Tuesday, January 15, 2008

BOOK END

In 2004, I became determined to write a book about the history of KROQ, a radio station here in Los Angeles and its impact on the birth of "alt" culture; the story of the station would parallel my own personal growth and be something of a musical memoir. Initially I paired up with writer Kate Sullivan, who'd written an excellent oral history of the station for Los Angeles. Kate eventually dropped out, but I kept moving forward with the project, whose working title was The Sound Salvation. I interviewed lots of interesting folks who'd been involved with the station, including the Insane Darrell Wayne, Shadoe Stevens, Flo & Eddie, Larry Woodside, Chuck Randall, Scott Mason, Raechel Donahue, Dusty Street and countless others, who were incredibly gracious with their time. Those I spoke with were totally stoked about the project. Some weren't, some were total assholes, but that's to be expected. At any rate, it remains a great story. But I'm not going to write it, at least in its original incarnation.

I had an agent who was enthusiastic and a 60-page proposal that covered all the bases. She pitched to just about every house that published pop culture books, but each came back with a no. Most who read it were more interested in the memoir-ish content than the KROQ material. So I may return to a memoir-oriented project. Or not. I think, however, I need to let KROQ go. I know I'll get around to to thanking everyone who has helped me get this far with it, but I figured I could start here.

Onward and upward.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I really hope you write the memoir, dude. You have such a unique story.

5:06 PM  
Blogger Michael said...

That sucks. I was really looking forward to it...

8:30 PM  
Blogger Timmy said...

Erik, REALLY... Whose projects are EVER accepted at first throw? If the contacted publishers have negative feedback towards your book, then go with AN INDEPENDENT publishind company. This project has been sitting in your possesion for YEARS. We were depending on you to follow through. HELL, the world is waiting for this story to be exposed. Don't drop the ball, PLEASE, hand it off, if need be, to someone who will complete all the hard work & save this historical tale.

4:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think you should keep shopping it around and go with an independent publisher or something.

9:11 PM  

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