So this all started innocently enough. Most every day I post a “song of the day” on Blip.fm, and broadcast it to Twitter and Facebook. A couple of weeks ago, I posted a great live version of Matthew Ryan’s “Guilty,” the lead track on his first album. I wrote this:

“SOTD: Matthew Ryan – Guilty. With MR’s new album out, I went back to revisit his first. Anger w/guitars replaced by resignation and drum machines. http://blip.fm/~16kmew”

I’m friends with Ryan on Facebook, so he saw the post and responded with this:

“Surprised you hear resignation on the new album John.”

I countered with, “Ah, the perils of fitting a coherent thought into Blip.fm’s 140-character limit. The larger point was that you seem to have made the shift many so-called ‘Angry Young Men’ have, resigning yourself to the fact that things are the way they are and learning to cope with the aftermath (both personally and globally) rather than rail against it. Regardless, I love the new stuff as well as the old (though I do love it when you fire up the electric guitar).”

To Matthew’s credit, he responded, “Let’s discuss this!”

We took the conversation private, if only so that we wouldn’t be hampered by Facebook’s own limitations on length, with the idea of posting the entire conversation here. I typically conduct Q&As in lazy fashion, sending a batch of questions, getting responses and then running the results. Having already been burned by using shorthand to get a point across, I decided that something more organic and reactive was needed. Matthew agreed, and what follows is our conversation.

Before we get into it, let me thank Matthew publicly. Few artists have the guts to discuss their work so openly and candidly. The result is a conversation that I hope opens people up to what is not only one of Matthew’s best albums, but one of the best albums of the year, I Recall Standing As Though Nothing Could Fall.

TIRBD: I have come to realize that I am a music listener first, a lyrics/vocals listener a distant second. I can listen to a song for years without really paying attention to everything going on lyrically, only to be surprised when it finally registers. If something doesn’t grab me musically — a hook, a beat, a feel — it’s lost to me. I can think of one act whose lyrics alienated me after the music hooked me: Fountains of Wayne, a band I once loved, and whose music is right in my wheelhouse — well-crafted power pop with hooks galore — but whose lyrics I find too cute to the point that they’re now cloying.

So, I came to your music because of, well, the music. Your first two albums were a visceral rush; yes, the angry young man thing. I heard defiance, a simmering rage, some self-loathing. And again, this was largely divorced from the lyrics. It was the sound of the music that conveyed this, the medium as message, I suppose. Subsequent works seemed more resigned, more jaded, but also, as you have pointed out, perhaps cautiously optimistic.

Spending a lot of time with the new album on headphones, the songs have opened up lyrically for me, and what I took for resignation and frustration on the surface comes across now as a guarded sense of hope. It’s as if you are more hopeful than you think you have the right to be, and you’ve undercut yourself — consciously or not — but conveying these lyrics on a bed of melancholy only occasionally shot through with the verve that suggests conviction. There is doubt here, again more in the feel of the album than in the words.

I don’t mean to suggest that this is a failing on your part; far from it. Rather, it’s a way to make the songs more complex, more resonant. They can mean one thing today, another tomorrow. The result is probably your most finely crafted, textured album of your career.

MR: I’ve often wished I approached what I did when writing and recording in a more Amish light so to speak. Simpler. Because what I’m often trying to communicate is complex. Not that it isn’t direct, because it is. I admire what Justin Townes Earle has done. And I love what Gillian Welch does with Dave Rawlings. The Gaslight Anthem, Frightened Rabbit. These are all some fairly recent things that I like as well. And they all communicate directly from a point of view.

But I guess in my work I’m looking for our humanity in what feels like a chaos of sorts. Again, both in the intimacies of our lives and in the larger plots of social and literal upheavals. A lot of the characters I write about are both heroic and sometimes complicit in the wrong turns we take. But above all they persevere because I guess in my heart of hearts I believe that we are good engines.

The music that I’ve been laying my stories over for the last few years is intentional. And I believe I do it to symbolize the numbing beauty of the information age and how it surrounds (particularly) us in western culture. These are very new challenges to our humanity. New technologies always ease things for us, but they also confront, change and challenge us in ways we rarely expect. The explosion of media, information and speed in our culture has made for a fascinating landscape. Both dangerous and incredibly useful. But as always, we’re still human.

I guess in short, what you may have initially taken as resignation is in my mind what the act of perseverance sounds like. It’s an inch-by-inch reclamation of intimacy with the self in a blizzard.

I’m all for simple, but complexity is what keeps people coming back, be it musical, lyrical or otherwise. I love the idea of you trying to convey the “numbing beauty of the information age” in your music. That would certainly explain my takeaway of resignation.

That word, resignation, seems to be our flashpoint, the unfortunate choice when trying to sum up your recent work in a word. Are you familiar with Greg Brown? He’s an Eastern Iowan, like me, writing often about the Midwest. He is singing more directly, but gets at some of what you’re talking about. It’s less resignation than a warning: This is how it is now, and in some cases it’s exactly what you wanted. Good luck. The best is “Your Town Now” (http://youtu.be/tDLn29ByeoY).

