Dear Darling Ones,

I finished reading book #99 in 2021. It was about menopause. I know slightly more about the mysterious biological happening than I did before, which isn’t saying much. To celebrate the milestone I re-read Jeff Tweedy’s memoir (more on that in a minute).

My goal for reading this year was to read widely and voraciously. I want to read about all kinds of things, which is why I’ve read a bunch about visual art and a crapton of author biographies. I should probably broaden my horizons by reading something about science or nature, but damn science is boring.

Anyway, if you’re looking for something to read you cannot go wrong with these nine books.

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton

I wrote about this one when I first finished reading it. It’s got all the things I love to read and thing about: rock & roll, racism, sexism, women who do what they want to do, and the story is told using all kinds of media, which is so much my jam.

Little Weirds by Jenny Slate

I was unprepared for the emotional gut punch that came with reading Slate’s essays about the end of her marriage and dating and being a woman in America in the right now. You can see what I had to say about this one earlier.

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

I’ve gotten out of the habit of reading short story collections. For a long time they just haven’t done much for me, but Philyaw’s collection is a sparkling gem from front to back. I read the entire collection in one long, sleepless night and I do not regret one minute of the lost sleep.

Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) by Jeff Tweedy

I got the audio version of this bad boy from the library and spent all day listening to it while I prepared family dinner. Tweedy is so funny, which makes the audio version a little bit better than the print version (which I read a few months ago). Plus, his wife and one of his sons make an appearance. But what I love so much about this memoir is that he thinks about creating and creativity much the same way I do. And also, I could listen to him talk about what The Replacements mean to him for the rest of my life.*

The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec

I still have plans of changing my name to Angrboda, bringer of sorrows and becoming the witch of Ironwood. If I didn’t have so much brand equity in my house being called Supergenius HQ, I would rebrand. Thinking about this one still makes my heart a little zoomy with joy because reading it was such a pleasure.

Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley

I’ve stopped reading YA for the most part because I find the voice of a lot of recent YA super cloying and kind of annoying. This one was neither of those things. A female hockey-playing protagonist who is a smarty smart smartie is trying to solve some mysterious drug-related deaths in her Michigan town and along the way teaches the reader so many things about Anishinaabe traditions.

Red Comet by Heather Clark

This biography of Sylvia Plath lit my brain on fire and became an obsession for a few weeks when all I wanted to do was read this book and wander around in Sylvia Plath’s world.

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

This memoir by the lead singer of Japanese Breakfast is wonderful. Probably has the best last chapter of any book in a good long time. Also, I have extra special affection for this one because my niece read it on my suggestion (she also loved it). But the best thing was the book inspired Jaycie to go check out the H Mart in Portland and she texted me a bunch of pictures while she was there.

Blow Your House Down by Gina Frangello

Do you ever get zapped by art that makes you feel more alive after experiencing it than you did before? That’s how I felt after reading Frangello’s memoir about adultery, feminism, a dying marriage, and mothering through cancer and divorce and the death of her parents. This one is fierce and ferocious and so fucking brave. I aspire to write something so fucking alive and full of passion.

Your book reports are due in December, Darling Ones.

Love,
Jodi

 
*To be fair, I could listen to just about anyone talk about their favorite band forever — especially if their voice gets a little wobbly because they’re so full of emotion about the music. Fuckin’ a – that kind of thing slays me.

The post The 9 Best of the First 99 Books I Read this Year appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hello Darling Ones,

While I was doing my taxes last night one of my twitter pals expressed an interest in my Top 10 Music Memoirs List. Because the only two things I need to do are make potato salad and work on The Beast, making this list is what they like to call productive procrastination.

Before we get to the list, I broadened the category. I’ve read a lot of memoirs by musicians. A lot. Maybe forty? Fifty? I’ve read twenty-six memoirs just by female musicians. Tonight I’ll be starting Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. I’m on the library’s hold list for Brandi Carlile’s Broken Horses.

