I had several pieces on the Rolling Stone website in the past week. First and foremost was a list I assembled of twenty Lou Reed tracks, in memory of his passing. I tried to strike a balance between the most iconic moments in his career and great stuff on YouTube that people might have forgotten or never known, and to pay as much tribute to him along the way as I could. There’s a lot of songs about death in his catalog, more than I had realized; he always wrote about it unflinchingly. Yeah, I cried while I was doing it. Rest in peace, Lou. Another (non-tragic) list was a slideshow that drew from Rock ‘n’ Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip, by photographer Robert Landau. It’s an amazing time capsule of rock promotion from the sixties to the eighties–check it out. My feature of Jared Leto, frontman of Thirty Seconds to Mars and actor (most recently turning in an excellent performance in Dallas Buyers Club) can be found in the print magazine or online. And I compiled a list of Paul McCartney’s twelve weirdest songs, a fun exploration of the mad-genius side of a Beatle who doesn’t get enough credit for his sonic experimentation. (For that piece, I received nominations from Scraps deSelby, Patrick Doyle, James Hannaham, Tom Nawrocki, and Simon Vozick-Levinson–I am profoundly grateful to all of them for turning me on to deep cuts that I might have otherwise missed.)

posted 27 October 2013 in Links. 4 comments

Taken two weeks ago at the Red Rock Canyon State Park in southern California.

posted 25 October 2013 in Photos. no comments yet

Hello, citizens of Los Angeles, California, and Portland, Oregon! I will be appearing soon in your town to read from Last Night at the Viper Room, sign copies of the book, answer questions, and generally be in full authorial mode. (I’ll have everything but the pipe and the jacket with the elbow patches.) If you do not live in one of those two cities, I apologize; right now, there’s nothing scheduled elsewhere. I hope you can join me (although I wouldn’t advise buying a plane ticket to do it)–I’d love to see you.

Monday, October 28
7:00 pm
Book Soup
8818 W. Sunset Blvd.
LA CA 90036

Monday, November 4
7:30 pm
Powell’s Books on Hawthorne
3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
Portland OR 97214

Take note that the Powell’s appearance is at the Hawthorne branch, not the mothership on Burnside.

In addition, I will be attending a very special event next week: a screening of River Phoenix’s last movie, Dark Blood. This film went unfinished for twenty years–he was in the middle of filming it when he died, and it was long considered impossible to complete. But recently, director George Sluizer liberated the raw footage from the insurance company’s storage facility and cut it together, using narration to cover for a few gaps in the narrative. There have been a handful of festival screenings in Europe, but it’s never played Los Angeles before. (I saw it in Amsterdam last year, and although it has some rough spots, I found it quite moving. If you’re a serious River Phoenix fan, you won’t want to miss it.)

Tuesday, October 29
6:30 pm reception / 7:30 pm screening of Dark Blood
Aero Theater
1328 Montana Ave.
Santa Monica, CA 90403

I will be signing books at the reception and then I will give some brief remarks about the film before the screening. Tickets are $11; less if you are an American Cinematheque member.

posted 24 October 2013 in Buy My Stuff, News. no comments yet

And I strongly suggest you go buy a copy. It is sold by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Powell’s–or your local bookstore, who you should really help stay in business. I’m extremely proud of this book and I hope you’ll check it out. “I’ve already read two excerpts, Gavin,” I hear you say. “But I’m the kind of person who likes to read three chapters of a book before deciding whether I want to buy it.” Then you are in luck:  the Rolling Stone website is running an excerpt of the book, the chapter about the filming of Stand by Me. Anyway, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind. It’s out now: buy it, read it, tell the world about it.

posted 23 October 2013 in Buy My Stuff. no comments yet

My new book, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind, is out tomorrow. It is easy to obtain from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Powell’s–or mere hours from now, you can walk into your local bookseller, give them some money, and leave with the book under your arm. “But Gavin,” you say, “I’d really like to read some of the book first to see how I like it.” In that case, you are in luck, because there are two excerpts available online right now. Grantland is running the chapter about the making of My Own Private Idaho, which was both one of River’s greatest achievements and his ultimate downfall, while the Vanity Fair website is running the chapter that follows soon after, centered on the making of Sneakers. (My profound thanks to both sites–I’m honored that they chose to host these excerpts.) Check them out!

posted 21 October 2013 in Buy My Stuff, Excerpts. no comments yet

I did another list for the Rolling Stone website last week, on the twelve most Canadian things about Neil Young (who was born north of the border but has lived in the States for many decades now). Some Canadians have taken exception to the list, and as far as I can tell they have two primary objections: (1) “Lorries” is a Britishism, not a Canadianism. This is a fair point, and is why I put that item immediately following the “God Save the Queen” item, as part of the nation’s British heritage, but I agree it could have been clearer. (2) In the context of discussing Mr. Young’s fashion sense, I use the phrase “lumberjack from Saskatchewan.” This is seen as Canada-ignorant by some people who have pointed out that Saskatchewan has relatively few trees. To them I say this: That’s how good the lumberjacks in Saskatchewan are.

posted 21 October 2013 in Outside. no comments yet

Photographed recently in a Los Angeles bathroom.

posted 18 October 2013 in Photos. 1 comment

Lately, I’ve been writing more dispatches for the Rolling Stone website, and it occurred to me that you might like to know about them. I don’t want to slam you with a barrage of links, so once a week or so, I’ll do a quick roundup and you can click on whatever interests you. On the menu today: my review of Nine Inch Nails doing a club show at the Troubadour, my impromptu interview with Moby (conducted around the corner from my house and done on five minutes’ notice), and my rundown of some of the most disturbing aspects of the government shutdown. Enjoy!

posted 10 October 2013 in Articles, Links. no comments yet

posted 27 September 2013 in Photos. 1 comment

I know you may still be digesting VJ, but I have a new book coming out next month, and I wanted to let you know about it. (I don’t expect to ever have two books out in the same year again, but the vagaries of publishing schedules are inscrutable sometimes.) It’s called Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind. It’s a biography of the great River Phoenix, who died outside the Viper Room twenty years ago, in the early morning hours of Halloween 1993. It’s a celebration of his life, an investigation into his death, and a cultural history of Hollywood in the ’80s and the ’90s. Rob Sheffield, the awe-inspiring, bestselling author of Turn Around Bright Eyes, described it thus: “Twenty years after his death, River Phoenix remains as enigmatic and elusive as ever. Last Night at the Viper Room tells the heart-shredding story of how this haunted actor left such a big impression in such a brief time.”

I’ll have lots of information for you in coming weeks, both about River Phoenix himself and about the book’s publication. For now, I will leave you with one preliminary review, from Tom on Goodreads, who deemed it “one of the best biographies I’ve read this year… before I knew it, I’d read it in one sitting. It is an addictive book.” I have never had any contact with Tom, but I feel confident in declaring him to be a perspicacious reader and a man with excellent taste.

You can preorder Last Night at the Viper Room from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Powell’s. Or check in with your local bookstore to make sure they reserve a copy for you.

posted 23 September 2013 in Buy My Stuff. no comments yet