Join us on Tuesday, May 4th, at 6:30 pm for a virtual event with Jonathan Taplin in conversation with Ian Masters as they discuss The Magic Years: Scenes from a Rock-and-Roll Life.

This event is free for all to attend — any contribution is strictly optional and appreciated.  All contributions help us continue to provide quality online events. Thank you!

Jonathan Taplin's extraordinary journey has put him at the crest of every major cultural wave in the past half century: he was tour manager for Bob Dylan and the Band in the '60s, producer of major films in the '70s, an executive at Merrill Lynch in the '80s, creator of the Internet's first video-on-demand service in the '90s, and a cultural critic and author writing about technology in the new millennium. His is a lifetime marked not only by good timing but by impeccable instincts — from the folk scene to Woodstock to Hollywood's rebellious film movement.

With cameos by Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Martin Scorsese, and countless others, The Magic Years is both a rock memoir and a work of cultural criticism from a key player who watched a nation turn from idealism to nihilism. Taplin offers a clear-eyed roadmap of how we got here and makes a convincing case for art's power to deliver us from "passionless detachment" and rekindle our humanism.

Jonathan Taplin, a Princeton University graduate, is an author and director emeritus of the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab. Taplin’s book Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy, was nominated by the Financial Times as one of the Best Business Books of 2017. Taplin has produced music and film for Bob Dylan and the Band, George Harrison, Martin Scorsese, Wim Wenders, Gus Van Sant, and others.   He currently sits on the boards of the Authors Guild, the Americana Music Association, and Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti’s Technology and Innovation Council. Taplin’s commentary has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Ian Masters is a BBC-trained broadcast journalist who has covered
national security affairs for over 30 years on public radio.  He is the host of the nationally-syndicated news analysis public radio program "Background Briefing."  He has produced documentaries for the BBC and ABC News and has been a senior fellow at UCLA's Center For Strategic and International affairs and the UCLA Center For International Relations.

Jonathan Taplin in conversation with Ian Masters discusses "The Magic Years: Scenes from a Rock-and-Roll Life"