Thursday, February 7, 2013

Psychobilly Sally

I'm not usually the kind of person who spends days on Pinterest trying to assemble the perfect collage of pictures to inspire my latest book. Although I have to say in complete honesty that this is because I haven't allowed myself to join Pinterest. I know it'll suck me in. It's the same reason I don't spend a lot of time on Facebook anymore. The games call my name, and I could lose an entire afternoon's worth of writing time just on those alone.

But as I get close to the dreaded middle of the project, where the honeymoon inevitably dies and you start to think it's all CRAP CRAP CRAPPITY CRAP, and just opening the file on the computer takes a major act of will, I start to look for a few inspirational bits. For Sally Slick, I've been listening to some psychobilly music. Again, in the interest of honesty, I listen to it anyway, but it seems to fit. I think of psychobilly as swing music for lunatics. It's full of monsters and zombies and girls with cherry red lips who always manage to get into trouble, and it cracks me up in all the best ways.

One caveat I have to make when recommending psychobilly is that it's tough to find songs without at least one swear word in them for some reason, and some bands feature a big old helping of sex and drug lyrics along with their rock and roll. But then you run into a band that's full of pure monster camp that you can dance to, and it's just the kind of thing that's perfect to inspire a book full of robot mafia and mad scientists and plucky girls who design racing tractors.

One of my personal favorites is Mad Marge and the Stonecutters. I'll be listening to it today while I write a fight scene.



What are you listening to lately?

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