#058: Is Your Child Texting About Miles Davis?
I’m Todd L. Burns, and welcome to Music Journalism Insider, a newsletter about music journalism. I highlight some of the best stuff I hear, read, and watch every week; publish news about the industry; and interview writers, scholars, and editors about their work. My goal is to share knowledge, celebrate great work, and expand the idea of what music journalism is—and where it happens. Questions, comments, concerns? You can reach me anytime at music.journalism.insider@gmail.com.
Today in the newsletter: Interviews with a lot of book authors! Hannah Ewens (Fangirls: Scenes from Modern Music Culture), Jim Ruland (Do What You Want: The Story of Bad Religion), Stephanie Van Der Wel (Hillbilly Maidens, Okies, and Cowgirls: Women’s Country Music, 1930-1960), and Adam Steiner (Into the Never: Nine Inch Nails and the Creation of The Downward Spiral). Plus: A bunch of stuff that got thrown on stage at a Bruce Springsteen concert, reading recommendations, and much more! But first…
In Some Parts Of The Universe, It’s Considered Cool
Q&A: Hannah Ewens
Hannah Ewens is the author of Fangirls: Scenes from Modern Music Culture. It’s been out in the UK for a bit, but has just been published in the US by University of Texas Press. The Texas blurb puts it better than I could: “Fangirls captures the joy and community of young women bonded by their musical fandoms and the impact these fangirls have on the artists they love.” At a moment when fandom is one of the most debated topics in music, it’s an essential read. In this excerpt from our interview, Hannah talks about how she came to write about fandom and offers an interesting tip.
I got the overarching idea for the book when watching a little Frank Iero gig in a church. He did a meet-and-greet afterward from behind a table and watching all the girls and queer teenage fans come along with their presents for him and records and merch they wanted signed. I couldn’t take my eyes off their faces. It was magical. I’d seen stuff like that before but something felt different that day—maybe I was just really looking, maybe it was the fact we were in a church and the metaphor (fandom = worship, rockstars = God) was smacking me in the face.
It occurred to me that I really hadn’t read what I wanted to about being a music fan, especially being a woman and a music fan. Once I started researching I realised that it literally didn’t exist. The closest to that experience was captured in some of the “women in music” memoirs, like Carrie Brownstein’s great one. But it felt like a huge void to be filled and the amazing reaction I’ve had from readers who message or email me on a weekly basis shows other people feel similarly.
What's one tip that you'd give someone looking to write a music book right now?
It’s not the writing of the book and the sacrifices you have to make to write it, but the time you spend afterwards either promoting it or being known as the person who did that book. Make sure you want to be that book.
Read the full interview with Hannah here.
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Reading List
Amy Zimmerman with a brave piece of reporting on accusations of sexual misconduct by Mark Kozelek
Aliya S. King on the Black internet gold rush of the late ‘90s / early ‘00s
Rolling Stone Latin music editor Suzy Exposito talks about her career path with 12 Songs Project
Jared Proudfoot explores the role of the Chinese-Jamaican community in the development of classic reggae
Naima Cochrane on the culture and business of Verzuz
Carina del Valle Schorske on a truly incredible clip of Aretha Franklin and Smokey Robinson from Soul Train (and so much more)
Daphne A. Brooks explains how one of the most important things about Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues” was that it proved that Black women and girls bought records
Former NME editor Conor McNicholas on his time helming the magazine throughout the ‘00s
Will Richards reviews a gig at a new socially-distanced concert venue near Newcastle
Jon Silpayamanant brings together a number of conversations / threads about classical music’s "slave orchestras"
LOL
Q&A: Jim Ruland
Jim Ruland is the author of the new book Do What You Want: The Story of Bad Religion. Previously he collaborated with punk lifer and Black Flag founding vocalist Keith Morris on a memoir, and for (nearly) 20 years he’s contributed to the fanzine Razorcake. In the course of emailing about this interview, Jim described himself as a “book proposal weirdo,” so the choice of excerpt was pretty obvious.
