Things I'd Rather Be Doing

OK Go splits from EMI - what's next?

2010-03-11T13:15:00.002-06:00

Two disparate acts came to mind when I heard that OK Go had extricated itself from its recording contract with EMI and planned to go it alone. Neither would probably make Damian Kulash and Co. giddy with excitement, but they certainly serve as a cautionary tale.

In the late 1990s, cosmic country singer Jimmie Dale Gilmore left/was let go from Elektra Records and signed with much smaller Rounder Records. It wasn't a big deal at the time, but I remember thinking that it was a good move. Gilmore would likely never sell more than he did on Elektra, but having used that major label's resources to build a fan base, he probably wouldn't sell a lot less, either.

The Posies were in a similar place at the exact same time. As with Gilmore, their last major label album was in 1996, followed by a 1998 album on an indie. I interviewed the band's Ken Stringfellow around that time, and he articulated what I had been thinking about Gilmore: Why not use the major label to record good sounding albums and promote them like crazy, then walk away and take a much larger piece of the pie on your own?

The cautionary part of the tale is obvious enough. Neither act came anywhere close to the (relative) heights scaled in the early 1990s. Now, you could blame that on a significantly slower pace (Gilmore) or a fractured band (the Posies), but it's also clear that it's certainly harder than it looks to duplicate the multi-pronged efforts of a major label.

OK Go has a leg up on both. Nobody noticed or cared in those pre-Internet days when Gilmore or the Posies parted ways with their labels. OK Go, meanwhile, has write-ups all over the place and its lead singer, Kulash, penned an op-ed for the New York Times shortly before the split about the band's quarrel with its label. The band also has viral marketing on its side, with its self-produced videos earning it millions of hits.

Still, the band had all of that before splitting with EMI, and while it could be argued that the label's archaic ideas about embedded videos likely hampered promotion somewhat (a hurdle more than compensated for by the press the band earned by bringing those policies to light), it also spent money on ads and other promotions. Result? Less than 25,000 albums sold in about two months. While most bands would kill for those figures, a major label can't tolerate that total.

So, for OK Go, the future is entirely reliant on mediated expectations. If the group is content to sell 25,000 albums every couple of years and supplement its income with live shows and merchandise, it should be fine. If it takes on a huge staff, attempts make it big and throws a lot of money at the challenge, it won't last long. I'd predict the former course rather than the latter, which then puts all of the pressure on the band's music. Thus far, it has been solidly unremarkable, it's music no better or worse than that of hundreds of other bands. Stripped of the clever videos, there's not much there. Progress is being made (new single "This Too Shall Pass" is definitely a creative step ahead), and that must continue apace while now also running their own label, promotion, distribution, scheduling, etc. Stay tuned.

Baseball Project preps 'Broadside Ballads' project

2010-03-09T12:48:00.005-06:00

The progress reports from the Baseball Project camp have been disappointing in only one respect: we'll have to wait until 2011 to hear the crack of the musical bat... or will we?

The group -- Scott McCaughey (The Minus 5, R.E.M., Young Fresh Fellows), Steve Wynn (The Dream Syndicate, Gutterball, Miracle 3), Linda Pitmon (Miracle 3, Golden Smog) and Peter Buck (R.E.M.) -- is working on the official followup to Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails, which isn't scheduled until next year. However, the foursome recently announced that they would be doing some musical baseball blogging, so to speak, writing, recording and releasing in quick succession a series of songs during the coming big league baseball season, dubbed Broadside Ballads.

"The band will be providing tuneful commentary on baseball events big and small, recording them in magical bi-coastal fashion (Linda and Steve in New York City, Scott and Peter in Portland and Seattle, respectively) and putting them up online while the ink is still wet," they report on Steve Wynn's web site.

The first track already is available: "All Future and No Past." Written by Scott McCaughey, it deals with the fact that before the first pitch is tossed, every team is full of promise. "I'd been reading all the pre-season reports and realizing that this is the time of year when every team has high hopes, no matter how unrealistic. Then I stumbled upon a saying from the great Indians player/manager Lou Boudreau: 'On opening day, the world is all future and no past'. And for me that really sums up the beautiful feeling that comes with spring training each year."

Wynn reports that the song was "written, recorded and mixed in Portland and New York City, all in the space of about a week, setting a template for regular dispatches throughout the season."

The songs will be available on ESPN's "The Life" section. The second song, already in the can, will be released in April around opening day.

"I think it will be a lot of fun just to kind of see what's going on and get fired up about something," Wynn writes on his blog. "And instead of just writing bemused e-mails to each other, we'll put chords behind it and call it a song."

Monday Interview: John McNally

2010-03-08T08:16:00.004-06:00

It seems like an easy jab: those who can, do, those who can't, teach. It's also easy to fall into the mocked side of that dichotomy. How many writers take up a full-time teaching gig -- for whatever reason -- and maintain the same pace and quality they did before? Grading endless stories instead of writing your own clearly takes its toll. Unless you're John McNally.

Now, I'm sure John would be the first to say that he would rather be writing during the times that he is teaching or grading students' work, but he hasn't let his duties as a faculty member at Wake Forest University or other teaching stints dull his progress. He just issued his fifth book in the past decade, the satirical After the Workshop. In addition, he has edited six anthologies, taken a crack at screenplay writing and continues to write and place short stories.

Given that output and work ethic, it seems we can put to rest any supposition that McNally's characters are thinly veiled versions of their creator. After the Workshop's Jack Hercules Sheahan may share a bit of McNally's resume -- Iowa Writer's Workshop graduate and one-time media escort for traveling writers -- but unlike McNally, Sheahan has debilitating writer's block that has relegated his one-time debut novel in progress to a box tucked out of sight.

Sheahan is the latest McNally protagonist with more talent than ambition. These are working-class guys who have nothing handed to them... or if it is, it will probably just make things more difficult for them. But McNally renders these tales with considerable empathy and boatloads of sharp humor that allows him to tackle topics much deeper than he might otherwise be allowed.

McNally has been involved in academia for 27 years, either as a student or a teacher, and brings the lessons learned during that time to bear on his next project, his first non-fiction book, The Creative Writer's Survival Guide: Advice from an Unrepentant Novelist. That book, forthcoming this year from University of Iowa Press, will perhaps offer some insights that will allow readers to better understand how it is possible for McNally to continue to crank out such top-notch fiction while his attention is pulled in any number of directions.

Caveat: I met John when taking a course he taught at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival at the University of Iowa. I signed up for his class on short fiction after reading and loving Troublemakers. I was not disappointed; John was an insightful, funny and personable instructor, and it has been a pleasure to stay in touch with both John and his work since.

Note: McNally reads from After the Workshop at Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City on Tuesday, March 9 at 7 p.m. I am hosting the reading, and will lead a Q&A with John after he reads. Listen online here.

TIRBD: While many novels have been written about writers and writing, none that I know of take on writing programs in general, and specifically the Iowa Writers' Workshop, as directly as you do. That, coupled with the fact that you used real Iowa City institutions and geography made this really resonate. Was there ever a moment where you considered fictionalizing things more, and why did you decide instead to choose this path?

JM: When I was in the Workshop in the late ‘80s, I read a lot of books set in Iowa City, like John Irving’s The Water-Method Man and W.P. Kinsella’s The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, and I still remember that shock of recognition I experienced every time a real place appeared in one of the books. In my first novel, The Book of Ralph, I used a lot of real places as well, but I never named the city, except to say that it was on the southwest side of Chicago, and I’ve since regretted it. With this book, I didn’t want there to be any ambiguity about place.

There is a real love-hate relationship with the Workshop here, and you'll surely be asked how much of Jack is you given that your own time in the Workshop is so prominent in the promotion of the book. So, how much is you, how much is friends and acquaintances and how much is made up of whole cloth?

As with most of my fiction, my starting point is often autobiographical, but it tends to veer quickly away from that. I was a media escort in Iowa City; I graduated from the Workshop; I kicked around for a number of years before my first book was accepted. But I never experienced the writer’s block that Jack does, and I didn’t remain in Iowa City after graduating. (I moved back about seven or eight years later.) Jack is a slightly more pathetic version of who I was. But we shared the same fear that this whole thing – being a writer – wasn’t ever going to come to fruition, and there were many times, back when I was driving writers around as an author escort, that I questioned my reason for being, as Jack does. As for other people and places, I can say that some of the scenes grew out of conversations I was privy to, and some of the characters are composites of types of writers I’ve met, but that’s true of almost every book I’ve written. In The Book of Ralph, Ralph is a composite of three kids I knew, and yet everyone I grew up with thinks they know for sure who the real Ralph is. I’m suspect the same thing will happen with After the Workshop.

One significant way you differ from Jack is that you have published several books, with five novels and story collections of your own and several anthologies. Was there a point at which you were in Jack's shoes, unable to finish something and wondering if you ever would? If so, what pulled you out of that? Are you ever scared that could still happen?

I have rarely had writer’s block. I’ve had stretches of not being able to write because of situational things in my life, but it wasn’t because I didn’t have anything to write about. Unlike Jack, I was always able to finish the books I was working on, but I wrote two novels before my first book was published, and I’ve since written two novels that haven’t seen publication. So, my fear isn’t so much that I’ll be blocked as it is that I’ll write another book that won’t get published. In that regard, I could empathize with Jack’s wondering what the hell his life is amounting to and what, if anything, he can do about it.

You're becoming quite adept at poking institutions that don't welcome the provocation. First came the Bush Administration in America's Report Card (and, of course, ACT), and now the fabled Iowa Writers' Workshop. This makes for edgier fiction, to be sure, but are there repercussions that ever make you doubt the wisdom of that course?

My way of thinking (and, I’ll admit, it’s probably not sound) is that you’re only going to suffer repercussions if you have something to lose. I suppose the Workshop will never ask me to teach there as a Visiting Writer, but you know what? It’s not something I’ve pined for, and there’s a 99.99 percent chance it wasn’t going to happen anyway. I haven’t been waiting by the phone, in other words. Also, my intention in writing the novel wasn’t to take down the Workshop or the publishing industry. It was to write about a guy with a crappy job who’s questioning his purpose in life. In doing so, I hold up a few institutions and gently poke them, but I honestly don’t think I’ve poked fun at anything that can’t take it. Oh, and I’ve gotten pretty good at building bookcases these past few years, so if the whole writing thing dries up as a result of some serious miscalculation on my part, I’ve got a fallback plan.

Humor again plays a part in your work, deployed most effectively as a way to deflate some of the odd inner workings of the Workshop and the publishing world. As a graduate of the Workshop and someone dependent to an extent on the publishing world, did you worry about biting the hand that feeds, and did that lead you to temper things at any point? Did the humor let you get away with more than you might have otherwise?

Humor lets you get away with a lot. In both satiric novels – After the Workshop and America’s Report Card – I’ve had to trim back places where it seemed too rant-like. In After the Workshop, I tried to leave no stone unturned. I wanted it all in there. But what happens is that the first draft had passages that were too essay-like, passages that lacked humor and didn’t do anything to service the story or the characters, and so those had to go. As for biting the hand that feeds me…no, I’m not worried about that. I never tempered anything in the book for that reason.

