The Paranoid Style Combines Two of the Worst Things in American Life. It Is Violence Punctuated by Committee Meetings.

These songs take you back to some great times.

Listen people! I'm sorry to be declarative like that, but things are coming to a boil and I'll need your full attention. This is not the time to drift off and read muffin recipes or play Immaculate Grid. In its most simple terms, life is about focus — whether we have the right view or we don't — and that will never be more true than it will be over the course of this newsletter. 

"What newsletter?" I can hear many of you silently mouthing the words. "I didn't sign up for any kind of self-improvement program."

That’s exactly right. You (stop blaming your spouse) signed up for my incredibly erratic once-in-every-headspace newsletter Please Take My Advice. The mud is ten-foot high and the weather calls for rain, so let's get this accomplished under timely auspices. 

But first, the Regulatory Rumba. 

As a fully self-sustaining and privately-funded enterprise, Please Take My Advice takes no position on “other noteworthy blogs.” Your personal reading choices are your own — a double emphasis I’ve been advised to hammer down on with my lawyers. Please Take My Advice neither accepts nor honors wagers over the established legal limits as set by the municipality of Reno, Nevada. The decision of the judges is always final. Leonard-Hagler was justly adjudicated. If you’ve got a warrant, I guess you’re gonna come in.

Ugh! Man is it good to get that over with! Pardon my editorializing, but don’t those spin cycle bureaucrats slow everything to a molasses crawl? I’m not getting any younger, folks! “She was found buried in a shallow grave covered in red tape.” That’s what they’ll say. Anyway!

On with it. 

Playing a show? Or a “Rare Public Appearance” as you cannily term them?

We are. Now it can be told. We are opening for the Hold Steady at the legendary 9:30 Club in Washington, DC on Friday 6/21/2024 and attendance is mandatory. 

Wow! Sounds like a massive night. Lets drill down on this “Rare Public Appearance” verbiage? What is that about? 

The Paranoid Style appears infrequently. 

So you could just as easily say “Infrequent Public Appearance” and the effect would be the same? Or do you mean “rare” like a steak?

I’m not sure I follow. 

I can see I won’t be getting anywhere with this. Standard evasion tactics. Can we at least get a ticket link? 

Of course! Grab ‘em here. 

Did you read Ann Powers’ amazing new meditation on Joni Mitchell’s life and work Traveling?

I read it and reviewed it for The Washington Post. It is one of the truly superb books on art I’ve ever been privileged to encounter. I was moved, maddened, and ultimately galvanized and inspired by Powers’ remarkable capacity to wrangle with a subject simultaneously brilliant and bewildering. 

The Washington Post? Aren’t they having problems?

“Problems?” All media companies are having problems. That literally has nothing to do with Traveling.

Fair play. Gimme some of that link action I so appreciate? 

You’re weird. The way you said that was weird. Here.

To be absolutely candid — and I think candor is the order of the day here — I find you weird. You seem to think this ritual pulling of teeth is what I live for. I don’t even live — I’m a disembodied voice asking questions — and still that’s not what I live for. 

Fine. 

Whatever. Let’s end with Zachary Lipez and his piece on ‘The Interrogator.’ That was pretty fucking rad, no? 

Oh yeah. Lipez went deep on my new record on his Abundant Living newsletter recently, and it was one of my favorite things ever written about the band. I’ll tell you my position on Lipez: I think he’s sharp as the creases of his sharkskin jackets, sensitive as a song from the parts of Roxy Music he rather dislikes, and a critic as good as any that messed with his adolescent brain enough to consign him to our exact destiny. His bands are cool too. Subscribe to Abundant Living and Creem — where he is a staff writer — while you're at it. 

WOW! That was explosive. 

Cue the guy with the clapboard — that’s a rap. As always, questions, complaints and intriguing long-term business solutions should be referred to Bar/None Records, Hoboken, New Jersey. In the meantime, hoping to see some of you in Washington, DC where myself, Holsapple, Mike V., Jon L., Stephen D., Timothy B. and Jarrett N. are gonna respectfully hit you with everything but the rail slots. For everyone else, I love you just the same. Stay free.

Elizabeth