#does.a.lot

[andyjwaldron]

ANDY LED A CAMPAIGN THAT EARNED ~$7k IN BOOK SALES FOR A RECORD STORE

Graphics by Olivia Cross (x)

As book buyer at Rough Trade U.S.'s sole location at 30 Rock, Andy was able to build upon all that good music and literature education and experience (from his degrees in Music & Technology and Literature to a very fond employment at Little City Books) in nabbing some great authors and their titles for sale at Jimmy Fallon's office building.

This culminated in the record store's 2022 Books of the Year Campaign, which not only consisted of a wide-ranging collection of titles (managing both the company's asks and being able to highlight small publishers spanning memoir, fiction, poetry and musicology; from the canonization of a hip hop pioneer, to verses touching on cultural labor), but also earn some pretty impressive coin in the process for the company.

From launch through the end of Q4, these efforts earned around $7,000 in profit alone for Rough Trade NYC through this promotion, acquiring signed stock, ordering and receiving inventory, submitting invoices, all the way up to putting together the store display on launch date.

Below is all the copy Andy wrote about these amazing authors and their incredible work, including books by Sadie Dupuis, Patti Smith, Nick Cave, and Melissa Lozada-Oliva:

During a year of bumpy restarts, where our feet feel a bit closer to the ground and our heads starting to look skyward, the stories we share have become more than sources of escape – they've become documentations of how we got to this point and where we're going from here.

The top literary titles we've compiled from 2022 span memoir, fiction, poetry and musicology; from the canonization of a hip hop pioneer, to verses touching on contemporary music work, the chronicles of artists' ascent, and in the case of our top choice, a loving inventory of time passing.

As Nick Cave relates in one of our picks, "You have to be patient and alert to the little miracles nestled in the ordinary." Here are our favorite little miracles we've found:

Patti Smith - "A Book of Days"

We all took stock of the past few years in our own ways; the weight of loss we carried, the pings of video calls when we couldn't meet in-person, the moments of levity we shared with each other to keep us above water. The New York institution that is Patti Smith has collected snapshots of these uncertain times inspired by her newest medium, Instagram – continuing her practice of reflecting and refracting the artful, casual, personal, political, and profound. With a distinctive lens and a careful pen, our top pick for 2022, A Book of Days hands us 366 (leap year-inclusive) reasons to keep moving forward.

Nick Cave & Sean O'Hagan - "Faith, Hope, and Carnage"

"Who wants to do an interview? Interviews, in general, suck. Really. They eat you up. I hate them."

In light of the blunt observation that begins Faith, Hope and Carnage, let's make sure to call Nick Cave's newest book what it is: a wide-ranging conversation between the Australian multi-hyphenate rocker and the Irish journalist, Sean O'Hagan. From the transcripts of about forty hours of dialogue, a revelation emerges – transforming the specifics of the authors' experiences into larger insights on life, grief, and devotion.

Dan Charnas - "Dilla Time"

Record exec, The Source journalist, NYU professor, and all-around good listener, Dan Charnas explores the history and influence of hip hop pioneer J Dilla with the same level of meticulousness that his subject committed to production. After four years of research and nearly 200 interviews, Dilla Time amasses an accessible archive on all things Jay Dee, from teaching moments on his out-of-this-world rhythms to first-hand accounts that ground the human behind the beats.

Margo Price - "Maybe We'll Make It"

Margo Price's memoir of grit and resilience is one of our favorites to come out on University of Texas Press's consistently quality American Music Series. The Nashville-based, Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter relates the twenty years since she dropped out of college to become a musician with a keenly illustrative narrative voice and invokes a storyteller who "quit trying to change the past" in order to share the lessons for "the recent future."

Sadie Dupuis - "Cry Perfume"

The Speedy Ortiz and Sad13 frontdemon's second collection of nimble poetry is all at once darkness and levity, pop and punk, hopeful and realistic. Reading from Cry Perfume at our store back in September, Sadie Dupuis's pieces on grief, music work, the encroachment of tech, and harm reduction became vividly instructive on how to both coexist with these pervasive subjects and, like other titles that her publisher Black Ocean offers, experience a more vital way of operating in a haunted world.

