Loading summary
Transcript79 lines
- [00:00]
Marshall Poe
This episode is brought to you by Avid tv. Where do savvy minds go to find masterful documentaries and hard to find films from across the globe? Try a free month long trial at Ovid and go beyond the mainstream. Indiewire says Ovid is unafraid to program films that matter and the New York Times calls Ovid a terrific streamer for independent film fans. A boutique hand curated streaming service. Yet now with over 2,400 titles, Ovid is the home to films by auteurs from Chantal Akerman to Chris Marker to Wang Bing and has the richest collection of probing, avant garde and provocative films anywhere. Ovid offers many things except conformity. Try Ovid today and get your first month free. Use promo code N B N O V I D. That's Ovid TV promo code N B N O V I D this is a real good story.
- [00:50]
Brian Baker
About Bronx and his dad Ryan, real United Airlines customers. We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and.
- [00:58]
Rebecca Buchanan
Meet Kath and Andrew.
- [01:00]
Brian Baker
I got to sit in the driver's seat. I grew up in an aviation family and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age. That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain. Allowing my son to see the flight.
- [01:15]
Rebecca Buchanan
Deck will stick with us forever.
- [01:16]
Brian Baker
That's how Good leads the way.
- [01:18]
Marshall Poe
Hello everybody, this is Marshall Poe. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network. And if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the nbm. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the new books Network and you will see a link to NBN Productions. Click that, fill out the form and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [02:25]
Rebecca Buchanan
Hi, this is Rebecca Buchanan, host of New Books Network, New books in popular culture, and today I'm here with Brian Baker to talk about his new photography collection called the Road. Brian, and thanks for being here with me today.
- [02:37]
Brian Baker
My pleasure.
- [02:39]
Rebecca Buchanan
So I'm wondering if you can start out maybe by talking about who you are and a little bit about yourself and your background. Before we get into this collection of photography, I'm gonna let you talk, give your little bio.
- [02:51]
Brian Baker
Sure. Well, I am a musician, I guess, semi professional. It's been going on for a long time. I think I'm most known for. I was in the band Minor Threat when I was a teenager and I was in a band called Dagnasty. And I've been in a band called Bad Religion for the last 31 years, if you can believe that. And so I am a musician and this book is called the Road. And I don't think you need a. I don't think you need a degree from Vanderbilt to figure out that these are photographs that I have taken along the way. For the most part, I will say with one caveat. This book is all photographs taken with a cell phone camera. So the photographs date back to 2007, which was the debut of the iPhone One and the first phone that I got that could order pizza and take pictures.
- [03:49]
Rebecca Buchanan
So. And I love that. I love that. They're just. I think people think to put together photographs or to think about yourself as taking photos, you need to have like a, you know, an SLR camera, that kind of thing. And you're like, you're very open, like, this is from my iPhone, right?
- [04:07]
Brian Baker
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And, well, because that's. I think, you know, these images, it's interesting. I was never thinking about them from a fine arts perspective. A lot of these images were in response to a text question. Where are you? Here's a picture of a sandwich.
- [04:24]
Rebecca Buchanan
What?
- [04:25]
Brian Baker
You know, like, what would you like to do? You know, a picture of a guitar store. I mean, it really was more of a communication tool. And I was never, you know, consciously compiling images for later dissemination in book format. It's just kind of things as they came.
- [04:42]
Rebecca Buchanan
So how did it become. Can you talk a little bit about then how did you sort of decide or who helped you decide to put this together in book format?
