Largehearted Boy

Book Notes - Cecil Castellucci "The Year of the Beasts"

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.

Previous contributors include Bret Easton Ellis, Kate Christensen, Kevin Brockmeier, George Pelecanos, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, David Peace, Myla Goldberg, Heidi Julavits, Hari Kunzru, and many others.

The Year of the Beasts blends Greek mythology with a modern story of sibling jealousy masterfully in this young adult book told in alternating comic and prose chapters.

Boing Boing wrote of the book:

"Year of the Beasts is one of those stories whose earlier chapters are a kind of greased slide that makes the reader hurtle faster and faster toward an unseen landing, hinting at different possibilities until the climax is revealed in a thunderbolt, and it is at once inevitable, unforeseen, and terrible."

Stream a Spotify playlist of these tunes. If you don't have Spotify yet, sign up for the free service.

In her own words, here is Cecil Castellucci's Book Notes music playlist for her book, The Year of the Beasts:

For every book I write I make a music play list. I listen to the songs on repeat whenever I'm writing or when I take walks as I try to work out a narrative problem. It is an essential thing for my process. The compiled songs are a quick way into the soul of the book. They are my constant companions as I work out the delicate tendrils of the story. For The Year of the Beasts, which is a hybrid book prose/graphic novel, I leaned towards fragile songs. Songs that were whispers of hearts and of regret. Songs that were watery in their own way. It's always surprising to me that even after I'm done with a novel that listening to the play list I made for it while writing makes me able to jump right back into that state of mind. It's as though I am once again hanging out with the characters. Even more surprising is how a song from one novel's list might show up on the list for another novel but for absolutely completely different reasons. Here, in no particular order, is the list I used while writing The Year of the Beasts.

"Wild Horses" - Calexico / Iron & Wine, All Songs Considered

This version of the Rolling Stones Wild Horses literally breaks my heart. It makes me so sad to listen to it. I actually just cried listening to it again. The song, already full of longing, aches and regret, tugs at the soul. It sums up this feeling that I think my main character Tessa has of not wanting to leave a place, a moment, or a person. Of trying to be sturdy and steady even though a situation is hopeless. It is a direct route into the way that I think Tessa feels about her sister Lulu. As much rivalry as there is between them, the truth is that wild horses couldn't drag Tessa away from the love that she has for her sister. I imagine that after all that happens in the summer between them, Tessa would sing this song as a way to say I'm sorry, or I love you, or to explain what her heart really felt the whole time.

"The Biggest Lie" - Elliott Smith, Elliott Smith

Elliot Smith's music is so simple and fragile that it is evokes the turmoil and battles that we fight in our own selves. The way that Elliott Smith sings this song makes him sound so weary. So defeated. Let's face it. There is a sadness to telling a big lie. Especially when the truth is the opposite of the actions you are doing. The song reminds me of the way that Tessa behaves with Lulu, and the way she keeps Jasper a secret which is counter to what she truly feels about the situation between Lulu and Charlie. But when you lie like that, to the world and to yourself, the person who is likely to get the most hurt is yourself. I think that's why this song feels so confessional. And love is such a complicated thing. Even if you front for everyone else that what you are saying or doing is true, you know what is up in your own heart and you have to wrestle with that truth. This song helped me sort of gather up the threads of how Tessa was moving through the book with all of her painful actions. I feel like Tessa is telling lies and trying to pass them off as truths and realizes the truth only when it's too late.

"Havoc In Heaven" - Jesca Hoop, Kismet

There is something jarring about the way the music plucks and slaps and bells and wails. Also, I love the word Havoc. I think that the temptation to get lost in our dark thoughts begins in such a jaunty way. That at first we are seduced by darkness and it seems like a joyful burst and when we give over to it we somewhat relieved that it seems like such a simple path. But then it begins to swell into a cacophony and spins out of our control. I feel that this song is such a temptress, or what I imagine a sirens call would be. It's like receiving an invitation from the dark to roam down a road that leads to doom and chaos. I imagine that this is what it must sound like in Tessa's heart as she inches towards succumbing to her jealousy of Lulu.

"My Shadow Is A Monday" - Lavender Diamond, Imagine Our Love

This song is for Medusa. The fact that the word shadow is used over and over and over again I think was a way of me reminding myself over and over and over about her being a shadow of her former self. It is a simple plea. A simple truth. Without you I am a shadow. I also love the idea of someone's shadow being a day of the week. It makes me wonder what Tuesday looks like. Or Friday. I have hope that those days look better than Monday.

"Sentimental Heart" - She & Him, Volume One

Let's face it. The Year of the Beasts is a sad book. There is a lot of grief in it. As raw as Tessa's darker emotions are, she is not a bad girl or a mean girl. She is sentimental. For me, the Mermaid and the Centaur, in the comics part, are clinging very hard to sentiment and love. This song while its got its roots in sadness "Cried all night til there was nothing more…" there is a hopefulness to this song. It's got a sense of light about it. Like maybe by singing about admitting what kind of heart you have can lead you to recovery. In order to go all the way down to the hard parts of a book, you need to make sure that you have a piece of hopeful light shining to guide you back. This song is that little piece of light for me. It's owning your state of being. Ownership of feelings means you just might turn out OK.

"It's Not the End of the World" - Sloan, Never Hear the End of It

When you are a young adult, everything feels like the end of the world. This Sloan song was a key part of my writing play list because it doesn't hide away from the fact that sad is sad. And that it takes time to heal. It also is about things lost and renegotiating a relationship with those lost things. Once again this is fragile song helped me to keep the balance of the sadness between both the prose and comics parts of the book.

"Someone To Die For" - Belly, Star

I have always loved this song by Belly. It was on repeat constantly when I was in my twenties. Once again, the song is simple. There is an air of grief inherent in this song. "Poor thing, poor thing, do you have a sister?" The question is direct and repeated. "Don't you have someone you'd die for?" I think that Tessa and Medusa both are asking themselves this question. I think you can probably figure out what the answer is.

"Please Don't" - Jolie Holland, Springtime Can Kill You

Not only do I love this song, but I also love the title of the album: Springtime Can Kill You. As though a period of time, one of life and renewal, could still be powerful enough to destroy you. The way that Jolie Holland sings reminds me of an old time carnival. If the book were movie I would have this underscore the girls night out at the carnival. We'd follow them as they weaved through the rides, the games and the tent of curiosities. It's not a very joyous song, it's a serious one. Grave. And the accordion, slips in there sounding like a pair of drowned lungs, which mirrors the foreboding that I suspect Tessa has when she is in the tent with Jasper. I suppose it's the old timey feeling of the song that makes it feel timeless and that's how I imagined the carnival, like it could be taking place in 1912 or 2012.

