Music

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Ed Nash (Toothless) talks literary favorites

by Michael Browne on August 2, 2017

Ed Nash (bassist of Bombay Bicycle Club) recently launched an exciting new side project named Toothless, named after a drawing by LA’s own Raymond Pettibon. Toothless have since released a fantastic full-length titled The Pace Of The Passing. The record is a bold and determined effort that sees the indie bassist tapping into the oeurve of Bombay Bicycle Club, albeit with a slight variation that is wholly original.

As part of our music and literature series, Ed has given us five works that have informed his creativity on The Pace Of The Passing.

The Odyssey – Homer

When I started writing the Toothless record I had a real problem writing lyrics, I had ideas and themes that I wanted to cover but found it hard converting these ideas into actual lines that made sense in a song. Everything I tried seemed overly emotional, basic, or wasn’t interesting to listen to in the context of a song. I started looking at how my favorite lyricists got their ideas across and noticed that many of them created worlds or retold familiar stories as a vehicle for their own ideas. Nick Cave sings about Mermaids and Murderers, Sufjan Stevens retells stories from American Folklore. I started trying to do the same with my own songs and found that Greek myths was a great way in. They are not only stories that I love and know very well but also have very clear cut messages and morals. Starting with that very clear framework meant that I could easily work in my own ideas. The Odyssey is the most famous ancient Greek story, and it’s full of small stories and messages that I use throughout The Pace of the Passing.

Waking Up – Sam Harris

Another theme that I look at throughout the album is the existence of God and what happens when you die. I became aware of Sam Harris’ work while writing the album and found that his views regarding religion and spirituality were the perfect fit with my own. In Waking Up Sam Harris puts across the idea that you can be spiritual without following any organized religion. Up until reading this book I had always thought that the two went hand in hand and there was no place in between. This book opened my eyes to a rational scientific way of thinking about spirituality and death.

Orchard book of Greek myths – Geraldine McCaughrean, Emma Chichester Clark

My mum gave me this book for my 6th birthday when we were on holiday in Greece. It’s a beautifully illustrated children’s book that retells the most famous Greek myths minus all the gruesome stuff. Reading it while being in Greece really captured my imagination and is the reason that these stories have remained so important to me – the stories seemed real and I could imagine them happening in the area that I was staying in. This book is entirely responsible for my interest in Greek Mythology and the majority of the Greek myth references on the record. I learned about King Midas, Charon and Sisyphus here! Out of all these books this one had by far the biggest impact on me.

Animal Farm – George Orwell

In the same way that I retell stories in my songs to convey my own ideas, I use personification. I think its a very easy way to get a point across while still making the song interesting and not preachy, especially with the themes that I am thinking about on this record. Animal Farm is my favorite and most effective use of personification in literature that I can think of. The fable uses the microcosm of an English farm to tell the story of the rise of the Soviet union. The physical traits of the animals relate to their personalities and those of their real life counterparts.

The very first idea for a song I had came when I was reading an article that said the Sun was in the middle of its life – its about 4.5 billion years old and is expected to last the same again. I had the idea to personify the Sun as someone who is having a midlife crisis, where they are looking to the future and realizing their own mortality. As it’s the sun there is an added level of anxiety as there are so many other people relying on this one person.

In my song Terra I turn the earth and the sun into lovers that have been wanting to be together but have never properly met.

The Rules of Attraction – Bret Easton Ellis

My favorite of Bret Easton Ellis’ books, this story focuses on students at a New Hampshire liberal arts collage in the 80s – in particular three students and their love triangle. It is written in first person with each chapter belonging to a different character. As the book progresses and you hear from more characters, your opinion on the story and the events change, Rashomon style. This device is particularly effective with the love triangle, as relationships are almost entirely subjective.

I wanted to try something like this with a song, where your opinion on what is happening is constantly changing. The song “Palm’s Backside” is a back and forth from a guy and a girl looking back at their relationship. The first half of the song is from the guys point of view where he has seen his old girlfriend with a new partner and thinks that she looks happy. In the bridge of the song the girl takes the lead and everything is flipped around. You find out that she actually isn’t happier and it’s all for show. This song wouldn’t have worked in the same way without using the stylistic device from The Rules of Attraction.