You mentioned the last time we did one of these Q&As that your next book would be your Gravity's Rainbow. Is this that, or did this pop up in the middle? And to that end, when you start something, do you finish it or do you let the heat of inspiration pull you in a different direction when a new idea surfaces, no matter what it might interrupt?

I said that? Yeah; well…my problem is that I work on too many things at once. There’s a long, complicated novel that I’m working on, but when the idea for this novel was presented to me (I was having a conversation with my then-agent, telling her about my days as a media escort, and she said, “You should write that book.”), I sat down and wrote a few pages to see if there was anything there, but once I started writing, I didn’t stop until I was done. (Well, okay, I did stop to sleep and eat, but I kept knocking out a few pages a day.) With this book in the bag, I returned to the big novel again, but I’ve since had an idea for a short novel, so that’s what I’m working on right now. It’s unlike anything I’ve written, and I’m having a great time with it, so I want to keep going with it to see what happens.

Your next book is The Creative Writer's Survival Guide: Advice from an Unrepentant Novelist. You have taught writing for years. Was the act of writing down your thoughts and ideas illuminating at all? Did the process of organizing potentially disparate notions cause you to rethink any long-held beliefs?

What it illuminated was just how damned hard it is to write a nonfiction book. I walked away with an even greater respect for nonfiction writers, for whom I already had enormous respect. I’m not sure it made me rethink any long-held beliefs, though. It’s a highly opinionated book, and after spending 27 years in academia as either a student or a teacher, and almost as long writing and sending work to magazines while writing books, I’ve formed a lot of opinions. The book does come with this warning: “You may not agree with me.” At some point down the road, I’ll probably update the book, and I suspect some of my opinions will have changed in the interim, so I’m looking at it as an amorphous project, and I’m granting myself permission to disagree with myself when the time comes.

Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous takes own life

2010-03-07T21:04:00.000-06:00

You'll read plenty of tributes, analysis and speculation about Mark Linkous' suicide today. I'll leave that to others. What it made me do, I'm sad to say, was pull out his music for the first time in a long time. Save for a couple of spins through his Danger Mouse collaboration, Dark Night of the Soul (prescient title now, that) last year, I haven't sought out Sparklehorse music in a long time. I would put Linkous' music in the "to be admired more than listened to" category along with many others. I appreciated his artistry, but I was rarely in the mood for it.

I came across Linkous' music early and incongruously. He was the guitarist and songwriter for Dancing Hoods, a New York foursome that trafficked in college rock (for you young'uns, that's what we called indie before it was called alternative). The band appeared on one of my favorite MTV shows of the mid-1980s, "I.R.S.'s the Cutting Edge," hosted by the Fleshtones' Peter Zaremba. Johnette Napolitano came out and sang with them (this was loooong before the schmaltz of "Joey"... before Concrete Blonde had a record out, I believe). It wasn't bad, a step up from bar band flannel rock. A couple of weeks later, perusing the used CDs in a Des Moines record store, I came across Hallelujah Anyway, the Dancing Hoods' second album. A huge sticker on the cover touted it as the first CD picture disc. That's a laughable concept now, but at the time, the few CDs in circulation (this was 1988) all looked alike, with black letters on silver discs, and that coupled with that MTV appearance was enough to convince me to part with $5.

That marketing ploy obviously tanked with everyone but me, as the band split up not long after. Several years later I heard about Sparklehorse, connecting it with the Dancing Hoods (Linkous' name is rather notable). It was a shock to hear such different music coming from the same guy. I liked some of vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, but rarely listened to it. Same for Good Morning, Spider, his second album. After that, I would acknowledge but not pursue his new releases.

I saw Sparklehorse open for someone around the time of Good Morning, Spider. It was a good set, though predictably melancholy. There have been times in my life where I have looked to music as a way to sooth the soul, seeking the sounds of someone who has it worse than me. But usually I'm looking for uplift, and Linkous rarely offered that.

Now, he's gone, and people will parse his music looking for cues that signaled what was to come. There seems to be plenty of fodder there. But regardless of what he was saying, his music spoke to a lot of people, and they'll always have that. I rarely needed it, but it was always nice to know it was there when I did.

Stroke: Songs for Chris Knox out on CD now

2010-02-24T15:06:00.002-06:00

Having had the pleasure of listening to the digital version of Merge Records' Stroke: Songs for Chris Knox for the past two months, I was pleasantly surprised to see the 2-CD set show up in the mailbox this week. I had forgotten that it was coming.

For those who have missed the boat thus far, pick this up. If you're a fan of Kiwi rock or American indie rock, you'll find much to like here. If you're a Knox fan, it's a no-brainer. Even if the music wasn't great, it's for a great cause: Helping Knox to recover from a June 11, 2009 stroke that left him debilitated.

Knox is a gifted songwriter who seems intent most of all on entertaining himself. His songs are concise, biting, darkly humorous, goofy and extremely catchy. The most-successful artists on this set use that as a launching point, putting their own stamp on the tune. These are kindred spirits, if not in sound, than certainly in soul. Jeff Magnum, Yo La Tengo, Mountain Goats, Lambchop... it's an impressive set.

Pitchfork had a nice feature with Knox this week where they asked what he listened to at five-year intervals in his life. With the help of the Straightjacket Fits' Shayne Carter, he offers energetic affirmations of artists like the Beatles, Robert Wyatt, Neutral Milk Hotel and Beck.

Block goes digital: New and rare on the way

2010-02-23T15:14:00.003-06:00

I haven't sprung for a Kindle, and don't foresee doing so anytime soon, but if I do, it will be because it will soon be cheaper to do so than to track down insanely expensive out-of-print Lawrence Block books.

Block reports in his latest newsletter that he is continuing to add to his bursting virtual bookshelf at the Kindle store with some hard-to-find titles.

"(I) could never tell whether it would ever amount to much," he writes of e-books. "Well, it’s amounting to more every day, and it’s starting to look like the future of publishing. (If publishing has a future . . .)"

All of his HarperCollins titles are available in all e-book formats, as well as his Hard Case Crime books and out-of-print curiosities like Cinderella Sims, The Specialists, No Score, Random Walk, Ronald Rabbit is a Dirty Old Man, a couple of his "Speaking of..." novellas and even a new Keller story, "Keller in Dallas."

One interesting Kindle-only release collects the introductions and afterwords he has written for his own books and those of others, creatively titled Introducing Myself and Others. It includes introductions he wrote for his own work, for anthologies he edited and for the work of others.

Most tantalizing is his next promise: "There’s a lot more coming as soon as I get the books scanned, including the rest of the Chip Harrison titles, all the Jill Emerson and Paul Kavanagh titles, and, oh, lots of stuff."

Some of this stuff is rare and pricey, so perhaps a Kindle isn't such a bad idea. In the meantime, you can download a Kindle desktop program for your iPhone, Mac or PC. It looks to duplicate the Kindle experience, though it lacks the device's portability. For new and rare Block, I'm willing to stare at my computer screen for a couple more hours after work.

Block also announced that three good old fashioned books are soon due under his name. There is Campus Tramp, a book he wrote as Andrew Shaw while still in college. It will be issued in trade paperback by Creeping Hemlock Press. Another is Hellcats & Honey Girls, a triple volume of early erotic novels written with Donald E. Westlake due from Subterranean Press.

Most importantly, is a new book, Between Drinks. Block shares few details; well, one really -- "it takes place in 1982-3, and for the moment that’s all I’m able to tell you."

Monday Interview: Craig McDonald

2010-02-22T20:42:00.004-06:00

For some reason, I never got around to reading Craig McDonald's second novel, Toros & Torsos. In a way it was a fortuitous oversight, because it meant that I got to spend the last 10 days completely absorbed in the world of Hector Lassiter, reading that and McDonald's third, Print the Legend, back to back. 600-plus pages later, my only regret is that there aren't 600 more... yet.

Anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time has probably already read a Q&A with McDonald. He's the Monday Interview record holder (sorry, Craig, there is no cash prize), having assented to answer four batches of questions. Each time, I learn something new: McDonald knows a hell of a lot more about books and literature than I do.

Print the Legend is the third of seven books to follow Lassiter, a pulp and crime fiction writer who is chums with Ernest Hemingway. In Toros & Torsos, the two get wrapped up in a series of murders that are tied to the surrealist art movement. In Print the Legend, which picks up where T&T ends, it is five years after Hemingway killed himself, and Lassiter is in Idaho looking into some questions about Papa's remaining unpublished work. This is a crime story, however, so there is plenty of intrigue and action along the way.

The genius of these books is that McDonald has created a perfectly believable world in which Lassiter interacts with real people, reacting to actual events (and occasionally bringing them about), and does so in such a way that he doesn't affect what truly took place. He does so with impeccably researched details that add to the verisimilitude without intruding on the story. It's intriguing to read about Hemingway (and I learned more about the man here than in any textbook), but the story would be just as compelling if it were about a fictional character.

There are four more Lassiter books to come, though they follow no chronological order (the nice segue from T&T to PTL was thanks to a new editor at a new publisher), so we'll continue to learn bits and pieces about Lassiter's life as we read.

The only downside is knowing that McDonald has plenty of other work that must wait years to see publication.

To read about McDonald's first author interview collection, Art in the Blood, click here.
To read about McDonald's first novel, Head Games, click here.
To read about McDonald's second author interview collection, Rogue Males, click here.

You've obviously fully absorbed Hemingway's work and done considerable research on the man. But writing in his voice is still quite a challenge. How did that work, and did you get it right the first time?

It’s really up to the reader as to whether I pulled off writing a lost chapter of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, or in drafting Hemingway’s alleged suicide note. In terms of the actual writing of the “lost chapter,” I reread Hemingway’s Feast, then wrote the chapter in a single sitting without very much revision. The suicide note was also written in a single pass.

I think if I’d really gone over and over those pieces, they might have come out as over-thought…over-cooked. Hem’s voice in his letters, which I used to write Hem’s dialogue in my novels, is pretty far away from Hem’s formal fiction prose, so I shot for that tone in the suicide note. Feast had a narrative voice all its own…longer, more interior…not so laconic and stripped down as the prose style most think of when they think of Hemingway’s writing. So I think trying to capture that voice from the memoir, you’re less apt to veer into something that might come across as a contender for the annual Bad Hemingway writing contest.

You have several books in the Lassiter series ready to go. Are you continuing to tweak them? Do you plan to bring all of them out before anything else, and if so, are you building a backlog of work that will eventually see publication when this series is done?

Every once in a while, I’ll make a trip through one of the unpublished books, or lay in a sentence or two. Some of that is driven by new stuff introduced in the editing process…some from just having the books around for so long that I have the luxury of continuing to bind them tightly together. As to when they get published, and in what order, much of that is in the hands of acquiring editors. The editor who brought me over to Macmillan left there just before Print the Legend launched. Together we edited what I expect to be the next novel, Roll the Credits, just before he went on to Little Brown. So at the moment, I’m not certain what might happen next. It’s truly out of my hands.

