Tag Archives: music

New short story, new anthology: I’ve been looking forward to DAYDREAM BELIEVER all year

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Sometimes crime short stories are mean and brutal. Sometimes they’re nostalgic, or at least my story “This Just Doesn’t Seem To Be My Day,” in the new anthology “DAYDREAM BELIEVER: Crime Stories Inspired By the Songs of the Monkees,” is.

When I heard that my friend and author Michelle Kubitz was accepting submissions of short stories for the anthology, which she was co-editing with Lawrence Allan for publication by Ron Earl Phillips and Shotgun Honey, I knew I had to contribute. I even went up to Larry after he appeared on a panel at Bouchercon in Nashville and excitedly told him I had a story I wanted to sub.

As a grade-schooler in the 1960s, I loved the Monkees. The music and the silly TV show definitely, but what made me jump at the chance to submit a story was my association with the Monkees and my brothers.

Before I was certain who the Monkees were exactly – TV actors? TV characters? Musicians? Four cool and funny guys? All of the above? – I spotted their debut album in my oldest brother’s room. I put it on the turntable and immediately loved the music. It wasn’t a new album by that time, but it was still fantastic, with songs that cemented the Monkees in my mind as a favorite band.

My brothers were 10 and 12 years older than me, so it was more like having a couple of uncles around than brothers. But I wanted to be accepted by them, and finding some common ground in music was something I dearly loved. One album cut in particular, “This Just Doesn’t Seem To Be My Day,” stands out in my memories as a fast, funny song that I listened to over and over.

About the time I was 10, my brothers were planning a party in a field our dad and mom owned, south of our 100-year-old farmhouse and south of the equally aged barn, and I really wanted to be a part of it. I wheedled my way into going around town with my brothers as they picked up things they needed for the party: ice, beer, extension cords, probably other things I was too young to understand.

My story in the anthology varies from that real-life day – although both ended in a fairly dramatic manner at the party that night – but both accomplished something I desperately wanted: To be closer to my much older brothers.

Not all of my stories are as nostalgic, or true-to-life, as this one. But thanks to DAYDREAM BELIEVER, I can relive that day and its fairly calamitous ending.

Thanks to Shelley and Larry and Shotgun Honey for the chance to relive that day and that evening.

I think you’ll like DAYDREAM BELIEVER, and not just for my story. The other authors with stories in the anthology are Holly West, Lawrence Allan, Eric Beetner, Lina Chern, Libby Cudmore, Michael Downing, Jeff Esterholm, Michel Lee Garrett, Paul J. Garth, James D.F. Hannah, Sean Patrick Little, Alan Orloff and Raquel V. Reyes. It’s a great group of talented people.

You can find DAYDREAM BELIEVER at

https://shotgunhoney.com/announcements/news-announcements/book-release-daydream-believers-anthology/

So long, Dr. Demento (no, he’s not dead)

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I can’t say I’ve listened to Dr. Demento’s radio show in a couple of decades or more. I’m not even sure he’s still on what some call terrestrial radio.

But I heard today that the Doctor, born Barry Hansen, has announced that he’s retiring after more than 50 years of doing his show, which traditionally played the weirdest and wildest novelty songs from several decades of the music business.

Demento is probably best known for “discovering” the work of Weird Al Yankovic, who was first showcased on the show in 1976. Demento had received a cassette of a parody song, “Belvedere Cruisin,” from Yankovic. Before too long, Yankovic was a mainstream star of TV, movies and especially music and music videos. I even saw him live in concert once!

Demento brought a lot of new and long-forgotten talent to listeners. “Fish Heads” by Barns and Barnes was one that stands out in my memory, as does “Shaving Cream,” by Benny Bell, which might be the ultimate novelty song. The 1946 tune’s gimmick was that each verse made you think it was going to include the word “shit,” but at the last minute the phrase “shaving cream” was substituted.

My friends and I turned into our area FM station every Sunday evening in the early 1970s to listen to Demento.

That feels like a thousand years ago now, when radio was still a viable thing, could be a daring thing, and could communicate new and exciting shows and acts to new listeners.

