About this Event
Franz Nicolay is a musician and writer living in New York’s Hudson Valley. In addition to records under his own name (“a natural-born star”—Pitchfork), he was a member of cabaret-punk orchestra World/Inferno Friendship Society, “world’s best bar band” the Hold Steady (“one of the all-time great New York bands”—Rolling Stone), Balkan-jazz quartet Guignol, co-founded the composer-performer collective Anti-Social Music, was a touring member of agit-punks Against Me!; and recorded or performed with dozens of other acts.
His first book, The Humorless Ladies of Border Control: Touring the Punk Underground from Belgrade to Ulaanbaatar, was named a “Season’s Best Travel Book” by The New York Times. His second book, the novel Someone Should Pay For Your Pain, was called “a knockout fiction debut” by Buzzfeed; and was named one of Rolling Stone “Best Music Books of 2021” (“finally, the great indie-rock novel…like Dostoyevsky in a DIY punk space”). Band People, a non-fiction study of the working and creative lives of musicians, was named to Rolling Stone’s “Best Music Books of 2024,” and Hua Hsu writing in The New Yorker called it “one of the least bacchanalian books ever published about the rock-and-roll life style, but also one of the most honest.” His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, The Paris Review Daily, The Kenyon Review Online, Ploughshares, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. He is currently a faculty member in music and written arts at Bard College; and was once named #1 of “Punk’s 10 Best Accordion Players.”
"A natural-born star...really something special." —Pitchfork
“Sad, wild folksongs...[an] unconventional multitalent.” —Rolling Stone
“Punk-tinged raconteur…with disarmingly honest lyrics and a sense of musical adventurousness.” —The New Yorker
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Star Bar, 43 Baggot Street Lower, Dublin 2, Ireland
EUR 17.07
