July 4, 2008
Shorties
Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear talks about the band's next album with Billboard.
The Schenectady Daily Gazette offers its summer reading suggestions.
see also: my list of summer reading lists
At the Penguin blog, author Nick Hornby weighs in on the current state of e-books.
Attempting to sell people something for four hundred pounds that merely enables them to read something that they won’t buy at one hundredth of the price seems to me a thankless task. (A member of staff at Borders told me that he attempted to persuade a young and famous comedian to buy an Iliad last week. He seemed interested, until he was told the price, at which point he swore loudly and walked away. So at the moment, they are priced too high for millionaire showbusiness entertainers.)
The Edmonton Sun lists comic book films currently in production o in the planning phase.
The Telegraph lists the ten greatest Doctor Who episodes ever.
KEXP features Firewater with an interview and in-studio performance.
Drowned in Sound interviews Ratatat's Evan Mast.
NPR recommends a summerreading list of superhero books.
Drowned in Sound interviews El Perro del Mar's Sarah Assbring.
Martin Atkins talks to NPR's All Things Considered about his new book, Tour: Smart.
In his recent book, Tour: Smart, and its companion DVD, Atkins has compiled his experiences to create a valuable resource for any aspiring touring musician or band. Atkins is now touring the country himself, telling bands all the things they don't tell themselves.
The Futurist recaps the Black Angels' recent WOXY Lounge Act session with a couple of the in-studio mp3s.
also at Largehearted Boy:
daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
this week's CD releases
tags: music books popculture indie news
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July 4, 2008
Daily Downloads (Low, Robyn Hitchcock, and more)
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:
Acid Mothers Temple: 2008-06-18, San Francisco [mp3,ogg,flac]
other Acid Mothers Temple music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Jonathan Segel: 2008-06-29, San Francisco [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Angels" [mp3]
other Jonathan Segel music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Local H: 2008-06-21, Milwaukee [mp3,ogg,flac]
"BMW Man" [mp3]
Local H: 2008-05-08, Chicago [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Lovey Dovey" [mp3]
other Local H music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Low: 1999-03-25, Radio K [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Starfire" [mp3]
Low: 1998-11-14, Duluth [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Landlord" [mp3]
other Low music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Robyn Hitchcock: 1999-08-18, New York [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Listening to the Higsons" [mp3]
other Robyn Hitchcock music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Rose Hill Drive: 2008-06-15, Iowa City [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Trans Am" [mp3]
other Rose Hill Drive music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Victor Krummenacher: 2008-06-29, San Francisco [mp3,ogg,flac]
"The Southern Heights" [mp3]
other Victor Krummenacher music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Bittorrent downloads will resume tomorrow
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous mp3 and bittorrent downloads
2008 Bonnaroo downloads
2008 Coachella music downloads
2008 SXSW music downloads and streams
2007 Austin City Limits Music Festival downloads
2007 Lollapalooza downloads
other music festival downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and album streams from weekly CD releases)
weekly CD release lists
tags: music download indie mp3 bittorrent
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
July 3, 2008
Shorties
The 2008 Bonnaroo music download page has been updated with a direct mp3 download of the Bonnaroo Superjam as well as a bittorrent lossless download of that same performance.
The New York Times reviews the first Feelies show in 17 years.
Circling through four chords with a jabbing lead-guitar lick, “Time Is Right” was a new song that sounded as if the Feelies had never disappeared. They were still what might be a garage band reimagined by mathematicians, a psychedelic band with no illusions, a folk-rock band hypnotized by repetition, a punk band for introverts. From 1977 to 1991, their initial run, the Feelies traveled a clear path between the Velvet Underground and current indie rock. Their songs, by the guitarists and singers Bill Million and Mr. Mercer, use rock rudiments to build incrementally from meditation to frenzy.
Time Out New York interviews Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth.
TONY: Fair enough. So, in an all-female alt-rock bass-off, who would win: you, Kim Deal or D’arcy?
Kim Gordon: D’arcy? D’arcy who? [Laughs] I don’t know. Probably Kim [Deal]. But I don’t think of myself as a musician. I’m more of a visual artist who happens to play the bass. I picked up the bass kind of postpunk-style. There’s a real art to not learning how to play an instrument and being able to still play it.
