SOUNDTRACK: THE PRETTY BOYS-“Midnight to Six Man,” “Don’t Bring me Down,” “Rosalyn.” (1966, 1964, 1964).
The Pretty Boys are referenced a lot in this novel and I realized I never knew them.
According to Classic Rock History, these are t he band’s top three songs.
I guess as a reference point, I can see what Kent was going for. The lead singer sounds like a bit of a wild man, with lots of screams. Each song is a kind of rowdy garage rock. They’ve got a lot of energy, but very mid 60’s energy which really doesn’t appeal to me.
And none of the songs have anything remotely resembling the kind of musical genius that the guitarist in the novel is supposed to have.
So I wasn’t missing anything.
[READ: February 28, 2022] The Unstable Boys
I’m usually a pretty good judge of books when I see them at work. We get a lot of novels that I would never read, but we occasionally get a gem that I’d never see anywhere else.
I looked at The Unstable Boys and thought I had a gem. And it started out as one.
The book is about a fictional band from the 60s called The Unstable Boys.
The opening of the book is clippings from various articles about the band.
They were a mix of personalities with two talented members, an array of drummers and a lead singer called The Boy who was a force of nature. He was, simply, an asshole. But he was charismatic and unpredictable and people were intrigued by him. They had a hit, they were poised to do some big stuff and then their second guitarist died. They were about to go on a major American tour and wanted to postpone. But the label wouldn’t let them. The label threw in some new members for the tour and the band imploded.
Guitarist Ral Coombs was a really talented and sensitive musician. He and The Boy nearly came to blows. They vowed to never reunite or even speak to each other again.
Then the story begins properly. We meet Trevor Bourne. He is recently single and, as a freelance writer, not very successful. He had written a story about The Unstable Boys a while back, but hasn’t had much success lately.
Enter Michael Martindale. He is a very rich and successful fiction writer. Continue Reading »
Up until the day of the show, I had mistakenly thought that the opening act for Animal Collective was L’Orange, a hip hop producer from North Carolina. I listened to his stuff and really liked it.
Then I read that it was L’Rain, and it changed everything. L’Rain is the project of Taja Cheek. She creates most of the music herself, playing (at least) guitar and bass and looping her voice. After reading a few reviews, I was really intrigued to hear her. Continue Reading »
I have seen Lucy Dacus quite a few times and she always puts on a mesmerizing show.
I Just Read About That... 