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GOING BALLS OUT

Before we get to our feature presentation that is The Mask, I wanted to quickly mention that the good people at Vinegar Syndrome asked me to contribute to the liner notes for their gorgeous box set reissue of the the 1986 cult BMX movie RAD. (Previously I had contributed an essay to their glorious/repulsive box set of Dirty Work, one of my all-time favorite comedies.)

As always, they did a tremendous job with the packaging and it looks incredible. They even came pretty close to spelling my name correctly.

Here’s my lede:

Could a trend be considered an official fixture of American pop culture in the 1980s if it didn’t have a feature film made about it? Said film didn’t need to win awards, succeed at the box office, or even be particularly good, but it had to exist. Every fad needed some representation on the big screen for it to be legit.

Skateboarding got its moment in the sun with the Josh Brolin-led 1986 movie Thrashin’. Martial arts kicked its way into the zeitgeist with 1984’s The Karate Kid. Southern California teenage slang was immortalized by Valley Girl in 1983, the same year hip-hop had Wild Style and punk had Suburbia. Even Nintendo’s rise was commemorated in 1989’s The Wizard. But what about the BMX craze of the early ‘80s? When would that appear in theaters?

Here is where I admit to you, my trusted ZERO CRED readers, that I am a poser who did not see RAD until later in life (I was a skateboard kid, not BMX), so I don’t have the same reverence for the film as those who grew up with it. That said, even as an adult I was blown away by the glorious “BMX Boogie” sequence. Honestly just incredible piece of 80s filmmaking and we should preserve it in some sort of time capsule for future generations.

Speaking of movies, one more shout out to Tim Kasher’s great feel-bad movie Who’s Watching, which is now on streaming services.

DIRTY OLD POWER

Oh and speaking of things I worked on recently, I got to write the bio for AJJ’s new album, Dirty Old Power, which is out now. I really think I have an essay in me about how you can watch the world get progressively worse over the last 20 years through the lens of the increasing nihilism of AJJ lyrics, which went from this world is hard but rejoice because we are one beautiful soul, etc. to fuck this bitch ass world. Maybe one day I will get on that.

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SOMEBODY STOP HIM

If I live by one rule about art, it is this: If you have an idiotic idea for a project, the only way to pull it off is with your whole ass. A bit that is only committed to in half measures is bound to fail. You have to go all in for it to work. In fact, the dumber the idea, the more seriously you must take it.

This has been the North Star of my career. So when I opened a package that had arrived in my PO Box and saw that had, for no real reason, spent several years writing and publishing a full novelization of the 1994 Jim Carrey comedy The Mask, all I could do was tip my hat out of sheer respect, the way Leo DiCaprio raises his glass in that one meme.

Bradford’s The Mask novelization delivers exactly what it promises: a 111-page retelling of the movie. It’s all in there, scene for scene, and somehow Bradford also finds the space to throw in fun facts pulled from Ben Stein’s Wikipedia page, quotes from YouTube comments about the movie, and asides about the genius of grunge rock underdogs Toadies and their 1994 album Rubberneck (he’s right and he should say it).

Naturally I had to call Bradford up to ask a few questions, namely: why have you done this? Check out our convo below. You can grab a copy in his store. And if you’re in the San Diego area, put on your best zoot suit and head to Soda Bar on October 27 for the launch party.

I guess the only question I really have to ask you about this project is: Why? Why do a thing like this?

Ryan Bradford: And I think the only answer to that is: p-a-r-t-why?

[Solemnly] Because you gotta. Damn, of course.

Yeah. It’s probably something I can go through with a lot of therapy. I think there are probably some deep-seated desires and obsessions with these kinds of projects. I teach high school, mostly freshmen and sophomores, and they’re great kids. I love my job. I love coming in every day and learning new things from different cultures. But the whole attention span problem is no secret. You can see kids on their phones and it’s just insane how little attention span they have and how everything is so difficult. It just got me thinking about the beauty of boredom and tedium. I’m just fascinated about that kind of stuff. I’ve always been fascinated with stuff like stop-motion video making, where you make moving things frame by frame. In a lot of ways, this project was like making a stop-motion animation.

It’s funny that you mention kids’ short attention spans because I was very surprised that you said you’d never read a movie novelization before making this. That’s how they tricked kids with short attention spans into reading! Didn’t the Scholastic book fair come to your school?

I mean, it absolutely did. I feel like I must’ve seen some Mask novelizations. Since finishing this project, there were two novelizations of The Mask that were written in the 90s. I wanted to buy them and check them out—like, see what the competition was. I’m happy to say that so far mine is better than one of them. I haven’t read the other, so the jury is out on that one. Like, it said “snazzy!” And I’m wondering, did the writer of it get an early version of the script where that was the line instead of “smoking?”

What did you learn from watching The Mask so many times?

Holy shit. I bought it on YouTube five years ago and I just had it open like in my browser for five years on my computer, so whenever I had some downtime I would just chip away at some seconds of The Mask. I simultaneously know more than I’ve ever wanted to know about this movie, but also I feel like I didn’t really watch it. Is watching it in five-second increments at a time watching it? It’s kind of like you’re looking at the trees the entire time instead of looking at the forest.

You’re a soldier on the frontlines. You don’t know what the war is about.

Exactly. It’s a very strange way to experience a narrative. I feel like I’m very keyed into the minute details, but if somebody was like, “What of the grand theme of this movie?” I’d be like, I don’t know, incels?

The book is very scant, barely over 100 pages. I thought for sure you’d be consolidating the movie quite considerably, but I was amazed to see that you crammed the whole thing into these pages.

I think pocket-sized books are just the best. So I wanted it to be small and a nice little compact tool, almost like a Bible that you can pull out of your pocket if somebody has any questions about The Mask.

You’re too humble to say it, but I will. Your book is more important than the Bible.

Thank you.

What was your approach going into it? Did you want to write it for someone who had never seen the movie?

Like I said, I’d never read a novelization, so the way I approached it was: I just started kind of visually transcribing, and soon after I started writing, this voice came out. The idea is sort of like you are on the phone with me and I’m watching The Mask and you are not and I’m describing it. But also kind of giving my weird commentary and asides. That voice kind of became its own character, which has this psycho fan side to it, which is not that wrong. My relationship with that movie is so strange because I simultaneously love it, but I also think it’s not a great movie. It seems like the most memorable mediocre movie that was ever made.

Did you see The Mask when it first came out?

I did. I have very vivid memories. This was 1994 and kids were obsessed with Jim Carrey. He had a huge year.

He had one of the craziest years anybody’s ever had.

Exactly. And this was a special effects event movie, which was still novel at the time. I was a kid who definitely cared about computer animation CGI. I was very excited to see what kind of magic they brought to the screen. I remember they had all these amazing elements but I remember being kind of disappointed in the movie. I also remember drinking an extra large Sprite super fast and having to piss like 50 times during the movie, so I might’ve missed a lot of good parts.

Isn’t it funny that we can remember stuff like that? I also vividly remember being ten years old and my grandparents taking me to see this movie. They both fell asleep during it. I very specifically remember getting out of the movie, and the theater had those double doors, and I remember throwing them open like The Mask entering the Copa Cabana1. I was doing “somebody stop me!” as a 10-year-old.

Did anybody stop you?

Nobody did, and nobody has since, no. Last question: If you were to do this again, what movie would you do it for?

I think I’d probably do it again only if it was Roadhouse, the Patrick Swayze one. That’s a movie that I came to later in life. My wife showed me that when I was maybe 23. It was one of her childhood movies and I was amazed that her family let her watch that as a little girl because that movie has, you know, everything. We watch it maybe once a year and every time I watch it I find something new, so that would be a kind of fun thing to dissect, frame by frame.

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ONE MAN’S OPINION: THE UNCOOL BY CAMERON CROWE

There’s a line in Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical 2000 movie Almost Famous where Lester Bangs (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) looks the young Cameron Crowe character up and down and scoffs, “There’s fucking nothing about you that’s controversial.” I thought about that line a lot while reading Crowe’s newish memoir, The Uncool, because really, there is fucking nothing controversial about him. He is, as the title says, uncool.

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I’ve been mentioning this here and there but People Standing in Front of Danzig’s House: Volume 2, the long awaited follow-up to my surprisingly popular photo zine, is currently being printed and I will officially announce it soon. Upgrade to a paid ZERO CRED membership to get an early heads up on the drop, plus an exclusive item and a 20% off discount.

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Lots of pals were kind enough to make time for last minute photoshoots which helped me wrap this thing up on time so I could meet my self-imposed deadline. One of the last people I got in before the buzzer was Mr. Tim Kasher, who you of course know from Cursive, The Good Life, etc.

Tim directed a new movie called Who’s Watching and I got to catch a screening on Friday with an acoustic performance by Tim beforehand and a Q&A after. While I was waiting to cross the street to get to the theater, I spotted this on a street pole and instinctively knew it had something to do with the film.

This was a fun one to go into blind so I won’t give too much away, but the film plays out through the eyes of a socially awkward metal bassist who compulsively records everything which leads him on a path to stalking and eventually something more sinister.

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Hello ZERO CRED elite.

It is September 11 as I type this and I am writing this Weekly Whatever column in an attempt to keep my eyes off the internet. I know we have collectively become largely desensitized to The Events over the last 25 years but seeing photos from that day still has the power to make me feel rotten. I hate it. I was close enough to Grou…

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Today we’ve got some new music/new books etc. for you this weekend.

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I know I typically ramble on here about what’s new in punk, hardcore, emo, etc. but we are required by law to pay respects this week to the great Dolly Parton, an actual American icon. Now that she’s gone, people are asking who the most universally beloved woman in America is and I think we can all agree that her name is Hillary Ro…

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Today’s post is an interview with Andrew Sacher, author of the new book Emo Revival. Check the archive for more interviews with musicians, authors, and artists.

Andrew Sacher hates that one viral music post. You know the one. It lists a dozen bands and says pick three, the others disappear forever. “I’m like, first of all, no, they don’t!” Sacher insists. “But I’m the opposite. I hate leaving things out. I want to write an essay on all ten. I want to get into what they all did, separately and collectively, and why they all matter and why you should hear them.”

Sacher is the rare obsessive music fan who is able to comb through every new release and find something of value in all of them. He wants every band to get its due. For 16 years, he served as indie rock’s unofficial record-keeper at the music blog BrooklynVegan, tirelessly documenting new releases, tours, and news in all genres of music. And while he’s covered everything from metal to pop to hip-hop, the genres he felt most personally attached to fell under the larger umbrella of emo.

His first book, Emo Revival, documents a nebulous scene that happened roughly from 2008 to 2018 and included a long list of subgenres like pop-punk, emo, and post-hardcore. On the surface, bands like PUP, Touché Amoré, The Sidekicks, Balance and Composure, and Foxing might seem sonically disparate, but Sacher believes they all stemmed from the same musical roots, and he took it upon himself to label the larger movement “emo revival.”

Not long after this interview was conducted, Sacher was laid off from BrooklynVegan in a very stupid large-scale sweep that axed its staff as well as those at Alternative Press, Revolver, and Goldmine. Sacher moved his talents to his newsletter, Unhappy Place, where he continues to cover new releases. In that new context, Emo Revival now seems like a bookend, a document that captures not only a significant time in emo history but Sacher’s own indispensable role as a documentarian of this movement.

ORDER EMO REVIVAL BY ANDREW SACHER

Your book did something that I don’t know that I’ve ever seen. You attribute quotes to people by their first names. How did you come about that decision?

Andrew Sacher: See, this is why I was looking forward to this interview. Because you’re an author, I knew you were going to ask questions that nobody else has asked. You’re going to have questions about writing things that no one else even notices.

Yeah, no one else could come up with a question this boring!

I felt like part of the premise of the book was that this stuff is so intimate, so up close and personal. These are shows in basements where the band plays on the floor and the crowd and the band are all one and there’s no barrier and everybody is equal. I feel like when you refer to people by last names, it can be a little dehumanizing in a journalistic way.

It’s a little formal.

Yeah. And so I was like, no, this isn’t Reinhart. This is Joe from Algernon. That’s what the people in the scene would know him as. I wanted you to feel like you were talking to somebody.

I’m fine with last names but it is funny when you see one of these bands get covered in the New York Times and they’re like, “Mr. Reinhart started playing guitar at 16.” I’m like, Mr. Reinhart? What is this, his dad? What the fuck? That seems too formal. So, I can handle last names, but that was a very interesting choice on your part to go with first names.