I’ve also read memoirs by men too. From Keith Richards and Pete Townshend to Bob Mould and Ben Folds.

Here’s the thing, a lot of musician memoirs are shockingly similar. The only thing that really changes are the dates. So yeah, I broadened the category to include nonfiction books about music or musicians.

One more caveat: I did not include Trouble Boys Bob Mehr’s biography of The Replacements because it is fucking boring. Scandalous! But if you really want to know where everyone who ever met the ‘Mats was born and where they went to high school, this book is for you. Did you know Tommy Stinson’s grandma was from Shakopee? You would if you read Trouble Boys.

Also missing is Michael Azerad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life, which I need to revisit. It’s been nearly twenty-years since I read it, so my memory may be fuzzy, but I’m pretty sure there are absolutely zero women in the book. None. I know none of the bands featured include women, so it doesn’t make the list.

I only mention these two books because they’re the ones I expect to get the most flack for not including. Also, one more preemptive shut-up. Yes, I know about Lester Bangs. And Robert Christgau. And Greil Marcus.

Wanna know what else I know? Men have been writing about and controlling the story of rock & roll since its inception. They’re the ones who choose what is good, what is bad, what is lauded, and what is forgotten. That is some bullshit. As I always say when someone gets all horny about The Beatles or The Stones being the greatest of all time, “It’s not hard to be the best when you only compete against other white men.”

So, now, on with the show!

1. Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music by Ellen Willis

This book changed the way I think about and consume rock & roll. I read in the spring of 2012 and it caused a paradigm shift in my soul. I often joke that I’m unsure about God, but I believe in Ellen Willis and thus she is my deity of choice. What I love about her writing is the social and political context she gives the music she writes about. And it’s so refreshing to get that context through a feminist point of view (rather than the male sexual gaze)

2. Kicking & Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul, and Rock and Roll by Ann & Nancy Wilson

This one is so damn fun. I love that Ann and Nancy tell the story of Heart. I love that we learn there is another Wilson sister who is not in the band. I love the stories of pre-grunge Seattle and touring with ALLLL those dudes. I love that they talk about sexism and fatphobia and being in Seattle right before grunge broke. But my favorite is they are the first of all the women I’ve read who talked about wanting to be a Beatle and not marry a Beatle (this is a recurring theme in a lot of memoirs by women).

3. Rat Girl by Kristen Hersh

Quoting myself here: “If you’ve ever felt music was your religion or your life or had a deep, confusing, inexplicable relationship with Rock & Roll you should read this book. While I believe Hersh’s relationship with music is wholly unique to her, she writes about it in such a way that it gives those of us who have yet to find the words hope that those words are still out there.” She has a new memoir out too. My cup overflows.

4. Just Kids by Patti Smith

Come on! This probably the most lauded, awarded music memoir of all time. Justifiably so.

5. It’s a Long Story: My Life by Willie Nelson

Wanna know what’s so good about Willie Nelson’s memoir? He leaves out all the boring shit. This doesn’t happen a lot when men write their stories (see: Townshend, Richards, Mould). It’s folksy as fuck and has so many fun facts! Charlie Pride sent him his first email! Tons of ’em about “Pancho & Lefty” I won’t spoil for you. It’s a super fun read.

6. Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir of Recording and Discording with Wilco, Etc. by Jeff Tweedy

Hi. I feel like I have not shut up about this book since I read it in March. I talk about it a lot, almost as much as the Sylvia Plath biography. This one is such a great read because Tweedy is funny, self-deprecating, a little catty, totally vulnerable, and smart.

7. My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love by Dessa

You know that sentence that I wrote about the Jeff Tweedy memoir? Same goes for the Dessa minus the catty but make the smart, super smart. I’ve read this one three times. There’s a passage where she writes about singing with Aby Wolf that when I read it I get goosebumps and when I talk about it to people my throat clogs with tears. It’s that beautiful.

