January 12, 2013
2012 Year-End Online Music Lists Update - January 12th
As "best of 2012" year-end music lists appear online I will aggregate them as I have in past years, updating the master list daily.
If you post or see an online 2012 music list on a blog, newspaper, magazine, or other media site that isn't listed, please feel free to e-mail me the link or leave a comment.
The Master List of 2012 Year-End Online Music Lists
Daily updates to the master list
Revisit the lists for 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009, 2000-2009 (best of the decade lists), and 2010, and 2011.
Today's updates to the 2012 Year-End Online Music Lists:
Alfonso X (favorite albums)
Amber Waves of Twang (best albums)
The Arbitrary Line (top albums)
BAM's Blog (top Oklahoma albums)
CAC on Funk (top albums)
Catfish Vegas (favorite albums)
The Charlatan (best albums)
ChrisQueen.net (top albums)
The Crimson White (top albums)
An Earnest Compulsion (best albums)
Faded Glamour (top albums)
The Finest Kiss (best reissues)
Flatted Third (top albums)
Glitter2Gutter (best albums)
Greyskeil Rainbow (favorite songs)
In the Hills on My Own (favorite albums)
An Inland Voyage (top albums)
Indie Lunchbox (favorite albums)
Just Another Crappy Opinionated Music Blog (best albums)
The Lefort Report (best albums)
Listen Before You Buy (best EPs)
Listen Before You Buy (top songs)
Lord Doom (top albums)
The Michigan Daily (best albums)
Music and the Queen City (best albums)
Nine Bullets - Charles Hale (best albums)
Old to the New (best albums and EPs)
Open Arms (favorite albums)
Orange Juice, etc. (top songs)
Radish White Icicle (best albums)
realmikeclark (albums)
Sarah Mac (best albums)
Schmagurty.com (best albums)
Sex, Drugs, and Manuscripts (best songs)
http://soundlogik.com/top-twelve-logikal-bangers-of-2012/Soundlogik (top songs)
Spaced Out Radio (favorite albums)
Stefflike (top albums)
Thomas J Richards (albums)
TZEEEAC (favorite albums)
Vandals on the Wall (best Filipino albums)
Wait...WHAT? (favorite albums)
We Listen for You (best albums)
We Listen for You - Hank (best albums)
We Listen for You - Ryan (best albums)
We Listen for You - Zach (best albums)
Whiz Capone (top Dirty South rap songs)
also at Largehearted Boy:
daily updates to the master list
2012 Year-End Online Music Lists
2011 Year-End Online Music Lists
2010 Year-End Online Music Lists
2009 Year-End Online Music Lists
2008 Year-End Online Music Lists
2007 Year-End Online Music Lists
2006 Year-End Online Music Lists
Best of the Decade (2000-2009) Music Lists
Online "Best Books of 2012" Lists
Online "Best Books of 2011" Lists
Online "Best Books of 2010" Lists
Online "Best Books of 2009" Lists
Online "Best Books of 2008" Lists
Best of the Decade (2000-2009) Online Book Lists
other lists at Largehearted Boy
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Daily Downloads (free & legal mp3 downloads)
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
musician/author interviews
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
January 12, 2013
Shorties (David Bowie's Producer on the Legendary Artist's New Album, A Profile of George Saunders, and more)
The Guardian and Billboard.biz get the inside story behind David Bowie's new album from his producer.
The Guardian profiles author George Saunders.
"The thing I found," says Saunders, "was if you want to avoid creating a world that looks habituated, compression is a great way to do it. Because we're habituated, both in life and in fiction, to certain ways of expressing things. So – if someone asks how do you get to the hospital? The answer is four blocks and turn left. But the actual experience of going to the hospital is a thousand pointillistic things that are probably sub-articulable. And then: what are the linguistic corollaries that I can make, that actually come alive anew?"
27 year-end music lists were added Wednesday to the master aggregation, including Popblerd's favorite albums, Entertainment for Dudes' top albums, and many more.
41 lists were added Thursday to the master aggregation of year-end online "best books of 2012" lists, including GeekDad's best books, LitChat's favorite books, and many more.
The Largehearted Boy books of the year (more lists to come):
my favorite graphic novels of 2012
my favorite nonfiction books of 2012
my favorite novels of 2012
my favorite short story collections of 2012
Rolling Stone interviews Tegan and Sara about sibling rivalry, making music on a major label vs. an indie, and more.
GalleyCat offers a primer on how to buy eBooks through independent bookstores.
The Irish Times profiles Niall Byrne, the man behind the music blog Nialler9.
AbeBooks lists the 25 best books about Abraham Lincoln.
Flavorwire lists a selection of post-1970s glam rock albums.
Cathy Marie Buchanan talks to Weekend Edition about her new novel The Painted Girls.
New York Knicks basketball player Amar'e Stoudemire talks to Weekend Edition about his series of books for middle grade readers.
On why he writes for young readers
"A lot of young boys are starting to shy away from reading as if it's not cool, so I wanted to express ... how important reading really is to them. I remember when I was their age, going to the bookstore I went to, the first book that had any type of athlete on the book — whether it was Jackie Robinson or whether it was Bill Russell or what have you — whatever book I saw that had an athlete on it, you know, I bought that book and I read that book, and then that started to spark my mind to want to read more, so I want that same effect to continue on."
Villagers frontman Conor O'Brien talks songwriting with Drowned in Sound.