You've said that the order of the books was changed when you moved to St. Martin's. That makes the most recent two -- Toros & Torsos and Print the Legend work well chronologically. Why was that not the plan before, and how does this reshuffling affect the overall story arc in your eyes?

My original notion was to ease readers into Print the Legend, whose tone is very different from any of the other novels and a world apart from that of Head Games, particularly. No question, Print seems to come right off the end of Toros & Torsos.

But my original plan was to follow Toros with what might be my favorite in the series, a Hector novel set in Paris in one week in 1924 and tied to a nihilistic religious cult and the whole mystique of the Lost Generation. It was my notion, early in the series, to see Hector and Hemingway together in Paris as unknowns before going into the twilight scenes of Print the Legend. Now, what we’re most likely going to end up with, largely, is a sequence of novels with a twenty-something Hector.

There seems to be some playful self-deprecation here in your treatment of the literary scholar Richard early on, with his pursuit of all things Hemingway somewhat mirroring what a reader imagines you have done, to some extent, in your own pursuit of the man. Was this a knowing admission?

Again, that’s probably a call for others to make. I didn’t really see myself as pursuing Hemingway in the way Richard Paulson, Hemingway scholar, does. Richard’s wife, Hannah, indicates Richard tends to go at the surface aura of the man…the houses, the places and bars…the kind of iconic clutter around Hemingway, without really grasping the essence of the writer or of the writings. I’m much more interested in Hemingway as writer and flawed literary innovator. His swaggering, larger-than-life mystique doesn’t entice me. For Richard, on the other hand, well, that’s all he sees.

How is it different writing a character who actually lived vs. one like Lassiter who is entirely fictional?

In a funny, or even unsettling way, Hector ceased to be a fictional character for me some time ago. I put together such a detailed biography and chronology for the character at my first editor’s insistence, that I came to approach him as a living or historical figure and feel an obligation to be as true to Hector’s biography as I am in writing Hemingway, or Dos Passos, or Orson Welles.

Your Lassiter series is historical in nature. Do you foresee yourself ever writing something thoroughly modern in terms of setting?

I’ve got several manuscripts that would fit that description. Some are out there now, being shopped. One or two haven’t really been pushed in that way. You do tend to get typed and I think for the moment, I’m the “historical thriller” guy. For a time, after the interview book Rogue Males was released, I was kind of threatened with being perceived as a nonfiction writer, which is not the way I want to be typed… another reason why I’m very resistant to the possibility of anymore interview books. They tend to muddy the marketing waters, in a dangerous way, and sad to say, in this current milieu, writers have to really be cognizant and protective of “brand.”

Hector bristles at the tag "mystery writer," preferring that his books be labeled "crime fiction." Do you share similar thoughts? What do you make of the ongoing debate over the merits of genre and the general classification of books?

I’m getting that question a lot for some reason… perhaps because Print the Legend takes on that subject full bore. To the first part of your question, I view myself as “a storyteller,” without any qualifiers. My first two novels were sub-headed, “A Novel.” The first cover mock-up of Print the Legend said “A Mystery” and I pitched a fit. We settled on “A Crime Novel,” for Print’s cover.

For my part, I think the tag “mystery” embodies certain expectations on the part of readers… expectations my books do not and never will fulfill. It’s a matter of honest advertising, in that sense. In terms of Hector’s own resistance to the term, when he was writing, “mystery” was a kind of repugnant or dismissive term if you look at most of the writing being done in genre. Hector also went to Paris in the 1920s to be a literary writer in the vein of a Hemingway. But Hector got typed early as a crime writer more in the Chandler/Hammett vein than Christie and company. We see in Print he eventually took radical steps to shrug off that label. The next novel, Roll the Credits, will make more explicit how far Hector went to reinvent himself in the late-1960s.

As to the bigger and perennial literary vs. genre debate, I’ll only observe that you see a lot of literary writers big-footing into the genre pond these days, but no genre writers running the other way. Maybe that’s because “literary fiction” has come to be a term associated with novels unpopulated by compelling characters and devoid of enticing stories… these too-often arid, shrug inducing tomes that are just death to anyone who cares about story.

It takes no more than two: Chicago Underground Duo

2010-02-19T09:29:00.004-06:00

Lest you think a band with a cornet player and a drummer can't fully fill a room with glorious sound, the Chicago Underground Duo seems hell-bent on proving the opposite. At a show last night in Iowa City, Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor went from hushed to cacophonous, playing a spirited set of forward-looking jazz that suffered nothing for the lack of bandmates.

Live jazz is a rare occurrence in Iowa City, so the chance to catch an avant garde act like this was a treat (of course, wouldn't you know it, drummer Matt Wilson had a group down the street on the same night... feast or famine). The duo didn't disappoint. Mazurek stuck to cornet, altering his sound with a variety of mutes, and augmented that with a handful of samples that added some depth to the duo's sound. Taylor played a variety of percussion instruments, including vibes, which gave the songs an added melodic component.

Things started quietly, with Mazurek playing a muted horn off-mic and Taylor on vibes, but after that exploratory, opening number, the two caught fire, with Mazurek playing a flurry of furious notes while Taylor laid down a manic beat, his arms a blur as they flew around his kit.
Most impressive was his ability to hit the right note on the vibes while still maintaining a rather frenzied pace on the drums.

Through a compact but varied hour-long set, the two showed how much territory can be explored when music is stripped to the essentials. While the pair performs and records with others under various Chicago Underground nomenclature, they are more than capable of captivating on their own.

For a taste of what the duo can do, pick up their new CD, Boca Negra, on Thrill Jockey.

Openers Koplant No did a nice job of setting the stage, blending electronic sounds and jazz blowing to create something that seemed intent on fusing mid-period Radiohead with post-hard bop-pre-fusion jazz. Led by Joel Vanderheyden on saxophone, the quarter found the groove often, allowing its experimental side to color, but rarely overpower, the jazz at the core of the tunes.

St. Vincent offers captivating set

2010-02-17T21:57:00.003-06:00

Listening to St. Vincent perform Tuesday night in Iowa City, I couldn't help but think of Taylor Swift. Both are young women in the music business, but the comparison stops there. Annie Clark, who performs as St. Vincent, is wildly talented, with an angelic voice, serious guitar chops and considerable songwriting skills. In contrast, Swift, if reports are to be believed, can't carry a tune, but has handlers who are able to cloak those deficiencies in pleasing arrangements of powerful pop songs (I haven't knowingly heard a note of her music, so I'll take the critics' word on that one).

So, why did I think of one while watching the other? It's that tired music critic trope: "In a perfect world, artist X would be a star," the laziest of reviews always begin. I don't know that the world will need to be perfect for Clark to be a star; she seems on the cusp already, and has arrived there seemingly without compromise. Yes, her songs have just enough edge to keep the indie kids in perpetual swoon, and just enough polish and soft edges to keep the attention of the more adventurous soccer moms when they come on NPR in the minivan, but it never feels calculated.

When standing at Tuesday's show, I thought the same thing of Clark that I've long thought about Neko Case: I wonder what would happen if she completely sold out for one album, went to Nashville (or in the case of Clark, Hollywood) and turned herself over to the hitmaking machine. Both are too talented, ambitious and feisty (no pun intended there, though that's another, less likely example, one supposes) to ever do so, but the prospect is intriguing nonetheless.

Case has proven that following her own path is working, and Clark seems to be taking a similar, parallel journey. The show was good, at times great, as she injected a bit of drama into already solid songs from her latest album, Actor. The set-up made it clear that this would not be a typical indie rock show. While she held down the front of the stage on vocals and guitar, the musicians surrounding her played flute, saxophone, violin, cheesy 80s keyboards and electronic drums. The whole works on album, and did so here (despite my feeling at times like the manufactured nature of the music could stand an organic kick in the pants from more traditional instruments).

It's probably demeaning to suggest that Clark's appeal stems in part from the fact that she's quite comely and, as evidenced by her stage banter, enchantingly charming. That seems to have gotten Swift's shaky pipes to the top of the charts, but for Clark, it's the bow on top of an already incredibly appealing package. Her songs, guitar playing and singing are what hook you, and while you might not mind gazing at her doe-eyed visage while spinning the disc, it won't be the reason you picked it up in the first place.

The show proved that her albums are no fluke, which only made me pine more for what comes next. Actor and its predecessor, Marry Me, are awfully good. All evidence suggests the next one could be tremendous.

To see what the fuss is about, watch her appearance last week on KCRW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic:"

Monday Interview: Steve Hamilton

2010-02-15T13:56:00.003-06:00

After reading Steve Hamilton's first novel, A Cold Day in Paradise, it didn't take me long to zip through the rest of his seven Alex McKnight novels. The last time I was this captivated by an author and his main protagonist, Michael Connelly was hooking me with his Harry Bosch books.

There are a few similarities there: A police background, a loner who pushes people away and a keen mind that is adept at solving crimes. There are similarities in the writers, too, in that both write extremely well about characters yet don't let that get in the way of deftly plotted stories. Theirs are the kinds of books that reveal the whole "style over substance" argument as it relates to crime fiction a sham.

If Hamilton's new novel is any indication, he and Connelly are soon to share another trait: successful novelists who are able to weave together a career alternating between series books and top-notch stand-alones. Connelly has proven adept at the practice, and Hamilton, with The Lock Artist, proves he is more than up to the task.

Instead of McKnight, a former pro baseball player and cop who now lives in a cabin in the remote Upper Peninsula of Michigan, we get Michael, someone once know as "the miracle boy" who now is a talented lock picker and safecracker. He is unlucky enough to show off his skills in the wrong company, and now he is forced into a life of crime. Further complicating things is that that "miracle" event left him unable to speak, so the best way he can communicate is through his detailed, skillful drawings. (If you want more than that, look around the web. Hamilton plays with time here, so to give away much more is to give away too much).

With this book, Hamilton has stepped up his game. Though the McKnight books are awfully good, The Lock Artist is the best thing he has done, a cleverly plotted, sophisticated story full of rich, well-drawn characters that leap off of the page. It should be a career-defining book, sating the appetites of patient fans pining for the next McKnight book, and drawing in many more who have been oblivious to this top-flight talent.

TIRBD: From a reader's perspective, The Lock Artist is a book that clearly takes your writing to another level and is quite different in almost every aspect from the McKnight books. Does it feel that way from your perspective, and what signifies the differences for you?

SH: It does feel a lot different, yes. It’s a younger character, and the overall feeling in the book ties in a lot more closely to things I’ve felt in my own life. Not so much the lockpicking and safecracking, obviously, but the feeling of alienation and loneliness. With Michael, that feeling is a lot more dramatic, but otherwise the whole story could be like a strange dream version of my own teenage years.

You mention that writing Michael allowed you to write about alienation and loneliness. But Alex McKnight certainly deals with both of those things, too. How was this different?

