mp3/vid: Jay Reatard on tour

Having his punk blessed by the indie-rock gods probably won't slow Jay Reatard down at all. The Memphis guy (I think he's from there, at least) keeps things lo-fi, high speed, and head-turning with his hyper punk style. This is down and dirty, not pop inflected. He's busting out an album late this summer on Matador, called Watch Me Fall. And he's offering a free 4 song download off his website. Here's an mp3 off the new album and the southeast tour dates are after the jump.
Jay Reatard: "It Ain't Gonna Save Me"

Jay Reatard southeast dates:
July 7 - Asheville @ Orange Peel with TV Smith of the Adverts
July 8 - Knoxville @ Pilot Light with TV Smith of the Adverts
July 9 - Nashville @ The End with TV Smith of the Adverts
July 10 - Memphis @ Hi-Tone Café with TV Smith of the Adverts
July 11 - Oxford MS @ Proud Larry’s with TV Smith of the Adverts More after the jump...

Lit Randomness: Brian Evenson, Joey Comeau, Matt Bell, James Hannaham

Sure, blogs have changed everything. Just like anything has changed everything: At Salon.

A Double--
Interview w/ Brian Evenson, author of the new Fugue State: At Bookslut.
The best:

I read a lot and tend to think more and more as time goes on that anything is fair game. I also think that the genre distinctions we have are only useful as long as they're not considered proscriptive: too many people use genre divisions as a way of dismissing not only a book but a whole category of books.

Interv. w/ Joey Comeau, author of Overqualified: At Bookslut
Overqualified is a book made up of fictional job cover letters--a format I'm pretty excited to look into.
The best:

Morley Callaghan's a weird example for writing being fun, but he was the first real example I had of a writer just writing. He didn't try to make the writing pretty, or turn it into poetry. He just said things. His short stories just blew me away. They would end with these lines that killed you. And, unlike with Raymond Carver, you knew exactly why they killed you. It was plain as day.

Interv. w/ Matthew Bell, author of many things and whose new lit project is called The Collagist: At Orange Alert.

Questions w/ James Hannaham: At Papercuts. More after the jump...

Sweet Stuff: Sugar Glyder/Terminal Reynaldo on tour

Let's cut the crap and get to honesty, the best policy in my book. Terminal Reynaldo is the only reason I would've found Sugar Glyder. But that's not entirely fair to Sugar Glyder, since they're dropping a new album, Poor Baby Zebra this weekend with a release party at Tremont Music Hall in Charlotte on July 3.

This is their thunder, so who am I to steal it? Point is, at first, I thought Sugar Glyder was all pop-punk sameness on their last album, We Cracked The Sky (the song, "Sleepless We Seem"), but then I listened and realized there is nuance in their playing. Instead a likeness to Lovedrug is more apt ("Grace The Fulcrum"), though their last album did reveal some instrumental spazz stuff like a ruptured Saxon Shore ("Spoils of War"), so maybe that makes a reappearance in some form on Zebra.From what I've heard on their MySpace I think a rocking/spaced-out Lovedrug is appropriate.

Of course, like I said before, what I'm really jazzed about is seeing Terminal Reynaldo again. Saw them a few years ago, and the legend has remained in my mind. I don't have any of their music, so really, it has just remained in my mind. But their specialty is thickly layered electronic shoegaze--either it totally wigs you out into a deep meditation or puts you into a deep blissful sleep. They're from Jersey City, NJ, so hopefully all the punk kids from New Brunswick will see them soon enough.
Southern tour dates and vids after the jump.

Sugar Glyder Dates:
Jul 3 Charlotte @ TREMONT MUSIC HALL **NEW CD Release/Tour Kick Off** (w/
Terminal Reynaldo + Atriumantra)
Jul 4 Kill Devil Hills, NC @ THE PIT (w/Atriumantra, Terminal Reynaldo)
Jul 5 Wilmington, NC @ THE SOAPBOX (w/ Terminal Reynaldo + Atriumantra +J Miners)
Jul 6 Edisto Beach, SC @ 5pm WHALEY’S (EDISTO FESTO!!) (w/Hot Tom, Terminal Reynaldo)
Jul 7 Jacksonville, FL @ BREWSTER’S PIT (w/We are the Union + Make Your Move)
Jul 8 Gainesville, FL @ THE BACKSTAGE LOUNGE (w/Cloud Conquers City)
Jul 9 Mobile, AL @ THE ALABAMA MUSIC BOX
Jul 10 Lafayette, LA @ Pilot’s Pub
Jul 11 New Iberia, LA @ THE UNDERGROUND SEA (w/Raptures + Shea Bearden+ Weapons of Mass Seduction + Acadiana)
Jul 12 Austin @ THE HEAD HUNTERS CLUB (w/The Diving Captain + Discovery Zone + Invisible Target + Hwy 5)
Jul 13 Dallas @ OPENING BELL COFFEE (South Lamar Location)(ACOUSTIC)
Jul 15 Shreveport, LA @ DALZELL (w/Gamma Ringo, Glocca Morra)
Jul 16 Memphis, TN @ THE P&H CAFE
Jul 17 Birmingham, AL @ THE NICK (w/Refuse the Fall + Rowe + Easy Kiddo)
Jul 18 Marietta, GA @ SWAYZE’S (w/Misery’s Tragedy + Dawn is Broken + Hi Five Lo Five)






