Welcome back to the much-loved, curly-haired, 90s rock heroes, The Grapes of Wrath. The original trio of Kevin Kane, Tom Hooper and Chris Hooper played their first gig together in over a decade this past weekend, and we were there. Check out the mahoosive photo gallery and beer-soaked memories.

Following a world tour with The Killers, San Diego rockers LouisXIV went on hiatus and singer Jason Hill seemed to go off the grid for a year. What did he get up to? “I was in a dark place,” he said. Here’s what Jason Hill Did Next in this BSR exclusive.

Seven hours with with the King of Lo-Fi. What to do? Start with soundcheck, detour to a homemade dinner and the kindness of strangers, end up backstage with a scaredy cat poster, drink beer, rock out, then laugh a lot. Here’s a photo gallery of the first day of summer, BackstageRider-style. There’s even rockhands.

Duran Duran’s bassist, John Taylor, turns 50 years old today. When I imagined this day, I also imagined I’d be flying around with jetpacks. Here’s a REWIND to 1995, a revealing cassette-taped interview with John Taylor in which JT discusses getting fucked up, being pissed off, lacking in humility, how the band have changed and the disaster covers album “Thank You.”

FROM THE VAULTS: Another random diary entry from the BSR, in which our heroine finds herself hanging out with one of her fave bands from Cincinnati, Afghan Whigs, while they watched porn and chuffed up lines. “Now, THIS is the rock n’ roll life,” she thought. “Holy crap, it’s pretty sad.”

Guilty About Girls has a new video out for the poppy little number, “Candy Candy”. They shot it this past weekend. Here it is in all its black and white glory, served up with some colourful anecdotes. Would you like fries with that?

‘Tis the season to have a pop-rock-dance-drum n’ bass-singer-songwriter-hip-hop-indie-alt freakout. This week has been particularly rocktacular, so lay a cornea on pics of Gomez, Efterklang, Mike Doughty, Old Money, The Manvils, Dragonette, Pendulum, John Digweed and Postdata.

What is Mike Doughty’s Question Jar? It is a thing of beauty. And when the Brooklynite came through town this past weekend, we felt obliged to metaphorically tip the thing over on a quest to discover its awesomeosity. And we did.

Remembering my night with Richey Edwards, guitarist and lyricist for the Manic Street Preachers, on the 15th anniversary of his disappearance. Readers, meet my diary. Diary, meet the Interweb.