evangelism, turning on, and compression
Go go oxford comma!
Ahem. Anyway. So! I’ve always been somewhat of an evangelist – but not in the religious sense (although I did go through a phase that could be said to approximate that O.o). I’ve always been maybe a little too motivated (at least internally) about sharing the music & books that I enjoy with others. Not so much TV & movies – I just don’t care enough. But music and books… those are two things I’m way into.
I’m sure some of it is born of the standard loner desire to have others to actually enjoy your interests with – people you can shoot the shit with about your favorite bands or books and know they won’t be out in the cold. But, there’s at least a touch of genuine altruism in there. If I really enjoy something, I want to share that in the hopes that it will make someone’s day the way it made mine.
NOW. I couldn’t tell you what the exact breakdown is between the two, but I’d wager it’s pretty close to 50/50. If you’ve known me long I’ve probably tried to turn you on to some band or another, or maybe even a book. The funny thing is, for all the time invested, I don’t think I’ve succeeded much. I’ve had the most headway with music I guess, but I can only think of one or two instances where someone has read a book on my recommendation. I’m not sure that says anything about me so much as I tend to hang out with people with very different reading tastes than myself. Which does get lonely I admit, moreso than differing tastes in music.
So maybe that’s why I still blog about books and music (and anything I can’t find someone to yak about with really)? Talking to the air beats talking to nothing, or so I’ve heard.
In light of all this, I decided to make a nice, compressed list of things that I enjoy recommending to folks, just in case anyone ever happens to be open to that kind of thing. Not complete of course, but a nice cross-section.
Some of these are my “favorite” things to one degree or another, others are just things that I enjoy talking about, or think deserve more exposure.
Books:
The Illuminatus Trilogy – The only book(s) I still re-read every 18 months or so. Probably too weird for most people. If you like weirdness, drugs, sex and a little violence and more weirdness…
The Dune series, particularly if you can make it through to my favorites – books 4-6: God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse Dune. Most sci-fi fans read Dune, but for some reason they stop there. This baffles me as Dune, really, is not even the strongest book of the series (for me). It’s the most simple, direct and “sci-fi-ish” though, so maybe that’s what does it. After that, shit just goes off the rails in a way that a lot of casual sci-fi fans might miss, or be pushed back by.
Atlas Shrugged & The Fountainhead – The closest thing to classics I will touch. No, I don’t agree completely with Rand’s Objectivism, but I still find the books enjoyable reading and great conversational fodder (when I’ve recently read them, I forget things FAST).
Night’s Dawn trilogy – Absolutely brilliant “hard” sci-fi. The best written in the last 20 years (ie about the bounds of my sci-fi reading lifetime) IMHO. Just, just brilliant really. Lot’s of pages, lots of text, so you’ve got to have a love of the long works to enjoy this but man is it worth it. I’ve re-read these a few times as well. I’ve bought the entire series maybe 3 times as I’ve moved and lost (then re-found) older copies and even given the entire series to a friend once. He has not yet read it. Some “science” hero he is ;p.
Mistborn trilogy – One of the best new fantasy series that I’ve had the pleasure of stumbling across. A far cry from the simplistic lands of Tolkien this series asks a couple of interesting questions: What if the bad guy (Sauron analogue) won? What if the bad guy winning wasn’t the worst that could have happened?
Serious fantasy fans already have their minds made up about the Wheel of Time series and the Song of Fire and Ice. I say both are must reads, but the latter may appeal more to non fantasy fans.
Bands:
Starflyer 59 – The old stuff at least, I can’t really get behind the last 3 or 4 albums. If you’re reading this post you probably know me (?sadly? in 6 years of blogging I haven’t picked up any non friend/family readers), so you’ve probably heard of and heard these guys. I’m just putting them here (and at the top) for the sake of completion and history – them being the first band that made me want to share music with others and all.
Gaslight Anthem – Awesome (but with room to grow) modern rock and roll. I’ve extolled their virtues on a number of blog posts, so if you haven’t checked them out by now (at least to decide that you don’t like them), you probably don’t think very highly of my opinion, at minimum.
Airborne Toxic Event - Another band I’ve pushed a bit on this blog. A little like the National in genre/sound, but a bit more energetic.
The Crush & Death on Wednesday – two long defunct bands, both of which I really loved and tried to share with others. The Crush is alt/punk/rock in the grand Twin Cities tradition and DoW is rockabilly/rock/punk a la nothing quite like it at the time. Both bands that I think had enough commercial appeal to blow up (but never did), and enough chops and genuine flavor to appeal to the rest.
