(Blank on Blank) Lou Reed on Guns & Ammo!

"I write a song called 'Heroin', you would have thought that I murdered the Pope or something"

- Lou Reed on March 20, 1987, as told to Joe Smith

Lou Reed. Lou Reed. Here we bring you a rarely heard interview Lou recored in 1987. It's vintage Lou. Salty and sweet. Earnest and cocky. Grouchy and kind of endearing. Reed (and his legendary band The Velvet Underground) were those musicians who never got the extensive accolades or awards--nor the riches many of their contemporaries found. Yet he never seemed to waver in his search for the perfect sound and his quest "to elevate the rock and roll song and take it where it hadn’t been taken before." Here we present some interview outtakes that give a taste for this iconic American musician. Lou Reed died of liver disease on October 27, 2013. He was 71.

Get the interview backstory, GIFs and more @ http://blankonblank.org/

Hear the full interview with Lou Reed on iTunes
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/l...

(Blank on Blank) B.B. King on The Blues!

"I don't like to feel that I owe anything. I like to feel that I pay my own way, no free lunch."
- B.B. King on September 5, 1986, as told to Joe Smith

Mr. B.B. King. The blues legend says he played 300 nights a year for four-plus decades. That’s just ridiculous. We’re talking about nearly 15,000 shows. King turns 90 this year and you still just might be able to see him on stage. So what's his secret? We heard some keys to living life to its fullest in a 1986 interview that had been unheard until now.

In this animated film created from B.B. King's interview with legendary music executive, Joe Smith, the musician explains how he approaches an audience, how a fire at a juke joint led to his naming his guitar "Lucille", why the blues isn't just being down on your luck, and why compliments don't mean it's time to stop practicing or perfecting your craft.

(Blank on Blank) Janis Joplin on Rejection!

"In my insides, it really hurts if someone doesn't like me. It's silly."
- Janis Joplin

Interview by Howard Smith
September 30, 1970. By phone
TheSmithTapes.com

(Time WARP) the GATE turns 79 and Remembering Robin Gibb!

Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1, the structure links the city of San Francisco, on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, to Marin County. It is one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco, California, and the United States. It has been declared one of the modern Wonders of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The Frommers travel guide considers the Golden Gate Bridge "possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed, bridge in the world. The project was finished by April 1937, $1.3 million under budget.

The bridge was visualized in such film classics as Vertigo, Star Trek IV and  View to a Kill.

The bridge-opening celebration began on May 27, 1937 and lasted for one week. The day before vehicle traffic was allowed, 200,000 people crossed by foot and roller skate. On opening day, Mayor Angelo Rossi and other officials rode the ferry to Marin, then crossed the bridge in a motorcade past three ceremonial "barriers", the last a blockade of beauty queens who required Joseph Strauss to present the bridge to the Highway District before allowing him to pass. An official song, "There's a Silver Moon on the Golden Gate", was chosen to commemorate the event. Strauss wrote a poem that is now on the Golden Gate Bridge entitled "The Mighty Task is Done." The next day, President Roosevelt pushed a button in Washington, D.C. signaling the official start of vehicle traffic over the Bridge at noon. When the celebration got out of hand, the SFPD had a small riot in the uptown Polk Gulch area. Weeks of civil and cultural activities called "the Fiesta" followed. A statue of Strauss was moved in 1955 to a site near the bridge.

(Blank on Blank) Larry King on Getting Seduced!

"I'm playing these records. The phone rings and I pick it up: 'WAHR'. And this lady's voice--I can still hear her voice--she goes: 'I want you.'" - Larry King

(Blank on Blank) Dolly Parton on Getting Dirty!

"Mama just always said, 'you be what you are and you don't have to worry about nothing'" 

- Dolly Parton as told to Lawrence Grobel on March 13, 1978

Dolly Parton was not your typical model to appear on the cover of Playboy magazine. But that's just what Dolly did in 1978. She wouldn't take her clothes off, yet that issue still became one of Playboy's most popular issues of all time.

Inside that issue of Playboy was an amazing interview done by Lawrence Grobel. The recording of this interview has never been heard until now. Dolly was at the height of her stardom. She was in her early 30s. And what we loved hearing were her stories about growing up with 11 siblings in Tennessee. They slept four to the bed. The little ones often peed on her at night. In the summertime everybody bathed in the river. And Dolly was into tight clothes and makeup even as a little girl. It's quintessential Dolly. There is nobody in show business like her.

(Blank on Blank) Ayn Rand on Love and Happiness!

" I have no faith at all. I only hold convictions."
- Ayn Rand on February 25, 1959, as told to Mike Wallace

Recording from Mike Wallace Collection @ Harry Ransom Center
The University of Texas at Austin

(Blank on Blank) Dustin Hoffman on Duplicity and Famosity!

