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September 8, 2009
Shorties (The Mountain Goats, Essential Rock Books, and more)
Pitchfork interviews John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats about his new album, The Life of the World to Come.
Pitchfork: You named all the songs after actual Bible verses. How much time did you spend with an actual Bible, going through it, looking for verses that tied in directly with what you were already writing about?
JD: It went both ways. Sometimes I would write a song and I would think, "Well, let me read for awhile and see if I come across something." I know the Bible pretty well. I'm not one of those guys who can immediately start quoting every book, but usually I know where to look to find certain themes. With a song like "Psalms 40:2", I had been looking through the Psalms; the Psalms are so awesome. I saw the line "He has raised me from the pit", and I liked the sound of that. Started messing around with a guitar, started ad-libbing a little story for the first verse and then, when I got to the chorus part, sang the lines direct from the Psalms, more or less. So it varied.
Jacket Copy lists 46 essential rock books.
On sale at Amazon MP3: A Fine Frenzy's new 12-track Bomb in a Birdcage album for $3.99
Entertainment Weekly's Shelf Life blog offers an exclusive excerpt from Nick Cave's new novel, The Death of Bunny Munro.
Paste lists 16 albums to look forward to this fall.
Baeble Music lists the top 5 songs for a lonely, broken heart.
Aquarium Drunkard interviews singer-songwriter A.A. Bondy.
On sale at Amazon MP3: Phish's new 11-track Joy album for $3.99.
MySpace is streaming the new Stars of Track and Field album, A Time for Lions (out September 15th).
Drowned in Sound names Late of the Pier's Fantasy Black Channel the winner of its Neptune Prize (an alternative to the Mercury Prize).
Pitchfork has musicians (including John Darnielle and Britt Daniel) list their favorite albums and songs of the 2000s.
Beggars Group will release albums in China through local labels.
The shortlist for the Man Booker Prize has been announced.
The Salt Lake Tribune lists the best books about the Beatles.
NPR is streaming the first disc of the new Big Star box set, Keep an Eye on the Sky (out September 15th).
The New York Times profiles David Small, author of the incredible graphic memoir Stitches.
It is one thing for an artist to credit his career choice to an unhappy youth in which opportunities for self-expression were perpetually stifled, and quite another for an artist to say that his parents literally took his voice from him. That, however, is the story of David Small’s life as he tells it in “Stitches,” a graphic memoir, which comes out this week.
Look for Small's Largehearted Boy Book Notes music playlist for the book tomorrow.
The Telegraph lists 20 things you didn't know about the Beatles.
The Globe and Mail offers an exclusive excerpt from Margaret Atwood's new novel, The Year of the Flood.
The Denver Post examines the future of literary blogs.
Swear I'm Not Paul lists the 15 top pop songs of the 00s.
The Guardian offers a back to school literature quiz.
Fingertips (the music blog, not my wife's health and wellness blog of the same name) interviews Andrew Spencer Goldman of the Fulton Lights.
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