- [04:51]
Brian Baker
Yeah, like many things, this would never have happened if it were not for the benevolence of others. And you know, there's a parallel to the early punk rock recording scene, I think, because when I think back to Minor Threat, which we were banned in 1980, there would never have been a Minor Threat record had there not been an outside person who knew how to record music. And we just didn't know because this is our first go, and we were just playing music to do it. And there was a man named Don Zenterra who was in Washington, D.C. where we're from, and he had built his own recording studio and had found a way to capture this stuff. In this book case, it's the same thing. It's that I never thought about making a book or even the idea that one could be made. My wife would say to me occasionally, like, looking at my Instagram feed, like, you take a good picture. Have you ever thought about, you know, doing something with it? And I'm like, no, this isn't real. These are camera photos. But there is a woman whose name is Jennifer Sakai, who is a professional photographer, a curator, and has years and years of experience in putting together photo books. And she did a mockup using pictures from my Instagram feed of what the book could be. And all of a sudden, I'm like, oh, wow, this makes sense. Because she, being skilled, knew how to make up for the fact the resolutions were not working or that, you know, I don't think this picture's good. It looks like shit. And she's, well, since I do this for a living, I have this stuff called software, and I have, you know, experience. She built these images into something cohesive. But more importantly, in this book, she created a conversation and a narrative that goes from page one to the last page. And that's what really struck me, is that she made something out of this raw material that was much better than the material, at least to my eyes. But that's how the book happened. And then, conveniently, I'm friends with Johnny Temple, who runs Akashic Books, and we've known each other since elementary school. And I showed him Jennifer's mockup, and I said, do you think this is something you'd want to put out? And he said, I would love to put out this book of photographs. And that's when it became a book of photographs. So outside help, you know?
- [07:16]
Rebecca Buchanan
So this book is literally. You have a little sort of blurb at the beginning of the book, but it is basically all photos. You don't have any narrative in it. Yeah. Can you talk about that choice? Because sometimes people want narrative with their photographs.
- [07:33]
Brian Baker
I purposely did not want to do narrative with a photograph. I just, you know, there is a rock and roll element to this, and I just didn't want it to be, you know, me and Nikki sixx, Motley Crue 2013 on the, you know, remember your children tour. Like, I just. It seemed kind of stale. Also, my descriptor. A lot of these photographs aren't really of. They're of sort of random objects or places. I don't know. I just didn't want to give that information. I thought it would influence the way you look at the picture because the pictures themselves, to me, was the most interesting part, not where they came from. So.
- [08:14]
Rebecca Buchanan
And they have this feel, I feel at least there's this feel that you can kind of. Maybe you might know where they're from, maybe you don't. You can sort of guess. There's this, you know, as you're looking at it, they could be from almost anywhere. Right.
- [08:26]
Brian Baker
I think it makes it interesting. And also another parallel back to the music world that I'm from is that, you know, a lot of people will get something out of a song that was not the intention of the writer or the lyrics will hit them in a different way. And I just didn't want to lead people with the photographs in kind of that same thing. It's like up to the viewer to interpret what it means to them. Much like a song has resonance in different ways to different people, depending on how they listen to it.
- [08:56]
Rebecca Buchanan
So you said, Jennifer, sort of did this mock up. Did you say, hey, these are some of the photos I want included? Did she just sort of go through your photos? Can you talk about that kind of?
- [09:07]
Brian Baker
Well, I mean, yeah, we made the mock up. She made the mock up. And then once I was like, wow, Jennifer, you're a genius. This is awesome. Then we got together. I mean, she's a good friend. She's. We got together and went over. I. I didn't. I don't remember the amount of pictures, but I basically just let her at my computer and it's like, well, what do you think? And she'd pick a bunch. And I. I don't even. That's so funny. I don't even know the total number of pictures in the book. Let's call it 100, just because it's a nice, easy number. So basically, we combined to make this hundred images. And I would think that about. Probably have. Maybe I switched 20 out of of the hundred that she was. That she had settled in on after all of this had passed. But also because I was aware still that what's so great is that she was telling such a story with these photos. I didn't want to just be like, well, this is a better. You know, this is a selfie with me and Obama. You know, we gotta put this in. It's like, no, don't. Forcing my sort of neophyte misunderstanding of her vision was not the way to go with this. I really wanted to let her make this thing work. And so I didn't want to tweak it too much. It was just little things like, you know, just. But really entirely collaborative, I think, is the point.
- [10:30]
Rebecca Buchanan
Which is awesome. Right? And which, yeah, sort of goes along with your musical history.
- [10:35]
Brian Baker
Yes.
- [10:35]
Rebecca Buchanan
So, yeah, like, so when you look at this. So you talk. Do you have photos in here? Because there aren't dates on them either. You mentioned starting taking photos in 2009. So do these kind of span, like, almost. What. What would that be? 15 years or so, if I can do math. Do they, like. Are these, like, spanning that whole sort of time period? Do you look at these and you're like, oh, that one is super old versus this other one that's sort of newer kind of. I.
- [11:03]
Brian Baker
You know, they kind of transcend time in a way. I mean, I can recognize images and go, that's. It was actually 2007. Let's be pedantic about this. It was 2007 when a plucky Steve Jobs first introduced the iPhone to the willing public. Take that, BlackBerry. Now I had. There are pictures in the book from the whole way up until I was still. It's interesting. So I, again, don't have an accurate timeframe, but I would say for. Maybe I knew that this was going to be a book and we were making a piece of art, for whatever that's worth. Probably about a year ago, and the book was not finished yet, and I'm still out there on tour with my camera. So I started to. Now the photographs. I started to think more like, would this be a great photograph? Rather than this is just a random occurrence or something. I walked by and so there's a couple of later photos that I. I actually constructed because I knew people would see them. And it's kind of fun. I mean, I don't know if you can tell which is which in the book because there's no timeline. There's no order to the photographs. Chronological order, rather. But it was neat to have that information because it kind of. It. It did. I did take pictures I would not have normally taken because of it, and took Opportunities, you know, there was just one example is there's a picture of a big pile of old electric guitars that are on, like, a shipping pallet on a loading dock. And I was preparing for that picture for a few months because I knew I was about to go on tour with a band called Social Distortion. And I'm good friends with one of their guitar players who has a bunch of old guitars, and I have a bunch of old guitars, and another guy in Mad Religion does. And I'm like, we can put all the old guitars together and we'll pile them up like firewood. But they're really valuable. But they're not that valuable because they're. They're really beaten up. You know, I just. I was already making that picture before we even got to the first show. So that was kind of. That's. I guess that's when I was starting to figure it, you know, I better make sure everything's cool with Corporate. You know, I better deliver something.
- [13:10]
Rebecca Buchanan
Oh, that's awesome, though. So, like, when you look at these photos, are there ones that you're like, oh, yes, I remember that. Like, were there some of these that.
- [13:18]
Brian Baker
You were like, every one of them? Yeah, I remember every one of them. And I look at the book now, there's a couple. I'm like, fuck, I shouldn't have left that in there. If I could do it over again, you know, round two, I'm gonna move this and that. But, yeah, because I'm. Now. I'm kind of taking it apart in a way. You know, it's. Now it's kind of outside of. I don't know, it's no longer accidental. And I don't want to make this sound like it's just, you know, just a guy bumbling through town, pointing his phone at anything. I mean, I think that, yes, they were. A lot of them were mo. The majority of the photos were incidental or basically to use for communication. But there, I think in the last few years, before this even became a project, at least, what I would do is I would no longer walk by a photograph that needed to be taken. And because a lot of these things are taken just while I'm walking around different cities and towns and where I. Where I'm playing. And I remember when there was a switch, and I'd walk by something, and I'd walk two blocks past it and go, oh, you really need to go back and take that picture. Like, I don't. You know, it was like a. Calling is too strong a word. But it was like you know, don't leave that picture there. And so I would go back and get it again. I mean, mind you, it's not like I went and bought a camera.
- [14:32]
Rebecca Buchanan
You know, you were carrying one around. Why'd you.
- [14:37]
Brian Baker
Yeah, and I was texting my friend in France at the same time. But so I did try to at least not miss opportunities, but still without any greater goal about. This will eventually be something that people see. And, you know, maybe to a degree, some of these wound up on social media. But I'm also not a big. I'm not an influencer or a big consumer of social media. I just have a page because, you know, in my biz, you gotta. But I've never been trying. I've never been taking photographs to simply to populate a social media page. It's just not interesting to me.
- [15:12]
Rebecca Buchanan
Yeah. You know, I love that you talk about how these. A lot of these are from communication you had. Right. Because. Because you also. So you're telling the story, but then there are people who have even more or even more of a background or even more of a story with you with these photographs. Right. They're like, oh, that's right, you sent me that when. Blah, blah, blah. You know, you were in France, you said, or whatever, right?
