3 Picks with John Boden

 

Its time for 3 Picks! This week featuring author John Boden. John Boden is known for his folksy roadhouse dark fiction tales like Spungunion and Walk the Darkness Down. In addition to writing some bad-assed books, John is a vertible encyclopedia of music trivia (particularly 80's era hard rock music.) From Roy Clark to Gilby Clark and Johnny Cash to John 5, you can't stump Boden when it comes to his knowledge of music and the musicians. 

So it's with that in mind that this weeks 3 Picks will focus on Joh Boden's choices for books centered around rock music. Not looking for rocker bio's or tell all testimonials. These are the books that are driven by the very music that shakes our souls. John even took the liberty of 'pairing' each pick with an appropriate album to listen to while you read each pick. 

Here are John Boden's 3 Picks for Rock Centric Reads:

Pick 1. THE SCREAM by John Skipp & Craig Spector. Along with Bradbury and King, these two left their greasy fingerprints all over teenage Johnny's want to write...it's still surreal that I know and call them friends now. But this fucking book. It's a Clive Barker-by-way-of SPARKS but way heavier and in strobe light masterpiece. It's Rock-N-Roll and it never forgets...or forgives.

Album to pair with: RIGGS- s/t



Pick 2. CORPSEPAINT by David Peak. This novel is bleak and brutal, an icy riff map from Chicago to the Ukraine, peopled with not-that-disparate characters, good and bad, but I'll be honest and tell you the good are just slightly less bad than the bad. A phenomenal novel.

Album to pair with: Celtic Frost- "To Mega Therion" (DISCLAIMER- I don't listen to Black Metal so my scope of reference here is quite limited, so I did what I could)



Pick 3. SKIN by Kathe Koja. I might be cheating here...this one doesn't exactly feature rock music as a main character but it's there. Goth-punk pioneers strive to create the ultimate in their art: a masterpiece of flesh and metal. This book is William Burroughs insane with Tetsuo The Iron Man caliber visuals...and while I love all of Koja's work this one will always be the cold steel spring in my heart.

Album to pair with: GOD IS LSD- "Spirit Of Suicide"




Those are John Boden's three rockin' picks for books that are driven on sex, drugs and rock n' roll! Have you read any or all of these titles? If you're missing any, better get on top of that. What are your 3 Picks for rock-centric books? Let us know in the comments.

You can find out more about John Boden at his website.

Avocado and Eggs (Part 2)

Another successful writing retreat is in the bag. As I mentioned in part one of Avocado and Eggs, we wound back up in a Panera for our writing retreat but we changed locations. But there were more avocados to come. This time around we set up shop in Edison, New Jersey. There was a method to the madness in choosing this location. Allow me to explain.

I can see a pattern arising here when we plan these writing retreats. We choose the location based upon the way we'd like to reward ourselves for hunkering down and writing together for the morning. The first time we were going to reward ourselves by going out for a few beers at a local brewery down the Jersey Shore area (but as you'll read in the first of this series, that plan didn't pan out.) This time around we figured we would reward ourselves with a trip to Vintage Vinyl. Vintage Vinyl is practically a legendary record store known for stocking classic and collectible vinyl records along with a menagerie of rare, indie, import and bootleg music on all types of mediums. If you're into music, particularly punk and metal, it is nearly impossible to browse the store and not walk out with some sort of gem.

Two hoodlums outside Vintage Vinyl

Chuck Buda had ulterior motives though. So, after shacking up in Panera for four hours writing our hearts out we headed down the street to Vintage Vinyl for our reward. Back when Chuck and I first hitched up to do with published writer thing, he got it in his head that he wanted to do a book signing at Vintage Vinyl. I understood where he was coming from, we write horror and horror and metal are connected at the hip. To be honest, it would be cool to do a book signing there but the place just isn't geared toward books. At least, that's how I saw it but Chuck had this dream for over a year now and he was determined to march into Vintage Vinyl today and demand they carry our books and set up a book signing in the process. Who was I to piss on his dream?

So Chuck and Tim Meyer and I entered Vintage Vinyl like three tiny phallises and perused the store. It had been many years since I last set foot inside the place. I was curious to see how they were still conducting business in the age of digital music. The truth is, inside Vintage Vinyl you'd never know digital music was a thing. There are rows and rows of CD's (new and used) the walls are adorned in a dazzling display of records that would bring any serious collector to their knees in homage to the spectacular offerings. And, to be honest, there was a book shelf. Fuck me running. The books though were all biographical type things from musicians like Chuck Berry, Tom Petty and Scott Ian among them. No fiction in sight. Still, I'm not going to shit on Chuck's dream. Hey, ya never know.

Inside the hallowed isles of Vintage Vinyl

So we all made some selections. I, by the way, picked up a CD from a band called Tokyo Motor Fist. The name of the band is what caught my eye. I picked up the CD and flipped it over to check out the back and saw a photo of the band. That's when I was sold. The band is made up of very Jersey-centric rock stars reassembled into a supergroup of sorts. On guitar is Steve Brown from Trixter and Ted Poley from Danger Danger is on Vocals along with Greg Smith who played with Ted Nugent and Chuck Burgi who is currently Billy Joel's drummer. All Jersey guys. Way cool. As for the CD, well it sounds like what you think it would sound like a Trixter/Danger Danger mashup. Cool if you're into that sort of sound. A great find if you ask me.

