Listen to the interview here!
Tell me a little about yourself and your writing.
I grew up in New Jersey and now live in Washington, D.C. I work by day as an editor and researcher, but I write about medieval history: my book Becoming Charlemagne: Europe, Baghdad, and the Empires of A.D. 800 was published by HarperCollins in 2006.
2. Tell me about the story that you've created a soundtrack/playlist for.
Becoming Charlemagneretells the story of the coronation of Karl, King of the Franks, whom history remembers as Charlemagne. The book is short, almost novelistic in style, and intended for readers who have no prior knowledge of medieval history.
Charlemagne's coronation in the year 800 was one of the most important events in European history, but I've tried to put it in context by taking the reader to Rome, Constantinople, and Baghdad. I've also offered glimpses of medieval Jewish communities and the routines of ninth-century peasants.
3. What is your playlist?
(To get Jeff's playlist all in one convenient place, check out his iMix)
William Shatner featuring Joe Jackson, "Common People"
When you're holed up in an air-conditioned apartment writing an imaginative re-creation of the difficult lives of medieval peasants, only a force as powerful as William Shatner can keep you from taking yourself too seriously.
Fiona Apple, "Criminal"
I listened to this creepy song whenever I needed to write about Irene of Byzantium, the ruthless empress who had her own son blinded. Her power-grab and brief diplomatic relations with Charlemagne earned her an entire chapter in my book. Associating her with this song attributes to her a conscience that she probably didn't have in real life.
Gogol Bordello, "Start Wearing Purple"
This song appears to be about a mail-order bride, but I like to pretend it's about imperial politics. I get a kick out of hearing the band's wild Ukranian singer declaring "I know it all from Diogenes to the Foucault."
Neil Finn, "She Will Have Her Way"
The lyrics are deeply sad, but the music is sprightly. That contradiction is a nice little lens through which to view medieval history.
Thompson Twins, "The Gap"
Stop giving me that look. This song was on my mind as I wrote about medieval Baghdad because of its subtle message about globalization, intercultural conflict, and the need for increased East-West cooperation. Not buying it? Then just dance already.
Anna Nalick, "Satellite"
Although medieval people never had to worry that the star they wished on might turn out to be a man-made object, this pop anthem can, if you let it, evoke images of lonely monks and wistful Carolingian princesses.
Audioslave, "Cochise"
I have no idea what this song is really about, but it makes me want to go conquer somebody.
Toby Lightman, "Angels and Devils"
I first heard this one on the short-lived TV show "Wonderfalls." The song is actually about a woman who plans to ambush her cheating lover, but the angel/devil imagery and the singer's relentless sense of purpose reminded me of the conspirators who attacked Pope Leo III on the streets of Rome. That ambush set in motion centuries of history--and the second half of Becoming Charlemagne.
Colin Hay, "Overkill"
This song has nothing to do with Charlemagne, but it has everything to do with Charlemagne-induced insomnia, especially in its depiction of sleeplessly wandering the streets at night: "Well, at least there's pretty lights..."
France Gall, "Sacre Charlemagne"
There aren't many pop songs about Charlemagne; I take what I can get. France Gall was cute as a button.
James McMurtry, "Charlemagne's Home Town"
Although I discovered this one after the book was published, I was impressed that a singer could tie together such diverse subjects as Charlemagne, international travel, and long-distance relationships in a single country song.
Jeff Buckley, "Hallelujah"
I prefer this more sentimental cover to Leonard Cohen's original. Packed with images of sex, love, history, and religion, this song captures the intense wistfulness of bidding adieu to figures you've "known" for several years as they fade back into history's shadows.
If you're looking for an unusual creative challenge, try writing new verses to this song. It takes real effort to rhyme "hallelujah" and not sound completely ridiculous.
4. What does music mean to you? To your writing?
I rely on music for escapism. Writing is intense, lonely work, all the more so because writing about the Middle Ages pulls my mind far away from the generally amiable world in which I live. I understand why most writers need classical music or instrumentals to get them going, but I need rock and pop music--songs like those on my playlist--to bring me back to my senses.
5. What kind of music do you like to write to?
I'll often listen to music to get inspired, but I rarely write to music. Strange as it may sound, I write to the noise of television.
6. If this story was made into a movie, who would you want to do the soundtrack?
If Becoming Charlemagne were made into a decent movie, I'd want the music to be reminiscent of the soundtrack to the HBO series "Rome," in all its moodiness and exoticism.
I've often joked that I'd settle for a Sci-Fi Channel original movie, in which case I'd want heavy metal all the way. Any adaptation is bound to be unrecognizable, so it might as well be highly stylized and fun.
To learn more about Jeff, visit his website Quid Plura?.
Next week, I interview author Susan Higginbotham.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Author Interview: Hal Duncan
Listen to the interview here!
Tell me a little about yourself and your writing.
I'm a thirtysomething Scottish writer who's queer in a few senses of the term. I guess I write the sort of pulp modernist stuff that has people confused over which genre it sits in, with SF, Fantasy and Horror tropes all mixing it up with a very literary sensibility (I read too much James Joyce as a kid and way too muc William Burroughs). Thing is, I grew up with the default label for that -- books like Zelazny's ROADMARKS or Silverberg's THE BOOK OF SKULLS or Moorcock's CORNELIUS QUARTET -- being SF, but these days it seems to be more commonly called Fantasy... or cross-genre, or slipstream, interstitial, New Wave, New Weird, New Wave Fabulist -- I've sort of given up on all these labels. These days I just call it strange fiction.
Tell me about the story that you've created a soundtrack/playlist for.
VELLUM was my first book, and the first half of a diptych, THE BOOK OF ALL HOURS, completed with INK. I think of it as kind of a "Cubist fantasy". The narrative is non-linear, with the story fragmented across this Moorcockian multiverse, the Vellum of the title, with the characters playing out their roles (or trying to escape them) across the various folds of the Vellum, in different incarnations.
The basic idea is that you've got a language called the Cant which allows humans to "write" reality on that Vellum. Humans who get themselves rewritten by the Cant basically become gods amongst men -- unkin. The downside of this is that you have one group of these unkin, the Covenant, who see themselves as angels of God, and they're basically building up to an apocalypse where they intend to wipe out all opposition. The heroes are rogues unkin who don't want to participate in this War in Heaven on either side; they remember what it is to be human and just want to live like the rest of us. It's basically about their struggle to survive as reality falls apart around them.
What is your playlist?
What does music mean to you? To your writing?
I love music. Who doesn't? If I had the talent to actually sing or play an instrument I'd totally be in a band. It might not be a good band but, it'd be... enthusiastic, if nothing else. The poetry I write is pretty traditionally lyrical because I'm drawn to the musical patterning, I guess -- the rhythm and rhyme. Even my prose has a tendency towards the lyrical at times.
I've actually written a lot of songs -- lyrics and music that exists in my head (but that I don't, unfortunately, have any effective way of communicating to others, given my appalling singing voice.) Hell, I've got a full musical scripted as a libretto, all the songs -- duets, reprises, medleys, the full whack -- and it sounds great in my head. If I could play piano, write sheet music or something, I'd be well up for trying to stage it. But hey ho. The nearest I've got to actually making music is a collaboration with the band Aereogramme for the Ballads of the Book album that came out last year from Chemikal Underground, that and fiddling around on my own with Apple's Garageband software. That's where the Five Seconds to Self-Destruction stuff comes from actually; it's kind of a proper actual soundtrack to VELLUM and INK in the sense that the tracks were put together with the books in mind, scenes and characters. It may not be terribly proffessional at all, but sod it; I like it.
What kind of music do you like to write to?
I don't actually write to music at all, I'm afraid. It's too distracting, I find. I can't focus on my words with someone else's being sung in my ear. And even if it's instrumental music, my attention gets drawn away into it so I lose focus on the text. The thing is, voice is a big part of my writing, and if you're working on prose that has it's own rhythm, even a soundscapey post-rock track that matches the mood of a scene perfectly is liable to clash with what's going on in my head. I mean, if you're working out a sentence, you write down your first version, read it through, change a few words, read it through again, and repeat until it flows right. So it's like editing some piece of experimental music: record, rewind and play; rewind, cut here, splice there, and play; and so on. To me, it's like trying to edit one track with another track playing constantly in the background, and not being rewinded in time to the one you're working on.
If this story was made into a movie, who would you want to do the soundtrack?
Oh, that's kind of a hard one. There's kind of two aspects to the sound I'd want to be there. I'd want the sort of soundscape thing you get from post-rock, from bands like Sigur Ros, Kinski, Aereogramme, Mogwai, G-Plan, mainly instrumental, shifting through quiet and loud phases, really complex and interesting. But at the same time, I'd want some of the three-minute, balls-out garage/punk blast-in-the-face quality you get from The Stooges or the Sex Pistols. I don't know if there's one band that could do that. Then again, Aereogramme's earlier stuff is pretty full-on guitar, so I reckon they'd be fucking awesome. And since they called it quits last year after their latest (and I think best) album, this'd mean they'd have to get back together, right? So, yeah, I'll go with them. They'd do a fucking awesome job.
