Posts by Benjamin
This Is Not A Test
Flashback: New York City, January 2020. I planned the “Only You (DJ Latenight Remix)” release for Valentine’s Day (duh), and needed a simple music video idea quickly. What we came up with now feels eerily prescient. “What if it’s like a Warhol screen test?” my pal Whitney Mattheson suggested. I Googled “Warhol Screen Test.” “Yes!…
Read MoreThat Time The DJ Compared Me To Kanye
While it’s true that Cumulus Radio’s headquarters are thirty floors above the fabled Madison Square Garden, the radio powerhouse’s offices are still nondescript on a good day, and wholly beige the afternoon I visited last week. I rode the elevator alone, and arrived at an empty, paint-chipped lobby where a Post-It Note lists after hours…
Read MoreThe Promise Of “Great Lakes”
“Great Lakes” is an album haunted by water: water that drowns (“Oceans of Doubt”) and destroys (“Brand New Oblivion”), protects (“Bigger Than The Moon”) and purifies (“Great Lakes”). It’s an album about the forces that move us: storms, currents and tides. And it’s an album about the long road to finding one’s way (“A Kiss…
Read MoreR.E.M.: Life And How To Live It
I’m pretty sure I’d never seen a man wearing eyeliner, let alone one stabbing, sweating and strutting his way shirtless across a stage back lit by 16mm film of fish swimming in slow-motion. I was in the second row. Standing on my seat for two hours straight. Singing every word. Indeed, R.E.M.’s 1988 Philadelphia Spectrum…
Read MoreCasey Shea’s New LP Gets “In Your Head”
I’ve followed my pal Casey Shea every step of the way. From his early NYC days straight off the express bus from Music City, to his oversized, undefeated Undisputed Heavyweights shows, to his understated, overwhelmingly-beautiful Sundown. I’ve roped him into all four “A Holiday Benefit records (our fifth and final effort bows December 14th at…
Read MoreFunland
Twenty-two years ago this weekend, I left Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, with two grand in my pocket, a hot bike lashed to my VW Rabbit, and a tiny bit of blow in my nose. Back then, we mocked the families we served at Funland, checking out the young, hot, sunburned moms as we strapped their panicky…
Read MoreSunny On These Days
Tonight’s my first rock show in more than a year, and I’m a little bit freaked. Other than “A Holiday Benefit, Vol. IV” in December (where I performed two Christmas standards), and the “Forever Young” Benefit in October (ten cover songs), my last show was March 2010. To even call it a rock show is…
Read MoreBaby Brain
I’m 38,000 feet over Albuquerque, New Mexico, when the newborn in 8B begins crying. I can hear it all — including the woman behind me whining and sighing to her husband — despite my noise canceling headphones. A baby’s shriek is a difficult sound, to be sure. Still, all I can think is, ‘Lighten up…
Read MoreRachel Platten’s 53 Steps Into The Great Unknown
Most major music careers begin on modest stages. Springsteen cut his teeth at Asbury Park’s Stone Pony. Elton John made his stateside splash at LA’s Troubadour. And Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta became Lady Gaga at Rockwood Music Hall. Of course, Rockwood’s been my home turf since founder Ken Rockwood (the Professor half of one-time Bar/None…
Read MoreTuesday In The Park With Maggie
It was a cinematic, spring afternoon. The sky was unwaveringly blue, shot through with bleached-lemon sunlight, all framed by the piercing, green canopy of a long-slumbering Central Park. A cool breeze blew from the northwest, scattering pollen like snowflakes on a blanket of fresh grass. In the middle of it all, my eleven-month-old daughter…
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