archivist educator culture freak

Conceived in 1998 by my dad Sam Carlson (1947-2023), PNWBands.com grew from a hobby project to reconnect with old friends and band mates into the most comprehensive archive of the Pacific Northwest music scene in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Driven by reader submissions, the site collects biographies, anecdotes, photos, audio, show posters, and more of the region's gigging bands, venues, and road crew. The site itself has grown into a piece of history, including its guestbook, which attracted messages from the Disco Duck to members of the Sonics and contemporary bands such as Unwound. I helped code the original version, and while the content grew, the template remained the same for over 20 years. Dad passed down the webmaster's torch in 2023, and I am currently archiving the original site while redeveloping it for modern browsers and researchers. 

Early American literary history is full of puzzles and brick walls that I find irresistible. Black hairdresser Eliza Potter was run out of Cincinnati in May of 1859 and seemingly disappeared after publishing her sensational memoir A Hairdresser's Experience in High Life (which went out of print for over a century). For 20 years, Potter rubbed elbows with America's Anglo elite--rearing their kids, styling their hair, and collecting their secrets--and leveraged her insider knowledge for a book less about herself than a ridiculous America. Mystery still obscures Eliza's book, history, and place in the 21st century. This project focuses on her time at resort town Saratoga Springs (the "unofficial capital of the United States"), collects a bibliography of academic and popular works on Potter, and begins to unpack more of her story through the lens of newspapers and the dawn of yellow journalism.

This project narrates the the wartime (1942-1946) activities of Hollywood's Japanese-American cast and crew and their entertainment through internment camp newspapers. In 1942, over 200,000 Japanese-Americans (nearly 50% of all Asian Americans) were incarcerated for up to 4 years in one of 11 camps spread throughout the United States. Prisoners were encouraged to treat the rows of barracks as self-contained communities, with services, democratically elected government, entertainments (such as listening parties, movie nights, and performances), and a (heavily monitored) prisoner-run daily paper to simulate their right to freedom of press. Initially used as official bulletins with a small section of classifieds, the papers developed to include comics, editorials, and interviews with community favorites like Bob Ozaki (Blade Runner). This long-term project focuses on Poston, Arizona, where one could find (mostly uncredited) studio animators, actors, and seamstresses adapting their crafts for a very exclusive audience.

Thriller writer Dorothy B. Hughes had a relatively short career as a novelist, publishing most of her work between 1940 and 1952. She experimented with the genre, beginning with a gothic New York City thriller to psychological noir and speculative spy fiction. Her best work lived with the underdog who bobs and weaves through a problem in sublime America--the working woman, groomed thug, and delusional war vet who slips through the radar in Hollywood. These were fast, fun, and thoughtful reads -- I was obsessed. I came to Dorothy after cashing out hard-boiled Hammett and Chandler, which then set me on a path to Charlotte Armstrong, Ursula Curtiss, Margaret Millar, and other usually out-of-print female genre writers. I can't get enough, and here we are.

Hughes started her career as a Yale Young Poet but spent most of her life as a book critic for the papers, winning an Edgar for outstanding criticism in '51. This project currently catalogues Dorothy's  long career as a mystery critic for the Albuquerque Tribune and The Los Angeles Times.