When I was music editor at Rolling Stone in the ’90s, I was asked — well, told — to do a Q&A with Jimmy Buffett. Not being a fan of his music, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed talking to him. Buffett died today at 76.
Merle Haggard: Down Every Road
In 1996, Capitol Records released a box set of country singer Merle Haggard’s music. After this review ran in Rolling Stone, a writer for a conservative newspaper, The Washington Times, took me to task for putting a liberal spin to the songs of a conservative artist. But as I wrote in this review — and I stand by it — seeing Haggard simply as a “conservative” doesn’t do him or his full body of work justice.
Death: For the Whole World…
Death was just another African-American R&B act from Detroit before the Stooges and the MC5 changed their lives
Beat Generation in the Generation of Beats
Chuck D looked at me quizzically, his furrowed brow barely showing beneath the bill of his black Raiders cap. “Sure,” the rapper said as I handed him a yellowed copy of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. “I’ll read it. Sounds interesting.”
TRL: My Life at MTV
In 2012, I looked back with humor at my life at MTV Networks in the late 1990s. Part of my duties at the music channel was babysitting boybands like *NSYNC and The Backstreet Boys. Kind of.
Lisa Germano: Musical Therapy
Lisa Germano was one of the most interesting and adventurous musicians of the 1990s. Today, for some reason, she’s a mere footnote in the history of that era — an unsung heroine.
Vic Chesnutt: Famous By Association
In 1996, seven years after I wrote my first profile of the late Vic Chesnutt for Option magazine, I flew down to his Athens, Georgia, home to do this full feature for Rolling Stone.
Beck: The Rolling Stone Interview
My first Rolling Stone cover story, in 1997, was sort of a Part 2 of an earlier cover story I did on Beck for Option in 1994.
All the Young Dudes: Bowie at 50
TweetIn 1997, I was invited to a small birthday party for David Bowie at the English restaurant Tea & Sympathy in downtown Manhattan. At the […]
When Will the Grateful Dead Stop Trolling Us?
Tweet Last week, my friend Whitney suggested I write an essay on the (Grateful) Dead’s incessant trolling of America in 2015. We’d been talking about […]