Stuck In Thee Garage #482: June 30, 2023

Reading may be fundamental, but sometimes you wonder if people read books anymore. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs inspired by books in hour 2. There are more than you think. Sadly, I couldn't find anything about this classic:

Time for some fancy book learnin':

Hour 1

Artist - Song/Album

Queens of the Stone Age - Paper Machete/In Times New Roman...

Protomartyr - We Know the Rats/Formal Growth in the Desert

PUP - Smoke Screen/Single

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - Save the World/Weathervanes

Allah-Las - The Stuff/Zuma 85

Deer Tick - Forgiving Ties/Emotional Contracts

Wye Oak - Every Day Like the Last/Every Day Like the Last

Immaterial Possession - Mercy of the Crane Folk/Mercy of the Crane Folk

Bully - How Will I Know/Lucky For You

The Dirty Nil - 1990/Free Rein to Passions

Guardian Singles - Ground Swell/Feed Me to the Doves

Low Praise - Hollow Ego/Dressing

Guided By Voices - Face Eraser/La La Land

Model/Actriz - Maria/Dogsbody

Shame - Orchid/Food For Worms

Washer - King Insignificant/Improved Means for Deteriorated Ends

Hour 2: Books

The Buzzcocks - Everybody's Happy Nowadays/Singles Going Steady

David Bowie - 1984/Diamond Dogs

Bloc Party - Song For Clay (Disappear Here)/A Weekend in the City

The Ramones - Pet Sematary/Brain Drain

Nirvana - Scentless Apprentice/In Utero

St. Vincent - Birth in Reverse/St. Vincent

Pixies - Gouge Away/Doolittle

XTC - Dear God/Skylarking

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Red Right Hand/Let Love In

The Police - Don't Stand So Close to Me/Zenyatta Mondatta

R.E.M. - Disturbance at the Heron House/Document

The Twilight Singers - Martin Eden/Blackberry Belle

Protomartyr - Maidenhead/Under Color of Official Right

Modest Mouse - Tiny Cities Made of Ash/The Moon & Antarctica

Smashing Pumpkins - Tristessa/Gish

Read (or listen) all about HERE!

Completely Conspicuous 514: A Punk Rock Future

I'm joined by guest Steve Zisson as we discuss the new sci-fi short story anthology he compiled, A Punk Rock Future. Listen to the episode below or download directly.


Show notes:
- Recorded at CompCon world HQ
- Take 2 of our conversation after the first one didn't record
- A Punk Rock Future is available on Oct. 8
- Book mashes up Steve's love of punk rock and science fiction
- Inspired by other self-published sci-fi anthologies
- Steve and I go back to the late '80s when we were both newspaper reporters
- Later worked together at three different companies
- Zisson: Love for sci-fi started with the original Star Trek series
- Wrote sci-fi in his teens, but then went into journalism
- Jay: Realized that chemical engineering wasn't the path for me and decided to go into journalism
- Zisson: Got into music in the mid-'70s, including early incarnation of the Cars (R.I.P., Ric Ocasek)
- Was going to see bands like Queen, the Kinks, Roxy Music before checking out early punk acts
- Saw Ocasek and Ben Orr's pre-Cars band Cap'n Swing at a small club in Nahant, Mass.
- Then a year or so later, sees the Cars playing at UMass right before they hit it big
- Then would go see the Clash, the Jam, and local Boston punk acts like the Neighborhoods and DMZ
- Zisson got back into writing sci-fi around 2012
- Would dedicate time to write in his spare time
- Discovered a lot of great young writers
- Got a few stories published in well-known sci-fi journals and sites
- More ways to get published now, but more competition, too
- Used to be primarily U.S. writers, now more international
- Came up with the idea for the book after 2016 election
- Drew parallel to late '70s and talked to some writers about "a punk rock future" as an anthology idea
- Put the call out for stories and got over 400 submissions
- Started a Kickstarter to raise $5,000 to pay the authors selected
- Enlisted former Webnoize colleagues to help read the submissions
- With music now, there's so much out there, it's impossible to keep up
- The goal of the project was to get it done and showcase the authors
- One of the authors, Sarah Pinsker, has a new book out that's getting good buzz called A Song For a New Day
- A Punk Rock Future is available on Amazon and at indie bookstores
- Don't confuse Steve Zisson with Steve Zissou
- Next up: Get some more writing done
- Maybe do an anthology of really short stories, like an album of 2-minute songs

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 486: Content Mismanagement

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss the power of the written word. Listen to the episode below or download directly.


