It’s been a while since we’ve featured our long running Writer’s Workshop series here on Hidden Track, so to get back into the swing of things we’re hosting a very special guest today. Longtime HT favorite singer-songwriter Bobby Long recently published a collection of poetry, so instead of focusing on the usual journalism we’re turning our attention to writing for verse.

Long’s career as a musician got off to a quick start due to his association with the first Twilight film, but since he’s developed into a serious singer-songwriter with a huge fan base and a penchant for  Hank Williams. The new book Losing My Brotherhood is available at Createspace as well as via other online outlets.

Hidden Track: In reading your poetry, I notice some similarities to your lyrics, but some differences as well. I particularly enjoyed the material about childhood. Does writing for poetry open possibilities where writing for songs can be perhaps more restrictive?

Bobby Long: Yes I think so. You just have more freedom and there are certain subjects I feel don’t work well in songs or I at least can’t be concise with them. In songs, I tend to try and go deeper than just setting a scene, but you just don’t have the time to do it. There is just a much greater freedom with writing poems; it was really interesting seeing myself open up to it.

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This month brings about exciting news elsewhere in the music blogosphere as our esteemed colleague and friend, Mr. Miner, of the wildly popular Mr. Miner’s Phish Thoughts blog embarks upon his first foray into the world of book publishing. His project, entitled Mr. Miner’s Phish Thoughts: An Anthology By a Fan for the Fans, includes a collection of writings spanning Phish’s comeback era, new essays on the band, full-color high-definition photography and a cover designed by popular poster artist AJ Masthay.

[Design by AJ Masthay]

To celebrate the execution of this grand scale vision, we invited Mr. Miner to share his thoughts and advice on writing as part of our long-running Writer’s Workshop segment. For fans planning to catch the Phish New Year’s Run in New York City, Mr. Miner will be hosting a book signing and both pre- and post-show parties on December 29th at the Irish Times, just a stones throw away from Madison Square Garden. Be sure to stop by, say hi, and check out the new book.

Hidden Track: Let’s start at the beginning. If I’m not mistaken, you started your music writing career on a more traditional route, writing reviews and conducting interviews with all different bands. What was the turning point when you decided you wanted to focus your efforts on a dedicated Phish blog?

Mr. Miner: Interestingly, I started writing about music back in 2000 when I moved to San Francisco and worked at JamBase.com. At the time I began writing about all types of music, but when Phish went to Japan that summer, Mr. Miner was born. My first time reviewing Phish shows, I wrote them for JamBase from overseas. When I got home, I received countless emails, from all sorts of fans that couldn’t make it to Japan, thanking me and telling me how they could really get a sense of what happened at the shows from my writing. It was pretty awesome feedback to hear, because I’d stay up all night with friends, exploring whatever city we were in, then when people crashed, I’d hit the hotel’s business center and crank out an article strictly from memory—and people really liked them! I continued to review the rest of the summer tour and into the fall, and about half way through the fall my laptop broke. I took it as a sign to just enjoy the final part of what could have been the last tour ever.

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A couple weeks back, a writer by the name of Aaron Leitko penned an endearing article for the Washington Post that posited the idea that indie rockers are embracing the jam scene in growing numbers and that “jamband” is no longer a dirty word. The article focused primarily on musicians, but also quoted none other than Rob Mitchum for comment  – one of the quintessential critics at the mighty Pitchfork – who outed himself as a longtime Phish fan.

After keeping his phanhood under wraps for the early part of his near decade-long tenure at Pitchfork, Mitchum recently came out of the closet in a big way, committing his twitter feed as a channel to review every single Phish show from 1993 to present. A perfect candidate for our Writer’s Workshop column, we invited Rob to join us for our periodic segment to share his thoughts and stories about his career as a writer, the power of Pitchfork, and of course the Phish from Vermont.

Hidden Track: Might as well start at the beginning, how did you initially get the role at Pitchfork? Was that your first real music writing gig?

