
Lina Lecaro

Ozzfest Rocks On But Can It Still Rage In 2017?
Heshers and head bangers are a loyal bunch, but metal ain’t exactly enjoying a mainstream moment in 2017, and it hasn’t for quite some time. With a few exceptions of Queens Of The Stone Age, Metallica and of course, the entirety of Europe where Metal still reigns supreme, the genre just isn’t recognized right now on U.S. radio or on U.S. charts, and this has made the current musical landscape feel really bland and wimpy and disposable to a lot of people (No, Foo Fighters are NOT metal). Heavy music still exists of course, and a lot of it feels as urgent as ever, but for the most part it’s a niche thing right now. related content: Black Sabbath And A Weeping Manboy At The Forum In L.A. I remember when things were different. When there was such a bounty of bombastic and aggressive bands on the scene, swaying the zeitgeist and stirring shit up, it was hard to keep track of them all. Their videos dominated MTV (before it was the Teen Mom channel), their records went multi-platinum (streaming didn’t exist yet) and they even graced the covers of popular music magazines (remember those?). There was so much heavy

Why We’re Still Trippin on Desert Trip
Now that the dust has settled, and we’ve had a little time to reflect and recover from the epic assemblage of music called Desert Trip, the memories keep flooding into our consciousness. (“Epic” gets overused when it comes to music, but this event was the very definition of the word.) It’s super dramatic, but the weekend in Indio’s impact and meaning has sort of been absorbed into our being the last several days. When you love music on an obsessive level like we do, every experience becomes a part of who you are, and a show featuring the bands you grew up worshiping isn’t something you simply move on from. Anyone who went to Desert Trip has to feel like it affirmed something deep inside of their being, and if they don’t, we have to question if they even have a soul. We’ve detested the nickname “Oldchella,” from the get go for a number of reasons, mostly because it felt disrespectful to the artists and timelessness of what they’ve created. Bob Dylan, Neil Young, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Who and the Rolling Stones’ music is not simply, “grandpa rock,” or even “classic rock,” it is the definitive essence of