Category: Read

  • Life on Mars

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    It’s a book, it’s a playlist: The Martian, by Andy Weir, in which an astronaut is mistakenly left alone on Mars to fend for himself and has to summon all his MacGyver/Castaway-ish/sarcastic-quipping powers to survive sol after sol on the barren Red Planet. During down time (when, say, the H2 oxidizer has to replenish the…

  • It’s a Book, It’s a Playlist: Everybody Loves Our Town, by Mark Yarm

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    It’s an oral history of grunge, it’s a playlist. Here are the Mark Yarm’s Seattle grunge essentials, dumped into Spotify for your time/space-travelling pleasure. The author’s complete list, without Spotify holes: 1. Mudhoney “Touch Me I’m Sick” 2. U-Men “They” 3. Green River “Ain’t Nothing to Do” 4. Soundgarden “Nothing to Say” 5. Nirvana “Love…

  • It’s a Book, It’s a Playlist: Just Kids, by Patti Smith

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    Patti Smith’s Just Kids follows her from miserable teendom to fabulous adulthood where she makes lots of art and poetry and music and befriends all the cool folks from the Chelsea Hotel and elsewhere around NYC at the time. The songs mentioned in the book are just about all here.

  • It’s a Book, It’s a Playlist: Life, by Keith Richards

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    Things remembered from reading Keith Richards’ Life: He came up with  “Satisfaction” during a dream. He ran some Italian military trucks off the road once. He once believed in purity and soul and stuff when it comes to music and touring; now he likes hanging out with the American Express VIPs backstage at shows. He’s…

  • It’s a Book, It’s a Playlist: Chronicles, Vol. One

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    Chronicles is more music appreciation text than Dylan things-I-did-style autobiography. That means there are loads and loads of songs mentioned–and you haven’t heard them all. Some intrepid interneters have made it easier for you to track down the tracks. All the way easy. Here’s a longer version, Dylan cuts included, from Art Rush: This Dylan-less one,…

  • It’s a Book, It’s a Playlist: Inherent Vice

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    Here begins an occasional series highlighting playlists based upon songs mentioned in books. Who better to get music tips from than people who spend their lives with words? For this one, Inherent Vice, by Thomas Pynchon, there’s not just an Rdio playlist, but also a Wiki walking through it all. Don’t think Pynchon was hearing…

  • Remembering “Night Flight”

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    Great, short piece by Kevin C. Smith at DangerousMinds.net: “Do You Remember ‘Night Flight?” We do–as a crucial, freaky centerpiece of TV-hooked 80s teendom. What it was: A lot has been made of MTV’s launch on August 1, 1981, but Night Flight—appearing on the fledgling USA Network—beat them to the punch by nearly two months…

  • “Into the Black”

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    The death of Kurt Cobain (4/5/94)–and the end of grunge–profiled the summer after in Spin (via Longform): Seattle bid goodbye to Kurt Cobain on April 10 in true grunge-rock style, bursting the ranks of a quickly organized public vigil and leaping into the nearby international fountain, a giant, water-spouting structure some 50 yards wide and…