Double Nickels

If you name your publishing house Double Nickels, you've got my undivided attention right off the bat — even more so when I spot names in the catalogue that shaped my own musical education. The challenge taken on by this ultra-independent Bolognese collective has the flavour of intelligent ambition: publishing cult texts never before translated into Italian, written by authors variously connected to the music world, but with content that steers clear of stale, self-indulgent memoir-writing. I meet Chiara Antonozzi (one of the minds behind the operation, as well as bassist for local noise-rockers Lleroy) at Bar La Linea, right in the middle of Piazza Maggiore, for a chat pleasantly out of tune with that polished setting.

I'd like to start with your fantastic name: do you also share the ethos of Minutemen? Do you print econo?

Absolutely, in the sense that the whole Double Nickels project revolves around an idea of sustainability. That means coming to terms with our resources, which are inevitably limited, and moving at our own pace and in our own way, without worrying about the demands of distribution: it's no coincidence that we decided to skip the distribution link in the chain altogether, dealing directly only with independent retailers.

At Troisi: who are you? How many of you are there?

At launch there were two of us, me and Matteo Cortesi, who wrote for a long time for Bastonate, of which he was also a co-founder alongside Francesco Farabegoli. As for me, I brought a bit of "pragmatic" experience in publishing. Then there are two "ghost members", the translators Matteo Camporesi and Lorenzo Mari, but the core remains the two of us to this day.

When did you form? God, I'm talking about you like you're a band...

But in a way we are! We started talking about it in 2015, when I moved back to Bologna after a spell in Rome. The cultural association wasn't founded until 2018, while the first release only arrived at the end of 2020, what with translation, obsessive attention to every detail, and a pandemic in the middle of it all.

Then again, some people make pizza at home and others prefer to start publishing houses. Do you also have a physical office?

Not for now, hopefully one day.

Care to give us an overview of the four titles released so far?

We started with "Memorial Device" by David Keenan (October 2020), a Scottish writer we were introduced to by Matteo and Lorenzo, who also translated it. He and that title struck us as perfect for inaugurating Double Nickels, reflecting our editorial vision perfectly: publishing books by people who, in one way or another, have ties to music, but that don't fall into the memoir category. Keenan fits that category perfectly, having taken part in various impro-jazz-noise projects in the past, even though he's primarily a writer and music critic, a longtime contributor to The Wire.

Notorious for having a knack for coining terms, having come up with hugely successful definitions like "New Weird America" and "hypnagogic pop"...

Exactly. He's an author who's currently blowing up in the UK, and that makes us very happy. We've seen that there was recently a theatrical adaptation of "Memorial Device", and a sequel is also on its way. Our second release was instead "The Consumer" by Michael Gira (June 2021), a collection of stories written between the late '80s and early '90s, during a rather "intense" period of his life...

I don't think there have ever been any "light" periods in his life...

It has to be said, though, that the earliest stories, collected in the second part of the book, are truly striking in their rawness. Next came "The Psychic Soviet" by Ian Svenonius (October 2021), an anthology of short essays on various topics in pop culture, all reinterpreted through a Marxist lens but with great humor, which makes it a lot of fun to read. Finally we come to "Paternostra" by Eugene S. Robinson (September 2022), a noir set in the Brooklyn of the 1970s.

Slightly different from the Brooklyn of today...

Very different, and Eugene experienced it firsthand, having been born there. These are four quite different releases: a classically structured novel, a collection of short stories, a collection of essays, and a noir. As mentioned, the only guiding criterion is avoiding the memoir format, which is the most common one whenever the worlds of music and publishing intersect.

Average print run?

700 copies, straight from the record label...

Feedback?

Overall good, especially for "Il Soviet Psichico": with Ian being in Italy around the time it came out, it was the one that got the most attention, and it still does.

The people you mentioned are, each in their own way, genuine icons. Was it easy to get in touch with them and secure all the necessary permissions? And what was it like meeting them and interacting with them?

