June 18, 2013 – In Philadelphia, city of murals and Brotherly Love, there is a piece of wall art hidden from public view, down a cobblestoned alley off of Bainbridge Street. Impressive in scope if not in size, it's an Escher-indebted soft-core scramble of lips and labia and lactating breasts meant, presumably, to inspire rock bands that pay to rehearse in its airbrushed glare. But even this visual affront can't distract Kurt Vile — he's staring at his guitar: a blood-red Fender Mustang he bought from "some kid" this morning. "It looks like it's new," he says with a laugh, as a bandmate arranges his cup of coffee beneath a falling stream of breast milk. "But it's from fuckin' '66."It's the last week of November and Vile, 33, is renting this festive, centrally located practice space so that his band, the Violators, can prepare for their gig as openers for Dinosaur Jr.

June 11, 2013 – Who: The brainchild of 24-year-old Devon Welsh, a Montreal-based, rural Ontario-bred songwriter whose minimalist, dolorous synth-pop allows plenty of space for maximum lyrical intensity. "We were in a loft with all of our friends and it was really nerve-wracking because we were playing all new music, and I had this very clear vision in my head about what I wanted the music to be and what I wanted it to mean," Welsh says of the night five years ago when the project was unveiled alongside collaborator Matthew Otto.

June 10, 2013 – "It's funny," Tony Molina says, "you know how people only like the first two Weezer records? I kinda like the later shit, man! I mean, it's not the same, and Pinkerton's still my favorite, but it's good. I like the Green Album. I like Maladroit. They got tracks, man!"For those more familiar with Molina's longtime contributions to the Bay Area hardcore community — as, most recently, the frontman for Caged Animal — that sentiment may come as a bit of a surprise. But earlier this year, the Millbrae, California native (and former engine behind beloved local noise-pop outfit, Ovens) released Dissed and Dismissed, a seismic solo offering (on Melters) that unfurls decadent guitar melodies with the same brevity and ferocity of hardcore.

June 3, 2013 – When Matt Berninger landed in New York City in August of 1996, he moved into what he wryly describes as a "converted, semi-converted, mostly unconverted" loft space in Gowanus, an industrialized chunk of South Brooklyn that takes its name from the disease-ridden canal that divides the neighborhood. He remembers stolen cars left to burn on dead-end streets, rats scuttling around indoors, and a cardboard box sitting in the middle of the street in front of his building one morning. "It looked so suspicious, I had to go to see what was in it," he says, grinning. "I opened it up and — this is absolutely true — there, inside the box, was a headless chicken and a double-ended dildo." He sighs and cackles.

May 28, 2013 – Who: Once code for the crudely recorded, psychedelic solo experiments of Philadelphia native (and Birds of Maya guitarist) Mike Polizze, Purling Hiss has evolved gradually into a full-fledged power trio that, like Dinosaur Jr. and Nirvana before them, specializes in classic rock gnarled for punks. It's a transition that began when friend and associate Kurt Vile asked Polizze, 33, to develop a live show for a tour together across North America. "Early on, people would come out because they were psyched on the recordings," says Polizze, who began self-distributing CD-Rs under the name Dizzy Polizze back in 2006. "But then they'd see us and they'd be like, 'Oh, you're, uh, different live.' I mean, my first recordings were first takes, ideas that were not intended to be performed. It was like a noise project.

May 28, 2013 – Last month, Rise Against's Revolutions Per Minute turned ten. And to mark the occasion, Fat Wreck Chords has opted to reissue the Chicago post-hardcore outfit's sophomore LP in full, alongside bonus demos of ten album originals. The serrated, slingshot hooks of early album highlight "Heaven Knows" somehow sounds even sharper now. Check it out: 113589:song:Heaven Knows (demo):

May 15, 2013 – Last week, San Francisco garage-pop craftsman MIkal Cronin unleashed MCII, his SPIN Essential sophomore full-length and one of the best records of the year so far. "Change" is its most aggressive moment, a "wild and wooly" guitar freakout "made more forceful by dizzying strings and woodwinds." So for its video, Cronin brings the song to a house party for friends and strangers alike, including an invisible kid who makes good use of the song's dizzying final minute. Director Claire Marie Vogel makes a quick cameo early on — meganerds may recognize her from her role as Ty Segall's cheating girlfriend in Epsilons' Laguna Beach-lampooning "Teeny Boppers" clip, which used Cronin's home for its closing (house party) scene back in 2007. 

May 13, 2013 – Brother JT is the nom de plume of John Terlesky, founder of much beloved, long defunct Bethelehem, Pennsylvania garage-punk foursome the Original Sins. Tomorrow, Terlefsky will release The Svelteness of Boogietude, his first LP under his solo moniker for Thrill Jockey. It's another dazzling platter of high-grade glam, psych and, in the lone case of "Sweatpants," chopped-and-screwed Southern rap. Not unlike his psychedelic talk show, Trippin' Balls, it's a near hallucinatory experience with Terlefsky's paw prints all over it — he animated every bewildering frame. 

May 6, 2013 – Once the name attached to singer-guitarist Terry Caudill's solo acoustic project, Flashlights has come to encompass his fire-breathing four-piece as well, a crew of Florida pop-punk upstarts who've closely studied the mid-'90s work of luminaries like Superchunk and Archers of Loaf, not to mention the leagues of sore-throated, turn-of-the-century hook-slingers that those bands inspired. "Don't Take Me Seriously" is the wonderfully fuzzy title track to their forthcoming EP of the same name. Take everything but its title seriously. 113252:song:Don't Take Me Seriously:

May 6, 2013 – "I am very proud of the past records, but I really hoped this record would have a more immediate emotional resonance and aimed to focus as much on the sound and meaning of the words as I did on the tone and texture of the music," pacificUV co-founder Clay Jordan told AudioFuzz last week about his veteran space-pop outfit's latest full-length, After the Dream You Are Awake. Due next week via Mazarine, it's a pulsating, often intoxicating blend of gossamer synths, interstellar ambience, and weightless vocals, all of which combine to meet Jordan's goal and then some. Hear it in full below, pre-order it here. 113207:playlist:pacificUV, After The Dream You Are Awake: