Three Imaginary Girls - Books

Imaginary Gift Guide: Books for Movie & Music Fans

Imaginary Amie — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 22:14:40 +0000

In the spirit of the holidays, I wanted to put together a list of some things I've been reading (and coveting) lately - as well as things on my own wish list - that would make great literary gifts for friends and family this year.

I heartily recommend you head to the local book store near you (may I suggest Queen Anne Books, Elliot Bay, or the UW Book store? Cinema Books on Roosevelt is also an excellent store for movie books - and a "dig through the stacks and explore" kind of place) to pick up a few of these:

MOVIES!

Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film by Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly
Our own Chris Estey wrote about how awesome this is earlier this year, and omfg. It IS. Every single movie with any appearance by a punk rocker is detailed within. This book is one of my greatest treasures…and I haven't even gotten past the first 20 pages. Its completeness is amazing, and the reviews/descriptions of the movies are hilarious. I LOVE IT. And I have some half-assed notion of renting all the movies in it that I haven't seen - who wants to dare me?

Deep Focus Books - Heathers, They Live, and Lethal Weapon
When Soft Skull press announced Deep Focus last year I was SO EXCITED. These books are like the movie version of the 33 and 1/3 series. I currently have They Live and Heathers in my collection, and am excited to add more. In addition to the ones listed above, they also have The Sting, Death Wish, and The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (WHAT) available.

Two new must-own books from Fantagraphics: Frisky freak folk gal comix; and the mighty, massive Comics Journal 301

Chris Estey — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:07:48 +0000

TIG readers won't be surprised there are two adorable new books out from Seattle-snared, world-shaking Fantagraphics. As the world's foremost glossy-n-generous "boutique label" of classic comics reprints (Peanuts, Dennis The Menace, Krazy Kat), and the publishing patron of local and international graphic novel geniuses like Jim Woodring, Megan Kelso, the Hernandez Brothers (Love & Rockets), and many others, we're all up on it. Even those not much into "sequential art" love to hype out along with all the fine arts, middlebrow marauders, and indie rock stars enrolled in their various ranks of production and promoting the product itself (galleries, album covers, et al).

Meanwhile, beyond just knowing the importance of the imprint, where would a good place for a DIY-loving potential fan-person start to read something more like an illustrated 'zine or chapbook, less like a 3-D blockbuster? Well, Leslie Stein is a young lady out of Brooklyn, NY who has been crafting literary/illustrative dub versions of her tastes and trials and laying them out in meticulously crafted yet still oodles-of-eye-fun anecdotes and tall tales. Fanta has collected them all into Eye Of The Majestic, a big-sized anthology of her work, with color covers and B&W insides and a whole lot of heart reproduced superbly for proper long-term keeping.

Come meet some daddies of legendary punk rock fanzine Touch & Go at Elliott Bay Bookstore tonight (4/8)

Chris Estey — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 17:02:25 +0000

Touch and Go is a long-running, incredible indie label that -- like Sub Pop! -- started off as a punk-inspired fanzine. Tonight, Friday, April 8, the original cult artist leader behind the small press publication, Tesco Vee, will be having a meet and greet reading at Elliott Bay Bookstore on Cap Hill with his OG hardcore outfit, The Meatmen.

That veteran band of foul-minded scamps will be playing later that night at El Corazon. But for those zine-freaks who like me drooled over the near-600 page republication of the actual inside of T&G issues, Touch And Go: The Complete Hardcore Punk Zine '79-83, the early evening celebration will be a must-attend. The glorious historical tome was put out by Bazillion Points Books last summer, and I hyped it hard over at the KEXP Blog at the end of the year.

As their Facebook tour promo puts it: "For the entire month of April 2011, Tesco will be terrorizing West Coast book and record stores by day, telling the tales of Rollins, MacKaye, Danzig, and the dawn of the hardcore punk; and by night showing grimy punk dives how it’s done with full-color four-dimensional performances by Detroit daddies The Meatmen."

Tonight at the Experience Music Project: Three legendary punks read from their memoirs and a novel

Chris Estey — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 16:49:36 +0000

This is last minute notice, but for original punk rock fans the Experience Music Project tonight is hosting the reading of three really great writers from that musical genre in their JBL Theater (starts at 7pm and it's free!).

Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys will be reading from one of my favorite books of last year, A Dead Boy's Tale From The Front Lines of Punk Rock. Chrome was a reckless renegade on the emergent margins of the Ohio-into-NYC first wave punk scene back in the 70s, and it was against all odds that he would come up with one of the most readable, empathetic, and clever summations of the period and lifestyle.

Also on board tonight is The Pagans' own Mike Hudson, whose Diary Of A Punk is also one of the very best North American punk memoirs I've read, and I regret I've never been able to do a more extensive write up on it. The Pagans are one of those truly underground rock bands your raw power heroes have plenty of vinyl classics from, even if you may not have heard them yet. Like Chrome's autobiography, Diary doesn't flinch from the crime, grime, gashes, grit, and spit of the daily life of OG punk rockers setting a bonfire out in the heartland. Trust me, you'd much rather hear their (vividly told) tales than another spoken word performance/comedy set/political harangue by Henry Rollins or Jello Biafra (no offense, but this is truly a special night).

TIG wraps up the year with the Best Music Writing tour

Imaginary Nicky — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:30:42 +0000

There is a feeling of neurotic helplessness I sometimes suffer from; when I realize I live in a world where I have the freedom to make infinite choices over what music I listen to, what gigs I attend and what literature I choose to delve into. There is such an overload of witty, critical music journalism that I find myself frozen in indecision – is it best to skim over everything via twitter, trawl through my RSS feed, or simply spin around in circles at the local bookstore and randomly pluck a glossy magazine from the shelves; at the expense of all the zines, blogposts, podcasts and other potential gems floating around the internet?