"I Don't Care" - Mary Margaret O'Hara, Apartment Hunting: Original Motion Picture

Mary Margaret O'Hara is a Canadian treasure. Her haunting style always gets me into an emotional zone. This song gets right to the root of what I imagine is the relationship between Tessa and Jasper. Any time I was faced with them on the page and felt stuck this song just really got me in there. "Someone was just as lonely as me. I watched closely for a change of heart. Now mine is the only pain I can and I will protect it, I will protect it if it kills me." While best known for her album Miss America (which is brilliant) a few years back I found this soundtrack and rejoiced.

"Miss Halfway" - Anya Marina, Miss Halfway

I honestly don't know how this song got onto my play list, much less my itunes. But there it is and I don't question the musical fates. I think that the jangely breathiness and upbeatness of the song is kind of a salve for all the other sad songs. While this is a song that goes along with the others, its got a groove to it. I think that when this popped up while writing it had the ability to keep me in an angsty place while shifting me out of the terribly sad pace of all of the other songs. I think also, the opening lines "You oughta hear the mirror in my house. You oughta fear a pretty pretty mouse. Says I'm imperfect in every way. Miss Almost. Miss Maybe. Miss Halfway." Fit in with Medusa and what I think she must say to herself over and over in her head as she tries to live with herself and her snakes.

"Doll Parts" - Hole, Live Through This

I have a complicated relationship with Hole. Personally, I love the band but not the singer. But Hole has a way of roaring and digging right down to the core of female rage and that is a mighty powerful thing. Once again this is a song for Medusa. She doesn't feel like a girl. She's disconnected from her being. There is a lot of self-loathing in this song, which is pretty much where Medusa is at.

"Fortunes of Misfortune" - Anna Waronker, Anna

This song is what I think a nostalgic look back sounds like. And, once again, the jingles! The Bells! I think bells feel otherworldly in songs and I think I am attracted to them when it comes to this book. It matches what Tessa has to deal with when she has to move on. "…and I knew I'd never see you again…" But what happens to you happens. And what happens becomes a part of who you become. I feel like it talks about that complicated relationship between girls and sisters, either true ones or found ones and it reminds me of losing innocence and moving into maturity. I think it asks the question: How do you say what you need to say when you know you will never have the chance to say what you learned to the person who helped you learn it? It's impossible. But thankfully, music and lyrics hold a place for those kinds of sorrowful inexpressible regrets.

"Hush Now" - Catherine Feeny, Hurricane Glass

Since the core of this book is about Tessa and Lulu, and Medusa and the Minotaur, I think that this song really gets to the nut of people pulling in different directions. And how you still have a relationship with a person even after they are long gone. I love the way this song weaves, there is a playfulness and a bittersweet love about it. And once again its about leaving and never leaving.

"My Darling Clementine"

I needed a song for Medusa to sing. I wanted it to be an old song, a song from childhood. When I was looking around I remembered this song sweetly sung on camp trips and school buses. But when I looked closer at the lyrics, I was haunted by how much it had to do with the book. So in it went. Right there on the page for Medusa to sing.

Cecil Castellucci and The Year of the Beasts links:

the author's website

Boing Boing review
Clear Eyes, Full Shelves review
Kirkus Reviews review
Waking Brain Cells review

The Daily Fig guest post by the author
Graphic Novel reporter interview with the author
Ringo the Cat's Blog interview with the author

also at Largehearted Boy:

other Book Notes playlists (authors create music playlists for their book)
my 11 favorite Book Notes playlists

100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
52 Books, 52 Weeks (weekly book reviews)
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics highlights)
Daily Downloads (free and legal daily mp3 downloads)
guest book reviews
Largehearted Word (weekly new book highlights)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, literature, and pop culture links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists

Book Notes - Meg Howrey "The Cranes Dance"

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.

Previous contributors include Bret Easton Ellis, Kate Christensen, Kevin Brockmeier, George Pelecanos, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, David Peace, Myla Goldberg, Heidi Julavits, Hari Kunzru, and many others.

Meg Howrey's The Cranes Dance offers an engaging glimpse into the lives of professional ballet dancers, one that only a former dancer like Howrey could pull off so convincingly.

Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:

"Howrey's engaging new novel exposes the competitive world of professional ballet through Kate Crane, a charmingly sarcastic ballerina at a crossroads. . . . Kate is an ideal guide to an unfamiliar world, from her irreverent explanations of her ballets (Howrey was a professional dancer) to her relatable self-doubt and honesty. Her revelations about family, talent, and what makes us special create a thought-provoking and entertaining read."

Stream a Spotify playlist of these tunes. If you don't have Spotify yet, sign up for the free service.

In her own words, here is Meg Howrey's Book Notes music playlist for her novel, The Cranes Dance:

I've heard that a dancer's life is one that involves "obscure pains and painful obscurity". Which kind of works for the lives of most writers of literary fiction too. I've also heard that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. So writing about dance? Like sculpting about cuisine? Like painting about perfume? I didn't really mean to write a book about ballet or ballet dancers. This is the world I grew up in and lived for many years, but writing about it made me nervous. I didn't want to screw it up, and screwing it up seemed inevitable. At the very least I'd be playing whack-a-mole with all those popular clichés: Stage moms! Bleeding toes! Eating disorders! Lecherous directors! The boyfriend who doesn't dance and teaches the girl about Life and the deliciousness of sandwiches! Blech.

All clichés break down at the individual. My protagonist, Kate, proved to be the best kind of muse: not ideal, not fluttering overhead on gossamer wings, but tricky and defiant. With the addition of Kate's younger sister Gwen, the novel opened up to things outside the realm of tutus and pointe shoes. Things got messy. Still the writing was often (and unexpectedly) quite fun. So much so that sometimes I felt a little guilty, as if I were munching S'mores made from the conflagration my protagonist was writhing about in. Other times pressing my face up against Kate's was extremely uncomfortable.

I don't listen to music when I'm actually writing, but it's often where I go when I need something to take me out of the haze of sentences. At a certain point, a sort of authorial solipsism takes over and pretty much any song can become a song about your characters, which is convenient. It allows you to daydream about them, see them in different ways, dance them about. Here is some of the music I turned to during the sometimes hilarious and sometimes scorching time I spent working on The Cranes Dance.

"Dark Come Soon" by Tegan and Sara

Tegan and Sara are identical twin sisters. If you didn't know this and were just listening to their songs without seeing them, you might think it was one voice layered multiple times. So of course they made perfect listening for someone writing about a complicated sister relationship. Kate is haunted throughout the book by the specter of her younger sister, Gwen, and sorting through the layers of guilt and love and jealousy and pride between them became a central task of the novel. Tegan and Sara's songs are never maudlin – their songwriting and sense of humor is too sharp, as in this song about hurting, hurting yourself, and hiding from the people who could help you. So what?/ So I conned, I lied/ I lied to me too/So what?

