The Hug
[We've already talked about why, for a creative person, travel equals fuel. This post and the previous one offer hard evidence, drawn from a recent trip to central Europe.] It was just a hug—a simple gesture of warmth and appreciation between two people who had met only a day before, and might never again. It was just a hug, I kept telling myself for the rest of that day and the days that followed, even as the echoes of that moment reverberated through my soul. The tour we booked began in Berlin, a city I had been curious about for...
Read MoreJohn Lennon and the Velvet Revolution
[We've already talked about why, for a creative person, travel equals fuel. The next couple of posts offer hard evidence of this, drawn from a recent trip to central Europe.] When John Lennon was killed on December 8, 1980, Czechoslovakia was still tightly in the grasp of the Soviet empire that had crushed a brief blossoming of freedom—the so-called “Prague Spring”—12 years before. Records by Lennon or his former band the Beatles—like any Western bourgeois influences—were banned by the Communist regime and only available on the black market, bought and sold among local youth in public parks while dodging the...
Read MoreThe Map
One of the interesting parts of the post-release stage of publishing a book is figuring out all over again how to talk about it. Not in press releases or web text or newsletters or e-mails—by the time the book comes out, that’s all long since been drafted. But that’s all written work; once you’re standing in front of people talking out loud about a book, new ways of describing its features and contours often appear spontaneously, bubbling up from the shadowy corners of the subconscious. That’s definitely happened with My Heart Sings the Harmony. Oh, I still talk about the...
Read MoreMy Heart Sings the Harmony
Twenty years in the making, and now it’s here. My Heart Sings the Harmony: Twenty Years of Writing About Music collects more than 100 album reviews, artist interviews, and essays, most of them first published on independent music review site The Daily Vault. The pages of My Heart Sings the Harmony are populated by artists ranging from the iconic—The Beatles, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder—to the niche—Ronnie Montrose, the Jayhawks, Fountains of Wayne, Les McCann, Yes—to the relatively unknown. The book includes a chapter plus devoted to explorations of highly regarded independent artists like Arms of Kismet,...
Read MoreWinner Winner Chicken Dinner
...and the three winners of our drawing for a signed copy of My Heart Sings The Harmony: Twenty Years of Writing About Music are: Pete Mancini Jo-Ann Pendolino Aubree Summers Congratulations to each of you and thanks to all of our newsletter subscribers! As we edge closer to Publication Day (that would be next Monday, March 21, for those of you playing along at home), here’s one last advance peek, this time at the jacket quotes you'll find on the back side of the print edition of My Heart Sings the Harmony... “Jason Warburg writes with an unreasonable amount of...
Read MoreA Peek Inside
Last time we unveiled the cover to My Heart Sings the Harmony: Twenty Years of Writing About Music; this time we’re offering a peek inside. Beyond the framing introduction and conclusion, My Heart Sings the Harmony is made up of nine chapters. Chapters 2-8 feature around a dozen reviews each, broken down by both theme and era (Classics, Crushes, Rants, Discoveries, etc.), with an artist interview or two finishing off each chapter. Chapter 9 is the closing catch-all, featuring concert, book, and film reviews and an essay ("Remembering Ronnie Montrose"). Chapter 1 is where a substantial portion of the new...
Read MoreCover Me*
*Bad puns were promised, and we aim to deliver. Which means there’s really no good reason not to title the blog post in which we reveal the cover of the new book after a disco song written by Bruce Springsteen. (No, seriously, he wrote “Cover Me” for Donna Summer, before his manager convinced him it was too good to give away.) Anyhow. Where were we? Ah. Books are beautiful objects, offering infinite variations on the same basic form, each one unique, with its own character and quirks, and even its own scent. Much like the cover of an album, the...
Read MoreCast of Characters
Every written work—whether fiction or non-fiction—has a cast of characters. They are the beings whose world you explore through the narrative, whose stumbles and triumphs and detours and exploits the author attempts to bring to life before your mind’s eye. The difference with non-fiction is that your cast of characters is real. They exist beyond the page and in some cases have been written about many times before. Either way, the author’s challenge is to put you in the room with their subject matter and let you experience that person’s presence, their persona, their—in this particular case—art. Believe in Me...
Read MoreThe Best Things in Life are Free
If it’s true that the best things in life are free—and you’ll find no argument here—then what could possibly top a free book? Oh fine, there might be a few things. But a free book is still nice. The book that I’m focused on just now—My Heart Sings the Harmony: Twenty Years of Writing About Music—comes out on March 21. It’s non-fiction this time, a “love letter to popular music” that collects more than 100 reviews, interviews and essays spanning genres from rock and roll to jazz to country to progressive rock. Visiting this blog is a great way to...
Read MoreA Love Letter to Rock and Roll
What does music mean to you? Is it entertainment? Background noise? Or a consuming passion and constant presence in your life for as long as you can remember? For me, the answer has never been in doubt. Collecting more than 100 album reviews, artist interviews, and essays, My Heart Sings the Harmony is my love letter to rock and roll—and progressive rock, and power pop, and jazz, and Americana, and, truth be told, popular music itself. If you’ve ever experienced a moment when it felt like music changed your life, this book was written for you. ...
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