Austin-American Statesman Review (With Photo!)

There's a dumb-ish review of Marooned in the Austin-American Statesman this weekend. For some reason, the writer seems way more wound up by what's not in the book, e.g. classic rock and big mainstream modern-day acts (guess he didn't see Nirvana's discography entry) than what is, and excessively concerned with behind-the-scenes stuff ("Why weren't writers I like included? I bet he couldn't pay them enough"). A friend informs me that the print version carries a disclaimer missing on the online version, that is, Mr. Salamon is a "former rock critic who has been a colleague or friend of many of the people mentioned in the review." Whatever; I'm mostly glad they spelled the photographer's name right.

They've Even Heard Of Us In Canada!

Nice plug for the book in this piece on the CBC (that's Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) website.

Co-Opted By The Punditocracy

As a direct result of Marooned, a very nice lady at the L.A. Times asked me to write a guest op-ed defending "the album" against those who insist on its moribund status. It's running in today's paper. Here's the link.

It's All About Greil

Two linked articles on Greil Marcus, Stranded and Marooned from today's Toledo Blade:

THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH: Everything’s bigger than life for legendary rock critic Greil Marcus

A conversation with critic Greil Marcus

From the Q&A:
Q: Between Stranded and Marooned with its new writers answering the same question, do you get a sense that people listen to music differently now?
A: I don't know, but what struck me, aside from reading it and feeling that doors were opening in buildings I didn't know existed, was that these people are more confessional. The new essays are rooted more in the personal, in traumas. I don't know if that's a cultural snapshot of a moment, but in 1978 it was 'I'm going to write this because my reply matters,' and now it's the way the art on the cover transformed a life, not necessarily a song or a lyric. The social is missing, though it's not a bad thing. Newer writers will use a new experience to convey their sense of personal jeopardy.

America's Newspaper

Here's a nice entry on USA Today's "Pop Candy" blog. They talk up the book, but also post Ned Raggett's entire essay, on My Bloody Valentine's Loveless.

And hey, did I mention tonight is the Marooned reading at Housing Works Café? 7 PM - No Raggett, sadly, but I will be joined by Tom Breihan, Daphne Carr, Kandia Crazy Horse, Rob Harvilla and Scott Seward. There'll be music and music geeks as far as the eye can see.

A Face Made For Radio

I'm gonna be interviewed by Steve Fast, talking about Marooned (go buy one!) and related subjects, on Monday August 13, on WJBC radio in Bloomington, IL. If you're in broadcast range, check it out. Or listen here.

Another Online Mention

The New York Observer weighs in...

More Reviews

A nice little write-up of Marooned appears on CNN's entertainment blog, "The Marquee"...here's the link.

And here's a review from blogcritics.org.

Here's one from Time Out Chicago.

And here's a fun one from the Chicago Reader (sorry, Greil).

More to come as I find 'em or am notified of 'em...

Local Angle

Here's a link to a great article on the book, focusing on John Darnielle's contribution (though it was nice of John to shout out Dave Queen, too), in the Raleigh News & Observer.

Review From The Wire

This comes from the July 07 issue, the one with Throbbing Gristle on the cover. Review by Peter Shapiro.

Marooned: The Next Generation Of Desert Island Discs
Phil Freeman (Editor)
Da Capo PBK

In 1979, just as rock 'n' roll was reaching its quarter century and just as the 60s counterculture consensus was breaking apart, Greil Marcus assembled some of the best music critics around to write extended pieces on their "desert island discs." The result was Stranded, an occasionally brilliant (Marcus's witty and pithy catalogue of rock history, Ed Ward's imagined biography of the "5" Royales), occasionally funny (Dave Marsh's exposition on onanism in rock 'n' roll), occasionally straight-up bizarre (John Rockwell's po-faced paean to Linda Ronstadt), but always provocative collection that functions as great rock history, no matter how fractured and subjective it may be.

Marooned is The Wire contributor Phil Freeman's attempt to update Stranded for a different age, an age of niche marketing, personality journalism and the death of the canon. Of course, Marooned also comes at a great fissure point in popular music - the album being superseded by the playlist (let alone the ringtone). Freeman acknowledges this in his introduction, but asserts that the album still matters and that artistic intent is still something to be honoured. Well, if Freeman has been hanging out with as many 22 year olds as I have recently, he'd know 'the album' is pretty much dead in the water.

So, if Marooned functions as an elegy for the album, why then does so much of the writing here feel like it's talking about a playlist? The bulk of the writing is so personal that it might as well be discussing "My Driving Mix," "Music For A Rainy Afternoon" or "Songs That Mention Body Parts In The Third Verse." Granted, the idea of the 'desert island disc' is about the most solipsistic conceit imaginable, but I imagine that most people if marooned would be desperate for something that reminded them of context and connectedness and human possibility, and not being at home on a dreary Saturday night waiting for the phone to ring.

When the autobiographers aren't indulging themselves or writing what feels like a college application essay, the autobiography works: Geeta Dayal's sweet piece on Alice Coltrane's Journey In Satchidananda (although I wanted more) and Michaelangelo Matos's funny and keenly observed remembrances of mid-90s Midwest rave culture during his rather wonderful analysis of my own personal favorite drum 'n' bass mix, DJ DB's History Of Our World Part I.

In his introduction to the 1996 reprint of Stranded, Robert Christgau dreamed of editing his own update of the book with young writers outside of the old guard consensus of Stranded: "And for certain many of them would choose a record so eccentric, so deeply unpredictable, that only a little craziness would do it justice." Unfortunately, there's not so much of that here, but there is Scott Seward's rather crazy and wonderful rumination on Divine Styler's avant rap masterpiece, Spiral Walls Containing Autumns Of Light, which does do justice to it by somehow connecting the writer's dead-end job of stacking peas in a supermarket with the urban blight of the 80s, Maggotron's Miami Bass and Divine's cryptic millenarianism. Although not as outlandish as Seward's, Douglas Wolk's piece on Stereolab's Transient Random Noise Bursts With Announcements is equally brilliant, with its combination of musicological analysis, one-liners, some really great expositions about the power and beauty of sound and the odd bit of autobiography.

Less concerned with personal interconnectedness, but certainly dealing with the entwining of music and history and texture, are similarly fine pieces by Simon Reynolds on John Martyn's Solid Air and Jeff Chang on The Meters' The Meters. And then, of course, there's Greg Tate riffing on electric Miles, which may be my desert island music criticism because he may play that note forever but it always sounds pretty damn good.

Marooned ends with "Return To Treasure Island," Freeman's own retornt to Marcus's five-minute history of rock for a newly arrived Martian in Stranded, which serves as a neat little thumbnail sketch of all the death and black Metal you've missed over the years - who knew one needed so many Anaal Nathrakh and Necrophagist albums? And it's this expansive outlook and refusal to accept received wisdom that ultimately makes Marooned a worthy response to Stranded. While Stranded did include Rockwell's essay on the critically reviled Linda Ronstadt, it seemed more like a gesture to the journalistic community than an honest to goodness choice. Here, however, there's no doubting the heartfelt nature of the pieces on Iron Maiden's Killers, Skunk Anansie's Stoosh or even, God forbid, Stephen Stills's Manassas. I just wish more writers tried to connect with the world outside of the one between their two ear buds.