The Media Interview

As I started to watch yesterday’s much talked about interview with Billy Bob Thornton and the Boxmasters on CBC Radio out of Toronto, I thought we were in for another Sigur Ros or Joaquin Phoenix stunt, when the interviewee simply clams up. Then, as host Jian Ghomeshi asked about Billy Bob’s musical influences growing up, [...]

Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin simply got up and left in the middle of an interview on BBC Radio 4′s Front Row program, leaving presenter John Wilson and the band’s drummer Will Champion to carry on: Wilson: Do you start with that idea, Chris… [sound in background] did you start with the song Viva La [...]

The way NPR’s Bryant Park Project tells it, the Icelandic band Sigur Ros was at fault for what it calls “possibly the worst interview in the history of electronic media”. Seriously. It was that bad. We’re not sure if they were tired, or if it was a language thing, or what… but wow. Whereas most [...]

Barnes and Noble’s revamped website includes an area called Barnes and Noble Media and it’s a treasure-trove of author interviews as well as interviews with musicians and filmakers. Thanks to Social Media Optimization for alerting me to this. Here are the relevant sections from the B&N press release: The new site features “One on One” [...]

You’re a former contestant on American Idol. You’ve just finished having lunch, and as you leave the restaurant, some guy sticks a cellphone or other small camera in your face and starts asking questions about your career. You give a few answers as you try to walk away, including your opinion of Britney Spears’s performance [...]

Picked up a book at the library the other day (yes, a building filled with printed books) called The Sound and the Fury and it turns out to be based on a web-site called Rock’s Back Pages. If you’re a music journalist doing research or a musician looking for some tips on how to conduct [...]