"Since You're Gone" by The Cars

After Gwen's breakdown (and after Kate's boyfriend breaks up with her) Kate moves into Gwen's empty apartment. It's the first time Kate has been without her sister in many years. Finally released from the constant pressure of Gwen's presence and free to expand on her own, what does Kate do? She starts wearing Gwen's clothes, her perfume, piles all her belongings in a heap on Gwen's bed so as not to disturb Gwen's surfaces, and commences to well and truly fall apart. Such a thing requires a good New Wave song and The Cars provided with quite appropriate lyrics.

"Modern Girl" by Sleater-Kinney

If you too need an anthem for disconnection, for appearance vs. reality, for the place where things break down, I refer you to this song. I particularly love the distortion. When the drums kick in it sounds like they locked the drummer in the closet.

"You Rascal You" by Hanni El Khatib

This is an old Sam Theard tune, made famous by Louis Armstrong. Hanni El Khatib has described his music as being for "anyone who has ever been shot or hit by a train." I've never experienced either, but I love this song and this cover. (I did run face first into a wall, when I was very little, but it's probably not the same thing.) The rascal in question can be any intruder, but I always imagined this song playing in Kate's head while she was looking in the mirror. Sometimes the person that you want to go away is yourself.

"Not The Girl You Think You Are" by Crowded House

I always thought this pretty little tune was about self-deception in matters of love, but it could be the exact opposite, and the singer is assuring the girl that she's actually very deserving of the man in question. Either way this song seemed to work both for Kate and for Gwen, neither of whom deal with romantic intimacy in a very direct manner, and who are professionally obligated to pretend to be other people.

"All of This" by Blink 182 (featuring Robert Smith)

Combining pop-punk Blink 182 with The Cure's Robert Smith is a perfect example of how strange bedfellows can really get it on. I could imagine Kate smoking a cigarette to this song, and getting good and broody.

"Girl In The Tower" by Benji Hughes

My friend bought Benji Hughes' album "A Love Extreme" without hearing it, simply because the cover picture of Hughes was so great that he wanted to hear "what kind of music a dude who looks like that made." He was not disappointed, and after he played me one song I bought the record too. So should you. This song is my own little love letter to Kate, my heroine who made me fight for her.

"Lover I Don't Have To Love" by Bright Eyes

This song makes no apologies about the sex it describes. It is as dirty as it is lucid, as seductive as it is destructive. When Kate opens up the door and lets the guy in, somewhere this song is playing.

"Fix You" by Coldplay

I find watching Coldplay perform sort of irritating. I also find watching movies about dancers sort of irritating. I think we are all safe from "Cranes Dance: the Movie" but in my head there is a sort of cinematic montage of a Day In The Inner Life of Kate, and this is the song that goes with it.

Suicide Blonde…INXS

The darker Kate's world gets, the more physical demands are placed upon her. She does not have the luxury of being depressed under the covers, so she is high functioning depressed. Aided somewhat by pharmaceuticals. This was the right song and tempo for that.

"Stuck" by The Heavy

I got stuck on The Heavy for a couple of weeks. This quiet song ends the "House That Dirt Built" album. The ways in which Kate feels responsible for her sister – and her guilt over her failure to prevent, control, or even understand her sister's breakdown – are so layered that she can't bring herself to speak of it to her closest friends. She knows they would tell her she's not responsible. She tries to tell herself she's not responsible. But she's stuck.

"NYC" by Interpol

This is for Kate walking home alone from the theater. There may come a time when the thing that once inspired and fed you ceases to do so. At that point you might curse it, mock it, turn away and hide from it. But you'd also give anything to get it back again.

"Down By The Water" by The Drums

At the end of the book Kate and her sister are finally face to face, and I heard this as a kind of helpless love song from Kate to Gwen.

"Cinderella, Op. 87, Act I Introduction" by Sergei Prokofiev

This piece of music is mentioned in the book – Kate hums it in a taxi after a day that has altered (in more ways that one) the course of her life. It wasn't intended to be a Kate-as-Cinderella reference, I just wanted to give Kate something beautiful and grand. We all need something beautiful and grand.

Meg Howrey and The Cranes Dance links:

the author's website

At Home with Books review
Dance Advantage review
Entertainment Weekly review
It's Either Sadness or Euphoria review
Tiny Library review

Speakeasy interview with the author

also at Largehearted Boy:

other Book Notes playlists (authors create music playlists for their book)
my 11 favorite Book Notes playlists

Shorties (Chip Kidd's Batman Graphic Novel, An Elephant 6 Documentary, and more)

io9 interviews Chip Kidd about his new graphic novel, Batman: Death By Design.

Watch a trailer for a forthcoming Elephant 6 documentary.

Bookworm interviews Hari Kunzru about his latest novel, Gods Without Men.

Comic Book Resources interviews Mat Johnson about his new graphic novel, Right State.

Your Vertigo work has been a mix of exploring history, race and politics, and you also write prose novels with many similar themes. Why do "Right State" as a graphic novel rather than a prose novel?

I explore similar types of ideas but usually in a dramatically different way. When I'm working on a graphic novel story, the story length is closer to a short story than a novel; the graphic novels that I'm doing, which are usually under a 150 pages, that's usually a longer short story. So one, it's just a matter of the size of the story. But even bigger than that is the question of whether it's a visual story -- if the story is largely internal, or if the story has the complexity that's harder to do just with visual storytelling then I would do it in a novel. With this you're following in the story just a couple of days and all the storytelling happen with movement, not conversation, not internal thoughts. So I thought it would look good! [Laughs] And there are other reasons too. Sometimes there's a type of complexity that works better in visuals than it does by naming it. Also the comic work I've been doing for Vertigo been more straight genre, like thriller or mystery. The work that I do in my novels is influenced by genre, but it tends to be a different type of story, different structure.

PopMatters lists the top 10 "overplayed songs you hate by artists you love."

The Barnes and Noble Review recommends five books for graduates.

The Nashville Scene profiles the band Plants and Animals.

They've always demonstrated a knack for finding the hooks and pop sensibility within their weirdness, but the nuance, breadth and oddness took time to sink in.

NPR lists the best summer cookbooks.

PopMatters defends rock radio.

The Treatment interviews Craig Thompson about his latest graphic novel, Habibi.

WNYC Soundcheck examines the parallels between music and foodie cultures.

Dan Clowes talks to Underwire about his career as a cartoonist.

Inspired by Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Vladimir Nabakov and old Hollywood movies, Clowes began writing his own texts to accompany the drawings. "I originally just wanted to be an artist," he said. "I was looking for a guy who could write the exact kind of stories I wanted to draw but I couldn't even explain to anybody what that was."

