by Mick Rhodes | editor@claremont-courier.com

Part joyful punk rock travelogue, part later-in-life love story, Bill Sassenberger’s second book, “Wanderlust And Welcome Mats: The Broccoli Chronicles,” is ultimately a celebration of art, family — chosen and otherwise — and a practical thirst for adventure that blossoms as he journeys through the U.S., Canada, and Europe on a decidedly DIY book tour.

The 151-page book, released March 24 by Toxic Shock Publishing, opens in 2019 following the death of Sassenberger’s wife Julianna Towns, whose health had been in decline after a series of strokes that began in 2011. After eight years of caregiving, he is suddenly alone in his middle 60s without a clear purpose for the first time in his life.

Bill Sassenberger’s second book, “Wanderlust And Welcome Mats: The Broccoli Chronicles,” is out now on Toxic Shock Publishing. Image/courtesy of the author

The historic Tucson, Arizona home he shared with Towns becomes a focus, and before long he’s transformed it and himself into an Airbnb “superhost,” renting rooms to a series of wildly interesting (and sometimes troublesome) short- and long-term guests from around the world. Still mourning, he finds solace in his lifelong love of independent music (and Neil Young), and begins venturing out to local and regional concerts.

“At this point in my life, I had decided instead of living in my own ghost world, it was important for me to reconnect with more friends and family I hadn’t seen in many years,” he writes. In 2021 a new love, Sara, enters his life, and soon the pair are traveling throughout the U.S., utilizing the free standby air travel benefits from Sassenberger’s part-time job as a home-based airline telephone reservationist. As they visit his old friends in the punk community he’s struck by how many are either working on memoirs, or prodding him to write his own.

The result, “Toxic Shock Records, Assassin of Mediocrity: A Story of Love, Loss, and Loud Music,” was released in 2024. It chronicles Towns’ diagnosis, treatment, and death alongside Sassenberger’s life story and eventual evolution from San Francisco peacenik to legendary punk rock record store and record label owner (Toxic Shock Records was the place to go for underground music in Pomona from 1980 to 1988. He and Towns ran Toxic Ranch Records in Tucson until 2014.), musician, and now author.

“Wanderlust’s” jumping off point — Towns’ death — again looms throughout. But if “Assassin of Mediocrity …” was Sassenberger’s confessional grief treatise, “Wanderlust …” is a record of his deliverance from that pain. It’s about moving forward, exploring new territory, and each new adventure brings Sassenberger further into the new life he’s made for himself as an author, a historian of sorts, and as a partner to Sara.

He takes another part-time job at a Hilton hotel in Tucson that provides the couple with deeply discounted lodging around the world, and before long they’re criss-crossing the U.S., Canada, and Europe promoting “Assassin of Mediocrity …,” seeing Neil Young shows, and catching up with family, friends, business associates from Berlin to Ventura.

Along the way he blazes a trail small press authors might use to promote their work. Like DIY punk rock tours in the 1980s, which Sassenberger is also a veteran of, some events are gloriously successful, others not so much. Each experience is recounted in his breezy, unpretentious prose, and regardless of how many books, LPs, or T-shirts he sells at the signings around the world, he always seems to find something to be grateful for.

And so do we.

It’s a voyage that sweeps the reader along to the point where the book tour becomes secondary to the love, friendships, and experiences he sets in motion by emerging from the loss that drove him to write in the first place.

Sassenberger will be signing copies of “Wanderlust And Welcome Mats: The Broccoli Chronicles,” from 2 to 4 p.m. Friday, May 22 at Dr. Strange Records, 7136 Amethyst Ave., Rancho Cucamonga. The signing event is part of the pre-party for Dr. Strange’s Summer Bash, happening Saturday and Sunday at The Cathedral in Pomona. Tickets to the Summer Bash are at linktr.ee/CathedralPomona.

Speaking of good music

Covina’s favorite son Rick Shea has a great new record out, “Smoke Tree Road,” on Tres Pescadores Records.

Rick Shea with be playing cuts from his new album, “Smoke Tree Road,” on June 6 at the Folk Music Center in Claremont. Photo/by Leslie Campbell

With help from fellow guitar virtuoso and songwriter Tony Gilkyson, bassist/saxophonist Jeff Turmes, drummer Dale Daniel, pianists Skip Edwards and Danny McGough, and others, “Smoke Tree Road” — Shea’s 12th album — “travels through an impeccably sequenced, sonically rich spectrum of his narrative songwriting, meticulously atmospheric guitar style and tightly focused, expressive vocal delivery.”

Rick’s been a fixture on Southern California’s country and roots scene for going on 50 years. He cut his teeth in San Bernardino honky-tonks and biker bars in the 1970s and has since written, recorded, and/or toured with rockabilly original Wanda Jackson, R.E.M., Dave Alvin, Mary McCaslin, and the late Chris Gaffney, among many others.

“The album was personal for me in ways maybe some others haven’t been,” Shea said. “Smoke Tree Road is where my kids and grandkids have been living the last few years. Jesse and Nikki got married just after they moved there and my granddaughter Nora was born after that, so we’ve been spending a lot of time there. The old trailer on the cover is on their property, which always has me thinking who lived there and what the area was like back then. It hasn’t been registered since 1980.”

Rick Shea and Tony Gilkyson will be at the Folk Music Center, 220 Yale Ave., Claremont, at 7 p.m. Saturday, June 6. Tickets are available at the store or by phone, (909) 624-2928.

More info is at rickshea.com.