the scowl

Porcelain Raft, Best Music Writing, Sara Levine, and more

Tobias — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:30:39 +0000

Many things to report over here, including what looks to be a successful Kickstarter campaign for the 2012 edition of Best Music Writing. But many other things are in progress (including this reading, which all of you should check out), and so instead I’ll leave you with a link to this Porcelain Raft interview that I did for The L Magazine today. (Because the new Porcelain Raft album is, in fact, quite good. Hey, here’s a video from it.)

Unless You Speak From Your Heart from Porcelain Raft on Vimeo.

On Poor Moon

Tobias — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:00:03 +0000

Many years ago, I ended up directing a video for a Seattle band called Crystal Skulls. (If you’re not familiar with the band in question and your tastes in music run towards pop with smart, occasionally biting lyrics, you could do far worse than checking out one of their two albums.) It was an interesting experience: it ended up falling into the category of videos that didn’t feature the band at all, and there were a couple of aspects of planning for the shoot that…well, let’s just say that I learned a couple of things for the next time I undertake such a project.

Where I’m going with this (hey, look: me digressing. Imagine that) is that singer/guitarist Christian Wargo now has a new band, Poor Moon; they have an EP coming out on Sub Pop in March. Admittedly, the guy’s been keeping busy: he’s also a member of an obscure folk-rock outfit called Fleet Foxes. But as a fan of his work as a songwriter, I’m glad to hear that this group exists. The MP3 that Sub Pop has up now? Also pretty catchy.

In Which a Kickstarter Campaign Is Undertaken

Tobias — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:00:16 +0000

So: to be filed under “long-in-the-works projects,” Daphne Carr and I are starting an independent press. The first title will be the next installment of the Best Music Writing series.

There’s presently a fundraising campaign afoot. You will, I’m sure, be hearing more about the press in question in the weeks and months to come.

In Which Music Is Written About (part two: profane punk edition)

Tobias — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

A couple of months ago, my friends Diehard were playing an afternoon CMJ show. The band following them had a less-than-enticing name: Diarrhea Planet. A couple of the folks from Diehard advised me to stick around, and I’m glad that I did: DP’s sound recalled a number of irreverent, anthemic punk bands I enjoyed listening to ages ago. Turns out theirs is a sound that one can appreciate just as much at 35.

At the show in question, I picked up their album Loose Jewels; more recently, I wrote about it for Dusted.

(Also: that video’s probably NSFW. If you are going to listen, you might want to have headphones on.)

In Which Music Is Written About (part one: alt-country edition)

Tobias — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:00:09 +0000

With 2012 on us, I’ve begun contributing to The L Magazine. Most recently (as I write this, though I should have another piece up before long), I wrote about Scud Mountain Boys’ recent show at the Bowery Ballroom.

Zine Postscript, 10 January 2012

Tobias — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:00:28 +0000

When I first started thinking about doing a zine in the mid-90s, two of the zines that inspired me most were Rumpshaker and Anti-Matter*. And pretty much since late last month, I’ve intended to use that as a point to link pieces by the editors of each: Eric Weiss’s interview with Carrie Whitney on the followup to her excellent All About Friends compilation**, and Norman Brannon’s essay “The Death of a Music Writer: A 20-Year Exit Strategy.” It’s always a fine thing when the writers who said smart, inspirational things about music (and why you should care about music) seventeen years ago are doing it just as much today, you know?

*-the third critically important zine for me growing up was Trustkill, for the record.
**-which featured Botch covering “Rock Lobster,” which was utterly awesome. See above.

Cities & Critics

Tobias — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:30:30 +0000

I’m re-reading Jonathan Lethem’s Chronic City for one of the book groups I’m in, and I figured it might make sense to delve into Kevin Avery’s biography of Paul Nelson, Everything Is An Afterthought. (Robert Christgau points out in his review of Avery’s book that Nelson was the inspiration for Chronic City‘s Perkus Tooth.) So far, I’m through the first part of Nelson’s book — the biography takes up about 180 pages, and is followed by a collection of Nelson’s criticism. Highly recommended so far, though also heartbreaking, frustrating, sometimes triumphant, sometimes maddening.

And now, some cheery holiday melodies

Tobias — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 17:00:47 +0000

Another Christmas finds me in scenic New Jersey, along with family, beagles, and a pair of Krampuses hanging from the tree. My reading material: Stephen King’s 11/22/63 (shades of years ago, where I’m pretty sure Needful Things was my Christmastime reading.) Here’s hoping the holiday season finds you well.

Lists! About Books!

Tobias — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 19:15:21 +0000

Two more 2011 lists for your consideration, both at Vol.1: my favorite 2011 books read in 2011, and my favorite non-2011 books read in 2011. In-depth thoughts on both are at the links, but here are the lists:

-2011-
Dana Spiotta, Stone Arabia (Scribner)
David Foster Wallace, The Pale King (Little, Brown and Company)
Vanessa Veselka, Zazen (Red Lemonade)
Justin Taylor, The Gospel of Anarchy (Harper Perennial)
Colson Whitehead, Zone One (Doubleday)
Nathan Larson, The Dewey Decimal System (Akashic)
Ellen Willis: Out of the Vinyl Deeps (University of Minnesota Press)
Geoff Dyer, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition (Greywolf)
John Jeremiah Sullivan, Pulphead (Farrar Strauss & Giroux)
Jeff Sharlet, Sweet Heaven When I Die (W.W. Norton)
Lisa Wells, Yeah. No. Totally. (Perfect Day Publishing)

-Non-2011-
John Williams, Stoner (NYRB Classics)
Alexander Chee, Edinburgh (Picador)
Barbara Comyns, Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead (The Dorothy Project)
Bruce Chatwin, On the Black Hill (Penguin)
Dennis Cooper, The Sluts (Da Capo)
Karl Marlantes, Matterhorn (Grove Press)
Michael Kimball, Us (Tyrant Books)
Michael Kimball, Dear Everybody (Alma Books)
Rick Moody, The Four Fingers of Death (Back Bay Books)
Paul Harding, Tinkers (Bellevue Literary Press)
Anne Carson, Nox (New Directions)