Hadley Lee Lightcap

by Sam Sweet

Before starting the acclaimed booklet series All Night Menu—a collection of historical vignettes and character profiles based on specific addresses throughout Los Angeles—Sam Sweet was drawn to write about Southern California through the music of Acetone, three musicians who played and recorded together between 1992 and 2001. Though they were an anonymous and little heard band in their time, the trio’s music captured something timeless and essential about the character of Los Angeles. What is it that makes their place unlike any other? How can its unique qualities be conveyed in sound? How did this one trio manage to leave such a rich impression of a widely misunderstood city in their music? Over the course of ten years of research and countless interviews with the two surviving members of Acetone, Sweet slowly uncovered the answers to these questions. In the process, a singular portrait emerged. His nonfiction novel Hadley Lee Lightcap is more than an intricate character study of three friends and bandmates—by the end, it reveals a larger image of an unnoticed Los Angeles layered with echoes from the city’s past.

Genres: Music, Fiction

Paperback

Published September 22, 2017

Reviews

[Coco Prentice · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sort of lost interest towards the end. The start was great though and a really good portrayal of LA before it became an influencer city.

[Mason Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a terrific book. Nominally the story of the band Acetone, it's really more than that: it's about a group of friends and how they drift together and apart over the years; about the toll that business, success, and failure can take on creativity; about the love of music and its infinite variety; and about Los Angeles. Sam Sweet, who writes and publishes the "zine" (more of a journal) All Night Menu, about LA, makes the city an integral part of the story. Written in a straightforward yet poetic way, the book creates an atmosphere that lingers like the music. I knew of the band Acetone, but wasn't particularly familiar with them, and that by no means dimmed my enjoyment of the book. Quite recommended (and the letterpress printing and minimal design makes it a very nice physical object as well).

[Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, first, put this track on.

Thanks!



Acetone isn’t an easy band to understand. Their drowsy, floating take on psych-country is a ready made reverie, inspiring the most inattentive passive listening experience this side of Baby Sleep White Noise 8 Hours. Infinitely accessible, but demanding in terms of truly listening to, rather than just hearing. A band you can spend hours with and not be able to recall a single song. But at some point it clicks, and it clicks hard.

The Acetone sound is so characteristically Californian. Mark Lightcap’s guitar work fills even the most amateur synesthesiac’s nose with that sweet, gentle fragrance of the desert at night. Richie Lee’s subdued delivery feels like a private confession of the drug-addled lifestyle of the burnt out artist in Los Angeles. There is a visceral sense of malaise and aimlessness behind Acetone’s easy-listening facade. “Some heard California. Some heard heroin. Some heard both without distinction.”

Sweet’s attention to detail to the history of Acetone is admirable. The band’s story is faithfully contextualized every step of the way with references to the scene they were in at the time and pop culture at large. Sweet’s wealth of information on the band’s influences gives insight to what exactly shaped the sound of Acetone.

As a society, we tend to have a sick curiosity when it comes to suicide, especially when it comes to artists. Clearly there are negative implications to glorifying it, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t make me more interested in the art. Guys like Mark Linkous, Elliott Smith, and Cobain all saw huge posthumous success. It’s like the act gives credence to the art. The feelings encapsulated in the music become more genuine when the hurt surmounts to something visible. There is a moral cancer in society that draws us to these tragic figures, the same way traffic slows on the side of the highway opposite a fatal crash. We crane our necks to get a glimpse at things we try not to think about. That being said, I think Sweet was realistic in his approach to Richie Lee’s suicide. Lee was a flawed person and portrayed as such. His actions had consequences to those around him, and Sweet made sure to write about them.

I think that, as far as music history goes, this book is pretty good. But it is just a music history on a rock band from the 90’s. If you’re into the band, it’s worth reading. If you aren’t, there probably isn’t much here for you.

You may try and try again
Not to be unsatisfied
Just squeezing by one more time
But how long do you go on
Believing things are gonna be alright?

[Joe Milazzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent literary companion to Acetone's discography. Sweet's prose really does capture the qualities of their music.

[Roque · Rating 5 out of 5]

Acetone is my favorite band so I read it. I wish there were more interviews about them.

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably a must read for fans of Acetone, Mazzy Star, Spiritualized, Verve (UK band, not the US label). All the obssessions, daily tragedies and joys that built (and destroyed) the band Acetone. A band with high profile fans and experiences but low profile results. Amazing music in my opinion. Their story is kind of what you might expect. It seems I've heard or read it dozens of times concerning a band, a writer, an artist, creative types. Their results, for me, transcended all of the rock-n-roll cliches. My favorite part of the book is the 3rd section which is ultimately more about the music and less about the tragedy, albeit, if you know the band's history a little, no part of it was without tragedy and certainly the 3rd section of the book has the biggest. And you wonder how they managed to accomplish as much as they did considering how they (2/3rds of them) lived.

Overall the actual telling of the story of the band is well written, jumps around a bit (which may be completely natural given the time involved and probably lack of consistent documentation of events at the times they occured) and the prose is frequently as ephemeral and dreamy as the music it describes.

There were 4 typos within the first 75 or so pages so the editing/proofreading should've been tighter. They were odd, typos too. They weren't misspelling typos. They were structural typos or omissions of a word that obviously should've been there but wasn't or another type of grammatical errors, so, in some regard easy to miss, but if you're actually reading it, the error jars your senses awake to question if you had actually misread it or if it was a misprint, so you go back an reread it a few times.

Probably my biggest complaint is there were no photos included in the book. Not even basic photos of the band (if you have the CDs/albums, you know what they look like, but...), no photos of live performances, etc. I don't know the particulars of any of the permissions Sam Sweet was granted or denied in his research, but most of the books about any performing artist include photos. Many boast photos never before published. In Acetone's case, that would've been pretty much the standard. And there does seem to be visuals available. Just today, Oct. 9th, 2017 Light in The Attic records posted a 1 minute live clip of the band. So, no images, big disappointment.

A congratulations to Sam Sweet and the publisher as the book has almost immediately gone out of print in conjunction with the release of the Acetone Light in The Attic rarities and demos release. Hopefully they will have cause to reprint it and fix at least the typo/errors. Of course, if they add photos to future printings, I'll be a bit bitter. Haha.

[Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Obviously read this because I like acetone. It’s a great window into the history of the band, their influences, and the scenes they touched. My enjoyment of their work only continues to grow- this was a nice retrospective of the hidden gem that is acetone.

[John Duran · Rating 5 out of 5]

an insanely detailed deep dive into a considerably obscure band. Sam Sweet does an excellent job of describing everything, from time to setting to personalities and latent intentions. I don't usually read nonfiction but I could not put this down. Really fantastic.