Paul Shaffer to speak, play at the Grammy Museum on Wednesday night

The ever-upbeat shiny-headed sidekick and bandleader Paul Shaffer will be giving an intimate talk Wednesday at the Grammy Museum.

The pianist, who first made it big on "Saturday Night Live," will be speaking about his musical career, life working on that little late night show with David Letterman, as well as his new book, "We'll Be Here for the Rest of Our Lives: A Swingin' Showbiz Saga." Shaffer will take questions from the audience, perform a few songs, and sign copies of the book. Perhaps some current events will be addressed.

Shaffer's book is actually quite a delight. Lighthearted, funny, insightful and intentionally disjointed, Paul gracefully jumps from his early days playing classical pieces to the delight of his -- very hip -- parents while in Thunder Bay, Canada, to his more wild nights leading the Blues Brothers band from city to city.

After the jump peek into Shaffer's world as he explains meeting the poet laureate of rock 'n' roll, Bob Dylan. Turns out Mr. Zimmerman's agenda while being the musical act on the Letterman show was definitely not meeting the keyboardist.

Jessica Hopper reads from 'The Girls' Guide to Rocking' with Mika Miko in tow

The dirty little secret to "The Girls' Guide to Rocking" -- a book by music scribe Jessica Hopper, ostensibly for teen girls -- is that as a grown-up man or woman, you will learn something from every single page of this guide. Even if you've logged hard time in a studio and can tell the difference in tone between a Melody Maker and a Rickenbacker -- or hell, how to plug in your amp -- you might not know that Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen plays a mind-blowing five-neck checkerboard Hamer guitar. Or you may have simply forgotten. "The Girls' Guide to Rocking" is a sweet little trip back to the basics that'll reinvigorate your life-long crush on music -- the lore, the technique, the post-show stop at a diner after seeing Cat Power or PJ Harvey for the first time.

Hopper is perhaps best known for her Da Capo anthologized essay, "Emo: Where the Girls Aren't," a feisty bit of feminist J'accuse, but the Chicago-based writer is equally comfortable in the big sister role -- cool but all heart. On the cover, the book states it'll teach "how to start a band, book gigs and get rolling to rock stardom." And that's part of the fun of flipping through the bright pages, many of them with fetching illustrations in black and lime green. Whether you're a band virgin who vicariously lives through her heroes or an old hand who starts a band for every life stage, all fantasies are encouraged. Even in inarguable, indie-mom instructions like "do not book a tour that takes you through the mountains in the middle of winter," there is a hint of the adventure and mission of rock and roll. And let's not forget the swagger; as the former touring bassist definitively points out, swagger ain't a dude thing -- it's a rock thing.

Hopper will be stopping by our fair city Wednesday to put on the literary equivalent of a bang-up show. After she reads from her guide, the nearly all-female punk band Mika Miko will take to the stage -- at the San-Mo Public Library, not the Smell -- and will no doubt blow some hardcovers off of their crumbly old pages. Rip it up, ladies!

-- Margaret Wappler

Jessica Hopper and Mika Miko at the Santa Monica Public Library, Martin Luther King Jr. Auditorium, 601 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica. 2 p.m. Wednesday. Free. (310) 458-8600. Also, Hopper will read at Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Feliz. 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Free. (323) 660-1175.

Photos: Handout art of Jessica Hopper (left) and Mika Miko

Former Jimi Hendrix roadie saves you the trouble of buying his book

A conspiracy theory regarding rock legend Jimi Hendrix began making the Web rounds on Sunday, courtesy of former roadie James "Tappy" Wright.

He happens to have a book coming out next month, and in it he alleges that Michael Jeffery, Hendrix's manager, was responsible for the musician's death.

The Telegraph today has a story about a juicy passage from the book, in which Wright makes the claim that Jeffery confessed to murdering the star a year after Hendrix died in 1970. The book "Rock Roadie," doesn't have a release date yet, according to Amazon.com.

Rather than alert the authorities (police inquisitions are such a buzz kill), Wright clearly did the honorable thing of holding onto such information for nearly 40 years before using it to sell a book.

Well, Pop & Hiss is here to save you some cash in these hard economic times, so here's the gist: Jeffery was apparently trying to cash in on an insurance policy rather than risk Hendrix leaving him for another manager.

Justin 'Aquarium Drunkard' visits the blues, and lives to write about it

For every McDonald’s and Waffle House blighting sight lines, the old “weird America” still lurks if you look hard enough. Over the course of three trips and 2 1/2 months, Los Feliz residents Justin and Melissa Gage rambled through the Delta Blues Trail in search of the ghosts of Robert Johnson, Son House, and Skip James — from Memphis’ Peabody Hotel to the cotton fields and alluvial lowlands of Mississippi.