The Guardian examines the allure of the debut novel for writers.
The Current shares an exclusive live session by the band Beach House.
Amazon MP3 offers 100 albums on sale for $5 each.
Amazon MP3 offers over 1,400 albums on sale for $3.99.
Amazon MP3
Amazon MP3 offers over 400 jazz albums on sale for $1.78.
Amazon MP3
Follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Google+, Facebook, and Stumbleupon for links (updated throughout the day) that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
The list of online "best of 2012" book lists
The list of online "best of 2012" music lists
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics & graphic novels)
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
daily mp3 downloads
Largehearted Word (the week's best new books)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Daily Downloads (Alabama Shakes, Nicole Atkins, and more)
Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet.
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:
Alabama Shakes: 2012-03-29, Oxford [mp3,ogg,flac]
Alabama Shakes: "On Your Way" [mp3]
search for more Alabama Shakes posts at Largehearted Boy
The Antlers: 2011-10-03, Montclair [mp3,ogg,flac]
The Antlers: "Rolled Together" [mp3]
search for more Antlers posts at Largehearted Boy
Bloodkin: 2012-12-14, Athens [mp3,ogg,flac]
Bloodkin: "Drive Home September" [mp3]
search for more Bloodkin posts at Largehearted Boy
David Barbe and the Quick Hooks: 2012-12-14, Athens [mp3,ogg,flac]
David Barbe and the Quick Hooks: "In the Weeds" [mp3]
search for more David Barbe posts at Largehearted Boy
Explosions in the Sky: 2011-10-03, Montclair [mp3,ogg,flac]
Explosions in the Sky: "Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean" [mp3]
search for more Explosions in the Sky posts at Largehearted Boy
Megafaun: 2011-09-24, New York [mp3,ogg,flac]
Megafaun: "Everything Is Free Now" [mp3]
search for more Megafaun posts at Largehearted Boy
Mekons: 2011-10-08, New York [mp3,ogg,flac]
Mekons: "Curse of the Mekons" [mp3]
search for more Mekons posts at Largehearted Boy
The Moondoggies: 2012-06-13, Denver [mp3,ogg,flac]
The Moondoggies: "Midnight Owl" [mp3]
search for more Moondoggies posts at Largehearted Boy
Nicole Atkins: 2011-09-29, New York [mp3,ogg,flac]
Nicole Atkins: "In the Pines" [mp3]
search for more Nicole Atkins posts at Largehearted Boy
Vic Chesnutt: 2008-11-03, Austin [mp3,ogg,flac]
Vic Chesnutt: "Old Hotel" [mp3]
search for more Vic Chesnutt posts at Largehearted Boy
Free and legal live performances at other websites:
Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby: 2012-12-01, Hoboken [mp3]
search for more Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby posts at Largehearted Boy
also at Largehearted Boy:
other daily free and legal mp3 downloads
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
2012 Year-End Online Music Lists
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, books, and pop culture news and links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtrack)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
January 11, 2013
Book Notes - Ben Schrank "Love Is a Canoe"
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 Bret Easton Ellis, Kate Christensen, Kevin Brockmeier, George Pelecanos, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, David Peace, Myla Goldberg, Heidi Julavits, Hari Kunzru, and many others.
Interspersed with snippets from a fictitious classic marriage manual, Ben Schrank's novel Love Is a Canoe is a vivid, engaging, and often hilarious portrayal of modern relationships.
The New York Times wrote of the book:
"Schrank has done something here that may sound impossible: He’s written a funny novel about publishing that is not caustic but optimistic, not biting but bighearted — a story about the delusions with which self-aware, smart people are all too willing to live in order to avoid the painful (yet entertaining) upheaval that comes with truth."
Stream a Spotify playlist of these tunes. If you don't have Spotify yet, sign up for the free service.
In his own words, here is Ben Schrank's Book Notes music playlist for his novel, Love Is a Canoe:
When I wrote Love Is a Canoe, I listened to music I loved, rather than music that I thought might have something to do with the flavor of my novel. I listened to Kris Kristofferson, Built to Spill, Serge Gainsbourg, and a whole lot of Nick Cave, especially the Murder Ballads. I wear headphones and listen to loud music and write until the music blurs and I'm just writing and I can't hear a thing.
It's my hope that my characters, by the time I'm done with them, have allergies and favorite colors and they know what they would want to hear while they work, just like I do. I've excerpted a few scenes from my book where music makes a cameo, and I've added a few songs that my characters listened to in other scenes, that didn't make it into the final draft of my novel:
Emily Babson, the earnest winner of the contest to meet Peter Herman, the author of a marriage advice book that is the crux of my novel, is lulled into an unsuspecting and vulnerable state via Neil Young. When an old Neil Young song is playing, I imagine that most people feel that not too much can go wrong:
Though people kept threatening that the Klezmer band were on their way, they hadn't yet arrived, so Sherry brought a speaker dock down from her apartment and someone plugged their phone into it. An old Neil Young song came on. "Sugar Mountain." Emily strained to listen to it. Outside, it had begun to rain and the sudden summer shower made the people standing by the open windows gasp and laugh and show each other their wet shoulders. Emily liked an overcooked simile and so she felt that her Eli was like a Neil Young song she wanted to hear over and over again. People were still coming in. A short young woman with dark hair yanked the door open and threw herself inside. She had just the sort of long loose ringlets Emily didn't care for. Untamable creature, Emily thought, as the woman shook the water out of her hair.
