Amber Sparks » music

Keith’s Life

Amber Sparks — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 02:35:24 +0000

Keith Richards has published his memoirs, and what reading they must make for. I mean, to have lived that life–that’s a life worth writing about. I want very much to read this. Who can help but love Keith, when he’s onstage playing in that happy trance, singing off-key and raw and somehow so sweet, skull ring and bandana and wrinkly face and gappy smile. That’s a face that’s lived. Can’t wait to read about how.

As the NYTimes said, “He is the rare memoirist who can say, without hyperbole, “that what I hoped was worth sharing with people turned out to be far more important than I could possibly imagine.””

ICP Says They, Uh, Just Wanted to Trick You Into Being Godly, or Something

Amber Sparks — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 15:28:31 +0000

Anyone else call bullshit on this one?

New Story in Latest Issue of A capella Zoo

Amber Sparks — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 23:35:52 +0000

Got my contributor’s copy of A capella Zoo in the mail today, and oh, man. Good, good stuff. The issue is gorgeous, and I’m in some good company: stuff from J.A. Tyler, Ben Loory, Kyle Hemmings, Audri Sousa, Gabe Durham, Greg Gerke, Christina Murphy, and a whole bunch of other awesome writers.

You can buy a gorgeous print copy of the journal here. Or, you can wait and read it online here when the stories are put up.

In the meantime, here’s a brief excerpt of my story to get you all curious-like:

The shut-out sun led to the coldest spring on record in North America since the Little Ice Age. Gas prices, coal prices, the prices of wood and wool—they skyrocketed that April, as it became apparent that it wasn’t getting warmer and the sky was still more black than blue. The poor were perishing in record numbers, whole families found frozen, huddled together in dark, iced-over tenements.

After a while, it became common to see strange snow angels here and there. Dead children splayed in dreadful poses, wingless and blue and covered in ice. The crows would circle in frustration, bewildered by the slow rate of decomposition and decay, unable to peck at the eyeballs hard as glass.

Want more? Buy it now and support a great journal.

Music of the People?

Amber Sparks — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:35:03 +0000

Fascinating article in the January issue of First Things, on baby boomers’ responsibility for taking the bite out of traditional folk music with the current folk revival–seen, of course, through the rose-colored, watered-down lenses of age and comfort.

The author argues that boomers remember and enjoy the music, but not the radicalism behind it–indeed, the communists and socialists and unionists who were fighting for radical solutions to the deep problems of inequity during the Great Depression and later, in opposition to WWII. By the time the boomers heard and absorbed the protest message of the music in the ’60s, it and its messengers (Dylan, Joan Baez, etc.) had already personalized it, generalized it, softened it up for middle-class absorption. As one of the musicians playing traditional folk noted:

“One of the first things that must be understood about these revivals is that the folk have very little to do with them. Always, there is a middle-class constituency, and its idea of the folk—whoever that might be—is the operative thing.”

Fascinating stuff. Read the whole thing.

Bob Dylan for Christmas (w/video)

Amber Sparks — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:53:33 +0000

Hi, Boys and Girls,

Have a kind of creepy, tripped-out Christmas.

Love, Bob Dylan and Jeff Scher.

h/t Jailbreak