Category: DIY

  • Daniel Makagon Reads From Underground: The Subterranean Culture of DIY Punk Shows With Photographers Patrick Houdek and Craig Kamrath 9/15

    BookCoverNoSpineIn Daniel Makagon’s new book Underground: The Subterranean Culture of DIY Punk Shows (Microcosm), he writes about DIY punk shows in the USA. The book focuses on the development of a DIY punk touring network, the emergence of punk house shows, and the establishment of volunteer-run community punk show spaces. Makagon describes how DIY punk shows provide opportunities for punks to form communities and enact social and economic alternatives to top down mainstream music industry practices. Underground weaves interviews with punk band members and show promoters to flesh out an argument about the reasons why punk shows are at the core of doing DIY.

    “Daniel Makagon was there, and he’s likely forgotten more about DIY than many of you will ever know.”
    -Adam Pfahler, Jawbreaker

    Patrick Houdek has been photographing punk shows for nearly three decades. He founded the P&S Productions cassette compilation label in the 1980s and was involved with early show promotion at Lost Cross house in Carbondale, IL.

    Craig Kamrath has been photographing punk bands in the Midwest for the past ten years. He’s documented long-lasting and short-lived show spaces in Chicago as well as some of the most important DIY spaces in the Midwest.

    Patrick’s photos and Craig’s photos are featured in Underground.

    For more info contact Daniel Makagon: dmakagon(at)depaul(dot)edu

    Facebook event post for this event is here.

    Tuesday, September 15th, 7pm – Free Event

  • IZM Day 14:

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  • Celebrate International Zine Month all July long with Quimby's!

    Have you heard the good news? July is International Zine Month! Thanks to Alex Wrekk of Stolen Sharpie Revolution and Brainscan fame, you can celebrate every day with a fun zine-centric activity. Peruse our blog for daily suggestions from the crew at Quimbys too! Stay tuned for awesomeness. And thus, we commence International Zine Month, (a ribbon to cut and a horn to toot, if you will), with a top ten list courtesy Liz Mason, Quimby’s Manager, Zine Maven and all-around Jill of all trades. David Letterman, watch your back.

    July 1st’s activity is “Make a Top 10 list of reasons why your love zines!”
    Well OK then! In no particular order:
    1. Zines are not usually done for financial profit, so there isn’t a lot of advertising.
    2. Since zines aren’t published by big fancy magazine publishers, the writer is usually also the editor and publisher, so that means there is less interference from someone with a mainstreamy agenda.
    3. Everything looks cool when laid out in scrappy black and white cut-and-paste style.
    4. Zines are usually less expensive then magazines.
    5. Zines can focus on charmingly specialized topics, like dishwashing, pirate radio, or how to make a haunted house.
    6. When you meet other people who are into reading or publishing zines, they are usually really cool people.
    7. As a zine publisher, you can publish as often or as little as you like, which I like to think of as the “I’ll put out another issue when I’m damn good and ready” publishing schedule.
    8. When you meet someone new you can school them in everything they need to know about you if you just hand them your zines and say, “Read these.”
    9. There is no intermediary editor! What you say goes!
    10. If you publish a zine you can trade with other zine publishers for theirs, and it’s a great way to make friends.

    More about International Zine Month at stolensharpierevolution.org.

     

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  • Learnapalooza Make a Zine Workshop, with Edie Fake 6/28 4pm

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    Learnapalooza is an annual day of free workshops taught across your neighborhood and open to the public. Classes are taught by community members and local businesses, hosted in 10-20 businesses and community centers across the neighborhood. This will be Learnapalooza’s 5th year in Wicker Park, and there are more than 15 participating hosts, more than 50 classes, and will be between 350-500 attendees.

    This year, artist Edie Fake (Gaylord Phoenix, Memory Palaces) will teach you how to make a zine!

    Register, volunteer, more info:

    Learnapaloozachi.com or at facebook.com/Learnapalooza

  • David Novak Reads From Japanoise at Quimby’s 11/22 With performances by Roth Mobot and Peter Speer

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    David Novak’s new book Japanoise: Music at the Edge of Circulation (Duke University Press) describes how Noise, an underground music made through an amalgam of feedback, distortion, and electronic effects, became a global phenomenon. Noise first emerged as a genre in the 1980s, circulating on cassette tapes traded between fans in Japan, Europe, and North America. With its cultivated obscurity, ear-shattering sound, and over-the-top performances, Noise captured the imagination of a small but passionate transnational audience. But does Noise really belong to Japan? Is it even music at all? Novak draws on more than a decade of fieldwork to trace the “cultural feedback” that generated Noise in circulation between Japan and the United States, illustrating his talk with rare videos of Noise performances.