To learn more about Hal, visit his blog Notes from the Geek Show.
Stop by next week for my interview with author Jeff Sypeck.
Tell me a little about yourself and your writing.
I'm a thirtysomething Scottish writer who's queer in a few senses of the term. I guess I write the sort of pulp modernist stuff that has people confused over which genre it sits in, with SF, Fantasy and Horror tropes all mixing it up with a very literary sensibility (I read too much James Joyce as a kid and way too muc William Burroughs). Thing is, I grew up with the default label for that -- books like Zelazny's ROADMARKS or Silverberg's THE BOOK OF SKULLS or Moorcock's CORNELIUS QUARTET -- being SF, but these days it seems to be more commonly called Fantasy... or cross-genre, or slipstream, interstitial, New Wave, New Weird, New Wave Fabulist -- I've sort of given up on all these labels. These days I just call it strange fiction.
Tell me about the story that you've created a soundtrack/playlist for.
VELLUM was my first book, and the first half of a diptych, THE BOOK OF ALL HOURS, completed with INK. I think of it as kind of a "Cubist fantasy". The narrative is non-linear, with the story fragmented across this Moorcockian multiverse, the Vellum of the title, with the characters playing out their roles (or trying to escape them) across the various folds of the Vellum, in different incarnations.
The basic idea is that you've got a language called the Cant which allows humans to "write" reality on that Vellum. Humans who get themselves rewritten by the Cant basically become gods amongst men -- unkin. The downside of this is that you have one group of these unkin, the Covenant, who see themselves as angels of God, and they're basically building up to an apocalypse where they intend to wipe out all opposition. The heroes are rogues unkin who don't want to participate in this War in Heaven on either side; they remember what it is to be human and just want to live like the rest of us. It's basically about their struggle to survive as reality falls apart around them.
What is your playlist?
- TV Eye, The Stooges
- Hoppípolla, Sigur Ros
- Tenderness and Scar Tissue, Five Seconds to Self-Destruction
- Jumpin' Jack Flash, The Rolling Stones
- The Green Fields of France, The Fureys
- Fairytale of New York, The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl
- The Wrecker and the Wrecked, Five Seconds to Self-Destruction
- Search and Destroy, The Stooges
- Anarchy in the UK, Sex Pistols
- Nancy Boy, Placebo
- I Wanna Be Your Dog, The Stooges
- Goodbye You Fucking Thief, G-Plan
- The Drama of Being With You, Five Seconds to Self-Destruction
- Operation Jack Goes Boom, Five Seconds to Self-Destruction
- If You Love Me, You'd Destroy Me, Aereogramme (& Hal Duncan)
What does music mean to you? To your writing?
I love music. Who doesn't? If I had the talent to actually sing or play an instrument I'd totally be in a band. It might not be a good band but, it'd be... enthusiastic, if nothing else. The poetry I write is pretty traditionally lyrical because I'm drawn to the musical patterning, I guess -- the rhythm and rhyme. Even my prose has a tendency towards the lyrical at times.
I've actually written a lot of songs -- lyrics and music that exists in my head (but that I don't, unfortunately, have any effective way of communicating to others, given my appalling singing voice.) Hell, I've got a full musical scripted as a libretto, all the songs -- duets, reprises, medleys, the full whack -- and it sounds great in my head. If I could play piano, write sheet music or something, I'd be well up for trying to stage it. But hey ho. The nearest I've got to actually making music is a collaboration with the band Aereogramme for the Ballads of the Book album that came out last year from Chemikal Underground, that and fiddling around on my own with Apple's Garageband software. That's where the Five Seconds to Self-Destruction stuff comes from actually; it's kind of a proper actual soundtrack to VELLUM and INK in the sense that the tracks were put together with the books in mind, scenes and characters. It may not be terribly proffessional at all, but sod it; I like it.
What kind of music do you like to write to?
I don't actually write to music at all, I'm afraid. It's too distracting, I find. I can't focus on my words with someone else's being sung in my ear. And even if it's instrumental music, my attention gets drawn away into it so I lose focus on the text. The thing is, voice is a big part of my writing, and if you're working on prose that has it's own rhythm, even a soundscapey post-rock track that matches the mood of a scene perfectly is liable to clash with what's going on in my head. I mean, if you're working out a sentence, you write down your first version, read it through, change a few words, read it through again, and repeat until it flows right. So it's like editing some piece of experimental music: record, rewind and play; rewind, cut here, splice there, and play; and so on. To me, it's like trying to edit one track with another track playing constantly in the background, and not being rewinded in time to the one you're working on.
If this story was made into a movie, who would you want to do the soundtrack?
Oh, that's kind of a hard one. There's kind of two aspects to the sound I'd want to be there. I'd want the sort of soundscape thing you get from post-rock, from bands like Sigur Ros, Kinski, Aereogramme, Mogwai, G-Plan, mainly instrumental, shifting through quiet and loud phases, really complex and interesting. But at the same time, I'd want some of the three-minute, balls-out garage/punk blast-in-the-face quality you get from The Stooges or the Sex Pistols. I don't know if there's one band that could do that. Then again, Aereogramme's earlier stuff is pretty full-on guitar, so I reckon they'd be fucking awesome. And since they called it quits last year after their latest (and I think best) album, this'd mean they'd have to get back together, right? So, yeah, I'll go with them. They'd do a fucking awesome job.
To learn more about Hal, visit his blog Notes from the Geek Show.
Stop by next week for my interview with author Jeff Sypeck.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Author Interview: Paul Liadis
Listen to the interview here!
Tell me a little about yourself and your writing.
I’m a 30 year old father to a 21 month old little girl, married, and I work as a computer programmer/database administrator for a university in Pennsylvania. My job deals with learning new technologies, applying and teaching others what I’ve learned as well as problem solving whatever problems may arrive. In addition to writing, I enjoy playing ice hockey and softball in my “spare time”.
My biggest writing accomplishment thus far in my mind is successfully completing NaNoWriMo this year. I had never come anywhere close to that level of daily writing output before and I may never again. It showed me that, you know what, maybe I can write a novel.
I’ve also been published in my local newspaper four times for their “reader generated” short stories. It was pretty cool to see my name and work printed in the newspaper and to have neighbors and co-workers tell me they enjoyed reading it.
I love to read, to write, and most of all make people laugh.
Tell me about the story that you've created a soundtrack/playlist for.
The story I created a playlist for is a short story I’m currently working on. The story starts with a guy, down on his luck, heading out to the nickel draught night at his local bar. On his way there, he who he believes is an old homeless woman in an alley. The guy tries to get the woman to accompany him to the bar, if only to get her off the streets because it’s so cold outside. The woman refuses, but gives him a prophetic warning to mind his neck. Once at the bar the prophesy becomes reality.
The story is funny, a little dark, and includes vampire type creatures.
What is your playlist?
1. Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Green Day
2. People Are Strange – The Doors
3. Karma Police – Radiohead
4. Mo Money, Mo Problems – Notorious B.I.G.
5. I Believe in Miracles – Ramones
6. I Won’t Back Down – Tom Petty
7. You’re the Best Around - Joe Esposito (from tournament montage at end of Karate Kid, I could watch this 10,000 times in a row and my mood would be immediately lifted every single time -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fua0g13djo&feature=related)
8. The Throne Room/End Title – John Williams (from the Star Wars Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
What does music mean to you? To your writing?
A good song can entirely change your mood, and even the way you view the world, if for only a few moments. I’ve found that hearing simply the first few notes of a particular favorite song from a certain period of my life can instantaneously evoke strong feelings and emotions in me. If I hear certain songs I listened to in college I get an instant smile on my face, even if I’m having a horrible day. That’s powerful.
What kind of music do you like to write to?
I have trouble writing music playing, especially music I like. So, I really don’t write to any music. If I were to, though, I suppose classical music or music in a language I can’t understand would probably work fine. I’m easily distracted I guess.
Thinking about it, I guess sometimes I do write to music. I often get songs stuck in my head, especially children’s songs (since that’s what we listen to most often now). The theme song to the Wiggles gets stuck in there pretty good. I bought my wife a CD by They Might Be Giants titled Here Come the 123s, and there is a song on there called Zeroes that’s about the number zero. This one has been haunting me for days. It’s a pretty good song, but has totally been playing in my head while I write.
If this story was made into a movie, who would you want to do the soundtrack?
John Williams. Is there anyone better? He did Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and the Harry Potter movies.
If he wasn’t available, he he, I suppose it would be cool to have some obscure punk band (I think it’s against the law to be famous and punk anymore). I think that’s the type of music that captures the feel of my story (I hope).
