DISPATCHES FROM THE KINGDOM OF OUTSIDERS by Tim Sommer (Trouser Press Books)
You might know Tim Sommer from his two-bass avant-pop group Hugo Largo, or as the contrarian Facebook gadfly who posts zen koans like, “Has anyone ever done a death metal or hardcore version of Cage's 4'33? It could be like 43 seconds of silence...” He’s also big on Gen X nostalgia: “Once upon a time, all that mattered was someone running down the dorm hallway screaming, ‘Turn on Channel 11! The ‘Chef of the Future’ episode is on!” That’s so Tim Sommer.
In some circles, he’s remembered - with, um, mixed emotions - as the fledgling A&R exec who foisted Hootie & The Blowfish on an unsuspecting world, or - in his twenties - as writer/correspondent for the early MTV News. I met Tim a long time ago - introduced by either Lyle Hysen or Jack Rabid - when Tim was an NYU student doing a gonzo radio bit called “Noise: The Show,” in which Sommer screamed like the guy in the Crazy Eddie commercials while introducing singles by the extreme fringes of the then-new hardcore underground.
And, he’s a writer - journalist, critic, diarist, commentator, raconteur. A good one.
Dispatches From the Kington of Outsiders from Trouser Press Books (a teenaged Tim wrote for Trouser Press magazine way back when) collects over 50 essays, mostly (but not entirely) about music, dating from the early Eighties (when teenage Tim was a correspondent for UK’s Sounds) well into the 2020’s.
The essays largely lean into a lifelong enthusiasm for left-of-center music, but that covers a wide swathe: From Neu to the Beatles (there’s a whole section just on the Fab Four,) Sinatra to Dylan (and how the two intersect,) Bruce and Bono and Barbra, R.E.M. and Hanoi Rocks, Sha Na Na and Sam The Sham. Tim colorfully recalls the seedy Times Square of the Seventies in one essay and ponders the magical power of Taylor Swift in another. Wide swathe.
Sommer approaches every topic as if he’s the smartest guy in the room (and he usually is,) so there’s that, and he’s fond of overstuffing sentences with adjectives, adverbs, and arcane words rarely seen outside of Victorian novels. But the man’s a storyteller, no argument there, and he’s lived a life with enough serendipitous opportunities, crazy antics, colorful anecdotes and celebrity encounters to fill three volumes. The book’s at its best when Tim’s telling stories, and there are puh-lenty of good stories - from his days at NYU’s Weinstein Dorm, where he rubbed elbows with future MTV VJ’s Martha Quinn and John Norris, Rick Ruben, the embryonic Beastie Boys, and a future NYC mayor, to his time in A&R or his experiences as an itinerant journalist.
The connecting thread to many of the pieces comes from the title: Sommer believes - truly, earnestly, deeply believes - that there is a “kingdom of outsiders,” and that music is its gateway. He returns, over and over, to the notion that those of us who felt we didn’t fit in - in school, our families, the workplace - could find inclusion and solace in - for want of a better word - rock ‘n’ roll.
Neil Young said it best: “Hey hey, my my.” Tim Sommer agrees.
Dispatches From the Kingdom of Outsiders is available from Trouser Press Books.
Jim -- thank you! What an excellent review (and I don't just mean that it's favorable!)