Art Life Undercut by...

Today I'll be short.  It's just one of those days when a host of small to medium aggravations have piled up, and all relate to the one clear affliction that is more prevalent even than COVID-19.  I'll paraphrase some lines from the great Louis Malle film, My Dinner With Andre, when playwright Wallace Shawn, walking down the street towards his coming dinner with theater director and writer Andre Gregory, thinks about where he is in life.  Wallace comes from a comfortable background, something not everyone has had obviously, but where he has wound up later in his life is not quite where he thought he'd be.

He basically says when he was younger, growing up in New York City, with few worries to plague him, all he thought about was art and music.  The creative life. These kind of aspirations.  Now, he's older, it's different, and he doesn't think so much about art and music.  All he can think about is money.

Funny, infuriating, and absolutely true.  Who can't relate?

Until next week.

S.W. Lauden Serves Up Music and Memories

Does music fill your days? Do you have a favorite song? Or band? 

My friend and writer S.W. Lauden is passionate about music and the culture built around the notes. As he has a new book out soon, the second in his POWER POP HEIST series, Mr. Lauden stopped by Do Some Damage to continue his look into great musical non-fiction. His knowledge and love of songs from all genres serves his writing perfectly. Both THAT'LL BE THE DAY and GOOD GIRLS DON'T (out 6/29) had me looking up all my favorites on Spotify.


Recent Rock Reads: Volume 2

by S.W. Lauden

Last year, upon the release of my novelette, That’ll Be The Day: A Power Pop Heist, I stopped by DSD to write about some of my favorite non-fiction music books. Since I’m publishing a sequel, Good Girls Don’t: A Second Power Pop Heist, on June 29^th, I thought I’d add to the list. It always amazes me just how many musicians (and rabid music fans) populate the crime fiction universe. Hopefully this post will point a few of you to some new rock reads.

All I Ever Wanted: A Rock ‘N’ Roll Memoir by Kathy Valentine

I’ve always loved The Go-Go’s, but I primarily picked this one up because Valentine wrote their hit “Vacation” (I based a short story on that song for the Anthony Award nominated Murder-A-Go-Go’s collection edited by Holly West). Valentine’s account of her tenure with the Go-Go’s is very entertaining, but I found her pre-Go-Go’s misadventures and musical exploits (Violators, Painted Lady, Textones) more interesting. Ah, to be young and punk!

Sick On You: The Disastrous Story of The Hollywood Brats, the Greatest Band You’ve Never Heard Of by Andrew Matheson

I had no idea that a hilarious book about a failed English proto-punk band from the early ‘70s was what I needed to read at the beginning of the quarantine—but it definitely was. The events chronicled here happened 50 years ago, but Matheson still manages a snotty, youthful voice that keeps the pages turning. If you love music from this era (think Ziggy Stardust and The New York Dolls), or if you’re fascinated by glorious rock and roll failures, definitely pick it up.

Ska’d For Life: A Personal Journey with The Specials by Horace Panter

Speaking of “pick it up”… I’ve always loved The Specials’ mix of ska and punk, but never dug into the band’s history. So I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled on this one. The author was the original bass player and has a very clear-eyed take on the influential late ‘70s 2 Tone scene they helped create. Extra points for using a terrible ska pun as the title.

The Shangri-Las’ Golden Hits Of The Shangri-Las by Ada Wolin

I’m a big fan of the 33 1/3 books. If you aren’t familiar with the series, each book interrogates a single album to explore where the artist was during its recording and release. Many of the books dive deep into the actual making of the chosen album, but Wolin concentrates instead on The Shangri-Las’ place within the greater ‘60s “Girl Groups” genre. Very interesting read.

Shake It Up: Great American Writing On Rock And Pop From Elvis To Jay Z edited by Jonathan Lethem and Kevin Dettmar

Hands down one of the best music collections I’ve read. Not only is the writing fantastic, but it’s also a stunningly comprehensive overview of popular music. Favorites include Stanley Booth’s “The Memphis Soul Sound,” John Jeremiah Sullivan’s “The Final Comeback Of Axl Rose,”

Kelefa Sanneh’s “Word: Jay-Z’s Decoded And The Language Of Hip-Hop,” and Eve Babitz’s “Jim Morrison Is Dead And Living In Hollywood.”

Flyboy 2: A Greg Tate Reader

Well-curated collections like Shake It Up are also a great way to discover new-to-you writers. Tate’s piece, “In Praise Of Assholes,” about Kanye West and 50 Cent was fantastic—so I bought one of his books. Stand outs include his essay about jazz legend “John Coltrane,” and “Wu-Dunit: Wu-Tang Clan,” his album review for Wu-Tang Forever.

