The room is packed; there are 50 (uncomfortable) chairs that were quickly commandeered but the clerks stopped counting at 100 when the crowds continued to flow into the second story of BookPeople, Austin’s funky, well-loved, independent bookstore. BookPeople rarely gets this SRO crowd – except for former presidents and celebs; book talks by the average author garner a handful these days. So who’s the big draw? Music journalist Rob Sheffield, author of the surprise New York Times bestseller Love Is A Mix Tape.
For a music-lover like me, this book is a no-brainer favorite. Of course I’d be into an intense and tragic love story told through mix tapes and music; it’s a music geek’s dream—love among the LPs. But as this large and diverse audience (and loads of great reviews) indicates, this book is not just for intense music lovers. The timeless themes of love and loss, along with charming writing that’s accessible for music illiterates, make Love Is A Mix Tape a sweet read for just about anyone.
Here’s the basic plot: It’s Rob’s memoirs of his five-year marriage to music critic Renee Crist, and how he used music to cope with her sudden death and to celebrate her life.
Renee may have left this life, but she is alive again through the words on these pages. It is hard to not love the irrepressible whirlwind that is Renee, and after reading the book, it almost feels like you were in her orbit as well. Love Is A Mix Tape is honest and poignant, and you can feel Sheffield’s love shining through.
Every good book leaves you with questions, and luckily I had a chance to sit down with Sheffield after his Austin reading and find out more about one of my favorite writers.
I had to know: Was it hard to write about a tragic story of living with and losing such a wonderful partner? “I always knew I wanted to write about her and tell her story,” begins Rob, “and it was just a matter of finding the right way. There were a lot of false starts, there were a lot of times where I tried and didn’t get too far into it. And it was when I was moving into a new apartment and unpacking my tapes and putting them on shelves and putting them in groovy little piles. Each tape seemed to be screaming out “play me next; I have a story to tell!” And I just started writing about the tapes, and the story just kind of came out of that. That was kind of the way I had been looking for.”
As you get to know Renee in Love Is A Mix Tape, you too may see Renee as the larger-than-life figure she was to Rob. I asked him: If there was one thing about Renee for readers to take away, what would you want it to be?
“I guess what I would hope someone would be able to take away, would be really what I learned from Renee,” says Rob, “which is just about celebrating life and being enthusiastic about it instead of hiding from it. And it’s funny that before I met her I was totally planning on hiding from life for the rest of my life; I was really good at it. I was able to channel my monastic impulses in really fun and creative ways. But it wasn’t really until I met her that I began to really face life head-on and really become part of the world.”
It’s funny to hear this from Rob Sheffield. After all, this is the current senior contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine, and while this is just a guess on my part, I’m thinking you can’t really hide from life and write for Rolling Stone. But everyone has their (often surprising) past, and Rob’s journalistic past is one thing I wanted to hear about.
“I always wrote about music, ever since I was a little kid,” explains Rob. “Writing about music was just something that I did for fun, because music was what inspired me and I loved to write, so everything I wrote turned into something about music. And even when I was in grad school, writing about poetry and everything, I was always finding ways to say that Gertrude Stein was kind of like the New York Dolls, whereas Ezra Pound was kind of like the Stooges, you know? I was still thinking of things in terms of musical terms, and that’s kind of like the way my brain is hardwired.”
“Well, I was freelancing for years...you know, the sort of thing that every young writer does,” continues Rob. “You write for anybody who’ll print your stuff and then you send the clips around and you do it for free, out of love. And eventually, at some point, people start sending you checks for it. And that never really stopped seeming weird in my experience; it still seems like getting away with something: to get paid just for writing. But I was freelancing a lot for the Voice, and for Spin, and for Details and for my friends fanzines and for basically any place I could get in print, and just started writing for Rolling Stone about ten years ago.”
As we continued to talk about music journalism, I had to ask my favorite Almost Famous inspired question: music journalist to music journalist, how hard is it to be friends with the bands you write about?
“It’s difficult!” admits Rob. “It can be done, I have friends who do it, but it takes a particular kind of finesse, I guess, and I haven’t really found myself in that situation. Because when you hero-worship musicians as I do, you kind of don’t wanna see the gruesome side and the egomaniac side. I had a great time interviewing Aerosmith a few years ago, and it was so fun following them around for a few days and being in hotel rooms, and seeing them be really annoyed that the phone was ringing, so they just ripped the phone out of the wall. And I thought “this is great.” But, you know, you can’t confuse this with real life. For them it’s real life because they’re rock stars, but you can’t confuse it with your real life.”
As we continue to talk, we discuss what Rob is currently reading (Sherlock Holmes) as well as what he’s listening to (LCD Soundsystem, Liars, and Radiohead). But I really want to talk about the obvious: mix tapes. Does Sheffield still make actual cassettes?
“Yeah, I still make mix tapes on cassette,” says Sheffield with unembarrassed enthusiasm and a big smile. “Of course I also make playlists for my iPod, and I burn CDs...I love that stuff! I love how fast and easy it is. But there’s something about the mix tape that has its special physical presence and some music just sounds better on cassette. It’s funny how tapes have kind of gone underground. This summer, actually, I was pulled out of the security line at LaGuardia [airport] because I had a Walkman in my bag. And the security guard came over and said “What is this?” and one of the older security guards had to come over and say “That’s a Walkman! I haven’t seen one of these in a while.” And I said “Wow, I didn’t realize how far these things had gone.” But yeah, I still love the tapes.”
As a member of the current generation, I didn’t want to get all “oh you young people, back in my day we walked 5 hours barefoot uphill in the snow to buy our Duran Duran vinyl.” However, because I am one of those young rascals, I can’t help but observe that our fast new technology takes a lot of the effort—and sometimes emotion—out of making a mix. I asked Rob whether he thought people still put thought into their mixes.
“I think so. The technology changes but it’s still a fundamental human urge to pass music around and that’s what music is for. And it’s funny that there are so many different ways to do it now that there didn’t used to be. Sometimes I’ll be on the phone with a friend and we’ll be talking about a song and they’ll just go online and find it on Limewire and download it and we’ll listen to it together over the phone. That’s something that wasn’t possible a few years ago and it’s definitely exciting that that’s possible now. Yet there’s something about making the old-school mix tape that definitely proves that you spent an hour and a half thinking about this person, thinking about the music, what song goes in what order.”
After discussing important topics (such as the struggle to fit all the songs you want into the 1 hour, 20 minute mix CD time limit), I decided to take a more serious turn. As a fan of Sheffield’s work, I needed to know what was up next. Could we expect new projects, any upcoming books?
After I ask this question, Rob pauses, choosing his words carefully. “I have a lot of book ideas, like every writer I guess – like a lot of ideas – and it’s just a matter of picking one horse to ride all the way around the track.”
As a Sheffield fan, I’m hoping this answer is a thickly veiled yes, but I decide not to prod and continue on to my next query...
Given his past as a long-time music writer, I’m guessing that Sheffield has probably had to suffer through listening to some really bad music. With that in mind, I wanted to know if Rob had any advice for young musicians.
Sheffield doesn’t miss a beat and delivers (arguably) the most important advice of the night. “Any advice for bands would be to go easy on the accordions. Because it is really easy to get an accordion and sound distinctive, but WOW, you have to be careful with that accordion! That is a landmine that you are juggling. And that would be my only advice, is to understand that an accordion is something to be approached with respect and with terror and with discretion, and you push the accordion too far...and it pushes you too far.”
Love Is A Mix Tape is available In stores now. For more on this fantastic book, check out randomhouse.com/crown/mixtape/.
randomhouse.com/crown/mixtape/