This is Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks backstage in the early 1980s sharing the demo of her new song with her backup singers and make up artist. The final argument for why demos should not be messed with.

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There’s a fascinating sub-culture springing up all over the world full of earnest psychic adventurers, working with this powerful medicine called Ayahuasca from the Amazon. It’s a plant that’s brewed into a syrupy liquid that takes its users on an eight hour journey into the depths of their insecurities, shadows and secret glory. It’s not at all a party drug. Rather, many are seeking it out as a way of taking a serious look at themselves and what they might be missing out on. It’s an interesting time in history for this plant to be gaining a large following. We are obviously out of sync with nature, and this is one way some people are trying to reconnect. [image via Ethnopharmacology.com]

Muscles is doing a remix of my single I Love Pop Music and I’m really excited to hear what he comes up with. He’s a new electronic artist from Australia and he’s full of piss and vinegar. He’s got that youthful Manchester-esque arrogance that makes rock n’ roll sound life-changing, all set to a surprisingly retro style. Check out his album Guns Babes Lemonade. It’s sort of like thug pop techno made for big teddy bears.

The Los Angeles musician, Ariana Delawari — aka Lion of Panjshir — is half Afghan and half Sicilian and makes wonderfully enlightened weirdo folk rock. I hope she takes that as a compliment! Her music is delicate and powerful and she is a pure artist. Everything she does has that magic light in it. She made her new album partially in Afghanistan, and many of the lyrics deal with the continued oppression of people’s liberties by the Taliban.

This is Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks backstage in the early 1980s sharing the demo of her new song with her backup singers and make up artist. The final argument for why demos should not be messed with.

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I recently bought a 1960 Oyster Perpetual Datejust and I love it. I did a lot of research before deciding what to buy. I wanted something classic and elegant, but not fussy. A vintage Rolex doesn’t look too over-the-top new money, like a Jacob the Jeweler blinged-out timepiece. Its a gentleman’s watch.

Scott Sternberg created the great Los Angeles label, Band of Outsiders, and it’s one of the few labels that fit a little guy like me perfectly. I live in BOO shirts. They are my second skin.

I downloaded the second season of Weeds and watched it on a long plane ride recently. The show is very provocative. It pushes a lot of moral boundaries but does so with an absurd sense of humor. They used my song ‘Gamble Everything for Love’ in a scene where a 16-year-old boy is making a pin hole in his condom to try and get his 16-year-old deaf girlfriend pregnant so she won’t go away to college. Funny, that’s the exact scenario I pictured when I wrote it!

Rickie Lee Jones put out an album recently called The Sermon on Exposition Blvd. It’s a concept album — the story of Jesus told from his perspective. But it’s not Christian Rock, it’s sleazy, and real, and full of confusion. I hear she improvised a lot of it. It’s really spiritual. And her voice has never sounded better.

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Against Me! put out an awesome album called New Wave last year. It was produced by Butch Vig, who did Nirvana’s Nevermind, and is just brilliant. I fell in love with it when it came out, and covered the whole album, beginning to end, putting it up for free on my website and Myspace page. It was a tribute. It’s so important for me to stay connected to the part of me that is just a music fan.

I got turned on to the artist Elizabeth Peyton last year. She does classic portraiture, but in a very pop way — often painting rock stars and capturing this great mix of the sacred and the profane. We emailed a little bit earlier this year. I was in awe. Every time I saw ‘Elizabeth Peyton’ appear in my inbox I would have a minor panic attack.