Rob Mitchum: I basically got the Pitchfork writing job by writing them hate mail. I was a poor lab tech living in very expensive Washington DC, and decided a good, free way to entertain myself at night was to start writing about music. I had written a few album and concert reviews for the Michigan Daily in college, but got busy with other collegiate activities and didn’t keep it up. Faced with a lot of free time (and having just read the Richard Meltzer anthology A Whore Just Like The Rest, which opened me up to entirely new ways of writing about music), I took it up again and wrote a couple practice reviews.

At the time (late 2001), there were probably a dozen different music websites I could have sent those “clips” to, but Pitchfork was my favorite, so I started there. Thinking (as many people do) that Pitchfork was made up of elitist assholes, I figured I needed to be an elitist asshole myself to get their attention, so I wrote an e-mail that basically said, “your reviews suck now, I can do better.” Ryan Schreiber, who at the time was the entire full-time staff of the site, wrote me back and said I was welcome to prove it by writing two reviews a week for him, for free. Then I had to grudgingly admit that I was actually a nice guy and very excited to write for them. My first review was the Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack, and nearly ten years later, here we are. READ ON for more of our chat with Rob Mitchum…

After a successful and storied tenure (ten-year) establishing the editorial department at one of our most respected peers, JamBase, the site’s longtime, esteemed Editor-in-Chief, Aaron Kayce (aka Kayceman), recently announced his decision to step down from that position.

As everyone here at Hidden Track can attest, we’re saddened to see him leave JamBase, but meanwhile impressed by how long he managed such a stressful role. From coordinating the gigantic team of contributors and responding to hundreds of emails daily to scheduling a massive amount of content and somehow finding time to write, the task seems nothing short of monumental. Hence, we’re excited both for Kayceman to embark on the next phase of his writing career as well as to keep tabs on what’s next for JamBase.

Hidden Track: To the extent you feel comfortable talking about it; what led to your decision to part ways with JamBase after ten years?

Aaron Kayce: For starters, as you mentioned, I had been at JamBase for almost ten years. I built the editorial department from the ground up and I more or less had done all that I could there. Things change a great deal over the course of a decade and as my life and dreams evolved it became clear that I needed a new set of challenges. It was the right time for me to enter the next stage of my career.

HT: What did a day in the life as Editor-in-Chief of JamBase typically entail from start to finish?

AK: A lot of emailing and content creation. I had a very small editorial team, myself and the wonderful Dennis Cook, but we pumped out a ton of content. A lot went into making that happen and it wasn’t the same every day. But there were certainly some consistencies.

My day generally began by publishing fresh news on the site and scouring the web to be sure I wasn’t missing any breaking stories that would be pertinent to JamBase users. Then I’d be in touch with Dennis to be sure the schedule (show reviews, features etc) I set was still on track for the day. Sooner or later I’d have to start dealing with emails, of which I’d get between 100-200 a day from publicists, bands, writers, and photographers about various things.

READ ON for more of our Writer’s Workshop with Kayceman…

Looking back through the annals of rock journalism, just three publications carry the historical clout to be considered in the upper crust of music scribble: Rolling Stone, Creem, and the Village Voice. Rolling Stone, of course, wielded(s) the biggest brand name and Creem threw its weight behind being the badass on the block. The Village Voice on the other hand, while bohemian, paved its way relatively quietly with great writers, a careful focus on the written word, and of course, the best location.

When current shopkeep of the Voice’s storied music department, Rob Harvilla, took over for Chuck Eddy back in 2006 (shortly after the New Times bought the paper), he slid into a pair of rather large shoes. Not merely did he face filling the void left behind by the beloved Eddy, but also followed in a long line of Mohinder Surresh-caliber verbose superheroes like Greil Marcus and Robert Christgau. And perhaps most challenging, he came into the leadership fold right in the thick of the changeover between old and new media. In other words, Harvilla had his work cut out for him in carrying the the Village Voice’s high standard for musical credibility into the digital age. Fortunately for longtime Voice readers, he’s done a tremendous job and taken it all in stride.

Hidden Track: I read somewhere that you discovered your passion for music journalism while sitting in the waiting room at the dentist reading a Rolling Stone. Do you remember what article you read?

