Michael Fournier, Amelia Garretson-Persans, others at Portland Brew June 6
Michael Fournier we met on tour last fall with our All Hands On anthology, at the Amherst event. You may remember him for his contribution to the 33 1/3 series of books about records — he authored the tome for Double Nickels on the Dime, by the Minutemen, and for 1980s/early 1990s punk culture and history and its place in the American arts pantheon, you’d be hard-pressed to find a writer who gets it more. He’s touring with a new novel, Hidden Wheel (click through the cover image to order at Three Rooms Press’ site, or better yet, pick up a copy at the show!), after the classic Rites of Spring song of the same name, and will be joined in Nashville by local T2H editor Todd Dills and Clarksville, Tenn.-based master-in-waiting Quincy Rhoads and Nashville-based art-book maker and writer Amelia Garretson-Persans (check out the stop-motion animation she completed recently for Nashville’s “By Lightnin” band in the vid below), among others TBA:
@Portland Brew, 1921 Eastland, Nashville
June 6, 6 p.m.
Free
Join us.
Here’s a great description of the new novel from the 33 1/3 series blog:
The novel focuses on the art and punk scenes of the Midwestern city Freedom Springs, where an opportunistic trustfunder named Ben Wilfork starts an all-ages art/show space names Hidden Wheel. Max Caughin, who tags under the name Faze, gets famous quick with a series of paintings on CD covers. His buddy Bernie Reese donates sperm to raise money for a new drum kit so his two-piece noiserock band Stonecipher can record. Bernie’s romantic interest (and former chess prodigy) Rhonda Barrett does dominatrix work by day and paints her life, sixty words at a time, on giant canvases by night. Their fates intertwine in a story reconstructed by William Molyneux, a 24th Century scholar reconstructing the Hidden Wheel scene after a solar flare erases all digital data in his era.
The Band
Dead Trend started as a fictional band in Hidden Wheel, Freedom Springs’ biggest musical export. As I wrote the book, I also wrote Dead Trend songs — short blasts of punk focusing on 1986 topics like Reagan, the Berlin Wall and Chernobyl. Some friends and I put the band together this summer, with me playing drums and doing backing vocals. We have a 7″ coming out soon on Baltimore’s Save vs. Poison Records. In the meantime, our music is available via cassette tape — demo versions of our songs recorded this summer, as well as a live set recorded in Orono, Maine.
Nerves Tuesday, Feb. 7, at Hungry Brain to feature Paul Lask, Amanda Faraone…
Join us for this last of our regular first-Tuesday-of-the-month installments at the Hungry Brain in Chicago. This one brings house band Good Evening and our inveterate redneck crooner of a host, Harold Ray, together with several quite recent THE2NDHAND contributors. Y’all, we couldn’t be no prouder.
So You Think You Have Nerves of Steel?
Feb. 7, 8:30 p.m. @ Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont, Chicago
Featuring, with tales of misery and intrigue, T2Hers all:
The intersection of rock and lit: Paul Lask
Experimentation personified: Amanda Faraone
And the beast himself: Untoward editor Matt Rowan
Click through the text links on their names for recent work from the three. And don’t miss it… (A-and keep an eye out for a late-March blowout at the Brain to thank the kind staff there for the great year-and-a-half-or-so we’ve resided there.)
All Hands On goes northeast Nov. 17-19
It’s All Hands On touring time yet again, this one to join contributors in Philadelphia, NYC, and Northampton, Mass., for three consecutive nights of readings by contributors to All Hands On: THE2NDHAND After 10, our 10th anniversary anthology, among others. Here are the details:
Philadelphia, Thursday, Nov. 17, 7 p.m. (click flyer image at right for a pdf)
@BrickBat Books, 709 South 4th Street
(215) 592-1207
w/ THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills, longtime contributors Peter Richter and (our FAQ editor and Rider University prof) Mickey Hess, as well as Ryan Eckes.
Brooklyn, Friday, Nov. 18, 7 p.m.
@Book Thug Nation, 100 North 3rd Street
info@bookthugnation.com
w/ T2H editor Todd Dills, longtime contributors Tobias Carroll, Philip Brunetti and Mickey Hess as well as Gabe Durham and Matt Cahan.
Northampton, Mass., Saturday, Nov. 19, 7:30 p.m.
