Alternative Press this month...

AP just published their annual "Most Anticipated Albums" issue. I have a few pieces in there if you're interested: full-page articles on MxPx, Emery and As I Lay Dying as well as smaller bits on Anberlin, Maylene & The Sons of Disaster, Poison The Well, Anchor&Braille, and HIM (my third, or maybe fourth, article on HIM for the magazine in the last two years). There is also an awesome full page on a band I manage, Throwdown.

I have finished a couple of books, recently, thanks to a renewed interest in reading more than magazines and websites.



Ruthless is the autobiography of music mogul Jerry Heller, the much maligned longtime manager and business partner of the late Eazy-E who you might recall hearing about in Ice Cube's "No Vaseline" ("How can you be the niggaz-4-life crew/ when you got a white Jew telling you what to do?/ get rid of that devil real simple/ put a bullet in his temple") or Dr. Dre's "---- Wit' Dre Day" ("And by the way/ f--- Mr. Rourke and Tattoo, AKA Jerry and Eazy"), and even in more recent songs by Nelly and The Game ("And if anybody try to Jerry Hella me/ Tell Dre to get a million cause that's what the bail will be").

It's a blast to read and it's really, really easy to discern the self-aggrandizing parts. I read the book mostly due to my enthusiasm about learning the history of the music biz and because I have long been fascinated by the whole Death Row era of gangsta-rap. I highly recommend the book LAbrynth by Rolling Stone writer Randall Sullivan. It's definitely interesting when Heller claims, IN HIS BOOK, that he talked Eazy-E out of having Suge Knight killed -- and even says he sometimes regrets it!

Here's a story I co-wrote for MTV News about the still unsolved murders of Tupac and Biggie.



Cesar's Way changed not only my relationship with dogs but relationships in general and my life. It's incredible. Yes, it's by the "Dog Whisperer" guy you've seen on "National Geographic." Even if you don't have companion animals, I recommend it.

I just started a book called "Saint Morrissey" written by (you guessed it) a huge Moz fan.