You know what it feels like? It feels as if I'm almost finished running a marathon-the marathon in this case being the three years I spent researching and writing Everything Is an Afterthought, interviewing a hundred or so of Paul Nelson's friends, family, associates, and several of the artists about whose work he wrote (including Bruce Springsteen ( Read more... )

Though I finished writing Everything Is an Afterthought over five months ago, hardly a week goes by when I don't receive an e-mail or a phone call that is in some way connected to Paul Nelson. (Thankfully, with publication imminent this fall, the Stewie Griffin-inspired "How you comin' on that book you're workin' on?" inquiries have pretty much ( Read more... )

A few weeks ago, Paul Nelson's good friend and fellow critic Bud Scoppa, who worked with him at Mercury Records in the early Seventies, was going through a trunk in his garage when he came across a photocopy of Paul's list of the top ten albums of 1972. Scoppa posted the list yesterday on his blog.

At the risk of sounding like everybody's father, ( Read more... )

Rock journalist. PR guy for Led Zeppelin. Nirvana's manager. Good friend to Kurt and Courtney. Record company executive. These are but a few of the descriptions you might apply to Danny Goldberg, whose latest book, Bumping into Geniuses: My Life Inside the Rock and Roll Business, hits the bookstores next month. In addition to the appellations I've ( Read more... )

One of my all-time favorite records is 1982's Revenge Will Come, the debut album by a poet/songwriter named Greg Copeland. Produced by his good friend (since high school) Jackson Browne and released on the Geffen label, the album was at once critically embraced (along with Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, David Johansen's Live It Up, and Lou Reed's ( Read more... )

This video, of Warren Zevon singing "Mohammed's Radio" on BBC2's The Old Grey Whistle Test, was taped in December of 1976, just a few months after Paul Nelson met and became fast friends with Zevon and his wife Crystal.

Click to view

As noted by blogger Jeff Vaca over at Stuff Running 'Round My Head, Zevon, accompanied by Jackson Browne and David Lindley, looks ( Read more... )

Back when I first approached Paul Nelson about our working together to anthologize his best writing - before I knew whether or not he was interested in the project or whether he'd even received my proposal - I'd imagine the two of us sitting across a table, working long into his beloved night while we agreeably disagree which pieces to include and ( Read more... )