Rob Harvilla: Orthodontist, actually. Dr. Pfister. P-F. No specific article, but I can remember covers (first of my own subscription: Eddie Van Halen), specific features (Cosmic Thing B-52s), a few reviews (how can this guy not like They Might Be Giants?), etc. From that period I also remember that either Time or Newsweek did an Alternative Rock! cover story that broke the genre down into different categories and alleged that if I liked TMBG, I’d love Butthole Surfers, which remains to this day the single worst piece of advice I have ever received.

READ ON for more with Rob Harvilla of the Village Voice…

Jim DeRogatis has a long-held reputation as a firebrand, and he’ll be the first to remind you he’s more than a bit of a contrarian. But we’ve always found those labels a little disingenuous, especially for someone so obviously passionate about not only music, but about being as much reporter and informed critic as opinionated scribe.

In a music critic landscape circa 2009 that’s as much lazy, laurels-resting old hands as unedited, brutally overwrought bloggers, credit the man for valiantly bucking both trends. He’s best known as the pop music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, but DeRo is also a prolific author, blogger and, with Greg Kot, his opposite number at the Tribune, host of Sound Opinions, to us one of the few music radio talkshows that’s as informative as it is passionately music geeky.

This fall came his latest book, a visual history of the Velvet Underground called The Velvet Underground: An Illustrated History of a Walk on the Wild Side (Voyageur). We caught up with DeRo a few weeks back on that and other pressing topics.

HIDDEN TRACK: Being a well documented Velvet Underground fanatic, this must have been a fun one for you. Tell me about the genesis of this book.

JIM DEROGATIS: Voyageur Press has been doing a number of coffee table art books devoted to bands and memorabilia. They did one on Led Zeppelin and I’d contributed an essay on “Houses of the Holy” to that. They had this notion of doing a Velvets art book and they called me up and said could you do the connective tissue historical essay and corral some other writers, and I said, well shit yeah, Merry Christmas. They’ve very generously put my name on the cover.

I have a shelf full of a dozen if not more Velvets and Lou Reed and John Cale books, but being even a huge fan as I am, there is a tremendous amount of artwork in this book that I’d never seen before. It’s nice to be given that context to do some of the writing. The goal wasn’t to do a definitive history for fans, it was to show them a lot of the art they hadn’t seen before, rounded up in one place.

READ ON for more of Chad’s chat with Jim DeRogatis…

Mike Greenhaus may not have gotten his start as a writer quite as far back as 15th century ancient Europe, but he is a Renaissance Man so-to-speak.

Having cut his teeth at just about every task under the jamband and indie sun, he now holds down the role of Executive Editor at Relix/Jambands.com, co-hosts the ever popular Cold Turkey podcast series, developed a burgeoning videocast for the forthcoming Relix website and continues to help lead both Relix and jambands.com into the next generation.

With all the positive changes a foot over yonder, Mike kindly offered to shed some light on everything from his humble beginnings, to the future of the Jammy’s, to the redesigns of both websites, to some tips for Larry David in this, one of our most insightful editions of Writer’s Workshop to date.

Hidden Track: For starters, could you explain how you got started writing about music and ultimately grew into the Executive Editor seat at Relix?

Mike Greenhaus: Well, I was always the type of dork that spent more time working on the school newspaper than playing hockey, but I guess I really started writing about music in college. I went to a small liberal arts school at a time when the jamband scene was coming into its own before the first Bonnaroo and got to interview String Cheese Incident, the Disco Biscuits, moe., Dispatch and Addison Groove Project as an editor at my college newspaper. Relix was my favorite magazine, and I also started writing reviews for Jambands.com, one if our websites, after sending in a blind pitch.

READ ON for more of Writer’s Workshop with Mike Greenhaus…

Reading a biography, it’s easy to overlook all the behind the scenes work that goes into prepping the written material. If done well, these works read like a good flowing piece of narrative fiction, but there is far more upfront preparation required in the form of gathering articles, watching video footage, reading reviews, conducting interviews and – in the case of music biographies – becoming intimately familiar with the musical catalog. Hence, while the writing itself plays a huge role in the quality of a biography, the real masters of this craft are those who take the preparation to the next level.

