A.S. Coomer's Blog, page 17

Memorabilia

My new novel, Memorabilia, came out yesterday, y’all![image error]

I couldn’t be more excited to share this book with the world.

We had a party at Flywheel Brewing to celebrate its release with live music from GEMMA and The Coomers with delicious eats whipped up by Momma Coomer. It was a hell of a night. There was even a strawberry cake. [image error]

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[image error]Photo by Twin Owls Photography

Big thanks to Andrew Wilt and the rest of the good folks at 11:11 Press for believing in this book. A lot of hard work went into Memorabilia and I can’t thank them enough.

If you’re looking for a signed copy of Memorabilia you buy one directly from me. 11:11 Press did a limited print run of 100 hand-numbered and signed books. Gets yours here.

1 Limited-Edition Signed Copy of Memorabilia by A.S. Coomer

This print run was limited to 100 hand-numbered and signed paperback editions of Memorabilia by A.S. Coomer.

$20.00

You can also purchase Memorabilia from Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, Wal-Mart, and from 11:11 Press’ webstore.

Memorabilia is about hope and hopelessness. It’s about finding and being found. Memorabilia is about creating art in the face of the Big Nothing. It’s about self-discovery and the magic of writing.

Specifically, Memorabilia is about a man falling apart. Stephen Paul works for a university in Toledo, Ohio. His best friend and colleague commits suicide at the beginnings of what seems to be a burgeoning literary career. Stephen Paul finds his friend’s suicide note, written in blue ink, and keeps it to himself. He is distraught by the university’s cool acceptance of the young writer’s death and thus begins the process of decay, of filing away, of memorabilia.

This book cost me a fortune in patience to write. Over the course of its creation I developed a mantra I still use: Patience is a practice that takes practice. I’ve said it a hundred times if I’ve said it once. Patience is a practice that takes practice. This book tried my patience, bucking and refusing to fit into the molds of a traditionally told story. I eventually had to give in and let the book become the book it was destined to be. It didn’t fit in any of the molds I could find and the prose got kind of wild. You’ll see it if you read it: it’s unlike any book out there.

All the best,

A.S. Coomer

Meghan’s House of Books Interview

I was recently interviewed by Meghan Hyden for her blog Meghan’s House of Books. I got to talk about my forthcoming novel Memorabilia (via 11:11 Press) and a whole slew of other things, including The Flock Unseen. Give it a read here.

All the best,

-A.S. Coomer

 

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The Flock Unseen

Happy Monday, y’all.

It’s Publication Day for The Flock Unseen, my first collection of short stories. You can snag a copy from Clare Songbirds Publishing House’s webstore.

The Flock Unseen is 8.5″ x 5.5″, perfect bound, with a matte cover and will set ye back $12.99. These stories first appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, the Merida Review, GFT Press, & Oxford Magazine.

All the best,

-A.S. Coomer

[image error] The Flock Unseen by A.S. Coomer. 

Memorabilia Reviewed in The Blue Mountain Review

Happy Caturday, y’all!

Memorabilia comes out on the seventh of December and I could’t be more excited.

Clifford Brooks, founder of The Southern Collective and Pulitzer Prize for Poetry nominee reviewed Memorabilia in the latest issue of The Blue Mountain Review. He liked the book enough to track me down and ask me a few questions about it.

You can read the review & interview here.

You can preorder a copy of Memorabilia for yourself and copies for all of your loved ones here.

All the best,

A.S. Coomer

Live at the Rack

Happy Caturday, y’all,

The good folks at Bike Rack Records were kind enough to let me play a few songs and talk a little shop & a little shit for their live video series Live at the Rack. I played Spit on my Grave and Smell the Roses while my version of a Robert Palmer girl, Rebecca the Mannequin, stood beside me for moral support.

The video was secretly funded by Hershey’s Chocolate Tears®, who asks, “why cry tears when you can cry chocolate tears?”

We talked a little bit about my upcoming projects, a new novel called Memorabilia due out in December via 11:11 Press, a book of crime fiction coming out in 2020 called Misdeeds via Shotgun Honey, a book of literary short fiction called The Flock Unseen due out the Monday before Thanksgiving via Clare Songbirds (UP FOR PREORDER NOW), a collection of folk tunes set in the badlands called Badlands with Z.P. Kunkle, my pedalboard, and a few other things.

It’s very Between Two Ferns-esk.

Big thanks and a fresh round of Hershey’s Chocolate Tears® to Mike and Mark for having me on their show.

All the best,

A.S. Coomer

 

The Coomers – Live at MotherBrain

Happy Halloween, witches & warlocks!

The Coomers‘ new collection of tunes Live at MotherBrain is out today on all major streaming services. It collects all three of our singles & their B-Sides for a six-song EP. We’ve got physical copies of the CD on the way & we’ll be hocking them at all our shows. Cover art by T. Davidsohn.

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Tracklist

Skeleton
Cloudy
Cheesecake
Whipped Cream
Badlands #2
Run

All songs performed live & without overdubs by A.S. Coomer, Ethan Coomer, & Ross Clark-Coomer. All songs written by A.S. Coomer.

The recording was engineered, mixed, and mastered by Brett Siler of MotherBrain Sound Infrastructure. Band photos by Mark Rush Photography.

