// Category Archive for: Interviews

The Life Of A 21st Century Musician: An Interview With Jim Campilongo (single page)

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Warped Tour in Kansas City: I’m Too Old For This Shit

By Danny R. Phillips

Prior to August 4th, it had been eleven years since I had last joined the tattooed masses as an attendee of The Vans’ Warped Tour. I was younger then in both body and mind. Standing on the boiling pavement this year watching the crowd pass me like a pierced, dyed, rainbow bedazzled tsunami, I saw two distinct classes, scratch that, generations, go by.

One was an older, punk-appreciating culture with fading tattoos and greying hair that grew up on Bad Religion, The Descendents, Fugazi, Bad Brains, The Zero Boys, and the Circle Jerks (I, obviously fall into group A) and the other was the day glo “skittle core kids” who worship The Devil Wears Prada and Attack! Attack! like they were the Dead Milkmen or The Ramones.

Dragging myself between five stages and countless bands, it dawned on me (and my trusty photographer) that at 15, the Vans’ Warped Tour was experiencing a midlife crisis of sorts and was, in fact, no longer the festival of years gone by. It is clear that I am a dinosaur stuck in a tar pit named Hot Topic. Like Danny Glover in the Lethal Weapon flicks, “I am too old for this shit!”
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The Darkest Of The Hillside Thickets: An Interview With Toren Atkinson

Interviewed by Megashaun

I first heard of The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets at last year’s Penny Arcade Expo. The band was there and had a booth set up because they were playing at one of the concerts during the convention. Around this time, their song, “Shhh…” was introduced as downloadable content for the video game Rock Band. Although initially drawn to them by the visual aesthetic of their album designs and the scruffy yet handsome appearance of the band’s members, I was pleased to find out upon listening to their album Cthulhu Strikes Back that the band has a great deal of musical talent and that their music has a lot more going for it than catchy hooks and bellowing vocals.

When I later listened to The Shadow Out of Tim, I was even more impressed. The album’s dark undertones are a perfect complement to its catchy, even poppy, foundation. It’s also just a little bit scary, but more importantly it kicks a lot of ass.

The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets are known for their energetic live shows. While I’ve sadly never had the opportunity to see them play live, I can tell just from looking at photos that the shows must be a great deal of fun. That, and Toren Atkinson, lead singer of the band, tells a good story about the origins of their live shtick.

Photo from thickets.net
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She Put A Record On: An Interview With Gudrun Gut

Interviewed by Julie Finley

Gudrun Gut isn’t a household name (not in North America, anyway). You’re not going to hear her on any Top 40 radio stations, but you might hear her whilst shopping in those bath and body stores called The Body Shop (true story, I actually heard a song of hers whilst shopping in there). However, her level of North American obscurity doesn’t make her any less important.
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Commanding Cobra: An Interview With Cobra Commander

Interviewed by Megashaun

After recently finding a blog written by Cobra Commander in which he laments many of his boring day-to-day activities, I thought he would make an interesting interview subject. Getting in touch with him wasn’t as easy as I had hoped. The email address listed on his blog seemed to be to an unattended mailbox. My first attempt at communication with him went something like this:
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Nothing Wrong With Liking A Flashy Man: An Interview With Dick Valentine

Interviewed by Christian Lipski

From the bouncy warning “Danger! High Voltage!”, through the metallic invitation to a “Gay Bar,” to the recent clarinet-laden declaration, “It’s Showtime,” Electric Six has been a band you can count on for high-energy music in a patchwork quilt of styles. Their new album, Flashy, is more of the same only in the sense that it’s utterly rocking. Lead singer Dick Valentine and band have put together a new collection of songs that span the gamut from the upstroke ska of “Your Heat Is Rising” to the electronic vocoder of “Making Progress.” Valentine took time out from the recording of E6’s new CD to talk with Popshifter‘s Christan Lipski about carbon footprints, the music industry, and the worst places in America.
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Toothpaste For Dinner: An Interview With Drew, Humorist

By Adam McIntyre

Drew and Natalie Dee are a husband and wife duo, creators of a handful of well-known webcomics. I discovered them through their joint creation, Married To The Sea, which updates with a new comic at midnight—every night. Their webcomics—and now videos on YouTube—often become viral Internet phenomena. I had a chat with Drew about the nature of their work and where it may be headed.
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A “Very” Exclusive interview with Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

By Danny R. Phillips

Authors’ Note: This piece of fiction is based on a dream I had and is a product of my twisted imagination. Feel free to email me with thoughts relating to this or any of my other work but please, do not state the obvious. I know Hunter Thompson is dead and therefore he is extremely difficult to reach for comment.

On February 20, 2005 the great Doctor of Gonzo journalism, Hunter Stockton Thompson spent the day with his son Juan and his grandson Willie, and after giving Juan some cherished family heirlooms, Hunter put a .44 Magnum to his 67 year-old-head and well, let’s say “checked out of the hotel.”
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Going With The Known Demons: An Interview With The Melvins

By Summer Hayes

Early on I knew the Melvins only by association, but it wasn’t until I saw them live that I realized how incredibly talented and unusually bizarre they really are. My initial introduction occurred in the early ’90s when the surge of grunge-angst rock (a.k.a. Temple of the Pearl in Chains) emerged from the northwest shores of Washington State. Ironically, I was too busy listening to Faith No More and swooning over Mike Patton to delve into the unconventional, yet highly addictive, sounds of the Melvins (and to think that I was on the right track and didn’t even know it). Nearly ten years later, in late 2002, I went to New Orleans to check out Mike Patton’s latest creation, Tomahawk, only to discover that the Melvins were the opening band. I was hooked.

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Please Don’t Spoil The Movie By Adding Your Own Soundtrack: An Interview With Mike Nelson

Interviewed by Megashaun

Mike Nelson was a writer/host for the cult classic TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000. In it, Mike (and in earlier years, Joel Hodgson) and their robot pals onboard the Satellite of Love were subjected to watching b-movies while their fictitious employers at the Gizmonics Institute observed the crew’s reactions. These reactions ranged from goofy commentary during the films to sketches between the film and they were, for the most part, very funny.
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