Well, I feel flattered that it’s the first thing you ask, because no one has brought this up yet. Not a single person has said this to me. I wondered if people were going to react negatively and be like, “That’s not journalistic, that’s not proper, that’s not AP format or whatever.” And I don’t care.

How does it feel to be on the other side of the interview?

It’s fun. I’ve done a few podcasts and stuff, and it’s really fun and freeing and less anxiety-inducing to be interviewed.

I didn’t realize until I started being interviewed for press stuff that it’s harder than I thought to be on that side of the microphone. I definitely had a new appreciation for people I’ve interviewed. In all your work at BrooklynVegan and the book, do you have a favorite person to interview?

The first that comes to mind is probably Conor [Murphy] from Foxing. Maybe that comes to mind because I’m interviewing him soon about his new solo record. So many conversations were so good. Part of the fun, too, was just getting deep and nerdy with all these emo people about things most people don’t care about. I had so much fun talking to Tanner [Jones] from You Blew It! I had so much fun talking to Dan [Campbell] from The Wonder Years. The list goes on. There was one conversation that was a little awkward, but I will spare the person.

What was awkward about it?

One of the people in the book has spent a lot of their career distancing themselves from emo revival, and were not really stoked to reflect on it.

That’s actually something I wanted to ask you about. Not that I entirely disagree with the premise of your book, but I personally don’t view genres in terms of waves or revivals. When you reached out to interview people about the emo revival, what was the feedback? Did people know what the hell you were talking about?

This is another thing I’m really glad you’re asking about. One thing I have both felt defensive about as I’ve introduced the book to the public, and am very prepared for people to really hate on me about, is that emo revival describes something specific, and that my book has too wide of a scope, that emo revival is only supposed to be bands that sound like Algernon Cadwallader and it shouldn’t even include anybody who existed by the time this stuff was talked about on Pitchfork. Like, it shouldn’t even be The Hotelier. I know that opinion exists. There’s a really, really amazing Norman Brannan quote from when he brought Anti-Matter back. He said something like, there’s no room for genre police here. And I’m stealing that from him. If your main gripe with the book is that it’s not all “emo revival,” I feel like you’re kind of missing the point of this extremely long book.

This is all to say I was very ready and still am a little bit defensive about what that phrase means to different people. But, amazingly enough, I came up with a fairly succinct pitch that I used every time, and people got it. They understood that this became shorthand for a whole generation of music that was somewhat emotional punk and indie rock. So, people understood it. And when I would sit down with people, I would often start the interview by explaining that the book is really more about the community than any specific style of music. When I would talk to these people about post-hardcore and and indie rock, pop punk, they all saw it as: we were one community, we were one scene. I think everyone I talked to understood that it was a community and it had to be called something.

You’ve had to be something of a jack of all trades at BrooklynVegan. You’ve covered metal, you’ve covered pop, you’ve covered hip-hop. Why was your first book about this emo scene?

Well, I hope this isn’t awkward, but I put in the acknowledgements, and I’ve said in a few interviews, I kind of credit you a little bit with this. When I interviewed you about SELLOUT, at the end of the interview, when the recording was done, I said hey, I’m thinking of writing my own book and I’m wondering if you have any advice for me. And you told me, write about the thing that you know better than anything else. My first idea was not this emo revival thing. I had two other ideas, but when you said that, I threw them both out. I was like, I don’t know those things intimately enough. I know a lot about them and I like them a lot, but this is something that I was part of, from basement shows with 50 people through selling out Irving Plaza and being on Coachella and Pitchfork and all this stuff. I was documenting this stuff on BrooklynVegan as it was happening.

I’m always quick to point out that I don’t only write about emo, but I think some people might think that about me because there weren’t a lot of people writing about emo at that time, in the certain way that we were doing it. So, if I have one of 55 reviews of the new Beyoncé record, there’s no way that mine is even close to the best. It’s just not. But if I had a really well thought out Pianos Become the Teeth review, there’s only two of those. [Laughs] So it kind of became my main beat. I felt like I was sort of right there every step of the way. What else I could possibly know more intimately in the music space than this?

It’s very funny that you mention Pianos Become the Teeth as an example, because I remember very specifically, when I first started at Noisey in 2013, I wrote something on Pianos Become the Teeth, and I remember telling my co-workers about it, and them being like, “Yeah, whatever. We don’t care. Do whatever you want.” And I ran it and we had Chartbeat, which tells you what the most popular article is. And it was beating everything else by a factor of ten. Then my coworkers were like, “What is this? I’ve never heard of this. Why is it so popular?” And I was like, it’s not that it’s more popular than Beyoncé, it’s just that we’re the only site that is covering it right now. So I do agree with you that there was an exclusivity factor to what we had. So, if you didn’t write this emo revival book, who was going to do it?

Yeah, there’s always been a fervor around writing for this stuff. There were a few things that made me think this could be a book. One of them was that every time I wrote a tenth anniversary article on one of these records, it blew up. Like, I’d run a tenth anniversary piece on Joyce Manor’s first record. When that record came out, they toured and the biggest show they played was in New York City to 40 people. It wasn’t reviewed by Pitchfork at the time. It wasn’t reviewed by anybody at the time except Punknews and maybe Sputnik Music or something. And then, ten years later, a tenth anniversary article is a massive hit, the band played the album in full at Central Park and sold it out. But then we’d run a tenth anniversary article on another band that was totally hot in the indie world when it came out—let’s just say The xx or Grimes—and it would be kind of a dud. People just didn’t need a tenth anniversary look-back. People felt like they’d heard enough at that point.

It’s funny that things that come out hot tend to just cool down, but other things take a while to build in historical significance.

Yeah, exactly. And I felt like this kind of did.

The book spans a decade and a few different geographical locations. Which part of the book were you most personally connected to?

The cool thing was when I would be doing an interview with a band and a specific show I was at would get brought up. I don’t think it made the book, but when I was talking to Greg Horbal, who used to be in The World Is…, he mentioned a show at SUNY Purchase where their original singer Tom just didn’t sing the whole set. I was at that show, and I didn’t even know at the time. It was too packed in the room to even see that he wasn’t the one singing. So I didn’t even know that was a turning point for the band. It was just a very sweaty night as far as I remember it.

Things like that were fun, but also, being in New York when so much of this was in Pennsylvania, I was often not feeling the closest to a lot of it. We had Suburbia in Brooklyn, as I’m sure you remember. I had seen a lot of these bands in New York, and it’s easy to sort of combine the show you saw with YouTube footage of the first Unitarian Church and be like, I get exactly what it was like. But time-wise, I mean, kind of all of it. Writing about tours that happened, I was able to look back at my own articles on that stuff.

How much did you lean on BrooklynVegan as your own personal resource?

A lot. Actually, the chapter on Title Fight’s Floral Green was from an article I already had written on that album turning ten for BV, that I spoke to Ned [Russin] and Will Yip for. So that was basically in the book. But I was just constantly going back to my own articles from back then, reminding myself what I said about these things at the time, obviously reading so many other articles. And then, of course, just digging through the Wayback Machine. That was a lot of fun too, finding Myspace comments from 2008 that provided context I was missing.

I feel like people don’t even really see the point of music journalism anymore, but I do think one of the most important parts about it is documenting consensus. Sometimes when I’ve found myself having to research an album that came out in the 90s, like, say, Jawbreaker. Everybody loves Jawbreaker now, but you can read old reviews to understand that this wasn’t the consensus at the time. So I really think it’s important to get all of this real-time consensus documented. I’m glad you had a whole archive of it at BrooklynVegan. It must be like keeping a long journal in a way.

Yeah, it totally was like that. Jawbreaker is obviously a classic example of people not realizing that Dear You was a hated record. I was just doing a podcast interview the other day where I corrected them on the show. They were like, “It’s crazy that Modern Baseball and Title Fight broke up at the height of their fame.” And I was like, no, they didn’t. Title Fight broke up after releasing a record that nobody liked. Hyperview was not understood by the emo community, and then the shoegaze fans just didn’t pay attention to Title Fight because they figured the band played Warped Tour. So they had a really hard time getting anybody to understand that record. Now that record is so loved and so influential because shoegaze is now bigger than ever, and so much of that had to do with emo bands doing shoegaze as well as DIIV and Yuck and these other indie bands that were doing it. But that’s a perfect example of: if you weren’t there in 2015, you might not realize that nobody really liked Hyperview.

Yeah. I feel like I’m going insane when I see younger people’s thoughts now about things that I lived through. I’ll look at Title Fight and they have millions of followers on Spotify, and they are this canonized band. And I’m like, I cannot stress enough that Title Fight was just some band. They were very good and people liked them, but they were just some band on a bill with four other bands. Modern Baseball, too. I watched them get bigger and bigger, and I was so happy to see it, but there are bands now who are as big as they were who we don’t talk about with the same reverence. I think the bands who have stayed away have built a lore to them.

Same with Algernon, who were who were gone by the time this stuff got big and then reunited as a massive band.

I guess the godfathers of all of this would be American Football. Steve [Lamos], their drummer, was just telling me that even from their perspective it’s sort of unbelievable, because they didn’t do anything to perpetuate their mythology. All they did was go away. A whole lore had built around them on its own.

I was really glad I got to tell their story in the book, too, because in a way, their story is really more a part of fourth-wave emo than second-wave emo. In second-wave emo, American Football were a band who existed for ten shows.

Pretty much all the bands in the book were too young to have seen second-wave bands play. So, one question I asked everyone was: how did you come to this stuff? It was really cool to see how similar a lot of the answers were. For me, I found Owen when he was around playing shows and putting out records, and I knew American Football as Owen’s old band. And I remember there was this massive torrent that I got at some point in high school, which was just like 60 90s emo records.

The emo starter pack.

Yeah, exactly. It was full discographies of dozens of 90s emo bands that were broken up. It was just cool to hear everyone had their own version of that kind of story in some way.

The book was very thorough and encyclopedic, but is there anything that you didn’t get to cover?

Multiple things. The first draft was twice as long as the final draft. And even with everything that got cut from the first draft, there are still things that didn’t even make the first draft. The voice in my head is the completest music snob. When you put out a list on BrooklynVegan of 20 albums that shaped this genre or whatever, there’s always that one guy who’s like, “This list is invalid because you left off this album.” That guy’s voice lives in my head all the time. So when I’m turning in this 600-page first draft, I’m like, man, but I didn’t get to touch on that band. And then, of course, a lot of bands I did touch on either get cut completely or just reduced to these small moments. I’ll give you a few. To me, they’re obvious if you read the book, but that’s probably because I know what I wish was there. A big one is Basement. I really wish there was more Basement in the book. I think it’s obvious when it gets to the point where Colourmeinkindness gets brushed past in one half-paragraph. It could have been a whole chapter.

The Basement Tapes would be a perfect title for a supplementary book.

[Laughs] Right. I wish there was so much more of their story, especially because they were the UK counterparts. I really wish there was more Glocca Morra in the book. Just Married is such an important album, but the band were already over it before it came out. Those are two big ones for me, but there are others. It was really hard to feel good about cutting anything.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Hello and welcome to ZERO CRED, Earth’s only music newsletter, by me, Dan Ozzi.

A quick note that I am back home from the East Coast and have shipped all the mailorder that piled up while I was traveling. Thanks for the patience. All items are stocked in my store and for the remainder of August I am dropping the price of these beautiful ZERO CRED shirts down to just 15 bucks so that you can get your summer goth on while the sun is still nice and oppressive.

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Last week I rounded up a few music writers I read on the reg and the feedback on it was really positive. Apparently people enjoy things that are useful and bring helpful information into their lives???

But of course immediately after I sent it I remembered a few I’d forgotten. So, here is Part Deux: a few more folks worth following. (I’m sure I’m still forgetting more but that’s Future Me’s problem.)

The Future Is Ours to Make by Chris Richards

THE FUTURE IS OURS TO MAKE

Music reccos/rants/prayers/curses by critic and co-listener Chris Richards

By Chris Richards

Many know Chris as the former music critic of the Washington Post (who, like many in the industry, also suffered the cruel blade of layoffs and started his own newsletter) but I will always know him as a former member of Q and Not U. Insightful writing about new music and fanzines. God I miss these sorts of pithy little capsule reviews of albums presented in rapid-fire succession.

“Gracie Abrams, Daughter from Hell. Nepos feel pain too is an album concept so perverse, it almost works.”

Big LOL.

Also, still a banger…

Heaven Sent by Hannah Rose Ewens

Heaven Sent

A spiritual newsletter.