I suppose you could do some psychoanalysis on me and find out why that's such a recurrent theme – but in this new book those feelings hit a lot closer to home for me. Alex has his own brand of solitude, of course, but he was a good 10 years older than me when I first started writing about him (funny how I seem to be catching up to him now), and he'd already been through a career as a cop, a divorce, and a lot of other things that I can only imagine. In Michael's case, he's 17 and his life hasn't even started yet. So, that's something I could definitely relate to, looking back at that same point in my own life.

The book is quite specific in its detail about how to pick locks and crack safes, and has the feel of being more than a recitation of research. Did you try your hand at these things to get a feel for them and better your descriptions of the act?

I was fortunate enough to work with a lock expert – somebody who knows a lot about lockpicking and even more so about opening those $5 combination locks you see on every gym locker. (Very easy to open, it turns out.) I also found a gentleman who happens to be one of the best safecrackers in the world. He was incredibly kind and generous in helping me to understand what it feels like to open a huge, 800-pound safe. (He’s not a criminal, by the way! He’s a legal safecracker and that’s the only thing he does, every single day.)

Is technology getting to the point where a book like this might one day be historical fiction because everything will be electronic and skills like these will be dated?

Apparently (and don’t quote me on this), the electronic safes are fairly easy to crack if you have a special computer that can transmit the different codes at a high speed. There’s something about a good old-fashioned metal combination dial that people just naturally trust. I don’t think that’ll change for quite a while.

I would imagine that the character of Mike evolved for you as layers were added: young kid who suffered a tragedy and can now pick locks and can't speak and is a great artist... did you worry at any point that you'd gone perhaps one step too far in giving Mike things to deal with, or did all of these seem vital from the start in terms of telling the story you wanted to tell?

It all started with the fascination with locks, and how that tied back to this thing that had happened to him. The muteness literally didn’t occur to me until I got to his first line of dialogue. Then it was just like, No, he’s not going to talk! That’s going to be the thing he has to deal with, every moment of every day. The talent with art followed after that, because without speaking he needs some way to impress a girl, right? Otherwise, it’s hopeless.

You set up an interesting premise that is fairly unique in crime and mystery fiction: the protagonist who is forced to use his skills in criminal pursuits. How does it change the dynamics of a crime story when there isn't the clear cut choice between doing right or wrong?

Mike does know it’s wrong, of course, but he does it anyway, because it’s essentially the best choice he has. Although the first time was clearly a mistake, letting himself get roped into this seemingly innocent thing, because he succumbs to the basic idea of finally being popular at school. Eventually, he’s on the edge of becoming a full-fledged criminal, but at that point it’s just about impossible to turn back. He does it for what he sees as a perfectly justifiable reason – to protect the one person he’s ever loved.

You mention on your web site that you're back at work on another McKnight book. Does that process feel different now that you've been away for two books? Do you bring anything to it this time out that you learned from writing those other books that you might not have otherwise?

That was the idea. Take some time away from the series, recharge my batteries, become a better writer. (And never, ever get to the point where you’re just mailing it in!) I didn’t plan on doing two books outside the series – this new one just sort of got in my head and wouldn’t leave – but I’m glad it all turned out that way. Now that I’m back to work on the next Alex McKnight book, it all feels new again.

Given the success of The Lock Artist, do you foresee a new schedule that finds you alternating between series and non-series books like Michael Connelly, Laura Lippman and many others now do?

Absolutely yes. I’ll keep doing new and different things, and I’ll keep going back. (As long as people are reading the books, anyway.)

What is the status of the various film projects associated with your McKnight books?

I’ve been working (and reworking and reworking) on the “Cold Day” screenplay with Nick Childs – the director I worked with on “The Shovel.” He hopes to get that off the ground this year. Actually, this new book might get adapted first! There’s been some real interest, and talks are ongoing, as they say. Just think about it – some young actor gets to be in every scene, without ever having a line of dialogue! Talk about a breakout role, eh?

Brian Dolzani's sweet smooth sounds

2010-02-10T09:21:00.004-06:00

When I first heard Brian Dolzani's new self-titled disc, my first thoughts weren't about the music, but about the chutzpah of the artist. Sure, we're in a time when a catchy tune on a MySpace page can help to break someone out and into the mainstream, but it still takes ambition and a healthy self-worth to record a CD and self-release it out into the world.

When I learned that this was his fifth CD, all of the above thoughts were amplified. The Connecticut singer-songwriter has obviously been plugging away at this for a while, and at first I felt sorry for the guy. Banging your head against the wall for that long can't be pleasant. But a quick listen to clips from his earlier albums shows that rather than an exercise in futility, his work over the past few years has been an effort at improvement. His sound hasn't changed, but his songs are deeper, stronger. With the benefit of moving out of the basement and into a studio, the recording is more befitting of this improving acumen.

The result is a disc of pleasant acoustic pop-rock. It's the kind of thing that is tailor-made for Starbucks compilation CDs, and as such, isn't usually my cup of tea. But there is something insistent in Dolzani's music that won me over. Tracks like "Summer," with its insistent melody and warm production are inviting, while subtle touches like the Middle Eastern feel of violin on "Water" elevate the songs and make them more than they first appear.

Musically, Dolzani is likened to Jack Johnson, Josh Rouse and John Mayer. None are perfect comparison, but there are elements of all in there. Vocally, he reminds me most of the dB's Peter Holsapple, a nasal whine that shouldn't work, but does.

Dolzani is earning accolades for the disc, and rightly so.

Iowa poet Robert Dana dies

2010-02-09T11:37:00.003-06:00

Former Iowa poet laureate Robert Dana died this weekend. The 80-year-old Dana had been battling pancreatic cancer. Still, he was writing up until the end. His most recent book, The Other, came out in 2009, and despite dealing with writer's block after its release, he was still working.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Dana at his Coralville home in early 2009 for an article about the release of that book. As I wrote, you can stand at the back window of Dana's home, look into the ravine that serves as his backyard, and see the subject matter of many of his poems.

“People are surprised — it’s all right there,” Dana told me. “The longer you live in a place, the more it feeds you. The more it shows you what’s there.”

He knew Iowa, and documented it as well as any other poet, of his generation or any other. His contributions to poetry, and to the state, were invaluable. He taught at Cornell College in Mount Vernon for 40 years, and resurrected the North American Review literary journal.

Thanks to his generosity, I have gathered a small library of his work, and enjoyed watching as he evolved late in life from formal verse to freer, more playful (and, frankly, incisive) forms. The next I'll acquire is New & Selected Poems: 1955 to 2010 from Anhinga Press. It's about time Dana's work has been collected, and it will serve as a fitting tribute to a poet who never stopped reaching.

“I don’t want to be a poet who repeats himself. It’s another reason I keep moving on, lighting out for the territory,” he said last year. “What do you do when you run out of territory?”

Monday Interview: Franklin Bruno

2010-02-08T08:41:00.002-06:00

I first heard Franklin Bruno when I picked up an album from his band Nothing Painted Blue (ØPB). I'm not sure what led me to the purchase; perhaps a good review in a fanzine or simply the visual appeal of the album cover, but it was a fortuitous purchase. A Baby, A Blanket, a Packet of Seeds started what has been a 20-year streak of dependably outstanding releases.

My look back was precipitated by Bruno's own. He just released a collection of his solo odds and ends from 1992-98, dubbed Local Currency. Listening to all of these songs in one place rather than on the scattered pieces of vinyl or compilation albums, I'm struck not by the consistency, but rather by the variety. While there are plenty of pop gems like those Bruno has sprinkled throughout his career, I had forgotten the noisy, more obtuse experiments. Just when you think you have a guy pegged, he surprises you.

This trip down memory lane had me pulling out a lot of Bruno's back catalog, and I was glad for the excuse. Too long had elapsed since I had spun some of the earliest ØPB releases, and they deserve to be back in rotation. The band broke no new ground musically, but the territory it traversed it did very well, melding a very slight punk attitude (though more in the "let's make our own records" vein than anything sonically) with pop smarts and the most erudite lyrics around. Bruno cites the Go-Betweens as an influence, and I'd bet that Stephen Malkmus would cite Bruno and ØPB as one, too.

It has been difficult to keep up with Bruno's output, released as it has been on albums, 7" singles, cassettes (long live Shrimper!) and various compilations. Thankfully, Local Currency helps to fill in some gaps and makes listening to some of his less readily available work note quite so arduous. In addition to his work with ØPB and his solo recordings, he has worked with the Mountain Goats' John Darnielle as the Extra Glenns (whose lone disc, Martial Arts Weekend is superb) and with Jenny Toomey (of Tsunami, et al) on the disc Tempting. A new group, Human Hearts issued the disc Civics on Chicago's Tight Ship Records a couple of years back as well.

In addition to the music, Bruno is an accomplished academic and an insightful music critic. He has kept a handful of blogs, Nervous Unto Thirst being the latest (his recent look at Brad Paisley's "American Saturday Night" shows you how entertaining the reports from an enlightened critical ear can be). He has written for many publications, including the Believer, which in its November/December 2009 issue published a great interview Bruno conducted with musician/artist Peter Blegvad. He wrote a book on Elvis Costello's Armed Forces for Continuum's 33 1/3 series and, in the first thing I read that showed me his talents beyond music, he wrote a scathingly funny (and spot-on) review of the horrid indie rock novel Our Noise that ran in Matador Record's shortlived newsletter, Escandalo!

Bruno reports below that there is more in the works. So, catch up with Local Currency, then get ready to dive back in.

TIRBD: Any surprises or revelations when you heard all of the material gathered on Local Currency?

FB: I always had in my head that that group of songs -- especially the one on my first 3 7"s -- were a kind of album-by-other-means. (That's part of the reason there were four or five short songs per single/EP.) So I knew that they would hang together, somehow. That said, on going back to the original recordings, I was surprised that so many of them include some "experimental" element, whether it be low-rent sound collage or some kind of noisy intrusion (or alongside) these formally tidy little songs. I guess my ideas about recording were a little stranger than I realized at the time. Beyond that, I'm pleasantly surprised that some of my guitar playing still seems interesting, to me at least, and less happy to find that I could have taken more care over the vocals. I shouldn't apologize too much -- that diffident attitude towards getting certain things "right" could also be heard as a kind of immediacy. Either way, that approach was part and parcel of the '90s indie scene. Also, since I've been playing some of these songs live again for the first time in many years, I'm relieved that some of them stand up -- with a rhythm section, "Cat-Scratch Fever" (not a Nugent cover) has turned into a full-on Smiths pastiche.

Any thought of putting out more of your hard-to-find material on CD or digitally? Your Shrimper cassettes and the first Nothing Painted Blue LP in particular...