In Keenan's case, everything happened remotely: "Memorial Device" had come out in the UK through Faber And Faber, and when Matteo and Lorenzo suggested it to us, we went through official channels, getting in touch with the publisher. With Keenan we only spoke by email, but he seems like a very approachable person, and we can't wait to lure him to Italy on some pretext, maybe now that the second book is coming out. As for Gira, we approached him at the Tpo in 2017, on the occasion of the last Swans concert in Bologna: in person he was quite approachable too, but from then on we always dealt with his agent, so the relationship was more professional and distant. Ian, on the other hand, has stayed punk even in his maturity...

I can confirm that.

We managed to get in touch with him directly, and he's always come across as very relaxed - I even hosted him at my place when he came to Italy. Same goes for Eugene, whom we approached at an Oxbow show at Bronson, and who remains an absolutely down-to-earth person, even though he's just turned sixty.

Even though he doesn't look it...

...and his appearance could indeed be intimidating, but in person he was really nice - in fact, he's the only one who gave us his full backing...

...in case you needed to beat someone up.

That too, but mostly in promoting the release! It's nice to see that these figures live up to the esteem we've invested in them.

One of the things that stands out in your editions is the attention paid to the graphic side, both in the covers and in the unusual layout, with page numbers on the side instead of at the bottom. Who takes care of that?

For the graphic layout, our friend Christian Biscaro, bassist in Marnero, gives us a hand; as for the covers, take the one for "Il Soviet Psichico", which I think remains the best of them all, that's Gigi Fagni, also a musician. It's all a kind of...

...Factory?

Yes, people who collaborate and put ideas into a project they believe in.

Do similar scenes exist, in Bologna and in Italy?

In Bologna there was Bébert, which closed not long ago, and which among other things published Nico Ambrosino's book — the singer of Marnero. There are other publishers with a similar approach to ours, Tsunami comes to mind, but there we're already in memoir territory. Maybe there isn't really anyone out there with exactly our same vision, or at least not that I know of. If there's one thing I've learned from being around the publishing world, it's that the more specific an identity you give yourself, the better your chances of success — or at least of reaching an audience that's already loyal.

A very sound rule in general. So do you plan to always stick to this kind of target, meaning books written by people connected to the music world but that don't talk about their musical experiences?

The idea is to keep going in this direction for as long as we find interesting material to publish. For a few years now we've felt like experimenting with illustrated books too, maybe even dedicating a specific series to them: we'll think it over in due time, for now it's already demanding enough managing what we've got. A hybrid between text and illustrations will come out regardless, but I won't spoil anything.

Next moves?

First of all, a second book by Keenan, originally titled "For The Good Times", currently being revised and due out by the end of the year. It's not the sequel to "Memorial Device", but rather a novel dealing with events tied to the Irish "Troubles". Then we have a pamphlet by Billy Bragg, "Le tre dimensioni della libertà", and a text by Daniel Higgs (ex-Lungfish), the one with the illustrations I mentioned earlier…

And the spoiler ended up spoiling itself.

Then again, it's a guaranteed release, the contract's already been signed…

Ok, so you're not some anarchic publishing house running on handshakes. What a disappointment…

We couldn't really do it any other way, honestly. One thing we've learned about American musicians is that they're… American: if they've invested in what they do, they want something in return. And I've got nothing to say against that, I find it honest.

Fair enough, if anything it shows a seriousness that wouldn't hurt around here. To wrap up, let's circle back to the first question with a punchy line: would you say that your publishing house could be our life?

(Laughs) Let's hope so! If we had tens of thousands of euros we'd gladly invest every last one of them…

…and instead you've only got "two nickels"…

…so we have to ration everything down to the wire, but that's the spirit: every time a book comes out it's a joy, and we hope it can become part of other people's lives too.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

Share on

This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Ossydiana Speri, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition