMY Awards for Record of the Year, and establishing herself as a pioneering figure among Black women in taking creative and production control of her own recordings. Her career helped redefine the pathway for future generations of artists and reinforced the importance of artistic independence and musical excellence.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Three-time Grammy award-winning hitmaker NE-YO celebrates two decades of his breakthrough full-length debut album, In My Own Words, with the release of a new special Expanded Edition, In My Own Words (20th Anniversary), out June 19, 2026.

It arrives in multiple configurations, including physical and making its digital debut on most DSP platforms. The 2LP standard version is pressed on classic Standard Weight Black Vinyl and lands in stores nationwide and online. A limited-edition “Enchanted Night” color 2LP vinyl drops exclusively D2C through NE-YO’s uDiscover, Sounds of Vinyl, and Complex. A standard edition CD will also be available at brick-and-mortar retailers and online. Pre-order HERE.

All iterations of In My Own Words (20th Anniversary) notably feature brand new 2026 mixes of the original record’s 13 tracks. Plus, it flaunts a fresh 2026 mix of the fan favorite bonus cut “Girlfriend” and another remix of the opener “Stay.” He has also added special acoustic versions of “So Sick” and “Sexy Love” recorded live in Atlanta during 2021, which will be available across all streaming platforms for the first time after previously being exclusive to YouTube.

The CD and digital versions boast a handful of exclusive gems, featuring acoustic studio renditions of “So Sick” and “Sexy Love” and instrumental tracks for “When You’re Mad” and “So Sick.”

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Celebrating Nick Feldman, born on this day in 1955. —Ed.

The planet’s a mess, the US of A is going down the shitter, and everybody seems to hate everybody else, but it wasn’t always this way. There was a time, 1986 and early 1987 to be exact, when peace, love, and understanding reigned supreme.

And there was a simple reason for this—we were all Wang Chunging.

We were Wang Chunging in Detroit, Wang Chunging in Berlin, Bangkok, Bora Bora, and Bangor, Maine, Wang Chunging in clubs and cars and bars and retirement homes and passenger jets soaring high above the flyover states, where every single person in every single one of those flyover states was Wang Chunging until their eyes rolled up in the backs of their heads. None of us really knew what we were Wang Chunging about, or even what Wang Chunging entailed, but we were Wang Chunging anyway, and we were all deliriously happy.

And for that, we have the English New Wave duo Wang Chung to thank. I don’t know how they failed to win a Nobel Peace Prize.

The sad truth is Wang Chung never won a single prize period, and to add insult to injury the video for the song that had us all Wang Chunging to begin with, “Everybody Have Fun Tonight,” was banned by the BBC after a medical expert determined that its machine-gun editing (some shots approach up to 1/25th of a second between edits) could cause epileptic fits. It would have been one thing if it had been banned because it revealed Wang Chunging to be an interspecies sex act. But the video tells us nothing. You can watch it and Wang Chung to it, hell, you can even have an epileptic fit to it, but you still won’t know what Wang Chunging is.

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