In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.

In his own words, here is Peter Terzian's Book Notes music playlist for his book, Heavy Rotation: Twenty Writers on the Albums That Changed Their Lives:

Last spring, when I was editing the first draft of Heavy Rotation, my mother came down with a rare inflammatory disease called Wegener's granulomatosis. No one knows what causes the disease; no one can guess how she contracted it.

She was admitted to the hospital in late March. Two weeks later, when a diagnosis was finally settled upon, she was physically immobile and mentally unresponsive. The disease advanced relentlessly, shutting down major organ systems. She died in the middle of April.

Over the next year, I listened to a lot of sad music. A lot of songs about loss. Some came up face-to-face with death. Some were about other kinds of loss, the vanishing of time and one's own life, an inexorable separation from a lover—but the emotions the songs called up were the same. All of these songs provided more solace than I can say.

Iron and Wine, "The Trapeze Swinger"

Please, remember me/Happily/By the rosebush laughing …
Please, remember me/My misery/And how it lost me all I wanted

I listened to this song the day after my mother died. I put on my headphones and walked to the elementary school near my parents' house. The playing fields behind the school are on a little hill, and I lay on the side of the hill—it was a Sunday, and there was no one around—and looked at the sky. That spring was beautiful, with warm, bright days.

Crowded House, "English Trees"

Although it's springtime and color is new/In Regent's Park I will mourn for you

Four years ago, my boyfriend and I took my parents on a trip to London. My mother had never been overseas. She had been afraid to fly, though as our plane lifted off, I looked over to see her contentedly fiddling with the TV monitor on the back of the seat in front of her. We did tourist things: took a boat ride on the Thames, went to the National Gallery and Westminster Abbey. Sometimes Caleb and I went off to go book shopping or to meet friends, and my parents made their way through the city on their own. On foot—it was a few months after the July 7 bombings, and my mother wouldn't ride the bus or the tube. They spread their American friendliness wherever they could; stopping to rest on a bench in St. James Park, they chatted with a Brazilian tourist, and my father snapped a picture of my mother and the young woman together. "Do you ever think," my mother said to me, "that you were born in the wrong place?"

Kristin Hersh, "Your Ghost"

I think last night/You were driving circles around me

At some point after my mother died, I stopped considering the idea of an afterlife. I could not feel the truth of it in my bones, had no sense of a parallel world where my mother would continue to be. She was only in the past now, in memory. But my father, who was never a believer, began to stay up into the night, watching cable TV programs about ghosts—"A Haunting," "Ghost Hunters." When I visit, he asks me to watch them with him. I express my skepticism, but I don't want to take away his hope of another life. "How much would you consider this kind of thing"—he points at the television—"a possibility? 40-60? 30-70?" I say something evasive, trying not to say "0-100." … And yet, during a visit, when I enter my mother's bedroom, or the laundry room—the parts of the house that most carry her imprint—my eyes quickly scan the room, looking in the corners, in the mirrors, for her transparent image.

The Innocence Mission, "Brotherhood of Man"

We are in the wind, planting the maples/We meet an older man who seems to know/I miss my dad

I thought I knew all the pictures of my mother. After she died, I found a large envelope on the shelf of her closet. Inside were all the photographs people had sent her over the years, Christmas pictures of far-flung relatives I couldn't identify. With these were a small cache of black and white pictures I had never seen before, taken in the 1940s, when she was in her teens, in pristine condition. She had never shown them to me. She might have forgotten that they were there, or wanted to keep them hidden from the world, like a private part of the self. In one, she is in morning light, dressed for Easter in a new outfit. Her thick hair curls up from beneath a spring hat. She looks happy, excited about the day ahead—she may be about to go to church, and afterward there will be a family meal. I listened to this song on the way back from the framing shop.

Marissa Nadler, "Diamond Heart"

I look for you in the diamond trees/And the highway divine/Deliver me …
And oh my lonely diamond heart/It misses you so well

The narrator of this song, a woman, is separated from a lover. His father died when they were together, and they scattered his ashes in the snow. She is now traveling, meeting guys in bars, but she's thinking of and searching for the man she left behind. I can't relate to the particulars of this song in any way, and yet it takes me right to the bottom every time I hear it.

Iron and Wine, "Passing Afternoon"

There are things that drift away/Like our endless numbered days/Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made

I have a picture of my mother in my head. I don't know if it's a real memory, or a fictional one that was created by this song. But in this picture, it's a spring day, the windows are open for the first time in months, she is in my parents' bedroom, the room is pale green, it is quiet and neat, my mother is wearing her housecoat and her tan sandals that go thock-thock as she walks, she is going from room to room making the beds, she is making my parents' bed, the sun is shining through the windows, it is many years ago, I am still a teenager, she lifts her bedspread up to straighten it across the bed and for a moment it floats in the air before gently falling back to earth.