Anything else you'd like to say about music and writing/creating?
About writing: Writing to me is very similar to computer programming, which is what I do to make a living. Computer programming involves a lot of problem solving, but I think writing does as well, only in writing we get to create the problems and the solutions. Also, both can be great fun when things are going well, and horribly frustrating when they are not.
To learn more about Paul, visit his website The Struggling Writer.
Come by next week for my interview with Hal Duncan.
Tell me a little about yourself and your writing.
I’m a 30 year old father to a 21 month old little girl, married, and I work as a computer programmer/database administrator for a university in Pennsylvania. My job deals with learning new technologies, applying and teaching others what I’ve learned as well as problem solving whatever problems may arrive. In addition to writing, I enjoy playing ice hockey and softball in my “spare time”.
My biggest writing accomplishment thus far in my mind is successfully completing NaNoWriMo this year. I had never come anywhere close to that level of daily writing output before and I may never again. It showed me that, you know what, maybe I can write a novel.
I’ve also been published in my local newspaper four times for their “reader generated” short stories. It was pretty cool to see my name and work printed in the newspaper and to have neighbors and co-workers tell me they enjoyed reading it.
I love to read, to write, and most of all make people laugh.
Tell me about the story that you've created a soundtrack/playlist for.
The story I created a playlist for is a short story I’m currently working on. The story starts with a guy, down on his luck, heading out to the nickel draught night at his local bar. On his way there, he who he believes is an old homeless woman in an alley. The guy tries to get the woman to accompany him to the bar, if only to get her off the streets because it’s so cold outside. The woman refuses, but gives him a prophetic warning to mind his neck. Once at the bar the prophesy becomes reality.
The story is funny, a little dark, and includes vampire type creatures.
What is your playlist?
1. Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Green Day
2. People Are Strange – The Doors
3. Karma Police – Radiohead
4. Mo Money, Mo Problems – Notorious B.I.G.
5. I Believe in Miracles – Ramones
6. I Won’t Back Down – Tom Petty
7. You’re the Best Around - Joe Esposito (from tournament montage at end of Karate Kid, I could watch this 10,000 times in a row and my mood would be immediately lifted every single time -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fua0g13djo&feature=related)
8. The Throne Room/End Title – John Williams (from the Star Wars Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
What does music mean to you? To your writing?
A good song can entirely change your mood, and even the way you view the world, if for only a few moments. I’ve found that hearing simply the first few notes of a particular favorite song from a certain period of my life can instantaneously evoke strong feelings and emotions in me. If I hear certain songs I listened to in college I get an instant smile on my face, even if I’m having a horrible day. That’s powerful.
What kind of music do you like to write to?
I have trouble writing music playing, especially music I like. So, I really don’t write to any music. If I were to, though, I suppose classical music or music in a language I can’t understand would probably work fine. I’m easily distracted I guess.
Thinking about it, I guess sometimes I do write to music. I often get songs stuck in my head, especially children’s songs (since that’s what we listen to most often now). The theme song to the Wiggles gets stuck in there pretty good. I bought my wife a CD by They Might Be Giants titled Here Come the 123s, and there is a song on there called Zeroes that’s about the number zero. This one has been haunting me for days. It’s a pretty good song, but has totally been playing in my head while I write.
If this story was made into a movie, who would you want to do the soundtrack?
John Williams. Is there anyone better? He did Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and the Harry Potter movies.
If he wasn’t available, he he, I suppose it would be cool to have some obscure punk band (I think it’s against the law to be famous and punk anymore). I think that’s the type of music that captures the feel of my story (I hope).
Anything else you'd like to say about music and writing/creating?
About writing: Writing to me is very similar to computer programming, which is what I do to make a living. Computer programming involves a lot of problem solving, but I think writing does as well, only in writing we get to create the problems and the solutions. Also, both can be great fun when things are going well, and horribly frustrating when they are not.
To learn more about Paul, visit his website The Struggling Writer.
Come by next week for my interview with Hal Duncan.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Author Interview: Mandy Roth
Listen to the interview here!
Tell me a little about yourself and your writing.
I’m an odd bird who found a home with writing paranormal. Yep. I said it. I think admitting it is really the first step to total acceptance.
Tell me about the story that you've created a soundtrack/playlist for.
I’ll talk a little about DEMONIC DESIRES (from Ellora’s Cave) and the soundtrack I listened to for it. DEMONIC DESIRES centers around a group of demons, right hand men to Lucifer, who broke ranks and saved lives rather than taking them. It’s the first book in the stories of the Lost Warriors redemption. The opening scene is a really dark, twisted sex one. My playlist needed to reflect this so I went with Danzig’s Underbelly of The Beast to kick it off. The story then takes a lighter note, introducing you to the characters out of their normal element. I brought in a good deal of Celtic flare for this because the heroine is a warrior from Valhalla.
What is your playlist? Why did you choose these particular songs?
I’ll give you a snippet of the list because there over 3500 items in it with 230 hours of play time… and this is JUST for DEMONIC DESIRES. I make a new list for every book.
Danzig-Underbelly of The Beast
Rob Zombie- Living Dead Girl (Naked Exorcism Remix)
Rob Zombie-Dragula
Prodigy—Smack My Bitch Up
Prodigy—Firestarter
Marilyn Manson—The Beautiful People
Marilyn Manson—The Dope Show
Marilyn Manson—Man That You Fear
Nine Inch Nails—Head Like a Hole
Nine Inch Nails—Terrible Lie
Nine Inch Nails—Closer
Smashing Pumpkins—Tonight, Tonight
Queensryche - Silent Lucidity
Stained - It’s Been Awhile
Silverchair- Wait Til Tomorrow
Faith No More – Epic
Billy Idol-- Eyes Without A Face
Stabbing Westward - Waking Up Beside You (Remix)
Gregorian-- Se Eu Fosse Um Dia O Teu Olhar
Gregorian-- Meditazione- Christus Factus Est
Danzig—Cantspeak
Massive Attack & Mos Def-I Against I
Pigeonhed - Battle Flag (Lo-Fidelity Allstars Remix)
Alice in Chains-- Man In The Box
Red Hot Chili Peppers-- Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Santana-- Put Your Lights On
Everlast-- Babylon Feeling
AFI-- The Leaving Song Pt II
Live-- I Alone
Disturbed-- Down With The Sickness
Rob Zombie -- The Lords Of Salem
Blue Oyster Cult—Don’t Fear The Reaper
Limp Bizkit-- Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle)
Mazzy Star - Fade Into You
Katie Melua—Just like Heaven
The Cranberries—Zombie
The Cranberries—Ode to My Family
Triniti – Nocturne
Triniti-- Glen Of Imaal
Enya—Only Time
INXS—Afterglow
INXS—Never Tear Us Apart
Black Lab—Learn to Crawl
Back Lab—Keep Myself Awake
Led Zeppelin—Kashmir
Heart—Magic Man
Three Doors Down—When I’m Gone
Styx—Renegade
Andy Gibb—Shadow Dancing
The Corrs-- Brid Og Ni Mhaille
Trapt—Echo
When in Rome—The Promise
Twisted Sister—We’re Not Gonna Take It
Jay-z & Linkin Park - Numb/Encore
Alanis Morissette – Uninvited
Black Sabbath — Paranoid
Black Sabbath — Iron Man
Berlin - Take My Breath Away
DHT- Listen To Your Heart (Edmee's Unplugged Vocal Edit)
What does music mean to you? To your writing?
I don’t watch many movies or much in the way of TV. Music has always been a love of mine. I can still remember the day MTV came on air for the first time. I was six and it totally wiped the floor with Sesame Street. I watched faithfully from that day forward until they started on the reality shows. I had to put up a white flag then. Let the record state that I miss Martha Quinn. Oh, and MTV actually playing music.
To me, music is another form of escapism. It can set the mood for you or it can fix the mood you’re in. It’s what you make of it. I love all music, from classical to the rhythmic beating of Native American drums. You name it, I like it—Rock, Classical, Dark Metal, MallCore, Pop, Country, Jazz, Rap/Hip-hop, Foreign (I’m a huge lover of the Italian music scene), Oldies.
What kind of music do you like to write to?
I’ll make the playlist as I write. If I know I’m entering a really dark scene, I’ll incorporate that vibe into the playlist. When I’m coming out of it, I lighten the mood. I do have one rule, if a Bee Gees song cannot be incorporated into the mix then I’m doing something wrong. Yes. I do have playlists with AC/DC and The Bee Gees sharing airtime.
If this story was made into a movie, who would you want to do the soundtrack?
I’d like to see Rob Zombie team up with The Cranberries (who can tell me where they are and if they’re still putting out records… I’d love to buy them). I think the collaboration would be odd but I’m betting it would work.
Anything else you'd like to say about music and writing/creating?
I have a lot of respect for anyone who can create music. It’s their story, put out there for the world to hear.
