Maggot Brain #8 (Mar/Apr/May 2021) (Magazine)
The cover feature is an epic, really long timeline of images and interview with the modern king of arts portrait photography, Michael Lavine; Amazing archival images by Gail Butensky and reflections on Pavement + what we think is the band's first new interview in a decade in anticipation of their reunion shows and events later this year. Tom Scharpling talks about prog rock with Matt Berry; A lengthy interview with the SF-based dreamy pop band Cindy by editor Mike McGonigal; Reuben Radding's kil…
Blue Iris, Black Rose by Burroughs and Ira expert Ian MacFadyen
Ira Cohen (February 3, 1935 – April 25, 2011) was an American poet, publisher, photographer and filmmaker. Ira Cohen was born to deaf parents and instead of just developing speech, began developing his vision early, learning to spell with his fingers. In 1961 he took a Yugoslavian freighter to Tangiers where he lived for four years and published Gnaoua, a magazine devoted to exorcism, introducing the work of Brion Gysin, William S. Burroughs and other members of the Interzone mob.
In 1970 he wen…
Live New Departures 1960-1967 (Ephemera Map)
*A numbered edition of 26 copies* Live New Departures featured some of the UK’s finest modern jazz musicians together with poets Pete Brown (co-writer/Cream) and Michael Horovitz (Britain’s Beat Laureate). Live New Departures 1960-1967 ephemera map. An A 5 envelope filled with Live New Departures ephemera. Facsimile prints of programs, selections of letters, press sheets, flyers and much more.
Live New Departures was a series of poetry, folk and jazz happenings - where interaction between artis…
Antechamber
Michael McClure’s mysticism is vigorously scientific. Even the familiar patterned shapes of his poems remind us of the stars in the night sky and those we see when we shut our eyes. In the dancing lines of his newest work—the title poem “Antechamber” most especially—are the whirl of galaxies, the radiance of molecules, the energy lines of the double helix coiling around its core. — New Directions, 1978
Songs
Foamola is an underground musical group from New York City, consisting of Sparrow and his wife, who went by the cyber alias Violet Snow. Also in the group is artist Lawrence Fishberg and Sparrow's daughter, poet Sylvia Gorelick. Their music has been described as "folk-minimalist", and as "anti-Plutarch pop"
“Foamola is the only anti-rock band named after an herbal arthritis remedy. All our music is original, with tunes by Lawrence Fishberg (keyboard, vocals) and lyrics by Sparrow (ocarina, item…
Perfect Lives
*2022 repress now in digipak, with new cover art* Robert Ashley's Perfect Lives has been called "the most influential music/theater/literary work of the 1980s." At its center is the hypnotic voice of Robert Ashley. His continuous song narrates the events of the story and describes a 1980s update of the mythology of small town America. Perfect Lives is populated with myriad characters revolving around two musicians - "R", the singer of myth and legend, and his friend, Buddy, "The World's Greatest…
Maggot Brain #7 (Dec/Jan/Feb 2022) (Magazine)
"The front cover: is a gorgeous 1981 backstage photo of Lou Reed, subject of a phenomenal feature by former NY Rocker contributor Lisa Jane Persky. Inside you will also find: Grateful Dead - Kurt Vile tries to explain them to none other than Tom Scharpling; A special new piece about the making of the Velvet Underground's Loaded; Myriam Gendron - Track by track guide to her highly anticipated second album; Lee 'Scratch' Perry - Reprint of the best feature we ever read about him, by Erik Davis. Ki…
Maggot Brain #6 (Sep/Oct/Nov 2021) (Magazine)
"On The Cover: Amazing unseen image of Bikini Kill live at CBGB in 1990, by Mike Galinsky, with accompanying lengthy photo essay exploring indie-rock in the early 1990s, including behind-the-scenes, unpublished black-and-white film images of Sonic Youth, Unwound, Mary Timony, Sleepyhead, Half Japanese, and more. Columns: Luc Sante's ridiculously good 'Pinakothek' column where he goes off on one image; John Colpits AKA Kid Millions on Miles Cooper Seaton (RIP); The forgotten brilliance of bluesy …
Maggot Brain #5 (Jun/Jul/Aug 2021) (Magazine)
"Maggot Brain is a full-color, quarterly magazine edited by noted Detroit scribe Mike McGonigal: 100+ pages packed with phenomenal content -- art, music, literature, unpublished archival material, and more -- with a simple promise to only exist on the printed page. Cover story: Why feminist punk pioneers the Raincoats still matter. Unseen, amazing photos of AC/DC from their first US tour in 1977. Celebrated indie auteur filmmaker Jim Jarmusch's playful newspaper collages -- great interview plus …
Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins
*2022 stock* 'The Lennon/Ono collaborative albums were a critical part of their take on celebrity coupledom. Their first two LPs carried the series title “Unfinished Music,” a conceptual gambit with deeper roots in the aesthetic of the Fluxus art movement than in that of the British Invasion. The first set to be issued, subtitled Two Virgins, was a sound-collage set reportedly produced during their first night together. The album’s name, and the full-frontal nudity of its cover, referenced the c…
Unfinished Music No. 2: Life With The Lions
*2022 stock* "These two need no introduction, but "Cambridge 1969," which takes up all of side one, is a completely unheralded classic. For twenty minutes Yoko vibratoes her way around a single note while Lennon provides terrifying power-drone feedback accompaniment. This is the ultimate punk/metal take on La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela's Black Album (which, considering Ono & Young's history together, might be both figurative and literal). Towards the end John Stevens and John Tchichai chi…
NYC 11/20/02 (Tape)
** Limited edition of 60. It comes with a nice insert * A 90 minute very spirited and informal reading at the Tagine Restaurant, NYC by Ira with musical accompinament, sitars and the like. Ira Cohen (February 3, 1935 – April 25, 2011) was an American poet, publisher, photographer and filmmaker. Ira Cohen was born to deaf parents and instead of just developing speech, began developing his vision early, learning to spell with his fingers. In 1961 he took a Yugoslavian freighter to Tangiers where h…
Teach Yourself Fucking (Tape)
* Edition of 60 * 95 minutes of songs, demos, rants and poetry. Recordings meant for his third album on Kramer's Shimmy Disc, it was never released. Naphtali "Tuli" Kupferberg (September 28, 1923 – July 12, 2010) was an American counterculture poet, author, singer, cartoonist, pacifist anarchist, publisher, and co-founder of the band The Fugs.
Sound Commitments (Book)
Featuring new archival research and/or interviews with significant figures of the period in each chapter, Sound Commitments will appeal to researchers and advanced students in the fields of post-war music, cultures of the 1960s, and the avant-garde, as well as to an informed general readership.
Composing Dissent (Book)
The 1960s saw the emergence in the Netherlands of a generation of avant-garde musicians (including figures such as Louis Andriessen, Willem Breuker, Reinbert de Leeuw and Misha Mengelberg) who were to gain international standing and influence as composers, performers and teachers, and who had a defining impact upon Dutch musical life. Fundamental to their activities in the sixties was a pronounced commitment to social and political engagement. The lively culture of activism and dissent on the st…
Terry Riley's in C (Book)
Unquestionably the founding work of minimalism in musical composition, Terry Riley's In C (1964) challenges the standards of imagination, intellect, and musical ingenuity to which "classical" music is held. Only one page of score in length, it contains neither specified instrumentation nor parts. Its fifty-three motives are compact, presented without any counterpoint or evident form. The composer gave only spare instructions and no tempo. And he assigned the work a title that's laconic in the ex…
Writings on Music (Book)
In the mid-1960s, Steve Reich radically renewed the musical landscape with a back-to-basics sound that came to be called Minimalism. These early works, characterized by a relentless pulse and static harmony, focused single-mindedly on the process of gradual rhythmic change. Throughout his career, Reich has continued to reinvigorate the music world, drawing from a wide array of classical, popular, sacred, and non-western idioms. His works reflect the steady evolution of an original musical mind.W…
This Life of Sounds (Book)
This Life of Sounds portrays an important and previously unexplored corner of the history of new music in America: the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts int eh State University of New York at Buffalo. Composers Lukas Foss (the Center's founder), Lejaren Hiller, and Morton Feldman were the music directors over the life of "the Buffalo group," during the years 1964-1980. Based on Foss's plan, the Rockefeller Foundation provided annual fellowships for young composers and virtuoso instrumen…
Tape Leaders: A Compendium of Early British Electronic Music Composers
Absolute tip! In the form of a richly illustrated compendium, Tape Leaders is an indispensable reference guide for anyone interested in electronic sound and its origins in Great Britain. For the first time a book sets out information on practically everyone active with experimental electronics and tape recording across the country, revealing the hidden history of early British electronic music. With an individual entry for each composer, starting with Daevid Allen and going through to Peter Zin…
Sikorsky
Sikorsky is an ambitious and highly original orchestral piece for 18 musicians — 8 clarinets, 4 drum kits, 4 double basses, trumpet and the alto sax of its composer and arranger, Danish, Copenhagen-based Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard. As on his previous release Vesper (2012), Løkkegaard is fascinated with the sound of clarinets and the sound of a closely-voiced clarinet ensemble plays a major role on his fifth release.The title of the 30-minute composition is associated with the sound of the Sikorsky h…