Michael Layne Heath is a longtime freelance music writer, put on the path by mags like CREEM and then the first wave of Punk fanzines, thus inspiring him to start what became Washington DC’s first zine to cover that exploding scene. More recently, he has written for ezines such as Perfect Sound Forever and Tangents UK (r.i.p.), in addition to the recently reconvened British music magazine Ptolemaic Terrascope (of Terrastock Festival fame). Mike has also contributed liner notes to a number of CD and vinyl reissues released on Bay Area record label Water Recordings/4 Men With Beards. If all that weren’t enough, he is a musician, a published poet, and has been involved in SF/F fandom for the past decade. Which is how he ended up in an auditorium in San Jose one humid night in ’02, amazed and amused by Tad Williams’ Hugo Awards toastmaster speech… and the rest is not quite history.
Yes, it is I, the Prodigal Blogger, returning to yet again push syntax around the unforgiving glare of a blank screen, thus popping our greying head out from the salubrious confines of ye olde Grotto. Continue reading
Been involved with other things, life and family, but the most crucial development of all is that I will have a new book out in the autumn of this year. Continue reading
By Michael Layne Heath. I writ this at age 19, recently discovered from journals of that time. Aside from the odd syntax mistake, it is as written then. Continue reading
So yes, it has been awhile, hasn’t it? It has been over nine months in fact since my last installment: talk about your pregnant pauses. Continue reading
It’s October 28th in San Francisco. I am wearing a black leather jacket around town today. Last night, I was made aware of the passing this weekend of Lou Reed. This is not a sartorial tribute, though; it gets way cold in SF at this time of year. Continue reading
The following are the liner notes I was commished to pen for a brand new limited edition CD-R set featuring a rare American performance, recorded in San Francisco 1998, by the recently departed singer-songwriter extraordinaire (and famed connoisseur of vin-anything-but-ordinaire) Kevin Ayers. Continue reading