Emily grew up in Milton, Massachusetts. In college, she loved Townes Van Zandt's "Buckskin Stallion." When I think of her, the song that plays in my head is David Wiffen's "You Need A New Lover Now."
Peter Herman, the man who wrote the book within my book, Marriage is a Canoe, romanticizes himself and his life. I gave him an Ennio Morricone soundtrack:
He whistled the opening sequence to A Fistful of Dollars to himself as he made his way back home. He'd watched the movie the previous evening once he was sure Maddie wasn't planning to come around. He was surprised at how much he still loved the movies he'd watched when he was young. If Maddie didn't come around again tonight, he planned to find Duck, You Sucker on Netflix and watch it on Lisa's computer screen if he had to. Belinda had given him a couple of CDs of Ennio Morricone's film scores when she'd caught him watching The Good the Bad and the Ugly late one night the year before when Lisa was dying and she had stayed over. She'd discovered him huddled on the couch, crying into his shirt sleeve. The only thing he'd found to say in the moment was "I just love this music."
Peter, who spent a lot of the seventies and early eighties in bars, would have loved Bobbie Gentry, especially "Morning Glory," which is the sexiest song I know. He also listened to "To Beat the Devil" by Kris Kristofferson and "Margie's at the Lincoln Park Inn" by Tom T. Hall and maybe "Rainy Day Woman," by Waylon Jennings.
Peter's wife Lisa, who died at the outset of the book, was a tough woman who knew how to make a profit from running an inn. I think a woman like that would have a love for seventies country rock like Creedence Clearwater Revival:
"Don't brood," she liked to say, "You know I don't like it."
And then she'd put away her papers and get up and dance a few steps, there on the back porch, to Creedence Clearwater Revival, singing, "Come on the risin' wind, we're goin' up around the bend..."
"Don't forget I'm a hippy in my heart," she would call out. Though of course this wasn't true. She was playful when she could see that was what he needed to keep going. He would whistle and stomp his feet.
Lisa also listened to "Killing Me Softly With His Song" by Roberta Flack when she was on her way to work. She had it on a cassette she hid under the seat.
The passages from Marriage is a Canoe are mostly about a little boy in the early sixties, spending time with his grandparents. I can only hope that Roger Miller played on upstate New York radio in those days:
It was just eleven in the morning, on a Friday, at the end of our second week together. We hadn't caught anything and it was hot. We could hear Roger Miller singing "You Don't Want My Love" on a workman's tinny radio far across the lake. I had on my Yankees hat. I remember taking it off and using it to wipe the sweat from my brow.
"Want to eat now, Peter? It's early but I can see you're hungry."
That radio station also played songs like Don Gibson's "Sea of Heartbreak" and Ray Charles' "Hit the Road Jack."
Emily's sister Sherry is an actress. She has a life that involves a lot of music. She would know musicians and would have dated a few:
The overhead lights were low and they were listening to a new Interpol record, because Emily had dated the lead singer before he got married so she got their albums early. Most Interpol songs and much of the rest of the music Sherry liked sounded the same to Emily, but she never admitted it. They were drinking red wine. A few minutes earlier they'd finished picking over steak salads they'd had delivered from Oaxaca on Smith Street.
I think Sherry is partial to the Strokes and Feist and a whole lot of contemporary Canadian pop, like The Rural Alberta Advantage.
Eli and Emily would not have found, during the course of their marriage, music that they both loved.
They had Emily's iPod plugged into the car's amazing stereo and they were listening to Exile on Main Street. Emily always wanted to listen to Alison Krauss and Eli would have preferred the new Dinosaur Jr. album, so the Rolling Stones were how they compromised.
Later, Emily would return to Townes Van Zandt and perhaps even The Indigo Girls, which would embarrass her, but she would listen anyway. And Eli would listen to whatever the people around him listened to, and like it, because that's the kind of guy I think he is.
Ben Schrank and Love Is a Canoe links:
Entertainment Weekly review
Kirkus Reviews review
New York Times review
Publishers Weekly review
Three Guys One Book review
GalleyCat interview with the author
Publishers Weekly interview with the author
There Guys One Book interview with the author
also at Largehearted Boy:
Book Notes (2012 - ) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2005 - 2011) (authors create music playlists for their book)
my 11 favorite Book Notes playlist essays
The list of online "best of 2012" book lists
The list of online "best of 2012" music lists
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
52 Books, 52 Weeks (weekly book reviews)
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics highlights)
Daily Downloads (free and legal daily mp3 downloads)
guest book reviews
Largehearted Word (weekly new book highlights)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, literature, and pop culture links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Book Notes - Nicholas Montemarano "The Book of Why"
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 Bret Easton Ellis, Kate Christensen, Kevin Brockmeier, George Pelecanos, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, David Peace, Myla Goldberg, Heidi Julavits, Hari Kunzru, and many others.
Nicholas Montemarano's novel The Book of Why is a poignant exploration of love and loss told through the eyes of a self-help author who tragically loses his wife.
Stream a Spotify playlist of these tunes. If you don't have Spotify yet, sign up for the free service.