By Hannah Ewens

Another former Noisey UK counterpart of mine from my VICE days, Hannah’s Heaven Sent is sort of a behind-the-scenes look at her life as a features writer, like her thoughts about profiling Lana Del Rey, but it also has a focus on spirituality. You know, the broader search for meaning and purpose in life? Personally I am content to spend my precious time on earth collecting my little zines and dunking on bad movies with my friends but to each their own.

Jacob Bannon’s newsletter

Jacob’s Substack

My personal Substack to connect with readers on a deeper level.

By Jacob Bannon

Not sure how I forgot this one last week!

For a guy whose vocal delivery is completely indecipherable, Converge frontman Jake Bannon writes incredibly clearly. I always knew he was more thoughtful than a lot of his hardcore peers, but his newsletter really underlines that. Sometimes he’s deconstructing the artwork for his albums and sometimes he’s reflecting on the emotional toll art takes. But my favorite post is this one about how he keeps his voice in working shape after decades of shredding it every night. Honestly, just a level or practical information I always wanted to know.

OK I’ve got some recommendations and new things for paid subscribers after the jump. Upgrade to get this column every week.

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Last week I mentioned how disappointing, albeit unsurprising, it is that Live Nation had recently gutted the staffs of the internet’s few remaining music websites. I don’t know what the future of music journalism will be. Maybe something important can rise from the ashes. But here in the present moment, the state of things is a disjointed scattering of stray writers off doing their own show and dance for their own audiences.

And even though it’s frustrating to have everything spread out across the internet, I do actually enjoy waking up to a bunch of new missives from the little freaks I follow in my inbox. So today I thought I’d rattle off a list of some people in music worth following. This is not a complete reading list. Just a few off the top of my head.

And while I’m at it, [Jay Z in 2003 voice] allow me to introduce myself my name is Dan Ozzi. I’m the author of a few books on music like SELLOUT and last year’s co-authoring of Mark Hoppus’ FAHRENHEIT-182. I’ve been running this here publication ZERO CRED since 2019. Seven years in internet time is like several decades in the real world. I’m basically the Odysseus of music newsletters.

I’ve published many longform interviews with musicians, authors, and artists (all free to read!). Every Sunday I send out a whatever column to my paid subscribers full of new music, book, and movie recommendations or just rants about the news of the week. I also use this space to launch new books, zines, and merch I’ve made, because newsletters are cool and all but what I really love is shipping people crap in the mail. Consider upgrading your subscription for only $2.50 a month! It really helps A LOT. Plus you get a membership card and sticker.

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MUSIC WRITERS AND MEDIA EXPATS

Unhappy Place by Andrew Sacher

Unhappy Place

A newsletter on punk, emo, hardcore, indie & more

By Andrew Sacher

Andrew was the first person I thought about when I heard the recent news of the layoffs. For 16 years he has been the driving force behind BrooklynVegan, tirelessly working as indie rock’s official record keeper. I can’t overstate what an invaluable resource his work at BV has become for me. Every time I’ve had to do research and needed to look up dates, times, tours, releases, etc, I’ve seen his byline at the top of the page. After getting laid off last week, he took his talents to Unhappy Place. He also has a new book, Emo Revival, out next month and I have an interview with him about it set to run here very soon.

Former Clarity by David Anthony

Former Clarity is the occasional newsletter by my friend(?), podcast cohost, and former music editor of The AV Club, David Anthony. A good resource for hardcore demo recommendations, extensive Fiddlehead coverage, and updates on his own band, Ritual Cross.

Gabrielle by Emma Garland

Gabrielle

A newsletter about desire.

By Emma Garland

Emma is my former Noisey counterpart in the UK. Gabrielle is a newsletter that mostly collects her horny writings about sex and desire but she also occasionally covers music, like this interview with Ethel Cain. Emma also has a cultural history of emo coming out next year called Tell All Your Friends which I’ve been reading an advance copy of and enjoying. I’m sure there will be updates about it on Gabrielle soon. Writing about emo should require some sort of legal permit you can only obtain by passing several written and oral tests. They should only grant one permit every four years. Not only should Emma be allowed a permit, she should be the one administering the test.

see/saw by Evan Minsker

New punk and hardcore recommendations from the former news director of Pitchfork Evan Minsker. Plus a weekly podcast with Nina Corcoran. I was their first guest. That’s how you know it’s good!

Messages from the Underworld by Jim Ruland

Message from the Underworld

Punk whisperer.

By Jim Ruland

The author of Corporate Rock Sucks, Do What You Want, and My Damage updates readers on his readings, travels, upcoming books and projects, and, for some reason, news items about Orcas. (Don’t get me wrong, I fucking love the Orca news.)

No Expectations by Josh Terry

No Expectations

A weekly music newsletter from writer Josh Terry. Anti-algorithm. Pro-independent artists. From Chicago.

By Josh Terry

An alarming number of weekly music recommendations from writer and Chicago man about town Josh Terry. Like, enough recommendations that you find yourself asking where he finds the time to listen to it all.

Welcome to Hell World by Luke O’Neil

And of course I have to make mention of my boy Luke O’Neil’s Welcome to Hell, the prototype for the newsletter economy. When I started ZERO CRED seven years ago, Luke was really the main voice in the newsletter game and he gave me a lot of helpful advice. Most dispatches are about How Bad Things Are but he’ll occasionally go deep on music, like his semi-regular artist appreciation posts where he asks notable people for their top five songs by a given artist. (I was invited to contribute to the Weezer edition.) Oh and speaking of shameless self promo, Luke recently let me write about Danny McBride’s new book of short stories. Proud to have my name on Hell World.

MUSICIANS: WHAT DO THEY KNOW? DO THEY KNOW THINGS? LET’S FIND OUT!

Solo Record by Geoff Rickly

Solo Record

Singer of Thursday. Author of SWIM. Producer of MCR. This is my solo record. Personal essays, demos & unreleased music, plus a serialized collection of short stories about growing up on tour.

By Geoffrey Rickly

Regular essays, demos, and tour updates from the frontman of Thursday, author of Someone Who Isn’t Me, and foremost STAR of my book SELLOUT, Geoff Rickly. Top tier writing here. Sort of infuriating how effortless he makes it seem.

I.H. in Motion by Sarah Tudzin

IH In Motion

all things IH, on the road & off

By Sarah Tudzin

Here’s Sarah from Illuminati Hotties filling the void on tour by sending out road missives. I like getting these in my inbox because Sarah really keeps it positive and most of the things I read for pleasure are mean and fatalistic.

More Bad Stuff by PUP

MORE BAD STUFF

HERE LIES PUPTHEBAND RIP PUPTHEBAND JUST KIDDING WE'RE STILL A BAND AND THIS IS WHERE WE POST MORE BAD STUFF

By PUP

If I’m being very honest, the concept of a newsletter run by a band rubs me the wrong way. Maybe I subconsciously see it as a threat to my livelihood. After all, if bands cut out the middle men by asking themselves stupid questions in print, what future do I have?? But I like what the PUP guys have been doing with their newsletter, like when Stefan revisited their fans’ least favorite record on its anniversary and tore it a new one. Plus they use my photos sometimes which is fun.

Do Not Siege Walled Cities by Patrick Kindlon

Do Not Siege Walled Cities

The written work of Patrick Kindlon, plus some gossip.

By Patrick Kindlon

Drug Church’s loquacious frontman Patrick Kindlon sends weekly updates about his comic book projects and comic industry gripes and if I’m being very honest I don’t know what he’s on about most of the time. But occasionally he’ll get sidetracked with one of his famous Kindlon Culture Takes and I’m here for it.

Davey Havok’s newsletter

Davey Havok

my words

Last year I talked to AFI frontman Davey Havok and told him that ever since SELLOUT was released I’ve regularly had readers asking me for a supplemental AFI chapter. He seemed surprised because he didn’t feel like he had any reflecting to do on the subject. “It’s been documented so much,” he said of that time in the band’s career. So I was surprised when he started this newsletter and started waxing nostalgic about his records and moments in the band’s history. But I am surprised at how well he translates to the medium.

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Hello ZERO CRED elite.

I know it sounds like I’m blowing smoke up your ass whenever I say that your continued support for independent writers like me is helping to keep music journalism alive, but… it literally is.

This week, several music publications including BrooklynVegan, Alternat…

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Speaking of zines, I do love receiving stuff in the mail, so if you wanna be post office friends, send anything to:

Dan Ozzi
PO Box 11352
Glendale, CA 91226

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ZINES! ZINES! ZINES!

I should start by saying: I did not intend to become The Zine Guy. When I started this weekly column, I was mostly rambling about random music tidbits of the week, album releases, and new books. But somewhere along the way, zines became a larger part of my focus. I guess you become a magnet for what you put into the world. Sometimes, I am seeking zines out, like when I go to the art book fair, but lately they seem to be finding me.

Last year, KG and I were waiting for the shuttle bus at the LAX economy parking lot and we struck up a conversation with the couple on the bench next to us. We were headed to Paris and they were off to Japan. I asked the dude what he was hoping to do there and he said take a lot of pictures. He told me he was a photographer and puts out photo zines. Like I said, the zine freaks just seem to find me.

On the shuttle bus, we all followed each other on Instagram. When I put out my newest photo zine, BACK SHOTS, I messaged him to ask if I could send him a copy. Soon enough, I stopped by my P.O. Box and there was a package waiting from him. He returned the favor with a couple of his Low Quality Film Society zines. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, getting a zine in my P.O. Box from a friend I made at the airport is more rewarding than literally any interaction I’ve ever had on the internet. Real life pen pals FTW!

One zine is a collection of cities and landscapes by dozens (hundreds?) of photographers from around the world. The other is centered on shots of sports.

SOME BOOKS AND ZINES I NEED TO GET AROUND TO BUYING

I have been keeping an eye out for this CKY photo book by Living Proof, Can’t K*ill Yourself, a photo document of the legendary CKY videos (the anarchic pre-Jackass skate videos that put Bam Margera on the map although I really doubt I need to explain this to my readers).

Seems like you have to be a member to be able to order a copy? Hmm this is more complicated than I care to deal with to be honest but the photos look awesome. For now I might just see if I can find it out in the wild. I’m flagging it here so that it’s your problem too.

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Also, since we are deep in the suns-out-guns-out days of summer, I just thought I’d drop a quick reminder that I have some ZERO CRED tees in my store for only twenty bucks. I currently have all sizes stocked. You can even cut the sleeves off if you want. There’s no law against it. I’ve also got some SELLOUT dad hats available. (You do not have to be a dad to wear one, I checked.)

ICYMI

I started searching AI for my own name which produced some pretty horrific results where AI straight-up made up books I’ve never written. Very cool technology we’re resting our entire planet on!

I also wrote about how seeing the movie Backrooms freaked me out because it was pretty identical to a dream I’ve been having my entire life. A weird thing happened after I published this. A few people wrote me to say that they also have been having a version of this dream for years. I went on Reddit and found a few users who have had it too. Have you been having this dream as well? You are not alone.

HOLE-YWOOD SQUARES

The Sunset Strip was once the coolest stretch of road in the entire world, a place where rock stars partied so hard that entire books have been written about their legendary debauchery. But for as long as I’ve lived in this city, West Hollywood has been a faded snapshot of its former glory. Iconic venues like The Whiskey and the Viper Room are still open, but now keep the lights on with hair metal tribute nights. Any new culture that’s popped up in recent years has been a mix of tourist-trap torture and superficial influencer nonsense. Teens on Lime scooters whiz by the Skims store, stopping to take selfies in front of a billboard for some terrible Kevin Hart movie on Netflix. Also it is physically impossible to park in the entire zip code for less than twenty dollars.

So when I heard that a giant sinkhole had opened up right in the middle of the Strip and swallowed West Hollywood I thought to myself ah well good riddance not my problem. This was of course right when my friend Drew Thomson invited me to the area to see him play the Roxy.

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Warning: Mild Backrooms spoilers ahead.

My first adult apartment was a two-bedroom on the third floor of a well-kept building in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. This was before the area got too cool and overpriced. I shared the place with a roommate and it was pretty huge as far as New York apartments on the salaries of two fresh-out-of-college office assistants went. As long as we didn’t mind the occasional bipolar meltdowns of the older Polish woman who owned the building and lived on the first floor, it was an ideal setup.

Not long after I moved in, I went to sleep and had a dream. In the dream I was in my apartment. Everything was normal, the way it was in real life. My framed Shaun of the Dead poster was there and my record collection was there and my shitty IKEA futon was there. But next to my bookshelf I saw a door I had never noticed before. I opened the door and on the other side was a gigantic, fully furnished space. It was like an entire other apartment, decorated like a retired Florida couple’s living room in the 90s. Muted pastel colors, bright light, way too many sectional couches everywhere. Couches that were pressed right up against each other. So many couches that it wasn’t practical. There was barely room to walk. This giant space had just been sitting there in perfect condition but entirely unused.

