ADAM DUNN is the author of the novels Rivers of Gold, The Big Dogs, and Saint Underground, the forthcoming novel The Unfathomable Deep, and co-writer (with Eric Anderson) of the forthcoming novel Osiris. He spent years as a freelance writer cultivating an extensive series of networks among the military, intelligence, law enforcement, and financial communities. His byline has appeared in 18 publications in four countries. Some of those include: CNN and BBC News (online); Inc., Paper, SOMA, and Publishers Weekly magazines (glossy); and the San Francisco Chronicle and South China Morning Post (newsprint). He and his family have left New York City.
For the Imus in the Morning Show, where you can hear our ads running across the nation in November, Adam made a list of his 5 Favorite Songs:
How A Resurrection Really Feels (The Hold Steady)
New World Man (Rush)
Lucky In My Dreams (The Verlaines)
Temptation (Tom Waits)
Stiff Competition (Cheap Trick)
Adam has also made playlists for each of the three books in the series, so readers who are interested can delve deeper into the characters and the stories. A brief note by Adam accompanies each song title:
ANNOTATED PLAYLIST FOR RIVERS OF GOLD
FAIRYTALE OF NEW YORK (the Pogues)-Yes, it inspired the title, which is why it kicks off the playlist. No, it did not inspire the golden shower scene. Yes, it dovetails nicely with the taxi theme. But really, this song is absolutely essential to any collection of music about NYC.
WORDS & KNIVES (Chickasaw Mudd Puppies) -Good background music for my vision of 2012, particularly the ending refrain. I’ve long suspected that’s Michael Stipe on backing vocals, as he produced this album.
YOU’D BE SO NICE TO COME HOME TO (Helen Merrill)-No matter how bad things will inevitably get, the US will always be remembered for one stupendous gift it gave the world: jazz. The early 1950s Clifford Brown/Max Roach quintet is one of its crown jewels, and having Helen Merrill on vocals for one collection is a pearl of its setting (their collection with Sarah Vaughan on vocals is another).
WEIRD SONG (Vomit Launch)-Yes it’s a stupid band name. But I love songs in six, and this is my favorite of them. I love the bass line, I love the siren vocals and guitar refrain. This song always makes me think of a ghost ship passing in the night, with the drums mimicking the action of the waves against the hull.
THE PAYBACK (James Brown)- Now, really, is there any better tune for a crime story?
RUNNING GUN BLUES (David Bowie)-A song for More. Each book’s playlist will have one sniper song. Next time around it’ll probably be “The Ballad of Charles Whitman”.
WITCHCRAFT (Wolfmother)-A song for L. I suspect every man has encountered at least one woman in his life who makes him suspect her of this. I know I have, more than once.
TEMPTATION (Tom Waits) -‘nuff said. This will be a recurring theme throughout all the playlists for this series.
BIG SHOT (English Beat)-I’m dating myself, aren’t I? No, this isn’t a song for the Slav or Reza. I always thought of it as being sung by someone who thinks he’s more in control of the situation than he actually is, and so I picked this one for Renny.
SONNE DA CHALLA (Vikrant Singh)-This is the song Baijanti Divya clairvoyantly identifies for Santiago while they’re staking out Arun on the eve of the taxi protest. If David Simon ever makes ROG into an HBO series, I want this to be the title theme.
CIGARETTE IN YOUR BED (My Bloody Valentine)-I fell in love with Belinda Butcher’s voice long before I ever saw so much as a picture of her. Perfect for Renny and N’s inter-coital pillow talk scene on their first night together.
PERIL (Maritime)- The great thing about pickups is that the magnetic fields they channel can arise from any metal string. Wouldn’t you love to wire up a harpsichord to Prince’s effects-pedal set? I love the sound of a fuzzy, distorted acoustic guitar. Sounds so much more interesting than just some stoner trying to strum some life into poetry.
LIFE IN THE FAST LANE (the Eagles)-My wife, Lisa, insisted on this one, and she’s right. This is a song about American excess, and works for anything written after 1910, when cars and highways started popping up around the national landscape.
LOOKING FOR A KISS (New York Dolls)-Renny’s on-the-prowl song, though he’d probably disagree. Another essential band for any NYC mix.
NICE NICE (Lifter Puller)-The two nightclub songs are tributes to Reza’s organization. To me, a nightclub holds no glamour. Rather, it is a place gullible people go to be willingly overcharged at the door, deafened by terrible music, fleeced with crap drinks in plastic cups at the absurdly overpriced bar, and immersed to the hairline in the drug and skin trades. Danger is your constant companion and death can wait all night for you. What else can I say? Craig Finn got it right the first time.