Elvis Costello – the early stuff mostly. Hard to try and describe a guy who’s worn so damn many shirts. His first 4 albums are where most of it is at, although there are many, many later tracks that I love as well – I just don’t find the complete albums as enjoyable to listen to. Here’s a video of one of my favorite EC classics. The video is from the year I was born…. which is crazy.
Joe Christmas – another favorite dead band of mine that never really got any kind of recognition. Sadly, the singer’s later bands well, sucked.
Hum – Yep, another dead band. Post shoegazer droney wall of distortiony awesomesauce. Albums 3 & 4 should be on any alt music aficionado’s shelf (or iPod) IMHO.
Morphine – What is it with dead bands? Well, not many had a dude playing 2 saxs at once and another on two string slide bass. Don’t let that scare you off though :). The saxophonist (?) is only playing one in the vid below, sorry. Ahh, found one, second vid has the double sax action.
The National – NOT a dead band! A band a certain Science Hero turned me on to that is chock full of awesome nuggets. Not even sure what to call the sound other than some flavor of indie.
Tiger Army – Pyschobilly! Like, faster rockabilly basically. Except they’ve got a groovy little goth theme going on with songs about beautiful death and violence and the like. Here’s one of their mellower songs:
TV on the Radio – Another not dead band. One of the pinnacles of alt/indie “rock” at the moment I think, quality and creativeness wise. Past Arcade Fire imho, by quite a bit. Not that there’s any reason to compare the two BUT I keep hearing references (still) to AF as “it”. TVotR is also “it”. QUITE.
Here’s an older one of theirs:
Let’s call that enough for this post. Hopefully this was interesting to someone. If you’ve got the time, and you haven’t already formed an opinion about a given band, at least check out the various song videos. Good for background noise if nothing else.
Love Starflyer 59′s sound – but I already knew that but it was still from an introduction from at least your household.
Josh loved the book you bought him – went through it so fast I didn’t realize he’d read it. Told him not to tell me about it so he doesn’t spoil it, which he doesn’t mean to do but if he starts talking…
I think the biggest compliment I could give you is that I’ve never been into pulp or anything related to sci-fi/fantasy that isn’t literary magic realism or Orson Scott Card – and I love your book. So, you might not feel you’ve had success turning people onto things you like, but you definitely turned me on to things you MAKE. Which I think is a million times better. ;)
Fun, for some reason threaded comments don’t work.
I’ll take both those as compliments. Tell Josh there are two more books in that series…. it only gets better :).
And I doubt my volume of production can in any way compete with the volume of cool things I find… so, there is that.
Ahhh it was my theme that blocked the threading. Of course, now I have to figure out how to get rid of that annoying latin box on the main page.
Like the new look! Volume of production doesn’t matter if it outweighs by sentimental value. There’s an equation for that, I’m sure.
Until now, you haven’t persuaded me to read any books (we were reading WoT at the same time back in CA), but I happen to have read all but two of the books/series you have listed. I have heard of the The Song of Fire and Ice, but never read it…I will now! Never heard of the Illuminatus; your description scares me a bit, but I’ll check it out.
I liked Rand. I think I’ve read all of her books. I especially like The Fountainhead and Anthem. If you like philosophy mixed with story, try Camus, The Stranger. Weird, dark, but makes you think. Anyway, the Fire and Ice series is next on my list. So, that should get you some extra conversion points, huh? Another soul saved!
As far as music goes: I’ve heard of Starflyer (from back in the Paso days). The rest of the bands…
Hmmm, what can I do with these points. You know… you might like Illuminatus, especially just as a thought exercise. Then again, the 60s hippy vibe might scare a seasoned dead-head like you off…
Have you read the Night’s Dawn stuff?
Also music-wise… what are you into these days? The Dead still? Without knowing anything other than that you are/were a musician… you might like Morphine, Hum or Airborne Toxic Event.
I didn’t like Anthem at all, IIRC. I seem to recall it being way to transparent or something.
I remember reading the Stranger in high school I think. It wasn’t one of the worst things we had to read.
I like any music that sounds good…Dead included.
I walked into the book store last night, planning to buy the Song of Fire and Ice series. I was looking forward to a getting into a new, recommended fantasy series. The series title had a familiar sound to it, which is good because that at least means I’m not completely braindead. The series is by George R.R. Martin…I’ve already read it, but I didn’t associate the series title with the books. I only thought of them in terms of book titles. Still waiting for the next one to come out. I think Feast for Crows was the last one I read.
I like Martin. His system of magic is pretty sublte. If not subtle, at least he isn’t gratuitous with his magic. I like that he allows his protagonists to experience some pretty harsh treatment (they don’t always win).
