Legendary British filmmaker Alan Parker, who directed such classics as Midnight Express, Evita, Mississippi Burning, Bugsy, and also immense music related films such as Fame, The Commitments, and Pink Floyd’s The Wall, has died. He was 76 years old. A statement from the director’s family says Parker died Friday in London after a long illness. We send our condolences to his family at this time.
For those of a certain age, the news that twenty-five years have passed since the death of Kurt Donald Cobain will scarcely be believable. But it is 25 years and yes, you do now feel old. You probably still feel sad and melancholy. Time has a terrible way of playing tricks with your memory but the passing of Nirvana’s frontman still resonates as if it were yesterday. The past remains, undoubtedly, a foreign country but I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing. I was in laundrette in Bristol, England doing a weekend load of washing (this is what students did then). I was listening to the BBC on my five-year-old Sony radio walkman- remember those?- when the terrible, heart-stopping news came through on that grey, terrible slate grey April day.
Hoobastank just completed a tour of the UK with Buckcherry, supporting their 2018 album Push Pull, out now on Napalm Records. Ghost Cult’s DJ Astrocreep met up with vocalist Doug Robb and guitarist Dan Estrin for a wide-ranging interview. The guys discussed their new album, their approach to recording, the band dynamics, coping with the success and expectations of their hit 2003 album The Reason (Island Records) social media pitfalls, and more! Continue reading
It’s hard to believe that the early 1990s are now a full generation plus in the rearview. One of the definitive albums of that era for any music fan is Nirvana’s Nevermind (DGC). Whether you like the band or the album or not, the impact they made with that album is still sending shockwaves being felt today. What about the band themselves? How do you top a masterpiece and a hit album you never wanted? Well if you were Kurt Cobain, you know the answer is you don’t even try. With their follow-up In Utero (also DGC), Cobain undoubtedly felt like they had made an album closer to what they were originally aiming for in their journey as a group: the vibe of raw punk, but with the sophisticated writing of great classic rock. It was a dichotomy that made the band so special and loved by both fans and critics. Of course not knowing at the time it would be their final studio work, but In Utero gives a pretty fair idea of what was possible for the “biggest band in the world” in 1993. Continue reading