ATWN Interview: Arlo Aldo's Dave Manchester

Alt-folk. Alt-country. The new Americana.  Some of my favorite recent music finds have been dancing around somewhere between those labels.  Neko Case, The Avett Brothers, The Low Anthem, and The Lumineers to just name a few.

A new discovery is Arlo Aldo hailing out of Pittsburgh.  We were lucky enough to get in touch with David Manchester to get to know a little about the band and to catch up on books and music.

Arlo Aldo's album, Zelie, was released this past February and you can buy it (and give it a listen) right HERE.

First things first, tell our readers a little bit about Arlo Aldo.  I'm certainly getting a taste of the new Americana upon listening to Zelie.

Well… we're a down-tempo, melodious, extremely attractive, intelligent, and modest band based out of Pittsburgh, PA. We like long walks on the beach, candlelight dinners, and can easily be bribed with bottles of good whiskey.

Give me a book that lines up well with the themes/stories that you're speaking to in Zelie.

That's a great question. I don't' know if I can come up with just one book. Perhaps "Welcome to the Monkey House" by kurt vonnegut? Our songs cover so many different themes involving love, loss, growth, birth, hope, and a man walking across a high wire in New York City. I feel like Vonnegut's collection of short stories does the same? 

Let's get right to the nitty-gritty, if we are snooping around your house (or tour van) and start to peek at the books you have lying around, what are we going to find?

I'll be honest, you'd be way better off snooping in our drummer, Brandon's, house. He's way more literary and is a writer himself. I'm terrible at reading. It's one of those things I wish I had more diligence for. I love Haruki Murakami and have read almost all of his books. I went through a Nick Hornby phase, Tom Robbins was a popular one on my night stand, too. My largest collection, though, would be by Joeph Loeb and Tim Sale. They collaborated on several Batman graphic novels. Yup… I'm a comic nerd.

If there were an author that you could collaborate with on a song, who would that be and what would you hope that they'd bring to the experience?

Haruki Murakami, hands down. His depiction of depression in Norwegian Wood was one of the most accurate and beautiful things I've ever read. Havingstruggled with depression myself, it seemed to reflect my own experience amazingly. I'd really hope that he would bring his ability to capture emotion and a person's internal struggle. Those are pretty universal themes throughout a lot of my songwriting.

As aspiring writers, our readers are always looking for people to commiserate with through the struggles of telling stories.  Can you give us some insight into your writing process and then how does that eventually translate into a finished song?

Writing lyrics has always been a source of pride for me. Probably because I can't write anything else worth a damn. My poetry is abysmal, and I don't think I could even comprehend what it would take to write an actual story. As for my lyrical process, though, I usually start with singing along to whatever chord pattern I'm fiddling with. I find the notes themselves help guide me as to what the theme of the song will be. Once I get an idea of my subject, I just sing. I see what comes out, what feels right, and then when something seems to click, I frantically search for any kind of scrap to write my ideas on. After I have a first draft, I give it a day or two and then look at what I've written. That's when I really start to think about what I'm trying to say. What words are better suited? What sounds more intelligent, less obvious? Is there a better way to say what I'm trying to convey to the listener? That's when things really get flushed out and perfected. Sometimes this happens quickly. Other times, the process leads me to realize that it's just a bad song.

What are some of your struggles as a songwriter?

I'm constantly afraid I'll run out of songs. I'll run out of chord patterns, transition, and nothing original will come out anymore. I'm worried about my lyrics being trite and obvious. But I think those are normal concerns with anyone involved in any kind of creative endeavor.

For our readers who are working on writing books for younger readers, what is a book that really stands out for you from your childhood?

Honesty time… I was a horrendous reader growing up. I was "that guy" that was too lazy to even read the Cliff Notes and just fudged my way through tests in junior high and high school. I wish I could go back and tell my younger self to suck it up and read. He'd be better off for it.

What was the last book that you bought?

Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn. I'm a stay at home dad, so my reading priorities have shifted a bit.

Who is an author that you find yourself consistently going back to?

Haruki Murakami, hands down. For some reason, his style and quirkiness just appeals to me.

What do you think that aspiring writers can learn from musicians such as yourself/yourselves?  And, to piggy-back on that idea, what do you think that musicians can take from writers?

What can writers learn from me? Hmm… Do it because you love it. Don't worry about how many people have read your piece or how many places you've been published. If you enjoy writing, write. Don't' take yourself so seriously and don't necessarily be too focused on the end goal. I'm on my 6th album and have yet to receive my phone call from Sub Pop, but playing and writing music is too much fun, and too much of a passion for me to stop just because I haven't hit the "big time." As far as what I can learn from writers, that's easy. Read more. Learn from other people's writing and experiences. I've been trying to do that more with my song writing, but I believe that there is so much more out there that I can glean, and I respect writers that can really get into someone else's head to create a story.