I have been having some version of this dream my entire adult life. I find a space I didn’t realize had been hiding in plain sight the entire time. Open a door and there it is. Every time I have this dream it fills me with the same mixed feelings. On one hand, it’s exciting. A whole new space! How will I decorate it? What will I use it for? So much room to do activities, etc. At the same time I’m kicking myself for not finding it sooner, regretting all the months my life could’ve been completely different if I’d just noticed that door.

Then I wake up and realize it wasn’t real. Disappointment creeps in, the same kind that comes from having a dream about being able to fly or finding a billion dollars. Fuck. It was just a dream. Back to my regular apartment. Back to my regular life.

For years I’ve been trying to piece together What It All Means. What is my subconscious trying to tell me with this dream? My scientific analysis, which is based on an educated guess I’ve made by judging it against my own neuroses, is that I am afraid of my own unrealized potential. I am paranoid that I’ve been wasting so much time in my tiny world because I was too blind or lazy or stupid to explore what else was out there. My apartment represents my finite life and the area behind the door is the vast unexplored unknown.

This tracks. One of my biggest anxieties in life is that I am not doing enough. Most times, I am, in fact, not doing enough. But even when I am being productive, I am wondering what comes next or what else I could be doing. Friends will tell me I’ve done pretty well for myself, that I’ve written a bunch of books and that I should be proud, etc. But I’m not. I’m constantly worried about what I’m not doing. About doors I’m not opening. About bigger rooms that might exist somewhere, just beyond my reach. This is how I’ve interpreted this dream every time it’s entered my mind for the last 20 years.

So when I saw Backrooms, the acclaimed psychological thriller debut from 21-year-old wunderkind director Kane Parsons, something resonated on a subconscious level.

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Like all Americans, I don’t care about problems until they affect me personally. AI is big problem. I know this because I am constantly hearing people raise very valid criticisms about it such as “this shit sucks” and “get this loser technology out of my face.”

The news will tell you how bad AI sucks too. That it has encouraged users to commit suicide, been used to create deepfake porn of minors, scraped intellectual data like music and books (including mine) without consent, eliminated countless jobs and livelihoods, and is draining so much energy and water that ultimately our planet is doomed because of it. But again, sometimes you just can’t fully grasp how bad a problem is until you see it applied to you, specifically.

Recently I went to Google dot com and searched my own name. Not to date myself here but I remember a time when Google was a website that worked properly. It used to be a place where you could search for something and it would provide some websites where you might be able to find your answers. Google was so good at helping people find answers that it crushed its competitors like Bing and that poor bastard Jeeves (RIP). But now, like every website and app, Google is forcing AI down our throats for some reason. It now tries to skip the middle man and makes its AI client give you the answers directly. The problem is that Google’s middle man is incredibly fucking stupid.

So I searched my own name on Google to see what information their AI would provide me about myself. I am a pretty easily searchable guy. My books are readily available at all the major online retailers, my writing exists all over the internet, and if all that fails, my entire bio and contact information are right there on my website, which, it’s worth mentioning, is hosted on Google. Anyone with access to the internet could find any of this within ten seconds.

I searched Google’s AI for “Dan Ozzi” and this is what it gave me about myself:

Woo boy. Let’s start from the beginning.

Dan Ozzi…

Fact check: true! That is in fact my name. OK technically I spotted AI that part but hey it did spell it correctly so there’s that.

…is an acclaimed music writer and author.

Hmm “acclaimed” is debatable but sure I’ll spot AI this one. Carry on, AI.

He gained widespread recognition for his 2021 book, Sellout: The Major-Label Cataclysm That Punked the World

Here’s where it goes haywire on me. First off, it got the title of my 2021 book completely wrong. The actual title is SELLOUT: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore (1994-2007). Again, this information is easily findable on any book retailer, including Google’s own Google Books, yet it only managed to get 33.33 percent of the words correct, although I did use AI to calculate that percentage so take the math with a grain of salt.

I really don’t get what happened here. I’m no computer genius but it seems like AI should either be able to a. find the title or b. not find the title. In this case it seemed unable to find the full title (which, again, is very findable) and went with option c. make up some shit on the spot. “The Cataclysm That Punked the World?” What the fuck are you talking about? Moving on…

Side note: I searched my name again immediately after this to give it another shot. Sort of like hey Google this is a real softball here you wanna maybe take another swing? And this time the title of my book was:

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Welcome to the weekly whatever column where we catch up on new music, movies, books, etc. Today we’ve got a bit of all three.

I took last Sunday off because it was the 4th of July and it is absolutely illegal to make me type words on the national fireworks holiday. I need these fingers for possibly exploding off my body. So to make up for it, I am removing today’s paywall and also running a $2.50 sale. (To be clear, the number is not a celebration of America’s 250 years but an approximation of how many days it has left.)

If you like what you see, consider upgrading today to receive it every week. It reeeeeally helps out.

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And while I’m feeling generous I’m gonna lift the paywall on this story from June about taking a photo of a child for my People Standing in Front of Danzig’s House project because it was cute and people seemed to like it. Why not!

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BOOKS

I kept busy over the holiday weekend by penning an essay about Danny McBride’s debut book of short stories Thrilling Tales of Modern Men over at Luke O’Neil’s Hell World. The essay is about the book but it’s also about the cinematic universe of awful men that McBride, Tim Robinson, and Conner O’Malley have gotten so good at satirizing in this current golden age of dumb guys. Here’s a little snippet:

None of these men ever face their trauma directly. None of them ever take accountability or admit wrongdoing. And they certainly never apologize for anything. They feel misunderstood, but were never given, nor worked toward, the communication tools to properly express themselves. Thrilling Tales of Modern Men is the “men would rather _____ than go to therapy” meme playing out over 354 pages.

Read the entire thing at Hell World.

McBride’s book was a good time and, as I mentioned in the essay, it’s impossible to read it without hearing McBride’s voice. (Try imagining any other voice when reading the line “I have to do diarrhea.”) I’m not much of an audiobook guy but I just looked it up and these stories are read by McBride, Billy Crudup, Adam Devine, Walton Goggins, John Goodman, Edi Patterson, Sam Rockwell, Sturgill Simpson, and more. Might have to give that a listen. I did go back and rewatch some Eastbound and Down and Righteous Gemstones for very necessary “research” and my god McBride has created some of TV’s most tragically funny characters.

Speaking of new books, I got to interview author Scott McClanahan about his new book, Fights! Probably my most anticipated book of the year which lived up to my expectations and then some. Here’s Scott on the state of book publishing:

On one level, it’s bleak. I hear awful stories from folks. But on the flip side, it feels like if you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose. So maybe there’s something that’s a little bit more healthy. The dream of 2011 was: I’m going to get a book deal and all you losers can go fuck yourself. And so we stopped believing in one another. We need to believe in one another again. We need more presses to put out one or two books a year. We need more people doing it for just the sheer romanticism of it, because there’s some kind of glory in there.

We actually talked for so long that I made an entire second post just about the music books he loves. Lots of good recs in there. (And if you’re wondering, I’ve got my own incomplete list of good music books right here.)

MUSIC

A few new music recs, but first, I need to ask a very pressing question: Why do hardcore shows just look like pro wrestling now?

I keep seeing videos in my feed from hardcore festivals like Outbreak in the UK and Hellfest in New Jersey and I’ve been sort of fascinated by this new trend of arena-style, multi-tier stages they have at these things nowadays. The merging of hardcore/professional wrestling/acrobatics/streetwear is reaching its logical endpoint. When I look at the above photo all I can imagine is a ladder with a championship belt hanging from the ceiling.

David and I got into this a little bit on this week’s episode of NO DISRESPECT:

Piebald - Tales for the Rages

NO ONE TOLD ME THERE IS A NEW PIEBALD ALBUM OUT IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2026? I am an entire month late to this?? Their first album in 15 years and I missed it??? Shameful.

Bad Nerves - “NETWORK”

Is there a better feeling than when a band you love is on a hot streak and stays steadily prolific? Just pumping out banger after banger. Like, yes, feed my addiction to bratty garage punk hooks thank you Bad Nerves.

Twisted Teens - Florida Water Blues

Not sure why this year has seen a trend of bands releasing two albums in the same year. First Converge, then Twisted Teens, and… uhhh I’m sure there is a third one I can’t think of. Anyway, the country-punk band just dropped Florida Water Blues. You have one week to check it out before they release another album.

Whitmer Thomas - “Candy Corn”

Whitmer Thomas has a new song called “Candy Corn” and it’s Joe Pera approved. “Pretty fun.” Here’s an interview I did with Whitmer last year where we talked about riding the line between comedy and music and also stabbing yourself in the face with a fork.

Sad13 - “Six Ways”

If you only have 90 seconds to spare but want to see a video that’s sort of funny, sort of terrifying, then feast your eyes on Sad13’s “Six Ways.”

MOVIES

Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass

It seems like David Wain is in a tough position. On one hand, he is a cult comedy legend. He created what is arguably the biggest cult comedy ever made with Wet Hot American Summer (and its subsequent Netflix series, the first season being a perfect addition to a beloved movie and the season being painful to watch). He has essentially created an entire universe of inside jokes for cult comedy nerds. But of course, movie studios don’t care about appeasing cult comedy audiences, especially these days. So Wain occasionally has to slightly clean up his sense of oddball humor to make something more commercial for general audiences to keep the studio happy. Plus he’s got college tuition to pay if this post from his ex wife is to be believed.

That brings us to Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, a Wizard of Oz homage written by Wain and Ken Marino about a woman on a mission to fuck Jon Hamm. It’s a slow starter of a movie that picks up speed and eventually settles into a proper Wainian pace (cramming in as many gags per minute as possible).

Wain leans on his usual celebrity friends (every member of The State… well, almost [no Ben Garant wtf??], as well as John Slattery, Jennifer Aniston, Weird Al, Jon Hamm of course, and one cameo I won’t spoil). Wain is also smart enough to recognize that audiences don’t want to watch his middle aged buddies forever and threw in some younger talent with Ben Wang and Miles Gutierrez-Riley, though I’m not sure if they add all that much to the ensemble.

Ultimately, Gail Daughtry is not esoteric enough to cement itself as the next Wet Hot and it’s probably not generalized enough to make it a box office hit. Wain leans a lot on his trusted comedic devices (spelling out the obvious joke, dragging a bit out for way too long, having characters deliver their lines slightly off-kilter), but I’m not sure how palatable it will be for the masses who want to see something like Scary Movie.

That all said, I don’t know if it’s the lowered expectations from a decade of shrinking theatrical comedy releases (we are lucky to get one legitimately good comedy per year these days and it’s a small miracle this film even got made) or if it’s the joy of seeing my favorite comedy guys hamming it up together on the big screen again, but I had a good time! A perfect way to spend a Saturday at the movies. Not every joke worked but by the time you’ve made that assessment they’re throwing three more gags at you. A few bits had me laughing until I cried and I’ll take those where I can get them in modern comedies.

I doubt Gail Daughtry will make much of an impact, either among die-hard Wain fans or at the box office, but I hope the generous handful of genuinely good laughs it provides will at least get his kid through freshman year.

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Not even ten seconds into our interview about his new book, Fights!, Scott McClanahan casually dropped a quote from T.S. Elliot. Over the next hour he also quoted or referenced Robert Penn Warren, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ambrose Bierce, Leonard Cohen, Orson Welles, John Cheever, Machiavelli, Livy, Jean Cocteau, Tom Waits, and others.

It’s sort of daunting how well read the guy is and how easily he can slip words of literary wisdom into conversation. I felt especially humbled because the only thing I can quote with such ease is The Simpsons (first ten seasons only). And as far as being well read, well, I am read, but “well” might be a stretch. I might not be as well versed in the titans of literature, but if there’s one thing I do know, it’s books about music, since that is sort of my lane.

Towards the end of the interview, I mentioned that I was reading Meat Loaf’s memoir. (I told you I am a high-brow reader.) McClanahan’s eyes lit up. “I used to be a music biography freak!” he said. From there, the conversation went deep into his favorite music books and I wound up with an entire second interview.

It’s also worth mentioning McClanahan waded into these waters himself a decade ago, authoring an illustrated book on the life of the late folk singer Daniel Johnston called The Incantations of Daniel Johnston. It’s a phenomenal attempt to capture the life of a troubled artist that ends in a way that McClanahan has mixed feelings about, for reasons that are explained in the interview.