Here's a book that will make the decision making a little easier - now in it’s eleventh year, Best Music Writing 2010 presents a knowledgable yet accessible array of thinking that represents a diverse range of recording artists from Michael Jackson to burlesque’s elusive Eva Tanguay. Likewise, the writers included within range from musicians, scholars, and roadies to self-confessed superfans. Filled with rich prose, music scholars and geeks alike wax lyrical and share personal stories of how music has shaped their lives; as The Stranger’s Sean Nelson details in his contribution, “Let’s (Not) Get It On”: “Still, for those who are attuned to it, pop music is more than just the background noise of our development. In an indirect but essential way, it teaches us how to live, by offering codes that we’re free to decipher as we choose.”

Far from being the ramblings of an idiot savant, buried in liner notes and arguing long redundant Blur vs. Oasis-style fanwars, those published here use music as a means to examine a broader view of our society – music is the yardstick by which we can measure standings in current events, language, technology and self-expression. Anyone who dismisses pop music and culture as frivolous should read on – BMW2010 addresses such pivotal music issues as royalties, music as an avenue for feminism, marketing personas and more. It examines how our use of technology has shaped the way that we communicate, and how musicians are changing their view of success to adapt to a post-napster music market.

Guest Editor Ann Powers opens the book with a powerful introduction that (forgive the pun) strikes a chord in the reader and emphasizes the fact that although the world of criticism and analysis is often thought of as exclusive, music is still an inclusive, uniting force: "Music itself is a call that demands response. It organizes desire, sorrow, and joy into a form both primal - the ear is the first sense organ to begin working when we are in the womb - and intensely communal; in every known culture, some form of music has been a constant in everyday life. Making music or listening to it is a part of how we grow; sharing music is what helps us create community. You don't have to be a musician, or even a major music geek, to exist within that realm".

I don't usually agree with most "Best of" lists, and I would not expect to be enamoured with every piece in this book, either - but the call for submissions included "essays, profiles, news articles, interviews, creative non-fiction, book reviews, long-format reviews, charticles and other creative blends of language and image, blog posts, tweets, and other thoughtful and well-written work on music and music culture" - resulting in a diverse and at times truly amazing array of responses to music. I normally wouldn't blink twice at an article about The Gossip either, but Michelle Tea's writing is so accessible that by the end of the chapter, I find myself looking up Music for Men on YouTube. How could you not giggle at Beth Ditto's shenannigans during Paris Fashion Week: "After breakfast, the wearing of socks throughout the Westin continues. "We're adults!" Beth hoots, waggling her feet. "We're punk!" She references her friend the Portland zinester Nicole J. Georges, who holds punk as a trapdoor that lets you escape any breach of good conduct or manners. "We're punk!" Beth explains to strangers as we board the elevator and return to our rooms for a nap before the Nina Ricci show that night."

One of my favourite pieces is Tim Quirk's My Hilarious Warner Bros. Royalty Statement, in which our hero battles against The Man in an attempt to find out simply how his defunct band is generating revenue for the company. I cannot help but think of Vonnegut's dark humour when reading Quirk's lament: "People in the record industry are very good at making bands believe they deserve the hundreds of thousands (or sometimes millions) of dollars labels advance the musicians when they're first signed, and even better at convincing those same musicians it's the bands' fault when those advances aren't recouped (the last thing $10,000-Is-Nothing-Man yelled at me before he hung up was, "Too Much Joy never earned us shit!" as though that fact somehow negated their obligation to account honestly). I don't want to live in $10,000-Is-Nothing-Man's world. But I do. We all do. We have no choice".

My other favourite would have to be Phil Ochs Greatest Hits, penned by TIG's very own Chris Estey. Again, I'm no fan of the artist, but the sentiment-driven prose is beautiful to read. This unique track-by-track analysis of the record also doubles as a gritty, moving autobiography of the writer himself, who makes the wry free-writing within crystalize into something quite moving: "He touches a live battery on his little brother's tongue while they listen to the descending third side of Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Everyone who lives in a trailer court loves to hear songs about paradise going rotten for the lucky few. They plan a suicide pact in the woods behind the trailer court to John Denver songs about reincarnation in the mountains in a sad voice he had borrowed."

This book resonates with me, and I know I will be returning to it throughout the new year. BMW2010 is the perfect gift for your very own Rob Gordon – but why make do with the book alone when you could join a few of the writers for a night of unabashed dialogue, discussion, and readings from the book? Perfect for shaking that post-Christmas lull, we at Three Imaginary Girls are super excited to have Seattle writers Chris Estey and Sean Nelson included in the lineup for this year's reading - hope to see you there!

Best Music Writing 2010 – Seattle reading with Ann Powers, Chris Estey and Sean Nelson:

Tuesday December 28, 7:00pm - 8:30pm

Elliott Bay Bookstore

1521 Tenth Avenue

Seattle, WAThere is a feeling of neurotic helplessness I sometimes suffer from; when I realize I live in a world where I have the freedom to make infinite choices over what music I listen to, what gigs I attend and what literature I choose to delve into. There is such an overload of witty, critical music journalism that I find myself frozen in indecision – is it best to skim over everything via twitter, trawl through my RSS feed, or simply spin around in circles at the local bookstore and randomly pluck a glossy magazine from the shelves; at the expense of all the zines, tweets, blogposts, podcasts and other potential gems floating around the internet?

