The Last Outlaw Poet: By Ethan Hawke

I would never have been intrigued by this article had my friend C not made me listen to a bunch of Kris Kristofferson following a concert he gave in St. Louis. She told me stories of loving his music for years and how life-changing it was to hear him tell his stories. Some of the stories are touched on in this article, which can be previewed online at RS.com. Ethan Hawke's profile is incredibly engaging, telling the story of a complex soul who suffered failures and successes, wrote some incredible songs, and got naked with Janis Joplin. What surprises me is that Kris didn't make it on the cover. Instead, they chose Lil Wayne, whose story is the antithesis of a complex musical hero: a one-dimensional personality who seems to do nothing throughout the interview but talk about how gangsta and awesome he is. Uch. Unbelievable how gullible the masses can be. -K

Rolling Stone

I’m a little annoyed with Rolling Stone Magazine right now for two reasons: Their show, “I’m from Rolling Stone” and their latest cover featured here.

Have you seen the show? I don’t know if they realize it, and it could all be in the editing but it looks like they have the lamest group of writers interning for them and the expectations are not so high either. Maybe it’s the fundamental problem of trying to create a show about writing. I was really looking forward to watching this but it is really unnecessary.

The other problem I have is the photo on the cover of new guitar gods issue. How interesting that John Mayer, America’s favorite passive-aggressive pretty boy (see lyrics for “Waiting on the World to Change”) is front and center and the other guitarists are blocked from view. I bought this issue in the Dallas airport this weekend and held it up to my traveling companion. He didn’t even notice the other guitarists in the picture. Nothing against John Mayer (well, not in this case), but the article is supposed to be about ability and not looks, but the cover contradicts that. Maybe I’m the only one that didn’t buy it for John Mayer. As for their list of twenty new guitar heroes, I was surprised that Matt Bellamy from Muse wasn’t listed. An article I was very much looking forward to reading proved unmoving.

Come on Rolling Stone, this is unfortunate. Good concepts but poor execution. –J

Red Hot Chili Peppers Fail to Give Much Away at Scottrade Center

The first time I heard of or saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers I was 14 and reading the latest issue of Bravo, a German teeny bopper magazine. Inside there was a small picture of some naked idiots onstage during their German tour wearing socks on their cocks. That was around 1988. 3 years later in 1991, my schoolmates and I were in our Europa Hotel room in The Hague and through a cloud of smoke we watched as "Give It Away" debuted on MTV Europe. I remember that one of my girlfriends instantly fell in love with Anthony Kiedis and would later claim from looking at the band's 1992 Rolling Stone cover that she could tell, based on the look of his torso, that he was "really tall". Right.

Despite never having been my favorite band, RHCP have been a constant peripheral presence in my life. In high school, you chose between Nirvana or Pearl Jam, but you always liked RHCP. If you didn't like them, you never admitted it. I did like them a lot, but for whatever reason I didn't love them. Perhaps that's why it has taken me over 15 years to finally see them live which I did at the Scottrade Center last Monday night. Like my feelings for the band, I liked the show a lot, but I didn't love it.

A seemingly apathetic Anthony wasn't on stage as much as I would have expected. Flea, a short-haired John Frusciante, and Chad Smith kept things going by peppering the set with instrumental jams that also opened and closed the show. I hate to say it, but Anthony came across as an aging rockstar trying to keep his signature energetic stage presence alive. Flea addressed the crowd a few times, but otherwise there wasn't much going on between the band and the audience- though I have to say the audience seemed to have a great time nonetheless.

Speaking of the audience, there was a lovely mix of 30-somethings, young kids, and periodic puffs of smoke. I guess I wasn't surprised that at some point instead of cell phones lighting the arena, a number of lighters provided the glow. I also wasn't really surprised that despite having wolfed down fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn before the show, towards the end I was fantasizing about the french fries stashed in my freezer waiting to be baked. Mmm-mmm, good!

The stage through a pinhole. This picture could not be smaller.

Along with my favorites such as Get On Top and Can't Stop, you heard a cover of The Stooges' I Wanna Be Your Dog and Andy Gibb's Shadow Dancing. I was surprised to not hear Under the Bridge, though I am as over that song as anyone could be. I would have loved to hear Soul to Squeeze and Scar Tissue. Give It Away was unmistakably the crowd favorite.

Although J and I had tons of fun hanging out Monday night, I have to give the show itself an Unmoving. While it was awesome to finally see the boys in person, the show wasn't as amazing as it could have been. -K

October Surprise

Rollingstone, I don’t know what I was thinking when I assumed that this country couldn’t celebrate mediocrity any more than it does. Thank you for proving me wrong by gracing your October issue [1011] with the prolific and enigmatic Fergie and then inviting me, the reader, into an engaging story that barely fills TWO whole pages. I have to wonder how much Jägermeister the writer had to consume to produce even that much.

Here are some interesting factoids that you learn about this truly enigmatic superstar.

1. She makes up words, i.e., resiculous. This means that something is sick and ridiculous as in “Fergie popularity is sick and ridiculous.”

2. Fergie’s real name is Stacy Ferguson. Get it- ‘Fergie’ is a play on ‘Ferguson’.

3. She is mysterious and "uncategorizable" as in she’s a tomboy sometimes and girly at other times, depending on her mood.

4. Fergie loves to imitate instruments. When you can’t understand what she is saying during a song, it’s because she’s deliberately distorting it to make it sound like an instrument. Pronouncing, I mean pronunciating, the word correctly would destroy the effect.

5. A whole paragraph is dedicated to describing her struggle to be good at lunch and not order a meal with brown butter.

6. The infamous picture that showed up on celebrity blogs where she seemed to have pissed her pants was caused by her having pissed her pants.

7. She is a recovering crystal meth addict. How many times do we have to read about this?

8. She mentions a song on the new album called “Pedestal” in which she fires back at all those people who spend their time dissing her on the internet. HAHA. Resiculous, yo!

Might I suggest a Pete Doherty cover and retrospective? If you're going to publish this kind of shit, then the least you could do is provide us with something sensertaining. -K