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June 24, 2009
Shorties (Patrick Wolf, Clancy Martin, and more)
Decider New York interviews Patrick Wolf about his new album, The Bachelor.
D: The Bachelor was funded through donations from fans on Bandstocks.com. What was that experience like?
PW: The thing that I was most confused and happy about was that I thought people had given up on paying for albums or putting money into the music industry. So when the BandStocks thing came, I was really quite scared over the first couple of months, and it’s only now that I can really see how actually quite amazing it was. Especially when you think that it was up to £60,000 or £70,000, which might be obscene depending on the exchange rate right now. I think major labels sever the ties between you and your audience because they are taking all the data, all the information, and all the money from your audience, which means you’re losing touch in this ivory tower of your record. So I think things are right back to normal again. I am strong with my audience. We’ve got a strong bond, and I feel a lot happier, a lot more empowered.
The Globe and Mail profiles author Clancy Martin.
'I wrote an inventory of my moral failings." That's how Canadian Clancy Martin describes his first book How To Sell: A Novel, an autobiographical work about his shady dealings in the Texas jewellery business.
Evidently his was a very extensive inventory, which included selling counterfeits and lying to customers. But it's one that's resonating with literary celebrity fans such as Zadie Smith, Jonathan Franzen and Gary Shteyngart (the latter called the 42-year-old writer the "bastard child of John Updike and Mordecai Richler").
Yesterday's updates to the 2009 Bonnaroo music festival live show downloads page include mp3s of performances by Alejandro Escovedo, Animal Collective, Grace Potter, Toubab Krewe, and moe.
Rocks Off asks Houston musicians to share a song they associate with a past of present lover.
Doves are the bookies' favorites for the UK's Mercury Music Prize.
Eye Weekly profiles Chunklet editor and publisher Henry Owings.
If indie-rock is Owings religion, he’s a man in devout service, even though he acknowledges that people wonder if a publication filled with such disdain could ever express genuine love for new music. Owings is the sort of guy who doesn’t understand why people cross their arms at Mission of Burma shows, describes disposable blog-buzz band Passion Pit as “musical stryofoam — I just don’t get it,” and debates with Brutal Knights frontman Nick Flanagan about which underrated hardcore band at the Chunklet NXNE showcase will receive a more enthusiastic reception — Easy Action or Youth Brigade. In response to rampant hipsterism, Owings increasingly finds inspiration in Americana. “If you go to a monster truck rally that costs $10, you’ll see how excited and crazy the crowd gets. There’s an energy there that people don’t experience at concerts they even spend $200 at.”
Austin360 interviews singer-songwriter Scott Miller about fan-financing his latest record.
In the Guardian, novelist Ewan Morrison lists the top 10 literary menage a trois.
PopMatters reviews Augusten Burroughs' latest memoir, A Wolf at the Table.
I am not sure if Augusten Burroughs has been crushed by his own past, but it clearly weighs very heavily on him. This, I think, is one of the qualities that distinguishes the contemporary memoir from what used to be called memoirs, plural, as in the antique phrase “he’s writing his memoirs”. The latter being an activity that the public asks for, as an account of an accomplished, future-focused person at the center of great historical events; the former being something that no one in particular has asked for, written by someone whose focus is on the past, and generally by a writer whom no one has ever heard of.
Read Burroughs' Largehearted Boy Book Notes music playlist for the book.
NPR's Monkey See blog lists the best books you've never read.
NPR is streaming a March performance by the Antlers.
Phoenix visits The Current studios for a streaming live performance and interview.
MakeUseOf.com lists the best book review sites.
Win 50 CDs and 50 books in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.
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