Now in it’s eleventh year, Best Music Writing 2010 presents a knowledgable yet accessible array of thinking that represents a diverse range of recording artists from Michael Jackson to burlesque’s elusive Eva Tanguay. Likewise, the writers included within range from musicians, scholars, and superfans. Filled with rich prose, music scholars and geeks alike wax lyrical and share personal stories of how music has shaped their lives; as The Stranger’s Sean Nelson details in his contribution, “Let’s (Not) Get It On”:

“Still, for those who are attuned to it, pop music is more than just the background noise of our development. In an indirect but essential way, it teaches us how to live, by offering codes that we’re free to decipher as we choose.”

Far from being obsessed fans, buried in liner notes and arguing long redundant Blur vs. Oasis-style fanwars, those published here use music as a means to examine a broader view of our society – music is the yardstick by which we can measure standings in current events, language, technology and self-expression.

Anyone who dismisses pop music and culture as frivolous should read on – BMW2010 addresses such pivotal music issues as marketing, royalties, music as an avenue for feminism, marketing personas and more. It examines how our use of technology has shaped the way that we communicate, and how musicians are changing their view of success to adapt to a post-napster music market.

Resonates

An enthusiasm that is infectious

Where is the music industry headed? Feminism, marketing

Issues addressed in the music industry include royalty runarounds by Time Warner, what exactly is indie and the impact social networking is having on music and music journalism.

I normally wouldn't blink twice at an article about The Gossip, I'd usually just turn the page - but the writing at work here is so accessible and masterful that by the end of the chapter, I find myself looking up videos on YouTube. Musicians are people too.

If you'd ever wondered what a record store guy or the superfan in the front row was thinking, pick up this book.

Personal favourites would have to be The Gossip, Twitter and Timothy Quirk

Best Music writing 2010 is the perfect gift for your very own Rob Gordon – but why make do with the book alone when you and your favourite music geeks could join us for a night of unabashed dialogue, discussion, and readings from the book? Perfect for shaking that post-Christmas lull, we at Three Imaginary Girls are super excited to have our own Chris Estley included in the lineup for this year's reading - hope to see you there!

Best Music Writing 2010 – Seattle reading with Ann Powers, Chris Estley and Sean Nelson:

Tuesday, December 28 · 7:00pm - 8:30pm

Elliott Bay Bookstore

1521 Tenth Avenue

Resonates

An enthusiasm that is infectious

Where is the music industry headed? Feminism, marketing

Issues addressed in the music industry include royalty runarounds by Time Warner, what exactly is indie and the impact social networking is having on music and music journalism.

If you'd ever wondered what a record store guy or the superfan in the front row was thinking, pick up this book.

Personal favourites would have to be The Gossip, Twitter and Timothy Quirk

Best Music Writing 2010 – Seattle reading with Ann Powers, Chris Estley and Sean Nelson:

Tuesday, December 28 · 7:00pm - 8:30pm

Elliott Bay Bookstore

1521 Tenth Avenue

Seattle, WA

{On Tuesday, December 28 from 7:00pm - 8:30pm, get yourself to Elliott Bay Bookstore in Capitol Hill for a Seattle reading of the book Best Music Writing 2010 with Ann Powers, Chris Estey and Sean Nelson}

Guest Editor Ann Powers opens the book with a powerful introduction that (forgive the pun) strikes a chord in the reader and emphasizes the fact that although the world of criticism and analysis is often thought of as exclusive, music is still an inclusive, uniting force:

"Music itself is a call that demands response. It organizes desire, sorrow, and joy into a form both primal - the ear is the first sense organ to begin working when we are in the womb - and intensely communal; in every known culture, some form of music has been a constant in everyday life. Making music or listening to it is a part of how we grow; sharing music is what helps us create community. You don't have to be a musician, or even a major music geek, to exist within that realm".

Best Music Writing 2010

Seattle reading with Ann Powers, Chris Estey and Sean Nelson

Elliott Bay Bookstore

1521 Tenth Avenue

Tuesday, December 28
7:00pm - 8:30pm

'Tis the season for celebrated mythology: The Secret History of Rock 'N' Roll

Chris Estey — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 16:25:46 +0000

Christopher Knowles is the author of the recently published book The Secret History of Rock 'N' Roll, which ties the rock-era music scene back to mystery cults formed "since the Stone Age." Christmastime is a festive season when we party hard, glory vicariously in exciting fables, and when some of us even shove our mystified beliefs in others' faces in the broader culture. So chatting with the award-winning writer of this elucidating tome on tropes behind our rock idols seemed like a great way to chop up myth, music, and magic just at the right moment in 2010.

Knowles has been a writer and editor for some time, and his Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes is also an excellent analysis of how ancient archetypes become cheap everyday thrills. But it was his tenaciously intense engagement with a certain UK punk-into-pop band in Clash City Showdown: The Music, Meaning, and Legacy of The Clash that got me into his work. I admire his passion and fierce intelligence at dissecting culture we enjoy and use to transcend our lives habitually. Below is our chat with Mr. Knowles about all these things.

Freak out "Medieval Thinkers" at Fantagraphics 4th Anniversary Party {12/11}

Chris Estey — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 17:06:52 +0000

Seattle-based, world-slobbered, excellent comics and dazzling-arts publisher Fantagraphics is really going all out for their 4th Anniversary Party this Saturday, December 11, 2010. It will be thrown at their awesome store in Georgetown, and promises "the season’s most festive party featuring amazing music, comix, art, and more!"