Bettye Lavette talks to the Montreal Gazette about her music career.
"Three weeks before my first record came out, I was in the 10th grade," LaVette said. "Over the years, in retrospect, the fact that my career did not work, commercially, forced me to have the opportunity to learn (to interpret songs). If I had become a big star, I would have been busy being a big star," she added, laughing the infectious laugh that seems to punctuate her every comment.
The Baltimore Sun interviews the Watson Twins about their new album, Fire Songs.
Why'd you decide to cover the Cure song "Just Like Heaven"?
We were back home in Louisville, [Ky.], for Christmas, and they were doing the Top 100 of all time. It was so nostalgic for me. I love the Cure. I was like, 'What if we totally did this exactly opposite of the way Robert [Smith] does it?' We just started playing along, and it totally just came together. There wasn't much thought about 'Oh, let's put a harmonica on here.' It just kind of all came together. ... It's such a great song, and I love the lyrics of it, and it's nice to be able to hear it sung so slowly.
Indie Shows 1980-1999 is a Flickr group of concert photography.
nyctaper is offering mp3s of DEVO's recent Brooklyn performance at McCarren Pool.
Black Angels guitarist Christian Bland talks to the Nashville Scene about his band being labeled "psychedelic rock."
“I think of it more as preservation with progression,” Bland explains. “We use effects that people in the ’60s could never have even dreamed of. By using ’60s gear (which is the best sounding since it’s the highest quality) in combination with our ‘new’ pedals, we can create a different level of psychedelia channeled from 2525. You’ve gotta find the right gear to make the right sounds. The right sounds are the ones you hear in your head first.”
Tampa Calling lists rock's biggest talent-squanderers.
The Los Angeles Times examines the deal that will make Sloane Crosley's essay collection, I Was Told There'd Be Cake, an HBO miniseries.
For Crosley, a publicist at Vintage Books, the rush of favorable reviews and HBO's interest has been dizzying. But she's never at a loss for zingers when it comes to the adaptation of her book: "The world I describe is about how people live now," she said. "It's not about zany people with unlimited, inexplicable funds in an apartment somewhere." And she swears she wasn't thinking about a potential film or TV deal as she wrote the book. "I don't walk around thinking, 'Yes, this should be a young female Larry David,' " Crosley, 29, said. "But sometimes you just can't help but wonder, is this an essay I just wrote, or is it secretly Episode 1?"
see also: Crosley's Largehearted Boy Book Notes essay for the book
Creative Loafing Atlanta profiles author Salman Rushdie, "the enchanter of Emory."
The contemporary zeitgeist shaped Rushdie's recent books, such as the name-dropping New York novel Fury, and Shalimar the Clown, which recounted Kashmir's tragic history through a doomed Romeo and Juliet love affair between a Muslim boy and Hindu girl. His latest book, The Enchantress of Florence, offers a change of pace and takes place entirely in 16th-century Italy and India, as if Rushdie wanted to cleanse his palate of modern-day political conflicts.
How To Split an Atom lists 32 sci-fi novels you should read.
WFMU's Beware of the Blog offers a sampler CD of tracks that will be available at the Free Music Archive they are helping curate.
WHYY's Fresh Air recommends my favorite novel of 2008 so far, Joseph O'Neill's Netherland, focusing on The Great Gatsby references.
If you're going to invoke Gatsby as often as O'Neill does in Netherland (and, by the way, catching all those references to ferry boats, Jewish frontmen and death by drowning is, undeniably, part of the insider fun of reading this novel), you'd better be able to acquit yourself honorably against the sheer gorgeousness of Fitzgerald's prose. O'Neill does — and, believe me, I can't think of many novelists I would put within spitting distance of Fitzgerald. O'Neill is a wide-ranging stylist capable of whipping out unexpected but precisely right words like "peregrinating." He's also adroit at muted comedy, as when Hans looks at Ramkissoon's hairy chest and spots "a necklace's gold drool."
Drowned in Sound lists the best of 2008's forthcoming albums.