I'm more interested in my current projects (see your later question), so it isn't a priority. There are also practical problems: I've never been a good archivist, and there may not be "master" versions of the material from the Shrimper tapes, in particular, that would merit digital release without a lot of clean-up work. We still have the half-inch masters and multi-track tapes for the first ØPB album (all-analog as matter of necessity, not ideology), but that record was pretty under-realized owing to our lack of studio experience. It's a document of where we, and I, started, but I'm not sure I'd make people spend money to hear it. (The other side of this is that I don't object if that material is distributed, ahem, unofficially.) All that said, there's probably a CDs worth of post-Emotional Discipline ØPB singles/compilation tracks/unmixed songs dropped from other records that I wouldn't mind assembling at some point -- we were fairly prolific in out day, and there are some buried songs that (perhaps) deserve a wider hearing.

I've always found your music criticism and analysis fascinating but I wonder, does the penchant for thinking so deeply about music have an adverse effect on your ability to listen for pleasure? Can you turn it off?

I don't find that it's a matter of "turning it off." I don't experience myself as having any trouble marveling at the music that I love, whether that's realized in composition (songwriting) or performance or both, and I think it's possible that my analytical side opens me to an appreciation of craft and structure, which I think have as much aesthetic potential as, say, "intensity." (I suppose I'm often looking for the place where mere craft and skill transcend themselves, if that makes any sense.) Generally, I've never held with the idea that critical analysis "destroys" what's valuable in aesthetic experience. First of all, I'm not sure what the metaphor is supposed to convey. I mean, what's there is still there whether someone purports to account for it or not, so I don't see what's actually "destroyed." And also, if you truly believe that there's something genuinely ineffable or inexpressible about how a piece of music (or poetry or film or what have you) works, then all the language in the world won't touch that. (I'm sorry if this is the kind of "intellectual" sounding answer that people might expect from me, but there you go. Trust me, this answer could be longer.) On the other hand, having been around for a while does probably make it harder for me to be enthusiastic about some new bands -- a revival of some style (neo-psych-folk or angular dance-rock or whatever) is less exciting when you were around for what's being revived. (Though there are always individual remarkable exceptions.) None of that is a function of being a critic as such -- it's just a matter of age.

Do you put the same thought into your own music, or rather, do you become your own harshest critic? Does that ever limit what you are willing to release?

These are tough questions, John. Given some of what I've seen written about myself, I'm pretty sure I'm not my own harshest critic! And, while I'm certainly aware of the failures of craft or execution on just about everything I've released, I can't believe that most artists don't feel the same way, and what I find dissatisfying in my own work is probably not the same as what outside listeners, critically inclined or not, might find lacking. As for "thought," I do sometimes have critical or mildly theoretical ideas that guide a particular recording. For example, on the Human Hearts album I'm working on now, I've decided not to use any strings (even though I'm friends with some wonderful players and arrangers), as a kind of push-back against the tendency in indiedom to use "orchestral" instruments as a signal that something is to be taken more seriously than a "mere" rock band. (I find the implied hierarchy here a bit undemocratic, or undemotic -- even though I have this rep as "brainy" or "quirky" or whatever, I'm still much more interested in music that retains some tie to vernacular traditions.) I could go on (I'm more interested in horns), but it's just an example.

I do think that being a critic, or at least trying to be a widely-informed listener, does make it harder to be a "true believer" about one's own music. When you're, say, 20 and involved in a tight-knit local scene, as I was, it's easy to have the conviction that you and your friends have found the way, and to reject other possibilities out of hand. (Consider the asceticism of Fugazi, which wouldn't really be possible if they had been "open-minded.")

Lastly, while I certainly drop songs or recordings for various reasons (like, they suck, or they're too evidently derivative), I'm not a perfectionist -- no one working in any artistic medium who actually intends to put something into the world more than once a decade can afford to be. (Okay, I'm a perfectionist, or nearly so, about one thing -- though it works when the Minutemen or Stereolab do it, I mostly can't abide lyrics that violently distort the conventional syllabic stress of a word in order to fit a melody, and avoid this at all costs.)

Are the people in the academia side of your life aware of your musical career (and vice versa) and what is the reaction from those who are?

My sense is that the criticism and journalism puzzles academics more than the music does. And I suspect other musicians may not care one way or another what I do outside of that realm. But, ultimately, you'd have to ask them.

Your entry in Continuum's 33 1/3 series is on Elvis Costello's Armed Forces. Could you imagine a book-length look at one of your own releases, and if so, what might be the approach?

It would be flattering, but I'm too close to the records to imagine how (or why) someone would do this. What made it possible for me to do the EC book was my interest in connecting the record to the political context of its moment (Rock Against Racism, the National Front, the run-up to Thatcherism) and some of its deeper roots in earlier British fascist movements, and also as a way of working through - though not to any kind of final conclusion - some of the thorny issues around, well, rock and race, using the so-called "Columbus incident" and EC's subsequent career as a case study. I hope all that gives the book a richness that wouldn't be there if it were all just formal commentary on the song-structures and performances. It's not clear that any of my records could be convincingly tied to their social context in a similar way -- but then again, it's not clear that they couldn't. From my own perspective, the second Nothing Painted Blue album, Power Trips Down Lovers Lane, was very much affected by being in Southern California at the time of the uprising following the Rodney King case, and by reading Situationist polemic (especially Raoul Vaneigem on the earlier Watts riots -- he's quoted on the back of the "Swivelchair" sleeve) while watching the riots go down. (I recognize that it's perverse to filter all that through a musical vocabulary that rests more on the dB's and the Go-Betweens than on, say, Public Enemy.) And then those concerns were connected in vaguer ways to ideas about architecture, the suburbs, and my own experiences doing white-collar temp work. (And, yes, all of these things recur on later records.) But how someone should go about writing about these connections, or how they relate to their musical realizations, isn't for me to say.

What is the status of your various projects (Nothing Painted Blue, Extra Glenns, Human Hearts and your solo work)?

Nothing Painted Blue: We're all still friends, so there's never been an official breakup, but we're geographically dispersed, so there's nothing on the horizon. I've played with both Kyle and Peter separately in the last few months -- Peter is on the Human Hearts album-in-progress, and I played a duo show with Kyle in L.A. last November. Never say never.

The Human Hearts: I'm playing under this name around New York, usually with drummer Matt Houser, and whoever I can rope in for a few songs for a given show. (We've also gone to Boston and D.C.) I wouldn't mind finding a more permanent bass player, but it's intended to be more of a fluid "project" than a stable band. There will be a 7" on Fayettenam later this year, and I'm about halfway through recording a new album with various guests, which will be done when it's done. I'd say the next record after that is at least half-written already.

The Extra Glenns: John Darnielle and I have changed the name to The Extra Lens (for private reasons I won't go into), and we've finished a new album that should come out late 2010/2011. That will probably be the next thing to see the light of day. Pretty sure we'll tour a bit -- possibly just John, myself, and Peter Hughes (who's releasing his first solo record in years soon). I'm excited -- John and I sometimes manage to be more than the sum of our parts.

Solo -- Well, I still play under my own name when it's genuinely just me and a guitar, but I don't really plan to release new material "as" Franklin Bruno anymore. As much as I admire many artists who use "bandonyms" for their one-person projects, I've always felt uncomfortable with the practice, probably because I don't attempt to construct a performing persona distinct from the one I project in day-to-day life.

I should also mention two other projects: My partner/spousal equivalent/squeeze Bree Benton performs a cabaret/theater act as "Poor Baby Bree," doing vaudeville and parlor songs from the late 19th c. through the 30s, and I'm the pianist/arranger ("musical director," in theater parlance) for that. We just did our first shows with additional musicians, a fantastic violist and trombonist, and we should be doing more later in the year. Also, Jenny Toomey and I have just started talking about doing something new in the vein of Tempting -- that record had her covering some old and new songs of mine, but this one we'll probably co-write.

Patti Smith's Just Kids chronicles art's creation

2010-02-05T14:00:00.004-06:00

For any number of reasons, I'm not a big fan of memoirs. Take your pick: too much information about childhood, too little insight to leaven the recounting of exploits or tales simply too tall to be true. In the case of Patti Smith, add in the flake factor, as well as my lack of knowledge (or, I'll admit, interest) in Robert Mapplethorpe and his work, and the result is a curious but reluctant reader.

All of this is by way of saying that Smith had a considerable barrier to scale when it came to winning over this reader. But win she did. Just Kids is a fantastic, fascinating book. While the hook for most will be the recounting of Smith's relationship with Mapplethorpe -- it began as a romance and then, after Mapplethorpe discovered he was gay, an intense friendship and artistic partnership -- the way she chronicles the creation, nearly from the ground up, of two of the late-20th century's most enduring artists, is the real draw.

Smith's fans likely know some of the story already, and anyone who watched the illuminating documentary Dream of Life, has seen Smith tell some of these stories. But the bulk of this was new to me, and it was conveyed in such a clear-eyed, detailed and passionate way that it inspired at the same time it informed. Smith and Mapplethorpe were ambitious kids who had the fortune to run into each other in 1967 New York, and the tenacity to hook up with and cultivate the right people to push their dreams forward. Each ended up somewhere they didn't expect -- Smith as a rock 'n' roll star and Mapplethorpe as a revered photographer -- and without each other, it's unlikely either would have been more than a footnote.

The reader has the value of hindsight, knowing that Smith would be a star, that Mapplethorpe would die before his time from AIDS, that some of those they rubbed shoulders with would soar and others would fade. Smith knows this too, of course, but it rarely intrudes on her story. It's clear that the William Burroughs in the book is the William Burroughs, for example, but elsewhere, casually mentioned acquaintances like Janis Joplin or Sam Shepherd are rendered contemporaneously, their eventual starpower not overshadowing their pre-stardom selves.

While the focus is on Mapplethorpe, a thread running through the book is how Smith aligns herself with men that help propel her forward. There is never the sense that she is an Eliza Doolittle with a series of Henry Higginses, but rather that each man teases out something within and sends her further along her journey. It begins with Mapplethorpe, but Shepherd, Blue Oyster Cult's Allen Lanier, Todd Rundgren and others each seem to give Smith a valuable nudge.

Speaking of the men in her life, it's fitting, given that Smith writes often in the book about his influence, that her's is the best book about the creation of art since Bob Dylan's Chronicles vol. 1. Writing about the debut of the Patti Smith Group with drummer Jay Dee Daugherty, she says of learning that Dylan was at the show, "It seemed for me a night of initiation, where I had to become fully myself in the presence of the one I had modeled myself after."

In the end, the book made me want to listen to all of Smith's music, read all of her poems, look at all of her sketches and watch ever frame of film taken of her. The same goes for others in the book. I long to read Burroughs and Gregory Corso, thumb through Mapplethorpe's work and even listen to Joplin. For what Smith has done with Just Kids is to make art come alive, to give it a pulse. Hers was a life lived immersed in art. Late in the book, she writes about Mapplethorpe on his deathbed, asking, "'Patti, did art get us?' I looked away, not wanting to think about it. 'I don't know, Robert. I don't know.' Perhaps it did, but no one could regret that. Only a fool would regret being had by art."

Don't let ratings get in the way of a good listen

2010-02-04T14:17:00.004-06:00

OK, I'm going to pull together some disparate thoughts about Autechre, the Album Leaf and Midlake to make a bigger point about the validity (or lack thereof) of album reviews.

