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March 14, 2009
Shorties (Charlotte Roche, Parenthetical Girls, and more)
The National Post reviews Charlotte Roche's novel, Wetlands.
It is bound to cause some of the same stir here as it did in Germany, where smelling salts were reportedly needed at some of her readings to rouse attendees who fainted from shock. It will spark the usual “is it literature or is it pornography?” debate that accompanies books with explicit and, more specifically, female-centric descriptions of sex (though there is usually only one bodily fluid present in most porn, and it’s generally not of the female variety). My favourite quote from the author in reaction to the porn question comes from a Maclean’s article by Anne Kingston: “... when people ask me whether it’s pornography, I always say, ‘It depends who’s asking.’ If it’s a man, I say: ‘It’s pornography.’
Decider Denver/Boulder interviews Zac Pennington of Parenthetical Girls.
D: You’ve spoken about Entanglements’ musical influences, but what were some of the lyrical inspirations?
ZP: Years ago I stumbled upon a book by Amir Aczel about the concept of quantum entanglement, which inspired a vague idea about using that notion as a metaphor for human interaction. The record sort of devolved from there. The band has an open-door policy when it comes to re-contextualizing other people’s ideas, and not closing ourselves off to direct plagiarism when needed. [Laughs.] There’s a lot of Leonard Cohen and a lot of Morrissey in most everything I write, almost embarrassingly so.
The Guardian is listing 1000 songs everyone should hear.
Daytrotter's Saturday session features in-studio mp3s from Luxury Pond.
Billboard interviews PJ Harvey about her new collaboration with John Parish, A Woman a Man Walked By (out March 31st).
The Washington Post's Post Rock blog interviews Clem Snide frontman Eef Barzelay about the band's new album.
Billboard profiles Bob Mould and his upcoming memoir.
His book editor, music writer Michael Azerrad, thinks Mould won't have any problems staying in the spotlight. "Bob has had an extremely rare second and even third act," he says. "Husker Du helped blaze a trail through America that indie bands are still following today, and trailblazers see things no one else has seen before." Mould has written columns for the Washington City Paper and has blogged as well, so the leap from lyricist to memoirist isn't a stretch for him.
In the Guardian, Alex Petridis profiles the Pet Shop Boys.
At Independent Weekly, members of American Aquarium discuss their favorite road albums.
In the Guardian, Lorrie Moore reviews Tracy Daugherty's new book, Hiding Man: A Biography of Donald Barthelme.
The Futurist features in-studio mp3s from Luke Temple's Here We Go Magic project's recent WOXY Lounge Act session.
Follow me on Twitter for links that don't make it into the daily "shorties" posts.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Online "best of 2008" music lists
Online "best of 2008" book lists
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