Show notes:
- Check out Matt's book Echo and the Sea
- The popularity of comics has moved beyond just comic books
- The collector's market collapsed in the late '90s
- We make less time to read nowadays
- Audiobooks and podcasts are popular with people trying to multitask
- Mark Hamill's interesting career
- Attention spans are shrinking
- Binge-watching vs. reading
- Long-form storytelling is alive and well on TV
- Being professional on social media
- When things you liked don't age well
- Retroactive criticism
- Hate-sharing for fun and profit
- Outrage fatigue
- Picking careers that become obsolete
 
Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 485: Word is Bond

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss the power of the written word. Listen to the episode below or download directly.


Show notes:
- Check out Matt's book Echo and the Sea
- Everything's great
- Content has a different meaning these days
- Gotta grab readers much more quickly
- We read full articles more infrequently
- Rarely go directly to newspaper sites
- Jay: Use Feedly, which is like the old Google Reader RSS feed aggregator
- RSS feeds are archaic now
- Facebook's News Feed is pretty light on actual news
- People "liking" products on social media
- Matt: Shorter stories seem to do better than longer novels
- e-readers are good and bad
- Internet publishing took away the gatekeeper so anyone can publish now
- Now there's so much out there, you can't tell the good from the bad
- Paperbacks are making a comeback, like vinyl
- Putting "girl" in a book title is trending
- Dino erotica is a thing
- Fun with keywords
- Doing chart battle with werewolf smut
- Jay: Finally got a Kindle last year
- Matt: Amazon is the devil that pays on time
- To be continued
 
Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 457: Reboot, Reuse, Recycle

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss Hollywood's love of reboots. Listen to the episode below or download directly.
 

Show notes:
- Check out Matt's book Like a Comet: The Indestructibles Book 4
- Docudramas like The People Vs. OJ Simpson are doing well
- Reboot of 24 sans Jack Bauer
- Why would you remake a perfect movie?
- Flip the concept
- Matt's book idea
- Need to reward original stories
- Pixar's doing great work
- The Marvel series on Netflix have been good
- Experimental episodes can be fun
- So much TV to watch now
- Luke Cage broke new ground
- Watching foreign shows and running out of episodes
- Remaking European shows for American TV
- Matt needs to watch Terriers and Justified
- The greatness of Walton Goggins
- Shows that are difficult to watch

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 420: Failing to Plan, Planning to Fail

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss the need for organization. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").
 

Show notes:
- Order Matt's book The Entropy of Everything: The Indestructibles Book 3
- Always planning ahead to the next project
- Happiness is an empty inbox
- Jay: Preparing for a purge of office stuff
- How much is too much work?
- Matt doesn't need a calendar
- Organization via Google Calendar
- The art of the sticky note
- Business is moving away from email
- Working with people from across the globe
- Matt: Don't know how I could do more
- The newspaper life was a disorganized one
- Working way too many hours for tiny salary
- Learned how to write efficiently on deadline
- To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 408: Squirrel!

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss short attention spans. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").
 

Show notes:
- Order Matt's book The Entropy of Everything: The Indestructibles Book 3
- Spending too much time in front of screens
- Much harder to get through long articles nowadays
- How many words are worth $1?
- Looking at phone is how we kill time
- Smoking made Matt more social
- A generation of socially inept people
- Binge-watching TV requires more attention
- Longer network TV seasons seem so much longer now
- The Punisher is a tough character to get right
- Hell hath no fury like a nerd upset over something stupid
- Gotta pay attention when there are subtitles
- Anime moves too fast
- Audiences can't deal with slow scenes any more
- As a writer, Matt writes shorter chapters
- Short attention span applies to music listening
- Matt: If I had an iPhone as a kid, I would never have read a book
- To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 407: Fast and Loose

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss short attention spans. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").
 

