Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Catherine Wheel

Originally posted: Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 Despite managing to release five proper albums, Catherine Wheel was one of those bands that always seemed to slip past the mainstream rock crowd. Yes, they got some nice airplay in their day, but people seem to have forgotten about them. You may hear “Black Metallic” or “Waydown” on a “classic alternative” show on Sirius or XM or maybe even on terrestrial radio, but that’s about it. For me, they were one of most consistent rock bands of the ’90s, meandering through shoegazer, hard rock, space rock and pop rock, all while eluding mainstream pigeonholing. Led by the smooth, warm pipes of vocalist/guitarist Rob Dickinson (cousin of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson), Catherine Wheel featured Brian Futter on lead guitar, Dave Hawes on bass and Neil Sims on drums. They weren’t a pretty-boy guitar band, but they weren’t a scuzzy bunch of ragamuffins either. Though the band hailed from England, Catherine Wheel found itself more welcome on American air

Best of 2021

  Last year, my attention span was not wide enough to listen to a lot of LPs from start to finish. Too much went on in 2020 to focus on 10-15 albums, so I went with only a couple to spotlight. Well, 2021 was a little better, as I have a list of top four records, and a lot of individual tracks.  (I made a lengthy Spotify playlist ) So, without further ado, here’s my list of favorites of the year: Albums Deafheaven, Infinite Granite (listen) Hands down, my favorite album of the year. I was not sure where Deafheaven would go after another record that brought My Bloody Valentine and death metal fans together, but they beautifully rebooted their sound on Infinite Granite. The divisive goblin vocals are vastly pared-down here, as are the blast beats. Sounding more inspired by Slowdive, the band has discovered a new sonic palette that I hope they explore more of in the future. It’s a welcome revelation. I still love their older material, but this has renewed my love of what these guys do.  J