Can you identify famous albums just from the initials of their titles? For example, presented with H. O. T. H., can you puzzle out that we’re talking about Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy? (I leave it to you to decide whether the ice planet Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back is a subtle Zep […]
posted 14 October 2015 in Tasty Bits. 4 comments
When I interviewed Velvet Revolver a decade ago, I got to clear up some of the Guns N’ Roses mysteries I had long wondered about. For example: was the worst job in rock ‘n’ roll the guy who had to keep on returning Axl Rose’s microphone stand to an upright position when he knocked it […]
posted 13 October 2015 in Archives. no comments yet
Gail Zappa, best known as Frank Zappa’s widow, was reported yesterday to have died, possibly from lung cancer. My sympathies to her family and all who knew and loved her. A few years ago, when researching Last Night at the Viper Room, I discovered that River Phoenix, at age sixteen, spent many nights hanging out […]
posted 8 October 2015 in News. 2 comments
I got this crazy idea some months back: I would read every record review printed by Rolling Stone in the 1970s and compile a list of the albums that had gotten rave reviews but were now obscure or forgotten. (It was inspired by a similar feature they did last year for the 60s–but the magazine […]
posted 13 August 2015 in Outside. no comments yet
No, you can’t actually purchase Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, or Martha Quinn. But you can buy the New York Times bestselling book we wrote together, VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV’s First Wave, described by Rolling Stone as “a highly entertaining snapshot of a wild-frontier moment in pop culture.” In celebration of the […]
posted 3 August 2015 in Buy My Stuff. no comments yet
Thirty years ago today, lots of bands played in an epic concert in both London and Philadelphia, seeking to do something about famine in Africa (with mixed results). Two years ago, I wrote up a list of the some of the Live Aid highlights that might jog memories (or send you down the YouTube rabbit […]
posted 13 July 2015 in Links. 2 comments
Can you recognize song titles just from the sections that are in parentheses? If I throw “(She’s So Heavy)” at you, do you know the artist is the Beatles and the complete title is “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”? Given “(Into the Black),” can you come back with Neil Young’s “Hey Hey, My My […]
posted 10 July 2015 in Tasty Bits. 3 comments
I’ve been busy lately–busy enough that I haven’t been telling you what I’ve been working on. But if you’d like to catch up on my recent writing for Rolling Stone, then I have links galore. For the print magazine, I wrote about Bill Murray (!), interviewed the Duplass Brothers (again), met Meghan Trainor (print version […]
posted 16 January 2015 in Outside. no comments yet
I totally enjoyed the recent essay by Chris Molanphy (a friend of Rule Forty-Two) about Taylor Swift’s “Blank Spaces,” part of his excellent ongoing series for Slate on the songs that top the pop charts. This sentence jumped out at me: It’s rare that a chart-topping hit’s title actually alludes to what the song itself […]
posted 4 December 2014 in Links. 3 comments
I am delighted to announce that my book Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind is out in paperback today. So if you’ve been waiting for a bathtub-friendly copy, your time has come. I haven’t posted much about it lately, so may I remind you of a few […]
posted 21 October 2014 in Buy My Stuff. no comments yet
