Photo courtesy of Dana Gorab

I’m not the type who cries easily, though I’m not made of stone either. I’ve definitely shed a few tears at funerals, and I’ll admit, a good film can get to me too. The movie Lion, for example, had me absolutely sobbing long after the credits rolled - my girlfriend was genuinely worried I’d completely lost it.

But a rock concert? That was new territory. A few years ago, I found myself standing in the middle of Olavshallen in Trondheim, tears streaming down my face as Dream Theater played one of the most important albums of my life.

They were in my hometown for the Images & Words 25th anniversary tour, performing the album in full. For anyone who doesn’t know me, this is the record that got me into progressive rock. It shaped my teenage years, my guitar playing and my entire way of thinking about music. I can safely say I’ve listened to that album thousands of times - no exaggeration. It was on constant rotation in my room, and I learned most of the songs by heart, guitar parts and all. It was my musical education, my escape and my obsession all rolled into one.

It also became the soundtrack to my late teenage years; the background music to my first relationships, my first heartbreaks and those long nights of trying to make sense of life. I even remember listening to it a lot during my military service, where I was lucky enough to end up in the same room as some of my best friends from high school. One of them brought his stereo system, and we’d spend countless hours in that small room, surrounded by uniforms and gear, blasting Images & Words. It felt like our little refuge; a world of melody, complexity and emotion tucked away inside military barracks.

So when Dream Theater came to Trondheim to play Images & Words from start to finish, it felt almost surreal. As the lights dimmed and the familiar intro of “Pull Me Under” filled the hall, something inside me just… gave way. By the time they got to “Another Day”, I could feel the lump in my throat forming, and when “Learning to Live” began - my all-time favourite - that was it. The floodgates opened.

I was there with my girlfriend, who enjoys the band’s music but isn’t as sold on James LaBrie’s voice. I’ve heard that before - his voice is definitely an acquired taste. Some people love the music but can’t quite get past the vocals. For me, though, LaBrie’s voice is one of the things that makes Dream Theater so powerful. I love how he can shift between emotional vulnerability and full-on aggression, often in the space of a single song. Hearing him deliver those lines live - the same ones I’d sung along to countless times as a teenager - hit me harder than I expected.

It wasn’t just nostalgia, though. It was the realisation that this album had been there for me through everything: growing up, learning guitar, figuring out who I was. And now, decades later, I was standing there as an adult, hearing those same songs performed by the band that made me fall in love with music in the first place. It was like my entire musical journey had come full circle at that moment.

What struck me most that night was how tight the band still was; how even after all these years, John Petrucci’s precision, Mike Mangini’s drumming and Jordan Rudess’ keys carried that same intensity and technical brilliance I’d admired in my youth. Dream Theater has evolved a lot since Images & Words - their newer material is more intricate and experimental - but for me, there’s something special about those early records. The songwriting had a certain magic that connected both the heart and the mind.

Walking out of Olavshallen that night, my girlfriend gave me a look somewhere between amusement and affection - maybe half surprised to see me in tears. I just smiled and said, “That album means more to me than I can explain.”

It reminded me why I make music myself. That night wasn’t just a concert - it was a reminder of why music matters, why it endures and how a record can stay with you for a lifetime. Dream Theater’s Images & Words did that for me. And for one night in Trondheim, it gave me permission to let it all out.

That same love for storytelling, dynamics and emotional connection still drives what I do with holon today. If my music can give someone even a fraction of what Images & Words gave me, then I know I’m on the right path.

Many a millenial’s childhood featured an October filled with not-so-scary films. Friendly ghosts, pumpkin kings and a virgin who lit a black flame candle turned their television screens into a lifetime of memories. For Omri Katz, playing Max Dennison in Hocus Pocus wasn’t something he anticipated he’d still be talking about more than 30 years after its release.

Fans may have recognized the boy playing the sarcastic teenager as John Ross Ewing III from Dallas or Marshall Teller from Eerie, Indiana but his role as Max would become his most talked about character. Yet for many years, he pursued other interests. He said he wanted to try a different human experience as acting no longer called to him. He gave it one more chance, but for all the wrong reasons, and found himself starting at the bottom again. He took a step away from Hollywood, unsure if he would ever return.