That’s my latest list. I’m always looking for suggestions myself. What are your favorite rock reads? Please leave them in the comments. And if  you’re looking for some FREE CRIME FICTION, the e-book for my music-themed novelette, That’ll Be The Day: A Power Pop Heist, is free on Kindle this week (June 22-26). Go grab a copy and, if you like what you read, please consider leaving a brief review.

S.W. Lauden co-edited the essay collection, Go All The Way: A Literary Appreciation of Power Pop. His crime fiction novelette, That'll Be The Day: A Power Pop Heist, was released in 2019. The follow up, Good Girls Don’t: A Second Power Pop Heist, will be available June 29, 2020. His Greg Salem punk rock PI series includes Bad Citizen Corporation, Grizzly Season and Hang Time. S.W. Lauden is the pen name of Steve Coulter, drummer for Tsar and The Brothers Steve.
 

A Historical Thriller That Will Make You Wonder How It All Turned Out

by
Scott D. Parker

There's a moment in The Lincoln Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Killed America's 16th President - and Why It Failed where the President-elect hears dire warnings from two independent sources that his life is in danger and he takes action. He agrees to sneak out of a pre-Inauguration Day party in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, don a disguise, and be whisked away by train, all in an effort to thwart the plot to kill him in Baltimore. That moment consists of me breathlessly wondering: Is he gonna make it?

It's been 155 years since his death. There's a giant statue of President Lincoln in Washington, He's on the penny. He's one of the most famous Americans of all time. He might be recognized in nearly every corner of the world here in 2020. Of course he makes it.

But that's the testament to the writing skill of Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch: they weave the story and the details in such a way as to make history read like a thriller. And dang if this story won't thrill you.

We all know Lincoln's ultimate fate on Good Friday, 1865, but few know of the first plot to kill him before he even took office. I'll admit I learned about it back in grad school at the University of North Texas but it was only in passing. I knew it was foiled and that private detective Allan Pinkerton played a key role. But I never knew the details that fill over 350 pages in this remarkable book.

Much like they did with The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington (2019), Meltzer and Mensch dig deep into the details of this 1861 plan hatched by a cabal of Southern loyalists. They didn't want the president-elect—who carried no slave-holding states in the recent election—to take his place in the White House. At the time, the Republican Party was against the institution of slavery even if Lincoln himself tried to steer a narrow line between free and slave.

Following a tradition dating back to America's first president, Lincoln traveled from his home in Springville, Illinois, to Washington, D.C., in the weeks leading up to his inauguration. Two things gave the Southerners fuel for their plot: Lincoln's itinerary was published in many papers and the rail-splitter from the west would have to change trains in Baltimore. What made this transfer problematic was not only was Maryland a slave state, but the transfer wasn't merely changing trains in a single station. No, this change from one rail line to another involved literally moving a train car about a mile from one station to the next. In that time, with the expected throngs of Southern sympathizers clogging the streets, the president-elect's life would be in jeopardy.

Hired by one of the railroad men to protect threats against the railroad, Pinkerton and one of his agents, Kate Warne, uncovered the real plot. It was then Pinkerton urged Lincoln to change his plans. The new president demurred until a fateful night when word of the plot arrived from his recent rival and future Secretary of State, William Seward. Convinced of the threat, Lincoln finally allowed himself to be disguised and sneak into the nation's capital under the cover of darkness.

Like they did with their Washington book, Meltzer and Mensch write their prose in the present tense. It gives the story an immediacy, a will-he or won't-he vibe that's pretty darn exciting. Often, they'll recount a scene and then cut to a contemporary scene in another part of the country. You really get a bird's eye view of the whole situation.

If you are a fan of audiobook, preeminent narrator, Scott Brick, reads the book. He could read the phonebook and I'd pay to hear it. He narrates everything he does so well, and I especially like the timbre of his voice as he reaches the end of the book and reads the last lines from Meltzer and Mensch.

History isn't just names and dates, laws and wars, pop culture and events. It is people, real people, living their lives and making decisions based on the best knowledge they have at any given time. Some decisions are momentous: the outcome of the 1861 election, the secession of the Southern states, the foiled assassination in 1861 and the successful one four years later. This book peels away some of the veneer Lincoln now lives with in the American imagination in the 155 years since his death, showing us a real guy, beset by personal and national tragedy, who is doing the best he can. Ditto for Pinkerton, Warne, and the Southerners.

Books like these breathe life into history, and as a historian, we need more books like this so folks in the 21st Century can be entertained and learn a little something along the way.

Highly recommended.