Hi, Lisa. Welcome to What your next podcast.

Well, hey Laura. It's good to meet you. Good to see you

Good to see you too. I'm so happy to chat with you. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Well, I am a novelist. I live in metro Detroit. My, writing career had taken a backseat to an acting career, which I was pursuing when we lived out in San Francisco. When we moved here about 20 years ago, I moved back into taking writing seriously. In that amount of time, I've had the pleasure of putting out, a couple books on my own. And then the dial press published my first traditional novel love at 350 Degrees, which came out a couple years ago. Centered on a baking competition and a judge and a contestant catching each other's eye which is against the rules. Now I'm the proud author of Motor City Love Song, which is centered in Detroit, and the indie scene at the turn of the 21st century.

Yes I, as someone who came of age at that time, at that era, I graduated high school in 1999. So the odds were part of it. I. As a good millennial, we listen to all types of music. TRL kept us fed, from Limp Bizkit to Backstreet Boys. The white Stripes, this was like when your when your post has pitched this book. I was like, let me just see. And I was like, oh my gosh. I, it's a part of history that I have. Little to no knowledge, but I know the music, I know the essence of the scene. I was in New York actually. So it gives me a sense of I wanna learn more about it. And then this is, this book is set into. Dual timelines in some ways. We have the elder queers who are in their fifties of this era, and then we have, coming of age in their 1990s, just Gen X generation. They were, what we think about the indie rock scene. 'Cause I think when we think about indie rock for the nineties, we think about grunge and Seattle. But Detroit was a place where music was happening too.

Right. That's something that was very much part of the Detroit narrative too, because according to some of the musicians and venue owners that I spoke to, definitely there was a lot of attention on who's gonna be the next Seattle. And Detroit was very much who they thought it was going to be. And so there was a lot of attention paid to the Indie bands Gro, there was more of a garage feel to a lot of 'em, but there was also a lot of variety in terms of their genre. And with that then, the white stripes became an international sensation and that there were so many other bands that, could have made as much of a mark, had things maybe lined up a little differently. So Yeah. there's a lot going on.

I think looking back and someone made a meme about this, how men are lonely now and how they need to just get back to the garage bed and just play music and channel your feelings that way. Essentially, this is before the internet happening. We had. Garage mass music I think music was a much more richer tapestry of what was happening. There was different sounds and different experiments. It wasn't just commercialized into one thing. It was. Pretty much rich in that sense. It was normal for us to listen to Eminem, Backstreet White Stripes, limp. Bt and I can name and even the like the hidden gems, the one head wanders in the nineties and early off, like it was pretty common. And we. Pirated some of this music and then, we ended up learning how to buy it and stream it. And I know Spotify gives us too many choices, but sometimes too many choices is decision fatigue. But it was, we had MTV, we had radio.

I know. Well, it's that interesting combination between, there were more kind of national experiences in common through media, like MTV like commercial radio. So there was a whole cohort of people who all knew the same songs, even if they weren't necessarily fans. But then there's also this. There's always gonna be local bands. There's always gonna be that, one song that's kind of is an anthem for the folks who live around, where they're performing and where they're from. So, at least now we do have access to any and all of that, but then we don't have that sort of common experience where everybody, they've been lamenting the fact that there hasn't really been a song of summer for the last two or three years. People's attentions have been going in so many different directions. So the good news is music still means a lot and it still connects people. I think it's just, you have to now make more of a decision yourself on what that music is and who you're gonna connect with through that experience.

Walk us through the Detroit scene because you actually not only have lived experience, we have done research with people who have lived through it. What is the Detroit scene in the 1990s? Because we see the 1990s and the 2020s, like it's very different. Very. And we had, a bankruptcy in the middle of it. We had obviously. The car manufacturers are no longer in the heyday. They haven't been in the heyday for a long time. We had that shift that's happening now and how Victoria is revitalized in many ways. But to get there, and it may, people may also complain about the revitalization because it's gentrification and all this different things. So it's you give or take, but talk to us about walking us through between the 1990s, the late nineties, into the 2020s, because we see Jay's experience, going from, working at a bar and then becoming a manager, and then eventually being its own event producer and having lived this experience,

