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I Second That Emotion

I have the attitude that the more books there are on one subject offering different viewpoints, the better. In the case of Nineties pop-punk, post-hardcore and that dreaded 'e' word, books are scant with information. Andy Greenwald's Nothing Feels Good does very little to describe the history of this era as that was not the crux of his book. While I continue working on Post, I want to let you know about a couple of books that are scheduled to come out in the near-future that touch on this era.

First of all, Marc Spitz, co-author of We Got the Neutron Bomb: the Untold Story of L.A. Punk, releases his next book, Nobody Likes You: Inside the Turbulent Life, Times and Music of Green Day, next month. Alternative Press recently published a sampling from the book and it looks very promising. Green Day's story is definitely something that interests me, so hopefully this will fill some holes in the supposed black hole of music's history between '94 and '01.

Secondly, my friend Trevor co-authored a book with his friend and fellow AP writer Leslie Simon called Everybody Hurts: An Essential Guide to Emo Culture. The book isn't scheduled to come out until May, but Amazon already has it up for pre-order. I have yet to read any of it, but it apparently is a rather humorous take on what emo culture is circa 2006.

Lastly, Punk Planet Books will be issuing another collection of articles/interviews in the new year. Their first collection, '01's We Owe You Nothing, is a great read with interviews with people like Ian MacKaye, the ladies in Sleater-Kinney and Noah Chomsky. While I haven't heard about what will be in this new collection, I hear that some articles that Kyle and Trevor wrote will be in there.

I won't lie; if a book that covered roughly exactly what Post covers gets released before Post comes out, I'd feel like I was unwillingly thrown into a pissing contest. I doubt that will happen, but seeing as how things are in limbo for the time being with a release date, I really hope this will see the light of day next year. I'm remaining quiet about how it will come out, but just to forewarn you, I might have to eat some words I've said in the past. Why? I realize that this material deserves a healthy push, not a small tug. Stay tuned.

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