Peter Terzian and Heavy Rotation: Twenty Writers on the Albums That Changed Their Lives links:

excerpt from the book

A.V. Club review
Modern Tonic review
Sound of the City review

New York Times Paper Cuts playlist by the author
Village Voice feature on the book

also at Largehearted Boy:

other Book Notes submissions (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
52 Books, 52 Weeks

tags: books music literature nonfiction

After Mr. Tweedy formed Wilco, he found himself split between being the guy who worshiped rock music and the one on the stage. “I wish I was like David Lee Roth, that some part of it came naturally to me, but I have an inherent self-consciousness that I think is hard to transcend on some nights,” he said. “I have an observing ego on top of an ego that tends to take a lot of the fun out of things. At some point I was able to embrace and understand that I actually am on the other side of it as well. It seems like way more work to conceal an ego than to actually just come to terms with it.”

Drowned in Sound lists the top 20 independent albums of the year so far.

Metro Edmonton lists 5 great albums of 2009.

On the Record lists the 25 best albums of 2009 so far,

In the Toronto Star, author and musician Dave Bidini lists the best sorts books for summer cottage reading, and reminds me to pick up a copy of Donald Hall's Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball.

24 Hours Vancouver asks local celebrities about their summer reading of the past, present, and future.

69 Love Songs, Illustrated is still creating comics fir each song of the Magnetic Fields' classic album.

NPR's All Things Considered profiles the social networking site built around reading BookGlutton.com.

A Geekymomma's Blog offers suggestionns to find free books, book summaries and book reviews online.

Bookride is a blog dedicated to rare books.

Jason Lytle visits The Current studios for an interview and live performance.

Enter the latest Largehearted Boy contest and win 75 CDs.

Follow me on Twitter for links that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.

also at Largehearted Boy:

daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists

tags: music books popculture indie news literature

ArpLine: "Fold Up Like a Piece of Paper" [mp3]
ArpLine: "Weekend in the Colonies" [mp3]
ArpLine: "Rope" [mp3]
ArpLine: "Game" [mp3]
other ArpLine posts at Largehearted Boy

Aspects of Physics: "Default Action" [mp3]
other Aspects of Physics posts at Largehearted Boy

Dark Knights Of Camelot: "Duple" [mp3] from Hurrication EP (out July 14th)
other Dark Knights Of Camelot posts at Largehearted Boy

Kevin Hearn: "Huntsville.ca" [mp3] from Havana Winter (out July 28th)
other Kevin Hearn posts at Largehearted Boy

Lightning Dust: "Never Seen" from Infinite Light (out August 4th)
other Lightning Dust posts at Largehearted Boy

Medeski Martin and Wood: "Amber Gris" [mp3] from Radiolarians III (out August 4th)
other Medeski Martin and Wood posts at Largehearted Boy

Megafaun: "Kaufman's Ballad" [mp3] from Gather, Form & Fly (out July 21st)
other Megafaun posts at Largehearted Boy

Free and legal mp3s of live performances at other websites:

Julie Doiron: Daytrotter SXW session [mp3]
other Julie Doiron posts at Largehearted Boy

*registration required

also at Largehearted Boy:

previous free and legal mp3 daily downloads
2009 Bonnaroo downloads
2008 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

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.

In her own words, here is Jessica West's Book Notes music playlist for her book, What Would Keith Richards Do?: Daily Affirmations from a Rock and Roll Survivor:

I've always thought that Keith Richards was the perfect person to write a self-help book. When it didn't seem that that was going to happen anytime soon, I figured I had to step in and do it for him. Sort of.

What Would Keith Richards Do? is a guide to Living Life the Keith Richards Way, an investigation into the Tao of Keith, plus a compendium of the Wit and Wisdom of Rock n Roll's premiere survivor.

The playlist that motored the writing of the book was made up only a little bit of Stones music, a little more of Richards' solo work, but mostly of artists and songs that Keith has gone on record as having inspired him. The book was about channeling Keith and his attitude, so I wanted to listen to the songs and artists that shaped him—that perhaps created Keith Richards. Within this soundtrack I found a fascinating line-up of gangsters, trouble-makers and trouble-magnets, and mythical beings-- "bad men who made beautiful music"—those who courted the dark side, if not the devil himself, then turned it into something haunting and gorgeous. A lot of the songs I played had subject matter that mirrored the issues that Keith has talked about so often: doing it your own way, the exuberance of being alive, rebellion, coming to terms with others, the mystery of the blues, honesty, looking the devil straight in the eye, the dark side, finding the beauty in the sordid, and taking joy in giving someone the finger when you have to.

In many of these songs, you can hear the building blocks of later Stones music, particularly those that would end up on "Exile of Main Street" (the most Keith of all Stones albums).

