In the 1970s, a local AM radio station (WGST if I recall correctly) used to devote part of its evening programming to airing old radio shows–and I vaguely remember hearing Fred Allen periodically. I know the name.

But this week I was absolutely flummoxed to hear a 1954 Christmas special, where Crosby went on at length (I came in on the broadcast mid-show, this could have been an ad) at how great Fred Allen’s then new book, Treadmill to Oblivion, was. The book is out of print (you can see parts of it at Google Books), so unfortunately it’s not something you can pick up at the local bookstore. Allen, a popular radio show host, was clearly unhappy with the seeming demise of radio, thanks to television. Allen likely would have made his way in TV (much like his peer, Jack Benny, did)

In trying to research the book, I ran across a 1989 Garrison Keillor New York Times review of a then new Robert Talyor-penned biography of Allen. The last paragraph of the review touched upon the naming of Allen’s 1954 book and Allen’s impact on the larger landscape of comedy history.

“Treadmill to Oblivion is a pretty bleak title for a memoir by an old comic. Allen chose it over genial ones like ”Looking Back” or ”Microphones and Memories,” and meant what he said, and ”Fred Allen: His Life and Wit,” trying to rescue him from oblivion, only proves him right. Comedy is temporary art unless you’re Mark Twain. Thirty years after you knocked them dead, your best stuff is just damp hyphens, a wet glow on the plate.”

Karyn Oliver: Red Dress

I was recently fortunate enough to email interview Baltimore-based singer/songwriter Karyn Oliver about her 2010 CD, Red Dress (Amazon and iTunes). As detailed at her Facebook page, the CD was produced “by Thomm Jutz (Nanci Griffith) and featuring an all-star cast of experienced Nashville musicians, Red Dress shows Oliver at her sultriest (Right Now), bittersweetly melancholy (Candy Dish), and playfully flirtatious (Baby Don’t Speak). October Day transforms one woman’s story into a universal message about dreams that are lost and then recovered in an unexpected guise, while June is Leaving shows off Oliver’s gift for looking at the common through an uncommon and captivating eye.” In addition to discussing her music, we delve into the Baltimore-DC Americana scene, as well as her role as the host of WLOY radio’s The Mobtown Couch. Thanks to Oliver for her time and to Pigeon O’Brien for her assistance in making this interview feasible.

Tim O’Shea: I was amazed to learn most of this album was recorded in two days. How logistically challenging was that to pull off? Who were some of the musicians that you worked with and how did Thomm Jutz get involved as producer?

Karyn Oliver: Actually, I got really lucky with the musicians who were available when I was. I sort of squeezed the recording process into my tour schedule. It all worked out so well thanks mainly to Thomm Jutz.

Another songwriter friend of mine, Jeff Talmadge who really encouraged me to record in Nashville, introduced me to Thomm. I sent Thomm some rough recordings of the songs I was working on (most of which had been recorded directly onto my iPhone), and Thomm really liked what he heard. I listened to the work he had done with Nanci (Griffith) and a few other artists, and was very impressed with his range and ability to serve multiple styles of music, which was something I felt my album was going to require. Thomm and I spoke several times on the phone about what kind of recording I wanted to make, and he hired an extremely versatile, accomplished group of musicians based on those conversations. Within a month we were ready to roll.

Thomm played all of the guitar parts except for my rhythm guitar, Pat McInnerny (Nanci Griffith) is on drums, Barry Walsh (Gretchen Peters) is playing piano and keyboards, and Mark Fain (Ricky Skaggs) is the bass player.

I had the option of saving the “big studio” cost, but that would have meant sacrificing the live feel. I am so glad that I spent the extra money. The album has an energy that I’m not sure we could have gotten if we had tracked in pieces. Even the vocal was recorded live, which I’m very proud of.

We also had Dave Ferguson as our engineer. Dave is a master, and he made everything so easy. It was a joy to be able to just focus on my performance without having to worry about whether I was overdriving the microphone or freaking out the engineer. He’s a real pro.

O’Shea: How long was the songwriting process overall and were there certain songs that proved more challenging to write than others?

Oliver: Most of the songs were written in the year and a half leading up to the project. Challenging? Depends on what you mean by challenging. I think there are 2 main challenges for my kind of songwriting. Being honest enough with yourself, and being open enough to other people’s experience of your music not to shut them out of the song. October Day was probably the most challenging song to write, but the actual writing happened really quickly. I just had to be ready to write the song. That took a really long time.

O’Shea: Was there any song that changed drastically from your initial concept to the final version?

Oliver: Not really, but I tend to edit as I go, so they change in process quite a lot.

O’Shea: Did you test some of them songs out at live shows to see how they played for your audience?