Spin lists the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.

BorderlinePhD interviews Stacy Pershall about her memoir Loud in the House of Myself.

Sound of the City interviews Beth Ditto about the new Gossip album, A Joyful Noise.

25 brilliant and literary-inspired drinks.

NPR is streaming a recent live performance by Spiritualized.

The Georgia Straight profiles the band.

Stylist lists the top 50 cookbooks.

Win a copy of Amy Waldman's novel The Submission and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.

Amazon MP3 has 100 digital albums on sale for $5.

Follow me on Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Stumbleupon for links (updated throughout the day) that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.

also at Largehearted Boy:

previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)

100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics & graphic novels)
daily mp3 downloads
Largehearted Word (the week's best new books)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists

Daily Downloads (Mynabirds, A Free Pixies Tribute Album, and more)

Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet.

Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:

Arrange: "Caves" [mp3] from New Memory (out July 10th)
search for more Arrange posts at Largehearted Boy

Las Kellies: "Erase You (ESG cover)" [mp3]
search for more Las Kellies posts at Largehearted Boy

Mothlight: free and legal American Spirit EP [mp3]
search for more Mothlight posts at Largehearted Boy

Mynabirds: "Body of Work" [mp3] from Generals (out June 5th)
search for more Mynabirds posts at Largehearted Boy

Rebecca Brandt: free and legal (name your price) Numbers and Shapes album [mp3]
search for more Rebecca Brandt posts at Largehearted Boy

Sridhar/Thayil : free and legal (pay what you want) STD album [mp3]
search for more Sridhar/Thayil posts at Largehearted Boy

The Watermarks: free and legal Run Away EP [mp3]
search for more Watermarks posts at Largehearted Boy

Yeasayer: "Henrietta" [mp3] from Fragrant World (out August 21st)
search for more Yeasayer posts at Largehearted Boy

Various Artists: free and legal A Tribute to Pixies: Thirteen Songs Inspired by Kim, David, Francis and Joey album [mp3]

Woodpecker: "Every Boy in NY" [mp3] from Thanks Anyway (out July 24th)
search for more Woodpecker posts at Largehearted Boy

Free and legal live performances at other websites:

A Storm of Light: Violitionist session [mp3]
search for more A Storm of Light posts at Largehearted Boy

also at Largehearted Boy:

other daily free and legal mp3 downloads
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads

musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, books, and pop culture news and links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtrack)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists

Book Notes - Jeet Thayil "Narcopolis"

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.

Previous contributors include Bret Easton Ellis, Kate Christensen, Kevin Brockmeier, George Pelecanos, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, David Peace, Myla Goldberg, Heidi Julavits, Hari Kunzru, and many others.

Jeet Thayil's Narcopolis is a brilliant debut novel, one that vividly captures Bombay's drug culture from the 1960s to the present day.

The Guardian wrote of the book:

"Narcopolis is a blistering debut that can indeed stand proudly on the shelf next to Burroughs and De Quincey. Thayil is quoted as saying that he lost almost 20 years of his life to addiction, but on this showing the experience did not go to waste. We can celebrate that he emerged intact and gave us this book."

Stream a Spotify playlist of these tunes. If you don't have Spotify yet, sign up for the free service.

In his own words, here is Jeet Thayil's Book Notes music playlist for his novel, Narcopolis:

'Piya To Ab To Aaja' a/k/a 'Monica, My Darling' by R.D. Burman

My novel Narcopolis is set in Bombay, mostly in the seventies and eighties, which, as some people will tell you, was the Golden Age of Hindi cinema, a phrase that should ordinarily get your hyperbole radar up and pinging. In any case, in those days, the city's soundtrack was made up almost entirely of hit songs from the movies. It was a soundtrack you heard everywhere, but especially on the street, and by that I mean on radios, on communal television sets and on people's lips. Without question, the most prolific composer of the time was the ridiculously talented R.D. Burman. As with other Bollywood personalities, he worked too much, composing for 300 plus movies in his brief career, which, as you might imagine, gave his work a wild erratic quicksilver quality; erratic, yes, but when he was good there was no one like him and even when he wasn't good he was interesting. He was a kind of sponge. He heard everything and everything he heard somehow made its way into the music he composed. If you listen, you will hear Demis Roussos, John Barry, the Twist, Latin percussion, Arabic rhythm, a wall of violins and a hundred other things. There is a passage in Narcopolis, an unreliable passage, which is a description of 'Piya To Ab To Aaja,' a tune many people know as 'Monica, My Darling.' The opium smoking narrator's fractured description has very little to do with the reality of the song, though the reality is pretty out there all by itself. Look at it on YouTube and marvel at the man in the matador costume who proclaims his love for Monica from a giant gilded bird cage; at Monica herself, the actress Helen, whose dress is caught on a nail and of course she must fling it off to reveal a flesh-colored bodysuit, the incredibly popular Helen, who was not the best dancer in the world, but went above and beyond when it came to energetic gyration; at the weird lyrics; at the man panting like a dog and the way the panting becomes the beat; and, above and beneath it all, the solid melodies, the exuberant orchestration, the infectious groove.

'Saturday Night Fever' by The Bee Gees

If Hindi film music was the soundtrack of the street, this was the soundtrack of the middle class home and the disco, for that is what a nightclub was called in the city of Bombay all those years ago. Improbable as it may seem to us today, this undistinguished movie and its tinny beat set an Indian city's fashion sense and its musical tastes, or at least a slice thereof. The Bombaywallah, the male Bombaywallah, that is, took pains to copy John Travolta's elephant-bells and shiny shirts, and numerous college-age bands, or "beat groups," covered this song. I heard the album recently on vinyl and I have to say it filled me with all kinds of contradictory impulses: I wanted to snort cocaine and work out at one and the same time.

'Dum Maro Dum' by R.D. Burman

Loosely translated as 'Take a Hit, Go On, Take a Hit' this is the title track from the movie Hare Krishna, Hare Rama, and from the opening guitar arpeggios to the melody, which puts a hundred tiny hooks under your skin, to Asha Bhosle's whisky and cigarettes voice, the song is hypnotic and unforgettable and, strange to say, it holds up after all these years. As a character in Narcopolis says: this is the song that got me on drugs (which is something a drug dealer once told me). R.D. Burman wrote this one too, and Mr. Burman, or Pancham as he was known, was and is a major influence on the music that comes out of Bombay's unstoppable film industry. You don't have to know Hindi to know what this song is about, all you need to do is listen to Asha's stoned lilt as she sings the chorus, and watch, on YouTube, as the hippies suck on their chillums.

