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The latest articles on PleaseKillMe.com – music, art, culture, fashion, poetry and movies from the 60s through today. This Is What’s Cool!

HANGING WITH GHOSTS: ADELE BERTEI ON PETER LAUGHNER

Richie Unterberger·November 10, 2020

Peter Laughner is one of those ‘what could have been’ rock & roll stories, and nobody knew that potential better than Adele Bertei, who shared a house with Peter in Cleveland and collaborated on projects. In her new revised edition...

All Please Kill Me Posts History Interviews Richie Unterberger

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‘RED FLAME’: KAREN ELSON, MODEL, MUSICIAN & MUSE

Amy Haben·November 9, 2020

Supermodel Karen Elson is no one-dimensional stick figure on a fashion runway. As her photo retrospective and memoir Red Flame (Rizzoli) makes abundantly clear, Elson breaks the model stereotype. Amy Haben spoke with Karen about her music career, her writing...

All Please Kill Me Posts Amy Haben Books Cool People Fashion Photography

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DIANE DI PRIMA: HER LIFE AS A BEATNIK AND WOMAN

Lisa Janssen·November 6, 2020

Diane di Prima (1934-2020) was a poet, artist, activist and teacher who navigated countercultural landscapes of both the Beats and the Diggers and published more than 40 books of poetry, essays and autobiography, including Memoirs of a Beatnik (1969) and...

All Please Kill Me Posts Lisa Janssen Poetry R.I.P.

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FORTUNE RECORDS: THE ROSETTA STONE OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

James Marshall·November 5, 2020

Ten years in the making, a beautiful new book by Billy Miller and Michael Hurtt, Mind Over Matter: The Myths and Mysteries of Detroit’s Fortune Records, opens a window onto one of the most important early indie labels in rock...

All Please Kill Me Posts History Interviews James Marshall Musicians Record Labels

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RICHARD THOMPSON: WHY DON’T THEY KNOW?

John Kruth·November 4, 2020

The supremely talented guitarist, writer and singer of both grimly funny and beautifully romantic songs, co-founder of Fairport Convention and, with Linda Peters Thompson, one-half of the best married tandem in rock & roll, Richard Thompson has never really gotten...

All Please Kill Me Posts Interviews John Kruth Musicians

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FREAK POWER!: WHEN HUNTER S. THOMPSON RAN FOR SHERIFF

Gregory Daurer·November 3, 2020

In 1970, Hunter S. Thompson ran for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado and came within 300 votes of winning! That campaign was cast as the culmination of the ‘Freak Power’ movement that was part libertarian and part eco-crusade against those...

All Please Kill Me Posts Documentary Film Gregory Daurer History Interviews

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SETTING THE NIGHT ON FIRE: AN INTERVIEW WITH MIKE DAVIS

Gillian McCain·November 2, 2020

Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz, Ecology of Fear and, most recently, Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties (co-authored with Jon Wiener), is a “Marxist-Environmentalist” and international socialist writer, professor, urban theorist and critic who has...

All Please Kill Me Posts Ariella Thornhill Cool People Gillian McCain History Interviews

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A JAUNT THROUGH HAUNTED NEW ENGLAND

Rick Casados·October 30, 2020

Take a stroll with us through some of the spookiest, most haunted locations in New England; including a hospital for the criminally insane, an occult museum, a famous Boston park with a dark history, ghostly cemeteries, and more… My family...

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BEFORE AND BEYOND GOTH: THE DARK SIDE OF ROCK & ROLL

Catherine de Leon·October 29, 2020

This Halloween, let your playlist reflect the fact that rock & roll has always been permeated with occult archetypes, and its dark subject matter has inspired many a song from the ridiculous to the sublime. The truth is, from the...

All Please Kill Me Posts History Interviews Musicians

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BLOOD FEAST: THE STOMACH-TURNING CINEMA OF HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS

Tony Mostrom·October 28, 2020

A former English teacher and mail-order salesman from Detroit named Herschell Gordon Lewis saw an exploitable niche in the film industry and, starting in 1963, with Blood Feast, he moved on it like a bitch: gore, gore, and more gore....

All Please Kill Me Posts Anthony Mostrom Film History

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POISON IVY OF THE CRAMPS: UNCROWNED QUEEN OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

Ingrid Marie Jensen·October 27, 2020

Poison Ivy Rorschach, lead guitarist, songwriter, arranger, producer and sometime vocalist of one of the greatest bands in the universe, the Cramps, which she co-founded with her lifetime partner Lux Interior (RIP), has yet to get her crown. Well, PKM...

