In 1966, THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO brought together the worlds of avant-garde art, European cool and downtown rock’n’roll in one explosive package. Sixty years on, the survivors share tales of drugs, breakdowns, burnouts, blocked toilets and hospital beds – and, of course, the creation of some of the most important music ever made. “We only did things our way,” learns Tom Pinnock . “We were arrogant, perhaps, in thinking we knew best. We were also right. We did know best…”

LAST MONTH, I discussed some of the advantages of playing in a power trio, such as the open harmonic canvas that it affords me as a guitar player. “Threw Me to the Wolves” is a song of mine that prese

VAN HALEN WAS the world’s biggest rock band at the beginning of 1985. Their 1984 album had sold more than five million copies in the U.S., reaching Number 2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (their hi

HE MIGHT HAVE joined the Haunted a full 17 years after the group formed, yet to metal guitarists, Ola Englund’s face is far more recognizable than those of his bandmates — even though bassist Jonas Bj

ONE OF THE coolest and most badass-sounding things a guitarist can do is double a long, complex bass line an octave higher. This was my approach for the song “Dean Town,” which I recorded with Vulfpec

THE BEST FILMS, BOOKS AND GREAT DAYS OUT TO MAKE THE MOST OF THE NEXT SEVEN DAYS