Coinciding with the Georgetown Art Attack, and featuring a probably incredible (and very rare) turntable set from famed Fall Out Records founder DJ Russ Fallout, the evening includes performances by cherished troubadour and Low founder Zak Sally, who has comics published by Fantagraphics as well as from his own exquisitely hand-made La Mano imprint; also on board is Pacific NW legend and firebrand Mark Pickerel.

Deep Focus: Books on They Live and Death Wish give you lots to think about and geek out on

Chris Estey — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 18:32:42 +0000

Deep Focus is a new line of small but richly rewarding studies, the first one about a favorite film by a great writer, Christopher Sorrentino. They're cheap and hot little books perfect for reading at the bus stop, before a movie or concert, and especially along with a DVD of the flick being playfully examined. It's an exciting new attempt at film studies. And the fact that the first two authors are superb essayists and worth reading over and over, and the films are the kind you have to own and watch again and again, means Deep Focus has scored with the perfect $13.95 each gift this season for film and modern literature fans.

Jonathan Lethem's They Live is the first volume in the series, and the media-massaged author of novels The Fortress of Solitude and Chronic City scribes a scene by scene, anarchist polemic via extended hobo punch out, delineation of the Reagan-era, rabble-rousing science fiction/horror classic by John Carpenter. (Carpenter is a dependable guy for shockingly intelligent genre films, from the original Assault on Precinct 13 to Escape from New York and Los Angeles to Vampires.) While dismissed by some as over-the-top B-movie shrill political paranoia, very few people who have seen it have ever gotten over the scene where wrestling star "Rowdy" Roddy Piper first discovers the ugliness of the alien race attempting holding us in submission to consumerism and resigned to the 9 to 5 world. It's everywhere and in everything, even makes the homeless bow to it, dispossessing all of us on a gratingly precise regularity, and like most great SF They Live is a timeless explanation for how the future is shaping the present. Like how the pernicious and opnely known but accepted MK-ULTRA program tried to create disassociation in people by the CIA back in the 1960s, so that mind control kills off the host in the personality of those they've experimented on, our created "core" values of greed and fear are against us. They Live is extremely (and to some, comically) blunt about how we are more programmed than we'll ever know, unless we dream something new in a very direct and violent way (symbolized by one of the most awesome one-on-one brawls in an alleyway in They Live than you'll ever find in another movie).

Frequent magazine freelancer Lethem is a practiced and extraordinary pop culture critic, combining riffs on the rhythms of revolution in James Brown and the uncanny-everyday unveiling of Edgar Allan Poe behind genre by reports set to the exact pace of the movie. You can literally read this book while watching the film, page by page and scene by scene, as he's timed his assertions to each explosion of imagery or plot development at the minutes noted. The entire origin story of satirical science fiction (from The Time Machine to Idiocracy) is also described, as Lethem remarks on the film's funniest bits (such as the then-standard bearers Siskel & Ebert being alien agents for conformity on the almost entirely corrupted television medium). He also finds some quotes to back up his claims of They Live being the most powerful kind of subversion in entertainment, such as G.K. Chesterton's observation that people "should resistance injustice, something more is necessary that they should think injustice unpleasant. They must think injustice absurd, above all, they must think it startling. They must retain a violence of a virgin astonishment."

This tightly ties in conceptually with the second book in the Deep Focus series, Death Wish, a Michael Winter 70s thriller which is all about injustice and violence and like Carpenter's They Live, wasn't particularly respected by mainstream liberal critics at the time of its release. Death Wish is often thought of as a guilty pleasure by smart film fans, being the Godfather of all contemporary vengeance films. (Man lives with woman in paradise; paradise is lost by the violence of hoodlums; man obliterates the evil that caused the damage, and these days goes even further by blowing everything up within two hours.) But writer Christopher Sorrentino (novelist, Harper's, McSweeney's) rebels against the grumpy ruminations of critic Vincent Canby regarding by explainging the reasons why its simple plot and one-dimensional characterizations have made it part of the essential American cult canon. A lot of this has to do with Charles Bronson, and his fierce performance, but also the universal unconditional truth of an eye for an eye, which historians say is the beginning of civilization (and well, probably the end of the world, too). Still can't get over the fact that Jeff Goldblum was the rapist bad guy in this movie, but even he is convincingly creepy with the kind of loathsome Me Decade-spawned animalism that Americans of the time projected into the New York City "wilderness."

I have a library full of music books but don't buy that many books of film criticism because there's often little zest for ideas or language; movie reviews are often just synopses and studied opinion, or tautological exposition. And the writers rarely feast on the imagery and milieus around a film to assimilate and even illuminate its point of view. Most film critics try to ethically run before they can morally crawl. That's why these two endlessly entertaining and inspiring films have passed under their wire, and get plopped into our players more than the big, cinematic "good for us" exercises in polemics. There are my own personal examples of course of film critics who rise above (Pauline Kael, Robin Wood, Kathy Fennessy, and yes, current Ebert), but I do look forward to the future when my library will be well stocked with titles as fun, fetching, and fearless as these first two Deep Focus ones.

Friday Night Film Recommendation: Punk's Not Dead

Imaginary Rich — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 17:14:16 +0000

Sometimes you've just got to say "Respect" for a couple of folks perusing a crazy dream to completion. The launch of the book Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film is one of those cases. It's a comprehensive guide to every appearance of a punk onscreen in the 20th century, and a standout example of the true DIY spirit of punk.

