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Thom Dunn is a Boston-based writer, musician, and utterly terrible dancer. He is the singer/guitarist for the indie rock/power-pop the Roland High Life, as well as a staff writer for the New York Times’ Wirecutter and a regular contributor at BoingBoing.net. Thom enjoys Oxford commas, metaphysics, and romantic clichés (especially when they involve whiskey), and he firmly believes that Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" is the single greatest atrocity committed against mankind. He is a graduate of Clarion Writer's Workshop at UCSD ('13) & Emerson College ('08).

Phase Five: No Secrets in a Hot Tub

Dia daoibh, a chairde, and greetings from the B-Side Brewery! I’m still trying to figure out the shape of this newsletter thing, but that’s easier to do when you’re not traveling over the holidays and spending your birthday with a sick toddler eager to share his RSV with you. (seriously, what is up with kids coughing in your face?!)

I’m not sure how useful my previous “HERE’S EVERYTHING I CONSUMED” approach to this thing worked, so I’m just gonna hit the highlights this time. You dig? An dtuigeann tú? Great, go team.

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Some People Just Want To Watch Twitter Burn

Dia daoibh, a chairde, and greetings from the B-Side Brewery! I was on a bunch of tight deadlines this week, so it’s all been kind of a blur. I’m normally a compulsive inbox (and/or notifications) zero-er, but there were more than a few times this week that I emerged from my hyperfocused writing trance to find a dozen or more little red dots on my phone. I ultimately zeroed them all out … though whether or not I actually acted on or replied to all of them, I’m still not sure.

But hey, at least I didn’t lose $80B in stock valuation (that I only earned in the first place by extorting people who need certain life-saving drugs) all because of a stupid Elon Musk Twitter scheme!

So yeah. That kinda week. To make up for it, I’m giving y’all a free short story to read at the bottom of this newsletter. You’re welcome!

What I’m Reading

What I’m Watching

What I’m Writing

What I’m Listening To

What I’m Doing

Colder Bodies, Colder Hearts: A Short Story

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Seizing the Memes of Production

I’ve been wondering if there’s any value in me doing a newsletter. I’d sort of let my personal website updates lapse for a while, in part because I was posting so much on social media sites as well as my regular blogging on BoingBoing (plus work, and kid, and band practice, and sleep, and Andor, and whatever else is going on). The recent news that an Elongated Muskrat has colonized Twitter to turn into a cess pool for crypto profits was a good enough impetus for me to get off my ass and finally try to make this happen (plus, it’ll make my content for the aforementioned personal website).

Enter: Confessions of a Futon Revolutionist.

My plan here is basically to make this a weekly newsletter, rounding up all the things I’ve been working on, and offering a few other recommendations along the way. Hopefully, I’ll get it out at the same time every week, at least once I figure out the ideal rhythm and timing for that. Maybe I’ll serialize some fiction, or offer some other bonus content? We’ll see!

(The name of the newsletter, by the way, comes from this song by the Weakerthans, which is also where I got the name for my LLC and record label.)

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Exploring the lurid life of Armie Hammer on BADLANDS

My script for the Season 5 premiere of the Badlands podcast could not be more opposite from the script I wrote for the Season 4 finale. Okay well maybe that’s not entirely true — they both involved a lot of sensitivity and careful wording. In the case of Robin Williams, that was because of the tragedy surrounding his suicide. In the case of Armie Hammer, that was, uhhh, because of ongoing legal matters and some really dark sexual fetishes that I don’t want to kink-shame but also went to some pretty disturbing places.

So, ya know. Tread lightly and all. But in very, very different ways.

Here’s the synopsis for the Badlands Season 5 premiere, written by me, titled “Armie Hammer: Dirty Texts, Bloodthirsty Fetishes, and a Cannibal Kink

With his chiseled jawline and matinee idol good looks, Armie Hammer could have been another leading man like Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt. But Armie Hammer was not most movie stars. He wasn't even most people. On the surface, his life was perfectly curated and appeared picture-perfect, with no major public scandals or dirt-digging by the press. But his increasingly bizarre appearances in interviews and on social media, not to mention leaked videos and texts, led to shocking revelations about what was really going on behind closed doors. And what was going on was more wild than the untamed dreams of a Hollywood screenwriter.

You can listen to the episode below, or wherever you get your podcasts:

Listen to the new Roland High Life song, "Old Atlantic!

My indie rock band The Roland High Life is finally playing shows again! And so to celebrate, we put out a new song. Well sort of.

