For more on Chris Abani, his website is fairly comprehensive. The Believer interviewed him several years ago; more recently, he went on a book tour with Joe Meno. Abani also curates the Black Goat poetry imprint.

Some additional q & a, cut for reasons of space, can be found at my Paper Thin Walls blog.

Mike Daily’s O’GRADY maintains a web presence here, while ALARM’s myspace page is here; Daily maintains a frighteningly comprehensive blog here.

Footage of O’GRADY live can be seen here.

Referenced in the introduction is Portland-based writer and publisher Kevin Sampsell; his Future Tense Publishing maintains a website here.

Ronen Kauffman currently hosts the Issue Oriented podcast; guests have ranged from Jersey Beat editor Jim Testa to artist
Derek Hess to Thursday’s Geoff Rickly. He maintains a web presence here.

Kauffman was also interviewed for my EMP paper on basement shows.

The Degenerics have a myspace page and a recently released discography; Endeavor’s Constructive Semantics
remains one of my favorite punk/hardcore albums — hell, one of my favorite albums, period. Not mentioned in the interview but covered in Kauffman’s book are Stormshadow, a power trio who I’m suddenly craving the need to hear. From what I
remember, they were very much influenced by the spirit of mid-80s SST; given that I’m deeply fond these days of two Minutemen-covering power trios…yeah.

Trevor Kelley is the co-author of Everybody Hurts. Norman Brannon’s The Anti-Matter Anthology should see release later this year. Brannon’s writing was a huge formative influence on my own writing about music; Anti-Matter, along with Trustkill and Rumpshaker, was one of the primary reasons for starting my own zine, which is how I
(a)met a bunch of likeminded folks, including the subject of today’s column and future Georgie James/Q and Not U guy John Davis; (b)ended up writing about music for the next dozen years (and counting).

Rock Plaza Central’s website is www.rockplazacentral.com; the page devoted to Eaton’s novels is http://rockplazacentral.com/novels.html. Their Daytrotter session can be heard here.

[prelude: originally posted here]

Am endeavoring to use this space to supplement the GIMME FICTION column I’m currently writing for Paper Thin Walls: additional details, relevant links; possibly quick blurbs on books/authors that fit into the general scope of the column but aren’t necessarily going to be covered. May or may not cross-post these on my other blog; we’ll see.

This column, for me, is about asking questions, about formulating an argument of indeterminate scope. (Warren Ellis’s Come In Alone is, I’d say, a loose thematic influence.) As of now, if you’re an underground musician, the bulk of your income from music will come from touring rather than royalties. If you’re a writer, the opposite is true. For example: A month or two ago, I went to a Rick Moody reading at 192 Books where he mentioned that he would be doing almost no touring for his recent collection Right Livelihoods. For a band or musician of an equivalent stature to Moody to announce that they would be doing something similar would be nearly unthinkable.

And yet: the people profiled here make art in disparate situations; Chris Eaton plays in a band acclaimed by critics and writes novels acclaimed by the likes of Jonathan Lethem. Laying his lyrics side-by-side with his prose, shared themes do emerge. Is that the case for everyone with a foot in either world? This isn’t to say that the two are mutually exclusive; later this week, a number of acclaimed writers and musicians, including Sarah Vowell and PTW faves Grizzly Bear, will take the stage for a benefit for 826NYC.

This will be an ongoing argument, and an ongoing discussion. Let me know what you think.