(Vocal/instrumental group, 1981–present) Starting life as avant-garde noise merchants, Thurston Moore (vocals, guitar), Kim Gordon (bass, vocals), Lee Ranaldo (guitar, vocals) and a variety of drummers, including Steve Shelley, have been at the centre of New York’s alternative music scene ever since, influencing indie rock immeasurably. Highlights include the striking art rock of ...
Alternative experimental guitarist Thurston Moore (b. 1958) was born in Coral Gables, Florida. Inspired by New York’s punk and new-wave scene, Moore moved to the city in 1977. While playing in a band called The Coachmen, he met Lee Ranaldo, an art student and member of Glenn Branca’s avant-garde guitar orchestra. Moore assembled a band with bassist ...
A master of texture and sonic architecture based on a minimalist style of playing, as opposed to contemporaries who sought impenetrable technique and unrestrained speed, Dave Evans (b. 1961) created a signature sound for a signature band, U2, just as surely as he created for himself a new identity – The Edge. The Edge grew up in ...
‘Pass The Dutchie’, 1982 Based on The Mighty Diamonds’ reggae hit, ‘Pass The Kouchie’, Birmingham-based Musical Youth’s ‘Pass The Dutchie’ was a pro-cannabis hit that reached No. 1 in the UK. One of the fastest-selling singles of the year, they could not capitalize on its success, and had disbanded within two years. A reunion was mooted in 1993 ...
Arguably the most important alternative guitarist of the 1990s, Kurt Cobain (1967–94) was born in Aberdeen, Washington. His parents divorced when he was seven, which had a traumatic effect on Cobain, tainting the remainder of his life. From an early age, he showed a keen interest in music, singing along to Beatles’ songs on the ...
Nels Cline (b. 1956) was born in Los Angeles. He first came to prominence in the 1980s playing jazz, often with his identical twin brother, drummer Alex Cline. Cline has worked with many notable musicians in alternative rock, including Mike Watt, Thurston Moore and Wilco, of which he became a full-time member in 2004. Cline appears ...
The original rock’n’roll lead guitarist, Scotty Moore (b. 1931) was born near Gadsden, Tennessee. Moore began playing guitar at the age of eight, largely self-taught. Although he aspired to playing jazz like Barney Kessel and Tal Farlow, he was also influenced by country guitarists like Merle Travis and, in particular, Chet Atkins. After Navy service ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1980–84) Marc Almond (vocals) and Dave Ball (keyboards) created a charismatic art pop act, landing a huge hit with ‘Tainted Love’ (1981). Several other dark disco tracks followed: ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’, ‘Torch’ and ‘What!’. Their debut Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret (1981, 1982 in the US) explored the steamier side of life. Almond’s solo career ...
Rather a ‘catch-all’ category that includes many musically diverse bands from the 1980s and 1990s, ‘alternative’ is generally an American term referring to any remotely leftfield and non-mainstream band, whereas ‘indie rock’ originally refers generally to the UK bands recording for smaller, independent labels, again usually meaning non-mainstream bands. Alternative encompasses many sub-styles. To complicate matters, ...
Krautrock, which emanated from West Germany during the late-1960s, fused The Velvet Underground’s white noise experiments and Pink Floyd’s psychedelic rock with the free-form jazz aesthetic and funk-based rhythms. Avoiding the dull virtuosity of progressive rock and the sanitised R&B pop of the late-1960s, Krautrock’s grand vision of reinventing the rock guitar as well as exploring the untapped possibilities ...
Taking their name from the meagre rehearsal facilities of its early practitioners, garage rock began in the US during the mid-1960s. The loud, fuzz-toned guitars often failed to disguise links to UK pop mentors like The Beatles, Rolling Stones and The Who. later acid rock bands such as The Electric Prunes incorporated progressive and psychedelic influences. Mostly, ...
The No Wave Scene Whilst hardcore emerged from the visceral side of punk, no wave owed its origins to its artier aspects. As a musical style, no wave was hard to define as it drew on various genres, but a driving rhythm and a certain atonal quality were key. The scene began in New York, the traditional ...
During the early eighteenth century a few composers enjoyed regular close collaboration with a favourite librettist, such as Fux with Pariati, or both Vinci and Porpora with the young Metastasio. However, such examples were rare, and instead it was common for a popular libretto created for one major Italian opera centre to be adapted for the needs ...
La Monte Young was saxophonist and jazz musician as a youth, but his postgraduate work at the University of California at Berkeley (where he met Riley) led to a performance of his Trio for Strings (1958) arranged by his composition teacher, Seymour Shifrin (1926–79), in an attempt to show Young how much he had miscalculated. The work, consisting ...
No instrument has had a more dramatic impact on contemporary music than the synthesizer. Its development opened up a whole new world of seemingly endless sonic possibilities and ushered in completely new forms of music. History The birth of the synthesizer dates back to the mid-1940s when Canadian physicist, composer and instrument builder, Hugh le Caine (1914–77) built the ...
AUTHORITATIVE
An extensive music information resource, bringing together the talents and expertise of a wide range of editors and musicologists, including Stanley Sadie, Charles Wilson, Paul Du Noyer, Tony Byworth, Bob Allen, Howard Mandel, Cliff Douse, William Schafer, John Wilson...
CURATED
Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country and more. Flame Tree has been making encyclopaedias and guides about music for over 20 years. Now Flame Tree Pro brings together a huge canon of carefully curated information on genres, styles, artists and instruments. It's a perfect tool for study, and entertaining too, a great companion to our music books.
David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.