The City Knows: A Novel
Montag Press (2025)
No matter how well secrets are kept, the city knows
At the turn of the 1970s, two friends set out from Ohio to Los Angeles. Will is a songwriter seeking to follow in the footsteps of his idols. Alex has no plan apart from riding his friend’s coattails to some kind of fame on his own. Will is focused and determined, but carries the burden of mental illness that often overwhelms him. It’s compounded by the secret he can’t share about the source of his songs.
Alex attempts to break into movies, but finds his only means of survival is to supply high profile figures within the industry with drugs. As Alex’s associations begin to lead him into darker and more dangerous territory, Will’s career begins to take off, causing their lifelong relationship to fracture. Both soon find themselves in over their heads in their respective situations—and romantic relationships. In Alex’s case, he becomes involved with Jessy, who has deep ties to L.A.’s Black Panther leadership, and attempts to use Alex’s movie industry connections to further the cause. All of this leads to Will and Alex being forced to make choices that will ultimately seal their individual fates.
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That Gun In Your Hand: the Strange Saga of ‘Hey Joe’ and Popular Music’s History of Violence
Anvil Press (2025)
This is the story of a song, a song that binds nearly every strand of 20th century American popular music. “Hey Joe” was written at the dawn of the 1960s by a man named Billy Roberts, an obscure singer and guitarist from South Carolina who moved to New York City, drawn by the burgeoning folk music scene in Greenwich Village. It was a time when new, original material was scarce, leading other singers to quickly adapt songs of quality in the spirit of folk music’s oral traditions. Thus began the long journey of “Hey Joe” from New York coffeehouses to the bars on L.A.’s Sunset Strip to the ears of a young guitarist named Jimi Hendrix who launched his career with his radical, electrified interpretation.
The book is divided into two parts: The first part traces “Hey Joe”’s origins back to traditional murder ballads, up to Hendrix’s definitive recording. The second part examines the song’s evolution following Hendrix’s death, from Patti Smith’s proto-punk version, to its impact on soul music through Wilson Pickett and Lee Moses, to becoming a template for outlaw reggae and gangsta rap, and up to the present through post-punk versions by Nick Cave and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Through extensive research, That Gun In Your Hand also presents previously unpublished information about the shadowy life of Billy Roberts, whose 2017 death went unreported by all news outlets. Interviewees include Niela Miller, Roberts’s Greenwich Village girlfriend, whose song “Baby Please Don’t Go To Town”—it has been argued—formed the basis for “Hey Joe.”
Although other songs similarly updated themes found in early American blues, folk and country in the rock and roll era, “Hey Joe” offered something different, a visceral drama in which a man describes how he shot his unfaithful lover to death and intended to get away with it. By abandoning the standard techniques of pop songwriting—both lyrically and melodically—“Hey Joe” resonated profoundly with seemingly all who heard it.
From this foundation, That Gun In Your Hand goes on to explore 20th century popular music’s inherent misogyny and racism, along with how “Hey Joe” transcended its form, becoming in many ways the first popular song to unrepentantly encompass humanity’s dark, violent realities.
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The Longest Suicide:
The Authorized Biography of Art Bergmann
Anvil Press (2022)
As Canada’s punk poet laureate, Art Bergmann has been tearing up stages, and terrifying the music industry, for half a century. Often referred to as “Canada’s Lou Reed,” Art’s story is one of rock and roll’s great tales untold. Until now. From his days helping to lay the foundation of the Vancouver punk scene with The K-Tels, to his acclaimed solo work in the ’80s and ’90s, and a late career resurgence that has culminated with being named to the Order of Canada, The Longest Suicide chronicles every unlikely twist and turn Art’s life has taken.
Working with veteran music journalist Jason Schneider, Art lays it all out in his own inimitable way, with dozens of people who took part adding their own voices to corroborate (and sometimes dispute) the often-incredible chain of events. With cameos by John Cale, Bob Rock, The Clash, Bob Geldof and many others, The Longest Suicide is both a triumphant story of personal survival, as well as a unique glimpse inside the rise of alternative rock. Above all, it is a tribute to Canada’s most unheralded singer-songwriter, whose greatness is only now being widely recognized.
