The Experience Music Project's annual EMP Pop Conference is being held in New York City for the first time this year, and I will be driving up later this month to appear on a panel and read a paper previewing research from the book I'm working on, Tough Breaks: The Story of Baltimore Club Music. My presentation is on Friday, March 23rd, but I'm going to be staying in the city the whole weekend, taking in other panels and visiting friends and hopefully meeting a lot of other music writers that I've read and/or interacted with online over the years, should be fun.

Labels: announcements, Baltimore club, Tough Breaks

This weekend the American Studies Association will be hosting the 2011 ASA conference in Baltimore on October 20-23. I've been invited to speak about Baltimore club music, and on Saturday at 10am at the Baltimore Hilton, I'll be giving a presentation with the first public airing of some of the research and interview material from the book I'm writing, Tough Breaks: The Story of Baltimore club Music.

Labels: announcements, Baltimore club, Tough Breaks

Respect Magazine recently interviewed me about the book I'm writing, Tough Breaks: The Story of Baltimore Club Music.

Labels: Baltimore club, magazines/newspapers, Tough Breaks

This morning WYPR aired their latest segment featuring me talking about Baltimore club music along with DJ Equalizer, and you can stream the entire segment, plus some web exclusives, on the Maryland Morning site.

Labels: Baltimore club, DJ Equalizer, Tough Breaks, WYPR

Last year I began doing some segments with the Maryland Morning program on WYPR, Baltimore's NPR station, including some pieces about Baltimore club music to tie in with my upcoming book, Tough Breaks: The Story Of Baltimore Club Music. The latest segment in that series features DJ Equalizer, and will air on the morning of next Tuesday, March 15th, and the interview turned out great and I think will be really entertaining and illuminating for people who don't know about early Baltimore club and the role Equalizer played in it. It should stream on the Maryland Morning site at some point, too, so I'll try and link that when it goes up if you can't listen to the show when it airs.

Labels: Baltimore club, DJ Equalizer, Tough Breaks, WYPR

It's been about a month since I hit my Kickstarter funding goal for my book, Tough Breaks: The Story of Baltimore Club Music, but I just wanted to post a quick reminder that the official site ToughBreaksBaltimore.com will continue to be a source of updates about the book and about club music in general. In the past few weeks posts have included thoughts on Debonair Samir's new single, a comprehensive overview of my freelance writing about Baltimore club prior to beginning work on Tough Breaks, links to video of Scottie B. at Whartscape and the Washington Post article by Chris Richards about 92Q and Baltimore Club, and other posts about events and media. I'm still kinda slow going with it so far, but eventually I hope the site will be as much a resource for Baltimore club as Gov't Names has been for Baltimore hip hop, and will be posting about new music more frequently soon, so keep checking for new posts.

Labels: 92Q, announcements, Baltimore club, Debonair Samir, Scottie B., Tough Breaks

We did it! My book, Tough Breaks: The Story of Baltimore Club Music, reached its $5,000 fundraising goal on Kickstarter.com today. For most of the last 5 weeks it wasn't even halfway to the goal, but thanks to some very generous 11th hour backers it got to where it needed to be in time. The page will still be open for pledges until about 9pm EST tomorrow (Thursday) night, and every little bit helps make the whole project bigger and better, so please feel free to still donate if you want, there's no limit on how high it can go past the initial goal. I owe a huge huge thanks to all of my 39 backers, some of whom are family and friends and peers in the music community, some of whom I don't know but really appreciate their support.

Now comes the really hard part: actually completing and releasing the book. There's a lot to still be settled on the business end, but my hope is to have it completely finished with the research and writing by the end of 2010, and have the book on sale at some point in 2011, although it's difficult at this early juncture to be any more specific than that. But I'm looking into some really great opportunities to make this all as big and as great as it can possibly be and give the project a whole life beyond the book. Just as there have been the past few weeks, there will be more print articles and radio appearances and online promotions between now and the book's release, along with events, the cool rewards some of the Kickstarter backers signed up for and all sorts of other stuff I don't want to spoil just yet but could be really really awesome. I'm gonna take a breather for a minute and just wipe my brow with relief, but the progress of this whole project will continue to be documented on ToughBreaksBaltimore.com. Thank you!!