ATWN Interview: Speedy Ortiz's Sadie Dupuis

Speedy Ortiz/photo by Noe Richard                     

So, for our readers who don't already know, the band's name comes from a character in the Hernandez brothers' Love and Rockets comics.  I went through a phase in high-school where I couldn't get enough of indie comics and Love and Rockets was one of the first to open my eyes to what could be done outside of superheroes and spandex.  When did you develop a relationship with comics?

I've read comics as long as I could remember. My mom bought me MAD Magazine when I was a tiny kid which pretty quickly turned into collecting comics together, learning how to draw characters I liked, and eventually drawing and writing my own stories.

In doing research for this interview, I happened upon what I believe is your Goodreads page and noticed a lot of graphic novels.  Some you loved (Watchmen) some you didn't (The Walking Dead).  Some of our authors are working on graphic novels of their own.  What is it you look for from a great graphic novel?

Ha, I forgot that existed... I set up that account half-assedly and was ultimately unimpressed with the service. Kind of like Pandora or Netflix which only ever recommends me things I already know. I'm all for zombie stories but I find 'The Walking Dead' (at least the book) to be 2D, underdeveloped, misogynistic. I don't feel for any of the characters on 'The Walking Dead' (and by necessity of the plot) they're totally disposable. The most memorable things about them are their hair-dos, their accessories, their weapons. If you have a great story with weak characters, no one's gonna give a shit. Interesting characters are necessary. That should go without saying. Someone page Robert Kirkman.

So, lets get to Speedy.  What is it about the character, Speedy Ortiz, that struck such a chord that you decided to name your band after him?

A few people close to me died in 2011, and at the time I was reading Locas, and I remember feeling impressed with the way Jaime Hernandez portrays grief in "The Death of Speedy Ortiz" and the stories that follow it. More so than Speedy, I was interested in how Maggie and Izzy and the rest of the people close to Speedy continued to live their lives after his death, the way Hernandez hints at their grieving processes, and how the narrative continues so abruptly after he dies (we're led immediately from Speedy's ghost haunting his sister to a scene about Hopey on tour).

You have a background in poetry.  What poet, past or present, do you think would fit in nicely as a member of the band?

We once played a show that ended with a reading from Wendy Xu, whose new book 'You Are Not Dead' is one of my favorites of the year. It would be cool to do another show like that. Wendy Xu, wherever you are, please eat sandwiches with us.

I've asked other artists this same question so I'm curious what you think.  I know that as an aspiring novelist, I spend a lot of time wrapped up in music.  I write important scenes to songs.  I use songs to try to get into some of my characters' heads.  It plays an important role in what I do with words.  I've always been of the opinion, beyond actually writing lyrics, that there is a special kinship between authors and musicians.  Still, I can't really play much of anything on my guitar (which doesn't stop me from shredding it up with my two kids).  What is your take?  Do you see music and writing as being partners?

To be honest I've never really seen my writing and my music as connected. I have to focus so intently when I read and write that I can't even really listen to music when I do so. I'm jealous of my friends who go into a coffee shop for a day and knock out huge chunks of their novels while listening to an iPod, because for me that's way too distracting.  But I do enjoy books and poems that use music as their subject matter and I read a lot of music criticism.

The majority of our readers are pounding out words on their keyboards to try to tell stories and we all go through a variety of processes to get those stories out.  What does your process look like when you are songwriting?  Where do you struggle?

Almost always I compose music first and the lyrics fall into place afterwards. Sometimes I'll come up with a line when I'm walking around or in the shower or whatever. Sometimes I'll fill in the rhythmic blanks with phrases I've jotted down in a notebook. I'm lucky in that a lot of it comes automatically to me through association. As far as where I struggle, editing is not my strong suit. Once something's done I typically let it go without changing anything. But sometimes I'll be performing an older song and be like, "Man, I really wish I'd changed this shitty line right when I first wrote it, but now we've recorded it this way and now it's stuck and now I have to embarrassed every night." So I take some live liberties and change the lyrics for that, which is kind of a revisionist history. Not that anyone can understand what I'm saying anyway.

My rock soul was shaped in no small part by Sonic Youth.  You recently toured with Thurston Moore.  What was that experience like?  Did you happen to catch what books he was reading?

The shows were with Thurston Moore & John Moloney's Caught On Tape duo, which is improvisational, so the sets were different every night, which was nice. Super talented, both of them (obviously) and really interesting performers. Didn't snoop anyone's books but I did pick up a cool compilation CD from Ambrose Bye, a friend of Thurston and John, who was along with them for the dates. It's called Harry's House and it's got work from Eileen Myles and Anne Waldman, Thurston too. Pretty cool.

In another nod to our readers, many of which are writing books for a younger readership...think middle school and high school...what's a book from your childhood that really stuck with you?

As far as middle and high school, I don't think I had a big YA reading phase. I liked beat stuff in high school and got super into Burroughs (story of every teenager's life). I loved Murakami. I definitely read a lot of manga in middle school. I probably have every Sailor Moon book. Oh, I probably got into Animorphs too, now that I think about it.

