Thanks to coaxing (and one excellent free lunch) from my pal Gil, I'm the new Music Examiner on this site. I'll be writing about music I like, where to find it, occasional music-business issues and various personal crap.

By way of introduction: I cover the music biz for Rolling Stone and have written about bands and albums and concerts for 17 years. My next book, from Free Press/Simon & Schuster, is on the record business in the digital age -- I interviewed some 230 people in trying to chronicle everything that happened from the adoption of the CD through Napster, iTunes, RIAA lawsuits, etc., to the present.

I used to blog, from 1998 to 2002, for "Net Buzz," a daily links column I did for the late, lamented Yahoo! Internet Life magazine. But that wore me out so I've taken an extended break -- until today! Hooray!

Juicier stuff coming soon, I hope. Until then, here's my favorite link on the Internet. Gotta love the classics...