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Katherine Rye Jewell Tunes into America’s Culture Wars in ‘Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio’

Eric Alper
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Katherine Rye Jewell Tunes into America’s Culture Wars in ‘Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio’

Bands like R.E.M., U2, Public Enemy, and Nirvana found success as darlings of college radio, but the extraordinary influence of these stations and their DJs on musical culture since the 1970s was anything but inevitable. As media deregulation and political conflict over obscenity and censorship transformed the business and politics of culture, students and community DJs turned to college radio to defy the mainstream—and they ended up disrupting popular music and commercial radio in the process. In this first history of US college radio, Katherine Rye Jewell reveals that these eclectic stations in major cities and college towns across the United States owed their collective cultural power to the politics of higher education as much as they did to upstart bohemian music scenes coast to coast.

Jewell uncovers how battles to control college radio were about more than music—they were an influential, if unexpected, front in the nation’s culture wars. These battles created unintended consequences and overlooked contributions to popular culture that students, DJs, and listeners never anticipated. More than an ode to beloved stations, this book will resonate with both music fans and observers of the politics of culture.

Katherine Jewell is professor of History at Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts, where she teaches modern American history. A historian of the business and culture of politics, her work explores how ordinary Americans experience, interpret, challenge, and shape policy and culture. She is the author of two books, and her work has appeared in several outlets including the OAH’s American Historian magazine and the Washington Post. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in History from Boston University and her B.A. in History and Anthropology from Vanderbilt University.

Niko Stratis Redefines ‘Dad Rock’ in Powerful Memoir ‘The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman’

Eric Alper
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Niko Stratis Redefines ‘Dad Rock’ in Powerful Memoir ‘The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman’

When Wilco’s 2007 album Sky Blue Sky was infamously criticized as “dad rock,” Niko Stratis was a twenty-five-year-old closeted trans woman working in her dad’s glass shop in the Yukon Territory. As she sought escape from her hypermasculine environment, Stratis found an unlikely lifeline amid dad rock’s emotionally open and honest music. Listening to dad rock, Stratis could access worlds beyond her own and imagine a path forward.

In taut, searing essays rendered in propulsive and unguarded prose, Stratis delves into the emotional core of bands like Wilco and The National, telling her story through the dad rock that accompanied her along the way. She found footing in Michael Stipe’s allusions to queer longing, Radiohead’s embrace of unknowability, and Bruce Springsteen’s very trans desire to “change my clothes my hair my face”—and she found in artists like Neko Case and Sharon Van Etten that the label transcends gender. A love letter to the music that saves us and a tribute to dads like Stratis’s own who embody the tenderness at the genre’s heart, The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman rejoices in music unafraid to bare its soul.

Niko Stratis is an award-winning writer from Toronto by way of the Yukon, where she spent years working as a journeyman glazier before coming out as trans in her thirties and being forced to abandon her previous line of work. Her writing has appeared in publications like Catapult, Spin, Paste and more.

Michael Broyles’ ‘Revolutions in American Music’ Traces How Sound, Race, and Technology Shaped a Nation

Eric Alper
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Michael Broyles’ ‘Revolutions in American Music’ Traces How Sound, Race, and Technology Shaped a Nation

The story of how unexpected connections between music, technology, and race across three tumultuous decades changed American culture.

How did a European social dance craze become part of an American presidential election? Why did the recording industry become racially divided? Where did rock ’n’ roll really come from? And how do all these things continue to reverberate in today’s world?

In Revolutions in American Music, award-winning author Michael Broyles shows the surprising ways in which three key decades—the 1840s, the 1920s, and the 1950s—shaped America’s musical future. Drawing connections between new styles of music like the minstrel show, jazz, and rock ’n’ roll, and emerging technologies like the locomotive, the first music recordings, and the transistor radio, Broyles argues that these decades fundamentally remade our cultural landscape in enduring ways. At the same time, these connections revealed racial fault lines running through the business of music, in an echo of American society as a whole.