Stuart Braithwaite - "Spaceships Over Glasgow"

From Scotland to New York to all over the globe, the post-rock sage, Stuart Braithwaite chronicles his passionate abandon in the throes of alternative music. The sharp, detailed, and cheeky stories in Spaceships Over Glasgow relate his ascent from fandom to artistry in a fashion much like the Mogwai catalog: always expansive, always out-of-this-world.

Greg Graffin - "Punk Paradox"

In his mission to not be "a sample of carbon-based wastage," Greg Graffin has lived many lives: the lead vocalist and songwriter of Bad Religion, the college professor with degrees in Zoology and Ecology, and the husband and father who wants to leave a better world for his kids. From zeroing in on the great punk songs to zooming out for lessons on endurance, Punk Paradox becomes an engrossing history.

Nabil Ayers - "My Life in the Sunshine"

Digging through the racks of his record store for the next sale, the nonstop grind of touring globally as a seasoned drummer, building a varied repertoire of the most exciting independent artists with 4AD and, now, Beggars Group… Nabil Ayers has always been searching. Now, in My Life in the Sunshine, – which we got to preview back in June – you can trace the origins of his drive; Nabil's narrative finds the author learning how to traverse the overcast of his father's familial and musical legacy, navigate his biracial upbringing, and manifest his own daybreak in creating new and remarkable connections.

Cosey Fanni Tutti - "Re-Sisters"

Collapsing the dialectic and the diaristic, Re-Sisters documents Cosey Fanni Tutti’s discovery of a through-line between her, the contemporary avant-garde artist formerly of Throbbing Gristle, the electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire, and the Christian mystic and first English autobiographist, Margery Kempe. The three broke their respective molds – a common, innovative spirit spanning individual and shared histories – and figured out, against societal, artistic, and gender-driven odds, "what's important is that we do it at all."

Melissa Lozada-Oliva - "Dreaming of You"

Dreaming of You is a prism in which the resurrection of the Tejano pop icon Selena Quintanilla reflects loss, love, tenderness, and karaoke. As a cultural moment where the revaluation of fans' relationships with celebrities is becoming more of a reckoning – when the phrase "parasocial" emerged to facilitate expectations of give and take from the artists we adore – Melissa Lozada-Oliva has written a surreal, funny, and moving novel-in-verse about what happens when obsession turns macabre. (x)

[andyjwaldron]

ANDY WROTE ABOUT GOOD ALBUMS FOR HIS JOB

End-of-year list season is a big stinkin' deal over at Rough Trade. Listening back to the previous twelve months' worth of releases not only became a clear delineation of time passing (especially during the pandemic that kept us asking, "Oh, wait, what month is it again?") but it was also great for Andy when he worked there, as staff were asked to write about a few albums that really stuck with them.

Plus, it's always refreshing for a record store employee to provide a solicited opinion, rather than the usual unsolicited comment while ringing you up.

Here are some blurbs Andy wrote for Rough Trade about LPs from SASAMI, Bartees Strange, Little Hag, Mitski, and Illuminati Hotties:

SASAMI - Squeeze

In the same way one realizes working retail can seem like you're creating sand mandalas (i.e., organizing LPs in the morning), knowing full well how ephemeral they can be (finding Sheryl Crow in the Metal section at night), the turbulent start to the 2020s has proven that, despite the best efforts to make sense, everything is messy now. I've held onto SASAMI's Squeeze in the same way we grasp for something steady when the boat starts swaying.

In a little over a half hour, hard truths are thrown down (the systematic aggression detailed in "Skin a Rat") and then processed ("I tried to understand," "Don’t wanna agonize, just say it") and met with earned affirmations ("I want you to know you're not alone…you can always call me home"). The guitars that accompany these sentiments shred, strum, and surround the listener – almost swallowing us whole. By the time "Not a Love Song" arrives, the waves of distortion become still enough to see ourselves in the reflection.

