Though it’s been out a while it’s still not too late to tell you about a few things lest they get moldy. One such thing is the pretty goddamned gravy Book #1 book put together by
Penny-Ante [
www.penny-ante.net] a perfect-bound compendium of all kindsa art/text good times. An interview with Mike of
Warmer Milks [
www.warmermilks.com], weird essay by
Harry Merry [
www.harrymerry.com], q+a with
Leslie Q [
myspace.com/theleslieq], lyric psychedelia from
Residual Echoes [
myspace.com/residualechoes1], way bizarre drawings from
Don Bolles,
Josephine Foster [
www.100songsising.com],
Marissa Nadler [
http://marissanadler.com] and
Devendra Banhart [
www.cripplecrow.com], photos and words from
Little Claw’s awesome Kilynn Lunsford [
www.myspace.com/littleclaw] and a fairy tale by
Dark Day’s Robin Crutchfield [
www.rlcrutchfieldsdarkday.homestead.com]. Sweet, plus you can hold it in yr hands and smell it unlike yr computer which just smells like sperm.
Not spermy at all, although still enjoyable, is the new anthology of material first published in Real Life Magazine. Edited by Miriam Katzeff, Thomas Lawson and Susan Morgan,
Selected Writings and Projects 1979-1994 (Primary Information) [
http://primaryinformation.org/projects.html] is an excellent, if sometimes impenetrable look into the world of serious art writing in the ‘80s and onward. There’s a lot of post-feminist word-gush and deep think conceptual pieces, but it’s all fascinating, and a good document of a philosophically-based set of cultural critiques that still read as validly today as they did then. Lotsa coverage by/of Dan Graham, Barbara Kruger, Jeff Wall, Kim Gordon and plenty more.
L.A. artist
Marnie Weber [
www.marnieweber.com], once a member of
The Party Boys [
www.myspace.com/50933363], one of L.A.’s more difficult and at times brilliant bands in the ‘80s has formed an all girl ghost band called
The Spirit Girls [
www.myspace.com/thespiritgirls]. Their premier CD
Forever Free (Trakwerx) [
www.trakwerx.com] is indeed haunting but not in a way that devalues the music. In fact the play on dead girldom and the romantic sensuality that it strangely exudes makes the music that much more involving. Tanya Haden of the Haden Three and Debbie Spinelli of Radwaste are in the band and they’ve made one of the coolest, most unique records to come out of twisted L.A. we’ve heard in a while.
Regardless of whatever some coke machine head hollywood dipsy doodle (read: Sienna Miller) sez about Pittsburgh, do not be fooled by fools: this town rules. Case in point has to be the second issue of
Unicorn Mountain [
www.unicornmountain.com]. A hep chunk of book with lotsa local art, music and writing with a healthy handshake to outlying neighbors from New York and Easthampton, MA (paper rad! [
www.paperrad.org]). The CD inside is reason enuff with sweet trax from
usaisamonster [
www.myspace.com/usaisamonster],
Zombi [
www.zombi.us],
Coachwhips [
www.myspace.com/coachwhipsvsfuckers],
Oneida [
www.enemyhogs.com],
ex models [
www.exmodels.org],
Karl Hendricks [
www.myspace.com/karlhendricksrockband],
Elf Power [
www.elfpower.com] and a buncha others. Wicked!
Any dude who starts his chapbook of poetry out with a Curriculum vitae which states: I wept / because I had / no shoes // then I met a man / who had never heard / ‘Psychotic Reacton’ you know is firing on some right on cylinders.
Michael Layne Heath [
www.myspace.com/mlayne1] started the early D.C. scene fanzine
Vintage Violence in the goddamned ‘70s and continues to write with, of and about rock n roll for lotsa different pubs both off and online and has done some tasty liner notes to boot (Television, Afrika Bambaataa, Nelson Riddle fr fuksakez). This new staple book
Put It This Way (Feudal Gesture Press) is choice meat n’ potatoes punk n’ roll with nods to Nikki Sudden, Roger McGough and other heroes of counter-whatsis finery.
Word has it that
The Graveyards, the brain dropping free jazz beyond trio of John Olson (sax), Ben Hall (skins) and Hans Buetow (standup bass) is now just Olson and Hall but that means nothing really as The Graveyards seem to be able to take all new and old shapes and render them instantly kosmiche and what we’re trying to get at here anyway is that Hall and Buetow also have this other living organism of improvisation called
Melee. A few releases are peppered about but the one we just press-played is the cassette on Arbor [
www.arborcdr.com] called
Violent Forms of Laughter Pt. 2. Late night high string oscillated skreep and careful chair scrape moves make this a mesmerizing cold eve head brew. A drinking man’s soundtrack to the pleasures of lonesomeness. Also on Arbor is
The GHOSTING Live/Oakland+, an exquisite silver sprayed tape that documents this duo from Portland, OR who really get into the silver o-mind of long thin wire buzz tone, some of it soaring and lovely and some of it just barely burbling into aurality. Hep to the nth.
IF YOU’D LIKE SOMETHING LICKED, PLEASE SEND TWO (2) COPIES TO THE P.O. BOX. WE MEAN IT, WE ARE OFTEN NOT IN THE SAME TOWN/STATE/COUNTRY, SO SINGLE COPIES OF THINGS DO NOT ALWAYS GET THE NOTICE THEY DESERVE. THEY HAVE TO WAIT TO GET DIVVIED UP. ANYWAY, WE REMAIN:
BULL TONGUE
P.O. BOX 627
NORTHAMPTON MA 01061 USA
http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/?p=1904