Wouldn’t you also buy the reissue of an album that you merely like from a band that you love?

I first heard The Jesus and Mary Chain‘s Darklands almost 25 years ago, in September of 1987. I got it on vinyl because it was cheaper than the CD ($6.99 versus $15.99) and I had heard bad things about it. Recorded with a drum machine. Song lengths had ballooned to five-plus minutes.

On the plus side, though, cranky Tim Yohannan of Maximumrocknroll had listed the pre-album EP of “April Skies” in his top 10 for the month. I had to cover all my bases by buying the LP and the EP (the latter had two songs not on the LP, “Kill Surf City” and a cover of Bo Diddley‘s “Who Do You Love”).

Darklands wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but I was still disappointed. Psychocandy, the first album, was one of my all-time favorites (and still is). The agonized vocals and harsh feedback articulated the frustration I felt at having moved in the summer and spending my senior year in a new high school.

Darklands was mellow by comparison. No screaming. No guitars screaming, either. There was that damned drum machine, too, giving the songs the feel of demos rather than formal studio recordings. I would argue that a few songs — the title track, “Deep One Perfect Morning” and “On the Wall” — prefigured the hush rock (yes, I’m coining that term) that artists like Still Corners and Lana Del Ray practice now.

Tim was right in that the EP was consistently better. The manic energy of “Kill Surf City” wasn’t hampered with the drum machine and the menacing Bo Diddley cover was creepier than anything on Darklands.

The live show was shit. The Jesus and Mary Chain was set to play two nights at The Ritz (which is now the dreadful Webster Hall). I could only see the second night. I ran into my physics lab partner after he saw the first night. He was the only other guy on campus who wore a Jesus and Mary Chain t-shirt. I asked him how the show was. He shook his head in disgust.

“They had problems with the drum machine and had to start half their songs over,” he said. “On top of that, the guy was drunk off his ass!” That referred to the main singer, Jim Reid.

I got lucky. On the second night they only had to restart two songs. But Jim, and maybe everybody else, was drunk or high. I remember reading that they liked to get majorly fucked up for shows, but that works with manic stuff (Psychocandy) better than trudgy stuff (Darklands).

What the hell was going to happen to this band?

Everything became clear just a few months later in the spring of 1988 with the release of Barbed Wire Kisses, the compilation of B-sides and detritus that spanned the entire lifespan of the band to that point. It helped me see how the band expressed itself by exploding and then cooling off and imploding. I didn’t truly understand, though, until I was writing my second book This Is a Bust after the, ah, “explosive,” Waylaid.

The recent reissue of Darklands develops more of the story by including relevant tracks from Barbed Wire Kisses along with a whole bunch more tracks. I like the album itself more now than before, but there’s still that damned drum machine…

I have an essay in Issue #8 about my time as a self-righteous asshole who happened to go to Sunday School.

One thing I’ve been getting into lately is writing short pieces, fiction and non.

When I was just starting out, finding my voice and all, short pieces were all I could do. I think I started writing pieces longer than three or four pages when I joined The Asian American Writers’ Workshop, um, 19 years ago. At the time, The AAWW was more like a writing group — 16 people or so met every week to share writing and give feedback.

I was scared and excited to be in my first real writing group. I worried all the time I wasn’t good enough. Sometimes I would work on something, go to bed thinking it was crap, and then get up again and write because I couldn’t sleep. Some decent stuff came out of it.

I can still stand by those early short pieces that were published in the APA Journal, if I am allowed to slouch slightly.

As time went on, my aesthetics changed and my preferred form grew longer. I wrote shorter essays from time to time, but abandoned short fiction altogether for a decade until the Lunar New Year marathon reading at The AAWW in 2009.

I had been planning to read a section from a book, but I figured that would be sort of weak, since the marathon reading featured new writers and new writing. Couldn’t I come up with something new, too?

I ended up writing “Chinese New Year,” which I actually like a lot, and it was eventually published in the first issue of The Asian American Literary Review. I’ve been writing short fiction since. They come in handy for readings and cool journals, including We’ll Never Have Paris and Animal Farm. (I have pieces in the latest iterations of both.)

Well, I’ll just keep it short for now and end here.

You can’t have this little book, but you can hear me read it.

Shucks, here’s me reading a new short story, “Dave.” The original was in these little books I made and they are long gone.

But you can totally listen to me read it in character(s)!  Listen now, or download and take me along for your jog! Recorded at White Rabbit, a bar in New York City, in January 2011.

http://www.edlinforpresident.com/downloads/Dave.mp3

Still resting up from this crazy reading tour!  Thank you media sponsors, Giant Robot and Hyphen!

I totally planned and executed the Portland-to-Portland (Maine to Oregon) reading tour, split up over three weeks.

Well, the first reading was an open mike at East Meets West in Boston.  I had envisioned it as a low-key kind of thing, to try out my material for the first time in front of other people, but Alvin Lin (no relation) from Hyphen was there and actually blogged about it.