NITECLUB (Old 97s)-Yes, burning the place down is an option, one I’m sure thought of repeatedly by unhappy club-goers night after night. But in the end it’s easier just to stab someone by the dumpster down the street, or maybe blow his head off through his car window, both time-honored methods in NYC. There was a double example of the latter the night before the ROG launch party, and less than two blocks away. Plus ça change…
BROTHER, MY CUP IS EMPTY (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds)-You always want to watch for the guy at the bar with something to prove, who’s genuinely angry and not just being loud and pesky, like this guy.
BAD GIRL (Detroit Cobras)-N’s song. For anyone who’s had the luxury and arrogance of being in her position.
MULENCE (¡Cubanismo!)-Santiago plays this song for his drive with Victor up to the scenic New Haven docks to engage in some highly practical and illegal bartering.
GIMME SHELTER (the Rolling Stones)-I was never much of a Stones fan—my wife is—but there’s something insistently ominous about this song that’s made it immortal.
SIDEWALK (Built To Spill)-You’ve got to admit, Doug Martsch plays a mean guitar. Good enough to animate concrete. This is the only song I know about a city’s most ubiquitous feature that’s right under your feet.
EVEN THE LOSERS (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers)-This one’s for the CAB cops. They’re always playing catch-up, and always will be. But they have their moments.
SOMEBODY GOT MURDERED (the Clash)-Well, you’d need this one too for a crime novel’s playlist, wouldn’t you?
ADVENTURER (Lou Reed)-Another one of my wife’s recommendations. Ostensibly I put this in for Renny, but really, it’s for me. Publishing rat to freelance pond scum to gainfully-contracted author. Damn the slings and arrows and pass the Tiger Balm.
ANGELA (the Verlaines)-This is more applicable to an earlier incarnation of Renny, who was kind of the male analogue of the girl in this song. Graeme Downes is the only man in rock I would classify as a poet. The one time I got to see them live I requested this, and was politely brushed off. One day I’ll watch him play this, even if I have to go all the way to New Zealand for it.
BRASSNECK (the Wedding Present)-This is the version produced by Steve Albini. It is, as they used to say, the balls. Fastest pairing of amplified acoustic/distorted electric I know. And I have been in situations where I can actually hear David Gedge in my head blaring “I JUST DECIDED I DON’T TRUST YOU ANY MORE” more times than I care to remember.
SAD-EYED PEOPLE (Stiff Little Fingers)-A drunkard’s song, sung by a drunkard about the drunkards surrounding him, realizing simultaneously that A) he’s a drunkard too and B) he’s rather ambivalent as to what he should do about it. But just try and play this bass line without a pick.
GIRLS ON FILM (Duran Duran)-Another song for Renny, even if film’s obsolete. I’d still like him to photograph Miyuki, whomever she might be.
ANOTHER GIRL, ANOTHER PLANET (the Only Ones)-I have been waiting twenty years for the scenario to come along that exemplifies what I think this song is about, and the unhappy Renny-N-LA triangle is it.
GHOST ON THE HIGHWAY (the Gun Club)-For More. My pick for Best Car Chase Song. I think I was actually playing it in the car when I drove the route for the car chase scene across the Queensboro Bridge. I would pay to get 16 Horsepower back together just to record a cover of this one.
PLAY (Sleepyhead)-The title fits the mood, which is what you get when some punks learn a 12-bar blues structure and start to play around with it, learning its marvelous flexibility and potential for the very first time.
STRANGER THAN FICTION (Bad Religion)-Really, I don’t know why more writers don’t know this song, if not the band. I’m all for harmony in hardcore, and BR does it in such a fun way. Nearly broke my thumb trying to get the bass lick just before the end.
CAUGHT BY THE FUZZ (Supergrass)-Everyone has had this feeling sooner or later. I channeled that collective nauseous horror and poured it all into Renny, the poor bastard. I’d be incontinent too.
BAD BOYS GET SPANKED (the Pretenders) -My wife’s final contribution to this playlist. This one is for Reza. And Prince William.
STIFF COMPETITION (Cheap Trick)-LA’s song, though it can be applied to all the competing criminal factions vying for control of NYC in this series. I prefer the alternate take off the Greatest Hits compilation. Cheap Trick will be the next band to be covered to death by bands that will never hold a candle to them.
WAIT FOR THE BLACKOUT (the Damned)-live from Sweden, I think, year unknown. From the BORN TO KILL compilation. I never saw them live, and this track makes me regret that. There is no other song that better demonstrates the simple joy to be found in punk rock, despite its desperate efforts to the contrary. Punks were just Romantics with less patience and more wardrobe. This one’s for the night owls.