STD by Sridhar/Thayil

Ok, time for a confession, and a clarification. First the confession: please be alert for a possible plug, or three, that will follow this sentence. And the clarification: to talk about a soundtrack for Narcopolis is, for this author at least, an exercise in theory or conjecture. While writing Narcopolis, I lived alone in an apartment in the north Bombay suburb of Bandra. I had no newspapers, no television, no Internet, no wife, no children, no pets. I had email on my phone and that was enough. For relaxation, I read books or listened to music. I never listened to music while I was working. The beat and the melody interfered with the words and music in my head. During that entire period, if I listened to music at all, it was the music I wrote with my band, Sridhar/Thayil (ST), for our album STD, so if there was a soundtrack to Narcopolis it was probably those songs. On April 12, the day Narcopolis was released in the United States, we launched STD on the Internet, and it is available for download on sridharthayil.bandcamp.com.

'Babur in London' by Edward Rushton

I also listened to the music my friend, the Swiss-based British composer Edward Rushton was writing for our opera Babur in London, for which I wrote the libretto. The opera had its world premiere in Zurich two weeks before Narcopolis was released in the United States, with shows to follow in cities in the UK and in India. A novel, an album and a libretto, all debuts, that appeared within the space of a few weeks—and that pretty much encapsulates the story of my life, as it was lived in writing, over the past five or so years.

'Kind of Blue' by Miles Davis

There are other songs that occur in Narcopolis, for example a violent apocalyptic track by Jimi Hendrix, and an unnamed track by the unnamed Talking Heads, and another by Men at Work (because of a reference to a Bombay drug den), but I'm not going to talk about those; instead, I'm going to talk about 'Kind of Blue,' which a character in the novel plans to give a lecture about but never does. When I hear the song and the album, even today, long after quitting heroin, well, maybe not that long, ten years is a drop in heroin time, so, as I say, when I hear this song it is for me the aural equivalent of heroin, because time stops, or it lags imperceptibly, or it lengthens, or contracts, I'm not sure which. The point is: heroin alters time. And heroin time is slightly behind or ahead, because heroin takes the beat, heartbeat, drumbeat, any kind of beat, and plays with it. The time signature in this song is heroin, and it gives you, the listener, an idea of what it must be like to take heroin, because it makes you inhabit the slow motion spaces between the beats and between the notes. Even ten years after, when I hear this song, I praise the nod.

Jeet Thayil and Narcopolis links:

the author's Wikipedia entry

A.V. Club review
The Economist review
Guardian review
Independent review
India Today review
Just My Type review
Philadelphia City Paper review
Publishers Weekly review
Telegraph review

The Hindu profile of the author
Weekend Edition profile of the author

also at Largehearted Boy:

other Book Notes playlists (authors create music playlists for their book)
my 11 favorite Book Notes playlists

Largehearted WORD Books of the Week - May 23rd, 2012

In the Largehearted Word series, the staff of Brooklyn's WORD bookstore highlights several new books released this week.

WORD is an independent neighborhood bookstore in Greenpoint, the northernmost neighborhood of Brooklyn, that recently celebrated its fifth anniversary. Our primary goal is to be whatever our community needs us to be, which currently means carrying a lot of paperback fiction (especially classics), cookbooks, board books, and absurdly cute cards and stationery. In addition, we're fiends for a good event, from the classic author reading and Q&A to potlucks and a basketball league (and anything set in a bar). We're a small operation, just 1000 square feet and four people, but we read too much, so it all works out. If a weekly dose of WORD here isn't enough for you, follow us on Twitter: @wordbrooklyn.

WORD also hosts the monthly Largehearted Lit reading series, featuring authors who participated in this blog's Book Notes series and musical guests.

The Leftovers
by Tom Perrotta

Perrotta's tale of the endtimes is now available in paperback, now with his and hers covers.

Railsea
by China Mieville

Mieville fans rejoice! Molly says: "Railsea is wickedly smart and totally engrossing--weeks later, I'm still trying to perfectly imagine what the railsea looks like."

Antigonick
Anne Carson, illustrated by Bianca Stone

This book is drop dead gorgeous, an absolute must-own if you are an art fan, a poetry fan, a Carson fan.

The Graphic Canon, Vol. 1
by Russ Kick

Classics nuts (you know who you are), graphic novel fans, and anyone who has ever tried to convince a teenager to read The Odyssey will all want to add this book to their library ASAP.

WORD Brooklyn links:

WORD website
WORD blog
WORD on Twitter
WORD's Facebook page
WORD's Flickr photos

also at Largehearted Boy:

other Largehearted Word Books of the Week (weekly new book highlights)

52 Books, 52 Weeks (my yearly reading project)
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics & graphic novel highlights)
Book Notes (authors create music playlists for their book)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)

Atomic Books Comics Preview - May 23rd, 2012

In the weekly Atomic Books Comics Preview, Benn Ray highlights notable new comics and graphic novels.

Benn Ray is the owner of Atomic Books, an independent bookstore in Baltimore. The Mobtown Shank is his blog, and his comic Said What? is syndicated weekly in the Baltimore Sun's B-Paper.

Atomic Books has been named one of Bizarre Magazine's 51 geekiest places on the planet, as well as one of Flavorwire's 10 greatest comic and graphic novel stores in America.

Caligula Volume 1
by David Lapham / German Nobile

A collection of Lapham's series about the disturbed emperor doing disturbing things. The gross factor is high here.

Comic Book History Of Comics
by Fred Van Lente / Ryan Dunlavey

Collecting the history of comics in one comic - with lots of gags.

Interiorae
by Gabriella Giandelli

A beautifully illustrated story centered on a European high-rise. A ghostly anthropomorphic rabbit moves from apartment to apartment, and is the narrative device for us looking at the lives inside.

Only Skin
by Sean Ford

One of my favorite comics in recent years gets collected. Secrets, mysteries and ghosts populate an odd suburban landscape.

Sock #2
by Conor Stechschulte (editor)

The art comics kids have discovered sex, and the results are weird - in a good way. This second installment of this adults only series features work by Chris Day, Edie Fake, Noel Freibert, Lane Milburn, Jason T. Miles, Molly Colleen O'Connell, Ryan Cecil Smith, Matthew Thurber, and more.

Questions, concerns, comments or gripes – e-mail benn@atomicbooks.com. If there’s a comic I should know about, send it my way at Atomic, c/o Atomic Books 3620 Falls Rd., Baltimore, MD 21211.