In this installment of Writer’s Workshop, we had the chance to match wits with one of the true legends of the music writing landscape and particularly the music biography, Robert Greenfield. To put it in perspective, in Greenfield’s latest book, A Day in the Life: One Family, the Beautiful People, and the End of the Sixties – the story of Tommy Weber and Puss Coriat, a pair of London socialites who regularly rubbed elbows with the likes of the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and the Beatles – the section in back reserved to credit sources spans a jaw-dropping 40 pages. A rough estimate of twenty line items per page puts the total number of sources at around 800; not exactly lazy journalism.

Over the course of the interview, we discuss this arduous approach to the research process as well as other anecdotes detailing the ups, downs, ins and outs of Robert Greenfield’s life as a music writer.

Ryan Dembinsky: I understand you started your career as a sports writer. Could you explain the motivation and circumstances behind your move from sports to music, and ultimately to music biographer/historian?

Robert Greenfield: Because I grew up in Brooklyn when the Dodgers were still at Ebbets Field (and where I got to see Jackie Robinson play), I was like most kids in my neighborhood obsessed with sports, not just baseball but basketball as well. I was also obsessed with music and went to my first rock ‘n’ roll show, hosted by Murray The K, when I was 13 years old. When the world began changing in the late sixties, music seemed more interesting and important than sports on every level and so I began to write about it.

READ ON for more of Ryan’s chat with famed author Robert Greenfield…

We’re not sure if everybody is aware, but looming here among us pesky wannabes here at Hidden Track is a true pro. Our very own Randy Ray has conducted over 100 interviews in his established tenure as a music journo, spanning a better majority of just about every established band in the jamband scene (and then some). Randy also contributes regularly to Relix, dreams up the awesomely named Peaches En Randalia column (or perhaps more accurately described; the flowing demiurgic locution of mayhem) at Jambands.com, and best of all, contributes the bi-weekly Hidden Flick column right here at HT.

Conducting this particular edition of the Writer’s Workshop has been an honest pleasure. Randy exhibits a truly unmatched dedication to this craft and this column reflects it (because of him, not me). In other words, read this shit. I think you’ll like it.

Ryan Dembinsky: If you had to take a crack at defining your writing style and approach to differentiating yourself, how would you sum it up?

Randy Ray: Organized Chaos (see above photo), which succeeds if I can plant unique visual imagery in a reader’s mind. When the writing fails, I am trying too hard. Style should be a four-letter word, Ryan! Let me attempt to quantify the intriguing madness that people may like about my work.

Everything returns to a circus theme with my writing, which is why I wrote three books about this somewhat childish yet timeless topic. Sometimes, I want the black and white words on a page to move like one is on a rollercoaster; sometimes, I want imagery to zoom by at random intervals like one is on a carousel; and then, sometimes, I’d like the portrait to resemble shattered pictures within a kaleidoscope. Sometimes, I haven’t a clue.

I like mystique, and I start off from an interesting point of origin, move towards clarity, and then return to that original point of mystery—hopefully, with some unique spin on things. I do my homework, and research my subjects. I also concentrate on the work, because the written word, after all, survives, so I keep that in mind with any project.

READ ON for more from Ryan and Randy about writing…

If you ever wonder what sets apart the folks who successfully pave thier way through creative endeavors, Jesse Jarnow cut his teeth “beginning in 2nd grade, when he edited ’2nd Grade News’ by writing it out longhand and Xeroxing it,” and worked on homemade ‘zines and school papers ever since.

His first published piece ran in John Dwork’s now defunct Grateful Dead fanzine, Dupree’s Diamond News, and his first regular gig began with the early days of jambands.com. Jesse Jarnow has now graced the pages (both pulp and processor) of Relix, Paste, the London Times, the Village Voice, the AP, Salon and many more. While it ain’t easy given his prolific output, you can try keep to up with his frenzied pace at the Frank and Earthy blog, his Frow Show radio program on WFMU or his Twitter feed. As longtime readers and fans, we’re excited to have Jesse at HT today to shed some light on the ins and outs on his life as a music scribe.

Ryan Dembinsky: More so than the vast majority of music critics out there, you seem to really strive to carefully construct your record reviews, no matter how long or short, often crafting elaborate sentences, including deep references and devising thoughtful comparisons. Could you walk us through the process of reviewing an album from start to finish?

