Poorman's 15 Minutes of Fame

“Me and the drummer, Stan, were in a band from the time we were 14 on. So it was a high school band. And that band turned into the Shrinky Dinks, and the Shrinky Dinks is what Sugar Ray used to be called. And we had our very first practice at our friend, McG’s, who was a guest on your show. And him and our good friend Eric Vinge had a house together, and in the summer of 1988, we had our very first practice in their house. Then we moved that on over to Mark’s mom’s living room, practiced there for a while.” — Rodney Sheppard, Guitarist of Sugar Ray

“And I’ve always said I’m in it, but not of it. I’ve been here fifteen years now. And on the day that I went to Nan Robinson’s, she’s the one who connected me with Gee Smith, who is my first my cousin. She was a manager in Hollywood, and she had all these photographs on the wall. And I was just looking at the pictures, and there was Troy Donahue.” — Deborah Presley Brando

“So we just celebrate the fact that we haven’t killed each other yet. And it’s three guys that are dedicated to just making a controlled chaos and energy, and it just, you know, like I said, it just doesn’t happen that often. Again, I’ve been in many, many bands, many, many groups, where it was just no nobody got along. Nobody could do anything. You know, it was, you know, four guys with a paintbrush trying to paint a sailboat.?
—Tommy Cuomo, Cali punk band The Legendary Suspects

“[Why is it absolutely essential people buy your book?] Depends what subject matter you want to concentrate on. One of them, in answer to your question, would have to do with how we are all educated early on, to the states of matter that exist. We're told there are three of them, solid, liquid, and gas, when in fact, right now on Earth, there are really only two. One is solid and one is gas. Liquid as it is, is a solid and acts as a solid by its result and becomes a gas via evaporation. It is not its own thing. By thinking of it as its own thing, we put a big block in front of us to seeing science for how it really is, for how it really affects our planet and ourselves.” —William Charles Duffy III, Author of "The Plan to Save All Life on Earth"

“The Underground Garage Cruise, I played with my old surf band, The Untamed Youth. You know, it just winds up being a whole bunch of different things and just a ton of songs to to learn and rehearse.”. —Deke Dickerson, Singer/Songwriter, Guitarist and Columnist

“In my life, I'm in a better place. And really just grateful for where I'm at. And the people that I have in my life are amazing human beings. And there's a toxicity to being all of that time in Fishbone. And so I'm not experiencing that and being grateful for that..” —John Norwood Fisher, former Fishbone bassist

“I've had quite a life and most of it was just chance. I don't know. Just good luck. I met the most incredible people in the world. I worked for them. Not only Bowie, but Sting was my bass player for a while, and I worked for Vangelis, the composer of Chariots of Fire, and I helped Rufus Wainwright in his career.” —Cherry Vanilla, American Singer/Songwriter, Publicist, Actress, and Author

For the first fifteen years of my career, I focused on construction law and business, transactional work and general counsel work. And I was really good at it, but as time went on and I sorta got to know myself a little better, there was something missing. You know, the work that I was doing was not as satisfying as I thought it should have been. And after a lot of soul searching, I made the decision to leave the partnership and start my own practice with the idea of becoming a music industry attorney. —Todd Wolfe, Music & Entertainment Attorney

“I'm now redoing my label, which is called Hyperspace Communications. It's a vinyl only label. It has a lot of Flosmicrowave rereleases, Baby Buddha, I have an Ambient Series, and then I have a whole, kind of like, bachelor pad lounge series that feature lounge versions of my video game music.” —“I’m now redoing my label, which is called Hyperspace Communications. It’s a vinyl only label. It has a lot of Flosmicrowave rereleases, Baby Buddha, I have an Ambient Series, and then I have a whole, kind of like, bachelor pad lounge series that feature lounge versions of my video game music.” —David Javelosa, Microwave Buddha, Los Microwaves, Baby Buddha

“We were the first ska band ever signed to a major label. We were signed to Stiff Records in England and so we played with so many people, Poorman, like Siouxsie and the Banshees, UB40, Squeeze, The Bangles, to Frankie Goes To Hollywood. I mean, we were on a bill with so many bands because a lot of the English bands didn't have draws in California or Los Angeles or whatever. So we would just go out with them to make sure that the supporting act would bring lots of people in. And it was great times.” —Derek Breakfield, former Bassist of The Untouchables