Through the music of each decade, we come to see anew the social, cultural, and political fabric of the time. Broyles combines broad historical perspective with an eye for the telling detail and presents a variety of characters to serve as focal points, including the original Jim Crow, a colorful Hungarian dancing master named Gabriel de Korponay, “Empress of the Blues” Bessie Smith, and the singer Johnnie Ray, whom Tony Bennett called “the father of rock ’n’ roll.” Their stories, and many others, animate Broyles’s masterly account of how American music became what it is today.

Michael Broyles holds a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin and is professor of musicology at Florida State University. He was formerly the music critic for the Baltimore Sun and is a past president of the Society for American Music.

Maya J. Berry’s ‘Defending Rumba in Havana’ Moves Through the Sacred, the Political, and the Black Undercommons

Eric Alper
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Maya J. Berry’s ‘Defending Rumba in Havana’ Moves Through the Sacred, the Political, and the Black Undercommons

In Defending Rumba in Havana, anthropologist and dancer Maya J. Berry examines rumba as a way of knowing the embodied and spiritual dimensions of Black political imagination in post-Fidel Cuba. Historically a Black working-class popular dance, rumba, Berry contends, is a method of Black Cuban struggle that provides the community, accountability, sustenance, and dignity that neither the state nor the expanding private market can. Berry’s feminist theorization builds on the notion of the undercommons to show how rumba creates a space in which its practitioners enact deeply felt and dedicatedly defended choreographies of reciprocity, refusal, sovereignty, devotion, and pleasure, both on stage and in their daily lives. Berry demonstrates that this Black corporeal undercommons emphasizes mutual aid and refuses neoliberal development logics, favoring instead a collective self-determination rooted in African diasporic spiritual practices through which material compensation and gendered power dynamics are negotiated. By centering rumba to analyze how poor Black Cubans navigate gendered and racialized life, Berry helps readers better understand the constraints and yearnings that move diasporic Black struggles to seek refuge beyond the bounds of the nation-state.

Maya J. Berry is Assistant Professor of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Shayna M. Silverstein’s ‘Fraught Balance’ Dances Through the Complex Politics of Syrian Identity

Eric Alper
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Shayna M. Silverstein’s ‘Fraught Balance’ Dances Through the Complex Politics of Syrian Identity

Dabke, one of Syria’s most beloved dance music traditions, is at the center of the country’s war and the social tensions that preceded conflict. Drawing on almost two decades of ethnographic, archival, and digital research, Shayna M. Silverstein shows how dabke dance music embodies the fraught dynamics of gender, class, ethnicity, and nationhood in an authoritarian state. The book situates dabke politically, economically, and historically in a broader account of expressive culture in Syria’s recent (and ongoing) turmoil. Silverstein shows how people imagine the Syrian nation through dabke, how the state has coopted it, how performances of masculinity reveal?and play with?the tensions and complexities of the broader social imaginary, how forces opposed to the state have used it resistively, and how migrants and refugees have reimagined it in their new homes in Europe and the United States. She offers deeply thoughtful reflections on the ethnographer’s ethical and political dilemmas on fieldwork in an authoritarian state. Silverstein’s study ultimately questions the limits of authoritarian power, considering the pleasure and play intrinsic to dabke circles as evidence for how performance cultures sustain social life and solidify group bonds while reproducing the societal divides endemic to Syrian authoritarianism.

40 Fingers Turn “Hey Jude” into a Joyful Singalong at Teatro Dal Verme

Eric Alper
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40 Fingers Turn “Hey Jude” into a Joyful Singalong at Teatro Dal Verme

When 40 Fingers took the stage at Teatro Dal Verme in Milan, something magical happened. Their stunning acoustic cover of “Hey Jude” turned into a massive singalong, as the crowd carried the chorus in perfect harmony. The band paused, smiled, and let thousands of voices finish the song — a moment The Beatles themselves would’ve given their thumbs aloft.

