Guides
The Roadside Ballad That Still Belongs to the Night ShiftA 1978 song about a truck stop found its audience in the loneliest part of the working day: the hours after midnight, when the highway empties, the radio fades…The history of rock's love affair with the Gibson Les PaulFew instruments carry the mythology that the Gibson Les Paul shoulders. Born from a collaboration between luthier Ted McCarty and guitarist Les Paul in the…The Platform Where a Band Found Its SoundAt 11:47 pm, when the last service had cleared the platform, Southern Line plugged a battered amplifier into a power board and began again. The station was…Rock Festivals Where National Parks Meet the Main StageThe best rock music festivals held in national park adjacent areas offer a rare combination: loud guitars, open skies and landscapes that feel bigger than the…A B-Movie Ghost Walks Through a New Rock SingleA new single that samples a 1950s B-movie soundtrack sounds like a novelty until the first warped brass hit cuts through the speakers. “Neon Crypt,” the latest…Why the Harmonica Became a Surprising Fixture in Blues-RockFew instruments look less imposing than the harmonica. It fits in a shirt pocket, costs little beside a guitar, and can seem almost toy-like in untrained…The 1990s Rock Albums Ready For A RevivalThe 1990s produced plenty of famous guitar records, yet the decade’s most rewarding albums often sat outside the obvious grunge and Britpop canon. Some were…How a Legendary Rock Producer Turned a Studio Mistake into a HitSome of rock’s most recognisable sounds began as problems: a microphone placed too far away, a room that coloured the drums, or a tape machine behaving…Playlist: tracks that sound like a thunderstorm rolling over the plainsSome songs arrive with the force of weather. They gather slowly at the horizon, darken the sky, then break open with guitars, drums and voices that feel too…Why certain rock bands thrive in small venues over stadiumsSome rock bands are built for proximity. Their songs depend on a singer’s cracked vocal, the drummer’s physical force, or the split-second exchange between a…