I'll start with Midlake because this whole thing started with Pitchfork's trashing of the band's new album, The Courage of Others, saying it "is a step down on songcraft, atmosphere, and apparently, even self-awareness." Writer Paul Thompson said the album "just feels so monochromatic, so flatlined, even the tiniest signs of life have no power to resuscitate."

I had heard the album early, finding a download back in December that I was eager to cue up. I liked it a lot, the songs reminding me of what I liked best about The Trials of Van Occupanter, the band's breakthrough sophomore disc. The review surprised me. I was expecting the typical fawning Pitchfork "best new music" tag, but instead found a dismissive 3.6 rating.

The review made headlines elsewhere. Stereogum commented on it, saying "Forget what you've heard: The '60s Brit folk-nodding The Courage Of Others is a beautifully downcast, pleasingly oddball trip." Of course, the only thing a Stereogum reader would have "heard" about the album was the Pitchfork review posted earlier in the day.

So, who is right? No one and everyone, of course. Music appreciation is subjective. That's clear even within the confines of Pitchfork. While one reviewer can't get past Midlake's consistency and monochromatic sound, another is willing to tolerate it in the Album Leaf. A day after the Midlake takedown, Ian Cohen gives Album Leaf's new A Chorus of Storytellers a 6.3. This despite the fact that "the beauty LaValle conjures is effortless but ultimately less impressive for not having any sort of contrast" (that's another way of saying "monochromatic, kids) and that "Album Leaf should never have to apologize for not rocking enough" (could that be something akin to "flatlined?").

Pitchfork can't even agree with itself on Midlake. Van Occupanther, the album that The Courage of Others is seen as a step down from, earned a 6.8 upon its release. Does that mean that Courage is only half as good as Van Occupanther? Of course not.

This brings me to Autechre. I have been getting into some electronica (or IDM or whatever else it's called), and have been grabbing everything the local library has in a bid to make up for a lot of lost time. I've read a lot of praise for Autechre, including comparisons between its work and that of Radiohead at its glitchiest. OK, I'm in. So, I picked up Quaristice, the band's latest album. I'll admit, the 7.5 rating on Pitchfork intrigued me. What would I give it? Maybe a 3.6. It just did nothing for me. And I can't fault anything more than the rating in Mark Richardson's review, for he was spot on: "Even while Quaristice is in some ways the most listenable album they've created in a decade, it's ultimately no easier to parse, and can be very rough going indeed if you're not in the mood for their peculiar world." Count me among those not in the mood.

So, what's the point? If you've read reviews at all, you already know it: They're the opinion of one listener, nothing more. A handful of people were disappointed by the Midlake album, giving it a negative review in part, it seems, because they expected a leap forward instead of a look back. Others of us really like it because it's more of what drew us to the group in the first place. My worry is that the negative reviews are shouted much more effectively than the praise. There is value in reviews all along the spectrum, no question. Here's hoping that people are savvy enough to take them as one input in the decision-making process and not ascribe them the power of arbiter.

Monday Interview: Joshua Ferris

2010-01-31T14:40:00.005-06:00

Joshua Ferris seemed poised to take up the mantle as the best of the country's young literary satirists. His debut novel, Then We Came to the End, was a critical hit and a National Book Award finalist. It was the rare modern novel that was funny and spot-on in its depictions of the workplace. It even took stylistic chances thanks to Ferris' use of a first person plural narrator (the book opens with the wonderful lines, “We were fractious and overpaid. Our mornings lacked promise.”).

Instead of following that path, however, Ferris has gone in a completely different direction. His new book, The Unnamed, is a much darker tale. It tells of Tim Farnsworth, a successful, hard-charging New York attorney, who suffers a peculiar affliction: He is compelled to walk, with no seeming provocation, until he can walk no more. He will get up from a hearing, excuse himself if his body is pointed in the right direction, and head out of the courtroom and onto the street, stopping only when his body is no longer able to carry him. He'll then drop and sleep, waking in any number of situations. A call placed to his wife, Jane, alerts her to his location, and she drives to retrieve him.

All of this has a predictably negative affect on everything in Tim's life: his career, his marriage, his relationship with his daughter and his health, both mental and physical. Ferris offers a fascinating look at that impact, but that evidence doesn't add up to a diagnosis. Ferris leaves much to the reader's interpretation. Is Tim suffering from a mental illness? Some unknown physical ailment? The jury is still out (and a look at the many reviews of the book reveal an emerging spirited discussion on the topic as well as about whether the book is an allegory for something else).

If nothing else, the Unnamed shows that there is much more to Ferris than a gift for satire. He mentions below that he has no interest in repeating himself, which, based on his first two books, means we're in for quite a ride. His third novel, he says, is well under way.

Ferris, who earned an undergrad degree from the University of Iowa and an MFA from the University of California at Irvine, reads from the Unnamed Tuesday at Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City. I'll be hosting the event, which will include ample time for a Q&A with the in-house audience. Ferris granted me the opportunity for a dry run below. To hear the reading live, Listen online at 7 p.m. CST.

TIRBD: There is a lot of speculation among reviewers and readers about whether Tim’s affliction is mental, physical or spiritual, and whether it is an allegory for something larger. Are you surprised by any interpretations, or has your own view of the work been altered by any of them?

JF: My view of the book hasn't changed. "Interpreting" it, I think, is a generous way of describing what some reviewers do (I had one review, for instance, which read in its entirety: "Joshua Ferris' WTF tale of a successful man who walks out on his wife, kid, and career." Not a lot of care there). I didn't write it as an allegory -- allegories don't interest me as a reader, far less as a writer. Speculation is certainly part of the book -- a mental disease? or physical? and what might answers to those questions imply for what it means to be human? Reviewers kind to the book -- those that have read it with sympathy and sophistication -- have touched upon them.

I have seen mention of Emily Dickinson poems, a Poe short story, John Cheever’s “The Swimmer,” Forrest Gump, White Noise and other works as being precedents/influences. Regardless of whether they’re right, it puts you in good company. Were you aware of similarities between these works and your own, and did that knowledge steer the story in any particular direction?

Never consciously aware. How what a writer reads and assimilates might affect what he or she writes is an alchemy no one will ever fully diagnose or understand. Cheever, Dickinson, DeLillo, Poe -- these writers have all been important to me at various times.

The direction of the story, however, was always in my hands.

Was there any actual shoe leather research done on the book so you could bring some verisimilitude to the sections where you describe what happens to Tim on his long walks?

Yes, with a couple of trusting and intelligent doctors, as well as some old-fashioned reading. My conversations with friend/doctors were particularly helpful. They have all the hard facts about the body, about sickness, about death -- and when I asked them to start dreaming, all that knowledge opened up into fantasy. It was a rewarding experience.

You were seen as daring with the publication is Then We Came to the End. Now, you’re seen as daring (or to some, foolhardy) for not following the path suggested by your debut. Was there a conscious decision on your part to not do the same thing twice?

No, not conscious, if you mean by conscious "calculating" or "shrewd" or "career-centric." I'm not nearly as interested in how my books are received as I am in writing them. I write what's next down a long line of preoccupations and obsessions. What might be seen as daring or foolhardy is a momentary referendum that quickly passes and luckily happens long after I've started on the next thing.

That said, I do think I'm constitutionally incapable of doing the same thing twice. Part of a writer's thrill -- and duty, too -- is to throw the gauntlet down every time, and give yourself no excuse for phoned-in, half-hearted measures.

The Unnamed is one of the first books on your editor’s new imprint, Reagan Arthur Books. Does this put an added burden on your shoulders?

Oh no, no burden. Only pride, happiness, and hope for the beginning of a successful imprint for a loving and important editor.

You sold film rights to the book well before you were finished, after just 120 pages. The book takes some curious turns after that point. Did you worry about delivering on what was promised in those earlier pages when writing the rest? Did you think about the book cinematically as you were writing given the knowledge that it was destined for the screen someday?

If I don't write for critics, or even those who might constitute a readership, I'm not going to write for a producer whose desire for how the book concludes is out of my grasp. If I had, I would have certainly written a more straightforward story, to increase the odds of production, which is always a long shot. In fact, it's part of the reason, that long shot, never to write with a film in mind.

You now have a young son, so I’ll ask a two part question: Are you at work on your third book, and has the writing life changed for you because of this new addition either in terms of your schedule or your worldview?

I'm at work, and -- with the exception of promoting The Unnamed -- pretty steadily, despite the little guy. The worldview changes, of course, but it'd take forever to describe all the ways. Perhaps it's sufficient to say he's lying on the bed right now making farting noises with his hand in his mouth. That's a lot of fun.

Iowa bill would ban acts without original members

2010-01-27T15:55:00.004-06:00

A member of the Iowa legislature has proposed a bill that would make it unlawful to advertise or produce a concert by an act claiming to be a classic group if it didn't have at least one original member.

Bob Dvorsky said he introduced the legislation after talking about the idea with Jon "Bowzer" Bauman, a former member of Sha Na Na, during a recent tour stop.

Similar bills have passed in 33 other states. The bills differentiate between "performing groups" and "recording groups," with the latter being seen as legitimate because at least one member appeared on a recording under the group's name. All bets are off if the performing group has a right to the name through trademark.

The Iowa bill would block performances that don't meet the standard and administer a civil penalty of up to $40,000 per incident.

That's all well and good, and from a legal standpoint it makes sense. But it in no way ensures a level of quality even in groups that pass that test. There are many bands on the road with just one original member, or even less in the case of some, where a latter day drummer or bassist carries on under the name. Having covered my share of fairs, holiday celebrations and such as a newspaper critic, I can assure you that plenty of acts would be deemed legal but yet be criminal in the court of taste.

One of the worst offenders I have witnessed is Creedence Clearwater Revisited (pictured above). Yes, they altered the name to indicate their "tribute"status, but original CCR drummer and bassist Doug Clifford and Stu Cook give the group a cachet that leads listeners to expect something special. It's not just that the group's singer does a sorry impersonation of John Fogerty, but that the band doesn't understand its own music. Introducing Fogerty's poignant anti-war song, "Who'll Stop the Rain," Clifford said, "This is one that goes down smooth, like a good brewski." Such cluelessness ought to be against the law, but sadly, it's not.

Then again, if these acts were forced off the road, every county fair in the country would be left with little more than karaoke as an entertainment option (unless, of course they ponied up for the real thing... highly unlikely). So, we're destined for festivals with marquee acts anchored by the third drummer or second bassist of an act we once knew and loved, pale imitations of the real thing.

Still this bill and those like it already on the books are a start.

Animal Collective tops Pazz & Jop poll

2010-01-20T13:38:00.002-06:00

While I love checking out the hundreds of best of the year lists (and Largehearted Boy is the best aggregator I've found), all of that pales in comparison to the rush afforded by release of the Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop poll. I have voted in the poll the past couple of years, and find it interesting to see where my pick fall on the overall list, and what kind of support my favorites garnered from other critics.