ANNOTATED PLAYLIST FOR THE BIG DOGS
THE REPTILES AND I (Shriekback)-a song celebrating languages, vocations, and appetites of all sorts. Perfect for this particular story. The groove is rock-bottom simple and irresistible.
HALFWAY ACROSS (Railroad Jerk)-I always liked the slightly lurching cadence of this tune, with its lyrics describing the slow wreck of an illusion’s maiden voyage. Applies well to the financial schemes of this book, and the madcap global rush of those perpetrating them.
LET THE BIG DOG EAT (Alex Taylor)-this is a cover, people, the original’s by Bill “Sauce Boss” Wharton, but as this version makes explicit reference to one from the Middle East, I thought it fit this list better.
JOHN THE FISHERMAN (Primus)-Sir Helios’ theme song. The notion of this character—and his ilk—as anglers trawling a sea of avarice, trying to hook the biggest of the greedfish, came to me early in writing this book, and stayed with me. I can just see Sir Helios’ first appearance with the onset of the guitar riff in this song…one hand-woven leather sandaled-foot in front of the other in time with the drums…
STEP RIGHT UP (Tom Waits)-the scammers’ anthem.
LOW SELF-OPINION (Rollins Band)-Gianduja’s theme song. Being the self-doubting mess that he is at the start of the book, this is the sort of thing that plays out in his head around the clock, yet he is powerless to heed his own subconscious advice. He’d probably benefit from a good smack in the head by Henry himself.
ORGASM ADDICT (Buzzcocks)-from the live album “Encore Du Pain” recorded in Paris in 1995. These guys seemed to get better with age. Another song for Gianduja, for obvious reasons.
CAN’T TAKE MY EYES OFF OF YOU (Engelbert Humperdinck)-this one gets my vote for Worst Song Ever Recorded. Frankie Valli’s 1967 original was no better than this version from the following year, only different. But since I needed something as enduring and dramatic as well as ironic and hilarious for Elle’s first appearance, I chose this because, well, love him or hate him, there’s no denying the staying power of…The Man. The Myth. The ‘DINCK.
ALTAR OF SACRIFICE (Slayer)-now, really, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Clearly this is just an enervated little ditty about the perils of global warming, no big deal. I’d still like to hear DJ Coma’s trip-hop remix of this. Maybe at the launch party…
BUILD ME UP BUTTERCUP (the Foundations)-in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, while the ruins of the towers were still too hot to comb for survivors (let alone remains), I was trying to hop a ride on a CNN news truck through the police cordon around the blast zone. I figured since I’d already been freelancing for the network for a year I had a shot, but I was given the same short shrift to be expected by freelancers everywhere. When I finally did get down to Chinatown, I remember walking south along the Bowery, amidst the zombies and lunatics that filled the streets then, and I walked past three storefronts in a row that had this song spilling out of them. I know it was just a matter of people tuning into the same station, but ever since that dark day, I’ve associated this saccharine little song with mayhem, carnage, and death. Call it imprinting.
BLOCKBUSTER (Sweet)-wishful thinking.
OVER YOUR SHOULDER (Concrete Blonde)-another song for Gianduja, already paranoid at the best of times, being pursued by killers through all the darkest corners of the city. “Run, rabbit, run.”
DOUBLE NEGATIVE (the Jim Yoshi Pile-Up)-for anyone who’s learned the hard truth about the evanescent nature of intimate relationships, as Gianduja does.
FRIEND FOR FIVE MINUTES (the Wildhearts)-ditto, but for friendships, and the fallout that can follow when they end, which can be more bitter (or, in this case, lethal) than the preceding category.
HERE COMES THE GRUMP (Adam Ant)-the only way is Down.
TRANSMISSION (Joy Division)-a song for Op’its’eri, scanning the ether from the shadows, stalking his prey with the patience of a master hunter-killer.
ANGEL (Pale Saints)-sometimes lust is trumped by necessity, even unto survival. So is Gianduja’s infatuation for Marrone molded, in bullets, blood, and Splenda.
DO IT (the Mooney Suzuki)-the Butterfly Effect, as demonstrated by Sir Helios’ fateful decision to hire a new subcontractor.
Extract from YOU AND ME AND RAINBOWS (the Tear Garden)-my favorite of the six-part original. Saltire’s soundtrack.
DID YOU TELL HER (Betty)-no matter if he’s getting dumped, cheated on, stolen from, or shot at, Gianduja can’t shake off the ancient self-imposed taboo of infidelity.
And really, what better medium for this message than a lesbian band from LA?