The Pace Of The Passing stream:

Music

Jesse Tyre (The Grand Southern) shares his literary inspirations

by Michael Browne on July 12, 2017

As part of our ongoing series where we talk to writers and musicians about the music and literature that informs their creativity, we welcome Jesse Tyre of LA-based alt-country outfit The Grand Southern. The band recently released a new EP titled “Traded Heaven,” which takes it’s cues from the great alt-country acts of the past (Uncle Tupelo, Whiskeytown, Son Volt) while wholeheartedly channeling a Southern California lyrical and musical sensibility that is both fresh and reinvigorating. Below are six books that have informed lead vocalist Jesse Tyre’s creativity throughout the years.

John Prine Beyond Words

This book is truly a gift. Lyrics and chords written out with pictures and stories. His handwritten lyrics on coffee stained paper with a phone number scrawled on the side of the notepad. It feels like you are getting a sneak peak through his personal scrapbook. His songs are mostly just stories from his own life, and he’s got the pictures to prove it. Often when I am short on inspiration, and my eyes dart between the unfamiliar and the external, I end up where I started – short on inspiration. We don’t have to look too far to find a story to tell or a song to sing. I will never have his voice, his character, but I can hone in on the best version of my own voice – the most genuine. There’s humor and heartbreak in the most mundane experiences, and what is glorious to some, may be simple and boring to others. Sometimes amplifying the trivial and muting the exaggerated makes the ride a lot smoother. When you find something to get behind, say it again. In fact, say it three times and add a bridge and a catchy melody.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

I read the British “Adrian Mole” series when I was a kid, as well as Catcher in the Rye in my early teenage years. The brilliance of these books is that they appeal to a universal commonality in the experiences of these young men, and the readers fascination with the mysteries of the teenage mind. I was convinced that I was Adrian Mole and later Holden Caulfield. How these characters spoke to me in such a profound way could only be characterized as the stars lining up just right, so the pages came before my eyes at the exact time my stupid adolescent thinking aligned perfectly with how these characters saw the world. I read David Eggers’ book in my early 20’s, and although a bit more mature and slightly more grounded in a reality, I felt a similar kinship to the character. I was also living in San Francisco at the time, yet his story had occurred a generation before me, so there was some implied expertise and wisdom of how to navigate through this period in my life. Our shared experience ends with these fairly superficial notions of age and geography. His story is interesting, but not riveting. His struggles are sad, but not devastating. How he shares his story, a perfect mix of humor, vulnerability, eloquence, and self-deprecation blew me away. It’s not enough to have a story and a rhyme scheme, its not enough to have something important or relatable to say. You have to be smart. You have to be captivating. You have to be fearless in peeling back layers and showing the underlying feeling, even if it makes you or your audience uncomfortable. This book is a perfect model of how a song should be written. It was the same sense of wonder I felt after hearing John Prine, Carol King, Van Morrison, Smokey Robinson… so that’s how you tell a story.

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

To oversimplify the book’s implication, we all start from an equal place of potential, and our success, sustainability, and even survival are generally decided by availability, opportunity, access, and necessity. Consciously or not, these basic themes have a profound on my relationship with music. Just as complex grains, animals suited for domestication etc, were available to Eurasian civilizations, music and fellow musicians are bountiful to anyone with a wifi connection living in Los Angeles in 2017. So plentiful in fact, that it is difficult to not be desensitized by the abundance of content and players. Often the most difficult task is to filter out everything and everyone that I don’t connect with. I am constantly learning from others. From the days of the first Napster downloads, I could see what other music people who listened to my band were also “stealing.” This insight was impossible to obtain (at least on this scale) with this ease previously. The constant opportunity to be inspired by sounds at a local bar or the Hollywood Bowl gave us the kind of direct access I always dreamed of as a kid growing up in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Lastly, the parallels between necessity and innovation are striking. I often reflect and wrestle with what many musicians refer to as their “need” to play and have an outlet, and our desire or “want” to be heard. Now that we are past the point of just trying to survive, is the motivation to make the best music we can still burning? The necessity exists if we want to be heard, but it must start internally as well. There is a need to constantly push for excellence, but also a great longevity in being resourceful and sparing. If you can record a great song with a guitar or piano, why build 100 tracks around it? As soon as we take it on the road, it may be difficult to reproduce in any recognizable and meaningful way. We have an abundance of resources in one place, but leave the comfort of our geography and the equation starts again from zero.

