I was interviewed by CBC Vancouver radio and CBC Kelowna radio on the very sad passing of Brian Wilson, and about his musical legacy, You can listen to the interviews here and here.
interviews
Guest on “Aural Mess” Podcast
I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Chad Sutton for his podcast, Aural Mess. We talked about how I got into music writing, some of our mutual musical favourites, and my book Mixtape. You can watch it on YouTube here or listen to the audio here.
Nick Lowe’s Christmas Show
Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets were on the CBS Saturday Morning TV show today, playing three songs from Nick’s classic holiday album Quality Street (here’s their performance of ‘Christmas at the Airport’). Quality Street is now 10 years old, and it will forever remind me of the Nick Lowe show I saw at Vancouver’s Vogue Theatre on December 19, 2015.
This was a memorable show for many reasons, not least of which was the excellent and exuberant music. It was also memorable because of the audience. This was my first time seeing Nick as a solo act – I had seen him in Vancouver in 1980, as part of Rockpile – but everyone I knew who had seen him on his own assured me that he was terrific. When my husband and I got to the venue and found our seats, it turned out Continue reading
Shining On: Linda Hoover
[originally appeared in Shindig! issue #129)
When Linda Hoover entered New York’s Advantage Sound Studios in 1970, she was an excited 19-year-old who had never been in a studio before. Little did she know the album she made, I Mean To Shine, would never be released. But the album became legendary as the first album to feature songs by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, who were soon to become the linchpins of Steely Dan – songs that never appeared anywhere else. Not only that, but Becker and Fagen also played on the album, along with guitarists Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter and Denny Dias who also became part of the Dan. Now, after 52 years, I Mean To Shine is finally seeing the light of day.
The catalyst for the album Continue reading
Interviews about MIXTAPE
Since my new book MIXTAPE was released, I’ve done several interviews about it, which I’d like to share.
Eric Senich and I talked about the book for his podcast Booked On Rock.
John Ackermann at CityNews1130 radio in Vancouver interviewed me about MIXTAPE for his weekly BookShelf segment. The video of the interview is here, and the website story is here.
Ben O’Hara-Byrne did a long interview with me on his nightly national radio show A Little More Conversation. The audio of the interview is on the show’s website, in the playlist on the lower part of the page. The segment is titled “ALMC hits rewind” and the interview starts about 14 minutes in.
It’s a crowded market out there for music-related books. I’m very grateful to all these interviewers for giving MIXTAPE some extra attention.
Cry Cry Cry: ’96 Tears’
[originally appeared in Shindig! issue #127]
Saginaw, Michigan, is an industrial city about two hours northwest of Detroit. In the mid-20th century, migrant Mexican-American farm labourers in the region, seeking greater economic security and stability, settled in Saginaw to work at its auto manufacturing plants. Mexican-American kids in Saginaw in the late 1950s and early 1960s grew up with the Mexican music that their parents loved and performed – mostly the Tejano style, with its rollicking accordion and guitars – but they also listened to Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, and other pioneering American rock and rollers. Those diverse influences fueled ? and the Mysterians’ ‘96 Tears’ – which, since its 1966 release, has gone on to be recorded by more than 50 other artists, and has become a modern-day classic.
Speaking from his home in Saginaw, Mysterians guitarist Bobby Balderrama tells Shindig! that the group – which took its name from a Japanese sci-fi movie they saw on TV – started as an instrumental combo, “playing the Ventures, Duane Eddy, all the guitar stuff.” He and fellow guitarist Larry Borjes, along with drummer Robert Martinez, honed their craft in his parents’ garage. “It was a two-car garage, so my dad parked the car on one side, and we practiced on the other side. We had our equipment set up there all the time.” However, when they played gigs, Continue reading
“Her Country”: An Interview with Author Marissa Moss
Women have always been an integral part of country music, starting with pioneers such as the Carter Family and Patsy Montana. Yet country music has also marginalized women musicians – even more so in the last decade. In 2015, a country radio consultant publicly stated that songs by women were “not the lettuce in our salad…[they are] the tomatoes“. In 2019, women artists represented only 10 percent of the music played on US country radio stations that year.
Music journalist Marissa Moss, who’s based in Nashville, saw women in country music making great music at the same time that the industry was focusing on “bro country“, and saw women trying to be successful their own way in an industry that wanted them to conform to very narrow stereotypes. Her new book Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be tells the stories of three female country musicians – Maren Morris, Mickey Guyton, and Kasey Musgraves. Through unpacking their experiences, it touches on racism, sexism, corporatization, politics, and oppression, and how all of those shape performers’ careers and the music we listen to. The book is ultimately hopeful, but it also pulls no punches in describing how badly the country music industry can treat women.
I found Her Country to be an extremely thought-provoking and rewarding read, so I was delighted to have the opportunity to interview Marissa about it.
Fiona McQuarrie (FM): What motivated you to write the book?
Marissa Moss (MM): I had been covering this beat in Nashville, at the time I started writing the book, for about eight years, and it just felt Continue reading
‘Small Hours: The Long Night of John Martyn’
I had the great pleasure of interviewing author Graeme Thomson for Please Kill Me about his biography of Scottish singer-songwriter John Martyn. You can read the interview here.
Dave Morrell’s ‘Run-Out Groove’
I interviewed longtime Capitol Records promotion man Dave Morrell for PopMatters. Dave has just released the book Run-Out Groove, the fourth volume of his memoirs of the music industry. You can read the interview here.
Podcast Interview with All Music Books’ “Deep Dive”
I was interviewed about my book Song Book for the All Music Books website’s “Deep Dive” podcast. Steve J and I had a great chat about the book and some of the stories in it. The interview is posted here.
Writing on Music 