aka why I missed Coco Rosie (thank you though Aaron!!!)
Last year I saw Jeff Chang and Toure of Rollingstone speak at Powell's when they stopped into Portland on a joint book tour to promote Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop and Never Drank the Kool-Aid respectively. Here's a pic.
Later in the year I saw Aesop Rock do a signing of his book at Upper Playground.
So how does me going to hear Steven Hall speak about his book The Raw Shark Texts fit into music, no one asks? Well, I'm still going to tell you.
I wouldn't have heard of the book had it not been for a post on Largehearted Boy of Steven's musical playlist to his book.
And then, when I went searching for info about it, I wondered how was it possible that I hadn't?
It is EVERYWHERE!
New York Times did a huge feature on it, Nicole Kidman is in love with it, 31(!) different foreign rights have been sold, as well as the film rights - to Channel 4 films, and the guy who wrote the Full Monty is writing the script.
The general jist of the book is that it's an adventure story, a love story, a mystery - basically it's everything to everyone. The main character has no idea who he is and in the midst of it all, he's being chased by a shark -- in his mind!
But wait! - it's not as out there as you'd think. Apparently there are very few descriptions of the shark, and the idea behind it is really smart. He got the idea for that from the way water works it's way into our speech - "flow of conversation", "stream of conscious". . .
It was a fairly small crowd. He read three passages. He said Portland reminded him of Manchester.
I asked him how, and he said the greenery and rain.
"Good - I was scared you were going to say it was like Shameless."
and we laughed. Apparently it's one of his favorite shows. It doesn't air over here to my knowledge, but seriously it is the most funny depressing show EVER! WATCH IT however possible! That is what living in the East End of Glasgow is really like.
When he was taking questions I asked him about his current project(s) and what he was listening to. There was only one track of yet, which was the Dandy Warhol's ACDC cover and he had no idea they were from here until I told him. He promised the crowd he wasn't trying to suck up by having them be the only band he name-dropped. He said he was open to suggestions.
So I probably would have made it in time for Coco Rosie, but still missed Busdriver had we not talked about music again after he was done signing.
He wanted me to write my suggestions down in his copy of his book from which he reads and where he has people write down the suggestions he wants to remember no matter their topic. I had this whole list fully realized in my head, but it all disappeared when I found out HE HAS NEVER HEARD OF TV ON THE RADIO! I mean seriously - how do you react to a person like that? It was a little overwhelming haha
And he's a BIG fan of David Shrigley, but didn't know that he did music too (alongside his drawings), so I recommended 'The Jist' and clued him into the fact that David has an album coming out on Tomlab later in the year (on which Grizzly Bear are guesting).
He hadn't heard of Patrick Wolf either, which I find near impossible as his latest album was everywhere upon release in the UK - I think even at Tesco's and he was on the Charlotte Church show too (though Steven has been away from the telly I assume due to his nonstop book tour).
So here is my list. It's not what I was originally envisioning.
(Click to enlarge. Upper right hand corner of left page)
When we got to the TV on the Radio thing, I told him I had forgotten everything because of his lack of Young Liars knowledge (and eveything else) so he told me to send him a message on myspace a little bit later once I was able to recollect it - that he was really excited for it. Then we talked a little Stuart Murdoch.
'True Affection' The Blow MP3
I'm definitely going to pass along the Blow's 'True Affection' - I think the pop of song would really suit his tastes, but especially the water references :)
Interesting item: The book's title is actually a pun off of the ink blot test, a lot in the sense that those ink blots can be interpreted in so many ways, as can his book.
PS Largehearted Boy also has a playlist from crazy author Ned Vizzini as well as him interviewing Harlem Shakes. I finished his book Be More Chill about a week and half ago. No one seems to have his collection of essays in stock.
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