There's an interesting thing happening right now in the world of books related to self-publishing.  E-readers have really opened the door for almost anyone to get a book out there into the hands of the public.  With that addition to the market, there's been a backlash against self-published authors.  For years and years and years there has been a DIY scene in music and it doesn't seem to have that same "You don't know what the fuck you're doing" vibe that lingers around book publishing.  Your band itself began as a bedroom project.  Why do you think the music scene has really embraced that spirit of self-promotion while DIY publishing is struggling with legitimacy?

This is probably tough for me to answer since I don't know a ton about self-publishing literature (outside of homemade zines and chapbooks, that is, which are totally legitimate!). My depressing analysis is that for whatever reason, as a member of both literary and musical communities, it seems that less people (at least in my mid-20s age demographic) are invested in supporting literature, independent or mainstream, than are interested in supporting music. Maybe it's an issue of attention span and time commitment. I know that when I bring chapbooks to shows, which I make in a limited run and give away for free, we're more likely to sell out of $10 EPs at the show than to get rid of all of the free chapbooks.

If I jump into the backseat of your tour van and start poking around through your stuff, what books am I going to be dragging out of your duffel bags?

Right now I'm reading Dorothea Lasky's Thunderbird, which she signed for me at AWP (I got totally starstruck). Last tour I read some Oliver Sacks, some Wallace Stevens, some comics, some shitty goofy guidebook about touring. I have Joseph Ceravolo's Collected Poems in the wings for the next tour, and a couple other dumb pop science books.

Nightlands: An Interview with Dave Hartley

photo credit:  Catharine Maloney  

For anyone who isn't in the know, Dave Hartley spends a good deal of his time playing bass guitar for the outstanding band, The War on Drugs, out of Philadelphia.  I could go on and on about his solo project but, it might just be best if I step aside and let his label, Secretly Canadian, tell you a little bit about Nightlands:

Nightlands is the recording project of Philadelphia-based multi-instrumentalist Dave Hartley. The music he creates in his bedroom is itself a bed of delicate, chiming strings and bubbling synths beneath a blanket of choral vocal arrangements. It's dreamy in the literal sense -- the seeds for the album were sown when Hartley began archiving musical ideas that occurred in his sleep with a simple bedside tape recorder. As a result his debut album Forget the Mantra is, in essence, a field recording of Hartley's dreams -- a travel journal through pop music and a collection of psych-hymns from the first human lunar colony. The songs sound both huge and intimate, breathy and cavernous like massive echoes of a faraway concert. It's the big, shadow music from just across the lake.

Nightlands released a new album, Oak Island, this past January (which you can purchase right HERE) and Dave was kind enough to take a little time to sling emails back and forth and answer a few questions about writing, reading, music, and a little basketball for safe measure.

The futurism of Oak Island seems to line up with themes that appear in the work of Arthur C. Clarke or Philip K. Dick.  The multi-layered vocals of your songs certainly creates a robotic vibe.  Although, your cyborg seems a little more at peace than the Replicants in Dick’s story.  If anything, your robot seems to come from a planet with a fascination for 70s era AM radio.  From reading other interviews, I know that you have an interest in sci-fi.  Any authors in particular?

 Those are interesting observations. I don't really understand exactly what the connection is between my interest in sci-fi and the music I write... It's not explicit, but it's certainly there. I generally favor really ethereal, spacey sounds but more classic, universal lyrics as a contrast. I like the contrast. My favorite sci-fi author is far and away Arthur C. Clarke--I've read and reread all of his classics and even some of his non-fiction. The City and the Stars is my favorite, followed by Imperial Earth, Fountains of Paradise, Rendezvous with Rama, Childhood's End, and 2001, of course. He just thinks with such amazing scope...he can take a human story, zoom out to show interpersonal context, zoom out again to show communal context, zoom out again to show cultural context, zoom out again to show geological or biological context, and usually zoom out to some unheard of distance to show the story in the context of time itself. It's just so heady and sensitive and mind boggling. I'm also a big fan of Dune, although the sequels weaken substantially. Other authors I admire are Heinlein, Asimov, Orson Scott Card, Dick, and some others that are escaping me.

You do a little non-musical writing here and there.  Most notably, your NBA blog for WXPN has been a showcase for your written work.  As a writer who loves music, I’m always trying to convince myself that the two are really closely related but, being that I only know three chords, I can’t say I’m an expert.  Since you wear both pairs of shoes, what kind of relationship do you see between being an author and being a musician?

I see myself absolutely writing a novel someday, probably relatively soon. Writing to me seems a bit like recording: long periods of frustration with occasional bouts of exhilarating inspiration. I imagine everyone writes differently, just as everyone records differently. The huge difference is, of course, that music is meant to be performed, whereas literature or prose are meant to be read. Much less payoff, it seems. Perhaps that's why authors are so grumpy.


You have a degree in Philosophy.  If you could sit down at a bar with any author and just shoot-the-shit about philosophy, who do you think you’d be sharing a beer with?