Atomic Books & Benn Ray links:

Atomic Books website
Atomic Books on Twitter
Atomic Books on Facebook
Benn Ray's blog (The Mobtown Shank)
Benn Ray's comic, Said What?

also at Largehearted Boy:

other Atomic Books Comics Preview lists (weekly new comics & graphic novel highlights)

the list of online "best books of 2011" lists

52 Books, 52 Weeks
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Book Notes (authors create music playlists for their book)
guest book reviews
Largehearted Word (weekly new book highlights)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)

Shorties (A Confederacy of Dunces: The Film, Shirley Manson of Garbage, and more)

Playlist reports that a film adaptation of John Kennedy Toole's novel A Confederacy of Dunces may star Zach Galifinakis.

The A.V. Club interviews Shirley Manson of Garbage.

AVC: You've been vocal on your Facebook page and elsewhere about standing up for women you feel don't get a fair shake, including defending Kristen Stewart's performance in Twilight. Is that something you think about a lot, or feel a responsibility to comment on?

SM: I can't help myself. I just am fascinated by other female artists, probably because I feel a kinship with them, no matter who they are and what they do. And I'm 45 now. I’m not a kid. I feel like I'm a grown-up, and I know exactly what they're going through. I have lived it myself. It's a minefield to navigate. People seem to think this is really simple. It's really difficult to navigate attention and stardom and celebrity status, and still try to maintain yourself and hold onto your intelligence and integrity. It's really challenging. I watch these young women try to navigate our culture, and I watch them struggle, or I watch the unbelievable hostility they have to bear. So I guess, yeah, I feel protective.

Creative Type lists the top 50+ creative writing professors on Twitter.

The Guardian explains why pop musicians love the poetry of TS Eliot.

Electric Literature launched its Recommended Reading online literary magazine today.

Gigwise lists the worst pop covers of all time.

Rocks Off lists 10 things musicians have been buried with.

The Atlantic explores the "precarious state of the author interview."

The Colorado Springs Independent profiles Jay Farrar of Son Volt.

"Working with Jack Kerouac's words and Woody Guthrie's lyrics was an opportunity to sort of step aside from what I was normally doing and be inspired in a different way," he says. "There's a tendency with one's own lyrics to be a bit self-analytical."

Colin Powell talks to All Things Considered about his new memoir It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership.

The Quietus interviews Julia Holter about her new album Ekstasis.

At The Browser, author Nick Harkaway recommends five books about negotiating the digital age.

Nine classic songs you didn't know were covers.

At the Huffington Post, Jennifer Miller lists nine fantastic prep school novels.

Google explains the concept behind today's doodle logo, an interactive tribute to synthesizer innovator Robert Moog.

Former Handsome Furs frontman Dan Boeckner and Spoon's Britt Daniel have formed a new band, Divine Fits.

Win a copy of Amy Waldman's novel The Submission and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.

Amazon MP3 has 100 digital albums on sale for $5.

Follow me on Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Stumbleupon for links (updated throughout the day) that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.

also at Largehearted Boy:

previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)

Daily Downloads (Anabot, Foxygen, and more)

Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet.

Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:

Anabot: "The House That Heaven Built (Japandroids cover)" [mp3]
search for more Anabot posts at Largehearted Boy

And So I Watch You from Afar: "BEAUTIFULUNIVERSEMASTERCHAMPION" [mp3] from Gangs
And So I Watch You from Afar: "Search:Party:Animal" [mp3] from Gangs
search for more And So I Watch You from Afar posts at Largehearted Boy

Bison: free and legal 11-track Quill album [mp3]
search for more Bison posts at Largehearted Boy

Foxygen: "Make It Known" [mp3] from Take the Kids Off Broadway EP (out July 24th)
search for more Foxygen posts at Largehearted Boy

The Hollowbodies: free and legal 5-track Town Without a Name EP [mp3]
search for more Hollowbodies posts at Largehearted Boy

Ozarks: "Pyramids of Love" [mp3] from Ozarks (out June 17th)
search for more Ozarks posts at Largehearted Boy

Phoebe Jean: "Day Is Gone" [mp3] from Heartbreakers (out June 12th)
search for more Phoebe Jean posts at Largehearted Boy

The Shrouded Strangers: "Drinking the Spider Silk" [mp3] from Lost Forever
search for more Shrouded Strangers posts at Largehearted Boy

Various Artists: free and legal 11-track OK!Good Records sampler album [mp3]

Free and legal live performances at other websites:

Luther Dickinson and The wandering: 2012-05-12, Athens [mp3]
search for more Luther Dickinson posts at Largehearted Boy

also at Largehearted Boy:

other daily free and legal mp3 downloads
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads

Author Steve Almond Interviews Ryan Walsh of Hallelujah the Hills

In the "Largehearted Boy Cross-Media Cultural Exchange Program" series (thanks to Jami Attenberg for the title), authors interview musicians (and vice versa).

Steve Almond is a writer, his most recent book is the short story collection God Bless America.

Ryan Walsh is the frontman for the band Hallelujah the Hills. Their third album, No One Knows What Happens Next, was released today.

The pair team up to produce a podcast, This Has Been a Disaster, Thanks for Having Us.

Author Steve Almond interviews musician Ryan Walsh:

Steve Almond: I first met Ryan Walsh at an event in which a number of degenerates, myself included, read the filthy letters that James Joyce wrote to his wife Nora. I don't remember meeting Ryan, but he claims we did, and I was certainly stoned enough for that event that I won't contradict him.

What matters is that I eventually got hip to his band, Hallelujah the Hills (HTH), which made every other band I was listening to sound kind of pointless.

A year ago or so, Ryan and I teamed up to record a dorky-but-also-kind-of-awesome podcast called This Has Been a Disaster, Thanks for Having Us, which allows musicians to discuss their most horrifying and shameful road stories.

Even more important, a few months back Ryan slipped me an advance of the new HTH record, No One Knows What Happens Next. I've never heard anything like it. The songs are raucous bursts of joy, orchestral anthems with messy hooks and gorgeously weird lyrics. Walsh and his cohorts (Brian Rutledge, Joseph Marrett, Ryan Connelly, David Bentley, and Nicholas Ward) have created a musical document that feels more dangerous and thrilling than anything else you're likely to hear this year.

How does HJH actually work? Like is it a band? A collective? A cult? A bad habit? No cute stuff, Walsh. Just answer the fucking question.

Ryan Walsh: It's definitely a band (although everyone secretly hopes their band becomes a cult). We've had a lot of personnel changes over the years, but there's four of us who've been there since our first show. I couldn't do this without the band. My musical skills are so incredibly niche it's often surprising when people join the band. I'm adept at: coming up with chord progressions, making up melodies, and writing lyrics. Everything else is a crap shoot and/or not possible. I record a demo and then we all arrange it together with everyone coming up with their own parts. In those sessions when we arrange the songs it's a) super fun and b) seriously democratic.

SA: I've been on board since 2007's Collective Psychosis Begone. And I like that you don't put out an album every six months. But I also get impatient. Should I be taking medication, or do you just need to start writing songs faster?