The playlist for writing What Would Keith Richards Do? was vast, but the main playlist is as follows (with some Keith quotes added on):

1. Robert Johnson - Preaching the Blues (Up Jumped the Devil)

Johnson is not only the "grandfather of rock" but maybe the grandfather of Keith—a shadowy human riff who shook hands with the devil. Maybe this story is true: Johnson met the devil at the crossroads near Dockery Plantation at midnight; the devil tuned Johnson's guitar, played it, and then gave it back to him. In exchange for Johnson's soul, he would play the best blues guitar ever heard. In listening to Johnson's voice, there's an exhilarating spookiness, and it always reminds me of Keith. Keith: "There's a demon in everybody. It's the trying to express it—there's a dark piece in us all."

2. Jackie Brenston - Rocket 88

Many consider this to be the first rock n roll song. It's like listening to the future while listening to the past.

3. Leadbelly - The Midnight Special

In comparison to Leadbelly, Keith is an amateur when it comes to being a ‘gangster'. Here is one of the original "bad men who makes beautiful music." Prison, addiction, fights, trouble. He also brought a political edge to his music, writing on everything picked up on his cultural antenna-- from Harlow to Hitler. Pre-Keith Keith.

4. Blind Willie McTell - Talkin' to Your Mama

Another mythical, doomed, but magical original. McTell became a wandering busker after leaving home at an early age, and at life's end was playing for whiskey and quarters in the street. Here but for the grace of God go I.

5. Clarence ‘Gatemouth' Brown - Okie Dokie Stomp

The "Gatemouth" nick-name came from a teacher who told Brown he had a voice like a gate. It's like they saoid about Keith—a voice that only a mother could love.

6. Amos Milburn - Down the Road Apiece

A standard of Rock n Roll, originally recorded in the 1940s. I love this recording. Anyone could fall in love with rock on hearing this.

7. Clarence ‘Bon Ton' Garlow - Bon Ton Roulet

A wonderfully happy song—and a Keith favorite.

8. Professor Longhair & His Shuffling Hungarians - Mardi Gras in New Orleans

Another bad boy with beautiful music. Longhair started out as a street hustler; was also a janitor and a gambler. He never made it big, but he was an original. Keith: "The mundane has never interested me."

9. Hoagy Carmichael – Georgia on My Mind

I like the fact that Keith got evicted from a New York apartment for blasting Hoagy repeatedly at 4:00 AM.

10. John Lee Hooker - I'm in The Mood

Listen to the Stones song "I Got the Blues" and then listen to this. It's a mirror. Hooker's half-spoken style, and his roots in spiritual music reminds me also of Keith (he did get his start in the church choir).

11. Muddy Waters - Rollin' Stone

Keith: "I just want to be Muddy Waters."… "There's a demon in everybody. It's the trying to express it—there's a dark piece in all of us."…"Muddy is like a very comforting arm around the shoulder. You need that… It can be dark down there."

12. B.B. King - Everyday I Have the Blues

Keith on the blues: "It's about the most important thing that America has ever given to the world."… "It's a part of everybody."

13. Howlin' Wolf - Moanin' at Midnight

Another Keith favorite; a musician who sings from the dark valley.

14. Hank Williams - You Win Again

Keith: "You should never underestimate the importance of country in rock n roll."

15. Chuck Berry – Little Queenie

It was on hearing Berry that Keith decided to devote his life to music. This song just gets better over time. Keith: "Rock n roll doesn't die, it matures." Berry became a continuous character in Keith's life, but it didn't always go so well. Keith: "I couldn't warm to him [Berry] if I was cremated next to him."… "There are limits to hero worship."

16. Little Richard – Tutti-Frutti

Keith: "'A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop, a-lop-bam-boom.' For me, the world then went from black-and-white to Technicolor."… "It was a bit of a shock, but it was a great one, like, shock me some more."

17. Ry Cooder - Jesus on the Mainline

Keith: "I nicked a lot off of him. I took him for all he was worth... I ripped him off." With a line like that, how can you not make Cooder part of your soundtrack?

18. Gram Parsons – Streets of Baltimore

Keith: "Beautiful pain. He had it to the max." There are rumors that it was Parsons who wrote "Honky Tonk Woman" and that he was the inspiration for "Wild Horses." Many have noted that after Gram died you could hear his ghost in Keith's songs. How can you not listen to Gram when conjuring Keith?

19. Bob Marley & the Wailers - Jah is Mighty

Keith: "If you go to Jamaica, you see people living to that rhythm. It's magic in that it's an unexplored area…. I call it ‘marrow music'. It's beyond the bone…I can give you the history of the world—just give me their music."…And…"I love God. But I hate preachers."

And from the Stones:

20. You Can't Always Get What You Want

A self-help book in song form.

21. Satisfaction

Whether it's true or just a great legend: Keith wrote this in his sleep. It's also the song he says every other one he's written is a variation on. "I had to stop doing Chuck Berry and start doing Keith Richards."

