The nice folks at the Voice of Cassandre radio show let me put together a bunch of songs to play across stations in France & the UK (and streaming everywhere) starting next Monday, February 2nd. Here’s where you can find me:
2/2 (03:00 pm – Paris time)on http://crockradio.com
2/2 (9:00pm – London time) https://www.sinefm.com/
2/3 (11:00 pm – Paris time) on http://crockradio.com
2/5 (11:00 pm – Paris time) on https://radioprimitive.fr/UK
2/6 (08:00 pm – Paris time) on http://jetfm.asso.fr
2/8 (10:00 am – Paris time) on http://jetfm.fr/site/
But since you aren’t in Europe, I’ve also put the full playlist up on Spotify for you to listen to whenever you like.
These songs don’t precisely correlate to things in the book per se, but what they do achieve is this: If you hit play as soon as you reach Palm Springs — and by “reach Palm Springs” I mean: you’re in a car, it’s midnight, the dead of summer, the air hot and dry and you’re on the run from something and to something worse — by the time you pull up to the shore of the Salton Sea, you’ll know what to do, provided you listen to the songs in order.
“Gardenia” by Kyuss. If you live in the Low Desert, you listen to Kyuss. It’s just how it is. The soundtrack of too many lost nights to think of, out in the middle of the desert, someone has a bottle of something they stole, and then someone says, hey, we should rob that store on the edge of town, and then, well, maybe someone does, but you don’t, because someone needs to stay behind to tell the story.
“This Year” by The Mountain Goats. The Mountain Goats are from the Inland Empire and their songs always make me feel like I’m driving on the 10 toward something bad. This song, with its ineffable “I’m going to make it through this year if it kills me” lyric, is the perfect song to play right before you make a bad choice.
“I’ve Been Riding With The Ghost” by Songs: Ohia. Oh, Jason Molina knew deserts. His whole life was a desert. I miss his presence on the planet, but this song lives with me all the time. “I’m running out of things/I didn’t even know I was using” could be the front note of this book, but it’s also the coda of every beautiful loser I’ve ever known. There’s no better midnight song.
“Stay With Me” by Mary Born. This old song is a beauty. We used to see Mary play with her old band Coal in these gritty little clubs around LA, back when that was a thing we liked to do. What a kind person she is, what a great, under-appreciated lyricist. This song is so plaintive, so raw, it’s the song you listen to when you’re going to see that person who is going to use you up. It all seems like a good idea when the wind is blowing through your hair and everything feels alive…little known fact, the wind is always blowing in the low desert… but not so much the next morning.
“Songs That She Sang in the Shower” by Jason Isbell. I like those guys who you should dislike. A lovable loser. A guy you wouldn’t trust with your money but you’d let him watch your dog, because he’d never hurt your dog, but money, you know, you’ll earn more. This song is about losing someone you could have kept, but you couldn’t stop being that guy who ends up with a steak on his eye. My kind of character.
“When The Circus Comes” by Los Lobos. Before you do anything, go listen to the Los Lobos record KIKO. People forget how good that record record is, going on 30 years later. “Never thought I could make it this far/With a dent in my soul and a hole in my heart…” is a lyric that pops into my head when I’m trying to come up with a good reason the people in my stories are still alive. They shouldn’t be. But they are. Maybe they’ll get better? Maybe they’ll find that person who solves the problem with the hole in their heart, or teaches them to fill up that dent. Maybe. Maybe.
“Capsized” by Richmond Fontaine. Wily Vlautin is a genius. A great singer, a great songwriter, a great novelist. This song sounds like how I want a lot of my stories to sound in your mind, if that makes sense. A song about a guy who drifts from town to town, making mistakes, who eventually finds himself in Walla Walla…”I will cut every tie that gets close to me…” Ohh, yeah, that’s what I’m looking for.
“Evangeline” by Mary Gauthier. Has there ever been a bad song titled “Evangeline?” There’s this lovely line early in the song, “She said, Lovers try to change me/The minute I care” that I thought about a lot while I was writing the story “Pilgrims” in this book. There’s a desperation in this song that borders on sweetness, a pain that manifests itself in a long night, dancing on a dirty stage, the person who loves you watching alone, in the shadows.
“Unsatisfied” by The Replacements. Look. I’m not going to play a bunch of songs on the radio in France and not have a Mats song on the docket. They’re my favorite band of all time. This song pleads for understanding with every line. And never finds it.
“Wish I Would” by Sean Wheeler & Zander Schloss. So here’s a story. I’ve been listening to Sean Wheeler play music in small, weird, upsetting places in the desert since I was 14. Everywhere from ditches in Desert Hot Springs to weird comedy clubs in downtown Palm Springs back in the 80s, to an abandoned house in Palm Desert, and all points in between. Without him, there’s no Low Desert sound. He’s it. He made it. In his garage. So I’ve met him a million times, probably, back when we were kids, and he was just another one of those kids who played punk rock music for me while I drank warm beer at the Circles. But as the years went on and my tastes changed, it was cool, because Sean’s music changed, too, so that he’s been making the right songs for me all the while. A year ago, or so, I was at a party for a local journalist who was retiring and Sean and I were standing beside each other at the buffet and I wanted to tell him, Hey, you don’t actually know me, but you’ve been in my head for 35 years and I really appreciate it and just wanted you to know I appreciate you. But that’s a hard thing to elucidate at a buffet, so instead I just kinda smiled at him and nodded and got some roast beef. And so here we are. You don’t have a playlist about the Low Desert and not have Sean Wheeler on it. That’s just how it goes.
“Cereal Song” by The Bicycle Thief. Bob Forrest is also from the Low Desert. Grew up in Palm Desert. Moved to LA, started Thelonious Monster, was gonna make it big, but then heroin et al. That could be the backstory of half the dudes I write about it in The Low Desert. Here, in “Cereal Song,” he talks about what it’s like to have those dreams shatter and find yourself 35 years old and working in a fucking restaurant. But like Sean Wheeler, Bob has been the soundtrack of my head for 35 years, and a few years ago I got the chance to tell him that. We spent an afternoon together at a book festival and then I brought him back out to the desert to interview him about his memoir. He was the sweetest guy and when I finally got the courage to tell him what he meant to me, he said, “Well, you turned out okay, anyway.”
“Ceremony” by New Order. If someone turns these stories into a movie, I want a montage of crimes to be played out over this song.
“Sans Soleil” by Ceschi. I spent a lot of time listening to Ceschi’s Sad, Fat Luck record while writing these stories, this song on repeat. That happens to me sometimes. I’ll find a record that puts me in the mood I need to get into in order to write about the people who find their short lives in my book and I’ll play them to ruin. This song kept me company while writing the title story, The Low Desert. It will seem strange when you read that story — it takes place in 1962, at the Salton Sea, which you should be pulling up toward right now — until you know that both that story and this song are eulogies. Wish I could save you all.
“Roger Ebert” by Clem Snide. Get out of your car. You’re at the Salton Sea. Don’t do that thing. It’s all an elaborate hoax.
