I just finished reading Chuck Klosterman's book, Killing Yourself to Live, which is about his trek across the country to report on the spots where rock stars died. A word of warning: Don't read this if you're interested in knowing more about the spots where rock stars died. I didn't keep count, but it's safe to say about one-tenth of the book deals with that subject. Most of it, instead, deals with his musings on various pop culture items and his numerous failed relationships with women. He writes at one point about his reading habits, saying he reads as fast as he writes, and the evidence is all over the page. This cries out in many spots for an editor, and many passages read like the untouched journal entries they likely are. Trouble is, according to an interview he did to promote his last book, Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, he doesn't really get edited: "Book writing is a little different because, in my case, my editor is a year younger than me and basically has the same sensibility as me. So he only really does big picture editing. I'm edited less when I write books than anywhere else." Problem identified.

Klosterman clearly has interesting things to say, and his monthly column for Spin is always worth a read. His take on music is refreshing, as he worries more about whether he likes something than about how others will think of him for liking it. He waxes eloquent about Kiss in the book, likening old girlfriends to various members of the band in the one place where the self-referential writing dovetails quite nicely with his pop cultural sensibilities; he even gets Steve Earle to play a Kiss song on his Air America radio show. That is his strength. Writing about relationships? Not so much.

Overall, the book was a quick, entertaining read. My main criticism is that it doesn't come anywhere close to delivering what is promised. Then again, if it had been accurately billed as a book about Klosterman's lousy dating history, it would still be on the shelf at the library where I found it.

In other news, the Prefix blog has interesting news about the Wrens' back catalog (link courtesy of Chromewaves). The band sprung back into the public consciousness in the past two years thanks to the issue of its dazzling third album, Meadowlands, on Absolutely Kosher records. Label head Cory Brown has been trying for quite some time to get the rights to issue the band's first two albums, Silver and Secaucus from Wind-Up records (home to Creed), but to no avail. Prefix reports that Brown recently offered $100,000 to buy the discs outright, but Wind-up refused. So, until a resolution is found, fans are left to troll eBay in search of overpriced copies (I found Secaucus about a year ago for $20 and considered myself lucky) or, they can participate in the letter-writing campaign suggested at Prefix. How does one convince a company to accept a bundle of cash in exchange for something gathering dust on a shelf? It's not as if the Wrens are going to get much more popular than they are now, so this is likely as good as it gets.