Category: Big Stories

The Lost SPIN Features: Soundgarden Returns, Passion Pit Gigs MSG, and Ghost Town Looms

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Posterity Post: I wrote thousands of articles while on staff at SPIN and blogged none of them.

Animal Instinct: The Return of Soundgarden — After 16 years of studio silence, the grunge gods return, hungry, with their triumphant King Animal. I meet Chris Cornell and his pretty blue eyes.

How Are Passion Pit Playing Madison Square Garden? — An honest question with a pretty interesting answer. This is Led Zeppelin territory. MJ. The Boss. Ali and Frazier. And now…

Ghost Town Social Media’d Their Way to Success — A sound that evokes a bubble-goth Linkin Park. A social-media strategy that’s part-savvy, part-kismet. They’re stars in an ephemeral world.

SPIN Cover: Mr. Grohl’s Cabinet of Wonder

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Posterity Post: I wrote thousands of articles while on staff at SPIN and blogged none of them.

In early 2013, I flew to the snowy wilds of Utah in order to track, capture, and question Dave Grohl, the Nirvana drummer, Foo Fighters boss, and Sound City filmmaker notorious for his avoidance of the press… Okay, Grohl loves a camera and a microphone, but still. This is a special story about a special dude making a special movie about a special piece of studio equipment. With photos by my shutterbug brother from another mother, Nathaniel Wood. We combined forces to capture Grohl’s Park City gig with Stevie Nicks too. Also, Slipknot.

Old Stuff Starts Here…

This site was relaunched in November of 2015, but the blog’s been around since April of 2009. It’s been through many changes, so what lies beyond is almost certainly not formatted properly and often (yuck) written in third person. It’s also incomplete. I’m still filling in my two-plus years as a SPIN staffer, and moving even older posts over to this site. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Passin’ Me By: The Pharcyde Look Back 20 Years On

First things first. Twenty years ago, friends, this happened:

We were a tender 10 years old at the time, but Bay Area born and bred, so you best believe those lovelorn, summertime emanations beat on our rap-seasoned eardrums. Which is why it was a particularly special pleasure to interview Fatlip and Slimkid3, responsible for the most memorable verses on “Passin’ Me By,” as well as producer J-Swift and Delicious Vinyl head Mike Ross, about the birth of that unusual ode to unrequited love and its legacy since. Our favorite insight:

“I found Quincy Jones’ ‘Summer in the City’ and a second loop that I can’t remember. We were gonna do two beats and Bootie Brown was like, ‘Man, let’s just combine them.’ So we did that, and then we ended up renting The Doors. We were on shrooms or some shit, all wigged out watching Val Kilmer transform into Jim Morrison, and right after, Fatlip walks into the booth and starts screaming like Morrison: ‘She keeps on passin’ me by!'” — J-Swift

So if you haven’t already, bounce over to SPIN to read the entire thing.

The SPIN Interview: Two Hours with Shirley Manson

It was a true honor to interview Shirley Manson for SPIN. The Q&A originally appeared as the cover story of the April iPad issue, and exclusive content from our two-hour face-off wound up in the print mag too (Words of Wisdom, LOUD issue). Here’s an excerpt from the chat, which covered everything from the overdue Garbage reunion to Shirley’s status as a recovering cutter:

“It’s unbelievable what’s happened to Lana Del Rey! It’s shocking misogyny. I look at her and say, “What more do you want?” Here’s a beautiful young girl who tried her hand at being a working musician under her own name and it didn’t stick. She had the fortitude to go back to the drawing board and create something new, a perfectly executed re-entry into the world of music, and she’s getting destroyed for the very same thing that Jack White is so brilliant at. Granted, they’re very different artists, but why are we attacking a young girl who’s ballsy and creative? All I can say is they did the same thing to me when I came out. I was constantly being called a phony, and I’m thinking, ‘I was in a band that failed miserably for ten years. What’s fake about that?'”