When you know a lot famous people -- as I do to an obnoxious degree due to my professional life and need for constant celebrity validation -- the most common question you get besides, "Can you get me free tickets?" is this: "What's so-and-so REALLY like"?" Frankly, this can be...
(189) Comments | Posted May 21, 2012 | 10:07 AM
I grew up in the seventies -- an era that I still consider a golden age for music and film, thanks to so much truly classic rock, funk, soul, punk and new wave, and yes -- damn it -- disco, too. The whole "Disco Sucks" movement always made me uncomfortable...
(31) Comments | Posted May 18, 2012 | 12:54 AM
I started reading Billboard well before my Bar Mitzvah, so I always enjoy being a writer for the Billboard Music Awards -- a show that's being hosted this year by the hilarious Modern Family parental units Ty Burrell and Julie Bowen. It airs this Sunday night on ABC. The show...
(70) Comments | Posted May 12, 2012 | 10:15 PM
"My mother loved children," Groucho Marx once said. "She would have given anything if I had been one." Actually, I may have been a child once, but that was a long time ago, and I was very young at the time. In any case, I recently spoke to a friend...
(55) Comments | Posted May 3, 2012 | 10:03 AM
Having hailed from the Garden State myself, I hate to criticize one of my New Jersey home girls. Yet just as I am disgusted by Jersey Shore, I'm concerned about -- and a little freaked out by -- Patricia Krentcil, the Jersey mom who allegedly brought her five-year-old...
(13) Comments | Posted April 29, 2012 | 4:04 PM
In so much as I was ever raised, I was raised on television. So I once again had a total blast working on "The TV Land Awards " that airs tonight on TV Land at 9 p.m./8 CST. Beautifully hosted by Kelly Ripa -- who I first fell in love...
(68) Comments | Posted April 27, 2012 | 4:54 AM
Thursday night I saw Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, and it was miraculous. Growin' up in New Jersey, I was constitutionally required to worship The Boss, but last night I became a believer all over again. There's always been a bit of...
(26) Comments | Posted April 24, 2012 | 2:15 AM
They say that you never forget your first time.
I teared up listening to the stunning new album The McEuen Sessions - For All The Good -- a truly luminous effort that brings together John McEuen, "The String Wizard" who first made his good name with The Nitty Gritty Dirt...
(39) Comments | Posted April 15, 2012 | 11:10 PM
I am not a girl, nor have I ever been one. But let the record show I've always been a fan of girls. Hell, I even married one. So in honor of my new favorite show Girls on HBO -- brought to you by an extremely talented team including Lena...
(81) Comments | Posted April 5, 2012 | 11:05 AM
Eighteen years ago, I was in Paris, France with the Counting Crows in the lobby of a beautiful little hotel when we all got the ugly big news that Kurt Cobain had died. I remember the news hit Adam Duritz of the group especially hard because he knew Kurt well...
(55) Comments | Posted March 21, 2012 | 2:30 PM
In Tim Tebow, I trust. Indeed, you might even call me a Jew For Tebow. Having been born in New York City myself, I feel it is my honor and duty to officially welcome Tim to his new home town as a New York City. Will it be hard to...
(38) Comments | Posted March 16, 2012 | 10:47 AM
Yesterday at the South By Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, Bruce Springsteen proved once again that he's not only one of the greatest popular artists and performers of all time, he's also one of the greatest speakers, too. I come here to praise Springsteen not just because he's from Jersey,...
(46) Comments | Posted March 9, 2012 | 1:38 AM
This Sunday in Austin, Texas, $ellebrity -- the first feature documentary directed by respected celebrity photographer Kevin Mazur -- will premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival. I know this because I'm an executive producer of the film -- which in this case means that I had the considerable...
(63) Comments | Posted March 7, 2012 | 9:44 AM
David Klein was one of my first friends -- in fact, sometime as a kid in the seventies I remember listening to his older brother's Beatles albums in a New Jersey basement and realizing for the first time how much music can really mean. I reconnected with David when he...
(278) Comments | Posted March 2, 2012 | 3:01 PM
I listen to Right Wing and Left Wing radio all the time. I like my political discussion to be open and lively. On the other hand, Rush Limbaugh using his privileged position on our airwaves to call a young woman a "slut" for the crime of having sex and speaking...
(197) Comments | Posted February 29, 2012 | 12:54 PM
Apparently, there are people on Earth who don't love The Monkees. I have no time for those people. I've loved The Monkees my whole life. I only met Davy Jones once. He came to the Rolling Stone office to meet me for lunch once in the late Eighties following one...
(50) Comments | Posted February 24, 2012 | 4:54 PM
Perhaps the single most - and arguably only -- fashionable thing about me is that on this Oscar Sunday, I will be somewhere in the general vicinity of the Red Carpet for the 84th Annual Academy Awards. I'm writing the 90-minute Oscars Red Carpet Live show that airs on ABC...
(80) Comments | Posted February 17, 2012 | 12:05 PM
I only met Whitney Houston twice. The first was at a Michael Jackson event early in her career. My memory is that this remarkable vocalist was so singularly stunning and elegant; shaking her hand felt somehow like meeting royalty, specifically a musical princess. The second time was a just a...
(106) Comments | Posted February 8, 2012 | 11:15 PM
Size matters, and Music's Biggest Night is this Sunday on CBS -- the 54th Grammy Awards hosted the coolest friend I have -- the great LL Cool J. This is going to be a Grammy night to remember. Am I biased having worked on the show for the past decade...
(69) Comments | Posted February 3, 2012 | 3:21 PM
Whether you're a Giants fan or a Patriots fan or simply mourning your favorite football team not being in the big game, you're probably still a music fan. That Madonna lady's got halftime covered, but for the rest of your Super Bowl party time, here's one not-so-tight-end's playlist that's super...

(8) Comments | Posted May 23, 2012 | 9:51 AM