“Like its author, Supernatural Strategies is part tongue-in-cheek, part deadly serious—a satire of rock’s consumerist origins but also a thoughtful treatise on what it means to devote yourself to a collective . . . Drawing from the wisdom of rock’n’roll’s most famous ghosts, Svenonius’ advice ranges from hilarious to cryptic to surprisingly useful.”
—Pitchfork

“Svenonius hasn’t written a basic ‘How to Make It in the Music Business’ book. Rather, the writer, online talk show host and, most important, singer in a series of breathtaking rock ‘n’ roll bands (Nation of Ulysses, the Make-Up, Chain & the Gang), is drawing a line in the sand and doing so with what he hopes will finally define the undefinable.”
—Los Angeles Times

“Svenonius has walked the walk. . . Even today—as the frontman of Chain & The Gang and the host of the online talk show Soft Focus—he remains cool, cryptic, and impeccably dressed, a mod magician with a trick always lurking up his tailored sleeve.”
—A.V. Club

“Svenonius has been interrogating and unpacking the meaning of rock ‘n’ roll for as long as he’s been making it.”
—American Songwriter

“Svenonius has played in the bands the Make-Up and Nation of Ulysses, and his underground sensibilities, dry wit, and oodles of experience make for a compelling read.”
—Music Connection

“This one-stop, pocket-sized guide from the Nation of Ulysses frontman has everything you need to get started rocking—including ritualistic spells to assure your success!”
—Literary Hub, Recommended by Brazos Bookstore bookseller Keaton Patterson

“Proscriptive how-to advice ranges over a wide number of subjects (e.g., sex, band photos, etc.) and can be seen both as skewering the cultural idolatry associated with rock and as genuine counsel. 
Verdict: Svenonius’s sociopolitical analysis of rock and roll is intellectually interesting, as when he posits that the genre was ‘brought about by the industrial revolution, the harnessing of electricity, and the miscegenation of various poor, exploited, and indentured cultures in the USA.’”
—Library Journal

“Because living musicians fear competition too much to share secrets of success, this manual, we’re told, was transcribed during a séance where dead rock stars lectured on profound rock & roll truths. Mary Wells, spelling in spaghetti, and Buddy Holly, scrawling in salt, warned of cruel, social-engineering overlords that both control and fear rock revolutionaries. But the greatest prank the book pulls is camouflaging, beneath astrological and geopolitical inanity, the author’s passionately conveyed truths about integrity, artistry, repression, perseverance and the cruelties and joys of the music industry. It seems that even when utilizing a stone-faced, pummeling, punch line–free tone, truths are still best told in jest. And it also seems rock & roll will never die, or if it does, it will still be accessible through spiritualism.”
—Time Out Chicago

“So much of the allure here is in watching Svenonius skirt absurdity. He’s always seemed delighted by the fact that the profound and the preposterous can sound awfully alike, a realization that puts him in line with an avant-garde tradition that stretches back before rock ’n’ roll crystallized this fact . . . Svenonius has the spirit of a long-gone punk past, but his book has more to tell us about rock’s here-and-now than about its hereafter. Neither bourgeois nor prestigious, Supernatural Strategies may be the rare book by a rock musician to retain any power or threat.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books

“Throughout its 250 pages, the author demystifies the modern rock group with a mixture of veteran insight and intellectual posturing that can be both hilarious and fascinating. There are long tangents about gang culture, music and capitalism, and chapters based around séances calling on dead music stars as wide-ranging as Brian Jones, Big Mama Thornton and Mary Wells.”
—Style Weekly

“Ian F. Svenonius’ new book, Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock ‘n’ Roll Group, is laugh-out-loud funny. Svenonius mixes the Vietnam War, Industrial Revolution and other seemingly disconnected events via fictional interviews with several (real) dead rock stars who share their thoughts on topics, such as the all-important band van, communication, the evolution from gang to group, sex, ‘the narcotic effect of pop music’ and discipline. Whether you intend to form a rock group, are interested in history or popular culture, or just want to read essays that are genuinely smart, this is the book.”
—Sacramento News & Review

“The phenomenon is explained in Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock ’n’ Roll Group, a new book by Washington musician, author and general punk provocateur Ian Svenonius. His how-to guide for forming a band is plenty tongue-in-cheek—the advice is presented through the words of dead rock stars contacted via seance—but he hits on some significant truths.”
—Washington Post