Hi Darling Ones,

I started this list with intentions of posting it the day after The Top 10 Nonfiction Music Books, but I am fickle and easily distracted.

This morning TimeHop reminded me that twelve years ago I talked to Arthur Phillips about The ‘Mats after his phenomenal reading at the library. You’ll see why this jogged my memory if you read the list below.

1. Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I love this book. I think I’ve read and/or listened to it three or four times? The audiobook is read by an all-star cast including Judy Greer and is fantastic. It’s a story of a band that falls apart at the pinnacle of their fame with so many shades of Fleetwood Mac the book could have been called Rumors. It’s so good. The writing is phenomenal and Daisy Jones has so much to say about sexism and music. I can quote her from memory, “I have absolutely no interest in being somebody else’s muse. I am not a muse. I am the somebody. End of fucking story.”

2. The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton

I also love this book a whole bunch. The only reason this gets the #2 spot is that ‘Daisy Jones’ has more music, which is the true joy of my heart. This one is more political, with the main character, Opal, facing a lot of sexism and racism. The story is fantastic and told wonderfully through interviews, newspaper stories, journals, and social media. It’s a story told in the way we learn things today and is utterly unforgettable.

3. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

This a collection of loosely connected stories and not all of them deal with music or the music industry, but Egan is a genius and her books are (for the most part) amazing. You should read this one even if you don’t like music.

4. On the Come Up by Angie Thomas

I’ve read all of Angie Thomas’ novels and they are very, very good, but this one about a young female rapper is my favorite. Rap and Hip-Hop aren’t really my jam (I appreciate it, but it’s not music that clicks into my soul like a LEGO), but the way Bri, the main character, talks about the music that stirs her and how she writes it is captivating, and how she manages to be creative in the dire circumstances she’s living through makes for good reading.

5. Scott Pilgrim Series by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Is this cheating, putting a six-book graphic novel series on the list? Yes, I do not care. There’s so much music in the series, the books are drenched in it. Plus, Ramona Flowers’ favorite band is The Replacements. COME ON!

6. The Song is You by Arthur Phillips

This is charming book about a dude stuck in life who has a chance sort of meet-up with a rock singer and they have an increasingly interesting will they/won’t they courtship that takes place through songs and phone calls and emails. Like so many of us Julian uses music to make sense of his life, and when he reaches a low-point, when he feels sexually, emotionally, and creatively dead, it is music that resuscitates him.

7. The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni

Sebastian is a weirdo home-schooled kid who lives with his grandma in a geodesic dome in a small Iowa town. Her health is precarious and they have a falling out that leads him to stay with a kid he met at the hospital. Jared, is a chain-smoking heart transplant kid whose family is on the verge of falling apart. Together they start a band, of course, and Jared schools him on all the ways of the word from Pop Tarts to The Ramones. This one is drive by Sebastian’s unique and wonderful voice.

8. Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan

Music infiltrates this book, providing a backbeat for all of Nick and Norah’s adventure and the one thing that initially draws them together. Wilco, The Cure, Michael Jackson, the Beatles, Patti Smith, Belle & Sebastian, Green Day, the Clash, Parliament . . . those are just a few of the bands mentioned in the book (the few I can rattle off the top of my head). Anyone who has ever had that spark of attraction and excitement that comes with being musically connected with someone will love this book.

9. Hopeless Savages: Greatest Hits 2000-2010 by Jen Van Meter, et al

This is another graphic novel series about what happens when punk rock stars fall in love, grow up, and raise a family. It’s hilarious and you should read it (I’m getting kinda hangry here so I’m being short).

10. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

I almost didn’t include this on the list. I almost went with Juliet, Naked just to be subversive. I recently tried to re-read High Fidelity after re-watching the amazing and criminally-underrated Hulu series based on the book. The re-read didn’t go well. I stopped after I made the cringey, grimace, “oh no, this has not aged well” face twice within a few pages (gross racist steroetypes, use of the r-word). I just didn’t have the energy for the constant mental gymnastics it takes to deal with how insensitive we were to non-white, non-cis, non-hetero people in the 90s.