Anyway, I wrote about a Demento song that stuck with me, and I wrote about it on this site way back in 2012. Here’s what I wrote:

The Suicide Song on Dr. Demento. If you’re not hep to what the nerdy kids listened to in the 1970s and 1980s, Dr. Demento hosted a syndicated radio show playing offbeat songs like “Fish Heads” and “Shaving Cream.” The oddball doctor introduced a nation of youngsters to the work of Spike Jones and helped launch the career of Weird Al Yankovic. But the song that Demento played that sticks with me, 30-plus years later, was “The Suicide Song.” What was it? Incredibly enough, I can’t seem to find it online. There’s a listing of songs played on the show that includes it but I can’t find an audio or video snippet, which makes me wonder if I’m mis-remembering the name. But once I hear the song again – and its dirge-like, monotone recitation of dire lyrics – I’ll get goosebumps all over again.

Music and my playlist for THAT OCTOBER

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I know writers – and readers – who want absolute quiet when they’re writing or reading.

For me, maybe because I spent decades working in a newsroom, with overlapping conversations, police scanners and all manner of noise competing for attention, I can usually tune out the noise when I want to. Or maybe it’s that I like some noise while I’m writing.

However it works, I like having music playing when I’m writing, especially with novels. When I was writing my first novel, SEVEN ANGELS – not yet published; maybe someday? – in 2019, I played non-stop the music of the Highwomen, the Chicks, Bonnie Raitt and other artists. It’s music I like and the main character is a strong woman, which really fit with the music. When I was writing my second novel, GHOST SHOW, in 2020, I played artists of the 1940s because the book is set in 1948. This wasn’t as conducive to writing for me. I knew the music and artists but didn’t get into the right headspace during it.

When I was writing THAT OCTOBER 2021-2023, I played music of the early 1980s non-stop for a year and a half. The story takes place mostly in October 1984, so I kept my playlist – almost exclusively youtube posts of music videos – limited to songs that predated that month and year.

I incorporated some of that music into the book, making references in some cases by having the high-school-age characters mentioning or singing or dancing to the songs. I didn’t include lyrics in the novel because it can be expensive or nearly impossible to get the rights to print lyrics.

When I readied the book for publication this year, working with my friend and editor Jill Blocker, I decided to get on Spotify and make a THAT OCTOBER playlist. I used songs that I listened to during writing, songs that are cited specifically in the book and songs that just work well with the story.

Duran Duran, Ratt, Cyndi Lauper and more than a dozen others are on the playlist. I’ll probably tinker with it at some point and add some more.

THAT OCTOBER publishes June 1 and you can pre-order it now through most of the usual online booksellers. Hopefully it can be found and purchased from one of the booksellers that aren’t among the very worst on the planet.

In the meantime, here’s a link to the THAT OCTOBER playlist on Spotify. I hope you enjoy it, and the book.

MTV Classic: The nostalgia channel you’re not watching

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If you were alive and had a cable TV connection in the early 1980s, you were probably watching MTV.

If you’re alive right now, in 2025, and have a cable TV connection, you’re probably not watching MTV Classic.

Let me explain.

When we moved a couple of years ago, we got a new cable TV connection – same provider, different channel choices – and I discovered an incredible time-waster, MTV Classic.

Even though you’re not watching, you can probably guess what MTV Classic shows: music videos from the 1980s and 1990s. The videos that aired on MTV and VH1 back in the day.

Some of the videos are truly classics. Some highlight just how awful a lot of the videos – which were sometimes treated as art by particular artists but were of course just promotional spots provided by record companies – were. Looking at them now, there are some fun examples that evoke nostalgia and some that exemplify how gratuitous and overblown a lot of music videos were.

MTV Classic shows one-hour blocks of 80s videos, heavy metal videos and 90s videos, etc. Just like the old channel, there’s no telling what will come up in four minutes.

There are no VJs, so no chance to discover the next JJ Jackson or Martha Quinn.

The funniest thing I learned while researching MTV Classic is that almost nobody is watching it. In TV audience terms, it’s really almost nobody.

Since the channel was launched in 1998 as VH1 Smooth – no, really – audience numbers have fallen off a cliff. The channel is available to 39 million cable households, apparently, but only about 14,000 viewers are tuning in at any moment. It is the least-watched English-language channel available to most cable subscribers.

I think some personality – or personalities – might help a little, but one thing MTV Classic does that could bring a few viewers its way is the tributes it airs to performers who have died. When crooner Tony Bennett died on July 21, 2023, MTV Classic ran a weekend of Bennett songs, including but not limited to his collaborations with Lady Gaga.

I’m guessing most people didn’t know that – if they even new MTV Classic was on their cable lineup.