RW: There's a bunch of factors at play here. One is that these things are expensive and time consuming to put together. Whether it's a label or Kickstarter, there are inherent time restraints built in to the process. We've always tried to put out new "singles" when we weren't near a new LP release. I think these singles might get lost in the shuffle, though, just because the press-machine is only going to pay attention to new full length albums. That leads you to nebulous, unproveable concepts like the "album release cycle"—theories that you'll hear PR and labels go on about like there's an exact science to it. I want to put out more music, more frequently. There's sad evidence mounting, however, that most musicians now spend more time promoting than they do playing music. How sad is that? Everyone loved trashing the old major label system but it definitely let musicians be musicians, didn't it?

SA: The new record is a monster. I can't stop listening to it. How did it come together? I ask because the songs have the feel of orchestrated madness—all these different time signatures and horns and strings. It's just awesome how much sonic joy you cram into the canvas.

RW: Thank you! There's a orchestral sound built into the very lineup of the band, so it happens naturally. The difference between this and previous HTH albums is that I wrote the songs as we went along, recording two songs a month, so that they would always be fresh in our hands when we hit record. This was kind of scary for me and the band because the studio is paid for whether this month's songs are great or garbage. The first song on the album is about that process ("title tba just get me in a room") and the album title (No One Knows What Happens Next) is partly a nod to the process as well.

SA: Okay, don't get all pissed, but when I heard the new record all I could think was: Boy, I wish Wilco's records sounded like this. What I mean is that their songs feel deeply grounded in American musical forms, but also complex and subversive. But just level with me: Am I being an asshole here?

RW: Who should be pissed in this scenario? Us? Wilco?

My brothers indoctrinated me with Uncle Tupelo records as a youngster, so I've always been a Jeff Tweedy fan. Here's a terrible story that I should've told on our podcast, Steve. There was a documentary about Wilco that came out in 2002. I had a friend who worked for the company that put it out so I went to the premiere with him and we ended up sitting in front of the band during the screening. It was surreal to hear them laugh and grimace at their own onscreen presence.

But, anyway, I had the first finished Stairs CD in my hands and I had one goal for the evening: give this CD to Jeff Tweedy. If you haven't seen it the documentary it's got a lot of info about how bad Jeff is in awkward one-on-one fan situations. Also that he gets these horrible migraine headaches. So, I walk outside after the movie's over and Jeff's crouched in some grass over by a wall clearly trying to be by himself after the super weird movie experience. (Was he clutching his head or did I make that up?) I don't know. Nervous Ryan and my CD-handoff was the very last thing that he wanted to deal with. All in all, he was very gracious about me pushing this thing in his hands but the look he gave me as I approached was unbelievable. I'll never forget it. Jeff, I'm really sorry about that. I shouldn't have pestered you like that.

SA: I've always struck by your lyrics—there's a poetic intensity to them, all this sprung rhythm. I'm thinking of a track like "Nightingale Lightning," where you'll belt out these remarkable lines: "This is somewhat unique for a man of my class/and stance and stature to stand/smoked out of the barn…" And, like, I have this intense emotional reaction, even though I no rational idea what they mean. What's up with that?

RW: It's hard to communicate the things we feel in normal, every day conversation. These songs wouldn't exist if I could tell you about the feelings behind them on a quick walk down to the 7/11. The trick is to express those things but also make sure the songs themselves make the listener want to smash things, slow dance with a loved one, or workout super hard on the treadmill.

SA: Okay, a final question. I'll kick myself if I don't ask: Will you be my boyfriend?

RW: I don't know, man. We're already so many things to each other. What are the benefits?

SA: In addition to long walks in the rain, I'll give your next album to Jeff Tweedy.

Steve Almond links:

Steve Almond's website
Steve Almond's Largehearted Boy interview with Ike Reilly
Steve Almond's Largehearted Boy Book Notes essay for God Bless America
Steve Almond's Largehearted Boy Book Notes essay for Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life

Ryan Walsh and Hallelujah the Hills links:

Hallelujah the Hills' website
Ryan Walsh's Largehearted Boy interview with Jami Attenberg
Ryan Walsh's Largehearted Boy Note Books essay

also at Largehearted Boy:

other musician/author interviews

Antiheroines (Jami Attenberg interviews comics artists)
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
guest book reviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Soundtracked (directors and composers discuss their film's soundtracks)

Try It Before You Buy It - May 22nd, 2012 Music Releases

Try It Before You Buy It features free and legal mp3 downloads and full album streams from the week's music releases:

Admiral Fallow: Tree Bursts in Snow
full album stream

Blue Foundation: In My Mind I Am Free
Blue Foundation: "Lost" [mp3]
Blue Foundation: "Sun Glitters" [mp3]

The Brothers Comatose: Respect the Van
full album stream

Chet Faker: Thinking in Textures
full album stream

The Cult: Choice of Weapon
full album stream

Dan Sartain: Too Tough to Live
full album stream

The Danks: Are You Afraid of the Danks
The Danks: "Automocar" [mp3]

Dope Body: Natural History
Dope Body: "Lazy Slave" [mp3]
Dope Body: "Weird Mirror" [mp3]

Gossip: A Joyful Noise
full album stream

Hallelujah the Hills: No One Knows What Happens Next
Hallelujah the Hills: "Get Me in a Room" [mp3]
Hallelujah the Hills: "Hungry Ghost Extraordinaire" [mp3]

JBM: Stray Ashes
full album stream

John Mayer: Born and raised
full album stream

Kimbra: Vows
full album stream

Laid Back: Cosyland
full album stream

Like Pioneers: Oh, Magic
full album stream

Modern Time Machines: Continuity Girl
full album stream
Modern Time Machines: "Lucky Lady" [mp3]

Paul McCartney: Ram (remastered and expanded)
full album stream

Rec Center: Tin Year
full album stream
Rec Center: "No. 2" [mp3]

Riverboat Gamblers: The Wolf You Feed
Riverboat Gamblers: "Comedians"] [mp3]

Robert Francis: Strangers in the First Place
full album stream

Royal Thunder: CVI
full album stream

Shannon Stephens: Pull It Together
full album stream
Shannon Stephens: "Care of You" [mp3]

Sonnymoon: Sonnymoon
full album stream

Still Flyin': On a Bedroom wall
full album stream
Still Flyin': "Travelin' Man" [mp3]

Tedeschi Trucks Band: Everybody's Talkin'
full album stream

Zulu Winter: Language
Zulu Winter: "Silver Tongue" [mp3]

also at Largehearted Boy:

other Try It Before You Buy It lists

100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
daily free and legal mp3 downloads
this week's complete list of interesting music releases

Largehearted Lit Tonight with Dylan Hicks and Thad Ziolkowski

Largehearted Lit is a reading series inspired by this blog's Book Notes feature. Created and previously hosted by the talented author Jami Attenberg, the series presents readings by authors featured in the Book Notes series along with musical guests.

