VIA PRESS RELEASE | Following its critically acclaimed debut at the Tribeca Film Festival, Mercury Studios is announcing that the feature-length documentary Linda Perry: Let It Die Here will launch a global theatrical rollout beginning this May.

Directed by award-winning filmmaker Don Hardy (Citizen Penn, Pick of the Litter) and produced by KTF Films, the film offers an unfiltered portrait of one of the most influential figures in modern music. Evan Saxon Productions will distribute the film theatrically. The film was met with widespread praise following its premiere in Tribeca. Rolling Stone hailed it as “the rawest, most revealing music documentary in years,” while Billboard called the film “riveting,” noting that it captures an artist with “plenty left to say.” The Wrap praised the documentary for revealing “hidden truths” and highlighted Perry’s “vulnerability.”

The theatrical release opens in New York City on May 8 and will feature a special opening night screening followed by a Q&A and live performance. The film will open in Los Angeles on May 15, also accompanied by a Q&A and performance, before expanding through all markets from May 19.

Linda Perry: Let It Die Here chronicles the life and career of the GRAMMY and Golden Globe nominated songwriter, producer, and 4 Non Blondes front woman. Iconic in the nineties for the era-defining hit “What’s Up,” Linda Perry has spent the past three decades reinventing herself as one of pop music’s most prolific behind the scenes hitmakers. Her songwriting and production credits include Dolly Parton, Christina Aguilera, P!nk, Adele, Miley Cyrus, Celine Dion, Alicia Keys, Gwen Stefani, The Chicks, Ariana Grande, Weezer, and more.

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Celebrating David Sylvian on his 68th birthday. —Ed.

When UK new wavers Japan broke up in 1982, the members predictably splintered off into various directions, and the highest profiles belonged to Mick Karn and David Sylvian. Over the decades the latter has amassed a solo and collaborative discography of unlikely reach and impressiveness; however, giving a fresh listen to ‘84’s Brilliant Trees makes abundantly clear Sylvian’s career trajectory isn’t as surprising as it might initially seem.

Upon consideration, very few musicians who made their name in the pop sphere have aged as well as David Sylvian. Of course, this is mainly due to his choice after Japan’s dissolution (they briefly reunited for one self-titled ’91 album under the name Rain Tree Crow) to gradually leave the milieu that fostered his initial reputation. The subsequent journey led him into the outlying territories of experimentation and the avant-garde, though this shouldn’t give the false impression that Sylvian’s post-Japan oeuvre is devoid of pop elements.

As a youngster of the ‘80s, I knew little of Japan, my discovery of Sylvian supplied by his ’87 collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Secrets of the Beehive. The introduction was made through the frequent play and promotion of said disc by my hometown Mom & Pop record mart, an enterprise also involved in the sale of high end stereo equipment.

To my teen mind any system comprised of separate components was high end, and at the time Secrets of the Beehive basically eluded me, as did much “deep-listening” material attached to ambient, new age, minimalism, art-pop etc. Reengaging with Sylvian as a mature adult provided, if not an epiphany than another instance aiding the realization that artistic assessments work in tandem with personal growth, therefore flouting finality.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Heart’s legendary debut album, Dreamboat Annie, and Jellyfish’s cult classic swan song, Spilt Milk, are the latest records to join UMe’s Vinylphyle audiophile vinyl reissue series.

Available to order now exclusively via uDiscover Music, both albums were mastered by Joe Nino-Hernes and pressed at RTI on 180-gram black vinyl, with an initial pressing of 3,000. Similar in presentation and execution to Blue Note’s acclaimed Tone Poet series, the production and packaging seek to honor the stature of these recordings and includes tip-on wrapped gatefold jackets in satin matte finish, printed on clay-coated board, with archival poly sleeves and a four-panel insert featuring new liner notes.

