Publication Day
Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records is finally here.
Today is the day.
Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records is officially out in the world. If you pre-ordered the book, requested it from your library, or plan on buying a copy this week—thank you. I’ve been doing a ton of press (you can find a few links at the bottom of the newsletter but most of it is still to come). When I’m not prepping for the book’s release, I’ve been trying not to think about the book. In other words, act like a normal human being, which is challenging.
I’ve been going for walks with Nuvia. She took me on a path she recently discovered along the waterfront at the Chula Vista Marina. The path is landscaped with native plants, all of which are in bloom right now: California poppies, broom baccharis, black sage. It’s pretty incredible actually. We watched the fog roll in and envelop the Coronado Bay Bridge and when it was our turn the temperature plummeted fifteen degrees.
We went to see Bad Religion play the San Diego House of Blues with our friend Enrique aka Chikle on Saturday night. It was the last night of this particular leg of the tour and the band was loose and having a good time. Greg Graffin seemed very animated and was unusually chatty and the set had songs on it I’ve never heard Bad Religion play live before—like “Man on a Mission.” Without the lap steel guitar I didn’t recognize it right away. Nuvia asked me what song it was and gave me a hard time about it when I told her I didn’t know. (I eventually figured it out.) But is that how it is when you write a book, you’re expected to be an expert forever? Anyway, it seemed fitting to see Bad Religion on the cusp of Corporate Rock Sucks since the pandemic scuttled all out plans for Do What You Want, which I touched on last week.
I got lost in a novel that I really enjoyed: Emily St. John Mandel’s The Sea of Tranquility, a speculative novel about the theory that all existence is a simulation that involves time travel. Mandel’s work reminds me of David Mitchell’s only much more restrained at the sentence level. The Sea of Tranquility is about 250 pages and feels like it could easily have been 400. Did it need those pages? That’s the question I’ve been asking myself. Interestingly, the book also concerns a writer, clearly modeled after Mandel herself, who goes on a book tour just as a pandemic is breaking out. That’s not exactly the kind of escape from reality that I was looking for, but the desire to escape is strong right now.
I even started watching the TV show Severance. I was intrigued by the trailer but the premise seemed awfully reductive: employees of a company volunteer to undergo a procedure that will sever their work life from their home life. Here’s how it works: when they’re at home, they have no memory of their work day or even the nature of the work they perform, and when they’re at work they have no knowledge of the life they live outside the office. It’s pretty nightmarish actually. What I like about it is the entire show is centered around exploring the social and emotional health of the characters, which isn’t good.
Although it might seem like I’ve been avoiding thinking about the book, what I’m really looking forward to is seeing old and new friends. Tonight I’ll be celebrating Corporate Rock Sucks with Ray Farrell at The Book Catapult in San Diego. Tomorrow I’ll hop on a train to LA, do a few more interviews, and make my way to Book Soup in West Hollywood. From there I’ll fly to the Northwest to meet up with my good friend Joshua Mohr for our event at Powell’s in Portland on Thursday. Then I’ll fly back down to San Diego for the party at Three Punk Ales in Chula Vista on Saturday.
The other day I was thinking about all the people I’ve met through the writing of this book and all the people that helped me along the way. It’s a staggering list of people, the vast majority of whom have been tremendous. There’s no other word for it. Somehow, after two years in relative isolation, I’ve made so many new friends.
Choosing to be a writer is like an experiment in social isolation. No matter how many friends you have, or people you know, the writing requires solitude. Even if the work depends on interacting with human beings, like Corporate Rock Sucks did, you still have to sit down and write the thing, alone. The most rewarding thing about this book project is that it has picked up so many supporters along the way. It’s different than writing a novel or a collection of short stories or, heaven help us, poetry. The audience for this book is already there. I just have to not fuck it up, and so many people have gone out of their way to help.
The highs and lows of being a writer are well-documented and I don’t really have anything to add to that, but I think what doesn’t get talked about enough is that if you are the type of writer who is curious about other people, the possibilities for friendship are endless.
Pandemic or no pandemic, that’s kind of a big deal for middle aged folks like me, and an enormous comfort. If you’re a new or old subscriber to Message from the Underworld and you come to a reading this week, please introduce yourself. I’m looking forward to meeting you.
Corporate Rock Sucks Link-o-Rama
The other day I talked to 91X and KPBS and although both convos have already been broadcast, you can listen in on my conversation with Julia-Dixon Evans here (interview starts around the 38-minute mark). I also recorded a piece for CBC’s radio program Q in Canada. Luke O’Neil’s outstanding Welcome to Hell World excerpts the first chapter of the book. I talked with punk rock drummer extraordinaire S.W. Lauden at The Big Takeover. I provided a book recommendation for Elizabeth Held’s excellent newsletter What to Read If… (It’s Gina Schock’s Made in Hollywood: All Access with the Go-Go’s). Corporate Rock Sucks even made Inside Hook’s list of ten books to read in April…
I’ll continue to post links but in the future I plan on using this space to document the book tour. I’m also going to share my reviews of my SST collection with you soon. If you ordered a copy of Corporate Rock Sucks—thank you—I’d be delighted if you share a photo on Twitter or Instagram (I’m not really on Facebook) when it arrives. And if you have a question about the book or its content, by all means fire away!
Remember when I asked you to tell me if you wanted me to come to your local bookstore, coffeeshop, etc.? Well, it’s happening. Plans are in the works for a reading at a bike shop in Madison, Wisconsin, a bookstore in San Bernardino, and possibly a pizza joint in Las Vegas. Keep your suggestions coming! Let’s make something interesting happen.
Congratulations! Come to Smalls Bar in Hamtramck ( inside Detroit ) and let's do a little event on a Wednesday night
I’ve ordered a copy from my local library in Norwood, Adelaide, South Australia ….