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August 16, 2005
Word Them Up
The reviews for Murmur are starting to trickle in, and thank Jah, so far they've been quite gracious. The L magazine in New York recently interviewed me for this article, though they ended up not using any of my quotes. This article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is very complementary toward the book, and includes a few words from yours truly. Tape Op, one of my favorite music-related magazines, reviewed some of the latest books in the 33 1/3 series, and had some very kind words to say about my little tome; it's not online, but you can read an excerpt from it on the series editor's blog here (which, incidentally, is shaping up to be the main sounding board for the 33 1/3 series, if you're interested in keeping up with what's poppin'.) Also a music website called Mish Mash has a positive review of the R.E.M. book. Oh, and if you've read the thing and need to tell the world (or at least the Internet) what you think of it, by all means, shoot over to Amazon and cut sick. In the works: XM satellite radio is supposedly going to interview me at some point, as well as the Pioneer Press (the newspaper conglomerate out in the 'burbs where the family estate is...My mom sent them a copy of my book.) And I hear the September issue of Blender contains a nice plug for Murmur as well. Hopefully I'll be hitting the road this Fall to do a few bookstore readings, most likely in Chicago, NYC, SF, and LA, possibly with my esteemed series cohort Franklin Bruno. Watch this space for details. I'm also delighted to report, being an unreconstructed library geek, that to date 19 libraries have added Murmur to their collections, including the Chicago Public Library, the British Library, the Library of Congress, my hometown library (thanks again, Mom), and the college libraries at Smith, Brown, UIC, and Cornell. Nachschrift: Forgot to mention a decent little review of the book in the Cincinnati City Beat (here), though I don't know if I'd venture to describe myself as a "veteran music journalist" (and where did I say I hate cassettes? Without them I'd probably be a deceased corporate tax lawyer.) Also a brief mixed-bag mention in Philadelphia Weekly here (though the review is based only on a chapter of the book that was excerpted in a prepublication sampler.) Oddly, the day I posted the original entry above, I came home to find the new copy of Blender perched in my mailbox. Here's the review of Murmur from the Sept. '05 ish: Murmur By J. Niimi *** [out of 4] College rock goes to college! The latest entry in Continuum's series unpacks R.E.M.'s jangly, oblique 1983 debut in a four-part curriculum: band history, song commentary, Gothic lit 101 and remedial semiotics. But don't expect a deconstruction of the mumbled fables: Professor Niimi wants to "dehistoricize" the record without spoiling the mystery. -- Sean Howe Er...thanks? (Unbeknownst to this guy, I'd also been credited as "Professor Niimi" on a couple indie rock records I engineered a long time ago.) But the best review of the book that I've read so far is by my compadre Alex Golub, who posted this on his blog a coupla days ago: Murmur, J Niimi J is a good friend of mine and so I would have felt really bad if I had to write a review of his book and say that it was suck. Luckily this short volume dedicated to REM’s first LP is not suck. In fact its really, really good. The book does an admirable job of tacking back and forth between a very sophisticated discussion of the equipment used to record the album to personal reminiscence about the 80s zeitgeist into which it was released to the nature of lyrics themselves. The book doesn’t just talk about the kudzu-filled cover—it talks about the natural history of Kudzu in the south. Given it’s small size it’s not clear what genre of book this is supposed to be, and this shows at times when certain narratives are expanded or contracted. Also, J spends a fair amount of time doing ‘boundary setting work’ discussing the nature and function of art criticism, the history of influence, and so forth—a tendency I’d chalk up to the fact that it is his first book, or the awkward length he’s been assigned. Luckily, even when the discussion strays from REM to the role of the critic, it is still interesting to see him work through the issues (particularly his relationship with academia). So remember: J Niimi. You heard it here first. Okay. Special thanks again to all the folks who've e-mailed me with random boy-howdys. And my own boy-howdy to Prof. Bert Cohler, who, after I ran into him yesterday and mentioned the book, only smiled and asked, with his gold-capped grin, "What's the next one going to be about?"
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