I think the depiction of the punk band and its surrounding scene in Goon Squad's early chapters is unusually believable but the later stuff about the outcast singer-songwriter redeeming a plasticised world through the magic of authenticity kind of undoes that good work. Novelists have a bad epiphany addiction when it comes to describing the music itself rather than the characters involved in making it.
― Deafening silence (DL), Thursday, 27 December 2012 18:47 (eleven years ago) link
Bad epiphany addiction good way to put it.
Where were you Whiney when the pinefox did his slow liveblog reading of that book? Looking forward to tumblr post
― Albee Thousand (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 27 December 2012 19:00 (eleven years ago) link
feel like all my examples of "novelists doing it right" = "novelists on classical"
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Thursday, 27 December 2012 20:28 (eleven years ago) link
Zadie, you listen to Joni, but you can't HEAR Joni
― drunk 'n' white's elements of style (Hurting 2), Thursday, 27 December 2012 20:38 (eleven years ago) link
The Music Man?
― Albee Thousand (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 27 December 2012 20:41 (eleven years ago) link
is this the thread where they talk about the vice on pitchfork piece? which thread is that?
― Dominique, Thursday, 27 December 2012 20:41 (eleven years ago) link
Ah yes, Q-Tip--blessed Q-tip! And his dog, who plays upon the fife! And Ali, the mussulman!
― drunk 'n' white's elements of style (Hurting 2), Wednesday, December 26, 2012 10:19 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
ahaha
― have a sandwich or ice cream sandwich (Jordan), Thursday, 27 December 2012 20:47 (eleven years ago) link
someone brought a rock 'n' roll mystery novel into the store today! weird. it originally even came with a cd of original songs to go along with the book! its looks horrible.
― scott seward, Thursday, 27 December 2012 21:50 (eleven years ago) link
burn it
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 27 December 2012 21:51 (eleven years ago) link
le guin novel that originally came with a tape of original new age folk in a made-up language is really good though if you ever see it.
― scott seward, Thursday, 27 December 2012 21:51 (eleven years ago) link
it even says A ROCK & ROLL MYSTERY on the cover. worst genre ever.
― scott seward, Thursday, 27 December 2012 21:52 (eleven years ago) link
for people who hate music and reading
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 27 December 2012 21:52 (eleven years ago) link
anywayyyyyyy......
http://www.npr.org/blogs/bestmusic2012/2012/12/26/168097407/what-happened-to-music-writing-this-year
― scott seward, Thursday, 27 December 2012 21:53 (eleven years ago) link
I always wanted to read one of those lord iffy boatrace books by bruce dickenson of iron maiden
― Andrew WKRP (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 27 December 2012 21:57 (eleven years ago) link
and my immediate response to maura's thing is: what happened this year? what about all those other years?
― scott seward, Thursday, 27 December 2012 21:57 (eleven years ago) link
i'd gladly write an overview of "all those other years" if asked
― maura, Thursday, 27 December 2012 21:58 (eleven years ago) link
see, i was gonna point that out in the spirit of equal time: musicians often write horrible novels.
x-post
― scott seward, Thursday, 27 December 2012 21:58 (eleven years ago) link
Can that genre be worse than sudoku/crossword mysteries? Probably.
― Albee Thousand (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 27 December 2012 21:59 (eleven years ago) link
rock 'n' roll mystery = Inherent Vice, more or less
― Brad C., Thursday, 27 December 2012 21:59 (eleven years ago) link
i'm just cranky when it comes to music writing. and it makes me sad that this thread and threads like them are bumped waaaaaaaay more than any good music writing threads on here.
― scott seward, Thursday, 27 December 2012 21:59 (eleven years ago) link
wait, cat mysteries might be the worst.
― scott seward, Thursday, 27 December 2012 22:00 (eleven years ago) link
Do you have a lord iffy boatrace book skot? If so I would buy it
― Andrew WKRP (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 27 December 2012 22:00 (eleven years ago) link
i bumped the thread for great music writing just a few hours ago and yet everyone INCLUDING YOU, SCOTT!, prefers to be in here
― lex pretend, Thursday, 27 December 2012 22:01 (eleven years ago) link
but i blame myself too cuz when i read a horrible rockcrit thing what do i do first? link to it here, probably. which is fun for a minute and might have been instructive at some point but you could kinda do it every day of the week if you wanted to.
― scott seward, Thursday, 27 December 2012 22:02 (eleven years ago) link
(i really liked that article maura)
― lex pretend, Thursday, 27 December 2012 22:02 (eleven years ago) link
sorry lex! i'll check it out. just got home from work. been shoveling snow.