NPR's Morning Edition profiles British songstress Duffy.
also at Largehearted Boy:
daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
this week's CD releases
tags: music books popculture indie news
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Daily Downloads (Miranda Sound, The Chap, and more)
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:
Sunken Treasure Records, the record label of Robert Duffy (proprietor of the music blog Donewaiting.com), has opened a digital download store. To celebrate, you can choose your own price for the self-titled album from the Columbus band Miranda Sound.
Miranda Sound: "Falling Man" [mp3] from Miranda Sound
Miranda Sound: "Leave Everyone Behind" [mp3] from Miranda Sound
Miranda Sound: free and legal Western Reserve album download [mp3]
"Jackson Milton" [mp3]
other Miranda Sound music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Calamity Magnet: "Baby, You Forgot" [mp3] from
other Calamity Magnet music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
The Chap: "They Have a Name" [mp3] from Mega Breakfast
The Chap: "Carlos Walter Wendy Stanley" [mp3] from Mega Breakfast
The Chap: "Proper Rock" [mp3] from Mega Breakfast
The Chap: "Caution Me" [mp3] from Mega Breakfast
other Chap music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Dr. Dog: "The Ark" from Fate (out July 22nd)
other Dr. Dog music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
John & Jehn: one track [mp3]
other John & Jehn music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Today's free and legal recordings of live shows, rarities, and demos available via bittorrent:
Dead Meadow: 2008-05-05, Madison [flac]*
other Dead Meadow music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Liz Phair: 1994-03-18. San Francisco [flac]*
other Liz Phair music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Pearl Jam: 2008-06-28, Mansfield [flac]*
other Pearl Jam music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Portishead: 1998-03-26, Dallas [flac]*
other Pearl Jam music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Radiohead: 2008-07-01, Amsterdam [flac]*
Radiohead: 2008-06-14, Nimes [flac]*
other Radiohead music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Ramones: 1996-04-26, Pittsburgh [flac]*
other Ramones music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Smiths: 1983-10-21, London [flac]*
other Smiths music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Wilco: 2008-05-16, St. Louis [flac]
other Verve music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Various Artists (Leonard Cohen Tribute): 2008-06-26, Montreal [flac]*
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous mp3 and bittorrent downloads
2008 Bonnaroo downloads
2008 Coachella music downloads
2008 SXSW music downloads and streams
2007 Austin City Limits Music Festival downloads
2007 Lollapalooza downloads
other music festival downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and album streams from weekly CD releases)
weekly CD release lists
tags: music download indie mp3 bittorrent
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
July 2, 2008
Book Notes - Ed Park ("Personal Days")
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that is in some way relevant to their recently published books.
I picked up Personal Days with great expectations. Written by Ed Park, founding editor of The Believer, the book has garnered rave reviews and has been recommended by more friends than I can count. The book has been compared to both Nicholas Baker's 1990 novel The Mezzanine and television's The Office, but neither does the book justice.
Personal Days is the cubicle bible for our times, a wickedly funny (and often too true) satire of office life.
The Los Angeles Times wrote of the book:
"Park portrays Thoreau's quote about the masses leading "lives of quiet desperation" as urban satire for the dot-com generation. It's a satire at times so droll, so trenchant in its observations of corporate "culture" and human weakness, so pitch-perfect in dialogue, you can't help but feel for the author. Maybe he's a mind reader, or one of those writers so creative that concepts just spring from the head fully formed. But chances are, Park (who writes a monthly online science fiction column for the L.A. Times Book Review) drew from personal experience of really lousy jobs to create this bitter, pathetic world that makes you snort your Starbucks when laughing at unexpected moments."
In his own words, here is Ed Park's Book Notes essay for his debut novel, Personal Days:
I.
"Answer me," begins New Order's "Run," the song that threaded itself through my head during my last months at my old job. "Why won't you answer me?"
I liked New Order as a teenager; 1989's Technique (on which "Run" makes its home) was the last album of theirs to hold my interest. Now that song was in heavy mental rotation, as it never had been before, outlasting all the theoretically more exciting youngbloods. I want to find out why.
