Just got the book proofs back!

September 2024 is new publishing target for TCU Press

Overjoyed and overwhelmed is how I’m feeling today. Happy to finally see book proofs a year and a half after turning in the manuscript. But also mildly panicked about the next two weeks of poring over this obsession before I send it back to TCU. You only get one shot to get it right, and any mistakes will ruin my life for at least a couple days. But as I’ve always said, stress is just pressure you’re not prepared for, and I’m ready.

The screenshot posted above is the opener of Austin Music Is a Scene Not a Sound, and I’ve already spent too much time figuring out where to put the photo credit for Diana Ray. The former Antone’s manager, and wife of singer/radio DJ Paul Ray, captured a 21-year-old Stevie Ray Vaughan with his friend and mentor Denny Freeman before a 1975 Cobras gig. I’d come out to Dripping Springs with my scanner to get a hi-res file of her shot of Albert King’s tour bus parked in front of the original Antone’s on Sixth, and that’s when Diana showed me the photo of Stevie and Denny, wearing band t-shirts, that made me melt.

“Photo by Diana Ray” would normally go under the picture, but I don’t want any words between that image, which sums up what makes the Austin music community special, and Bonnie’s words at the free “Road To Austin” concert at Auditorium Shores in May 2007. Couldn’t we just put the photo credit at the bottom of the page? Yeah, let’s do that.

Just 268 pages to go!

This is all to say that I can’t see myself working on anything else the next couple weeks besides proofing the book, so I’m gonna give your inbox a little break. I do plan to visit the Hole in the Wall during its 50th anniversary celebration, so I might write something about that. But otherwise, I’m pushing my eyes for all they’re worth, one paragraph at a time.

Here’s another screenshot, from the Hole in the Wall chapter in the book:

And here’s my history of the Hole from Jan. 2022.

Thanks for subscribing to “Overserved,” which is also the title of Austin Music Is a Scene’s first-person sequel, which I just turned in to the Wittliff Collections for their series with Texas A&M Press. I don’t think I would’ve written these books if not for your support. Actually, I probably would’ve, but they wouldn’t be as good without being able to woodshed chapters on my Substack.

All right. Now I can go back to sleep.