Oliver: Yes, in fact I think I had played almost all of the songs at least a few times. Candy Dish was the last song to be included. I wrote it just a week or so before the sessions, and just knew it belonged on this album. But even that one got played for musical friends at a party before I recorded it.

O’Shea: Is there a backstory or particular inspiration for the song, Drag Your Angel Up?

Oliver: Yes. That song was a direct reaction to a documentary called The Magdalene Laundries, which is a film about convent laundries in Ireland and the atrocities that occurred there. It’s the only time something like that has inspired me to write a song. Of course, 12 years of Catholic school probably helped.

O’Shea: Do you feel like you’ve grown as a songwriter with the songs in Red Dress, compared to your previous album, Hurricane?

Oliver: I feel like I’ve grown as a person, which amounts to the same thing. I have more to talk about now, and I’m more honest with myself. As a result, more people seem to connect with this new album than the first one.

O’Shea: With songs like Candy Dish and All the More how do you decide it’s a song that needs a piano intro, as opposed to a guitar opening?

Oliver: Those decisions happened pretty organically in the studio. I would play the song through, and the band would decide what instrumentation they were using. On Candy Dish and All the More, we started with guitar on the front end, but it just wasn’t working. You can thank Thomm for the idea to let the piano open those tunes.

O’Shea: I was curious how did the distinctive opening to How Long come about?

Oliver: That was actually just a happy accident. We had a bit of a “false start”. Thomm originally cut it from the mix, but I liked it and so we decided to leave it in. I love that you can really hear the band working together on that track.

O’Shea: A few months ago, you wrote in your blog “I have probably been more new places this year than I have been in the whole of my life before now.” Has the traveling opened you up to new things to write new songs about?

Oliver: I guess so. Going to Texas, and The Kerrville Folk Festival has certainly had a big impact on my writing, just because I get to spend time swapping songs with incredible writers, and hanging out with large numbers of people who value the art form. The time that I have spent in The Netherlands has also been important, because that’s where my roots are. My Mother was born in Holland, and going there always feels like going home.

I think travel opens your mind to possibilities, and certainly meeting new people gives you more experience to draw from.

All of the hours in the car also result in lots of new songs. I’ve got to have something to do! I write a lot in the car.

O’Shea: How much does hosting a show like The Mobtown Couch help build your fanbase?

Oliver: It’s difficult to gage how much the show has increased my fan base. What I do know is that hosting the show has given me a way to provide an outlet for the great songwriters I love and respect. That’s why I started the show, and it’s why I’m still doing it.

O’Shea: Who are some of the musicians in the Baltimore/DC Americana music scene that you admire/respect?

Oliver: Oh, that’s a scary question. So many, and I’m bound to leave too many out, but I will try to give you a short list of just the truly Americana artists.

David Glaser
Naked Blue
Deanna Bogart
Beggars Ride
Lisa Taylor
Andrew McKnight
Ellen Cherry

Starstruck Audio Drama

Audio drama is a craft that I’m glad to see alive and well, and aiming to adapt to new technologies. One current example is Starstruck, soon to be released by The AudioComics Company. As described at the site: “Buck Rogers meets Barbarella meets The Hitchhiker’s Guide the Galaxy… The Off-Broadway Sci-Fi Comedy Masterpiece that spawned a comic book revolution comes to audio October 31! Written by Elaine Lee with Susan Norfleet and Dale Place, featuring characters from the comic by Lee and Michael Kaluta. First on compact disc, and pay-per-MP3s downloads, Starstruck rides the airwaves later this fall!” To mark the impending release, I interviewed AudioComics Company’s Lance Roger Axt and Bill Dufris.

Also as noted at the website: “Starstruck compact discs will be $22.95, not including tax and postage and handling. These are 4-panel 2-disc eco wallets … The cut-off date for CD orders is October 20, 2010. Your CD will be mailed directly to you on November 3, 2010, so when you place your order, make sure you write down your correct mailing address. Compact discs will be mailed first class USPS … Please note that these CD’s are not available in direct maket comic book stores or big box book stores like Borders, this is an item you can only purchase from the AudioComics Company webstore. And unfortunately these are only available in the States, but for our overseas Starstruck fans, the MP3 downloads are forthcoming, and worldwide. Info on MP3 downloads to come next month.” As Lance told me prior to finalizing this interview: “AudioComics has been a five year journey which is now finally taking shape, and I’m pleased to say that Bill and I have, beyond this inaugural production, at least ten other comic-to-audio projects to keep us busy between now and the end of 2012!” My thanks to Axt and Dufris for the interview. Also, please be sure to check out the AudioComics page on Facebook.

Tim O’Shea: First off, Lance, I saw your post about attending San Diego–can you talk about how much you enjoyed meeting Stan Freberg?