Dreamboat Annie, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, was mastered from the 1975 Can-Base Studios tapes and features liner notes from veteran music writer Rick Florino, while Spilt Milk was mastered from a new 96kHz, 24bit digital remaster sourced from the 1993 Ocean Way Mixdown tapes and was pressed on 2LP, spreading the 46 minutes of music onto three sides to maximize punch and fidelity, while minimizing the amount of record-flipping interruptions. A handwritten message to fans from Jellyfish co-founder Roger Joseph Manning Jr. is engraved on the fourth side. Manning also provides an illuminating, in-depth interview in the liner notes about the making of the short-lived band’s power pop masterpiece.

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I once read someone call the J. Geils Band America’s Rolling Stones. No shit. If the J. Geils Band are America’s Rolling Stones this country is in even sorrier shape than I thought. The R&B connection is there, the litany of unforgettable songs isn’t—the J. Geils Band began life as a house party band (even wrote a song saying as much), and despite a couple of breakthrough AOR hits, a house party band they remained.

Trouble is, I’m not sure—and I actually have a soft spot for America’s hardly-the-Rolling-Stones—I’d go to that house party. Good time music is only good time music if the music is good, and the J. Geils Band is a kind of music mullet—party in the front, not always so great music in the back. And harmonica solos disguised as songs aren’t my idea of fun.

The J. Geils Band hailed from Worcester, Massachusetts, and appropriately enough got their start as a fraternity party band at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, as Snoopy and the Sopwith Camels. And they remained a fraternity party band in spirit until the late seventies, journeymen in the mold of Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, when they went arena rock with bordering-on-novelty-song smashes like “Love Stinks,” “Centerfold,” and “Freeze-Frame.”

But there are few more energetic frat-party albums than 1972’s Live Full House, which is worth hearing and is probably the LP that spawned the Rolling Stones comparisons in the first place.

Like Seger, they wrote some great originals (okay, so Seger wrote more), performed some great covers, and made their bones as a full-tilt live band. Like Seger, they finally broke through to the big time, but you won’t hear (and I can’t say I’m disappointed) their career-altering hits on 1979’s Best of the J. Geils Band. What you’ll hear is a house party, and while it has its sublime moments, I think Robert Christgau of The Village Voice was spot on when he wrote, “Here’s where we catch up with their good moments, right? Wrong.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | “A singular, rhapsodic triumph.” —Uncut

Destroyer’s Rubies, the beloved seventh full-length album by Destroyer, turns 20 this February. Recently hailed by UPROXX as one of 2006’s best albums, Destroyer’s Rubies will receive a repressing befitting its status as one of the jewels of the Merge Records catalog. The 20th Anniversary Edition of Destroyer’s Rubies, a double LP pressed on clear with red swirl vinyl, is now available for pre-order from the Merge Records store or Destroyer’s Bandcamp page. The album, which includes the vinyl-exclusive suite “Loscil’s Rubies,” ships on March 6.

Dan Bejar will once again take to the road later this month, supporting Neko Case’s winter 2026 tour with a solo Destroyer set. Tickets for all dates are now on sale.

Remembering Kurt Cobain, born on this day in 1967. —Ed.

In 1991 a Pacific-Northwest three-piece changed the direction of the record industry, securing a spot in music history as the spearhead of Grunge. In 2002 a self-titled album attempted to sum up their essence; rather than electing to represent the trio’s actual range, Nirvana is dominated by chart entries, a handful of non-surprises, and a (then) previously unreleased track. 

To obtain a full grasp of how well Nirvana succeeds in offering a tidy retrospective of an important, oft volatile, and enduringly polarizing act required getting reacquainted with their discography from ’88 to ’94. With time spent the verdict is in: first hitting racks roughly 8½ years after Kurt Cobain’s suicide and a little over a decade removed from the band’s unexpected runaway success, Nirvana ultimately falls short of top-tier.

This assessment comes not by any fault of the group but through unimaginative assemblage and a problematic title. Leaving the occasional sarcastic usage aside, the words Greatest Hits summarize an objective truth, and the use of Best Of, while potentially arguable, is a nomenclature making its intentions plain. The eponymous treatment employed here is merely ambiguous.

