I just finished the first draft of my new novel! And as I usual do when working on a book, I listened to a lot of music while writing it. But this novel is a little different: Music is one of its central components.
More specifically, the book takes place in the punk scene in 1994, and each chapter is named after a punk/hardcore/post-hardcore/emo song that was released between '90 and '94 on an independent label (even if some of the bands later moved to a major--and even if some of these songs we were later rerecorded for those major-label debuts. Specifically, Green Day and Quicksand.)
The book is also an urban fantasy. You know, with magic and stuff.
Other than that, I'm not spilling any more details about the book as of yet. Not even the title! I don't want to jinx anything. But I will gladly share that list of songs/chapter titles, which can be found below. (FYI: The name of the book actually does appear somewhere on this list: either a song title, album title, or band name. But that's all I'm spilling right now.)
Not only is each chapter named after a song, each of those song titles has some integral connection to what happens in that chapter. Which means, given all the information in this blog post, you could conceivably piece together my entire novel. Or you could, you know, just listen to some great songs. And wait for the novel. Hopefully not too long, though. Fingers crossed.
Oh, and needless to say, this is a pretty accurate reflection of the music I was obsessing over circa 1994. This isn't everything I was listening to--I was just as much into The Kinks, Stereolab, and Ornette Coleman at the time--but it definitely sums up the scene I cut my teeth on. In a very direct way, this novel is an outgrowth of a huge, yearlong column about '90s punk/hardcore/post-hardcore/emo called Fear of a Punk Decade that I wrote for The A.V. Club.
P.S. In case you're wondering, I didn't make a Spotify playlist for these songs because Spotify didn't have all of these songs. Hopefully the YouTube embeds will suffice!
Chapter 1
“Welcome to Paradise”
-Green Day, Kerplunk (1992)
Chapter 2
“Pure Pain Sugar”
-Unwound, Fake Train (1993)
Chapter 3
“Unwritten Rules”
-Rancid, Rancid (1993)
Chapter 4
“In Circles”
-Sunny Day Real
Estate, Diary (1994)
Chapter 5
“How We Connect”
-Dog Faced Hermans, Hum of Life (1993)
Chapter 6
“And I Live in a Town
Where the Boys Amputate Their Hearts”
-Bratmobile, The Real Janelle (1994)
Chapter 7
“I Always Thought You
Were an Asshole”
-Circus Lupus, Solid Brass (1993)
Chapter 8
“Lightning Strikes
Twice”
-Rorschach, Remain Sedate (1990)
Chapter 9
“A Chronology for
Survival”
-Neurosis, Souls at Zero (1992)
Chapter 10
“Go Your Own Way”
-Seaweed, Go Your Own Way (1993)
Chapter 11
“The Science of Myth”
-Screeching Weasel, My Brain Hurts (1991)
Chapter 12
“Alien She”
-Bikini Kill, Pussy Whipped (1993)
Chapter 13
“Don’t Break Me”
-Samiam, Billy (1992)
Chapter 14
“A Comment on Ritual”
-The Nation of
Ulysses, Plays Pretty for Baby (1992)
Chapter 15
“Omission”
-Quicksand, Quicksand (1990)
Chapter 16
“Mother Made Me”
–Lungfish, Rainbows from Atoms (1993)
Chapter 17
“Kiss the Bottle”
–Jawbreaker, 17 Reasons: The Mission District (1992)
Chapter 18
“Middle Finger Response”
-Propagandhi, How to Clean Everything (1993)
Chapter 19
“What Could I Have
Done?”
-J Church, Quetzalcoatl (1993)
Chapter 20
“By the Throat”
-Born Against, Nine Patriotic Hymns for Children (1991)
I'll be attending Readercon in Burlington, Massachusetts, from July 9-12! This is my second time at Readercon, and the first time I'll be on programming (not counting the last-minute Sybil's Garage reading I participated in back in '09, thanks to my magnanimous editor Matthew Kressel).
This year I'll be on one panel, and it's on Friday, July 10 at 1 p.m., and the topic is: "It's Actually About Ethics: Reviewing the Work of Colleagues and Friends." My fellow panelists will include Jonathan Crowe, Elizabeth Hand, Kathryn Smith Morrow, and Liza Groen Trombi.
I'll be out and about at the convention all weekend, so if you'd like to chat about anything and everything (including any upcoming books you may have on the horizon), please do say hi. But just to let you know: I'm an introvert and a morning person, so if I seem distracted and/or overwhelmed (especially after dinnertime), that's why. Thanks for understanding.