All Please Kill Me Posts Best Of Cool People Ingrid Jensen Musicians

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WILLIAM GREFE’: MASTER OF GRINDHOUSE CINEMA

Anthony Petkovich·October 26, 2020

Florida cult-film director William Grefe’ (‘Gruh-fay’) turned low-budget filmmaking into a sort of folk art in the ‘60s and ‘70s, using man-eating gators, deadly snakes, killer sharks (pre-Jaws), blood & gore, car/boat crashes galore, not to mention William Shatner as...

All Please Kill Me Posts Film History Interviews

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MY BEST BUDDY NICK TOSCHES

Austin Brookner·October 22, 2020

Songwriter and musician Austin Brookner met writer Nick Tosches in 2008. The connection was Tosches’ words—both on the printed page, which Brookner had already read and been moved by, and some lyrics he’d posted on the Internet in search of...

All Please Kill Me Posts Austin Brookner Cool People R.I.P.

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IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY: THE ORIGINAL LINDA LAFLAMME REMEMBERS

Richie Unterberger·October 21, 2020

It’s A Beautiful Day, with their soaring, unforgettable “White Bird,” were an anomaly among bands of the San Francisco psychedelic scene of the late 1960s. With David LaFlamme’s violin as lead instrument, and the keyboards of Linda LaFlamme (now Neska)...

All Please Kill Me Posts History Musicians Richie Unterberger

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Jack Kerouac based his muse/lover “Mardou Fox” in The Subterraneans on Alene Lee, a mixed race (Black/Cherokee) bohemian writer and intellectual who was a part of the NYC Beat circle of Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Lucien Carr. Despite her intimate connection to these writers, the real Alene Lee is nowhere to be found in most accounts and biographies—partly due to her own reticence to speak. Erika Blair did some digging and presents a more rounded portrait of this fascinating woman. Read more!

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SAM CUTLER: LIFE WITH THE STONES, THE DEAD & OTHER WONDERFUL REPROBATES

ALL THE RAJ: HOW ‘NORWEGIAN WOOD’ UNLEASHED THE ‘INDIAN INVASION’

THE KNACK … AND HOW TO GET IT: AN INTERVIEW WITH PRESCOTT NILES

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PLEASE READ ME: THE BEST OF PKM FOR 2021, PART II

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RUTH UNDERWOOD: A MOTHER OF INVENTION

PRIDE TV: THE QUIET GAY HEROES OF SIXTIES SITCOMS

THE LONESOME DEATH OF DANNY RAPP: THE FRONT MAN FOR DANNY & THE JUNIORS

VIN DIESEL, ARTHUR RUSSELL AND ME

All Please Kill Me Posts

HANGING WITH GHOSTS: ADELE BERTEI ON PETER LAUGHNER

‘RED FLAME’: KAREN ELSON, MODEL, MUSICIAN & MUSE

DIANE DI PRIMA: HER LIFE AS A BEATNIK AND WOMAN

FORTUNE RECORDS: THE ROSETTA STONE OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

RICHARD THOMPSON: WHY DON’T THEY KNOW?

FREAK POWER!: WHEN HUNTER S. THOMPSON RAN FOR SHERIFF

SETTING THE NIGHT ON FIRE: AN INTERVIEW WITH MIKE DAVIS

A JAUNT THROUGH HAUNTED NEW ENGLAND

BEFORE AND BEYOND GOTH: THE DARK SIDE OF ROCK & ROLL

BLOOD FEAST: THE STOMACH-TURNING CINEMA OF HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS

POISON IVY OF THE CRAMPS: UNCROWNED QUEEN OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

WILLIAM GREFE’: MASTER OF GRINDHOUSE CINEMA

MY BEST BUDDY NICK TOSCHES

IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY: THE ORIGINAL LINDA LAFLAMME REMEMBERS

SAM CUTLER: LIFE WITH THE STONES, THE DEAD & OTHER WONDERFUL REPROBATES

ALL THE RAJ: HOW ‘NORWEGIAN WOOD’ UNLEASHED THE ‘INDIAN INVASION’

THE KNACK … AND HOW TO GET IT: AN INTERVIEW WITH PRESCOTT NILES

POLY STYRENE: BREAKING DOWN THE BONDAGE

WE NEVER LEARN: GUNK PUNK IN THE 1990S