When That’s 4 Entertainment announced their 90s-themed convention in 2022, Katz was announced as a guest alongside Hocus Pocus co-stars Vinessa Shaw and Jason Marsden. He wasn’t sure what the reception would be, and was admittedly a bit nervous.

“To be honest, I was out of the limelight for so long that I think I was a little freaked out,” he said. “That first one was a little weird, talking about things I hadn’t thought of in 30 years… but it was a good weird.”

Using comic conventions as a place to reconnect with his co-stars and take a trip down memory lane with passionate fans has become second nature to him. When filming Hocus Pocus, he admits that he didn’t always take in the moments that he should have. He understood how big of a deal it was to work in a Disney-led production, but getting to share those stories with convention goers has helped him look back on that time in his life and realized how fortunate he was.

He remembers that adolescent feeling of trying to find yourself and constantly being embarrassed. Choosing a path different from acting helped him find his identity and become comfortable in his own skin, and now he gets to introduce that authentic self to groups of people who want to know the real Omri Katz.

Three years after his first convention experience, he has attended countless events with his co-stars, including a stop at the inaugural Nightmare Weekend Chicago. Sharing the weekend with Shaw as well as one of his teen idols, Cassandra Peterson, is another aspect of how he never thought he would find joy in the realm of acting again.

Katz at Nightmare Weekend Chicago, 2025.

It is easy for an artist to say that their current album is their favorite because it is what best represents them at that moment in time. The farther they dive into the reasoning behind that, the more they might discover how the lens in which they see their album might differ from another. Perspective is everything, and Little King wanted to dig deeper into that for their latest album.

Lente Viviente, Spanish for “living lens”, combines melodic hooks and heavy riffs into seven tracks of perfect conversation starters. They are all different musically but share a need to spark a discussion that could lead to change.

The final track listing came before Rosoff had written a single lyric. For him, the flow of the music is most important to give the listener what he calls a dynamic micro-epic, meaning that while these songs are under the four minute mark they seem longer due to their arrangements. Knowing the linear movement of the music makes it easier for him to tell a story lyrically.

“[Lente Viviente is] based on all of the perception and all of how our world is colored through our experiences and through our DNA and the people around us, and sometimes through drugs and alcohol and addiction and homelessness,” he said. “I knew thematically what I wanted to talk about but I didn’t want to create an A-Z concept album. Everything loosely fits under that umbrella of the living lens but they don’t necessarily have to run into each other.”

The standout track from the album, “Who’s Illegal?”, stems from Rosoff’s daily view of addiction, homelessness and immigration seen in the places he’s lived. It ties into the “living lens” theme of how each individual’s lens has a filter through which they see things. He said if he can do his little part in creating that conversation starter, then maybe he can be a part in finding solutions.

For Rosoff, his songwriting these days is less about a muse and more about the “musician’s biological clock” to create an album. After having the same routine for writing and recording music, he was ready to shake things up. He turned to two musicians he has worked with frequently over the last several years. Bassist Dave Hamilton and drummer Tony Bojorquez did not know each other very well, yet Rosoff felt an automatic synergy between the three of them.

“It felt really fresh and new,” Rosoff said. “Almost like doing it again for the first time just because of all the newness of the personnel and the location and all the things that were going on around me.”

He is used to external pressure from all sides of the music industry but said that he freed himself from those constraints simply because music wasn’t always the frontrunner of his career. Now that he’s putting his music first, it’s because he is more confident than ever in his abilities as an artist. He didn’t always have the technical expertise or writing skills, but time and practice has brought him to a place where he can see the vision and bring it to life.

Now that the album is released, it’s time for the band to take all the intricate guitar riffs and odd rhythms and practice them until the live performance is better than the recordings. Rosoff believes that putting on a show that makes the audience think they sound better live is a lost art. He will be playing these songs alongside two incredible artists with impressive resumes, and everyone’s talent deserves a chance to shine.

He admits that as he ages, the more of a perfectionist he’s become. He recognizes that this will ultimately be his legacy and having this story to leave behind can either be an ego trip or a preservation.

