Here are just some of the offerings released this year which will satisfy any music aficionado, young or old, regardless of personal music taste. Music forever remains in perpetuity as not only a great go-to gift, but one that is long lasting and forever. Check out our 2019 Holiday Geek Gift Guide for Music“¦

Just like that, it’s that time again, where the holiday season is upon us and the mad scrambles down store aisles to find just the right gifts for friends and loved ones commences. It’s a yearly ritual that always seems to come sooner than later. It’s also a sign that the year is coming to a close, and of course there’s no question that 2016 will remain in memory and history as one of the most turbulent, challenging, and painful times ever seen. It is for that reason that the holiday time should hold even extra special positive emotional weight, as community and solidarity run high among people during this time, acting as sort of metaphoric concrete that fills in the gaps that division among many created. And music too, is an eternal, external, and ultimately internal healing agent for the soul, regardless if times are happy or sad, joyous or maudlin. Music also reflects those aforementioned emotions and more. Here’s some of the best released this past year that will for sure excite even the most hardened by the whirlwind of the times and warm someone’s soul like kindling a hearth on the coldest December nights.

Check out our 2016 Holiday Geek Gift Guide for Music…

If you’re wandering around the New York City’s East Village and suddenly find yourself on the outskirts of Alphabet City, there’s a cool little art gallery I know on Ave. A just off of 2nd St. It’s called Art on A. Go in. Check out the art on the walls. If you’re lucky enough to visit before September 22, what you see will be instantly relatable to anyone who can recognize the beauty of a subculture, its decadent allure, its decaying glamour. But those who know photographer Robert Butcher will know that his latest collection American Madonnas and Liars is based on a story that started long ago, born of a lifetime of rock and roll, drugs, and trouble which led up to a suicide attempt and finally resurrection. I was lucky enough to be able to talk to him about what brought him to his latest artistic venture.

The iconic photo of President Richard Nixon shaking hands with Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Elvis Presley is often described as strange and bizarre. But if it wasn’t for that historic meeting, Liza Johnson’s new comedy, Elvis & Nixon, starring Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey, as the respective icons, would not be happening.

Johnson’s new film documents the two real-life figures meeting for the first time at the White House’s Oval Office, but there is more to this event than a photo-op. The story behind this meeting is that Elvis really wanted a badge from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, and would go as far as offering his services to the President to be an agent to get one.

Now we have our first look from the film, hit the jump to check it out.

August 12th was Vinyl Record Day, marked by the date Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, so it’s become a day to celebrate the old time traditions of sonic yesteryear, and spin your favorite tunes on those old 33 1/3, 45, and 78 sized spherical objects made out of wax called “records.” And I’m here to give you my Top 12 favorite vinyl records of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, along with a bunch of honorable mentions, but before we get to that, let’s talk a little bit about this thing called “vinyl.”

Up until the mid 1980s, when CDs started to become the musical norm in how one listened to their music proper, records were the norm of the people; not just a communally popular way to hear songs, but it became a giant subculture of the fabric of life, a hobby, a key element in creating parties, in creating gatherings and get-togethers, a source of fun competition in who would have more records than whom and who would have the rare cool records, in essence, vinyl hoarding was a collector’s and layman’s dream for decades upon decades.

With its outer cardboard casings known as “sleeves,” bands and musicians of all musical genres were able to express themselves not only in the music they created, but by the art that was presented on the front and back covers, which spawned an entire new artistic medium in a sense. In a way, every day should still be a Vinyl Record Day in some regard, and as the way music is bought and downloaded these days, in binary coded “bitted and byted” digital forms, not only has the way of the vinyl passed in essence, but also all the visual accoutrements that came with it. It has become a relic of the past like a rotary telephone or a CB radio, a dinosaur’s regime, which ultimately is hence even a more urgent reason to preserve the memory and image of the record alive in the 21st century.