The Writings, Ruminations, and Rustications of Thurston Kelp
It’s a not particularly well guarded secret that for about ten years starting in 1994 I supplemented my income by writing an approximately regular music column for the Cape Codder in Orleans, MA, using the pseudonym Thurston Kelp (my first choice for a pseudonym was actually “R. Nalton Thruppy”, but the Codder passed on that idea.) I’ve always enjoyed not only passing along recommendations to friends about things I think they’d enjoy, but also savaging the hard, probably deeply felt work of others when I feel it’s added up to something that’s exceptionally hard to enjoy, which is hard to get away with in a small town- thus, the pseudonym.
The Cape Codder was nice, or perhaps strangely deluded, enough to give me a fairly long leash, so I got to write not just about music, but about all kinds of things, frequently with a humorous bent, and I’ve always wondered if some small portions might stand the test of time; until the recent pandy I of course never bothered with it, but now I suddenly seem to have ample time- hurrah! The arrival of ample free time alone might not have turned the trick, though, if I hadn’t recently been so amused by a book my ex, the nonetheless still marvelous Mrs. K, gave me years ago that featured a large collection of funny and delightful book reviews by the British novelist Nick Hornby (who also wrote “High Fidelity”) called “Ten Years in the Tub”, which I very much recommend. So, thanks, Nick, for the inadvertent nudge, and also thanks to my colleagues and editors at the Cape Codder, including Melora North, Joe Burns, and especially Laura Collins Hughes.
I wrote hundreds of these, but a lot of it is no longer relevant, and in many cases of questionable interest in the first place, but there’s occasional good bits; this first installment (warning: if no one complains, I may do more of these) includes brushes with Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins at the old Sun studio in Memphis, a comparison of Texas to France, and some thoughts on Lord Buckley, among other things.
Read all about over at our Kelp on Kape site here