“I want it to be rewarding and it is incrementally rewarding,” he said. “The mistakes or the little idiosyncratic things in previous recordings never go away. They live forever, they live far beyond the pride and joy when I hear them.”

Little King has always pushed musical boundaries, and has certainly believed in speaking their mind through their music. This time around, Lente Viviente shows an elevated maturity in both sound and mind that will give the listener a purpose after the seventh track ends.

“Start the conversation. Be objective. Don’t be so dogmatic and don’t be so set in your ways, set in your views, that you can’t entertain someone else who has a different perspective. It’s the living lens.”

On September 29, 1975, an independent musical comedy horror film was released in the United States to relatively small audiences. Several opening cities withdrew from the film’s release and a Halloween opening night in New York City was cancelled. It would take several months for New York City theaters to give it a midnight showing, ultimately leading to a phenomenon of audience participation. Now, 50 years later, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is forever engrained in pop culture history.

The musical cult classic's half-century milestone was celebrated with a 4K Ultra remaster, a 10-month process overseen by Walt Disney Restoration. The remastered version includes a newly mixed Dolby Atmos audio track and an updated logo, with its iconic red lips now featuring a gold top hat inscribed with "50" in red ink.

"When The Rocky Horror Picture Show was first released, no one thought it would be around very long let alone 50 years,” producer Lou Adler said in a press release. “What began as a small, rebellious project has become a global celebration of individuality, community and creative freedom. This anniversary is a tribute to the fans who kept it alive and kicking all these years.”

To celebrate the milestone, the original Columbia, Brad and Magenta hit the road to host screenings across the country. Die-hards (and several virgins) donned their best sequins for a showing at the historic Chicago Theatre, where Nell Campbell, Barry Bostwick and Patricia Quinn took the stage for a Q&A before a live shadow cast performed alongside an unedited version of the film.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show Fan Club President Larry Viezel kicked off the night. The lobby featured some of his personal collection of movie costumes, handwritten lyrics, behind-the-scenes photos and more. Viezel would introduce the evening, laying down the rules and assisting in the Transylvanian Pledge of Allegiance and National Anthem before Campbell emerged from the wings to judge the costume contest.

When Bostwick and Quinn joined Campbell on stage, the Viezel-led discussion shared stories of first auditions, costume budgets and how the film was originally a stage production. The insight from the three stars, two of whom were first cast in the musical, gave the audience a new look into just how remarkable it is that this film is still being shown 50 years later.

“I’m glad Chicago still has a lot of weirdos and queer-dos,” Bostwick said. “Let’s fuck this theater up.”

50 years and counting, audiences of all ages hold newspapers over their heads, toss rolls of toilet paper into the air and shout insults at the screen for a movie that essentially flopped during its initial release. The Rocky Horror Picture Show became so much more than a movie to so many people, and changed pop culture for the better.

My climate anxiety got so bad that one night I woke up, mid REM, in a cold sweat. I couldn’t bear it any longer. I grabbed my guitar, a pen, and some paper and started writing. Crafting. Brewing. Expressing. By the morning, I had written my first ever composition. I dubbed it, “Why?”, an emphatic questioning of our tendency to disrespect mother nature. The chorus repeated the line, “why, oh why, oh why do we pollute this world?” Three chords, a driving rhythm, a catchy melody and activism. This was my reality.

You see, coincidentally, I had just started taking music lessons. My mother (a musician herself in her youth) enrolled me in not only vocal and guitar lessons, but also in “rock school”. As a result, I was learning about the major scale, fighting pitchiness, struggling to identify intervals, studying the difference between quarter notes and eighth notes and finding strength in my chest voice. I was developing calluses on my fingers, learning my chord shapes, improvising the blues over a I, IV, V, fumbling alternate picking and plucking the melodies of boring classics like “Hot Cross Buns” to the nagging snap of a metronome. I was fronting a couple of bands, learning to sing and play okay at the same time, rehearsing in rooms loud enough to shave a few notches off the stereocilia in my ears, facing stage fright for the first time and cultivating friendships along the way.