In 2006, things were going downhill at the office and everyone knew it. People were jumping ship at alarming rates; more alarming was the number forced to jump. "Run" isn't quite an office song—not the way Fountains of Wayne's "Hey Julie" ("I've got a desk full of paper that means nothing at all") or the Modern Lovers' "Government Center" ("a lotta lotta lotta nice desks and chairs, uh huh!") are explicitly about the joys and terrors of the workaday word.
But "Run" was my theme song, and I didn't even know what it meant. It has the virtue of being intimate yet ambiguous, and the music is a thrilling mix of guitars and machines. Even the title is up for grabs: a directive to flee, or simply to hit the treadmill? The lyrics are among the most potent in the New Order canon, admittedly a songbook in which much sounds tossed off (a trait I admire).
Maybe it takes fifteen years of not hearing the song—of being swept along by the airtight weave, or not thinking about it at all—but "Run," I'm realizing, is a horror story of sorts, an incident of amnesia in the corridors of power: "I don't know what day it is or who I'm talking to." It's not far from there to the land of This is not my beautiful house/This is not my beautiful wife. "I can't recall the day that I last spoke to you." A guitar figure just this side of sour tears through it all again and again. There is tremendous violence—and freedom—in this line: "You work your way to the top of the world/Then you break your life in two."
The epigraph to Personal Days comes from "Run"; that last couplet seemed appropriate for a book in which the brutality of downsizing was dramatized in the broken structure itself—the voice changing, dramatically, twice.
The penultimate verse seems to hold a measure of hope—"I haven't got a single problem now that I'm with you"—but do we believe the speaker? (The last line, tellingly, is "What do you want me to believe?")
I'm getting the sinking feeling that the singer is talking to a ghost—or the singer is a ghost, just like in New Order's story-song "Love Vigilantes."
Without giving too much of Personal Days away, I'll just say that the idea of the ghost in the machine is significant, if not central to the novel. Quick sample from the book: "Our machines know more than we do, Pru thinks. Even their deficiencies and failures are instructive...."
New thought about the title: Is "Run" a command for a computer—or from one? And what is the program?
II.
Other office songs:
"Frankly, Mr Shankly," The Smiths
"These Are the Dreams of the Working Girl," Comet Gain
"Going Underground," The Jam — adds drama to the commute
"Welcome to the Newsroom," Paul Smith
"9 to 5," Dolly Parton ("Pour myself a cup of ambition")
Loverboy's "Working for the Weekend" b/w XTC's "Earn Enough for Us" ("I'm just praying by the weekend/I can earn enough for us")
Ed Park and Personal Days links:
the author's website
the author's collaborative Beatles blog
the author's band
the author's band's music (1)
the author's band's music (2)
the author's Wikipedia entry
the author's book tour events
the author's page at the publisher
the author's collaborative blog
the book's blog
excerpt from the book
Austin Chronicle review
Baltimore Sun review
Barnes and Noble review
The Bookbag review
Bookforum review
Daily Mail review
Dayton Daily News review
Flavorpill review
Guardian review
L magazine review
The List review
Los Angeles Times review
New York Observer review
New York Times review
New Yorker review
Newsweek review
Observer review
Oregonian review
Publishers Weekly review
San Diego Union-Tribune review
Seattle Post-Intelligencer review
Stop Smiling review
Times Online review
Time Out New York review
Village Voice review
WFMU - Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything show featuring the book
Wired review
Bat Segundo Show interview with the author
Five Chapters short fiction by the author
also at Largehearted Boy:
Previous Book Notes submissions (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
directors and actors discuss their film's soundtracks
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2008 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2007 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2006 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2005 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2004 Edition)
tags: books music fiction literature
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Shorties
The Guardian's music blog makes a point that more bands should split up sooner.
Just imagine if Oasis had split in 1996. We'd be able to wistfully look back (without anger, naturally) at that band who went from The Water Rats to Knebworth in two years without having our memories tainted by images of Liam writing daft songs about kids. Or indeed every record Oasis released this decade.
Time Out New York examines the trend of more indie rock acts showing up as late night television guests.
