Shoot Out The Lights

At Dog Canyon: Loud & Rich at the UT Ballroom, 11/7

2009-11-12T15:19:00.001-08:00

This is my first post for Dog Canyon, in which I review the Loudon Wainwright III/Richard Thompson show from last Saturday. Check it out!

Shoot Out The Lights in New Orleans this weekend

2009-09-16T09:58:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted here in a while because, well, I haven't been doing much to promote the book lately. But this weekend in New Orleans, The Susan Cowsill Band and Peter Holsapple will be performing Shoot Out The Lights in its entirety at Carrollton Station (8140 Willow St), starting around 8:30 on Saturday (that's Sept. 19).

The notice says:

The Susan Cowsill Band (Russ Broussard, drums, Mary LaSang, bass) is joined by Peter Holsapple for this special event on Saturday night. Peter, Susan and Russ are alumni of the illustrious Continental Drifters who did a fair amount of Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny songs over the years.

I'm working on a plan to be there. I'll list any cross-promotional things that come out of this. If you can make it, hope to see you!

Review at Blurt + Audio of Hammer Museum Reading

2008-12-12T13:44:00.000-08:00

Blurt Magazine has a review of Shoot Out The Lights online by the Rev. Keith A. Gordon. The good Reverend says:

If all this sounds confusing, well, it is... Childs provides a completely different way of looking at an album from the couple dozen previous 33 1/3 series books that I've read, and the first three or four chapters are difficult to slog through. By the end of the sixth chapter, though, the damn thing begins to make sense, and if you stay on the ride through the end, the insight proffered by Childs is rewarding as well as eye-opening.

Hayden Childs has definitely broken beyond the normal form of rock criticism with his take on Shoot Out The Lights, creating a review of some depth and intelligence, his critique as layered and textured as the album it explores. Whether you're a longtime fan of the Thompsons, or a listener just discovering the brilliant and disturbing Shoot Out The Lights, Childs' book provides the perfect guide to this difficult album.

Thanks! I feel pretty good about that one.

Also, for your pleasure, please take a listen to my reading at the Hammer Museum from October 29 of this year with Scott "If You're Feeling Sinister" Plagenhoef and Kim "In The Aeroplane Over the Sea" Cooper. You can't see the presentation (although maybe I'll figure out a way to put that up here sometime), but you can hear the commentary and music. Scott & Kim were fun co-presenters and the Q&A was a blast.

Edit: I'm unable to embed the player for some reason. The audio is here, though.

2nd edit: I think I worked it out.

Back from L.A.!

2008-11-03T08:01:00.000-08:00

Great reading, great experience. Scott Plagenhoef talked about Belle & Sebastian's aesthetic and the changing face of music fandom with the advent of the Internet and the access it provides. I showed Richard & Linda Thompson pictures, some courtesy of Blair Helsing, a new Internet pal who drums in the San Francisco jazz combo Echo Beach Band, and some graphic depictions of Dante's Inferno, while I read from the book. Kim Cooper read parts of her narrative about Neutral Milk Hotel and showed an artist's rendition of the lyrics to "Holland, 1945". We had a pleasant Q&A with the audience and signed some books. I had a number of great friends who showed, plus my brother flew down from the Bay Area. All in all, a wonderful experience. Thanks, Hammer Museum!

Also want to mention that it's 33 1/3 pitch time! Get your pitch together.

Reading in LA TOMORROW

2008-10-28T09:54:00.000-07:00

I can hardly believe it myself, but I will be reading from my book at the Hammer Museum in LA tomorrow evening at 7.

Incidentally, I learned a lot from this article, and I think you can, too. (Thanks to the RT List!)

3 x 33 1/3 at the Hammer Museum in LA

2008-10-21T12:23:00.000-07:00

It's free! Be there!*

* should you happen to be in the vicinity.

2008-10-07T08:31:00.001-07:00

I have a new gig as part of the crack team blogging about movies at The Screengrab, which is Nerve.com's movie page. My first post is up now. It ain't much, but it's a start. I'll post more for tomorrow.

LA Reading at Metropolis Books

2008-09-11T09:02:00.000-07:00

So, a week & a half ago, I read from Shoot Out The Lights at the delightful Metropolis Books in LA with Kim Cooper and David Smay. And it was fun! The picture above is from Pinky's Paperhaus, and it depicts my famous "man in a box with a microphone" mime routine.