And yes, perseverance is a much better word. It doesn’t connote giving up. Perhaps an acceptance that things are the way they are, but not assuming (or allowing) it will always be thus.

Greg Brown is one of my favorite writers. I swear I can hear shadows of his song “Brand New ’64 Dodge” in the melody of the song I keep mentioning, “This Is the Hill.” I’m not afraid to admit my influences and they range from dirty soil gravel like Mr. Brown’s and Bob Dylan’s to the ethereal beauty of Eno and The Blue Nile to the melancholy of early Sinatra and Joy Division; to the grand fists of The Clash and U2. All of it leans to define our humanity’s ability to remain a glowing hopeful heart vs. all the things that undermine and oppress. We are living in uncertain times with a confluence of technology and philosophies seemingly determined to tear us apart and isolate us. I am committed to be part of something that glues us back together and gives us maybe just a glimpse of our skin in all the flash and quickness. I believe that’s an important part of my occupation.

Much of I Recall Standing As Though Nothing Could Fall is trying to communicate with the generations younger than us, John. I wrote the songs with them in mind. Some are even talking just directly to them. I hope some of them hear it. It’s understandable that it overwhelms us at our age. Every generation is and should be challenged by the ideas, culture and dreams of the generation behind it. But today there is something more troubling going on. And I worry how young people will respond, or how they feel about what they see and experience. They’re marketed to in ways we never experienced. Or at least by the time the flood started, we we’re old enough to discern. The disinformation via outlets is constant. I’m not saying they can’t find their truths and their happiness. But it sure seems a higher wall to climb these days. All of this and I haven’t mentioned the political landscape and the friction between philosophies and the debates over global issues and climate change and water and capitalism and unions and farming and food and pollution and security and work and religion and on and on and on. Geez, most peculiar times.

This leads perfectly into a topic I’ve wanted to cover: the evolution of the sound/style of your music. You began as a pretty straightforward guitar-bass-drums guy, and then introduced more textures with subsequent albums. Did that feel like a natural evolution, using the sounds you needed to properly convey the songs the way you wanted them to sound? I wonder too if it had anything to do with moving to a smaller label and doing things more on your own. It’s easier to use a drum machine than to book studio time and line up a drummer, I would imagine.

Then, as you’ve moved more fully into your current sound, which blends folk, rock and electronics rather seamlessly, do you embrace that as a better way to communicate with the younger generation?

That’s an interesting question and I want to try and answer it as honestly as I can. I wouldn’t say it’s been a necessarily conscious decision. More like a series of trees lying over the road that lead me to take several turns to get where I was headed. And I promise you, the sound will change again. I’m still searching.

But from there to here… I guess the first thing that I noticed when touring with May Day was that the room was full of men. And at that time, they were generally older than me. It was kind of weird, ya know? I wanted to reach all people. All races, nationalities and sexes. So that kind of put me off a little. Not that I have anything against men. Just, you know, diversity is a sign of real communication.

Second, and I don’t mean this creepily, I felt like there was some sex missing in a good bit of my earlier records. Though East Autumn Grin started to rub up against something. Pun kind of intended. But that would be my one complaint about the Alt Country/Americana scene that I came up in, the music generally has no sex. I know how this sounds. But real sex operates on a very primal level. Sex is part of Rock ‘n’ Roll. It’s essential to it actually. So that led me to want to understand feel and groove a little better. I actually experimented quite a bit with that on an album that never came out between East Autumn Grin and Concussion. If that album had come out, none of what I’m doing now would be a surprise. It was very ambient and beat driven and yes, even in 2000 I had one of the songs remixed by a NYC DJ whose name escapes me. I thought the emergence of house and techno was exciting because it was all about sex and freedom. Yes, it was formulaic and they had no songs, but they presented a degree of liberty and rage that rock music wasn’t really dealing in.

God, I’m going on and on. But I also grew up loving Eno and Joy Division as much as I love Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. So honestly, these were all elements I wanted to welcome and hopefully help to redefine what a singer/songwriter can be. Because to be blunt, I love songs but the production for a lot of singer/songwriter stuff bore me to tears. It has no cinema. The good stuff always has cinema. Whether it’s produced into to it, or it’s just there by some magical means. Nick Drake had cinema. It wasn’t insert white guy here. He was special.

