In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Ed Lin’s The Dead Can’t Make a Living is a mystery novel as thought-provoking as it is entertaining.
Booklist wrote of the book:
“Good guy Jing-nan delivers a clear-eyed, compassionate portrayal of overseas worker abuse in this gritty offering to the rising swell of cozy-adjacent crime fiction. This fifth adventure is another series bar-raiser, delivering well-crafted underworld adventures with humor and sensual immersion in everyday Taipei.”
In his own words, here is Ed Lin’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel The Dead Can’t Make a Living:
“Born to Go” — Hawkwind
People ask me if I ever get writers’ block, and I say “Never!” If you feel like you can’t get anything creative done, throw on “Born to Go” by Hawkwind. No one else has ever sounded like the proto-punk, proto-metal, cosmos-obsessed UK band, which has whittled down to one original member but will mark 60 years in the biz in 2029.
There are a couple versions of this song, but I prefer the live take that’s a bonus track on the CD reissue of 1971 LP In Search of Space. God, it sounds like there are six drugged-out dirtbags (including future Motorhead frontman Lemmy) with distortion pedals all bellowing that “We were born to go! We’re never turning back!” I can’t imagine a better band of cheerleaders. Now you have no excuses to not create. Go, already!
“See You at the Fair”—Ben Webster
I listen to a lot of non-vocal music when working, and when I start up See You at the Fair by Ben Webster, I can’t help but think of the album cover with Webster gripping his trusty tenor sax Ol’ Betsy in front of the Unisphere from the 1964 New York World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows Park. I was born in Queens, and there’s a picture of my sister and me as little kids in front of the sculpture. I’m connected with this swinging album in another way. In my 20s, buying furniture meant grabbing a friend and finding a couch at the Salvation Army light enough for two to carry down the sidewalk. Well, after I got a new-to-me couch in place, I took off the cushions for a thorough vacuuming, and discovered the See You at the Fair CD stuck in an inner crevice. The first thing I noticed was the Unisphere. The next was the Impulse label logo, which made me think I would like the album. And I did like it. It was perfectly likable for years, decades. Something happened in 2025, however.
While I was under fire during the editing of The Dead Can’t Make a Living—and writers do feel like they’re being assaulted by even the most innocuous copy questions—I kept playing See You at the Fair over and over. I felt like Webster was telling me, “Just chill, it’s going to be all right.” The title track is the sole Webster original, and it’s a fine representation of the album. The nimble rhythm section pulls a nearly ska-like beat, while Webster bumps along. When the album was released in 1964, he was 55—about my age now—and on the verge of leaving the U.S. for Europe for good. He was dead less than a decade later, and Ol’ Betsy went to Rutgers’ jazz archives with instructions from Webster that it was never to be played again.
“I Am a Rock”—The Hated
If you’ve fallen for the prudent propaganda put out by tireless reissuer Numero Group, you know Maryland ’80s band The Hated is one of the greatest American punk groups in the emo vein. When I was in college I was on a mission to buy every punk-related 7-inch single, an undertaking that produced about one gem out of 20 purchases or so. Hey, that’s a better rate than a junkmail campaign! One of the gems was the double 7-inch “Like the Days,” four tuneful and whipsmart blasts from The Hated, a verbose iteration of Husker Du. The next thing I saw from The Hated was this Simon & Garfunkel cover on Wedge, a 7-inch comp put out by the Simple Machines label in 1990.
Hearing it took me back to visiting Taiwan in the 1980s, a time when the island lived up to its pirate-base past by producing rafts of illegitimate goods, including bootlegged recordings. I bought a copy of Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits then. I wasn’t a fan, but the songs were in English. I ended up liking it as much as a punk-rock kid could. Looking back, I sure wish I could’ve had instead The Hated’s version of “I Am a Rock,” which wonderfully stresses the defiance over the vulnerability of Paul Simon’s words.
“Absolutely Sweet Marie”—Flamin’ Groovies
Like most people, I like Bob Dylan’s songs but I can’t stand his awful voice. The world is fortunate that retro-absorbed Flamin’ Groovies covered a number of Dylan’s songs that The Byrds didn’t get around to fixing. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have seen two Groovies reunions—one with original singer Roy Loney and one with his replacement Chris Wilson—over the years at the much-missed Maxwell’s in Hoboken.