Sure, I've seen/loved Repo Man and Surburbia, along with many of the other films they viewed as their inspiration for the concept - but watching thousands upon thousands of movies to compile a guide of movies where a punk character pops onscreen (not to mention reviews) would have never have occurred to me. The end result is the ultimate movie coffee table book - filled with writing and art that is going to make you want to pick it up just for fun, and as a serious research tool to boot.

These hometown boys made good are swinging through town on a national tour. On Friday, November 12, they'll be signing books at Scarecrow Video, who collaborated in the sense of both making garbage bags full of videos available for the project and contributing content. The signing starts at 5pm and then they'll be hosting a quadruple feature of classic examples of punks on screen including Valley Girl, Get Crazy, Class of 1984 and Urgh!: A Music War at the Grand Illusion theater beginning at 8:30pm. A great value at $12 for the whole shebang (for Grand Illusion members - $20 general admission, $17 students, $15 seniors).

Celebrating Chris Estey's Awesomeness {RE: The Best Music Writing of 2010}

Imaginary Amie — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:55:23 +0000

Better late than never, us Imaginaries would like to say CONGRATULATIONS to one of our favorite music writers, Chris Estey, for landing a coveted spot in the upcoming compilation The Best Music Writing of 2010.

Of course it's no suprise to us at TIG, as Chris's writing is awesomesauce. So DUH. Of course he's in here! We'll be reviewing the book later, but we already know his included piece (on Phil Ochs Greatest Hits) rocks. Chris is a frequent contributor to KEXP, The Stranger, and of course, here on Three Imaginary Girls. In addition to all that writing goodness, he's an asset to the Seattle music scene, and just an all-around great guy. YOU RULE CHRIS! We love you, man.

There's a lot of other great music writers packed into this book too (which should be obvious from the title, non?), including Sean Nelson, Nikki Darling, and Maura Johnston - just to name a few.

Wa can't wait until November when we can get our hands on this and crack it open for a cozy afternoon of reading!

You can pre-order your copy at one of our fine local bookstores or on Amazon.

Girls To The Front: Sara Marcus talkin' about revolution at Elliott Bay Book Company tonight (October 11)

Chris Estey — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 15:49:22 +0000

Brooklyn-based writer and musician Sara Marcus comes to Seattle tonight (Monday, October 11) to party with us for the release of her new book, Girls To The Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution (Harper Perennial). It begins early, at 5 p.m., and features a musical performance from the band Led to Sea.

Even without the addition of live music, this would be an exciting event, as Marcus was one of the very best presenters and presences at the EMP Pop Conference the past few years, giving fired-up papers and dialogue on punk politics and women, and presenting some of the best panels.

Girls To The Front is the most substantial and thrilling of the histories that have been published about the riot grrrl movement. Marcus puts you in between the legendary first meeting between late, illuminating avant-garde writer Kathy Acker and a just-awakening Kathleen Hannah, who lied about working on a magazine with legendary Seattle rock photographer Alice Wheeler in order to "interview" (i.e., meet) her hero at the Pike Place Market back in the early 90s. That's just one of the scenes that are expertly described and ruminated-upon in the book's 325+ pages.

Book report: party tonight with Kurt B. Reighley at the Sunset

imaginary victoria — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 23:26:56 +0000

If you missed last week's reading at Elliott Bay Bookstore, fret not -- while you won't get any verbal prose tonight, you can still join the party for Kurt B. Reighley's new book, United States of Americana: Backyard Chickens, Burlesque Beauties, and Handmade Bitters: A Field Guide to the New American Roots Movement. He'll be on-site all night long along with the book's illustrator, Aaron Bagley, to shake some hands, sign some copies, and do some celebratin' (as he rightly should).

They'll be getting their DIY on tonight down at the Sunset, along with performances by Mark Pickerel & His Praying Hands, Cobirds Unite, Paula the Swedish Housewife, Miss Indigo Blue, and Squirrel Butter. It's only $7.00 for all you 21-and-uppers, and with a lineup like that, there's really no reason for you not to go, now is there?

We'll see you in Ballard!

Kick-ass women of Rollerderby come to share tribal secrets with their scrappin' clan in Seattle, Friday August 27

Chris Estey — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:26:41 +0000

For fans of local roller derby dominators Rat City Rollergirls (a team which is one of the very finest nationally and cram their regional tournaments with frothing fans every time), the book Down And Derby: An Insider's Guide to Roller Derby needs to be up on the shelf with the torn off band-aid backings, the beer-doused punk rock bootlegs, and the used-for-skeet skuffed DVD of Whip It.

Written by veteran NPR host Alex Cohen with WGA veteran and Blood And Thunder magazine scribe Jennifer Barbee, the new Soft Skull Press anthology of roller derby history, how to, and contemporary heroes is one of my favorite recent tomes. Due to appear and read at Elliott Bay Book Company (1521 10th Avenue on Capitol Hill) on Friday, August 27, at 7 PM, new and old fans of the woman-empowered sport shouldn't miss this appearance from these authors.

Down And Derby elegantly describes the savagery from the center of the California stomping grounds (and the celebrity of Toughie Brasuhn and Gerry Murray, just before the damage moved on to TV back in the day) to the dirt county sidelines ("If You Can't Be An Athlete, You Can Be An Athletic Supporter," with expert advice on how to get good tats and get on properly as a participating fan). As a dude who loved watching derby on the tube growing up in the 70s, it's a trip to see another wave of wonderful women like Kamikaze Kim and Tequila Mockingbird bounce their sisters around and go for the gold. Down And Derby discusses the various positions of the players, and is honest about why some aspects of playing rules and other duties really suck.