I just finished the mistborn series. It was very good. Not that I could do it any better, but I felt that the characters in the Mistborn books were a little shallow. Sazed and Vin (and maybe Elend, and Kelsier while he was around) developed ok, but I never got the “real” feeling of knowing the characters. Example: Spook and Ham turned out have major roles, but I wasn’t able to fulling accept Spook’s growing into a leader of nation’s role. Anyway, it was a great series. My critique isn’t meant to be harsh. In fact, I’m probably just trying to compare Sanderson to Jordan, subconsciously. No one can develop characters like Jordan (IMO).
All that said, I really liked Sanderson’s creativity in both Elantris and Mistborn…the magic is very unique and pretty logical (as far as magic goes, that is).
Maybe I’ll pick up Night’s Dawn now.
I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever picked up something I had on accident. I’m sure it must have happened at one point….
Yeah Sanderson’s strong suite is systems of magic – if you read some of the (older?) interviews with him, he’ll mention that that is one of the things he likes doing and puts a lot of effort into. Each series has a totally different system. He’s got 2 standalone fantasies you should check out – Warbreaker (still in HC unfortunately) and Elantris – both nice done in ones with wacky magic systems (especially Warbreaker, at times it was a bit much for me, but it was still very interesting and consistent).
Yeah, I think comparing any fantasy characters to Jordan’s is risky, especially given the volume of space Jordan had to work on them. Martin’s are very good though, maybe as good. I found Sanderson’s to be very good, perhaps shy of excellent but not in any way that detracted from my reading. Ham definitely could have used more, but I think he was still pretty peripheral. i suspect the thing with Spook was somewhat intentional in the lieu of ‘nobody rising out of the shadows’ type thing. Although wait, he did have a good amount of space in book 3 didn’t he?
I’ve read Elantris, but not Warbreaker…I’ll pick it up next week. Again, I enjoyed Sanderson (his books) very much. I agree with the Ham and Spook analysis. Yes, Spook did get a lot of attention in book 3 (a whole lot considering the meager role he played in the previous two books). It just seemed a day late and a dollar short. Here’s the thing. It’s obvious that Sanderson knew the ending of the series from the first book, because he was very clever about the prophecies peppered throughout every chapter, and he does really well with tying everything together for the main characters (for the most part…i.e., the bronze earring; I didn’t see that coming at all until the last book). Why, then, did he only allow spook to show his timid side in the first two books? I liked how he developed Sazed as the humble warrior/leader who didn’t consider himself as such, but he regularly responded to crises by stepping up and doing the right thing. To me, it seemed like spook all-of-a-sudden starts displaying the capacity for leadership. I think it would have been better is Sanderson had allowed Spook to display small glimmers of leadership ability in the first two books; it would have been a better sell for the prominent role he was to play in book three. Indeed, ultimately, the reader is left to assume that Spook will be a king.
Anyway, I hate to sound like I think he did a poor job of it. I don’t. It’s just a critique of a minor, subtle character development weakness. It’s probably only glaring to me because Sanderson did such a good job in other regards.
I agree completely about Martin. He does a really great job with character development. Maybe as good as Jordan. Maybe you’re right about the space for character development. Both Jordan and Martin require huge tomes to inch their stories along (they were writing spirits. Jordan recommended Martin for readers, back in the day). I don’t mean that in a derogatory way. For me, a good fantasy/sci novel must be logical (you know what I mean). And there has to be continuity with plot, prophesy, etc. Those things being equal, character development is “the” quality that makes the difference between a good book and a great book…one that you can really experience and step outside reality for a few hours.
Ok, that’s all. Hopefully you were able to sift through all that, because I wasn’t motivated to proof what I wrote; I never am. But I’m not a writer, either.
*strolls in hellsa late*
I read The Fountainhead! I did! But… I’m not really a fan. And I want to read the Mistborn series.
Because of you I lurve SF59, Tiger Army, Pixies, THE REPLACEMENTS!So many bands that I can’t even count. I can’t get behind The Pogues or Flogging Molly (or Hold Steady. Or Bright Eyes). But seriously, you’ve opened up a whole new world to me, my sweet.
What I’m trying to say is: You can proselytize me anytime.
Good point – The Hold Steady should have been on that list! ;)
Yeah Rand’s stuff is definitely not for everyone. Those two books are some of the only non-genre fiction I can re-read and still enjoy though. I liked Atlas more than FH, but it’s more of the same really.
You have the added (dis?)advantage of being around me 24/7… I suspect you have contracted some form of musical cancer from me. I am quite thankful that we have a lot in common musically.
And PS. Consider yourself proselytized! Maybe even later today.