Human beings frighten and confuse me, so I don't go out much these days. But I'm happy to make an exception tonight for MILE HIGH SOUL CLUB. I'll be the guest DJ tonight, and I'll be bringing my box of soul 45s, and I'll be playing them while I watch you dance. Does that sound creepy? Because it kind of is. Most of human existence is sort of sickeningly absurd, when you think about it. Thankfully there's soul music to help distract us from our own frightening, confusing selves. FUCKING PARTY!
The schedule for this year's AnomalyCon -- Denver's big steampunk convention -- just went up. I'm on a whopping SEVEN panels, including a couple with Cory Doctorow and a few with my friends S. J. Chambers, Carrie Vaughn, and Molly Tanzer. My schedule is below (subject to eleventh-hour tweaks, of course). The con goes down March 27-19 at the Hyatt Regency Denver Tech Center. See you there?
FRIDAY 3/27
7pm: Ancient
Civilizations
From
the very ancient to the near modern, history has a way of romanticizing
features of our past that make us want to rewrite the stories about them.
B.
Cherf, J. Heller, S. West, TL Morganfield
8pm: Why Are We Still Talking
About This?
No,
seriously. Why are we still
talking about feminism and equality? Isn't it here yet?
C.
Doctorow, S. Chambers, M. Fowler, J. Heller, C. Rose
SATURDAY 3/28
11am: Steampunk, Anarchy, and
Sociopolitical Activism
Steampunk
is on the rise and fans of the genre enjoy more than just the aesthetic. But
what about
using the core of a movement to bring about positive change in the political or
socioeconomic climate?
C.
Doctorow, S. Chambers, J. Heller, A. Rogers
12pm: The Science of
Steampunk
Steampunk
might be considered "fantasy" to some hardcore scientists today, but
the science of Steampunk looks a lot like hard science when examined through a
Victorian lens.
G. DeMarco, M. Tanzer, J. Heller, S. Chambers
2pm: A History of Steampunk
Music
What
is Steampunk music, really, and how has the genre evolved through the ages?
T.
Deeney, C. Vaughn, J. Heller
6pm: Steampunk Is Taking Over the World!
When
people think "Steampunk," Jules Verne and Wild Wild West often come to
mind. But the last 50 years of media have been full of hints of Steampunk. It's
everywhere, and there are things you need to see and read.
J.
Heller, S. Chambers, M. Acevedo
9pm: Why Steampunks Love
Squid
Why
Verne, why H.P. Lovecraft, why all the mysterious affiliations with squid?
Discuss the Steampunk attachment to certain kinds of fiction.
For the past few months, my old friend Frank Romero (co-founder of Denver Comic Con) and I have been curating and hosting SCIENCE FRICTION, a monthly science fiction film series at Alamo Drafthouse Denver. It's done so well, we're branching off into a second monthly series: FANTASTIQUE. The new series will be all fantasy, and it will go down on the first Thursday of every month at Alamo.
We're launching Fantastique on April 2, and we had to kick things off with one of our favorite fantasy films of all time: Highlander. It's a movie that helped put urban fantasy on the map in the '80s, back when that protean, nebulous term had different connotations entirely, and it stands as an undeniable epic (just don't think too hard about the sequels, although I will admit to having a real soft spot for the underrated Highlander TV series).
Fantastique, however, won't only cover the swords-and-sorcery end of fantasy, although there will be plenty of that. It's my goal to represent fantasy cinema as inclusively and diversely as possible; for me, there's room for all kinds of fabulism, magic realism, and/or uncategorizable films that stretch our view of reality. Conan the Barbarian? Willow? Sure, we love it. But Fantastique also has room for quieter, quirkier films like Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud and Guy Maddin's Careful.
As always, Frank and I will appear in person to introduce each Fantastique film as well as offer giveaways, host special guests, and so on. In fact, we have a great guest lined up for Highlander on April 2: Carrie Vaughn, New York Times-bestselling fantasy author, as well as a huge fan of Highlander herself. She's even started spreading the rumor that she may show up to the movie cosplaying as Sean Connery's character, Ramirez, sword and all... fingers crossed! She'll also be giving away signed copies of her latest novel, Low Midnight, courtesy of Tor Books. Oh, and like Science Friction, Fantastique is sponsored by The A.V. Club, where I'm Senior Writer and sometimes-puller-of-strings.