Show notes:
- Order Matt's book The Entropy of Everything: The Indestructibles Book 3
- The inevitable joke
- MP: The more novels I write, the shorter my attention span gets
- Live-tweeting TV shows takes some effort
- Trace back to quick cuts in MTV videos of the early '80s
- Wireless Internet has sped up the attention decline
- Twitter mulls expanding character limit to 10,000
- The fine art of crafting an effective tweet
- News of Bowie's death spread fast on social media
- What a way to go out, leaving a great piece of art behind
- It's hard to sustain a long career these days
- How to teach your kids about music
- Dumbo doesn't hold up
- Matt: New Star Wars is an homage to the original, but much faster
- So much more dialog in TV shows now
- HBO's In Therapy was different because much of it was just two people talking
- Elmore Leonard mastered economical writing
- To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 402: Everybody Wants Some

This week, I'm joined by author Greg Renoff as we discuss the response to his new book about the early days of Van Halen. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").
 
Show notes:
- Recorded via Skype
- Buy Greg's book Van Halen Rising at Amazon or get a signed copy from the Van Halen Store
- We last spoke in March (eps 368 and 369) before the book came out
- Great response from readers
- Selling well on Amazon, was reviewed in Rolling Stone
- DLR's role in the band's early days surprised some
- Roth defied the odds to become a star
- Gene Simmons was an early supporter of the band
- Roth had different musical interests than the VH brothers
- Greg: Not sure what next writing project will be
- Meeting readers at book signings is fun
- Launch party in Pasadena featured VH's original bassist Mark Stone
- Visited neighborhood where VH played backyard parties
- The revolutionary sound of "Eruption"
- VH's disappointing live album
- Debate over what's in the archives
- The future of the band is murky
- Little released output from Eddie over the last 15 years
- Dave's role in the band is much different now
- DLR could be reuniting with his Eat 'Em and Smile-era band for some shows

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 388: Your Attention, Please

Part 3 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss the art of hype. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").


Show notes:
- Order Matt's book The Entropy of Everything: The Indestructibles Book 3
- Patreon is a crowdfunding option
- The patronage model
- Kickstarter, Indie GoGo efforts are commonplace
- Matt loves board games
- Contributing to podcasts and radio shows
- Matt's research on dino romance novels
- A Gronk to Remember was a big-selling e-book
- Matt: "People are hot for were-critters"
- Readers like series and formulas
- John Irving always writes the last line first
- Matt: Want to interact with more people to hype books
- The problem with contests
- The vagaries of web traffic
- Nine years, man

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 387: The Hype Machine

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss the art of hype. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").


Show notes:
- Order Matt's book The Entropy of Everything: The Indestructibles Book 3
- Avoiding overhype
- Getting RTs from celebrities
- Sometimes it feels like there's no benefit to Internet hype
- Getting bummed out to write sad scenes
- Cosplayers are having a moment
- Day jobs are a must, unfortunately
- Tagging somebody famous can work from time to time
- YouTube "stars"
- Spider-man with no butt
- To be continued


Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 386: Hustle n' Hype

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss the art of hype and celebrate CompCon's 9th anniversary. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").


Show notes:
- Pre-order Matt's book The Entropy of Everything: The Indestructibles Book 3
- When your medical professional is younger than you
- It's all about the hype
- Matt was at Boston ComiCon last weekend
- How to effectively hype your stuff online
- Perfecting the pitch
- Geeking out like a fanboy
- Books sell better when you meet people face to face
- One of a handful of authors
- Writing is fun, editing sucks
- Gotta hustle to sell books
- To hype without hyping
- Matt live-tweets superhero shows
- Making friends with people you've never met
- Women 18-40 are Matt's target audience
- Ensemble cast
- Harley the cat wants in
- To be continued


Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 377: Disposable Heroes

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss hero worship. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:
- Check out Matt's book, The Indestructibles: Breakout
- Matt founded Home For Wayward Geeks to rant about superheroes
- The problem with binge watching TV
- Superhero movies and TV shows are everywhere now
- Marvel's got a new movie coming out every few months
- Simon Pegg bites the hand that feeds him
- Comics are still big business, but the real money is in movies and merch
- Do we need superheroes?
- Matt: They're not going away until things get better in the real world
- We love to tear our heroes down
- Nobody likes a winner
- Robert Downey Jr. was a mess before he became Iron Man
- The Hugo Awards controversy
- People get all worked up over casting in comic book movies
- Matt doesn't get anime
- To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 327: Artificial Hip

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss the scourge of hipsterism. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").