22. Before They Make Me Run

Written following the drug arrest in Canada, the song expresses a hallmark Keith quality: courage. Keith: "At least I faced it. It's the only thing I'm proud about in all of that period—that I faced up to it and said, okay, that's it, and it's all over… I was looking down the bad end of the gun."

23. Sympathy for the Devil

Keith: "You might as well accept the fact that evil is there and deal with it any way you can…Don't forget him. If you confront him, then he's out of a job."

24. Coming Down Again

Drugs, drugs, drugs. But again, it's about finding the beautiful in the sordid. Keith: "I wouldn't have written [this song] without [drugs]. It kept me in touch with the street, at the lowest level."

25. Blue Turns to Grey

After Brian Jones died, Keith took over the role of self-destructive drugged and wild rock star. This song reminds me of Brian's passing—and the strange guilt, sorrow, and relief that must have transpired; and how you just have to keep going.

26. Gimme Shelter

Like hearing a storm come in. If you shy away from writing about dark subjects, "you end up writing about embroidery." No embroidery here.

27. Happy

I still don't know what he was happy about. But I love the song, because the scraggly voice reminds me of the "bad men making beautiful music". The sound is pure Keith.

28. Time Waits for No One

For all the jokes about the aging Stones, in this song aging and time are viewed with vulnerability and surrender. For all their "we'll outlive you all" bravado, it is, ultimately, their fragility that is the most moving. And it's in this song.

Jessica West and What Would Keith Richards Do?: Daily Affirmations from a Rock and Roll Survivor links:

the book's website

Finding Dulcinea review
Pop Damage review
The Rumpus review
Time Out Chicago review
Toronto Star review

New York Times' Paper Cuts preview of the book

also at Largehearted Boy:

other Book Notes submissions (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
52 Books, 52 Weeks

tags: books music literature nonfiction rollingstones keithrichards

In this series at Largehearted Boy, guest contributors review music books.

Josh Spilker of Deckfight reviews Travis Elborough's book, The Vinyl Countdown: The Album from LP to iPod and Back Again:

After buying the new Wilco album, I brought it into my office for a better look. A coworker noticed I was peeling a plastic sleeve off a thin colorful square. "Did you get a new calendar?" Instead of debating with her about the merits and improbability of buying a new calendar in the middle of summer, I just simply replied, "It's a record."

Though my coworker is in her mid-20s, she is not necessarily "down" with the latest music trends, so the idea of someone actively buying a record was a little unfamiliar to her. She listens to music, sure, but not records. And so here's the greatest challenge in Travis Elborough's new book, The Vinyl Countdown. How do you judge the impact of a format instead of what the format contains? Ironically, the easy way for Elborough would be to track the LP "underground," the crate diggers who never gave up vinyl even in the age of large boomboxes. Instead Elborough opts to follow the popularity of the LP, and specifically the concept of the album, through its inception and changes along with the bands and provocateurs who pushed the format forward.

Though even pinning an album down is hard work. How about a classical piece? Singles-only releases? B–sides that were better than A-sides? Or the ever elusive Greatest Hits? With all this in mind, Elborough tackles what might be the trickiest part of all that—trying to decide which albums, singles, A-sides, B-sides and/or formats had the most impact. And then linking all of that together. He goes for a mix of decades and bands, tracking the rise from classical to popular to psychedelic to rap, which is like trying to enjoy the entirety of the Golden Corral buffet in one sitting: it just cannot be done.

He begins with a popular retelling of the "Speed Wars" or Columbia championing 33 1/3 over the older 78's, and includes the societal, historical and material pressures inherent in a conversion. His discussion is more than just VHS or Beta, Blu-Ray or HDDVD, it illustrates a fundamental change in how music would be produced, therefore impacting how music would later be consumed. Those chapters launch Elborough into his strength, how artists (and label execs) would take advantage of the relative cheapness and accessibility of the LP. In this regard, Elborough is forced to pick and choose who to profile.

Most surprising to my novice way of understanding the evolution of the LP is the influence of comedy recordings, whether it be Tom Lehrer, Dudley Moore or Lenny Bruce. The recordings of these guys set off what can now be perceived as the grassroots culture, where a partial bit of the masses can become their own cultural arbiters rather than being dictated upon from on high. Caught in the middle of this 60s paradigm shift were The Beach Boys or more specifically Brian Wilson, as Elborough explains how Pet Sounds became both the window into Wilson’s soul and his virtual death knell for recorded music. Couple with Wilson’s tale is that of the Beatles in what is Elborough’s strongest chapter, the one on mid to late 60s. Though much of what is said maybe known to the most passionate of fans, the casual music consumer will be surprised to know how many times The Beatles were turned down and great a desire it was of The Beatles to compose sometime of musical, an important fact in a history of the long-playing record.

Elborough’s account proves that the music industry has always been obsessed with the singles and the hit, so much so that they looked to repackage the same song several times over. Soundtracks were also big, which led to the development of A Hard Day’s Night, for the specific purpose of creating a movie.