MAGIC BUS (the Who)-for all the big dogs! Hey, it’s a book about buses, after all.
OJOS ASí (Shakira)-now, I am no fan, and as I once dated one of her doppelgangers who did me rather wrongly, I’m unlikely to ever become one. I first heard this in a Mexican restaurant owned by an Arab, and the twin Spanish/Arabic lyrics got me at once. It came back to me while I was writing the fight sequence in the bus garage, and the sounds and images gelled perfectly. Think this would be a great backing track for an aikido instructional video.
YOU SHOOK ME ALL NIGHT LONG (AC/DC)-aha! You thought I’d use Aerosmith’s “Love in an Elevator” for the tryst between Gianduja and Elle, didn’t you? Well, I didn’t, because A) I don’t like the song, and B) you can’t listen to this song without laughing just a bit, which is how that particular scene should be read.
JUST LIKE HEAVEN (Dinosaur Jr.)-this is one of those covers that just blows the doors off the original. I first referenced it in RIVERS OF GOLD, and brought it back in this book because it’s also the perfect score to the elevator scene. One hack’s opinion.
ON SOME FARAWAY BEACH (Brian Eno)-where Gianduja longs to be.
BLACK SOUL CHOIR (16 Horsepower)-from the live album “Hoarse” (Denver 1998).
Truth. Learned by every character in the book, the hard way.
THE BLEEDING HEART SHOW (the New Pornographers)-for putting some wind in your sails. Or, in Gianduja’s case, once everyone he cares about has been killed, the rage in his machine. Or what passes for such in someone like him.
STOMACHACHE (Rumah Sakit)-Gianduja, being who he is, naturally is a Math Rock fan.
BALLAD OF CHARLES WHITMAN (Kinky Friedman)-a song for More. As I said the last time around, there will be a sniper song in every book’s playlist.
I’M THE MAN (Joe Jackson)-somewhere, buried deep in Gianduja’s addled brain, this song is playing loud and clear. He just can’t hear it clearly enough yet.
B IS FOR BETHLEHEM (the Promise Ring)-Gianduja’s exit song, successor to Sir Helios’ fisherman theme.
YOU KNOW HOW HOT (Chris Moffa and the Competition)-New Jersey’s best export. And a most fitting description of NYC in this vicious little book. (I can be a real pisser sometimes.)
EVERYONE’S COMING TO NEW YORK (John Carpenter)-from the immortal soundtrack to ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, one of my all-time favorites. What’s urban implosion if you can’t laugh about it some? Hope to meet him someday.
ANNOTATED PLAYLIST FOR SAINT UNDERGROUND
I MELT WITH YOU (Modern English)-the ‘80s are the ultimate Zombie Decade, they just don’t die. This one-hit wundergruppe probably never imagined they were writing the perfect score for Cory and Drew’s fiery embrace. Let’s get thermobaric!
HOW A RESURRECTION REALLY FEELS (The Hold Steady)-from decay, unto death, therein to be reborn. An anthem for going through a deep, dark tunnel and coming out the other side intact if not unscathed.
UNDERGROUND (Tom Waits)-It Ill All Unfold.
YOU ARE TOO BEAUTIFUL (Sarah Vaughan)-Beth’s yearning for Redhawk is so deep and wrenching it can only be articulated in this song.
LUCKY IN MY DREAMS (the Verlaines)-for those who, like Beth, long from afar.
NANCY DREW (Tuscadero)-now, Beth is a woman who is mature beyond her years, and probably had to grow up pretty fast without the luxury of wallowing in childhood. And she’s not one to whine about that. Still, she’s young enough to retain a tangible connection to that time in her life, and I wonder if she doesn’t sometimes feel the urge to be back there, in a simpler, less demanding, safer time. A song about Looking Back.
RUNNING ON THE ROCKS (Shriekback)-I promised one sniper song for each book’s playlist, and this one’s a twofer! The perfect accompaniment for a sniper duel on the Morningside palisade. I love the groove, the imagery, the war-chant in the bridge. And still leaves room for a horn section. Fire away.
A VAMPIRE’S PROPOSAL (Shudder To Think)-a song for Irukanji, the Information Vampire. Nice hack job on JP Morgan, eh?
GHOSTS OF PRINCES IN TOWERS (Rich Kids)-an ode to Alex Redhawk, my 21st-century take on the Count of Monte Cristo, mulling over an Oval Office run from the safety of his fortified penthouse high above the carnage of the mean NYC streets. This band had the makings of greatness—Glenn Matlock, Midge Ure, Bill Simonon—but, like nearly all punk ventures, it went nowhere. A ghost anthem for ghosts.
