Interview With Guitarist Scott Tarulli

It is hard to believe that it has been more than a month since Scott Tarulli and I finally crossed paths and got to hang out and talk shop in Manchester, New Hampshire!

I had mentioned earlier that week that I'd shortly be just a short drive from his home base in Boston - presenting at the 6th St. Anselm Conference - and he drove up that Saturday with beers and snacks, ready for some intensive discussion about the music business, education, rhetoric, philosophy. . .  and of course all sorts of matters of the metal scene!

I actually recorded 1 1/2 hours of our conversation - here's the video of it - in the hotel room where I was staying.  I call it an interview, and I suppose it started out more with Scott interviewing me.  But it quickly turned into an open-ended, sometimes at-tangents, super-enjoyable conversation - and I even got a bit of "interviewing" in on my side, putting Scott on the spot.

Fan Mail From A Philosopher

Last month, for the first time, I did something I'd long and often thought about -- but never actually decided to do -- to write a fan letter.  Or, really, since it's on a relatively small card, I suppose one could call it a fan note.  To many metalheads -- even among those who know me well -- it might appear a rather odd gesture, not so much in its origins or its expression, but rather in its object.

I wrote what is in effect a kind of note of appreciation -- on the same embossed "Dr. Gregory B. Sadler" stationary that I normally reserve for expressions of gratitude or friendship, confined primarily to academic and institutional recipients -- and I mailed it off back in October to a Mr. Ian Hill, Bassist, of Judas Priest.