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  • 179. There’s No People Like Show People

    “I can help the next person in line,” I said, and the next sorry bastard stepped forward with a stack of VHS tapes. “Great picks. You’ve got style.” “I should. I’m an art director,” he said. “No kidding? I’m an artist.” “You should come over and see my collection.” “Oh, that would be cool. I’d…

  • From The Stacks: Lowell George-Thanks I’ll Eat It Here

    Here we have the one and only solo album from the brilliant mastermind behind Little Feat. It’s a fine album of 1979 lip-biting growed up wock-a-woll, no complaints really. George had some seriously bad ass studio musicians backing him up on this one, including but by no means limited to Bonnie Raitt, Jim Keltner, and…

  • Want A Free Motorhead Tee?

    Everybody likes free stuff, and everybody likes Lemmy. Therefore, free Lemmy stuff is the business. Head over to The Good Men Project for info on how to win a free Motorhead shirt. And don’t forget the joker!

  • Deep Cuts: The Songs That Inspired KISS Classics

    The publication of Paul Stanley’s memoir, Face the Music: A Life Exposed, completed the set: Each of KISS’s original four members has put his story out there. I’ve read them all, and Paul Stanley’s is by far the best. Sure, there are moments of ego and debauchery, but what makes the Starchild’s memoir so good…

  • WIM Meets ‘Salon’ (Sort Of)

    Salon reran my recent interview with Sebastian Junger. It ain’t exactly a Pulitzer, but I’ll take what I can get. You can check it out here.

  • 178. Truth and Soul

    Most afternoons found my buddies Pat, Ken, and me hiding in Music Plus’s stockroom, throwing thumbtacks at the cork bulletin board. The tricks to winging a tack are: A) make sure it’s a metal tack with a large body. Perhaps “pushpin” is the right word; B) Pinch the body in the first joint of your…

  • From The Stacks: Tarney/Spencer Band-Three’s A Crowd

    Here’s the second of three albums from Australia’s Tarney/Spencer Band, manufacturers of non-threatening late seventies radio rock. That’s not to say that it’s bad. The riffs are pretty cool, the harmonies are solid, and the hooks are catchy. Check out “I Can Hear Love,” for example, which sounds a bit like the mellow older brother…

  • From The Stacks: Dusted – When We Were Young

    Dusted was a UK electronica band comprised of a couple of producers (Rollo Armstrong and Mark Bates) who went meedly meedly meedly and people blissed out:

  • Deep Cuts: Hollywood Songs

    Hollywood in the ’80s was still a dirty, grimy, sleazy, funky, and oddly glamorous place. I loved being in the middle of it, loved seeing all the sites that only existed in movies. I loved the junkies, runaways, and misfits, too. The place as its own gravity, drawing misfits from all over the world who…

  • This Week On Paste: Ballast Point Sculpin IPA

    Damn, that is one ugly fish on the label of Ballast Point’s IPA. Is the beer itself ugly, too? Read all about it.