my black sabbath book: samples available

[martin_van_buren]

The Strand's where I'll be buying mine, when I get the money-spending power. Just as a head's up to anyone who wants to hang out at the Strand near the 33 1/3 table waiting for the freak chance that I might show up there. I'll be wearing glasses.

[martin_van_buren]

No context!

[edison]

Strand should definitely have it - at least I just ordered one from them, as it turned out there were very reasonable with the shipping price.

[milesofsparks]

I've found that the Strand website (link on previous page) is pretty accurate about what they have in stock.  and martin, I'll look for you!  (I have no idea what you look like.)

EDIT:  they have a big stack (on a table near the back left corner of the ground floor).  also, Martin, I did not see you.  but perhaps you were hiding in the American History section?

[Andrew_TSKS]

ok, my copy came today and i read it when i got home from work in about two hours. it was fucking great, as i expected, and since i'm not in nearly as bad a place emotionally as i was in mid-january when i read the excerpt i didn't cry until the very end but it hit me really hard and i think it put some things into words that i've never even known were true for me, or were how i feel, or whatever. and i guess i'll spoiler this out but this is what i have to say about that:

when i got to the very end and roger was talking about who he was, and how it was hard for people to understand him, i felt like he/john hit on a really fundamental point about what it is to be one of the people in the world (and as roger points out towards the end, it's probably more of us that are this way than are not) who are out of place and don't fit in with society's conception of who a normal person should be. and i felt like he was saying something really important and perhaps more true than pretty much anything that's been said ever with the whole "I had a secret that only people who couldn't do anything to help me could understand" bit. and i loved that he was getting right to the point of coming out and saying it, about how the people who feel out of place and frustrated are just frustrated because life could be full of love and acceptance for everyone no matter how different they are, and it's not because a small minority of people with power behind them and fear as a motivation stop it from being that way. and then he just didn't say it, and instead started saying, and i'm paraphrasing, but saying "it's wasted on you, it's better that i just go back to telling you to fuck off and to go to hell." it reminded me of the bit at the end of "the best ever death metal band out of denton" where john says "hail satan", and i think there are some people who look at that as a big joke or something, and other people like my parents who would totally not even understand it as a joke and freak out, but the people who connect with it the strongest are those who understand that the "hail satan" bit at the end of that song doesn't mean "hail satan" or any other negative anti-social thing, but is instead an embracing of this projection of negativity that almost paradoxically makes people like us feel better. because it's saying "fuck you and the values you try to force on me". it's like being negative in the face of this enforced fake positivity is actually a much more positive gesture than any other you could make, because you're making the space for yourself and any other person like you to embrace freedom even if it means freedom to be sad and angry and depressed. because only when you choose freedom and honesty do you have the chance for a free and honest love and acceptance, and it's better to allow for the possibility of those things even if you never experience them than to go through the motions of experiencing them but never letting them or the negative things touch your heart on a true deep level. and god, now i am crying, i guess because talking about how i reacted to the end of the book overwhelms me with this feeling that i'm not actually alone and that there are lots of other people out there like me, which is hard to imagine because like roger said i generally only feel ok and safe when i'm alone, even if the people who would be around me are people who like me, and i guess also because even though i was never officially locked up my parents' house felt like a prison for me as a teenager and i know what it's like to feel locked away from everything that's important to you and get these messages shoved down your throat all the time that what you feel is wrong and invalid, to the point where eventually you can't really even open up anymore. it's fucked. but at least someone understands.

ok, i think i need to go for a long walk. but hey john, i hope you're reading this, because i want to say thank you. seriously. it means a lot.

[jebreject]

but hey john, i hope you're reading this, because i want to say thank you. seriously. it means a lot.

Word. And thanks for writing all that, Andrew. For real.

(Also it's funny that you bring up "Best Ever Death Metal Band Out Of Denton," because when Roger is talking about the way Ozzy uses "yeah," it made me think of the Mountain Goats.)