Do you have any favorite music books or authors?

Scott McClanahan: I love Nick Tosches. There’s an essay from The Nick Tosches Reader that he wrote about George Jones. I also love Hellfire.

Hellfire is my absolute favorite.

I mean, it’s just like a piece of literature.

I figured you would like that one because the writing of it is almost Biblical in a sense, a fight over an irredeemable man’s soul. I know you’ve said you lean on a Biblical influence in your writing.

Oh totally. I love his novels, I love his nonfiction. There’s a book of his, Where the Dead Voices Gather. It’s about Emmett Miller who performed in Blackface and popularized “Lovesick Blues” which Hank Williams later copied. It’s a biography of this little-known guy, but it’s also the story of race in America.

I liked Dino for that reason, how it was a biography of Dean Martin but also a history of Italian immigration in Ohio.

Exactly. Dino was in Steubenville. That’s just across the Ohio River from West Virginia, so we considered him a West Virginia boy, when it comes down to it. The RZA was also in Steubenville for a while, so he’s a West Virginia boy, too.

Hang on. I’m from Staten Island and it straight-up offends me that you’re trying to claim RZA for West Virginia.

I think RZA was only there for only three or four years in high school. I think his family sent him down to Steubenville and he was living with a relative or something. But that’s a real West Virginia thing, where we just take people and say, “Yeah, he’s ours!” [Laughs]

I love Jon Savage, who’s a British author. He writes about punk. England’s Dreaming is one of his books that I absolutely love. I’ve missed his last few. There was one called 1966 which is about that year in music. I found out about him because he was writing about Britpop for NME, I think. There’s a funny interview with Jon Savage and Liam Gallagher where Jon Savage is explaining his theory of the key to rock stardom, which is androgyny. And Liam Gallagher’s like, “What’s that mean, androgynous?” And it goes on and gets more uncomfortable and more uncomfortable. Jon Savage, who’s a gay man, is trying to explain what it means. And then it clicks for Liam, and he’s like, “Oh, I look like a bird?” And Jon Savage is like, “Yeah, you have elements of femininity within your masculinity.” You can see Liam loves that. He’s like, “Yeah. If you’re a proper frontman, you’ve got to have a fucking good haircut. I always have a good haircut.”

Jimmy McDonough, I love. He wrote Shakey about Neil Young. He just had a book come out about Gary Stewart that I absolutely loved. It’s also a travesty, and I want this in the interview, that Jimmy McDonough can’t get the project of his life about this little-known country singer Gary Stewart published in 2026. He had to publish small. It’s kind of a masterpiece. He has elements of oral history about the Stewart clan in between these biographical chapters about Stewart’s career with alcoholism, drug addiction, etc. I also love his biography of Tammy Wynette. Jimmy McDonough is just a great fucking writer. I just love him.

And of course I love Greil Marcus. I love a lot of his writing. Sometimes he gets a little too… I don’t even know how to describe it. You know the way Bob Dylan speaks all the time in interviews now? Like, “The wind of time is behind your back and you can’t see the sun anymore.” It’s like, what the fuck does that mean? You don’t even know what that means. And so there’s sometimes that within Greil Marcus.

What makes a good rock biography, to you?

What I love about rock biographies is they’re full of anecdotes. In every paragraph, there’s some weird thing that somebody’s researched and interviewed and found, and they’ve incorporated that inside of this easy-to-read text. There’s a biography of Captain Beefheart that I love that has some of my favorite anecdotes. It was that first summer when the Magic Band were all at the house, and one of the dudes was looking out of the corner of his eye and Beefheart’s behind him doing something. They have plates up on the shelves of the kitchen and all of a sudden this plate or this mug comes flying off the shelf and crashes to the ground and the dude’s like what the fuck! And Beefheart’s in the back of the room and he says, “I’m sorry about that. Sometimes I like to move stuff with my mind.”

I love that kind of stuff too. Because I expect the writer to be as accurate as possible, but with a story like that, in a way, I actually don’t care. I like a lot of fantastical things in a book where you actually can’t prove that it did or did not happen.

Exactly. Entertain me! That’s what’s wonderful about it, too. It feels like when the writer is doing a wonderful job, they’re entertaining you. All that stuff goes all the way back to the Greeks. Think about Herodotus’ histories. He’s critiqued for the same reasons. He hears that there is this particular animal in India and it’s obviously just some made-up animal that he’s put into his text. But he’s saying, I heard this story about this guy who saw this crazy animal. Isn’t that weird, reader? And that sort of stuff is just lifeblood.

I’ve written historical narratives about music that are reported, and I’ve also helped musicians write their memoirs. And I really like the memoir format because I feel like there is a tacit relationship you have with the reader going into it, where it’s understood that it’s one person’s recollection. The reader goes in knowing that. And I think there is even almost an expectation that some of the things will be exaggerated or misremembered. I like that playfulness that you get in a memoir.

Totally. I also like Chuck Berry’s autobiography. It doesn’t feel ghostwritten. You know how with Keith Richards’ book, it’s like oh man this is amazing for a chapter or two, because you can tell Keith had been working on it. And then at page 50 it’s like, oh okay Keith’s no longer working on this. But I love the autobiography of Chuck Berry. He goes through his life telling all these crazy crazy awful stories.

Yeah. I’d rather have an imperfect voice than something sterile. I didn’t like the Springsteen autobiography for that reason. The voice was too folksy.

Well, he’s performing now. He’s performing a different sort of Bruce, which I think started coming a little bit with the Broadway show. It felt like a few years before the Broadway show, he started being part Barack Obama, part Bruce, part… kind of like a schtick. I think he believes in it, truly. But there’s this folksiness of the performance of the person that he is at this age.

Oh and I love Peter Guralnick and his biography of Elvis.

I liked the first one. What was the name of that one?

Last Train to Memphis is the first one. And his book on Sam Cooke is good. He has a book of essays. He has one on soul music and then one on country music. I think it’s called Lost Highway. There’s an essay in there that I’ve always been fascinated about on Merle Haggard. This was in like 1975 that this was written, and Merle Haggard’s in the back of the tour bus working on a novel. If I ever meet Peter Guralnick, I want to ask him about that novel. Like, what did that mean? Was Merle Haggard actually working on a novel to publish? I’d love to see it.

Did you read a lot of these books for research when you were working on that Daniel Johnston book?

I probably read the majority of them before. I used to love to read old rock biographies when I was young, because I wanted to kind of do what you’ve done. I thought I could be a music journalist, when that was still a very specific, cool Rolling Stone-kind of thing. My dad loved music biographies. I think I probably got it from him. I remember him one Christmas getting Jan Howard’s autobiography. You won’t know who Jan Howard is. That’s a real hillbilly reference right there. She had an affair with Johnny Cash while he was married to June Carter.

There’s another book that’s about the Louvin brothers. I think it’s called Satan Is Real, like the title of their album. It’s just a mind-blowing book. It’s written by Charlie, who was the surviving Louvin brother, and it’s an amazing autobiography. He was talking about indoor toilets, and how country people didn’t want indoor toilets. They kept their johnny house out back. They were like, “You don’t want to shit next to your kitchen. Who does that?” But we do that all the time now, don’t we? There’s so many little moments like that in that Louvin brothers book that are amazing.

By the way, back to that Daniel Johnston book, I love that book. I’ve gifted it to like four people for birthdays.

That was fun to do, and I took it seriously, too. I was kind of putting in all of my ideas about biography and, I guess, curses. I have kind of a bittersweet feeling about putting that curse at the end. I think it was a little ironic. I was trying to create a subjective Daniel Johnston, and you became Daniel Johnston at the end of the book [and were cursed]. But my wife was like, “I don’t know if you should do that, Scott. The intention of that is kind of messed up.” But I was like, “Oh it’s great though, it’s great!” On my birthday there was this massive flood in southern West Virginia that killed 23 people, and I’ve oftentimes wondered, like, did I do something? Did I create something in my own life by placing that curse at the end of that book? I love that book, but at the same time, maybe there’s this weird chaotic energy in there I don’t want to release.

I should stop giving it out as gifts, perhaps.

Yeah. [Laughs]

Fights! is available from Rose Books.

Oh and if you’re curious, here is a very incomplete list of music books I really like which also shamelessly includes my own books. More info about my books at my website.

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Today’s post is a conversation with Scott McClanahan, author of The Sarah Book, Hill William, and others. Scott has been my favorite living author coming up on a decade now so this was a big honor for me. His new book, Fights!, will be released on July 14 via Chelsea Hodson’s Rose Books, which has also published books by Chris Norris and Geoff Rickly.

There is a second part to this interview coming soon in which Scott and I nerd out about music books. Subscribe and have it sent right to your inbox. Check out more interviews with musicians, authors, and artists in the archive.

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Seven years ago I was in a bookstore and saw a copy of a book by an author I’d been hearing about named Scott McClanahan. I opened it and read the first sentence.

“I was the best drunk driver in the world.”

Sold.

I brought it up to the counter and purchased this copy of The Sarah Book. I took it home and read it in one sitting. It was a West Virginia man’s divorce memoir that was both heartbreaking and hilarious. There were moments of sheer male idiocy, like smashing the family computer with a sledge hammer for no real reason, but ultimately the book lands somewhere truly profound. But most of all I loved the writing style. His voice was like the one that runs through my own head, either a dumb guy pretending to be smart or a smart guy pretending to be dumb. It was—and I’m sorry to use a technical literary term—extremely my shit.

Immediately after I finished the last page I drove back to the bookstore and asked what other books they had by Scott McClanahan and bought all those too.

After tearing through Hill William and Crapalachia, I scoured the internet for his books of short stories that were harder to find or out of print. I read those as fast as the post office would deliver them. I guess you could say I was addicted.

So last month when I got a copy of McClanahan’s newest book, Fights!, in the mail, I promised myself I would slow down. I told myself that this would be the only Scott McClanahan book I would get for a while and that I should savor it. A few hours later I was done.

But I learned something interesting while reading Fights! The line about being the best drunk driver in the world that hooked me instantly and started my obsessive reading journey was actually not McClanahan’s line at all. It was something his editor Giancarlo DiTrapano said to him when the two were on their way to visit Breece Pancake’s grave. “I told Gian that was a great line, and I was going to put it in a book one day,” McClanahan writes.

That’s what a great editor can do, inspire moments of genius that others take credit for. Fights! is about fights McClanahan had with DiTrapano, the eccentric founder of indie press Tyrant Books who died in 2021, and also about fights he had with his wife, the writer Juliet Escoria.

Fights! is being released on July 14 via Rose Books. I talked to McClanahan about the state of modern book publishing, writing as a way to sort through grief, and the intimacy of a really intense fight.

ORDER FIGHTS!

I always think about the book-writing process as this language that only you and your editor speak, and then you give it to the world and suddenly it doesn’t belong to you anymore. How do you feel in these last few weeks before everybody else can read the book?

Scott McClanahan: The pretentious answer would be that T.S. Eliot said that a great poem is created by the reader of the poem as well as the writer of the poem. Not that I’ve written a great poem. But I think the real answer would be: It’s awful. It’s truly awful. I think it’s been long enough that I forgot the masochism involved in putting out a book. It’s a balance between those two things in some ways.

Do you like to keep up on what people say about your writing?

I’m not on Twitter or Bluesky or whatever the hell people use. I have a Substack where I read stuff. I like checking Goodreads just because I like to look up other books on it too. Sometimes the nicest things people say to you are… not necessarily insulting, but they’ve got the book as wrong as somebody who absolutely hated the book. There’s a Goodreads review from years ago that I read where somebody just wrote, “Too many characters in this book are giggling.” I was like, “Oh, that’s an excellent fucking note! I have too many giggles!” [Laughs]

But I think I’ve made something that I’m proud of. I was telling Chelsea [Hodson, editor], “I’d face the firing squad with you over this.” That’s a good barometer to have with books, because the firing squad comes for all of us eventually. With a book like this, I think the sustenance that I got from it is in the writing of the thing and in the making of the thing.

I like that you would go to the firing squad for it because I always say that if you write a book and it takes years and then you have to go through several edits and then a copyedit and a legal read and all of these layers, if your book goes through all of those things and at the end you still like it, that’s a good sign.

Yeah, for sure. And what’s nice about the small-press world is you can kind of eliminate a couple of those steps. It’s a weird relationship after the book is done. I kind of forget what’s in the book after it’s complete. Sometimes people will say something to me and I’m like, how in the fuck do you know that? And then I realize: Oh, I published a book and people have read it. People can freely read about these intimate moments.