The other reasons were utilitarian. Particularly after I left the majors. The budgets were such that I couldn’t fully cast my records in the way I could on A&M. And that led to just accepting at times what I felt were performances or approaches on songs that weren’t quite right. There are few things worse for a songwriter than feeling that you did a disservice to a song. It’s hard enough to get a song heard, let alone if it’s wearing a funny hat and has got a wedgie because that day in the studio was clown car day. So I concluded that it’s unfair to hold others responsible for what imagination or my mouth seems unable to communicate. They weren’t getting paid enough to be put through too many paces. So I decided I would take the responsibility on myself and do the very best I could to get the music from inside my head to some recorded medium. Lately that’s a computer and some dented mics. And it’s been a very exciting journey into the unknown for me. These albums have been real exploratory and visceral challenges. I’m just as proud of them as I am of my big budget albums, partially because I shaped them with my own hands. This process is more like painting than being in a street gang. But like I said, that’s changing again. I feel a more gang approach guitar oriented album coming very soon. The idea is exciting me again. And that’s only when you should do something creative, when it excites you.

“This Is the Hill” is obviously a very hopeful track and clearly means a lot to you. Why is it a bonus track and not on the album proper? It fits with other tracks thematically (“I Want Peace,” “I Still Believe In You”).

“This Is the Hill” was intended as a postscript to the album, almost a summation or a provocation of sorts for a solution to the themes, troubles and heartaches on I Recall Standing As Though Nothing Could Fall. This album is looking at the small in us to find the big so to speak.

My writing over the years has changed from introspection and probably a fair amount of self-obsessed to a wider screen. There are some lines in a song called “We Will Not Be Lovers” by The Waterboys that have always stuck with me, and I’m pretty sure altered how I view us, all of us.

“Now the world is full of trouble, and everyone is scared. Landlords are frowning and cupboards are bare. And people are scrambling like dogs for a share. It’s cruel and it’s hard but it’s nothing compared to what we do to each other.”

Those lines kill me. They ring truer to me now than when I first heard them. The macro is found in the micro and vice versa. “This Is the Hill” traces a similar line, it is far from resigned. In fact it’s frustrated and disgusted. Many of the songs on I Recall Standing As Though Nothing Could Fall are tricky, they look like one thing, but they’re about something else. For instance, “I Still Believe In You” could be taken about two people, maybe lovers. But, it can also be about the minutia that separates up from our dreams. YOU in that song could be the dream itself, or YOU could be all of us, and our ability to preoccupy ourselves with diversion and entertainment while on many levels checking-out on the real plots in our lives as individuals and collectively.

Pablo D’Stair’s novella this letter to Norman Court, which was serialized across several blogs over the past few weeks (including this one) wrapped up today with the 22nd and final installment over at David Cranmer’s blog, Education of a Pulp Writer. Thus wraps up one of the more interesting crime fiction-related happenings of the year.

Did you fall behind? Did you never catch on in the first place? Never fret. There are several ways to go about reading this compelling work. First, you can skip blog to blog like the rest of us did and follow the story. Pablo offers a handy guide here. Or, if you can’t stand the thought of clicking through all of those sites (though their owners would surely thank you), Pablo makes it even easier: You can download an ebook of this letter to Norman Court at Smashwords, for free. That’s right — for damn near any possible ereader there is out there, Pablo’s novella is free.

But that’s not all. The book is part of a five-book set, called the Trevor English Series, and the second in the series, Mister Trot from Tin Street, also is available in ebook form from SmashWords. Get it here.

The third of the series, Helen Topaz, Henry Dollar, will be serialized starting the first week of July at Thunderdome, with sections posted twice weekly.

Last but not least, for those of us who still revel in words printed on honest-to-goodness pages, Pablo has what you need. Paperback copies of the first two novellas straight from Amazon will be available for $3.95 as of July 1.

That’s a lot of reading to be had at a great price, no matter your preferred format. So, log on and get reading.

Today on TIRBD: A rare guest post, this one from writer Pablo D’Stair, who is serializing his captivating novella, this letter to Norman Court, across several blogs and sites over the course of the the next few weeks. Take it away, Pablo:

this letter to Norman Court is a novella consisting of 22 sections (each around 1250 words) I am releasing by way of the following experiment: I am trying to serialize the piece across blogs, by reader request.  If you read and enjoy the section below and have a blog the readers of which you think would enjoy a selection, as well, please get in touch with me to be an upcoming host.  A little hub site is set up at www.normancourt.wordpress.com that has a listing of the blogs that have featured or will feature sections—please give it a look, get yourself all caught up if the below piques your interest.

It is my simple hope to use this as a casual, unobtrusive way to release this material to parties interested.  There is some suspense, in that if a new host does not appear after each posting, the train comes to a halt (back tracking to previous hosts is not an option in this game).  So, if you enjoy what you read and would like to host an upcoming selection, please get in touch with me via unburiedcomments@gmail.com.  (As of now, 4 slots remain out of the 22) I welcome not only invitations, but any and all comments on the piece (positive, negative, or ambivalent) or general correspondence about matters literary.

Cheers,
Pablo D’Stair

—————————————-

This letter to Norman Court, part 8

Before I left to wait around would Lawrence show up, I ducked into my room with the new photocopy I’d made of the letter, the motel office.  I debated should I slip it in the original envelope, or how exactly should I play it?  With Klia, it’d been almost obvious I’d give her the original letter, at least some hope at peace of mind, but the thing was different here as flat fact I was only gaming Lawrence with a replica.  It didn’t mean he was any less in tight he didn’t pay me out the two thousand I’d be charging, but this little tick of propriety held me up, especially through the blur of the second handful of medicine tablets getting up over me.

Shouldn’t I save the envelope for Herman, some connection to the actual—yes, I decided finally, touching at my lip to find it wet, a sleeve of mucus over it, if there was someone to keep up appearances for it was Herman, Lawrence more a sitting duck I just needed to give the spook to, nothing much of consequence.

I took a seat on some shop steps across from the movie theatre, the plumbing shop in view kind of peripheral, mostly obscured by a shut closed kiosk set to the sidewalk. I smoked and shivered, any chirp of wind a bit different in pitch taking my attention.

It was getting ten past eleven when headlights came up against the theatre face, over the kiosk, little ugly car parked, shut off, the driver keeping put.  When no one’d emerged after five minutes, I made a casual stroll to the plumbing shop door, gave it a tug, started to walk away after a glance at the car window I couldn’t see through—behind me heard it open, thump shut a dull crack kept mute by the chill, was around the corner, new cigarette just going when Lawrence wandered around.

-If I’m to believe everything I read, you’re quite the kisser.

He seemed terrified, not at all the sort I’d pegged him for, easy flab to him, relaxed into his role as husband and daddy.

-How old’s the youngest? I asked, a little tense he’d not gone ahead with so much as a What do you want? in the minute already he’d been there.

-She’s four.

-Thing here is I can have as many of these made as I feel like, print them up one a week enough I’d get quite a following I managed to get place let me leave them around.

I handed him the photocopied pages.

-Klia’s good with words, don’t know if it’s flattery or what, but she knows how to fill a page—page five’s a real example, you get there yet?

He hadn’t even looked through them, so I suppose he had the idea.  I stifled a rising sneeze, sucked phlegm and spit, a long string of it thick from over my chin to my coat sleeve, didn’t bother with tugging at it, just took a bit in with a slurp and went right on.

-You can see I’d rather be taking sick time, just today, so we’ll do this easy—you get me two thousand, it’s the last you’ll have to think about it.

It was like it hadn’t occurred to him this was going to be the thing, he seemed at a loss.

-When?

I wiped my palm up over my nose, roughed it into the coat over my ribs.

-Anytime works for you, Stephanie, or what else it’ll be is right now, what do you think when?

-I don’t have two thousand dollars.

-Even I have two thousand dollars, it can’t be that hard to come by.

-Not in cash.

I spit a long dribble down onto the pavement, made a real thing out of leaning forward, stubbing my cigarette in it, tapping down on it dainty with my shoe toe.

-This town have a bank, cash machine?

-I can’t take out two thousand.

I sneezed, two lines of mucus I felt them slick out my nose, a sheet over my upper lip, didn’t touch to clear the mess, stepped in close to Lawrence.

-You might think it’s something people’d think charming  you’re out getting some dowdy housewife to feel she’s found that secret someone while meanwhile your own wife’s at home growing your kids up, but I don’t think generally it’ll play off that way.  You think I think you own a shop and there’s not some two thousand dollars cash you can get your hands on in a pinch?  I’d start thinking with your head right, because that’s just exactly what this is, understand me?

And sick to death of the words tasting of wet salt, I scooped at my face, a loose handful, wiped it a streak across Lawrence’s coat front.  This seemed to put the matter to him a bit more pointedly, because like a light had gone off his arms came up appeasing.

-Alright, yes, I hadn’t been thinking that.  There’s money.

-Golly, is there?  You keep that here or the store?

-The store.

I nudged my nose he should turn and walk and as he got the door open, just after I told him I’d wait in front, he said I don’t have money, this isn’t my money, really, this is payroll, I wasn’t thinking about it.

-That sounds like it’ll be a real headache, Larry—hey, maybe I’ll put a rock through the window to make it look suspect for you, alright?

He seemed he almost thought the offer was serious, probably he’d swing back by later, do just that very thing except he seemed just smart enough it’d occur to him someone probably was watching us one of these little town windows and that was bad enough, some gossip might make it back his wife’s way, no need to give himself any more to dig up out of.

The whole time he was in the shop, I was sneezing, both hands over my face, warm bursts of breath up over my eyes, spilled over my cheeks, three sneezes I’d have a good fistful of slop, kept roughing it on the brick by the glass of the window.

He handed me the letter back with the money, so I gave it back across, but he stepped away, head shaking, wanted nothing to do with it, didn’t even want to chance getting rid of it himself in case some little sliver would set off an alarm.

-There’s over three grand in there, you’ll see, alright?  There isn’t anything else.

I eyed him, peeked in the bag he’d given me, just as quickly knelt and trundled it into my duffle.

-That’s payroll, right, nothing really to do with you. There a cash machine around?