Well, I come from the school of thought that Philosophy is more of a process rather than a body of knowledge. So in that sense I don't really have a favorite Philosopher or Philosophical thinker, though there are many interesting texts. The author I'd most like to have a beer with is William Knorpp, and I have had a beer with him on a few occasions--he was my advisor and mentor. He is just a profoundly reasonable man, capable of cutting through mounds and mounds of jargon and rhetoric with a single phrase. On the other hand, I'd love to "shoot the shit" with Cormac McCarthy, Oliver Sacks, Malcolm Gladwell, Jon Krakauer, to name a few.


I’ve heard you say before that the freedom to make almost any kind of music can be taxing.  I believe you used the term paralyzing.  I think our readers, who are mostly trying to pound out words for novels, can relate to that feeling.  I know I struggle with containing myself to a single idea at times.  How did you rein yourself in while working as a solo artist?  What was your most consistent struggle?

I impose restrictions upon myself by using a primitive recording set-up. My goal is to use consumer-grade gear and stretch it to places its not meant to go, using hyperbole and innovation. I love when I send an album to be mastered and the engineer says, "wow--what studio did you use to record this? what microphones did you use?" and I say, "I used a 7 year old M-Box, a 6 year old macintosh and a beta 57". You don't get bonus points for making a record with shitty gear--if it sounds good, it sounds good, but I think the shitty gear really helps me, at least at this stage in my development. I have to make lots of commitments early and figure out strange ways to make the gear work, and its my process. I like it a lot. I'm sure I'll graduate to better gear and choose new, arbitrary restrictions at some point.

My most consistent struggle as a solo artist is choosing between comfort and discomfort. There is no right or wrong. Sometimes comfort is a signpost saying "go this way, follow this impulse" and sometimes comfort is a signpost saying "you've done this a thousand times, you're scared--go the other way." It's a struggle, and without other sounding boards, I'm constantly challenged.

You’ve said that you grew up as an avid reader.  A fairly significant number of our readers (and the writers on our staff) write books for kids.  What are some stand-outs from when you were a kid?

Ender's Game was a big one. It was one of the first books I choose for myself and devoured. It was a private world and stoked my love of reading. I'm also massively indebted to my Dad, who read me Lord of the Rings and Dune as a kid, both of which remain my favorites to this day. From there I plowed through all sorts of sci-fi and youth literature. Clan of the Cave Bear was another big one. All these books still hold up now.

Am I right that the name of the band is inspired by Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian”?  Your music and McCarthy’s grittiness seem like strange bed-fellows.  Is there a significance to the connection or was it one of those “that sounds cool” moments?

I went through a two year period where all I did was read Blood Meridian or listen to the audiobook (which is spectacular, by the way--totally recontextualizes the work). It became something of a pathos. Anyway, I remember reading the phrase "night land" or "night lands," and it made me stop. The context was, a landscape or a stretch of earth, is a different place at night. It is not the same place. And then a few months later I was re-reading 2001: A Space Odyssey and came across "night lands" in reference to the side of a planet that doesn't see the sun (the dark side of the moon, for instance). I just knew it was the name for project--later I realized that my music was all coming from my dreams and from recordings I had made of my dreams. I swear it didn't register to me that there was any connection. It was either subconscious or coincidental.

I can't emphasize, though, how deeply Blood Meridian wedged itself inside me. It was insatiable. I couldn't get enough, and I couldn't explain why it fascinated me. It was a little embarrassing, actually, because the book was so incredibly dark and morbid--but there are thousands of gruesome and violent books that do nothing for me. I still don't completely understand the connection, aside from the fact that it's simply an astounding, colossal work. How does something like that get written? What sort of mind set was McCarthy in during its creation? What sort of combination of inspiration and analysis did he use? I will come back to it for the rest of my life, I'm sure.

Do my Celtics stand a chance in the play-offs this year?

No, but they could upset the Knicks in the first round. Without Rajon Rondo (and Ray Allen, for that matter), they won't get out of the conference-semis, though.

Any books on your nightstand right now?

Right now I'm reading "Time Enough for Love" by Robert Heinlein.

ONE: An Interview with YA author, Leigh Ann Kopans

For our readers who aren't familiar with ONE can you give them the movie-trailer version of things.  A little something to bring them up to speed.

Well,  I guess my official blurb is movie-trailer ish! 

When having two powers makes you a Super and having none makes you a Normal, having only one makes you a sad half-superpowered freak.

It makes you a One.

Sixteen-year-old Merrin Grey would love to be able to fly – too bad all she can do is hover.

If she could just land an internship at the Biotech Hub, she might finally figure out how to fix herself. She busts her butt in AP Chem and salivates over the Hub’s research on the manifestation of superpowers, all in hopes of boosting her chances.

Then she meets Elias VanDyne, another One, and all her carefully crafted plans fly out the window. Literally. When the two of them touch, their Ones combine to make them fly, and when they’re not soaring over the Nebraska cornfields, they’re busy falling for each other.