Writer Michelle Hyun Kim put it best: In "[bringing] seemingly disparate elements together, finding slippery ways to be both/and, neither/nor, between/outside in all categories," SASAMI meets a messy world with messy creation – gleefully collapsing genre with artists who know a thing or two about frustrating binaries (Patti Harrison, No Home, Rin Kim, Vagabon, Mitski, Andrew Thomas Huang). Squeeze recognizes those who've worked hard on themselves and the world around them and gets drinks with them afterward to celebrate: a beautiful, beautiful sight. (x)

Bartees Strange - Farm to Table

Building on the promise of his first album, Live Forever, our On the Rise artist Bartees Strange carries a fiery ambition throughout his next chapter, Farm to Table. It lights up the dance floor on "Wretched" and "Cosigns" and powers the fanfare of my personal song of the year, "Heavy Heart." It becomes a campfire that warms the quieter second half, carrying the heartbreaking ode to Gianna Floyd ("Hold the Line") to the closing, cyclical singalong, "Hennessy."

It's been exciting watching artists of my generation make work reflective of our fickle upbringing; the way we've watched genre break down, earnestness break through, and connection rise above all other priorities. And while Farm to Table may seem like a 4AD fever dream (from the belt and croon of TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe to the inertia of The National's most anthemic moments), make no mistake: Strange's first LP with the storied label marks a young, bold new moment in capital I capital R Indie Rock™ – one whose flame won't go out anytime soon. (x)

Little Hag - Leash

Take a heaping spoonful of Liz Phair's down-to-earth humor, a touch of Elvis Costello's cutting attitude, and a splash of Jeff Buckley's killer vibrato, and you get Little Hag's Leash, one of the most exciting releases to come from Bar-None Records in recent memory. Avery Mandeville, the NJ-based songwriter behind Little Hag, may be one of the legendary indie label's newest signees, but she's been honing her unique knack for catchy and sardonic tales of her self-described "absurd and profane occurrences of being a woman" for the better part of the past decade. Her lyrics deliver the anthemic quality from other accomplished musicians who have emerged from the Garden State. However, the power that drives them is less "We gotta get outta here!" and more "I'm stuck here… now what?" While their other digital-exclusive releases that came out in the past year (Whatever Happened to Avery Jane? and Breakfast) are worth adding to your playlists, Leash, their first album full of new material for Bar-None, is next level for Little Hag. Stories bearing weighty text messages ("The Whole World," "Cherry," "Red"), dangerous and disappointing men ("My Last Name," "Get Real!"), and self-defense weaponry ("Brass Knuckle Keychain") are conveyed with an urgency matched by a skilled rhythm section that rips. Sure, these eleven tracks are told by a singular voice, but the universality of both the shit that they’ve gone through and how she's powered through all of it makes a vital promise for anyone who listens: crank this up, and you'll feel less lonely. (x)

Mitski - Laurel Hell

The new wave nods of Mitski's Laurel Hell come in spades; not just in its production (where uptempo numbers like "Should've Been Me" navigate the liveliness of ABC and moodier tracks like "Working for the Knife" find kinship with Peter Gabriel's self-titled era) but also the paranoia and devotion beneath the sheen (the album starts with "Let's step carefully into the dark / Once we're in, I'll remember my way around" and nearly ends with "I'm standing in the dark / Looking up into our room / Where you'll be waiting for me").

In meeting acrobatic arrangements with clear lyricism across five records, the 32-year-old songwriter has proven to be one of her generations' strongest craftspeople. The difference now on her sixth is how a wide-eyed weariness emerges in a familiar fashion to the era Mitski references, how the push-and-pull between partners can stand in for the heart and mind… or the artist and the consumer: "I give it up to you / I surrender." (x)

Illuminati Hotties - Let Me Do One More

At times in-your-face like an unexpected conversation from a hilarious stranger at a dive bar, while at other times contemplative, standing beside you and huddling for heat during a smoke break, Let Me Do One More was the perfect buddy to have during a year of bumpy restarts. My favorite albums have historically become teaching moments, usually by artists getting by despite constraints both internal and external, and this album finds the endlessly-talented Sarah Tudzin doing her best in trying relationships with the personal ("Growth") and political ("Threatening Each Other re: Capitalism"). These songs truly helped me find warmth through the uneven sway of 2021. (x)

***

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[andyjwaldron]

ANDY CO-DIRECTED A ONE DAY, TWO STAGE, FORTY-ACT MUSIC AND ARTS FESTIVAL.

(photo taken by Jeffrey Vock via http://www.jvock.com/)

Andy co-directed a one-time festival called OnPoint Music and Arts Festival that took place on October 1st, 2016. this included creating the concept, overseeing staff, writing up administration proposals, designing marketing materials and strategy, curating local booking over forty artists for a one day, two-stage festival. A ton of documentation can be found here. Not only was it a blast – it brought a ton of firsts to Stevens Tech history… 

First student-led festival in the university’s history to be open to the public

First to make money for the Student Government Association via merch and non-student ticket sales

First to welcome local Hoboken restaurants and food trucks

First to feature student (art majors and non-art majors) art, alongside local Hudson County work

First Stevens festival to have 2+ artists performing

First to feature student poetry, stand-up, sketch comedy, bands, and solo acts

First festival to be open to press and photographers

First non-club fair event to have various clubs and Greek orgs to have booths

Andy thinks the best moment was when he introduced the headliner; it had been billed as “FREE CANDY” on the schedule up until that moment to mask a secret headliner: NYC’s art-pop outfit, Rubblebucket – they rocked. Half of the crew was giving out goodie bags of non-peanut candy to the crowd. The other half was guarding our generator – we had been told minutes before the Office of Student Life had intended to pull the power at 10 p.m. despite being told the fest might run late. Total narcs. 

Here’s the lineup, put together by Dan Aleman, Emma Murphy, Evan Forman, and Andy. The members of PWR-B**M weren’t outted as awful people just yet.

***

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[andyjwaldron]

ANDY WROTE A THESIS ABOUT PLAYLIST MAKING.

Andy has been described on more than one occasion as a human jukebox. And, if the diner that contained said jukebox was the kind of mid-tier American, “do you want a side of serve mozzarella sticks with your shake” kind that’s relentlessly open (24/7 service) in spite of better judgement, then he’d agree.

He decided to explore this love of collecting and making music, instilled from years of following mp3 blogs and sharing mix CD’s with friends, via his undergraduate thesis at Stevens Institute of Technology, entitled “The Study and Implementation of Cultural and Social Playlist Practices”...

The curation of music through the use of playlists, he establishes, is a historical, human practice; starting with radio utilization, continuing with the sharing of personal mixtapes, to its vitality as a commodified product in the age of streaming services. 

He starts with a diverse, historical study of the collection of music – built upon  existing research synthesized in tandem with surveyed writers, listeners, and DJs. From this survey of existing and colloquial playlist mechanics, he sets out to create a sort of “style guide” for playlistmaking.

The historical study and colloquial guide act as a testament to the playlist as an art form, determining what makes the act of playlist-compiling a resonant process.

Here’s the link. 

***

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[andyjwaldron]

ANDY CARES A LOT ABOUT THE NAMING OF A BUILDING AT HIS ALMA MATER.

This is a full meal of a story. It involves performative allyship, online activism, a bad man who supported gay conversion therapy and white nationalists, a funny scholarship situation, body slamming, IRL activism, diversity and inclusivity, financial conflict of interest, Title IX failure, and the first student demonstration in the history of a small, conservative STEM university.

APRIL 2017: In his final semester at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ, Andy, along with humanities alums Joe Risi and Kyle Gonzalez, petitioned the university president, Nariman Farvardin, about the naming of a future academic complex. The building intended to honor Greg Gianforte, an alumnus and then-congressional candidate for Montana who promised two $10 million gifts to the university. He also was known to support pseudoscience, gay conversion therapy, and white nationalists, businesses that discriminated against LGBTQ folks, and believed that allowing transpeople using bathrooms “[places] young girls' and women's safety at risk,” among other bad things. It was later revealed that not only did Farvardin donate to the Gianforte congressional campaign but that several other members of Stevens’s Board of Trustees did as well in the same month the naming was announced.

