David Swinson: Music that Shaped a Crime Writer
Music has always been a huge part of my life. When I was a kid, I attended Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, DC, where I played piano and coronet. I always knew I would be a writer, even as a teenager, but I also fancied being in a band. Sadly, I was always terrified of performing in front of people, even family, so that dream soon passed. I never gave up on listening to and playing music, though.
After college in Southern California, I met a girl. She introduced me to the alternative/punk rock scene. We eventually opened a record store on Main Street in Seal Beach, CA. The kids flocked there. I started to host record signings for bands. The wonderfully rebellious kids ate it up. The lines to enter the store would sometimes stretch around the block. Unfortunately, the small conservative town of Seal Beach did not appreciate it, and, after a couple of years, we had to shut the store down. The scene was in my blood by that time, though, and we discovered venues to continue what was started at the record store. The kids I got to know at the record store had nowhere in that area to go for live music, except the occasional house or backyard party.
I got my start booking and promoting concerts in the 1980s at Fender’s Ballroom in Long Beach. There was no bar so it would allow all ages. At first look, it was an intimidating venue, massive, with a capacity of 1500. The ceiling was low and the stage was high. I decided to take a chance, though. I pulled some favors and managed to get The Violent Femmes for the venue’s first show. There was no advertising budget, so we printed 5000 flyers and distributed them everywhere. The show sold out. It was over capacity by a few hundred people. It was insane but successful and so there were more shows, every one of them equally memorable – No Doubt, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Social Distortion, The Vandals, Tex and The Horseheads, Aggression, X, Black Flag, The Minute Men, and too many others to mention here.
I later found another venue in Long Beach– Bogart’s Nightclub. I was hired to book and promote the shows full time. It was a dream come true. Bogart’s soon became an acclaimed concert venue, garnering praise from newspapers around the region including The Los Angeles Times and LA Weekly. Bogart’s featured such bands as Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Pixies, Throwing Muses, BB King, John Cale, Nirvana, The Indigo Girls, The Untouchables, and Johnny Thunders.
Much of that music has stayed with me and inspired my writing. So much of the music is and always will be essential listening. I create playlists for all my books. I couldn’t write without the music. It’s a part of my writing process.
About the Author
David Swinson is a retired police detective from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC, having been assigned to Major Crimes. Swinson is the author of the critically acclaimed Frank Marr Trilogy – The Second Girl, Crime Song and Trigger, and the standalone City on the Edge. He lives in Northern Virginia.
But Arthur has been missing for days. Blum’s only source: Arthur’s girl, Celeste—beautiful, seductive, and tragic—whom he can’t get out of his head. Blum is drawn to her and feels compelled to save her from Arthur’s underworld. As the investigation ticks on and dead bodies domino, Blum, unearths clues with damning implications for Celeste. Swallowed by desire, Blum’s single misstep sends him tunnelling down a rabbit hole of transgression. He may soon find the only way out is down below.
Set in 1999, Swinson, a former DC cop, offers a look back at a rougher, grittier, bygone DC replete with seedy strip clubs, pagers beeping, and Y2K anxiety. It’s here we’re taken inside sting operations, fluorescent-tinged interrogation chambers, and rooms that have seen irreversible mistakes. At once authentic, gritty, tragic, and profound, SWEET THING asks how far can you fall when the world teeters on the edge?
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