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August 24, 2020
Michael Lee Nirenberg's Playlist for His Book "Earth A.D."
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Michael Lee Nirenberg's Earth A.D. is an eye-opening and important oral history of two American Superfund sites, Brooklyn's Newtown Creek and Tar Crek, Oklahoma.
In his own words, here is Michael Lee Nirenberg's Book Notes music playlist for his book Earth A.D.:
Music takes up substantial real estate in my consciousness. It's been this way ever since I was a grade school metalhead in the 1980s. It's more than a hobby; it's an ongoing and evolving, lifelong obsession. Every day I spend a little time exploring new music (new to me that is) as well as revisiting older favorites I've loved at one time or another throughout my life.
Earth A.D: The Poisoning of the American Landscape and the Communities That Fought Back is an oral history of two very different American Superfund sites. The first is the former mining boomtown, current ghost town—Tar Creek, Oklahoma. Lead and ore reserves were discovered on mostly Native American land in the late 1800s. Generations of area locals were poisoned by heavy metal mining waste, which migrated into every inch of the area's landscape, physical infrastructure, and, ultimately, the children's bloodstreams. The second Superfund site covered is Newtown Creek, a body of water that separates Brooklyn and Queens in New York City. Newtown Creek is home to a whole host of issues spanning centuries now, 150 years of industrial pollution, one of the country's all-time worst oil spills, several chemical spills, and the continual dumping of raw sewage all set against a backdrop of hypergentrification and a population explosion.
This entire book was written to music. The playlist is broken up into two parts not so much as a cutesy way of mirroring of the book's multitude of dualities (i.e., rural vs. urban, red state vs. blue state, ghost town vs. population boom, etc.), but to set up the two spaces I was operating in throughout writing it. "Side one" is the spiritual songs that sustained me throughout the process. "Side two" is what I actually listened to while grinding it out—writing, editing interviews, and thinking things through. It consists of instrumental music or with lyrics sung in a different language. I can't listen to English lyrics when I'm working with words. It gums up the works.
Coincidentally, I happened to keep notebooks of everything I listened to as an experiment from April 21, 2019, to April 21, 2020, where I wrote down every scrap of music I put on for one year, a year which happened to be right in the middle of this project. I only noted it if it was something I put on myself either through streaming, on the turntable, or the rare CD or cassette. Incidental music in public, or something someone else put on, was not noted. I had no idea this music notebook experiment would have come in handy so soon. I figured at some future point I would probably publish them in a series of zines or an art book or something like that, but it did not seem at all practical until this project came along.
Certain songs will always be attached to the time in my life that I discovered them. Every track in this mix is connected to the project or inspired it in nuanced ways. I didn't pick anything with topical lyrics about legacy pollution, because frankly there aren't that many, and my heart wouldn't be in that anyway. These songs are in aesthetic order. I hope they all sound good next to each other. It's a lot of oddball choices; my intention is that it flows naturally.
Side One: The Spiritual Songs of Earth A.D.
Misfits "Earth A.D."
I had started the book about a month before the Misfits reunion show in New Jersey in 2018. I got a ride home from a friend and in the car back to Brooklyn, after several vodka seltzers and a million hits from the vape pen, I knew the title was going to be Earth A.D.—a song I've loved since I was 12 years old. It captures the theme, the tone, and it also references my favorite band when I was a kid. I had waited 28 years to see them live. Since they are a New Jersey band, there was magic in that performance and the title appeared fully formed before the writing really started.
Black Flag "Black Coffee"
Working as an artist on a TV show, you have lots of downtime. I use that time to read and write. The days are long and there are huge gaps of time between shots that you can use to do other things, as long as you don't wander too far away from the set. "Black Coffee" was one of the bangers I put on my headphones to recharge my battery during the flagging late nights or sleepy afternoons on set.
UK Subs "Organized Crime"
It's a marathon and you have to give yourself breaks for perspective. Editing interviews into a readable format is tiring and monotonous. "Organized Crime" has the feel of a British pub singalong. It's catchy as hell. It gave me a similar jolt of mental clarity like Black Flag's "Black Coffee" when I was flagging from hours of jazz and Avant-classical.
DJ Screw/UGK "Short Texas"
DJ Screw's 3 ’n the Mornin compilation was a huge influence on me while I was driving around Oklahoma looking for Tar Creek residents to interview. The whole album bangs, but I was particularly hypnotized by what Screw did with UGK's "Short Texas," which is my favorite track on there. I think it's more punk in spirit than most music people call "punk rock."
