It’s like Twisted Sister – a “Sister Fister” is a sister who fists. We’re not saying it’s RC, but…

“When I found music it was different, it added an extra “something” that gave me much more excitement and freedom. Before shoegaze, Sonic Youth was the band that introduced me to all this noisy experimentation with guitars, so that was what opened the gates to a flood of shoegaze bands for me.”

We sit down to talk with dream-pop composer Thomas Meluch about his latest album, Sonnet, the process of channeling nature through electronic sound, and the experience related to coming of age during the brief “blog band” phenomenon.

Jimbo – he goes, ‘I looked over at the dance floor, and it was all guys, and there was this black cowboy French kissing a white cowboy.’ And he said, ‘at that moment I knew we were in the wrong place!’

“All the songs have a certain amount of us wishing we were somewhere else in them, I’m sure of that. We’ve always done our own thing and we’ve never been bothered if the people of our home town like it.”

“They sounded so far ahead of their time back in those dark musical days when only the punk and new wave scenes offered any hope for listeners turned off by disco, bad metal, and hair bands.”

“Malmö, Sweden’s Death and Vanilla are a duo with an enchanting and occasionally creepy sound, composed on vintage instruments and drawing on musical influences ranging from Julee Cruise to Broadcast to The United States of America.”

Alvvays make a collaborative playlist on the spot, eat life-threatening hot wings, and tell us the questions they hate being asked. It’s weird, miscellaneous, and wonderful!

I never worried about trends. Magma just flies through time and periods.

“I feel very fortunate at this point in my life that I was able to meet and collaborate with these wonderful people. It would certainly be an experience to play live shows, but recording and releasing music is as much as I can hope for at this point.”

“There won’t be another five year gap between albums. I knocked it down, and now I’m building it back up.”

“I had a spiritual experience in Austin, TX. Long story short, I basically died and was reborn by some dirty old railroad tracks.”

Drawing upon the indie rock of yesteryear, Saskatchewan’s These Estates adds its own distinct voice. Meet the songwriting team behind not one but two of the smartest, most immediate LPs of 2014.

This was in the ‘hood, and you know you’ve got ethnic people; you don’t have “White Riot” on your jacket. They don’t know about The Clash song. You want a white riot? OK!

I think the current constellation of Engineers actually says more about me than any previous members – the other guys in the band both have their own projects but are happy to help realize my ideas and both bring aspects to my songs that I couldn’t achieve.

Back in the early 2000s, Constantines’ emotionally charged, blue-collar rock was a welcome anachronism. As the Canadian five-piece gears up for its first round of U.S. shows in five years, frontman Bry Webb explains why the timing feels right.

“When I found out about bass, D Boon’s mom put me on bass – this is the 70’s. This is where you put the retarded friend, it’s like right field in little league. Punk changed a lot of that shit.”

It’s a classic early 60’s girl group thing to have super snappy/up beat songs with dark lyrics or serious messages. i’m a big fan of that.

The Tesco Vee character I crawl into – if I lived that persona 24/7, I’d either be dead or incarcerated. But it’s like – there’s a certain element of satire and tongue-in-cheek in what I do. I’m going for the throat, I’m going for reaction – I want people to react, if it’s laughter, anger, whatever. I don’t want them to stand there and be bored. That’s where I’ve been coming from my whole career – I want a reaction, thus the song titles like “Crippled Children Suck.” And obviously I don’t think crippled children suck – or as I say on stage, ‘they only suck when they can actually reach my zipper.’

Neil Halstead: I would never write those exact songs at this point in my life. They are songs that come out of being 18 or 19 years old. It’s interesting how they still connect with many younger people. We’ve noticed that when we’ve been doing these shows there are some really young kids that are coming out and really loving the band and the records. We’re aware they are the same age as when we were first recording these tracks.

“I remember the hardships and the frustrations bitterly. I wasn’t mourning Maggie Thatcher’s loss greatly!”

We own all of the rights to our back catalog, so we asked ourselves for permission to use some older tunes, and we generously told ourselves that we would be happy to let ourselves use them (we have a very good relationship with ourselves in that respect)

I love to play with all of these effects pedals and to create sounds. A lot of that stuff is from your country… the whole room flashes like a pinball game.

That’s why a great song, just missing one or two pieces, can lie dormant for a few years before we finally polish it off, complete with icing and a cherry on top.