I'm coming back to LA on October 29 to read at the Hammer Museum with Kim Cooper and Scott Plagenhoef. Don't miss it!

RT interview on Graeme Thomson's blog

2008-09-11T08:58:00.000-07:00

Graeme Thomson's new book I Shot A Man In Reno is about death in popular music, and it sounds fantastic. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Of interest here: Mr. Thomson was kind enough to post a wonderful interview with Richard Thompson on his blog.

Also of interest: Mr. Thomson had some entertaining posts while guest-blogging at Powell's Books.

More on the KEXP review + reading in LA on Saturday + sad news

2008-08-28T12:42:00.000-07:00

After I posted that last review, I had an amicable back & forth with Chris Estey in the comments thread. He had this to say:

I have to say I’ve been struggling a bit in hindsight with my criticism of your fictional aspect to the book. I was actually leery of your combining a fictionalized character with so much story behind such an important record being readily available, but you really did pull that element off well, too. Perhaps much better than I suggest in my final paragraph above. Other 33 1/3 volumes had done it, as had other writers elsewhere, to a less satisfying level of literature. Thinking back on it, you did a really good job of telling a story many of us can identify with — the feeling that the creator of an album (or story, for example) is a twin of ours, creating a disturbing simulation of our own existence. I had bought “Shoot Out The Lights” just before my deep, several-year engagement with a girl fell apart, and the LP didn’t seem to have any lyrics that couldn’t have been written about my own existence. You captured that weird energy between fan/listener and singer/songwriter so well that it’s been more memorable than a lot of other fiction I’ve read this year. So, well, I want to thank you and encourage people even more to check out your analysis of Richard & Linda Thompson’s (arguable tie for best) album, with less hesitation than my review originally stated. You’re a damned good writer!

Man! High praise, indeed. Thanks, Chris! If you're ever in Austin, let me buy you a beer.

Just a reminder: Don't forget I'm reading in LA at Metropolis Books on Saturday, August 30, at 6 pm with Kim Cooper and David Smay. It will be 33 1/3-tastic!

Also, finally with the sad news: Dave Smith, a scholar of Richard Thompson's music, recently passed away at the far-too-young age of 58. His book The Great Valerio, a close analysis of Richard Thompson's themes and inspirations, is a surprising and pleasurable read for all RT fans. And you can download it for free from the Internet. Do the man proud.

Another review + upcoming reading

2008-08-21T11:05:00.000-07:00

KEXP read my book! And mostly liked it! I can live surprisingly well with being called "too ambitious" by those guys.

Childs adds a fictional narrator, a philosophical folk rock doppelganger
who assesses the moves of the declining couple as his own life spins out of
control, in mordant comparison to Dante’s Inferno and Virgil’s Descent. I have
to admit that I found this part of the book a little distracting, and a mash-up
of perhaps more personal creative writing with a remarkably solid analysis of
the Thompson’s output ends up feeling too ambitious. (Childs is similar to
conceptually extrapolative Camden Joy, but gives a lot more of the archetypal
solid rock write trivia and insight.) Fortunately, this interwoven subplot is
pulled off enough not to ruin the spot-on observations and criticisms that fuel
the rest of the book. It shouldn’t keep you from reading it, and you should buy
the album Shoot Out The Lights immediately if you haven’t got it.

I have to point out that I don't mind this ambiguity some reviewers feel about the fiction in my story. I knew it would be offputting for some, but it serves the primary thesis ("Shoot Out The Lights is a song-cycle about living in Hell") by giving readers a narrator and arc to mirror the story of the Thompsons, plus it allowed me to revel in certain flavors of darkness that are, happily, not a part of my own life. I suppose one of the common threads in the cricitism is that the story and analysis could have been better integrated. Maybe so, but I should state that the back-and-forth between reality and fiction was intentional and meant to be somewhat comic (the fact that I am explaining this is a sign that maybe I failed at that). I meant Virgil's perpetual confusion and misery and sad-sackist intellectualism to lead him to jumble his honest reflections of the album Shoot Out The Lights with his own position as a fan, an outside observer, and the ultimately flawed guide to the album. He's less a poet from a bygone day than the creepy loner who narrates many of Richard Thompson's songs. But the fact that I am explaining this is another sign of failure. Therefore, by the logic of this paragraph, I can live with failure. QED.