Bootsy Collins Drops Funk-Fueled “Bubble Pop (Remix)” with Ice Cube and Mousse T — A Celebration of Groove and Legacy

Eric Alper
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Bootsy Collins Drops Funk-Fueled “Bubble Pop (Remix)” with Ice Cube and Mousse T — A Celebration of Groove and Legacy

Today, Bootsy Collins releases a high-energy remix of fan-favorite song “Bubble Pop” from his critically acclaimed record Album of the Year #1 Funkateer on Bootzilla Records / Roc Nation. The funk legend tapped chart-topping DJ and producer Mousse T. for a sped-up, even funkier version of the joyous track that also features Ice Cube, Fantaazma, and Brother Nature – listen here. 

Speaking on the remix, Bootsy says “Mousse T & I go back to my WEA-Germany Warner Brothers dazes latter part of the 90’s! In my eye’s I saw him as a Artist 1st then saw his skills as a Producer in the studio. He was always professional & he could throw down at the Parties we attended as his moon lite gig was DJing. He was the 1st one I thought of to Remake/Remix “Bubble Pop” because he knows that Party crowd.  So I buzzed him up & said Give up the Funk! We have that kind of relationship. Mousse T is an all around musical being that keeps up on the pulse of the people. He surrounds himself with Good Vibes. Bootsy Collins baby!!!” 

Mousse T. adds, “Bootsy and I go waaaaaay back. I was privileged to work with Bootsy in my studio in Germany on his album „Fresh outta „P“ university and then executively produce his album „Play with Bootsy“. We´ve been in touch ever since and when Bootsy called for a remix, it was all engines go! Basically I like the original vibe a lot, so I just wanted to funk it up a bit. Sped up the tempo a bit and got some new beats going. Also Ice Cube being on the track gave me the idea to give it a bit of G-Spice.”

“Bubble Pop (Remix)” is Bootsy’s first new drop following the release of his 23rd studio LP, Album of the Year #1 Funkateer, which has already received critical acclaim from GRAMMY.com, Rolling Stone, Billboard, Forbes, SPIN, Afropunk, Relix, FLOOD, and more.   Even at his 73 year-old, funk legend, wise-elder status, he remains a deeply curious, experimental artist who is ever-evolving. This album finds Bootsy in the producer’s chair, with an A&R top hat and the funky bass still in his hands. He’s gathered talent established and new – including Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Wiz Khalifa, and Dave Stewart, as well as newcomers October London, Harry Mack, Baby Triggy, Fantaazma, and more. 

“When I start on a project now, it’s about getting the energy from people around me,” says funk maestro Bootsy Collins. “Because the way I came up, with a band, I don’t ever want to lose that. It’s important to me to see who the universe brings for me, and I’ve been really blessed that every time I want to do a new record, I get these incredible musicians around me, right on time. And that’s what this album is about—hooking up with different musicians and artists, and mainly a lot of young people.” 

The result is a genre-bending kaleidoscope of funk, punk, rock, r&b, pop, and even a little electronic futuristic vibes as Bootsy contemplates AI. He is letting his alter egos – Bootdullivan, Bootzilla, Caspar the funky ghost, and Bootronix among others – join the party, with seductive jams (“Pure Perfection”), futuristic exploratory musings (“I.Am.AI.”, “Ubiquitous” – a true jam), pure funk fun (“Bubble Pop”, “Fishnets”, “Chicken & Fries”) and unexpected rock-pop genius (“Satellite”).

Talking about his new Album of the Year #1 Funkateer leads Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Collins to revisit the most pivotal moment in his legendary career, when James Brown hired the Pacemakers—the band led by teenage Bootsy and his brother Catfish—to replace his backing group in 1970. 

“I understand now why we were really important at that particular time for James Brown,” says Collins. “It wasn’t just the music. It was because we were lit up, and I understand that more now. With the young artists that are really on fire, I get lit up, and it reminds me that you don’t have to just stand around and not be feeling it, you can be absorbing all this fresh, new energy. I get off on that. I guess you can say that I moved from being a player and now I’m a coach. I want to be looked at as a help, a mentor, somebody they can look up to and trust. That’s my goal.”

In addition to working with young artists like Barbara Teleki (whose blazing guitar rips up “Barbie T & Me”) and the mysterious Bootdullivan, Collins brought in some other legendary contributors to help him mix things up on Album of the Year, including longtime friend Dave Stewart of Eurythmics. 