@MEF Community Room, 60 Masonic St., lower level (next to Woodstar Cafe)
w/ T2H editor Todd Dills, All Hands On contributors Matt Cahan and Ben Stein, Gabe Durham and Ted Powers. Music by Gale Thompson.
(For pdfs of flyers for New York and Northampton events, click here and here, respectively.)
PERFORMER DETAILS
PHILIP BRUNETTI lives and writes in Brooklyn.
Nashville-based MATT CAHAN’s novel “Straight Commission” is excerpted in All Hands On: THE2NDHAND After 10.
TOBIAS CARROLL is an editor of Vol. 1. His fiction has appeared in THE2NDHAND, Metazen, Word Riot, 3:AM, Storychord, and elsewhere; he makes his home online at www.thescowl.org.
TODD DILLS is editor of THE2NDHAND and author of the novel Sons of the Rapture (Featherproof, 2006).
GABE DURHAM lives in Northampton, MA. He writes fiction and nonfiction, teaches literature, makes up test questions, and edits Dark Sky Magazine. His first book, a novel called Fun Camp, is forthcoming in 2013 from Mud Luscious Press.
Philadelphia-based RYAN ECKES’ recent Old News chapbook was published by Furniture Press. Find more from him here.
MICKEY HESS is an Associate Professor of English at Rider University, where he teaches arc welding, mig welding, and creative nonfiction. Recent from Hess in T2H. The Novelist and the Rapper forthcoming in 2012. Find him here.
Poet TED POWERS’ recent work has appeared in Strange Machine, Noo Journal, and GlitterPony, among others. He’s also an editor with Dark Sky Magazine.
New Jersey-based writer PETER RICHTER’s poetry and prose have been featured in Monkey Bicycle, THE2NDHAND, decomP and others. He likes wearing flannel, a recent development. He’s a cofounder of the Broadset crew.
BEN STEIN teaches English Language Arts at the Springfield Renaissance School. He lives in Amherst with his wife Julie and their cat. His “Important Things to Remember” short is featured in All Hands On.
WRITE A MANIFESTO; T2H no. 37 upcoming
1. Imagine a literary/artistic “movement” — an aesthetic school, a militant lit troupe — of sorts called “Stupidism.”
2. Imagine further all appropriate tenets/favored aesthetics/styles/ways of living associated with being a practicing “Stupidist.”
3. Now write a “Stupidist Manifesto” of the group and email results (keep it under a single-spaced page) to me for consideration for THE2NDHAND’s next broadsheet, no. 37, a special issue to accompany the release of All Hands On, our 10th-anniversary anthology. Order the book here.
4. Get all manifestoes in by Aug. 5 for consideration for the broadsheet — I’ll definitely take any and all after the date as well into consideration for a special unit here at txt. For an example of a few myself, Spencer Dew, and Kate Duva crafted in 2007, go here.
That’s todd [at] the2ndhand.com.
Nerves of Steel goes to West Virginia June 7
Richie “Ray Gene Bull” Tipton, an Appalachian musician, writer, soothsayer and social barometer. Tipton both screamed and crooned through the mic in his career as the front man for a southern-fried hard-rock band and a one-man, one-microphone, one-guitar performer.
McClanahan and Angel Babies (www.hollerpresents.com). Scott McClanahan is the writer of Stories, Stories II, and Stories V! His novel Hill William will be published by New York Tyrant books in Spring 2012. Angel Babies will begin recording their first album in 2011.
Nerves alumnus Ben Tanzer is the author of the books 99 Problems and You Can Make Him Like You, the forthcoming novella My Father’s House, and the humor collection This American Life.
House Band: Jay Hill & The Dirty Coal River Band is an Appalachian, dirt-stomping band with a “honky-tonk and roll” sound that mimics the heart and soul of the whiskey-soaked moan of a dimly lit barroom wedged between the hills and rail tracks of southern West Virginia.
Next stop (oh we wish) Nashville…
SO YOU THINK YOU HAVE NERVES OF STEEL? drops April 5 @ Hungry Brain
With music by Katie Knaub (expect more Harold Ray duets here) and Save The Clocktower, the latter a Chicago-based trio that merges electronics, live instrumentation, vocal harmonies, and catchy songwriting to create a pop/electronica blend. Check out their sophomore album Carousel or find them on Facebook.
For a pdf of the flyer, click the poster below. Spread the word.