He looked like he was going to cry. I thought of Klia, but really the comparison was ugly—she’d at least seemed devastated, this guy just seemed a kid I’d outsmarted him he thought he’d drink one soda already while reading the magazines then just pay for another to take with him.

-You said two thousand, there’s almost four in there.

-Then I’m sure another five hundred’ll make it four and’ll save me even thinking about a return trip any time soon, right?

He said Klia’s name, but it was a weird blurt, I couldn’t catch any tone of context in it, might’ve even been he’d been telling me Go get the rest from her.  But he fell in to step, I followed him up the way to a cash machine outside the bank, snorting and feeling my stomach loose and ready to turn, hand to grit my teeth and clench my buttocks.

He practically slapped the money at me so I struck him across the mouth with the side of my fist, not hard enough it’d hurt him, I didn’t think, but he just kept there, face to the wall like he was seething but knew what’d happen he lost check.

-In fact you put your head against that little wall and you count two hundred, Steph.  I’m walking that way, but I give your house a call twenty minutes, it’d better be you picks up.

I ran my hand over his shoulder a last time like I was using him as a tissue, though I wasn’t, sneezed in to that same hand by the time I was half block off in whatever random direction I’d went.

Pablo D’Stair is a writer of novels, shorts stories, and essays.  Founder of Brown Paper Publishing (which is closing its doors in 2012) and co-founder of KUBOA (an independent press launching July 2011) he also conducts the book-length dialogue series Predicate.  His four existential noir novellas (Kaspar Traulhaine, approximate; i poisoned you; twelve ELEVEN thirteen; man standing behind) will be re-issued through KUBOA as individual novellas and in the collection they say the owl was a baker’s daughter: four existential noirs.

Things have been moving at a furious pace in the world of The Feelies of late, keeping in mind that things were moving rather slow for two decades.

After hanging it up in 1991 for what would become a 20-year hiatus, the band has been on fire, relatively speaking. First came leader Glenn Mercer’s 2007 solo debut, Wheels in Motion. That was followed in 2008 by some dates by a reunited band (this includes Mercer, guitarist Bill Million, drummer Stanley Demeski, bassist Brenda Sauter and percussionist Dave Weckerman) and word that Mercer and Million were again writing songs.

That brings us to 2011, and the improbable event of the release of the Feelies fifth album, the majestic Here Before. Indeed, it feels as if we have been here before, with an album that could be the logical successor to 1986′s The Good Earth, a collection of songs that blend the pastoral wash of acoustic guitars with the more frenetic picking of electric strings. There are subtle changes from when we last heard the band, as just a touch of studio sheen is replaced by a slight hint of experimentation. But this is a Feelies record, and a very good one at that.

All of this isn’t as unlikely as one might gather from the above. Pre-2007, however, it might have been. But when Mercer began recording what he called his “Feelie-ish” solo debut, he called is old bandmates for assistance. Million, who had decamped in 1991 for Florida, said was interested, but the timing was off, Mercer told me in 2007. “It just didn’t seem right to call it a Feelies record without Bill’s involvement.”

Fast forward a year, and Million is back playing with the reunited band, and the prospect of a new album became strong.

Some have assumed that the lyrics make direct reference to the band’s return, and it’ easy to hear. Opener “Nobody Knows” begins with the lines “Is it too late/To do it again?/Or should we wait/Another ten?” Mercer debunks that, a bit, below. But regardless of what the band thinks of the return, fans are sure to rejoice. The Feelies are among the few bands without a real misstep, and Here Before continues that streak effortlessly.

TIRBD: Much has been made of some of the lyrics here, where songs bookending the album refer to “doing it again.” Do those songs reference the band getting back together, and if so, what was the mindset of the band while recording those tracks?

GM: Most of the reviews have mentioned the opening line as being a reference to the reunion, and there may be some connection to that, but the song is more about the lines, “well, you never know how it’s gonna go.” It’s mostly dealing with the balance between trying to exert control over circumstance and accepting whatever life is presenting to us. We’ve always been more successful when being reactive, rather than pro-active, in terms of our “career.” In regards to the song “So Far,” that really doesn’t have much to do with our reunion and it’s more about my life in general and that’s also true of “Nobody Knows.” The phrase “do it again” doesn’t imply any specific reference to the passage of time.

What has the chemistry been like being together again, particularly playing with Bill?

I wouldn’t want to go too far toward analyzing what makes our band’s chemistry what it is, but I appreciate that we have a particular sound that comes only from the combination of the five of us. In general, it comes from the way we each approach our instruments. I think our chemistry remains in place because we still have the same approach. Our playing may be more refined, but our approach is still the same. As far as playing with Bill, we share a sympathetic style that requires very little, if any, communication or analysis. We just play with a dynamic that is effortless.

