To burn a CDR of music you like to give as a gift to someone you wish to become closer to is a cold, moist-palmed, mouth-breathing bummer.

This is my own little rock theory: In my mind, Nirvana slayed the hair bands. They shot the top off the poodles.

More than 30 years ago, in Washington, D.C., I secured a copy of a single by a Los Angeles band called The Bags. The two-song 7-inch, released on Dangerhouse, had a girl on the cover who looked right at you with huge eyes. The songs, 'Survive' and 'Babylonian Gorgon,' were great and made many of my mix tapes.

The blues is losing someone you love and not having enough money to immerse yourself in drink.

I enjoy helping. I like doing benefits and things like that, but don't feel the need to be thanked or even meet the people I am doing the benefit for.

Always knowing you're going to die And until then knowing you've got to live.

I am a white guy in America with an education, albeit high school, but a pretty good one. Another guy from a different demographic or different ethnicity in America can look at me and say, "You take a lot for granted." Well... okay. I just live in a white male American reality, where I hear you but I don't know if I necessarily read you.