"It was a plague of ... excessive bandnames!"

Whew, for a second there I thought you meant Larry, Moe & Curly.

Wait, it's news that Anthony Bourdain is an old punk rocker? (Or proto-punk rocker, or whatever?) If I recall, he talks about that stuff in Kitchen Confidential. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

The Allman Brothers WERE awesome.

Indeed, Mr Otter. This is olde hat.

Bourdain's NY-rocker-cred is the dynamo to his charisma. The story of his self-made journey from the sewers of addiction to the top of the food chain (as told in his book Kitchen Confidential) is partly responsible for his popularity. He's also got pretty good taste in food, so he's a decent chef to boot.

The music underlaying the titles on his tv series No Reservations contains an homage to Richard Hell's Love Comes in Spurts. In this, and other ways, Bourdain follows and pays respect to his predecessor, the recently deceased former BBC cooking and travel host Keith Floyd, who vocally insisted on using the music of The Stranglers on all his programs.

They tried to give me advice
Down at the record shop
I said sit down boys
This may come as a shock
What's all I listen to
It's all freedom rock

I just kinda feel like you shouldn't be writing professionally if you don't know a bit about Bourdain.

Love the dude, but he's wrong about the Allmans.

I feel the need to be part of this conversation, but only to tell you all that the Allman Brothers truly suck ass. This is a matter of historical record, and not even worth debating. You can like or dislike Anthony Bourdain's work, but we can all agree that there is nothing redeeming about the good ol' boy 40-minute Southern blues jam bullshit that the Allmans unleashed on the world. Carry on.

If you didn't know his musical taste, you obviously weren't paying attention to his shows or books. Kitchen Confidential was dedicated to the Ramones, he's mentioned Funhouse as being on his desert island list, had David johansen (New York Dolls) on an episode of his current show, and has mentioned many other rock greats on his shows. Like the coolest of punks, his tastes go well beyond punk and hard rock. I checked out Morcheebs after he had their main composers on his show (he even recorded a guest vocal take in a track). The man IS punk rock.

Oh Nipper, it is ok that someone else, albeit some writer "foodie" type TV guy like Bourdain can like the Stooges too. There's enough room for many of us...@10 nailed it as you seem to know nothing about Anthony Bourdain nor his many years of being very public (in print, TV) about his love of all things punk rock.

Reading your piece here makes it sound like he has your approval...ugh - rock/record collector clique bullshit to the highest degree.