The Weird Accordion to Al is Now Officially Available in Audiobook Form!
There are a lot of things that I will always associate with the beginning of my relationship with my wife. When we first started dating all the way back in 2009, for example, she was going to school at Brown to get master’s degree in teaching and did not have a television.
That seems crazy to me now, as roughy half our marriage involves watching all of the different iterations of 90 Day Fiance religiously. The other half involves compulsively re-watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia but when we first hooked up she was the kind of bohemian grad student who didn’t even have a television.
So we ended up watching and re-watching Insane Clown Posse’s “Miracles” video on Youtube, never imagining how massive of a role Insane Clown Posse would play in my professional future. In a possibly related development, I also couldn’t have envisioned just how big a role unemployment and unemployability would figure in the years and decades ahead either.
We also spent a lot of time watching Jersey Shore on MTV.com before we, and the rest of the world, grew tired of the antics of those over-sexed, under-read half-wits.
In those halcyon early days, my wife and I had a long distance relationship, with me living in Chicago and her in Providence, Rhode Island, which entailed a lot of road trips and traveling.
Audio books are consequently another thing I will always associate with the early days of my life with (Borat voice) my wife. When we would go on long car rides my wife would make sure to hit up as many Cracker Barrels as possible, not for the cuisine or the homey atmosphere but because Cracker Barrel had a program where you could buy an audiobook from one Cracker Barrel and exchange it for a new audiobook at a different location.
I was not much of an audiobook person, so it was, if not an entirely new experience for me, seeing as how I was fairly familiar with books, a largely new experience.
My time with my wife overlaps neatly with my life as an author: we spent our first weekend together the same week my debut memoir, The Big Rewind, was released back in 2009.
I wanted to have an audiobook of my own, something to help the weary travelers who eat at Cracker Barrel pass the long hours between stops. It took roughly eleven years, six books and a whole lot of time and work and upheaval but I am proud to say that I FINALLY have an audiobook to my name!
A marvelous man who makes his living producing and narrating named Eric Martin approached me about doing an audio book for The Weird Accordion to Al and I said, “Oh god yes, that sounds amazing!” particularly since I was already a fan of Martin and his mellifluous voice, most notably when he produced and narrated Randy: The Full and Complete Audio Memoir of the Amazing Life and Times of Randy S.!, the brilliant audio miniseries adaptation of my friend Mike Sacks’ book of almost the same name.
On September 11th, the audiobook for The Weird Accordion to Al book “dropped” as the young people say, on Audible. It runs ten hours and eight minutes. Seriously! That is a LONG time. And it’s not even the extended version.
The fun thing about the audiobook is that now you can read an entry in The Weird Accordion to Al book, then listen to Eric’s silky-smooth narration of said entry, then listen to the song in question, then go and read the Big Squeeze entry on the same song.
By the end you will understand and appreciate Al’s music and my writing in a whole new way, and/or go insane. Possibly both!
When I was finishing The Weird Accordion to Al book I worried that since my first four books were published by Scribner and Abrams Image and I was going the independent route with this one that it wouldn’t be received as a real book.
Being an independent author, I can always use more press and publicity and now that I’m nearly done executing my various crowd-funding campaigns I’m going to work a little on getting the book more podcast and press love.
But my plucky little labor of love has definitely been treated like a real book. It’s not just a real book, it’s a real audiobook and that tickles me pink! It’s a goddamn miracle, is what it is, a bona fide Situation. If only the me of eleven years ago could see me now! He’d be VERY disappointed in many ways but very excited about my first audiobook.
If the audiobook is a success, then it will increase my chances of getting the extended version adapted as an audiobook and after that, who knows?
(Robert Evans voice) Am I over the moon to be breaking into the world of audiobooks? You bet your sweet ass I am. Now, If I could get the audiobook into Cracker Barrel I would have it made, so if you know a higher-up at Cracker Barrel or would like to review the audiobook please do email me at nathanrabinauthor@gmail.com and I will see what I can do.
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Also, BUY the RIDICULOUSLY SELF-INDULGENT, ILL-ADVISED VANITY EDITION of THE WEIRD ACCORDION TO AL, the Happy Place’s first book. This 500 page extended edition features an introduction from Al himself (who I co-wrote 2012’s Weird Al: The Book with), who also copy-edited and fact-checked, as well as over 80 illustrations from Felipe Sobreiro on entries covering every facet of Al’s career, including his complete discography, The Compleat Al, UHF, the 2018 tour that gives the book its subtitle and EVERY episode of The Weird Al Show and Al’s season as the band-leader on Comedy Bang! Bang!
Only 23 dollars signed, tax and shipping included, at the https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop or for more, unsigned, from Amazon here