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Rolling Stone Editor Sid Holt broke my heart. I was twenty-four-years-old. I’d moved to New York City just a few months prior with two goals: to snag a record deal, and write for Rolling Stone magazine. I wasn’t much for networking. Still, I knew well enough to canvas the Syracuse University Alumni Center for names.…

My first pair was purple. I purchased my first pair of Converse All Stars for twenty bucks at Connelly’s Discount Clothes in Wayne, Pennsylvania. I was fifteen-years-old, and had recently formed my first band, Neoteric Youth. The fact that my father had played three years of high school basketball in the exact same archless, black…

Amtrak 2295 is running fifteen minutes late. Outside, the sun is dipping behind a bank of billowing storm clouds. Inside, the air is cool and dry. I lean back in my seat, rapping my arms around my t-shirted chest to keep warm. All around me, passengers prattle into their cell phones, revealing slivers of their…

Authenticity and enthusiasm comes at a premium in New York City. It figures, then, that I had to go to Brooklyn to see a brand-new Philly band to get my dose of both. I was pretty short on moxie on Sunday afternoon. My fifteen hour Saturday in East Rutherford was punctuated by a three hour…

What would you do if, in the middle of a perfectly normal day, your hero walked into the room? I’ve read some 1182 pages about the man in the last three months alone. I watched “Live From Sydney,” “Live From Chicago,” “Rattle & Hum,” “Classic Albums: Joshua Tree,” and “Under Review: Achtung Baby,” all in…

I owe you the end of the story. Fact is, our twenty-four hours in Des Moines constitute a long, wonderful story. We had a ball, and — from the Arts Festival to KFMG to People’s to the Walsmith’s to the Authentic Records brunch — wrung out every last bit of awesomeness the city had to…