Somehow both a diagnosis from my doctor and a review of my piano playing
Franz Nicolay
@franznicolay.bsky.social
Music, writing, teaching: http://linktr.ee/franznicolay ||| PianoFighter.substack.com ||| To us, the beautiful!
Franz Nicolay, Band People: Life and Work in Popular Music. Pro keyboardist's interview-based acct of sidepersons like himself. It takes related skills to write such a well-organized, theory-informed 3rd-person book instead of a memoir. Gave me insight into my own "career"; can recommend. #readin26
And finally: reminder that I’m organizing benefit concerts in the cities Elliott called home, featuring artists who knew him and artists inspired by him! First one is in Brooklyn this fall dice.fm/event/2wq2wo... All proceeds go to the SIMS Foundation and WIN, q&a by @franznicolay.bsky.social !
Somehow my book is coming out this month! Preorder link in my bio, and a Goodreads giveaway here: bit.ly/4u9rAff
Interested to see some of my books pop up in the academic-journal world recently: "The Humorless Ladies" is a subject of “Ukraine in Travel Writing 1994–2024,” alongside books by Anne Applebaum & 2 others, in the "Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights." www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Ukraine in travel writing (1994–2024)
This article analyses representations of Ukraine and Ukrainians in four travelogues spanning 1994–2024: Applebaum’s Between East and West (1994), Nico…
sciencedirect.com
My daughter's soccer friends came over to watch and let me just say that some enterprising network should offer an alt-cast commentated by some ruthless 13yo girls because that was some High Quality Entertainment
Impossible to plan on recording in the summer when you never know when the neighbor is going to fire up the yard work
I wrote about the carnivalesque history of the Wurlitzer company, which spanned the rise & fall of America as a hustling manufacturing nation / the parallel development of mechanized music from the calliope to the drum machine (walk-ons by Mark Twain) pianofighter.substack.com/p/wurlitzer-...
Wurlitzer of Cincinnati
The carnivalesque story of one American music company
pianofighter.substack.com
I played on this and used the proceeds to buy my Wurlitzer so for that I give it a hell yeah (I also give it a hell yeah for all the usual reasons)
It is New Sincere Engineer Music Day. Celebrate accordingly (that means you should purchase it): sincereengineer.bandcamp.com/album/probab...
People sometimes ask "what is to be done" about the cascading problems in the music industry. One thing you could do is contact your representative(s) and encourage them to support/co-sponsor Rep. Ross' recently reintroduced "Protect Working Musicians Act" (1/2) ross.house.gov/2026/5/news-...
Ross Introduces Legislation to Support Independent Musicians and Ensure Fair Negotiations with Streaming Platforms and AI Developers
ross.house.gov
Almost nothing is a quicker buy for me in a used book store than a volume of arcane reference materials. Where else but in a highly specialized technical manual can you find poetry like this:
Are you glad to be in America? www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpuq...
James 'Blood' Ulmer - Pressure
YouTube video by Onjord
youtube.com
James "Blood" Ulmer has died at 86. I wouldn't even know how to crisply summarize his music but luckily the great Greg Tate did: “the missing link between Jimi Hendrix and Wes Montgomery on one hand, and P-Funk and Mississippi Fred McDowell on the other."
Not that anybody asked but this is the best Cecil Taylor album
english isn't for cowards. if you're not saying 'torpify,' that's a skill issue. there's no Académie Française telling you what to do. if you try to type 'pallific' and freak out when you see a little red underline, maybe you're not ready to roll with the big dogs.
The Gallien-Kruger effect is when someone greatly overestimates the wattage they need for a local gig
Smoke rises as 1964-1994 rock music dipped into the same cryogenic vat as 1750-1850 classical music.
Laughed out loud at this page from Srikanth Reddy’s “Underworld Lit”