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Geoff Rickly Book Excerpt

Thursday
Jason Tate

An excerpt from Geoff Rickly of Thursday’s book has been shared on The Ringer:

Huddling behind a parked car across the street from our apartment, I watch our front door, waiting for Liza to leave. She has a work event tonight. I’ve kept track of them in my calendar so I know which nights I’ll be able to use openly in the comfort of my own home. When she finally steps out, she looks incredible—armored in a lightweight, thigh-length, chain mail dress, shoulders draped in a chic, black trench coat, makeup sophisticated and smoky.

It burns, seeing her like that. I tell myself, Sometimes appearances are all we have. She probably feels worse than you do. Taking stock of myself—a man hiding behind an old Toyota Corolla with a garbage bag in his hands—I know it isn’t true. She doesn’t feel worse than I do. No one does.

Bill Watterson to Release New Book with John Kascht

Jason Tate

Bill Watterson is returning to comics for “a fable for grown-ups:”

Iconic cartoonist Bill Watterson famously retired at the height of Calvin & Hobbes’ success in 1995. Now, 28 years later, he is coming back – but not for a kids comic strip (not that Calvin & Hobbes was ever just for kids).

The Mysteries is a new 72-page book by Watterson and fellow artist John Kascht are creating what is described as “a fable for grown-ups.” Scheduled to be published by Andrews McMeel Publishing in late 2023, The Mysteries has reportedly been in the works for years in what’s described as an “unusually close collaboration.”

”[In The Mysteries,] a long-ago kingdom is afflicted with unexplainable calamities,” reads the publisher’s description of the book. “Hoping to end the torment, the king dispatches his knights to discover the source of the mysterious events. Years later, a single battered knight returns.”

Pre-orders are now up.

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Dan Ozzi Talks About Selling Out

Jason Tate

Dan Ozzi talked with BrooklynVegan about his upcoming book, Sellout:

Yeah, I think, you know, obviously record labels are in the business of making money, and they tend to put gasoline where the kindling is. So something that’s said in the book a lot by many people is that record labels put out like 100 records a year, and the president only gives a shit about the two that are doing well. So in a case like Rise Against, yeah I’m sure the president of their label didn’t even know who they were, until they started looking at the SoundScan numbers, and they’re like, “Wait, this band that we put no money into seems to be selling how many copies on their own? Maybe let’s put some marketing money into them.” So I think all these bands that signed to major labels thinking the people who worked there were just going to make them into stars were really naive. The ones that seemed to do the best were the best that went to a major label and were like “We’re gonna work really hard until the boss takes notice.” And Rise Against is probably the best example of that, workhorses who eventually did well enough to get the attention of people who could loosen the purse strings.

I’ve read about half of the book so far, and it’s very good. If you grew up listening to these bands, or arguing about who sold out in the AbsolutePunk forums: it’s a must read.

Frightened Rabbit Releases Book of Lyrics

Frightened Rabbit
Jason Tate

Frightened Rabbit will be releasing a book of lyrics.

The Work is a book of lyrics and illustrations by the late Scott Hutchison, lyricist, vocalist and songwriter of Frightened Rabbit. This limited hardback edition presents the band’s complete lyrics (including B-sides and rarities) with handwritten excerpts by Scott, alongside his illustrations, many of which have never been seen before.

The book is meant both as a celebration of and tribute to Scott’s unbridled creativity. It aims to fulfil his wishes by being the book that he wanted to create and had spoken of creating before his death.

The Work’s creative concept comes from renowned album designer Dave Thomas, who worked with Frightened Rabbit across their career.

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Dan Ozzi Pens New Book ‘Sellout’

Jason Tate

Dan Ozzi wrote an new book called Sellout. It is going to be right in the wheelhouse of most readers of this website. You can pre-order it here, and read more about it here:

The period of punk I lived through, from the mid-90s through the 2000s, has gone largely undocumented in any substantial way, at least in book form. When is someone going to properly chronicle this period, I often wondered. So, finally, I did it myself.

I wrote a book called SELLOUT because that word pretty much defined the era of music I grew up in. This was when there was still money in the music industry—the kind of money people were literally swimming in. And after Nirvana’s Nevermind changed national music tastes overnight, major labels went looking for indie rock’s next big thing. They found it in 1994 with Green Day’s Dookie, which set A&R reps’ sights on punk. From there, interest shifted to whatever subgenre of punk became popular over that decade—emo, hardcore, even ska.

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