Search Results for: Rolling Stone

Eddie Murphy: The Rolling Stone Interview

Longreads Pick

What ever happened to your signature laugh, by the way?

I don’t laugh like that anymore, somehow it doesn’t come out. It’s weird to change something that’s as natural as that. But it started out as a real laugh, then it turned into people laughing because they thought my laugh was funny, and then there were a couple of times where I laughed because I knew it would make people laugh. Then it got weird. People came up to me and said, “Do that laugh,” or if you laugh, someone turns around and goes, “Eddie?” I just stopped doing it.

Source: Rolling Stone
Published: Nov 10, 2011
Length: 27 minutes (6,767 words)

The Diva and Her Demons: Rolling Stone’s 2007 Amy Winehouse Cover Story

Longreads Pick

Alongside the world’s tallest free-standing tower, one of the world’s tiniest pop stars is crouched next to a garbage pail, collecting a pile of eyeliner pencils and mascara tubes between her hands. While Amy Winehouse wanders the courtyard of Toronto’s 1,815-foot CN Tower in search of a plastic bag to hold her cosmetics, the man who was her fiancé on that May but who would be her husband five days later smokes a cigarette from my pack and looks bored. Blake Fielder-Civil — or “Baby,” as Winehouse calls him, in an array of inflections that strains imagination — gestures toward the trash can. Her soda spilled inside her fake Louis, he says, pointing at the beaten-up mock Lois Vuitton purse atop the rubbish. “She had that bag for ages.”

Source: Rolling Stone
Published: Jun 14, 2007
Length: 14 minutes (3,725 words)

Kurt Cobain: The Rolling Stone Interview (1994)

Longreads Pick

“I’ve been relieved of so much pressure in the last year and a half,” Cobain says with discernible relief in his voice. “I’m still kind of mesmerized by it.” He ticks off the reasons for his content: “Pulling this [Nirvana] record off. My family. My child. Meeting William Burroughs and doing a record with him. Just little things that no one would recognize or care about. And it has a lot to do with this band. If it wasn’t for this band, those things never would have happened. I’m really thankful, and every month I come to more optimistic conclusions.”

Source: Rolling Stone
Published: Jan 27, 1994
Length: 25 minutes (6,264 words)

Program Note: Welcoming Rolling Stone to the #Longreads Community

Program Note: Welcoming Rolling Stone to the #Longreads Community

Rolling Stone Cover Story, 1970: The Odyssey of Captain Beefheart

Rolling Stone Cover Story, 1970: The Odyssey of Captain Beefheart

Obama in Command: The Rolling Stone Interview

Longreads Pick

In an Oval Office interview, the president discusses the Tea Party, the war, the economy and what’s at stake this November

Source: Rolling Stone
Published: Sep 28, 2010
Length: 32 minutes (8,065 words)

Steve Jobs: The Rolling Stone Interview (1994)

Longreads Pick

“Microsoft has had two goals in the last 10 years. One was to copy the Mac, and the other was to copy Lotus’ success in the spreadsheet—basically, the applications business. And over the course of the last 10 years, Microsoft accomplished both of those goals. And now they are completely lost. They were able to copy the Mac because the Mac was frozen in time. The Mac didn’t change much for the last 10 years. It changed maybe 10 percent. It was a sitting duck. It’s amazing that it took Microsoft 10 years to copy something that was a sitting duck. Apple, unfortunately, doesn’t deserve too much sympathy.”

Source: Rolling Stone
Published: Jun 16, 1994
Length: 23 minutes (5,938 words)

Rolling Stone 1976 Cover Story: Bob Marley with a Bullet

Longreads Pick

Anyone naive enough to wonder aloud why such a righteously rebellious, nonmaterialistic culture hero would own the same kind of car Michael Manley drives will be treated to a taste of fine Rasta logic: BMW stands for “Bob Marley and the Wailers.” And why does he submit to so many photo sessions? “I tell you what,” Marley says, “if the amount of records sell the amount of photo dem take — great! More than 2 million photo dem take already!”

Source: Rolling Stone
Published: Aug 12, 1976
Length: 18 minutes (4,553 words)

'The Most Stoned Kids on the Most Stoned Campus on Earth'

Above photo: Not Moppy and Molly

***

What exactly did 4/20 look like on a college campus a decade ago? In 2004’s “The Fully Baked Adventures of Moppy and Molly,” published in Rolling Stone (pdf), Vanessa Grigoriadis profiled a young couple celebrating at UC Santa Cruz:

The first 4:20 for Molly and Moppy came at 4:20 A.M.—they set the alarm next to Molly’s bed for 4:12, which was enough time to pack celebratory bong loads and snuggle back under the covers. Later that day, after classes are over, Moppy and Molly pass a couple in the middle of a fight, something about who should be taking care of the dog. “It’s 4/20!” Molly shrieks. “It’s a good day, man!” They link up with a couple of friends who are having a long, involved conversation about the etymology of 4/20: Ideas range from a police code fro possession; the number of chemicals in THC; the number of molecules in marijuana; the address of the Grateful Dead’s home in Haight-Ashbury; the date Haile Selassie first visited Jamaica. It’s also Hitler’s birthday and the anniversary of Columbine. “I think it’s a marketing tool for the big pot growers, who harvest on 4/20,” says one guy.

“Crazy, dude,” says Moppy.

Students are swarming into the meadow from every direction. From the top of the hill, there’s a cloud of marijuana smoke hanging just under the tree line, and you can hear the drum circles going and everyone hollering and hugging one another. The guy who had shaved a marijuana leaf and the number 420 into his hair last year is nowhere to be seen, but there’s a freshman dressed up like Cheech and a much-discussed twelve-inch joint. Molly, who’s wearing a fuzzy white Kangol hat that looks like a snowball, dropped a few of her cupcake on the way, which is a nice ground-score for someone, but she passes around the rest to Sasha and some bongo players. “I just got here,” says Sasha. “We were at home doing solar rips [lighting a bong with a magnifying glass and sunlight], trying to tell from the angle of the sun what time it was. We thought it was 2:30, and it was almost four, dude.”

Four-twenty itself is like New Year’s at a party without a TV. People start spontaneously hugging. “My fuzz is attracting weird frequencies,” says a guy with a white fuzzy hat identical to Molly’s, and they rub heads together. At 4:25, a cop car pulls into the meadow at about a mile an hour. The cop gets out and stands next to the car. There’s only one of him. But half the people in the meadow start streaming out nonetheless, like a videotape run in reverse. “Run for the woods!” Molly screams.

Read the story (pdf)

Photo: Flickr, US National Archives

The Stoner Arms Dealers

The Stoner Arms Dealers