8. Queens of Noise: The Real Story of the Runaways by Evelyn McDonnell

I fell in love with Joan Jett when I was eight or ten or whatever age it was I discovered her cover of “Crimson & Clover.” I fell hard. So hard that at my 40th birthday party, childhood BFF Jodi Hanson glared at my cousin Laurie and asked, “Were you the one with the “Crimson & Clover” forty-five?” I played the song a lot. This biography of The Runaways blew my mind. There was so much I didn’t know and, again, McDonnell gave me so much context for the band I didn’t have before.

9. Nobody Ever Asked Me about the Girls: Women, Music and Fameby Lisa Robinson

This book is a lot. There’s an entire chapter about rape and sexual assault and how that played out in some women’s music. There’s also chapters about marriage and sex and babies and Lisa Robinson never fails to point out the hypocrisy in how men never get asked these kinds of questions. Go for the Madonna-snark and stay for the keen insight on how female musicians are portrayed in the media.

10. Janis: Her Life and Music by Holly George-Warren

I think this book was so revelatory because it was the first time I experienced Janis outside of the male gaze. George-Warren presents her as a flawed, complicated woman with all the care her story needed and never seemed to get.

I could probably make a list of Top 10 Fiction Music Books, and I might.

For now, it’s time to make the potato salad,
Jodi

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Dear Darling Ones,

I went to Lutheran bible camp the summer I was fourteen or fifteen, which is exactly where you’d expect a Catholic girl to go to camp. This was the only time I ever went to camp, unless you count journalism camp or, I guess, marching band camp. Those last two things were just called camp but didn’t involve sleeping over anywhere.

Bible camp was the real deal and we stayed in cabins up in Spooner, Wisconsin under the supervision of a 20something dude named Kurt. He was the only authority figure and we never listened to him and actively tortured him by putting a dead fish in his sleeping bag. The camp was for the youth group of some Lutheran church in Minneapolis I never knew the name of and was full of city kids and three suburban dorks: me, my next-door neighbor BFF Jenni, and her brother, Jeff.

Sister #2 is still a little jealous about my bible camp adventure, because she never got to go any kind of camp. Cue the constant middle kid bitching. . . “The thing I remember the most about you going to camp is you brought back the Violent Femmes and the clap.”

It was really poison ivy. She doesn’t say the clap, but it’d be funnier if she did.

The best part of the City Kids was they introduced me to so much music. I think I literally listened to a Tiffany tape on my Walkmen on the ride up there. I eschewed a lot of the dudes’ suggestions: The Doors, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin = barf. But a beautiful girl named Marija played the Violent Femmes for me and I was in love. With the Femmes, not Marija because she was kind of a meangirl and I had my eyes on curly-haired Chuck who loved The Doors and made out with some blonde girl probably named Amy in her cabin.

Today I listened to the Violent Femmes first album for the first time in ages. It was vaguely on my mind because “Blister in the Sun” featured prominently in last night’s episode of “My So-Called Life” when Angela finds out Jordan Catalano and Rayanne had sex together.

I listened to the record while basking in the sunlight pouring through my front window and enjoying the momentary lack of grey.

I listened to the record while I made about a hundred thumbnail images for a client’s project and marveled a little bit about how fifteen-year-old me would have died had she known future her would get paid for sitting on the couch listening to the Violent Femmes while editing photos.

I listened to the record while I spilled mojo sauce on myself and now my left breast smells like citrus and garlic, which isn’t altogether unpleasant, but it does mean I’m gonna have to wash this bra before I wear it again and I just started wearing it like Monday so that’s pretty annoying. I spilled the sauce because I was lost in a reverie about Ethan Hawke singing “Add it Up” to Winona Ryder in “Reality Bites.”

Well, darling (ones), this is it,
Jodi

P.S. Last night I had a dream that I missed the school bus and Jeff Tweedy said he would drive me to school because apparently I had high school at the age of 48 and also both Jeff Tweedy and I hung out at my childhood home in Blaine. He went the wrong way to get to Blaine Senior High, driving south on 65 toward Northtown instead of north toward school. As he merged onto Highway 10 in his roundabout way of getting to school I said, “This is the really long way.” And he smiled at me very flirtatiously and said, “I know.” This dream brought to by my subconscious’ puzzling, unending sexual attraction to Jeff Tweedy and the fact that I talked about his memoir with my friend Melanie last night.