Show notes:
- Matt recently became a published author
- Check out his YA superhero novel The Indestructibles
- Vin Diesel, businessman
- The brilliance of True Detective
- Hipsters: Is there a cutoff age?
- '90s hipsters were into the grunge look
- The mysterious allure of Mumford and Sons
- Hipsters love shitty beer
- Going to an effort to not look attractive
- Of beards and men
- Tattoos are trendy
- The Beatles set the trends of their day
- Where does it go from here?
- For a few years in the late '90s, it was nu metal and baggy pants
- We're all about the low-maintenance wardrobe
- Hair today, gone tomorrow
- To be continued

Music:
Bob Mould - Hey Mr. Grey
The Hold Steady - Spinners
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - She's On It/Jack the Ripper (live)

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The Bob Mould song is on the forthcoming album Beauty & Ruin on Merge Records. Download the song for free from KEXP.
The Hold Steady song is on the album Teeth Dreams on Washington Square/Razor and Tie. Download the song for free from KEXP.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion song is available for free download on Bandcamp.

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 292: Over and Out

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss our society's obsession with the apocalypse. Listen to the episode below or download it directly (right click and "save as").


Show notes:
- Recorded at Chez Phillion
- Neil Gaiman's American Gods may someday become an HBO series
- Seven stories keep getting retold
- When authors can't finish their series
- John Irving writes last line of a novel first
- Writing novels vs. screenplays
- Barrier to entry in moviemaking was cost of film, with books was publishing
- Now you can self-publish online
- Matt's film Certainly Never was screened at Massachusetts Independent Film Festival
- The satisfaction of slamming down a phone is gone
- Fun at the Boston "Nerd Prom," aka ComiCon
- Nerds rule the world
- Why does The Hobbit require a movie trilogy?
- When reality and satire are easily confused
- Outrage-powered culture
- Viagra has created an army of horny geezers
- Hopefully we won't have to deal with the End Times
- Bonehead of the Week


Music:
Marnie Stern - This Was It
The Superman Revenge Squad Band - A Funny Thing You Said
Radstewart - Beer Swindlers
Thee Oh Sees - Castiatic Tackle

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The Marnie Stern song is part of the Adult Swim Singles Program 2013. Download the song for free at Adult Swim.
The Superman Revenge Squad Band song is a single released on Audio Antihero. Download the song for free at Bandcamp.
The Radstewart song is the EP Whig Crooks and Beer Swindlers on Alcopop. Download the song for free at Soundcloud.
The Thee Oh Sees song is on the album Warm Slime on In the Red Records. Download the song for free at Epitonic.
 
The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

I Want My MTV

I've actually been doing a fair amount of reading lately, and finally had gotten into John Irving's Last Night in Twisted River when I suddenly interrupted it to plow through another book I found at the library: I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution by Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum. I had been meaning to pick up the 600-page oral history when it came out in paperback, but when I spotted it on the shelves at the Beverly public library, I couldn't resist. And it was a great ride that I plowed through in about a week.

The book covers the period of 1981, when MTV first launched, to 1992, when videos were giving way to the Real World and other non-music programming. As with the best oral histories, the authors weave in interviews with hundreds of folks to tell the story of MTV, from the executives who got it off the ground to the musicians whose videos were featured to the models who appeared in Robert Palmer and ZZ Top videos. And then are some great stories about coke-addled stars, debauchery in the MTV offices and the crazy backroom dealings that were involved in getting the station on the air and on cable systems. It also examines the back story behind many famous videos, good and bad, such as Billy Squier's "Rock Me Tonite," which effectively killed his career because of its decidedly unmacho dance moves.

My own experience with MTV is a mixed bag. I had seen plenty of videos while living in Toronto in the late '70s and early '80s. MTV launched in August 1981 while we were still in Canada and the city we moved to in Washington state a few months later didn't have MTV on its cable system (at that point, it wasn't on many systems at all). When we moved to New Hampshire a few years later, there was still no MTV. It arrived in Kingston in late 1985, at which I point I was already in college and could only watch it when I was home...because our dorm TV didn't have cable (and at that point, neither did the few of us who had our own TVs). My MTV viewing increased exponentially when I moved off campus in 1987 for my last two years at UNH. There were also regional all-video stations like Boston's V66, which I discussed in detail on the podcast last month with Eric Green, who's directing a documentary about the short-lived station (check out parts 1 and 2).

