In the history of R.E.M., one of our most storied bands, the 1994 album Monster occupies a strange place. When R.E.M. made Monster, they were straight-up arena stars riding a career pinnacle. 1992's Automatic For The People had sold 18 million copies, an absurd number for a band that had started out as a college-rock…

R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills guested on an episode of R U Talkin’ R.E.M. Re: Me?, comedians Scott Aukerman and Adam Scott's R.E.M.-centric podcast, a couple of months ago. And yesterday at the Clusterfest comedy festival, as The San Francisco Chronicle's Datebook reports, the Scotts got another member of R.E.M. to make a surprise appearance: guit...

Yesterday, a New York Times feature revealed that thousands upon thousands of master tapes from artists like Louis Armstrong, Janet Jackson, and Tupac were destroyed in a 2008 fire at Universal Studios Hollywood. Although the fire itself was public knowledge, the loss of Universal Music Group's recordings was kept secret, with even the artists a...

The masters of ‘Nevermind’, Novoselic, says, might be “gone forever”Krist Novoselic of Nirvana and Courtney Love of HoleYesterday, The New York Times unveiled an investigation into the 2008 fire at Universal Studios Hollywood that destroyed thousands of musical recordings, many of them master tapes and unheard session material. Now, affe...

It hosted performances from the likes of Oasis and Amy Winehouse. Blondie's Debbie Harry performs at The Borderline in 1989Historic London venue The Borderline has announced that it is shutting its doors after losing the battle against escalating rent in the capital. Since opening in the early 1980s, the Soho club hosted intimate performances fr...