Book Talk | Tim Sommer and Dispatches from the Kingdom of Outsiders
About this Event
Book Talk | Dispatches from the Kingdom of Outsiders
Grab your copy and dive into such diverse subjects as 1970s Times Square, the A&R offices of Atlantic Records, Woodstock, Phil Ochs, New Orleans and the Beatles with author Tim Sommer and Kay Kasparhauser.
About the Book
Dispatches From the Kingdom of Outsiders: Writing on Music, Culture and More 1979-2025 is a defiant, soulful map of the ephemeral nation built by the lonely and the weird young people who found their first true home in a Sex Pistols 45 or a picture of David Bowie. Part memoir, part high-octane cultural criticism, this collection documents a vanished era when knowledge was precious currency and a T-shirt was a flare sent up to find fellow survivors.
Whether he’s trying to get the Clash to sign a picture of the Beatles, sitting in a dorm room with U2, or explaining why "Wooly Bully" is the heaviest song in history, Sommer writes with the infectious "bizarrely certain" passion of the 16-year-old office boy he once was. This is more than a book about rock and roll, it is a celebration of the "Kingdom" where admission is free, and outsiders finally belong.
About the Author
A native of Long Island, New York, Tim Sommer has earned fame in a variety of media. In addition to journalism, he has been a New York radio DJ, a club DJ, a newswriter and on-air personality for MTV and VH1, the founder and bassist in two art-rock bands (Hugo Largo and HiFi Sky), a member of the Glenn Branca Ensemble, a record producer and an executive at Atlantic Records, where the bands he discovered and signed included Hootie & the Blowfish and Public Image Ltd. His first book, Only Wanna Be With You: The Inside Story of Hootie & the Blowfish, was published by University of South Carolina Press in 2022.
Praise for Dispatches from the Kingdom of Outsiders
“Tim Sommer is a throwback to when people writing about music wrote whatever they wanted, took shocking takes not to garner social media attention but because they really believed in them, and did not worry about industry repercussions. Tim Sommer writes because he has to, not because he's trying to impress anyone and his takes — on the Beatles, Glenn Branca, Kent State and just about anything that pops into his brain — are refreshingly disinterested in scoring social media points. He is mildly insane, charmingly irresistible and American original. This is a truly original document of the kind of smart, free, joyous writing we so rarely find anywhere today.”
—Geoff Edgers (national arts reporter, Washington Post and author of Walk This Way: Run-DMC, Aerosmith, and the Song that Changed American Music Forever)
“Tim Sommer goes deep on a whole century of rock and pop culture, from Bowie to Buddy Bolden, Spike Milligan to Taylor Swift, and everything in between. Punk was always a state of mind as much as a sound or a look, and this book is punk AF.”
—Billy Idol
“Dispatches From the Kingdom of Outsiders is a non-stop roller-coaster ride through the mental and physical lives of Tim Sommer, and the lives of all of us who lived through the evolutionary trajectory of music and culture that he chronicles from the late 70s to the present. Speaking of the present, Sommer has emerged as one of the most creative, no holds barred, writers about contemporary rock and pop. Get this book!”
—Joseph LeDoux (neuroscientist, musician and author of The Four Realms of Existence and the forthcoming Starting Over: A Neuro-Emotional, Cajun, Rock’n’roll, Memoir)
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