I watched it a fair amount after graduating because there were still videos, as well as shows like Remote Control and even the first few years of The Real World, and later Beavis and Butt-Head. By the late '90s, rap rock and boy bands had taken over the music scene and my MTV viewing dissipated to almost none; the station had gone to almost zero music content in the 2000s, relegating all that to MTV2 and VH1 Classic and going with reality fare like Real World, Road Rules, Punked, Jackass and countless other unscripted shows. I had no interest in any of that crap and I stopped watching. Of course, there's a whole generation of kids who have grown up on those shows so MTV lives on in the form of Jersey Shore et al.

As for rock videos, they're still made but certainly don't have the kingmaking power they once had. You can find just about any video ever made on YouTube for free now. And MTV realized early on it couldn't generate consistent ratings and attract big advertisers by just playing videos 24 hours a day. It's a business, after all. But those early years were a lot of fun, and I Want My MTV is a great inside look at the phenomenon. Two remotes up.

Completely Conspicuous 235: Read 'em and Weep

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Christian Douglass as we talk about the state of the book industry. Listen to the episode below or download it directly.

Show notes:
- Recorded in Beverly, Mass.
- Christian: So many good books out there go undiscovered
- Kindles and other e-readers have people
- Attitudes towards owning music and books change as folks get older
- Jay: My kids are still reading books
- The debate over digital media and artist royalties rages on in music industry
- Different revenue models: Amanda Palmer raised over $1 mil on Kickstarter for new album
- That won't work for artists without huge followings, though
- The popularity of oral histories
- Crafting an oral history involves skill in selecting right quotes, telling a story
- "Narrative non-fiction" is an interesting sub-genre
- Bonehead of the Week

Music:
The Henry Clay People - 25 for the Rest of Our Lives
Japandroids - The Nights of Wine and Roses
The Hives - High School Shuffle

Wye Oak - Spiral

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The Henry Clay People song is from the album Twenty-Five for the Rest of Our Lives on TBD Records. Download the song for free at HenryClayPeople.com.
The Japandroids song is on the album Celebration Rock on Polyvinyl Records. Download the song for free at Epitonic.
The Hives song is on the album Lex Hives on Disques Hives. Download the song for free at RCRDLBL.
The Wye Oak song is from the Adult Swim Singles Series. Download the song for free at Epitonic.

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian; check out his site PodGeek.

Completely Conspicuous 234: Reading is Fundamental

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Christian Douglass as we talk about the state of the book industry. Listen to the episode below or download it directly.



Show notes:
- Recorded in Beverly, Mass.
- In this age of distraction, it's amazing that people read books at all
- Christian: Education system may be to blame for lack of reading

- Fiction is still a valuable commodity
- Jay: Fun to see my kids get into reading
- Christian: Treating reading like a workout
- Multi-tasking all day makes one less inclined to read later
- Authors were once treated like movie stars
- "Fifty Shades of Grey" started as Twilight fan fiction
- Many best-sellers are autobiographies of celebs
- Christian: Historical fiction is exciting
- Working on a new project, a "novel in stories"
- Looking at African-Americans attracted to Russian promise of equality
- Also working on novel about a murder in rural Alaska
- All about plot
- Success comes at the sentence level
- Many parallels to the music industry
- Bonehead of the Week

Music:
The Corin Tucker Band - Groundhog Day
The Raveonettes - Observations
Stars - The Theory of Relativity
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Black Mold

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The Corin Tucker Band song is from the forthcoming album Kill My Blues on Kill Rock Stars. Download the song for free at Stereogum.
The Raveonettes song is from the band's forthcoming album Observator on Vice Records. Download the song for free at Stereogum.
The Stars song is on the forthcoming album The North on ATO Records. Download the song for free (in exchange for your email address) at StarstheNorth.com.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion song is from the band's forthcoming album Meat and Bone on Boombox/Mom + Pop. Download the song for free (in exchange for your email address) at Pitchfork.com.


The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian; check out his site PodGeek.