If the purpose behind Nirvana was to encapsulate its subject’s breadth and heights on one record the results don’t meet the goal. Far too safe to accurately embody the Best, it essentially flirts with Greatest Hits; perhaps the term was just considered tacky when applied to retail achievements stemming partially from a perceived lack of calculation and even borderline disinterest.

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Actress, musician, and storyteller Gina Gershon joins us to talk music, Hollywood, and her brand new memoir.

Known for her iconic roles in Bound, Showgirls, Face/Off, and The Insider, as well as her Broadway turn as Sally Bowles in Cabaret, Gershon has carved out one of the most distinctive careers in the business. Music has always been a big part of her world too—she’s recorded albums, toured across America, and performed at Carnegie Hall three times alongside Sting, Laurie Anderson, Joan Baez, and Gogol Bordello.

Her new memoir, AlphaPussy: How I Survived the Valley and Learned to Love My Boobs, drops March 3, 2026. It’s a collection of true stories covering her journey from the San Fernando Valley to Hollywood and New York City, with candid encounters involving Prince, Bob Dylan, Bob Fosse, Sharon Stone, and many others.

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.

It’s one of the oldest stories known to man, going all the way back to the Book of Genesis and Shem and the Shemrocks.

Band starts out making a horrible noise, builds a fan base of people who enjoy horrible noise, then slowly becomes less and less chaos-friendly until their music is so accessible it’s being played on lame-o Adult Album Alternative radio stations like WXPN in Philadelphia, which would never play horrible noise because it might offend their listeners, who tend to be responsible adults with kids and would have conniptions if subjected to the likes of Killdozer, U.S. Maple, or that song by Black Oak Arkansas where Jim Dandy Mangrum, who can’t sing a lick but fails to do so wonderfully, finds himself in the Halls of Karma where he learns the secret of life.

WXPN is where I first heard Guerilla Toss, and they had just enough of a funk-noise dance-punk edge to pique my interest. In fact, they were noisy enough to make me check them out. And while I find their new stuff (2025’s You’re Weird Now in particular) to be quite catchy and even pop melodic in a noisy kind of way (check out the funky “Psychosis Is Just a Number” and the melody-wrapped-in-barbed-wire “Krystal Ball”) it was only when I worked backwards to their first LPs that I discovered a band noisy and clamorous enough to delight the mayhem junkie in me.

The mother lode? Guerilla Toss’s 2013 debut LP Gay Disco, which may be short (six songs) but is non-stop caterwaul fun.

Vocalist/violinist Kassie Carlson is Kathleen Hanna on a Red Bull jag, drummer Peter Negroponte produces a twisted funk din and often sounds like he’s banging away on trash can lids from inside a dumpster, guitarist Arian Shafee produces all manner of fractured art rock noises, as does keyboardist Ian Kovac, who would depart the band the following year and be replaced by Sam Lisabeth, who in turn would be replaced by Jake Lichter in 2024. And let us not forget bass player Simon Hanes, who plays these great sideways funk lines and would also depart the band shortly after Gay Disco was released.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | A crown jewel in last year’s Record Store Day roster, An American Music Story: The Complete Studio Recordings 1979–1985, was a comprehensive 5-LP overview from Los Angeles roots-rock legends The Blasters.

This deluxe box set was an immediate sellout, and over the past six months Liberation Hall has kept busy reissuing the five titles as standalone releases. The final entry from that box set, Rare Blasts: Studio Outtakes and Movie Music 1979–1985, arrives on April 18. It will be available on translucent cobalt blue vinyl with an inner sleeve showcasing rare photos, memorabilia, and liner notes essay by co-producer Chris Morris. Digital single “Can’t Stop Time” is available now.

Formed in Downey, California, The Blasters were one of the bedrock groups in the Americana music movement. The band’s lineup throughout their 1980s heyday comprised vocalist Phil Alvin, Grammy Award-winning songwriter and lead guitarist Dave Alvin, drummer Bill Bateman, bassist John Bazz, keyboardist Gene Taylor, and saxophonists Lee Allen and Steve Berlin. To mark the occasion of last year’s box set release, Uncut magazine published a 5-star review and devoted four pages to The Blasters.

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Celebrating Tony Iommi on his 78th birthday. —Ed.

Dear Satan, I’ve always considered you a cool guy. Lord of the Flies, Leader of the Loyal Opposition, natty dresser, boogie man of little kids and grown Puritans alike–even your horns are badass.

So why, if you don’t mind my asking, did you appoint Ozzy Osbourne your ambassador to our world of sin? I would have thought you’d do better than a drug-addled, ant-snorting, famous-for-biting-the-heads-off-small-animals shlub in tragically ill-fitting leather pants. Had you come to me for advice, dear Lucifer, I’d have recommended someone more appropriate–Jimmy Page say, or Maroon 5. Of course it’s possible Ozzy swiped your title without your permission. Plenty of people have done so over the years, Mick Jagger included, and maybe you figured if you’re gonna cut milksop Mick a break you might as well give poor witless Ozzy a pass too.

Or–and I’m working on this assumption–you’ve let Oz get away with it because Black Sabbath is quite arguably the first and heaviest heavy metal band to ever ooze its way out of the Underworld. What’s more, they scare the shit out of lotsa people, most of ‘em parents, music critics and hippies. You must love putting the frighteners on hippies–all that peace and love shit’s enough to make you puke hellfire.

Zonked metal kids are dead sure you’re partial to such early Sabbtunes as “Iron Man” and “War Pigs” cuz they sound real evil, but that’s not the way I see it. You’re a dancer, as Mick Jagger can attest, and I’m betting your tastes run more to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. If early Black Sabbath was a cement mixer grinding its way up a steep incline in first gear, come 1973 they’d slapped a super-charged engine on that puppy and tricked it out with some nifty accessories including strings, synthesizers and Rick Wakeman, who makes for a nifty head ornament. Satan can’t drive 55.

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PHOTOS: GRACE STUFKOSKY | In a world where retail often feels impersonal and automated, Jen Keenan has built something radically different in the high desert of Northern Arizona: a sanctuary that treats both coffee and vinyl as sacred, tactile rituals. As the driving force behind Queen B Vinyl Café, Keenan isn’t just selling lattes and records; she is curating an immersive sensory experience that challenges the “grab-and-go” culture of modern consumption.

From hosting “Goth Proms” for local homeschoolers to launching a subscription club that pairs dark roasts with obscure albums, her approach redefines what it means to be a community hub. In this exclusive conversation with TVD, Keenan reveals how she transformed a former church into a cultural haven, why sustainability is non-negotiable, and how a deep emotional connection to music saved her during her darkest times. This interview offers a masterclass in building a business with soul, starting with the spark that ignited it all.

What inspired you to create Queen B Vinyl Café, blending music, coffee, and community?

The Queen B Vinyl Café was originally Puscifer, our store in Jerome, AZ. Because we have the record store and a wine bar in there—since we also make wine—I feel like the coffee just came along organically. It’s very similar to wine, with the different varietals and flavors depending on where it’s grown. We were interested in doing coffee from that perspective.

We didn’t own the building in Jerome, so we knew at some point we would have to move. When the building came up in Cottonwood, we decided to look. It’s an old church, and when I walked in, I thought, “This is it. This is home.” We decided to move it and give Puscifer a little more separation from the band, so it became Queen B. Now we have the perfect place for the coffee.

How does your personal passion for music and coffee influence the vision and atmosphere of the café?

There’s not a lot to do in this area—I’ve been here for about 20 years. The wine industry has brought in more, but there’s still not much for young people. I wanted to create a place that had some culture and bring bands here.

My music taste is eclectic. I decided that since I can’t see these bands anywhere else nearby—some of the ones I like are two hours away in Phoenix—I’m just going to start bringing them here. I’ve been very lucky that a lot of bands have been open to coming a little out of the way.

With our record store, we keep it curated. I want independent music, smaller bands, and interesting stuff—not things that are pumped into every retail shop. The coffee is the same. We were definitely into dark roasts, but as we got into coffee more, we evolved into lighter, medium roasts. We try to highlight that and show people it doesn’t always have to be burnt and dark to be enjoyable.

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