I love writing book proposals. I occasionally write book proposals for hire and sometimes I love writing them more than writing the actual book. I know I’m an outlier in this regard and I think that’s because when people go looking for advice there’s so much bad information out there that turns the proposal into a nightmare to write and a chore to read.
When I first got into writing book reviews I wrote for a site that wanted tiny 250-word reviews, which was a lot harder than it looked. In the beginning I would get so wrapped up in the format of the review that I neglected to say the thing that I most wanted to say about the book! I think a lot of people approach the writing of book proposals the same way. Too much format, not enough heart. But if you tap into that feeling you get when you walk out of a movie theater after seeing an amazing movie, you’ll bring a lot more passion and energy to it.
As you can see, I’m kind of an evangelist about book proposals. I think that’s where my background in advertising has been the most beneficial: identify what’s good, what’s strong, what’s unique and don’t be shy about letting everyone know it.
What's one tip that you'd give someone looking to write a music book right now?
Write a proposal first. A great article or profile will get you clicks and likes, which can lead to interest from publishers, but you need a proposal to get a book deal. Also, a proposal can get you an agent who will get you that book deal. But most importantly the process of writing the proposal will tell you if you have a great idea for a book. You might discover that your idea would be better suited as a long-form essay or a stand-up routine or a zine. The world needs all of these things, maybe now more than ever.
Read the full interview with Jim here.
A Cause Worth Supporting
This week’s cause worth supporting comes from Thomas Hobbs.
I’ve written about the trans community a lot over the years, even interviewing the families of trans people who were victims of suicide, and seeing how much transphobia currently fuels the UK media has been really gross. Mermaids is a UK charity that works to help young trans kids, and it’s achieving some really important things. They’re well worth a donation.
Check out all of the causes highlighted by the folks I’ve interviewed here.
Podcasts!
Stan By Me is one of the most interesting new podcasts I’ve heard recently; in the first episode Hoosiers' #1 fan Katie Craik talks with the band’s frontman Irwin Sparkes [h/t Jenessa Williams]
Justin Charity and Micah Peters have launched Sound Only; the first episode is all about Verzuz
Two excellent Sound Expertise episodes: Alex Ross on his forthcoming book about Wagnerism, Megan Lavengood on timbre and ‘80s pop
Mack Hagood discusses his book Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control on New Books in Sound Studies
Cuban music expert Ned Sublette is a special guest host on the latest Afropop Worldwide, which focuses on batá drums
Stuff You Gotta Watch
Stuff You Gotta Watch celebrates music journalism in video form. This week’s column is by freelance writer Jesse Locke.
If you’ve ever longed for deep, sustained eye contact from a country superstar, Garth Brooks: The Road I’m On is the documentary for you. The warning signs were there with his unsettling Facebook video back in 2014, but this three-hour autobiographical portrait of the second-best selling artist of all time proves that Brooks remains the myth-making centre of his own universe. There’s a cult-like quality to the way he describes fans as “blessings” and “angels,” yet it’s hard to deny the magnetism of any musician this achingly sincere.
While not quite hagiography, the reverent tone describing the rise of the good old boy from Oklahoma adds the drama of a true crime doc to stories as boring as how he got his first job selling boots. There are moments of humanity, such as his descriptions of a 14-year retirement spent raising his daughters, and when he’s doing what he does best onstage, the electricity is undeniable.
Though he still refuses to cuss, the gravelly-voiced Brooks of 2020 is starting to resemble Alex Jones more and more with each passing year. Thankfully, his causes aren’t fear-mongering conspiracies—outside of the critics who sneered at Chris Gaines before giving him a chance.
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Bits, Bobs
Jenzia Burgos has launched The Black Music History Library
Cornell has a great library of old punk flyers [h/t Leor Galil]
Shea Serrano has announced the five writers who will be publishing their books via Halfway Books
A Twitter thread of leftist / radical books provides links for those available as free PDFs
The recent Dominic Fike documentary on FX / Hulu was incredibly interesting
In celebration of WAP, Morgan Jerkins lists a few “Black women from the past who were very raunchy”
Q&A: Stephanie Vander Wel
Stephanie Vander Wel is the author of the new book Hillbilly Maidens, Okies, and Cowgirls: Women’s Country Music, 1930-1960, which looks at pioneering women in country music. Throughout, Stephanie looks at songs that “dismantle the virtuous myths of white womanhood and challenge the patriarchal and modernist concepts that insist upon women’s historical associations to tradition and domesticity.” In this excerpt from our interview, Stephanie talks about how writing this book became personal.