LANCE ROGER AXT: Some people came to San Diego to see Tron or Green Lantern footage, others wanted to see the cast of True Blood; me, I wanted to meet Stan Freberg. And I’ll tell you something, I can honestly say that I was humbled to be in his presence. It’s been brought up on many forums and comments pages, especially in the wake of the passings of Frazetta and Williamson, to appreciate the artists who are still with us. In my case, those artists are people like Stan Freberg, the Firesign Theatre, Yuri Rasovsky, Tom Lopez of ZBS. These people took radio drama out of the golden age, the “old timey” way of writing and acting, and showed audiences that with audio there are no limitations…so, yeah, meeting Stan was a real highlight of my first trip to SDCC. Not to mention he was the nicest, most approachable person, both he and Hunter. It’s hard to find the words now…the sound man’s gone silent.

O’Shea: Starstruck’s going to be available for download and for purchase as a CD, will it also be available on iTunes?

BILL DUFRIS: Absolutely. It will be available first through our site at audiocomicscompany.com, but eventually you’ll find it through iTunes, through Amazon MP3, ZBS.org, the Spoken Network in the UK, probably Audible as well.

LANCE: We’re going to make Starstruck available through every outlet that exists for downloads. Ultimately this means more listeners, and more exposure to what we think is one of the best audio theatre pieces produced this year. And honestly we hope that it drives more people to check out the comics as well as the forthcoming collected edition from IDW.

O’Shea: What’s the biggest challenge of adapting a comic series to radio from your respective perspectives?

LANCE: …You know, honestly I think the biggest challenge isn’t so much adapting a comic book series or graphic novel, but reminding people that audio theatre is just as visual a medium as television or film or video games, and that an equally visual medium like comic books translate beautifully into audio. It’s just a different kind of visual. I’ve said this before, with audio theatre the listeners are no longer “audience:” they are part of the action, they’re directing it, they’re deciding how big the ship looks; they’re deciding the color of the sky if they want to!

I open a page from the book of Freberg: many, many years ago he wrote a radio commercial that sums it all up, if you will, where an ad exec is pitching his radio commercial in which Lake Michigan is drained of all the water, then filled up with hot chocolate and a 500 foot mountain of whipped cream, and finally a bunch of helicopters fly overhead and drop a 10 ton Maraschino Cherry on top of the whipped cream while the sky is aglow with a million fireworks, and the capper is the sentence: “try doing that on television.” What he was ultimately saying was that the mind is a billion dollar sound stage.

Now apply that to comic books, comic strips, graphic novels: if you know the art, the artist’s work, you can take those images and animate them to your liking. If you remember that audio theatre is a visual medium in itself, then the adaptation is a very easy one. Not sure if I really answered that question…but I like it! Moving on!

BILL: What Lance said…but better!

O’Shea:How did WMPG FM get involved with the project?

LANCE: WMPG just happens to be one of the few community radio stations in the United States that regularly airs audio theatre with the show “Radio Drama Revival,” which is hosted by our dear friend Fred Greenhalgh. Many people don’t know this, but NPR and public radio in general abandoned audio theatre for good in the mid-1990’s when they chose to go all talk all the time; unfortunately, a lot of community radio stations followed suit. But WMPG embraced audio drama; in fact they’ve co-produced a number of live audio drama events in and around the Portland area. Well, our liaison, Dan Bernard, who has been with the station for many years, approached them with the idea of WMPG underwriting our weekend of voice-over recording at The Studio in Portland, which saved us a great deal of money, to be perfectly honest, and in exchange they would get a small portion of the proceeds every year as a donation, not to mention the first radio airing of Starstruck anywhere in the country. Dale Robin Goodman, their Programming Director, she’s awesome in every sense of the word and as we speak we’re working out some promotional ideas for the Portland area. This was our first collaboration with WMPG, but it certainly won’t be our last.

O’Shea: Bill, what is all entailed in the process of directing a project like this, what are some of the biggest logistical challenges?

BILL: At the risk of sounding prosaic, I’d have to say that the biggest challenge came down to simply scheduling all of the actors. There were sixteen scenes and a prologue to record over a 3 day period, and a number of actors were only available during certain days. As a matter of fact, I had to step into the role of Dwannyun, as the actor originally cast was ill on the day! It was a potential nightmare, occasionally requiring the need to record the odd scene, or two, without the full complement – adding in the errant voice(s) later. But we got through it.

O’Shea: When it came to the actual recording process, I’m sure there were a number of surprises. I’m not looking to focus on negatives, but rather what were the pleasant surprises?

LANCE: The fact that aside from the scheduling issues, it came together with very few hitches.

BILL: Lunch!

LANCE: That too! Again, WMPG.

O’Shea: In one blog post there was talk of working a Christopher Walken imitation in for one of the characters, did that happen?

