Due to some unfortunate miscommunications between the staff here at the Amoeblog, two of us ended up interviewing the same musician, Neal Morgan, about his solo debut.

Fortunately, the interviews are vastly different, due to my professional and honed skill as a journalist devoted to hard-hitting storytelling and dedication to factual analysis, and the other interviewer, Miss Ess, who prefers a more “whimsical” and, shall we say, lying-er approach to writing.

You can read this other "interview" by clicking on this link right here.

Due to his tight schedule of touring and promoting the new album, To The Breathing World, Neal was under the weather and frequently distracted during the following interview, which resulted in many of his answers being garbled and unintelligible. (Confidentially, I think alcohol may have been a contributing factor to this. That’ll teach me to get drunk before an interview!) I therefore had to rely on memory and occasional paraphrasing in transcribing the following Q & A. Even so, I was able to capture the spirit of our conversation, from Neal's obsession with "crushing" to the revelation of his suicidal fantasies. Read on…

Two short films that I was especially fond of were “Quincy & Althea”, directed by Douglas Lenox – a dark comedy set in the ravaged landscape of post-Katrina New Orleans, and “The Lonely Lights. The Color of Lemons,” an artsy, sentimental, but polished look at a young man’s rites of passage as instigated/recalled through viewing a series of Rorschach ink blots tests.

Another highlight was the documentary “Girls Rock”, which followed the experiences of a handful of kids and counselors as they spend a week at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls.


This Camp was founded in 2001 in Portland, Oregon, and has steadily grown larger and more popular. The first year it had 7 attendees; last year it hosted nearly 250. (That’s almost enough rock ‘n’ rollers to staff Amoeba Music Hollywood!)

What happens: girls between the ages of 8-18 come together for a crash course in rock ‘n’ roll. In one week, girls form bands, learn their instruments, compose songs and then perform them for a huge audience at the end of the week. Alongside the music, girls are also offered courses in basic self-defense, and self-esteem and fun are always prioritized.