Labels: announcements, Baltimore club, Tough Breaks

It's time for a quick update on Tough Breaks: The Story of Baltimore Club Music, the book that I announced a few weeks ago that I'm in the process of writing:

- The Tough Breaks page on the fundraising website Kickstarter.com is now less than 2 weeks away from the donation deadline. I've already gotten more than 1/3rd toward the project's $5,000.00 goal, and can't thank the people that have pledged already enough, I'm so grateful to you all. But that still leaves a long way to go and time is quickly running out. I want to quickly stress: Kickstarter pledges aren't charged unless I meet the goal, and won't be charged until the July 1st deadline, so please pledge as soon as possible if you know how much you'll be able to pledge! Every little bit counts and no amount is too small (well, there's a $5 minimum, but still), and if you look at the list of rewards I've offered on Kickstarter, there might be something cool you're willing to pledge the minimum for (just $10 gets you personally thanked in the book itself, for instance, and there are much more interesting rewards for higher amounts). I'd love for everyone to pledge as much as they can by next Thursday, June 24th, just to not wait until the last minute, and leave a week to make up any remaining difference. The Kickstarter page for my project has lots of handy links to post about Tough Breaks on your Facebook or Twitter, or post widgets like the one at the top of this post on your blog, so please spread the word even if you can't donate!

- The interview with DJ Booman and myself that aired on WYPR's Maryland Morning last week is now streaming online, and features lots of talk about the book and the history of Baltimore club music, along with some club classics handpicked by Booman and a special new track he made for the occasion.

- On the official site for the book, ToughBreaksBaltimore.com, I assembled a handy guide to The Club Beat, the monthly column about club music that I've been writing for the Baltimore City Paper's Noise blog since 2007, with links to all 26 installments, including dozens of interviews with DJs and producers in the scene both big and small, legends and up-and-comers, and year-end lists of the hottest club tracks of the past three years. This stuff won't be in Tough Breaks, but will give you a good idea of what the book will be like and who will be featured in it.

- I've also started blogging about current Baltimore club happenings on the Tough Breaks site, starting with a piece about DJ Class's recent forays into pop music like his new song with "The Situation" from Jersey Shore.

Labels: announcements, Baltimore City Paper, DJ Booman, DJ Class, Noise, Tough Breaks, WYPR

It’s been about a week since I announced Tough Breaks: The Story of Baltimore Club Music and launched the official website, and I just wanted to put together a quick update of some things going on related to the project:

- The new issue of Words.Beats.Life: The Global Journal of Hip Hop Culture has just been published, and features an article I wrote about Baltimore club music. The Washington, D.C.-based peer-reviewed academic periodical asked me a while back to contribute to its Sex Issue, and the piece I wrote is titled “Sex In This Club: Gender And Sexuality in Baltimore Club Music.” It touches on the sexually explicit nature of Baltimore club lyrics, gender dynamics in the club community, and the role that female and gay musicians have played in the scene over the years, focusing on the late Khia “Club Queen K-Swift” Edgerton and the late Anthony “Miss Tony” Boston. The piece also features previously unpublished quotes from my personal interview archive from people like Ron “Dukeyman” Hall, 2 Hyped Brothers & A Dog producer Al “T” McLaran, and Club Queen Entertainment staffers Buck Jones, Lady Pitbull and Crystal Tennessee. Although the article, like my other freelance works, won’t appear in Tough Breaks, it can be considered something of a preview of one of the topics that will be explored further in the book. More information on Words. Beats. Life and how to pick up a copy of the new issue is available at http://www.wblinc.org.

- Baltimore club veteran DJ Booman and I recently taped a segment as guests of Baltimore public radio station WYPR 88.1FM, which will air next Monday, June 7th on Maryland Morning. In the 10-15 minute segment, WYPR’s Tom Hall interviews Booman and I about the early days of Baltimore club music and we get a bit into the history and the culture of the scene and the music, and Booman produced a special track for the occasion that should be fun for everyone to hear. The piece will air between 9:30 and 10am on Monday morning, but should also be available to stream on the WYPR site, http://www.wypr.org.

- The page for Tough Breaks on fundraising website Kickstarter.com has gotten off to a great start since its launch last week. In its first 7 days, the project has raised over $1,400 towards its $5,000 goal. There's almost a month between now and the July 1st deadline, but there's a lot still left to raise, and I hope anyone who hasn't already is considering even a small pledge, because if we don't reach the goal by then, none of the donations go through.

- The Tough Breaks announcement has been posted on a number of sites and blogs, including Unruly Records, Baltimore-Club.com, My Baltimore Diary and D.C. Mumbo Sauce, in addition to countless Twitter and Facebook postings. Thank you to everyone, please keep spreading the word!

Labels: announcements, Baltimore club, Buck Jones, Dukeyman, K-Swift, My Baltimore Diary, Tough Breaks, Unruly Records, WYPR