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Hello Darling Ones,

Around the New Year, I sent an email to a guy I know thanking him for introducing me to the music of Frightened Rabbit and being very kind to me while I nursed a broken heart.

He was all, “No problem, hope they’re not too sad for you. They are for me sometimes.”

And I laughed.

As if.

Too sad? For me? Jodi Chromey the duchess of anguish & misery? The Internet’s favorite bittersweetheart? The woman who is going to change her name to Angrboda, bringer of sorrows, and become the Witch of Ironwood?*

Is too sad a thing?

editor’s note: actually I replied with an email I thought was kind of sweet and super flirty. I never got a response to it, because of course.

This may come as a surprise, but I love sad songs. Sad songs are the best songs. Way back in the olden days when I lived in that shitty apartment in Prior Lake I used to lay on the floor and listen to Jeff Buckely’s “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” and will myself not to cry. For fun. I want songs that crawl into my ice-robot heart and bring their own blanket, making themselves comfortable while using my own heartstrings to manipulate my tear ducts like a marionette.

Most of my favorite songs are sad songs.
Jason Isbell’s “Alabama Pines,” I don’t even need a name anymore. When no one calls it out, it kind of vanishes away.
Neko Case’s “I Wish I Was the Moon,” Last night I dreamt I’d forgotten my name cause I sold my soul, but I woke just the same. I’m so lonely. I wish I was the moon tonight.
Matthew Sweet’s “Someone to Pull the Trigger,” Cause there’s a hole in my heart getting bigger, and everything I’ll ever be I’ve been.
Lucy Dacus’ “Night Shift,” In five years I hope the songs feel like covers, dedicated to new lovers.

Could I go on & on? Yes. I could start going on and continue going on until the sun chars the other side of the world and comes back to us.**

Sure happy songs are great, and sometimes they make you want to wiggle your butt or shake your hips, but sad songs are where it’s at. Sad songs make me feel less alone. It’s like Jeff Tweedy said in his memoir:
. . . when we experience pain or trauma, we’re acutely aware that something is wrong. You want answers. “What is this? How do I get rid of this? Why is this happening to me? I don’t want this.” That’s why so much art, and music, in particular, becomes a great commiserating balm for pain. Joy doesn’t need to be audited. We’re just grateful to have had it at all. But pain, goddammit, we demand to know, Who’s responsible for this?”

Back to that guy I know and songs that are too sad. Too. Too? I didn’t think that was a thing and then Julien Baker came along with her very pain-filled, painful, and excellent record “Little Oblivions” and she said to me, “Jodi Chromey, soon to be Angrboda, bringer of sorrows, duchess of anguish & misery, hold my lemonade while I show you too sad.”

Hoo boy this record is a lot. Is it too sad? What would that even mean? Would too sad be when you find yourself singing the lyrics, I’ll wrap Orion’s belt around my neck, and kick the chair out mindlessly to yourself and then your heart stutters a little when your brain realizes what you’re saying and you think, ouch that is some dark stuff?

Maybe. Maybe it is too sad. But if it were, would I listen to record in its entirety nearly every single day? WOULD I? Could you do something like if something were too sad?

It is some rough going and beautiful in the way that makes you feel simultaneously seen at your deepest and darkest and kind of glad that it’s not you having to work through all that. But too sad? Unpossible. But damn, if Julien Baker didn’t come close.

Blue is my favorite color,
Jodi

P.S. When I was working on this letter, I listened to Lucinda Williams’ “Am I Too Blue” about 393 times, and then I realized that it comes right after “Passionate Kisses” on her self-titled record. And I decided if I were a 1-2 punch on any album of any time I would be these two songs right next to each other. Damn, Lucinda is one of the greatest of all time.