Also revealed are the many early descriptions of The Beatles as an R&B band, a fact that led them to get a few passovers from record execs. So while important aspects of vinyl history such as R&B is virtually left out, with no explanation of its contributions (or lack of contributions, if Elborough is so inclined). Part of that is Elborough’s Brit leanings, part of it is…well, it almost has to be explained in an American re-issue why or why not Elvis Presley or James Brown do not get as much attention. But Elborough does a stand up job with chapters on the rise and fall of Sinatra and the evolution/capitalization of romantically themed compilations and the evolution of rock from hit singles into an experimental free-for-all.

Another element needed is the impact of the transition from stereo to the personal. Elborough details the naming of the Walkman, but is wary to fully judge the impact of the transition of music from the big and loud to the personal, or even about 8-track or cassette-tape players in cars, an important evolution in music history.

But the great thing about Elborough's book is that it makes plain which after reading seems so obvious. I have a copy of Design Records' release of The Best of Ray Charles which cost 87 cents from the Spartan Department Store, according to a sticker that still hangs on the outside. The back has a promotion for other "Top Pop Hits" touting "up to the minute" artists like Jonny Rivers, Roy Orbison and Nat King Cole. Nothing about Charles' himself, just about the value and technology of the LP. In comparison to Wilco, the art is less exciting and the disc is flimsier. But it's still the same black disc (the same!) spanning forty-odd years, a claim that many other formats in a variety of industries cannot make. How the hell did the record do that? Elborough has the answers.

also at Largehearted Boy:

other book reviews at Largehearted Boy
Book Notes submissions (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
Soundtracked (directors and actors discuss their film's soundtracks)
52 Books, 52 Weeks

tags: books music

Frank Black talks to See.

“Yeah — I think those Catholics records have some integrity to them. Now people might say, ‘Oh yeah, those Frank Black and the Catholics albums were great,’ but at the time they were ignored by the press and even fans. ‘What are you up to? This is stupid.’

“But that’s the way it goes when you play ‘alternative rock’” — the phrase sounds utterly ironic when he utters it — “You make your records and then years later everyone loves them. ‘Teenager of the Year [his second solo album] is a classic!’ Well, at the time everyone was like, ‘Well, it’s kinda long, isn’t it?’”

The Houston Chronicle interviews Andrew Kenny of Wooden Birds and American Analog Set.

Paste interviews singer-songwriter Jonathan Coulton.

Macworld celebrates the 25th anniversary of William Gibson's Neuromancer novel with a look back at the technology featured in the book.

Amazon MP3 has put another 50 albums on sale for $5 apiece this month, including:

Ben Kweller: Changing Horses
Ben Lee: The Rebirth of Venus
Black Gold: Rush
Bob Mould: Life and Times
Coldplay: Parachutes
Crocodiles: Summer of Hate
Daft Punk: Human After All
David Bowie: Diamond Dogs (30th Anniversary Edition)
Gomez: A New Tide
Grand Duchy: Petits Fours
Interpol: Our Love to Admire
Jason isbell: Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man
Matt & Kim: Grand
Meat Puppets: Sewn Together
Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey: Here and Now
The Verve: Forth

The Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News preview this week's Rothbury music festival, which starts today.

Wired lists the best online sites for virtual jam sessions.

The Red and Black profiles music blogger (and University of Georgia graduate) Justin Gage, the man behind An Aquarium Drunkard.

Paste lists ten songs about print journalism.

Newsweek creates a meta-list of the top 100 books of all time.

Nialler9 lists 2009's best and overlooked albums (so far).

Drowned in Sound interviews http://www.myspace.com/thetwilightsadTwilight Sad frontman James Graham.

NPR's Morning Edition attempts Twitter album reviews (in 140 characters or less).

Seattle Weekly lists the best Seattle albums of 2009 (so far).

The New York Times interviews Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy about the band's new album, Wilco (The Album).

The Village Voice's Sound of the City interviews Jay Reatard.

Over the course of your career, you've loved to release singles and 45's and basically release music in that form. Is it hard for you to think about putting a bunch of songs together for a full-length record?

It's not hard for me to think about it. To me, it's not one of the most interesting ways for me to release music. It's not instantaneous enough. I wrote all these songs...albums work in such a way that I wrote these songs so long ago, by the time they're out, I'm bored. I'm bored with the idea of them.

Francine Prose talks to NPR's All Things Considered about her new novel, Touch.

Pretty Much Amazing! lists the "absolutely best" songs of 2009 (so far).

NPR is streaming a mix for the 4th of July.

Kotaku lists a video game-centric summer reading list.

White Rabbits visit The Current studio for a live interview and performance.

Designer Chip Kidd lists his favorite book covers at Newsweek.

Enter the latest Largehearted Boy contest and win 75 CDs.