I didn’t know it then, but I sure know it now: the moment I knew I wanted to make music was that anxiety stricken night when I chose music. I chose music to release. To express. To cope. To process. I could have chosen any other form of expression via any other art form, but I intuitively chose music. With few exceptions, I have chosen music every day since. Music is my passion, my purpose and my home. It’s not a want and that formative experience in the otherwise quiet and honest tranquility of the darkness is all the evidence I need.

Gina Zo was experiencing a massive amount of change in her life when her debut solo album first began to form. It was by no means the way she necessarily intended to write the album, but almost immediately embraced that this was how it was meant to be.

Moving to Los Angeles, making new friends and searching for love all became talking points on burn me into something better. Even though change may hurt at first, Zo learned that change is ultimately for the best.

“Change was inevitable for me, so naturally, it's what I ended up writing about,” she said.

She went into the creation of the album intending to be as authentic as possible. Starting as the frontwoman of a rock band, she took on a persona of someone who was not entirely true to herself. It was a persona she enjoyed, but it came to a point where she wanted to embrace her own individuality.

“I now felt that it was my time to create music that was who I was daily - a bubbly, complicated, goofy individual,” she said. “I think by being myself in the writing room and feeling so drawn to the people I work with, it came very naturally to me to be authentic. I didn't have to put myself in a box because I knew that what I was trying to accomplish wasn't anything I had done. I had no idea what to expect, so I wrote extremely creatively.”

Throughout the creation process of burn me into something better, she learned that she was capable of writing a hit. She is still learning about herself as a solo artist, but making this album gave her the confidence to keep learning.

“While I am still showing the world my music and it will take time to bring it to as many people as possible, I am confident that I have made music that has the ability to be loved by so many,” she said. “I am proud of myself because for a bit of time before I wrote this album I wasn't sure what my fate was, but I knew I wanted the Grammy and the world tour. I learned that when you trust your gut and turn inward, you can make massive strides in your dreams.”

She released four of those hits prior to the album release, including “Fuck Me Then Leave Me”. Originally titled “Take Me Down”, the song was introduced to her team to mixed reviews. The verses were an immediate hit, but the chorus lacked what the verses started. They spent hours trying to find the words before Zo left the writing session feeling frustrated and without a finished product. The next day, she took time before the session to sit alone at the piano. With a fresh new look at what was in front of her, a few ideas led to the final version of “Fuck Me Then Leave Me”.

An 11-track collection expressing change, transformation and finding one’s confidence is exactly what Gina Zo was meant to share as her first body of solo work. It’s an important lesson she learned while writing and recording burn me into something better, and hopes listeners take away the same: it's never too late to do the things you've always wanted to do.

When Molly Burke thought of the term “memoir”, she was under the impression that her life story had to be told at the end of her life. Being in her early thirties felt way too young to have enough of a story to write a book, yet her accomplishments in the last decade were too big to ignore.

Unseen: How I Lost My Vision And Found My Voice shares her journey of being diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa and how that journey gave her a platform to advocate for herself and others. She began documenting her life on social media at 20 years old, sharing her story in between sharing her interests. The more of a following she acquired, the more she realized she was able to be a voice for her community.

“I was really proud to feel like I’d been one small part of carving a path for disability representation on social media,” she said during her author event at the Chicago Humanities Festival.

Proud wasn’t always an emotion that she felt as her world changed. Throughout the book, she details the unglamorous moments of losing her sight. She credits some of her writing style to fellow memoir authors Jeanette McCurdy and Julia Fox, whose books Burke read despite not knowing either of their back stories. She was struck that they did not write books with the intention of making themselves look good. She left those books not judging them but feeling more connected to them, and she wanted to write something that showcased the same level of humanity.

She had been told for years that she needed to write a book but didn’t always agree with that statement. She thought that every little thing that ever happened on her journey thus far needed to be documented and truthfully there were many things she was not ready to be open about.

“It was hard [for] me to feel like I could write my story and leave things out because that didn’t feel truthful,” she said. “It didn’t feel like me.”