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Have Not Been The Same: The CanRock Renaissance 1985-1995
(co-written with Michael Barclay and Ian A.D. Jack)
ECW Press (2001, revised edition 2011)
Capturing the spirit of Canadian rock in the late 20th century, this history tells the stories of the musicians and bands that made an indelible mark on Canadian culture and the global stage. Regarded by critics and musicians as the definitive history of the era, this massive tome has been updated to include brand-new interviews and updated histories of Canada’s homegrown music industry, including Blue Rodeo, the Tragically Hip, Sarah McLachlan, Sloan, Barenaked Ladies, Daniel Lanois, and many others. Rich, extensive first-person interviews pair with a treasure trove of rare photos, making it one of the seminal works in the field of Canadian music writing and a must-read for any Canadian music fan.
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Have Not Been The Same: The Compilation [RARE & UNRELEASED]
(Pheromone Recordings, 2012)
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1. Slow – Have Not Been The Same
2. Poisoned – Final Cliche
3. No Means No – Dad
4. The Nils – In Between
5. Doughboys – Long Hall
6. Rational Youth – To The Goddess Electricity
7. Jane Siberry – Symmetry
8. Hunger Project – The Same Inside
9. The Pursuit Of Happiness – Wake Up And Smell Cathy
10. Change Of Heart – Smile
11. Jr. Gone Wild – God Is Not My Father
12. Three O’Clock Train – A Fire I Can’t Put Out
13. Skydiggers – When You’re Down
14. Crash Vegas – Moving Too Fast
15. 13 Engines – Beached
16. Weeping Tile – Pushover
17. Grapes of Wrath – Misunderstanding
18. Sloan – Lucky For Me
19. Jale – Jesus Loves Me
20. Bob Wiseman – Gabriel Dumont Blues
21. Local Rabbits – Play On
Whispering Pines: The Northern Roots of American Music, from Hank Snow to The Band
ECW Press (2009)
Providing the first comprehensive history of Canada’s songwriting legacy, this guide traces a distinctly Canadian musical identity from the 1930s to the end of the 1970s. The discussion shows how Canadian musicians have always struggled to create work that reflects their own environment while simultaneously connecting with mass audiences in other countries, particularly the United States. While nearly all songwriters who successfully crossed this divide did so by immersing themselves in the American and British forms of blues, folk, country, and rock `n` roll, this guide reveals that Canadian sensibilities were never far beneath the surface. Canadian innovators featured include The Band, Ian & Sylvia, Hank Snow, Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, and superstars Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. Lively anecdotes and interviews round out the history, but the emphasis is always on the essential music—how and where it originated and its impact on the artists` subsequent work and the wider musical world.
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Blue Rodeo 1987-1993 Box Set [Booklet Essay]
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Cowboy Junkies – The Trinity Session (2017) [Liner Notes]
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3,000 Miles [A Novel]
ECW Press (2005)
Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain could not have envisioned what his death would mean to Generation X – or that he would influence one young man from small-town Quebec to take his own life . . . 3,000 Miles is the story of Andre, a man entering his twenties with very little going for him. The only stabilizing influence in his life is music, but the news of Kurt Cobain’s suicide finally pushes him over the edge. He leaves town and joins his friends Richard and Stephane in Quebec City to sell drugs. Eventually, the reserves of his self-centred nihilism run dry, and this prompts him to devise a plan: the trio will embark on a journey across North America. When they reach the end—Seattle—they’ll sacrifice themselves. Andre’s problem, of course, is convincing his friends to join him, but they decide to call his bluff. Their own young lives are in constant turmoil, and a road trip seems like the perfect distraction. But things quickly move from bad to worse when Andre’s spurned girlfriend, Sylvie, makes her own cross-country journey in a last-ditch attempt to prove her love. If Kerouac’s On The Road mapped the landscape of a new America, 3,000 Miles explores its ultimate dead end.
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Philip Snowcroft’s Finality [A Novella]
Blaurock Press (2009)
A Manhattan fable of talent and mediocrity, ambition and genius, art and commerce, crime and punishment. Owen Higdon, hungry artist’s-agent, likeable chancer and compulsive gambler, has staked everything on selling Philip Snowcroft’s new painting. Finality is his friend’s culminating achievement as an artist, a work of epic scale, raw passion, moral authority—and worth a lot of money. Unfortunately, there are other stakes in play, in an increasingly desperate and dangerous game. Owen must choose. The next roll of the dice will be for his own soul.
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