The Music Book Podcast

On this episode, Marc talks to Laina Dawes, author of “What Are You Doing Here?: A Black Woman's Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal,” first published in 2013 by Bazillion Points books, then republished in a new edition in 2020. It’s a combination of memoir, oral history, and highly-researched documentation of the roles black women have played in heavy metal, both as artists and as fans, and by extension in all kinds of music scenes.

As she writes, “What are you Doing Here? reveals the common thread of strength and determination among black women musicians in male-dominated music industries. We have a track record of resilience against all the obstacles put in our path.”

So I hope you enjoy my conversation with Laina Dawes, here it is!

On this episode, Marc talks to Michael Veal, author of “Living Space: John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Free Jazz, from Analog to Digital,” released in April 2024. It’s a fascinating, complex study of John Coltrane’s work from 1965 to his death in 1967, and Davis’s “Lost Quintet,” who played from 1968 to 1970 without ever recording in the studio. Comparing the former to digital architecture, and the latter to experimental photography, Veal explores themes of outer space, free meter, race, musical analysis, the avant-garde in jazz, and much more.

As he writes, "Similar to the way that my interest in architecture influenced my articulation of rhythmic ideas (with John Coltrane), my immersion in the language and history of photography helped transform what initially seemed like an intractable stumbling block (the lack of official Davis recordings) into a constellation of new opportunities for jazz history, analysis, and interpretation."

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Michael Veal!

On this episode, Marc talks with Jon Fine editor of “Your Band Sucks: What I Saw at Indie Rock's Failed Revolution (But Can No Longer Hear),” published in May of 2014. It’s a memoir of his time in the late 80s band Bitch Magnet, as well as his later bands Vineland and Coptic Light, plus the Bitch Magnet reunion in 2011. It's also a bird’s-eye history of indie rock in the 80s and 90s, including quotes from many people who had bands at the time, and lots of compelling descriptions of how exciting things were back then.

As Jon writes “In the eighties and nineties I was certain we were participating in something important...And despite my complicated relationship with this time and its many aftermaths, what I’d do to have that feeling again before I die.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Jon Fine!

On this episode, Marc talks with Ira Robbins, editor of “Zip it Up! The Best of Trouser Press Magazine, 1974-1984,” published in March 2024. It’s an anthology of pieces published in the New York-based magazine Trouser Press, which covered all kinds of rock music and other genres, and launched the careers of writers like David Fricke, Jon Leland, and Tim Sommer. The selections are roughly chronological in order but also grouped into categories such as glam rock, roots of punk, reggae, and post-punk.

As Ira writes, “We were determined to never patronize our readers, who we assumed to be intelligent, curious and willing to make a little effort — just as we were in our reading. We used big words, tossed around arcane references, even the occasional sophisticated concept to put across what we wanted to convey."

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Ira Robbins!

On this episode, Marc talks with Will York, author of “Who Cares Anyway: Post-Punk San Francisco and the End of the Analog Age,” published in April 2023. It’s a thorough and fascinating history of underground music in San Francisco, from the punk scene at Mahubey Gardens, to the post-punk craziness of Flipper, to the art rock of Tuxedomoon and the Residents, to the weirdness of Thinking Fellers, Caroliner, and Amarillo Records, to the massive success of Faith No More. Will captures San Francisco at a time when truly creative freaks were drawn there, could survive there, and changed the course of underground music.

As Will writes, “With the benefit of hindsight, it’s possible to detect premonitions of things to come…as if they could sense that this was somehow a last gasp for a certain age of humanity. Yet instead of fear and loathing, the overriding mood was one of desperation and urgency. To paraphrase Flipper’s Bruce Loose, “It was the dance to the death at the end of the world.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Will York!

On this episode, Marc talks to Michael Azerrad, author of “The Amplified Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana,” published in October of 2023. It’s an update of his 1993 biography of Nirvana, in which he annotates his original book, adding context, perspective, behind the scenes details, and his own feelings about the experience, three decades later, presenting new research and new insights that deepen the narrative and show what it was like to write a book about the biggest band in the world.

As Michael writes in his introduction, “My intention isn’t to track down every gory detail, find every skeleton in every closet, it’s to shed additional light on Nirvana’s story, and help Nirvana fans, people interested in the cultural history of the ‘90s, and yes, myself get a better understanding of what the hell happened.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Michael Azerrad!

On this episode, Marc talks to Marshall Gu, author of “Krautrock,” published on November of 2023. Part of the 33.3 "Genre" series, it's a look at Krautrock through chapter-length examinations of 12 individual groups: Can, Faust, Cluster & Harmonia, Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, Agitation Free, Guru Guru, Popol Vuh, Amon Duul II, Embryo, NEU!, and Kraftwerk. Along the way Marshall points out commonalities between these groups without boxing them into strict genre rules.

As he writes in his introduction, “What does Krautrock actually sound like? It can sound the most unrelenting psychedelia you’ve ever heard. It can sound like the most hypnotic grooves found in rock music. It can sound like jazz, like junk, like pure noise, or like peaceful ambient music. It can sound like nothing you’ve ever heard before, which was certainly the original mission statement of many of its practitioners.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's chat with Marshall Gu!

On this episode, Marc talks to Simon Price, author of “Curepedia: An A to Z of The Cure,” published on December 12, 2023. It’s a literal encyclopedia of the great British band the Cure, arranged in alphabetical order by subjects, including entries on albums, singles, and band members, plus themed entries such as Drugs, Hair, Drowning, and even Lockjaw. Price’s weaves interesting narratives in many of the entries, with tons of research to back him up.

As he writes in his introduction, “...even though this book contains facts, so many facts, the facts themselves are not the point. What I’ve aimed to do is to cross-reference, contextualize, analyze, and provide perspective. To draw unseen connections, and find parallels that are not immediately apparent.”

A note about this episode: As Simon and I were chatting, the audio sounded glitchy and choppy. We tried to fix this and thought we had, but the resulting recording still sounds that way. So I want to apologize in advance if it’s a tough listen, but I felt that our conversation was so good that I didn’t want to redo it. If you find it totally unlistenable, I’ve also made a transcript which I posted on my blog at this URL:

https://themusicbookpodcast.blogspot.com/2024/01/transcript-interview-with-simon-price.html

Thanks for bearing with us!

On this episode, Marc talks with Paul Steinbeck, the author of “Sound Experiments: The Music of the AACM,” published in paperback in December of 2023. It’s a look at the longtime Chicago-based musical organization the AACM, or Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, and began in 1965 and is still going strong today. Paul chose to approach the history of the AACM through individual recordings, focusing each of his chapters on a single album, and providing both a background of the artist and the recording, and a detailed, step by step description and analysis of the music on that record.

As he writes in his introduction, “Close analyses of these pieces illustrate how AACM composers and performers advanced the Association’s signature musical practices, from extended forms and multi-instrumentalism to experimental approaches to notation and conducting.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's talk with Paul Steinbeck!

On this episode, Marc talks to Steven Jones, author of "Murder Ballads Old and New: A Dark and Bloody Record," published on November 12, 2023. It’s a fascinating and in-depth look at songs throughout history that have dealt with death and tragedy, including folk songs that have been passed down through and transformed by generations, as well as more recent works that are just as affecting and impactful as tunes that are hundreds of years older.

As Steven writes in his introduction, “This book is about unhappy music–songs of death and loss caused by sudden, often violent reversals of fortune, celebrated and scrutinized for what each reveals about the human condition, and the role creativity plays in processing trauma and grief.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Steven Jones!