Music To Die To
A weird non fiction book that got turned into a weird novel
“Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they?”
That’s what Linda Martell says on “Spaghetti” from Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album. I couldn’t agree more.
When I decided to write a book defending ska, I didn’t realize how much of the conversation would revolve around the multiple, and often competing, notions of what ska is, exactly. While I saw validity in the different arguments on the topics—purists define the ska by key musical elements while others define it by cultural signifiers—I ultimately found myself not caring how we all define ska.
Music evolves. Genres are often labels applied after numerous rounds of pedantic, academic discussion. Sure, labels give hints or clues to the music you’re about to listen to, but “style” isn’t the only way a song or an album can be sorted or listed. I also love when genres names emerge organically from people messing around, like how Choking Victim jokingly decided their genre was called “Crack Rock Steady” and it later spawned an actual sub-genre of ska-punk that continues to this day.
I created a genre for my new book, a genre I really wish was out in the world, and I call it “Death Music.” It’s a genre linked by lyrics, or content, or subject, rather than stylistic elements, and in this case, the subject is death. It’s a style that’s all over pop music but never gets discussed as a single genre.
Mount Eerie’s A Crow Looked At Me, a dark folk album detailing Phil Elverum’s raw grief after losing his wife to cancer, would be considered death music (and is, in the novel I’m writing!). Old-timey country murder ballads are death music, too. Same with Weird Al’s “Christmas At Ground Zero.” And “Cop Killer” by Ice-T’s metal band, Body Count.
Before I settled on writing a novel, I wrote a nonfiction book proposal for a book that would bring my new genre to life in the real world, so to speak. I called it Music to Die To, and it got zero interest.
Pffft
.
But it’s for the best, because I’ve wanted to return to fiction for a while, now. Long ago, when I was young and living with my wife on the Vegas strip, surviving off of the tips of drunk gamblers, I wrote tons of fiction with big plans to break down literary walls with reams of weird-ass speculative fiction, something I was sure no one else was doing at the time (until my wife showed me Carlton Mellick III and the burgeoning world of Bizarro fiction. Oh, they were doing it, all right, much better than me, too). Then I was hired as a music journalist for a small paper, and my writing life has revolved around music ever since.
Now that I’m done (I think I’m done. Probably not done) with writing about ska in a professional capacity, it’s time to let my strange brain go wild and write fiction again.
A novel, in fact.
One with a guy who hosts a podcast on all things death music.
Who then discovers that he has a terminal illness.
And suddenly, death is no longer a romantic notion or a way to connect to his feelings through the emotions of others via playlist after playlist of meticulously curated death music, but a very real ending to a life possibly wasted, as they all tend to be, one way or another. What does our wayward hero do when faced with the prospect of actual death?
This is the premise of my book: Little Black Book of Death.
(I have to say thanks to my wife for the title; she requested it nicely by writing it right here as she edited this post.)
I’m about halfway into my first draft, and the deeper I get, the more I realize this book is more personal than I had initially thought it would be, like a snapshot of my brain and its hyper-fixation on music. I have OCD and GAD; both show themselves repetitively and with general trepidation. And my religious upbringing is here on these pages too; how said upbringing acted as a catalyst for atheism but also made it hard for me to be open to the “magic” of the universe.
The book, so far, is a journey—one for me, and hopefully, for you too. Starting this week, I’ll be posting weekly audio updates on the book, where I discuss what I’ve worked on during the week and share the background and motivations behind my decisions, likely revealing many personal insights that inform my choices as a writer. Once I start working on my second draft, I’ll post portions of it here for you to read.
If you’re interested in receiving weekly audio updates and reading periodic excerpts, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support goes a long way in helping me to write this book, as I am now retired from ska music journalism (probably. NO PROMISES! We’ll see…), and although my wife and I aren’t boogying for tips on the strip, we have a modest income and a dog with a huge ball habit. I hope you’ll join me in this creative process and feel free to share your thoughts and comments
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