In the next month and change, I’ll be taking part in three readings.

On Tuesday, April 10th, I’ll be at Public Assembly as part of Vol.1′s Greatest 3-Minute Punk Stories event, talking about the time I went into the studio with my friend’s powerviolence band to record backing vocals for them. (Spoiler: hilarity, as well as an audio clip that’s become several friends’ ringtone, ensued.)

On Monday, April 30th, I’ll be reading at Housing Works to help celebrate Storychord’s fiftieth issue. It’s likely that I’ll be reading a short piece about cryptids. Fun fact: also on the bill that night will be Chad Matheny, who was in the studio the next time I contributed backing vocals to an album. (This was much more successful.)

And on Friday, May 18th, I’ll be at Book Thug Nation along with Michael T. Fournier (author of the novel Hidden Wheel and the 33 1/3 on Double Nickels on the Dime), Mike Faloon (editor of the terrific zine Go Metric and author 0f The Hanging Gardens of Split Rock), and Michael DeCapite. I will do my best to represent all writers whose names are not some variation on “Michael.”

[So: I'm on a listserve for contributors to Dusted, and we've been taking turns posting things about artists we're fond of. This was my contribution, which I figured I'd post here.]

Eventually, I’ll talk your ear off about The Spinanes. For the most part, when I say TheSpinanes, I’m talking about the original lineup: Rebecca Gates on vocals and guitar, Scott Plouf on drums. (The albums Manos and Strand; the singles collected on the EP The Imp Years.) But really, I’m also fine with talking about the version of the band that recorded the last full-length made under that name, Arches and Aisles – essentially, Gates and a host of Chicago post-rock types, several of whom would also show up on her sole solo effort to date,Ruby Series. (There’s also a 7″ of Rolling Stones covers that’s utterly fantastic; if memory serves, Ted Leo was a touring Spinane for a little while,. though I never got to see that lineup.) But — I’m getting ahead of myself.

I went to a show at the Westbeth Theater Center in 1996, where The Spinanes played on a bill with Versus and Elliott Smith. I’d heard some good things about them from friends. I was in my second semester of college then, and was probably at my most musically intolerable: lots of straight-edge hardcore*, lots of crappy alt-rock. I cite the show as life-changing even though I don’t remember much about the bands that played — I think Smith was the artist on that bill that was the most musically striking to me. It did lead me to pick up Strand a day or two later, though, and…

…I can’t quite explain just what it is that makes me love this album. The Gates/Plouf duo sounds tight and fantastic; Gates’s lyrics are smart and blistering and delivered amazingly. It’s the sort of album that sounds fresh to me whenever I hear it: some new facet of an arrangement makes itself apparent; some new hook arises; some new lyric strikes me as amazing. I’m not sure exactly where I’d place it, but it’s a relatively constant presence on personal top 5 lists, something I can’t say for most records.

(Manos? Also terrific. Arches & Aisles? Totally worth it. Imp Years? Has “Hawaiian Baby,” for God’s sake.)

Gates has a new album due out in May on 12XU. Am I stupidly excited to hear it? Yes I am.

Also, one of these days, I’m going to post my circa-’98 interview with Gates (done for a piece for my college paper, and for my zine**). I did get to chat with her about a year ago, and saw her at Europa last summer. Still highly, highly recommended.

*-i.e. to the point where musical talent ran second to how straight-edge you were. Remember the ’88 revival? I do! Oh, do I ever.
**-profile ran in the paper; full interview ran in the zine.

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

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.