You mentioned around the time of your solo album that the absence of Bill Million was the difference between that being your solo debut or the fifth Feelies album. Now that he’s back, what is the difference in the music being made? Do you write differently when you know it’s for a Feelies project, or are the songs the same but simply performed differently by these players than others?

My approach when writing songs was the same for the Feelies as when I was working on Wheels in Motion. Because Dave, Stan and Brenda played on some of those tracks, it sounds similar to the Feelies in some ways, but it also has a sound of its own because of how and where it was recorded. I didn’t really know if I was actually making a record when I did Wheels. I didn’t have a deadline, or even a label at that time. It was made over the course of several years, in connection with me putting my home studio together. The most obvious difference between the two is that my solo record didn’t have any writing collaborations with Bill.

Should we be amazed at how much of a piece this feels with your past work given the 20 years that transpired between Time for a Witness and Here Before?

I’m not surprised when I hear it suggested that Here Before picks up where the other records left off. Each of those records had its own sound, while maintaining common threads throughout. We didn’t set out to make the new record sound any particular way, except to maintain the same basic feel that we had on the demos. When we play live, there are many variables that contribute to the sound – room size, ceiling height, PA specs, stage set-up, etc. – and we always sound like us. The same is true when recording. Despite the variables, we really can’t help sounding like us. It’s also true when we play or record cover songs, we still sound like us.

The Feelies has been a tremendously influential band, but still no one sounds exactly like you do. Do you hear that influence in younger bands, and what qualities do you feel the band has that make it unique?

It’s flattering to hear that we’ve been influential on other, younger bands, but whenever I listen to other groups that supposedly sound like us, I never hear the similarities, only the differences. Again, I’d prefer not to get too analytical about why we sound unique. For the most part, it’s all very organic and natural and is a result of the sum of the various components.

I first got to know Craig McDonald and his work through his first book, the interview collection Art in the Blood. As a reader of crime fiction, I found it to be a goldmine. It was full of interviews with some of my favorite writers in the genre. And the term “interview” doesn’t really do these justice, not when a handful of questions e-mailed back and forth like, say, this one, can qualify. These were insightful, in-depth conversations that likely taught their subjects as much as the eventual readers.

When I learned that McDonald was going to publish his first novel, 2007′s Head Games, I knew it would be worth investigating. Now, I’ll admit, while I was sure someone with McDonald’s depth and breadth of knowledge about crime fiction, and demonstrated way with words would mean he could write a decent book, I did worry that it would be like reading a term paper written by someone unwilling to leave a shred of research in his notebook. I shouldn’t have worried. Yes, his books are full of historical details, but those details are woven seamlessly into very crafty, intricate plots in such a way that the truth and the fiction blend into something that always places the story at the fore. McDonald’s novels are enriched by his knowledge and research, never burdened.

Which brings me to his fourth novel in as many years, the fantastic One True Sentence. It again follows Hector Lassiter, McDonald’s rakish pulp writer, and his friend, the very real Ernest Hemingway, as they work to figure out who is killing off the small literary magazine editors in 1924 Paris. Unlike earlier books that followed these two — Toros and Torsos and Print the Legend — here the two writers are much lesser known, their careers more promise than production. It is interesting to see these two in such a formative state (and yes, it feels like they are equals, in writing and in terms of character; McDonald’s real gift, on full display here, is in rendering his fictional characters in realistic fashion and the real people as believable characters within the story who happen to share the name, traits and accomplishments of those upon which they are based).

I won’t share more of the plot than this, because it is so intricate and captivating that readers deserve to discover it for themselves. Suffice to say that McDonald’s mix of characters both real (Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas and others) and fictional (the mystery novelist Brinke Devlin, Hector’s love interest and perhaps McDonald’s most fully realized character beyond his main protagonist) come alive in this altogether satisfying novel.

The bad news is that we’ll have a year’s wait to get the next of his books, which will be the fifth of the seven total Lassiter books. The good news is that we have three more coming.

This is McDonald’s record-setting fifth Monday Interview, and as always, he is gracious, candid and enlightening.

To read about McDonald’s first author interview collection, Art in the Blood, click here.
To read about McDonald’s first novel, Head Games, click here.
To read about McDonald’s second author interview collection, Rogue Males, click here.
To read about McDonald’s third novel, Print the Legend, click here.

TIRBD: I know you have all of the Lassiter books written. As they are published and met with reader reactions and critical analysis, have you been tempted to go back and rework anything in the yet-to-be-published novels?

CM: In theory, that’s the dangerous thing about having all the unpublished books sitting here on my iMac: the prospect of endless tinkering. But, really, no, I don’t do much of that at all. I read all the reviews I’m made aware of and take what I can from them. Sometimes they result in a small tweak here or there. But at this point, the series is so tightly woven, that I resist big changes. It would create an ugly domino effect.

The other thing is, because the novels have jumped around in time and Hector’s later years were explored more fully in the first few novels, there is now a timeline and biographical record in place for the man you simply can’t screw with. Each editor, in theory, has a chance to put a stamp on each new book, but to date, Print the Legend was the only one of the Lassiters that changed in any significant way in editing.