A New Pair of Glasses by Chuck “C”

This book is a lesson in perspective. That perspective only comes from smashing the ego and being willing to be vulnerable and honest. Writing lyrics requires that kind of internal transparency. It is too easy to taint the process with our ideas of how others will perceive our music, thinking about what people want to hear – and the darkest cloud – what will sell. The truth is that themes of the human experience are universal, and if I can share a story or convey a feeling as I know it or as I felt it, people will probably identify. Some people at least. And if no one does, at least I can live with the work I did knowing it is a reflection of who I am and how I see the world. And then I write another one, and another. “I love you and what you think of me is none of my business” is a powerful statement from the author. Difficult to apply in my daily life, but when I am writing and really tuned in, that mindset brings great comfort. He also says, “Walking alone is not normal, is not natural.” To think we have all the answers, or that no one can contribute to our composition, to our craft, to the 2nd line in the 3rd verse, is foolish. Being open to collaboration and inspiration strengthens the vessel, and also informs us when we cant find our own voice.

Sex, Drugs, Ratt & Roll: My Life in Rock by Stephen Pearcy and Sam Benjamin

These figures were larger than life when I was a kid. Ratt had probably peaked before my time, but I had the VHS tapes with Milton Berle and Warren DeMartini crashing through the ceiling. The most fascinating piece of this story, beyond the hustle and sleaze that defined (and probably still lingers heavily over) the Sunset Strip, was that Stephen Pearcy was a fan of Rock n Roll. He sought out David Lee Roth before anyone knew about Van Halen. Finding him in the parking lot of a club, offering up a joint, and beginning a friendship that would last years. He was unapologetic about his range as a singer and what he had to do to get the band gigs. None of it mattered. His voice worked, it was perfect for that band and perfect for those songs. When you’re young anything is possible, and that great unknown can be all the inspiration you need. Another lesson in perspective as the band deteriorated, you certainly get the sense that you are only hearing one side of the story, and that’s ok. Everything is perspective, and what a better way to tell a story that with a pinch of resentment, guilt, hubris, etc. I often forget what it was like to be young and inspired, to learn someone else’s song just to emulate exactly what they are doing. Those things happen so much more subconsciously now and that’s probably a good thing, but to just be a fan and have a poster on your wall, that’s where everyone who plays music started. It’s a very pure place to be.

The Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando Skyhorse

Change is unavoidable, yet inevitable. Change is generally easy with acceptance, however resistance to change and the reinvention required to adapt are difficult barriers. This fictional novel based in Echo Park is mostly the story of a working class community and the people who breath life and color into the neighborhoods. A few decades removed from the recent gentrification that has, once again, reshaped the community and its cast of characters. Loosely based on the author’s experience, it really is a shining example of making the ordinary engaging. I find when I am really tuned in, I write drawing on my own experience, and the experience of others I can identify with. I am, of course, the foremost expert on myself and my experience. The author weaves through the characters search for a destination beyond their destiny, for expectations and social class structure to be accepted and questioned simultaneously. These are universal themes, yet the story here is so unique to this geography and this community. Living in Los Angeles, we often have a culture overload. An abundance of performing arts, visual arts, museums, galleries, and fashion. The city is transient and evolving, not unique, not good or bad, just changing. However, the richness of generational community culture has become a thing of the past in many parts of the city. Maybe making room for a new set of characters to make new stories, or maybe creating a superficial existence where there is no time to create, because people need to spend their time paying rent and taking their dogs to yoga. There will always be a place for a scene, for a community, for traditions and culture to be shared and enrich, it just may not be here. Stories share those experiences, even after their gone, songs do too. Even if you know all the words and all the notes, a song can still be a blank space to insert your own faces, your own town, and your own experience.