Jesse Jarnow: Thanks! It’s a bit different each time, depending on how long before deadline I get a copy of what I’m reviewing. Ideally, it’s about a month. For albums I’m psyched about, I’ll first listen straight through on headphones. But, most new music I get goes into a thousand-or-so-song playlist that I run on shuffle most of the time. It’s a combination of everything I’ve gotten recently — music by new bands, random downloads, live stuff, outtakes, compilations, old stuff I’m just discovering… just, everything.

READ ON for more of our Writer’s Workshop with Jesse Jarnow…

We’re back with another installment of the Writer’s Workshop. This month, we have the writer who is widely regarded as the greatest rock critic of all times, Lester Bangs. Lester Bangs draws comparison to that other famed Gonzo for living the life he wrote about. You might remember him as the character in Almost Famous played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Unlike the “I can fit you on the calendar” interview and research format of today, Bangs befriended his subjects, got to know them inside and out, and likely passed out on their couch.

Hard livin’, alongside such notable partakers as Lou Reed, Captain Beefheart and the Clash, cut Bangs’ life short at the tender age of 33 – a true rock star. Thus, in order to include the wisdom of Lester Bangs here for the Writers Workshop, I’m piecing together this phony interview from a hilarious essay Bangs wrote entitled How to Be a Rock Critic, which is published in the back of the definitive Lester Bangs biography, Let It Blurt, by Jim DeRogatis.

Ryan Dembinsky: What would you say was the best part of the life as a successful rock writer?

Lester Bangs: Well, it almost certainly won’t get you laid. On the other side of the slug, though, are the benefits. The first big one is if you stay in this stuff long enough you’ll start to get free records in the mail, and if you persevere even longer you might wind up on the promotional mailing lists of every company in the nation. On Christmas you don’t have to buy anybody presents if you don’t want to: Just give your mother the new Barbra Streisand album Columbia sent you because Barbra’s trying to relate, your sister one of the three copies of the new Carole Kind that you got in the mail, your sister the Osmond’s double live LP you never opened because you’re too hip… all down the line, leaving you enough money saved to stay fucked-up on good whiskey over the holidays this year.

The final benefit (and for some people, the biggest) is that during most of these stages and at an increasingly casual level as time goes on, you’ll get to hobnob with the Stars. Backstage at concerts, in the dressing room drinking their wine, rapping occasionally with the famous, the talented, the rich, and the beautiful. Most of ‘em are just jerks like everybody else, and you probably won’t really get to meet any real Biggies very often since the record companies don’t need publicity on them so why should they inflict you on them, but you will become friends with a lot of Stars of the Future or at least also-rans.

READ ON for more of Rupert’s sorta-interview with Lester Bangs…

Folks, today we’re kicking off another new periodic department here at Hidden Track and we’re really excited about it. Since it’s the collaborative vibe of lots of writers and commenters that make this site tick – most of whom are pretty tuned in to the music writing landscape – we decided to try out what we call Writer’s Workshop.

As you may have guessed, it’s about writing and the idea is to rap with some great music writers who actually know what they are doing. Thus, our guests will drop some knowledge, a few tricks of the trade, and their tales of sweat and blood.

Our first guest is the one and only Amanda Petrusich of Pitchfork, Paste, Spin, and New York Times fame. Amanda just published her new book, It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music, and continues to make a name for herself as one of the music’s burgeoning young writers. So, without further ado, let’s dig in…

Ryan Dembinsky: Could you run through your standard protocol (if you have one) when you go to review an album? For instance, where do you listen to it? How many times? Do you look for particular elements or just wait to see what jumps out you?

Amanda Petrusich: I try to listen to every record I review at least twice before I sit down to write about it. I actually think it’s much easier to develop ideas about an album when you let it become a part of your life for awhile, even if it ends up being unwelcome. Twice is just a vague hallmark; I’ll do my best to listen until I think I have some larger notion of what a record is “about” – whether it’s a lyrical theme, a narrative, a certain guitar sound, whatever. Something needs to click. Trying to review a record when nothing clicks, that’s the real challenge.

READ ON for more of the premiere edition of Writer’s Workshop…