To learn more about Mandy, visit her website.
Next week, I interview author Paul Liadis, AKA The Struggling Writer.
Tell me a little about yourself and your writing.
I’m an odd bird who found a home with writing paranormal. Yep. I said it. I think admitting it is really the first step to total acceptance.
Tell me about the story that you've created a soundtrack/playlist for.
I’ll talk a little about DEMONIC DESIRES (from Ellora’s Cave) and the soundtrack I listened to for it. DEMONIC DESIRES centers around a group of demons, right hand men to Lucifer, who broke ranks and saved lives rather than taking them. It’s the first book in the stories of the Lost Warriors redemption. The opening scene is a really dark, twisted sex one. My playlist needed to reflect this so I went with Danzig’s Underbelly of The Beast to kick it off. The story then takes a lighter note, introducing you to the characters out of their normal element. I brought in a good deal of Celtic flare for this because the heroine is a warrior from Valhalla.
What is your playlist? Why did you choose these particular songs?
I’ll give you a snippet of the list because there over 3500 items in it with 230 hours of play time… and this is JUST for DEMONIC DESIRES. I make a new list for every book.
Danzig-Underbelly of The Beast
Rob Zombie- Living Dead Girl (Naked Exorcism Remix)
Rob Zombie-Dragula
Prodigy—Smack My Bitch Up
Prodigy—Firestarter
Marilyn Manson—The Beautiful People
Marilyn Manson—The Dope Show
Marilyn Manson—Man That You Fear
Nine Inch Nails—Head Like a Hole
Nine Inch Nails—Terrible Lie
Nine Inch Nails—Closer
Smashing Pumpkins—Tonight, Tonight
Queensryche - Silent Lucidity
Stained - It’s Been Awhile
Silverchair- Wait Til Tomorrow
Faith No More – Epic
Billy Idol-- Eyes Without A Face
Stabbing Westward - Waking Up Beside You (Remix)
Gregorian-- Se Eu Fosse Um Dia O Teu Olhar
Gregorian-- Meditazione- Christus Factus Est
Danzig—Cantspeak
Massive Attack & Mos Def-I Against I
Pigeonhed - Battle Flag (Lo-Fidelity Allstars Remix)
Alice in Chains-- Man In The Box
Red Hot Chili Peppers-- Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Santana-- Put Your Lights On
Everlast-- Babylon Feeling
AFI-- The Leaving Song Pt II
Live-- I Alone
Disturbed-- Down With The Sickness
Rob Zombie -- The Lords Of Salem
Blue Oyster Cult—Don’t Fear The Reaper
Limp Bizkit-- Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle)
Mazzy Star - Fade Into You
Katie Melua—Just like Heaven
The Cranberries—Zombie
The Cranberries—Ode to My Family
Triniti – Nocturne
Triniti-- Glen Of Imaal
Enya—Only Time
INXS—Afterglow
INXS—Never Tear Us Apart
Black Lab—Learn to Crawl
Back Lab—Keep Myself Awake
Led Zeppelin—Kashmir
Heart—Magic Man
Three Doors Down—When I’m Gone
Styx—Renegade
Andy Gibb—Shadow Dancing
The Corrs-- Brid Og Ni Mhaille
Trapt—Echo
When in Rome—The Promise
Twisted Sister—We’re Not Gonna Take It
Jay-z & Linkin Park - Numb/Encore
Alanis Morissette – Uninvited
Black Sabbath — Paranoid
Black Sabbath — Iron Man
Berlin - Take My Breath Away
DHT- Listen To Your Heart (Edmee's Unplugged Vocal Edit)
What does music mean to you? To your writing?
I don’t watch many movies or much in the way of TV. Music has always been a love of mine. I can still remember the day MTV came on air for the first time. I was six and it totally wiped the floor with Sesame Street. I watched faithfully from that day forward until they started on the reality shows. I had to put up a white flag then. Let the record state that I miss Martha Quinn. Oh, and MTV actually playing music.
To me, music is another form of escapism. It can set the mood for you or it can fix the mood you’re in. It’s what you make of it. I love all music, from classical to the rhythmic beating of Native American drums. You name it, I like it—Rock, Classical, Dark Metal, MallCore, Pop, Country, Jazz, Rap/Hip-hop, Foreign (I’m a huge lover of the Italian music scene), Oldies.
What kind of music do you like to write to?
I’ll make the playlist as I write. If I know I’m entering a really dark scene, I’ll incorporate that vibe into the playlist. When I’m coming out of it, I lighten the mood. I do have one rule, if a Bee Gees song cannot be incorporated into the mix then I’m doing something wrong. Yes. I do have playlists with AC/DC and The Bee Gees sharing airtime.
If this story was made into a movie, who would you want to do the soundtrack?
I’d like to see Rob Zombie team up with The Cranberries (who can tell me where they are and if they’re still putting out records… I’d love to buy them). I think the collaboration would be odd but I’m betting it would work.
Anything else you'd like to say about music and writing/creating?
I have a lot of respect for anyone who can create music. It’s their story, put out there for the world to hear.
To learn more about Mandy, visit her website.
Next week, I interview author Paul Liadis, AKA The Struggling Writer.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Author Interview: Mark Teppo
Edited to add 1/19/10: The follow up to Lightbreaker, called Heartland is coming out soon and true to form, Mark has posted a soundtrack. Check it out!
Listen to the interview here!
Tell me a little about yourself and your writing.
I'm more of a long form writer than a short fiction guy. Farrago's Wainscot serialized my hypertext novel, The Oneiromantic Mosaic of Harry Potemkin, in 2007 (and the expanded edition of it can be found here), and the print arm, Farrago Press, will be putting out the sequel/resolution, Psychobabel, in 2009. In September, my first print novel will be out from Night Shade Books. Entitled Lightbreaker, it is the first part of Codex of Souls, a multi-book romp through Western esoteric thought and occult history in an urban fantasy setting. Both are ambitious projects for the early part of a writer's career, but they seem to be the way my brain wants to tell stories, and I'm going along with it.
I'm just a delivery vehicle for the Muse, really. Yes, that's my excuse. Though, honestly, I am at that point in my career when I still have a full-time job, and so I have the luxury of producing material that excites me foremost without necessarily being beholden to market forces. This is the way new writers find their way in, I think, by creating material that is filled with the passionate excess of their naiveté. Or, at least, that's the other excuse I keep using.
Tell me about the story that you've created a soundtrack/playlist for.
Lightbreaker is divergent from the nominal definition of "urban fantasy." There are no werewolves or vampires, and the magick is based more in actual occult history and practices than Dungeons & Dragons rules. I've never been comfortable with the reliance upon vampires and werewolves as fantasy tropes because their historical definitions don't hold up well in a modern setting. They are predators, really, and we are cattle, and I could never quite world-build them well enough that humanity wouldn't have gotten their shit together and wiped them out. It's a blind spot for me, and I didn't try to make it work. Besides, I'm fascinated with mythology, magico-religious belief structures, and whatever it was that Aleister Crowley was really trying to accomplish with all of his writings. He was either a complete nut or he knew something special, and I think his efforts--like a lot of metaphysical and religious thought--are worth examining. If I can do that while providing an entertaining story with lots of sex and death, then everybody wins.
The book itself, in a few words, is the story of a guy, Markham, who has returned to Seattle, searching for a girl, Katarina, who, a decade ago, touched his soul and left it . . . damaged. What he stumbles upon when he gets to town is the girl's new friends, who are playing with very dark magick. These guys are a secretive cabal who are attempting to punch a hole through heaven, and make mischief with what they find. Markham must (to quote the marketing copy) "delve deep into his past, calling on every aspect of his occult training for there to be any hope of a future. But delve he must, for Markham is a veneficus, a spirit thief, the Lightbreaker . . ."
Just so everyone has some reference points. I am, after all, about to geek out on a bunch of songs no one has heard in reference to a book no one has read, and I'm going to try to do so without offering spoilers. Yeah, good luck with that, I know.
What is your playlist? (Why did you choose these songs?
01. "Our Solemn Hour" - Within Temptation
02. "Collide" - Detritus
03. "Missing Link (Screaming Bird mix)" - Curve
04. "Voiceover" - Darrin Verhagen
05. "Acidburn Aesthetic" - Stone Glass Steel
06. "." - Darrin Verhagen
07. "Black Star" - Peccatum
08. "Lethe" - Detritus
09. "Agnus Dei" - Shinjuku Thief
10. "Quest" - 302 Acid
11. "Greater Than The Sun" - Covenant
12. "Shadow Path" - Shinjuku Thief
13. "The Great Destroyer" - Nine Inch Nails
14. "With Small Shards of Glass" - E.P.A.
