You may not know the name Lou Barlow -- he's never stolen the mike from a teenage country singer at the VMAs, exposed a breast at the Super Bowl or been the soundtrack to an iTunes commercial.

But that doesn't mean that he or his bands -- Dinosaur...

Sure, there's nothing more alt-appealing then, say, a folk-metalcore band from Bauxite, Arkansas (little breeds a good review quicker than a niche town/good band combo- and hell, if there's two bands, we've got a movement, right?). Omaha is the next Portland is the next Seattle is the next Silverlake is...

When the good folks at the Huff asked me to write a piece for the launch of the New York page, it was kind of like the feeling I might get if a friend or my sister ever asks me to be the maid of honor in one of their...

Every person -- especially every creative person and particularly those of us driven by words -- is facing a modern day conundrum: what means you, Twitter? Let's get this out of the way. I don't have a Twitter page, nor have I ever tweeted (correction: I had a Twitter page,...

I thought to myself, if I read another article on Kings of Leon, I might explode.

Sorry Kings, I do love you. Your sex IS on fire. But we all know you by now, don't we?

They were undiscovered once. They were that band that, well, maybe...

Today, Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley band release their documentary "One of a Kind," which chronicles their journey as they record and create two albums over the course of the past year. What makes this different than other music films is that it's available for free here...

The first time I heard an Indigo Girls song, or remember hearing one anyway, I was about 11 years old. I had just survived what felt like an overly traumatic dissolution of a crush on a boy named Joey, and for whatever reason, the song Ghost made everything feel...

Over the past week or two, John McCain's campaign has helped make the word "Arab" a pejorative, and Barack Obama's middle name, Hussein, into a synonym for "terrorist." Whether it's from McCain's lips or his scary campaign mouthpieces, it doesn't matter much: he's simply not doing enough to...

Things that have dropped off the radar since the RNC:

1. "Barack Obama is Just a Community Organizer" (due to counter-point: "So was Jesus")
2. Possibly John McCain (see: Obama debates... Obama?)
3. Any coverage of the police brutality against journalists and protesters who were raided, some arrested...

Did McCain's speech sound like the same, tired, Bush rhetoric? Well, that's because it is.

Confused as to how "change" for McCain means...voting in another Republican? Me too.

In this theme, I propose a game I like to call, "Who Said What at What Convention?" There are only three possible...

Much has happened since John Lennon recorded "Give Peace a Chance" 39 years ago with new bride Yoko Ono in a Montreal Hotel Room, during their "Bed in For Peace." Presidents have come and gone, wars lost and won, and no one's talkin'...

As you may have noticed from my blogs, I'm a huge believer in the power of music to motivate change, both social, political and personal. Which is why when I heard that my friends over at Merge Records were throwing a benefit concert for one of their former interns...

Dear The Nation:

First off, let me take the chance to congratulate you on your constant struggle to bring to light progressive issues and ideas rarely touched upon in the mainstream media. Thank you for your honest coverage on the Iraq war, for uncovering the Double Life of James...

I think it was Hamlet that said "for murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ: the record player."

Perhaps that wasn't the exact quote. But one thing is true: the CD is finally dying its much-awaited death, and it wasn't the MP3 that killed...

Ok, so maybe I haven't. But Katy Perry didn't either, and she's still singing about it. Go figure.

Setting: afternoon on a Thursday. Hollywood , California. A teal couch, a window looking up to Runyon Canyon, a girl, a coffee. And TRL.

"I want my MTV," I thought to...

Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold at LA's The Echo

If one thing hasn't changed about Sub Pop in the last 20 years, it's the flannel. Cliché, I know, but I as I stood watching last Saturday what was probably one of the...

Conor Oberst

For a good while, music and politics was all about Bill and that saxophone.

Years after the Vietnam War uprising, after Dusty Springfield, "Blowin' in the Wind" and Marvin Gaye, after the time when dissent was a fertile chorus,...

I'm starting to think that I'm a bad luck charm. In my almost ten years as a voting citizen, I think I've replaced the rabbit's foot on the key chains of republicans across the country. There's a little plastic me, long brown hair and all, currently clinging to Karl Rove's...

A little over seven months ago, I moved from New York City, my lifelong home and utter sense of identity, to Los Angeles. Yes, I went willingly into that dark night--I needed a change of scenery, my skin was starting to turn into an inverse form of white that happens...