     

    Novak’s presentation at Quimby’s will also be supported by electronic music performances featuring Roth Mobot, the circuit bent hybrid performance/teaching duo of Tommy Stephenson and Patrick McCarthy (www.RothMobot.com) and Peter Speer, a Chicago artist working with improvised electronic sound (www.diode-ring.com).

     

    “David Novak goes inside the Noise scene and presents an astounding perspective: historically astute, inspired, and completely shell-shocked.”

                                  —Thurston Moore, Sonic Youth

     

    David Novak is Associate Professor of Music at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of essays in Public Culture, Cultural Anthropology, and The Wire, and his research has recently been featured on podcasts by MIT and MoMA. Novak is also a radio host, sound engineer, and musician who has performed in the groups Habit Trail, Maestros, the Anthony Braxton Ensemble and Dymaxion.

     

    For more info: www.japanoise.com

    For the Facebook event invite: https://www.facebook.com/events/204576466391960/

     

    Friday, November 22, 7pm – Free Event

  • Grow Author Eleanor C. Whitney Moderates DIY Success Panel with Selena Fragasi, Rebecca Ann Rakstad & Bradley Adita

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    Eleanor C. Whitney’s new book Grow: How to Take Your Do It Yourself Project and Passion to the Next Level and Quit Your Job (Microcosm Publishing), is a practical field guide for creative people who want to achieve success with their ideas for independent projects.  Author Eleanor Whitney enables readers to clarify their vision, set goals, create a plan, fundraise, publicize, and manage their “do-it-yourself” endeavor. Whitney will discuss achieving success and sustainability as an independent writer, publisher and creative business owner with Chicago-based creatives Selena Fragassi (Boxx Magazine), Rebecca Ann Rakstad (Rarrar Press), and Bradley Adita (PopPunk.com).

    “The ultimate creative person’s companion- for anyone who’s thought of, attempted to, or has already made some steps to turning their vision into a  viable product, this practical and personal how-to is like a business-savvy mentor.” – Cathy Erway, author of The Art of Eating In: How I learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove and editor of Not Eating Out in New York

    Eleanor Whitney is a Brooklyn-based writer, musician and arts professional. She has written for publications such as Venus Zine and Remedy Quarterly and contributes regularly to Idealist.org and Artsfwd.org. She has spoken about creative success and sustainability at national conferences such as South by Southwest and the Creative Chicago Expo.

    For more info: growdiy.com

  • off-site but of interest: Long-Arm Stapler First Aid: OPENING RECEPTION at Spudnik Press Cooperative

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    Long-Arm Stapler First Aid: Self-Care In Zines and Mini Comics

    Curated by Liz Mason and Neil Brideau
    4/20/13 – 5/31/13
     
    Opening Reception: April 20, 2013 6:00 – 9:00pm
    The Annex @ Spudnik Press Cooperative,     1821 W Hubbard, Suite 303, Chicago, IL
    (NOT at Quimby’s)
    Whether we’re soothing, grooming or creating major life changes, we’re always involved in some sort of self-care, no matter how big or trivial. Drinking coffee, petting animals, getting stuff off our chests, confronting personal and societal demons, we are perpetually creating a space for our own personal world to exist healthfully in the bigger world. Indeed, the personal is social.
    Instead of relying on professional services, one can create change using a DIY mentality, often with the help of some sort of reference. At their core, the pieces in this group show suggest we must be our own proponents for health and well-being.
    The exhibit “Long-Arm Stapler First Aid” features pieces by a variety of zinesters and comics artists. The pieces discuss and/or illustrate self-care topics that both help themselves and inspire the reader to be their own advocate in self-improvement. In honor of self-publishing as a means to foster well-being, Spudnik Press is proud to host this exhibition featuring dozens of zine makers from across the country, including Edie Fake, Rinko Endo, Kathleen McIntyre, Ramsey Beyer, Liz Prince, Dina Kelberman, Sara McHenry, Maris Wicks, Beth Barnett, Nate Beaty, Raleigh Briggs, Danielle Chenette, Emilja Frances, Turtel Onli, Trubble Club, Caroline Paquita, Sarah McNeil, Milo Miller, Corinne Mucha, Kitari Sporrong, Missy Kulik, Cathy Leamy, Erick Lyle and more.
    Long Arm Stapler First Aid will also include a limited edition exhibition zine, compiled by Liz Mason, encompassing relevant self-care themes in zines and mini-comics such as: healing, grief, fitness, and medical issues. The exhibit will also feature a limited edition screenprint by Ramsey Beyer, published by Spudnik Press.
     