From "The Spandex Years" and "Deep In The Heart Of Texas" to portrayals in film and other media, this new book is great for both for nervous neophytes and old school bruisers. Come out and say hello to Barbee and Cohen and you might rub elbows (watch out! Ow!) with a few local Rat City ragamuffins too. Sweet.

"You Got Your Booze In My Comics!" Backroom Comics Podcast live July 12 at Solo

Chris Estey — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 23:09:18 +0000

Seattle is a big comics AND music town; besides musicians putting out their own comics and slinking around both sides of the counter at comic stores, and whole bands working in the Fantagraphics warehouse at times, there is almost a mutual fandom for both. That connection has been helped out with bright, dapper promoters like Pete Greenberg moving back and forth between those creative milieus.

Pete was in charge of making the old Croc the rocking madness it was night after night for many years, and then did the same for Chop Suey. He was always great to BANDOPPLER, the comics-friendly music magazine I used to co-edit, and now he helps put on the Backroom Comics Podcast (with someone here who might look awful familiar to the Three Imaginary Girls family):

Next week, the Backroom Comics Podcast comes out from behind the long boxes and displays and presents "You've Got Booze On My Comics!" at Solo Bar ("the best bar in Seattle to be named after a Star Wars character", the invite says) on 200 Roy Street in Lower Queen Anne.

Starting at 8 PM, there will be a comic book swap (bring one take one! "Kinda like a key party only way less icky"), death defying trivia questions, performances by Galzilla ("Beware The Clownquistador!"), and something called "Drink & Draw"...which many cartoonists I know locally have been practicing for for quite some time.

"Live readings! Games! Fun! Booze! You!" And make that me, because I wouldn't miss this hot mess for the world.

Bookmark THIS! Thee best "lit up" events that will "ZAPP" ya this month

Chris Estey — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 07:40:26 +0000

Just a few more days of the Seattle International Film Festival and a ton of sizzling hot music shows to see now that June is here, but you should start "booking" (ha) some time for some very TIG-worthy readings and parties about books coming up. As a nervous and gluttonous reader of quality stuff, I heartily endorse all of the programs listed below, and hope that you can attend them:

Evergreen graduate Megan Kelso is one of the dazzling shards from the Pac NW underground comics explosion of the early 90s, best described as the first queen of twee comics, and has a new graphic novel out from Fantagraphics called Artichoke Tales. Since doing her self-published Girlhero back in the early 90s, she has done several books (Queen of the Black Black and The Squirrel Mother among them), and had her "Watergate Sue" weekly run in the New York Times Magazine. Artichoke Tales is about two families struggling in times of war and it will probably beat the holy tarnation out of your poor little heart. Her artwork is simple-dimple but elegantly evocative, every line precise with meaning, which sees all-of-us-every-last-one-of-us pain from oppression and abuse, transforming it into magical illustrated storytelling. The Fantagraphics Store will be hosting an exhibit and book launch for Artichoke Tales on Saturday, June 12, from 6 to 9 PM. It's also the Second Saturday Art Attack in Georgetown and you won't want to miss that!

Hey, did you notice that howlingly great Stranger cover drawn by David Lasky a couple of weeks back, which satirically boiled all the plots of the SIFF movies down to one several panel strip? Well, Mr. Lasky has helped put together a humungous benefit for ZAPP, the esteemed and great time-killing zine library at the Hugo House, and Megan Kelso will also be there, along with Jim Woodring, whose Weathercraft we hyped a few days back. Thus, something called Grandma ZAPP's Rolling Thunderheart Mountain Variety Show is coming up Tuesday, June 15 at the Hugo House, starting at 7 PM. $10 to benefit the zine library, one of the very best in the country, and other performers include insanely talented mini-comics duo Max Clotfelter and Kelly Froh ("Stewbrew"), Lucy Morehouse of "Ong Ong" zine, and musical performances by Helen Parson. (1634 11th Avenue on Capitol Hill.)

But what about the King? Elvis Presley, that is, and Seattle is home to one of the best authors who have ever written about him, Gillian G. Gaar, in the period true fans care about him the most (his black leathery sex god '67 comeback special!!), in a handsome B&W history just out, with oodles of loving musical details, photos, and story, story, story. Return of the King: Elvis Presley's Great Comeback (Jawbone) starts in the valley of Elvis bashing out flick after flick of crap (with the occasional Blue Hawaii giving us a "Can't Help Falling In Love") or a track like "Return to Sender" from Girls! Girls! Girls! But mostly, people thought Elvis was washed up in the mid-60s as he actually was by the late 70s. But as Gaar so masterfully tells the tale, an archetypal Southern saga of raw, raunchy, rock redemption and ascension from the ashes, Presley got his shit together for some recordings in front of some wetting-themselves like a Faulkner-scribed Mississippi gusher fans, of live versions of timeless soul-punk like "In The Ghetto," "Suspicious Minds" and other city boy kisses country boy rockabilly razzle dazzle. It's a story you shouldn't miss, like the Beatles snarfing speed in Germany and bashing out a new form of beat music, or the Sex Pistols in Jon Savage's England's Dreaming. And if you do desire to own at least one book about the King in your collection, make it by one of Seattle's best rock writers, long-time scribe Gillian G. Gaar, who will be reading from the Return of the King on Sunday, June 20, at 4 PM, at the new location for Elliott Bay Bookstore on Capitol Hill. Q&A and signing to follow! (Yay, Gillian, this one is as great as the Rough Guide to Nirvana, which I keep by my bedside! If you care about real rock write, you'll be there with me.)

