Sleep Bellum Sonno: "House of Spades"
New Jersey's Sleep Bellum Sonno are on tour with Rapid Cities promoting their latest release, Judge Us By How We Lived Our Lives Not By How We Made Our Living. Here are the five best things they've heard recently (with southern tour dates following...):
None of us are good at impressions.
Really. I promise! It is in your best interest to never ask us to attempt to mimic an accent. But as terrible as we are, for some reason we all have the bad habit of trying. For the most part it's intentional, we close the van doors and try our hardest to sound like we belong in that city. We add some drawl or over-exaggerate our vowels, but no matter how hard we try we never quite get it right. I guess, in a way, being bad at it is part of what makes it great.
And it is… Until we realize that we can't stop. We'll stop to get gas and forget to drop character. We'll pull over to eat and forget to turn off our lisps before ordering. And in the end we come home with a whole new vernacular.
5 ways to say "Cool"...
WICKED! WILBRAHAM, MA
It's a cliche, I know. And as often as it gets pointed out you would think people would be overly conscious of using it, but just as we can't deny being New Yawka's, our friends in Black Churches certainly aren't hiding the fact that they live a stones throw from Bawston either.
http://www.myspace.com/blackchurches
BADASS!
KANSAS / KC, MO
When we toured out to the border of Kansas and Missouri this winter it was officially the furthest we had traveled as a band. We didn't know what to expect, but one of the greatest things about music is its ability to create instant friendships, like we did with Texas Instruments and Grizzly J. Berry. Our late night guided tours and drunken views from the roofs of 200 year old hotels were nothing short of, well, Badass.
http://www.myspace.com/texasinstrumentstheband
http://www.myspace.com/grizzlyjberry
AMAZING! (or A-maaaaaazing)
ONEONTA, NY
A while back some of our best friends, who helped us start this band, moved a few hours upstate for school. We joked that their wouldn't be anything for them to do, which i realize now is unfair. There wasn't less to do, just less places to do it. So when they met some buddies and started spending all of their time knocking out some hits, it was only a matter of time before their personalities and mannerisms started rubbing off on each other. The exaggerated hand gestures that accompany this one are almost as fun to watch as TIMESHARES are live.
http://www.myspace.com/timesharesmusic
TIGHT! (or ToyT)
ROCKFORD, IL
We have been to Rockford, Illinois a few times now. If there were only one other place in this country that we always feel at home, I might say its Rockford. But as well as we have gotten to know Warren Franklin and the guys in Joie De Vivre I still can't get used to this. Its not really the word itself that gets my attention, or even the pronunciation, it's the quantity! Its nonstop. Which, i guess, in their defense, is understandable: The land of Cheap Trick has a lot of good things going for it right now, and these guys are responsible for a lot of it.
http://www.myspace.com/warrenfranklin
http://www.myspace.com/joiedevivreband
UNREAL (or unREEEEEAL)
LONG ISLAND, NY
If there is any one group of people to blame for our slang, it's Sainthood Reps. A few close friends of ours have put together a new superpower on Long Island. You may not have heard their songs yet, but you can't spend an hour in our town without hearing someone use one of their expressions. I don't know how most of them start, but when they do they catch on and spread quickly; as their music will soon. I'm confident of that.
http://www.myspace.com/sainthoodreps
What's everybody's favorite slang word right now?
Sleep Bellum Sonno w/ Rapid Cities Tour Dates:
March 14
Empire w/ Rapid Cities, Flechette, and In Circles
Richmond, Virginia
Mar 15 2010
8:00P
The Soapbox w/ Rapid Cities
Wilmington, North Carolina
Mar 16 2010
8:00P
Ye Old Shoppe w/ Rapid Cities & We were kids
Rock Hill, South Carolina
Mar 17 2010
8:00P
The Pinhook w/ Rapid Cities
Durham, North Carolina
Mar 18 2010
8:00P
Blue Nile w/ Rapid Cities
Harrisonburg, Virginia
More after the jump...
The annual Harvest of Hope festival is a benefit for migrant farm workers this Friday, Saturday and Sunday in St. Augustine, FL.
In only its second year, the Harvest of Hope festival has pulled together quite an impressive line-up; they're not messing around with this thing.
Dr. Dog, Small Brown Bike, Rogue Wave, Dear Landlord, Anti-Flag, Dead Confederate, Matt Pond PA are just some of the 100 or so bands playing out.
A combination of punk and indie rock, it brings together a couple of scenes that sometimes don't cross paths.
Tickets are $60 for a full weekend pass or $35 per day.
There are five stages (!!!) and here are a few picks after the jump:
Friday, March 12th
Stage 1:
4:40PM - 5:10PM Cymbals Eat Guitars
8:45PM - 9:30PM Rogue Wave
10:00PM - 11:00PM Dr. Dog
Stage 2:
4:10PM - 4:40PM Freelance Whales
5:05PM - 5:35PM Past Lives (still need to review this...)
