A sloppy, disgusting, glorious mess, and the first documentation of the London punk scene, the great The Roxy London W.C.2 (Jan.-Apr. ’77) live compilation beats you over the head with the earliest Buzzcocks (‘Breakdown,” “Love Battery”), Wire (“1.2.X.U.,” “Lowdown”), X-Ray Spex (“Oh Bondage! Up Yours!”), The Adverts (“Bored Teenagers”), and …

While most agree the Ramones’ astonishing first album – which roared through the competition like a 747 in a paper airplane contest – is their most important album, it isn’t my favorite. My favorite is one of the band’s most eccentric, produced by the enigmatic pop icon Phil Spector, and …

What can you say about the Ramones’ first album, other than that it is THE American punk album, an endless wellspring of monolithic noise, energy and attitude? Working for Sire Records, producer/talent scout Craig Leon became involved with the percolating New York underground music scene. One summer night in ’75 …

Besides being a founding member of the ur-punk band Velvet Underground, John Cale also produced three seminal proto-punk albums, the debuts of Iggy Pop’s Stooges, the Modern Lovers, and the Patti Smith Group. Cale met Elektra owner Jac Holzman in the late-’60s, who asked him to produce the first Stooges …

NoFX’s White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean, besides having a hilarious politically incorrect title, is ’90s punk at its dangerous but lovable best. Released eleven years ago by the original and best version of NoFX, the title refers to band members Erik Ghint (drums), Fat Mike (bass, vocals), Eric …

Edna Gunderson (has there ever been a less rock ‘n’ roll name) of USA Today has a nice overview of punk as it approaches the 30-year mark – trust no genre over 30? The monolithic din that rose up against disco and prog-rock in the ’70s has splintered into sonic …

That’s just warmongering fantasy: Iraqi police have arrested four al-Qaeda-linked suspects in the bombing of Iraq’s holiest Shiite Muslim shrine, a senior police official told The Associated Press on Saturday. The official, who said the explosion death toll had risen to 107, said the men – two Iraqis and two …

My oldest daughter enters college in a few weeks and I am very excited for her, proud too. It’s hard to believe I matriculated to sweet little Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio – “America’s Quiet Surprise” (I shit you not) – 28 years ago. I had just turned 17 and …

The FBI arrested a Minnesota teen for creating a variant of the Blaster internet worm: Jeffrey Lee Parson, 18, of Hopkins, Minnesota, a middle- class suburb west of Minneapolis, was arrested on one count of intentionally causing or attempting to cause damage to a computer, according to a St. Paul …

The RIAA is providing fodder for conspiracy theorists for a generation to come – you think the Blackout of ’03 was caused by a catastrophic chain of grid failures begun in northeast Ohio? Ha ha, duped again!: The recording industry is providing its most detailed glimpse into some of the …