I think the affection for this book stems more from the phenomenal John Cusack movie than from the actual book. I love the movie. I’ve only ever been so-so on the book. However, I cannot deny its place as the touchstone for rock & roll novels (even though I kind of want to and maybe would if I wasn’t really, really hungry right now).

Time for dinner,
Jodi

P.S. I’ve been listening to The Marfa Tapes record by Jack Ingram, Miranda Lambert, and Jon Randall, all damn day. It’s so good.

The post The COVID Diaries: Top 10 Fiction Music Books 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

The post The COVID Diaries: Top 10 Nonfiction Music Books appeared first on I Will Dare.

Part I
The Tea Ladies are a trio of women I meet up with every few months at the Tea Source in EP to talk about books and TV shows and politics. I don’t like tea. Neither does one of the Amys. However, we do like making jokes about how stupid tea is and the other Amy and Anne love tea, so it’s worth it.

When I first met Anne she said, and I quote (to the best of memory), “If I don’t ever have to buy another physical book I’ll be happy.” She was done with adding books to her house. I think I might have been aghast. I might have even looked at her askance. Could you even imagine such a thing?

I could not.

Until I got a Kindle and decide, that she was right. Or kind of right. I read close to 100 books last year, a majority of them from the library. And boy, howdy does that make me happy. I have, by my best estimate, 99 skajillion books. I do not need more books. In fact, a couple weekends ago I got a new apparatus to use as a nightstand. As I was cleaning out the area where the old night stand was (a $7 IKEA table purchased in 2003) I moved two towering, furry with dust stacks of books.

It was gross. I dragged about six of them into the loft because they were Rock & Roll memoirs and I have a thing for those. I tossed about 8 of the books onto a bookcase I have in my bedroom, and then I put roughly a dozen or so books into a box that will get donated at some point in my life.

Those books had been sitting there for ages (2015 to be exact). Feel free to judge my housekeeping. I am.

Part II
When I first read the blurb for Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reed I made a frowny face.

Everyone knows DAISY JONES & THE SIX, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.

AHEM, world, I wrote a book about a band that broke up at the height of their popularity. ME. ME. MY BOOK. HOW DARE publishing publish a book by an author with a bunch of books, who had already fought her way into the game. HOW DARE THEY?

Still, it wasn’t quite as bad when I read the blurb for Wonderland by Stacey D’Erasmo. That sent me to the fainting couch with a mean case of the weeping fantods.

Anna Brundage is a rock star. She is tall and sexy, with a powerhouse voice and an unforgettable mane of red hair. She came out of nowhere, an immediate indie sensation. And then, life happened.

AHEM. My book. MINE. Was about a tall rock star with hair. MINE. ME.

I was bereft about Wonderland until my very smart & kind friend Donna pointed out that it wasn’t my book and I should be happy publishing was interested in books about women rockstars.

Part III
I loved Daisy Jones & The Six. I love it so much I bought a copy while I was still reading the library’s copy. I just knew I had to own this and keep it near me always.

There are not enough heart-eye emojis or glitter covered unicorns to amply depict my love for this book. I love it like I love the Heart memoir, wildly and with a passion that defies explanation.

The story is told in interview format with bandmates, producers, and friends. It discussed songwriting and sexism and love and stupidity. It’s funny and fun and moving even if the end is kind of . I love this book even with its faults.

But what I love most about this book. About this rock & roll novel that is not mine? It makes me want to dig mine out and try again, which is something I have not felt like doing, really despite my saying it and trying to make it sound true, for years.

The post Daisy Jones & The Six: A Book Review in Three Parts appeared first on I Will Dare.

When I was a kid, I read a lot of memoirs by actresses (or the daughters of actresses) from the forties and fifties, Hollywood’s golden era or some such bullshit. I don’t know. What I do know is that I read roughly 50% of all the books my mom ever brought into our house. She had two interests: memoirs and true crime.

True crime was not my jam, I left that for Sister #2. However, I ate up every memoir or biography ever darken our door: Frances Farmer, Katherine Hepburn, Shelley Winters, Lauren Bacall, Christina Crawford & BD Davis (the daughters of Joan and Bette), Priscilla Presley, and Lucille Ball.