Follow me on Twitter for links that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.

also at Largehearted Boy:

daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists

tags: music books popculture indie news literature

Aeroplane Pageant: "I Remember I Think" [mp3] from Even The Kids Don't Believe Me
other Aeroplane Pageant< posts at Largehearted Boy

Black Heart Procession: "Rats" [mp3] from Six (out October 6th)
other Black Heart Procession posts at Largehearted Boy

Bloodkin: 2009-06-27, Athens [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Easter Eggs" [mp3]
other Bloodkin posts at Largehearted Boy

Deluka: "Cascade" [mp3]
other Deluka posts at Largehearted Boy

Learning Music: "I Want You Pretty" [mp3]
other Learning Music posts at Largehearted Boy

Netherfriends: "Friends with Lofts" [mp3] from Calling You Out EP (out July 21st)
other Netherfriends posts at Largehearted Boy

Slaraffenland: "Meet and Greet" [mp3] from We're on Your Side (out September 15th)
other Slaraffenland posts at Largehearted Boy

Steve Wynn: 2009-06-27, Brooklyn [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Amphetamine" [mp3]
other Steve Wynn posts at Largehearted Boy

Susana Baca: "El Bosque Armado (La Canoa)" [mp3] from Seis Poemas (out September 1st)
other Susana Baca posts at Largehearted Boy

Tishamingo: 2009-06-26, Tallahassee [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Tennessee Mountain Angel" [mp3]
other Tishamingo posts at Largehearted Boy

Free and legal mp3s of live performances at other websites:

LANDy: 2008-10-04, Los Angeles [mp3,flac]
other LANDy posts at Largehearted Boy

Mark Olson and Gary Louris: Daytrotter SXSW session [mp3]
other LANDy posts at Largehearted Boy

The Wydelles: 2009-06-26, Athens [mp3]
other Wydelles posts at Largehearted Boy

*registration required

also at Largehearted Boy:

previous free and legal mp3 daily downloads
2009 Bonnaroo downloads
2008 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

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.

In her own words, here is Jessica Hopper's Book Notes music playlist for her book, The Girls' Guide to Rocking: How to Start a Band, Book Gigs, and Get Rolling to Rock Stardom:

To misquote our dear Mr. Plant, in the days of my youth I was told what it was to be to be in a band. According to my 9th grade BFF's older brother and his mean acid-dealer cohorts (they were on the hippie/hesher margin), being in a band meant studying the masters and regurgitating them with virtuosity. Houses of the Holy was their cathedral, Babes in Toyland's To Mother was mine. Even though my friend and I had started a band—the very same day she got her drums—in fact, a band which we rehearsed daily after school—the boys would occasion downstairs to pronounce us NOT A BAND and pop quiz-like questions ("Can you play a G7?") to show their TOTAL DOMINION AS RIFF MASTERS AND POSSESSORS OF KNOWLEDGE AND RIGHTFUL HEIRS TO ALL ROCK HISTORY.

I'd prefer to engage in some revisionist history and say I was able to shrug it off and find solace in my Bikini Kill tape, secure in the knowledge they were idiots because they idolized Jim Morrison. I didn't. I was mortified, marginalized and mildly terrified. Given that those boys were total dicks, they presented a terrible song—"Stairway to Heaven"-- as sacrosanct proof of why Zeppelin was the alpha and the omega—well, it was enough to make me swear them off entirely. Hearing "Immigrant Song" from How The West Was Won some 12 years later made me realize I'd made a grave mistake.

Last spring, I was four months into the six that had been given me to write my book, four months that had been more leisurely than diligent, when I got a call that my dad was in the hospital. An hour later I was on a plane to Los Angeles, where I would stay for the next 11 weeks, not tending to the book at all, not thinking book like thoughts, mostly just stunned and sad and frozen and pulling over the rental car to bawl because Bobby Caldwell's "Open Your Eyes" was playing and I could only hear the sadness and not the redemption after the key change. Once my dad got all-fine, I returned home to Chicago with the book on hold, looming, painfully aware of mortality and…my deadline. After a week home, I called my editor who informed me that if my book was to come out in 2009, she needed the manuscript in 5 weeks.

Due to my new deadline, I was going to be writing at least 12-14 hours a day (that turned out to be a conservative estimate) in order to meet my contractual obligations. I had to stay pumped; yes, "stay pumped" makes it sound like I wrote it while on a Stairmaster, but I was going writing regardless of whether I felt creative, or inclined at all. I needed the most nuclear-grade motivating force I could tap into, a constant reminder of why I wanted to write this book and who it was for and why I would have killed for such a book when I was 15. What better way to summon the 15-yr-old-girl-with-a-guitar-and-something-to-prove than to stir ancient resentments with a whole lotta Led? And so began the rule: If it is daylight, Led Zeppelin will be played.

