IN THIS ISSUE OF COSMIK DEBRIS: The 5th year of Cosmik Conversations; Back to the swamp with Tony Joe White; An evening, not wasted, with Tom Lehrer; Sonny Rollins' Riverside box; Political Playbook; plus columns, reviews and whatever else we felt like doing!

COSMIK RADIO!: We have an hour of genre whiplash sure to introduce you to music you might never have heard otherwise. You just need a RealAudio Player to listen. If you don't have one, go pick one up. Cosmik Radio is just the kind of Net-Only audio that radio station program directors don't want you getting hooked on. So go ahead. Inhale!

TONY JOE WHITE - The Swamp rocker returns to the US CD racks with One Hot July. How could the author of "Polk Salad Annie" and "Rainy Night In Georgia" not be a big star in his own country when he's a hero in Europe and Australia? Discover the man through this interview by DJ Johnson.

TOM LEHRER - Well it's about time! A long awaited box set of songs by the classic humorist, Tom Lehrer, finally hits the stores, thanks to -- who else -- Rhino Records. Rusty Pipes spent some quality time with Mr. Lehrer and you get to read the notes.

COSMIK CONVERSATIONS - As is our tradition, we celebrate our birthday with a look back on the interviews of the past year.

SONNY ROLLINS - Shaun Dale takes an in-depth look at the brand new 5-CD boxed set of the Saxophone Colossus' Riverside recordings.

POLITICAL PLAYBOOK - No matter which side you come down on, it's always Us versus Them. This month, Shaun Dale wonders who Us is and where Us are going. Am going. No... wait...


CD & RECORD REVIEWS - Everything from rock to jazz to reggae and back again.

EVERYTHING ELSE IN REVIEW - Things that don't fit into the CD rack.



THE MP3 FILES - Bill Holmes' 2nd entry in the MP3 Files, in which he ponders moral issues and takes a gander at five more unsung artists.

PIGSHIT - Gary Pig Gold examines the question: why didn't The Sex Pistols save rock and roll?

COSMIK BLUES - A brand new column from Cosmik Debris veteran Eric Steiner. The subject is blues, and this former Chicago resident knows of what he speaks.

CLOSET PHILOSOPHY with Rusty Pipes - It's graduation time, and Senor Pipes is at the podium.



Did you miss an issue? We now have many of our back issues online, including sound clips and extras. Check out interviews with The Witches, Electric Frankenstein, the Vampire Beach Babes, Jeff Berlin, Curve, Michael Shermer, Steel Pulse, Transglobal Underground, Mark Helm, The Southern Rock All-Stars, Ottmar Liebert, Jason Noble of Shipping News, Phil Vassar, Joel Dorn, Mark Cline of Love Tractor, Texas Terri (of Texas Terri & The Stiff Ones), Mike Keneally, Chris Shinn of Unified Theory, Alley of Wise Monkey Orchestra, Mario Escovedo of The Dragons, The Clarks, Big Ass Truck, Richard Cheese, Paul Krassner, Tony Iommi, Ron Dante... and too many more to list!!



Hey, it's our birthday! We're five! Time flies, folks. Seems like we just did our first issue of Cosmik Debris, but here we are at issue #60. Things have certainly changed since that first issue, which was only available as a text file or as an executable, self-contained program with sounds and images. Who knew what the WWW was, much less how to utilize it. We didn't appear on the Web until issue #5, and that's when things took off. Five years later, we still get e-mail from readers who were with us for issue number one, and that means the world to us. Thank you all for making it possible and worth while for us to continue bringing you Cosmik Debris Magazine.

Two important notes: first, please welcome Jason Thornberry, our newest writer. Jason covers all kinds of music (isn't that the Cosmik way?), and his understanding of hip- hop fills a glaring void in our pages. Jason played drums with an excellent band called The Pressure, veterans of the California punk scene and the infamous Warped Tour. About a year ago, after a gig, Jason was jumped by a few thugs who got him to the ground and proceeded to kick his head half in. He was in a coma for a time, and spent a long time in the hospital trying to recover his speech. Sadly, the jerks who did this weren't brought to justice, but there is a happy ending in that Jason continues to improve by leaps and bounds and is now writing for Cosmik Debris. We're thrilled, and very lucky, to have him.

The other important note concerns our second new column in as many months. You blues fans will want to check out Eric Steiner's Cosmik Blues, which kicks off with a look at a pair of unsung blues bands that deserve your full attention. We know you'll enjoy this new column as much as we're enjoying it here in the office. Next month there'll be yet another new column, this one written by yours truly. It will be all about the hobby of collecting old time radio shows. We're talking Shadow, Green Hornet, Burns & Allen and the others everyone's heard of, but we're also talking about things you may not know about, like original sports and news casts from the 1940s, big band live remotes and a thousand other things. I hope you'll give it a look. I'll tell you more about that next month. Meanwhile, enjoy our 5th anniversary issue, and again, thank you for reading Cosmik Debris.

DJ Johnson
Editor