Ghost Notes By Art Edwards
Badge the third installment in Art Edwards s ten rock novel series was a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Associations Literary Contest for 2011 His second Ghost Notes released on Defunct Press in 2008 won the 2009 PODBRAM Award for best work of contemporary fiction His first Stuck Outside of Phoenix was made into a feature film His shorter work has appeared in The Writer and Salon among many others In the 1990s he was co founder co songwriter and bass player with the Refreshments Badge the third installment in Art Edwards s ten rock novel series was a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association s Literary Contest for 2011 His second Ghost Notes released on Defunct Press in 2008 won the 2009 PODBRAM Award for best work of contemporary fiction His first Stuck Outside of Phoenix was made into a feature film His shorter work has appeared in The Writer and Salon among many others In the 1990s he was co founder co songwriter and bass player with the Refreshments site_link A bass player ready to jump ship from his mega band a drifter who hasn t seen his son for twenty years a sixteen year old high school dropout who s going to rock the world come hell or high water what melodies will pour forth from these rock n roll hearts Josh Hote Hotle should have no complaints He s a founding member of Fun Yung Moon a band that s sold 2. 6 million copies of its debut record He s seen his face on MTV mixed in with the biggest music names of the day tours the country in an airbrushed bus plays stages other musicians would kill just to stand on But all is not well It s 1995 and while the tidal wave of grunge rolls on Fun Yung Moon s sopho record is dead in the water with a single no one plays a failing tour and band members with their own agendas Back home his wife Celia is oddly distant and perhaps worst of all Hote can t find the magic in the music any that special pulse that propelled him through the songs and made the course of his life clear One day on the road Celia reveals to Hote she s been unfaithful which sends Hote on a three day odyssey through Orange County culminating in an encounter with a father he s never known He meets many others along the way but none as captivating as Betty a sixteen year old singer songwriter who wants from Hote than an autograph on her ticket stub Will Hote find renewed hope through Betty or is his spirit as doomed as his dead heroes haunting the rock n roll afterworld learning too late the cruel backlash of rock music immortality Ghost NotesFor all the stories told or perhaps just implied this book could have been several times longer in the hands of a less disciplined writer The plot is simple but intricately told through the brief lives of working musicians hangers on to the music scene wanna be musicians roadies agents and a whole constellation of lovers wives ex lovers ex wives and absentee fathers The thread that binds it all together is music and the life of Josh Hotle also known as Hote a bass player in a once mega successful band but now on a grueling tour schedule and on the downside of the fame that he was looking for in the authors first essay into the musician s life Stuck in Phoenix Now that Josh has caught the brass ring everything that he got into music for is turning hollow routine and savorless Or maybe he has just at long last grown up enough to look at his life with a coolly analytical eye and decide what he really wants out of it He walks out on the band mid tour leaving them short a bass player before their next gig Josh is so burnt out and in shock that his wife has confessed to being unfaithful to him that he doesn t really care He wants to go camping and get away from it all but he can never get away from people or his own past There are a lot of characters in Ghost Notes and a lot of back story but the writer has done an incredible job of delineating them with just enough detail to flesh them out make them real and sympathetic The personal and professional world of Josh Hotle is dense detailed and believable without overwhelming the reader and bogging the narrative down in unnecessary verbiage Each chapter or character sketch is a complete short story in itself it shouldn t come as a surprise that the author is also a musician and songwriter expert in using just the precise word and phrase and not a syllable English Every once in awhile you come across something that s a pleasure to read The story isn t so important you re not necessarily attached to the plot It s about prose that oozes with subtext Imperfect characters you can relate to Witty little metaphors that make you smile Words flowing naturally falling right into place They fit right in there A book that is not so much about itself than it is about you Books by Kurt Vonnegut J. I liked Ghost Notes before I reached the end of the first page and when I finished I knew it was a book I d revisit some day Some books get set aside and forgotten stuffed in the back of a cabinet sold used on even recycled Then there are books that occupy a place of prominence on your bookshelf Fight Club The Hitchhiker s Guide to the Galaxy The Godfather Lord of the Rings These are books I ve read than once and will probably read again I think I may even have multiple copies of a few of them I know that for some reason I definitely ended up owning two copies of The Godfather and I can swear I saw an extra copy of Fight Club lying around here somewhere Will Ghost Notes be so revered Let s be realistic probably not But it was one of those books that was