- [15:35]
Brian Baker
Yeah, absolutely. That's. And that's a cool element of it because it really is the case. There's just so many. I should actually go back there and annotate which ones were just simply come see this. Where are you? What would you like to do? Kind of photographs.
- [15:49]
Rebecca Buchanan
Yeah. Which is super awesome. Right? Like, because when you're on the road, you do have a lot of down. Right. You're either traveling or you're sitting around waiting. Right.
- [15:57]
Brian Baker
Always. And we travel with 13, 14 people. And, you know, if there's anything lazier than texting, it's not even texting. It's just sending a picture. I can't even be bothered to text with predictive text. I can't do that. I'll just take a picture of a hamburger. Hungry. Me hungry now.
- [16:13]
Rebecca Buchanan
Come here. You know where I am. Find it. That is awesome. So do you have like, in looking at these. Are there ones just to give people an idea? Do you have a couple that you want to sort of talk about or that you were like, oh, yes, that was at this location that, you know, this is why I took this. Are there any.
- [16:32]
Brian Baker
Yeah, well, there's a. I mean, I, you know, there, as I said, it's not really a rock and roll picture book. So there's not a lot of pictures of like, you know, enormous crowds, waving signs and. And you know, sad older men inside airplanes in business class. There's not a lot of that. But part of it is that everything is a picture I took. And so when I'm on stage, I'm not. I'm not the kind of jackalope who brings a camera out like, let me see your hands, you know, because that's lame. So I don't have.
- [17:02]
Rebecca Buchanan
It is really lame. Yes, it is.
- [17:05]
Brian Baker
And I don't take pictures of like, you know, look at our hotel. I mean, it's dumb. And I've been doing this my whole life. I don't care anymore, so. But yet there are some rock and roll pictures in it. Just accidentally. And there's a great picture that made it to the book that Jennifer found. And it is the bass player of Bad Religion, Jay Bentley, who's a very handsome man. And it is a picture taken in 2013 and it is backstage at a festival we were playing actually in France. It's a festival called Hellfest. So it kind of skews metal and rock and roll more than our normal punk festivals would. And it is a picture of Jay and he is wearing a denim vest with a Motorhead patch on it. And he is holding the white furry base owned by Dusty Hill from ZZ Top from the Gimme all youl Lovin video. Like the fur carpet base. And he's just staring into the camera with this sort of non expressive, just sort of stare. And he's holding this cartoonish, ridiculous, immediately identifiable, iconic rock and roll bass. And it is just such a great image. And it says, you know, like, first of all, why is Bad Religion playing with ZZ Top? I don't know. Ask the French.
- [18:25]
Rebecca Buchanan
How do you gotta be on.
- [18:26]
Brian Baker
Yeah. And then why is he holding Dusty's base? How do you get access to that equipment? You know? And it's like, well, hey man, we go back with ZZ Top for, you know, decades. Or the real answer is that we were friends with the guitar tech like and none of the band members were around. So we all put on their basses and took, you know, put on their. I had the pleasant guitar, you know, but that's just a great. It's a great image. I got lucky with just the way it's lit, it looks really good and. And it just was such a great day. It was such a cool day. And so I. I smile every time I see that.
- [19:00]
Rebecca Buchanan
Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I mean, and I will say like it's like when you go into a school. I teach kids who are. I teach. Well, not kids, but young adults who want to be teachers. I'm like, you need to be friends with the, like the, anybody who's like doing any kind of janitorial work, the people at the front desk. So you have to be friends with like the guitar, text and those people because that's where the real access happens, right?
- [19:23]
Brian Baker
Absolutely, yes. For sure. I have, I have, I have friends all over the world who are in incredibly valuable support roles and have never told their employers what I've been doing while they were getting their massages.
- [19:36]
Rebecca Buchanan
Exactly. You seem to have pictures of art. So there's pictures outside. Yeah. But you have also art of art. So were those just in museums and pieces that you were like, I really love this piece or.
