Hello! I must be Going!

Sorry for the lack of substantial posts by any of us lately-this time of the year is nuts. We'll get back to posting long ramblers soon. So to fill space and remind you we are still here for you, is the cover to my new comic book. It's been done awhile now, and I think D&Q is going to be sending it to the printer soon.

Brad Laner Live

This Sunday Brad Laner of Medicine will be performing a solo acoustic show at Family. 8pm. Free.

From the LA Weekly:
Laner is probably best known as the front man of Medicine, an L.A.-based guitar band that made a string of excellent noise-pop records during the first half of the ’90s. Unabashedly melodic but caked with a thick layer of texture and fuzz, Medicine’s music was viewed by many as an American counterpart to stuff by English shoegazer groups like My Bloody Valentine and Ride.

'Neighbor Singing' is the first album he’s issued under his own name. Culled from pieces of music Laner’s been recording at home over the past few years, it’s a stunner, a gorgeous little psych-pop gem that distills all of Laner’s work down to one easily consumable (yet deceptively complicated) essence. Catchy choruses, cool guitar noises, warm-and-fuzzy electronic squiggles — they’re all here.

For the full article:

Listen to a song from Laner's latest album on Home Tapes

NY People

If you live in NY and read this blog, firstly I am very flattered, and secondly you should finagle yourself one of the limited seats at the Journal Gallery on Thursday for The Sads 'silent show'. Guitar, modular synth, electronic drums, keys, and vocals will be audible only through headphones. Weird, yes. I believe their will be around 40 sets. If you don't know, The Sads are LA's Traveling Wilburys, a veritable all-star band. Alleged Gallery's Aaron Rose, Unwound and The Melvins' Dave Scott Stone, photographer Dan Monick, Moonrat's and intermittent Family staff member Aska Matsumiya. If this weren't enough the Sads are represented by Teenage Teardrops, so their recordings have Cali Dewitt's seal of quality.

And speaking of Dave Stone, this gem just arrived:



Dave Scott Stone: "Plays The Modular Synthesizer"

Released on PPM, with artwork by Xylor Jane. Look out for Dave's upcoming Family residency - one week of modular mastery in the literature section.

Sunday - Double Book Launch

This Sunday is a big one at Family with the launch of two bodacious new books.

Come at 7, where Cheryl Dunn will be signing copies of her photo book 'Some Kinda Vacation' (Picturebox). Stay on till 8:30 for the latest offering by Trinie Dalton - 'A Unicorn is Born' (Abrams) illustrated by Kathy Ayers. Trinie will do a short reading, and Becky Stark (of Lavender Diamond) and Clare Crespo (of Yummyfun) will perform a unicorn cupcake demonstration, with free cupcakes for all!

Here's some info on the books:



Cheryl Dunn's first retrospective book delves into the worlds of street art, graffiti and life on the margins of America. In artists like Barry McGee, Margaret Killgallen, and Chris Johanson, Dunn found a shared sensibility: they were all documenting urban life and its discontents in their own unique ways. And so she documented the artists as much as their shared subjects, along the way compiling an impressive body of portrait and documentary photography of the street art scene as well as a moving group of images of urban America.



Ursula, a pregnant white unicorn, prepares to grace the forest with the birth of another member of her rare, wondrous species. As nature’s caretaker, Ursula is already an expert herbalist, magician, alchemist, astrologer, and psychic. Now, awaiting her first colt, she has an opportunity to embrace both the practical and mystical aspects of motherhood. Ursula’s regal intelligence balanced by earthy warmth reveals her to be the quintessential mother and a generous teacher, as she divulges secrets not only about the universality of motherhood but also of confidential, ancient unicorn lore. Ursula’s belly grows, and she delivers a brown, long-haired baby. As this visually stunning pair get acquainted, grazing meadows for snacks, practicing spells, or, later, diving off their favorite rock in a nearby stream, Ursula realizes the true infinity of nature’s power and revels in her happiness at having experienced animal magic in a completely new way.

Simon Evans Exhibition + Pocahaunted Live!

On Saturday night come to Jack Hanley Gallery in Chinatown (across the road path from Ooga Booga) for the opening of Simon Evans' new show. Pocahaunted will be playing too. Simon is one of my favorite artists. When I met him some time ago he was sweating at his kitchen table in SF, gluing thousands of microscopically handwritten words to a great board, listening to Ivor Cutler. He'd been up all night to finish in time for a solo show and was less than an inch down the page. Poor fellow, but amazing artist.

The Not So Reclusive Anymore Cormac Mccarthy

After having done no more than three interviews in 50-odd years, the greatest writer of our generation suddenly can't shut up. It's worth subscribing to oprah.com just to see him on the show, interviewed in this clubhouse for geniuses. This is a conversation between him and the Coen bros touching on subjects like Five Easy Pieces, whatever happened to Terrence Malick, and scary dogs.

check it here:
bowl cut villians

The Sunday after Sunday.