yeah. So the economic situation in Detroit had been really on a downturn for quite some time. And a lot of it was just incremental from the end of the sixties and the seventies. A lot of people left the city. There was less investment. And so there was became a time where downtown in some parts were just really ghost town. Where, they were boarded up buildings. There were, places that had been hubs that just no one would go near. But, that doesn't mean that there wasn't music and art going on the whole time. I think that what it kind of called out was there were people who were going to stick through this no matter what, and they were gonna make art no matter what. And so the ability to be able to find each other, to be able to build on their common love of, crates of old records or that sound that they used to hear in the basement during their parents' parties or whatever else to try to come together and make the music that they want to is very much what Detroit's all about. These are people who don't wait for someone else to do it. They do it themselves, they get things done. Detroit hustles harder. And so the notion that they were doing all of this, not to get national climb, not to be the next Seattle, but just to be who they are, I think is significant. And it also, kind of has given them that structure for the city to get revitalized that there is a desire to stay here and make it better. To bring in people who are, restaurateurs, who are designers, who are creating in every which way. And then to continue to expand on Detroit's perhaps biggest industry, which is music. You can pick anything from jazz and blues to Motown, rock and roll, classic stuff, punk techno rap, hip hop, indie. It's all there, and so that never stopped either. So these days, yes, I think that it is a marvel. I moved here 20 years ago and was only kind of hearing from others, what things used to be like, and now, the situation they were in. But I could see, yeah there's a lot of empty space. There's a lot of nothing going on. Drive down Woodward Avenue and it's a whole different place. That is remarkable. It is a question of you never wanna do that at the expense of those folks who are living there and those folks who are, have the history and have that creative soul. So my hope is that there are a lot of people out there who are really invested in making sure that stays vibrant.

Yeah. All right. Let's talk about Motor City Love Song. It's to sapphics Romance, where we have Jason Paloma. They were in a relationship in the late nineties, early twenties, in their age. And they realized Paloma was an up and coming singer, and Jay decided to be her manager and grow her, and she became a top indie singer. And then all of a sudden, she is no longer in the news or even in the music. She managed.

Yeah. She poof. She's gone. Yeah.

So 20 something years later, Jays and her friends, they're trying to. Help the bar that actually made them happen. One less chance to get out of bankruptcy and foreclosure and decide, you know what, let's get Paloma back. And so we're searching for Paloma. So we get to see a dual timeline. We get to see what happened in the relationship, and we get to see what happens now with music interview speed. I'm like, I think I'm describing the book well.

Very good. Yeah it's definitely a story that's current,, you only are having today's life because of what you lived 20 years ago, and so there's, and they never fixed that then. So now, Now's the time. Part of what's driving this is of course the pandemic just wreaked havoc on live venues. It was so hard to pull out of that. It was so hard to get people to break their habit of just staying home or waiting for the stream to come through or whatever. And so, that kind of connection that people formed by going to sea bands in the same place over and over again is something that they wanted to make sure didn't die out. So Jace is determined to save this venue, the Artemis Club which is where Paloma really got her. Start and also became kind of this touchstone for musicians, even in the present day. And so to do that, she's got to face the fact that she's gotta find the woman who broke her heart by just disappearing off the face of the earth. And also wrecked her whole business model, so she was brokenhearted and broke 20 years back and now she's gotta reopen that and do all she can to see if she can find her again, because she knows that's who would fill the place. That's who would bring, the folks who've always wondered what happened to Paloma Doral.

And I also love that we had the tone of Pearl Paloma song became popular once again in the 2020s, as we have seen with other shows that streamers streamed that song and they're like, now everyone's obsessed with it. And you wanna know who this person is, which is such a, like a 2020 like a thing that happens, like it's a normal thing, course of action to see that music revisit and they're like, oh, I need to know who Jesus.

Exactly. Yeah, I know. I, Kate Bush was part of my high school and college era, and it just I was snickering, I was talking to people when it became such, running up that hill became such a huge hit. It's like, where were you back in the, when this came out

not.

Fair. But it is just kind of a joy because then obviously you see all these people who are just now discovering something that's so wonderful and then getting really invested in it. And I was unashamedly borrowing that trend of why is it the Paloma is the one to be able to really make things, get the older. Crowd who knew or when, and get the new people who want to learn more.