Heh. I just noticed as I was typing these are all books by and about women. I bet that wasn’t intentional on my mom’s part, but I dig it in hindsight.

I like to think my affinity for memoirs is an inherited trait. Where my mom is all actresses, I am all rockstars.

The first few rockstar memoirs I picked up were casually because one was written by Paul Westerberg’s wife (Laurie Lindeen) and the other my friend Wolfdogg wouldn’t shut up about (Jen Trynin). Then I decided to write a book about a female rockstar and reading the memoirs became research.

Now, I can’t get enough of them. I want to read them all. Right now I’m in the midst of Jewel’s memoir, Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story and I have Grace Jones’ I’ll Never Write My Memoirs sitting on my coffee table waiting for me to finish my bookclub book.

Also, I am desperately hoping someone will send me the new Patti Smith & Carrie Brownstein memoirs.

Last week I finished Chrissie Hynde’s Reckless: My Life as a Pretender and was crushed by disappointment. While tweeting about it, my pal Tito asked about my favorite memoirs written by female rockstars.

So, here goes.

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

This one is my absolute favorite. It’s got a healthy dose of pre-music biography, enough dirt dished to make you feel like an insider, but not so much that you feel like there was revenge sought or something. Also, Ann & Nancy Wilson kick fucking ass. What I love so much is that it’s fun and sad. So many of the memoirs I’ve read by musicians seem to miss out on all the joy that is rock & roll. The Wilson sisters nailed it.

Rat Girl by Kirsten Hersh

This one always surprises people by how highly it ranks. I was never a huge fan of Throwing Muses, but I had a healthy appreciation of the band and Hersh’s solo music. However, I love this book. Hersh is an excellent writer and this memoir is based on one year of her life. It’s a big year. The year she was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, her band landed a record contract, and she got pregnant. But what makes this book so great and ranks it so highly is that Hersh writes about music in a way I’ve never read before (and haven’t since). That alone is worth the price of the book.

Between a Heart and a Rock Place by Pat Benatar

What makes Benatar’s memoir so great despite it’s really slow beginning, is that she’s still pretty pissed at the shoddy treatment she got as a woman in music, and she’s not afraid to tell you exactly jus what went down at the music label. It’s one of those books where the author confirms all the nasty suspicions you had about how women were treated in rock & roll. That’s what makes this one such a good’un. Also, she talk a lot about all her videos, which was one of the best things about growing up in the 80s.

Just Kids by Patti Smith

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel a little bad ranking this one fourth, but let’s be honest — this one is more about her friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe than it is about her life in music. Still, this a beautiful, beautiful book. It’s been years since I read it and I still remember the scene where she and Mapplethorpe are walking down some New York street and hear her song on the radio and he says something like “Patti, I can’t believe you got famous before me.” So great.

Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon

The first chapter of this is stunningly beautiful. Gordon’s hurt at her husband Thurston Moore’s betrayal is palpable and that makes for some exiting reading. She makes you feel her pain. After that the book devolves into some humorless arty namedropping, gets good again when she talks about 90s tastemakers and her pals on the Lollapalooza circuit, but then gets boring again when you hear about the making of every Sonic Youth album. I dunno. This one is a toughie. It’s missing a lot of the joy and fun of music, and ends really weirdly, but Gordon is smart and interesting.

Lips Unsealed by Belinda Carlisle

This one comes off as more addiction memoir, than music memoir, which is kind of a bummer, but still it’s Belinda Carlisle and The Go-Gos and that Sunset Strip scene that spawned so many bands (she used to hang in the same parking lot as Joan Jett, which is kind of big deal if you’re the kind of music nerd I am). She does a heathy amount of dishing and it’s kind of fun. When I was reading this book I remember talking to Sister #2 how much it bummed me out that Carlisle had so many body image issues. I mean, it’s totally understandable, but for us growing up in suburbia in the 80s, Carlisle was the most beautiful girl on the planet. She was who we wanted to look like –more than Madonna or Cyndi Lauper or anyone.

Composed by Rosanne Cash

Cash’s memoir is a little tepid and it makes me feel shitty to say this, but it ranks so high because of the beautiful way she writes about her parents and June Carter.