Finally, a bit of a rerun to a preview I did several weeks ago, but since a finished copy of WE NEVER LEARN came in by New Bomb Turks' front shouter and journalist-on-the-lamb Eric Davidson, "The Gunk Punk Undergut, 1988-2001," soaked in spilled pints and girl-spit and roadie sweat and blood from scraped knees against burning hot amplifiers getting the hell on and off the stage, covering the "your floor my ceiling" underground of The Dwarves and The Dirtbombs, the White Stripes and Oblivians, Jay Reatard and Brit brat Billy Childish and hundreds of other punch-your-guts-out garage punk bands from at least three continents, 351 pages of giving the finger to MTV and pure beard-pulling you-are-there writerly adrenaline, with a forward by queen bitch of noise Byron Coley, you best be aware that Mr. Davidson is coming to Seattle on Tuesday, June 29 at Easy Street Records on 20 Mercer Street for a book signing/reading at 3 PM in the afternoon, and then later that night at 9 PM at swanky vinyl bar Snooze Part Deux at 10406 Holman Road for a DVD showing (!!) as well. Don't miss it. Yes, this paragraph descended into all bold FOR A REASON. BECAUSE OF ERIC DAVIDSON'S GREAT BIG GORGEOUS GRAB ASS BOOK (JUST OUT AT EASY STREET) IT IS IN ALL CAPS AS WELL.

The punk rock life and unsolved death of the mastermind behind "New Wave Theatre" is extraordinary reading

Chris Estey — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 08:21:31 +0000

Have you ever seen Eraserhead? In David Lynch's first B&W Surrealist mind-hump of a movie, there is scene with a little song the "Lady in the Radiator" sings in which the only lyrics are: "In heaven, everything is fine." It is a supremely affecting and menacing moment in an art film filled with them.

Josh Frank, co-author of Fool The World, The Oral History of a Band Called The Pixies, was a Twin Peaks fan growing up in suburban Potomac, Maryland when he first saw that perverse pageantry. He would later come to find out the otherworldly, upsetting tune was written by Peter Ivers, an experimental-pop musician and the catalyst-center of an early experiment in cable television's desire to blend challenging new rock music, insurgent comedy, and arty weirdness into a show called New Wave Theatre.

That show featured bands like the Dead Kennedys and Fear, among many others, and lived up to the strangeness of the movie Ivers wrote the song for, as well as his classically bizarre LPs Knight of the Blue Communion (1969), Terminal Love (1974), and others. Full of stark imagery mixed with improvisational madness, Ivers' own music was simply another element of this proto-punk Renaissance Man's adventures in acting, humor, TV scores (for Roger Corman flicks and even Starsky & Hutch), but most of all, his New Wave Theatre, which was a thinly veiled look at the real Los Angeles underground shot out on channels like USA to the heartland of America, rattling the minds of its children. It thrilled John Belushi and Harold Ramis, whose lives would be entwined with Ivers' own, as driven to excessive creativity as the former but with an ambitious heart to entertain wide-scale too like the latter. As status-quo karmic payback (if you believe in crap like that) Ivers was found gruesomely beaten to death in his art studio-loft-music space on March 3, 1983.

In Heaven Everything Is Fine is an excellent oral history constructed by Frank (also known for The Jonathan Richman Musical) and co-authored by novelist Charlie Buckholt. It has to wade through the morbid realms of the druggies and dangerous thugs who populated Ivers' private life to try and make sense of his cruelly brutal death, which shows what people who were creating on the margins of society were doing to dream and get by before MTV and the Internet told them what was acceptably "cool." I remember finding New Wave Theatre pretty annoying, personally, because it pushed a sloppy, weaning humanism at the same time it let me see my favorite first wave hardcore bands. Ivers had a tendency to "challenge" his guests and ask them "probing" questions, but unlike same-period comedians such as Andy Kaufman (who let you guess why he wanted to wrestle women so feverishly), the post-hippie ideology crammed against the liberating musical aesthetics. Still, Ivers' mysteriously ambivalent social sexuality, commitment to sweeping away apathy, and building community in strangeness, were essential to the cause of alternative culture. If not for the meddling and probably malicious over-control of a creative partner named David Jove, Ivers may have lived longer to antagonize consumer society into the new century. Or would have ended up a casualty like Klaus Nomi or Kaufman himself. Hard to say.

Still, In Heaven Everything Is Fine is an alternately inspiring and toe-curdling tale of one of the sweet, strong, idealistic personalities of someone who brought many people together to do something wild and wonderful in a world of commercial conformism. LA was rocked hard by Ivers, and even those who shared his need to shock and awaken his audience (whoever that may be, bored hipsters and dead-eyed mall kids alike awake at 3 AM vegging out to the demon box) felt the need to spar with him. From history-clearing interviews with Lampoon writer Doug Kenney to shit-stirring rants from members of Angry Samoans, Devo, and others make this an irradiating glimpse into the punched up, often painful beginnings of a world that makes a lot of what you see and hear at venues or in modern alt-weeklies/blogs or in current music at all possible.

Jim Woodring's mind-blowing WEATHERCRAFT unveiled at Fantagraphics this Saturday, May 22

Chris Estey — Fri, 21 May 2010 06:37:52 +0000

We have a genius artist in our midst in Seattle, beloved internationally, who started in graphic novels but whose paintings have been avidly collected, his imagery made into hot-selling Japanese toys, and those art-work has been animated. Jim Woodring was a co-recipient of the highly lauded United States Artist Fellowship (2006, with collaborator Bill Frisell) and then in 2008 became an Artist Trust recipient for Washington State Artists. He also had exhibitions in Australia and France last year. And he benefits Seattle by having called it home for a very long time, for many different reasons, but mostly because his work kicks ass.