Overblown

These days it takes me a long time to read books, just because I have so many distractions that it's rare I have the time to just sit down and read. But every once in a while, I start a book that forces me to crank through it, if not in one or two sittings then over a short period of time.

Such was the case with Mark Yarm's Everybody Loves Our Town, which came out in paperback a few months ago. The book is an oral history of the Seattle grunge scene of the early '90s and delves far beyond the superficial, well-trod territory of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. Sure, plenty of space is given to those bands because how could you not, but Yarm also spends as much if not more time looking at other elements of the scene such as the founding of Sub Pop Records and more obscure bands like Tad, Cat Butt, the U-Men and Green River, as well as the trials and tribulations of the copycat wave that came later in the form of bands like Candlebox.

Yarm did hundreds of interviews for the book, and some of the best parts come when stories are retold and different individuals disagree on the details. This tends to happen with Courtney Love several times, for example. Not surprisingly, drugs play a huge role in the scene, as there were several high-profile deaths resulting from heroin or other drug ODs: Layne Staley, Andrew Wood, Stefanie Sargent, Mike Starr--and of course, the suicide of Kurt Cobain and the murder of Mia Zapata of the Gits. Drugs also took their toll on many other musicians in the scene who were able to get through their problems and thrive (see Mark Lanegan, Mike McCready, Mark Arm).

Oral histories are more than just a bunch of disparate quotes strung together. The best ones use others' words to tell a story, and Yarm does it as well as the best I've read (Live From New York by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales, Those Guys Have All the Fun also by Miller and Shales, Fool the World: An Oral History of the Pixies by Josh Frank). Yarm's books a truly compelling read, and even if you think you know everything about the Seattle scene, you don't.

The Sound of Our Town

A few months ago, I was at a used bookstore in Hampton, NH, with my mom and my daughters. While the girls looked for books, I perused the music section and came across Brett Milano's The Sound of Our Town: A History of Boston Rock n' Roll. I was familiar with Milano, a freelance music writer who has done reviews for the Boston Globe, Boston Phoenix and Boston Herald over the last few decades; I also see him at a fair amount of shows in town, most recently at the Wild Flag gig at the Paradise.

Knowing him as a seasoned observer and a good writer, and also noting that the book was $8 used, I picked it up and plowed through it over the last week (that's pretty good for me, given all the distractions I have going on at any given time). The book traces Boston's music scene from the 1950s to the present (it was published in 2007), so Milano has a lot of ground to cover in 241 pages. He does a good job of hitting the high points and giving the reader a taste of what was happening in town at a particular time.

I moved to New England in 1983, when a lot of cool shit was going on in town that I was sort of aware of from listening to local radio, but I didn't start going to club shows locally until 1989 or so. My actual first forays were to a grimy little rock club called Grover's, right here in Beverly, seeing bands of local renown like O Positive, Barrence Whitfield and the Savages (Barrence still lives in Beverly and is a cool dude), Tribe, Heretix and Bim Skala Bim. The Rolling Rocks were cheap and it was my first experience of seeing bands up close and in my face, as opposed to the many arena shows I'd attended by that point. Sadly, Grover's went out of business in '90 or '91, reportedly because of unpaid taxes; one day the doors were padlocked shut and that was that. The site of the club now houses a fairly upscale restaurant.

After that, I caught bands at the Salem clubs Bleachers and the Dodge Street Grill, but mainly I started going to Boston clubs like The Channel, the Paradise, the Middle East and Lansdowne Street clubs like Avalon, Axis, Venus De Milo and Bill's Bar. Soon club shows made up the majority of my concertgoing, and they still do. Just last night, I was out late with my good friend Mr. Breitling as we checked out one of his favorite bands, Soccer Mom, as well as AM Stereo and Ho-Ag at the relatively new club Radio in Union Square in Somerville. All three acts were excellent and kicked several kinds of ass, and it was cool to see a wide range of ages in the attendees (albeit the older folks in the crowd were there to see AM Stereo, who have been around since the late '90s). It was hot as balls and loud as hell, which is really what any good rock show should be. Even if the suburban clubs are long gone for the most part, the Boston rock scene continues to churn out excellent bands. And although I'm less able to go out and see them on a regular basis, it's nice to know they're out there.