LANCE: (as Walken) Oh…hell yea! Ya know it ain’t…a show without (short pause) a little Walken! (as Lance) I’ll tell you, though, that wasn’t my favorite impersonation to do: of all things my favorite was actually James Mason. I played NORM, the Siren 3 computer, who goes in and out of celebrity voices throughout the play: Karloff, Bogie, Edward G., Peter Lorre, Shatner doing Kirk, Gandolfini doing Tony Soprano, Elvis, etc. So there’s one section where NORM goes into James Mason mode. A few days before the recording Bill and I were in his home studio finding YouTube clips of famous actors that I could work off of voice-wise, and for Mason we found the occasional short clip of 20,000 Leagues, but the one that we were just cracking up over was this black and white commercial, must have been early sixties, of ol’ James extolling the virtues of Thunderbird wine. I’m not kidding. So before I do my Mason lines at the recording sessions I’m going on and on in this breathy English voice about how much I love Thunderbird wine I’m sure prompting some of the cast to wonder if I’d had a couple glasses of it that morning.

O’Shea: Let’s talk about some of the cast and what strengths you felt they brought to the production?

LANCE: A quick introduction: putting together a work of this size and scope is not something that you can do easily. There’s a lot of people who think that if they have people speak into a microphone and then throw in a lot of sound effects and music, then, bam! instant audio theatre. It doesn’t work that way. You have to have a great script, which we had. You have to have a great director who understands how to put it all together. And you have to have great actors. There are so many audio dramas out there where the directors cast their friends or lovers or their local grocer down the street who remembers hearing the last broadcast of “Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar” in 1962, you can tell these people just cannot act. I don’t believe for one minute that their character is on the bridge of a starship in high stress mode fending off an alien invasion, but I do believe that he or she is front of a computer mic at their desk reading off of a script, and that just drops me right out of the action.

You need great actors, trained actors who know how to work a mic, so to speak, and we had great actors whose voices fit the roles. Moreover, they were always in the moment, committed to their roles, no matter how over the top: the villains aboard the Siren 3 immediately come to mind. Their energy was infectous. Starstruck is a raucous space opera, emphasis on the word raucous. And our actors hit the ground running with every scene. So, yeah, everybody was exhausted at the end of day, but it was good exhaustion! And you can hear that energy, that commitment, in the final mix. We really lucked out with our cast.

BILL: (in repetitive mode) Our actors were FANTASTIC! We had two read-throughs with them, and they arrived at the sessions ready to rock ‘n roll. This type of acting requires a great deal of stamina as well, as I tend to direct with an ear to physicalizing the performances. Years of working with the BBC and the inimitable Dirk Maggs honed that skill down for me. The other common trait that our actors shared was a real sense of comedy and a vocal flexibility.

O’Shea: In audio drama, sound effects are particularly crucial I think, would you agree?

LANCE: Sometimes yes, sometimes no. What’s really crucial is: how do these effects, if there are any, support the story. Again if you’re throwing in sound effect after sound effect after sound effect, you could be dragging down the production.

BILL: Like Lance says, sound effects – and music – can very easily detract from a scene/production, if used with a heavy hand (ear?). However, if used judiciously, they both can lift the production to a higher level of art. I spend ages fine-tuning my sound design, especially as the majority of mine are created without foley, with SFX/music layered in after the voice tracks have been edited. Every sound has to have a reason for being there, and be in the correct spot. I have to visualize the scene I’m listening to and ‘see’ what each character is doing, and when. Every time Erotica Ann responds to a demand for information form Galatia, it needs to be acquired within a certain time span before she relays it – keyboard query followed by computer response followed by answer. The sword fight between Galatia and Verloona – those sword strikes and clangs are tied in to the grunts and sounds of effort voiced by the two actors. Takes time! But well worth it.

O’Shea: What were some of the quirkiest sound effects you had to develop?

BILL: I don’t know about “quirky”, but I have created some rather ‘busy’ numbers for my horror series, Nightmares On Congress Street, Pts IV & V. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” there is a scene where the killer chops up the body, while running a shower to drain the blood, followed by wrapping the ‘parts’ in garbage bags and secreting them under the floorboards… all in the space of around 20 seconds – creating a layered sequence of actions to underscore the killer’s describing of the process. In “The Cabin in the Woods,” a cabin literally absorbs its occupants – there are some really ickily nasty sounds in that one! There were also the cries of the older tenants in the walls!!!

Now for Starstruck, one of the challenges was creating two individual control areas for the two space vessels – one of which is NOT your conventional interstellar vehicle. All great fun!

And back in April they aired a week’s worth of Cayamo performances, including Emmylou Harris and Buddy Miller; Ben Taylor and Stephen Kellogg; and started out the week with my favorite Cayamo musician–John Hiatt–and Robert Earl Keen (plus in the same episode a non-Cayamo spotlight on the oh so great Sam Phillips).

