Music historian and Charlotte native Dave Tompkins is a national treasure. His influential writing for magazines as far flung as Grand Royal and The Wire made hip-hop writing an art form unto itself. An admirer of the odd, Tompkins latched onto the synthetic magic of the voice-manipulating vocoder early in his life, and set to the task of penning a book on the subject not long thereafter. A resident of Brooklyn, Tompkins will be returning to the Old North State to read from his new book, How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop.

Although the flyer does not reflect this, Dave will also be reading at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh on Saturday, June 19th at 3pm.

Visit HowToWreckANiceBeach.Com for more entertaining details.