This year's list was topped by -- surprise, surprise -- Animal Collective's Merriwether Post Pavilion. The disc seemed to top everyone's list... but mine. It didn't even make my top 20, mostly because initial listens did little for me and I never spent much time with it. Lately, spurred by its appearance on so many other lists, I decided to listen more carefully to see what I was missing. This time, it clicked, and would definitely have found a place in my top 10 (though I'm not sure what I would displace to get it there).

My ballot can be found here; it is identical to the top 10 I selected back in December here at TIRBD (so read that post if you're curious why I picked what I did).

Much of my ballot aligns with those of the rest of the critics. My No. 2 disc, Neko Case's Middle Cyclone, was No. 3 overall, while six of my picks were in the Top 20 of the P&J list. The rest of my picks were somewhat spread out. U2's No Line on the Horizon came in at No. 32, while the rest were in the lower reaches. Deer Tick's Born on Flag Day, which topped my list, was at 188 (only seven other critics picked it at all, and only a few of those put it in their top 5). Nirvana's Live at Reading placed at No. 111, while DJ Spooky's The Secret Song, was all the way down at 1,586 (I was the only one who voted for it).

Seeing the cluster of groupthink at the top of the list, it's amazing that 1,934 albums could be nominated. But for every Animal Collective or Neko Case that caught so many ears, there are albums like DJ Spooky's that caught only one or two. With 697 critics participating, if each has a pet favorite or two, that expands the list significantly very quickly, allowing for mass consensus at one end and complete diffusion at the other.

It's a great way to learn about what might have been overlooked (or in the case of Animal Collective, avoided) during the year. When I see an artist on other ballots that include albums that I loved, it makes me want to seek them out. Am I missing something? There's no better time to find out.

OK Go makes video news again

2010-01-19T14:42:00.003-06:00

I'm not a fan of OK Go. That's not backlash against the band's impossible-to-avoid videos from a few years back, but rather a reaction to the band's music, which I find cloying, and it's stage presence, which is annoying. A slot opening for Fountains of Wayne several years back left me aggressively hostile toward the band.

But this week it offers another of those benchmark moments in the shift from tangible plastic to intangible bits in the world of popular music. This might not hit the history books the way Radiohead's pay what you want model did (or even OK Go's viral marketing model did), but it's certainly instructive.

In an open letter on the band's message board, singer Damian Kulash explained why the band's new video for the song "This Too Shall Pass" is not embeddable on blogs and other web sites. At least, why the version on YouTube is not. That's strange, given that the very act of embedding YouTube videos for "A Million Ways" (the backyard dance) and "Here it Goes Again" (the treadmill dance) is what made the band big enough to deserve making a third album in the first place.

It comes down to money, of course. The band's label, EMI, has a deal with YouTube, as do other labels, to pay a fee each time one of its videos is played. The catch? The plays aren't tabulated on embeds, so EMI wants everyone to watch on YouTube. Kulash understands, enumerating the various ways the label has funded his band's efforts, but also is frustrated because its success is largely predicated on the band's own actions and the way fans spread those actions around the globe.

Kulash finds a workable solution that does undercut YouTube and EMI, but adheres in principle to what both parties want: He sends fans to Vimeo, where they can find a legit embed code. So, they end up with a higher-res version that cuts YouTube out all together, and the whole thing might just help the band to duplicate -- on a much smaller scale -- its success with the previous two videos.

You can see the video below. The song is catchy, showing the band making some real strides (literally, as you'll see, and figuratively). The problem is that the video version of the song is altered to mesh with the marching band theme, and that version is significantly better than what the band came up with for its album. The marching band drums, the swelling horn section... it's an inventive tune. On record, it feels like the same old thing.

Monday Interview: Ed Gorman

2010-01-18T08:24:00.003-06:00

I started reading Ed Gorman because I felt I should; I keep reading him because his books are always entertaining and captivating, and I love his voice.

As an arts & entertainment writer for five years with the daily newspaper in Gorman's hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, I somehow never read Gorman's work. I'm a mystery and crime fiction fan, but there was another guy on staff who was a Gorman fan who snapped up his books to review. Practicing the same snobbish conceit that I find so distasteful in others, I decided that someone from Cedar Rapids probably wasn't worth following, and dismissed the glowing reviews as little more than fealty to a local author.

I left that job for another a few years ago. Later, I helped to set up a (still pending) event in support of the Iowa City library featuring Gorman and fellow Iowa mystery writer Max Allan Collins of Muscatine. I'm slated to moderate a discussion between the two at some point, and figured that I had better familiarize myself with Gorman's work (I've already read a lot of Collins). That was 18 months ago. In the time since, I've read a dozen or so of Gorman's books, including a smattering of the Sam McCain novels and at least one each of his other series. A couple of his excellent stand-alones, including Cage of Night and The Midnight Room also made the list. I can't include Sleeping Dogs in that list of excellent stand-alones, because Gorman just announced that a follow-up to that political thriller, Stranglehold, is due in November.

The discovery of this new favorite author is bittersweet: While I now have dozens of books I know I'll like that I can pick up whenever I need a good mystery to read, I kick myself for ignoring what was under my nose for so long. If asked to describe what I like about Gorman's work, I might be hard-pressed. The closest I can come is that his books are always real. Even with the most fantastic of the stories he spins, I can imagine them unfolding in exactly the way he describes. These are no-nonsense tales with just the right mix of grit, intrigue and humor.

And he keeps getting better. While I found the first McCain book a bit precious thanks to its 1950s sock hop-era setting, the character was compelling enough to hook me. In the latest McCain novel, Ticket to Ride, we're now in the 1960s, and race relations (and their violent underpinnings at the time) drive much of the plot. McCain is a deeper, richer character thanks to the story that Gorman has developed over the books that bridge the gap, and Gorman's voice, always a key draw for me, is deeper and richer as well.

You can learn a little about Gorman and a lot about authors of mystery and western fiction on Gorman's blog. He's not only a chief purveyor of both genres, but something of an amateur historian as well. He does all of this while battling multiple myeloma, a cancer that, while treatable, is not curable. He is candid about that on the blog, occasionally taking a break to deal with treatments.

Some have reported that Ticket to Ride is the last McCain novel, but despite all that Gorman is dealing with, he assures us below that more will follow. That's good. While it will be years before I catch up with all of his output, it's nice to know that list will continue to grow.

TIRBD: From all indications, Ticket to Ride is the last Sam McCain novel. If true, did you set out to tell a story with this particular arc of books, or are there other reasons behind drawing things to a close?

EG: Originally, my first editor on the series wanted me to take McCain into the Seventies. I had some doubts about that, but one night at dinner with Max and Barb Collins Max came up with an idea for a final McCain. I liked it and told my current editor about it. Then the editor and I started kicking around ideas for a few more books to do before the final one. So there’ll be a few more.

You have written very candidly about your cancer and its treatment on your blog. Beyond the obvious affect on your energy and ability to spend time on it, how has it effected your writing?

The first time I was diagnosed with cancer I took it on as an experience.The prognosis was very good and I wasn't unduly afraid. People thought I was in denial, in fact. But the second time when the prognosis was a cancer that was treatable but incurable, that made me more insular and introspective than I've ever been. I'm not sure how this has effected my writing. I think the characters in my darker stories have always been fatalistic. I suppose they're more than way now.

Most of your books are set here in Eastern Iowa. Has that ever felt constraining? Do you ever feel as if your work is judged differently because of that setting?

Well, even though the McCains constitute my longest series, they’re a small part of my resume. I don’t find them constraining because I know that after I finish one I’ll do a very different kind of book. For instance in July a very dark thriller called The Midnight Room came out. Completely different from the McCains. As for the Iowa stigma, oh yeah it’s still operational. I once spoke to a very hoity-toity critic who said that he’d looked at a McCain but he just couldn’t imagine reading a book set in Iowa. It’s stupid snobbery but just part of the flyover country joke. And yes I'm sure there are readers who share his bias. Who the hell would want to read about Iowa?

Through your blog, your work with magazines and your general efforts to support the work of other writers, it seems safe to say you're among a handful of the most-beloved crime fiction writers out there. What is it about the genre that appeals to you so that makes you give so much toward nurturing and sustaining it?

Well, I don’t know how beloved I am but I have tried to help new writers because so many writers — especially Max Collins — helped me when I shifted from short stories to novels. I know a number of established writers who lend a hand when they feel there’s something they can actually do. But the New York publishing scene is in such disarray that even most established writers are scrambling so helping new writers gets more and more problematic.

In your conversations with other writers, do you mull over problems in stories, spitball ideas or collaborate informally on projects?

Not very often. If I do it’s usually with Max or our friend Bob Randisi or the agent all three of us share.

I know you have an incredible grasp on the history of crime fiction and Westerns. What are a few books that you wish you had written and why?

Wow. That would be a long, long list if I put any thought to it. Off the top of my head I'd say Axe by Donald Westlake, The Chill by Ross Macdonald, How Like An Angel by Margaret Millar (Ross' wife), A Key To The Suite by John D. MacDonald, just about any of Simenon's psychological suspense novels. As for westerns, True Grit by Charles Portis, Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, Valdez is Coming by Elmore Leonard, A Partnership with Death by Clifton Adams and the short stories of H.R. De Rosso.

You came out of the advertising world when you began writing. At what point did you see yourself more as a novelist than an ad man? Did that experience give you anything that gave you a leg up as you transitioned to that new role?

I’ve been asked this many times. I worked for five agencies by the time I was done and I was a terrible employee at each. A champion slacker. I divided my time by trying to figure out how I could get out of anything that resembled work and working out plots for the downscale men’s magazines I was secretly selling to. I just sort of passed through without leaving anything behind or taking anything along.

Album sales drop, digital sales on the rise

2010-01-14T11:10:00.002-06:00

Surprise, surprise: album sales continue to drop in the U.S. Industry folks will blame illegal digital downloads, and there is certainly a case to be made. But the real culprit is likely the abundance of free and legal ways to hear music coupled with the disposable nature of what is produced. When you can hear a bad song once, you've no need to drop money on the right to hear it again and again.

According to industry figures, album sales dropped for the eighth time in nine years, falling 12.7 percent to 373.0 million units in 2009. Want to know why? Michael Jackson, whose sole appeal during the year was that he died, was the top selling artist. He didn't release new music during the year, which means the rest of the world's artists couldn't compete with someone whose music is already in many, many collections. Taylor Swift and Susan Boyle also were in the upper reaches. I'm sure Swift is a nice girl, but I haven't heard a note of her music and can't say I feel any detriment from that lack. And Boyle is a novelty who was guaranteed to sell. No one else singing that kind of material will ever sell like she did, so that's an anomalous blip and nothing more.

While Internet piracy is blamed, it's interesting to see that in a recessionary year, spending on concerts actually increased. Could it be true, as often stated, that getting music into peoples' hands, however it is done, can create fans willing to spend money on other experiences? That seems to be the case.

