Written Arts Program and Music Program Present

A Reading with Franz Nicolay

On Thursday, November 21 at 6pm in the Chapel of the Holy Innocents, Visiting Instructor of Music and Written Arts Professor Franz Nicolay will read from his work. Followed by a discussion with chart analyst and pop critic Chris Molanphy, the reading is free and open to the student body. 

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's “Best Music Books of 2021” (“finally, the great indie-rock novel…like Dostoyevsky in a DIY punk space”). In fall 2024, his third book Band People, a non-fiction study of the working and creative lives of musicians, appeared on University of Texas Press’ American Music series. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, The Paris Review Daily, The Kenyon Review Online, Ploughshares, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. He has taught at UC–Berkeley and in Columbia University’s MFA fiction program, and is currently a faculty member in music and written arts at Bard College.

Chris Molanphy is a chart analyst and pop critic who writes about the intersection of culture and commerce in popular music. For Slate, he created and hosts the Hit Parade podcast and writes their “Why Is This Song No. 1?” series. His most recent book is Old Town Road (DUP, 2023), about the Lil Nas X song of the same name and the chart history and race/genre intersections that led to its record-setting chart run. Chris’s work has also appeared in Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Vulture, NPR Music’s The Record, The Village Voice, Billboard and CMJ. Chris has also been a frequent guest on National Public Radio (All Things Considered, On the Media, Planet Money, Soundcheck), on SiriusXM and on numerous podcasts including the Culture Gabfest and the New York Times Popcast

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For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].

Time: 6:00 pm EST/GMT-5

Location: Chapel of the Holy Innocents

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