Previously confidential files show that Harvey, whodied last February at 90, enjoyed a 20-year friendship with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, often submitting advance copies of his radio script for comment and approval. Harvey wrote Hoover and his deputies regularly. Hoover, in turn, helped Harvey with research, suggested changes in scripts and showered the broadcaster with effusive praise.

The article is a fascinating read. But what most amazed me was the revelation that Paul Harvey, at one point back in the early 1950s,  attempted to become the original Geraldo Rivera.

…He routinely hammered officials for being lax on security, in particular those in charge of the Argonne National Laboratory, which conducted nuclear testing 20 miles west of Chicago.

After wrapping up his television broadcast on the evening of Feb. 5, 1951, Harvey set out to prove his case — and make some career-enhancing headlines for himself.

Harvey guided his black Cadillac Fleetwood toward Argonne, arriving sometime past midnight. He parked in a secluded spot, tossed his overcoat onto the barbed wire topping a fence, then scampered over.

I would love to know if, in the 1980s/1990s when the biographies of Hoover started coming out, did Harvey ever report on them–or did he just steer clear of them. I’ll do a little digging and should I find something, I’ll be sure to post. In the meantime, be sure to read the Washington Post article. And by all means, bookmark Feder’s blog, as it’s a great resource for interesting items like this.

Important side tangent here, Dorkin would understandably be unhappy if I neglected to mention his great Dark Horse miniseries with artist Jill Thompson, Beasts of Burden, wrapped up this week with the release of issue 4.

SLG Radio

Back in October, SLG Publishing head honcho Dan Vado launched SLG Radio, a weekly podcast where the focus is to discuss comics, SLG comics in particular. At least I think that’s Vado’s goal, but honestly the show has evolved into an incredibly hilarious back and forth between Vado and frequent guest/borderline co-host Dorkin. The most recent episode had the added bonus of Dorkin’s frequent collaborator (and spouse) Sarah Dyer. Dorkin’s bombastic personality (in a good way)  just enlivens every episode, in this most recent one he was stuck in traffic while calling in to the show–and he dictated what he was passing (slowly) while stuck, and was able to make it both funny as well as indictment of the banking crisis at the same time.

This podcast is far more about comics, at its core it’s two old friends talking.  There a great many podcasts these days where two friends just chat–and it rarely works. Why? Because a typical friendship has a series of inside jokes and personal connections that translate into incredibly bad podcasts. There has been many a podcast I have listened to where the hosts were laughing throughout the show because of inside jokes or behind-the-scenes aspects of their personal life that was darn funny to them, but annoying and alienating to listeners like myself. There’s none of that with Dorkin and Vado, while they typically talk comics for a spell the show goes off into tangents that may touch upon their respective personal lives, but in a manner that makes for engagingly fine storytelling.

Give the show a try, even if you don’t read comics, as it’s a fun listen.

Doug Richards’ Live Apartment Fire (Richards is another veteran Atlanta [granted not 50 years] long with WAGA, but currently at WXIA) is another great Atlanta media blog–and Richards recently directed folks to McClellan’s wealth of knowledge. So this time when I revisited McClellan’s blog (after my initial visit several months ago) I was pleasantly surprised to see he’d written a number of posts on Don Kennedy. For some of my older siblings, Kennedy was an important part of their childhood (through his alter ego, Officer Don) because of his live kids TV show on WSB-TV, The Popeye Club. (Really, one of these days I should do a post about my older sister, who had her appearance [the show was done with a live studio audience] on the Popeye Club preempted by coverage of the Six-Day War).

WSB-TV ended the show back in 1969, but I remember seeing Kennedy back on TV when he relaunched (as one of the owners of) WATL/Channel 36 in the mid-1970s. As a kid, it fascinated me to see the “birth” of a TV station, so Kennedy was an icon in my mind. In fact, Kennedy’s station was the home of a future Muppet talent when Steve Whitmire honed his early puppet skills with Otis–a 1970s beach bum puppet that hosted a kids show. As Whitmire described in this 1999 interview: “I filled two-and-a-half hours a day doing this by taking phone calls from children in the area who were watching the show. I loved doing it.” I was one of the kids that would call in almost every day. I remember meeting Steve and Otis as a kid at an appearance at Northlake Mall. Only in writing this piece, did I suddenly realize that Kennedy was indirectly a big part of my childhood entertainment fun.

It’s a pleasure to read these posts by McClellan about Kennedy (who currently hosts a successful syndicated musical show, Big Band Jump–a project that got its start at Album 88 back in the early 1980s [I remember briefly meeting Kennedy once or twice when I worked at GSU Music Library back in the late 1980s, in fact] and also does periodic voice work for Cartoon Network). You can find McClellan’s posts covering Kennedy here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

One last thing, I was astounded to find this Officer Don clip on YouTube, where Kennedy did an amazing channeling of the spirit of Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton.

