Welcome to Echoes From the Margins, Rob Patterson's Substack

I promise you will never be bored....

Much as it surprises me to say it, I’ve been scribing professionally for close to half-a-century now. Gazing back over it all, the one constant other than writing is change.

Which brings me to launching my Substack, Echoes From the Margins. I’ve managed the print to digital shift somewhat well, writing and editing for online publications, and currying busy threads now and again on my Facebook page for shits’n’giggles…. Now it’s time to superserve those who’ve enjoyed my keyboard scribblings, missive, ruminations, touts, rants, reviews, news reports, opining and such over the years with a Substack feed. And maybe find some new followers, eke out a bit of scratch by continuing to do what I do (write), and both have some fun myself and provide that for others, along with food for thought, reliable info, insights, cool and interesting tales from my weird rich life that prompts friends to urge me to write a memoir, reflections, tributes, occasional screeds and invective plus more, as well as essential truths within this modern bustling carnival of falsity and cockwombling all around us.

Substack advises focusing on a topic or general area of interest, but my mind is too active and broad to stick to one thing. Sure, I’m best known for my music journalism, which during the golden age of music magazines found me published in scores of publications like Creem, Musician, Crawdaddy, Spin, Billboard, Request, and others here and in the UK as well as hundreds of daily newspapers and numerous alternative newsweeklies across the land. It was a launching pad for a calling that has seen me report and opine about film, politics, books, food, news, TV, architecture and commercial construction, travel, culture, radio, urban development and real estate, horses, energy, transportation and more plus marketing communications writing for everyone from Fortune 500 corporations to entrepreneurial sole proprietors. Not to mention my varied music business side endeavors. All of that and more is grist for this mill.

I very much enjoy the Substacks I subscribe to: Patti Smith, who first won my esteem as Queen of the Downtown NYC punk/new wave music scene in my early years as a rock scribe and has continued to blossom into a national treasure; Robert Christgau, the Dean of American Rock Critics – my first profession – who continues to share his keenly reliable ears and eyes for music and culture; Dan Rather’s “Steady,” which provides a grounding presence and perspective from my most admired journalistic veteran; Robert Reich, secretary of labor for Bill Clinton who also served in the Ford, Carter and Obama administrations, noted author, academic and commentator and a gifted and witty cartoonist whose wisdom about the ups, downs, ins, outs, twists and turns of power, money and politics is consistently enlightening; and my pal and fellow music scribe Michael Corcoran, who is writing his upcoming comprehensive and insightful Austin music history book in successive Substack posts.

But the model for what I wish to achieve on this forum is the Substack of Lucian K. Truscott IV, who I was first impressed by in the early 1980s when I read his best-selling mystery “Dress Gray,” set at West Point, his alma mater. He’s both a third generation military man and a bohemian journalist as well as war correspondent, screenwriter and sixth-great-grandson of perhaps America’s finest founding father Thomas Jefferson, to cite just some of his aspects. His missives ranges from acute analyses of the current political follies and foibles to vivid memories of a life well and fully lived and sweet slices of his everyday doings. His regular surveys of the state of affairs in the Ukrainian War against Russia, informed by his abundant knowledge and wisdom in warfare, weaponry, tactics, troops and leadership are, hands down, the best ongoing source of news and analysis regarding that critical matter I’ve come across.

He’s consistently smart, genuine, street-level eloquent and utterly engaging. And just as vital within his Substack is the comments from subscribers, which has all the smart thoughts and lively cogent discussions of a great Facebook thread without all the icky and irksome FB shite. I strive to gather a similar community of active, high-minded as well as lowdown cool thinkers around my Substack maypole to interact with and inform and inspire one another.

As said, I guarantee you’ll never be bored by my Echoes From the Margins, at least twice a week for paid subscribers, with planned audio and video elements to come. This is my (weird) world and welcome to it. Y’all be cool.