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“He said, ‘There's a room upstairs filled with guitars, but you can't see them – we’re only selling them all at once.’ We came back and waved hundred dollar bills in his face”: Blondie's Chris Stein on his greatest (and strangest) guitar shopping spree

Blondie’s days in rugged CBGB’s were many chart-topping hits behind them in 1980, when Stein told GW about the time he and his bandmates got themselves into an unassuming dream guitar store...

Guitar World

Patti Smith helped Lenny Kaye go solo

After decades as one of rock's most influential collaborators, Kaye has finally released his first true solo album

Salon

"He was seriously wondering if the Ramones would ever make it as big as the Bay City Rollers." How the Ramones made the debut album that only sold 6000 copies but changed the world

Few bands shook the UK music scene like NYC punks the Ramones did in 1976. Fewer still can claim they actually built one. Welcome to a revolution

Louder

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read the most diverse news in one place.

"Pretty Ugly" resurrects the Lunachicks

Ilya Chaiken’s documentary traces the band's East Village rise and feminist punk legacy

Salon

"The Ramones rescued rock 'n' roll." How Ramones' first album changed the lives of punk rock icons Henry Rollins, Bob Mould, Ian MacKaye and Steve Albini, in their own words

On April 23, 1976 Sire Records released a punk rock record that changed everything

Louder

"He's up there with Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan": New York rock'n'roller Willie Nile on Vincent Van Gogh, Irish goodbyes and the greatest songwriter you've never heard of

After four years, Willie Nile's new album The Great Yellow Light was worth the wait

Louder

“Being a great guitar player is always coming up with the right part for the right song, or the right solo”: The Fleshtones’ Keith Streng explains what he learned from a misspent youth at CBGB’s –and the merits of pointless practice

Streng’s rhythmic garage riffs keep the punk-era legends vital after five non-stop decades

Guitar World

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Blondie, The Ramones, and the greatest CBGB bands

Blondie drummer Clem Burke died at the weekend aged 70. In tribute here is a look at the scene that forged around the legendary New York venue, CBGB

Evening Standard

Talking Heads’ debut album set for CD and vinyl reissue - check out acoustic version of Psycho Killer

Talking Heads: 77 will be re-released in November featuring a new remaster of the original album, outtakes, rare cuts and more

Louder

"There was no food allowed backstage, only drugs and booze": Clem Burke's stories of Debbie Harry, Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop and more

He was a Ramone, been treated like royalty when touring withNancy Sinatra, got hot dogs from Jerry Nolan and played with Pete Townshend: He's Blondie drummer and more Clem Burke

Louder

‘The drugs were so new, they weren’t illegal yet’: the debauched rise of New York’s wildest bar

It was a seedy hotbed of sex, drugs, edgy music and A-list celebrities where Lou Reed and Andy Warhol partied alongside Blondie and Bowie. How did Max’s Kansas City fall apart?

The Guardian - UK

‘I’m a fan of chaos’: Blondie’s Chris Stein on Bowie, Debbie Harry and 50 years in rock’n’roll

In his candid new memoir, the guitarist talks about the glory period of Parallel Lines and how addiction and loss altered his life

The Guardian - UK

Paranoia and polyrhythms: Talking Heads’ greatest songs – ranked!

As an all-star version of 1984’s Stop Making Sense is released, we run down the band’s best tracks, from the beautiful Dream Operator to the existential crisis of Once in a Lifetime

The Guardian - UK

"If anyone tries to tell you that Max’s wasn't a drug den, then they are lying to cover their now-respectable asses": the story of the club that provided a safe haven for New York's creatives, freaks and weirdos

Home to the Velvet Underground, Warhol, Bowie and the New York Dolls, Max’s Kansas City was about so much more than just the music that was played there

Louder

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The Guardian - UK

The Sterns Are Listening by Jonathan Wells review – a tight and taut family drama… with a punk soundtrack

In the US poet and memoirist’s debut novel, dark secrets are leavened by rich language and comic invention

Guitar World

“I had to stop buying records. I stopped being a fan of music – I felt that was affecting my individuality and my style”: SSD were hardcore legends, then Al Barile sold his guitar gear to buy a jet ski. Here’s how he found his way back to his Gibson SG

He may have been schooled on AC/DC, Van Halen and classical guitar, but Al Barile attacked his instrument with a vicious physicality inspired by his love of hockey. He looks back on his love-hate relationship with music – and the ‘80s SG he snapped after performing a jump-kick at CBGB’s

MusicRadar

Gavin Rossdale talks us through Bush's platinum hits: "These songs were not written with a view to any degree of success… I had toiled for many years and nothing had worked"

From unemployment in London to 20-million album sales and US stardom, the songwriter recalls a remarkable rise – "I was pretty rubbish at first, but I had a knack"

Newcastle Herald

Memories of music at the Cambridge

Some rock purists don't believe in music nostalgia, but the two are invariably connected.

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Louder

The story of Wendy O Williams and the Plasmatics: "I woke up in a pool of blood on the way to the hospital"

Fuelled by outrageous onstage theatrics, Plasmatics shows were the hottest ticket in New York, but trouble and trauma awaited at every turn

Tribune News Service

Appreciation: Seymour Stein, dead at 80, discovered the Ramones, Madonna, many more: ‘I never believed in press for myself’

SAN DIEGO — Seymour Stein was never a household name to most music fans before his Sunday death from cancer in Los Angeles at the age of 80. But he certainly was to the Ramones, the Talking Heads, Madonna, Ice-T, Depeche Mode and the dozens of other artists Stein signed…

Evening Standard

From One Love to Walk the Line: our pick of the best (and worst) biopics of all time

From the ones that burned and crashed to the award-winning biopics, here’s a list of the good and the bad

Salon

"Original sin of rock & roll"

Salon talks to Patti Smith's original guitarist about the reissue of his New York punk pioneering compilation

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