We’re calling this a “remix” even though the non-remixed version of the song hasn’t actually been released yet. That’s because I record this version by myself, with the intention of releasing it as a single under the name “The Quentin Choir.” Then, the Roland High Life started practicing again, and “Old Atlantic” began taking a new life with the full band sound. But I was still really happy with this solo version I’d recorded. So, with the band’s permission, we decided to put it out to help promote our upcoming shows.

The real fun story behind this song is that it came to me almost complete formed. I was driving back to Boston from Ithaca at some point, listening to a live bootleg from Frank Turner’s 2019 Lost Evenings festival, which took place in Boston, and which I attended with Jake and Chris from my band. Just as I crested the curve of the Mass Pike and saw the Boston skyline in through the distant sunset, the Frank Turner song “If Ever I Stray” came on. It’s already a song about home and friendship and, well, water — “If ever I stray from the path I follow, take me down to the English Channel, throw me in where the water is shallow, and then drag me on back to shore.” And suddenly, the chorus of “Old Atlantic” just struck me. I think “This is gonna be my Boston version of ‘If Ever I Stray.’” I pulled over and recorded a voice memo, then finished the song as soon as I got home.

The bonus irony here being that the final version of the song has a weirdly Everclear vibe to it, sounding nothing like Frank Turner at all despite being written as a deliberate homage. Ah well!

You can “Old Atlantic” on any ol’ streaming platform. So check it out!

My new BADLANDS podcast about Robins Williams is now out everywhere!

I’ve been doing some freelance writing work lately for Double Elvis Productions, the company behind the popular true crime music podcast Disgraceland (which also just aired its 100th episode). The first of my scripts to go live is the ✨season finale✨ to the latest season of Badlands: Hollywoodland, which goes deep on the dark side of Robin Williams’ life, leading up to this tragically complicated death.

I’m really, really effing proud of the work I did on this one. It’s obviously a sensitive subject, and one that really affected me personally on a lot of levels, and I think I did a damn good job of handling it with care, without losing the delight and humanity of the story. Also, it was just a cool experience scripting within an established episode format, with a pre-existing structure and stuff.

You can check out the episode below, or on whatever podcast platform you prefer:

…Also did I mention that, right after my episode premiered, we shot to #1 (!!) on the Apple Podcast History charts?! I GOT A #1 HIT, BABY! (in the same sort of technicality way like how I sort-of kind-of have a Tony Award, but still)

This month's gigs: July 22 at Exhibit A Brewing

Come catch the Roland High Life on Friday, July 22 at Exhibit A Brewing in Framingham, MA. It’s an outdoor show, and we’re on early at 7pm — so there’s really no excuse not to come out and rock out, right? We’ll even have merch!

But even if you can’t make it, we’ve got some stuff coming in August and September, too. See ya at the show!

We're back, baby! Come see the Roland High Life LIVE!

That’s right — my indie rock band the Roland High Life, which has mostly been a studio-only project for the last long while, is finally doing live shows again!

Our first show back is later this month at the Jungle in Union Square Somerville:

We even got some fancy new merchandise to show off too!

See ya there!

Announcing "Forfocséic, Vol. 2 — Whiskey & Work"

After the success of last year’s pandemic-produced Irish folk album Forfocséic, Vol. 1, I decided to follow it up with — well, more of the same, I guess. Except this time, the production is even richer, and I stuck to a more coherent theme that’s resonant throughout Irish cultural history: whiskey, and workers’ rights.

And so, I present Forfocséic, Vol. 2 — Whiskey & Work, now available everywhere you stream or download music!

Once again, I had some help from some remote friends (including the fantastic fiddle work of the inimitable Jacqui Cheng). Continuing in the tradition of Irish song mashups, I made a wild medley of “The Rare Aul’ Mountain Dew” and “The Hills of Connemara,” which are both about poitín (basically Irish Moonshine / illicit white whiskey) and both kind of follow the same form anyway.

The other fun thing I did this time (aside from the arrangements, which I’m just generally very proud of) is to twist one of the songs here and make it my own. In addition to the conspicuous Red Sox references in “The Leaving of Liverpool,” I also wrote and added a new verse to “Muirsheen Durkin,” turning it from a more generic immigrant song to one specifically about my own family. Not to give too many spoilers away, but the last verse you hear is indeed something that actually happened to an ancestor of mine, after coming to America from the West of Ireland during the Great Hunger.

Anyway — I hope you enjoy it, and I can’t wait to actually (maybe?) do some live St. Paddy’s Day shows next year (finally!).