Jay Electronica ft. Jay Z "Ghost of Soulja Slim"
I hadn't been listening to as much hip hop, as usual, these last couple of years. But the long-awaited Jay Electronica debut full-length album was an event like 20 years in the making. It came at the end of the edit and right at the start of the pandemic stay at home orders in New York City. I picked "The Ghost of Soulja Slim" because it works after the DJ Screw/UGK cut and Jay Z delivers a strong feature here. Nearly anything from this record would fit.
Abbey Lincoln "Triptych: Prayer/Protest/Peace"
When this undertaking was finally done after two years of intense work, the world was radically different from when I started it. The effects of Trumpism were beginning to materialize everywhere throughout society. After a bungled federal response to Covid-19, cases continue to climb, and the inability after all these years to really do police reform, everyone has had enough of their incompetence and corruption. Unaddressed problems are catching up fast and are quickly metastasizing. Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach's anguished, 1963 civil rights outcry "Triptych: Prayer/Protest/Peace" could be recorded today. I find the free jazz in the middle with Lincoln screaming in horror against Roach's frantic drumming especially moving.
Isaac Hayes "Walk on By"
I love the Stranglers and Dusty Springfield versions of this song, but nothing is better than Isaac Hayes's high drama take on the Burt Bacharach classic. RZA used it to great effect on "I Can't Go To Sleep." When I started the book, I was drinking a little too frequently and proceeded to cut back. By the end, I wasn't drinking at all. I have a lot of responsibilities in my life and lost interest in being so cloudy at night. It rings out in my mind like the room spinning elation peak of being buzzed. I'm mostly sober now, but in hindsight, I preferred drugs to booze anyhow.
Michael Chapman "Party Pieces"
This was one of those discoveries that is a reward for all my musical exploration. I had read that Mick Ronson played on Michael Chapman's Fully Qualified Survivor album before he joined David Bowie's Spiders From Mars. That's a strong record, but I think this particular album has better songwriting. I ended spinning this so much my nine-year-old son was like, "Please, no more 'Party Pieces'!"
Jeannie C. Riley "Good Enough To Be Your Wife"
I did the entire run of the country music history podcast Cocaine and Rhinestones on the treadmill at the YMCA here in Bedstuy, Brooklyn and discovered (for me) Jeannie C. Riley from the three episodes about the song "Harper Valley PTA." At the time, my wife Jessie and I had/have a young baby at home. This song is about domestic life--not the words, but the feel of the song. Like the same way the first few solo McCartney albums feel like home life. In fact, Jessie resembles the young Jeannie C. Riley a little bit.
Fanny "Badge"
Another song I found through a podcast. Lost Notes did a fantastic episode about Fanny. Included here is their cover of Cream's "Badge." These records were hot for me when I began work on the second part of the book on the environmental problems in Newtown Creek.
There is a brilliant 35 minute, 1973 in-studio TV concert on YouTube clumsily yet descriptively titled "Fanny BC 73 IV Z 1/1 - 1971-11-23" that I highly recommend. The engineer is coming over the loudspeaker and being a total dick to them clearly because they are young girls, despite the fact they sound amazing. It's a snapshot of the 1970s and speaks volumes about the music industry. Fanny were pioneers and better than most of their male peers.
Redd Kross "It's The Little Things"
This is a cover of Sonny and Cher's "It's The Little Things." The original is good but sluggish by comparison. This Redd Kross cover is alive and sparkling. Another song that was about my domestic life—having kids and working on writing. There's always dishes, cooking to do, homework to look at, diapers to change. It's a pain in the ass and I know I will miss it.
Come to think of it, I included lots of covers on this list and I'm not sure why.
Specimen "The Beauty of Poisin"
Yes, that's the correct spelling of "Poisin" on the LP sleeve. I was in the editing stage, and I stepped out to see local bands Blu Anxxiety and Pawns open for underground German goths Pink Turns Blue. The DJ played "The Beauty of Poisin" between bands, and frankly, it was the highlight of my night. It's a majestic glam-goth classic. I spun it every day. No exaggeration.
Side note: I mentioned to my friend and editor Christina Ward at Process Media/Feral House I was obsessed with this song, and she sent back a picture of its place in her home jukebox. That is a collaborator on the same wavelength. It's not a mainstream song whatsoever.
Marc Almond "You Have"
"You Have" reminds me of fall 2018 when I started the first few interviews. I recall feeling this record and making lists of who I wanted to interview. An oral history is a lot closer to doing a documentary than writing from your imagination. There are some creative flights of imagination, but it's mostly a research project and an enormous administrative task in the early stages. I recall being hot on Marc Almond's Vermin in Ermine as well as Logic's YSIV that week.