The May edition of Largehearted Lit monthly reading is Tuesday, May 21st at 7:00 p.m. at WORD bookstore in Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood.

May’s Largehearted Lit, a series celebrating music, books, and their intersection, features Dylan Hicks and Thad Ziolkowski. Hicks, whose novel Boarded Windows captures the music and mood of America’s boomer counterculture, will speak and perform a few songs. Ziolkowski will also read and discuss music’s influence on his novel Wichita, the latest addition to Europa Editions’ new line, Tonga Books.

The event starts at 7:00 on Tuesday, May 22nd, at WORD Brooklyn. There will be cupcakes provided by The Brooklyn Baker (official caterer of the series) and wine.

Optionally RSVP on Facebook.

The participants' Largehearted Boy contributions:

Dylan Hicks's Largehearted Boy Book Notes essay for his novel Boarded Windows
Dylan Hicks interview with Matthew Friedberger

also at Largehearted Boy:

previous Largehearted Lit events

52 Books, 52 Weeks (weekly book reviews)
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics highlights)
Book Notes (authors create music playlists for their book)
Daily Downloads (free and legal daily mp3 downloads)
guest book reviews
Largehearted Word (weekly new book highlights)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Online "Best Books of 2010" lists
Online "Best Music of 2010" lists
Shorties (daily music, literature, and pop culture links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists

Shorties (Jay McInerney, The 2012 ACL Music Festival Lineup, and more)

The Observer profiles author Jay McInerney.

"In the UK you had this longstanding wine culture that was stuffy," McInerney says. "In the US, it was different. A culture sprang forth that wasn't based on tradition. It seemed like we were discovering it for the first time." In fact, he says, he didn't publish his first collection of wine columns, Bacchus & Me, in the UK for this very reason – because he thought it might make him look square. (He needn't have worried: where other critics talk of "floral notes", he calls Domaine de la Romanée-Conti the "Ferrari of Burgundy" and Puligny-Montrachet "a Grace Kelly of a wine".)

The lineup for Austin's 2012 ACL Festival has been announced.

Krys Lee talks to the Korea Herald about her short story collection Drifting House.

Rocks Off shares an essential disco playlist.

The Guardian interviews author Ian Rankin about his strict one book a year writing schedule.

"I usually start planning a novel in October/November, do some preliminary research, then start writing in January. Finish a sketchy first draught by the end of March, do more research as necessary, then do a second and third draught, with the whole thing done and dusted by the end of June for autumn publication and touring – after which the whole process starts again for the following year's book."

PopMatters profiles the Swedish duo First Aid Kit.

The Millions explores the "social bond of literature."

Here We Go Magic visits The Current studio for an interview and live performance.

At NPR, author Madeline Miller recommends Elizabeth von Karnim's novel The Enchanted April.

Not all of us have the luxury to spend a month in the glorious Italian countryside, but von Arnim's novel is the next best thing. It seems like an insult to her keen intelligence to call this book uplifting, but the truth is, happiness is one of the hardest emotions to capture on the page. That she is able to evoke it so genuinely, and without trending into sentimentality, is a testament to the enormity of her talent.

Paste is streaming five new songs by the XX.

3:AM Magazine interviews Anne-Marie Kinney about her new novel, Radio Iris.

MK: You’ve been active in the Los Angeles MFA literary world and your work has been performed by Los Angeles' Word Theatre. How do you feel about giving readings?

AK: Reading in front of an audience is an out-of-body experience for me. I go into this zone where I don’t feel like I'm breathing and I don't remember how to move my mouth and time becomes incomprehensible… but somehow I seem to do okay, or so I'm told.

WNYC is mapping New York's best subway music performances.

Win a copy of Amy Waldman's novel The Submission and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.

Amazon MP3 has 100 digital albums on sale for $5.

Follow me on Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Stumbleupon for links (updated throughout the day) that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.

also at Largehearted Boy:

previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)

Daily Downloads (Bob Mould, Beachwood Sparks, and more)

Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet.

Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:

Beachwood Sparks: "Forget the Song" [mp3] from Tarnished Gold (out June 26th)
search for more Beachwood Sparks posts at Largehearted Boy

Bob Mould: three live tracks [mp3]
search for more Bob Mould posts at Largehearted Boy

Higgins: "Paranoid Trails" [mp3]
search for more Higgins posts at Largehearted Boy

LRN GRN: "Quilts" [mp3] from Easy Spirits (out May 24th)
search for more LRN GRN posts at Largehearted Boy

MNDR: "#1 in Heaven" [mp3] from #1 in Heaven
search for more MNDR posts at Largehearted Boy

Mystery Pills: "The Glass Traditions" [mp3] from Mystery Pills EP
search for more Mystery Pills posts at Largehearted Boy

The Projection: "Florida" [mp3] from While You Were Out
search for more Projection posts at Largehearted Boy

The Sun Parade: "Need You by My Side" [mp3] from Yossis (out June 19th)
search for more Sun Parade posts at Largehearted Boy

The Unsacred Hearts: "Judy Is a Punk (Ramones cover)" [mp3]
search for more Unsacred Hearts posts at Largehearted Boy

Various Artists: free and legal Triangulating Nature Hidden Shoal Records sampler album [mp3]

Free and legal live performances at other websites:

Jack Logan: 2012-05-12, Athens [mp3]
search for more Jack Logan posts at Largehearted Boy

also at Largehearted Boy:

other daily free and legal mp3 downloads
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads

This Week's Interesting Music Releases - May 22nd, 2012

Hallelujah the Hills' third album No One Knows What Happens Next, the band's strongest effort yet, is officially released tomorrow. Stream the album (through midnight tonight).

The only other albums I have heard and can wholeheartedly recommend this week are Exitmusic's Passage and Gossip's A Joyful Noise.

Paul McCartney's Ram has been remastered and features a bonus CD filled with outtakes.

Vinyl reissues this week include eight Calexico albums (98-99 Road Map , Aerocalexico, Ancienne Belgique: Live in Brussels, The Book and The Canal, Circo, Scraping, Tell All), three from Uncle Tupelo (March 16-20, 1992, No Depression, Still Feel Gone) two by Lou Reed (Transformer, Rock and Roll Animal) and Patti Smith's Horses.

What new releases are you picking up this week? What can you recommend? Have I left anything noteworthy off the list?

This week's interesting music releases:

also at Largehearted Boy:

other weekly CD & DVD release lists

100 online sources for free and legal music downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (music from this week's CD releases)