In other news: PEOPLE OF LOS ANGELES! I'm reading with Kim "In The Aeroplane Over the Sea" Cooper and David "Swordfishtrombones" Cooper at Metropolis Books on August 30th at 6 pm! You will notice that all three albums under discussion have the distinct scent of nostalgia for an impossible past. What could be more fun than talking about that?

PLUS, if you have yet to do so, GET ON THE BUS. The "Crawling Down Cahuenga" Tom Waits tour bus, that is. If there's still availability, you owe it to yourself.

Reading at Grimey's with Will Kimbrough!

2008-08-21T08:55:00.001-07:00

The good people of Grimey's Records in Nashville made this possible. Here's a recording of the show from August 14, 2008. There's a couple of places where I may have stretched the facts a little bit in a belabored shot at being funny, but I think the truth is served. Also, when Will Kimbrough comes back to the mic late in the show, he mentions that when he met Richard Thompson, RT was the soul of human kindness. I agree with him, although it's inaudible on the tape (I'd already walked away from the mic), pointing out that I doubt Thompson or Linda Thompson Kenis were avoiding me out of spite, but more likely because I was asking them to discuss one of the most painful times in their lives.

Quick addendum: fellow 33 1/3 author John "The Who Sell Out" Dougan showed up. The guy is awesome, as is his book. Go buy it!

(Press the Play button below to hear the recording.)

Will Kimbrough burning up "Shoot Out The Lights"

Fat guy attempts jokes, bores friends and strangers:

Grimey's Reading, first notes

2008-08-18T08:49:00.000-07:00

I read from Shoot Out The Lights at Grimey's Records in Nashville last Thursday. Let me first say that Grimey's is an incredibly fantastic place, with a killer selection of music and a supercool, super-knowledgeable staff. Let me also say that Will Kimbrough, who is a great guy, tore the shit out of some Richard Thompson songs. And I stammered my way through a reading somehow. I have a recording that I'm thinking I'll post when I get the chance! Let me also say that John Dougan, the scribe behind the awesome 33 1/3 book on The Who Sell Out, also showed up, and he is also a super-cool guy. I very much enjoyed comparing notes about the writing of our respective books.

2008-08-05T09:38:00.001-07:00

I'm not going to be online often over the next week to 10 days, so I just wanted to mention that I'll be reading from Shoot Out The Lights in Nashville a week from Thursday, 8/14, at Grimey's New & Preloved Music at 6 pm with the incredibly awesome Will Kimbrough joining me to play some Richard Thompson songs. If you're in Nashville or thereabouts, come on down!

2008-07-29T09:08:00.000-07:00

33 1/3 blog has an excerpt from my book about Phillippe Petit's tightrope walk between the World Trade Center Towers in 1974. This post was inspired by Man On Wire, the new film about Petit. Go see it! It's coming to Austin in another week or two, and you'd better believe I'll be there at the earliest opportunity.

There's an interview with Petit on Salon here. The guy's fascinating, so go read it.

Recap: Reading At The Carousel 7/12

2008-07-15T12:52:00.000-07:00

Because I am lame, I didn't ensure that there would be anybody with a camera on hand last Saturday at my Austin reading/Richard Thompson hoot night. One woman fortunately took a couple of pictures, of which the attached is the only one where I don't look like a drooling idiot or trained monkey.

So, here I am at the lovely Carousel Lounge, reading in-between the bands who played RT songs all night. The Carousel, as you can see, has a certain David Lynch-ian atmosphere, enhanced by the giant paper-mache pink elephant behind the stage, visible at the right in the photo.

The musicians were just great, too:

Lee Barber and Brian Beattie (who is formerly of the legendary post-punk band Glass Eye) played "I Misunderstood," "Why Must I Plead," and "Keep Your Distance" from Rumor & Sigh;
DD Dagger, playing saxophone over guitar-and-drum-machine loops, sang "Calvary Cross" and Kirsty MacColl's "Dirty Old Town" (mostly known for the Pogues cover, but RT has covered it on more than one occasion, too);
Elizabeth Jackson sang three songs, accompanied only by a single instrument: "Jet Plane In A Rocking Chair" on accordion, "Withered And Died" on bass (and this version was so achingly beautiful that I can't believe we didn't record it), and "Crazy Man Michael" on violin;
The Distant Seconds rocked the heck out of "Shaky Nancy" and "Wall Of Death";
I played "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" and "The Great Valerio" acoustic; and
my band Parks & Wildlife played "Shoot Out The Lights," "Walking on a Wire," and ended with "Calvary Cross," where Distant Seconds guitarist Matt Baab and I did the dueling lead guitar solo thing for far too long. Rock cliches are fun!

