The Half Light: The Rarity of True Stage Charisma
A truly dynamic performer is a rare thing, even among great musicians. It doesn’t necessarily depend on comfort—you get the feeling that Band of Horses’ Ben Bridwell would be disastrous at public speaking, for example—but it does entail a unique ability to transform. read more
The Leaderboard: So You've Decided To Lose Your Job
Recently, Valve, the company behind Steam and such games as Portal and Half-Life, had their new employee orientation handbook leaked on the internet. In response, game designer Casey Malone has shared his own new employee orientation handbook with Paste Magazine. Casey is currently unemployed. read more
The Half Light: Knowing Yourself Through iTunes History
On the left side of the iTunes interface, beneath the Playlists category, is an icon for Top 25 Most Played. Click here, and you can see a list of your most frequently played songs since you first downloaded the program. Due to some combination of luck and poverty, my MacBook dates back to 2006, and the Top 25 most played provides a weirdly comprehensive window on the last six years of my life. read more
Dig! Revisited: Comparing New Material From The Dandy Warhols and Brian Jonestown Massacre
Back in 2004, controversial documentary Dig! captured the friendship, fallout and seemingly bitter rivalry between Portland, Ore.’s Dandy Warhols and San Francisco’s Brian Jonestown Massacre. read more
The Half Light: The Art of Cursing
Played with a lupine energy by Peter Capaldi, Tucker’s trademark was his swearing—vicious, comical, eloquent and delivered in a harsh Scottish brogue. With a sallow complexion and cruel, bloodshot eyes, he certainly looked the part, but his influence and power truly flowed from the tongue. read more
The Curmudgeon: Shut Up and Listen
For a sizable minority of audiences, the music from the stage is less important than the chance to chat with their seatmates about the most inane topics imaginable. Here's a step-by-step guide for getting them to shut-up. read more
Tony Hale Recommends
Welcome to the first installment of …Recommends, where some of our favorite people tell us about an album, movie, TV show, book, game and drink they think Paste readers should know about. First up is Tony Hale of Arrested Development and Veep. read more
TV's Girls: A Venn Diagram
A look at the intersection between Girls, New Girl and Two Broke Girls. read more
Exquisite Tweet: A Story Told 140 Characters at a Time
We reached out to 15 great Twitterers to play a game of exquisite corpse, telling a story in 140 characters or fewer apiece. The result is bizarre. And hilarious. read more
Listening To My Life: Being Bonnie
I’ve never given much thought or attention to the fact that I’m named after Bonnie Raitt. I’ve never felt compelled to search for any deeper meaning to my name because it’s always felt right. read more
From the Vault: Ray Davies, 1983
Recorded for an episode of Inside Tracks with Lisa Robinson, this interview focuses on the subjective side of Ray Davies' career. read more
The Half Light: Jesus' Son
When I was 11 years old, I wandered the sidewalks of an outlet mall looking for a bookstore while my mother and stepfather shopped. read more
The Half Light: “New Slang” Changed My Life
I’m finally listening to “Port of Morrow,” the Shins album that came out last week, and though it’s too early to form an impression worth putting down in words, the mere act of listening to a new Shins release triggered a memory of early 2004, when I first discovered the song “New Slang.” I’ve written in this space before about how music triggers memory, but today I want to take it a step further—in some cases, music is the only way to really remember, in the most vivid emotional colors, how I actually felt at a given point in the... read more
The Curmudgeon: Searching for an Atheist Hymn
I’m an atheist who loves gospel music. I even like Christian-rockers such as Phil Keaggy and Russ Taff. I’ve written about all these artists with enthusiasm and admiration. Nonetheless I hunger for music that will reflect my own deepest values. read more
Crowdsourced Stories: Charles Guiteau and the Best Wikipedia Entry Around
The assassination of a president seems like an unlikely source of comedy, but two recent events reminded me that there is always an exception to prove every rule. The first of these circumstances was Wikipedia’s day of blackout back on Jan. 18, protesting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Like many other computer-bound Americans, I didn’t quite realize how much I used Wikipedia until it was gone, and my frustrated attempts to reach the site inevitably made me think of my favorite Wiki entry of all time. The thought slipped away, but returned with a purpose two weeks later when... read more
Listening To My Life: Genesis In the Desert
Carter Tanton reflects on a road trip with Genesis on the stereo for our latest Listening to My Life essay. read more
A Conversation with Jim James and Amy Ray
The Indigo Girls' Amy Ray's latest solo album, Lung of Love, dropped last week, featuring collaborators like My Morning Jacket's Jim James. Paste had the opportunity to listen in on a recent phone conversation between Ray and James, where the pair discussed the digital revolution, activism and their Southern roots. read more
Remembering William Gay
William Gay’s stories were the stuff filmmakers dream of. His writing was like a punch to the face—swift and physical, electrifying. It woke you up. He worked a hardscrabble, stripped-down style—his sentences were sparse, with blatant disregard for quotes or unnecessary punctuation—but then every few pages you’d get this burst. It was poetry, lush and lyrical, dreamlike. read more
The Curmudgeon: Take Me To the Mardi Gras
I try to go to Louisiana at least once a year—either for Mardi Gras or Jazzfest. On the years that I opt for Mardi Gras, my fellow music obsessives are always aghast. “How can you give up all that great music,” they want to know, “for a mob of drunken frat boys?” read more
The Book of Drugs: Mike Doughty's Addiction Story
The following is a pretty good nutshell of the bizarre universe I spent the ’90s in—I hope it does a little to explain the near-panic-attacks I have when people talk to me about Soul Coughing. read more
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