New Book: Darkness, Racket and Twang - Essential Listening from the Fringes of Popular and Unpopular Music by Alex V. Cook
Music journalist Alex V. Cook's first book, 'Darkness, Racket and Twang - Essential Listening from the Fringes of Popular and Unpopular Music' is available now from the SideCartel. Drive By Trucker, Patterson Hood says of Darkness, Racket and Twang... "At times enlightening and at times infuriating (like any book about music should be)"
Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) September 28, 2006
Echo Park, Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) September 28, 2006 Darkness, Racket and Twang announces a new passionate voice in the world of rock journalism in Alex V. Cook. Instead of miring articles in this collection with dull history and celebrity gossip, Cook lays bare the relationship between the listener and the music. Each article in the book depicts a short, often temporary connection with a clutch of records you probably have never heard, letting rock music serve as a launch pad for enlightenment. His opinions are as vehement as they are controversial. Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers, who gets discussed in the book, described it as "enlightening and at times infuriating (like any book about music should be)." While the music buying public grows ever more jaded, Cook's urgent and impassioned prose is a necessity on the modern cultural landscape.
Originally published in personal journals and public websites, the pieces in this collection capture an original voice stepping beyond the veneer of rock-n-roll and and opening the doors of constant epiphany that the author experiences along the margins of popular, and more often, unpopular music. It is as much travel writing, documenting the psychic terrain of the music-obsessed, as it is criticism.
Some of the Artists discussed in this Book:
Ryan Adams, Akron/Family, Oren Ambarchi, The Angels of Light, Animal Collective, Architecture in Helsinki, The Band, Devendra Banhart, The Be Good Tanyas, Andrew Bird, Black Dice, The Black Keys, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Bono, Boredoms, Boris, The Bowmans, Broken Social Scene, Stephen Bruton, Johnny Cash, Nick Cave, Clem Snide, Leonard Cohen, Coil, Julian Cope, Craft, Current 93, Danielson, Dead Meadow, Depeche Mode, Ana Di Silva, Drive-By Truckers, Drunk Horse, Bob Dylan, eels, Elsah, Entrance, Roky Erikson, The Fall, Fantômas, Jay Farrar, The Flaming Lips, The Fred Weaver band, Frog Eyes, Gastr Del Sol, The Grateful Dead, Growing, Guided By Voices, Hangedup, Gary Higgins, Jolie Holland, The Howing Hex, I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness, Jaga Jazzist, Jandek, Jane, Kronos Quartet, Lowry, Luna, Matisyahu, Mclusky, Ramsay Midwood, Moby, Morrissey, The Mountain Goats, Nashvile Pussy, The National, Scout Niblett, Ogurusu Norihide, Okay, Ariel Pink, Lou Reed, Ken Russell, Saint Vitus, Shellac, Silver Jews, Elliot Smith, Alan Sparhawk, Stereolab, Sufjan Stevens, Joe Strummer, Sunn O))), Harry Taussig, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La band, This Song Is A Mess But So Am I, Town and Country, Ulver, Elizabeth Anka Vajagic, Van Halen, The Velvet Underground, Scott Walker, M Ward, Gillian Welch, White Noise and, Yo La Tengo
Author Info
Alex V. Cook, along with being a family man, lapsed painter and ardent mediocre guitarist, is a writer living and working in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His work can be found in a slew of regional magazines and a growing trickle of national ones. This is his first book.
Publisher Info
The SideCartel is a small and loose conglomeration of like-minded writers, artists and musicians, hellbent on using the best new technology available to create, manufacture and distribute work that might otherwise forever lurk in the shadows. The SideCartel began by Publishing the online magazine, outsideleft. com, A love letter to less-revered celebrities, featuring healthy helpings of mostly forgotten culture and pop-inspired opinion. Darkness, Racket and Twang is the second book from the SideCartel.
“A writer who lives what he writes. This is clever, artistic commentary from a passionate music lover who really cares, and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks of it. Agree with him or not, you can’t help but feel his passion... and that’s a good thing.”
Tim Westergren, Founder, Pandora, The Music Genome Project
ISBN-10: 0-9776849-2-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-9776849-2-2
Images and more information available at www. sidecartel. com
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