just fun to read and one that I will probably read again. Ghost Notes is set in the mid 1990 s Right on the money When grunge was king and musicians in thrift store clothes sang pure powerful melancholy songs like Black Hole Sun Down in a Hole and My Name is Mud It s about a guy named Hote who quits his band in the middle of a tour and then lingers nearby contemplating his purpose reliving his past and meeting interesting characters like the confident wannabe teenage punk rock goddess Pippy Longstocking aka Betty The story is filled with rock and roll minutia and Edwards is clearly an experienced musician It felt like we shared similar musical experiences like we both once lived in the same world Hote occupies as he struggles to find his place I was in my early 20 s during the grunge era in college playing rock guitar in bands with names like The Juice Crew Waiting for Gina and Better Than Better Than Ezra I thought I was cool. If you don t have a similar background don t possess a passion for pure rock music didn t push to the front of the crowd at House of Blues to see Primus up close or walk back to your car disappointed after witnessing how much Smashing Pumpkins sucks live or lost your friends and your ride home during a Beastie Boys concert then you probably won t love Ghost Notes as much as I did But for all you power chord players out there all you Zepp heads everyone of you who was awestruck while touring the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland even the folks who wondered where all these passionate Nirvana fans were before the guy shot himself you need to dedicate a few days to Ghost Notes. But don t be misled this is not a book about rock music It s a book about people and Edwards has mastered their lives in a way that will make even the most unfortunate country music fan appreciate his work He s good with his words It s hard to describe what music sounds like but Edwards does it beautifully His guitar tone was loud like Cobain s and a million others but also clean like someone had broken into the Beach Boys practice room and turned their amps up when they weren t looking. With elements of minimalism driving the story like Palahniuk Edwards scenes unfold with just enough to let our imaginations run wild and we love him for it An encounter with Goo with his green Mohawk his jaw crunching ice from a foam cup as he cultivates his boredom gives us all we need to know about the guy while giving us hardly anything at all We know these people We re right there with them. Not every character seems necessary and the use of first person for every character was a little confusing at first But his delicate writing works quite well It s natural Each word fits almost perfectly into place And while we celebrate rock we also look at ourselves Where we ve been Why we ve been And what s next There is real feeling here as if this book has some cosmic purpose. Long live rock English A familiarity with the music scene in the mid nineties isn t a prerequisite for enjoying this book though it will probably enhance your appreciation for it Music is the backdrop to a story about love and loss and marriage But don t worry if you came to Ghost Notes for some sex drugs and rock n roll there is plenty of that too. The protagonist is Hote a 26 year old musician who walks away from his band in the middle of a tour after hearing some troubling news from his wife Celia Hote drifts from painful self awareness to a kind of youthful recklessness that feels authentic and relatable Not that I ve ever been a 26 year old guy Hote narrates most of the book in first person but a variety of other characters from the punk teen Betty to Betty s mom to Hote s estranged father to name just a few take turns narrating as well The overall effect is not as choppy or disjointed as I d expect this is Hote s story and the chorus of voices all contribute to it in some way. After I finished the book I wanted This is both a great compliment to the author and a small criticism Just a few chapters from the two most interesting characters Hote and Betty in my opinion would have resolved some of my lingering questions about the characters motivations and helped round out the story Would it be too much to ask for a sequel English Great follow up to Edwards first novel Stuck Outside of Phoenix that continues the story started in its predecessor but with a twist First person narration from the POV of multiple characters If you have any interest in rock music and the way life just happens to you regardless of what you want out of it both are worth a read English As much as I loved Stuck Outside Pheonix I really tired to like Ghost Notes the same But I couldn t Because it s not the same It s a different story in a different time A band on the edge of stardum is not something I have experienced but Art Edwards let s us know that it s not what it is supposed to be And how Hote moves through peoples lives without even realizing he is is amazing Oh and buy the CD Songs From Memory to go along with your reading The authors first solo cd since leaving the Refreshments English
| Ghost Notes By Art Edwards |
| 097990661X |
| 9780979906619 |
| English |
| 212 |
| Paperback |
., G Ballard and the early writing of Chuck Palahniuk immediately come to mind Art Edwards may one day join such company. Nowadays it s Kelly Clarkson Demi Lovato and the Black Eyed Peas Rock is dead they say, Like Jimmy Page s ripping ice cold guitar solo in the middle of Whole Lotta Love the greatest 16 seconds in the history of rock and roll Ghost Notes called me home