Finally, someone has paid me money to write about monks and beer!

My latest piece for the Weather Channel involves two of my favorite things: sustainability, and beer!

Specifically, it’s about a Trappist Monastery in Belgium that has instituted a cool new way to clean their beer tanks using phytoremediation, or plant-based fining. This is not only an environmentally-friendly method of beer production, but it’s also a scalable project that can ultimately help the monastery to produce more microgreens, legumes, and other human-edible food products, making the entire beer production process that much better for people, and the planet.

I also spoke with some other religious leaders about the role of God in environmental stewardship. While the popular narrative tends to show climate-denying Evangelical Christians, there are in fact many devout Christians whose faith actually calls them to actively protect God’s planet from the greed of mankind. And that’s a really powerful message that the world could use right now.

The word of the week is "Float-o-voltaics"

In my latest piece for the Weather Channel, I spoke with the folks at the Anglo-American Mining Company in Chile, who have created one of the first major commercial floatovoltaic energy systems on one of their mining tailing ponds. What this essentially means is that they’ve floated a bunch of arrays of solar panels onto the semi-toxic water residue from their mine. The water actually helps to make the solar panels more efficient, and the solar panels help to re-purpose the otherwise-wasted space from the mine tailing pond.

It’s actually some pretty fascinating, forward-thinking science, and I’m really glad to have learned about it. Maybe you’ll be into it, too!

Recording Roland High Life album #3, Part 1

We started working on the new Roland High Life album this weekend, carrying on the tradition we established from last October. This time, we got together outside of Newport, Rhode Island — and for the first time, we actually had an active, functioning bass player there to contribute to the songwriting process! Jake WM had played one show with the Roland High Life back in the day as a fill-in, and it was probably the best show we ever played; we had wanted him to play on “Another Other Dorset,” but he had some family stuff that come up. We couldn’t have been happier to finally officially welcome him into the band.

We got another 5 songs done this time, and I think that covers it for our existing back catalog of tunes we wrote between the bands’ active eras. That means it’s a good diversity of tunes, but we’re also looking forward to writing with the future in the mind — starting from who we are now, as individuals and a band, and working together to crank out the best stuff for who and where we are in our lives.

I’ll share some samples of the songs we did as soon as I have them!

12 Likes, 1 Comments - The Roland High Life (@therolandhighlife) on Instagram: "We out here #newalbum #newmusic #recording #homerecording #homerecordingstudio #diy #punkrock..."

12 Likes, 3 Comments - The Roland High Life (@therolandhighlife) on Instagram: "A lil' #behindthescenes #music from @therolandhighlife's recent #recording session. #newmusic..."

The first actual LIVE Roland High Life show in a decade!

37 Likes, 0 Comments - Erica 🌿 Steinhagen (@ericasteinhagen) on Instagram: "Frands! 1. Not from Wisconsin 2. Mighty Jet Band 3. The Roland High Life #porchfest2019"

And while we’re in the throes of all this Roland High LIfe news — we started playing shows again! Or at least, me and Walker played a solo acoustic show together as part of Ithaca Porch Fest. We’re also getting ready to start recording the next album, so this was a good warm-up, and the reception was such that we very much plan on doing it again. Go team!

It's been 10 years since we didn't release the first Roland High Life album

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Now that the Roland High Life is a real band again, we decided to re-master and release our debut EP, “If You Really Want To Hear About…”

You’ll notice that, while I said re-mastered, I didn’t say re-released. Because we, uhhh, neglected to ever actually release this album, just like we kind of neglected the band for a decade for no good reason; we just kinda got busy, even though we were all still friends, and let it all languish.

But now, it’s finally out there for the world to see. Even though I wrote these songs in college — at the very start of my ADHD treatment, and dealing with all kinds of new sensations — I still think they hold up pretty well. We also had the privilege of recording it all at WERS studios at Emerson College, which meant access to lots of high-end equipment and unlimited time after hours in which to work. (The downside, however, is that we lost the master multitracks, and had to work from the rough mixes we put together. But still.)

I’m not gonna do the same song-by-song breakdown on here; I could, but it feels moot, seeing as I wrote all these songs on the cusp of 21 or so. I’ll save the Behind-the-Music shpiel for our next album.

But I will share this newly-recorded acoustic version of “Squatter Song” that I did over the summer. That’s a song that I originally wrote upon first moving to Boston, freshly diagnosed with ADHD and feeling very depressed and overwhelmed with the state of being a mental ill grownup and having my own apartment. Thus, it felt oddly fitting to play the song again on the eve of Boston’s famous Allston Christmas, as I sat in the empty Boston apartment that I now own as I move back into it as a somewhat-functional adult.

