Adriana Kaegi's TAG album is going viral-- I co-wrote...

Happily for us all, my close sistr'en and endless inspiration, Adriana Kaegi, aka dearraddy ana Mama Coconut, has released her musical project called TAG. I co-wrote a bunch of it with her, often in our pads on the lower East Side. We really ahd fun doing it I have to say and it is getting great response... # 12 in the Reverb Nation.com to name but one. Going up, too. more info http://adrianakaegi.com

Le UN -- or FRONT COVER GAGA

As befits the first surge of spring, there's been much activity my end. Pollen notwithstanding. Here's some of it:

I'm happy to say that this month I have 2 front cover stories on the stands... how quaint does that sound!....one on BETH DITTO for OUT and one essay on David Byrne for FADER.... here's Beth in all her glory of every kind...

http://www.out.com/detail.asp?id=25015

I haven't got a link for the Byrne piece, but Fader's editor Julianne Shepherd encouraged a return to the old-school more free-flowing, less rigid style of writing the aesthetic I came up in in the UK rock press when it was a vibrant force and trained a whole generation of writers...

Also WORD magazine in the UK, edited by charming Mark Ellen, ran a piece on musicians lecturing and there's an interview with me plus a pic of me reading from THE BOOK of EXODUS to the audience at NY's Fillmore, before Family Man's WAILERS came onstage.... and here's a link to that reading...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y60QbvTeYNw

Special one love shout-outs to Pete Shelton, Charlie Shelton, Charles Nuckolls and Joly of punkcast.com for working with me like family to make it happen.

Book of Exodus is in the NY Review of Books

Thanks to Will Sweeney for pointing this out to me. I was happy to see that writer Joshua Jelly-Schapiro had obviously absorbed every ounce of my Exodus because his piece is steeped in the book and quotes (and credits) it extensively.

In Memoriam -- New York Times

It's certainly been a winter of winnowing among a certain generation; losses include old mates and colleagues Dickie Jobson and Rob Partridge, my lovely neighbour Miriam -- and now John Martyn (SOLID AIR...) who could teach us all a lesson in how to be a reveller.
I was called on to participate in the obituary Rob Kenner wrote for the New York Times about Vincent 'Tata' Forde, who was Bob Marley's mentor back in the government yards of Trenchtown; and then I wrote the NY Times obit for Gary Kurfirst, manager of the Talking Heads and Peter Tosh, among other progressives and New Wavers.
Here's the links:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/arts/16kurfirst.html?ref=obituaries
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/arts/music/04ford.html