- [19:54]
Brian Baker
Yes. And there are, I don't know, there's probably 10 pictures in there. That's just me taking a picture of something on the wall at a gallery or a sculptural pie. And most of them I don't. I see. Here's another thing I do that was. In retrospect, it would have been smarter not to do this, but I think it's because of the technology of the phones. I frame the pictures when I took them. So if I have a picture of a, of a portrait from a gallery in Amsterdam, the only picture I have is of my framed picture. So I don't have a larger one where it says, oh, I don't know who painted the fucking thing and when. So I don't even know the provenance of the images that I have because I was, I was framing them right then. And I think it has to do too, with the phones. Weren't that good at it in the beginning. Like now with my, you know, my modern five year old iPhone, the cropping is good enough where I can just take a picture and then crop it to my taste. But I just got in the habit of, of kind of like shooting the photo as I want it to be. And so that's unfortunate that I'd have to. I mean, I'm sure I could do some protective work and find out what I've taken. But again, also, it was just that a particular painting that just struck me. And back to the theme. Where are you? Well, here's a fine art, you know, here is obviously a late 17th century British oil painting of a ship. I know where you are. You're at the Rijksmuseum and they're the, you know, and then we meet Outside. I mean, that's just how it. How it is.
- [21:27]
Rebecca Buchanan
Yeah. I have to say, when you're. As you're talking, I've realized that, like, I'll take pictures of art, or I'll take pictures when I'm traveling or somewhere. And now my phone will tell me, like, you are in this. You were in this location, but, like, 10 years ago, or, like, it didn't do that. And it has saved my. I'm like. I'll be like. Because I spent.
- [21:45]
Brian Baker
We.
- [21:46]
Rebecca Buchanan
I spent some time in Europe, and sometimes I'll be like, thank fucking Christ my phone remembers where I was. Because I was like, where did I take that? Right. And I totally understand that idea.
- [22:01]
Brian Baker
Yeah. And I feel, you know, I mean, God, well, maybe if there's ever a lawsuit from the, you know, the family of, you know, Emmett Klug, who was a pro, prominent Flemish artist, you know, the 1600s. I don't know. We'll see.
- [22:15]
Rebecca Buchanan
I have to ask you, there's one photo that I really. I have because I am a big fan of the A Team. Like, where is the A team photo? Do you know where you took that? A team photo?
- [22:24]
Brian Baker
Oh, I know exactly where I took it, because I'm looking at that piece of work right now. And the A Team is one of a collection of five pieces of prison art. Oh, Super Cool life. Acquired probably 30 years ago. And they are. They're about three feet. No, they're about two and a half feet tall and two feet wide, and they're done on cardboard boxes. And this was all of the. There's five different works, and it was painted by one guy, and they're not signed. And they're of movies, movie posters, television posters. Like, that. A team picture was. You know, I'm looking right now at a collection of movie monsters and Marx Brothers Night at the Opera. I wish I could just show you all this, but since we're on a podcast, there's no point. I'll send you a picture afterwards. And so that's what this is. It's kind of. It's. It's, you know, way outsider incarcerated art that my wife collected. And I just took that. I took that picture. You know, again, I was probably. Are you coming home? Because it was like, it used to be in our living room in our old house. It's like, where are you? I'm looking at Mr. T. Where do you think I am?
- [23:42]
Rebecca Buchanan
Oh, I love that. I'm so glad I asked about that, because all of that makes me happy. But I was like, this is A great photo. That's awesome. And I love that sort of connection. And are you coming home? So can I ask then? Because there's one photo at least. Is that your wife on the motorcycle then?
- [23:59]
Brian Baker
Yes.
- [23:59]
Rebecca Buchanan
Okay. Because there's very few images. You mentioned one of your bass player, but there's not a lot of images of people, so. Yeah. So this makes sense, then.
- [24:09]
Brian Baker
That's my lovely wife, Victoria Reese. Victoria runs a nonprofit arts establishment called transformer in Washington, D.C. and they support outsider and emerging artists, and they've been around for about 22 years. Transformer.org we will totally give that a.