The “Traded Heaven” EP is now available on iTunes.

Interview with Thomas Moore

by Michael Browne on May 24, 2017

Thomas Moore is a UK based writer whose most recent novel In Their Arms (Rebel Satori Press), follows the spiraling life of a queer art critic as he numbly navigates a life of cruising apps and locales. In Their Arms dabbles wholeheartedly in the kind of erotic and depraved narratives that feature despairing males, made notorious by writers like Dennis Cooper. In Their Arms evokes a vague horror and routinely works to dull the reader’s senses. Stylistically, the book also features a detritus of pop music and cultural allusions. In our next installment of writers talking about the music that has played a part in their creative lives, we talked to Moore about the role music plays in his writing and the importance of tone and style over narrative.

Angel City Review: Your most recent novel In Their Arms features several references to music pop culture – from Alice Glass of Crystal Castles to Wu-Tang Clan – juxtaposed next to images of violence and other pop culture artifacts. How big of a role does music play in your life and the art you create?

Thomas Moore: Music is a huge part of my life and has been for as long as I can remember. I listen to a lot of stuff and try to keep up with things as best as I can. In terms of the references in In Their Arms, a lot of those were more linked to the idea of popular culture now, and the mish-mash of things that the Internet throws up, and what different things signify and how they link together nowadays.

ACR: What came first, your love for literature or music?

TM: I honestly can’t remember, but I suppose I probably heard music before I learned to read…so maybe it was music first? Sat in the back of my parents’ car, listening to their ABBA cassettes and my dad’s Glen Campbell tapes. Although honestly, I tend to try and not really separate things too much – I like the idea of seeing literature, music, film, visual art as kind of the same thing because I like the idea of all of those things being treated with the same amount of respect as each other. In my head I like to think of a new book and a new record having the same kind of weight and importance as each other.

ACR: I’ve read in a previous interview that you are really interested in mood and tone regardless of the medium. Is there a musical artist out there that you feel captures the tone of your works?

TM: Yeah, mood is really important to me and tends to be the thing I respond to the most in art. It’s about the feeling that something invokes. There are lots of musicians who I feel a kinship with in one way or another. When it comes to artists who share the same tone as my stuff, I suppose it changes a lot depending on what I’m working on at any given time. When I was starting my first novel, I really felt that the first Crystal Castles album, and the Deerhunter record at the time, and Stars of The Lid had tones that I felt were similar to things that I was trying to work with. Then when I wrote my novella, GRAVES, in 2010/2011, Salem and some of the related Witch Haus thing seemed to reflect the tone that I was aiming for. With my most recent novel, Angel Guts: Red Classroom by Xiu Xiu felt like it had some similarities in tone and mood.

ACR: Would you say that mood, tone, and style are more important than a formal plot in your writing?

TM: Yes, absolutely. Books that are mainly led by formal plot and character development don’t really do it for me. Which isn’t a criticism of people who do that kind of thing – it’s just a personal preference. It’s the same with films – I respond way more to a David Lynch film than something with a more clearly defined plot-driven narrative thing. I like it when things make emotional sense rather than narrative sense. I also think confusion is really important and shouldn’t be dismissed or used as a pejorative. Things don’t have to make sense. There doesn’t have to be a reason for everything in art.

ACR: Is there anything to be said for listening to music while writing? Do you find any inspiration directly within music that translates to your writing?

TM: I often listen to music when I write – depending on what I’m working on. Sometimes a project has required silence, and other things have required super loud black metal records in the background. Yeah – going back to mood and tone – I think there are often feelings or atmospheres that I hear in music that I respond to, and I like to try and experiment and try to find how writing can correspond to that. I have sometimes tried to play around with text until I feel like it matches a certain tone that I’ve heard in a piece of music. It’s something that I’ve tried to do a lot.

