RaveThe Arts FuseJones’s descriptions of domestic violence, inappropriate family members, and peculiar neighbors unfolds with the dark logic of a David Lynch movie ... Jones is careful to contextualize her parents’ instability in their tumultuous childhoods ... As a prose writer, she has a free-associative style with a magical realist bent ... Her road to Warner Brothers Records is like the path Little Red Riding Hood follows in the unexpurgated version fairy tale, lined with hallucinogens and wolf-like pimps ... Of all the biographies of female musicians I’ve read in the past year, Last Chance Texaco is the most transparent about the vagaries of fame ... Last Chance Texaco chimes with the bittersweet experiences of many of her peers who have written about their lives over the past few years. But there are elements here that set it apart: Jones’s refreshing gift at improvisation, her eye for vivid detail, and her rhythmic, poetic writing style. This volume will be a good, if chastening, read for fans of LA culture.
Sasha Geffen
PositiveThe Arts Fuse... intended as the start, rather than the end point, for an investigation of the gender spectrum in music. Geffen takes on some heady ideas about music and gender performance, but they approach the subject with a nimble writing style. This book will be accessible to fans up for a challenge as well as to academics. That said, reading some chapters of the book left me wanting more. Geffen touches on the influence of queer Black artists like Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Little Richard, but apart from (for example) writing about artists like Prince on a continuum with Little Richard and James Brown, they don’t put the gender-creative work of artists like Prince or Janelle Monae into a more intersectional context. The absence of cult figures like Jackie Shane is disappointing, but understandable, but I was surprised that the influence of music videos only receives a glancing mention in chapters on bands that rose to fame in the ’80s. Also, it is puzzling that pop metal bands — who wore makeup, teased their hair, and wrote and performed crass, sexist songs — aren’t in the book at all ... Overall, Glitter Up the Dark helps readers understand and contextualize gender performance in popular music. It might change the way you listen to and engage with your favorite records.