The play list was as so, in order:

Led Zeppelin minus "You Shook Me" and "Dazed and Confused"

"Bonzo's Montreaux" off Coda (twice)
("Bonzo's Montreaux" served as the reminder to eat lunch/dinner if I hadn't already, hence multiple appearances.)

The daylight Zeppelin plan worked on several levels—one being purely Pavlovian— If you can hear the sound of Jimmy Paige, you are writing at a swift clip. Secondly, I conjured all the adolescent rage I needed to fuel 3,000 words a day by keeping the boot of my 9th grade oppressors pressed firmly to my own neck and P.S. Here's a guide to whats the best Zeppelin albums to start with and here's a sidebar about why Bonzo's drums sounded like they did live AND recorded and another one about Jimmy Paige's guitar tone and 288 PAGES OF PERMISSION AND ENCOURAGEMENT AND HOW TO BE YOUR OWN LED ZEPPELIN, OK?

It wasn't so much a "I'll-Show-You-Haters-of-Yore!" shaking my fist at the sky/teen patriarchy move as it sounds. Somewhere fairly early on in the 350+ hours of my Zep-a-thon I repossessed Led Zeppelin from the legacy of mean, acid-dealing 11th grade boys who first proffered them. I went through something resembling the Kubler-Ross stages of grief cycle: I was mad that I spent over a decade feeling like—believing—that Led Zeppelin (standing in for all of all of rock history (to borrow from G. Marcus)) didn't belong to me, that they belonged to the dudes; We got Dig Me Out and they got Physical Graffiti and we called it even.

After that came the denial—which rotated around the thought that LaBelle were the best and most powerful band ever, that Nightbirds was better than Coda. Depression: "Will there ever be a girl Led Zeppelin? F**k…The Donnas aren't even good anymore and Sandy West is dead."

Then there was the moment of acceptance, when it all clicked--total oneness with the Zep, the koan of the Bonzone was upon me; Led Zeppelin was mine.

Jessica Hopper and The Girls' Guide to Rocking: How to Start a Band, Book Gigs, and Get Rolling to Rock Stardom links:

the book's website
the author's blog
the author's book tour events
excerpt from the book
excerpt from the book
infomercial for the book
infomercial for the book
infomercial for the book
infomercial for the book
order a signed copy of the book

AfterEllen review
Ask Joey Garr review
Broadsheet review
Buzzine review
Chicagoist review
Diana Page Jordan review
Life, Words, & Rock 'n' Roll review
PopWatch review
Rocks Off review
Tres Sugar review

Girls Rock Girls Rule interview with the author
Lost in a Supermarket profile of the author
Sharp Darts profile of the author
Time Out Chicago interview with the author

also at Largehearted Boy:

other Book Notes submissions (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
52 Books, 52 Weeks

tags: books music literature nonfiction

Free at At Amazon MP3: the 12-track Luaka Bop - Orinoco Sampler.

Also on sale at Amazon MP3: Blur's 1999 13-track 13 album for only $1.99.

InfoWorld shares the history of the Sony Walkman on the music player's 30th birthday.

Newsarama interviews Glenn Eichler and Nick Bertozzi about their forthcoming graphic novel, Stuffed!.

The Telegraph reviews Chuck Palahniuk's new novel, Pygmy.

There is something exuberantly cartoonish about the constant violence, replete with its moments of onomatopoeic impact: “swish-zonk”, “jab-boom”, “rip-roar”. And the overall result is a rip-roaringly exciting piece of writing, a truly graphic novel.

Paste interviews Wilco members Nels Cline and John Stirratt.

The Other Paper profiles singer-songwriter Larry Jon Wilson, whose excellent (and critically neglected) self-titled album was released last week.

Wilson never cared much about being famous, either. He had a first-hand view of fame, and wasn’t impressed by its effect. “It’s a sad thing when stardom ruins people’s motivation. I’ve never had that problem. I cannot be yesterday’s papers, because I was never today’s papers,” he says, laughing. “So there’s an upside to that.”

The worst possible 33 1/3 book covers. (the inspiration)

Exclaim! interviews Cracker frontman Dave Lowery.

eMusic lists 2009's overlooked albums.

Drowned in Sound interviews Fever Ray's Karin Dreijer Anderssen.

Download mp3s of Blur's Glastonbury set.

NPR's Books We Like reviews and excerpts from one of my favorite short fiction collections of the year, Petina Gappah's Elegy for Easterly.

The New Yorker features a new short story by Lorrie Moore, "Childcare."

At Spread Persepolis two Iranian exiles have remixed Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis comics to reflect the current crisis in Iran.

Amazon MP3 has Moby's 16-track new album, Wait for Me, on sale for $3.99.

Enter the latest Largehearted Boy contest and win 75 CDs.