And then it was off to Portland, Maine, home of the awesome Longfellow Books and the International Cryptozoology Museum.

Bigfoot and I do some sole searching.

I was pretty stoked to meet Loren Coleman at the museum, who gave a guided tour.  As someone with a strong interest in the unknown and unexplained, I had read a few of his books and articles in Fortean Times.

Loren then went ahead and blogged about my wife and I visiting the museum!

We stayed at the museum longer than we had planned to and without a moment to spare, ran off to Longfellow Books.

I love Longfellow Books and their awesome audiences!

Chris Bowe, one of the proprietors of Longfellow Books and a super-cool guy, introduced me although he had literally minutes before been in a serious car accident!

Phyllis in Portland made these chocolate fortune cookies and she is cool!

Then it was back to New York for a few days off, before a slew of readings in my hometown.

Barnes & Noble, Tribeca. The home crowd is supafly dope and it’s great to curse in front of pals from work!

Me, my books and some arm candy.

Sung Woo, author of Everything Asian, who read with me at Sulu Series.  Yeah, Sung!

Catzie Vilayphonh, who is everything Asian, at the mike!

I thought I was staying in a rough part of town in College Park, Md., but this candy machine is suited up to protect itself against the students, who apparently get wasted every weekend and riot on gamedays.  Go Asian American Literary Review!

We used to be punk, man.  Me with Martin Wong.  This is my first day in L.A., about two hours after stepping off the delayed plane.

Eric Nakamura meets a couple from the East Coast.

Just in case this ancient Giant Robot t-shirt disintegrates while I read, Eric will have it on the Flip cam.

In Encino, I am recognized by my biggest fan.

Thousand Oaks, represent!  Mysteries to Die For rules!

Sparse crowd in San Diego, but this was one of my favorite readings.  It was seriously fun.  Thank you, Mysterious Galaxy!

Dude!  It’s Robin Sukhadia and Neela Banerjee at Giant Robot SF!

Claire Light wows the crowd at EastWind Books.

Joel Barraquiel Tan brings it on at Eastwind.

I am shocked by something.  What could it possibly be?

It’s the Cat Whisperer at Seattle’s Pike Place.  Note the man’s tail.

Whenever I get into a new town, I try to poison myself as fast as possible.  These Pike Place donuts will do the trick.

Soya Jung is awesome and was awesome at Elliott Bay Book Co.!

A contemplative moment at Voodoo Donuts, Portland, Ore.

The signature Voodoo Doll Donut.  These things are big.  Remember what I said about poisoning myself?

Do I seem worn out?  The last reading of the Portland-to-Portland tour!  Murder by the Book rules!

I’m not done?  Yes, the readings are over, but there’s one last thing to do. . .

It is awesome getting people into writing.  AAJA-Portland, Thymos and Friends of Portland Chinatown, you guys are awesome!

Last night of the tour with the incredibly beautiful and talented Cindy Cheung.

I know I make it look easy, but I wouldn’t have been able to do it without all of you who came out.  Thank you so much from the bottom of my donut-encrusted heart!

To borrow a title from a Wire bootleg, “A Terrifying Trip to the Past!”

In April I will be reading from Waylaid, my first novel, which was published eight years ago. This will be the first time that I have read from this book on the West Coast and also the first time in many years since I have read extensively from it.

When this book first came out, I was attacked by many publications that decried my “miserable” (San Francisco Chronicle) young narrator who wallowed in sexual fantasy while toiling at his parents’ motel in Jersey. A lit blog that has since shut down called it “garbage.”  I had readings on the East Coast where people would regularly walk out.  A jerk at Cornell essentially called me a homophobe, as if the depiction of homophobia was homophobic.

But the book also found strong support.  I was chuffed to see a nice review in Playboy, and Booklist just loved it to death, as I did and still do.

Now that time has gone by, it’s amazing to me how many Asian American lit classes have included the book or excerpts from it.  In fact, Jessica Hagedorn saw fit to include the first two chapters in the groundbreaking “Charlie Chan Is Dead 2” anthology.  I think someone made a movie out of it, too.  And even my old pal, the San Francisco Chronicle, remarked years later that Waylaid was “well-received” while giving a slightly more positive review for This Is a Bust.

Waylaid has earned its spot as an undeniable landmark in American literature.

Anyway, this is going down only at Giant Robot locations in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Monday, April 26, 7 pm, GR2, 2062 Sawtelle Blvd, Los Angeles, (310) 445-9276

Thursday, April 29, 7 pm, Giant Robot SF, 618 Shrader Street, San Francisco, (415) 876-4773

Speaking of Giant Robot, if you haven’t heard, the magazine has been walloped by a perfect storm of the economic downturn along with higher postage costs.

I first read Giant Robot when I found a copy at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in 1994.  I was knocked out by the visuals and also the quality of the writing, which didn’t do the typical pussyfooting the other Asian American magazines did.  I love everything they do.

I’m sure many of you have similar feelings for Giant Robot.  Please help now.