In his own words, here is Nicholas Montemarano's Book Notes music playlist for his novel, The Book of Why:
I tend to be moved way more by a song's sound than its lyrics. That may be sacrilegious for a writer to say, but it's true. I can listen to an album over and over for months—Washed Out's Within and Without, for example—and not be able to tell you a single lyric. I listen to music for the same reason I read books: to be moved. Music evokes emotion in me much more immediately and viscerally than most writing is able to. I envy a song's ability to make you feel something deeply in just a few minutes. When I read, and especially when I write, I pay close attention to the music of prose—repeated sounds, the rhythm of sentences, the frequency or infrequency of pauses.
When I was writing my new novel, The Book of Why, I didn't listen to music while I wrote. To me, that would be like listening to music while trying to write music. But most days I listened to music before writing. I would ask myself what emotion I wanted to evoke in the chapter I was writing, then I would listen to music that stirred that emotion in me.
The narrator of The Book of Why, Eric Newborn, is a bestselling self-help author and inspirational speaker. He says things like, "Happiness is an inside job" and "Miracles happen all the time" and "As you think, so shall you be." He preaches self-empowerment and believes that you can cure disease—or dis-ease, as he calls it—with positive thinking. His wife, Cary, a singer-songwriter, doesn't share his beliefs; she's better able to live in the moment and accept whatever happens. When she becomes sick, Eric's beliefs are put to the test: he helped so many people with his books and lectures, yet he feels helpless in the face of his wife's illness.
1. The Beatles, "Help!"
Self-help books are easy targets, and, in truth, many are silly or filled with treacle, but over the course of writing this novel I felt empathy not only for writers of self-help books, many of whom really are trying to help, but also for the millions of people who read them. That self-help books sell so well tells me one thing: there are many, many people out there looking for help. So this first song, which comes to mind whenever I think of The Book of Why, is pretty obvious. I imagine Eric's fans, and Eric himself, crying out, "Help me if you can, I'm feeling down / …Won't you please, please help me, help me, help me, oh."
2. Ingrid Michaelson, "Be OK"
I have a special fondness for Ingrid Michaelson, one of the inspirations for the character of Eric's wife, Cary. Like Michaelson, Cary starts her career by putting out her albums independently and selling them at her shows, and resists signing with a record company. "Be OK" is the song I most associate with Cary, and it also connects with the self-help theme of the novel. As Michaelson puts it, "I just want to be ok, be ok, be ok / I just want to be ok today." We all do—of course. That's one reason why self-help books sell so well.
3. Bruce Springsteen, "If I Should Fall Behind"
Bruce fans may know this track from his album Lucky Town, but it's not one of his better known songs. I think it's one of the best love songs of all time: it's beautiful, sincere, and realistic. It recognizes that two people may love each other, but then life happens, and sometimes we lose our way. My wife and I chose it as our wedding song. The Book of Why, at its core, is a love story. Love found, love lost, love found again—maybe. Cary's best known song is called "Hello Goodbye." As she says, it's the only story we know—we say hello, and eventually we all must say goodbye. Bruce presents hope in the face of this reality: "Now everyone dreams of a love lasting and true / But you and I know what this world can do / …I'll wait for you / If I should fall behind / Wait for me."
4. Ray LaMontagne, "Be Here Now"
This is one of the most meditative, peaceful, quietly beautiful songs I've ever heard; it never fails to relax me. A few simple guitar chords, ethereal strings, notes descending on a piano, and LaMontagne almost whispering or breathing rather than singing. The song is like a self-help book; LaMontagne gives all sorts of advice, some of which Eric Newborn might agree with: "Don't let your mind get weary / …Don't let your heart get heavy / …Don't let your soul get lonely / …Don't lose your faith in me / And I will try not to lose faith in you."
5. Wilco, "Either Way"
Eric's journey throughout The Book of Why is from a place where he tries to control the world around him to a place of acceptance that some things are beyond his control. In other words, he becomes more like his wife—after she's gone. The ending of a novel should also be a new beginning; it should invite us to imagine how the story might continue. I like to imagine Eric beyond the final page of The Book of Why, walking alone on a beach on Martha's Vineyard, where he and Cary used to live together, listening to this song, which somehow manages to sound both happy and melancholy—like life: "Maybe the sun will shine today / The clouds will roll away / Maybe I won't be so afraid / I will understand everything has its plan / Either way."
Nicholas Montemarano and The Book of Why links:
Kirkus Reviews review
The Review Broads review
Huffington Post contributions by the author
also at Largehearted Boy:
Book Notes (2012 - ) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2005 - 2011) (authors create music playlists for their book)
my 11 favorite Book Notes playlist essays
The list of online "best of 2012" book lists
The list of online "best of 2012" music lists
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
52 Books, 52 Weeks (weekly book reviews)
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics highlights)
Daily Downloads (free and legal daily mp3 downloads)
guest book reviews
Largehearted Word (weekly new book highlights)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, literature, and pop culture links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Shorties (The U.S. Presidency in Fiction, Coachella Rumors, and more)
PopMatters explores depictions of the U.S. presidency in fiction.
Consequence of Sound rounds up 2013 Coachella festival rumors.
27 year-end music lists were added Wednesday to the master aggregation, including Popblerd's favorite albums, Entertainment for Dudes' top albums, and many more.
41 lists were added yesterday to the master aggregation of year-end online "best books of 2012" lists, including GeekDad's best books, LitChat's favorite books, and many more.
The Largehearted Boy books of the year (more lists to come):
my favorite graphic novels of 2012
my favorite nonfiction books of 2012
my favorite novels of 2012
my favorite short story collections of 2012
Paste previews its 25 most anticipated albums of 2013.
