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Fred Schruers

Fred Schruers

Fred Schruers enjoyed a successful high-profile career as a writer at Rolling Stone and Premiere, chronicling an impressive body of musicians actors, writing as well on military topics. He is the author of "Billy Joel: The Definitive Biography".

By Order of the Peaky F*cking Blinders

By Order of the Peaky F*cking Blinders

Word comes from creator Steven Knight that Cillian Murphy will return to star in a film version “It’s not a good idea to look at Tommy Shelby the wrong way.” These words of warning are intoned almost reluctantly by Cillian Murphy’s boss-man gangster about himself early in the

One of four Mad Professors nominated for an award this year.

Mad Profs

There’s no doubt that that pesty buzz word `identity’ factored heavily into this year’s Oscars. It’s there most conspicuously in Cord Jefferson’s win for adapted screenplay for American Fiction, whose story of Jeffrey Wright’s moody professor Thelonious `Monk’ Ellison begins with the character abruptly defenestrated

Legends of “Legends of the Fall”; Pitt, Zwick and Who Pushed Whom

Legends of “Legends of the Fall”; Pitt, Zwick and Who Pushed Whom

"I tried not to be deliberately hurtful or casually indiscreet,” director Ed Zwick told the New York Times about his recently published memoir “Hits, Flops and Other Illusions: My Forty Something Years in Hollywood, “But if people are going to behave badly, they should know better than do it

U.S. Navy Seal

For Those in Peril: Taking the Fate of the Lost SEALs Personally

The mid-January headlines announcing, with some unavoidable mystery, that two U.S. Navy SEALs from Coronado, California-based SEAL Team 3 had gone missing in the Gulf of Aden on the night of January 11 were distressing to see. As I began writing a first take, I was hoping an alert

Better Things

Better Things

This newsletter will serve up a new song with each posting. Some will be chosen for their sheer mastery and reach, some for quirkiness, some will be responding to events in the culture. Most will have a link to a video version—or at least a` lyric video’ version—usually

Black Crowes 2024 Tour comes to the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles this summer.

The Black Crowes' Attitude

Black Crowes 2024 Tour comes to the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles this summer.

Billy Joel: Survival Becomes Revival, With Some Dylanology

Billy Joel: Survival Becomes Revival, With Some Dylanology

If anyone doubted that Billy Joel could and would take complete vocal and emotional command of his new co-written single “Turn the Lights Back On”—his first release to crack the Billboard Hot 100 since his 1997 cover of Dylan’s “To Make You Feel My Love” —his performance of