15. "Uthul Khulture" - Sephiroth
16. "Colorless" - Venetian Snares
17. "Heaven's Blade" - Coil
18. "Procession of Souls" - Shinjuku Thief
19. "Shroud (Exordium") - Fields of the Nephilim
20. "Straight To The Light" - Fields of the Nephilim
Playlist Discussion
1. "Our Solemn Hour" Within Temptation (The Heart of Everything)
I used to write trailers for my books--big splashy write-ups done in screenplay style where I threw together enough of the high points of the book that I could remember what it was all about six months later, and to give myself a thematic overview of what I was trying to accomplish. For a long time, Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" and Peter Gabriel's "The Rhythm of the Heat" were my go-to songs for trailers, but "Our Solemn Hour" is much more fitting for Lightbreaker. Especially the first big explosion of sound that kicks everything off. Yes, this is the way the world sounds.
2. "Collide" Detritus (Fractured)
The book starts with a bang, and it's chapter four before we even slow down enough to really introduce our characters, which is either going make readers love me for not boring them from the start or piss them off mightily. Detritus' "Collide" is a drum 'n' bass symphonic overture, and meshes nicely with a chase that starts in the woods, runs through a small town, and climaxes on the lower deck of a vehicle ferry.
3. "Missing Link (Screaming Bird Mix)" Curve (Blackerthreetrackertwo EP)
Toni Halliday's voice has always been something of an obsession for me--both in its husky weariness and its seductive allure. It's the voice of a siren who has grown tired of summoning men to their doom, but she knows no other way to find love. The "Screaming Bird Mix" was done by Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails fame), and he adds a layer of noisy guitars to an already caustic bombast. Markham's search for Katarina is a search for his missing link, and the combination of the relentless claustrophobia of the instrumentation and Toni's voice sums up the psychological history of his quest.
4. "Voiceover" Darrin Verhagen (D/Classified)
6. "-" - Darrin Verhagen (Zero-Stung)
9. "Agnes Dei" Shinjuku Thief (Medea)
12. "Shadow Path" - Shinjuku Thief (The Witch Hunter)
18. "Procession of Souls - Shinjuku Thief (The Witch Haven)
Darrin Verhagen has a number of pseudonyms, and so his presence on the soundtrack is heavier than it appears at first glance. His choral and orchestral work is superb, and his ability to blend ethnic instrumentation and pure noise anarchy are just the sort of sonic impact I'd love to have in a film. The tracks picked out for the soundtrack are more subdued, but no less powerful. Well, other than the E.P.A. track, but there's no way to soften that blow, really.
5. "Acidburn Aesthetic" Stone Glass Steel (Dismembering Artists)
Markham suffers from a bit of schizophrenia via a noise of voices that keep him company, and the "recontextualized" sound of Stone Glass Steel is fitting accompaniment. Phil Easter (SGS) builds his music by sampling and cutting from other works, building something new with elements that trigger other memories and associations in your mind. The mix of industrial noises, dark ambient drones, churning metal guitar, and atmospheric disturbances is schizophrenic enough, and the hints of nearly recognizable riffs from other artists is an added layer of identity confusion
7. "Black Star" Peccatum (Lost in Reverie)
This one will be more obvious in retrospect after reading Lightbreaker, but if you read Irhiel (the female voice) as Katarina and Ihsahn (the male voice) as Markham's shadow and the whole song as being told from Markham's view, then it all makes sense. Really. "I am the black star, hostess of your dead heart sun." Some relationships are just doomed, you know, just flat out doomed.
8. "Lethe" Detritus (Fractured)
10. "Quest" 302 Acid (005)
These two are mood music, downtempo tracks that try to capture some of the ghostly ambience of the book. The sort of thing you hear as backdrop during one of those rapid-time sequences in CSI where the team makes with the science and solves the crime. You don't want to cut this stuff because it's important to let the audience know that Things Are Being Done, but you certainly don't want it to drag by. A good bassline makes grunt work seem sexier than it really is.
11. "Greater Than The Sun" Covenant (Skyshaper)
It's the rolling rhythmic line that really gets me. There are several introspective moments through the book, and the persistent rotation of the world around Markham is mirrored by the looping motion of "Greater Than The Sun." The more I listen to this song, the more I realize it encapsulates Markham's journey through Lightbreaker, right down to the way the bass drops away as Eskil Simonsson sings the chorus, each recitation more fragile and naked than the last. And the title. Yeah, the title is perfect. So, in a nutshell, this is the book.
13. "The Great Destroyer" Nine Inch Nails (Year Zero)
Every villain needs a theme song, and this one is probably overly dramatic and heavy-handed, but the sonic breakdown into Autechre beat-fuckery about two minutes into the song is a great aural representation of what happens when you let a guy try to reshape the world in his image.
14. "With Small Shards of Glass" E.P.A. (Black Ice)
There is a scene in the book where the phrase "a chattering echo of a thousand knives being sharpened" is used. E.P.A.'s Black Ice is the power electronics CD of Darrin Verhagen's three-part Black | Mass. Yeah, it's an hour of howling, wailing feedback and noise. With subtle variations, of course. And the one "With Small Shards of Glass" seemed about right.
15. "Uthul Khulture" Sephiroth (Draconian Poetry)
And, when the world is burning down around you, what do you need? Apocalyptic drums and dark ambient monster noises. The fact that the band is called "Sephiroth" is just a bonus.
16. "Colorless" Venetian Snares (My Downfall)
This record is a departure from the drill ‘n' bass that Venetian Snares has been putting out over the last few years, and I think it's a fantastic new facet to his sound. "Colorless" is suffused with melancholy, but it's not quite despair. Not yet. It's mood music for the bleak part of the early morning when your protagonist has to face what he has done, and what he is about to do. "Our hands betray what we have done."
17. "Heaven's Blade" Coil (The Ape of Naples)
You can't write a book about magick (with a ‘k') and not have Coil on the soundtrack. That's like showing up to a secret furry convention without a costume. Everyone knows you don't belong. The trick wasn't a Coil song, but WHICH Coil song. The ephemeral fragility of "Heaven's Blade" is well suited for the penultimate scenes of the book.
19. "Shroud (Exordium)" &
20. Straight To The Light" - Fields Of The Nephilim (Mourning Sun)
Mourning Sun was on the master playlist for writing the book, and it was always welcome when it showed up on the rotation. "Shroud (Exordium)" and "Straight To The Light," especially (and, really, the first is a long intro to the second). The way the sound builds across the breadth of "Shroud (Exordium)" to that final angelic chorus is just incredible, and I wish--every day--that I had the money to buy an obscenely huge sound system just so I could experience that progression in the bone-shaking way it was meant to be heard. The transition to "Straight To The Light," that opening guitar riff, is the end of the book, that instantaneous cut to black, and if it was up to me, the screen would stay black until the song was over before the credits ran.
What does music mean to you? To your writing?
It's critical. Both as a means of fueling the muse, and a means of adding texture. We are ultimately responsible for how the words make the scene work, and being able to find music that suits the intent and the impression of a scene enables me to better articulate what I'm trying to do and to find an emotional kicker to the text. Some film directors are more aware of the music than others, and they understand that it's another layer of meaning--much like the lighting and the framing of individual shots--and to poorly execute this layer is to dress the film shabbily. Ridley Scott, with Bladerunner; Michael Mann, with Miami Vice and Heat (really, the whole Miami Vice phenomena came out of marrying sound to visuals); David Lynch, with nearly everything he's done, but especially Twin Peaks; early Eric Serra, with some of Luc Besson's early films (The Big Blue, La Femme Nikita); Peter Gabriel's work for Birdy and The Last Temptation of Christ: these guys have all done great work marrying soundtracks to the visual presentations.
When I used to story-storm late at night, I would put on some film filled with eye-candy, turn down the sound, and put the headphones on. Total sensory overload, and every time I'd stop writing in my notebook and look up, my brain would have to parse the music and the visuals. It would always keep me off-balance, always seeing and hearing something not-quite-right but always exciting. Occasionally, I'd find marginalia in my notes that would record songs for scenes, pairings that worked well and left me with the germ of an idea.
Music, like film, is communicating via a different sensory avenue than the word, and frankly, we don't steal from it enough. We're happy to heist stylistic tics from other writers, but I don't think we pay enough attention to rhythm (or lack thereof) or visual cues in other media.
5. What kind of music do you like to write to?
Writing music is very different from soundtrack music. My primary writing space is the commuter train, and the music serves two functions: propelling me forward and drowning out the constant chatter of the other three people at the small table I'm sitting at. The playlist is noisy, metallic, and operatic: filled with things that are labeled Teutonic Industrial (Rammstein, mostly), Big Broken Beat (Clark, Detritus, Enduser), Rhythmic Noise (Tarmvred, Iszoloscope, Empusae, and Ah Cama-Sotz), Symphonic Metal (Within Temptation, Nightwish, After Forever, Sirena), Tribal Illbient (Monolith, Sephiroth, and This Morn' Omina), Black Metal (Fields of the Nephilim, mostly), and Industrial Angst (Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Otep, Die Warzau). The current playlist has about 700 songs, and I just let it spin on random.