Joe Gibb and the Professionals "Full Moon in the Sky"
Early on, in the idea stage for the book and deciding which Superfund sites to concentrate on, I asked everyone I knew in the environmental movement what sites people didn't know enough about, and many people mentioned Tar Creek to me. The original plan was to do three Superfunds. But as the work continued on Tar Creek, it became apparent I could only do two sites. I always knew Newtown Creek would be something I would study one day. I lived in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, for several years and read Geoffrey Cobb's book Greenpoint Brooklyn's Forgotten Past and knew about the early pollution events.
Before Jessie got pregnant with Vivian, we went upstate and took psilocybin mushrooms. It had been the first time I had tripped hard like that since the '90s. It was difficult, but at the end of it, I knew what this book was going to be about. The mushrooms helped me tap into something inside myself. Joe Gibb and the Professionals' African Dub Chapter 5 was the soundtrack from that time. All of it is so spacey, yet it retains killer hooks throughout. I'm going to consider tripping before starting any major project like this to help me discover whatever my hidden intentions may be.
Cornell Campbell "Boxing Around"
From the same period as the previous track—Jessie and I would go to this reggae bar now and then called Lover's Rock. New York City has become quite commercial over the years, but this was a place, pre-pandemic, where you can go and listen to hard dancehall and sweet dubs like this one. Those DJs knew what they were doing. I heard this one there. Cornell Campbell should be more well known than he is, but then again, I feel that way about most island singers who are not Bob Marley or Harry Belafonte.
Bembeya Jazz National "Telephone"
Even when the book is done and edited, it's still not done. You have to hustle it out there, which in some ways is more of a struggle for me. The stories of these legacy pollution sites are important, but how do you express that without being a drag or boring? It's important to widen the tent of the environmental movement. We need to find ways to reconcile the ghosts of industrial pollution in addition to current crises like climate change. One thing both sites still have in common is high cancer rates.
Aside from the obvious business of finishing a book, you have to process what you just went through. I discovered this tune while on quarantine and wrapping the book up. It's gorgeous and has the melody of world peace set to music.
Stevie Wonder "Don't You Worry About a Thing"
Songs you hear growing up can become stale and then be rediscovered. I go through periods where I don't put on Stevie Wonder for years, but about a year ago, I heard this rattling in the attic of my mind and put it on the turntable and found myself listening to it repeatedly. It's perfect, and it is always in the tool belt if I need a serotonin boost.
Paul Simon"Kodachrome”
Another tune I've heard a million times and then one day I heard it in passing and it was different. Its beauty struck me and became one of my go-to songs throughout the process. It's a reminder that your tastes can change and one should continually revise positions if you intend to keep growing as a person.
Side 2: Highlights from grinding out the book
NEU! "Isi"
An old favorite that best exemplifies the motorik sound of 1970s Krautrock. The first two albums are stone-cold classics, but I think NEU! 75 is perfect for writing nearly anything. It sounds to me like ideas opening up and pouring out of your head.
Egbert Gismonti “Selva Amazonica- Pau Rolou”
This one caught my attention during the last few rounds of edits. I found it in a Pitchfork article of ECM releases that were now available on Spotify. It is a 20-minute epic adventure if you let it take you. It's unlike anything else and defies genre.
Henry Threadgill "And This"
I spent a lot of 2019 exploring Threadgill and all his projects after finding an inexpensive copy of his 1987 record Easily Slip Into Another World in the local jazz bins. And This is from his 1997 album Where's Your Cup? with his band Make a Move. It's a bit more pop than his other records and strangely sounds like Bowie's Blackstar record 19 years later. Bowie must have been aware of Threadgill as he was an avid fan of jazz throughout his life, but I don't think it was intentional. It could potentially have remained in his subconscious. It's just a hypothesis as I've found no mention of it in connection to Bowie anywhere.
Sonny Clark "Speak Low"
Another go-to record I rode hard. Much of the jazz in this section of the playlist is about the pace of writing and editing. I hope some of that rhythm made its way to the page. I think this is one of the best albums of the hard bop era.
Stan Getz "Litha"
Calming until the drums come in. Chick Corea's piano floats on top. Like Sonny Clark's Sonny's Crib or Art Blakey's Hard Bop, Stan Getz's Sweet Rain is undeniably one of the best jazz records of all time. Any track would have fit well here. I almost picked a track from Focus, but this one won by a hair.