The three of them – Andy as a current student and alums Joe and Kyle – received advisement from then-professor of Science and Technology Studies, Lee Vinsel and a group of Montana State University folk who had previously protested naming a building named after Gianforte at MSU. Andy, Joe, and Kyle wrote a petition that asked directly and simply for three things: to explain the reasoning behind naming the new academic center after Gianforte, to condemn the discriminatory rhetoric of the anti-LGBTQ groups who had received donations from Greg Gianforte, and to reaffirm Stevens’ commitment, in actions and not just words, to be an inclusive campus regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation. Seemed like a slam dunk of a much-needed PR opportunity. When Andy brought this up at an open meeting of the Student Government Association (SGA), though, he left not too hopeful that things would change. His fellow Students seemed apathetic as well.

But, despite a ton of exhausting far-right reply guys bemoaning PC culture and asking Andy and company to engage in “thought experiments” to point out logical fallacies, the petition got over 650+ signatures --almost a fourth of the undergraduate population that year -- and loads of great comments.

Stevens’ president, in lieu of the petition’s requests, responded privately to several professors. His response, the private nature of which was dismissive and disrespectful to those who cared enough to sign the petition, brought up more questions than answers. Similarly, the then-SGA president wrote an insulting response. The three petition writers went to a "Conversation with the President” on April 18th, closed but for staff and faculty, asking Farvardin in front of those attending for an explanation of the reasoning behind naming the new academic center after Gianforte, a condemnation of discriminatory rhetoric of the anti-LGBTQ groups who had received donations from Greg Gianforte, and a reaffirmation of Stevens’ commitment, in actions and not just words, to be an inclusive campus regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation. Farvardin’s response was. Farvardin’s public response then was as unsatisfactory as his private response (Here’s some audio).

MAY 2017: During Andy’s final semester at Stevens, he was awarded the Joseph M. Farber Memorial Prize, presented to a graduating humanities senior who “displays a keen interest in and concern for civil liberties and their importance in preserving human rights“ for the Gianforte work. It was a pretty nice consolation prize for being a bit disheartened (and, well, Dead from all the thesis work).

The same day Andy walked across the commencement stage to graduate, Gianforte, uh, forced his way into national news. Assaulting a Guardian reporter on the eve of a special election to fill Montana’s sole seat in the US House of Representatives will do that. This changed some minds on campus.

JUNE 2017: Following the body-slam heard ’round the world – along with a lackluster Alumni Weekend – Farvardin and Virginia Ruesterholz, chairman of the Stevens Board of Trustees, established a Committee to Consider the Naming of the Gianforte Academic Center, picking alumni, faculty, and members of the Board of Trustees (again, several of whom, Ruesterholz and Farvardin included, had donated to the Gianforte political campaign). This committee announced on June 26th that its goal was to "come together, use our collective wisdom, sound judgment, and best reasoning to identify a path forward that is consistent with the mission and values of Stevens."  A handful of concerned Hoboken citizens started their own petition. Stevens literature professor Benjamin H. Ogden got a letter published in the NY Daily News criticizing the naming. Gianforte was found guilty for his assault of the reporter; his mugshot was later released.

AUGUST 2017: Nine more students and alumni joined Joe, Kyle, and Andy to start an informative, persuasive online and IRL campaign, entitled “#iwillnotSITby,” for folks to email members of the aforementioned committee, submit feedback, and share their thoughts on social media. According to bit.ly data, more than 150 folks clicked through the website to the committee’s feedback form. Not that bad.

SEPTEMBER 2017: Stevens organizations -- including Stevens Torch Alliance, the Stevens Faculty Senate, Stevens Poetry Club, Stevens Society of Physics Students, WCPR - Castle Point Radio, and Chi Phi - Mu Chapter -- began to publicly denounce Gianforte’s views and encouraged the renaming of the building. The university’s sketch-and-improv comedy group had some fun with it.

On September 27th, Professor Emeritus James McClellan III presented a talk entitled "What's Wrong with Scientific Creationism?" discussing creationism as a pseudoscience and how it related to Gianforte and Stevens. Despite being a part of Stevens regular humanities forums, it was initially not advertised by the administration and staff, leading students to create and distribute flyers. The College of Arts and Letters later announced the talk -- with the caveat that it did not reflect the full views of the college nor university.