ACR: There’s a line from In Their Arms where the narrator says that “there’s no music vague enough to fit the mood I wake up in.” This really resonated with me. Do you believe there are feelings that music cannot accurately convey, and can perhaps only be conveyed though literature / language, or vice versa?

TM: Oh I don’t know. I don’t think that I’d like to give a definite answer on something like that. I guess it depends on the person who has made the art and the person who is listening/reading/watching/looking at the art. I think it would depend on interpretation, you know? I like the fact that one person may go away from a record or a book feeling a totally different way to someone else. Who knows what someone else is going to feel?

ACR: You’ve recently had one of your works anthologized by KiddiePunk (Collected 2011-2015). In addition to publishing Dennis Cooper’s GIF novels, KiddiePunk also has some esoteric forays into music (including a reverb edition of Hanson’s “Middle of Nowhere” album). How did you originally connect with KP?

TM: Yeah, two of my works were included in that book – my 2011 novella, GRAVES, and my 2013 book of poems, The Night Is An Empire. I first got in touch with Michael Salerno, the filmmaker and artist who runs Kiddiepunk in 2007, mainly just because I saw his stuff and realized he was a complete genius and because his work blew my head off. I think we first hung out in person in 2008 in Paris and we’ve been friends ever since. He’s been really generous and cool in releasing my stuff and I think of him as a very important friend and person in my life. But aside from all of that, his work is like no one else on earth. Complete genius and inspiration. Yeah, Kiddiepunk has done some musical releases. A personal favorite is the Milk Teeth album, which you should check out. I’m extremely proud of my association with Kiddiepunk, because I think that Michael has and continues to do so many amazing things with it.

ACR: What are you currently working on?

TM: I’m in the editing stages of a new book, which I’ve almost finished – it’s shorter texts – some poems and some strange prose bits and I’m just trying to get everything to click into place. And then I’m in the very early stages of working on my third novel, which I’m feeling very excited about. An idea just kind of came out of nowhere, and I’ve begun obsessing about it and thinking about it all the time, so I’ll see where it takes me.

ACR: Top 5 favorite albums of all time?

TM: I feel like I need to put a disclaimer in and say that this is just what I’ve come up with at the time of writing this answer. If you ask me another day then I think you’d get totally different answers … OK, so I’d have to have something by Morrissey, so I’m going to say The Smiths by The Smiths mainly because it starts with the song “Reel Around The Fountain,” which is one of the most beautiful things ever recorded. But really, I could probably just fill this list with Smiths and Morrissey Solo albums (like Vauxhall and I which contains the best Morrissey song ever – “Speedway.”) But yeah, I’ll go with the first Smiths record. Then I’d probably pick Angel Guts: Red Classroom by Xiu Xiu, which just feels like such a complete and self-contained piece of work – totally beautiful and fucked up in equal measures. But again, I’m obsessed with Xiu Xiu so I could have picked any of their records. Then maybe I’d pick the second Le Tigre album, Feminist Sweepstakes. Everything Kathleen Hanna is involved with is awesome and I saw Le Tigre play a bunch of times around the time of that album and they were completely stunning, and played some of the best shows I’ve ever seen – I came out buzzing. I’d probably pick a Hole album, so I’m going to say Live Through This. And then I’d want to pick something kind of experimental so I’d go for Happy Days by Jim O’Rourke, which as a writer I feel like I took a lot from, in terms of how the record is composed and repetition and drone and loads of stuff like that.

The Smiths by The Smiths

Angel Guts: Red Classroom by Xiu Xiu

Feminist Sweepstakes by Le Tigre

Live Through This by Hole

Happy Days by Jim O’Rourke

ACR: Any favorites or influences from 2017 thus far?

