The Music Book Podcast

On this episode, Marc talks with David Stubbs . He’s the author of “Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don't Get Stockhausen,” originally published in 2009 and recently reissued. It's an examination of how avant-garde visual art gets mainstream acceptance but avant-garde music is comparatively obscure and unpopular. It's also a pocket history of modern art and music that bring...

On this episode, Marc talks with Frans de Waard, author of “America’s Greatest Noise,” published in July of 2024 by Frans’s own imprint, Korm Plastics. It’s the story of Ron Lessard, founder of RRRecords in Massachusetts, which he ran from the mid-80s until 2009.  It's a story told in Lessard’s own words, compiled by de Waard from a series of Skype conversations the pair had over the past yea...

On this episode, Marc talks with Robyn Hitchock , author of “1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left,” published in July of 2024. You probably know Robyn as an incredibly creative and accomplished musician. His first book could be called a memoir, but it’s confined to the year 1967, when he left home at age 13 to enter boarding school in England, and fell in love with music. It's a super c...

On this episode, Marc talks with Toby Manning , author of “Mixing Pop and Politics: A Marxist History of Popular Music,” published in May of 2024. It’s an extensive examination of pop music from the early 1950’s to the present in America and England, and how it interacted with the political culture of its respective times. Covering a vast selection of songs and albums, Manning finds connections an...

On this episode, Marc talks with Mike Smith , author of “In With The In Crowd: Popular Jazz in 1960s Black America,” published in May of 2024. Smith argues that most studies of 60s jazz focus on the avant-garde centered around John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, and more, and he sets out to balance that with a history of the more popular jazz artists from that decade, such as Eddie Harri...

On this episode, Marc talks with Tom Maxwell, author of “A Really Strange and Wonderful Time: The Chapel Hill Music Scene, 1989-1999,” published in April of 2024. It's the story of a community where musicians played in each other’s bands, toured with each other, produced each other’s records, and supported each other’s work regardless of style or pedigree. Tom also shows what it was like to b...

On this episode, Marc talks with Tara Lopez , author of “Chuco Punk: Sonic Insurgency in El Paso,” published today, June 4th, 2024. It’s a fascinating history of how punk rock developed and grew in the Texas city of El Paso, and the way this opened punk up to marginalized groups. It’s a story about community and self-reliance that adds a new chapter to the history of punk rock. As Tara writes, “Wh...

On this episode, Marc talks to Bill Sassenberger, author of “Toxic Shock Records - Assassin of Mediocrity: A Story of Love, Loss, and Loud Music,” published in the spring of 2024 by Fluke Publishing. Bill and his wife Julianna ran Toxic Shock Records from 1980 up until about 2014 - it was a store, a label, a distributor, and tour booker, and much more. Bill’s book is both a personal memoir and a h...

On this episode, Marc talks to Laina Dawes , author of “ What Are You Doing Here?: A Black Woman's Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal ,” first published in 2013 by Bazillion Points books, then republished in a new edition in 2020. It’s a combination of memoir, oral history, and highly-researched documentation of the roles black women have played in heavy metal, both as artists and as fans, an...

On this episode, Marc talks to Michael Veal , author of “Living Space: John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Free Jazz, from Analog to Digital, ” released in April 2024. It’s a fascinating, complex study of John Coltrane’s work from 1965 to his death in 1967, and Davis’s “Lost Quintet,” who played from 1968 to 1970 without ever recording in the studio. Comparing the former to digital architecture, and t...

On this episode, Marc talks with Jon Fine editor of “Your Band Sucks: What I Saw at Indie Rock's Failed Revolution (But Can No Longer Hear),” published in May of 2014. It’s a memoir of his time in the late 80s band Bitch Magnet, as well as his later bands Vineland and Coptic Light, plus the Bitch Magnet reunion in 2011. It's also a bird’s-eye history of indie rock in the 80s and 90s, inc...

On this episode, Marc talks with Ira Robbins , editor of “Zip it Up! The Best of Trouser Press Magazine, 1974-1984,” published in March 2024. It’s an anthology of pieces published in the New York-based magazine Trouser Press, which covered all kinds of rock music and other genres, and launched the careers of writers like David Fricke, Jon Leland, and Tim Sommer. The selections are roughly chronolo...