The local press didn't give us much love in advance, but we had a decent turnout, anyway, at least for that bar. Probably 80+ people there, most of whom hung in until after midnight. Pretty decent for a crowd of mostly older, ex-hipster types.

Anyway, my thanks to everyone who showed up! It was loads of fun, and y'all were kindhearted and indulgent to listen to me read to you for 10+ minutes at a time while the bands were getting ready. I had a blast, and hope y'all did, too.

Another SOTL review (that may be my favorite ever)

2008-07-10T08:22:00.001-07:00

This review is my favorite ever:

“Shoot Out The Lights” by Hayden Childs is a masterful 116-page obsessive’s
factual and fictional paean to the 1982 eight-song album, as well as to Richard
Thompson, and to a lesser degree to Linda Thompson. Ten pages into the book, I
realized that I had little inkling of the musical specifics that Childs was
putting under his microscope. After four successive and attentive listenings of
the entire CD, I was ready to go back to my reading. As Childs pursued his
inventive and slightly mad takes on the significance of each track, of the
context, emotional and musical of every bar, I would go back to my iPod and
listen again to the song under discussion. I finished the book and stood back,
realizing that “Shoot Out the Lights” is now a burned-in part of my interior
landscape, of my internal sound track, and is there in ways that as yet I do not
fully and probably will never fully comprehend.

Inventive and slightly mad! I have to put that on my business cards. Awesome.

2008-07-07T20:43:00.001-07:00

This Saturday, July 12, 2008: Richard Thompson Book Release Party and Hoot Night in Austin!

The venue is The Carousel at 1110 E. 52nd Street. Starts around 9 pm.

Not only will I be reading from the 33 1/3 book Shoot Out The Lights, but musical guests will be playing Richard Thompson songs all night: Lee Barber, DD Dagger, Elizabeth Jackson of the Darling New Neighbors, The Distant Seconds, and Parks & Wildlife. Come on down!

2008-07-04T12:41:00.001-07:00

Powell's post no. 5: All Full Of Tears And Flapdoodle. Plus the accompanying muxtape.

2008-07-03T10:25:00.001-07:00

Powell's Post #4: Humbert Humbert meets Serge Gainsbourg.

2008-07-02T11:43:00.001-07:00

Today's Powell's Blog post: Cormac McCarthy does Scott Walker.

Also, if you're in Austin and have Time Warner Cable, you can see me tonight on ME TV (that's Music Entertainment), channel 15, on a show called Tex-Mix airing around 6 - 6:30. Excitement!

2008-07-01T10:59:00.001-07:00

Post No. 2 for Powell's! Today it's Pynchon and the Fiery Furnaces. Yesterday was Flannery O'Connor and The Fall. I'll be there all week! Try the veal.

2008-06-30T12:32:00.001-07:00

I'm guest-blogging at Powell's Books this week, and the first post is up, should you find yourself wanting to kill a couple of minutes.

2008-06-23T16:04:00.000-07:00

Here's two reviews!

"Childs tackles Shoot out the Lights for the latest installment of the wonderful 33 1/3 series. He provides deft analysis of the album track by track, through the nonfiction eyes of a musician whose life bears an eerie resemblance to Thompson, but without the success. Oh, and he throws in references to Dante's Inferno for good measure (see this week's Wikipedia link). I was skeptical of this approach at first, but it really works well."

- via Distractions

And a little more mixed:

"Those two approaches – literary criticism and fiction – come together through what in a way is Childs’ central thesis: that Shoot Out the Lights resembles Dante’s Inferno . Shoot Out the Lights the book thus is set up to also resemble that portion of The Divine Comedy, with Childs’ fictional main character Virgil going through his own dark journey. This fictional device is a unique one, but to me not especially successful."

- via Erasing Clouds

Weekend Update

2008-06-20T09:33:00.001-07:00

Sad news: the excellent Richard Thompson For Completists website is going down in the next couple of days. Visit now.

At some point, I intend to continue my review of 33 1/3 books I have known. Also, I will be adding reviews of my book here whenever I find them. This may prove harder than you think.