Shawn Everett will never forget the first time he worked on a recording mastered by Greg Calbi. Everett, an engineer-producer who’s since worked with Calbi on albums by Kacey Musgraves and Hozier, had already spent years tinkering with the War on Drugs’ 2017 song “Thinking of a Place” by the …
Read More »The Enemy Within
A nita Muldoon could sense that this might be her last chance to make it as a cop. She was riding shotgun in a Minneapolis squad car in the fall of 1993 when her training officer offered a blunt assessment of her standing. “You’re not trusted,” he told her. “And …
Read More »Chasteness, Soda Pop, and Show Tunes: The Lost Story of the Young Americans and the Choircore Movement
As on-the-road misbehavior went, it was pretty tame. On tour in Seattle in the spring of 1972, Jeff Forehan and three of his shaggy-haired bandmates got ahold of some weed. Squeezing into a hotel bathroom, the pop singers happily toked up, using the ceiling fan to suck up the smoke …
Read More »Yesterday's Gone: Iowa Was Waterloo for Democrats
Monday, February 3rd, just before 9 p.m., the airport Holiday Inn, Des Moines, Iowa. A crowd of supporters and volunteers for Sen. Bernie Sanders is buzzing. After four years of being shat upon by party officials and media allies alike (CNN and MSNBC are seen in Sanders crowds as Goebbels-ian …
Read More »How to Tackle the Climate Crisis and (Hopefully) Save the Planet
DAVOS, SWITZERLAND — Greenpeace knows how to protest. The nongovernmental organization has been demonstrating on behalf of the environment for nearly half a century, and it certainly hasn’t let up since the climate crisis‘ exacerbation in recent years. During this week’s World Economic Forum, its representatives have flooded the snow-packed …
Read More »Don't 'Underestimate the Girl': Kate Nash on Her New Doc, Fixing the Music Industry
Kate Nash is recalling a nightmare she had recently. In the dream, the musician and star of the Netflix series GLOW remembers being on a raft in a dark tunnel, surrounded by man-eating killer whales. “I escaped the tunnel, and I was running around in this carpark, with all these …
Read More »Arming the Cartels: The Inside Story of a Texas Gun-Smuggling Ring
Listen to an audio version of this story below: A FEW YEARS AGO, a retired police officer named Mike Fox found himself badly in need of money. The Vietnam veteran, overweight and ailing, was nearly 70 years old, and his wife, Diane, wasn’t much younger, but they had recently taken …
Read More »The Hidden Toll of the Golden State Killer
Listen to an audio version of this story below: It was April 2018, and Judy Gelein was seated behind the survivors in Courtroom 61 at the Sacramento County Jail, awaiting the entrance of a man accused of being one of the most elusive serial killers/rapists in history. A suspect believed …
Read More »How an Ex-Cult Member Wrote a Movie About Being in the Manson Family
Looking back on her childhood, Guinevere Turner recalls the usual mixed bag of good times and incidents she would rather forget. But unlike most people, she was born into a tightly knit commune of 100 adults and 60 children. “So much of my childhood is full of really fond memories …
Read More »How the Guy Who Couldn't Get a Date Invented This 'Love Machine'
Excerpted from David Kushner’s book, The Players Ball: A Genius, a Con Man, and the Secret History of the Internet‘s Rise, published by Simon & Schuster. [Find the book on Amazon.] Gary Kremen nervously lingered inside his grandfather Manny’s barbershop, ready to bust his move. It was the late 1970s …
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