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Prince has a new album out: another three-disc package (his fifth, by my count). My review is in the latest issue of Rolling Stone; you can also read it now on their website. A few other things Prince and Woody Allen have in common: (1) they’re short (2) they’re basketball fans (3) they were funnier [...]
posted 2 April 2009 in Outside, Reviews. no comments yet
A couple of weeks ago, I visited the storied Troubadour nightclub in Hollywood to see the latest installment of “In the Attic,” the series of acoustic showcases starring Pete Townshend (on his days off from the Who’s world tour) and organized by his girlfriend Rachel Fuller. I interviewed the two of them (plus Zooey Deschanel [...]
posted 1 December 2008 in Articles, Outside. 2 comments
I was lucky enough to attend Van Morrison’s show at the Hollywood Bowl Saturday night where he performed the entirety of Astral Weeks. Single-word reaction: Wow. I should have a full-length review in the next issue of Rolling Stone, but I also filed a short dispatch (with a set list, which isn’t as pointless as [...]
The sets of some TV shows are Potemkin villages, just realistic enough to pass muster with the cameras on one side. Others are incredibly detailed simulacra: the most impressive ever, for my money, was the sprawling installation at Cinnecitta Studios for the HBO show Rome (more on which some other time soon). When I visited [...]
posted 3 November 2008 in Articles, Outside. no comments yet
I’ve got a new piece up at the the Barnes and Noble Review: this one’s a short assessment of a long graphic novel, Dash Shaw’s Bottomless Belly Button. (To read it, scroll down to the bottom of the page, past Felix Dennis and Gorgeous George.) While we’re on the subject of comics: it occurs to [...]
posted 29 September 2008 in Outside, Reviews. no comments yet
As of last night, I’m back from the desert, and after many showers, I think I might have actually removed all the alkaline dust from my body. But I’m not counting on it. While I was gone, the Barnes and Noble Review published a brief take of mine on the soundtrack album to Passing Strange, [...]
posted 3 September 2008 in Outside, Reviews. no comments yet
It turns out my longer article about Trent Reznor is also up on the Rolling Stone website now. During the interview, Reznor briefly had to excuse himself with a bloody nose. “Are you sure you’re clean?” I teased him. He laughed. “That’s what I think of too: people are going to think I was doing [...]
posted 13 August 2008 in Articles, Outside. no comments yet
The new issue of Rolling Stone has two articles by me; one of them, a profile of guitarist/producer Ry Cooder, is available online. It turned out Cooder and I had a friend in common: the most excellent Mr. Jalopy. Two footnotes on the piece: the turkey sandwich was, indeed, excellent. And the last paragraph might [...]
Possibly the most clichéd place possible to do a celebrity interview is at the Chateau Marmont hotel. I’ve done quite a few there, many of them with people who are Los Angeles residents and use the place as the equivalent of a conference room. Lily Allen, as it happened, was actually staying there. Before we [...]
posted 6 August 2008 in Articles, Outside. no comments yet
Trent Reznor: shorter than I expected. Also funnier than I expected. I recently interviewed Reznor and attended a dress rehearsal for the current Nine Inch Nails tour; it was very cool and trippy to be seeing a full-on rock show in a mostly empty basketball arena. (The Forum was abandoned by the Lakers about a [...]
posted 4 August 2008 in Articles, Outside. no comments yet