Finding a team that could help her navigate through writing a memoir was important, and Burke credits Courtney Paganelli at Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency for being the reason Unseen exists. Burke explained that Paganelli was the first person to tell her that the book could be whatever it was meant to be, and that this memoir did not have to be her only one. She encouraged Burke to write whatever came to her, and if it felt like it did not belong or was not the right time to be shared, it could be saved for later.

Burke found those difficult topics easier to share than she initially thought. Recognizing that this book could be a talking point for anyone in the disabled community, for anyone who has ever felt unseen, became just as important as being unapologetically herself.

“It’s for anyone that’s ever felt unseen in their life to know that that experience is not isolated [and] that you are not alone in those feelings,” she said.

She wanted it to be clear that this book was not a struggle-to-success story. The good and the bad co-exist, and that success, money or followers did not change her disability. The ending of Unseen is not a stereotypical happy ending wrapped in a bow. There is no bragging, no complaining; just living.

“This book is for the people who need to see themselves in a story,” she said. “That’s something that I grew up not feeling like I had, and I know other minorities don’t feel like they had, and I hope that this can be that for them.”

Inclusivity and representation of the disabled community is a systemic society issue. It is not a new problem that they face oppression on a daily basis. In chapter 30 of her book, she writes, “Society has yet to hit the pivot point where accessibility and inclusivity are the expectation and not the exception.” Yet, with the help of people like Molly Burke, the conversations have gotten louder. Education has spread wider. And as she learned, her memoir doesn’t stop here. She found her voice, and she knows how to use it.

“Pick a card,” the Hannah brothers asked over an Instagram message. An image of three tarot cards placed face down on an altar was sent with the message, each one unknowingly from the suit of Swords. They shuffled the cards, set their intentions and let their audience play the game.

The Ace of Swords, Four of Swords and Two of Swords can take on different meanings for different people, but the cards also seemed to apply to them. This became more than an introduction for their latest single, “For Those Who Play The Game”; it became another sign that their musical journeys were changing course.

Mountain Head does not sit down and write music often, but a little more than a year ago, an altered state jam session brought out a guitar riff that seemed otherworldly. Without a word, they both began playing the riff, moving in sync in a spiral motion. Suddenly there were a few words: for those who play the game.

“We weren’t thinking this or intimating it,” Kyle said. “It was almost funneling through us… this seemed like an ancient Egyptian pharaoh was reading us a scroll and we were singing the song and looking at each other mind blown.”

Within 15 minutes, “For Those Who Play The Game” was written. They brought the song to their drummer, Kevin Farmer, who witnessed the way the song took over their bodies as they played it. There were several other songs they were working on at the time, but they pushed them aside to make this one their main focus.

Their subconscious was picking up on something. Ceremonial altered states are rituals they are familiar with, and they are aware that there is no roadmap in those scenarios. This time, it felt like they had stumbled upon an ancient story forgotten to time. They’ve spent time researching theology and ancient cultures, believing that is unconsciously being funneled into their music.

“We had this bridge of music in between old and new and we just blew up the bridge,” Ben said.

They agree it was the oddest song to make its way to them, but it seemed as though it had a purpose. Since then, an entirely new style of music keeps showing up whenever they pick up their instruments. They compare themselves to an antenna just picking up the songs, joking that they aren’t sure if they can take songwriting credit.

“For Those Who Play The Game” continued to reveal itself to them in different ways as they immersed themselves in the recording process. It was more of a ritual than a song, and they wanted to make sure they sought out everything they could before deeming the song complete. They sent it off to be mixed and mastered, and the engineer’s first response was to compare it to Dante’s Inferno. It appeared that whatever brought this song to them was revealing itself to others.

It also revealed itself to their music video director, Monty Langford. Usually the brothers will provide the song to the director with no other context. This time, it really worked in their favor.

“So many times with Monty, we’ve sent him something and what we’ve left in the silence he’s picked up or taken even further,” Ben said. “[Kyle and I have] a lot of experience with psychedelics and ceremonial use of psychedelics, so he wrote this video as if it was the cameraman going through an initiation we do.”

The music video treatment came to fruition when Langford decided he actually wanted to go through with one of their ceremonies. As wild and odd as the music video is, it’s almost a documentary now.