On September 28th, Farvardin made a campus-wide announcement: The committee submitted their findings to the Board of Trustees, the latter of which decided to rename the complex the Gianforte Family Academic Complex, based partly on the idea of “principal legacy,” which was used in Yale’s consideration behind the renaming of Calhoun College, originally named after a slavery advocate, to honor graduate Grace Murray Hopper, a computer scientist, mathematician, teacher, and dedicated public servant. 

Included in any dictionary published after August 2017, next to the definition of “a bad idea,” was the initial naming of the Gianforte Academic Center. Following the committee’s decision, a referral was added, referencing the definition of “a really bad idea,” and included the renaming of the Gianforte Family Academic Complex with the reasoning below:

The new naming recalls the Gianforte Family Foundation, which names both Greg Gianforte and Susan Gianforte as trustees. As both Mr. and Mrs. Gianforte are active voices in deciding who benefits from the foundations’ various donations, any building that references the Gianforte Family name invokes the hateful rhetoric given a platform through their monetary contributions

The Yale decision to rename a college because of Calhoun’s principal legacy of white supremacy was made a full seven months before the Stevens committee made theirs

The Gianforte Family Foundation donated to white supremacists Taylor Rose in 2015 and Robert Saunders in 2016

Stevens’ actions to decide the “principal legacy” of a living alumnus is at odds with Yale’s definition of “principal legacy,” which was strictly applied to deceased alumni

More reasoning can be found via Kyle Gonzalez’s detailed rebuttal, sent to the president and Board of Trustees following the committee’s recommendations. Again, because the naming was ultimately decided by Gianforte campaign contributors, their peers, and an SGA president who did not think a change can be made, concerned community members were not entirely surprised by this outcome.

A GoFundMe campaign was launched a month after the decision by a group of then-students and alumni, titled “Stevens Name Your Price.” The campaign had a fundraising goal of $20,000,001, an amount $1 more than the combined donations made by Gregory Gianforte to fund the new academic center, so that “the administration may entertain [their] request to change the name.” Memes were had. It eventually raised $1,500, which was donated to the Hudson Pride Connections Center,  a “home and voice for the diverse LGBTQ community and our allies that advocates for our physical, mental, social and political well-being” for Hudson County. It was even picked up (or, in improv-speak, yes anded) by Colin Mochrie from “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”

MAY 2019: It was quietly announced that Greg Gianforte had rescinded the second $10 million gift, and that the new building, now dubbed the “Gateway Academic Complex,” will consist of the Gateway South Hall and the Gianforte Family Hall. Andy and company called that a small victory, because why not.

DECEMBER 2019: Following the announcement of the invite-only Gianforte Family Hall ribbon cutting, current students planned a protest for that evening, under the name “wewillnotSITby.” Hell yeah.

Three student leaders, Eli Trakhtenberg, Nasir Montalvo, and Adrian Castellanos (Torch VP, Diversity and Inclusivity Committee Chair, and SGA VP, respectively), took this as an opportunity to push for mass reform. Eli asked Andy for some help with their proposal, which focused on (a) the kind of ideas that Gianforte actively disagrees with and (b) a variety of administrative failures in students’ pursuit of making the campus better for all kinds of identities over the past four years.

This document, given to Board of Trustees members, pointed out these failures and demanded meaningful change and reform under Student Wellness, Administrative Transparency, and Campus Climate. Everything from broken promises to establish an Intercultural Center to a Title IX failure during the “red zone“ of sexual assault on campus to weak efforts of mental-health advocacy are mentioned in the doc. Dear reader, it’s bad.

On December 10th, the first student protest in the history of Stevens took place, with over 50 students, alumni, staff, faculty, and Hoboken community members demonstrating outside the ribbon-cutting ceremony. It was covered by a handful of outlets and supported by at least one business -- the local independent bookstore, Little City Books. There’s [poorly narrated] video too. Seeing this effort start with a group of three concerned humanities majors in 2017 to this many people IRL in December 2019… folks, it’s a thing of beauty.

As of January 5th, 2020, there has been no public response from the administration other than a nice press release about the totally peaceful opening of the hall.

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