White Rabbits—whose performance was zealous and youthful—were selected by Letterman for the same cloudy reasoning that has drawn people to songs for centuries: “There was just something about the band that I gravitated to,” explains Late Show music-segment producer Sheryl Zelikson. Nevertheless, their appearance was indicative of trends from the past few years, during which indie rock’s stock has swelled, mainstream radio has collapsed and the sight of low-profile acts on network programs has become increasingly commonplace. In some ways, today’s climate seems like a return to earlier transitional eras that saw punks like Fear on SNL (1981) or Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show (a bit earlier). “When we got the White Stripes on Letterman in 2001, it seemed like a wildly bizarre thing,” says Chloë Walsh, co-owner of Press Here Publicity. “But bookers have become really open to taking chances. Bands will have a few reviews and a lot of blog coverage, and the next logical step is to get a TV show.”
Cycling News interviews Lance Armstrong about his musical tastes.
Procycling: You're quite the music buff. What's new on your iPod right now?
LA: One of the coolest songs I have ever heard, I was just talking to somebody about it today. Have you ever heard of the band Death Cab for Cutie? Their new single is one of the most kick-ass songs I have heard in a long time. It's called I Will Possess Your Heart and it's eight and a half minutes long, it's so bad-ass. What else did I get lately? I can't run without music, I can tell you that much.
MTV lists its best albums of 2008 so far.
Marketwatch profiles Blender editor Joe Levy.
Levy wants Blender's stories to mirror the kind of experience a music fan can get from his or her iPod, "shuffling from revelation to revelation."
"We don't want to be like a history lesson," Levy told me. "We're the only party you want to be at, where the beer never runs out and there are actually girls there."
T-shirt of the day: "Hope Is the New Black"
Bam! Kapow! lists 15 of the greatest black superheroes of all time.
The A.V. Club interviews Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Ed O'Brien.
AVC: Sounds like fans might not have to wait another four years for the next record.
TY: We try to keep the momentum of the operation going. Lots of times, if you stop too long, there's no momentum and it takes a lot to pick it back up again. We've had such a positive response to this. We're human; we lose our confidence far too quickly. It's nice to have our confidence. That's the biggest influence on things at the moment, being reasonably confident for a change.
WNYC's John Schaefer creates a mixtape for a road trip.
Newsweek offers summer reading suggestions.
Status Ain't Hood is still posting for a couple of days, and lists its favorite albums of the second quarter of 2008.
Music.populaire.eu lists 100 addictive music sites.
Publishers Weekly interviews comics writer Brian K. Vaughan.
Drowned in Sound recaps June's music releases.
The A.V. Club interviews Silver Jews frontman Dave Berman and his bandmate (and wife) Cassie.
At NPR's All Things Considered, Jonathan Raban sings the praises of Evelyn Waugh's novel Put Out More Flags.
Since then, I've read Put Out More Flags at least once a year and found new pleasures in it on every rereading. It's set in England's darkest hour, between the autumn of 1939 and the summer of 1940, when Britain was faced with imminent invasion by Nazi Germany after its army was routed in France and landed up on the desperate beaches of Dunkirk.
IGN creates an ultimate Beck mix CD.
Mashable lists 30+ sites for free and legal music.
Stepcase Lifehack lists 8 good reasons to be a lousy musician.
