Frank Ockenfels III first crossed paths with David Bowie by chance. Ockenfels was assigned to photograph Bowie and his band Tin Machine for an early-’90s iteration of Creem magazine. It was the last of four photo sessions the band had endured that day in Los Angeles, and Ockenfels asked them to remove their shirts. Then, […]
Every year, I’m relieved not to be attending Coachella. I went for the festival’s first 10 years, then limited myself to the surrounding parties. My last trip was in 2013, when the lineup looked like I had personally curated it, and I had such a miserable time that I swore off the desert for good. […]
There was a stretch in 1990 when our Saturdays belonged to midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. My friends and I would don our best bondage gear and join the long queue outside the Nuart Theatre in West Los Angeles, waiting in “anticipation” to belt out the cult musical’s songs while performing the […]
“When I entered the eighth grade in the fall of 1992, it felt like Pearl Jam was the biggest band in the world,” writes Steven Hyden in his new book about the legendary band, Long Road: Pearl Jam and The Soundtrack of a Generation (Sept. 27). Hyden wasn’t too far off. In 1992, the band […]
“Some of the stuff that’s in [the book] was written knowing that I may never play music again,” says Dave Alvin, chatting from his home in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood. “Or I may…. I may be dead.” The book is New Highway: Selected Lyrics, Poems, Prose, Essays, Eulogies and Blues, a collection by the […]
When you think of Fall Out Boy, the first name you think of probably isn’t Joe Trohman — and he’s perfectly fine with that. But things weren’t always that way for the heavily tattooed guitarist who co-founded the band with Pete Wentz when he was a teenager and has since spent most of his life […]
James Gavin already has three acclaimed biographies to his credit, books about Lena Horne and Peggy Lee, and his Chet Baker book, Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker, was translated into more than a dozen languages. George Michael: A Life is the writer’s most intimate biography of all, and, he told […]
Peter Shapiro has worked both on and off the stage with the biggest names in music history and has overseen some of the most beloved venues in the United States. But after more than 25 years in the business, he’s still a super-fan at heart who loves nothing more than rocking out with and talking […]
The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond, the newly released Gallery Books memoir from pioneering music executive and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, would have been an amazing read even if it had stopped before Blackwell discovered a teenage Steve Winwood blowing minds in a London club in 1964, happened upon a struggling Jamaican […]
More often than not, the identities of wives/girlfriends/partners of famous musicians are defined in association with their notable counterparts. Olivia Harrison, widow of George Harrison, incorrectly falls into this category. Prior to becoming romantically attached to George, the Mexican-American Los Angeles native worked for his label, Dark Horse Records. They fell in love and he […]