Johnny Marr talks to the Guardian about the Smiths, Morrissey, and his forthcoming solo album.
The Atlantic Wire recommends young adult historical fiction.
Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers discusses recording the band's epic concept album, Southern Rock Opera, with the Birmingham News in a 2001 interview before the album was released.
"It's about growing up in the South and people's misconceptions of that," says Hood, 37. "You know, thinking everyone here is like George Wallace, and the TV footage of police dogs and the schoolhouse steps. But there was the whole Muscle Shoals music scene going on at the same time, with white musicians backing up people like Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett."
Bookworm interviews Amy Willentz about her book Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter from Haiti.
The Huffington Post shares a playlist for a hipster wedding.
3:AM Magazine has named its books, album, website, and magazine of the year.
The Record previews 2013's under the radar albums.
The Guardian Books blog points out the new Murakami Diary app, a calendar that adds daily Haruki Murakami quotes.
Spinner lists the 16 best albums posthumously released.
Author sandra Cisneros plays guest DJ at Alt. Latino.
PopMatters lists the 15 best Tom Waits songs.
The Telegraph profiles England's thriving performance poetry scene.
In a room at the back of a dark, dank pub in East London a group of people are heckling a man with a microphone. "Two out of ten!" shouts someone; "seven out of ten!" shouts another as the room laughs. The man onstage could be a stand-up comedian being bothered by a rowdy audience. But this isn't comedy – this is poetry.
BuzzFeed lists fans' unfortunate musician tattoos.
The Guardian explores how the Random House/Penguin merger will change publishing.
Flavorwire lists 10 unexpected and great mixtapes from musicians who aren't DJs.
Win Juliann Garey's debut novel Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.
Amazon MP3 offers 100 albums on sale for $5 each.
Amazon MP3 offers over 1,400 albums on sale for $3.99.
Amazon MP3
Amazon MP3 offers over 400 jazz albums on sale for $1.78.
Amazon MP3
Follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Google+, Facebook, and Stumbleupon for links (updated throughout the day) that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
The list of online "best of 2012" book lists
The list of online "best of 2012" music lists
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics & graphic novels)
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
daily mp3 downloads
Largehearted Word (the week's best new books)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Daily Downloads (Arbouretum, Brokeback, and more)
Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet.
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:
Arbouretum: "The Promise" [mp3] from Coming Out of the Fog (out January 22nd)
search for more Arbouretum posts at Largehearted Boy
The Away Days: "Dressing Room" [mp3] from How Did It All Start EP
search for more Away Days posts at Largehearted Boy
Bloody Amateur: "Companions" [mp3]
search for more Bloody Amateur posts at Largehearted Boy
Brokeback: "The Wire, the Rag and the Payoff" [mp3] from Brokeback and the Black Rock (out January 22)
search for more Brokeback posts at Largehearted Boy
Lapland: "Unwise" [mp3] from Lapland (out March 26th)
search for more Lapland posts at Largehearted Boy
Lower Plenty: "Strange Beast" [mp3] from Hard Rubbish (out April 2nd)
search for more Lower Plenty posts at Largehearted Boy
Renny Wilson: "By and By" [mp3] from Sugarglider (out January 22nd)
search for more Renny Wilson posts at Largehearted Boy
The Sandman's Orchestra: "To Haunt You" [mp3] from Nocturne (out March 5th)
The Sandman's Orchestra: "In Your Wake" [mp3] from Nocturne (out March 5th)
search for more Sandman's Orchestra posts at Largehearted Boy
Free and legal live performances at other websites:
Juve: Violitionist session [mp3]
search for more Juve posts at Largehearted Boy
also at Largehearted Boy:
other daily free and legal mp3 downloads
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
2012 Year-End Online Music Lists
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, books, and pop culture news and links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtrack)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
January 10, 2013
Book Notes - Hugh Sheehy "The Invisibles"
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 Bret Easton Ellis, Kate Christensen, Kevin Brockmeier, George Pelecanos, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, David Peace, Myla Goldberg, Heidi Julavits, Hari Kunzru, and many others.
Once again, the Flannery O'Connor Award has impressed introduced me to a writer of exceptional talent. Hugh Sheehy's debut short story collection The Invisibles explores the darker sides of human nature and loneliness, and the lives his characters inhabit will seep from the page into your thoughts and dreams.
Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:
"A little violence goes a long way and the lurking fear at the heart of these stories elevates them beyond the merely promising to reveal a wicked new talent."
Stream a Spotify playlist of these tunes. If you don't have Spotify yet, sign up for the free service.
In his own words, here is Hugh Sheehy's Book Notes music playlist for his short story collection, The Invisibles:
In general, the relationships between the music I listen to and the stories I write do not boil down to one-to-one equivalences between song and work or piece of song and piece of work. Rather, music shapes and informs the atmosphere in which I work in a more general way. It makes more sense in my case to offer a cross-section of what I listen to, as opposed to a series of discussions about influence at the more atomic level of individual stories.
Catherine Wheel, "Black Metallic;" Twenty-four Gone, "Girl of Colours"
I'm an American writer, so it should come as no surprise that my voice contains sentimental tones. I grew up in Toledo, which is more of a satellite of Detroit than it is characteristic of other cities in Ohio, and these songs played often on the Michigan radio station I listened to during the long and casually misspent years of what I now gather was a pretty standard sexual awakening. These treasures of the shoe-gazing genre are as sentimental as they get, but so was I when they got airplay, and I'd feel ashamed for omitting them here.