also at Largehearted Boy:
daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
this week's CD releases
tags: music books popculture indie news
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Daily Downloads (Doveman, Ford & Fitzroy, and more)
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:
Doveman: free and legal cover album of the Footloose soundtrack [mp3]
"Footloose" [mp3]
other Doveman music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Ford & Fitzroy: one track [mp3]
other Ford & Fitzroy music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Eagle Winged Palace: "Hand of Doom" [mp3]
Eagle Winged Palace: "Mansion on the Hill" [mp3]
other Eagle Winged Palace music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Grace Potter: 2008-05-29, Hampton Beach [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Meantime" [mp3]
other Grace Potter music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Hypatia Lake: "The Lucifer Rebellion" [mp3] from Angels And Demons, Space And Time (out July 15th)
Hypatia Lake: "The General's Gleaming Edge" [mp3] from Angels And Demons, Space And Time (out July 15th)
other Hypatia+Lake music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
The Silent Years: free and legal self-titled debut album download [mp3]
other Silent Years music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Takka Takka: "Everybody Say" [mp3] from Migration (out July 29th)
other Takka Takka music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
These Modern Socks: "Worry Free Lifestyle" [mp3]
other These Modern Socks music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Today's free and legal recordings of live shows, rarities, and demos available via bittorrent:
Alejandro Escovedo: 2008-06-27, Austin [flac]*
other Alejandro Escovedo music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Bright Eyes: 2005-03-07, Black session [flac]*
other Bright Eyes music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Jealous Girlfriends: 2008-02-13, San Francisco [flac]*
other Jealous Girlfriends music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Melvins: 1993-11-03, Charlotte [flac]*
other Melvins music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Neil Young: 2008-06-30, Cork [flac]*
other Neil Young music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
New Pornographers: 2008-06-24, Winnipeg [flac]*
other New Pornographers music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Radiohead: 2008-06-20, Southside Festival [pal dvd]*
other Radiohead music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Smiths: 1985-09-25, Glasgow [flac]*
other Smiths music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
Todd Snider: 2008-06-29, Chico [flac]*
other Todd Snider music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
The Verve: 2008-06-29, Glastonbury [pal dvd]*
other Verve music blog posts at Largehearted Boy
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous mp3 and bittorrent downloads
2008 Bonnaroo downloads
2008 Coachella music downloads
2008 SXSW music downloads and streams
2007 Austin City Limits Music Festival downloads
2007 Lollapalooza downloads
other music festival downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and album streams from weekly CD releases)
weekly CD release lists
tags: music download indie mp3 bittorrent
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
July 1, 2008
Book Notes - Kevin Sampsell ("Creamy Bullets")
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that is in some way relevant to their recently published books.
Books are recommended to me in many ways these days. Friends who know my reading tastes used to make the best recommendations, but now that I am corresponding with authors for this Book Notes series, that has changed. I usually ask participating authors to recommend their fellow writers, and have discovered many great books through writers whose work I admire.
When Jami Attenberg submitted her Book Notes essay for The Kept Man, she recommended Kevin Sampsell for this series. I had actually just read Sampsell's story "I Rested Between Them" in Yeti #5, but didn't know he had a book coming out. Creamy Bullets is innovative and bizarre, but always rewarding, and is one of the finest short story collections I have read this year. Thanks, Jami.
Kevin Sampsell is also the publisher of Future Tense Books and works at Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon.
The Portland Mercury wrote of the book:
"Creamy Bullets, the new collection of short stories by Future Tense publisher and occasional Mercury contributor Kevin Sampsell, pairs bizarre eroticism with Raymond Carver minimalism; flights of fancy are described in terse, matter-of-fact tones, and the grim sobriety of the real world is undermined by the unreliable perceptions of its inhabitants."
In his own words, here is Kevin Sampsell's Book Notes essay for his short fiction collection, Creamy Bullets:
Before I really thought I’d become any sort of writer, I had my highest hopes set on being a radio station DJ. When I was a kid I even had two plastic Kmart record players and I practiced a radio show in my bedroom. I’d go from “Fly Like an Eagle” to “Play That Funky Music” without missing a beat.
Whether it’s music that I was listening to while writing the stories in Creamy Bullets or just passing mentions of bands within the fiction, here’s the musical roadmap.
Cop Shoot Cop: The last story I wrote for the book was “She Whispers, Nudges, Mumbles Something.” There is mention of a band called Republican Bathhouse playing at a club. I describe them as having “two bass players, two keyboard players, clothes that were terrible in all the right ways.” Even though I barely remember Cop Shoot Cop, I do remember that they were interesting because they had two bass players. This was around the time when I was listening to a lot of that abrasive Amphetamine Reptile type music. I also was going out to see a lot of bands back then too--something I don’t do as much anymore--so when I write about younger people hanging out at live music clubs, I’m probably just being nostalgic for the 90s. Besides Cop Shoot Cop, I imagine that Republican Bathhouse would also open up for bands like Caribou, Girls Against Boys, and GodheadSilo.
Guided by Voices: I like bands that write really short songs that stay interesting. GBV is a prime example of this. It makes me feel validated when I write flash fiction. Some people still haven’t come around to flash fiction. Just like some folks haven’t come around to GBV, or other bands that write great quickies (like Jason Anderson/Wolf Colonel, Pavement, early Spoon). I hope that opening my book with the 237-word “Girl With Shaky Hands” is like GBV starting Alien Lanes with the one and a half minute “Salty Salute.”
