Dear All,
This is the latest episode of Don’t Press That Button, a newsletter about books and music and movies and cats and baseball and whatnot. As the name would indicate, we are very cautious about buttons around here. We’re not about to encourage you to go pressing buttons willy-nilly. Does that work sometimes with pinball machines? Sometimes, sure, but not often, and even when it does, it’s never satisfying.
However, I’ve investigated the button below, and all it does is subscribe you to this newsletter. If you’re new here, and you’d like to stick around, you can safely do so by clicking on it.
Fountains of Wayne
I’m not embarrassed to say that I sobbed through the performance of “Hackensack” that 3/4 of Fountains of Wayne put on with Sharon Van Etten as part of a benefit for New Jersey at the early height of the pandemic. It was not long after the band’s co-architect, the brilliant songwriter Adam Schlesinger, had passed away at just 52, and the loss of that wonderful, vibrant talent was so out of the blue and horrible, initially I couldn’t really wrap my mind around it. I remember going to see Fountains of Wayne play at (I believe it was) Irving Plaza during college with my friend Jen, and how they cackled displaying their gloriously dashed off merch, a bunch of camo t-shirts that they’d stenciled with FOW on the chest, and the roaring rendition of “Radiation Vibe” that they broke out. When I think of the good parts of being young, one of things I think about is Jen and I looking at each other, and laughing, and jumping up and down and singing that song at that show.
Not only had I been listening to Fountains of Wayne regularly since the previous century, the music they made has such a big, funny heart - it didn’t compute. The night I tuned in to see that benefit, though, the band’s lead singer Chris Collingwood dedicated the song to Schlesinger and Schlesigner’s family and to New Jersey, and man, the floodgates burst. The song, which is about a lovelorn character who keeps the candle burning - If you ever get back to Hackensack, I’ll be here for you - and poignant on its own, in that context, was overwhelming.
Anyway, for a while afterward, the association between the band’s music and all the sorrow of the pandemic was too strong for me, and I instinctively stayed away. Thank goodness that their deranged Christmas song, “I Want An Alien for Christmas,” popped up in The Guardians of the Galaxy: Holiday Special1 and reminded me what a damned fine time it always was to put on a Fountains of Wayne LP.
I want an alien for Christmas, this year
He can live in the bathtub, so don’t worry about a thing
And I’ll take him out for walks when it gets nicer in the spring
I quit depriving myself and threw on their fourth album, Traffic and Weather, on a drive last weekend, and it was even better than I recalled. Quite a few Fountains of Wayne songs sound a little like the Cars, and a few others hold faint, catchy echoes of the Kinks, Steely Dan, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Steve Miller, and other groups, but there’s a wit (both senses) to the design of their songs that lifts the work miles beyond pastiche.
The album’s lead track, “Someone to Love,” is typically great: Seth Shapiro, a hustling young lawyer, calls his mom after work, but she’s busy, so he puts Coldplay on, pours a glass of wine, curls up with a book about organized crime. The hilarious specificity of the “book about organized crime” gets me every time. That’s the kind of quick, bright detail that Schlesinger and Collingwood excel at finding. Seth’s opposite, Beth McKenzie, got the job of her dreams, retouching photos for a magazine, aimed at teens.
You’re not the only one that’s lonely, the bridge tells us, and we can’t help assuming that these two are meant for each other.
Not so much!
Seth Shapiro is trying in vain to hail a taxi in the morning in the pouring rain
Beth McKenzie sees one just up ahead, she cuts in front of him and leaves him for dead
It’s a beautiful little irony, and the result is a subversively sad and humorous 4-minute story that rocks from top to bottom. Traffic and Weather probably isn’t Fountains of Wayne’s very best record, but it wouldn’t be a bad place for a new listener to start. “Someone to Love,” “Yolanda Hayes,” “Traffic and Weather,” “Strapped for Cash,” and “I-95” are all personal favorites. Give yourself a little joy and cue them up.
The Latest
I was thrilled with the job that Gauntlet Press did with their special edition of my novel Double Feature a few years ago, so I’m happy to be able to inform you that we’ve teamed up again for a deluxe version of The Curator.
Besides being signed, it will come with some bonus elements, including an afterward penned by Joe Lansdale, the irreplaceable author of The Drive-In, Edge of Dark Water, the Hap and Leonard series, and many more relentlessly entertaining novels. Joe’s someone I’ve admired since I was kid, and it’s an honor that he agreed to add his two cents on the book. If you’d like to order a copy, you can do so here.
The Goodreads giveaway is still going strong if you’d like to jump in.
Recommendations
The paperback of Kelly Braffet’s The Broken Tower comes out on a January 24th. It’s an A+ adventure story, and if you are a fan of epic fantasy in particular, you’d be cheating yourself if you didn’t give it a go.
I’m addicted to Bones Coffee. I can’t recall how I discovered this brand, but it’s delicious high octane fuel. My favorite flavor is Frankenbones, but you can’t go wrong.
As always, my thanks for subscribing, and in case you ever have a question or a comment or just want to say hi, if you reply to the email, I will see it.
All Best,
Owen
A high quality watch, and the Old 97’s are awesome as the alien band.