Will Hermes (born December 27, 1960, in Jamaica, Queens, New York City) is an American author, broadcaster, journalist and critic who has written extensively about popular music. He is a longtime contributor to Rolling Stone and to National Public Radio's All Things Considered . His work has also appeared in Pitchfork, Spin , The New York Times , The Village Voice , The Believer , GQ , Salon , Entertainment Weekly , Details , City Pages (Minneapolis, MN), The Windy City Times, and Option . [1] He is the author of Love Goes To Buildings On Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever (2011), a history of the New York City music scene in the 1970s; and Lou Reed: The King of New York, a biography. [2] [3]
In the late 1980s Hermes began writing for Option, a Los Angeles–based small-press magazine that covered a wide range of music. In 1993 he became the Arts & Music Editor for City Pages, an alternative newsweekly based in Minneapolis. In 1997 was hired as a Senior Editor for Spin magazine in New York City. Hermes began contributing regularly to Rolling Stone in the ‘00s and became a frequent voice in the magazine's review section. Hermes co-edited SPIN: 20 Years of Alternative Music, an anthology of writing from Spin magazine published in 2006, with Sia Michel, then the magazine's editor-in-chief. His writing was included in Da Capo's Best Music Writing 2006 and Best Music Writing 2007. [4] In 2011, Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Faber and Faber published his book Love Goes To Buildings On Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever, a history of New York City music culture in the 1970s, covering the nascent punk rock, hip hop and disco scenes, along with salsa, loft jazz, and the downtown composers known as minimalists. It was selected as the top music book of 2011 by NPR, [5] and it was an Editor's Choice title in The New York Times Book Review, which called it a "prodigious work of contemporary music history". [6] Lou Reed: The King of New York, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Viking in 2023. It was named among the best non-fiction books of 2023 by Kirkus Review, [7] and one of the best music books of 2023 by Rolling Stone, [8] Pitchfork, [9] Variety, [10] and Uncut. Writing in the Washington Post, Stephen Metcalf said the book "is as beautifully researched as it is written; thorough, smart, conscientious and an absolute delight to simmer in.” [11] Writing for Bookforum, Hanif Abdurraqib called it "A work of grand affection, one that allows a person their failings, and one that knows that examining those failings alongside the grandest achievements is how one pays homage to a full life.” [12] Writing for Literary Review, David Keenan said: "An awkward love letter to the 20th century with added apologia, The King of New York is the perfect biography of Lou Reed for 2023, and will likely remain that way". [13]
Lewis Allan Reed was an American musician and songwriter. He was the guitarist, singer, and principal songwriter for the rock band The Velvet Underground and had a solo career that spanned five decades. Although not commercially successful during its existence, the Velvet Underground came to be regarded as one of the most influential bands in the history of underground and alternative rock music. Reed's distinctive deadpan voice, poetic and transgressive lyrics, and experimental guitar playing were trademarks throughout his long career.
Metal Machine Music is the fifth studio album by American rock musician Lou Reed. It was recorded on a three-speed Uher machine and was mastered/engineered by Bob Ludwig. It was released as a double album in July 1975 by RCA Records, but taken off the market three weeks later. A radical departure from the rest of his catalog, the Metal Machine Music album features no songs or recognizably structured compositions, eschewing melody and rhythm for modulated feedback and noise music guitar effects, mixed at varying speeds by Reed. Also in 1975, RCA released a Quadrophonic version of the Metal Machine Music recording that was produced by playing it back both forward and backward, and by flipping the tape over.
Paul Muldoon is an Irish poet.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar. FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, and Nobel Prizes. As of 2016 the publisher is a division of Macmillan, whose parent company is the German publishing conglomerate Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.
August Kleinzahler is an American poet.
New Sensations is the thirteenth solo studio album by American rock musician Lou Reed, released in April 1984 by RCA Records. John Jansen and Reed produced the album. New Sensations peaked at No. 56 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and at No. 92 on the UK Albums Chart. This marked the first time that Reed charted within the US Top 100 since his eighth solo studio album Street Hassle (1978), and the first time that Reed had charted in the UK since his sixth solo studio album Coney Island Baby (1976). Three singles were released from the album: "I Love You, Suzanne", "My Red Joystick" and "High in the City", with "I Love You, Suzanne" being the only single to chart, peaking at No. 78 on the UK Singles Chart. The music video for "I Love You, Suzanne" did, however, receive light rotation on MTV.
"I'm Waiting for the Man" is a song by American rock band the Velvet Underground. Written by Lou Reed, it was first released on their 1967 debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico. The lyrics describe a man's efforts to obtain heroin in Harlem.
Alec Foege is an American author and magazine journalist.
Sloane Crosley is an American writer living in New York City known for her humorous essays, including the collections I Was Told There'd Be Cake, How Did You Get This Number, and Look Alive Out There. She has also worked as a publicist at the Vintage Books division of Random House and as an adjunct professor in Columbia University's Master of Fine Arts program. She graduated from Connecticut College in 2000.
Station Island is the sixth collection of original poetry written by Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. It is dedicated to the Northern Irish playwright Brian Friel. The collection was first published in the United Kingdom and Ireland in 1984 by Faber & Faber and was then published in America by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1985. Seamus Heaney was recorded reading this collection on the Seamus Heaney Collected Poems album.
Rich Cohen is an American non-fiction writer. He is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. He is co-creator, with Martin Scorsese, Mick Jagger and Terence Winter, of the HBO series Vinyl. His works have been New York Times bestsellers, New York Times Notable Books, and have been collected in the Best American Essays series. He lives in Ridgefield, Connecticut, with his wife and children.
Nathaniel Rich is an American novelist and essayist. Rich is the author of several books, was an editor for The Paris Review, and has contributed to several major magazines including The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, and The New York Review of Books.
James Miller is an American writer and academic. He is known for writing about Michel Foucault, philosophy as a way of life, social movements, popular culture, intellectual history, eighteenth century to the present; radical social theory and history of political philosophy. He currently teaches at The New School.
Maureen McLane is an American poet, critic, and professor. She received the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Amelia Gray is an American writer. She is the author of the short story collections AM/PM, Museum of the Weird, and Gutshot, and the novels THREATS, and Isadora. Gray has been shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and her television writing has been nominated for a WGA Award.
Ben Ratliff is an American journalist, music critic and author.
Hanif Abdurraqib is an American poet, essayist, and cultural critic. His first essay collection, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was published in 2017. His 2021 essay collection A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance received the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. Abdurraqib was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2021.
Caroline Kimball Sallee, better known by the stage name Caroline Says, is an American singer-songwriter. She has released two albums: 50,000,000 Million Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2014) and No Fool Like an Old Fool (2018).
John Kaag is an American philosopher and Chair and Professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Kaag specializes in American philosophy. His writing has been published in The Paris Review, The New York Times, and Harper's Magazine.
Auwa Books is a publishing imprint founded by Questlove in 2023.