Perfect Sound Forever

THE STAFF


Jason Gross is the founder/publisher/perpetrator/maintenance-engineer of Perfect Sound Forever (established 1993; one of the first online music publications). Hailing from the wilds of North Jersey, he ran off to the Peace Corps for two years and later went through a succession of jobs including pre-school teacher and registered nurse. He landed in the field of computer geekdom about the same time he took up music scribing in the wilder wilds of Gotham, New York. In addition to Perfect Sound, he's produced reissues of Delta 5, Kleenex/Liliput, Oh OK, DNA and Essential Logic. In his few free seconds, he's been known to freelance for a variety of publications (Village Voice, Time Out, Spin, The Wire, Relix). Presently, he's working on an anthology of music journalists from around the world. He also likes to speak in the third person about himself.


Robin Cook spent happy days as a toddler in Vermont listening to Beatles' "red" and "blue" albums. At some point, she found herself in the leafy surroundings of Dutchess County, New York. Finally, she decided she'd had enough of leaves and trees and green grass and headed for the big city, as small-town girls are known to do. As an example of life's strange turns, she's gone from living in Hell's Kitchen and working around lawyers (early 90's) to living in Queens and editing true crime and erotica. She's never met a record store listening station that she didn't like.



Ken Cox is a native of Dillon County. His bachelor of arts degree is in English from Francis Marion University; his minor was philosophy. He has earned a master of divinity with religious education degree from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. He is a full-time instructor of English at Florence-Darlington Technical College in Florence, South Carolina. He has earned 18 graduate hours in English from The University of South Carolina and The University of Iowa. Also, he is an ordained Southern Baptist minister, serving as pastor of Beulah Baptist Church in Hamer. The Southern Baptist Convention’s Seminary Extension program has certified him to teach diploma and degree level courses. Some of his favorite websites are: www.rockabillyhall.com, www.cmt.com, www.jazztimes.com, www.thegospelgreats.com, www.williamleegolden.com, www.talleytrio.com, www.rockinjasond.com, and www.jlllewis.com. He is also a fan of classic professional wrestling.

NOTE: Ken passed away on March 23, 2010. He was an important part of this publication as a writer and editor. Needless to say, he will be greatly missed. Please see our tribute to him here.


Al Spicer was born in 1958, on the wrong side of the wrong tracks. He grew up on London's meaner streets in an area where the cops went around in pairs (even in the station house); a neighbourhood of low-income, low-brow slime of the kind that habitually eats its own children, where few could comprehend his dreams, hopes and fears. After the ghastly traditions of single-sex, grammar school education (obligatory homosexuality and rugby, neither of which had any lasting appeal) Al decided to postpone any more education until they came for him with a court order, cattle prod and a straitjacket, preferring the University Of Life (School Of Hard Knocks), and supporting himself through lousy no-future jobs. Punk changed him from pusillanimous desk fodder to the pile of seething, masculine self-confidence he is today. Transformed further by four hard years working in Italy he matured into a suave, tanned drunk, capable of talking rubbish at length in two languages and ready to have a stab at several more when the drink was in him. Washed ashore back home after world travels that would shame Gulliver and Robinson Crusoe combined, Al turned to hack writing and freelance editorial gigs to keep himself in gin, whores and laudanum; a career he continues to pursue. Entertainment comes from fronting a covers band - The New Cross Dolls - some light drug abuse, raising three kittens to responsible cathood, occasional kidnapping and performing voodoo curses for a small fee. Known and still sought by the police of three countries for authoring 100 Essential Rock CDs and The Rough Guide To Punk, these days he keeps his head down, nose the grindstone and shoulder to the wheel in an uncomfortable crouch in Greenwich London.


Kurt Wildermuth has never recovered from the day in second grade when Miss Kasimir, the general-music teacher, put on the Beatles' Something New and a roomful of kids spontaneously exploded, leaping to their feet and dancing. He hopes never to stop seeking that kind of ecstasy in everyday life. He holds a B.A. in liberal arts from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and an M.F.A. in English from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He works as a developmental editor on college textbooks and has, purely out of love and obsession, written for Perfect Sound Forever since 2001. For a list of links to his PSF pieces on Amy Allison, Babe the Blue Ox, Heather Eatman, Firewater, Pearl Harbor, Robin Holcomb, Dana and Karen Kletter, Kuma, K. McCarty, Bill McGarvey, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Graham Parker, Professor and Maryann, the Walkabouts, Victoria Williams, and Wreckless Eric, and for further information, visit www.kurtwildermuth.com.



See our writers' favorite music from previous years...

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014


Also see the favorite music of our interview victims





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