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Jimi Hendrix, Musical Esperanto
My newest piece for Thought Catalog, a meditation on the legacy of Jimi Hendrix, and his use as a catch-all comparison for all sorts of non-Western music. I’m not sure exactly when I first heard a...
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Housing a Movement
California Northern magazine runs my piece on squatting, punk rock, and the Occupy movement. I tell the story through an Oakland squatter and activist named Steve DeCaprio (he also plays in the black...
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Back to Zambia (kind of)
In this video, Symbolia founder Erin Polgreen gives us a walk-through of the tablet magazine’s premier issue as it comes together. My profile of Keith Kabwe, singer for 1970s Zambian psych-rock...
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Rainmaker: The Sort-of Super PAC
The current issue of San Francisco publishes a quick Q&A I did with Becky Bond, head of Credo’s super PAC–which has the distinction of being the only super PAC out there that disapproves of super...
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Housing a Movement, redux
The current Utne Reader features a condensed version of my story about Steve DeCaprio, Oakland’s punk-rock squatter guru. I remember Utne from way back–what liberal doesn’t?–so it’s pretty cool to see...
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Ask Me About Psych Rock in Zambia
It’s been a long time coming, but the premier issue of Symbolia is out. This brand-new tablet magazine is all about graphic journalism, and my contribution is the story of Zambia’s psychedelic rock...
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Meeting Me
Symbolia’s short Q&A with me on music obsession, being an artist, and zombie preparedness. I wrote about Keith Kabwe and Amanaz (“Ask Me About Psych Rock in Zambia”) for this excellent magazine’s...
View ArticleTalking Zamrock
Last week, I appeared on WBEZ’s Worldview radio show, talking about Zambian psych rock and my recent story for Symbolia magazine. Here’s the segment.
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Rules of the Tribe: Hardcore Punks and Hair Metal in the 1980s
My latest feature is about punk and metal specifically, but it’s also about tribal loyalties–and what happens when you violate the rules of your tribe. In 1986, the iconic English hardcore band...
View ArticleMore on Discharge
Reaction to my Discharge piece was spirited and generally positive. I particularly enjoyed this comment thread. A sample: “One thing that article got wrong: Metal sucked then and it sucks now. Up yours...
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Radio Freedom: A History of South African Underground Radio
Last week, The Appendix published my piece on Radio Freedom, the ANC’s revolutionary radio station during the apartheid era. I discovered that, in many ways, the station’s history parallels that of...
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H8
My Discharge piece from last year–in which I chronicle an iconic punk band’s disastrous experiment with hair metal–gets a second life as a supplement to the New Inquiry‘s latest issue, titled “H8.”...
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“We’re a Zambian Band”
My piece on the rise, fall, and rise of Jagri Chanda–once Zambia’s biggest rock star–went up recently on The Appendix. It’s an epic 50-year tale of psych-rock, Quaaludes, post-colonial politics,...
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Searching for Jagari
We were in the lobby, lingering over breakfast. “Not to be nosy,” the worker said. “But I saw your map. Are you here in search of gems?” The Appendix publishes the story behind my Zamrock story, a...
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Zamrock!
This month the debut issue of Pallet magazine runs a version of my Zamrock piece, a profile of Emmanuel Jagari Chanda that doubles as a postcolonial history of Zambia. It’s also chocked with cool...
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When Charles Manson met Dennis Wilson
A new one for Pallet magazine tells the story of the cult leader and the saddest Beach Boy: … Wilson took off for a recording session, but when he returned at 3am there was a party going on. The women...
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Campaign
This is a cool and unexpected thing: The Atlanta punk band Campaign asked to use a photo of mine for the cover of their new ep, Boys of Bummer Vol. 1. Go have a listen.
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