Rulefortytwo.com

I went to see Bob Dylan play last week, at the Belk Theater in Charlotte, North Carolina. I have, at various points in my life, been an avid Dylan fan, but the two times I saw him in concert (once in 1986 at Madison Square Garden with Tom Petty and the...

Perhaps you recently watched the Netflix documentary The Greatest Night in Pop, about “We Are the World,” and it only whetted your appetite for information about the U.S.A. for Africa recording session in 1985, or it left you with unanswered questions...

I discovered the Shangri-Las in the summer of 1988, when my friend Rob and I had our minds blown by their greatest-hits album—late to the party by any objective measure, since their hitmaking days were twenty-plus years earlier, but nevertheless a long...

I have some happy professional news: for the last few months, I’ve been working at Charlotte magazine, the top-notch glossy monthly covering the Queen City. I’m a contributing editor, which in practice means that I write an article roughly every other...

Shane MacGowan died last week. He was the main singer, songwriter, and creative force behind the Pogues, and given his reckless abandon towards his own health, it’s a miracle he made it to the age of 65. I put together a playlist for The New York Times...