Resource Roundup #4
For the week of May 6th.
Happy Thursday, all. Lots of great things below in this week’s resource roundup.
As always, if you have suggestions for things to include, feel free to send them our way at goodfolksonly@gmail.com.
New Manchester Orchestra? Yes please. This is my favorite band, and their new album, The Million Masks of God, does not disappoint. I love Angel of Death and Annie, both of which include the haunting line, “I thought this time I might just walk away from you…” Manchester Orchestra originated in the suburbs of Atlanta and is headed by Andy Hull, who also has the brilliant folksy side projects Right Away, Great Captain and Bad Books, with musician Kevin Devine. I love pretty much their entire discography, but IMO their best work is the dual albums COPE and HOPE, each of which have two very different versions of the same songs— one angry and cathartic, one soft and uplifting.
Speaking of uplifting, if you want a newsletter that will bring some joy to your day, I highly recommend Isaac Fitzgerald’s new substack, Walk It Off. Isaac is one of the coolest writers I know and does a great job of keeping his work inclusive and approachable. I especially loved this conversation he recently had with his best friend, former co-host, and fellow writer Saeed Jones, about a walk in Columbus, Ohio. See this quote on Saeed’s choice to make the move from NYC to Columbus:
“I visited Columbus twice before I moved here. In 2012, a community group flew me out to do a poetry reading as part of the city’s Pride Month celebrations. And when I arrived here, I was like — Whoa! — I’ve got a lot of sisters here! I have always had a soft spot for queer people and queer communities that aren’t in New York, or Los Angeles, or San Francisco. And then I was like — Oh! These girls are fierce! So that was simply a marvelous time… People here love to eat, they love to drink, they love to have a good time, and there are a lot of fantastic writers here too. I met Hanif Abdurraqib, I mean I knew him, but I was like, “oh this is your home,” and he was like, “yeah, and Maggie Smith lives here too!” I didn’t know that so many artists were here. So I think I just saw the energy. It felt good.”
100 Days In Appalachia highlights the cross-cultural project Slavalachia, connecting folk musicians, resistance, and revolution in Eastern Europe and Appalachia.
I am very quickly becoming Brandon Taylor’s biggest fan. We featured his writing in last week’s resource roundup too, but his short story “Otto” is too good not to share. I haven’t stopped thinking about this since I read it:
‘“No, ma’am, that’s not really the case.” Otto looked away from her because he couldn’t face her head-on. Certainly he could understand why she felt that way. In graduate school, Otto and his friends would sometimes go to the bars downtown, filled as they were with what they called real people. Stopping off on their way home from work. Wearing paint-splattered clothes or smelling like dust, their skin baked deep brown, brows knit with frustration or tension. And here they would come, Otto and his friends, wearing loose flannels and open jackets, laughing and taking up the booths in the back. Laughing loudly over the radio, looking askance at them. It was true that there was sometimes tension running between the people who lived in the city and had for their entire lives and those who were only passing through on their way to something else, presumably better, but sometimes worse. In this way, Otto felt that he was a part of an occupying force.”
Texas Monthly has a wonderful feature on Dallas-based musician Joshua Ray Walker and the future of country music. I also highly recommend Walker’s band the Ottoman Turks, highlighted in the article.
I ran through some of this weather this week, and was reminded that there is nothing in the world like a Southern Storm:
I’ve been listening lately to WWMT’s (Whitesburg, Kentucky) 88.7 Mountain Community Radio program Hip Hop from the Hilltop / Calls From Home after reading about it in Tom Lee’s (Hi, Tom!) Bitter Southerner piece. I was lucky to spend some time when I lived in New York working with the StoryCorps Mobile Tour and y’all, let me just say that community radio is the backbone of society and especially important to rural areas. Local radio stations do some amazing work and get so little recognition for it. I recommend this week that you take some time to look into your local radio stations, and also to listen to a radio station for an area you might have written-off before as “backwards” or “out of touch”.
OK, that’s all for this week. Have a great weekend!