ROUGH DESCRIPTION BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT, AND BOOK TOUR INPUT NEEDEd!
My new book, Rough Description: Love Letters and Ghost Stories from a Life in Music will be published on May 26, 2026 by ECW Press, the historied independent Toronto press who also published Trouble In The Camera Club, my first book.
Rough Description launches Thursday May 28, 2026 at Standard Time, in Toronto. Launch details to follow.
I want to go come to your town! Do you have or know of a place where I could do a reading with accompanying slideshow? Do you know anyone who I should be talking with to help get the word out? Bookstores, writers events, community halls, spare bedrooms, elks lodges… anywhere that can host an audience to sit and watch and listen. I’m available throughout the summer. Let’s work together to make this take shape. Please send me any of your tips. Go to Contact page to connect.
“Rough Description is Don Pyle’s tantalizing memoir, recalling first bands, the absurdity and incredible rewards of touring, and dubious-dealing stories of groups he’s been in, most prominently as drummer and co-founder of beloved group Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet. He recounts friend and work relationships with musician Dallas Good, venerable producer/engineer Steve Albini, iconic comedy troupe Kids In The Hall, whose series and theme his group created, and more.
Alternately melancholic and hilarious, he describes his bonkers experiences attending hair school, his evolving relationship with his mother, how the Ramones affected his young teen brain, a life-changing car accident, and other situations from a creative life lived fully, with a bit of salacious dish. Hear how a punk rock penpal lead to a career in showbiz, and how to put out the same record over and over again.
Photography, performing and writing music in bands, recording and producing numerous other artists, writing about music, and scoring for film and TV, are all part of Pyle’s distinct observer’s eye that sees all creative media as aspects of the same stream.”
“A big-city-art-punk-music-dream recounted from the first row, backstage, on stage, and under the carpets. A marvel of memory and identity entangled in sound and vision across decades, it’s also an emotional and intimate travelogue of revelation, transformation, and the power of creativity and community.”
Patti Schmidt (Brave New Waves)
Photo by Kevin Lynn, 1991
Rough Description was generously supported by Toronto Arts Council and Ontario Arts Council Recommender Grants for Writers.