Fights! is about fights that you had with your editor and fights you had with your wife over a period of time. How did that come about as a concept? Why did you choose to pair those two together?

I thought it was really funny. I thought it would be funny if you had a whole book and each chapter is a different disagreement about something. And also, literary disagreements within the conventions of a novel, for some reason I’m thinking of John Cheever, but simmering resentments that you read in a New Yorker story or something like that, I don’t know if that really exists in life. I don’t know if that’s the type of argument you truly have with your significant other or you truly have with your other significant other, your editor, where you blow up and they’re embarrassing. I kind of think of it as a comic novel, in a way. And also, I love to look back, because if you get a little bit of space or distance between you and the fight, it gets funnier. Think of the worst things that have ever happened to you in your life. You get a little distance and it’s like, oh my God that’s hilarious.

Sure. Tragedy plus time equals comedy, right?

Yeah. So I just thought it would be an interesting narrative conceit, that it would create an energy, and having one right after another would tell a story in the same way of, as an example, Raging Bull. Those fights mean something different each time. So I wanted the fights in the book to have those differences. And also, fights are when I feel most alive sometimes. They haven’t kicked the human being out of you if you’re still fighting.

Fights are quite intimate, aren’t they?

Yeah, for sure. There’s a Tom Waits interview that I love that he did with a Brazilian woman, I think around the time of Bone Machine. She asked him a question, if he’s ever wanted to kill somebody or murder somebody. And he’s like, “I don’t understand people that want to murder a stranger. I’ve wanted to maybe murder people in my family.”

Also, I think they’re healthy. There’s this great text by Machiavelli called Discourses, which is like an analysis of this Roman historian, Livy. Part of the thesis of that book is that disagreements, arguments, fights, so to speak, are good for a society. I think they’re also healthy, especially for an artist. It’s like the famous Orson Welles cuckoo clock speech from The Third Man where he says you look at the Renaissance in Italy and it’s murder, corruption, wars, etc, and they gave us Caravaggio and Michelangelo. Switzerland has had 400 years of democracy and peace and they’ve given us the cuckoo clock.

I think there’s something that is compelling, maybe just on a basic dramatic conflict level. When I was finishing up this book, my wife was like, “Oh it’s another fighting-with-a-woman book.” I had that in the book for a while too, where I had the Gian character saying that, “You’re fighting with women again.” I thought, “Ooh, I can turn it into a trilogy, my fighting-with-women trilogy.” My daughter is now 16 years old, and we hardly ever fight, but it would be funny to have her as the third. Or, I live with my mother-in-law, maybe I can have a third book with her. [Laughs]

I read Fights! the week before I got married, which kind of feels like watching a horror movie right before bed.

Yeah, of course. But I think you also have to be thankful for those moments. I guess that’s what the book is, too. It’s a theme in the book that I don’t even know if I have my head wrapped around totally yet. But I think those are the moments that you’ll recall at the end, the great disagreements. You’re kind of fused as one when you’re inside of a fight with someone. They’re angry and you’re angry and there’s a strange sort of passion that’s part of that. I think that’s what makes relationships, good relationships. You keep fighting and you find different ways to fight. My wife and I, we hardly even fight anymore, which also makes you worry. It’s like, are we still the people we once were? But I think we just know how to fight so much better.

Reading Fights! made me sad for the obvious reasons of grief over a friend, but it also made me sad in grieving for a world that no longer exists. The way you write about book publishing, even just a decade ago, seems so foreign now. A guy saw a clip of you doing a reading on a literary blog and wanted to publish your book. As someone who has been publishing books for a while, can you tell me how you’ve noticed publishing change around you?

Yeah, it’s a 12, 13-year span of time within the book and, shit, even in terms of technology, I lived through 2010 where you put your writing online and you meet all these other freaks and weirdos, who are still my friends. Some of them have become famous. Something happened where it became oppressive. We realized we were living in some sort of techno-feudal society. That freedom, that Steve Jobs bullshit that was spoon-fed to us, like, oh, he’s like Da Vinci. No, no, these motherfuckers were tricking you. They were tricking you the same way that the guy that owned a coal mine in West Virginia in 1920 was fucking tricking you.

In terms of book publishing, I think it’s kind of exciting now, though. Because I think we saw that it was all crumbling. I think that we had a sort of positive attitude about it, that it was crumbling, and now it’s crumbled. With most publishers, I don’t even know if it’s a book thing anymore. It sort of feels like a way for private equity companies or multinational corporations to dump a lot of debt into a particular sphere and then use that for tax write-off purposes or whatever.

Like a Ponzi scheme.

Yeah. But the reason why I say it’s exciting is I think we can return to a place where we can think small. Chelsea’s doing that, where you make your little homemade thing. How do you create value or meaning out of things that are available instantaneously or things that are available basically for free? How do you create value within a particular object? Well, usually, you just make one of them or you make two of them and you make three of them, or you have 500 readers rather than 50,000 readers.

On one level, it’s bleak. I hear awful stories from folks. But on the flip side, it feels like if you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose. So maybe there’s something that’s a little bit more healthy. The dream of 2011 was: I’m going to get a book deal and all you losers can go fuck yourself. And so we stopped believing in one another. We need to believe in one another again. We need more presses to put out one or two books a year. We need more people doing it for just the sheer romanticism of it, because there’s some kind of glory in there.

There is a scene in the book where you talk about choosing to publish a book with Gian instead of a major publisher. Putting yourself in a hypothetical alternate universe, how do you think that would have turned out if you had done The Sarah Book with a major publisher?

To begin with, I don’t even think it was a reality, even circa 2017. There’s no hook with my books. I don’t have that kind of thing that can be advertised or sold. If you look at Publisher’s Weekly now, it’s all, like, social commentary and satire, those particular words are used. In 2018, 2017, it was all mysterious. That was the word on every other novel that you saw sold and advertised. So I don’t even think it was a reality.

Art is like hierarchies. We don’t want to believe that that’s true, but if you get an award or you get a MacArthur, you’re higher up on the totem pole of achievement or whatever. But when it comes down to it, those hierarchies are just crap. It’s just about class, usually, and we’re just reestablishing these class structures of our society within the art world.

So it probably wouldn’t have gone good. I think it would have made me miserable. There was almost a TV show made out of Crapalachia. I was miserable during that. I was thinking like a pirate. I was like, “I’m going to go out there and I’m going to rip some dollars off these kids.” And at that point in time in LA, TV was still TV, and they were giving dumbasses like me money. I told myself, “I’m just going to go into this meeting and I’m going to charm them. I’m going to use that old McClanahan charm on ‘em.” I didn’t realize that that was a trap. They were giving you this money for your time, and your time now belonged to them. So I’ve been close enough to that world, but it probably wouldn’t have worked out too well for me.

I don’t know why, but I have such an aversion to including the names of modern technology in books. I don’t like mentioning apps or Facebook or things like that. I worry that it will date it immediately. I feel like you’ve kept that stuff out as well, but in Fights! you do mention things that happened on Twitter and things like that. How do you feel about making those modern references in your work?

I’ve always fallen on the side that you’re talking about. I don’t want that sort of stuff in my book. I think most of that stuff is kind of false anyway. Is the trending social media topic really something that impacts your life that week? No, it doesn’t. It has no connection to my human heart and what I’m dealing with that week. There’s always those articles, like, Five Great Novels About the Internet. It makes you think, were there newspaper articles like Three Great Novels About the Telegraph?

[Laughs] Yeah, the great American novels about Ma Bell and Con Edison.

Yeah, for sure. But at the same time, that’s also a part of existence. I mean, I wouldn’t be married today without social media, meeting this person at a reading who decided to come because she saw this thing posted online. That’s also a reality. I can remember my friend who met his wife on the internet in like 1997. All of our friend group were like, “What the fuck? She’s coming to see him? He might get murdered or robbed!” And they got married. They had a longer relationship and a longer marriage than all of those friends who were saying he’s going to get murdered. And eventually, four or five years later, they also met their significant others, typically from the internet. Computers are part of my life now, and to pretend that they’re not would maybe be a little bit more false than allowing them to enter into the work.

How do you feel about audiobooks? Have any of your books been made into audiobooks?

Audiobooks, I don’t have any connection to them. I did one for The Sarah Book with this Asheville, North Carolina, company who are my friends called Talking Book, and they do a lot of audiobook-type things. It was torture. Those guys are my friends and are the best and they took great care of me, but my God it was a torturous experience and I didn’t realize how much work goes into that. The reason I did it is there is the Crapalachia audiobook and the voice actor that they got, God bless him, he’s passed away now. I ended up talking shit about this voice actor in some interview, which I shouldn’t have been doing. You can’t do that. Somebody was like, “Oh, that guy died a few years ago.” He was an actor. He’s in the hanging scene in the Coen Brothers’ True Grit. Anyway, he was doing this accent. I don’t even know where this accent came from, but he’s doing like a country-boy accent throughout the whole book. And it was just like, oh my God, this is awful. This is something that I wouldn’t want out there. It’s weird the way people consume books now. My wife listens to audiobooks, and she always tells me I should get into it.

When I was preparing for this interview, I found this post that Gian did on Vice back in 2011, when he was publishing your writing, and I just wanted to read you the quote and see what you thought about it now, 15 years later. He wrote, “This post is destined to be one of those ones that, in years to come, people will go digging through the archive and find this article and be all, ‘Man, this fuck-up knew way ahead of time what the situash was with McClanahan. He’s huge now, and this poor fuck-up died trying to tell us.’”

Gian was a great hypeman. Gian just believed in people. If he loved you, man, he was just going to believe in you until the end, until the wheels came off.

How did it feel to write a book about your editor and then work on it with a different editor?

It’s strange. I almost feel like I’ve done something wrong if I’m being honest about it. I feel uncomfortable. After he died, people did remembrances and they tweeted or they posted, a lot of lovely stuff. I just kind of kept quiet. Then I was like, do people think I’m being disrespectful for being so quiet? But the purpose of the book is I wanted to go find him. I went to Italy a couple of years ago. He was over there in his last few years. Our relationship had changed just because of the distance. I went over there and I was just like, oh shit, he’s not here. He’s dead over here too.

So I needed to find him where I knew he lived and where he lived was in books. Where he lived was in my books. He’s in there. The average reader wouldn’t know, but I have probably 20 to 25 instances that spark a particular memory [of Gian] from just a word that is included in a book.

Do you feel like the book exorcised your grief at all?

The week that Gian died, he was supposed to come stay the night with me. I went into that room where he would have been, in which he’d been in multiple times, in that shitty house that got a fucking bullet through the window, and I just sat there and I wanted to kind of charge that space. I’m not trying to sound all new agey or anything, but I felt like: I’ll be able to find him in here, somehow. If I devote years to this, I’ll be able to find him and he will say thanks to me.

He’s only visited me in dreams twice. The one dream that I included [in the book] after he passed, and then about a year later, I was in Italy for some reason in the dream. I was eating. I was all by myself and I look out of the corner of my eye and Gian is walking down the street and he has a big grin on his face and he’s laughing. I’m like, “Gian! What is going on? You’re supposed to be dead!” And he’s like, “But I’m not dead.” And I was like, “You are going to get us in fucking trouble! You are going to get us cancelled. You can’t do this!” And Gian was just like, “No, it’s fine. It’s all right. They’re gonna love it. They’re gonna love it!” And then the dream ended, and he never again visited me in my sleep.

What do you think he would make of the book if he could read it?

I’ve thought about that numerous times. I think he would do the thing that he did in the book, where he’s like, “This thing sucks, man. You should have edited it a bit more. This is trash. You need to start over again.” And I can hear myself saying, “But Gian, I’ve already published it.” And he would be saying, “It’s alright, we’ll publish a different version. It’ll be Fights Two or whatever.”

But then there’s also the flip side of it where I think he would have loved to be at the center of a narrative, because he loved that. I’m a different personality. I want people to leave me alone. But Gian got energy out of that. He loved people so much that he then pushed that energy back on them in different ways. He was just a very open person. I think he would respect me for trying to come find him, as crazy as that sounds. And maybe I did. Maybe it’s not just in my head.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

FIGHTS! FIGHTS! FIGHTS!

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If I’m being very honest, I tend to stay with projects until long after the joy they bring me has run dry. Chalk it up to my compulsive need to overproduce or my annoyingly obsessive personality, but I stick with an idea until well past its expiration date.

