John Cale

The godfather of punk guitar, Ron Asheton of the Stooges, was found dead Tuesday in his Ann Arbor, Mich., home. Asheton, 60, had not been heard from for a few days, and the guitarist's personal assistant called police to Asheton's home to check on him....

Ron Asheton, whose scorching and energetic guitar work behind singer Iggy Pop in the Michigan punk band the Stooges established a new model of raw emotion for a succeeding generation of punk, grunge and alternative rockers, has died. He was 60. Asheton's...

It's impossible to distill the discographies of Bob Dylan and Lou Reed to only five albums each. Inevitably, a few must-owns will be left by the wayside—No "Blonde on Blonde" for Dylan? No "New York" for Reed? But we'll give it a shot anyway....

This is typical Paul Westerberg. The singer-songwriter was paying his respects to the Replacements' second drummer, Steve Foley, a few weeks back. "I'm standing there at the casket looking at him, and then wafting over the PA comes 'Sadly Beautiful,'"...

Hopscotching time on film is never easy, but Canadian writer-director Jeremy Podeswa handles it with skill and care in "Fugitive Pieces," his lovely, absorbing adaptation of Anne Michaels' lauded novel about a circumspect writer haunted by his traumatic...

If you watch television, the song has by now become unmistakable: A spare piano chord, a breathy voice and opening lines flecked with biblical references before an uplifting chorus kicks in. This is "Hallelujah," a 23-year-old song that has become the...

A toddler's playful scream elicits a chuckle from Alejandro Escovedo as he calls from his home in the Texas hill country between Austin and San Antonio. It's encouraging to hear Escovedo laugh, considering that the revered singer-songwriter has spent most...

With a raging intolerance for the status quo cloaked in the solemn dread of an undertaker, John Cale is not the obvious choice to lead an opening-night celebration. But if Nevin's Live in Evanston, the Chicago area's newest rock club, wanted to send a...

Friday January 12, 1996      "The dark side is very bright indeed," director John Huston, who should've known, once said. "The dark is gleaming, like a fire opal or a black pearl."      John Huston would have appreciated "Nico Icon."      A well-made...

Friday May 17, 1996      On the afternoon of June 3, 1968, feminist Valerie Solanas shot the king of Pop art, Andy Warhol, seriously wounding him and, in effect, marking an end to an era in his life and art. Many contend that Warhol, who died in 1987...

Friday August 9, 1996      "The whole point," Julian Schnabel was quoted recently about his debut film delineating the brief life of fellow New York art star Jean-Michel Basquiat, "was not to have a tourist make this movie." Yet for all the difference...

Friday April 17, 1998      The very least we expect from conventional screen storytellers is that they will entice us into caring about their people. More talented and daring filmmakers, however, take on the challenge of involving us in individuals...