Aaron Gillespie
The Amazingly Ambidextrous Man Aaron Gillespie is The Almost
As I pulled into the press parking lot of the Pomona Fairgrounds, I was unsure what to expect. Having never attended what some hail “the tour that won’t die,” I could only anticipate how my own experience might compare to what I had heard about the Vans Warped Tour. Pushing my way through a jungle of obscene t-shirts, I got stuck between a
Driving toward Verizon Wireless Amphitheater for a Rob Zombie gig, I am reminded that in more civilized times, a mere two decades ago, adult lions roamed here. The park was called Lion Country Safari and for a fee you could drive your car among them. And if memory serves, the parking lot I just entere... MORE>>
The lobby of Sunset Strip’s Mondrian Hotel is filled with people almost famous or about to become so. I think that guy once delivered a pizza to The Office, and I recognize that woman over there from Oprah’s audience. The desk clerk, the bellmen, the Bluetoothed extension brokering the next... MORE>>
I am scheduled to meet Ray Barbee for an interview at 1:00 p.m., July 21, 2004. It is now 12:57 p.m. Will he be nice, mean, cool or cold? I wonder. I knew him as little more than a photo in a skate mag, and a Fender postcard where he is smiling, sitting on his amp, pretending to play guitar. ... MORE>>
I have known the name of sacred steel virtuoso Robert Randolph for a while now. Still, I often inadvertently refer to him as Robert Johnson, the crossroads blues innovator, somehow in my mind confusing those set apart by three-quarters of a century. There are obvious similarities, including identical ... MORE>>
The thin outline of Pigeon John is buried in the cushions of a couch in the waiting room of one of the world’s most famous tattoo artists, Mister Cartoon. Amid photos of 50 Cent, Eminem, Dr. Dre, and other rap legends on the wall, he casually browses magazines, then stands to politely shake hands an... MORE>>
Somebody’s messing with me—trying to get me to crack by sending me out to Coors Amphitheater to be immersed in a pit of inescapable electronically amplified noise on a day that will send a few hundred thousand pilgrims home from air conditioned theaters, wondering at inconvenient truths while an e... MORE>>
Venice Beach, California, isn’t the first place you usually go to find out what’s next in hip-hop. But when the summer airwaves are crackling with “Kick, Push”—a laid-back rap ode to skateboarding—what better place is there to investigate than Dogtown?
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Hip-hop is associated with the streets and, sometimes unfairly, their accompanying vices—sex, drugs, and violence. The edge that demands reality is sometimes drenched in blood, and blood sacrifice is exactly what the S.O.G. Crew are about—not a drop wasted but a debt paid, a king on death row, f... MORE>>
The Great Depression was suffocating the American dream. Civil War veterans rocked themselves to sleep on creaky wooden porches, while their neighbors nursed the scars of slavery. The nation was stuck between two world wars. The recently revived Ku Klux Klan had swelled to four million members. It w... MORE>>
IN THIS ISSUE
Check-out the following features in this quarter's issue.