(thank you)
― maura, Thursday, 27 December 2012 22:02 (eleven years ago) link
has anyone read any mick farren books? sci-fi stuff, right? maybe those are good. kinky friedman, i read one of his once. not bad.
― scott seward, Thursday, 27 December 2012 22:03 (eleven years ago) link
I just read the beginning of that piece because I was surprised it wasn't Maura's NPR piece and I really, really hated it
Maura's NPR piece is super rad
― GIMME SOME REGGAE (DJP), Thursday, 27 December 2012 22:15 (eleven years ago) link
I read one of Mick Farren's vampire books, it was okay
the only good music writing is on ilm
― Mordy, Thursday, 27 December 2012 22:16 (eleven years ago) link
god help us all
― crüt, Thursday, 27 December 2012 22:20 (eleven years ago) link
Really excellent piece by Maura.
The only thing i wished for was a mention of the rise of the kind of outrageously inept listicle we keep coming back to on this thread. EG the Village Voice jazz thing with Brubeck his insane rhythms fly at u face. It functions the same way as the contrarian/provocative listicle (ppl will click to get pissed off cuz ppl sorta like getting pissed off) except the provocation here is the abysmal quality of the writing itself. There's no way the VV didn't know what was gonna happen with that jazz thing and they sure got their clicks out of it.
― Q-Tip—blessed Q-Tip! (Jon Lewis), Thursday, 27 December 2012 22:25 (eleven years ago) link
it seemed like a signal moment to me
― Q-Tip—blessed Q-Tip! (Jon Lewis), Thursday, 27 December 2012 22:26 (eleven years ago) link
there were a whole bunch of things in this month's wire that were pretty awful
― attempt to look intentionally nerdy, awkward or (thomp), Thursday, 27 December 2012 22:26 (eleven years ago) link
visit from the goon squad, though, enh
Moorcock was great at putting pop music in his sci-fi
― If I was a carpenter, and you were a douchebag (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 27 December 2012 22:34 (eleven years ago) link
http://perpetua.tumblr.com/post/38971850406/critical-discoursin-in-the-social-media-era
Don't know if this is too short to be considered, but it is pretty laughable and lacking self-awareness.
― this will surprise many (Nicole), Thursday, 27 December 2012 22:37 (eleven years ago) link
well consider the source
― lex pretend, Thursday, 27 December 2012 22:45 (eleven years ago) link
I always wanted to read a moorcock book because of his blue oyster cult association
Inherent Vice rules so hard
― Andrew WKRP (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 27 December 2012 23:01 (eleven years ago) link
his book starring Hawkwind is better in theory than in practice, unfortunately (I blame his cowriter tbh)
― If I was a carpenter, and you were a douchebag (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 27 December 2012 23:04 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.book-owski.com/wp-content/uploads/wpsc/product_images/1287417239-thetimeofthehawklords.jpg
― If I was a carpenter, and you were a douchebag (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 27 December 2012 23:05 (eleven years ago) link
nice
― mookieproof, Thursday, 27 December 2012 23:08 (eleven years ago) link
the bits where Hawkwind is rockin-to-save-the-universe are pretty entertaining tbh, it's the rest of the book (plot, characterization, prose, etc.) that fails miserably
― If I was a carpenter, and you were a douchebag (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 27 December 2012 23:13 (eleven years ago) link
Rankin always seemed to be applying to be editor of Mojo between the lines.
Peter Robinson had one mystery where the victim was a writer for Mojo.
― tokyo rosemary, Thursday, 27 December 2012 23:35 (eleven years ago) link
I guess there are also The CosbyCosloy Mysteries.
― Albee Thousand (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 27 December 2012 23:37 (eleven years ago) link
Maura that was a great and depressing article
― Andrew WKRP (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 27 December 2012 23:59 (eleven years ago) link
clumsy Tom Sharpe pastiche with extra scatology iirc
I can get behind Christopher Brookmyre having a 40-something Glaswegian grandmother accidentally wandering into a Twilight Singers gig at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut and through the power of Dulli realising her domestic life is terrible and she should become a two-fisted international merc
― ( ͡° ͜ʖ͡°) (sic), Friday, 28 December 2012 01:16 (eleven years ago) link
lol dulli is powerful, but i'm not sure it's in quite that way
― mookieproof, Friday, 28 December 2012 01:27 (eleven years ago) link
so recommended?
― Andrew WKRP (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 28 December 2012 01:34 (eleven years ago) link