“I asked Dave if he would be interested in collaborating,” says Collins, “and that sparked the first vibe of, yeah, I can stretch out—I can make some rock and funk and merge that together with some hip-hop. That’s what we did on the first single, ‘The Influencers.’” 

“Then on ‘Satellite,’ I heard him playing acoustic guitar and that put me in the right mood,” he continues. “Okay, this can be, like, a real song from Bootsy. I usually don’t do real songs, I guess that’s part of my thing, but that one and ‘Alien Flytrap’ brought me back to why people do songs with a form and a structure and this time, I wanted to.”

The album also reunites Collins with Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, and tha Dogg Pound, all of whom helped keep the P-Funk flag flying by mutating the sound into the West Coast G-Funk era. “Even before we knew each other, we were drawn to each other,” says Collins. “They’ll never forget, and we’ll never forget them, because they kept the fire burning. It’s like we’re each other’s keeper. They can call me, I can call them, whatever you need, I’m there.” 

FUNK NOT FIGHT & BOOTSY COLLINS NETWORK 

In addition to the new album, Bootsy has many other endeavors including Bootsy’s peace-driven initiative Funk Not Fight, and the new Bootsy Collins Network, the ultimate destination for live entertainment and on-demand content. Dive into a world of electrifying live-streaming channels featuring Pay-Per-View events, exclusive video-on-demand content, and groundbreaking live product launches. Whether you’re tuning in for high-energy concerts, the latest in tech innovations, or intense e-sports action, the Bootsy Collins Network delivers an immersive experience like no other. Bootsy Collins network will be available across all major streaming services, including Apple iOS, Google Android, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Google TV, ensuring you never miss a moment of the excitement. From legendary live performances to cutting-edge digital experiences, we bring you front-row access to the best in music, technology, and gaming—all in one place.

Track Listing for Album of the Year #1 Funkateer 
01. Album of the Year #1 Funkateer feat. Myra Washington and Bootdullivan
02. The JB’s Tribute Pastor P feat. Harry Mack, Clyde Stubblefield, John “J’abo” Starks, Fred Wesley, and Daru Jones 
03. Bootdullivan is Soopafly feat. Ouiwey Collins, Kokane, Daz Dillinger, and Soopafly
04. The InFluencers feat. Dave Stewart, Wiz Khalifa, Snoop Dogg, WestCoast Stone, and Fantaazma
05. Bubble Pop feat. Ice Cube, Fantaazma, and Brother Nature
06. Fishnets feat. Myra Washington, Kurupt, Matthew Whitaker, and Daz Dillinger
07. Satellite feat. Dave Stewart and Brother Nature
08. Ubiquitous feat. Casper the Funked up Ghost and Kid Talk 
09. Hundo P feat. Fantaazma and Snoop Dogg
10. Chicken & Fries feat. Soopafly, Myra Washington, Baby Triggy and Fantaazma
11. Pure Perfection feat. Fantaazma, Gilbert Driver and Bedroom Bootsy
12. Anybody Out There feat. Myra Washington and Brother Nature
13. BeWild feat. Isis Valentino, Alexandria Rosemond, and Brother Nature
14. Alien Flytrap feat. Dave Stewart and Bootdullivan
15. Reach the Zone feat. October London, Musiq Soulchild, and Bedroom Bootsy
16. 2Nite we Rise feat. DREION, Fantaazma, ZGM Precious Praisers, and Casper the Funked up Ghost
17. I.Am.AI.  feat. Tobotius, I.AM, and Kid Talk
18. Barbie T & Me (Tribute To Buckethead) feat. Barbie T, Zillatron

Goose Announce Viva ‘El Gonzo 2026’ — A Three-Night Musical Paradise Returning to San José del Cabo

Eric Alper
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Goose Announce Viva ‘El Gonzo 2026’ — A Three-Night Musical Paradise Returning to San José del Cabo

Goose have announced the second iteration of their annual destination festival, Viva El Gonzo, produced by 100x Hospitality and set for May 7-9, 2026 in San José del Cabo, Mexico. A three-day music and arts festival held in a sacred tropical oasis on the southern tip of the Baja California desert, Viva El Gonzo will see Goose playing all three nights, joined by an all-star assembly of special guests for an immersive musical experience like no other. A complete lineup will be announced soon. GA Festival Tickets, TED and Super TED VIP, and travel packages are available now. Payment plans are available with 5% down payment. For complete details and ticket information, please see www.vivaelgonzo.com.

