Zachary Lipez

New York

Freelance Editor at Large at CREEM Magazine

I had a name, but now I'm a newsletter https://t.co/DZ8qhXIHti editor at Creem. +PUBLICIST UK https://t.co/pNmhaqDnDo

Articles

*extreme Crypt Keeper voice* “billy woods”

2 weeks ago | zacharylipez.ghost.io | Zachary Lipez

“Now watch me make a movie like Albert Hitchcock.”— Pitbull Pitchfork had billy woods on its radar as early as 2013, only ten years into the something-years-old rapper’s recording career. It only took another five years before woods’ name carried enough freight to overrule any house style and the man’s preferred lower cases were applied.
Other Dead Boys: Notes on David Johansen, New York Dolls, New York in General, Exceptionalism, Punk, Hair Metal, Glam, and the Urge to Make It With Frankenstein

2 months ago | zacharylipez.ghost.io | Zachary Lipez

1. The death of David Johansen, nurtural Poindexter, the lead singer of the New York Dolls, was announced in the early hours of March 1st, first by Morrissey, then by Tim Burgess of The Charlatans, then by Laughing Hyenas/Negative Approach’s John Brannon. Out of the still living, it’s hard to imagine a more appropriate throuple to break the bad news.
No True Punk

Feb 15, 2025 | zacharylipez.ghost.io | Zachary Lipez

Punk is a genre of music, a fashion, and a lifestyle. Depending on who you ask, punk began in the mid ‘60s in Lima, Peru with Los Saicos, in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s in Detroit, with the Stooges, MC5, and Death, in the mid ‘70s, in Cleveland and NYC, with Rocket From the Tombs, the Ramones, Patti Smith, and Richard Hell (and about fifty others), or punk, as we understand it today, “actually” started in the UK with Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood, and the Sex Pistols.
Anniversary Poem for Zohra

Jan 24, 2025 | zacharylipez.ghost.io | Zachary Lipez

Dear Abundant Livers, As regular readers know, I post an anniversary poem for Zohra every year. Usually in December, occasionally in January (we have a complicated chronology). This year it's a bit late, but I think it turned out swell (and fwiw Zohra agrees). So... this newsletter is a poem.
Solving rock music with Elias Rønnenfelt - Miami Music Buzz

Dec 3, 2024 | miamimusicbuzz.com | Zachary Lipez

Solving rock music with Elias Rønnenfelt An afternoon chat with the Iceage frontman covers his debut solo album Heavy Glory, God, and the place for a certain kind of icon in 2024. Elias Rønnenfelt is the kind of rock star we don’t see much of nowadays, and not just because the “star” part of the equation depends on the metric we’re using. There is, after all, some air between being celestially famous, being almost famous, and being mostly famous amongst certain cultural subsets.
TV on the Radio's Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes

Nov 14, 2024 | thequietus.com | Patrick Clarke |Zachary Lipez

If there’s a band that makes me regret the ruination of the good and noble word “hipster,” it’s TV On The Radio. The term used to have a charm and utility. In Nile Rodgers’ autobiography, Le Freak, the author describes both his mother and father as hipsters.
Punk Gets Good Again, Again. Plus reviews of newish albums by Elucid + Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp

Nov 8, 2024 | zacharylipez.ghost.io | Zachary Lipez

Who knew that punk would be good again so soon?
Our Shiksa Beastie Boys? A gothic cowpunk masterpiece turns 10 and nobody but me gives a sh*t

Oct 18, 2024 | zacharylipez.ghost.io | Zachary Lipez

Iceage recorded their debut album, New Brigade, in three days, when the members of the Danish band were hovering around seventeen years old.
Essay | What’s More Punk Than Selling Out?

Sep 27, 2024 | wsj.com | Zachary Lipez

By Your browser does not support the audio tag. 00:00 / 02:12This article is in your queue. In a perfect punk world, where the Dead Kennedys are bigger than the Beatles, the announcement that Green Day is joining forces with Keurig Dr Pepper would be met with howls. The beverage behemoth recently released a “limited-edition brewer and coffee kit” to mark the 20th anniversary of “American Idiot,” Green Day’s “punk rock opera,” which skewered America’s post-9/11 jingoism and corporate greed.
Essay | What’s More Punk Than Selling Out?

Sep 27, 2024 | wsj.com | Zachary Lipez

The surface incongruity of this pairing is jarring. The scruffy rockers of Green Day (Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool) are so subversive that they sing in Cockney accents and have a drummer with a French name, despite being from the Bay Area. Keurig Dr Pepper is a confusingly named Vermont-Texas, coffee-soft drink conglomerate with an annual revenue north of $14 billion.