When it came time to release the song and its accompanying music video, they knew they wanted visuals that gave off an occult aesthetic. Throughout their musical journey, tarot cards The Fool and The Magician have presented themselves, and one late night thought led to asking their audience to pick a card.

They knew they were onto something when the message received mixed reviews. It seemed as though half their audience picked a card, while the other half refused. Those responses played well into their messaging.

“The thing about this song is it’s right on the edge of whether you are going to step through your fear or not,” Ben said. "It's what the whole song is about: are you going to step through the fear? What’s on the other side of that fear?”

For the first time, they have been so engrossed in writing that for a moment they’ve forgotten about performing. However, that hasn’t stopped them from fantasizing about turning these stream-of-consciousness jam sessions into a live performance. They hope to one day have no-setlist shows that feature songs only written in the moment, never to be recorded or performed again.

“The last six months or so, we’ve been wondering, ‘how do we show our real power out there? Our real form.’ It’s really hard to present this,” Ben said.

“Creativity is happening in the moment,” Kyle added. “We can show you that immediately. The recording is in the past; you’re going into a loop in the past, kind of the antithesis of creativity. That stuff isn’t happening now. Here’s us showing you as close as possible to the moment of how it’s done and being able to reflect the energy of the environment.”

It appears that “For Those Who Play The Game” is the beginning of a new era. Mountain Head is no stranger to peculiarity, but this song started stringing together something that is quite unlike anything they’ve done before. They followed the scent of this first song, leading them to a place that should answer all of their questions.

Photo courtesy of Justin Friesen

For her first two albums, Maddison Keiver was under the impression that music had to be made in a studio. A producer held some of the control, helping to push her in a direction that they thought the album needed to go. It wasn’t necessarily something she was comfortable with, but it was all she knew. As her third album began to take shape, she realized it was time to leave her comfort zone.

The Pages grew her confidence to a level she didn’t know she could obtain. She took up journaling as she travelled, collecting songs like postcards. Nearly a year ago, a writing retreat let those songs fall into place to begin the formation of an album. When she showed them to her partner, Julian Bueckert, he immediately recognized two things: “The Pages” was the best of the bunch, and he was fully committed to producing the album.

She wasn’t entirely sold on “The Pages” being a contender, and had her doubts that she would be able to turn it into a collection of stories. Once she realized that “The Pages” was absolutely the beginning of the story, the pages of her life took form. She found the first song and the name of the album.

“I realized good music can be made in a living room,” she said. “I let go of that feeling of if I’m not working with a big name or a big producer that I won’t make as good of an album. I was able to have all the creative control, and the time and energy and love to put into this production.”

The track listing became an important aspect of telling her story, especially since she was breaking the releases up into chapters. The first six songs are more “easy-listening”, while the latter six explore deeper meanings. “Big Star” is one of those songs, being the track that she believes best demonstrates her current sound.

“It still sounds like where I came from but it also has other influences from my travels,” she said. “It’s probably one of the best songs I’ve written, and I think that one just captures all my essence.”

The final track, “To Heal”, perfectly wraps up the story. Written a few years back about resilience and looking back on her younger years, the song intentionally brings The Pages to a close.

With this newfound confidence comes self-doubt. There are days where she is happily juggling different roles, and days where she is easily disheartened by negative comments or the opinions of others. Finishing the album was such an accomplishment, yet not everyone sees it that way. While she may not seek approval from certain people, it can be “discouraging when you don’t get that same recognition from people and either they don’t know that you released it or they just don’t think it’s that big of a deal, and it’s so much a big deal.”

She released the first half of the album in the summer of 2025, titling it The Pages (Chapter One). The goal was not only to let the first six songs have their time to shine, but to also push an interest in physical media.

“If they wanted to hear the album, they had to buy it on physical copy if they wanted to hear the second chapter,” she said. “It brings people deeper into my niche while also taking charge of my own artistry and my own fan base.”

A physical copy of The Pages comes in vinyl, CD or cassette, with added extras only available with an album purchase. It is an easy way to connect with her fans and show them just how much of her hard work went into this album.