Michael Azerrad

B-52s, The: The B-52s: Mission Accomplished

Report and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, March 1990

...

Beastie Boys, The, Henry Rollins: The Beastie Boys, Rollins Band: Roseland Ballroom New York NY

Live Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, January 1993

THIS PAIRING wasn't as odd as it seemed, because the Beastie Boys have created ― or at least mobilized ― a new kind of fan. ...

Black Flag: Flying the Black Flag

Book Excerpt by Michael Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life, July 2001

The following is the first chapter from Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991, in which Michael Azerrad vividly ...

Bread

Retrospective by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, August 1989

BREAD VIRTUALLY invented soft rock in the early Seventies, and the group's biggest hits – 'Make It With You', 'If', 'Baby I'm-a Want You' and ...

Cure, The: Searching For The Cure

Report and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, September 1989

Can the masters of "mope rock" enjoy life at the top? ...

Cure, The: The Cure On Tour: Mope Rock For The Masses

Interview by Michael Azerrad, St Louis Post Dispatch, August 1989

THINGS DON'T LOOK good. A couple of days after two extraordinary sold-out concerts at Paris' 15,000-seat Bercy Auditorium, The Cure is getting ready to play ...

Cure, The, Pixies, The, Love and Rockets: The Cure, Love and Rockets, The Pixies, Shelleyann Orphan: Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey

Live Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, October 1989

HAD SOMEONE predicted in 1978 that 49,223 people in a stadium would one day clap and sing along as the Gothic rockers in the Cure ...

De La Soul: 3 Feet High and Rising (Tommy Boy)

Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, March 1989

DE LA SOUL HAS already mastered the three Js of postmodernism: juxtapose, juxtapose, juxtapose. Welcome to the first psychedelic hip-hop record. ...

De La Soul's Hippie-hop: Psychedelic Rappers Introduce the DA.I.S.Y. Age

Profile and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, May 1989

"HELLO, YOU'VE reached Mars. What can I do for you?" Trugoy the Dove is on the telephone in the tidy basement of his parents' house ...

Dinosaur Jr: Where You Been (Sire) ****

Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, February 1993

TODAY'S TWENTYSOMETHINGS didn't grow up on the Beatles and the Stones. They grew up on Kiss, Peter Frampton and Neil Young. Making something meaningful out ...

Everclear: In The 'Clear': Everclear

Interview by Michael Azerrad, Spin, September 1995

ART ALEXAKIS SAYS says all the right things. In a cushy, white conference room in Capitol Records' midtown Manhattan offices, Everclear's frontman utters such statements ...

Tim Finn: All's Well That Enz Well

Profile and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, June 1989

ONE OF TIM Finn's best re-cent gigs was performing at a sheepshearing party in his native New Zealand. Along with his brother, Neil Finn of ...

Girls Against Boys: House Of GVSB

Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, May 1996

FOR ALL their rebel posturing, many so-called alternative bands still adhere to the old-fashioned conventions of melody and verse-chorus-verse. But not Girls Against Boys. ...

Grand Funk Railroad: Mark Farner

Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, August 1989

"THE TRUE JOY that I have now comes from knowing Jesus Christ as my Savior and my Lord, and rendering my life in servitude to ...

Jungle Brothers, The: Jungle Brothers: Done by the Forces of Nature (Warner Bros.) ***1/2

Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, February 1990

THE JUNGLE Brothers are part of the Native Tongues, a triumvirate of innovative rap groups (including De la Soul and A Tribe Called Quest) united ...

David Lindley: The Weird World Of David Lindley

Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, October 1988

DAVID LINDLEY has found the oud of his dreams in a guitar store on Manhattan's Forty-eighth Street. "This is a beauty," he says, admiring the ...

Melvins, The, Nirvana, Mudhoney, Supersuckers, Soundgarden, Green River: Seattle: Grunge City

Report and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, April 1992

For real rockers Seattle is the ultimate wet dream. By Michael Azerrad ...

My Bloody Valentine: The Sound of the Future: My Bloody Valentine

Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, February 1992

"WE'D LIKE TO COME OUT FROM the shadow of the greatest things ever done," declares Kevin Shields, the soft-spoken, bookish-looking leader of My Bloody Valentine. ...