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Links HyperFollow, Spotify, Napster, Apple Music, Tidal, Google Play, Youtube, etc.

 

Nod yer heads.

-A.S. Coomer

Badlands #3 Video — Shaker Steps

The Coomers played Badlands #3 at The Creme Coffee House in Owensboro. Mark Rush of Shaker Steps recorded it. He also shot a few photographs of us out on the farm.

Follow Mark Rush Photography and Shaker Steps on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. He’s incredible.

The song is the B-Side of the Run single. It’s gonna be on our six-song EP Live at MotherBrain, which drops on Halloween

Badlands #1

Z.P. Kunkle and I made a record of narratives together. We share a love for the macabre and folk music.

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The first track off the Badlands record is, fittingly, titled Badlands #1. It’s a song of desperation and hopelessness, with no sign of sunnier days on the horizon. Z.P. Kunkle and I recorded it in his living room in a single take to an audience of two dogs.

Badlands #1 (A.S. Coomer)

Despair is a tight rope and when you slip it slits you in two

Leaving one for the highway & one for getting through

Now I live out in the badlands, just my dog & me

It’s only been two summers since Edna left me

Just you wait & just you see

These godforsaken badlands don’t make for such good company

The knife is forthright & it’ll sing when it sinks deep

I feel the winter in my bones; I hope the night, it takes me

Just you wait & just you see

These godforsaken Badlands, well, they’ll be the death of me

You can purchase/stream/download the track (as well as the entire Badlands record) on all the usual places: Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube, etc.

The Badlands record was mixed by Cory Gottron at Sub Par Studios & mastered by Tony Taylor at Rock Haus Studios.

Nod yer heads.

A.S. Coomer

Badlands #2

Z.P. Kunkle and I made a record of narratives together. We share a love for the macabre and folk music.

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Badlands #2 is a bankrobber’s song. The singer, going through hard times like the rest of us, is just doing what he has to do. Now ain’t that the goddamn truth?

Badlands #2 (A.S. Coomer)

I got a pickup; I got a gun

I’m wearing a black mask ‘cos I’m on the run

Well, I’m heading out to the badlands ‘cos they ain’t no place else to go

So I’ll hang around but I’ll hang low

Ask me no more questions & I’ll tell you no more lies

Don’t you stand in my way, buddy, ‘cos I gots to hide

Well, I shot that sheriff just outside the bank

He’s kind to my momma but I shot him just the same

Now it’s getting hard out here

I think my safety net’s done come unglued

Now I took that money but I didn’t want to shoot

Yeah, well, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do

Now ain’t that the truth?

Now, Sweet Lucinda, don’t you rag on me

I just did what I had to do so you & them babies could eat

Now, ain’t nobody seen my face so you don’t have to fret

You can’t stand the sight of blood? Well, don’t look at it

We recorded this one, and most of the others, in the basement of my house in south Toledo. We took smoke break out on my little front porch and listened to the sirens wail. My neighbor learned what we were working on and gifted me an antique squeezebox.

You can purchase/stream/download the track (as well as the entire Badlands record) on all the usual places: Bandcamp, Youtube, Spotify, Google Play, Apple Music, Amazon, etc.

The Badlands record was mixed by Cory Gottron at Sub Par Studios & mastered by Tony Taylor at Rock Haus Studios.

The Coomers recorded this song live in a barn in Evansville, Indiana.

Nod yer heads.

A.S. Coomer

Badlands #3

Z.P. Kunkle and I made a record of narratives together. We share a love for the macabre and folk music.

[image error]Cover by A.S. Coomer

Badlands #3 is another attempt at writing a novel in song. The story, told simply with a few finger-picked chords, follows the singer as he goes from a mineworker to a murderer on the run, smoking Big Rock Candy Mountains and losing his faith in love and God in between.

Badlands #3 (A.S. Coomer)

I got a job in the badlands working in the mines for a spell

I up & married this redhead, well, she knows how to give me hell

I got this truck & this bad buzz real cheap & it’ll take them both just to carry me on down

Down the road, away from the river where you first laid hands on me

Held me down, pushed me under, nary a light did I see

The sky was blue, the faces were smiling, your mother was singing to me

You cried & so did I, I tried, but I couldn’t believe in you

You & me just dancing under them cigarette trees

Smoking Big Rock Candy Mountains

Wishing we had something to eat

And now we don’t even roll ’em up

We just sit around & have entire conversations without making a sound

I gotta leave these badlands, I gotta get out now

When they find your body, I’ll be well on my way south

I think I took the wrong stuff, now I cannot see

Is this your ghost choking the life out of me?

You can purchase/stream/download the track (as well as the entire Badlands record) on all the usual places: Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music/iTunes, Youtube, etc. The Badlands record was mixed by Cory Gottron at Sub Par Studios & mastered by Tony Taylor at Rock Haus Studios.

Badlands #3 was originally written for the Badlands record, and it’s on there, but it’s also the B-side on The Coomer’s single entitled Run. This is a whole different approach to the song. I’m on the electric guitar. Ethan Coomer is on the drums and is singing backups. Ross Clark-Coomer is on the electric bass.

Nod yer heads.

-A.S. Coomer