The Righteous Brothers, "Unchained Melody"; Ween, "Object"
The Righteous Brothers's version is the alpha and omega of torch songs, beautiful but also so alarmingly creepy that pretty much all the hetero-identifying male singers to step up to the microphone since have been too cautious to surpass it with a sincere expression of erotic desire, which goes beyond a lust for the physical (though don't tell Trent Reznor that). Ween's psychopathic love song is simply a knowing echo. I love these songs a great deal. Both remind me how dangerous and lovely each person can be, which is fun to think about if you make up stories about people doing terrible things to entertain yourself.
Brian Eno, "Thursday Afternoon"; Mogwai, Hardcore Will Never Die But You Will; Slowdive, Souvlaki
Atmospheric music is the only music I ever listen while writing, and I only listen to it then when I've been writing all day and feel sapped of energy and in need of something to hypnotize me so that I might push on to write pages that are at least draft-worthy. Unlike so many of my literary heroes, I write sober, unless you count my habitual coffee overdose, and when my caffeine tolerance spikes, albums like these can prop me up for hours.
Tomahawk, "God Hates a Coward" and "Flashback"; Saint Vincent, "Your Lips Are Red"; Emilie Simone, "Song of the Storm"
I'm a rock and punk listener at heart, and I like to spend a certain amount of my free time listening to loud music and being physical, whether that means exercising or playing some kind of sport or just moving my body (dancing, sure, but cleaning the house, too). I also have a weakness for shows where people don't mind being pushed around or pushing back, though all in a spirit of togetherness and play. I'm now old enough that it's rare to have a chance to play football or find the time to go to deafening concerts with what friends still like that kind of experience, and there's a growing shortage of bands who don't take themselves and their silly images and words too seriously. These are songs--though I could list many others--that showcase the best of what loud rock and roll has to offer: the expert manipulation of instruments and experimental technique to make a sound that places an exclamation point beside the acknowledgement of being alive. That feeling--that intense experience of existing--should be an essential part of your story, which means it should be in every sentence.
Funkadelic, Maggot Brain; The Knife, Tomorrow in a Year
Sometimes the only way for me to move forward on a writing project (or any other engagement) is to get some time away from the state of mind I've drifted into. There are moments when I think I might benefit from trying transcendental meditation as a means of gaining a greater comprehension of the stories I am trying to write, or to get a clearer look at the project to which they all belong. Maybe a few years will reveal I've been headed that way all along. For now, though, albums like these, which strike me as being constructed largely around a progression of image-inspiring sounds, provide rewarding getaways, whether I am on the road, enjoying the stillness of an empty home, or falling asleep to an onslaught of dreams.
The Kinks, Picture Book (Box Set); Mr. Bungle, "California"; Blur, "Boys and Girls"; Wu Tang Clan, "Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)"; all of the Talking Heads; too many others to list here
Look. At the end of the day, you are going to need music to play at the big party you are going to throw.
Hugh Sheehy and The Invisibles links:
Atlanta Journal-Constitution review
Booklist review
The Millions review
Publishers Weekly review
The Rumpus review
Kenyon Review interview with the author
also at Largehearted Boy:
Book Notes (2012 - ) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2005 - 2011) (authors create music playlists for their book)
my 11 favorite Book Notes playlist essays
The list of online "best of 2012" book lists
The list of online "best of 2012" music lists
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
52 Books, 52 Weeks (weekly book reviews)
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics highlights)
Daily Downloads (free and legal daily mp3 downloads)
guest book reviews
Largehearted Word (weekly new book highlights)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, literature, and pop culture links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
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Online "Best Books of 2012" Lists Update - January 10th
For the fifth straight year, I am aggregating every online "best of 2012" book list. As the lists appear online, I will add them to the master list, updating daily.
Please feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me with a blog, magazine, newspaper, or other online media list I have missed.
daily updates to the online "best books of 2012" lists
master list of online "best books of 2012" lists
Revisit the 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2000-2009 (best of the decade) online year-end book list collections.
Today's additions to the master list:
Atomic Books Blog (favorite comics)
Burbank Library Blog (best books)
C. Jane Reid (favorite books)
The Cantankerous Mustache (best anarchist books)
CCLaP (best books)
CCLaP - Karl Wolff (books)
Colleen's Green Grass (favourite books)
Desert Canyon Living (books)
Dusie (best Canadian poetry collections)
GeekDad (best books)
Girl from the North Country (best books)
The Hindu (books)
JerBear Shares (best books)
Jordan Shirkman (best books)
Karen Edmisten (books)
Life Moves Pretty Fast (top books)
LitChat (favorite books)
Owlhaven (favorite books)
Page Appropriate (favorite children's picture books)
A Passion for Liberty (favorite books)
Petites Amourettes (books)
The Pure Mood (top DC Comics books)
Responsible Eating and Living (favorite cookbooks)
Skinny Mom (favorite cookbooks)
Some of the Wiser (favorite fiction)
Talking Comics - Steve (top comics)
Two Heads Together (best books)
Yes I Am (top books)
also at Largehearted Boy:
daily updates to the master list
Online "Best Books of 2012" Lists
Online "Best Books of 2011" Lists
Online "Best Books of 2010" Lists
Best of the Decade (2000-2009) Online Book Lists
Online "Best Books of 2009" Lists
Online "Best Books of 2008" Lists
2012 Online Year-end Music Lists
2011 Online Year-end Music Lists
2010 Online Year-end Music Lists
Best of the Decade (2000-2009) Online Music Lists
2009 Online Year-end Music Lists
2008 Online Year-end Music Lists
2007 Online Year-end Music Lists
2006 Online Year-end Music Lists
other lists at Largehearted Boy
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
52 Books, 52 Weeks
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics and graphic novel picks)
Anitiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
guest book reviews
Largehearted WORD (weekly new book picks)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
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Atomic Books Comics Preview - January 10, 2013
In the weekly Atomic Books Comics Preview, Benn Ray highlights notable new comics and graphic novels.