More after the jump...

missed it the first time, hard-boiled edition: Double Indemnity

For some summer reading, Thursdays in July will be devoted to old-school pulp-fiction crime noir stories from the 30s, 40s and 50s. Haven't read any of this stuff before, so it's high-time for a foray into the bowels of hard-boiled. The first one--Double Indemnity by James Cain.



This is essentially the classic L.A. crime story. Murder, betrayal, greed with lust--but all of those things are supposed to be in a hard-boiled crime noir story. But in Double Indemnity, Cain takes the bore out of insurance and turns it into a captivating murder plot. (Don't worry, that doesn't spoil anything). The most refreshing thing about Cain is his pace, everything is so fast. Within the first five pages, insurance man Walter Huff knows that Phyllis Nirdlinger may be up to no good, yet he can't help himself to help her. When a nifty proposal comes to rid Phyllis of her husband (still no spoiler...), Huff has a fleeting moment of crisis, told with classic Cain panache:

"So I ran away from the edge, didn't I, and socked it into her so she knew what I meant, and left it so we could never go back to it again? I did not."

Huff is a moral man when it's convenient. Though the story is told through his eyes, it's Phyllis that's Cain's greatest creation. Cain reveals her backstory, but her intentions and desire are always kept coyly hidden. She is a femme fatale, with a scheme up each sleeve. She gives Huff control for most of the novel...until...until, well she doesn't and Cain gifts us with one of his enviable twists, something that seems so forthcoming, yet still surprising.

And what about the railroad tracks? As the above book cover shows (so it's not a spoiler either...), Huff and Phyllis commit their act on the tracks with some nifty sleight of hand and tricky alibis that only an insurance man who deals with actuarial tables on a regular basis could figure. But even with their crime taken care of--it deflates the suspense in the relationship of Phyllis and Huff, allowing Cain to send them and on us on a whole other ride.

Instead of the stubborn detective, Cain gives us Keyes, an insurance supervisor who makes logic seem too eerie. Being on Huff's back from the get-go would be too easy for Cain, instead he weaves in the nuances of the insurance profession to peg Huff. The police can't figure their murder out, only a fellow insurance junkie. But Keyes punishes Huff in a cruel, but ultimately efficient way--Keyes is devoted to the system that Huff tries to buck and so Keyes' resolution to his Huff problem is best for the company and the worst possible for Huff.

Cain's style is always quick and always fleet of foot, so this is a real story, one with plot, one with characters who move, not ruminate. Yet, it brings up every ethical question under the sun. Double Indemnity is worth reading for what it is, a master original that is the source for all those copycats.

Next week: Raymond Chandler/ Dashiell Hammett shorts
Earlier editions of Missed it The First Time.

More after the jump...

Lit Randomness: mewithoutyou, creative libraries, Chip Kidd's fav. designs

Lit Randomness. Let's git'er done (is that how you spell it?).

Mewithoutyou frontman Aaron Weiss explains how M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen's My Love You, My Children inspires the band: At Spin.

The best:

Before it was simple, and now I've become more complicated. You read the same words but you have more things to worry about now. But the message is so simple. On one hand it stays the same, that love is still the greatest. It's nothing everyone doesn't already know -- that love is the greatest.

Holy cow! Libraries using creative self-promotion! Who would've thought this could make sense? At The Kansas City Star. (h/t Bookslut)

A (gasp!) Newsweek Double (yeah, they did an alright job with their book issue, out now): What to Read Now and Why (a pretty good list, actually) & Chip Kidd's Favorite Covers (includes Jimmy Corrigan!)

Interv. w/ Glenn Eichler (of The Colbert Report) and artist Nick Bertozzi about their new graphic novel, Stuffed!: At Newsrama (h/t Largehearted).

The best:

"I got the idea from a tiny story I’d read in The New York Times some years ago about a museum in Banyoles, Spain called the Darder Museum of Natural History. The museum had had a stuffed human skin on display for years, and was refusing requests to take it off display. It had become an issue because Barcelona was going to host the Summer Olympics and Banyoles was slated to be the site of a crew race, but the Olympics were threatening to relocate the race over the controversy. Ultimately, the stuffed man was repatriated to Botswana and given a state funeral."-Glen Eichler

More after the jump...