Beyond that, Woodring has been a source of encouragement and inspiration to a couple of entire generations of younger cartoonists, painters, illustrators, and "outsider" artists who admire his ability to create impeccably rendered artwork that pulls you in and hammers open a third eye to your subconscious. He hosts a local artists group (Friends of the Nib) that has been helping other artists get up to snuff on their craftsmanship autonomously, and giving them camaraderie in the midst of a world plagued by bad computer graphics and terrible commercial "art."

Are you a Drooling Fanatic? Meet the author of the funniest rock book ever written

Chris Estey — Thu, 20 May 2010 07:54:08 +0000

Rock And Roll Will Save Your Life is easily the best humor book on music I've ever read. Author Steve Almond received a lot of accolades for his last non-fiction work, Candyfreak, and he takes his sublime ability to salivate over a subject and viciously poke fun at himself and the world into territory that will be familiar but also probably a little sacred to Three Imaginary Girls readers. This Thursday and Friday, at 7 PM on May 20 and 21, he will be appearing and reading from it at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park (located at 17171 Bothell Way N.E.) and then at Elliott Bay Bookstore at its new Capitol Hill location at 7pm.

I know the title may seem a little wonky, but this collection of short, crackling essays is as intimately endearing to music addicts as can possibly be. Rarely have the differences between "The Music Douche" (guys who work at used record stores who "invariably abused" him for supporting their places of employment, usually specialists such as "Reggae Douche" and "Metal Douche"), Concert Queens (his haircutter who will endure Pat Benatar three nights in a row for no particular reason other than the bliss of the painful ear buzz when her head hits the pillow later after standing near the big amps), The Collectors ("Do I own too many records?" "Does your friends and family think I own too many records?" and if you answered "no" to the first question and "yes" to the second you have probably read this far into this posting anyways), and other forms of the Drooling Fanatics.

The Decemberists' Colin Meloy to write children's books for HarperCollins

Chris Estey — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:27:34 +0000

Most TIG readers realize that Colin Meloy knows his way with a fetching narrative whether in song (on oodles of albums by his band The Decemberists among others, including under his own name) or in memoir (his superb 33 1/3 book on The Replacements' Let It Be, which has been unfairly lost in the shuffle over time). And now those fans who either dip into children's literature for its affection for good, straightforward storytelling, or wish to get their own kids or others' kids hooked on the book, can get them Meloy's own debut in the field, as part of his new Wildwood series.

A "tale of adventure, magic, and danger," Wildwood is a trilogy in collaboration with fawned-over illustrator Carson Ellis. HarperCollins won the rights to the series after five other publishing houses competed in the auction for the rights. The first novel should be in stores in autumn of 2010.

Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk

Chris Estey — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:53:18 +0000

When author Tony DuShane was a nervous young man struggling with being a Jehovah's Witness, his extremely religious father lost his mind and punched five holes in the wall above their living room couch. To hide these examples of his dad's breaking point, the already-disfellowshipped teenager plastered an Einsterzende Neubauten poster over the damage.

This is one of the minor scenes in a very funny, but also very mood-rattling novel by DuShane, whose "Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk" came out from Soft Skull Press on February 2nd. It's marketed as fiction, but due to the author's own past and the curiosity those of us outside the cult have about the goings-on of all those extremely well-dressed young men and women who thrust crappy end-of-the-world literature at us downtown, it probably wouldn't hurt to consider it memoir.

Beat-inspired landmark rock critic Lester Bangs wrote a nightmarish song about growing up as a JW and seeing a family member burned up in a fire ("There's A Man In There" from his short-lived band Birdland), mixing up the apocalyptic images in his head. When you consider that Patti Smith went door to door with Watchtowers before she embraced Baudelaire and Jagger and Burroughs as her scripture, and how much Pere Ubu's David Thomas uses his background in the very American religion to write blackly comedic mini-operas to paradise lost and everything falling apart, critical thinking punks should dig into "Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk" at least for the dirt.

And it's here: Due to never claiming citizenship with anywhere but heaven itself, many JWs were slaughtered in Malawai because church elders forbid them to buy citizenship cards. The manipulations and bribes with the Mexican government at that time (the 1970s) were a turning point for realizing just how much this organized religion prizes property and power above the lives of its members (just like pretty much all the others).

But it's the condemnation of popular culture and its rebel baby rock and roll, the ever-enforced weird sexual repressions, and constant domineering by elders in the church locally that fuels the ferocious confessions of DuShane's narrator. As helping a drunken bridesmaid get through her wedding becomes more transgressive than physical abuse elsewhere in the congregation. As the protagonist describes the psychic murder of his mother by his father's justification of the sociopathic actions of the church elders.

Somehow, DuShane adroitly lets us into this veiled world but also makes the awkward longings and petty punishments relatable for anyone who's craved both familial and community acceptance but wanted personal freedom, too.

The new issue of Rolling Stone has an excellent article on the Dahn Yoga cult which originated in Korea but has mad money connections and political power here, reprising the 80s invasion of the Moonies into right wing Christian fundamentalist organizations. In other words, this is a great book to laugh and cry to, but also to get some background so you know why Pat Robertson sounds like a berserk reptile from the planet Fuckhead.