Category: Music

The Ultimate Guide To Dollywood by Erin K Browne

What a delightful way to either plan for a trip to the musical icon’s theme park or to just daydream about eventually going! While this unofficial guide doesn’t go into the history of Dollywood, it’s certainly a loving look at the largest employer in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, near the birthplace of living legend Dolly Parton. …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/11/22/the-ultimate-guide-to-dollywood-by-erin-k-browne/

Patsy Cline’s Walkin’ After Midnight by Judith A Proffer, Julie Dick Fudge & Yoko Matsuoka

It almost always surprises people to hear that I enjoy country music. I’m not sure why: so much of it is fantastic, and I love good music of every genre. Perhaps it helps that I lack the class prejudices of most Americans when it comes to music. Admittedly, I don’t care for stoner jams, but …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/10/21/patsy-clines-walkin-after-midnight-by-judith-a-proffer-julie-dick-fudge-yoko-matsuoka/

Life House by Pete Townshend, James Harvey, David Hine & Max Prentis

Ngl, reading this felt like what I imagine an acid trip would be like. I guess one good thing about it is that it made me want to listen to more of The Who’s music? Good thing this graphic novel is being released with an accompanying vinyl LP! (Link at the bottom, tho you can …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/01/18/life-house-by-pete-townshend-james-harvey-david-hine-max-prentis/

Rana Joon And The One And Only Now by Shideh Etaat

It’s been almost a year since Rana’s best friend died, inexplicably going too fast in a car that he typically drove over-cautiously. Louie was smart, sensitive and accepting of Rana’s struggles as a closeted Iranian American Muslim lesbian with a difficult home life. Her dad works back in the Middle East while his family stays …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/08/03/rana-joon-and-the-one-and-only-now-by-shideh-etaat/

The Story Of The Saxophone by Lesa Cline-Ransome and James E Ransome

If you think of the saxophone nowadays, you think of jazz musicians, perhaps John Coltrane and Stan Getz if you’re of a certain musical inclination, perhaps Lisa Simpson and Kenny G if your knowledge of the instrument tends more towards mainstream pop culture like my own does. But the saxophone has a long and storied …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/03/29/the-story-of-the-saxophone-by-lesa-cline-ransome-and-james-e-ransome/

Say Goodbye by Lewis Shiner (Encore)

While skittling down a different Wikipedia rabbit hole, I came upon the name of Skip Spence. He is rather obviously the model for “the legendary Skip Shaw” in Say Goodbye, where Shaw is Laurie Moss’ love interest and one of her principal antagonists. (The other two, I would say, are Laurie herself and the structure …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/01/28/say-goodbye-by-lewis-shiner-encore/

Say Goodbye by Lewis Shiner

Say Goodbye by Lewis Shiner

Twenty years before his magnum opus on life and music and bands and fame, Lewis Shiner published Say Goodbye a shorter novel on the same themes, set in the mid-1990s rather than the 1960s. The books share more than just themes: Laurie Moss, the central character of Say Goodbye is the daughter of Mike Moss, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/01/21/say-goodbye-by-lewis-shiner/

Outside the Gates of Eden by Lewis Shiner

Outside the Gates of Eden

There’s a live recording of a Bruce Springsteen song — “The River,” I think — with a long spoken introduction in which Springsteen talks about his difficult relationship with his father. The elder Springsteen, a veteran of World War II, didn’t understand what his son was doing with his long hair and his late nights and his …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/30/outside-the-gates-of-eden-by-lewis-shiner/

The Lost Pianos of Siberia by Sophy Roberts

Lost Pianos of Siberia by Sophy Roberts

Fittingly, if annoyingly, I have mislaid my copy of The Lost Pianos of Siberia, so this will have to be from memory, just like many of the stories that Sophy Roberts collects over the course of the book. The conceit of the story is that Roberts was spending most of a summer with a German …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/11/20/the-lost-pianos-of-siberia-by-sophy-roberts/

A Devil to Play by Jasper Rees

A friend whose son plays the French horn was struck by the quality of Jasper Rees’ writing and sent me a copy of A Devil to Play, thinking that I would enjoy this memoir of renewing acquaintance with a musical instrument abandoned in Rees’ final years of school, and of course she was completely right. …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/07/22/a-devil-to-play-by-jasper-rees/