    This show brings together an assortment of zines and comics that address health-related issues ranging from mental to physical, personal to societal, and preventative to regenerative, including such specifics as grooming, food preparation, self-defense, coping strategies, defense mechanisms, mental or spiritual development and even soul enrichment. These largely self-published works address, at times, incredibly personal experiences, usually with a large dose of wit.
    Unlike a film or a painting, readers of zines and comics are able to engage with these works at their own pace, choosing when they are ready to confront the next page. Perhaps this is what allows authors to broach difficult, and often very personal, topics with great breadth of emotion, honesty, and clarity. Through the combination of words and images, artists are able to rely on multiple modes of communication to bring together the tangible and the cerebral.
    Why the long-arm stapler? It’s the symbol of home-stapled periodicals, the best kind of stapler to use for getting to the center of the page that a normal stapler can’t reach. And the very act of making a zine and mini comic (and reading) is considered a therapeutic caring action.
    Long live (and maintain, groom and sooth) the long-arm stapler!
    About the curators:
    Liz Masonis the manager of Quimby’s Bookstore, known for selling a variety of self-published works, as well as the editor and publisher for the zine Caboose.

    Neil Brideau is comics artist and comics sommelier at Quimby’s Bookstore, as well as an organizer of CAKE, Chicago’s Alternative Comics Expo.

    *Image Credit to Dina Kelbermann

  • Dame Darcy Reads Handbook for Hot Witches: Dame Darcy's Illustrated Guide to Magic, Love, and Creativity

    Just in time for Halloween! Quimby’s is excited to welcome Dame “Meat Cake” Darcy for her new book Handbook for Hot Witches.

    Plenty of artwork to satisfy her comics and illustration fans both young and old, Dame Darcy combines a graphic novel with a dash of crafts, a sprinkle of feminist fairy tales, and a whole cauldron of spells and voilà! Handbook for Hot Witches: Dame Darcy’s Illustrated Guide to Magic, Love, and Creativity is the guide for girls who want cool things to do and great friends to do them with, who aren’t afraid to be their different, awesome selves. It’s a celebration of powerful, creative girls—the sort of girls who may have been called “witches” once, but who, as this book proclaims, are “hot,” because of their talent and their uniqueness. With sections on banjo playing, beauty spells, palm reading, and much more, this fully illustrated handbook will send girls of any age on their way to independence, creativity, and magic DIY-style.

    “Part graphic novel, part New Age primer, with dashes of astrology and crafts and pinches of beauty hints, the book packs a lot into its 200 pages.” —School Library Journal

    What others have said about Dame Darcy:

    “Darcy’s comics are aesthetic manifestos. . . . Darcy is a star.” —The New York Times

    “I think she’s exquisite, let’s put it that way. I wish I knew her in high school.” —Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth

    Praise for Meat Cake:

    “[Darcy] has created a childlike, otherworldly realm, a land that hovers in the twilight space between the whimsical and the macabre. Ghosts and goblins, foul-tempered stepmothers, lovesick mermaids and charmed forest are all rendered in Darcy’s distinctive hand, loose and flowing lines reminiscent of the work of Edward Gorey.” —The Los Angeles Times

     Dame Darcy currently resides in New York City and Savannah, Georgia. She is known worldwide as an illustrator, writer, fine artist, musician, filmmaker, animator, environmentalist, and Cabaret Mermaid. Her illustrated titles include The Illustrated Jane Eyre, and she has been publishing her comic book series, Meat Cake, for twenty years. More info about her at damedarcy.com.