Things To Do: John Darnielle Reading at Housing Works

John Darnielle reads from Black Sabbath's Master of Reality
Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
126 Crosby Street, New York
Saturday, May 17, 7pm
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John Darnielle may be best known to a cult of wildly passionate fans (most of their shows end up being lusty sing-alongs) as the frontman and incredible lyricist for The Mountain Goats (and yes, check them out, they're wonderful), and his way with a pen has, in the past, extended to quite a bit of music criticism; in particular, his free and wild writings in his zine/blog Last Plane To Jakarta. (Click here for the ride that is "Thirty Short Poems About My Favorite Black Metal Band") Needless to say, he is absolutely the perfect candidate to write up Black Sabbath's Master of Reality for the exhaustive 33 1/3 series of writers (and musicians) writing about beloved and seminal albums, a series is alternately brilliant (Meat is Murder, Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste) or dreadful (Rid of Me, OK Computer), and always provocative. From all reports, Darnielle's take, a fictional tale about a teenager surviving a mental institution by loving Ozzy, is genius. A warning: this man is beloved, you must get to the cafe early. Maybe he'll bust out the guitar and cover some Sabbath!