Merrin's mad chemistry skills land her a spot on the Hub's internship short list, but as she gets closer to the life she always wanted, she discovers that the Hub’s purpose is more sinister than it has always seemed. Now it’s up to her to decide if it's more important to fly solo, or to save everything - and everyone - she loves.

I'm not giving anything away when I mention that Merrin plays the drums.  How did you go about deciding to make that part of who she is?  What drew you into the idea of her instrument of choice being the drums?

Well, I guess because Merrin is the kind of girl who is very angry and frustrated, but knows that having a temper tantrum won't get her anywhere. She needs an outlet, an acceptable way she can hit stuff and make lots of noise. That's playing the drums.

Merrin's also a petite girl, and I noticed when I was searching for drumming videos that the vast majority of drummer girls are also small-framed. I think it must be something about wanting to make yourself bigger than  you actually are, which is also a big part of Mer's character.

Check out Ilana: to me, she looks just like Merrin:

You also mention early on that Merrin is drawn to listening to a little heavy metal when she needs to vent.  In an age dominated by Taylor Swift and Hip-Hop, what led you to choose metal?

Well, music like Taylor's put angst and emotions into words. For people who want to voice their feelings in an emo way, that works, but Merrin just wants to drown them out. Metal is loud  and a little wild, so it works for that.

So, lets drag Merrin out of the future for a second.  I'm riding in her car.  She throws a CD into the stereo. Who am I going to be listening to?

My Chemical Romance, Danger Days. No hesitation.  She might even listen to it in 2139 - she's into vintage stuff. ;)

You also chose (or many would say your characters chose for you) to have Merrin's love interest be a musician as well.  I'm sensing a theme here?

Oh! I just needed a way for him to really prove to her that he understood her without telling her. Merrin doesn't trust words too much, but when Elias picks up a guitar and starts playing along with her, he's speaking her (emotional) language. Really, he doesn't like playing guitar too much. ;) 

BUT if you want to see what he looks like playing guitar?

We here at ATWN are also really interested in the writing process and how it lines up with people's love of music.  Do you listen to music while you write or are you a "shhhh, I'm writing over here" kind of person?

Oh, music was a HUGE part of writing ONE. Especially for mood. Kravitz's  "Fly Away" and Aerosmith's "Fly Away From Here" are pretty much anthems for Merrin at the beginning of the story. "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer is great for some of the midsection moments, and "Meteor Shower" by Owl City and "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire framed my writing of the end.

If we were to take a peek into your record collection, what would we find there?  What do you think people would be most surprised to find in that same collection?

Hmmm...well I pretty much only listen to Spotify. *Hides* I do love Dashboard Confessional (emo! emo!), Cake, MCR, any male acoustic guitar, a guy named Johnny Stimson who describes his music as "musical sunshine," (true!) and a healthy amount of Taylor, like any self-respecting YA author. 

What might surprise you is that Taylor is one of the few women in my music rotation - I tend to like listening to the male voice more. No clue why.

First concert?

Barenaked Ladies! In an ampitheater, with lots of pot in the air (not mine!)

ONE gets a ridiculously fantastic movie deal and you get to collaborate with the production of the soundtrack, hit me with ten songs that would have to be on it.

From your mouth to God's ears! LOL. Um, The five i mentioned up above,  "Up Up Up" by the Givers, "On Top of the World" by Imagine Dragons, "Never Say Never" by the Fray, "Us Against the World" by Coldplay, and "Belief (stripped)" by Gavin DeGraw.

Thanks Leigh Ann!

Thank YOU! I'm so very honored and excited to have been asked. You guys are incredible.

You can pre-order a copy of Leigh Ann's "ONE" by clicky-clickin' this little link right HERE


As a quick thank you to all of Leigh Ann's fans and for the fans of ATWN, leave a comment below and you'll be signed up to win a copy of all of the songs that Leigh Ann mentioned above. You can give her ONE soundtrack a listen below via Spotify.

Influences: Let's Be Honest

What is the deal with people and influences anyway?  None of us are very honest about who and what has influenced us.  I mean, come on, think about the last time someone asked you who your influences are.  What did you come up with?  Let me guess, you didn't include your addiction to celebrity gossip magazines?  Did you mention that you read that blog about kittens?  No, of course you didn't.  You went on and on and on about how moved you were the first time you read Tolstoy.  You've read "As I Lay Dying" by Faulkner too many times to count and are still blown away by his experimentation with point-of-view.  Baloney.  Okay, a few of you might actually pass the test and do count every single important work of fiction as the backbone of your own writing process.  Great.  I commend you for your efforts.  The rest of us are lying.  Wait, I don't want to cause a fight.  You aren't liars.  Basically, when I say that all the most significant themes in my writing can be traced back to Keats, I'm lying.