Hello I am the Weather Channel now

…Or at least, I’m writing things for the Weather Channel. Which is also pretty cool.

My first piece is for a partnership between the Weather Channel and IBM (who is also their parent company), on some of the cool climate calculation work they’ve been doing together to help better understand the multitude of factors that can affect water quality across the country.

This piece was culled from an hour-plus interview, chock full of a lot of fascinating stuff. I’m pretty pleased with the final product, but the interviewee Lloyd gave me so much more to work with. Maybe I’ll share it here some day.

The new Roland High Life album is out today!

Well folks, it’s been about a decade since we last released or performed any music … but the new 5-song EP from my indie rock band the Roland High Life is now available on Spotify, iTunes/Apple Music, BandCamp, and everywhere else you might want to find your tunes!

We arranged and recorded all of these songs over a single weekend at a house in Vermont. They weren’t fully written that weekend — me and Walker, my co-front-man for the band, had been working on songs intermittently that we’d share with each other. But we put them all together, arranged them, and recorded the tracks pretty quickly on our own. For a self-produced work in a basement in Vermont, I’m pretty god damn proud of the work that we pulled off, and I’m very much looking forward to what’s next for the band.

I wrote this song about a few people I know in real life who have succumbed to the crippling addiction of fucked up Trumpian conspiracy theories. I think the Americana-blues-punk vibe we landed with here really encapsulates our vision for the future of the band. The song also explicitly references David Graeber’s economic theory on Bullshit Jobs, which I think everyone should read.

This is a Walker jam (aka my best friend, and the other lead singer in the band). He had sent me an acoustic demo of this a few years back, and I think we landed in a pretty rad Jimmy Eat World-esque area in this. It’s a banger for sure, helped along by Chris the Drummer laying down a sick bass line.

I had originally imagined this as more of an AJJ-esque folk punk song; you can find my solo version of it on Spotify as well. It’s a lot more politically direct than our other Roland High Life thus far (even when we have gotten political), but I think we hit on something good here. Walker convinced me to play it like a Springsteen song that my audience already knew, and that’s exactly how we recorded it. I also threw down some mandolin and lap steel guitar on this track, to really mix it up.

This is actually an older Roland High Life song that we never quite recorded right. I’m not sure if this one is perfect, either — maybe a little too slow — but it’s still the best we have so far. It’s a love song to my cherry red Gibson Les Paul Junior, and I definitely accomplished what I set out to do (i.e., writing a song about loving music that’s also overly sexualized in a weird way). I originally wrote this at a time in my life when I was prone to over-complicating songs, but I do think that the look-at-me-i’m-so-clever music theory games that go on in here are still pretty cool.

Another Walker jam, this one started off as more of a Billy Joel knockoff, and Walker wasn’t sure if it would fit with our rock vibe. But Chris, our drummer, said that he’d been listening to lots of Teenage Fan Club lately, and as soon as he said that, I was hit with a Teenage Fan Club-style version of the song in my head. Or at least, that’s what we were going for; the final product is a little more ambient power-pop, and very much us, which makes it even better.

Plus that snare drop right before the second verse is sick.



Welcome to my, erm, gay Soviet zombie ballet?

I have a new short story out in the latest issue (#8) of Serial Pulp Magazine called “Colder Bodies, Colder Hearts.” I wrote the first draft back in 2013, at the Clarion Writer’s Workshop, and it is, in fact, very loosely based on the real-life invention of the heart-lung machine, particularly this weird-ass Soviet propaganda video.

The original print run has already sold out, but you can still get a digital copy for your Kindle/Nook/iPad/Whathaveyou.tech.

I’ve been searching for a home for this story for a while now, and I’m glad it’s finally out there in the world. It’s different from a lot of the things I normally write, but I hope you like it anyway.

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I Drove A Lyft To Rate The Best Standard & Wireless Charging Car Phone Mounts

My latest work for Wirecutter is about phone mounts for your car, including those with wireless charging capabilities — and this one’s particularly fun, because I got to drive a Lyft for a week in order to do my testing, with a dozen mounts and 3 phones and an iPad all spread across my dashboard the entire time.

I do have some weird/interesting stories to share, although you won’t find them in the articles. Mostly it was just chauffeuring Cornell kids between frat parties and Target. But perhaps the weirdest part was that … no one thought it was weird that I had a dozen mounts and 3 phones and an iPad in my car at any given time? 🤔