Lately I’ve been forcing myself to lean on the gas a little harder on my People Standing in Front of Danzig’s House photo project as I try to get the second volume out this fall. A lot of times I feel like I’m beating a dead horse with this little side quest I accidentally assigned myself a few years ago. But once you commit to a singular idea like this, the biggest hurdle becomes pushing through the monotony of repetition. Did Ed Ruscha get sick of photographing so many gas stations? Did Andy Warhol tire of painting dumb soup cans over and over? No one ever asks that question. They just want to see the art.

I’ve been stockpiling photos of Danzig’s House over two last years and have been going through the motions most days. The whole refrigerator incident and the coyote fiasco briefly breathed new life into it but otherwise it’s business as usual on Franklin Ave.

Then last weekend I got a message out of the blue. An old acquaintance from back home I hadn’t seen in well over a decade. I didn’t know her very well to begin with. I didn’t even realize she and her family had been living a few miles away for the last eight years.

“My son Max is turning 5 in July and his favorite band right now is the Misfits,” she told me. “He has made me sit in front of Danzig’s House to just stare at it.” She asked if I’d be interested in photographing Max for Volume 2.

I’ve photographed dozens of adults in front of The House but never a child. I said of course and we set a time to meet there on Father’s Day. When the family showed up, Max already had his head buried in his dad’s shoulder. This was new for me. I’d dealt with some subjects who were let’s say more camera-averse than others, but I’d never had to coax someone into having their photo taken. Max was painfully shy the way kids are when meeting a new person, especially one with a camera. I suddenly sympathized with those school photographers we used to torment on class picture day.

His mom said, “We’re going to take a quick photo, Max. Remember? Like we talked about?”

Then Max planted his tiny green shoes in front of the house and pushed through the shyness. He went to work. He wanted to show me his monster pose. He wanted to be a zombie. He mean-mugged for my lens.

“Max, I heard you’re a big Misfits fan,” I said in between shots. “What’s your favorite song?”

“‘Teenagers from Mars,’” Max said softly.

“Wow, you have great taste. Teenagers from Mars, and we don’t care!” I said.

“Tell him your other favorite,” his mother said.

“‘Where Eagles Dare,’” Max whispered.

I couldn’t think of a lyric from that song that didn’t result in me calling a child a goddamn sonofabitch so I just said, “That’s my favorite song too!” (Actually, my favorite Misfits song is probly “Skulls” but please don’t tell this kid I lied to him.)

I got a couple of good shots and Max solidified his place as the first non-adult to make it into the series. When I got home, his mom messaged me to say he insisted on having a post-dinner Misfits dance party and sent me a few videos of him rocking out to Misfits songs in their living room. He was running back and forth and jumping on furniture and hitting the OI!s with pinpoint accuracy. This kid loves the Misfits on such a pure level, I thought. It kind of shook off a bit of the jadedness I had about the whole thing and reenergized me.

I don’t have kids, nor do I ever plan on having kids. No disrespect to the parents of course. I just don’t see how kids would fit into my rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle (seeing three movies in a row at the AMC theater on a Thursday afternoon and having Domino’s for dinner.) I’m perfectly happy with this child-free decision, especially when I hear a kid being a real asshole in public. But I will say that one of the coolest things about being around kids is the wondrous way they view the world. Kids will approach something new with a curiosity and excitement that adulthood strips away from you over time if you let it.

So now I have a renewed motivation to finish this Danzig’s House project, all because I saw the house through the eyes of a five year old.

Anyway, here are a couple shots of Max. In color, a rarity for me.

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Hello ZERO CRED readers. Welcome to the Sunday column. Some usual music and podcast rambling below, but first I wanted to explore one of my favorite little obsessions from this time of year, Father’s Day cards.

For some reason I am fascinated with the narrow ways greeting card companies think we express love and appreciation for our nation’s dads. In looking through dozens of cards, I’ve come to the conclusion that Hallmark has done their research and have found that all dads fit into three neat little categories. You may think that dads are not a monolith, that fathers are multifaceted humans with a wide variety of interests and hobbies and it’s impossible to confine them to limited categories. But no you’re wrong. Apparently all dads are at least one of these…

THE ONLY THREE TYPES OF DADS, ACCORDING TO GREETING CARDS

1. GOLF DAD

“Dad, you spend more time in the sand than a lifeguard. If you were as bad at golf as you were at your actual job, our family would’ve starved to death long ago because goddamn you can’t sink a putt to save your fucking life. We actually hope you’re just using your “golf trips” as an excuse to have an affair because if you’ve really spent this much time on the links but still suck this bad it’s honestly pathetic. But we love you! Happy Father’s Day.”

2. BBQ DAD

“Dad, you’ve lived an unremarkable life. Not necessarily bad, but just uneventful, which is perhaps worse. You were emotionally unavailable as a parent and husband. You slaved away at a job you hated your entire life and have been worn down by years of swallowing the bitter pill that you’ve wasted the one go-around you’ll ever get on this great big Earth. But no one can deny that you are the Grill Master! Happy Father’s Day to the BBQ King.”

3. TOILET DAD

“Hey DAD, you drop ALARMINGLY HUGE DUMPS when you’re hogging the crapper. Honestly, it’s AN ABSOLUTE PAINT JOB in there. We are actually CONCERNED about you. Your doctor has mom sneaking pills into your mashed potatoes just to get your turds back to something resembling a HUMAN’S. I had to take a second job just to afford these TP bills. We didn’t have the heart to tell you this but last year the cat walked into the bathroom after you were done in there and it FUCKING DIED. But I love ya, big guy. Happy Father’s Day”

BONUS CATEGORY: HUNG DAD

I came across this card that doesn’t fit into the above three categories and I could be wrong but I feel like the message is: Hey dad we know you got a big ol’ hog.

This one is sort of similar but slightly less suggestive:

Anyway, happy Father’s Day if you’re celebrating from either side of the holiday today. Hope you got a weird card.

BOUNCING SOULS NO ONE CAN BEAT ‘EM

This week I interviewed Greg Attonito from the Bouncing Souls and in the process, I had a mystery about the band solved for me that I’ve been carrying around in my head for three decades...

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Today’s post is an interview with Greg Attonito of the Bouncing Souls. Check the interview archive for more chats with people like Everclear’s Art Alexakis, Spiritual Cramp’s Mike Bingham, and more.

The story of the Bouncing Souls is well documented. A group of teenage BMX rats started a punk band right as the 80s were coming to a close and ended up becoming one of the longest-running bands the genre has ever produced, not to mention the pride and joy of their home state of New Jersey. But what’s less talked about is what, practically, it takes to keep a group of friends together for that long.

When I learned that the Souls, one of the most formative bands of my teenage years, were putting out their 13th record, Born to Be, it made me reflect on what an impressive feat it is to stay connected to the same friends since high school. I am lucky enough to have kept a few close friends from that age, but our relationship has changed in the decades since our teenage years. Would we have been able to run a successful operation that travels the world for months at a time and creates new material every few years? Probably not, and that’s what makes the Souls’ endurance a rare and special thing.

There is a wisdom and maturity in the Will Yip-produced Born to Be that probably wouldn’t have been possible in the Souls’ younger days. Themes of perseverance through adversity shine through. There are several references to sunshine and light peeking out from the darkness, even on the album’s cover, which sees a burst of sunlight punching through a dark eclipse. It’s a perspective that frontman Greg Attonito says he owes to moving to idyllic Idaho and driving his son to school through the mountains every morning.

I recently talked to Attonito about the dedication to communication and friendship it takes to hold a group of dudes together for more than three decades, growing up Italian American, and suffering through press photos.

Are you at home right now?

Greg Attonito: I am at home. I live in Idaho now.

You’ve written so many East Coast anthems that put Jersey on the map. Has anyone written the Idaho anthem? Is there a Bouncing Souls of Idaho?

For me, the B-52s song, “Private Idaho,” is sort of the Idaho song for me, even though they’re not from Idaho. It’s not necessarily an Idaho pride song, but I love that one.

They’re stealing Idaho valor then. Have you written any Idaho-based songs?

I’m very inspired by my environment, just as a person having this innate desire to express my perspective of the world. So, Idaho and the environment I live in very much inspires me, maybe not in the same way as that Jersey pride as young guys looking to project our identity into the world in a way that was totally cool, but in a different way. Now, I guess you’d say it’s a little more of a subtle way.

An example is the song on our new record called “The Light.” I was driving my son to school and there’s this cool thing that happens where I live. I live up on a mountain and my son’s school is down in the valley. So we sometimes wake up real early and drive to school. On the mountain, it’s sunny, and then we drive into these heavy fog banks that are sitting down in the valley. It’s pretty dramatic sometimes. It’s daylight, and you drive into a heavy fog, and the sun almost goes away. Then, as you’re driving out of it, that sun filtering through the fog has a really cool impact. And so that waded into that song. “Filtered through this foggy night. We’re all here in the light of our own sunshine.” So, you could say, yes, I was inspired by the environment of Idaho.

But it’s certainly a lot more subtle than saying East Coast, fuck you.

Yeah. Exactly. [Laughs]

I did not realize until we set this interview up that I’ve been saying your name wrong in my head for like 30 years. Attonito. There’s no N after the A.

Yeah, that’s a natural mistake people make. The N is coming later, but our eye sort of sees that N before it’s supposed to come. It happens a lot.

Are you a fellow paisan? Are you Italian?

Yeah, my dad’s Italian. My mom’s German and a little Irish. My grandfather came over on a boat and lived in New York with his eight brothers. He has a pretty classic story.

When you tour Italy, do you feel any connection there?

I do. I remember really connecting to the Italian side of my family. Growing up, my grandfather had a house in Queens and we would go there on Sunday and have dinner for four hours starting at two in the afternoon. I really attached my identity to that side of my family. So I was actually really excited to get to Italy.

I’ll give you a funny story about the first time I went. My name, Attonito, it means “surprise.” It was given to my great-grandfather because this nun found him on the doorstep of an orphanage. They gave him the name, essentially, like, surprise! So we’re staying in Italy, I’m in Milan and we’re beside ourselves. It’s 1996, I made it to Italy. It’s the classic scene where we’re out in the street on a big, long table. We’ve got two bands with Youth Brigade and the Souls and the promoters who are getting dinner for us. I’m sitting next to them and one of them says, “So, Greg, you are Italian, right?” And I said, yeah. He said, “Your name, Attonito, do you know what this means?” I was like, yeah, I think so. And he goes, “It is what you say… deer in the headlights.” And he starts to laugh. I was like, no one ever put it to me that way, but that definitely connects to some aspect of my personality. [Laughs]

I love that. My mom’s side came from Naples and when my family later visited Italy, whenever we mentioned to locals that we were from Naples, they gave us a look like we were hicks. We realized Naples had a bad connotation and we should stop saying it.

Yeah! That’s where my grandfather came from. I don’t how bad it must have been but he just erased that from his history. He wouldn’t even tell anyone. He didn’t teach Italian to my dad and his brothers on purpose because he was probably discriminated against. That’s heartbreaking for me because it would have been great to know the language.

My grandfather was the same way. He was very proud to be an American and from what I understand he did not grow up in good conditions in Italy and he didn’t love talking about it.

Sounds like they’re the same generation, old-school Italians, they keep their mouth shut, they’re not telling you what happened. My grandfather was similar. If the Mafia ever came up, his only comment was, “These are the people who give bad examples to Italian people.” He had a scrap metal business in the city. He must have either had to manage them, or was hassled by them, or there was no avoiding it.

Totally. It’s funny you say that because a lot of non-Italian people in America will glorify how cool the Mafia is from stuff like Sopranos, but when it was brought up in our household it was like a dark cloud came in.

Yeah, it sounds like we’ve got some similarities there.

Something I am coming to terms with as I get older is that men in general, but especially Italian men from the East Coast, are not always raised with good communication skills. But you can’t be a band for as long as the Souls have without having good communication. I’d love to know about the evolution of your communication. You’ve known these guys since you were teenagers. Has the communication among you changed over the years?

Oh, a ton. You hit on a great subject. It’s actually something I might be most proud of, our relationship. It’s the elephant in the room, in a sense. Let’s put it this way: the love that we have for each other is what draws everyone to the Bouncing Souls. There’s something about the Bouncing Souls. We play a show and there’s an energy there. That’s why people keep coming back. We write some pretty good songs, but I think the special event that keeps bringing people back to see us 30 times is the energy of the band.

