Back in January, I started this blog in conjunction with the publication of my new book, This Ain't the Summer of Love: Conflict and Crossover in Heavy Metal and Punk. Since then, the blog has taken on something of a life of its own, and so has the book in a manner of speaking. For the most part I've avoided using this space as a simple publicity mechanism for the book, but after 5 months I thought an update was in order, since the book has generated some good reviews and commentary (including my contact with the folks at National Day of Slayer, the subject of my last post).

For starters, I just did a nice interview with the local NPR affiliate, WFCR, about the new book. Of course the interview is heavily edited compared to the full conversation we had, but it's edited well, so that it actually makes me sound smart (almost too smart, some who've heard it have said - lots of "big words"). Luckily, WFCR has the interview available on its website as streaming audio; here's a link:

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wfcr/news.newsmain/article/0/0/1515774/WFCR.Local.Features/Smith.Professor.Explores.the.Tangled.History.of.Metal.and.Punk

I have to give big props to Tina Antolini, the 'FCR reporter/host who did the interview. She's a former student of mine who has quickly proven herself to be a big talent in radio and is rapidly moving up the ladder; it won't be long before she's receiving national exposure for her work.

For those who are interested, This Ain't the Summer of Love has been reviewed or received notice in the following publications:

Popmatters.com
City Paper of Baltimore
Valley Advocate (our local alternate newsweekly)
Reason magazine
Music Industry Newswire
Svenska Dagbladet (Swedish daily newspaper)
The Independent (UK daily newspaper)
The Wire

I'm especially happy about this last one, because I'd rate The Wire as one of the best monthly music magazines out there (I mentioned it briefly in one of my earlier posts). They reviewed my first book, Instruments of Desire, many moons ago, mostly postively although with a lot of caveats. The review of the new book was very positive, as have been almost all of the above with the exception of the Independent review, which was of a type I would have hoped had become outdated by now: rather than review the substance of the book in any considered way the reviewer mainly commented on how odd it was that an academic writer chose to concentrate upon subject matter like heavy metal and punk. Seriously? I mean, how long ago did Dick Hebdige's Subculture come out? (30 years ago, to be exact.) I don't know why daily newspapers have to continue to act as though cultural lines in the sand that most of us long ago stopped paying attention to are still of any consequence.

But I won't end on a note of frustration. So far, so good.