“‘He lived a long, eventful, satisfying, though sometimes tempestuous life,’ Dan Terkell said. ‘I think that pretty well sums it up.’”

Indeed it does. But there’s also the Chicago Sun-Times obit. Read all his obits that you can find. The man was fascinating and a damn fine storyteller and left every person he met with a story. I’m impressed at how the comments section of the obits even generate stories about Terkel.

Never heard of Turkel? Fortunately he has many books and recordings for you to inform yourself. Here is a bevy of online videos courtesy of Google/You Tube. Here is the Chicago radio station, WFMT, where he spent more than 40 years. Finally here is Chicago History Museum‘s site devoted to Terkel.

“BPM is a full color 96-page graphic novel written and drawn by Paul Sizer (LITTLE WHITE MOUSE, MOPED ARMY graphic novels). The graphic novel will contain the main story, plus a comprehensive sketchbook section and detailed playlists and notes. Plus, the book will also be linked with iMixes from the Apple iTunes website that provide a ‘soundtrack’ to accompany the book, as well as playlists for each of the main DJ characters, showing each person’s musical tastes.

“‘B.P.M.’ is Paul Sizer’s love letter to the music he loves. In combining the story of a young DJ with the power of computer enhanced artwork, Paul’s goal is to merge his love of comics and his love of music into a moving, dynamic story of passion, motivation and hard choices over following one’s creative dreams. Paul has challenged himself as a writer and artist, using new techniques to tell this story. Combining his art with hundreds of photos he’s taken in New York, Paul has worked to make “B.P.M.” a unique visual experience as well as a thoughtful and engaging story that transmits the raw power and inspiration that music can generate.

“‘Roxy spins records in dark clubs and small bars, hoping to make a name for herself as a DJ in the complex and demanding club culture of New York City. She stumbles across Robie, a burned-out former superstar DJ, who shows her how to rise to the next level of her art. As Robie’s mentoring begins to elevate Roxy’s career, she must choose whether to follow her heart or the beat of the music she loves. Looking for the ‘perfect beat’ is a long and demanding journey. Which path will Roxy choose, and what will she have to leave behind?’”

Once you read the interview, be sure to visit Sizer’s site which takes the concept of multimedia to its fullest extent. He taps into every form of media except reel to reel and HD, I think. The book is listed in October’s Previews (OCT084169) and will be available in stores by November. You can also buy the book via myriad links at Sizer’s site.

Tim O’Shea: This is a story that includes liner notes (like any good album/CD)–did you hold back with some liner notes details for fear of leaving nothing to the readers imagination/own interpretation?

Paul Sizer: Somewhat. I tried to keep most of my liner notes directed towards inspirations and references to music, behind the scenes stuff that wasn’t upfront obvious. I did try to leave a majority of things open for each person’s own explorations. Even when an artist explains something to me, I still enjoy imprinting my own thought into why it’s in the story, so hopefully people still have an opportunity to do that with BPM to make it more personal and interesting.

O’Shea: You use actual photos for some exterior background, how were you able to keep the shot of the fire escape outside Roxy’s apartment (on page 9) in varying proper scale? How much more time did adding such visual nuances increase your production time on this book?

Sizer: The answer is…tons of planning! I had to work really hard to get all the shots I wanted to use for this book, and then to make sure I could adapt those shots to the drawn art in the book. The photo-backgrounds in BPM have been in process for the past 3 years, as I accumulated shots from New York City over my yearly visits. In most cases, the photos dictated how a scene would be set up, so what I was able to get photo-wise did contribute to how I visually paced the book. I also wanted to be open to let the photos lead me to more interesting storytelling ideas that what I would just pull from my head. In that way, the city became a character in the book that affected how I told the story of BPM.

O’Shea: One of the book’s “(Fast) Forewords” was written by a podcaster–do you hope to broaden your audience for this book by appealing to podcast listeners who might not otherwise read a graphic novel?

Sizer: I hope so! The truth of the matter is, I sell some of my books to the comic direct market, more to the bookstore and library market, and the rest are all up to me to move them into new reader’s hands! With BPM, I’m working really hard to get it in front of as many non-comics based audiences as possible. Since BPM has a music-centric story, I’ve been getting it out to dance music and club based organizations, DJ’s and podcasters, anywhere that people who love music like I do can see another take on how to talk about how music affects our lives. And as the book also has what I feel to be a pretty gay-friendly story, I’ve also been getting the book out to organizations and review sources that are open to this kind of storytelling. The gay community is always a strong component of dance culture, so this seemed like another natural avenue to pursue to find new readers.