Somehow, there was a chemistry between us as kids at 16, 17. We felt it amongst ourselves and then when we started playing shows together, we kind of sensed it. But we weren’t great communicators. In that generation, we grew up as kids in the 70s and the 80s. But although the environment wasn’t encouraging us to be emotionally vulnerable, we were able to somehow make it. There were times that were messy, obviously. Somebody would piss somebody off and we would somehow make it through. I think, since we weren’t that good at communicating, we would always joke. We’d joke around in that way of busting each other’s balls. We had this relationship that we could default to, even if something wasn’t going well. We cared about each other and loved each other enough that we didn’t let those tough times destroy everything. Even to this day. Last weekend we played a festival in Montreal. We got in a little thing during soundcheck about a song. I’m not gonna give any details but some person was a little annoyed and then carried it until a little later in the day. But then after the show we all talked about it and then we all worked it out with those tools we have worked at.

Without my wife, I wouldn’t have been able to get better at this. That’s the true test. You can be in a band and live in a van with somebody for 20 hours a day for ten years and it’s still not the same as having an intimate relationship with someone. That’s where you learn what you’re really made of. Thanks to my wife and her patience with me and seeing that even in times when I was not able to express myself clearly and emotionally because of the way I was brought up in my childhood, she was patient enough with me and saw that I was actually really trying. I give her tons of credit for that.

There’s a lot to unlearn.

Exactly. We’re just hardwired as kids, in some good ways and a lot of not good ways, and you’ve got to figure that out. Thanks for bringing that up. I’m so proud of us. There’s a very deep satisfaction that’s bigger than anything else. Bryan [Kienlen, bassist] and I got on the phone and talked about what happened in Montreal and then we checked in with each other and had a good phone chat. We came away very empowered and very conscious of it, patting each other on the back, like, we rule for making it through this day, and this is a big payoff for us.

In therapy they say agreement is not intimacy. Anybody can just agree on things and that feels intimate, but actual intimacy is being able to disagree and have different viewpoints but be able to work through them together with love. You wouldn’t have made it this far as a band unless you had that connective love glue. “Love glue” is a really terrible phrase and I wish I hadn’t used it, sorry.

No, it totally works. I get it. We don’t spend as much time harboring bad feelings, and that takes work. Because those things do come up, but we know each other really well, and we recognize when that’s happening and we listen to each other, and that’s the love.

Born to Be is your thirteenth album. Maybe this is just my own neuroses but I always feel bad interviewing a band that’s been through the press cycle that many times. What’s your least favorite part about releasing an album? I will not be offended if you say doing interviews.

[Interviews] only suck when I’m not really that excited about the record. Then it’s torture. I took a break from podcasts. We didn’t go hard on a lot of publicity for the past one or two releases. So I feel kind of like I’ve gotten a nice, long break. I’m talking about a lot of years, almost from the pandemic. We were doing a lot of Zoom stuff over the pandemic and then I just was like, I’m going cold turkey on Zoom for a couple of years. Justin, our manager, came to me a month or two ago and was like, “You want to go to LA and do some podcasts and some other stuff?” I was like, “Yes! And I can’t believe I’m hearing my voice right now.” I think I’ve had a good break from it and that’s my answer right now. I love the record, so I want to sell it. It’s not my favorite part, but I’m totally excited to get behind it.

Can I make an assumption and you can tell me if I’m wrong on this?

Go for it.

I’ve shot a few press photos for bands, and I can generally tell bands that enjoy doing it from bands that just want to get it over with. Am I right to assume that taking press photos is not your favorite part of the cycle?

Yeah. We grumble through it. When Justin is like, “We need photos, guys,” it’s just a collective groan. It would never happen if not for him saying, “I got this guy who’s coming to the show. Just give him 20 minutes.” And instead of being like, “Thanks, Justin, for helping our band move forward,” we’re all just like, “Ugh, dude, really?” like grumbly old dudes. So yes, you get a magic moment sometimes, but sitting in front of the camera with someone telling you to look natural, it’s like, ah fuck. [Laughs]

I’m always interested when a band puts a photo of themselves on an album cover, because it’s a way of dating you. You guys have done that once, on Hopeless Romantic. I’m wondering how you feel looking back at that album cover. It was a deviation from the artwork you’d done.

This reminds me of a funny story related to that album cover. My son is eight, and he’s been playing drums, and he has a buddy named Dalton who plays guitar and they play together. We were in a record store in Boise and they were looking through the Bouncing Souls section. Dalton picks up Hopeless Romantic. He’s looking at it and he’s like, “Is this picture AI?” I’m like, “Dalton, that photo is so old, so far before AI appeared in the world.” [Laughs]

Speaking of your son and your son’s friends looking at your records, what I find remarkable about watching the Souls over the years is that your fanbase is regenerative. I always expect your crowds to be guys my age who only know the old stuff, but you have so many teenage fans who are always excited about the newest album. I feel like that’s really an anomaly in music. What do you attribute that to?

Over the past 20 or 25 years, we’ve been noticing this more and more, because it becomes this multiple-generation thing once you’ve been a band for 20 years and then you’re moving on to 30 and then you’re pushing 40. I think as every year goes by, it becomes more meaningful. It has more impact and I am more humbled and more grateful. Last year, we saw this new wave of, like, teenagers out in the audience. Anybody younger than 35, you’re like, “Why are you even here? Where’s your dad?” That’s happened to me on tour the last couple of times. I’ve seen some 14, 15-year-old kids come up to me and they’re like, “That show was so cool!” And I’m like, “Is your dad here?” And they’re like, “No, we just like you, man!” But then there is the 20-year-old kid standing next to his dad who’s like, “Yeah, I’ve seen you guys my entire life.” Which is kind of amazing.

I can’t even honestly tell you what it means. It’s so big that the words don’t really cover it. It comes out of the blue for me, because we’re not a hugely famous band. Here’s what I think might be the reason why the 16-year-old kids are out there: Maybe they hear about us somewhere and they’re like, oh, 90s punk. We’re probably in this weird golden oldies world. Maybe their dad or their uncle is into it. And then they go to the show and our energy, in some way, is still more useful than a lot of live music you see out there. There’s an element of us where we’re 50-something-year-old punkers, but when we play that music, the energy is still the same, and that’s why we do it. So I think those 16-year-old kids instantly are like, whoa, this is alive. This is happening. This is not some old band that’s just phoning it in. So that’s my theory on why youthful energy is still there, thank god.

I know you have such a workman-like approach to the Souls, but do you ever think about the band’s legacy at all? Do you care about what happens after you’re gone?

Yeah, Bryan is the one that’s brought that up in conversation. It’s super important to him. It’s important to me too, but Bryan is the one who is like, “Have we accomplished our mission?” And I’m like, yeah, I think we have. We’ve created this real emotional connection with people which helps them transcend their lives. What else can you ask for?

At this point in your career, is there a bucket list item that you haven’t done yet?

Well, I’ve been fortunate enough to also expand out. I do this kids’ music project with my wife called Play Date and I’ve done solo acoustic shows. All those things have helped me satisfy a creative urge. You become a songwriter and a performer and you can’t stop. You see Paul McCartney and he’s putting out a new record. You’re like, “Dude, you don’t have to do that anymore.” But Paul McCartney can’t stop being Paul McCartney, you know? We all can look at him and be like, “You’ve written the most incredible songs, you’ve moved us all multiple times over and over, you don’t have to do this.” But he can’t un-be himself.

When somebody checks off everything, what becomes the motivation then? When you don’t have any finish lines to cross anymore, where does the motivation come from?

It’s about the process, because then you just enjoy the act of sitting down with your guitar. You’re looking out the window and there’s a storm and you want to start singing about it, or whatever drives you in that moment. Paul McCartney, he can’t stop doing that. I can’t stop doing that.

You have this song on the new record, “Asshole Friends,” which is a great title. Something that I always loved about your albums is that you’re not afraid to stick a song or two in there that are a bit sillier than the rest of the material. I always thought having a song about throwing a toilet off a roof was genuinely funny and charming. But I’m wondering if there have ever been ideas that you guys came up with that you cut because you thought they were too stupid or too far out there.

For sure, and some that we wish we had. [Laughs] The song on Comet called “We Love Fun,” that was one that was under debate. It was definitely like, “Man, are we crossing the line here?” Obviously it’s a silly tune but is this totally fucking annoying? Like, we say “put on your party pants.” We were like, “Are we really gonna say ‘party pants’ in this song?” We had that conversation. But finally, we push it through and it gets released. We tried to play it a couple times but decided it didn’t work live. But it landed on a TV show and made us a pile of money. We’ve landed a couple things in TVs and movies, but that one might have done the best.

Isn’t that funny? So many of your early songs were an appreciation for the high school movies you grew up on—Fast Times and all the John Hughes movies. You are a dad now and I’m wondering if you watch any modern teen comedies and if you had any thoughts on them.

I haven’t, but I think the thing about those kinds of movies isn’t necessarily even the movies, but where you are in your life when you see them. Same with music. It’s why the Replacements will always be so special to me. So, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Breakfast Club, it’s about where my brain was in its evolution at age 15 or 16. My son is going to have those things for himself. We’ve already started showing him some things, not those more teen things, but he’ll watch Ghostbusters and Star Wars.

So I can’t think of any [recent teen movies] I’ve seen, but there are some really cool things people are making now. The world, with all its negativity, is also way more aware and emotionally connected. My son’s elementary school is a completely different environment than what I had. All the kids are supportive and positive and they’re acknowledging issues and looking out for everybody. They’ve really created an environment where the kids are supporting each other. It’s a different universe, in the most awesome way.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Hello and welcome to ZERO CRED, Earth’s greatest music newsletter. Every Sunday I send out a weekly column to my paid subscribers where I ramble about new music, books, or whatever dumb crap is going on online that week. You can upgrade for only a few bucks a month and get it sent straight to your inbox.

For this week’s post, I thought I’d try something slightly different and dig into a few new albums by old favorites.

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When I was a teenager I put so much pressure on the artists I loved. I had a narrower perspective of time then, so every new release felt like make it or break it. If my favorite band put out a stinker of an album, I really forced myself to find something—anything—I liked about it, if for no other reason than to convince myself I hadn’t flushed $10.99 down the toilet. But if there was truly nothing redeemable to be found at the end of several dozen listens, I grew irate. How could my favorite band betray me, specifically, like this?? A resentment festered and I was quick to very vocally jump off the bandwagon. I know message board moderators hated to see me coming.

Of course, that is the mindset of a young and shortsighted person. Now I have several decades of fandom under my belt. If I’m still listening to a band I liked in high school, that means I’ve been following them in some capacity for nearly 30 years.

A cool thing happens once you get that much listening time behind you, and it’s something that’s impossible to appreciate in your younger years. You start to offer more grace. Your favorite band might drift out of your life for years or even decades at a time. It can happen for a number of reasons. Maybe their sonic DNA changes enough over a few albums to where you no longer connect with their music. Or maybe there is a change inside you that pulls you in a different direction, towards other things that fit your evolving taste. Or maybe it’s a combination of both. For whatever reason you end up missing a few album cycles. Then one day they drop a new album, you give it a listen, and are pulled back onto the bandwagon.

This has happened with friends too. There are some people in my life who have been a constant presence for years, whereas other people have drifted in and out of my life and we’ve reconnected when the timing has worked for both of us. Again, this “see you when I see you” mindset was not one I was mature enough to wield as a teenager but it’s something I appreciate as an adult.

All of this is to say that this month, a few artists that I have followed with varying degrees of closeness for decades have released new albums and I’ve challenged myself to clear out any mental baggage I had and listen with an open mind. In a lot of cases, I have been rewarded with an experience that feels like catching up with an old friend over coffee. Here are the artists I caught back up with this week.

Death Cab for Cutie - I Built You A Tower

WHEN I FOUND THEM

Death Cab for Cutie is a band that, like many early aughts millennials, was my entire personality in college. In the four years I spent in college, the band released three albums, plus Ben Gibbard’s lone Postal Service record. That three-album stretch of The Photo Album/Transatlanticism/Plans is an unreal run.

WHEN I FELL OFF

The farther I got from graduation, the more I started to drift away from Death Cab, though I respectfully tipped my cap to them every time they made the rounds. 2008’s Narrow Stairs had a few decent songs on it but didn’t keep me coming back the way its predecessor Plans did. Codes and Keys, Kintsugi, and Thank You for Today also failed to stick on me.

NEW ALBUM VERDICT

First off, Death Cab’s albums will always be winter music to me and I think it’s INSANE behavior to listen to their new album when it’s 90 degrees out. Nevertheless, I gave I Built You a Tower a few unbiased spins this week and it hit a lot of the same familiar notes that hooked me in the first place. I’m going to make a note to myself to dig this record out when it’s sweater weather, the way god intended.

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