I actually had the line “To live outside the law you must be honest” in some dialog in The Dead Can’t Make a Living, but it was taken out due to copyright concerns, whomp whomp.
“Time Attacks”—Swervedriver
Once and future shoegaze champs Swervedriver released The World’s Fair EP in 2025, and I’m amplifying the nod to Ben Webster that may or may not only exist in my mind.
I wish I could’ve seen Swervedriver when it played Taiwan’s S20 Festival in 2019. It was a memorable show for the band, too, with frontman Adam Franklin telling It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine there was a “crazy old theme park with dinosaurs and a Wild West Town right next to the stage we played.”
“Time Attacks” is a deceptively carefree earworm, and the last song on the EP. Thing is, I’m such a Swervedriver neurotic (most of the band’s fans are) that I know that the song is a reworking of “Time It Takes,” a song Franklin released in 2005 under his solo moniker Toshack Highway on a burned-at-home compilation of demos titled Everyday, Rock n Roll Is Saving My Life Vol. 2. I own that CD. I bought it out of Fanklin’s guitar case after his solo show at the Mercury Lounge, years before Swervedriver reformed and played its largest-ever gigs. Real fans support thick and thin.
“That Was Then, This Is Now”—Whipping Boy
Since turning 40, I’ve listened to Whipping Boy’s self-titled third and last studio album more than any other. No, I haven’t listened to it every day for years like when I was a kid and played my tapes of London Calling and Soul Mining until the speakers sounded like they were underwater. But I have listened to Whipping Boy more than 200 times, and it is a staple of when I’m traveling, and it’s certainly going to play endlessly on the upcoming book tour.
The Dublin band was already doomed after being dropped by Sony following dismal sales of brilliant second album Heartworm. That 1995 album was critically acclaimed then, and again when reissued in 2021. But the self-produced, self-issued third album continues to languish in obscurity. I had read about it a quarter of a century ago in America’s best rock and indie music source The Big Takeover. Editor Jack Rabid raved about Whipping Boy, while noting the acrimonious conditions under which it was recorded. The four-piece band had split into two camps of two, if I recall correctly, and recorded their parts in the studio separately. Having already been a huge fan of Heartworm, I couldn’t wait to hear the new album.
Distribution of the CD was nearly nonexistent, certainly in the States. I had to order one from IrishMusicCentral.com, and it took forever to come in; they sent me two CDs to apologize for the tardiness in shipping. Like all great albums, it was tough going at first, but after the 10th listen, everything began to fall into place.
It’s a terribly bitter album. Consider the hopeless song titles: “So Much for Love,” “Puppets,” “Who Am I?” and “No Place to Go.” The band put a red-tinted cheese grater on the cover to represent how painful working together had become. It is a perfect album, musically forceful and lyrically fierce.
“That Was Then, This Is Now” is the most “rock” song on the album. Fearghal McKee spits most perceptively: “When I was just a boy I was told to be nice/Keep your fingers clean and to always seek advice/To have respect for authority and the powers that be/To pray by the alter down on your bended knees/In goodness and praise of God knows what/We were led to believe it was a communist plot.” Disillusionment and fleeting faith in the church, the music biz, and friendship. And yet this document of defeat shows its creators aren’t defeated. The band came full circle, and even though they made it home in pieces, Whipping Boy managed to put together this gleaming parting shot.
Whipping Boy was on Apple Music for a second before being pulled. No way is it on Spotify. Someone’s uploaded the whole thing to YouTube, tho. Listen now before it gets taken down.
“Every Line Has Let You Inside of Me”—The Lassie Foundation
I first encountered The Lassie Foundation years after the self-described “somewhat obscure L.A. band” called it quits in the aughts. The Foundation is probably best known as the band silvery guitarist Jeff Schroeder was in before joining the Smashing Pumpkins.
During the Tens, I was at a day job where the guy sitting across from me was also a big punk/indie/obscure music fan. We straight up traded files and CDs to rip, stuff that was long out of print. One of the files he gave me was the compilation Through and Through by The Lassie Foundation. My first thought was, man these guys got balls covering “Inside Out” by The Mighty Lemon Drops, a great song by an 80s group that many (OK, maybe just me) consider Bunnymen adjacent/derivative. The Foundation’s take on it makes a chunky version of a merely creamy song.
