Eli Lang's Blog, page 3

Three Songs – August

Doing this month’s songs a bit early…

Fill in the Blank by Car Seat Headrest

There’s a line in this song that I absolute love.  It’s “You have no right to be depressed.  You haven’t tried hard enough to like it.”

There is almost nothing I hate more than telling someone you’re unhappy or depressed and having them be all, “Oh, just think positive!  Just be happy!”  It gives me that stabby, I-must-commit-murder-right-the-fuck-now feeling.   Fill in the Blank doesn’t give me that feeling at all. ...

Keep me in your memory, leave out all the rest

I was going to do my regular three songs post for July, because… y’know, I enjoy it, and I have my three songs picked out.  And then… Chester Bennington died.  And I don’t even know how to listen to music anymore, let alone talk about songs that aren’t Chester’s.

I always feel sort of weird talking about this stuff.  Because… am I saying too much?  Am I letting a weird amount of grief be on public display?  Is it not my place to mourn?  Or, most of all—am I not saying enough?  Like, how do I...

Escaping Indigo is out! (And other news stuffs)

[image error]I wrote Escaping Indigo because… I wanted to write about musicians because I am a musician, and I wanted to tell stories about musicians like the musicians I know.  I wanted to write about a band that was still small.  I wanted to write about touring and playing shows in gritty little venues, and living all crammed together on a bus.  I wanted to write about what might happen when you actually meet someone whose music you admire, what would happen if you found yourself falling in love with th...

Three Songs – June

I’m late on my June songs post (err, is anyone reading these?  Whatever—I like writing them) because I’ve been listening pretty exclusively to alt-J’s new album, which is pure freaking magic.  *cough*  So I had sort of a hard time dragging myself away from it.  But… Ta-da!  Three songs for June:

 

Rotten Pumpkin by Slothrust

This is a band signed to Dangerbird Records (who, I’m pretty sure, set the Silversun Pickups on their path to success… and Fitz and the Tantrums, and Hot Hot Heat, and Mi...

All the news ever (for June, at least)

[image error]Err, it seems like there’s an awful lot of news I’ve been slacking on. First, the second book in my Escaping Indigo series, Skin Hunger, went up for preorder a couple weeks ago, and I’m terrible at promo, so I sort of sporadically announced it here and there.  But, it’s up!  And the cover’s up, too.

Three Songs – May (Plus housekeeping)

Fake Empire by The National

This isn’t new, but it seems to be one of those songs that floats up to grab my attention every once in a while, and it did it again recently.  The very first book I ever wrote (which was an experiment and complete crap and never saw the light of day) I wrote based on… the feelings I got from this song, I guess.  I wrote another book while listening to this song, a handful of other songs, and a white noise mix of waves, crickets and birds.  And I edited Escaping In...

Three Songs – April

I’ve really been trying to come up with stuff to blog about because… I like blogging and I think it’s sort of important.  So I thought, since I have a series coming out about a band, and since I LOVE MUSIC OMG LET ME TALK TO YOU ABOUT SONGS, I might do a little bit of writing about three songs I’m listening to a lot right now.

Friendship (Is a Small Boat in a Storm) by Chicano Batman

This is possibly the best thing I’ve ever heard.  It’s… crazy.  Super high vocals, synth riffs (which occasion...

Sonic Highways, con’t. Part 3 (last part, I promise)

In the Clear- New Orleans

I went to see a band play in New Orleans once. Just once. It was Cage the Elephant- I’ve seen them eleven times. I’d like to see them about a billion more times. They are my favorite live band, one of my favorite bands ever… I never get tired of them. They are insane live. Insane. But seeing a rock band play a show in a relatively small venue in New Orleans is just… It’s a bad idea. It is a truly terrible place to go to see rock.

It was still a great show. I just wou...

Sonic Highways, con’t.

Congregation- Nashville

I’m not a country music fan, and watching this, I think I finally get why. It’s a theory I’ve been working on relating to musicals. Please don’t throw tomatoes at me. I’m already imagining how many people are sitting here reading this and steaming. And I mean, it’s totally okay if you like country music or musicals. It’s just… if it’s okay for you to like them, it’s okay for me to not like them. I’ve just always wondered why. I love storytelling. And I love music of AL...

News- Escaping Indigo

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About two seconds ago I published a post that said Iwasn’t going to do a year end post, and I’m not. But I figure I probably should do a news-type post, since… I basically announce stuff on twitter and then nowhere else. (You can follow me on twitter if you like- I’m @eli__lang and…. I’m there pretty randomly. But I’m trying to be there more often since I’m not really anywhere that often.)

Anyway, the state of the Eli Lang is pretty much this:

My book HALF will be out on February 13th. It’s...