Cleveland Rocks, Even in the Dead of Winter

The City’s Unpretentious Music Scene Thrives Year Round, Under Bridges, on Porches, and Outside of the Country’s Most Famous Music Hall

In the middle of February, when the temperatures dip below freezing, Clevelanders are frequently found huddled together for warmth in one place: outside—yes, outside—under the crisp night sky, watching local bands.

Tens of thousands of people flock to Brite Winter, an annual festival featuring six stages of music, DJs, artists, ice carving, and food trucks. The event takes place outside—snow, sleet, or sunshine—in a different Cleveland neighborhood each year, often near some signature piece of Cleveland’s infrastructure. In 2016, Brite Winter popped up underneath the city’s majestic steel bridges on the …

Rock Icon Eddie Van Halen

If You Want to Know What He Was Like as a Kid, Call the Pasadena Police Department

Eddie van Halen is a Dutch-born musician, songwriter, and producer who is best known as the lead guitarist and co-founder of Van Halen. Before talking about rock ’n’ roll and …

Have We Turned the Last Page in America’s Songbook?

Tracing the Great Songwriting Tradition, From Cole Porter to Joni Mitchell

The Great American Songbook isn’t really a book. Rather, it’s a notional collection of several hundred pop songs. The precise identity of the songs varies according to who is doing …

Necessity Is the Source of Eddie Van Halen’s Inventions

The Path to Rock Superstardom Involves Immigration, Experimentation, and the Occasional Electrocution

Rock legend Eddie Van Halen didn’t set out to change the way the guitar was played. But, as he explained to a standing-room-only crowd at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of …

The Electric Guitar’s Long, Strange Trip

From Its Gentle 16th-Century Acoustic Origins to the Souped-Up ‘Frankenstein’

I remember the first time I saw Eddie Van Halen on MTV, the way he played two hands on the fingerboard during his short “Jump” guitar solo. I loved his …

The Fab Four Were Funny

It Was the Beatles’ Wit That Set Them Apart and Won Over America 50 Years Ago

This year brings an unavoidable wave of Beatles tributes, with TV specials, media coverage, a new CD boxed set, and celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the band’s arrival in …