O’Shea: Full disclosure for readers of this interview–I was a beta reader of a draft of this book. In fact I provide a blurb for the book in which I liken Roxy’s story (warts and all) to Nick Hornby’s 1995 prose novel, High Fidelity. Would you agree that this is a fair comparison, or did my comparison throw you for a loop when I shared it?

Sizer: It was a great blurb, especially to be compared to a book (and film) that I love so much! “High Fidelity” was indeed one of the inspirations for me to begin thinking about how to tell stories that involved a strong love of music and how it compels us to move our lives to accommodate it. I loved that Hornby made his characters do really stupid and headstrong things to keep music a central part of their lives, even to the exclusion of girlfriends, business relationships and friends, without making the characters seem like complete idiots. I also loved that Hornby showed his characters getting sustenance from music, showing how it let them remember important parts of their lives, and how it could effect positive change and inspiration. Higher praise I cannot imagine, so I hope others feel I’ve done your blurb justice with BPM!

O’Shea: When BPM is released it will be linked with iMixes from Apple iTunes. How did that aspect come about and how complicated was that to arrange?

Sizer: I always liked the phrase “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture”, because in the end, if I want you to feel a certain way about music, hearing it will always do the job better than me just trying to describe it. And since the whole heart of BPM is how music changes our lives, it seemed a no-brainer to find some way to share the music in my mind with the readers, so they could experience it first hand. I’ve been a faithful iTunes user since day one, so I knew about how simple it was to make iMixes to share your “MP3 mixtapes” with others. The challenge was to give the playlist a personality, as the “soundtrack” for the book or a personal list from one of the characters from the book. It was actually a blast making the playlists for each character, because it forced me to pick the brains of different people’s likes and preferences in making a mix. Atsuko’s playlist is very her, as is Dominic’s, and both are different from Roxy’s picks. It’s hard enough doing a mixtape/playlist for myself, and now I had to imagine someone else having a hard time choosing what to include. I’m happy with how they turned out, and I hope it turns people on to some music they maybe don’t know about, or haven’t had an excuse to try. The interface with iTunes allowed me to legally share all this music with the readers, and if they wanted, they could download it and purchase it legally. You can check out all of my links to the BPM Soundtrack iMix and the individual characters’ iMixes here at http://www.paulsizer.com/bpm/imixes.htm

O’Shea: As part of the book’s extras, you include sketches of your character development process. Dominic went through the most substantial amount of changes-from skinny guy to hefty man. Can you walk us through your ultimate breakthrough upon settling with that final look of the character?

Sizer: With this book, I really wanted to have my characters’ looks and ethnicity not just be a “diversity checklist”, but really have a logical basis for my choices. Dominic did start out a thin black guy, but then I looked at my cast and saw them all as skinny club kids, and I decided I wanted to mix it up more. Making Dominic a more hefty, large guy sprang more from the enjoyment of seeing a huge guy with hands like manhole covers spinning this very precise, brittle, minimal techno. I liked the weird contrast, and it made the visual makeup of the cast more interesting.

O’Shea: Almost every page of the story features an artist and song name in the footer, associated with the story aspect in that page. I was surprised to find that all the music selected was not Chemical Brothers or Pet Shop Boys. In fact, I was blown away to find my favorite Scottish band, The Blue Nile with Downtown Lights on page 62. Typically you have a song per page. But with some scenes you use the same song for multiple pages (or in the wedding reception scene where they endure predictable wedding reception music: No music). Did those musical selections change a great deal in the revision process?

Sizer: Yeah, the final “soundtrack” of the book was one of the last things I settled on. Some pages have a new song every page, and sometimes multiple pages shared one song, mirroring how I like to DJ; sometimes I use very small bits of songs, and sometimes I let an entire song play uninterrupted. It all depends on what the crowd wants at that point. In assembling the songs in the book’s “soundtrack” I made the choice to not make it just a dancefloor playlist, but more of a really complex mixtape, ebbing and flowing with how the story went, and showing a real diverse range of music, from old to new and dancey to quiet, reflecting the range of moods in the book. The “soundtrack” is not meant to be a real-time reading accompaniment to BPM (it’s nearly four hours of music, and on a slow day, BPM reads in about 30 minutes for me!), but in looking at it, the “soundtrack” could translate to a really adventurous nights playlist with a crowd up for more than just the four-on-the-floor/nonstop beat they usually get, and a DJ willing to take some chances.

O’Shea: Were there any musical selections or story aspects that ended up on the editing room floor?

Sizer: I included everything I wanted to have in BPM, so there aren’t any “Roxy running into drug dealers in the dark alley behind the club” outtakes, per se. My biggest challenge on this book was to keep it lean; MOPED ARMY, while I was happy with the story concept, was VERY overwritten. I didn’t want to do that same thing with BPM, and surprisingly, some of the best criticism I got from beta-readers was to scale things back, lose a lot of redundant dialogue and edit, edit, edit. I chopped pages of dialogue out of this book, mostly stuff that was just re-describing what was going on in the panels. I was kind of apprehensive about it, still seeing myself as a growing writer, but man, I am so glad I did. This is the tightest story I’ve ever written, and I’m glad I listened to people who reminded me to shut up and let the pictures do the talking!