We do the same thing with music.  If someone were to sit down and ask me about my influences you can bet the farm that I'm not going to say Hanna-Barbera's live-action costume show "The Banana Splits".  Still, if I think back on how UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME I used to think the musical performances on that show were when I was but a wee lad, they have to be considered an influence.  It also must be considered that I spent much of my youth apparently on acid or sugar-stoned on Cap'n Crunch:

So, do I ever tell anyone (other than you...because you're just that special) that The Banana Splits were a huge musical influence in my life?  No.  Instead, I will, of course, protect my pride and say that I was influenced by the Sex Pistols, The Smiths, Prince, REM, The Doors, Radiohead, the Arcade Fire, etc.  Don't get me wrong.  I love those bands and they have all shaped who I am.  They can certainly claim to be my musical influences.  But where then do I put Slade or the Butthole Surfers?  On the book front, I can do the same.  I love Faulkner to death.  I am, actually, quite blown away by his experimentation with point-of-view in As I Lay Dying even if I mocked people for doing so...oh...about two paragraphs ago.  It's groundbreaking.  But, if I'm going to be honest, my greatest influences came from the dog-eared pages of comic books and Mad Magazine.  So, I thought that I might travel back through time and match up my influences based on what I can remember from different time periods in my life.  This is not to be an exercise in cool though.  I certainly wasn't listening to the Sex Pistols when they formed back in 1975.  I was four-years-old and I had no way of minding or neverminding the bollocks even if I wanted to.  So, I think that I'll narrow it down to the decades of my life.  I'll try to be truthful even when my music-ego starts to get a little uneasy.  It's about honesty.  Right?  Let's go.

The 1970s

My first real musical influences, beyond that of the musical guests on the Muppet Show, were the result of my father's purchase of a new car.  It was an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme and it had, of all things, a cassette tape player.  Our family's first car was a little Honda hatchback and it only had an AM radio and I grew up listening to what rural AM radio had to offer.  I, for example, did not know at the time what an "Afternoon Delight" was and the Captain and Tennille were regular favorites of mine (I said I was going to be honest.  Yes?).  Once my dad made the car upgrade, he also started purchasing tapes on a regular basis.  He had a little brown faux-leather tape case and it was filled with cassettes.  He had the Doobie Brothers in there.  Chuck Mangione.  He had some Donna Summer.  But, one duo stands out:  Hall and Oates.  I have grown to love Hall and Oates.  Their songs remind me of what my life was like before my parents got divorced.  I sometimes wish it had stayed that way.  Oh, mom and dad, say it isn't so (it isn't so...so...so):

As to books from the 70s, I'm going to have to go with the first book I ever remember picking out at a bookstore, paying for with my own money, and bringing home to read.  I'm sure I bought other books.  I remember my room being nearly filled to over-flowing with books.  But, this one stands out for some reason.  I give you:

The 1980s

So, before I get started on the 80s, you have to understand that this is a pretty massive developmental time-period for me.  I began the 80s as a wide-eyed nine-year-old.  I ended it as a a young-man about to head off to college.  Still, on the book front, my strongest influence was an easy one.  There has, nor may there ever be, a book that has had a greater influence on my life than this one:

Honestly, this book made me write my first serious short-stories in fifth grade.  I became a Dungeons and Dragons nut because of this book.  I drew dragons and elves and dwarves and goblins within the margins of my notebooks from middle-school, up through high-school, into college, and, if I'm honest, into staff meetings here in the present.  Let me sum things up with a confession:  I cried during the movie-version of Return of the King when the Riders of Rohan came up over the crest and charged down into the Orc army's flank.  I literally wept during that scene.  That's an influence.

As to music, I guess it is time for some honesty.  It'd be cooler to say The Clash or Jane's Addiction or The Smiths or The Pogues or some other suitably acceptable band for the serious music fan.  Hell, I could earn some serious street-cred by telling you that I was an early-adopter of rap music (which I was). I'd be lying though if I claimed any of them as my most significant influence.  I never would have discovered those bands above if I hadn't discovered someone else first.  I can remember the moment quite clearly.  It was the early 80s and my local cable provider expanded their channel offering from ten channels to twenty.  One of those channels was MTV and it made my mind blow up in a way that can only happen when a small-town boy is exposed in a single moment to the rest of the world.  It was because of MTV that this happened:

Sadly (and so very un-metal), you can't watch one of their videos here on our blog.  You can, however, run off to YouTube and watch it there.  Just promise that you'll come back.

Oh, sweet hair metal, you don't know how much I owe you.  Let me just explain one thing first, I freaking LOVED Motley Crue.  I wrote their name on my backpack.  I drew pentagrams on my school notebooks.  I wanted to be Nikki Sixx.  I wore their t-shirts.  I wanted to go home-sweet-home just like EVERYONE else in the 80s did.  Today, I wouldn't come within ten feet of so much hairspray.  But, why might they then be one of my greatest influences?  Even if they were responsible for lesser hair-metal bands?  (I'm talking to you White Lion!)  Well, let's put it like this:  Motley Crue helped me to discover The Cult who beget Jane's Addiction who beget Nirvana who beget Pearl Jam...you get the idea.  If I hadn't discovered Motley Crue, I would probably have ended up listening to, excuse me while I throw up a little, Loverboy or Foreigner or Air Supply or even (gulp) Styx for the majority of my middle and high-school years.  Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto indeed!  Oh my, I don't even want to think about it.  I probably would have bought a Richard Marx album, too.  Oh, the humanity.  Also, being that honesty was what I promised, I still love Motley Crue.  Shout at the devil, baby.

