Lead vocalist with The Kills and The Dead Weather, Alison Mosshart has spent the last 26 years on the road performing and living a predominantly transitory life. The daughter of a used car salesman, Mosshart grew up with a vivid appreciation for classic cars; for being behind the wheel and in the passenger seat. In the early days of The Kills they kept the band to a duo in order that they could tour America by car and throughout her life she has recorded her existence on the road with photography and journals.
CAR MA is Alison Mosshart’s first printed collection of paintings, photographs, short stories, and poetry. It is a book about cars, rock n’ roll, and love. It’s a book about America, performance, and life on the road. It’s a book about fender bender portraiture, story tellin’ tire tracks, and the never-ending search for the spirit under the hood.
CAR MA, is a 112 page love letter to the motorcar, and – more specifically – the perceptivity gained from a life spent relishing them. Already renowned as a lyricist, Mosshart’s reputation in the art world has been growing over the past few years as galleries in New York, London and Los Angeles have staged exhibitions of her paintings. CAR MA includes some of these along with hundreds of photographs she’s taken along the way. Her prose is electric, inspired by the images she was collating for the book, it provides a narrative to the anthology; a first person walk through Alison’s journals as she details memories, places, conversations, relationships, journeys and – of course – cars.
Mosshart imagines the auto body shop like some other Coney Island. And America’s highways the last great roller coasters. She shows us that the engine on fire is connected to the guitar feeding back since birth. And the sensation of walking on stage and facing an audience is like the laugh before the scream in a car without brakes. She ruminates that automobiles- with their doors and mirrors and windows, engines and wheels and radios- portray us. Mirror our need to be in or to exit, our inward reflections and outward visions, our lifetimes of tinkering with the mysterious heart. That which runs until it doesn’t. Throughout history the car has been a symbol of freedom and hopeful adventure. It stands to reason it is also a symbol of our subsequent spinning out… over things we never thought could happen during a song that f’king good with the volume up that f’king loud.
If you’ve ever found yourself feeling holy, pulling out of the gas station with a full tank, like the last beautiful free soul on this planet, this book is for you. In fact it’s probably about you.
CAR MA will be available from Dover Street Market. First edition is a limited edition run of 500 copies. Retail $50.00
Vents MagaZine Music and Entertainment Magazine