Dexter Gordon "Sonnymoon for Two"
Anthony Braxton-"Just Friends"
For the last five or years or so, I have been collecting records again. Two records I bought at some point in 2018 were Anthony Braxton's In the Tradition Vol 1. and Dexter Gordon's Montmartre Collection Vol. 1. Anytime I was working on the book from home and didn't know what to put on, I spun these two records over and over. It's tough to pick out individual cuts as they are entire pieces in my mind. Both records are well produced and coincidentally recorded in Denmark with local Danish musicians. I'd like to find out more about the Danish post-bop scene of the early '70s as they turned out some talented players and a few years later—top metal bands like The Brats and Mercyful Fate.
Sun Ra "The Cosmo Fire"
Scored a red vinyl reissue of Sun Ra's Astro Black for $7 on eBay. Anytime I wanted to slack off from my responsibilities or became temporarily intimidated by the enormity of the task, I would look at records online as therapy. I believe you need a little slack time scheduled every day so as not to burn out and remain committed to the task.
I included this 18-minute free jazz acid freakout because I found that when jazz gets chaotic, I get looser in response. This one is masterful. It sounds like if Funkadelic totally unraveled like a ball of string.
Miles Davis "Zimbabwe"
This 41 minute Miles Davis track from Pangaea brings us full circle to the punk tracks at the beginning of this mix. It gave me the same kind of psychic boost as punk without distracting me from the words on the page. A lot of serious jazzholes dismiss his avant-garde 1970s stuff, but I think they are too boring and stiff. He is as exciting here as he was in the 1950s.
Cheo Feliciano “P’Que Afinquen”
Fania All Stars “Quítate Tú”
People outside of New York tend to call Salsa "Latin jazz." They are related, but Salsa is a little more provincial as it is Puerto Rican but has elements of Cuban pachanga and cumbias, among other things. It's an ethnic mix like the City itself. I grew up with Salsa. My mother is Puerto Rican, so we used to drive into Manhattan and the Bronx to go to lots of family parties in the 1980s. I find Salsa is perfect to work with because it's so lively, the hooks are catchy, the bands are big, melodies are lush, and I understand such little Spanish that it doesn't break my thought while concentrating on the task at hand. These two are irresistible toe-tappers I visited with often to refresh my ears. Cheo Feliciano and Fania All Stars are part of that first wave. In the 80s, Salsa gets too slick for my taste, but the first couple of decades are stellar.
Sonny Sharrock "Who Does She Hope to Be"
Sharrock's Ask The Ages was a marvelous discovery I made last year. Sharrock is in a genre onto himself. At first, you think it's jazz, and it is, but only partially. His colleagues Pharaoh Sanders and Elvin Jones come out to support Sharrock on what would be his last record. It's very introspective music. Coincidentally Bill Laswell produced this as well as the Henry Threadgill record that's on here. He had an ear for bringing together artists from radically different genres to collaborate. On this one, he has jazz players doing something outside of jazz. Like Rick Rubin, I appreciate people who cross genres and disciplines, take risks and continue to cover new territory.
John Coltrane "Giant Steps"
Tying the book together in the end, things begin to make sense, themes emerge. Doing an oral history is a lot like doing a documentary. You do interviews, edit and weave them all together into a readable finished narrative. What makes it art is how you do those things. What choices did you make? What do you leave out? "Giant Steps" is what every artist wants to do in their own way. To reinvent the language in the medium you're working in.
I like oral history. It's still a relatively young medium and there is a lot of room to experiment in it. Alan Moore said he likes comics because "I was given a chance to sneak up on culture by some sort of back door." I suppose I'm looking for a similar door myself.
The majesty of this song is epic. I figured out that like Miles, certain Coltrane pieces are too cerebral and distracting to work to, but inspires me to go a little further to touch the top of the mountain like the Stevie Wonder track does. Coltrane was mythic like Michael Jordan or Mike Tyson or something.
Alice Coltrane “Govinda Jai Jai”
Like the first rays of light on a Sunday morning, it sounds like what I picture an uplifting church service to be like, but the catch is that this is an ancient Indian devotional chant in the style of gospel. Totally brilliant. I first heard this on a train out to Long Island to freelance on a TV show and played it over and over. It fired me up for a potentially shitty day at a shitty location. It helped me take control of my mindset. I didn't intend for this to land on the playlist after her late husband's classic, but it's just how things ended up.
A lot of tough choices had to be made.
Honorable mentions not on the list: Freddie Gibbs, Czarface, Vladimir Horowitz playing Joseph Haydn, Blind Idiot God, Bela Bartok, Kamasi Washington, Pete Rock, Alchemist, and Andrew Weatherall.
Michael Lee Nirenberg is a filmmaker and writer. He has directed several music videos and the award-winning documentary Back Issues: The Hustler Magazine Story. Mr. Nirenberg has contributed to national magazines and websites. Since 2006, he has worked as a scenic artist on many movies and television shows. He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife and two children.
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