What was it like to ride different age groups? 'cause we're writing the 90, we're writing 20 year olds, being dumb. Dumb 20 year olds. And then we are writing 50 year olds who are actually, who are looking back at their life. We have some wisdom, but they're still making some dumb decisions too. Like it's, it's like there's no, so what is it like, 'cause it's probably like the mentality's a little bit different or what did you know when you were 20 then? What you were know when you're 50? Like how you act, how you interact. Maybe the same or may be different because Jayce has this baggage, or woman has this baggage that did not occur when they're in their twenties,

well, yeah, I mean, I have daughters who are in that age range, and I tell them that, your superpower is energy. This is what drives you. That's more important than making the decisions for the rest of your life, and even in the modern timeline that I've got going on here, I've got folks who are younger, her Jason's niece, Livy is. Certainly an important character here. There's an up and coming musician Renny, who has done everything they can to be in the right place at the right time at the Artemis to get the kind of pickup that they're wanting. So I think some of this becomes every, like you said, everyone can make mistakes no matter what the age they are. And also everyone has the opportunity to really decide, well, what's most important to me? What do I need to do to make that happen? And so for the younger generation of the characters here, it was just get me out there. I have something to say. I have something to do. And the older ones, maybe you're looking at it as I want that, but only if I'm doing it with the people I love. And so I think that at least in my. Story is how those characters can interact together.

I think it resonate, with me in the modern timeline as someone who's in elderly. I'm not Gen X I'm in the straddle there, and it's still like an interesting place to look back because. We get to have some boundaries. We get to have some choices, and, things that we, that were acceptable at one point are no longer acceptable. Like even looking at Jace making the decision, I'll cut the person who's doing something and losing a major client for their values. This is something that I can do it now, but not in my twenties. I didn't have the amount of, maybe I had the guts and stuff, but at the same time may not the financial a Cuban to, strategize or the trust that we'll figure something out. We're not gonna, this is not, life or death. That in the twenties that would have been life or death. I lost a client. I'm done. I'm doing this. Jace has experience though. Left. I so outta nowhere, I can, make a decision, to have a little bit of a safety net that you wouldn't have.

Well, I also think it does hit different people at different points. I mean, every human being is, wired differently. So in Jace's case, so you know, Jace. Being this, barback and just sort of the general pair of hands at the Artemis Club because she just loved the venue and the music so much when she was younger. And then deciding to kind of. Almost in a whim become a bi a talent manager was something where I don't think she was thinking about and how will that affect my 401k? She what do you have to lose? And now that she's older. It's more she's got the ability to say, I live or die on what I think is right. I think she looks back at some of the decisions she made during her talent management career that she would do differently and now's the time to just step forward. Other people would say as you get older, you get more less likely to make that kind of a move. In Jace's case, no. She, was able to kind of firm up her personal values through her experiences.

Yeah, I can identify with that. So thank you. Let's talk about some books. What kind of books do you tend to read?

I. Read kind of all over the map. I will say though, a core of my reading for years has just been a lot of memoirs and biographies and autobiographies by artists particularly, rock and roll people. It's first off, there are a lot of books out there. And secondly, it's just a clue into their creative process, but also, damn, they're fun. I mean, everybody wants to know what it's like. If you really did party like a rock star, if you really did and so many of them are very eager to tell you some better than others. So, I mean, that's just constantly. Anytime I have a birthday or Christmas, I just get another huge stack of whoever's put out a juicy memoir, and they're delightful. They're just fun.

Yes, and you have some juicy memoirs and some books around musicians and rock stars to recommend. So why don't you just go over your recommendations. You got Keith Richards,

how can you not? How can you not? Yeah. So his book was called Life. Of course some joked it should have been alive. But just because everything he's put himself through his career, I think that the magic of this, first off, this is a guy who is just an indisputable icon. Of course, he should write a book. Of course we wanna know about him, but he also has this narrative style and storytelling ability that just makes you feel like you're sitting next to him. At a bar or you got the lucky chance of sitting next to him on a plane for an intercontinental flight and you're just hearing all this stuff. 'cause he's got such a great sense of humor. He's got perspective on how crazy some of the stuff that he did was he, that kind of, suffer fools gladly, especially if their named Mick Jagger is everywhere there. It's just so entertaining and I think it's also kind of an inspiration for other musicians who wanna write because at a certain point. People just don't really care about, and then we played Cleveland and then we play, it's more what is the through line of your art that made you make those life choices. It's just so fun.

