Let's Get Bached
Yesterday I worked on a special episode of TRL devoted to the new Rock Band video game. It taped at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square and featured a battle of the bands judged by Tom DeLonge, Lacey from Flyleaf (a last-minute replacement for Slash; I can't think of a worse possible downgrade), and... Sebastian Bach! Yes, I never EVER thought I would see hundreds of members of a TRL audience cheering for Sebastian Bach. But it happened. And with all apologies to Tom Cruise, you have been replaced as the nicest guest I've ever worked with on TRL. I challenge anyone to find a more happy-go-lucky guy on this planet than Bach. He seems genuinely happy to be in the spotlight, he constantly engaged the audience, didn't complain once, took his role seriously (even asking for a pen to take notes on the performers), and seemed almost as excited to be in a photo with me than I was to be in a photo with him (alas, this could be the worst photo ever taken of me... I look like I'm wearing an inflatable life vest under my shirt and that I have a massively receding hairline). I'm totally willing to forgive him for wearing a Sebastian Bach shirt.

On the subject of rock stars, my friend recently gave me several packs of Proset Super Stars Musicards that he had found in a memorabilia store in Pittsburgh. Basically they're baseball cards of musicians circa 1991. I got legends (Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley), hair metal bands even I'd never heard of (Law and Order, Hericane Alice [yes, I spelled that correctly]), and not one, but two Vanilla Ice cards. They're filled with fascinating information, such as that House of Lords' second album "mixes Arabic scales with classic rock" or that as a teenager, Johnny Gill felt that he had "a man's voice in a child's body." Good to know!