"I did as much as I could do at that time in my life ... I tried as hard as I could and I couldn't do better"- Dustin Hoffman in 1971

Interview by Milton Hoffman from the Pacifica Radio Archives

Hear more from this rare interview: http://blankonblank.org/dustin

We came across this rarely heard interview with Dustin Hoffman recorded in 1971. It's such a thoughtful, unrushed conversation from a Hollywood icon when he was just a few years into becoming a star. He was still catching his breath and asking the questions that so many of us wonder when professional careers and a family life are beginning to take shape.

Even though Hoffman was only 33 at the time of the interview, he said Hollywood already viewed as an old timer, part of the establishment. This despite the fact The Graduate, Hoffman’s breakout film, had been released a few years earlier. That was followed up by his role as Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy -- the X rated film that won an oscar for best picture.

Listening to this interview tape, we were drawn to this idea of the struggles that pop up between different generations and the questions one confronts internally as he or she gets older.

(Blank on Blank) Beastie Boys on Being Stupid!

"There's a way we talk and it includes profanity. We never figured we'd be arrested for it."
- Mike "Mike D" Diamond

Interview by Rocci Fisch for ABC News Radio
1985, Washington, D.C. Cassette Tape

(JESSE on the BRINK) Rotto Swim… and quokka selfie!

 

by Jesse Archer

I jumped at the opportunity to join three girlfriends for a relay ocean swim from Perth to Rottnest Island. The Rottnest Channel Swim is 20+ kms across notoriously shark-infested waters... to the island home of the adorable marsupial, the quokka.

(Blank on Blank) Fidel Castro: the Lost Interview!!

"If this Revolution falls, what we will have here in Cuba is a hell. Hell itself." - Fidel Castro

Interview by Clark Hewitt Galloway
1959, Havana

Executive Producer: David Gerlach
Animator: Patrick Smith
Translator: Sebastian Betti

Hear the full 35-minute interview with Castro with english translation:
http://blankonblank.org/interviews/fi...

(Blank on Blank) Roger Ebert on Ego!

"I have innate confidence that I am right. Partially out of conviction and partially as a pose." - Roger Ebert in 1990

This episode contains excerpts of Lawrence Grobel's extended interviews with Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel in 1990. The famous duo worked side-by-side from 1975 until Siskel’s death in 1999, co-hosting the acclaimed, nationally syndicated show Siskel & Ebert. They remained together despite–or perhaps because of–their famously tumultuous relationship.

We focused on the ideas of ego and cultural taste that bubbled up throughout the interviews with Roger Ebert. They are essential to both creatives and the people who critique them. Was Ebert a genius? A blowhard? You be the judge.

(Blank on Blank) Meryl Streep on Beauty!

"It's very humbling to imagine somebody else's real life and their pain ... It's my drug"
- Meryl Streep

Interview by Christine Spines, 2008

Read Christine's Meryl Streep profile here: http://bit.ly/1miZ1XR

(MOVIE FREAK) RE-views of The Witch; Risen; Race!

Focus Features

by Sara Michelle Fetters

The Witch
4 STARS

Unsettling Witch a Timeless Shocker!

(Blank on Blank) Philip Seymour Hoffman on Happiness!

"Learning how to die is therefore learning how to live"
- Philip Seymour Hoffman

Conversation with Simon Critchley recorded live at the Rubin Museum of Art on Dec 22, 2012

(BLANK on BLANK) Jimi Hendrix on The Experience!

"When things get too heavy just call me helium--the lightest known gas to man."
- Jimi Hendrix in his final interview

Interview by Keith Altham, September 11, 1970

GIFs and more episodes @
http://blankonblank.org

(Blank on Blank) Joni Mitchell on Illusions!

"I didn’t like the sound of people gasping at the mere mention of my name. It horrified me."
- Joni Mitchell in 1986, as told to Joe Smith

This interview is from the Joe Smith Collection at the Library of Congress and has never been heard before.

Hear the full, unedited interview with Joni @ http://blankonblank.org/joni

Roberta Joan Anderson sat down for a personal, reflective interview in November 1986. The interviewer, Joe Smith, was a longtime record executive who interviewed hundreds of music legends as part of his book, Off The Record. In this extended conversation with Joni we hear an artist come to grips with both her rise to fame and the price that she felt she paid for experimenting in her career and not seeking hits and fame alone.

(Blank on Blank) Ray Charles on Singing True!

"If somebody don't like something that I do, that's his or her prerogative. Just like it's mine."
- Ray Charles

Interview by Joe Smith
June 3, 1987. Cassette Tape

Recorded during the writing of Off the Record
Hear the full interview catalog at The Library of Congress

(Blank on Blank) David Bowie on Stardust!

"I never really felt like a rock singer or a rock star. I always felt a little bit out of my element"
- David Bowie

GIFs and more Bowie @ http://www.blankonblank.org

Interview by Joe Smith

(Blank on Blank) Tupac Shakur on Life and Death!

"If I was white I would have been like John Wayne... I feel like a tragic hero in a Shakespeare play" - Tupac Shakur

Interview by Benjamin Svetkey
March 1994
Microcassette recorder
Related profile appeared in Entertainment Weekly