Less than half a decade ago, if you were confused as to which of the Green brothers was which, you could just ask, “who’s the one who writes books?” and then the answer would be obvious: John, author of such young adult classics as “Looking for Alaska,” “Paper Towns” and of course, the mega …
With a name like The Flaming Lips, it’s hard to imagine this band spitting anything other than absolute fire. And with that obvious joke out of the way, we may begin. The Flaming Lips has, amazingly, been around since the mid-1980s, however its stardom only rose in the early 2000s thanks to …
Regal New River Valley in Christiansburg reopened its doors to the public in August with new health and safety measures in place. Virginia is currently in the third phase of reopening where movie theaters can reopen at 50% capacity. Regal New River Valley has been closed since March of this …
There is a perception that indie bands tend to be flash-in-the-pan affairs, small time projects abandoned once the cost of going on outweighs the benefits of going on, or rather they outweigh the benefits in a way that is completely impossible to ignore. To an extent, this is true. Playing i…
The sun is hot, the campuses are filled with moving vans and U-Hauls, and of all things, earthquakes rattle southwest Virginia. Summer is coming to an end, and with only a few weeks left of summer vacation before Virginia Tech students return for a semester unlike any other, there’s still en…
Less than half a decade ago, if you were confused as to which of the Green brothers was which, you could just ask, “who’s the one who writes books?” and then the answer would be obvious: John, author of such young adult classics as “Looking for Alaska,” “Paper Towns” and of course, the mega …
It is tempting to say that Willie Nelson is the greatest country musician of all time, full stop. Few other figures have been able to maintain a similar profile, both musically and culturally, but none have been able to replicate his laid-back attitude and none have been able to convince us …
At the end of the day, there really aren't that many American progressive rock bands. Sure, in recent years acts like Dream Theater and Coheed and Cambria have found their respective places in the modern pantheon of progressive music, but these are young bands, comparatively speaking.
On July 23, I woke to my phone being bombarded with text messages about one thing: Taylor Swift announced she would be releasing her eighth album “folklore” in less than 16 hours. Swift started writing the album in April while quarantining in her LA home and enlisted frequent collaborator Ja…
There are few things as oddly satisfying as seeing old tropes being used effectively. We all know that there’s nothing new under the sun, and that originality is just a word for things that we forget have already been done before, but if something is cliched, it’s cliched. The secret to good…
Ever since he began his career more than 50 years ago, Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young has been a mercurial force in popular music. He is constantly engaged in the spirit of reinvention, teaching an old dog new tricks and surprising everyone with his creative whimsy. For better or for …
Bob Dylan has led an accomplished life: renowned singer/songwriter, cultural icon, shaper of many childhoods and comings of ages. With his latest release, now 58 years after his first studio album and eight years after his last original album, Bob Dylan maintains his consistent style and wri…
The familiar notes of Glen Miller’s iconic “In The Mood,” drift out of the speakers of my computer, and for a brief moment, I think to myself that this is going to be just another mediocre story about the golden age of the movie-making industry. However, what we’re given instead is an intoxi…
Say what you’d like about the music industry, when it does choose to celebrate its weirdos, it holds nothing back. Fiona Apple is a singer-songwriter who has been something of a critical darling for many years, netting a hefty armload of Grammy nominations over her career, a grand total of s…
The Strokes are one of those bands that frequently appears in search results for “best rock bands” and other similar queries, and yet their presence on the modern rock scene often goes unremarked upon for one reason or another. The band’s 2001 debut album “Is This It” is frequently namecheck…
Disney Pixar movies have a reputation for tugging at the heartstrings, and the legendary studio’s tried-and-true formula seems to keep hitting the mark again and again. There’s no exception when it comes to “Onward,” Pixar’s latest venture into the world of magical realism exploring the bond…
In October of 2018, Sam Frye, a Virginia Tech junior majoring in marketing, decided, as a sophomore, to make his own comedy club on campus called The Comedy Conglomerate. After auditioning for Improv at Virginia Tech, a comedy acting group on campus, Frye and his friends did not get accepted…
James Taylor can easily be counted among America’s greatest living singer-songwriters. With his unmistakable voice, blending a homespun approachableness with precise attention to timbre and inflection, Taylor has continually proved his vocal and writing chops over the course of a career span…
It’s evening in a glorious palace on the Bosporus Strait. The stars are out, and the night is lit not just by them, but also by a sea of torches and campfires that surround the city of Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. This realm was brought into the world by Constanti…
The Academy Awards, more colloquially known as the Oscars, are soon to be upon us, and they bring with them the imminent failure of countless New Year’s resolutions. How many times have you promised yourself that this is the year you’ll watch every single movie nominated for Best Picture? Od…
Anyone who has known me for at least five minutes knows that I love Taylor Swift –– like a lot. I know her favorite and lucky number is 13, the real version of “All Too Well” is over 10 minutes long and the exact night she met her current beau, Joe Alwyn. I’ve grown up with Swift so I know h…
