If you’re starving for more from me, you can buy my novel. That’s right. I said novel.

“Punk rock is kind of like Catholicism,” the British singer-songwriter says. “It’s either in your life or it isn’t, and if it is, you’re probably going to spend a ridiculous amount of time thinking about it. And you’ll spend half of that time loving it and half of that time hating it.

Turner, who spent four years fronting hardcore punk band Million Dead, will soon release his fourth solo album, “England Keep my Bones” and just played a show at Bottom of the Hill yesterday (May 4th).

“The thing I took away from punk was the fierce independence and self-reliance,” he says. “Like, ‘We don’t need to be told what to do and we’re going to make our own space culturally.’ People did that before punk came along and people have done it since.”

While such socially driven messages are weaved deeply into his songs, they’re almost never delivered as complaints aimed at specific political issues in the style of, say, Anti Flag or Rage Against the Machine.

“If I wanted to do that I’d be a politician,” he says, describing his views as more libertarian than anything. “And as much as I grew up with [Rage] – I think they make a great noise – I certainly don’t agree with their politics. For example, Che Guavara was a murderous, homophobic thug and I wouldn’t want him on my t-shirt.”

On “England Keep my Bones,” Turner is accompanied on most tracks by a full band, just as he was on his previous release, “Poetry of the Deed.” That wasn’t the case on his first two albums, “Sleep is for the Week” and “Love Ire & Song,” both of which lean heavily on his thickly strummed lonesome acoustic guitar.

He’s been accompanied by his band on tour in the U.K. for the past few years, but could never afford to get them across the pond until he signed with Epitaph Records last year. The full band then went on tour in support of Flogging Molly.

Turner is a nonstop globetrotter, so if you missed him at Bottom of the Hill yesterday, you’ll have another chance in October. And this time he’ll have his band in tow, so don’t blow it.

If you’re in the area, come hang out and have some dinner. Here are  directions.

I’ve never given this song a satisfying title, and yet I find it to be one of the more satisfying I’ve written. My friend Jeff filmed it at a little show I played earlier this month. Feel free to give it a title if you’ve got a clever turn of phrase or noteworthy alliteration you’re willing to part with.

A friend of mine recently graduated from UC Berkeley’s journalism school and is thinking about continuing on to grad school. About a week ago she wrote me an email in which she asked me this question: Are you glad you went?

Read my full blog on the Huffington Post.

Click the book for more information, or to buy a copy.

If you’re interested in reading it, you can buy a fancy copy with a shiny cover for $11.99 or a print-ready .pdf for $2.99 by clicking the link below. All profits ($2 a book) will go toward my student loans. I’ll autograph it for an extra 500 bucks. Or mayyyybe I’ll let you borrow my original copy (with Bianca’s edits) for free, cause 12 bucks is pretty damn expensive.

My friends Dori and Jeff were in the city and came by to deliver some wedding-related photography documents with my fiance Bianca. They ended up sticking around for the set after filing the paperwork, which was nice of them.

The picture above and the video below were shot on Jeff’s iPhone. The show was great all around, and I look forward to doing it again soon.

“Duncan,” by Paul Simon

I first learned of Justin Townes Earle in an issue of GQ magazine that featured the 25 most stylish entertainers. His name piqued my curiosity. Here’s why:

He is the son of Steve Earle, who I saw open for Tom Petty once, and he is named after Townes Van Zandt, one of my favorite songwriters. (He’s the guy who does the country version of Dead Flowers at the end of The Big Lebowski).

I started listening to Justin Townes Earle’s first album, Midnight at the Movies, the day I read that article and immediately became attached. He picks the guitar beautifully, and lyrically he confronts modern problems with a throwback approach.

For example, the song Midnight at the Movies sounds on the surface like an old ‘50s song about catching a movie and eating red hots. Listen closer and you’ll see that it’s really about him living on the streets of Nashville, running drugs and waiting for a smutty gal name Martha to slip in and provide some physical pleasure. She leaves before the credits roll, and in her absence he says: “There ain’t nothing lonelier than, midnight at the movies again.”

These songs sound even stronger live than they do on the album. And it’s also nice to hear him speak, giving glimpses into the songs’ meanings.

He said he normally introduces the song “ChristChurch Woman” with a snarky-but-true story about a young lady, but since this show was the day after New Zealand’s big earthquake, he dedicated it to the ravaged city instead.

For most of his set, he was accompanied by a heavily bearded violinist and a female cellist. His guitar picking is smooth and effortless. It sounds as if he’s got an extra guitar player tucked away somewhere on stage.

Anyway, the show was awesome. With the rise of rootsy bands like Mumford and Sons and the Avett Brothers, I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy catches some upward momentum, especially if he’s already been featured in GQ somehow.

He said he was supposed to make it to San Francisco for the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival this past summer but ended up in jail. His reason: He enjoys the cocaine a bit too much. And that, he says, can cause problems.

Combine that with the way he references love for his mother and tension with his father and what you get is a hard-nosed dude who is both likeable, but probably complexly troubled.

Apply that last sentence as a description of his music, and it’s equally accurate. Here’s another great track, called Harlem River Blues.

“Of course, there is nothing preventing Kim Jong Il from opening up North Korea so his people could enjoy Clapton, and maybe get more to eat.” - U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.