November 18th, Sunday 7PM.
We are psyched for this event. Gonna be rad. More info soon.
For more Dunn click here.

even more rad stuff (box cutter redux)

we got a lot more than sammy mentioned.


blood on satan's claw lp/cd. trunk.
a soundtrack to a movie with naked girls and blood. but the music is flutes and weird old electronic instruments. i know, right?


breathless 2-disc dvd. criterion.
i got pretty hard into jean-luc this year, and this movie is one of his best. recommend for nights alone in bed. $
and
days of heaven dvd. criterion.
visually stunning. my favorite terrence malick movie besides badlands and the thin red line. the visual equivalent of the magic hour, besides the real magic hour in the day time.


tv party dvds. mvd.
my favorite tv show ever hosted by a personal hero, mr. glenn o'brien. a late night public access (and sometimes call in) show that aired every wednesday from 1978 to 1982, tv party was "the tv show that is a cocktail party but which could also be a political party" and everyone from basquiat to robert fripp hung out and smoked weed in front of it's cameras.


help yourself, help yourself by pat dewitt.
did you know pat dewitt wrote a self help book? yeah me neither.


sundays with walt and skeezix. sunday press books.
i hate comics, i hate books so large you can't fit them anywhere and they become cumbersome objects in your home, so imagine my surprise when flipping through this and realizing i still hated comics and how obtuse this book is.

An insanely rad week to be holding the box cutter.

All this amazing stuff arrived this week.

Storeyville by Frank Santoro. Picturebox.
The best thing this week coming out anywhere is this. It sneaks up on you and holds you in place and the next thing you know the sun is coming up and your still holding it, freaking out over so many aspects of it-like the wonderful hopper-esque images of small towns and the just right period details that make this much more than the sum of it's parts as well as just a great object. It's exciting and inspiring and oversized and hardcover and has some great writing in the intro from Chris Ware, who has really internalized much of what makes this thing awesome. Need more? Read a nice Santoro interview with his editor.



Mario Bava Collection Volume 2. Anchor Bay.
Like a Basil Gogos painting come to life. The rare sixties horror guy who actually wanted to be a horror guy and completely delivers every single time.


Some Kinda Vocation by Cheryl Dunn. Picturebox again.
A lot of photobooks come out every week and most deal in the same stuff: artists, dirty kids, parties, guys pissing. And all of it looking like Terry Richardson's leftovers. Dunn does take photos of popular artists like chris johanson and barry mcgee and there are pictures of new jersey teenagers and bums but her work is head and shoulders above the rest of the vice photo staff by bringing an extremely strong eye to it all making something quite rich emotionally.


Bob Richardson by Terry Richardson. Damiani.
Speaking of Terry Richardson, here is the posthumous book on his father a fashion photographer in the sixties who completely changed how people looked at fashion spreads and ended by crazy and homeless and dead. I hate fashion, I hate fashion photography, so imagine my surprise when flipping through this and realizing I was looking at some of the strongest pictures this side of Stephen Shore and William Eggleston.


Basket Case 2 by Frank Henenlotter. Synapse.
Basket Case is in my top five for most beautiful pieces of hand made idiosyncratic cinema ever. and now part 2 is finally released on dvd!


Soft Power by Little Wings. Marriage Records.
The new record by one of the best new folky guys around. everything he has done has been radical and you can just add this onto the list. Also this week: Soft Power hand made patches:


Me and My Brother by Robert Frank. D.A.P.
Did you know Robert Frank made a movie? yeah me neither.


Black Black 2.
BLACK BLACK played the store a couple weeks ago on a triple bill . A teenage rock band that completely stole everyone's heart by the sheer jaw droppingly well crafted music on display. Awesome scary haunting sad music. The singer has that great kind of voice where she doesn't really sing, its more like she's singing along and it reminds you that girls singing off handedly is like one of the rare joys of this life. They dropped off home burned cds of their second batch of songs, all with really nice hand drawn covers.
Click the link and listen to 'honey in your ears'.

People Look Like Flowers at Last: New Poems by Charles Bukowski. Harper Collins.
At times its hard to like Bukowski because of the evil influence it has had on lonesome teenage wordsmiths the world over, but just a cursory glance at this book yesterday left me standing there for ages wanting to read just one more page. And if anything, all the shallow imitation just goes to show you what a fine line it is, making this scrappy heartfelt stuff work.


Moomin Volume 2. Drawn and Quarterly.
MOOMIN. MOO-MIN. MOOOOOOOO......MMMMIIIIIIN. MOOMIN. We should all be so lucky to make up a word that not only sounds like it always existed but is also fun to say all fucking day.