Photographed last week in Seattle.

posted 25 February 2011 in Photos. no comments yet

“Wow, I’ve worked really hard,” Dr. Luke told me last year. “Maybe I deserve a couch.” Luke lost out on the Grammy for “Producer of the Year” last week, but it nevertheless seems like a fine time to add my article on him to the archives.

This piece ran in Rolling Stone last April; to report it, I had the pleasure of spending a couple of long nights sitting on the doctor’s studio couch, watching him work. I also interviewed collaborators, including the famously press-shy superstar producer Max Martin (for the second time in my career!). A section that got cut for space reasons:

Luke’s reluctant to pinpoint what he and Max do on individual songs, but he allows that Martin often starts with a melody while Luke tends to begin with the backing track. Sometimes they find that working separately, they’ve come up with two pieces that fit together. They’ve collaborated so often that many people assume Luke is Swedish. “I’m really upset I’ve set the record straight,” Luke says. “If you want to say that I’m from Sweden, that would be awesome.”

“Luke likes Sweden,” Martin says. “At least he says he does. It must be the girls–it’s definitely not the weather.”

You can read the whole thing here.

posted 23 February 2011 in Archives, Articles. no comments yet

With Bahrain in the news, and the American military presence there being a large part of the story, I find myself remembering the time I spent on the Manama naval base in that small country. It was back in 2003, and I was accompanying Blink-182 as they played for American servicemen. You can read the resulting article here. I still have vivid memories of women sitting by the hotel swimming pool, wearing full burqas.

posted 22 February 2011 in Archives, Articles. no comments yet

Taken last week on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.

As people here like to say, “That’s so L.A.” (Which I guess is the West Coast equivalent of “Only in New York.”)

posted 18 February 2011 in Photos. 1 comment

Another excerpt from the Andy Warhol Diaries. 

Monday, May 29, 1978

We walked over to have lunch at One Fifth, and on the way we saw Patti Smith in a bowler hat buying food for her cat. I invited her thinking she’d say no, but she said, “Great.” When we walked in, there was the number-one bestseller Fran Lebowitz sitting with Lisa Robinson. One Fifth is pretty–bright and chintzy.

Patti didn’t want to eat too much, so she ate half my lunch. She said she only loves blonds and that she wanted to have an affair with a blond. All I could think about was her b.o.–she wouldn’t be bad-looking if she would wash up and glue herself together a little better. She’s still skinny. She’s with a gallery now, doing drawings and writing poetry. The Robert Miller Gallery.

She had a baby, she said–that’s why she originally left New Jersey, and she said that the baby was adopted on Rittenhouse Square. She called it “it” and David [Bourdon] asked her what “it” was and she said a girl. She reminds me a lot of Ivy [Nicholson]–everything was put on. She said she was in Italy the day [Aldo] Moro was kidnapped and that she and Moro were the big things on Italian TV that day. She said she didn’t take drugs in the sixties, that she’d only started recently, and just for work.

posted 16 February 2011 in Excerpts. no comments yet

I’m afraid I’ve never interviewed Esperanza Spalding, but with 109 Grammy awards handed out yesterday, I was bound to have written about some of the winners. I’ll add my Mavis Staples (Best Americana Album) and Green Day (Best Musical Show Album) articles to the archives soon–but until then, may I direct your attention to my 2007 feature on the Arcade Fire (Album of the Year)?

posted 14 February 2011 in Archives. no comments yet

Taken three weeks ago at the Santa Anita racetrack.

posted 11 February 2011 in Photos. no comments yet

(New to the countdown? Catch up here.)

MTV visits the Duke.

First, the stoned intern in the control room has cued up the Bon Jovi promo again. It includes footage from the “Wanted Dead or Alive” video–and an actual lighter being held up at a concert! Only a few years later, that would feel anachronistic.

Once more, Earth, Wind and Fire promote Coca-Cola Classic with glittery outfits and silver spacemen in helmets. This ad was clearly an uncredited inspiration for the Black Eyed Peas’ Super Bowl performance.

Unsurprisingly, this commercial break includes the spot for The January Man. The MGM lion roars, as it does so rarely these days. A little research informs me that MGM has been using the same lion (“Leo”) since 1957. Which reminds me, as far too many things do, of a decade-old Onion story. In this case, it’s “6-Year-Old Cries When Told MTM Productions Kitten Dead By Now.”

A new ad! In a suburban garage with a basketball hoop, two guys in their twenties are packing up a car, excited about the fact that it’s snowing. “It’s our first trip to America’s premier ski resort!” one of them says. Man, that actor should get paid double for making that line sound semi-believable. One of them shows off his new black snow jacket, doing a dorky little seduction dance. “Black, huh?” says his pal. “I can see you working the main lodge tonight. There in the romantic glow of a roaring fire, your dandruff takes its toll.” Yes, this is the worst-written dialogue of the countdown, and it comes in an ad for Head and Shoulders. The pal removes a shampoo bottle from his duffle bag and tosses it across the roof of the car. The inevitable punchline: “You use Head and Shoulders? You don’t have dandruff.” There’s a general air of “problem solved,” although Mr. Black Jacket is still going to have white flakes tonight at the ski lodge.

Another repeat: the 15-second spot for License to Drive, starring Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. In one shot, all the hubcaps come off a car simultaneously.

A giant orange M looms over a black-and-white 1950s American city. People turn and run, in footage swiped from an anonymous monster movie. Then the M (maybe three stories high), marches down a street and collides into an electrical wire–the resulting shock produces the letters “TV,” completing the MTV logo.

posted 9 February 2011 in 1988. no comments yet

I’ve mentioned the name of Ted Friedman on this blog before: Ted’s one of my oldest friends, and back in 1988, was my host on New Year’s Eve for a party where we watched (and taped) the MTV year-end countdown. He’s now a professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta (specifically, Associate Professor of Communication). This week, Ted’s curated a series of essays on the theme of pop music at the digital humanities journal In Media Res. I contributed a piece about that 1988 countdown: a close reading of the “Words” promo, expanding my thoughts from a commercial break last year. You can read my analysis here; the “Words” promo is now on YouTube here. If you like what you see, click here all week for more essays by friends and smart guys like James Hannaham, Ivan Kreilkamp, and Marc Weidenbaum, or look for the #IMR hashtag on Twitter.

posted 8 February 2011 in 1988, Outside. 2 comments

Taken in late December, when L.A. was getting its annual torrential rainstorms.

posted 4 February 2011 in Photos. no comments yet