I showed up at Phantom Manor Recording owner/engineer Mike Lust’s home at 5 PM on a Sunday. I purposely arranged our meeting for late in the day to make it easy on him—he is, after all, the person who taught me the Number One Rule of Rock: no phone calls before 11 AM. Lust answered the door wearing a luxurious bathrobe over a significantly less luxurious T-shirt, holding an Ellen coffee mug of chardonnay. Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue spun on the record player. A Christmas tree twinkled in the living room. It’s June. I didn’t find this scene odd; in fact, it’s quite typical in the land of Lust. (Full disclosure: Lust is a longtime friend.) He poured me a glass of the finest chardonnay and we sat down amid the cozy pastel-painted walls to talk about what we always talk about: life.
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He willingly admits that, OK, maybe it’s a little weird to have so many toys: “Sometimes I’m fearful that this shit is babe-repellent. But I’m Mike Lust. Fuck it.”
Space:Lust for Life
Lust’s parents and grandparents had passed away by the time he was in his early 20s, and collecting things became a way to cope with the loss. “I was missing something and I wanted stuff to fill that void because I really didn’t have a family of my own anymore. I needed a place that I enjoyed going home to again.”