Reckless: My Life as a Pretender by Chrissie Hynde

Bleh. I have tons of issues with this one that I’m still puzzling out. The only reason it beats out the last three is because it included this line “I ran into my pal Joan Jett who was supporting The Kinks in Philadelphia.”

Petal Pusher: A Rock and Roll Cinderella Story by Laurie Lindeen

I liked this one a lot more once I saw Lindeen read from it. Though I have no idea, I suspect she was in a kind of dicey situation writing about her life at a time where she might not have been able to be as emotionally honest as it takes for a good memoir. This one does some really shady point-of-view changes at highly-emotional times which felt like a ripoff. However, there’s a lot of familiar names in this one and that was a lot of fun to read.

Everything I’m Cracked Up to Be: A Rock & Roll Fairy Tale by Jen Trynin

This is the one Wolfdogg couldn’t shut up about. What I remember about it is that there was a lot of talk about recoupable debt (zzzzzzzz) and how Alanis Morissette’s (NOW there’s a memoir I would die to read) popularity ruined everything for other alt-pop women of the mid-90s.

Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir by Linda Ronstadt

This one was straight up boring. Also, Ronstadt is responsible for The Eagles (they all met while members of her backup band).

The post Ranking All the Female Rockstar Memoirs I’ve Read Thus Far appeared first on I Will Dare.

As I type this sentence it is 5:55 a.m. I’ve been awake for 55 minutes, out of bed for 25 of those. In an odd bit of coincidence or perhaps it was foreshadowing, Mr. Coffee was already starting his happy bubbling sounds when I stumbled down the stairs in the dark of this pre-dawn morning.

I thought I set Mr. Coffee to start at 6:30 a.m. last night before I turned in at an unusually early hour. This would give it and me a full fifteen-minutes of togetherness before The Tibbles’ 6:45 a.m. arrival.

It’s spring break now, I guess, so I’m on Tibble patrol for the next week.

Of course this is no excuse to be awake at 5 a.m. None at all, but here I am typing in the dark at 6 a.m. I’ve already had a donut and half a cup of coffee. Also, The Current is playing Billy Bragg’s “A New England,” which is in my Top 5 all-time favorite Billy Bragg songs. His voice does things to me in a manner that I cannot share on a family-values blog like I Will Dare.

Just kidding, his voice totally turns me on in ways I don’t wholly understand. I think it’s the accent plus the politics and the guitar. I get turned on by weird stuff.

I had to google what time the sun rose, because I don’t know these kinds of things. I got about an hour to daylight. 40 minutes until imminent Tibbling.

Yesterday I tried Taco Bell’s new Waffle Taco. It was a heaping helping of spongy, greasy grossness topped with bland sausage. The only thing worse than bland sausage is dirty-feet-tasting sausage that sometimes happens on frozen pizzas. Never get a plain sausage frozen pizza because they always taste like dirty feet. Always. I’m in my forties now. I know this stuff. Trust me.

The real story of this week was not the Waffle Taco, but the sheer amount of bullshit I have spewed in the name of The Current’s March Madness. For reasons I cannot explain I have decided to be ridiculously invested in this stupid (and stupidly fun) Rock & Roll Tournament. This means I have spent a majority of my week arguing about Rock & Roll on the Twitters. People, it has been the most fun I’ve had on the Internet in ages. I like to argue in general. I like to argue about Rock & Roll specifically.

My bracket is irretrievably busted because roughly half of The Current’s voters are deaf, no-taste morons. The Talking Heads over Elvis Costello? And, the biggest affront to the entirety of Rock & Roll: Queen over The Rolling Stones. QUEEN OVER THE STONES! If I weren’t an angry hermit I would get some matches and light shit on fire.

Of course, I have to save some of this outrage for laster this morning when my much-beloved Replacements go up against my most-hated U2. My friend Wolfdogg has already warned the Internet that if this vote doesn’t go my way I will burn some shit to the ground.

I am passionate if nothing else.

(also, my alarm clock just went off).

P.S. 24 reasons I would actually marry Prince Harry. I approve of all these.

The post Pre-Dawn Stream-of-Consciousness Ramblings, Mostly About Rock & Roll appeared first on I Will Dare.