Drain You Blog Hop- Music Post and Giveaway

Hey y’all today I have M. Beth Bloom here to talk one about one of my favorite things besides books? Yep you know it I have another music post! So before we get to the music here’s a little info about Drain You just in case you haven’t heard of the book! Oh and make sure to go over to MundieMoms and Hobbitsies for the launch posts and the other participating blogs!

Drain You
M. Beth Bloom
Release Date: July 24, 2012
Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Harper Teen
ISBN: 0062036866
Goodreads/Amazon/ Barnes & Noble/ The Book Depository

Summer. The 90s. The rich, sun-bleached neighborhoods of the Los Angeles canyons. Enter Quinlan Lacey, a cool, bored, sarcastic, sexy 17-year old with a dull part-time video store job and a mild case of teen ennui. That is, until she meets the alluring, River Phoenix-esque James, and realizes the hills are alive with the undead. Inspired more by the early, dry L.A. short stories of Bret Easton Ellis than the current crop of serialized vampire fiction, the supernatural grunge romance, Drain You, narrates the headaches and heartbreaks Quinn undergoes in her quest to stay sane and cool and in love and alive.

Now on to the post and I will add a few videos for the songs I really love which may be hard to pick because being a 90's kid I seriously love this playlist!!!!!!!!!!!!

Drain You Playlist

Psychologists talk about the “nostalgia bump” being that era in young adulthood that becomes our most vivid throughout life – that one decade where memories are the strongest, peaking just before middle age and then steadily declining.  Heavy stuff.  But nothing could be truer when it comes to our processing of pop culture.  For me, everything fabulous and amazing happened between ’91 and ’98 – eight years of music that still blows my mind, has me car crooning and chair dancing, misty-eyed in my old Volvo.  I was an R ‘n’ B/Hip Hop kid who had to learn the ways of grunge when Nevermind hit, rotating between my Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt and Boyz II Men baseball cap.  Music informed so much of my junior high and high school years, and so when I went to write my protagonist, music was just there – creating a mood and setting the scene.  If I say Bikini Kill, that means jumping on the bed, feeling tough.  If I say Portishead, that means pensive night swims thinking about a boy.  And if I say Dee-Lite, that means ecstatic getting dressed montage.  See how it all works?  

-Nirvana, Drain You

I wanted to name the book after a 90s song and it was crucial to me that the title matched the vibe of the plot as well as the time setting.  BOOM!  I almost fell out of my chair when Drain You came to me – laughing, crying, and lots of “In Utero” on repeat.  The lyrics also really work for me: “I don’t care what you think unless it is about me.”  Now that’s teenage.

-Ice Cube, Today Was A Good Day

“The Ghetto” was a huge taboo idea in the mid ‘90s in LA.  Especially with Boyz In The Hood and “The Chronic” coming out and just completely taking over suburbia.  I remember MTV used to play this video twenty times a day and I became more and more mesmerized – and SCANDALIZED!  Guns, condoms, 40 oz’s, low-riders, and Ice Cube’s awesome badassedness.  This was the chilled-out, summer classic of ’93 and it’s a crucial zen beat-the-heat tune for Quinn.

-Weezer, The Sweater Song

No one really knew that Weezer would have such legs.  This was a novelty tune by a seemingly novelty band who liked to pair up with then semi-novelty director Spike Jonze and be meta.  Perfect for the beginning of indie-rock faux-nerdiness and goofing around with friends.  There wasn’t a single person in my clique who didn’t know EVERY SINGLE word to this song.

-Pavement, Shady Lane

This is what a Quinn becomes when she gets to college.  Matador and Pavement were a womb for me when 17 hit and I craved poetic lyricists and men who didn’t quite rock.  “Shady Lane” is a song about nostalgia, looking at your life in the moment and already missing it.  Malkmus is a great writer, speaking to so many of us who were looking to just “get it,” you know?

-Deee-Lite, Groove Is In The Heart

Still one of my favorite songs, one of my favorite groups, and certainly one of my all-time favorite frontwomen.  “Groove” was like that thing on TV you couldn’t ever wrap your mind around – like where did these Soho New York hipsters with their overtly gay pride, glamour, and fabulism come from and how did I get lucky enough to catch even a short glimpse of them!?!?  Obsessiveness commence!  I always picture Quinn in front of her full-length mirror doing the Lady Miss Kier dance, shimmying her body when the whistle sounds. 

(Can't find a good video but just listen to the song. Love it!!)

-Bikini Kill, Sugar

Kathleen Hanna is just IT for all riot grrls and faux riot gurls (like me).  She wrote the word BITCH on her stomach in permanent marker, wore sloppy little kid ponytails, mismatched her tiny ripped clothes, and spit – literally and conceptually.  BK is the perfect teen angst music: forget emo, forget Elliott Smith; this is about being heard and being heard LOUD.  A daily Quinn mantra.

-Black Box, Everybody Everybody

Dancing is hugely important to me and, though Quinn as a character is a bit “cooler” than I ever was, I like to think of her as a solo-dancer.  Someone who blasts tracks alone in her room so she can bop, stomp, and jump around.  But I have to think of her as a groover too, because she’s sexy and thinks about sex and bodies and bodies moving, etc. etc.  Black Box had that deep soul groove for dancin’/romancin’.  Def not anything Quinn would share with her friends, but for sure a secret pleasure.

-Hole, Miss World

“Go on, take everything, take everything, I want you to.”  That’s anthemic beauty in its rawest state.  Such a great time to be a teenage girl, when you’ve got feisty (pre-op) Courtney Love screaming at the other boys and girls who don’t love you because you’re a) overweight, b) misunderstood, c) punk, d) weird, e) loud-mouthed, f) all of the above and everything else.   

-Sonic Youth, 100%

Thurston and Kim were the ultimate in f’ed up cool, and this album especially gave them a tiny bit of KROQ crossover.  What an awesome song to hear on the radio – distorted guitars, feedback, instrumental randomness, and the line: “All you men are slime.”  This is the soundtrack to runway grunge, Marc Jacobs for Perry Ellis, baby Sevigny raver-skater, and Quinn Lacey headbanging.

About the author "Bloom's first short story “Love And Other Catastrophes: A Mix Tape” was featured in Story Quarterly and selected by Dave Eggers for inclusion in The Best American Nonrequired Reading: 2003 (Houghton-Mifflin), which he curates annually. Bloom is the founder of underground dance label 100% Silk (profiled here in LA Weekly) AND the producer/lead singer of the band LA Vampires (written up in The Guardian as well as Pitchfork and Fader). Her next book will be published through HarperTeen.

M. Beth lives on the east side of L.A. where she indulges in raw fooding, magazine subscribing, thrift shopping, Sunday matinee'ing, and ladies book clubbing.

Make sure to check out the Drain You Publisher's Weekly review: "Bloom debuts with a languid, stylish novel that reads like a love letter to cult vampire flicks like The Lost Boys, the work of Francesca Lia Block, and Southern California in the 1990s." 

Fill out the Rafflecopter form for your chance to win One of 5 Copies of 'Drain You' signed by the Author, -$50 Credit at Wasteland (Quinn's favorite store), -Pages from Quinn's Notebook \, -10 'Drain You' Bookmarks handmade by Quinn, -10 90's mixtapes curated and created by Quinn!

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