Music Book Club Launches This Sunday
Highly anticipated new interactive online series kicks off with Dilla Time’s Dan Charnas
Between the Wintour-ization of Pitchfork and the layoffs at the L.A. Times, music journalism in America has taken a couple of tough blows in recent days.
But as long as there’s an audience for it, the craft will endure as it has for over a century. And if there’s one bright spot to offer hope during these trying times is the upcoming launch of Music Book Club this Sunday evening on the Internet.
The weekly series was conspired by professional DJ and music author Tamara Palmer (Country Fried Soul: Adventures in Dirty South Hip-Hop) as an online community, events hub and publication dedicated to books about music.
A longtime freelance music journalist with a vast expertise in hip-hop and electronic music, Palmer has curated a robust opening schedule of free chats with a variety of music book authors conducted over Zoom. The series will run in partnership with 48 Hills, a non-profit news publication from San Francisco.
As she explained last week in our sister publication Book & Film Globe, Palmer first thought of the idea for Music Book Club after receiving an underwhelming offer for a book she was pitching around.
“After answering a public call for proposals to be part of a prominent music book series, I received interest in my idea about Bay Area rap music from the publisher,” she tells Rock & Roll Globe. “They said it was one of the best they received, but the offer they presented to me was so low and exploitative that I wondered what I would get out of doing it with them.”
Taking a cue from her self-published work in the culinary world, Palmer wondered if it was wiser to just release the Bay Area Hip-Hop book herself.
“I have been dipping my toes into self-publishing for the last few years with a crowdfunded print zine about food,” she reveals, “and my three campaigns for that all raised significantly more money than the book company wanted to pay me for six months of work and access to my extraordinary, 30-year archive of music interviews. That offer demoralized me, but it also motivated me to activate as a self-publisher.”
The move also inspired Palmer to notice a deficit of support for unpublished authors like herself and others in a similar situation. Only not as a means to convene for a gripe session, but rather celebrate the books that inspired them to pen their own.
“At some point, it occurred to me that I could build my own community around the joy of reading music books, and that this community could serve as a support group and incubator for publishing the Bay Area rap idea and other books about music,” she explains. “My first book, Country Fried Soul: Adventures in Dirty South Hip-Hop, will turn 20 in 2025, and I’d love to mark that occasion with some new work, and I also very much want to write books about DJing and electronic music, which are my original specialties as a writer and editor.”
Palmer is also keenly aware of how little many music book authors get paid to have their tome published, and sees Music Book Club as a conduit for furthering the attention a selected title gets after it hits the streets
“I know from firsthand experience how much work — and, usually, how little pay — goes into creating a music book,” she intones. “If you’re lucky enough to get some press or social media attention from the release, it’s usually short-lived. So I am very excited to have author conversations and community discussions and to create other content about books old and new. Our initial Music Book Club Picks features quite a few friends and colleagues who have broken a lot of ground. As the community builds, they will be selecting books to discuss as well.”
Dates through June 2024 can be found below, but this Sunday afternoon the series will kick off with the book Dilla Time by Dan Charnas, who spoke with renowned music journalist Michaelangelo Matos right here on this site a couple of years back. Meanwhile, Palmer made an exclusive Dilla mix specifically for the event, which can be heard below.
“Dilla Time is a New York Times Bestseller and an exemplary music book,” Palmer enthuses. “I am so excited to begin our author conversation series with Dan Charnas. I’m proud to call him a friend and I think people will be impressed to learn about how much hard work and love went into this book (and the audiobook). He worked on it for four years and interviewed almost 200 people.”
And, perhaps best of all, Music Book Club has helped Palmer herself become a better reader.
“I haven’t read this much since I was in college and I am experiencing so much happiness in remembering how it feels to devour a great book,” she says.
Check out the itinerary for Music Book Club, which will include chats with such industry greats as Danyel Smith, Ann Powers, Pamela Des Barres and others, below.
For more information, visit the club on Substack.
2024 Music Book Club Events, with more to be added soon:
January 28
Live Zoom conversation with Dan Charnas to discuss Dilla Time at 3 p.m. ET
February 7
Live Zoom conversation with Danyel Smith to discuss Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop at 3 p.m. ET
February 21
Live Zoom conversation with DJ Disciple to discuss The Beat, the Scene, the Sound: A DJ’s Journey through the Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of House Music in New York City at 3 p.m. ET
February 25
Live Zoom conversation with Lance Scott Walker to discuss DJ Screw: A Life in Slow Revolution at 3 p.m. ET
March 3
Live Zoom conversation with Shawn Reynaldo to discuss First Floor Volume 1: Reflections on Electronic Music Culture at 3 p.m. ET
March 20
Live Zoom conversation with Soren Baker to discuss co-writing Juicy J’s Chronicle of the Juice Man: A Memoir at 3 p.m. ET
March 24
Live Zoom conversation with Scott Woods to discuss Prince and Little Weird Black Boy Gods at 3 p.m. ET
March 31
Live Zoom conversation with Dr. Regina N. Bradley to discuss Chronicling Stankonia: The Rise of the Hip-Hop South and An Outkast Reader: Essays on Race, Gender, and the Postmodern South at 3 p.m. ET
April 5
Live Zoom conversation with Gina Arnold to discuss the new re-release of Route 666: On the Road to Nirvana (link TBA) at 4 p.m. ET
May TBA
Conversation with Pamela Des Barres to discuss I’m With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, Let’s Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies and current book projects
June 9
Live Zoom conversation with Lori Tucker-Sullivan to discuss I Can’t Remember If I Cried: Rock Widows on Life, Love, and Legacy at 3 p.m.
June TBA
Live Zoom conversation with Ann Powers to discuss Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell
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