Daisy House is generous music, and very old school at heart. Who knows? It might even be revolutionary.

You don’t have to go to music school to be a musician and so it’s the same thing. You don’t have to take writing classes to be a writer!

“You always get worried about going too far in one direction, because I don’t want people to think that I only write songs about sleeping around or cheating or being miserable. But those are the moments when I feel compelled to write and are also the moments that I feel compelled to listen to somebody else’s sad song about that shit.”

It’s also very refreshing for us to step out of the hazy gloom and into a different shade of light; it’s still a very melancholy sombre black bulb sort of light.

Negative Degree talks about their favorite Colorado punk bands, their worst night on tour and how it feels to work in the service industry in Colorado.

“My father still regrets the day when he gave me my first guitar.”

LOUDsoftLOUD discussion with a master of the form, Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai

“ I’m never happier than when I’m onstage – I just love playing music. I love the chance to exist in the moment. You reinvent it every night – you either do something great or you fall on your face, and you get another chance the next day to do it again.”

The London-based songwriter talks about his excellent new album Abandoned Apartments, his recent movie work, and his L.A. past.

Mark Arm and Steve Turner of Mudhoney talk about growing up grunge, the shitty tour with Blind Melon, and GG Allin’s dick.

I don’t think anybody in the band is interested in just unfreezing the old Red Herring. What made that band really exciting to be a part of was creating together; I get the feeling that we got back together again because we all believe that the best is yet to come. We just had to take a break for a couple of decades to go gather more skills and experiences to throw into the soup.

The audience is there simply to observe. It doesn’t matter whether they applaud every song or at the end or at all. It has nothing to do with the music. We are not on stage for them. We are there to make music in the presence of an Observer. This is all made clear if you have a fundamental understanding of Einsteinian Relativity.

Dave Davies’ lofty position in the pantheon of popular music would be secure even without the existence of a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or the Kinks’ extensive body of work. His upcoming tour will feature songs from new album “I Will Be Me” alongside Kinks favorites. Davies discusses family foundations, sibling rivalry, and inspiration drawn from good times and hard times.

JACCO GARDNER: Everything that is beautiful is sad at the same time, just because it’s so beautiful. I think that’s what melancholy is. Even beautiful memories can make you feel really sad at the same time so it seems very natural to me to combine them.

We speak to the always-funny James Greer about his band DTCV’s stunning new album, Hilarious Heaven.

We want to suck you in and take over your body!

From 1987 to 2005, Silkworm made records for a small yet dedicated audience, and seemed like a good bet to continue into old age before senseless tragedy struck. With the alternative-nation era as its backdrop, Seth Pomeroy’s documentary ‘Couldn’t You Wait?’ chronicles the trio’s existence and legacy. Here, the Nashville-based director discusses filmmaking, music, and — naturally — his favorite band.

I really liked collaborating but it became really clear that I just needed to put out something on my own for sure and have as my vision. It can be more difficult and bittersweet because there’s no one to bounce ideas off of and no shared responsibility. There’s only you and there’s high risk and high rewards but it’s my name on it and it’s mine for better or for worse.

Singer, songwriter and Gothstar Chelsea Wolfe talks candidly about her new album, Black Metal and S&M.

Most of the melodies were made walking down the street, riding on the train, at random, and then recorded onto cell phones. You then have an idea that turns into a song skeleton and we build a shape around that. I believe that most of the best songs are written spontaneously.

When I began the process, I thought I’d have a 200 page manuscript by the end of that summer. Gary Klebe said, “No, this is going to be like a Shoes record. It’s going to take longer than you thought, but it’s going to be better than you thought.” He was right. Three years later, it’s a 500 page, wide-ranging consideration of the entire music industry over the last 40 years. Not what I envisioned at first, but much better.

JULIA HOLTER: It’s usually pretty intuitive but it’s hard to know at one point when my brain is doing what. I change things depending on the song sometimes..there are certain things you have to do quickly like getting ideas out. You have to catch in real time what your brain is trying to get out and it’s hard to know how much of that is your thoughts and how much is actually something you are consciously figuring out

Six years back, San Francisco’s LSD and the Search for God released a five-song EP of top-shelf shoegaze, then went quiet. Now, with a series of new singles on the horizon, singer-guitarist Andy Liszt called to discuss LSD’s past and future trips.