 
*Whenever I mention changing my name to Angrboda and becoming the Witch of Ironwood my friend EM hoots with laughter. Hoots. And through her gasps she says “is this before or after you become a glassblower?” And then I tell her to shut up and stop crushing all my dreams. I think I left the glassblowing dream offa these here pages, because I’m juvenile and crass and would never be able to resist the glory hole jokes, but yes for about a month there I was really bummed about not being a glassblower.
 
**stolen from the excellent and not really sad Soul Coughing song “Screenwriter’s Blues.”

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Hello Darling Ones,

I have never met Jeff Tweedy. He does not know of my existence. I don’t want you going into this thinking I’m gonna be dishing some dirty deets about the guy from Wilco, because I got none. Sadly. I will admit I’ve had an inordinate number of sex dreams about Jeff Tweedy. I don’t often have sex dreams about famous people, but if I do it’s Jeff Tweedy or Kirsten Dunst. I don’t know why. In my conscious life I don’t find either of them particularly sexy or attractive, but brains are weird.

My relationship with Jeff Tweedy’s bands has been long and contentious. It could have started in college when some dude was all, “Chromes, Uncle Tupelo, you’ll love it.” And I maybe I did? Or maybe that was the same kid who said “Under the Table & Dreaming is the best record ever” so I ignored him.

What I remember is that when I finally stumbled onto Wilco I fell hard and fast and love them for a very, very, very long time. I loved them so much I went to see them at the Walker all by myself. I loved them so much that I went and saw them at Midway even though I had long given up on their new records.

It is my belief that Wilco peaked at Summerteeth and every album after that has been a little more boring until I entirely stopped listening to their new music in 2009. I do, however, hold a special place in my heart for the song “Impossible Germany” because at that aforementioned Midway show Wolf and Heather both wandered off, in separate directions, to be nearer to the stage. When they returned, again separately, they both talked about how they cried during “Impossible Germany.” And if that ain’t fucking couple goals, I don’t know what is.

When Jeff Tweedy released a memoir in 2018 I noted it and vaguely added to my To Be Read list. I did not jump into it because dude rock memoirs tend to be really, very boring (See: Keith Richards, Pete Townshend, Lenny Kravitz, Bob Mould. . . I could go on). In fact, I would argue that a lot of rock & roll books written are men are boring because men seem to think “well-researched” is the same as interesting and as an avid reader I am here to tell you it is not. Just because you learned it Bob Mehr, author of The Replacements’ biography, does not mean you have to tell it to me.

I did not rush into the Tweedy memoir. However, earlier this year I read his book on songwriting and that thawed my ice robot heart a bit. It was funny and I really enjoyed his approach to creative work. So when I spied Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) on the Library app I had nothing to lose.

OH.MY.GOD.

This book has quickly skyrocketed into the Top 10 of all the rock & roll memoirs I’ve read. It’s right up there with Kristen Hersh’s Rat Girl and the much-beloved Heart memoir. This book rocked me so hard that I read it in e-form from the library, then I borrowed the audiobook from the library, and then I bought a copy for myself that should be here next week.

I love this book so much that it’s all I wanna talk about and I’m hella bummed that nobody wants to talk about it with me. I tried with EM, but she super hates Jeff Tweedy and so the conversation was mostly her saying, “I hate him, he’s a sanctimonious asshole” and me saying, “I know, but. . . ” And BFK doesn’t even know who Jeff Tweedy is.

This book is hilarious and interesting and heartbreaking. He’s catty about Jay Farrar and self-deprecating about himself. He’s sincere in talking about his addiction and so fucking right about the relationship of pain/suffering to creativity that I want to give him one-million high fives and right ons. I’m paraphrasing a bunch, but he thinks that yes writing about pain and creating art about pain is what brings us together to make sense of it, but you do not need to suffer or romanticize your suffering to be creative. What makes you creative is showing up every day and making shit.

If y’all could just go read chapter three and then come back and talk to me about it, that would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Jodi

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