Thursday, July 10, 2008

Another SOTL Review (but it's my favorite ever)

This review is my favorite ever:

“Shoot Out The Lights” by Hayden Childs is a masterful 116-page obsessive’s factual and fictional paean to the 1982 eight-song album, as well as to Richard Thompson, and to a lesser degree to Linda Thompson. Ten pages into the book, I realized that I had little inkling of the musical specifics that Childs was putting under his microscope. After four successive and attentive listenings of the entire CD, I was ready to go back to my reading. As Childs pursued his inventive and slightly mad takes on the significance of each track, of the context, emotional and musical of every bar, I would go back to my iPod and listen again to the song under discussion. I finished the book and stood back, realizing that “Shoot Out the Lights” is now a burned-in part of my interior landscape, of my internal sound track, and is there in ways that as yet I do not fully and probably will never fully comprehend.

Inventive and slightly mad! I have to put that on my business cards. Awesome.

4 comments:

Anonymous 1:36 PM, July 11, 2008  

what a great review! it reminds me I need to get over to Amazon to order it. I hope you're doing well.

Unknown 4:30 PM, July 11, 2008  

Hi Hayden:

Happy I didn't offend you with my review of SOTL. A fine piece of work on a fine piece of work, , I knew as soon as I started reading it that I would like it. Looking for more.

Pete Byrne AKA The Compost Heap

Hayden Childs 4:50 PM, July 11, 2008  

Hi Peter! Not offended at all. I loved your review, and I'm glad you liked the book.

And hey Brian! I should point out that Powell's has it on sale right now at a better value than Amazon. Don't know about shipping costs, though.

Unknown 2:14 PM, July 18, 2008  

Wow, what a great review!

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