This is the last Hemingway appearance in the books, correct? What has his presence meant for these stories, and what will his absence mean for the rest?

There are those who began to theorize this was actually a clandestine series about Hemingway, so that’s why, at the very opening of OTS, I make it clear it’s Hem’s swansong. What I was really going after with Hem’s presence in the series was a portrait of a writer who came up through all the phases and stages of 20th Century fiction — the ‘isms’ movements like modernism, etc. — and a look at how masculinity plays into that century and in art. Hemingway had to be at once a focal point and a counterbalance for Lassiter’s own brand of machismo.

But now, having more or less charted the length and breadth of the Hector/Hemingway arc, it’s time to broaden the scope and let Hector carry us through the middle- to late-20^th Century after Hem had pretty much abandoned the field. Hem’ll have a tiny cameo in the next-to-the-last-book, but that’s about it. There are those who thought Orson Welles was going to be a constant in the series, too, but he had his role and Orson, too, ran his course. The novel after One True Sentence has no historical figures whatever. The three novels left after that one will bring in some real people, but nobody, I think, anyone would expect.

You have had a rather torrid publication schedule over the past four years. Does it feel like you’re always either promoting a current book or ramping up to promote the next?

In a word, yes. My one great advantage has been the fact I have a tremendous backlog of material and, in theory, could go two-books-a-year for several years and never pick up a pen. That’s a very good thing given the amount of web promotion required now. Honestly, I feel this year like I’m one of a very few still going out on the road with a traditional tour this season. At the same time, I’m putting down thousands of words for guest blogs and essays, and I try, for all kinds of reasons, to really write those pieces and say something in them. I take everything I put my name to very seriously in that sense, and it’s a huge time-eater.

I assume that you have been writing in the four years since the Lassiter series was first published, and you have three more to go. That means it may be 2015 or so before we get the chance to read what you’re working on now.  Is that frustrating?

If the publishing world stayed the way it has always been, you’d probably be right about that time frame. But in this age of disruptive innovation — i.e., the eBook — it’s tough to say what next week will bring. I retained my digital rights for all my Bleak House books, and Art In the Blood. At this point, I’ve put out my own eBook of Toros & Torsos, and not done a lot of promotion of that fact, but I can honestly say, in a royalty sense, I’m making more from that version of T&T than the printed version to date here in the States. (France is a much different beast, where significant advertising is done on my behalf and I’m actually printed in mass-market paperback). I may yet put something out as an eBook exclusive just to see what happens. Head Games will go to eBook format in early March.

That said, you will also be seeing a standalone novel later this year from Tyrus. It’s the novel I wrote between Head Games and Toros & Torsos, and I approached Tyrus with it primarily because I wanted to do something with Ben LeRoy and Alison Janssen again. It’s a brave new publishing world and terrain and I’m aiming to explore it in a lot of different ways, tactically speaking.

You have shifted the order of the Lassiter books a bit, having originally intended One True Sentence to follow Toros & Torsos, and seemed to expect Roll the Credits, which is thus far unpublished, to follow Print the Legend. Do the books mean something different taken in this order rather than another?  Have there been drawbacks or benefits to changing their order?

That’s more tactics. The order changes are a function of various editors coming and going and my own reading of the zeitgeist. I definitely have a sequence in mind for publication order in the series – one with an eye toward evolving reader sentiment toward the Lassiter character – and the publication of One True Sentence as number four puts the series back on its intended path.

Have you had any nibbles from Hollywood? One True Sentence in particular has a story that is compact and action-oriented enough to seem perfect for the big screen.

Many nibbles for the first novel, including one from the actor I once thought would be perfect to play Hector circa Head Games. It’s heady when they come courting, but getting asked out? Elusive. So far, no inquiries about OTS, despite the fact that it is the most traditionally structured of all the novels.

You talk a lot about musicians like Tom Russell. Do you listen to music as you write? If not, do you find inspiration in music that ultimately results in something creative on your part?

Nearly always, I write to music and lyrics and mood help set pace, and, once in a while, plot points. Head Games was dedicated to Russell because his music was playing throughout the writing of the novel and, in fact, his cover of Jim Ringer’s “Tramps & Hawkers” inspired the Lassiter character in the most primal form. Lassiter 2, Toros & Torsos, was written to standards and vintage torch songs, but probably the most played-song in that novel’s writing was Bryan Ferry’s cover of “Where or When.”

One True Sentence was directly affected by — and written to — an album called Thumbelina’s One Night Stand by Melissa McClelland. When you detect the strand of self-destruction that runs through Melissa’s album, and you read OTS, I think you quickly see the nexus.

Part of me really wants “The Lincoln Lawyer” to tank.

