It wasn’t always like this for Mike Tyson, this warm cuddly affection we have for him. He stepped into the public limelight as boxing’s brutal destroyer, who in 1986 became, at a precocious 20, the youngest heavyweight champion ever. He scared tough, experienced heavyweights out of their shorts, before he inevitably knocked them out of […]
I was early for my afternoon chatter with artist, filmmaker, cultural critic, and actor John Waters. Waiting outside his arts and crafts style house in leafy Baltimore, I tried to pinpoint when this cult creator entered my sphere. It’s funny when you can’t remember a time when you didn’t have the John Waters filth somewhere […]
There are many Steve Van Zandts (although, ironically, not Steve Van Zandt, his publicist gently rebuked me, which comes as no small embarrassment since that’s what I’ve been calling him for the 35 years I’ve known him). There’s Little Steven, Stevie Van Zandt, Miami Steve, and of course Silvio Dante, Tony Soprano’s consigliore. There’s also […]
“Let me just play this for you — I recorded it the other day,” says an enthusiastic Dave Grohl. It’s late January, and he’s sitting in his home studio, gearing up for the release of yet another project — one that’s different than anything he’s done before. Over Zoom, he fiddles around with knobs on his […]
“Man, I’ve got to say I had a very joyous celebration,” RZA tells me, the day after his July 5th birthday. “COVID kept everybody away, so this was a great reason for all of us to gather and we gathered and we partied until the neighbors complained.” When asked how he likes being newly 52, […]
Deafheaven vocalist George Clarke was able to live a pandemic dream: He managed to get out of the States safely. His partner, a musician from New Zealand, was able to work and play shows over there; after completing Deafheaven’s latest record, Infinite Granite, Clarke was able to get a visa and spent January through late […]
On a likely wet and dreary Manchester, England day, sometime around the mid-’70s, a young Billy Duffy was reading music rags and dreaming of becoming a rock star. “Those were our Bibles,” he says. “We would pour over them in the morning before school when they were delivered to the paper shop and get them […]
“It’s daunting because you’re starting over every time,” says The Wallflowers’ Jakob Dylan. “You check in and ask yourself, ‘Am I ready to do this?’ It’s not a matter of success or not. It’s another record that I have to write and turn myself inside out for — and then, hopefully, make the record, and […]
Some people bring joy wherever they go—Sergio Mendes creates it with his music. This month, PBS honors Sergio’s six-decade career with Sergio Mendes & Friends: A Celebration, a celeb-filled musical tribute featuring those who know and love him, including Herb Alpert, Common, Lani Hall (lead singer of Brasil ’66), Quincy Jones, John Legend, Gracinha Mendes […]
For the Counting Crows’ entire existence, they’ve been known for their blend of rock, country, pop and…singer Adam Duritz’s trademark dreads. Duritz’s hair has been as much of the Counting Crows aesthetic as the band’s hit-laden catalog. But then it was gone. Following a redeye flight from his New York City home to the UK […]