Tickets for Highlander aren't on sale quite yet, but I will certainly and selfishly spread the news as soon as they are. And I almost forgot to mention, the kitchen at the Alamo will be offering a dinner special that night, in honor of the film's Scottish theme: haggis. Not even kidding. See you there?
Farrago's Wainscot--one of the most progressive and adventurous weird-fiction publications in recent memory--is back. And I'm lucky enough to have a short story in their new issue. The story is titled "Of Homes Gone," and it imagines an impoverished world where people are no longer allowed (or no longer allow themselves?) to go inside buildings. It also has boys without noses, hints of Guy Debord, and architecture that resembles "a labyrinth of capillaries." If you dare to read it, I hope you like it.
A couple years ago I asked a few writers I love to list their favorite science-fiction-themed music. The goal was to print those lists in a future issue of a new SF journal out of England, Adventure Rocketship!, that I'd begun writing for.
That second issue of AR! has yet to materialize (although I'd love to see it surface at some point), which left me holding a handful of great lists of SF music. Below are those lists, a stellar sampler of albums, songs, and insights about the intersection of speculation and sound. Thanks to all involved. Time to queue up some Parliament.
My favorite SF-themed music is
the stuff that heads straight for theconcept of alienation and
then turns it all the way inside out, sothat the sparks fly--no,
soar--in every direction, and reach all ofus. I don't know how to
rank these, so I won't; they're inchronological order.
My tracks, which purposefully
don't include "The Final Countdown," though I did really want to
somehow feature a Yes video:
1: "Rocket Man,"
Elton John The loneliness up there, man. It's like Don DeLillo's "Human
Moments in World War III" story. Also, Mars ain't the kind of place to
raise your kids. At least not yet. But I've always wondered if that line was in
response to Stranger in a Strange Land.
2: "Highwayman,"
Highwaymen Willie liberating jewelry, Kris doing his best Bobby McGee out on
the high seas, Waylon building Hoover, Johnny Cash playing Fear Agent out
there between the planets. It all confirms some suspicions I'd had all along,
about time and space, life and death.
3: "Band on the
Run," Wings I've always heard this song as if sung by a spaceship
crew. Stuck inside these four walls, sent inside forever. That
could be Ripley and Bishop and them, yes? HAL and Dave. And there's even an
M-class planet in there, a 'desert world.' This song's pure Silent
Running, pure Sunshine. And then of course they fall into that
sunshine.
4: "Life on Mars?"
David Bowie Not the usual spidery pick from his catalog, I know. But how can
that girl be watching that movie? And how can this 'Bowie' have written it?
The story of the song wraps around on itself in a very Calvino way, and then's
out the door only two verses in, so you don't even have time to question what
just happened. Real aliens are clever like that.
5: "The Voice,"
Moody Blues, from Long Distance Traveler I title I keep trying to
use, for science fiction. You know how The Dark Side of the Moon's
supposed to go with The Wizard of Oz? I've always thought Long
Distance Traveler was meant as accompaniment for Olaf
Stapledon's Star Maker. Just listen to that first distant,
obviously galactic sound that opens up "The Voice." It's haunting,
it's bigger than any of us. Your mind has no choice but to fold open.
First runner-up:
"Everything You Know Is Wrong," Weird Al. Obviously.
Also, I vote Ace Frehley as
the most science fiction of any guitar player ever, even counting
interplanetery history and the Dominion.
This record is to science
fiction what Enter the Wu-Tang was for kung fu. A dense, mythology-heavy
concept record with more sfnal ideas than you can shake a blaster at, it's also
a damn good listen from start to finish.
David Bowie: The Rise and Fall
of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
I mean, c'mon.
Black Sabbath: Paranoid
Y'all can keep your Zeppelin-y
ruminations on the Shire; I'll take the crushing, post-apocalyptic tunes of
classic Sabbath any day.
Parliament: Mothership
Connection
Like Douglas Adams, Parliament
punctures the myth of the self-serious science fiction nerd with one of the
ass-shakin'est records of all time.
Full of robot friends
("Are Friends Electric?") and night clubs were humans are tortured
for the entertainment of robots ("Down in the Park"), this album to
me fully encapsulates the cyberpunk verve of the early 80s.