On this episode, Marc talks with W ill York , author of “Who Cares Anyway: Post-Punk San Francisco and the End of the Analog Age,” published in April 2023. It’s a thorough and fascinating history of underground music in San Francisco, from the punk scene at Mahubey Gardens, to the post-punk craziness of Flipper, to the art rock of Tuxedomoon and the Residents, to the weirdness of Thinking Fellers,...

On this episode, Marc talks to Michael Azerrad , author of “The Amplified Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana,” published in October of 2023. It’s an update of his 1993 biography of Nirvana, in which he annotates his original book, adding context, perspective, behind the scenes details, and his own feelings about the experience, three decades later, presenting new research and new insights that...

On this episode, Marc talks to Marshall Gu , author of “ Krautrock, ” published on November of 2023. Part of the 33.3 "Genre" series, it's a look at Krautrock through chapter-length examinations of 12 individual groups: Can, Faust, Cluster & Harmonia, Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, Agitation Free, Guru Guru, Popol Vuh, Amon Duul II, Embryo, NEU!, and Kraftwerk. Along the way Ma...

On this episode, Marc talks to Simon Price , author of “Curepedia: An A to Z of The Cure,” published on December 12, 2023. It’s a literal encyclopedia of the great British band the Cure, arranged in alphabetical order by subjects, including entries on albums, singles, and band members, plus themed entries such as Drugs, Hair, Drowning, and even Lockjaw. Price’s weaves interesting narratives in man...

On this episode, Marc talks with Paul Steinbeck, the author of “Sound Experiments: The Music of the AACM,” published in paperback in December of 2023. It’s a look at the longtime Chicago-based musical organization the AACM, or Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, and began in 1965 and is still going strong today. Paul chose to approach the history of the AACM through individual r...

On this episode, Marc talks to Steven Jones , author of "Murder Ballads Old and New: A Dark and Bloody Record," published on November 12, 2023. It’s a fascinating and in-depth look at songs throughout history that have dealt with death and tragedy, including folk songs that have been passed down through and transformed by generations, as well as more recent works that are just as affecti...

On this episode, Marc talks to Ben Apatoff , author of "Body Count," published on September 7th, 2023 . It’s a thorough study of the 1992 self-titled album by Body Count, a band most famous for having Ice-T as their frontman and for a song called “Cop Killer” that stirred up so much controversy even the President had something to say about it. But there’s so much more to the Body Count s...

On this episode, Marc talks to Nate Patrin , author author of “The Needle and the Lens: Pop Goes to the Movies, From Rock and Roll to Synthwave,” published on November 28th, 2023.  It’s a look at the way songs that already exist–needle drops, as they’re known–have been used in films, transforming both the music and the movie. Each of Nate’s 16 chapters focuses on a specific film and a specific son...

On this episode, Marc talks to Amy Coddington , author of “How Hip Hop Became Hit Pop,” released on September 12, 2023. It’s a fascinating study of how hip-hop made its way into the musical mainstream through pop radio in the 80s and 90s. Coddington explores so many issues: what exactly is mainstream, what exactly is rap, how did those two things change each other, plus issues of backlash, economi...

On this episode, Marc talks to Will Hermes , author of “Lou Reed: The King of New York” released on October 3rd, 2023. It’s a thorough yet highly entertaining biography of the legendary musician, who Will depicts as a figure with so many sides and so many pursuits, who really can never be reduced down to a single personality, a single motivation, or a single classification. As Will writes in his i...

On this episode, Marc talks with Thurston Moore , author of “Sonic Life: A Memoir,” released today, October 24, 2023. It’s a fascinating story of Moore’s journey through music as a creator and a fan, from his early days discovering records with his older brother, to the end of his longtime band Sonic Youth. It's also a history of the music that surrounded and inspired him, with so many great...

On this episode, our host Marc Masters is the subject, talking about his new book "High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape," released in October of 2023.  It’s a technical and cultural history of the cassette tape format, charting the many ways that cassettes changed the course of music and brought new possibilities and new kinds of freedom to creators and listeners–tape ar...

On this episode, Marc talks with Lior Phillips , author of “South African Popular Music,” released in May of 2023. It's one of the first installments in 33.3's “Genre" series–an extensively researched, information packed narrative covering many different styles of South African music, from stars like Miriam Makeba and Johnny Clegg, to artists little known outside of the country. As...