Benn Ray is the owner of Atomic Books, an independent bookstore in Baltimore. The Mobtown Shank is his blog, and his comic Said What? is syndicated weekly in the Baltimore Sun's B-Paper.
Atomic Books has been named one of Bizarre Magazine's 51 geekiest places on the planet, as well as one of Flavorwire's 10 greatest comic and graphic novel stores in America.
Beta Testing The Apocalypse
by Tom Kaczynski
I have yet to encounter a Tom Kaczynski comics story I didn't love, and Beta Testing The Apocalypse collects 10 of them. With a well-honed architectural drawing style, Kaczynski deals with dystopias, in bleak, beautiful and sometimes downright fetid stories. There's heady stuff going on his work - notions of capitalism, communism and more - these are smart comics.
Black Incal (Deluxe Edition)
by Alexandro Jodorowsky / Moebius
Another Jodorowsky/Moebius joint gets the oversize, deluxe, limited edition treatment - it's the first volume of The Incal as John Difool tries to discover the mysteries of the artifact the book is named after.
Comics About Cartoonists
by Craig Yoe (editor)
I hate novels about writers. I hate movies about screen writers. There are so many better subjects to deal with. But I love comics about cartoonists. I'm not sure how I reconcile this inconsistency, but Craig Yoe - a man who has nearly single-handedly ushered in an era of archival comics, makes it easy for me to not care with this book. Featuring Steve Ditko, George Herriman, Jack Kirby, Walt Disney, Jack Cole, Rube Goldberg, Harvey Kurtzman, Frank Frazetta, Charles Schulz, Basil Wolverton, Winsor McCay, Will Eisner, Jack Chick, Wally Wood and many more!
An anthology of famed European cartoonists and some of their erotic comics work. Lush, rich, and stimulating. Remember, it's not smut, it's erotica.
Harvey Horrors Collected Works: Chamber of Chills Volume 1 (Slipcase Edition)
by various
Harvey Horrors Collected Works: Witches Tales Volume 1 (Slipcase Edition)
by various
Gorgeous, deluxe, hardcover, slipcase editions of old Harvey horror comics from the UK now available in the US. It's more pre-Code awesome gruesomeness.
Jack Jackson's American History: Los Tejanos And Lost Cause
by Jack Jackson
Jackson is often credited with creating the first underground comic. He'd later become a founder of counter-culture comix publisher Rip-Off Press. And still later, he turned his attention to using his incredibly complex linework to tell historical comics stories. The stories here involve Texas-Mexican relations and The Reconstruction in the Lone Star state. Visually stunning, historically rich.
Jaguar God: Snake Brothers Revenge
by Glenn Danzig / Simon Bisley
Danzig fans rejoice! It's a Danzig story with Bisely's art. Will barter for skulls.
Peanut
by Ayun Halliday / Paul Hoppe
Customers are always asking me for "age appropriate" comics for their early teen kids. I'm not sure what "age appropriate" means - it's as empty a phrase to me as "family values." I was a Robert Crumb fan before I could drive. I've always thought kids should be reading things that adults wouldn't consider age appropriate. But that doesn't always fly with parents who just want to get their kids a great coming of age tale that isn't weird coming from them. Here Ayun Halliday and Paul Hoppe have solved my dilemma (thanks!). Ayun's story of Sadie, a girl who plans to make some friends by pretending to have a peanut allergy, is delightful, and Hoppe's art is dynamic and energetic with well-used spot color.
Problematic: Selected Sketchbook Drawings 2004-2011
by Jim Woodring
Moleskines are the legendary blank journals that were favorites of Hemingway, Picasso, Wilde, Van Goh and Matisse. A few years back, they were brought back from oblivion and have since inspired a whole new generation of artists and writers who festishize them. It's virtually impossible to own a Moleskine and not write or draw in it. Here Jim Woodring collects art from his Moleskines and provides fascinating insight into the process of one of today's most unique comics creators.
Reset HC
by Peter Bagge
Guy Krause is a washed-up comedian who gets to (or is forced to) relive his life over and over via virtual reality as what seems part of a science experiment. Bagge uses this groundwork for his typical hilarity - put-upon characters responding oddly to what is often times self-created dilemmas and dramas. For me, Pete's artwork is at its best in black and white, and here it's as sharp as ever.
Slurricane #4
by Will Laren
I promise you, you will laugh at Will's weird comics. Page after page of grotesque people behaving weirdly - but what makes these comics so relatable is that whether it's the artwork or what's taking place, these comics are so close to people we know or things we've seen - until Laren's fertile imagination makes them veer off suddenly and wildly into bizarro land. Mark my words, Laren will be hugely famous one day. Most likely for his comics.