6:00PM - 6:40PM Japanther
Stage 3:
6:30PM - 6:50PM We Are The Union
7:10PM - 7:30PM New Bruises
7:50PM - 8:10PM Anchor Arms
8:30PM - 8:50PM The Blacklist Royals
9:10PM - 9:30PM How Dare You
9:50PM - 10:15PM Dear Landlord
Saturday, March 13:
Stage 1:
12:15PM - 12:45PM A Wilhelm Scream
2:30PM - 3:15PM Strike Anywhere
3:45PM - 4:30PM Anti-Flag
5:00PM - 5:45PM 7 Seconds
Stage 2:
12:45PM - 1:30PM Fin Fang Foom
2:00PM - 2:45PM Signals
3:15PM - 4:00PM The Mercury Program
Stage 3:
4:50PM - 5:10PM Austin Lucas
5:30PM - 5:50PM Algernon Cadwallader
6:10PM - 6:30PM Look Mexico
Stage 4:
3:10PM - 3:30PM The Measure [SA]
4:30PM - 4:50PM Lemuria
5:50PM - 6:10PM Cheap Girls
Sunday, March 14
Stage 1:
11:10AM - 11:40AM Gringo Star
12:05PM - 12:45PM Danielson
1:15PM - 1:55PM Fruit Bats
2:25PM - 3:10PM Sea Wolf
3:40PM - 4:25PM Matt Pond PA
Stage 2:
12:35PM - 1:15PM Stars of Track & Field
1:45PM - 2:25PM Dead Confederate
2:55PM - 3:40PM Broadway Calls
4:10PM - 4:55PM Off With Their Heads
5:25PM - 6:10PM The Loved Ones
6:40PM - 7:25PM Crime in Stereo
7:55PM - 8:45PM Small Brown Bike
Stage 3:
4:10PM - 4:30PM Spanish Gamble
4:50PM - 5:10PM O Pioneers!
6:10PM - 6:30PM The Wonder Years
6:50PM - 7:10PM The Menzingers
Stage 4:
5:10PM - 5:30PM Bomb The Music Industry!
5:50PM - 6:10PM Andrew Jackson Jihad
7:55PM - 8:20PM Defiance, Ohio
Stage 5:
3:45PM - 4:05PM Greenland is Melting
Full Schedule is here.
More after the jump...
Lit Stuff=Impose Magazine.The blog is called Codex. Lit Randomness, the occasional book review and Q&A's will carry over.
Here's the first post on some Sam Lipsyte interviews. Later this week, a quick Q&A with Lipsyte.
I've always appreciated the many authors who took a few minutes out for Deckfight, and now this connection with Impose will give authors a bigger platform.
It's a plus when more websites and magazines adopt book sections rather than cut them or ignore books altogether. So, read Impose if you don't already.
What does this mean for Deckfight?
-More indie rock and more Southeast indie rock.
Some lit stuff will still appear here, such as The Year of Reading Faulkner and maybe some older books that I missed the first time.
Still contact me for your lit or indie rock needs: deckfight [at] gmail.com.
More after the jump...
That's an image representing Aaron Burch's new book, How To Take Yourself Apart, How To Make Yourself Anew out now from Pank. It details how to take yourself apart.
That image is all I got b/c I forgot to ask Aaron for a photo. In addition to that chapbook, you probably know Aaron for his work with Hobart, one of the coolest & distinctive lit journals out. Read that, but you probably do already.
Here are the 5 best things Aaron Burch has read recently...
1. A Common Pornography by Kevin Sampsell
I've known Kevin for years, both being Northwest indie lit peeps, though Kevin obviously much, much more so than I. But, anyway. I've read his stories and small press books over the years and, as much as I've enjoyed pretty much all of it, my fave was always his short memoir-type thing, A Common Pornography. So... I've been excited about this expanded/reenvisioned book ever since I heard it announced and it did not at all disappoint. I really don't want to overstate, but I think this might have been my favorite memoir I've ever read.
2. Zachary Schomburg's book of poetry, Scary, No Scary. And, specifically, the index.
First of all, how many poetry books have indexes? OK, maybe practically all of them; I don't know, I don't really read much poetry. But, a real "index," not just a reference of "first lines" like I've seen a handful of times. Also, Schomburg's index is like it's own poem, with entries like: "Compression (specifically the idea of being crushed into a tiny cube)" and "Infinity, or a very long time."
2a. My love for Schomburg's poems, despite my fiction prejudice, has reminded me of two other recent poem loves, which I would feel remiss if I didn't mention: "In the Desert" by Stephen Crane, and "Alien v. Predator" by Michael Robbins. I translate the Bible into velociraptor, indeed.
3. The About A Mountain excerpt by John D'Agata in The Believer
I also just read this whole book (back-to-back nonfiction books) and as much as I liked and enjoyed and appreciated it, and as well-written, and etc. etc. as it is, I think I preferred the excerpt in The Believer. I don't know... it seemed more focused and, obviously, concentrated. And I really liked how it played with the structure and the 9 numbered sections. And some of what I'll call D'Agata's "moves" (I was originally, when I started thinking about this list a week or three ago, going to include this blog post on my list of 5, but now some time has passed and I have some new good stuff to pimp) that I loved so much in the excerpt ended up feeling repetitive and less interesting in the longer format. That said, the book was great and I read it in two, maybe three, sittings, which obviously says a lot. But, still. I recommend the Believer excerpt.
4. The Dark Knight Returns analysis on bigother.com
In-depth graphic novel analysis? Superbly written, with tons of examples, etc. Makes me want to go back and reread The Dark Knight Returns all over again.
5. The most recent quote I got to print the next Short Flight / Long Drive minibook.
The first quote I got, from a printer that I knew prefers not to print smaller, "odd-sized" books, left me gasping for air. I thought I was going to have to go crazy into debt and maybe even give up the goal of publishing books. But then another quote request came through and, at almost a third of the price, I am still sighing. Easily one of the best things I've "read" in a long time. Phew.
5a. The next minibook: The Avian Gospels by Adam Novy.
I hate to use this to just mention a book I'm editing and publishing, but I got the above-mentioned quote because we're getting ready to print this thing, which means I've been reading it yet again, working on edits, etc. and... hot damn. This book is amazing. I can't wait for people to read it.
More after the jump...
