“A captivated student…”

“Throughout Greil Marcus’s writing, it is clear that he doesn’t come to the subject matter–the seemingly straightforward world of Rock & Roll music–claiming to be an expert, but a captivated student. I started (or at least attempted to start) reading Greil Marcus when I was in high school. I was neck-deep in early punk rock, the 1960s folk revival, and early Rock & Roll. I was reading everything I could on music–from autobiographies to magazines–when my dad lent me his copy of Lipstick Traces. It was way over my head, but I kept reaching for it. The book–which I’ve probably read the totality three times but never cover-to-cover–connected the spirit of the late ’70s punk explosion to Dadaism and the Situationist International movement. It was a little esoteric and a little obtuse, but remarkably important for my understanding of culture. Marcus helped me see seemingly unrelated things as connected and mysterious, as telling different acts of the same story.”