Been busy catching up on filing (taxes, etc.), reading, and rocking out. Books I’ve been reading: Little Vampire by Joann Sfar, Garage Band by Gipi, Steady Beat by Rivkah, and Love is a Mixed Tape by Rob Sheffield, to name a few.
I also got to see Skum City, a fun new punk band. Yay! Also drawing and writing away ^_^
Ok, maybe the greatest cat photo book of all time. John Lund’s Life According to Maude: A Photo Expose. This enjoyably campy photo book follows a sassy cat who likes to wear vintage hats, hang out at the salon, eat chocolates, drink cocktails, and spend days at pastry shops and cafes. My kind of kitty! Buy it! It’s genius!
I know, another Marc Spitz book. I must admit the cover designs of his books really grabbed my attention and the stories are great too. This one is about a middle-aged drummer whose high school band reforms and is catapulted into instant fame via a teenage blogger. It follows their rise and fall in the music industry. Just great. His music background as a Spin journalist really informs his writing and it’s all pretty believeable considering how popular blogs and bloggers are now.
I absoluteley adore this book! I’m definitely in the camp that is more of an Aline fan than an R. Crumb fan. This hefty book is loaded with amazing comics, paintings, photos, and autobiographical musings by Aline. I thought it was beautiful, fascinating, and juicy. Highly recommended.
This book is a good follow-up to Hairstyles of the Damned since both cover the story of awkward, punk, male adolescence. Though this one covers it in flashback. The main character is a burnt-out music writer. Joe Green is an ex-junkie who floats through his NYC life in a drunken haze reviewing cds and sleeping with random girls. Suddenly he falls in love with a girl at his magazine and finds she shares a passion for The Smiths. They were the band that saved his life in high school and broke his heart when they disbanded. Soon Miki and Joe are on a personal and professional mission to track down The Smiths and convince them to reform. They represent a return to purity for Joe, who has long felt lost and dirty. Since the author Marc Spitz is a journalist for Spin, it’s obvious he writes what he knows. I liked it!
I decided to move my long-running rock and roll book club over from blogger to here. Yay! In case you don’t know what it is, it’s basically a log of what I read with short comments. I only write up books I like, so here goes! Check out Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno. It’s about an adolescent boy in the suburbs drifting through the suburban punk, metal, and hardcore scenes in the early ’90s. He suffers a lot of those teenage maladies, he’s in love with his best friend, his parents are divorcing, he is a spazz. I liked the touches of his poems, mix tapes, and other cool stuff. It really reminded me of my teen years in a good way.
