Books: Lipstick Traces turns twenty with a celebration next week at Columbia

Greil Marcus, one of the writers of pop culture criticism and zeitgeist definitions, is celebrating the twentieth anniversary next week of his landmark book and one of our personal favorite texts to return to every once in a while, Lipstick Traces. The book, subtitled "a secret history of the 20th century", is one of a dozen texts from the writer, who served as the first music editor at Rolling Stone, that will be on display at the celebration, taking place at Columbia University. Columbia, in a partnership with the ARChive of Contemporary Music have secured a "performance and reading" with Marcus of selected items from Traces that will take place on Thursday, November 19 at 6:00 pm at Altschul Auditorium, located at 420 West 118th St. The reading and book signing following the celebration are free and open to the public. So don't miss it. We won't.

(mp3)    Sex Pistols - C'mon Everybody (Eddie Cochran cover)

Godspeed!

Books: Mid-90s DIY album art project out now

Covering the 90s scene that spawned a thousand new ways of creating art through music packaging, a new book project called DIY Album Art: Paper Bags and Office Supplies is out now and revels in the ethos of punk, indie and hardcore do-it-yourselfers by collecting and curating some of the more remarkable examples of art through the common man alongside stories from the artists, label founders and musicians that made it all happen, all culled together from the personal collection of J. Namdev Hardisty. Hardisty, you may remember (or not) is the man behind the epic New Skateboard Graphics. Labels like Gravity, Bloodlink, Arcade Kacha, Tree, File 13 and many many more are all respected and represented. You can get your hands on a copy for $35 right this second. We can't tell you how much we lament the death of the album artwork as art form because of the dawn of the iTunes track-only nation, but we think you guys understand what we mean.

(mp3)   Tullycraft - DIY Queen

Godspeed!

Books: The Pin-Up Poet book launch party is tomorrow night

East Village resident by way of Canada Andrea Grant aka The Pin-Up Poet, a multi-talented, multi-jobbed sort of artist is having a party tomorrow night at Le Poisson Rouge to celebrate the publishing of her newest work (both photos and words which, of course, we only read for the words), alongside featured photographers who worked on the book, various noteworthy kids and, er, us. See for yourselves what sort of radness can happen (as if you really need to ask) when various models, photographers, geeks like us and lots of alcohol and laughter mix together. Something tells us it's going to be an interesting concoction. Also, wonder what the music is going to sound like.

(mp3)    We Have Band - West End Girls

Godspeed!

News: ODB biography sparks massive libel lawsuit

The road of life and death of Russell Jones aka Ol' Dirty Bastard has always been one paved with incessant rumors, troubles, harrowing tales and, ultimately, fruitless consequence. His death came 35 years after his birth, an "accidental overdose" of a number of medicines (some legal, some not so much) and time has not been easy on his rather small circle of trust in the five years since. Myriad family fights over his remaining assets as well as the ongoing struggle for rights and control over his last album, the as-yet-unreleased A Son Unique, all tarnishing further the luster of his name. And it's more than likely not getting any easier anytime soon as last November, a "biography" was published by Macmillan--authored by Jaime Lowe--called Digging For Dirt, and that's all that's been uprooted since its release.

Now, months later (the book is currently in the top 250,000 titles by sales at Amazon), a 10 million dollar libel and defamation lawsuit has been filed by literary agent and one-time co-manager of Ol' Dirty Bastard, Jarred Weisfeld, for what is referenced in legal docs as “false and defamatory and were written and published willfully and maliciously with the intent to damage [Weisfeld’s] good name, reputation and credit as an entrepreneur in the entertainment industry.” Full disclosure on this matter is that we grew up with Weisfeld and, though we cannot and will not comment further, we also can't wait to see how this whole thing turns out as it's sure to be one of those sticky situations that may define 2009.

(mp3)    Ol' Dirty Bastard - Brooklyn Zoo

Godspeed!

Live: Broke-Ass Stuart's book release party

If you're not familiar with the dude who calls himself Broke-Ass Stuart, well, he's kind of a legendary zine figurehead in San Francisco who's gotten a lot of praise for his guidebook to that city for the "young, broke and beautiful".  Stuart's just released his newest chronicle, one for Gotham, and to celebrate, there's a big party going down next Thursday at The Delancey.  We'll be there and so will some of our fair city's up-and-coming acts, like Beyondo, Crooked Looks, Kelli Rudick and more.  Free beer and food all night and entry's only a dollar, so pony up that GW and come hang.

(mp3)    Crooked Looks - VIP

(mp3)    Crooked Looks - Planets

Godspeed!

Books: Bob Mould to pen autobiography

And get this, Mould will be working with Michael Azerrad (of Our Band Could Be Your Life, Come As You Are fame).  We've always loved the tinny, analog-as-fuck vibe of Husker Du's work (most notably the barely 20 minutes of Everything Falls Apart) as compared to his later solo work and fronting Sugar, which was more well-received but reeked of post-Seattle grunge tones.  The book is slated for a release in 2010.