- [24:28]
Rebecca Buchanan
Totally give that a shout out. So are there other photos in here that you kind of want to, you know, mention or talk about or. You know, you have lots of photos. I mean, not lots, but there. There is a sort of lean towards gear, right In. In some ways, which makes sense. I mean, there's.
- [24:47]
Brian Baker
There's a lot of guitars there. There are a lot of guitars in this, because that's what I do. And it's. You know. But guitars are my favorite inanimate thing. So there are a number of good guitar pictures there that, you know, I think that if. For people who are interested in guitars, I think they'll get a kick out of it because they're. You know, most of them are pretty. I don't know if rare is the right word, but just they're interesting to someone who's. Who's into that sort of thing. And some amps, you know, I don't have a real laundry list. Also, I don't have the book in front of me because, you see, I'm moving on. Like, again, this was just, you know, sort of this accidental, you know, pit stop, but, you know. No, I just think. All I would just say is that I think it's a fun book to look through, and it does have a narrative. And I'm just really grateful that I had great friends out there who saw something in this and wanted to put it out for other people, because I never, ever, ever would have done it. It just was not even in the back of my mind. I never even thought about it.
- [25:53]
Rebecca Buchanan
So. Are you a Mets fan? I have to ask.
- [25:56]
Brian Baker
Yes.
- [25:56]
Rebecca Buchanan
Okay.
- [25:57]
Brian Baker
I am a. I am a serious Mets fan. And, you know, as any Mets fan will tell you, it's been an interesting year. And I'll say this every year, but, yeah, it's. I moved to New Jersey about a little over eight years ago, and when I moved to New Jersey, I said, okay, well, I'm gonna. I'M gonna go in the whole way. I'm gonna get a team. I'm going to. I, I didn't have a previous baseball allegiance. I'm from Washington, D.C. so our, our past is checkered. Is it the Senators? Is it the Expos, is it the national school? They had a W on their hat, so that was no good during the Bush years. Now the hat's red. That's no good. They just never, this never got into the Nationals. But when I moved to New Jersey, I'm like, okay, well, it's baseball time. You're an older white male. It's time for baseball. This is what we do. And it couldn't be the Yankees and it couldn't be the Phillies, and so it was the Mets. And I just, I've been going to lots of games and it really, it was, it was weird. I've never had an experience where fandom really overtook me at a visceral level, but it really has. So I am sort of that, you know, Doris Kearns Goodwin style passion came out of nowhere for our Mets.
- [27:14]
Rebecca Buchanan
I love it. I am a big Cubs fan, and I lived in Philadelphia for a while and everybody in Philly, and when I lived there, when they won the World Series for the first time and whatever, I'm like, whatever. But they were very much like you. You actually like baseball. But I had a friend who was a Mets fan, and she wouldn't take any of the Phillies fans up. She had season tickets at Shea and she wouldn't take anyone because she's like, phillies fans don't get to go. But I got to go.
- [27:40]
Brian Baker
Yeah, well, that's. I understand that entirely. There's the no Philly thing is so huge here.
- [27:47]
Rebecca Buchanan
It's very intriguing.
- [27:49]
Brian Baker
Yeah, well, maybe if they behave themselves better, maybe it'd work out, you know, so tell.
- [27:53]
Rebecca Buchanan
So you've got this. So I'll ask you my kind of final question, but, like, what is it? Is there anything else that you're working on? You're doing anything with this book? The book is out now, right?
- [28:05]
Brian Baker
Yeah, well, the book comes out November 4th, actually. And what I have been doing, I have been doing a series of book talks, basically because I was so grateful to Johnny and Akashic for putting this out. I'm like, I've got to do something. And I like talking to people. And so I have managed to. And they put together. I'm going to be visiting some bookstores and some other places and having conversations with people about the road. And also just music in general because I'M aware that if I hadn't been in Minor Threat and Bad Religion, that there would not be as many customers for the photo book from the guy from Minor Thriving Bad Religion. So I certainly have no problem discussing that in these conversations. And I am going to be actually, if, if you'd like a rundown, when is this going to air?