While listening to this music, I had felt that I finally had access to narratives that spoke symbolically of my family’s own history in terms of the material and economic conditions of gender, class, region, and race. The women in my family were not middle-class women. As white women from rural and urban working-class backgrounds, they had worked outside of the home from the 1930s and on. My maternal grandmother (migrated to Oregon in the 1930s with her parents and siblings) was a farm woman who worked as hard as any man and divorced my grandfather, a farmer/rancher, and joined the gendered stratified pink class in the early 1960s. My paternal grandmother was part of the generation that was influenced by first-wave feminism and held rather liberal views about gender and women’s health care. Before she married, she had worked as a bookkeeper, and after her children were older, she re-entered the work force. The domestic was not idealized for either of my grandmothers as they balanced caring for a family and their homes with their roles as wage earners.
Also, my mother didn’t necessarily find liberation as a professional woman in the 1970s. Instead she was a housewife in a predominantly white working-class suburb, and my family was proud that my father was the sole breadwinner in his position as a blue-collar skilled laborer. Yet at the same time, my mom appeared bored and frustrated as a housewife and my father seemed depressed and deflated from his years of working in jobs that didn’t give him much fulfillment. Thus, country music helped articulate the complexities and paradoxes of class and gender in relation to my family in particular and society in general.
Read the full interview with Stephanie here.
Academic Stuff
Música Popular em Revista/Popular Music in Review is seeking contributions on Instrumental Music and Musical Improvisation
Organised Sound’s newest issue is all about the concept of time in electroacoustic music
Project Spectrum has announced its 2020 symposium, Diversifying Music Academia: Building the Coalition, and is seeking submissions
Erika Honisch and Giovanni Zanovello have launched a new website called Inclusive Early Music
Does “Bears Further Research” Count?
Items Thrown Onstage at Bruce Springsteen’s Madison Square Garden Concert, December 18, 1980
One bedsheet painted with the words “Merry Christmas, Bruce Springsteen”
One stuffed dog
Five Santa Claus hats, three of them stenciled Bruce
One box of one dozen Twinkies
One box of one dozen Hostess Cupcakes
Three two-foot Christmas stockings stenciled “Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band”
One eighteen-inch Christmas card with four rubber gnome musicians taped onto it
Two ordinary Christmas cards
One gift-wrapped package the size and shape of a shoebox
One rubber duck
Taken from The New Book of Rock Lists, an extremely fun read by Dave Marsh and James Bernard (with lots of help from a young intern named Minya Oh)
Q&A: Adam Steiner
Adam Steiner is the author of Into the Never: Nine Inch Nails and the Creation of The Downward Spiral. The book takes a deep dive into Trent Reznor’s masterpiece, including new interviews with key players in the albums’s construction. As someone who has always been fascinated by Reznor, I was really excited to see that there was finally a book devoted to the album. In this excerpt from our interview, Adam talks about how he decided which press would be best suited to publish the book.
Were there any other presses that you were considering?
You have to look around properly, maybe make first contact, ideally just be thorough in reading up on the submission guidelines. Lots of music journalism books currently seem divided into straight “making-of” accounts with lots of oral history, and the more “academic” approaches to technical music-making/theory and looking for deeper meaning into lyrics and connections to wider culture. I love both of these kinds of books, and with Into The Never I tried to combine these approaches.
In terms of other presses, all I would say is to consider the various avenues. Some offer no advance, others insist on referral by an agent, and others will crowdfund a book. Prioritise what you want to achieve with your book, such as getting your name out there, making money, covering a subject that you’re passionate about—and that will make your choices much clearer.
Read the full interview with Adam here.
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The Closing Credits
Thanks for reading! Feel free to reach out to me via email at music.journalism.insider@gmail.com. On Twitter, it’s @JournalismMusic. Until next time…