If this story was made into a movie, who would you want to do the soundtrack?
Either Darrin Verhagen or David Dando-Moore.
Verhagen writes these evocative film scores and dance company soundtracks that are a combination of ambient soundscapes, tribal raves, cataclysmic waves of emotional angst rendered as chaotic noise, and cinematic downtempo stuff. A lot of the first draft of the Lightbreaker soundtrack was huge chunks of his records, under his own name and his various aliases (Shinjuku Thief, Shinjuku Filth, E.P.A.). His work always evokes a lot of imagery and wild scenarios.
Dando-Moore records as Detritus, and his latest record, Fractured, is an smashing collection of Big Beat downtempo instrumentals that make Massive Attack look like a bunch of octogenarians noodling around with primitive tape loops. I wish Hollywood would discover him for the next Bond film, as his tracks would add an extra level of aural eroticism and bang 'n' snap to every scene.
I just watched Michael Mann's Miami Vice again the other night and was quite taken with how Mann used his soundtrack in place of actual scene sound. Having the right guy providing "mood music" can create an emotional impact of a scene that doesn't require words.
Anything else you'd like to say about music and writing/creating?
One of the ideas that I've never been able to figure out how to accomplish effectively is a series of novellas and EPs. Writer and musician produce an object that is a story with a soundtrack. You listen to one while you read the other. Brian Evenson did a spoken word disc for Ant-Zen a couple of years ago called Altmann's Tongue. He read from his stories and Xingu Hill and Tamarin made creepy dark ambient noises underneath. It's a very cool disc. But I'd like to separate the two a little more, and have the music be a pure soundtrack to the reading experience, and not marry it quite so closely to the text. Package it all up in an overly thick DVD case (CD on one side, short book on the other, much like the current PC game cases). I think both writer and musician, provided the pairing is good, could find fuel in the creative efforts of the other. That's what it's really about anyway: fuel for the creative engine.
Nicolas Chevreux at Ad Noiseam has just made available a PDF magazine to accompany Raoul Sinier's latest record, Brain Kitchen. Formatting aside, it's exactly the marriage of art, word, and sound that I was thinking about. Visit the Brain Kitchen.
To learn more about Mark, visit his website.
Next week, I interview author Mandy Roth.
Listen to the interview here!
Tell me a little about yourself and your writing.
I'm more of a long form writer than a short fiction guy. Farrago's Wainscot serialized my hypertext novel, The Oneiromantic Mosaic of Harry Potemkin, in 2007 (and the expanded edition of it can be found here), and the print arm, Farrago Press, will be putting out the sequel/resolution, Psychobabel, in 2009. In September, my first print novel will be out from Night Shade Books. Entitled Lightbreaker, it is the first part of Codex of Souls, a multi-book romp through Western esoteric thought and occult history in an urban fantasy setting. Both are ambitious projects for the early part of a writer's career, but they seem to be the way my brain wants to tell stories, and I'm going along with it.
I'm just a delivery vehicle for the Muse, really. Yes, that's my excuse. Though, honestly, I am at that point in my career when I still have a full-time job, and so I have the luxury of producing material that excites me foremost without necessarily being beholden to market forces. This is the way new writers find their way in, I think, by creating material that is filled with the passionate excess of their naiveté. Or, at least, that's the other excuse I keep using.
Tell me about the story that you've created a soundtrack/playlist for.
Lightbreaker is divergent from the nominal definition of "urban fantasy." There are no werewolves or vampires, and the magick is based more in actual occult history and practices than Dungeons & Dragons rules. I've never been comfortable with the reliance upon vampires and werewolves as fantasy tropes because their historical definitions don't hold up well in a modern setting. They are predators, really, and we are cattle, and I could never quite world-build them well enough that humanity wouldn't have gotten their shit together and wiped them out. It's a blind spot for me, and I didn't try to make it work. Besides, I'm fascinated with mythology, magico-religious belief structures, and whatever it was that Aleister Crowley was really trying to accomplish with all of his writings. He was either a complete nut or he knew something special, and I think his efforts--like a lot of metaphysical and religious thought--are worth examining. If I can do that while providing an entertaining story with lots of sex and death, then everybody wins.
The book itself, in a few words, is the story of a guy, Markham, who has returned to Seattle, searching for a girl, Katarina, who, a decade ago, touched his soul and left it . . . damaged. What he stumbles upon when he gets to town is the girl's new friends, who are playing with very dark magick. These guys are a secretive cabal who are attempting to punch a hole through heaven, and make mischief with what they find. Markham must (to quote the marketing copy) "delve deep into his past, calling on every aspect of his occult training for there to be any hope of a future. But delve he must, for Markham is a veneficus, a spirit thief, the Lightbreaker . . ."
Just so everyone has some reference points. I am, after all, about to geek out on a bunch of songs no one has heard in reference to a book no one has read, and I'm going to try to do so without offering spoilers. Yeah, good luck with that, I know.
What is your playlist? (Why did you choose these songs?
01. "Our Solemn Hour" - Within Temptation
02. "Collide" - Detritus
03. "Missing Link (Screaming Bird mix)" - Curve
04. "Voiceover" - Darrin Verhagen
05. "Acidburn Aesthetic" - Stone Glass Steel
06. "." - Darrin Verhagen
07. "Black Star" - Peccatum
08. "Lethe" - Detritus
09. "Agnus Dei" - Shinjuku Thief
10. "Quest" - 302 Acid
11. "Greater Than The Sun" - Covenant
12. "Shadow Path" - Shinjuku Thief
13. "The Great Destroyer" - Nine Inch Nails
14. "With Small Shards of Glass" - E.P.A.
15. "Uthul Khulture" - Sephiroth
16. "Colorless" - Venetian Snares
17. "Heaven's Blade" - Coil
18. "Procession of Souls" - Shinjuku Thief
19. "Shroud (Exordium") - Fields of the Nephilim
20. "Straight To The Light" - Fields of the Nephilim
Playlist Discussion
1. "Our Solemn Hour" Within Temptation (The Heart of Everything)
I used to write trailers for my books--big splashy write-ups done in screenplay style where I threw together enough of the high points of the book that I could remember what it was all about six months later, and to give myself a thematic overview of what I was trying to accomplish. For a long time, Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" and Peter Gabriel's "The Rhythm of the Heat" were my go-to songs for trailers, but "Our Solemn Hour" is much more fitting for Lightbreaker. Especially the first big explosion of sound that kicks everything off. Yes, this is the way the world sounds.
2. "Collide" Detritus (Fractured)
The book starts with a bang, and it's chapter four before we even slow down enough to really introduce our characters, which is either going make readers love me for not boring them from the start or piss them off mightily. Detritus' "Collide" is a drum 'n' bass symphonic overture, and meshes nicely with a chase that starts in the woods, runs through a small town, and climaxes on the lower deck of a vehicle ferry.
3. "Missing Link (Screaming Bird Mix)" Curve (Blackerthreetrackertwo EP)
Toni Halliday's voice has always been something of an obsession for me--both in its husky weariness and its seductive allure. It's the voice of a siren who has grown tired of summoning men to their doom, but she knows no other way to find love. The "Screaming Bird Mix" was done by Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails fame), and he adds a layer of noisy guitars to an already caustic bombast. Markham's search for Katarina is a search for his missing link, and the combination of the relentless claustrophobia of the instrumentation and Toni's voice sums up the psychological history of his quest.
4. "Voiceover" Darrin Verhagen (D/Classified)
6. "-" - Darrin Verhagen (Zero-Stung)
9. "Agnes Dei" Shinjuku Thief (Medea)
12. "Shadow Path" - Shinjuku Thief (The Witch Hunter)
18. "Procession of Souls - Shinjuku Thief (The Witch Haven)
Darrin Verhagen has a number of pseudonyms, and so his presence on the soundtrack is heavier than it appears at first glance. His choral and orchestral work is superb, and his ability to blend ethnic instrumentation and pure noise anarchy are just the sort of sonic impact I'd love to have in a film. The tracks picked out for the soundtrack are more subdued, but no less powerful. Well, other than the E.P.A. track, but there's no way to soften that blow, really.
5. "Acidburn Aesthetic" Stone Glass Steel (Dismembering Artists)
Markham suffers from a bit of schizophrenia via a noise of voices that keep him company, and the "recontextualized" sound of Stone Glass Steel is fitting accompaniment. Phil Easter (SGS) builds his music by sampling and cutting from other works, building something new with elements that trigger other memories and associations in your mind. The mix of industrial noises, dark ambient drones, churning metal guitar, and atmospheric disturbances is schizophrenic enough, and the hints of nearly recognizable riffs from other artists is an added layer of identity confusion
7. "Black Star" Peccatum (Lost in Reverie)
This one will be more obvious in retrospect after reading Lightbreaker, but if you read Irhiel (the female voice) as Katarina and Ihsahn (the male voice) as Markham's shadow and the whole song as being told from Markham's view, then it all makes sense. Really. "I am the black star, hostess of your dead heart sun." Some relationships are just doomed, you know, just flat out doomed.