Through and Through tracked the band’s journey through shoegaze-filtered rock explorations. Despite its title, the compilation omits many things, including the album El Dorado, which the Foundation remastered and reissued in 2023 after a Kickstarter campaign.
Bob Mould has said that he places his killer song in the #3 slot to encourage the listener to stick with the whole album. “Every Line Has Let You Inside of Me” is #2 on El Dorado, and it’s strong enough to pull you through to the next album, too. It’s got everything, starting with Schroeder’s lost-love riff, a bass line from Jason71 (his trademarked name) so strong it’s coming through the carpet, vibraphone highlights, and Wayne Everett’s plaintive falsetto. I listened to this song quite a bit while writing and editing The Dead Can’t Make a Living, and my kid even made a level of rhythm game A Dance of Fire and Ice with it.
“One”—Yamantaka // Sonic Titan
Asian diasporic and Indigenous outfit Yamantaka // Sonic Titan would be barred from entering the States if the current administration had a gander at the lyrics to this buzzy song, laden with chants and percussion. “Ever wonder what it’s like to live in America?/Serpent tight around your throat,” sings the disembodied voice of Ruby Kato Attwood. I guess I would add that you get used to the snake if you just slip in your hand once in a while to loosen it up.
“One” has so much going on sonically, it’s the “one” song by YT//ST I want to hear when I feel like my writing’s getting too straightforward and plain.
In spite of that lyric snippet, the band doesn’t really do direct commentary. Their groove is visionary, spiritual music, with songs that include a young woman recounting the destruction of her home planet, the murder of a spider, and whale songs. What would you expect from a band that took their name from a mashup of a Buddhist deity and a song title from Sleep, the main outcrop of stoner rock?
Recent years have brought lineup changes, including Kato Attwood’s exit, and now YT//ST seems to have gone on hiatus. Sucks.
“Streets of Calcutta”—The Ananda Shankar Experience and State of Bengal
I don’t know much about Indian sitar master Ananda Shankar, but I do know a little about London DJ and producer State of Bengal (aka Saifullah “Sam” Zaman) from the 90s Asian Underground scene. The two collaborated on Walking On, a 1999 instrumental album that combined Shankar’s virtuoso playing with breakbeats.
The album is wonderful on its own, and helps burst the cocoon during the commute home from a dayjob to allow the writer to emerge from the subway renewed and ready to do the real work. Listening to “Streets of Calcutta,” the final track and recorded before a live audience, will pump hemolymph into your wings.
Sadly, we lost both men relatively young. Shankar died of a heart attack at the age of 56, only a few months before the album’s release. Zaman died in 2015, also of a heart attack, a month after turning 50.
“Stupid Fuckin’ People”—The BellRays
This is one of those songs you’re always ready to hear. For me, I think about the politicians and discriminatory attitudes who make life harder for migrant workers in societies that sorely need them. In Taiwan, the 3D jobs—dirty, dangerous, and difficult—in manufacturing, agriculture, and construction are filled with workers from Southeast Asia. Yet the legislation that is in place is more set on limiting their time in Taiwan and restricting their movement, rather than ensuring migrants have safe work environments and humane hours. The Dead Can’t Make a Living examines the lives—and one murder—among Taiwan’s migrant workers.
Singer Lisa BellRay channels town-hall level anger over a band that sounds like a single-guitar MC5 on speed.
I’ve watched a number of Vlogs that Taiwan’s migrant workers post on YouTube. One guy shot his last episode outside the factory he worked at for years. Near the end, he turned to the building. I got the feeling he wanted to give it the finger, but didn’t want to waste the energy. Instead, his goodbye was a dismissive wave.
Taiwanese people make sure to leave the country’s tourists with smiles and good memories. Taiwan’s migrant workers—who may be more essential to the country’s economy and society—should be leaving the country with the same sentiments.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Ed Lin is a journalist by training and an all-around stand-up kinda guy. He’s the author of four other novels in the Taipei Night Market series: Ghost Month, Incensed, 99 Ways to Die, and Death Doesn’t Forget as well as five other novels. Lin, who is of Chinese and Taiwanese descent, is the first author to win three Asian American Literary Awards. He lives in New York with his wife, actress Cindy Cheung, and son.