Bryan Waterman and Cyrus Patell, the dynamic duo of the NYU English Department, are releasing two new volumes in the 33 1/3 book series. If you haven’t been fulfilling your duty as the hip friend from NYU (or come to NYU Local precisely to learn about these things) then you take a look at the 33 1/3 series here.  They are a series of books written about albums, each volume covering one album.

Waterman is writing about Television’s Marquee Moon—an album filled with great lines like, “You complain of my dic…tion/ You give me friction”—and Patell about Rolling Stone’s Some Girls—from the era when Keith Richards was still doing drugs, not just writing about it.

The two professors teach “Writing New York” together, a course that employs analysis of literature, film and music in an effort to study the culture and history of New York. They also maintain a blog about New York culture at Patell and Waterman’s History of New York and co-edited Cambridge Companion to the Literature of New York. Their additions to the 33 1/3 series will focus similarly on the cultural history of New York City.

“Over the years we’ve included 33 1/3 volumes on The Velvet Underground & Nico and Patti Smith’s Horses on our Writing New York syllabus for a unit we’ve always called ‘From the Beats to the punks.’ Those lectures trace the connection from Allen Ginsberg and friends to the CBGB scene, noting that Patti Smith and others of her cohort came to New York planning to be poets before they became rock stars. We’ve always assigned those two albums as well. We like the books, but felt like we had our own version of NYC in the 70s that we wanted to put across,” says Waterman.

“Bryan and I had it in mind to do a paired set of albums that captured New York in the 1970s. Marquee Moon, of course, was a natural choice; Some Girls a little less so. For me, Some Girls is the last ‘great’ Stones album,” said Patell.

Patell’s volume also has a personal component.

“It [Some Girls] was released at the end of my junior year on the day after I experienced the death of someone close to me for the first time. That fact gave me a particularly personal connection to the album and helps me to frame the account I give of it in the book,” said Patell.

“What made me think of the album for this project, however, was a remark that the director Martin Scorsese makes in the liner notes to the soundtrack for his concert documentary Shine a Light: ‘When I was offered the chance to make a concert film with the Stones,’ writes Martin Scorsese, ‘I knew right away that I wanted to make it in New York. For me, for many other people, they will always be a New York band.’ After I read that, I realized that I thought about the Stones in the same way,” said Patell.

Waterman’s choice was likewise influenced by Television’s connection to a moment in New York City culture.

“Television’s Marquee Moon has been my favorite album from that scene for a long time. That scene, too, is my favorite moment in rock history. Tom Verlaine and his former bandmate Richard Hell, like [Patti] Smith, had aspirations as poets before they formed their first band, The Neon Boys,” said Waterman.

“I think it [Marquee Moon] offers the best inroad, in addition to Horses, to the poetry/punk nexus,” said Waterman. Though, he does admit, “Marquee Moon is also, simply, my favorite album, and has been for much of the last 20 years.”

If you’re still not convinced, there will be Bette Midler stories! “I wouldn’t have expected that Bette Midler would turn up in my book as often as she does. She’s mentioned in relation to the cabaret scene that preceded CBGB. She also performed at Hilly’s on the Bowery, which is what CBGB was originally called. I think she also makes a cameo where she locks herself in a closet with Bowie and Jagger, unless I cut that somewhere along the way,” said Waterman.

The two new volumes are in production now and have an expected release date of June 16, 2011.