A Phone Box Full of Books (Is My Name in There?)

I’m a big supporter of libraries. Where else can you walk in off the street, take out any book, DVD, CD home for weeks at a time (gotta love the fact that you can renew your loan on-line), and not pay a dime. If they don’t have the book/CD/DVD you’re looking for, you can even have it delivered to your local branch library from their city-wide collection. Pretty cool. I even send the NYPL a donation now and then to help support ‘em. As RIF says, "reading is fundamental."

There’s a small public library near one of the places I work, so I hit it every now and then during lunch. Admittedly, its collection is pretty limited (though its children’s library rocks), but like a bibliophile archeologist, I like rummaging through the stacks to see what surprises I can unearth.

Big score the other day was “1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die” (somehow appropriate given my love of music and as my 40th birthday looms over me next month – I’ve got another 40 good years at least, I hope, to go…). When I saw this book at Barnes and Noble last year, I wrote it off as some as some gimmicky tome of pap. But flipping through it, I discovered that its selection of albums from the 1950s through 2005 was pretty amazing – and that the majority of reviews were smart, insightful, and really well written. I was particularly impressed with the Post-punk/New Wave, Alternative, and Britpop albums they chose (and while they cover hip-hop fairly well, not enough reggae is in there, mates). Everyone will have their quibbles over what was excluded (as well as included), but it gets mad props for not playing it middle-of-the-road safe. Of course, it turns out that the editors and writers are British (compare this book to the relatively sucky Spin or Rolling Stone ‘best of music’ books, and they just aren’t up to the task). Might just have to actually buy this book.

If you’re looking for some good on-line music review sources for Alternative, Post-Punk/New Wave, and Reggae music, check out Trouser Press, All Music Guide, and PopMatters. AMG and PopMatters are updated daily, and Trouser Press has a pretty lively message board that is worth checking out frequently. I know there is a huge buzz about Pitchfork, but half the time I don’t know what the hell they’re talking about, and they tend to review a lot of rather obscure indie rock bands – who deserve the coverage – but they’re just not my scene.

Trouser Press started out as one of the first independent music magazines in the US (1974-1984) to cover the Post-Punk/New Wave scene back in the late 70s and first half of the mid 80s. The now out-of-print second edition of the “The Trouser Press Record Guide” was my music bible for the late-80s and early 90s – its one of my most prized music books (I really dig pop-culture reference type books – Leonard Maltin’s movie guide and one of the Guinness World Record books were throne reading throughout high school).

The reviews on AMG vary (though Stephen Thomas Erlewine’s critiques are usually spot on, and the ska and reggae reviews my Jo-Ann Green and Rick Anderson are quite good, as well -- disclaimer, I think I dealt with all of them when I was doing promotions and marketing for Moon Records in the 90s), but the scope of their coverage is mind-bogglingly massive. AMG also sends out a list of new releases worth checking out each Tuesday (when new CDs are placed on the shelves of record stores across the USA – something that is, most sadly, more and more of an anachronism in our iTunes/Amazon world).

PopMatters not only reviews albums and shows, they cover books, comics, movies, and other pop-culture related ephemera. Pretty good stuff.

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The "A phone box full of books/(is my name in there?)" lyric comes from The Clash's "Overpowered by Funk" from "Combat Rock."