Let me explain. Unlike many of my other favorite crime writers, Michael Connelly has had decent luck at the box office. Only one of his books has made it to the screen, and that was the decent Clint Eastwood film “Blood Work.” But several others are in various stages of development, and if this first of the Mickey Haller books is successful, the floodgates are likely to open and we’ll see more adaptations.

This could bring two problems: One, I’d rather see Connelly focus on Hieronymus Bosch. The Haller books are fine; I’m in the middle of the forthcoming The Fifth Witness right now, and it has me in its grip as usual. Haller is again wrapped up in a high-profile case (though this time Bosch is not really present). But The Bosch books are Connelly at his best, and though he has proven himself adept at the courtroom drama, there are plenty of those already. Well-written procedurals? Not so common.

Two, if the film is successful and more are made, Connelly will earn more money. A lot more. He’s surely doing all right, and I of course wish him the best. But comfort can lead to complacency. I want a hungry Connelly at the keyboard, not one cranking out another Haller book for the masses. That’s not to suggest that Connelly has or will phone it in, but I don’t want him to be nudged in that direction.

All of that is just a part of what I want. What I really want is for Connelly to be wildly successful. The guy has earned it. The source material is top notch. The Lincoln Lawyer as a novel is riveting, with a fast-paced plot of violence and deception. Connelly seamlessly transitions from the police side of the law to the attorney’s point of view, and has created a compelling protagonist in Haller. I don’t see Matthew McConaughey in the role, but I’ll reserve judgment until I see the finished product. The rest of the cast, from Marisa Tomei to William H. Macy to John Leguizamo, seems well chosen.

In the meantime, the folks behind Connelly’s books and the film have offered five copies of the mass market paperback version of the book and five copies of the movie poster for me to give away. So, here’s the deal: Leave a comment below by Feb. 11 listing what you think is the best movie adaptation of a crime fiction novel. I’ll randomly select five commenters and each will win a copy of the book and a poster.

In the meantime, here are some things to get you primed for the March 18 release of the film:

Read an except here

So, three years ago when R.E.M. was set to release Accelerate, I wrote a post about my ambivalence toward the album. It was derivative, pedestrian and uninspiring. It was better than Around the Sun, its awful predecessor, but what wouldn’t be? I eventually warmed to the album, listening to it quite a bit (certainly more than anything since New Adventures in Hi-Fi).

Here we are, three years later, and R.E.M. is set to release another album, Collapse Into Now. My verdict thus far: ambivalence over an album that sounds derivative, pedestrian and uninspiring. At this point, you’d be forgiven for thinking that maybe the problem is me.

I’ll argue to the end that Michael Stipe is perhaps the finest vocalist in rock music when it comes to creating a compelling vocal melody. As is clear by now, the musicians in the band – guitarist Peter Buck and bassist Mike Mills – usually bring music to the studio, where Stipe later adds vocals. Consistently, despite some rather bland seemingly uncreative backing, Stipe has crafted top-notch melodies that elevate the suspect source material.

That gift, coupled with a renewed burst of energy, propelled the best of Accelerate’s tracks. There was nothing new here; indeed, much of this sounded like R.E.M.’s back catalog jammed into a food processor and poured out into 3-minute servings. But the sheer verve of the performances made these songs sound fresh.

On Collapse into Now, the band seems to be masking a hangover from that period. The energy is still there, in smaller doses, but it seems to have taken its toll. This again feels derivative – is that “Drive” on “Uberlin?” And, um, what’s with the “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” vibe to “Discoverer?”

Admittedly, I’m basing this on 5/12 of the album – the songs the band has previewed thus far. That means the various guest turns from Eddie Vedder, Peaches and others remain unheard (but their presence smacks a bit of desperation).

Will my opinion change after I spend some time with the album? It’s likely. R.E.M. is among a handful of bands that get the benefit of the doubt. I’ll give them time and attention. With only one true dud in its discography, this is a band that has earned it. I hope something clicks. I’d hate to have to wait another three years for a decent R.E.M. album.

So, Guided by Voices is back, and save for what sound like a few missed chords and some forgotten lyrics (and they did that 16 years ago), no one was disappointed.

The band played to a less-than-sellout crowd in Dallas, and I’ve now seen a set list. So, comparing that to my “dream list” found in my previous post, they played 24 of the songs I hoped for (which is a good half dozen more songs than most bands play period) in a 39-song set. A few surprises — they pulled out “Break Even” from the Grand Hour EP and “Johnny Appleseed” from the Clown Prince of the Menthol Trailer EP, gave Tobin Sprout more time than I expected (that’s a good thing) and dropped “Drinker’s Peace” from 1990′s Same Place the Fly Got Smashed LP (which falls outside the ’92-’96 parameters of the show) into the set.

Things I hoped for that they did not play include “Over the Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox,” “Hardcore UFOs” and most of the deeper cuts on Under the Bushes, Under the Stars.
All in all, if I get to see shows like these, I’ll be  a happy man. In the meantime, I’m left with field reports and shaky videos. Here’s one of the better of the latter: