Songwriter Mark Eitzel, former frontman of American Music Club and inveterate chronicler of national despair, has a new (and probably really sad and great!) record coming out next month. So his money-mad label, Merge Records, is trotting him out to consult with various "image experts" to "sell" him to the "kids" on the "street." Here he is (in a GAWKER WORLD EXCLUSIVE) getting advice from Nadya Ginsburg, a comedian and writer for Joan Rivers' Fashion Police. Upshot: "That's not gonna play at Starbucks."

For the Gawker Book Club's second installment, we get literal: our own John Cook and Merge Records co-founders Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance are discussing Our Noise, a history of one of the labels that defined 90s indie rock.