New Jersey Supergroup Tokyo Motor Fist

We paid for our purchases and Chuck caught the ear of one of the bad ass looking dudes manning the front counter. He started his pitch as I was paying for my purchase so I didn't hear how it started out but by the time I had wondered over I was able to hear the answer. Turns out they would be open to putting books on the shelves on a consignment basis. The rub, they'd only do my books, The Shocker Trilogy, because they had something to do with metal and/or music. As any consignment goes, it would be my responsibility to check in periodically if anything sold and to claim my part of the money or to see if the books had moved at all. He kept pointing out I could come in and pull them from consignment any time I'd like which I took at his subtle hint that he didn't think the books would move.

I pretty much agree with the guy. But he was also quick to point out some people like to put their stuff up for consignment and just let it ride out whatever time on the shelves as nothing more than exposure of having it out there. So, the option is there. I'll have to debate myself on the pros and cons. At least its not a once in a lifetime opportunity and I can head over there if I decide to go in on the opportunity. We shall see.

After Vintage Vinyl we still thought it would be a good idea to reward ourselves with lunch and perhaps a beer. So we drove a bit further up Route 1 and went to Jose Tejas, a Mexican cantina that is always crowded and with good reason, the food there is always on point. We waited and snickered at Chuck being impatient five minutes into our promised twenty minute wait for a table. We were seated in a very reasonable amount of time considering the enormous crowd waiting for a table. We had some Mexican yum-yums and perhaps a cerveza or two.

Swordfish Tacos, Grilled Avocado and Grazing Portion

All in all, another successful writing retreat. I am really enjoying doing these sporadically. There is no doubt it helps my output a great deal. When we are all sitting around and the other guys are tapping away when we might normally take an innocent five minute break, it makes us keep writing that story. I wrote nearly 2500 words in four hours. That's the kind of numbers I was getting when I was briefly unemployed.

So until the next retreat and reward, hope I've entertained and/or inspired you to get social with your friends and let yourselves be creative in the company of one another no matter what it is you are creating.

And let me know if you think I should get some copies of the Shocker Trilogy into consignment at Vintage Vinyl in the comments below. I'd love to know what you would do in my position!

Music In Hell

BRATS IN HELL was written on a steady diet of Satanic inspired music. Though the story is horror comedy, Frank J. Edler felt keeping the tone of hell required maintaining a certain mood while writing the parts in Hell. This is an exposition of the music that inspired the the underworld of BRATS IN HELL.

I don't normally write with music on. I find it distracting. But for some reason, when it came time to write BRATS, I felt I needed some extra oomph to stay in that zone. True, I was writing a comedic version of Hell, but I still felt the story needed to keep this misfit, chaotic mood for these demons to exist in.

I though about how I saw the demons in my head. I honed their visage from metal album cover art. Two particular albums lent themselves heavily to how I saw these demons and the world they existed within. First is Rob Zombie, particularly White Zombie era Rob Zombie art. I always loved that type of demonic/satanic art. Its colorful and vibrant and conversely gross and disfigured. The Hell that exists in BRATS IN HELL is like that. There are several 'species' of demons which are identified by their primary color and their behavioral demeanor.

More over Rob Zombie type demons, I really saw my demons as the demons from a lesser know cover, Dangerous Toys "Pissed" album. They are a little trickier to pick up on. They are crawling out of the corners from the central image of the Dangerous Toys iconic clown. If you owned they album you saw bigger, isolated images of these demons on the inside folds of the liner notes. These demons were more sinister looking. They were were green and purple and red but they were darker shades of those cover. And they had a mischievous vibe about that. Also, they also had a sense of coming from a communal place where as Zombie's demonic figures are very singularly identified.

So these were the demons I saw in my mind as I wrote the story. I played a lot of Rob Zombie and Dangerous Toys as a result. I found it helped keep me in the zone of the atmosphere of Hell.

I took to Spotify and began to see out more Satanic, creepy, dark music. I knew to go to Venom's "Evil In A League With Satan" which was probably played the most during the writing of BRATS.




But BRATS IN HELL isn't a deeply dark story. I found Twisted Sister's "Burn In Hell" fit the mood of the book perfectly. Anyone familiar with the song probably recalls it being played in the movie Pee Wee's Big Adventure . The song, a dark, growling anthem stands in stark contrast to the silly mood of a Pee Wee Herman movie. If there were a soundtrack to BRATS this would be the lead song on the album.




Those who've not yet read BRATS IN HELL may not realize the book not only takes place in Hell but a good chunk of the book also is set in Heaven. For those more pure moments I turned to more "heavenly metal" to put myself in the proper state of mind. So in order to shift gears from Hell to Heaven I had to find a way to cast the devil out of my mind. The answer was simple, play Stryper's "To Hell With The Devil"




Before I sat down to write BRATS IN HELL, I found trying to listen to music, any music while writing a complete distraction. For BRATS I felt I really need to sink myself into a frame of mind while writing in the setting of Hell. The only way I figured could help that would be to listen to dark chugging heavy metal music with Satanic sounding lyrics.

I don't know if that mindset poured out onto the page but without a doubt it helped me chug though the writing and held my normally jocular, upbeat psyche down in a dark space for a little longer than it cared to linger.

I haven't written anything since that I've felt I needed to force a state of mind for. I do listen to music as I write from time to time. I try to play stuff I'm not familiar with so I don't start focusing on the lyrics and get distracted and start singing along. It's nice to have something in the background sometimes and serves the dual purpose of being able to discover new music at the same time.

I wonder, do you play music while you read? I thing that would be an even bigger distraction that listening while writing. What songs do YOU think would make a great BRATS IN HELL playlist?