Follow me on Twitter for links that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.

also at Largehearted Boy:

daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists

tags: music books popculture indie news literature

Blue Roses: "Doubtful Comforts" [mp3] from Blue Roses (out July 21st)
other Blue Roses posts at Largehearted Boy

Final Spins: "Down the Road" [mp3] from This Is Then/That Was Now
Final Spins: "Let Me Fall" [mp3] from This Is Then/That Was Now
Final Spins: "Another Sunny Day" [mp3] from This Is Then/That Was Now
other Final Spins posts at Largehearted Boy

New Heaven: "Noah" [mp3] from All Saints' Day EP
other New Heaven< posts at Largehearted Boy

Pacific Theater: "Lions" [mp3] from Animals at Night (out August 11th)
other Pacific Theater posts at Largehearted Boy

Target Market: "Space Tourist" [mp3] from Up on the Moon
other Target Market posts at Largehearted Boy

Various Artists: free and legal album downloads from Pitch9 Recordings [mp3]

Various Artists: free and legal 20-track Vertical House Eargasms 5.2 sampler album [mp3] (via)

Virgin of the Birds: free and legal Every Rival EP [mp3]
"I Loved John" [mp3]
other Virgin of the Birds posts at Largehearted Boy

Free and legal mp3s of live performances at other websites:

Cedarwell: LaundroMatinee session [mp3,video]
other Cedarwell posts at Largehearted Boy

Jenny Owen Youngs: Daytrotter session [mp3]
other Jenny Owen Youngs posts at Largehearted Boy

Mika Miko: Luxury Wafers session [mp3,video]
other Mika Miko posts at Largehearted Boy

UME: WOXY Lounge Act [mp3]
other UME posts at Largehearted Boy

*registration required

also at Largehearted Boy:

previous free and legal mp3 daily downloads
2009 Bonnaroo downloads
2008 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

Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan: In Session (remastered)
full album stream

All Smiles: Oh For The Getting and Not Letting Go
full album stream

Amy Speace: Killer in Me
"The Killer in Me" [mp3]

Leslie Mendelson: Swan Feathers
full album stream

Paste has turned over its website to Wilco coverage today (in honor of the release of Wilco (The Album).

Features include their five favorite nonsensical Wilco lyrics.

Yesterday's updates to the 2009 Bonnaroo music festival live show downloads page include lossless bittorrent downloads of the Beastie Boys and Phish shows.

At her Monitor Mix blog, Carrie Brownstein ponders the merits of the Pixies playing their entire Doolittle album on tour next year.

I wonder, however, if the album format--either recorded or live-is too contradictory to our contemporary listening habits. Might not we prefer a carefully crafted set list; one that would prevent too many slow songs from occurring in a row or ensure a variety of tempos? And what if all of our favorite songs are spread out over a few different records? I mean, who wants to hear those contemplative songs that don't sound as good without the dulcimer and horn section that were added during the recording?

The Art of Manliness lists the 50 essential non-fiction adventure books.

TIME interviews Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy.

At NPR Music, singer-songwriter Maria Taylor plays a tiny desk concert.

Eye Weekly interviews Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo.

Popdose interviews singer-songwriter Amy Speace.

Newsweek lists 50 books for our times.

Pitchfork has an mp3 download of a new Fleet Foxes song.

Bjork guest DJs at NPR's All Songs Considered.

Enter the latest Largehearted Boy contest and win 75 CDs.

Follow me on Twitter for links that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.

also at Largehearted Boy:

daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists

tags: music books popculture indie news literature

Bloodsport: "Swallowing Werewolves (I Heard Mary Timony Used to Live There)" [mp3] from Goodbye to the Holy Mountain (out July 7th)
other Bloodsport posts at Largehearted Boy

The Dead Weather: "Treat Me Like Your Mother" [mp3]* from Horehound (out July 14th)
other Dead Weather posts at Largehearted Boy

Explosions in the Sky: 2007-11-09, Columbia [mp3,ogg,flac]
other Explosions in the Sky posts at Largehearted Boy

The Films: "Holiday" [mp3] from Oh, Scorpio
other Films posts at Largehearted Boy

Malcolm Middleton: "Carry Me" [mp3] from Waxing Gibbous (out August 11th)
other Malcolm Middleton posts at Largehearted Boy

Nebula: "The Dagger" [mp3] from Heavy Psych (out July 7th)
other Nebula posts at Largehearted Boy

Pale Air Singers: "Cubby, He Chopped Me Down" [mp3] from Pale Air Singers
other Pale Air Singers posts at Largehearted Boy

Patterson Hood: 2009-06-27, Athens [mp3,ogg,flac]
"All the Girls Love Alice (Elton John cover)" [mp3]
other Patterson Hood posts at Largehearted Boy

von Doom: "The Descender" [mp3] from The Descender
other von Doom posts at Largehearted Boy

Yim Yames: "Behind That Locked Door" [mp3]*

Free and legal mp3s of live performances at other websites:

Cass McCombs>: Daytrotter session [mp3]
other Cass McCombs posts at Largehearted Boy