Negativland: Escape From Noise (Seeland)

Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, May 1988

DOORS SLAM/PEOPLE yell/Children scream/Sirens whine/Trucks rumble and roar/And rock music blares, as Negativland asks the musical question "Is there any escape from noise?" ...

Nirvana: Kurt Cobain: Live Through This

Obituary by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, June 1994

LAST SPRING, Kurt Cobain sat at his kitchen table at 3 a.m., chain-smoking and toying with one of the medical mannequins he collected. "It's hard ...

Nirvana: Inside the Heart and Mind of Kurt Cobain

Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, April 1992

FOR NOW, Kurt Cobain and his new wife Courtney Love, live in an apartment in Los Angeles's modest Fairfax district. The living room holds little ...

Nirvana: New Noise for '93

Report and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, January 1993

After a successful European summer tour and a sold-out show at the mammoth 45,000-seat Velez Sarsfield Stadium, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, what has the world's ...

Nirvana: Reading Festival, England

Live Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, October 1992

"FUCK WOODSTOCK," read one popular T-shirt here, although this twentieth annual jamboree also began with lots of wasted folks frolicking in the mud and ended ...

Nirvana: Territorial Pissings: The Battles Behind Nirvana's New Album

Report and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Musician, October 1993

KURT COBAIN has found that being a professional rock musician is not quite what he imagined when he was banging out his raunchy punk rock ...

Nirvana, Kurt Cobain: Kurt Cobain: I'm Not Gonna Crack!

Profile and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Vox, July 1992

Poisoned by the chalice of instant success, bedridden with road-rash after a ton of amp-smashingly intense gigs – what's happened to Nirvana's tortured singer and ...

John Peel: Q&A: John Peel

Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, August 1993

"HELLO, I'M A little fat chap that plays records on the radio," DJ John Peel announced at the start of a recent broadcast. ...

Pixies, The: Surfing With The Aliens: The Pixies

Report and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, November 1990

THE KIDS AT England's annual Reading festival are a scruffy lot. A ‘90s hybrid of hippie and punk, they wear tie-dyed T-shirts, asymmetrical hairdos, jeans ...

Public Enemy: Rockin' The Joint

Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, September 1988

The incendiary rappers preach black self-sufficiency at New York's Riker's Island. But are they prisoners of their own racist doctrine? By Michael Azerrad ...

Public Image Ltd: Public Image Limited: Happy? (Virgin)

Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, February 1988

TEN YEARS ago he was burying Led Zepplin; now he's praising it. Such are the artistic swings from Johnny Rotten (ne Lydon), professional iconoclast. Not ...

Ramones, The: Joey Ramone's 50th Birthday Bash: Hammerstein Ballroom, New York

Live Review by Michael Azerrad, Boston Phoenix, May 2001

IT'S FUNNY HOW memorials often take on the character of the person they honor. The sold-out "Life's a Gas – Joey Ramone's 50th Birthday Bash" ...

Run DMC: Concert Violence: Who's to Blame?

Report by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, November 1988

Action needed in the wake of recent deaths at rap and metal shows ...

Screaming Trees: The Lost Boys

Profile and Interview by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, February 1993

IT IS THE second of a pair of Seattle homecoming shows that close their tour with Alice in Chains, and Screaming Trees are well into ...

Tears For Fears: Tears for Fears: The Seeds Of Love (PolyGram) ****

Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, November 1989

AFTER THE release of Tears For Fears' mammoth-selling second album, Songs From the Big Chair, in 1985, an English music paper remarked, "It'll soon be ...

They Might Be Giants: Urban Legends: The Do-It-Yourself Success of They Might Be Giants

Retrospective and Interview by Michael Azerrad, New Yorker, August 2002

JOHN FLANSBURGH and John Linnell–partners in the musical duo They Might Be Giants–were on their way out of a trendy little restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, ...

Wendy and Lisa: Fruit at the Bottom (Columbia) ** 1/2

Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, June 1989

ON THEIR 1987 debut album, Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman seemed to be bending over backward not to sound like Prince, whose band they had ...

XTC: Nonsuch (Geffen)

Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, March 1992

A CHARTER MEMBER of England's class of '77, XTC is one of the few bands from that era to remain virtually intact. ...

CBGB: This Ain't No Mudd Club

Report by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, February 1994

CBGB celebrates its 20 years of rock & roll ...