[John]

Thank you, Andrew and Jeb and anybody who follows this book down into the bottom like that. I think it would be crass for me to talk much about my own emotions while writing it but let it suffice to say that it was a pretty gnarly emotional rollercoaster sometimes, and sometimes I'd go "Jesus man hardly anybody's ever gonna read this y'know, do you really need to subject yourself to this?" because the way I write is pretty immersive, but when I read that somebody really made that connection with the book well then it was totally worth it.

Go write them Amazon reviews if you feel up to it youse guys you have no idea how much it helps!

[Charming Tedious]

i am going to read this now no matter what, just as literature, but:  will it help me like black sabbath?  understand why people like metal?  i want to and i dont.

[jebreject]

i think you will definitely have a better understanding of sabbath and this kind of music, and why people like it. i have no idea whether it will do anything to make you actually like sabbath, etc., though.

do you like any sort of heavy music in the first place? you're a pretty twee guy, all things considered.

[tkthasequel]

I'm a bit of a paranoid cynic when it comes to marketing in general, but I've gotta mention this, since I found it particularly odd - and strangely corporate of JD. At Mr. Darnielle's suggestion, I tried to look into this "perfect album," The Szabo Songbook, since music critics and the like generally do not toss such a phrase around wrecklessly. And, though I don't share the same affection for metal (irrelevant), JD knows his stuff, and I was intrigued. Allmusic only had an album title and a tracklist, so I went to amazon to see if there were any user reviews. So, I paste "The Szabo Songbook" into the search field and LO! and BEHOLD! the 33 1/3 book about Black Sabbath appears! I'm somewhat certain I'm not the first to notice this (maybe I am?), but does such a thing happen absolutely at random? Doubtful.

[Good Intentions]

Umm, that doesn't make sense. The search result (which is true, but deeply perplexing) and your implication that JD hacked into, or paid someone to hack into, the Amazon search algorithm for personal gain. So, yeah, what are you on about?

[John]

totally hilarious allegation if so - yeah, I'm throwin' money at Amazon, me 'n' Mark Szabo in collusion gettin crazy rich with this ingenious scheme

(if I understand how the Amazon algorithm works, probably what happened is that somebody bought the Szabo album & the book in the same purchase and now they're tethered. But no, dude. I have neither the time nor the inclination to game the system like that, and anybody who thinks there'd actually be negotiable money in so doing has a laughably inflated sense of how much money there is to be made in either indie music or niche books.)

[Good Intentions]

I couldn't find the album on there - it would have made sense if the same person reviewed the two favourably, or bought them togeter, or mentioned the one when reviewing the other, but I couldn't find even that.

[John]

I entered "szabo songbook" to try and replicate these results but got nowhere - the label that released this record is really tiny, a one-man operation I'm pretty sure. so then I tried "the szabo songbook" and bingo, there's master of reality right there at the top. totally weird! I don't know anything about this - if people really think I'm sittin' behind a desk telling people "do this with regard to what comes up when you search the following terms on amazon," well, God bless you for your rich imagination, I don't actually have much to say about marketing etc, I just write stuff and leave publishers etc to do their jobs, though from what I know of the people who published the book, I'd be pretty surprised if they'd done anything to foster this - people have a pretty inflated idea of how much money there is to throw around in indie publishing/music/etc

[Good Intentions]

Yeah, it has to 'the szabo songbook' to get the result, no other combination works.

It's bizarre. Maybe there's a system of crossreferencing behind the scenes that picked up your review of the Scabo Songbook? It's seems unlikely to the point of bizarre. Computerised search is actually a bloody complicated and difficult business, as people in the post-Google age might be too spoilt to know, but I'm having trouble imagining how that weird result could happen. Maybe, maybe, they've got the info from a crawler that you mention first the album then the book in consecutive blog entries? I dunno, man, it's a kinda bizarre result.

