Hello, You've Reached the Winter of Our Discontent
Grab your SAD lamps—we're saying goodbye to three trailblazing women (two real, one fictional).
Hi everybody, and welcome to another edition of Switchblade!
Welp, 2022 is off to a rip-roaring start. It seems like a third of the people I know are quarantining/recovering from Covid, a third are just desperately trying not to die or go insane, and the other third are…behaving as if those first two things are not happening?
What’s new? We are getting back into a routine after a few weeks of distance learning due to the Covid numbers in our area. We embarked on our fourth (fifth?) DIY home construction project. Our 100-plus-year-old sewer line is all jacked up with tree roots and we have to keep pressure washing it to keep sewage from backing up in the basement, a process that is somehow even more disgusting than it sounds. I’ve been spending nights and weekends on book edits while dayjob work gets busier, remote schooling constantly interrupts and eventually my brain collapses in on itself until all I can handle is this dumb little tile matching game I play on my phone. (I write all day, there’s no way I’m playing Wordle to relax.)
Like so many friends, coworkers and acquaintances, I think I finally passed the burnout stage—I am, as Amil Niazi puts it in this Romper article, dead inside. At least until spring.
Same shit, different year, just with more Covid I guess? Brb, ordering a SAD—I mean happy—lamp.
Book Updates
I get a ton of messages and emails asking for updates on my Link Wray biography, which makes me a) THRILLED that people are excited for it to come out, and b) extremely anxious because I don’t know what to tell them. Things are happening! I spent my December and January hard at work on edits, fact checking and other odds and ends that needed to be wrapped up for a few more chapters. It’s a painfully slow process, but we’re getting closer and it’s getting easier. If any of you know Link, you know that he told the same stories about a dozen different ways. It’s a lot of information to manage.
Bazillion Points, my publisher, has a dedicated email list for the book. Signing up for that and this newsletter (if you haven’t done so already) will ensure that you are the first to learn about pre-orders, pub date announcements, events and everything else book-related when the time comes.
You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory
In a country where we’ve lost 900,000 people and counting to one preventable illness alone, it seems frivolous to get upset about celebrity deaths right now—but MAN, they’ve been hitting hard recently. In addition to Betty White on the last day of 2021, so far this year we’ve lost Ronnie Spector, Louie Anderson, Meat Loaf, Bob Saget, Sidney Poitier, Peter Bogdanovich, Betty Davis and instrumental rock pioneer Don Wilson of the Ventures.
Louie’s death was a tough one. I’ve always loved his humor and persona. I’m from Minnesota and it’s a requirement here. Over the holidays I binged Baskets, in which he plays Costco- and Arby’s-loving matriarch Christine Baskets, probably one of the best TV characters of all time. (The New York Times agrees.) His nuanced portrayal of Christine, which he discussed basing on his own mother in a 2016 Fresh Air interview, is endearing and warm and so life-affirming—like a hug from your mom, grandma, aunt and favorite teacher all at the same time. Highly recommend watching Baskets if you’re feeling stressed or have the winter blues. RIP, Louie.
And then there was Ronnie Spector. If you know me, you know just how much this woman has meant to me. I think about 15 friends texted with condolences the day she died. :(
Ronnie was so much more than a music icon. She was larger than life—a tireless survivor who could not, and would not, be held back. She was a mixed race woman of white, Black and Indigenous descent working in a mainly white and male industry. She was a badass, a total diva (deservedly so) and a true professional.
Losing Ronnie brought back a flood of memories from 2012, when she headlined the music festival I co-founded, Girls Got Rhythm, the first concert that I was involved in booking/producing. I haven’t really processed her death yet, so I’ll try to write more about Ronnie and the 10th (!!!) anniversary of GGR later this year.
By the way » If anyone was at GGR in 2012 or 2013 and has video or photos, or even just a memory to share, I would LOVE to see it/hear about it and maybe even put it in a future newsletter.
Just a few weeks after Ronnie, we lost Betty Davis, singer, songwriter and the undisputed queen of funk—and another under-appreciated trailblazer. Like Ronnie, Betty was a badass who was often overshadowed by her ex-husband, Miles Davis (to whom she was married for just one year). Also like Ronnie, she was a Black woman trying to make her way in a male-dominated field.
According to the Rolling Stone obit, Betty is the one who introduced Miles to rock music in the late ‘60s, “ultimately ushering in the trumpeter’s jazz fusion phase beginning with 1969’s In a Silent Way and 1970’s Bitches Brew.” But she was so much more than Miles Davis’ muse. Her edgy, candid subject matter and voice were unapologetically raw and sexual—the precursor to raunchy artists like Prince and Madonna. And her songwriting was indisputably catchy.
The only album I own of hers is Nasty Gal. There’s a pretty thorough bio and an interesting excerpt of those liner notes on Vinyl Me, Please if you want to get to know Ms. Davis better. Apparently there also is an episode of “Tales from the Tour Bus” about her career, which I will be tracking down ASAP!
Link Snubbed Again
Another year, another Link Wray snub in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominations. Google “Price is Right losing horn” to find out how I feel about that news….
However, there’s really not a bad choice on the nominee list this year, and I’m especially happy to see Pat Benatar, Kate Bush, Devo, Eurhythmics, Judas Priest, Fela Kuti and MC5 nominated. I mean, the whole thing is a total sham—and I think many artists realize that—but the best we can hope for at this point until the entire organization is reformed is baby steps: a few deserving people getting in.
That’s all for now. Stay safe and talk to you next month!
-Dana