A long time ago, in a New York that seems a galaxy away, I found myself stumbling out into Times Square in the rain-drenched, pre-dawn hours from a friend’s recording studio, and stumbling into a discarded Ampeg Jet J12, a vintage guitar amp powered by tubes (or as the Brits say, valves). Someone had abandoned this beautiful relic on the curb.

Amanda Palmer is an artist who totally gets the power of the Internet.

In September 1975, Brian Eno released his album Another Green World. The following month, the BBC’s acclaimed documentary series Arena first aired, using Another Green World‘s title track as its theme music. 35 years later, the show finally got around to documenting Eno himself.

On September 14, 1968, Granada Television broadcast The Sound of Soul, an intimate studio concert in London by the jazz pianist and singer Nina Simone.
Most of the program can be seen in the 22-minute video above. Simone’s choice of material is characteristically eclectic.

It’s good to be Dave Grohl these days. One day you get to serenade Paul McCartney; the next, Sir Paul jams with you and the surviving members of Nirvana; and then it’s off to play with the Rolling Stones.

To help celebrate YouTube’s first Comedy Week, Ricky Gervais has revived David Brent, the bumbling “Regional Manager” that ran the Wernham Hogg Paper Company in the UK version of The Office.

Ray Manzarek of the Doors died Monday of cancer. He was 74. Manzarek’s jazz-inflected, classically influenced keyboard playing, woven together with Jim Morrison’s baritone vocals, helped define the sound of the 1960s.

Here’s a sad little piece of rock and roll history: the last television interview of Keith Moon, mercurial drummer for The Who. It was broadcast live on the morning of August 7, 1978, exactly one month before Moon’s death from a drug overdose at the age of 32.

In September of 1935 Paramount Pictures released a nine-minute movie remarkable in several ways. Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life is one of the earliest cinematic explorations of African-American culture for a mass audience. It features Duke Ellington and his orchestra performing his first extended composition.

Another quick heads up: The National’s sixth LP, Trouble Will Find Me, will be released on May 21. But, right now, you can jump over to iTunes and stream it for free on your computer or iPad (for a limited time).