Legal downloads continue to climb, with sales rising 8.3 percent to 1.16 billion tracks. Most amazingly, some tracks sold more than 4 million digital copies. That's an amazing statistic that shows people are engaged with music, they're just choosing to get it in different ways. Has a single in any past format -- 7" vinyl, cassette or CD -- ever come to 4 million in sales? It seems as if the era of ubiquity in pop singles is over, but I'm probably wrong, chalking it up to the fact that I'm old and haven't listened to anything but NPR on the radio in a decade.

One report on the sales figures from the Chicago Tribune's Gret Kot points out "one of the more delightful oddities of the digital era, vinyl album sales continued their recent resurgence. Though representing only a small fraction of the overall market, vinyl is the one physical product that continues to defy trends, with sales up a whopping 33 percent to 2.5 million."

That's no surprise, however. People willing to spend money on music are passionate about it. The most passionate are those willing to spend money on vinyl. While a digital download is an afterthought, a vinyl purchase is a declaration of intent: I like this artist and want the most permanent artifact I can acquire to cement that fact. There is more great music being made than ever before, it's just not selling worth a darn.

First Listen: Spoon - Transference

2010-01-12T16:22:00.003-06:00

A new Spoon album is a big event, so I carved out time to give the stream up on NPR this week a listen. The verdict? I'd say it's not what I expected, but with Spoon, it's difficult to know what to expect. It feels like both a logical progression from the last two albums and a retrenchment of sorts to the sound of the two before that. Somehow, it is all of those things, and yet what it most resembles is the new Spoon record. How's that for circular logic?

Here is a track-by-track first impression. Listen for yourself here.

1. Before Destruction - A keyboard that sounds like something lifted from Yo La Tengo's Ira Kaplan anchors the beginning of this track, with that giving way to rather lo-fi vocals from Britt Daniel as the song builds (or rather, deconstructs). This sounds like a demo that was used as the base of a finished track. Given Daniel's acumen and the fact that the band produced itself for the first time here, that's entirely possible. It's a slightly odd opening track, because it isn't immediately gripping, but as a scene setter, it may very well be the perfect introduction. Some nice backing vocal effects as the song progresses add some beneficial texture. I may be humming this a couple of weeks from now after a few spins, but for now I'll file it in the "grower" category.

2. Is Love Forever - Ah, much more Spoon-like, with Daniel's stabbing guitar chords driving things from the get-go. A slightly out-of-sync doubled vocal track gives this a spacey, out of focus vibe. I keep waiting for the drums to fully kick in and propel the song into a more dynamic chorus, but so far, no go. Again, not much to latch onto here. It'll click eventually, but Daniel's typical sticky melodies are absent here.

3. The Mystery Zone - Even more Spoonesque. If you seek a first single, this could suffice. The beat is more traditional, the melody more conventional and the sound more fleshed out. This could easily appear on any of the band's last three albums, though it does hark back more specifically to Kill the Moonlight. That's the dilemma, however; because this sounds most familiar, it has the most appeal now yet will probably be one of the tracks that wearies most readily. There's a nice long unadorned Jim Eno drumbeat that would make a nice sample for a future rap single. Heads up, Kanye.

4. Who Makes Your Money - This is a strange one with an odd little keyboard line driving it before Daniel starts singing in a restrained, almost pained way: "Japanese John, his slight face fur/Still just as confused, still just as sure.” The chorus finds Daniel singing the title in a phased way that brings to mind the old hit "Crimson and Clover." Then, about half way through, a slight guitar riff pushes the song, both rhythmically and sonically before fading to let the keyboard figure back to the surface. After a couple of albums where Spoon added layers back to its sound after the spartan Kill the Moonlight, this feels like an about-face back toward the stripped-down aesthetic.

5. Written in Reverse - The first song made available as a stream (not counting "Got Nuffin," which anchored an EP last year) has a bit of a Paul McCartney vibe, with the 4/4 drums and a pounding piano as a complementary rhythm instrument. It, too, recalls past Spoon albums, but this time out it's Girls Can Tell, the album that found the band's reach and grasp aligning to produce a clutch of wonderfully off-kilter pop songs. Daniel sings with conviction here while the guitars slash and dive. It has a nice false ending, too.

6. I Saw the Light - The tempo doesn't shift much between these two tracks, with the beginning of "I Saw the Light" almost feeling like an extension of "Written in Reverse." Then, about halfway through. The song morphs into a double-time instrumental propelled by piano and bass. Guitars again slash through as the song builds, but it never feels like a part of the same song.

7. Trouble Comes Running - Lowest of the lo-fi, at least for the first few second, with a creaky strum replaced by full-on rock. Daniel sings what sounds like "I was in a functional way, I had my brown sound jacket, queen of call collect on my arm." While the backing continues to sound lo-fi, as if cut on a four-track, the vocals and guitars sound hi-fi, giving them prominence in the speakers. The song is a kick, with some nice mid-60s Who backing vocals on the chorus and a generally ramshackle stumble of an arrangement.

8. Goodnight Laura - If memory serves, the first true Spoon ballad. Over nothing more than a piano, Daniel sings what amounts to a lullaby. There is nothing crafty or obtuse about the lyric; it's simply telling Laura, whoever she may be, that everything will be all right and that it's OK to go to sleep. A sweet song that shows more range than Daniel has revealed previously.

9. Out Go the Lights - A bit of normalcy after some more challenging (by mainstream standards, of course) tunes. This is the most straight-forward song on the album, though it is still spare and, thanks to its mid-tempo beat, will rely on multiple listens to reveal its charms. Daniel seems to be doing more with backing vocals on this album, and the oohs and ahhs that buttress his main vocal here are a good example of their effective use. This staggers to a close more than ends, with instruments falling away to leave only Eno's drums to carry things to the conclusion.

10. Got Nuffin - This is the oldest track here, and it fits well with the album. Given Spoon's penchant for non-LP releases, I'd have preferred leaving it to its namesake EP to make way for another new song here, but it does give the album a needed boost of energy in the penultimate spot. Along with "The Mystery Zone," this is the most Spoon-like track on the album, a propulsive rocker with a solid hook and well-placed guitar lines. It's also the only track that makes use of Daniel's unique spelling, with past song titles like "Don't You Evah" and "Rhthm & Soul" earning the scorn of English teachers.

11. Nobody Gets Me But You - The burbling bass and drum machine make this sound like an outtake from a 1980s DeBarge record, but Daniel clearly makes the song his own in short order. Could this be a paean to the listener: "No one else gets what I'm doing," he sings. Of course, given the band's rising profile and growing commercial footprint, that's not such an exclusive club. This is a strange closer, but, like much of the album, that obtuse nature makes me want to listen again to figure out all of the angles, and that's not a bad trait for an album to possess.

All told, this isn't the album I expected from Spoon, nor is it necessarily the one I wanted. But Spoon has succeeded and thrived precisely by delivering the unexpected, and Transference will likely be no different. If this feels like a retrenchment of sorts, it's at least a return to a time when Daniel and his band found very fertile ground to explore. While certain tracks could be considered growers, the entire album feels that way when one takes a step back. While "The Mystery Zone" and "Got Nuffin" offer immediate rewards, tracks like "Who Makes Your Money" and "Nobody Gets Me But You" surely will offer the highest yields over the long term. Transference is a good record that, with enough dedicated listening, promises to be a great one.

'Treme' trailer debuts online

2010-01-12T14:08:00.003-06:00

This is exciting: the first trailer for "Treme," David Simon's first foray since the wrap-up of "The Wire" (which was unarguably the best show on television). With that high bar set, it will be interesting to see what Simon delivers. The show, which debuts on HBO in April, features some Simon regulars, like Clark Peters and Wendell Pierce (Freamon and Bunk from "The Wire") and Melissa Leo (from "Homicide"), as well as folks like Steve Zahn and Elvis Costello, playing himself.

The show reportedly deals with the difficult path of musicians in a post-Katrina New Orleans, and the clip below hints at that. That's all it does, for there are no people, no dialogue and no text; just video of dilapidated buildings and homes intercut with shots of musical instruments. That's enough.

The Knife collaborates on new opera soundtrack

2010-01-06T21:38:00.003-06:00

2009 was the year that I "got" the Knife, thanks to the marvelous solo debut of Karin Dreijer Andersson under the name Fever Ray. That led me back to 2006's Silent Shout, which placed high on many best-of lists that year but which eluded my ears.

With that background, I'm primed for whatever the duo has to offer from here on out, and it seems as if I'll be handsomely rewarded with their next effort. The pair, in collaboration with performance artist Mt. Sims and and musician/visual artist Planningtorock, will release the Tomorrow, In A Year, a work commissioned by Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma for its opera based on Charles Darwin's On the Origin of the Species. It will be available by digital download on Feb. 2, and in stores March 9.

According to the band's label, Mute Records, the duo "extensively researched Darwin-related literature and articles, with Olof (Dreijer) attending a field recording workshop in the Amazon to find inspiration and to record sounds." Elsewhere, "Richard Dawkins' gene trees have formed the basis of some of the musical composition, artificial sounds have been mixed with field recordings, with the music inspired by everything from the different stages of a bird learning its melody, to a song based on Darwin’s loving letters about his daughter Anne."

There are certainly elements of opera in the first track released from the set, the 11-minute "Colouring of Pigeons," but it is even more interesting for the revelation it provides about the Knife and where it is capable of traveling. There is more warmth and space in the music than on past work from the duo, easily absorbing the operatic elements to create a unique and captivating hybrid. The learning curve to get there was steep, according to Dreijer:

"We’d never been to one. I didn’t even know what the word libretto meant. But after some studying, and just getting used to opera’s essence of pretentious and dramatic gestures, I found that there is a lot to learn and play with. In fact, our ignorance gave us a positive respectless approach to making opera. It took me about a year to become emotionally moved by an opera singer and now I really do."

To hear "Colouring of Pigeons," visit the band's web site.

Pavement greatest hits due in March

2010-01-05T14:38:00.002-06:00

Is a pending greatest hits disc from Pavement the final sign that indie rock is all grown up or that it's dead? However you see it, Quarantine the Past will signal that event upon its March 9 release.

The obvious thing for a blogger to do at this point is to nitpick and/or parse the tracklisting. Alas, the folks at Matador have turned that exercise into a game. Or rather, a contest. The collection will feature 23 tracks, the first of which is "Gold Soundz." If you're the entrant who comes closest to picking the correct order, you'll win a pair of tickets, with flights and hotel rooms, to see Pavement at Central Park Summerstage on Sept. 21. Not a bad prize. A few more hints, via the Matablog: "3 pre-Matador tracks are included, plus one song that originally came out on a compilation. Every Matador album is represented, plus Watery, Domestic."

That means "Box Elder" and two more from the Westing (By Musket and Sextant) collection, as well as a smattering of "hits." I'll certainly give the contest a shot. How much might that package net on eBay?

In other news, Matador reports that it's biannual release of a deluxe version of one of the band's albums will culminate this fall with the band's swan song, Terror Twilight.