October 19, 2010 – Three years ago Adam Wills was working as a motion graphics artist for a film company and wondering how to kick-start his music career. Looking for some kind of guidance, he contacted a shaman to lead him through a sweat lodge ceremony in upstate New York. "I went two weekends in a row to a teepee, and it was like a one-way ticket through 20 years' worth of meditation," he says. "It was really beautiful. Then, a few weeks later, I got fired." Which allowed him to focus on a better gig: playing guitar in Brooklyn-based electronic rock trio Bear in Heaven. Originally the solo project of singer/multi-instrumentalist Jon Philpot, who had previously worked in postproduction at an Atlanta film company with Wills, the band released their debut album, Red Bloom of the Boom, in 2007.

August 25, 2010 – For Swedish siblings Johanna and Klara Söderberg, singing is in the blood. "We love the Louvin Brothers and the Carter Family," gushes Klara, 17, a wide-eyed beauty who's two years younger than her sister. "There's something very special about families singing music that's passed down through the generations." Ever since they can remember, the fresh-faced duo behind First Aid Kit have sung together while their musician father recorded them at the family home outside Stockholm. Last year, keyboardist Johanna and guitarist Klara uploaded a YouTube clip of themselves covering Fleet Foxes' pastoral, harmony-laden "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" in the woods near their house. Wearing flannel shirts and no makeup, they sang with heartbreaking simplicity under the trees and sky. "We just loved the song," Klara insists.

July 14, 2010 – Wavves' self-immolating wunderkind and indie-rock scourge Nathan Williams may be better known for one onstage disaster than for his hazy surf punk. This is about to change -- if he can just stay out of his own way. [Full Story] Looking at Nathan Williams, it's easy to think, Here comes trouble. Maybe it's just the way he's dressed: white Wayfarer-style shades with a Mickey Mouse decal over each lens -- a gift from his girlfriend, Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast -- and a T-shirt of Bart Simpson smoking a fatty. And he's drinking a beer on a Brooklyn street on a Tuesday afternoon, open-container laws be damned. Or maybe his reputation just precedes him. "I know you want to talk about the meltdown," says Williams, a.k.a. Wavves. He takes a final swig, stashing the bottle behind a doorstep.

June 18, 2010 – Every band hopes people will get off on their music. But the Joy Formidable found itself in the strange position of fans literally doing just that. Two years ago, an anonymous supporter of the London-based, Welsh-raised dream-poppers created a video for their single "Austere," featuring close-ups of people's faces -- apparently while masturbating (watch it below). Destined for NSFW notoriety, the unofficial video quickly became a hit, racking up 250,000 YouTube views before the site yanked it for being too suggestive. All of which left the band feeling ambivalent about their reputation. "We do have other fan-made videos," says singer-guitarist Ritzy Bryan, 26. "There was one with singing koalas.

May 28, 2010 – Best Coast singer-guitarist Bethany Cosentino might be the only indie rocker who had an epiphany on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. In 2005 her father, who drummed with '70s funk rockers War, landed her a gig on the program as a backup singer for singer-songwriter Ellie Lawson. This wasn't Cosentino's first break -- a former child actress who'd appeared in commercials for Little Caesars and Pepsi, she'd been writing pop songs since she was 15 and had been approached by major-label A&R scouts -- but the moment was still memorable. "[Paris Hilton] was a guest on the show," recalls the now 23-year-old Los Angeles native. "I was outside smoking, and she came and asked me for a lighter. I remember thinking, 'My life is so cool right now!'?" The feeling didn't last. "I didn't want to be in the spotlight every night," Cosentino says of her days on the tween grind.

November 23, 2006 – Once, Burning Man sounded like a ghost story: people trekking through sand dunes, building a city in the middle of nowhere, making a fire, then disappearing completely. When the festival's founder, Larry Harvey, first invited his friends to San Francisco's Baker Beach in 1986 to set an eight-foot wooden figure aflame, the ritual was just one man's spontaneous art. Today the Burning Man has become the centerpiece of a countercultural community event with full-time staffers, which draws more than 25,000 artists, acid eaters, tranced-out ravers, and Microsoft programmers alike to Nevada's Black Rock desert, where they construct theme camps, ride outlandish bikes, don costumes -- or just take off their clothes.

November 22, 2006 – What follows is an unabridged version of the Cat Power interview that appears in our December issue. Chan Marshall does not look troubled. On this late September afternoon, the fresh-faced and ponytailed 34-year-old singer, better known as Cat Power, perches on a windowsill outside Manhattan's Mercer Hotel, humming little ditties. Petting homely poodles. Whistling at attractive businessmen who pass by on the sidewalk. Having recently rereleased her gorgeous Memphis soul album, The Greatest, she's got a newly confident swagger and ten American dreams' worth of plans, including two upcoming albums, a book she wants to write about Africa, her role as the new face of Chanel jewelry, and an acting career she'd like to launch.

September 1, 2005 – Being a music video director is a bit like playing God: You can pump Jay-Z full of bullets, toss Fiona Apple in a bathtub, or throw Thom Yorke off the roof of a mobile home all in the name of creative expression. And when your body of work is piled high, you can see it immortalized in Palm Pictures' Directors Label Series, whose latest installment collects the videos of Jonathan Glazer, Anton Corbijn, Stéphane Sednaoui, and Mark Romanek on a four-DVD set (each DVD is also available separately). Here, each of the directors talks about one of the videos that helped him transcend the plane of mere mortals.