8. "Lethe" Detritus (Fractured)
10. "Quest" 302 Acid (005)
These two are mood music, downtempo tracks that try to capture some of the ghostly ambience of the book. The sort of thing you hear as backdrop during one of those rapid-time sequences in CSI where the team makes with the science and solves the crime. You don't want to cut this stuff because it's important to let the audience know that Things Are Being Done, but you certainly don't want it to drag by. A good bassline makes grunt work seem sexier than it really is.
11. "Greater Than The Sun" Covenant (Skyshaper)
It's the rolling rhythmic line that really gets me. There are several introspective moments through the book, and the persistent rotation of the world around Markham is mirrored by the looping motion of "Greater Than The Sun." The more I listen to this song, the more I realize it encapsulates Markham's journey through Lightbreaker, right down to the way the bass drops away as Eskil Simonsson sings the chorus, each recitation more fragile and naked than the last. And the title. Yeah, the title is perfect. So, in a nutshell, this is the book.
13. "The Great Destroyer" Nine Inch Nails (Year Zero)
Every villain needs a theme song, and this one is probably overly dramatic and heavy-handed, but the sonic breakdown into Autechre beat-fuckery about two minutes into the song is a great aural representation of what happens when you let a guy try to reshape the world in his image.
14. "With Small Shards of Glass" E.P.A. (Black Ice)
There is a scene in the book where the phrase "a chattering echo of a thousand knives being sharpened" is used. E.P.A.'s Black Ice is the power electronics CD of Darrin Verhagen's three-part Black | Mass. Yeah, it's an hour of howling, wailing feedback and noise. With subtle variations, of course. And the one "With Small Shards of Glass" seemed about right.
15. "Uthul Khulture" Sephiroth (Draconian Poetry)
And, when the world is burning down around you, what do you need? Apocalyptic drums and dark ambient monster noises. The fact that the band is called "Sephiroth" is just a bonus.
16. "Colorless" Venetian Snares (My Downfall)
This record is a departure from the drill ‘n' bass that Venetian Snares has been putting out over the last few years, and I think it's a fantastic new facet to his sound. "Colorless" is suffused with melancholy, but it's not quite despair. Not yet. It's mood music for the bleak part of the early morning when your protagonist has to face what he has done, and what he is about to do. "Our hands betray what we have done."
17. "Heaven's Blade" Coil (The Ape of Naples)
You can't write a book about magick (with a ‘k') and not have Coil on the soundtrack. That's like showing up to a secret furry convention without a costume. Everyone knows you don't belong. The trick wasn't a Coil song, but WHICH Coil song. The ephemeral fragility of "Heaven's Blade" is well suited for the penultimate scenes of the book.
19. "Shroud (Exordium)" &
20. Straight To The Light" - Fields Of The Nephilim (Mourning Sun)
Mourning Sun was on the master playlist for writing the book, and it was always welcome when it showed up on the rotation. "Shroud (Exordium)" and "Straight To The Light," especially (and, really, the first is a long intro to the second). The way the sound builds across the breadth of "Shroud (Exordium)" to that final angelic chorus is just incredible, and I wish--every day--that I had the money to buy an obscenely huge sound system just so I could experience that progression in the bone-shaking way it was meant to be heard. The transition to "Straight To The Light," that opening guitar riff, is the end of the book, that instantaneous cut to black, and if it was up to me, the screen would stay black until the song was over before the credits ran.
What does music mean to you? To your writing?
It's critical. Both as a means of fueling the muse, and a means of adding texture. We are ultimately responsible for how the words make the scene work, and being able to find music that suits the intent and the impression of a scene enables me to better articulate what I'm trying to do and to find an emotional kicker to the text. Some film directors are more aware of the music than others, and they understand that it's another layer of meaning--much like the lighting and the framing of individual shots--and to poorly execute this layer is to dress the film shabbily. Ridley Scott, with Bladerunner; Michael Mann, with Miami Vice and Heat (really, the whole Miami Vice phenomena came out of marrying sound to visuals); David Lynch, with nearly everything he's done, but especially Twin Peaks; early Eric Serra, with some of Luc Besson's early films (The Big Blue, La Femme Nikita); Peter Gabriel's work for Birdy and The Last Temptation of Christ: these guys have all done great work marrying soundtracks to the visual presentations.
When I used to story-storm late at night, I would put on some film filled with eye-candy, turn down the sound, and put the headphones on. Total sensory overload, and every time I'd stop writing in my notebook and look up, my brain would have to parse the music and the visuals. It would always keep me off-balance, always seeing and hearing something not-quite-right but always exciting. Occasionally, I'd find marginalia in my notes that would record songs for scenes, pairings that worked well and left me with the germ of an idea.
Music, like film, is communicating via a different sensory avenue than the word, and frankly, we don't steal from it enough. We're happy to heist stylistic tics from other writers, but I don't think we pay enough attention to rhythm (or lack thereof) or visual cues in other media.
5. What kind of music do you like to write to?
Writing music is very different from soundtrack music. My primary writing space is the commuter train, and the music serves two functions: propelling me forward and drowning out the constant chatter of the other three people at the small table I'm sitting at. The playlist is noisy, metallic, and operatic: filled with things that are labeled Teutonic Industrial (Rammstein, mostly), Big Broken Beat (Clark, Detritus, Enduser), Rhythmic Noise (Tarmvred, Iszoloscope, Empusae, and Ah Cama-Sotz), Symphonic Metal (Within Temptation, Nightwish, After Forever, Sirena), Tribal Illbient (Monolith, Sephiroth, and This Morn' Omina), Black Metal (Fields of the Nephilim, mostly), and Industrial Angst (Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Otep, Die Warzau). The current playlist has about 700 songs, and I just let it spin on random.
If this story was made into a movie, who would you want to do the soundtrack?
Either Darrin Verhagen or David Dando-Moore.
Verhagen writes these evocative film scores and dance company soundtracks that are a combination of ambient soundscapes, tribal raves, cataclysmic waves of emotional angst rendered as chaotic noise, and cinematic downtempo stuff. A lot of the first draft of the Lightbreaker soundtrack was huge chunks of his records, under his own name and his various aliases (Shinjuku Thief, Shinjuku Filth, E.P.A.). His work always evokes a lot of imagery and wild scenarios.
Dando-Moore records as Detritus, and his latest record, Fractured, is an smashing collection of Big Beat downtempo instrumentals that make Massive Attack look like a bunch of octogenarians noodling around with primitive tape loops. I wish Hollywood would discover him for the next Bond film, as his tracks would add an extra level of aural eroticism and bang 'n' snap to every scene.
I just watched Michael Mann's Miami Vice again the other night and was quite taken with how Mann used his soundtrack in place of actual scene sound. Having the right guy providing "mood music" can create an emotional impact of a scene that doesn't require words.
Anything else you'd like to say about music and writing/creating?
One of the ideas that I've never been able to figure out how to accomplish effectively is a series of novellas and EPs. Writer and musician produce an object that is a story with a soundtrack. You listen to one while you read the other. Brian Evenson did a spoken word disc for Ant-Zen a couple of years ago called Altmann's Tongue. He read from his stories and Xingu Hill and Tamarin made creepy dark ambient noises underneath. It's a very cool disc. But I'd like to separate the two a little more, and have the music be a pure soundtrack to the reading experience, and not marry it quite so closely to the text. Package it all up in an overly thick DVD case (CD on one side, short book on the other, much like the current PC game cases). I think both writer and musician, provided the pairing is good, could find fuel in the creative efforts of the other. That's what it's really about anyway: fuel for the creative engine.
Nicolas Chevreux at Ad Noiseam has just made available a PDF magazine to accompany Raoul Sinier's latest record, Brain Kitchen. Formatting aside, it's exactly the marriage of art, word, and sound that I was thinking about. Visit the Brain Kitchen.
To learn more about Mark, visit his website.
Next week, I interview author Mandy Roth.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Author Interview: Ekaterina Sedia
Listen to the interview here!
Tell me a little about yourself and your writing.
I teach at a state liberal arts college (I'm a biologist by trade), and I write lots of fantasy and SF – both short stories and books. My third novel is coming out this June, and my fourth one – early in 2009, both from Prime books.
[Editor's note: Her novel A Secret History of Moscow was published in 2007. Ekaterina’s short stories have appeared in Baen’s Universe and Fantasy Magazine, and she is the editor of Paper Cities: The Anthology of Urban Fantasy.]
Tell me about the story that you've created a soundtrack/playlist for.
It's for THE ALCHEMY OF STONE, the novel comes out this month. It's really a love story with anarchy, automatons and gargoyles, and alchemy. I guess it could be classified as steampunk or clockpunk, and I think it is a good book.
What is your playlist? Why did you choose these songs?
Since it's a novel, I should probably list entire albums.
1. Vivaldi - Four Seasons
2. Tom Waits- Raindogs
3. Elvis Costello and The Brodsky Quartet - The Juliet Letters
4. Tom Waits - The Black Rider
5. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Murder Ballads
6. JS Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier (all of it)
7. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Boatman's Call
8. The Clash - London Calling
9. Henry Purcell - Te Deum and Jubilate
I chose these because I like them, and they all create a dense melancholy atmosphere. Plus, many of them are either about horrible love or decay, both of which feature prominently in the book.
What does music mean to you? To your writing?
I like it. I never became a connoisseur, but I do enjoy quite a bit of it. I worked in a record store at some point in my youth, and basically ended up grabbing whatever played in the store and sounded good to me. I prefer to write to instrumental music or no music at all, but occasionally I play other things, especially when I'm trying to get myself into a certain frame of mind.
What kind of music do you like to write to?
Instrumental and baroque – pleasant and not intrusive. Or, you know, really heavy industrial music. Depends on the moods and/or project.
If this story was made into a movie, who would you want to do the soundtrack?
Michael Nyman, of course, although I do object to the notion that books should be made into movies.
To learn more about Ekaterina, visit her website.
Next week, I interview author Mark Teppo.
Tell me a little about yourself and your writing.
I teach at a state liberal arts college (I'm a biologist by trade), and I write lots of fantasy and SF – both short stories and books. My third novel is coming out this June, and my fourth one – early in 2009, both from Prime books.
[Editor's note: Her novel A Secret History of Moscow was published in 2007. Ekaterina’s short stories have appeared in Baen’s Universe and Fantasy Magazine, and she is the editor of Paper Cities: The Anthology of Urban Fantasy.]
Tell me about the story that you've created a soundtrack/playlist for.
It's for THE ALCHEMY OF STONE, the novel comes out this month. It's really a love story with anarchy, automatons and gargoyles, and alchemy. I guess it could be classified as steampunk or clockpunk, and I think it is a good book.
What is your playlist? Why did you choose these songs?
Since it's a novel, I should probably list entire albums.
1. Vivaldi - Four Seasons
2. Tom Waits- Raindogs
3. Elvis Costello and The Brodsky Quartet - The Juliet Letters
4. Tom Waits - The Black Rider
5. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Murder Ballads
6. JS Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier (all of it)
7. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Boatman's Call
8. The Clash - London Calling
9. Henry Purcell - Te Deum and Jubilate
I chose these because I like them, and they all create a dense melancholy atmosphere. Plus, many of them are either about horrible love or decay, both of which feature prominently in the book.
What does music mean to you? To your writing?
I like it. I never became a connoisseur, but I do enjoy quite a bit of it. I worked in a record store at some point in my youth, and basically ended up grabbing whatever played in the store and sounded good to me. I prefer to write to instrumental music or no music at all, but occasionally I play other things, especially when I'm trying to get myself into a certain frame of mind.
What kind of music do you like to write to?
Instrumental and baroque – pleasant and not intrusive. Or, you know, really heavy industrial music. Depends on the moods and/or project.
If this story was made into a movie, who would you want to do the soundtrack?
Michael Nyman, of course, although I do object to the notion that books should be made into movies.
To learn more about Ekaterina, visit her website.
Next week, I interview author Mark Teppo.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Author Interview: Catherine Schaff-Stump
Listen to the interview here!
Tell me a little about yourself and your writing.
By day, I'm an English professor at a community college. I teach English Language Acquisition and I research pop culture and folklore. I've traveled extensively in Japan, and I took a Fulbright GPA to Russia in the summer of 2006 to study folklore.
As far as writing goes, I have two styles. One is poetic and mythic, the other is broad and humorous. People seemingly like both in Young Adult fiction, so that's where I've been finding most of my work right now. I have a novella coming out from the mystical Drollerie Press in 2008, Sister Night, Sister Moon and I have a YA novel coming out from Cats Curious in 2009, Hulk Hercules: Professional Wrestler, the first of the MYTHtery Kids books.
Tell me about the story that you've created a soundtrack/playlist for.
I'm currently circulating another YA novel to agents right now - The Substance of Shadows, which is a book I've been writing since 2005. The story is about two cousins. One is a cursed demon binder who must fight his demon/familiar for his soul at age 16. The other is the son of an alcoholic abuser who belongs to the part of the family that wants to control the demons for their own purposes. The story follows these two boys through a custody battle, two demon trials, and how they manage to work together to save their family while on opposite sides of it.
What is your playlist?
hat does music mean to you? To your writing?
I come from a very musical family and in general enjoy singing and playing instruments, although I haven't studied how to play one formally since high school. Writing, when it works, is just like music. You can feel the flow and pitch of the scene. The right kind of music reminds you of scenes in your writing.
What kind of music do you like to write to?
That answer really depends on the project. For a project like Substance I prefer soundtracks or music with chanting. Other projects might demand music with lyrics. Often I don't write with music, but what will happen is I'll hear music that reminds me of what I'm working on.
If this story was made into a movie, who would you want to do the soundtrack?
I'd have a hard time deciding between Bear McCreary, who may be the most innovative young composer in the US, and Yoko Kanno, who may be the most versatile composer in Japan. McCreary has a savage style that drives, while Kanno has a different feel every time she writes a soundtrack, which would make her perfect, because you'd get something original.
Anything else you'd like to say about music and writing/creating?
Listen to the rhythm as you write; fall into it as though you dance, and you'll find that there is next to no difference in writing and playing music.
To learn more about Catherine, visit her website!
Tell me a little about yourself and your writing.
By day, I'm an English professor at a community college. I teach English Language Acquisition and I research pop culture and folklore. I've traveled extensively in Japan, and I took a Fulbright GPA to Russia in the summer of 2006 to study folklore.
As far as writing goes, I have two styles. One is poetic and mythic, the other is broad and humorous. People seemingly like both in Young Adult fiction, so that's where I've been finding most of my work right now. I have a novella coming out from the mystical Drollerie Press in 2008, Sister Night, Sister Moon and I have a YA novel coming out from Cats Curious in 2009, Hulk Hercules: Professional Wrestler, the first of the MYTHtery Kids books.
Tell me about the story that you've created a soundtrack/playlist for.
I'm currently circulating another YA novel to agents right now - The Substance of Shadows, which is a book I've been writing since 2005. The story is about two cousins. One is a cursed demon binder who must fight his demon/familiar for his soul at age 16. The other is the son of an alcoholic abuser who belongs to the part of the family that wants to control the demons for their own purposes. The story follows these two boys through a custody battle, two demon trials, and how they manage to work together to save their family while on opposite sides of it.
What is your playlist?
- "The Nile Source of Life" from the Mysteries of Egypt Soundtrack (ethnic arrangment)
- "Letters from Hogwarts" from the first Harry Potter Soundtrack (John Williams)
- "Starbuck Takes on All" from the first Battlestar Galactica Soundtrack (Bear McCreary)
- "Children Running" from the Little Princess Soundtrack (Patrick Doyle)
- "Exile" by Enya
- "Roslin and Adama" from the second Battlestar Galactica Soundtrack (Bear McCreary)
- "Kifa Uka" from the Vampire Princess Miyu TV Soundtrack (Composer Unknown)
- "King Tutankhamen's Burial" from the Mysteries of Egypt Soundtrack (ethnic arrangment)
- "Cursum Perficio" by Enya
- "Mysteries of Egypt" theme from the Mysteries of Egypt Soundtrack (ethnic arrangment)
- "Worthy of Survivial" from the second Battlestar Galactica Soundtrack (Bear McCreary)
hat does music mean to you? To your writing?
I come from a very musical family and in general enjoy singing and playing instruments, although I haven't studied how to play one formally since high school. Writing, when it works, is just like music. You can feel the flow and pitch of the scene. The right kind of music reminds you of scenes in your writing.
What kind of music do you like to write to?
That answer really depends on the project. For a project like Substance I prefer soundtracks or music with chanting. Other projects might demand music with lyrics. Often I don't write with music, but what will happen is I'll hear music that reminds me of what I'm working on.
If this story was made into a movie, who would you want to do the soundtrack?
I'd have a hard time deciding between Bear McCreary, who may be the most innovative young composer in the US, and Yoko Kanno, who may be the most versatile composer in Japan. McCreary has a savage style that drives, while Kanno has a different feel every time she writes a soundtrack, which would make her perfect, because you'd get something original.
Anything else you'd like to say about music and writing/creating?
Listen to the rhythm as you write; fall into it as though you dance, and you'll find that there is next to no difference in writing and playing music.
To learn more about Catherine, visit her website!
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