The memoir will, for the first time ever, delve deeply into Mould's life as a musician and his experiences with Husker Du, as a solo artist, and in his most commercially viable and successful work as leader of '90s indie rock kingpins Sugar. He will also tell the story of his other lives, including his internal struggle with his sexuality, the coming-out process, and his subsequent embrace of, and service to, the LGBT community; his work as a creative consultant/director in the world of pro wrestling; his work as a record producer, including seminal projects by Soul Asylum and Magnapop; and his foray into electronic/dance music, including the popular BLOWOFF club events held nationwide.

(mp3)    Sugar - If I Can't Change Your Mind

Godspeed!

Books: Mark E. Smith biography is fucked up.

We've always kind of loved Mark E. Smith, but it's more because he's totally insane and really smug (we aim to be like him minus the insane part) and also that he's been doing The Fall for thirty years.  Also of note, in those years, Smith has gone through so many band members, no one really remembers most of their names or what happened to them.

If there were a "Behind The Music", it'd take three hours just for each bicker, punch, kick, or bite.  For more on that, here's a just-released excerpt from dude's biography.

And I couldn't stand my sisters. Sometimes in the school holidays when my mam and dad were at work, I'd be looking after five fucking girls: my three sisters, this adopted kid, and another whose parents were abusive to her. This was late the 60s or early 70s, and they'd have been about four or five at the time.

I devised this thing called "Japanese prison camp". I'd make them sit in this room under a table with a big cloth over them because the air force might be coming. I'd be the Japanese guard. "You can't go out. You must stay under there," I'd tell them. Then I'd shut the door, say I was going to the bridge on the River Kwai, have some pop, go out with my mates and, half an hour before my mam and dad came home, I'd return, saying, "Japanese prison camp is now over."

If they escaped, the punishment would be "No lemonade." They used to love it. Throw sweets under the cloth. Good laugh.

They always remember it, my sisters, when they get a bit pissed: "We remember Japanese prison camp. You don't fool us, you pop star." And my mam's going, "What's Japanese prison camp?" Today, we'd probably get investigated by the social services.

For more of the excerpt, go on ahead here, if, you know, you want to melt your brain and stuff.

(mp3)   The Fall - Hot Aftershave Bop

Godspeed!

News: Lily Allen skips out on prestigous award panel; is totally depressed

(photo by MTV)

Allen was to serve as a judge for the £30,000 Orange Prize for Fiction, which deals with handing out the prize for the U.K.’s most prestigious literary award for female authors. Previous winners include Zadie Smith.  But Allen, who's been recently thought of as seeming depressed and down since her unexpected miscarriage of her first-child-to-be, didn't show up to their meeting this past week, choosing instead to send her mother, Alison Owen, along in her place.  A spokesman for the awards insists Allen had a valid reason for her absence, saying, "Actually she was feeling depressed, but she did call us by phone."

(mp3)    Lily Allen - LDN (Switch remix)

Godspeed!

R.I.P.: Norman Mailer, champion of life

(credit)

It may be fruitful to consider the hipster a philosophical psychopath, a man interested not only in the dangerous imperatives of his psychopathy but in codifying, at least for himself, the suppositions on which his inner universe is constructed. By this premise the hipster is a psychopath, and yet not a psychopath but the negation of the psychopath for he possesses the narcissistic detachment of the philosopher, that absorption in the recessive nuances of one’s own motive which is so alien to the unreasoning drive of the psychopath. In this country where new millions of psychopaths are developed each year, stamped with the mint of our contradictory popular culture (where sex is sin and yet sex is paradise), it is as if there has been room already for the development of the antithetical psychopath who extrapolates from his own condition, from the inner certainty that his rebellion is just, a radical vision of the universe which thus separates him from the general ignorance, reactionary prejudice, and self-doubt of the more conventional psychopath.
--from "The White Negro", originally published in 1957

(mp3)   Radiohead - 15 Step

Godspeed!

News: Snapcase REUNITE for Callum Robbins benefit show in Williamsburg

We are so fucking excited about this:

In celebration of the November release of "The Anti-Matter Anthology", author Norman Brannon has decided that a better way to do things in honor of the book is by setting up a benefit show.

On November 24th at the Music Hall Of Williamsburg, Snapcase will reunite for one night only because of the benefit.  Joining them will be fellow Anti-Matter subjects 108 and Triple Threat.

All proceeds will go to benefit Callum Robbins, son of Jawbox frontman J. Robbins.  Cal Robbins was recently diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, an incurable nerve disorder that is hugely expensive to treat.

:DETAILS:
Saturday November 24, 2007
The Music Hall of Williamsburg
66 N. 6th Street | Brooklyn, NY

A limited edition presale package will be available on September 28, allowing the first 55 people to buy their ticket alongside a stamped, numbered, and personalized copy of the The Anti-Matter Anthology at a combined reduced price of $29.99.

Tickets for the general public will go on sale October 5. Complete info?  Check out the Anti-Matter MySpace page.

Godspeed!