The offspring of this odyssey is “Memphis & The Delta Blues Trail: Great Destinations,” a travelogue published by The Countryman Press offering tips on the best sites, sounds and places to stay along the fabled route. In addition to running  Aquarium Drunkard — one of Los Angeles’ most popular and respected music blogs — Justin Gage hosts Sirius XM and Little Radio programs, promotes concerts and runs the Autumn Tone boutique imprint, fast becoming one of the city’s finest indie labels. A former travel editor of CitySearch, Melissa Gage currently works as a freelance writer and screenwriter.

Tonight the pair will host a reading/celebration at the new Stories Books in Echo Park, with acclaimed Autumn Tone act Le Switch on hand to play a set. In advance of the festivities, Pop and Hiss spoke to Justin Gage about his experiences on the road and the drinking etiquette of Southern roadhouses.

Chicano rock lives: David Reyes and Tom Waldman know the history and what they'd like to see and hear in the future

In 1998, when David Reyes and Tom Waldman first published their authoritative history of Chicano rock 'n' roll in Southern California, "Land of a Thousand Dances," their home state was in upheaval. The aftershocks of Proposition 187 (1994) were rattling California politics. Thousands of migrants pouring in from war-torn Central America were remaking the landscape of Latino L.A. And the rock en español movement was erupting, hinting at a potentially seismic shift in Latino cultural tectonics.

A decade later, Los Angeles has a Mexican-American mayor, Latino artists are increasingly visible in U.S. culture, and the "Latinization" of American life is occurring in practically every state. But one thing hasn't changed, the authors say. Most Chicano rock bands, despite their continuing creativity, remain marginal to the mainstream rock scene.

"We still to this day don't have a model for what it means to make it, and really make it, in the Anglo market for a Chicano band," said Waldman, 52. "What's remained elusive is that huge worldwide success."

Tom Waits chronicler: ‘Radiohead is the last band that’s going to mean something’

Beyond the rock crit-Rushmore of Greil Marcus, Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer and Robert Christgau, few music journalists ever achieve name recognition. But if fame followed facility, Barney Hoskyns wouldn’t need an introduction.

The former U.S. editor of venerable British rock magazine Mojo, and a longtime contributor to British Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Rolling Stone and veritably every British publication available for purchase at steep import rates, Hoskyns’ taut and elegant prose transcends genre limitations.

A longtime L.A. resident (since re-located back to his native London), Hoskyns is one of its preeminent chroniclers, penning several music histories revolving around the City of Angels. His recently reissued “Waiting for the Sun” ranks among the most comprehensive and compelling tomes ever penned about the metropolis.

A meticulous sonic survey from Charlie Parker to Cypress Hill, “Waiting” navigates the stark dichotomy between the town’s noirish underbelly and its sunshine-and-surf sales pitch, ultimately allowing for a greater understanding of both local history and the city, writ large.

Currently the editor of invaluable Internet rock writing archive, Rock’s Backpages, Hoskyns is in town this weekend to read from both “Waiting for the Sun” and his most recent effort, “Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits.” He talks to Pop & Hiss below.

Name that tune with Leonard Nimoy and Josh Kun

Josh Kun is the author, with Richard Bennett, of "And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We Have Loved and Lost." The title says just about all you need to know -- but not quite. You should also know that there are images of hundreds of album covers in the book, charming, geeky, and even moderately psychedeli (above). And that they've rescued some records from their archives and released them on CD. Oh, and there will be two book parties -- one in New York on Thursday (tickets are $20), and one on Tuesday at the Santa Monica Museum of Art at 7:30 p.m. (free, registration required).

The Santa Monica Museum of Art book party will also be a listening party. Kun will spin records (and, he admits, some MP3s) from the book. And listening, playing name that tune, will be Leonard Nimoy. About that we needed to know more.

Jacket Copy: Leonard Nimoy is participating. Am I getting that right -- THE Leonard Nimoy?

Josh Kun: Yes, that Leonard Nimoy. I am very honored that he agreed to do this.

Read the rest of "Name that Tune with Leonard Nimoy and Josh Kun" from Jacket Copy, our favorite books-loving blog.

Author of new Sly Stone biography at Book Soup

Bay Area journalist Jeff Kaliss will be at Book Soup in West Hollywood on Sunday to recount his search for the reclusive Sly Stone. That search was ultimately successful and led to rare interviews with the mercurial rock and funk star that are part of his new biography, "I Want To Take You Higher: The Life and Times of Sly & the Family Stone" (Backbeat Books, $24.95). Kaliss will appear at 5 p.m. to discuss the book and sign copies.

"I like the way Jeff tells my story," Stone, born Sylvester Stewart, says of the volume that traces the story from before his birth in Denton, Texas, to his formative years in a musical family in Vallejo, Calif., just outside San Francisco, where he achieved stardom in the late '60s and early '70s.

While tracking down his subject at his home among the vineyards of Napa Valley, Kaliss wrote a profile of Stewart for The Times last year on the eve of an appearance in Anaheim by the Family Stone band. The group included Stewart's sister Vet and some other holdovers from the original band of the '60s, but not Stewart himself.

-- Randy Lewis

Sly Stone photo by Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times