dEFROG ON 45 #32: YOU CAN HEAR THREE YOUNG MEN SCREAMING, YOU CAN HEAR ONE OLD MAN LAUGH

Growing up in Nashville in the 70s, inevitably, meant at the very least a passing familiarity with the Charlie Daniels Band. Even before they struck gold with “The Devil Went Down To Georgia”, the CDB were a major fixture in the Southern Rock scene, thanks to songs like “The South’s Gonna Do It Again”, as well as the annual Volunteer Jam concerts in Nashville.

I liked them at the time, more for the musicianship than the “Southern Pride” part, to say nothing of the “America is back, suck it” sentiment of “In America”. But most of CDB’s back catalog hasn’t really aged well with me – with two exceptions: “Uneasy Rider”, which is a depressingly accurate yet funny take on anti-counterculture attitudes in the early 70s South, and this song, which I had on 45:

Which appeals to the horror-movie fan in me, then and now.

Plus, I know a bad-ass riff when I hear one.

There’s some things in this world you just can’t explain,

This is dF

I’M READING AS FAST AS I CAN (JULY 2011 EDITION)

JUST FINISHED

The Spy’s Bedside Book by Hugh and Grahame Greene

An odd duck of an anthology with a format I’ve not seen before – snippets of stories rather than complete ones, grouped together into categories highlighting the various tropes of the spy story. Which, in a sense, makes it more like a literary reference book than a straight read. It didn’t particularly whet my appetite for any authors I haven’t already read, but for anyone planning to write their own spy story, it’s a reasonably handy guide for what elements to include (or avoid).

JUST STARTED

Child Of Fortune by Norman Spinrad

Spinrad’s coming-of-age saga about the interstellar journey of self-discovery by self-centered rich girl Wendi Shasta Leonardo. It’s also Spinrad’s sci-fi take on the Flower Children movement of the 60s, and – like everything else I’ve read by Spinrad – it’s a bit of a slog to start with, but I’m starting to get the hang of it, and there’s enough happening to keep me interested.

( RECENTLY: Asimov! Scalzi! Scudder! Surveillance! Morrison! )

Free yr mind,

This is dF