YOUNG AND COLD (the Raveonettes)-a song from the innermost recesses of Beth’s mind, buried beneath the Slog—the level of necessity, before it becomes survival.
NEW WORLD MAN (Rush)-a song for ODIN in his early years. Radio receiver, runner, Ranger, young man bearing arms. When his superiors could still control him. Before his disillusionment and disgust turned him into the monster they could not.
BEYOND THIS HORIZON (Screaming Trees)-the theme for ODA 666 as it deploys to wreak havoc on the world, one city at a time. In Sarajevo. In Baghdad. In Manhattan.
LAST LEAVES (Secret Shine)-a song for Richard, Beth’s dispensable boyfriend, and for anyone who knows what it’s like to be in breaking phase of a breakup they don’t want to have happen.
ONE MORE HOUR (Sleater-Kinney)-how would you express the final moments of your bitter breakup in a song? Here’s one way.
THE ENEMY (Green Day)-the backing track for the whole sour saga of the Millennium 02 exercise, which starts ODIN on the path away from the military that created him.
WHEN THE SUN HITS (Slowdive)-Beth’s emergence from the darkness, holding on to the one she wants most.
THE JOINT IS JUMPIN’ (Fats Waller)-well, it wouldn’t be a party without this one, and it wouldn’t be a party for my books without a fight, a gun, and a raid. “One never knows, do one?”
LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME (Nina Simone)-another song for Beth, who’s caught between the devil and One Who Can’t See. Sometimes a holding pattern is the hardest thing to hold.
DOWN IN THE SUBWAY (Soft Cell)-hardly the first time.
CHARTERED TRIPS (Hüsker Du)-in each of my books, the parallel-narrative protagonist realizes an Escape From New York, intentional or otherwise. The latter is the preferred method, and it’s really only in the third book that this is done in a way that counts as Safe Passage. And Beth deserves it. Bon voyage.
GIRL CRUSH (Little Big Town)-a deceptively simple tune that manages to encapsulate the scenario Beth faces viz. Redhawk and Ing Kan, albeit without the PLA aspect.
DANGEROUS LIFE (Poster Children)-you’d think this would be for More, ODIN and their professional peer group, and you wouldn’t be wrong. You might think it’s for Beth and the lethal tightrope she has to walk throughout the book, and you wouldn’t be wrong either. But really, it’s for Santiago & Co., Team Slow Grind, out on the bleeding tip of the spear.
CHERRY-COLOURED FUNK (Cocteau Twins/Seefeel remix)-The inside of Beth’s mind, made of marigolds. A redemption internal, and eternal.
I WANNA HOLLER (Detroit Cobras)-But The Town’s Too Small (Beth’s hometown probably is).
THE LAST SUPPER (My Bloody Valentine)-soundtrack for the death of a restaurant.
WIND-UP (Pity Sex)-the inside of Beth’s head, particularly as the book gains momentum.
INTO YOU LIKE A TRAIN (the Psychedelic Furs)-a nice double-entendre that handily plays into a subway-themed book gone completely off the rails. For those who know the ferocious insanity of the Green Line.
ROUGH LANDING, HOLLY (Yellowcard)-for those who just can’t catch a break, there’s always emocore.
IF I HAD A HAMMER (American Music Club)-a nice tune about uneasy living, of cohabitating with trepidation, of resignation and settling for second best as the alternative to sheer bloody chaos. Poor Beth, I really put her through the wringer. Sorry, babe.
CONCENTRATION (Dimmer)-a must to maintain.
DON’T SPEAK/I CAME TO MAKE A BANG! (Eagles of Death Metal)-a song for ODIN coming into his own, a fabulous weapon and a terrible sight.
ALWAYS TRUE TO YOU IN MY FASHION (Blossom Dearie)-I play with fidelity a lot in this book, and this song epitomizes its malleability (1,001 uses!) by those opportunists leaping from one temporary point of stability to the next.
DAMAGE, INC. (Metallica)-the theme for ODA 666, transmogrified from elite military unit into cutting-edge corporate mercenariness. They don’t take prisoners but they do take bullion. Sign here.
BAD NOTE FOR A HEART (Straitjacket Fits)-the tone of Beth’s heart until Redhawk hires her. Then it goes from Bad to Worse.
ANOTHER DAY (Galaxie 500)-how Beth trudges through the Slog, when she should be living.
BLACK FRIDAY RULE (Flogging Molly)-Ye Shall Suffer. That is The Rule.
LEAVE THEM ALL BEHIND (Ride)-exactly what Beth longs to do, and does.
OUTLAW SONG (16 Horsepower)-Santiago would say without hesitation that this is More’s song.
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