Badge

The singer has a voice but is also insecure fronting a band composed of older pros – which makes it Badge's role to serve as an intermediary between her and the rest of the members of her group, No Fun Intended. As he does, a relationship inevitably sparks between the two of them.

At the same time, our hero still maintains a prickly connection to his ex-wife Molly, who he met and had a son with when he was the hard-boozing axe-man for a band called the Famous Dead. Eight years sober “because I tend to wreck things when I drink,” Badge will find his precarious recovery threatened by pressures of life on the road and his relationship with the borderline-y Betty. We know it's only a matter of time before he relapses – and as the band grows huger so does our protagonist's substance abuse.

Though part of a 10-novel series, Badge works as a stand-alone piece. Author Edwards captures road life as it's experienced by a breaking band, pulling in plenty of evocative detail: even at his blurriest Badge proves an acute observer of his surroundings. The book also pays due attention to the climate of the music biz circa 2000, an era when the delivery system was on the verge of change, making a lot of professional musicians more than a little nervous.

The book is strong depicting the volatile relationships between Badge and the women in his life; it's particularly wise charting the stages of our hero's relapse and the ways the rock 'n' roll lifestyle can fuel various addictive behaviors. It ain't easy being a soldier for rock music.

Recommended reading for anyone who ever wondered why it was their favorite player in their favorite band just up and disappeared.

(First published on Blogcritics.)

Labels: pop nerdery

THE SILHOUETTE KNOWS. If parlors were still in fashion, Olly Moss’ Silhouettes from Popular Culture (Titan Books) would definitely make for an amusing end table accessory. A collection of laser-cut silhouette profiles (frequently framed as if taken off a 19th century cameo) of figures from movies, television, cartoons and other modern entertainment media, Moss’ book cunningly contrasts an archaic mode of craftsmanship with nerd culture icons. The book’s front cover provides a good taste of what the artist is going for here: a black silhouette of Elsa Lancaster as the Bride of Frankenstein, which includes the white steak in her trademark hair.

Moss typically lays his 7-x-7 inch volume with a single unlabeled profile on each page facing each other – though in a few cases (three pages devoted to consecutive Doctor Whos, a bevy on Bonds, the three kidnappers from The Princess Bride), he’ll cram more on a page. Though most of the cartoon and computer game heads are easy to identify, some of the others may require more than one pass. I didn’t initially glom onto the Whos, for instance, until I saw the Dalek silhouette facing them on the fourth page, but then that show has never had the same nostalgic cachet for this Yank as it would for Britisher Moss. Have to admit I felt dumb for not immediately catching the Jay and Silent Bob silhouettes, though.

Many of Silhouettes’ two-page face-offs are fun by themselves (sixties era Batman versus Dark Knight Bats, ninja turtle versus Prince Valiant, alien versus Ripley) though occasionally they come across a bit puzzling (Don Corleone versus Monty Python and the Holy Grail’s Black Knight?) But to see Bogey and Bergman, Marty McFly and Emmett Brown, Statler and Waldorf, on opposite pages is to be reminded of the enduring nature of great pop partnerships.

A fun volume to peruse by the flickering light of the flat screen.

(First published on Blogcritics.)

Labels: pop nerdery

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