In a recent Jewcy.com interview, Mike Edison, author of I Have Fun Everywhere I Go, explained what he’s writing when he’s not writing books: Liner notes.
It’s a pretty envy-inducing gig. Edison (pictured with The Iron Sheik, via) has written the liner notes for reissued albums by The Stooges and The Ramones; press releases for the New York Dolls; and the copy for a handful of albums by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.
Here’s Edison, on the art of the liner note: “I want the reader to feel like, Hey, I read these notes and there was a real payoff, they were a gas to read, it wasn’t the usual huffing and puffing, and now I understand this record better – the music, whatever historical importance it might have, how the damn thing got made. I always color outside of the lines and try to offer new insights. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to smoke a joint when I am scribbling in my notebook on the first close listen, but believe me, I have no shortage of ideas when it comes to spewing about rock’n’roll. Or jazz or classical, for that matter.”
(Edison is actually in pretty good company among novelists who write liner notes. Thomas Pynchon famously wrote the notes for an album by the semi-obscure alt-rock band Lotion.)
Edison’s book is best explained through its extended subtitle: “Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Apes, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and the Most Notorious Magazines in the World.”
I challenge you, reader: Find me a writer who has more fun than this guy appears to.