The Heart of Thomas
by Moto Hagio
Hagio is an early pioneer of the manga genre of "shounen-ai" or boys romance. Here the setting is a boarding school in Germany, sometime in the mid-1900s. Thomas sends a letter to another boy at school proclaiming his love and then falls off a bridge. Was it an accident? Suicide? Murder? And what's up with this new kid that shows up at school looking just like Thomas? This manga masterpiece is available to American audiences for the first time in a pretty hardcover in Japanese (right to left) format.
Questions, concerns, comments or gripes – e-mail benn@atomicbooks.com. If there’s a comic I should know about, send it my way at Atomic, c/o Atomic Books 3620 Falls Rd., Baltimore, MD 21211.
Atomic Books & Benn Ray links:
Atomic Books website
Atomic Books on Twitter
Atomic Books on Facebook
Benn Ray's blog (The Mobtown Shank)
Benn Ray's comic, Said What?
also at Largehearted Boy:
other Atomic Books Comics Preview lists (weekly new comics & graphic novel highlights)
the list of online "best books of 2012" lists
52 Books, 52 Weeks
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Book Notes (authors create music playlists for their book)
guest book reviews
Largehearted Word (weekly new book highlights)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
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Shorties (The Best Books About Washington, 2013's Best Music Documentaries, and more)
The Washington Post lists the best books about Washington, D.C.
Critic Jonathan Yardley discusses the selection process.
Flavorwire recommends 10 music documentaries you need to see in 2013.
27 year-end music lists were added yesterday to the master aggregation, including Popblerd's favorite albums, Entertainment for Dudes' top albums, and many more.
41 lists were added Tuesday to the master aggregation of year-end online "best books of 2012" lists, including Talking Comics' top comics, Book Movement's top book club books, and many more.
The Largehearted Boy books of the year (more lists to come):
my favorite graphic novels of 2012
my favorite nonfiction books of 2012
my favorite novels of 2012
my favorite short story collections of 2012
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette looks back on critical and personal reactions to Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Under the Sea album.
The shortlist for the Man Asian Literary Prize has been named.
NME lists six amazing things about David Bowie's new single.
Author Katie Roiphe offers memoir writing tips at Slate.
The Aquarian Weekly interviews Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke.
PaidContent profiles the free new short story iPad app, Paragraph Shorts.
Paragraph Shorts is a little like a Flipboard for short stories, but rather than an algorithm, it uses humans to find short stories — in text, video and audio formats — across the web (from outlets like The New Yorker, The Paris Review and The Moth), then aggregates them and distributes them through a free iPad app. When a Paragraph Shorts reader flips his or her iPad to landscape mode, social features appear, including the Twitter and Facebook streams of the stories’ authors and the magazines they were published in.
Aquarium Drunkard shares a 1973 live performance by legendary singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt.
Morning Edition interviews poet Richard Blanco, who will read at President Obama's inauguration.
NPR Music streams a recent live performance by David Byrne and St. Vincent.
Tablet reviews Michael Ruhlman's new digital cookbook/app The Book of Schmaltz: A Love Song to a Forgotten Fat.
Win Juliann Garey's debut novel Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.
Amazon MP3 offers 100 albums on sale for $5 each.
Amazon MP3 offers over 1,400 albums on sale for $3.99.
Amazon MP3
Amazon MP3 offers over 400 jazz albums on sale for $1.78.
Amazon MP3
Follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Google+, Facebook, and Stumbleupon for links (updated throughout the day) that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
The list of online "best of 2012" book lists
The list of online "best of 2012" music lists
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics & graphic novels)
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
daily mp3 downloads
Largehearted Word (the week's best new books)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
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Daily Downloads (The Cannanes, Fonda, and more)
Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet.
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:
Aly Tadros: "Sweet on Me" [mp3] from The Fits (out january 15th)
search for more Aly Tadros posts at Largehearted Boy
The Cannanes: "Bumper" [mp3] from Small Batch EP (out March 19th)
search for more Cannanes posts at Largehearted Boy
Elephant Stone: "Heavy Moon" [mp3] from Elephant Stone (out February 5th)
search for more Elephant Stone posts at Largehearted Boy
Fonda: "Seeing Stars" [mp3] from Sell Your Memories (out February 5th)
search for more Fonda posts at Largehearted Boy
Indians: "I Am Haunted" [mp3] from Somewhere Else (out January 29th)
search for more Indians posts at Largehearted Boy
Lady Lazarus: "Lapsarian" [mp3] from All My Love in Half Light (out January 29th)
search for more Lady Lazarus posts at Largehearted Boy
Low Culture: "Screens" [mp3] from Screens
search for more Low Culture posts at Largehearted Boy
The Shilohs: "The Place Where Nobody Knows I Go" [mp3] from So Wild (out February 5th)
search for more Shilohs posts at Largehearted Boy
Sunshine: "Two Hundred Grand" [mp3] from Sunshine (out February 26th)
search for more Sunshine posts at Largehearted Boy
Yellow Red Sparks: "Monsters with Misdemeanors" [mp3] from Yellow Red Sparks (out January 29th)
search for more Yellow Red Sparks posts at Largehearted Boy
Free and legal live performances at other websites:
Eidetic Seeing: 2012-11-27, Brooklyn [mp3]
search for more Eidetic Seeing posts at Largehearted Boy
also at Largehearted Boy:
other daily free and legal mp3 downloads
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
2012 Year-End Online Music Lists
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, books, and pop culture news and links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtrack)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
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