This spring’s inaugural edition of Viva El Gonzo proved an unforgettable milestone in what is fast shaping up as Goose’s most momentous year thus far. The three-day event saw a vibrant array of powerhouse performances from Goose and their star-studded lineup of guests, all set on the Baja California coastline against the breathtaking backdrop of the Sea of Cortés. Goose showcased their awe-inspiring range and creative imagination over the course of seven completely unique sets, with countless highlights including surprising covers, expansive jams on beloved fan favorites, the debut of exhilarating new originals, and live renditions of every song from their acclaimed new album, Everything Must Go. All told, Viva El Gonzo represented a titanic moment for Goose, exceeding all expectations with its genre-blurring performances, groundbreaking approach towards programming, and inspired variety of once-in-a-lifetime experiences, setting an extraordinary bar for future iterations going forward.

The ”Everything Must Go Tour” celebrates the recent arrival of Goose’s new album, Everything Must Go, available everywhere now via No Coincidence Records. Goose’s fourth studio LP and first new studio collection in nearly three years following 2022’s critically acclaimed Dripfield, the album marks both a statement of intent for Goose as well as an arrival of sorts — a journey for fans and newcomers alike through the group’s past, present, and infinite future. The album was met with a great deal of excitement from the media upon release, with features appearing in the New York Times and Vulture and others, as well as a performance on CBS Saturday Morning alongside an interview with Anthony Mason.

Hailed by PopMatters as “superb…one of the best studio albums by a jam band to date,” the album includes such extraordinary new tracks as the propulsive fan favorite, “Thatch,” the searching “Lead Up,” the breezy, atmospheric “Your Direction,” and euphoric first single, “Give It Time,” the latter two accompanied by official music videos streaming now on YouTube. In addition, the LP’s deeply moving title track is joined by a visually arresting official music video directed and designed by award-winning animator Chris Hopewell (known for his distinctive work with Radiohead, The Killers, Run The Jewels, Father John Misty, and many more).

The White Stripes Celebrate 20 Years of Get Behind Me Satan with Limited Vinyl and New “Red Rain” Video

Eric Alper
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The White Stripes Celebrate 20 Years of Get Behind Me Satan with Limited Vinyl and New “Red Rain” Video

The White Stripes are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their GRAMMY Award-winning 2005 fifth studio album, Get Behind Me Satan, with today’s arrival of a limited-edition commemorative vinyl release. The 2LP edition – featuring one red and one clear disc, both with black wisps – is available now via Third Man Records.

Today also sees the premiere of a brand-new stop motion video for the Get Behind Me Satan standout track, “Red Rain,” streaming now on YouTube. The video, which took about 80 hours to create, is Executive produced by Audg Fenter and directed by Brooklyn, NY-based independent filmmaker Conor Callahan. The inventive animated visual utilized 5,980 miniature bricks “cemented” together using Royal Icing, a product commonly used for intricate cake and cookie decoration, as well as Super7’s recently released ReAction Figure 2-pack capturing Jack and Meg White in all their Get Behind Me Satan glory.

Recorded on the stairway of Jack White’s home in the Indian Village neighborhood of Detroit, Get Behind Me Satan sees The White Stripes at their most experimental, creative best, augmenting their traditional sound of guitar, drums, and piano with marimba, tympani, mandolin, bells, and more. Not commercially released on vinyl until 10 years after its initial 2005 release, the album made a Top 3 debut on album charts in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia and earned global acclaim thanks to its unique rhythmic approach and such classic singles as “Blue Orchid,” the GRAMMY® Award-nominated “My Doorbell,” and “The Denial Twist,” all three of which proved Top 10 hits on the UK’s Official Singles Chart. Hailed by Rolling Stone for “twisting a variety of American music styles to their own emotional purpose…the music is so wild, it could make you weep over how pitilessly the White Stripes keep crushing the other bands out there,” Get Behind Me Satan went on to earn RIAA Gold certification in the US, Platinum certification in the UK and Canada, and The White Stripes’ second consecutive GRAMMY Award for “Best Alternative Album.”