Cheeky!

Snakes Can’t Run is almost here!  It’s right around the corner!  (April)

I’ve posted some upcoming dates in the calendar, so I think you need to plan accordingly.  If you want to see me in your town, give me a shout-out and I’ll see if I can make it happen.

Dude, the book recently received a starred review in Publishers Weekly:

Snakes Can’t Run Ed Lin. Minotaur, $24.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-312-56988-4

Set in New York City in 1976, Lin’s accomplished second novel to feature NYPD detective Robert Chow (after 2007′s This Is a Bust) finds the Chinese-American cop, who’s still haunted by memories of his service in the Vietnam War, relegated to undercover work posing as a Con Ed worker. Meanwhile, other officers in Chow’s precinct are focused on apprehending the FALN terrorists who set off a bomb right outside police headquarters. The murders of two Asian men, who are shot and dumped under the Manhattan Bridge, take Chow away from the drudgery of his undercover assignment and onto the trail of the head of a ring of human smugglers known as snakeheads. Lin portrays the police, including his lead, warts and all, and paints a convincing picture of Manhattan’s Chinatown. Readers interested in the integration of Asian-Americans into American society, as well as those who like gritty procedurals, will be well rewarded.

You could pre-order this book on Amazon, but considering the recent spat with Macmillan (parent company of my amazing publisher, Minotaur Books) and the hardball negotiations of Amazon (which employed tactics worthy of China when it “negotiates” with Tibetans), I heavily and heartily suggest that you buy my books at the stores that I will appear at or try IndieBound.

Recently spotted in a Chinatown elementary school.

. . .or maybe kids are merely easily impressionable.

In any case, you don’t have an excuse.  Get out there and vote Tuesday.

No, not for me.  And certainly not for “your candidate of choice.”

Get out there and vote for Barack Obama.

Now I wanna be your God. Left to right: Bassist Mike Watt, Ig, drummer Scott Asheton and guitarist Ron Asheton.

Well, now that a week has passed, I can look at this night objectively.  You know, if there’s one reason to miss the opening of the Beijing Olympics, you could do a hell of a lot worse than seeing a Stooges show.  At this point 61-year-old James Osterberg isn’t about to start performing with a shirt on and although he looks incredible for that age (and still sounds ferocious), some sag is setting in.  Through the course of the evening, he must have gone through a dozen bottles of water, mostly poured all over his body, maybe because he looks bettter wet.

At this point, several years into their reformation, there isn’t really much else to say.  They start out with a ripping “Loose” (“I stick it deep inside. . .coz I’m loose!”) then immediately follow that with “Down on the Street.”  Ig invites the entire crowd to dance on the stage during “Real Cool Time” and about 100 idiots of all shapes and ages oblige.  They remain up there to sing on the chorus to “No Fun.”  It takes about 5 minutes to clear them off.  Then they lurch into “1970.”  A small microphone is set up to the far right of the stage.  At the end, sax player Steve MacKay comes in to play the jazz coda to the song, making the lineup 4/5 of the Funhouse album — 38 years after!  The only one missing was the late bass player Dave Alexander.  But who knew that any of them would still fucking be alive in 2008!  Still, I wish MacKay had been included in “Loose” because that sax sound adds to the manic intensity of that song.

‘James, I don’t want to be on stage until all those idiots you invited up are off.’  At the far right: Steve MacKay on sax and percussion.

For me, the huge surprise of the night was when they whipped out “Search and Destroy,” from the James Williamson-era Stooges, which saw Ron Asheton “demoted” to bass duty (though he was also an incredible bass player).  Gone were the stinging Williamson guitar leads, replaced by Ron Asheton toxic-sludge glop power chords.  It was like hearing a Funhouse version of the song.

If any song from the relatively new album The Weirdness is ideal for the live environment, it has to be “My Idea of Fun.”  The nihilistic sentiment of the chorus (“My idea of fun / Is killing everyone!”) was somewhat undermined by Iggy smiling and waving to people on the first and second balconies, though.  [I like The Weirdness, but the four best songs from those sessions were vinyl-only bonus tracks "O Solo Mio," "Claustrophobia," the cover of the Beatles' "I Wanna Be Your Man" and "Sounds of Leather."]

No opening band and they played about 70 minutes, including one encore, ending the night appropriately with “I’m Fried.”  They executed the show with complete commitment (doing “I Wanna Be Your Dog” twice — without and with MacKay) even though four days before their equipment was stolen from their van in Montreal.  Bully for you!

But, heck, tickets at Terminal 5 were $45 (plus a nice $7 per-ticket Ticketmaster “convenience fee”), so shit, I hope that makes up for the stolen stuff, guys.

I got back home in time to see Yao Ming lead the Chinese athletes into the Bird’s Nest and I wondered how many Stooges fans were in Beijing that night.

Ties add a classy accent to a reading.

Hey guys, check out this radio interview/reading I gave when I was out in Berkeley.

If you want to be crass, skip to 15:55 to go directly to me.