R.I.P. New York Dolls guitarist Sylvain Sylvain
Photo: Phil Bourne/Redferns via Getty Images
Sylvain Sylvain has died. As the guitarist and co-founder of the New York Dolls, Sylvain charted an unpredictable course between the forces of hard rock, glam, and the earliest dregs of what would one day be punk at the dawn of the ’70s New York club scene, marrying fashion, cynicism, and a frequently determined
lack of interest in musicianship into a bold new iteration of modern music. Reviving the group to surprise acclaim in the early 2000s with his old colleague David Johansen (also known, around other genres, by his stage name, Buster Poindexter), Sylvain took his place as an elder statesman in the world of modern rock, acknowledged regardless of whatever specific genre you might hope to pin him into as one of the pioneers of underground music in the 1970s. Per
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Back in the day, was there a man on the planet who could make getting his ass kicked look better than Harrison Ford? Much ink has been spilled about the man’s undeniable
Star Wars era-swagger, but the key to his most iconic performances came from a different direction: That hint, always hiding around the eyes, that Han Solo or Indiana Jones know exactly how full of shit their shows of heroic bravado really were.
I’ve been thinking about Indy a lot lately, ever since news broke earlier this week that Machine Games was making a new game about everyone’s favorite fedora-toting Mutt Dad. It’s a bit of an odd fit: Machine is largely known, at this point, for 2014’s
By now we’ve all seen the astonishing results of covering an object in black paint that absorbs over 99% of light it loses all shape, form, and depth. But what happens when you mix those super-black paints with highly-reflective color-shifting sparkles and then paint a car? The result is like staring into the deepest reaches of space.
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Anish Kapoor owns the exclusive rights to Surrey NanoSystems’ Vantablack paint, which is made from carbon nanotubes that are capable of trapping and absorbing 99.965% of visible light. Human vision is based on detecting light rays that have bounced off the objects all around us, but with Vantablack applied, an object looks like a featureless black hole. Kapoor’s ownership means no one else can use VantaBlack, but thankfully, others have found ways to create paints that behave like Vantablack does. A Japanese company called Koyo Orient Japan has a Musou Black paint that absorbs 99.4% of visible light. For around $30, anyone can bu
[RCA Records]
Former One Directioner Zayn Malik may be continuing his concerted effort to distance himself from his boy band roots, but there’s still one trait he thankfully hasn’t left behind: His penchant for serious sentimentality. His debut album
Mind Of Mine may have confirmed as much, but the 11 tracks of his third offering,
Nobody Is Listening, really drive home Malik’s long-established, swoon-inducing persona. Second single “Vibez” maintains the proficiency with gauzy orchestration and laid-back vocals the kind that exists in the convenient pocket between pop and R&B. However, this collection plays in the rhythmic sandbox to further expand his sound, exploring bluesy melodies that reflect a modern, lo-fi soundscape one moment (“Better”) and vintage, Phil Collins-esque vibes the next (“Sweat”). What makes this particular jaunt a real treat is when he abandons his understated vocal proclivities for a fuller, wholly vulnerable display like “River Road,