TM:

Pharmakon – Contact

Divide and Disolve – Basic

Arca – Arca

Xiu Xiu – Forget

Xiu XIu – Gone Gone Gone

The Magnetic Fields – 50 Song Memoir

William Basinski – A Shadow In Time

Anohni – Paradise EP

Brian Eno – Reflection

Blanck Mass – World Eater

The Mountain Goats – Goths

Antony Braxton/Miya Masaoka – Duo (DCWM) 2013

Jarvis Cocker Chilly Gonzalez – Room 29

Diamanda Galas – All The Way and At Saint Thomas the Apostle Harlem

Slowdive – Slowdive

Perfume Genius – No Shape

Gas – Narkopop

Sleaford Mods – English Tapas

Oxbow – Thin Black Duke

Teengirl Fantasy – 8am

Run The Jewels – RTJ3

Priests – Nothing Feels Natural

Wolf Eyes – Undertow

Lawrence English – Cruel Optimism

The Necks – Unfold

Follow Thomas on Twitter: @thomasmoronic

Interviews Music

Interview with Vermin on the Mount founder Jim Ruland

by Michael Browne on May 17, 2017

Angel City Review is proud to present the first installment of an interview series that will feature exclusive interviews with writers and musicians about the literature and music that moves them. First up we have Jim Ruland, author of the award winning novel Forest of Fortune and the short story collection, Big Lonesome. He recently co-authored Angeleno punk rock icon Keith Morris’ autobiography My Damage, and is the man behind the Vermin on the Mount reading series. We talked to him recently about his love for punk rock, Los Angeles, zines, and the future of VOTM.

Angel City Review: What were your first encounters with punk rock and literature? Did your affinity towards both happen simultaneously or at different points in your formative years?

Jim Ruland: The worlds of punk rock and literature seemed very distinct to me and didn’t collide until I started getting involved in zines. A friend in grad school was a lifelong subscriber to Flipside, which was based in L.A. He wanted to move to L.A. and work for Flipside. I told him I thought this was a realistic ambition and put him in touch with my friends in North Hollywood where I’d lived for an exhilarating year after finishing my undergrad. He got the gig and soon I was writing reviews, interviewing bands, and penning my own column for Flipside. Writing for zines gave me access to the music I loved and I quickly figured out that I could do whatever I wanted to do. I was raised Catholic and had served in the Navy, so I was a rule follower by nature. Having the freedom to write in a space where there weren’t any rules was huge for me.

ACR: How much has punk rock informed your style as a writer?

JR: Punk zines are where I cut my teeth as a writer and learned how to write for an audience. There was a time when I wanted to be Kickboy Face but thankfully that was a short-lived phase I outgrew a long time ago.

ACR: Many people feel like music criticism (or criticism in general) is on the decline. What do you think the role of the music zine or blog will become in the next five years?

JR: Zines can be critical but they aren’t criticism. I wholeheartedly endorse the fanzine approach: embrace, document, and share the things you are passionate about. The world is full of weirdoes. Find your people.

ACR: First punk rock show?

JR: The Ramones at the Wax Museum in Washington, D.C. in 1985 (I think).

ACR: At what point did you realize that there were tangible ideological and aesthetic intersections between punk rock / DIY culture and the literary scene in LA and SD?

JR: When Flipside folded, two friends from grad school, Todd Taylor and Sean Carswell, started a new zine called Razorcake in 2001. They kept everything they liked about Flipside and got rid of the rest. We started doing readings around L.A. and found that if we asked people if we could read at their café or record store the answer was usually yes. I had this ongoing series of stories about a punk rock band that was perpetually on tour told in the style of a medieval manuscript. So I went around dressed like a monk’s robe with studded leather Birkenstocks reading these weird hyper stylized stories. In 2002 I set up an event at Track 16 in Santa Monica to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the Damned playing for the first time in L.A., and Keith Morris and Brendan Mullen read. We were even invited to open for X at the Knitting Factory. It was all very strange. Todd asked me to set up a reading for the Chicago writer Joe Meno, who was a columnist for Punk Planet at the time, and I thought it would be cool to expand the audience beyond the two or three dozen L.A. punk rockers who were amused by what we were doing and Vermin on the Mount was born.

ACR: Much of the literary canon from Los Angeles is often painted with a sense of dread and vaguely apocalyptic themes. Nathanael West and Joan Didion’s essays come to mind. Did the LA punk scene capture that same mood for you?