The 1990s

Okay, finally, I've made it to the years when I became really, really cool when it came to music.  The 90s also happen to be when I became really serious about reading.  I don't want to give the wrong impression.  I wasn't reading a lot.  Okay.  I was reading a lot but not as much as I should have been.  I was reading serious books and I mean for that to sound just as arrogant as it does.  I was in college studying literature and writing.  I was reading Ulysses and Mrs. Dalloway.  One of my professors got me hooked on the short-stories of Anton Chekov.  I spent my weekends with my nose buried in Isben.  Yeah, I was that guy.  I wasn't really cool with popular fiction at the time.  Looking back, I was a tool.  Okay, I shouldn't be so harsh on myself.  I was only being a tool because my professors were insisting that, if I were going to be a serious writer, that I had to be reading that stuff.  I've come to understand that they were wrong.  I hold them personally responsible for how long it took me to pick up the first Harry Potter book.  I did though have comics to fall back on.  Graphic novels became my thing.  I was all over them.  One series of comics really stood out for me and I still hold the author in ridiculously high-esteem:

Now, so far as music goes, the 1990s were my moment to shine.  I was a deejay at my college radio station and I had access to tons and tons and tons of new music.  It became a matter of pride to discover new bands and expose my peers to them.  I relished it and I still take great joy in doing so today.  I could go on for days about the bands that influenced me during that decade.  Nirvana.  Radiohead. Alice in Chains. Soundgarden. The Screaming Trees. Smashing Pumpkins. Nine Inch Nails.  Rage Against the Machine. Beck.  PJ Harvey. Still, only one band took the throne.  Pearl Jam.  I know that their albums are sometimes hit-or-miss.  The war they waged against Ticketmaster didn't exactly make them easy to see live.  But, from the first moment I saw the grainy video for "Alive" and I watched Eddie Vedder climb up into the balcony and dive down into the waiting arms of an enamored audience, I was theirs.  I've come to grow into the realization that Pearl Jam have become something more than a band for me.  They represent my own movement through time. They grow with me.  They've had children and started families.  I've done that, too.  It's a little fanboy of me but I sincerely feel like we share something together.  We have a relationship together.  Their frontman could put out an album of ukulele songs and I'd be right there with them.  Oh, wait....right.  Anyway, you can forget Phish.  The greatest touring band on Earth are Pearl Jam.  Honestly, does anyone do it better?

The 2000s

The first decade of the new century.  Musically, this one is really, really, really easy.  In trying to think of a band that has really meant something to me, it was very clear.  I considered briefly going with My Morning Jacket.  I love them.  I've seen them live more than any other band including Mr. Vedder and his gang of ruffians.  Still, while MMJ soar and ride around on these massive spectacles of grandiose southern-fried experimentation (I do consider them America's only real challenger to Radiohead), they didn't give me, in the past decade, what I got from Arcade Fire.  Maybe I discovered My Morning Jacket too late.  My first contact with them came from the album "Z".  In the meantime, Arcade Fire had me from the very first moments of The Funeral and they haven't let me go since.  I have never felt more exhilarated by the promise of a live performance than I did the first time I drove up to Montreal to see them live.  I was giddy.  Finally, with Pearl Jam and the Arcade Fire, we've reached the place where who I believe I am musically lines up with who I really am.

When it comes to books, my influences shift their focus.  I've tried to become very deliberate with how I live my life.  I spend my money on the people and products that have proven they stand for the same things I do. I have never had a more direct correlation between a book that I read and the changes I made in my own life than I did after reading Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation.  I remember the night very clearly when I finished that book.  I was lying in bed and I turned to my wife and said "I'm never eating fast food again."  I haven't.  It was over.  I later read Michael Pollan's Ominivore's Dilemma which only solidified the choices I had made.  But it all started with Eric Schlosser and, being that Big Macs used to be one of my most-guilty of pleasures, I have to say that's quite an influence.

I'm not sure what is coming next.  We never do.  I wonder though if any of the bands that I'm currently in love with will go the distance and be considered an influence in-and-of-themselves.  I currently love the music being put out by Fleet Foxes, The Lumineers, Japandroids, and the Black Keys (to name only a few). When this decade is over, will I look back on them or will they be surpassed by a band that hasn't even cut an album yet?  I don't know.  But it will certainly be fun to find out.