It's so fun. You have a couple more recommendations. I love the Nick. Juliet, I think it's a title.

Yeah. Nick Hornby is one of my favorites. Yeah, he's something else. He's the one who's written also, the books that became some of my favorite films. So about a boy, high fidelity fever pitch, which actually was about his. Personal obsession with soccer. It was a nonfiction, and

I read that.

it about the Red Sox, which is like gold socks. So anyway, he just has a sweet spot for people who are too much of a fan for their own good. It, that they get too deep into the minutiae and too much into the lore and make too much of their own personal identity about a sports team or a band or a musician or a song. I feel that I think in earlier drafts of Motor City Love Song, Jace was much more of a rock nerd than she ended up because I was realizing I was just writing that for my own personal validation and nobody else would get it. So it's, I just, it had to get go. And Juliet Naked is literally about a man who's very obsessed with this sort of 19 nine nineties, Dylan, Bob Dylan esque kind of. Solo guy who he's been pursuing to the point where his girlfriend leaves him over it. But then the girlfriend actually strikes up a conversation with said musician. So y I, it was with his usual humor and restraint, yet kind of this pinpoint ability to be able to put you in a time and place, That I just really appreciate about his, all of his work.

Yeah, I really love high fidelity. I think that was one of, that was my introduction to Nick Carby. Like I remember reading this in the nineties and the aughts, like whenever there was new a book and it was just this exploration. I don't read a lot of men like authors, but it was one of those that confess like a way to grab your attention and to get lost in a story without talking down on you,

He can bring you into this kind of, insular world in a way that isn't making fun of it, but also kind of knows, what it's really about, and that it may, it maybe is being taken a little too seriously.

Awesome. Let's go. Welcome to the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. I think this is one of your recommendations that I was like, oh, I have to read this.

Yeah, it's, it is a wild book. So, Jennifer Egan wrote this many years ago, and then she wrote a sequel to it, the Candy House, which came out last year or the year before. So it's a series of stories and as you're reading it, you pick up on them. They're taking place at different points in time. In the past, the present, even the near future with a central bunch of characters and how their lives are intersecting around this one kind of aging punk rock guy in the Bay Area. And she really pushed the boundaries of how you absorb a story because it isn't just about the temporal changes, it's also literally even how the work's presented. At one point a particular young character presents his chapter in PowerPoint. PowerPoint. And it sounds like a gimmick, but it honestly, it clues you into who that character is and it kind of builds a bridge to that character in a way that perhaps wouldn't have been done otherwise. And so the. Notion there. I mean, for me it's just kind of back to music is just part of our bloodstream, and our fascination with those who make that music. And also the creative output and how that changes with time. It's just a fascinating. Part of being an American, I think. And so it's just a very unique one of a kind book. And rightfully won the Pulitzer Prize when it came out.

I gotta bump it up. So that's actually in my TBR and the final book is Welcome to the band Kim Gordon. I think

Girl in a band.

Girl in.

Yes. So Kim Gordon was one of the founders of Sonic Youth, which is this. Very no hold bar, no holds barred band of the nineties and early two thousands. And the band also included, there's Moore who became her husband and they had children and all of this. And he had an affair and he. Left her and the band fell apart. And so this is kind of from her perspective in some ways because she wasn't really someone who always wanted to be a musician either. She knew she was an artist and she's kind of like Patty Smith in that way. She know she was going to make art regardless, and it just happened to be channeled through music. And so it's just a very level-headed assessment that she does of her own. Wants needs that I thought was really interesting. And that kind of thing of even when your life is, normalcy is falling apart. What keeps you going forward? So it's a good read.

That sounds like a great read. So thank you for sharing some musician recommendations to read after Motor City Love song as readers can pick it up from your favorite book seller. So, Lisa, tell us, we're gonna find you online.

So I'm on Instagram and my handle is at Lisa Pierce, author, so L-I-S-A-P-E-E-R-S, author all run together. And so you can follow me for updates for local events. Reach out to me that way. It would be great to hear from folks.

Awesome. Thank you, Lisa, for being the show,

Oh, thank you very much. It's been a pleasure.

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