O’Shea: Given that Roxy is the lead character, I assumed she was your favorite to write? Am I wrong? What was your next favorite to write? Do the characters you favor change in the creative process, as the story evolves in your head (or on paper–depending where it happens…)?

Sizer: I loved writing Roxy, but I didn’t want her to be my “Mary Sue”, parroting my own thoughts and preferences. I’ve also done the “plucky girl who struggles and wins in the end with her sparkling wit and personality” thing before, so with Roxy, I wanted to push myself as a writer and try writing a character who didn’t solve problems like I would. Roxy is not a mirror of me, but that made it more interesting to try and give her something that people could latch onto and either applaud or find fault with. The biggest flap from beta-readers on the book was how Roxy dealt with her struggling relationship with her girlfriend Hannah. Some people thought it was spot on, and some though Roxy was a huge tool for how she treated Hannah. I was concerned with this at first, but then I found it interesting that she was soliciting such a strong response, which indicated to me that the readers were investing enough into Roxy to be disappointed with her when she acted like an idiot to someone she cared about. I didn’t plan that from the outset, but as the story grew, Roxy became a more complex character, and I wanted to try out more challenging angles with her. I loved writing Robie, as I somewhat foresee myself evolving into a musical curmudgeon down the road. Again, he was kind of greasy, not like I am at all, so it took some new effort to give him some way to connect with readers.

O’Shea: When structuring a multimedia project like this–how do you balance pacing–particularly when as a storyteller you’re tapping into visual, dialogue and musical narrative variables?

Sizer: Truthfully? I kept this sucker as liquid as I could for as long as I could! Like prepping a playlist for a night at the club, I chose what I felt were really good components, knew them inside and out, and then based how I was going to use them partly on planning and partly on what the experience demanded. This was my most scripted book up front; with all the parts I wanted to use, I couldn’t afford to wing it as I have in the past, but I also worked really hard to let the components tell me how best to use them. I had to write this story to New York City, and with that, I had to be really researched and accurate about the environment, because it is a real place that people can check up on and nail me with an inaccuracy! The best DJ’s I’ve seen have a flexibility in their sets, and can move how the crowd wants, while still playing to their strengths. That’s what I wanted to do with BPM.

O’Shea: What attracted you to create BPM in the first place–and at the story’s heart what is there that should attract an audience to read it?

Sizer: I’m a comic geek and a music geek. I love them both equally, and I wanted to find a way to talk about them at the same time. The heart of this book is the challenge all creatives find themselves faced with: “I love doing this, but to what degree am I willing to go to keep doing this?” I deal with it, my wife Jane deals with it, nearly every comic creator and musician I know has this little demon bouncing around someplace in their brain. BPM is not an “Afterschool Special” with a neat tidy answer at the end; it has one direction that’s still fraught with uncertainty and sacrifice, and sometimes that’s the answer that you get. That’s the answer I gave for Roxy, and it makes her a more interesting, flawed (and hopefully human) character worth reading about and giving a damn about.

O’Shea: Awhile back, when I interviewed your fellow storyteller and wife, Jane Irwin, I asked her how you helped improve her work and vice versa. So in the interest of complete fairness, now I ask you–how has Irwin helped BPM and how do you think her storytelling skills have helped you and your work?

Sizer: Jane is my storytelling conscience; I always know that if I’ve shortcut something or taken the easy way out, she’ll be more than happy to point it out and call me on it, and truthfully, I love that she does. I do the same for her, not as an ego/tit-for-tat thing, but because I respect the hell out of Jane as a storyteller, and we both want our work to be the best it can be, and the only way we’re going to get better is to constantly tighten up our skills.

With BPM, Jane was my control subject. I love electronic and dance music, and Jane loves Irish and folk music, and is not as much into the same club-oriented music I love. But we both really love our music, so it was a perfect test for me to write a story that someone like Jane could relate to, even though it wasn’t about an exactly shared experience. Would my story translate to someone else, even if that person were just learning about the components I was referencing? Jane helped me focus the story, keep it on target and plan for an audience that wasn’t an insider’s circle of music geeks. I pull the same duty for Jane on her current history based webcomic “Clockwork Game”; can I enjoy this story and find it interesting and engaging even if I’m not the same level of history buff that she is? We both have the right to refuse input, but more often than not, the other person’s concerns and comments make us both take a fresh look at what we’re doing and sometimes keep us from going down a dead end. That is so valuable to me, and I’m glad I can get that from someone like Jane.