As far as book-related influences go, I feel like my greatest influences come from my amazing CPs and a band of beta readers that I've been lucky enough to join forces with.  Honestly, is there anything more influential than knowing that you aren't in this thing alone?  Is Jonathan Franzen reminding me on Twitter to keep moving forward with my re-write?  No.  Does Suzanne Collins send me emails that push me to be more demanding on my own work?  To move my writing from okay to great?  No.  Did JK Rowling just tell me to keep my chin-up after one more rejection?  Not that I noticed.  How can I call them influences then?

So, don't leave me hanging people.  We're all friends here.  Give it to me straight, who are your influences (especially the ones you don't want to admit...somebody had to buy all those Milli Vanilli albums)?

Paul Adams spends his time in the wilds of Vermont fighting bears to protect his wife and two kids.  He teaches high school English, writes MG/YA stories, embarrasses his family on a regular basis, and lets his geek-flag fly proudly.  He dreams of being a member of the Pixies. 

ATWN: Free Track of the Day - Ra Ra Riot "Beta Love"

I like getting stuff for free.  A few years back my wife and I packed up our lives in Boston and headed back to my home turf in Vermont.  The transition was easy for me but not so much for my wife.  She'd spent the best part of eleven years in Beantown and, where I am a ridiculous introvert, she is an extrovert and was being asked to leave behind a fairly massive social circle.  It was all very Green Acres.  To help guide her through those first few months of social isolation she picked up the hobby of wasting time on a website that was, basically, a clearing house for sweepstakes.  It was all there.  Good Housekeeping was giving away a year's supply of Clorox to the person who could explain in 500 words or less what "clean" really meant to their daily lives.  Give Nike access to your email address and you could win a trip to the Olympics.  My wife was hooked for a while and, much to my surprise, her efforts were rewarded.  We won trips, concert tickets, t-shirts, and this crazy prize package that included the greatest thing we were ever given for free - a Roomba.

Now, we here at ATWN can't exactly hook you up with a robotic vacuum.  We can however scrounge the internet and find free tunes.  This next one comes from the chamber pop outfit, Ra-Ra-Riot.  Here's a taste of what you can get your filthy little fingers on if you click the link below:

The free-track comes courtesty of NPR's "All Songs Considered" so Clicky-click-click-right-here and head on over there and get your well-deserved free stuff.

Paul Adams spends his time in the wilds of Vermont fighting bears to protect his wife and two kids.  He teaches English at a local high school, writes MG/YA stories, embarrasses his family on a regular basis, and lets his geek-flag fly proudly.  He dreams of being a member of the Pixies. 

ATWN: Free Track of the Day - Wake Owl "Gold"

We at ATWN realize that we may have taken for granted that our readership were aware of the "freegan" movement.  It was rude and it would seem that the only way to make it up to you is to a) let Carrie and Fred from Portlandia give you a taste of what the freegan movement is all about and b) give you some more free tunes.  Let's get that first part out of the way:

Now, as to that "free" stuff we're always going on about around here.  Today's free track comes from Vancouver's own Wake Owl.  Now, once again, we find ourselves apologizing but this time it might not be our fault.  As we know, international music rights are tricky.  We found this track while checking out what iTunes was offering for free this week.  Now, this song might be free in the United States (which is where I'm currently typing) and you might live in Canada.  Maybe you live in the UK?  Whatever.  It doesn't matter.  You might find that our little nugget of musical goodness isn't actually free in your country.  If that's the case, find a friend in the US and have them grab it for you.  You do have friends, right?  Clicky clicky this link right here and get yourself some love.

Paul Adams spends his time in the wilds of Vermont fighting bears to protect his wife and two kids.  He teaches English at a local high school, writes MG/YA stories, embarrasses his family on a regular basis, and lets his geek-flag fly proudly.  He dreams of being a member of the Pixies. 



ATWN: Free Track of the Day - Local Natives "Breakers"

We love free music here at ATWN.  We're just a bunch of dumpster-diving internet freegans at heart.  Lucky for you, we're not interested in serving you a cup of joe with a splash of expired half n' half and a four-day-old donut we found behind some mini-mart.  We're music hounds and we want you to beef up your library with a few free tunes.  Today's free track comes from Los Angeles' Local Natives.  Their first album, Gorilla Manor, introduced listeners to a unique sound that relied heavily on the groups use of vocal harmonies and the wonderful ability to carry a groove.  Imagine the offspring of a one-night-stand between Fleet Foxes and Vampire Weekend and you've probably got a pretty good understanding of what you're getting yourself into.  The band released their second album, Hummingbird, on January 29th.  Their first single, Breakers, has a beautiful rising build and is driven home by those pre-mentioned harmonies.

If you'd like to get your grubby little hands on this track for the exorbitant price of nothing, swing by the band's website (clicky right here people) and join their mailing list.  Poof.  You've got a new song.

Paul Adams spends his time in the wilds of Vermont fighting bears to protect his wife and two kids.  He teaches English at a local high school, writes MG/YA stories, embarrasses his family on a regular basis, and lets his geek-flag fly proudly.  He dreams of being a member of the Pixies.