JR: Yes and no. I don’t think the early L.A. punk rock scene (or punk rock in general) was particularly literary, but it inspired some great narrative art that is full of dread.

ACR: How important is it for VOTM to be a place on the periphery of the culture where writers can read, share, collaborate?

JR: I think it used to feel more subversive when Vermin was held in a bar in Chinatown and I had not yet addressed my substance abuse issues, but I remain committed to Vermin being a space for indie and emerging writers. I’m not against mainstream writers (whatever that means) but if I have to deal with a publicist to book a writer for a show I’m probably not going to be interested.

ACR: How did the collaboration with Keith Morris on My Damage come together?

JR: Everyone asks about that and it’s not particularly interesting. My agent heard about the opportunity and introduced me to the publisher, which is not the way things usually work, but is still not a very good story. Keith has been amazing to work with. The guy has so much integrity. When he commits to something, he commits 100%.

ACR: So many rock “tell all” biographies tend to fall into the realm of sentimentality and cliche stories of debauchery and eventual cleanse and rebirth. In working with Keith on the book, how up front were you guys about avoiding the pitfalls of the rock bio?

JR: That’s a good question. I think there were some things we didn’t want to do—like we didn’t want to start the book with 75 pages of childhood memories—but I don’t know if we talked about how to avoid the pitfalls of the redemption trajectory. I knew that Keith’s stories would attract a lot of people who aren’t necessarily readers. So we hit on the idea fairly early to write short chapters—like a hardcore song—to keep the reader engaged and turning pages. But one of the myths of the redemption trajectory as it pertains to sobriety is that your life will get better after you get clean. Newsflash: it doesn’t. For many people, things get worse when they stop drinking and/or drugging because now they have to deal with the damage. I think Keith falls into that category. The glory years of punk rock were behind him when he quit and there were some hard years before he started to enjoy success with his band OFF!

ACR: Best place to eat a taco and catch a reading in SD?

JR: Salud in Barrio Logan has the best tacos in San Diego. On the last Thursday of every month So Say We All puts on VAMP at the Whistle Stop Bar in South Park but you better show up early if you want a seat because every show is standing room only.

ACR: Your favorite LA writer of the last 20 years?

JR: Chiwan Choi.

ACR: Favorite LA punk record?

JR: That’s a tough one but my go-to is The Adolescents self-titled debut, aka The Blue Album.

ACR: With nearly every corner of LA becoming more and more affluent these days, does that, in your opinion, affect the music scene in a negative or positive way?

JR: Punk rock has always thrived in the margins. It’s always been informed by class and power. Always, always. When Hollywood was the locus of the L.A. punk scene it wasn’t the Hollywood of stars and starlets but the Hollywood of teen hustlers and junkies. It’s ground zero, The Masque, was a bunker under a porn theater that Brendan Mullen converted into a practice and performance space. Glamorous it wasn’t. But even then you had punk in East L.A. Punk in the beach cities. Punk in the valley. Punk in Oxnard. So it’s a little disingenuous to talk about L.A. as a “scene,” which suggests some degree of homogeneity. It’s just too massive.

ACR: What are you currently working on?

JR: A novel set in near-future L.A. about a woman who works for an underground organization who breaks people out of prison hospitals.

ACR: What does the future hold for Vermin on the Mount?

JR: I’m always looking for ways for Vermin to be a more meaningful experience for its participants. I’m presently experimenting with podcasts and planning something in the category of an anthology. I recently came to the conclusion that I was holding Vermin back by doing everything myself. I’ve basically been re-inventing the wheel with every show, which is dumb because even with the 13^th year anniversary coming up I have no intention of quitting or slowing down. I recently posted a solicitation for volunteers and asked for help. I’m not interested in “taking it to the next level” in the sense where Vermin on the Mount becomes a thing that burns up the time and energy of everyone involved – like so many magazines and websites do. I just want it to continue. If anyone reading this is interested in getting involved in an irreverent, irregular reading series with a punk rock aesthetic, drop me a line.

Follow Jim on Twitter: @JimVermin

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