[coldforge]

It's pretty clearly a scam to drum up interest in his soon to be released Taschen hardcover series, LPTJ Vols. I-VI

[Good Intentions]

I'm obviously in on it as well, trying to rubbish the well-founded criticisms of this selling-out.

You seem to have rebelled - I take it that the publishers were unwilling to meet your price of a lifetime subscription to the Journal of Linguistics?

[alistarr*]

It's bizarre. Maybe there's a system of crossreferencing behind the scenes that picked up your review of the Scabo Songbook? It's seems unlikely to the point of bizarre. Computerised search is actually a bloody complicated and difficult business, as people in the post-Google age might be too spoilt to know, but I'm having trouble imagining how that weird result could happen. Maybe, maybe, they've got the info from a crawler that you mention first the album then the book in consecutive blog entries? I dunno, man, it's a kinda bizarre result.

amazon works by indexing its library and then creating links between what people search for, what they look at and what they buy, and when very few results are coming up they add in items that are most clearly linked due to people's browsing activity. so it's not too hard to see a link being created by someone who reads lptj and then browses amazon while signed in. there's no process that checks actual links between things outside of the amazon site - it's all in how people browse the site while signed in.

weird results pop up all the time - i wouldn't be surprised if some of the other albums john reps for pop up mountain goats albums as results when you search for them. someone with more time/inclination might test this.

[Andrew_TSKS]

It's pretty clearly a scam to drum up interest in his soon to be released Taschen hardcover series, LPTJ Vols. I-VI

oh, if only that existed.

[coldforge]

They got a bunch at the Strand, anyway.

[tkthasequel]

Thanks for the clarification, snivlin' indies. Honestly, I just found the whole search thing extremely strange, considering they didn't even offer the record. While there was only an everso slight hint of sincerity (I hope most caught on to the tongue-in-cheek spirit) I was pretty, errr, confused. I totally plan on buying the book, Amazon conspiracy or not - if I can find it in these parts. I got the only copy of Heretic Pride within 10 miles of here when it dropped. (at Bestbuy, of all places...which brings me to my next marketing question...hahaa...why ship only ONE copy to 2 separate Bestbuy locations within 12 miles of each other?) I did enjoy those Bestbuy exclusive downloads though.

[jebreject]

HEY JOHN I KNOW YOU'RE DOING ALL THE SHIPPING DIRECT OUT YOUR HOUSE SO WHY YOU ONLY SENDIN ONE TO BEST BUY HUH

[citrus]

I hate to interrupt the discussion about marketing but I just wanted to say that I got my copy from Amazon in the mail today and read it all in one go. I can't speak more eloquently about it than previous people in this thread have already done but suffice it to say I have never cried that much reading any book since I was a child. You've given voice to something that I have been trying to say for years and years and I can't even express how much that means to me at this point in my life. I want to show it to everyone in my life, especially my family, and make them read it, multiple times if necessary, no matter how they feel about the music. I would say more but I don't think I'm ready to bare so much of myself in a public forum. Thank you seems like the wrong thing to say for something like this but it's the only thing I can say. Even clicking the post button has taken me 5 minutes to work up the bravery to do. I'll just do it with my eyes closed.

[G.C.R]

Ok I've stayed out of this thread because I'm too poor to buy the book at the moment, but just reading what citrus wrote makes me think I pretty much have to buy it.

[tkthasequel]

HEY JOHN I KNOW YOU'RE DOING ALL THE SHIPPING DIRECT OUT YOUR HOUSE SO WHY YOU ONLY SENDIN ONE TO BEST BUY HUH

I didn't know John controlled those logistics decisions ... ? What a sly devil. Thanks, Jeb, for filling me in.

Sounds like the consensus is that the book doesn't disappoint. Hopefully, this will motivate JD to continue his book writing endeavors ... just so long as he doesn't put the guitar down for too long. Now, to begin the journey of trying to find it locally. Laaaaaaame.