Judas Priest: In “Big Cheese,” the story takes place at a restaurant where the cook listens to Judas Priest and describes them as “The Beatles of this generation…The Beatles in leather, dude.” I hope that doesn’t seem cliché to have the kitchen help listening to headbanger music, but I defy you to show me a cook that doesn’t like a healthy dose of buttrock from time to time.
Public Enemy: Man, I used to love Public Enemy. And yeah, I loved Flavor Flav too. Cold Lampin’ is a freestyle classic (“You’re eatin’ dirt cuz ya like getting dirt from the graveyard/ya put gravy on it!”). In my story “Jailbreaker,” there’s a prisoner who calls himself Derelikt who breaks off a freestyle about Hostess Fruit Pies and prison sex. Because the story is a comedy, (and because I was watching Flavor of Love on VH1) I was envisioning Flavor Flav the whole time.
Weird Al Yankovic: There’s no mention of Weird Al in the story “Monogamy,” but it’s still one of the more obviously weird stories in this bunch. Inspired the great Larry Brown experiment, “Julie: A Memory,” this is basically a cut-up kind of piece about a crazy young woman I got involved with in 1997 (which will always be remembered as a year of extreme turbulence in my life). She was a woman who had no pretense and no class but a lot of sexual energy and tons of screwy and endlessly fascinating philosophies. Alternating between sentences about moving this woman into her first apartment and others about her terrible sexual habits and history, “Monogamy” is a pretty tough story to endure. Oh yeah—Weird Al? He was this girl’s favorite musician.
Patty Loveless: “I Rest Between Them” is a story about a couple that has to deal with Internet porn in their relationship. There’s a mention of Patty Loveless. It’s at a part of the story where the couple are happy and it sort of feels like an ignorant sort of bliss. I used to work at an AM country music radio station in the early 90s and I learned to like a few of the songs I played. One of my favorites was a Patty Loveless song called Timber I’m Falling in Love. It always made me happy and I would turn it up loud.
Wilco: The story, “Songs For Water Buffalos” is the most music-heavy piece in Creamy Bullets. I love making up and naming fictional bands and this story, about a group of record store employees who plan a benefit to raise money for a water buffalo, was possibly the most enjoyable piece to write for the book. Three bands play at the benefit show. Hand Over Fist was named after an early Magdalen Powers chapbook and their music is described as “grinding emocore.” The second band, American Heritage, is like a small town ripoff of Wilco. They’re described as “Bruce Springsteen meets Radiohead” with CD cover art that mimics an American Heritage Dictionary. The final band of the night is an 8-piece group called The Vikings. They act as the emotional release of the story. The lead singer gives an impassioned speech before their noise-jazz-skronk pulverizes the crowd. I imagined a sort of Melvins meets The Boredoms kind of experience. The narrator feels like he’s having his head shaved as he listens to the “swoop and blur” of the band’s epic tracks. Plus, they’re dressed in Nordic war attire. Damn—I wish they were a real band.
Sonic Youth: “Swimsuit Issue” was named after the SY song of the same name and was written specifically for an anthology of SY-inspired fiction called The Empty Page (Serpent’s Tail). It includes a character who tries to serenade an ex-girlfriend over the phone. Anger and resentment follow.
Ricky Martin: Back when I worked at the country music station, I was also an occasional DJ for the FM Top 40 station. The story “Krystal” was inspired by some of the weird things I discovered while doing the late-night shifts. Like the fact that radio DJs have groupies and they usually lie about their looks and age. I mention Ricky Martin early on to help set the mood and timeframe of the story. The station I worked at displayed a poster of Ricky Martin in the control room. Also mentioned in this story: Elton John, paintball, and hallucinogenic drugs. And though they’re not mentioned and they’re not from the same early 90s era, I feel indebted to the music video of Aphex Twin on this story. In fact, Aphex Twin might just be a subliminal influence on the whole book.
