Franz NicolayBesprekingen

When reading this book, make sure you have a computer or a phone nearby. Every time a new musician is mentioned (which happens about once every other page), start their song on youtube. Every time the author moves to a new place (which happens about every 5 pages or so), google some images. It makes for a lovely and educational virtual trip!

And then you emerge on the other side of this trip with your musical tastes completely reshaped. I'm so much into gypsy punk now, and I think I may try to grow a handlebar mustache!..

I wish someone would pay for my pain. Specifically, the pain incurred while reading this book. Sorry, that's a cheap shot, but if I hadn't agreed to review this book, there's no way I would have finished it.The different time periods and locations made the story feel both disjointed and repetitive rather than providing career-spanning vignettes of Rudy's life. I got the feeling that Nicolay never really decided what he wanted to write about. Case in point: the first sentence of the back-cover blurb mentions his niece joining him on his travels, but she doesn't actually turn up until page 177 of a 236 page novel. Two stars instead of one due to the accurate description of working life in the touring music industry.

Something about the book just didn't work for me; there were parts that were very enjoyable and I liked how Rudy as a character was written, flaws and all, but the plot was a let down to me and the ending far too abrupt.

This book is about , Rudy , an aging singer and song writer who once had a cult following , when Ruby was in the heyday of his career he met Ryan , a devoted admirer who became his protégée. Ryan now becomes the admired one and Rudy is thought to be an imitator of him. Ryan tries to help Rudy reestablish himself . Rudy cannot accept this. His niece runs away from home to join Rudy on the road. Rudy is not only confronted with a failing career but family issues, guilt and responsibility.
It was a hard book to start but was very enjoyable and entertaining after getting into it. I received this book from The Library Thing in exchange for a review

Not a huge fan. I found myself just skimming large swaths of the book. I didn't much care for the characters.

Nikolay tells of his travels through Eastern Europe to Mongolia and back, playing a sometimes impromptu circuit of DIY spaces. We meet the relentless and the run-down and the people who love them, mull the resourcefulness of creative sorts stuck in bleak Balkan corners, and marvel at the resilience of the narrator, who paints such an engaging picture. The appended playlist is a fascinating trip from samizdat Soviet singer-poets and the dark post-Soviet Siberian underground through Balkan and Mongolian folk forms to scruffy festival acts in muddy fields and the killer Kyiv punk-cabaret scene.

Back East Porter
Evil Twin Molotov Surprise Imperial IPA

Nikolay takes his banjo and accordion through Siberia, Mongolia, the Balkans (with Black Lamb and Grey Falcon as a brickish vade mecum) and Ukraine and shows us dilapidated traditions and denuded landscapes, the universal vigor of young people (and drunks), dingy post-communist way stations and strangely robust clusters of underground/DIY music enthusiasts. Humorless Ladies is inspiring and wise. Nikolay presents music and literature (Herodotus to Butthole Surfers) as a kind of global cultural commons—but a space riven by locally particular and lasting fractures. The closing chapter considering a series of shows in Ukraine during the 2014 Russian invasion provides a fitting end to a fascinating book.½