The White Stripes were recently named among the inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2025. The 6x GRAMMY Award-winning, 11x GRAMMY Award-nominated band join esteemed fellow 2025 inductees Bad Company, Chubby Checker, Joe Cocker, Cyndi Lauper, Outkast, and Soundgarden. The 2025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction will be live on Saturday, November 8 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, CA. The 2025 ceremony will once again stream live on Disney+, with a special airing on ABC at a later date and available on Hulu the next day. For more information, please visit rockhall.com/inductees/white-stripes.

Tracklist:

SIDE A

Blue Orchid 

The Nurse

My Doorbell

SIDE B

Forever For Her (Is Over For Me)

As Ugly As I Seem

The Denial Twist

White Moon

SIDE C

Instinct Blues

Passive Manipulation

Take, Take, Take

SIDE D

Little Ghost

Red Rain

I’m Lonely (But I Ain’t That Lonely Yet)

Jessie Murph Unveils “Heroin” and Releases Bold New Album ‘Sex Hysteria’

Eric Alper
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Jessie Murph Unveils “Heroin” and Releases Bold New Album ‘Sex Hysteria’

Jessie Murph has released her new single “Heroin,” the latest taste off her sophomore album, Sex Hysteria, available now via Columbia Records. The ballad shows a new side of Jessie in the Sex Hysteria era, as Jessie croons over a beautiful piano and strings arrangement, singing about a toxic and addicting love that she can’t stay away from.

Additionally, Jessie has announced the tracklisting for Sex Hysteria, which will include her most recent hits, “Blue Strips” and “Touch Me Like A Gangster.” Both tracks continue to show massive growth and currently occupy #18 (having peaked at #15) and #56 on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively. The 15-track album will include features from Gucci Mane on “Donuts” and Lil Baby on “Best Behavior.”

A bold departure from the introspective grit of her debut, That Ain’t No Man That’s The Devil, the album dives headfirst into uncharted territory: opening up about themes of sexuality, generational trauma, and self-discovery with a vulnerability and honesty that marks a new chapter in her artistic evolution.

Sex Hysteria is Jessie’s most thematically cohesive work to date, peeling back the layers of her story like never before as she transforms personal pain into cathartic, powerful music. Across 15 tracks, she reckons with the past, interrogates inherited trauma, and explores the emotional complexities of growing up in environments where feelings are buried deep. From confronting family wounds to reclaiming her body and desires, she pushes back against the shame and stigma that often silence women who dare to be loud, sexual, or emotionally honest. Sex Hysteria is both a provocation and a reclamation.

Visually, Jessie nods to ’60s femme fatales with a classic beehive on the album cover-a bold contrast to the raw, modern truths she delivers within. The album’s preview arrives with the seductive new single “Touch Me Like A Gangster,” out Friday, June 6th. Jessie debuted the track at the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Show in Miami, marking its first live appearance ahead of the upcoming album. Also featured is the explosive lead track “Blue Strips”, already lighting up streaming platforms with its unapologetic lyrics and bass-heavy production. On the album’s opener “Gucci Mane,” Murph’s storytelling takes center stage as she confronts her past, reflects on her journey, and voices complicated emotions with fearless honesty.

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That Eric Alper

Eric Alper is a 6-time nominee for Publicist of the Year during Canadian Music Week and has overseen the publicity campaigns for over 183 JUNO Award-nominated albums (and 16 in 2025), 45 Grammy-nominated albums, including 47 JUNO Award, 58 Canadian Folk Music Award, 126 Maple Blues Award-winning albums and is also truly honoured to work with some of the biggest and most important artists of our time.

Contact me: eric@thatericalper.com

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