Kevin Sampsell and Creamy Bullets links:
the author's indie press
buy a signed copy at Powell's
Hobart review
Portland Mercury review
slouch review
Washington University bookstore review
Believer articles by the author
Bookslut interview with the author
Hobart interview with the author
identity theory profile of the author
litpark interview with the author
Portland Mercury articles by the author
Powell's Books blog posts by the author
SlushPile interview with the author
also at Largehearted Boy:
Previous Book Notes submissions (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
directors and actors discuss their film's soundtracks
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2008 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2007 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2006 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2005 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2004 Edition)
tags: books music fiction literature books kevinsampsell
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Try It Before You Buy It (July 1st Music Releases)
Try It Before You Buy It features free and legal music downloads and full album streams from the week's music releases.
MP3 downloads and full album streams from CDs released this week:
Alkaline Trio: Agony & Irony
full album stream
Earlimart: Hymn and Her
"Song For" [mp3]
Golden Animals: Free Your Mind And Win A Pony
full album stream
"Try on Me" [mp3]
Jay Brannan: goddamned
full album stream
"At First Sight" [mp3]
"Housewife" [mp3]
"Half-Boyfriend" [mp3]
Mugison: Mugiboogie
full album stream
Vanessa Hudgens: Identified
full album stream
We Versus the Shark: Dirty Versions
"Mr. Ego Death" [mp3]
"Hello Blood" [mp3]
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Try It Before You Buy It lists
CD & DVD release lists
tags: music cd list indie album releases mp3 download
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Shorties
Five Chapters is serializing new short fiction by Ron Rash this week.
Paste interviews Doug Martsch of Built to Spill.
Paste: What’s your take on modern alternative rock, especially because you’ve said before on numerous occasions that you’re not too hot on a lot of it? Is there anything you’ve heard or seen recently that you’re impressed by, or do you just tend to ignore newer music?
Martsch: I mostly just tend to ignore it. Not at all because there’s not good things going on, I don’t know why, I’m just not interested. You know, I’ve answered this question several times, and sometimes I’ll say the same thing, sometimes I’ll make shit up. Not on purpose, but just trying to understand it myself. I think what makes the most sense to me is that part of music is learning about the world, and learning about things, the same way that movies and books and TV and things like that help people learn about the world. When you’re young, you’re a sponge, and you can listen to things and learn a lot about the world. And I feel, myself, that there’s not a whole lot I can learn from some 25-year-old from America. Or the things that I could learn would be pop-cultural. But at the same time, you know, like the Arcade Fire– I thought that first record of theirs was really great. I didn’t learn anything, but it was great music. I never consciously, when I was young, thought I was learning things from music. As I got older, I guess I thought that might be the reason.
The Toronto Star examines the effect of rising gas prices on Canadian bands.
"For small bands, I think the days of touring extensively are probably going to be coming to an end soon," says Chris Eaton, lead singer of Rock Plaza Central, which is also on tour in Western Canada.
"The cities in Canada are so far apart, basically, you're already talking about a few hundred bucks just to be able to get to the next town."
BlackVoices.com interviews Grandmaster Flash about his newly published autobiography, The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats.
The Hold Steady's Craig Finn talks to Metro.co.uk about the band's new album, Stay Positive.
'At my age, you don't bounce back quite as quick the next day!' laughs Finn, who has taken to jogging on tour. 'I think one of the challenges for me on this record was that I'd written a lot about young adults before. I wanted to write about the life that was being presented to me; that is being in my 30s and finally making a living out of making music. It's really the only job available where you're encouraged to behave in certain ways.'
Minnesota Public Radio reports that he world premiere of the Little House on the Prairie stage production (starring Melissa Gilbert as Ma Ingalls) is setting box office records in Minneapolis.
On Friday, the first day of sales for the new musical, theatergoers bought 5,461 tickets. That more than triples the Guthrie's previous record, set in 2006 for the annual holiday show, "A Christmas Carol."
The Los Angeles Times gives the backstory to the live David Bowie CD out later this month, David Bowie: Live Santa Monica '72.
When Bowie-as-Ziggy stepped on the Civic stage in the fall of 1972, he was greeted by flashing strobe lights and the strains of the Walter Carlos' kinetic versio