A hundred years without Mark Twain
Mark Twain, who died a hundred years ago today, entered the world and left with Halley’s Comet. His essays have a permanent place on my bedside table; I read them whenever my own writing stalls. Those perfect verbs, those unexpected but accurate nouns, that distinctive sense of the absurd and limitless ability to [...]
R.I.P. Alex Chilton
One by one, my idols go. Alex Chilton of Big Star was pronounced dead tonight at age 59.
Notes following Terry Teachout’s Pops talk uptown
Last night my pal Terry Teachout read from Pops, his smart, engaging, and widely-praised new biography of Louis Armstrong, and showed some footage.
While answering questions afterward, Terry recommended that everyone listen to this week’s New Yorker podcast, which includes an audio clip of Armstrong trying to cajole his wife into bed in the wee [...]
The silence of a falling star: on Hank Williams’ phrasing
Over the years I’ve developed a bad habit of going over sentences again and again in my fiction because they don’t quite sound right. By that I mean that the rhythm is off or the vowel sounds clash or an adjective is too bland or, worse, too “creative” in some [...]
Rock my Religion: where Shakers & Patti Smith meet?
Derek Graham’s Rock My Religion, a remarkable early ’80s documentary of sorts, contends that evangelical revivals and American rock music — which we usually think of as having come together starting only in the last couple of decades — were linked from the start.
Graham formulates a history that begins with the Shakers, an early religious [...]
Big Star footage, jailhouse cuisine, the Chattooga, and a Memphis cathouse: The Oxford American giveaway
Fellow Big Star fans, take note: Oxford American’s second Best of the South DVD includes snippets of Thank You Friends, a silent 16mm film shot by Chris Bell and Andy Hummel while the band was recording #1 Record. Interesting stuff. (The rest of the footage is due out in a Rhino box [...]
The real (fictional) story of Shoot out the Lights
I’m enjoying my buddy Hayden Childs’ Shoot Out the Lights, his 33 1/3 homage to Richard and Linda Thompson. The book “features a fictional narrator describing the real events around the making of [the] landmark album.”
Incidentally, in my experience, there is no better song for a woman in her twenties to put [...]
Berman sings Whitman
An excuse to mention the Silver Jews concert review at Number One Hit Song: in a Nextbook podcast, David Berman “sets Walt Whitman to music, reads a poem, and talks about his hunger for religion.” I haven’t listened yet.
Uninspired
The only thing I’m excited about this week is Pandora, an offshoot of the Music Genome Project. I know I’m late to the party; it’s been making the rounds for months.
But, for the uninitiated: Pandora recommends music based on bands you love. I first heard about the site through Number One Hit [...]
I said there’s nothing left
Novelist, musician and “poet laureate of pessimism” Leonard Cohen is broke and suing his longtime financial adviser, and he wants you to know his forthcoming album is really, really good.
Take an iconic artist, mix in missing millions, hints of tantric sex, a lawsuit replete with other salacious details, and a ruptured relationship with a long-time, [...]
Didn’t I make you feel…
Oxford American’s 7th music issue and the accompanying CD will hit newsstands soon. The press release promises a tune from the late Zora Neale Hurston (author of Their Eyes Were Watching God). And there’s some love for Al Green, Loretta Lynn, Bessie Smith, Dale Hawkins, the Wilburn brothers, Moondog, and many other Southern [...]
There’s nobody else here, no one like me
The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde admits to getting drunk and attacking Martin Amis in an effort to secure his autograph. Kinda puts “Brass in Pocket” in a whole new light, huh?
David Cross, music reviewer
David Cross provides a list of the “Top Ten Albums to Listen to While Reading Overwrought Pitchfork Reviews.” Here’s #5:
While reading the review of The Boards of Canada’s Music Has the Right to Children: “The incredibly simple melody of the short ‘Bocuma’ becomes a lump-in-the-throat meditation on man’s place in the universe through subtle [...]
Susan Sontag, electro lyricist
Susan Sontag, long suspected of being a Fischerspooner fan, contributed lyrics to a song for the recently released Odyssey before her death late last year. The electro aficionados in the Maud household tell us that the Sontag collaboration is one of the album’s clear standouts.
Here’s some backstory from the Fischerspooner site:
“When I approached [...]
Rap versus writing
In an interview with her brother, British rapper Doc Brown, Zadie Smith reflects on the difference between writing and rapping in the first person:
ZS: The reason I could never be in that business is that you always have to speak in the first person. I find it a really strange experience to say “I” all [...]