- [29:00]
Rebecca Buchanan
Whenever you want it to air.
- [29:02]
Brian Baker
Well, I'd like it to air right now. I'd like it to be live. Let's go.
- [29:06]
Rebecca Buchanan
That would be super fun.
- [29:10]
Brian Baker
Let me the beauty of this is because it is, in fact, something that we're not looking at. You don't have to look at me looking down at my phone and going, hey, you know what I'm doing on November 3rd? Oh, yeah, cool. That was that's my phone not behaving. But I like that I have Green onions as the music that accompanies my list of venues. But November 3rd, I'm going to be in Ridgewood, New Jersey, talking about the book at Bookends, which is a bookstore that has hosted lots of interesting speakers. So I hope I'm not going to let them down. And I'm going to be in conversation with Johnny Temple, who from Akashic Books, and we're going to talk about the book. On November 5th, I'm going to be in New York City at Rough Trade, talking with Walter Schreifles, who is a fellow musician and journeyman. And then November 9th, I'm going to be at the MLK Memorial Library in Washington, DC, in conversation with Ian Mackay, who obviously I've known for a long time, and I'm kind of thrilled to have that conversation with him. If you're in Baltimore November 10th, please come by the Enoch Pratt Free Library, where you'll get to see Tony Pence, grill me about the meaning of the book. And the last thing I have, I'll be in Asbury park, which is where I live. The hometown show will be with Tim DeMarco at the Asbury Book Cooperative. And that is on the 15th of November. And these are all in the evening. So if you want to come and heckle or you have any questions that you want to, you want to throw at me in person, please come. These things have a Q and A element to them. And it's also if, you know, if you want the book signed, I'm happy to do that at no extra charge. Or really, I'll pretty much sign anything. I mean, the idea that the signature has any value is still so shocking to me. I'm so grateful that anybody cares. Like, yeah, give me your shoe. I'll sign it.
- [31:18]
Rebecca Buchanan
I'll take it. So, music wise, anything coming up that people should know about? So we've got this going on in November.
- [31:24]
Brian Baker
I've had a. Well, I mean, you know, the Sad Religion continues to, you know, intrigue and delight audiences worldwide. As you should. As we get older and better and actually upcoming. We decided that it had been too long since we had crossed Canada. We hadn't played a proper Canadian tour in decades, going from, you know, Halifax to Vancouver. And we thought, well, if we're going to be smart, let's do this in the dead of winter. And so we're doing it in the dead of winter and we're going to be going on a cross Canada tour with our friends the Offspring for most of January and February. And, you know, a lot of people like, well, don't, you know, it's cold. I'm like, yeah. And you know what? They know it's cold, too. They know how to. They have. They have heat. Like, with, you know, it's a great time to go see shows. If I were living in Winnipeg, I would. I, you know, I mean, summer's too easy, so.
- [32:24]
Rebecca Buchanan
No, I mean, I grew up in the Twin Cities area, so I totally understand. You just put on, like, a sweater and you go and see a show. It's okay.
- [32:32]
Brian Baker
It's not. It's not a big deal. Well, I'm in a California band. Like, even though I'm an East coast kid, you know, there's some guys shaking in their boots down there in San Diego right now. It's like, yeah, no, it's going to be fine. It's okay. It's just like that other time, you know, when you went skiing that one time. Okay. Except for it's every day.
- [32:49]
Rebecca Buchanan
It's okay. There's a saying in Norway that basically translates to, there's no bad weather, just bad clothing. So, like, that solves everything. Just wear the right clothing and you'll be fine.
- [33:00]
Brian Baker
Exactly. So I'm looking forward to that. So then, then, then there's more. But by then, the effervescence of the book will have long faded and we won't remember about Bad Religion's touring schedule for 2026. So that's the most relevant one.
- [33:15]
Rebecca Buchanan
Awesome. Well, Brian, thank you so much for talking with me again. Brian Baker, who has just put out a compilation of photos called the Road. Thank you for being on New Books Network.
- [33:26]
Brian Baker
Oh, Rebecca, it's been my pleasure. I've had a great time. Thank you very much. Awesome, Sam.