On Top of Ol’ Newsletter! All Covered With Stuff!

These are songs that can relax and soothe you... songs that make you feel good... songs that can take you to wonderful places.

Strike up the music, the band has begun. Gonna take a sentimental journey. T for Texas and T for Tennessee. Our conversation was short and sweet. I have a new lamp that looks like a golf ball. Supposed to look like the moon. I’ll happily buy either like a shore-leave sailor. 

But enough of the prologue! While we’ve got a minute to spare, lets get through the whole vexing Ts and Cs, which is what I call (legally bound) terms & conditions:

Please Take My Advice bears no accountability. Nothing that has been done or said, in error, or in earnest, can ever be ascribed to Please Take My Advice as a matter of short- or long-term liability. I have not been seen “entering” or “exiting” government buildings for months. As has been previously stipulated, Please Take My Advice possesses no responsibility for felony theft and has cut ties with other “underworld” or “subterranean” figures. All “subpoenas” should be addressed to Bar/None Records, Hoboken, New Jersey.

Finally! Free of the regulatory rumba. Let’s launch. 

So your record Rolling Disclosure just celebrated its 8th anniversary? I don’t think we knew each other back then. What was happening? Spare no detail.

It was 2016. Time was tight. An incipient wave of totalitarianism appeared ready to steamroll us, and yet general moods were sky high as the inevitable Hillary would obviously vanquish the ridiculous Trump. I don't know what the fuck people listened to. The National? Or whatever. The procession of the moderate left in their high-Caesar suburban misunderstanding of literally everything besides cheating to get into college. I'd been around a little by then. D.C., New York, San Francisco, Louisville, non-profit, for-profit, corporate, self-employed. My record Rolling Disclosure, helpfully turning eight this month, was every alarm bell I wanted to ring around the complacency and delusion of the left and the damage done. No one took it seriously. Christgau gave it an A-minus: "you can feel trucked over by her cynicism." I love Bob, but the vicious impact of a vehicular injury was just about the shock to the system our erstwhile democracy required. And to quote one the scariest moments of Twin Peaks Season 2: It's happening again. Derby hats off to President Biden stepping down. Let’s be serious for once and unite, in our weigh station-breaking totality, for Kamala Harris. She can do this. We can do this. 

What’s up with you writing Bob Dylan liner notes? Isn’t that something a guy should do? 

Wow! You pull no punches, disembodied interviewer! Tough but fair. I mean, that is something of a majority opinion in certain circles. I have gotten emails from dudes who are incredulous about my ability to write about something which occurred before my date of birth, or date of conception, whichever direction your freak flag flies. But no. I am super qualified and I did write the liner notes for the amazing forthcoming The Live 1974 Recordings, which includes 27 shows from that legendary reunion tour with the Band. It’s so fucking good. This is the sort of thing you are going to want to get involved with at the highest level of entree. Writing the notes was super fun and everyone in the whole Sony Legacy/Columbia Records/Dylan camp were extremely friendly and helpful. Get yr copy now and be prepared to have your doors blown off!

That’s pretty cool! I’m still not sure it seems like a lady's work, but your remarks have bolstered my confidence. 

Great!

So, speaking of ladies’ work: what’s this NPR book you're all involved in?

Ah — I believe you would be referring to How Women Made Music: A Revolutionary History. This is a very, very exciting thing. An extension of Ann Powers’ paradigm-shifting Turning The Tables project at NPR, this new book edited by the amazing Alison Fensterstock collects essays and contributions from world-historic women like Nina Simone, Dolly Parton and Joan Baez. This is an absolutely incredible work of passion and curation and I got to contribute an essay about one of my heroes to it!

Hmm. I feel like I know who most of your heroes are. Blink twice if I guess correctly?

No way. That would take all night and you’re a terrible guesser. Don’t get me wrong, but yr always 2000 miles away from the answer. 

Now you’re just being mean.

Stop. Let’s pack this convo up: This book crushes all. Gonna be the talk of the town. Read more here and get your copy!

Let’s talk a little Paranoid Style, your ragtag group of musical killers. I don’t know where you find these people, but I hear on the night of June 21st you and the Hold Steady came close to burning D.C. to the ground when you opened for them at the 9:30 club. Playing with matches — that’s what I heard. 

Yeah, it was fucking awesome. Such a night, as the good doctor says. The Hold Steady were so great to have us, and seemed like wonderful dudes for the brief moments we got to hang out after their amazing set. We also bulldozed the place with impunity. The crowd was awesome start to finish. We were cruel to be kind. Here’s a few seconds of our last song of the night “Last Night In Chickentown:”

That’s some Damon Runyon shit right there. 

Thanks! 

Any beach read recs?

Fans of noir and crime fiction will need to hasten down the wind to check out the great new comic-book series Self Help by Owen King and Jesse Kellerman. Think Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye by-way-of-Warren Zevon's rollicking travelogues. A corker!

Anything else you want to tell the people before we sign off?

Look lively. Things are in the works. A woman’s work is never done. You are loved.

Elizabeth