3) "Flaunt It" and
"Dress for Excess" by Sigue Sigue Sputnik
I include both albums here
because it's hard for me to separate them. SSS mocked the corporate excess and
over-consumption that showed its moisturized face in the early 80s. SSS went
so far as to put ads for hair products (Loreal) and fashion rags (ID Magazine)
and others between each song. "Love Missile F1-11" made an appearance
in the opening act of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and the upbeat track turns Cold
War paranoia into one long sexual metaphor. Layering their music with
samples from Blade Runner, Scarface, Dirty Harry, and Japanese advertisements,
it's easy to enter the future techno-pop world that Sigue Sigue Sputnik
imagined for us. Favorite tracks are "21-st Century Boy,"
"Teenage Thunder," "Rio Rocks," and "M.A.D." The
albums are worth it just for their cover art.
4) "Dazzle Ships" by
OMD
Known for their pop songs like
"If You Leave," "Dazzle Ships" was a sharp departure from
their previous oeuvre. "Genetic Engineering" warns about the dangers
of experimenting with human DNA and has my favorite use of a Speak-and-Spell (an
80s toy) which creepily chants in a Stephen-Hawking-esque voice, "Babies,
mother, hospital, scissors. Creature, judgment, butcher, Engineer."
"Dazzle Ships Pts. 1-3" might be the sound of a spaceship docking
gone wrong, while "Time Zones" layers recordings of individuals from
around the world announcing the time. With tracks called "The Romance of
the Telescope," "Radio Waves," and "Telegraph" this
album veers sharply toward the science-fictional landscape and safely lands on
its own unique planet.
5) Blade Runner Soundtrack
by Vangelis
Blade Runner, that iconic film
that has influenced everything from fashion to architecture, would only be half
a film if not for the surreal aural landscape painted by Vangelis. Due to
rights issues, the original film score wasn't available for public release
until 1994, and so for years we had to listen to the cheap methadone substitute
of an orchestral version. Who can forget the atmospheric sounds of "Main
Titles" when the film opens to Los Angeles' smog-choked streets? And the
haunting saxophone of the "Love Theme" is forever seared into my mind
as the sound of future city blues. With "Memories of Green" we
can almost hear Rachael's tears as she realizes she's a replicant. "Tales
of the Future" takes us down into Animoid Row, where artificial animals
are sold on thronging streets. And the "End Titles" might be
the orchestral accompaniment to Philip K. Dick's dreams. May you rest in peace,
fair prophet!
In this month's issue of Clarkesworld Magazine, I took a look back at Vermillion: the doomed, erratically brilliant DC/Helix comic book written by the late Lucius Shepard. Vermillion ran for 12 issues in 1996 and '97 before being unceremoniously canceled along with most of the Helix line, noble experiment that it was.
I love Shepard's work -- I reviewed his posthumous novel Beautiful Blood, the culmination of his masterful Dragon Griaule cycle, last year for NPR -- and it was an honor to dwell in his abandoned city-universe for a little while longer.
For no real reason other than the fact that I'm trying to find reasons not to do actual work to today, I thought I'd rank all of Morrissey's solo albums. A little background: Morrissey's debut solo album, Viva Hate, came out in 1988 (on my 16th birthday, no less!), and as huge Smiths fan I bought it immediately. I've been faithfully buying his solo albums, for better or worse, ever since. I still spend SO MUCH FUCKING TIME listening to these albums, far more time than I spend listening to most other music, new or old. I have something wrong with me.
Please note: For the sake of simplicity I'm excluding most of Morrissey's many compilation albums, save for Bona Drag, which stands alone well enough despite its overlap with Viva Hate (and also because we all had no idea back then that Morrissey was going to turn into such on obsessive self-cannibalizer, discography-wise). I'm also leaving out the live album Beethoven's Deaf, despite how awesome it is. Oh, and in all cases, I'm using the most recent reissue of said album--especially in the case of my #1 pick, which particularly benefits from its reissue bonus tracks. And yes, this is all 100% subjective. Do I really even need to say that?
1. Southpaw Grammar (1995)
2. Vauxhall and I (1994)
3. Your Arsenal (1992)
4. Bona Drag (1990)
5. Viva Hate (1988)
6. You Are the Quarry (2004)
7. Maladjusted (1997)
8. Ringleader of the Tormentors (2006)
9. Years of Refusal (2009)
10. Kill Uncle (1991)
11. World Peace Is None of Your Business (2014)
Now go listen to Southpaw Grammar five hundred times in a row and try to tell me I'm wrong.
