Pinch Points Answer Some Very Academic Questions Before Their Brunswick Library Gig

Almost a year to the day we’ve been waiting for Pinch Point's Live At The Library show. Really, it was in our top five picks for the 2020 Brunswick Music Festival before they were forced to pull the pin early.

Thankfully it’s back on the cards for BMF 2021. Making a racket somewhere you’d normally get The Shoosh is good clean fun, and Pinch Points make a very good racket. Plus straight-spoken lyrics about oppression disguised as education and social conventions used as camouflage seem like they’d actually be pretty at home bouncing around the Modern Lit stacks. Add in their dream-pop co-headliners Tender Buttons for a perfect crunchy-smooth counterpoint and it's really shaping up to be one for books.

Before they hit the stage though, we had some questions about Pinch Point's reading habits.

What are you reading right now?

Acacia Coates: Real Life by Brandon Taylor. I’m only a few pages in but it’s already beautifully written.

Adam Smith: The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell. It’s a great saga of three families winding their ways in and out of Zambia from the 19th century to the near future. Serpell's style starts off in a hypnotic, magic realist tone that slowly creeps into literary sci-fi. It’s a really great dissection of invasion, Black nationalism and racism with a dose of viral vaccines and talking mosquitoes. Rad. 

Issy Orsini: I’m reading the third book from the 'His Dark Materials’ series mainly because the show came out on HBO and I wanted to read the books first. I like it for my first time reading it - it’s easy to read too.

Jordan Oakley: Greyboy: Finding Blackness in a White World by Cole Brown, which is great so far. It’s a really honest exploration of the intersections between race and class, told through gripping essays.

What's your fave read?

AC: Some recent faves of mine were Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld, High School by Tegan and Sara, Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo and Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell. 

AS: Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804-1999 by Misha Glenny. Never realised how much of a stereotype the 'Balkan Powder Keg' was, or how complex the history of the region was, until I read this. From Ottoman collapse, through the birth of Turkey and right up to the break-up of Yugoslavia and the Kosovo War, it's not really a quick weekend read! Also the number of blokes with the name (and title) Paşa is mind-bending. 

IO: I know it's a cliché but one of the first times I completed a novel not out of obligation but because I actually loved a book was To Kill a Mockingbird. We had to read it in school but I loved it so much and read it three times. Also Anne of Green Gables was one of my favourites when I was a kid. My mum use to read it to me at bed time when I was about six or seven.

JO: Melbourne Architecture by Philip Goad really changed the way I look at our city. I used to bring it on holidays and read it obsessively. Also Carl Wilson’s Let’s Talk About Love is a big favourite. It’s a collection of essays that delve into the aesthetics tied up with popular music culture and how people develop music tastes. Also Sonya Hartnett’s Life in Ten Houses, and Fuchsia Dunlop’s Every Grain of Rice. 

Best song inspired by a book?

AC: White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane. Love me a trippy 'Alice In Wonderland' inspired bop. 

AS: Not sure, but a book named after a song: All Tomorrow's Parties by William Gibson. 

IO: Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush.

JO: The 1970 album Lord of The Rings by Swedish Keyboardist Bo Hansson is an extremely epic 13-song interpretation of the trilogy. I think the album found some pretty good success in Australia at the time.

If you listen to an audiobook can you say that you've read it?

AC: Yes! Same content, different way of consuming it. Plus, it keeps your hands free for other things, like crafting, cooking or gardening.

AS: Same as Acacia! (Except as soon as I start doing stuff I stop paying attention to the audiobook, so they don't work for me).

IO: Yeah definitely!

JO: 100%.

10 things I Hate About You or She's The Man?

AC: 10 Things I Hate About You! The soundtrack, the ‘90s fashion, the punching fuckboys in the face at prom.

AS: 10 Things I Hate About You. Mr Ledger nnnnnng.

IO: I love 10 Things I Hate About You! It’s one of those movies I can watch over and over again, especially when I’m sick and need a good comfort movie… But I rate She's The Man too. 

JO: I haven’t seen either in a very long time but you can’t really go past dreamy Heath Ledger.

Live At The Library takes place 12 Mar at Brunswick Library.