Your cart is currently empty!
Category: music
-
Zine Club Chicago on Marz: Zinetronica Zinemaking Hangout, March 13th!
Zine Club Chicago on Marz: Zinetronica Zinemaking Hangout
Life on Marz Community Club, 1950 N. Western Ave. in Logan Square/Bucktown
7 – 9 p.m. Thursday, March 13, 2025
Free!
In March, Zine Club Chicago is celebrating the music that moves us in collaboration with our friends at Life on Marz Community Club! Y’all are invited to help create a group zine on the theme Zinetronica.
This month’s theme is inspired by Marz Community Brewing’s Synth Fest 2025, a week of awesome bloops, bleeps, and beats taking place March 7-15 at both Life on Marz and the Marz Mothership.
Please join us for Zine Club Chicago on Marz: Zinetronica Zinemaking Hangout, 7-9 p.m. Thursday, March 13 at Life on Marz Community Club, 1950 N. Western Ave. in Logan Square/Bucktown. Free!
Zine Club Chicago will provide all the zinemaking supplies! Just bring your creativity. Life on Marz Community Club, our favorite locally owned taproom and café space, offers awesome alcoholic, CBD, and non-alcoholic beverages from Marz Brewery and more, plus some very fun snacks, for purchase. Conflict Bureau’s Tactical Acid Weapon will be providing sonic accoutrement during the evening, and we encourage y’all to stick around for some awesome music!
Zine newbies and longtime enthusiasts alike are always welcome at Zine Club Chicago. This free event series is produced by Cynthia E. Hanifin and sponsored by Quimby’s Bookstore. Anna Jo Beck is the creative force behind our visuals.
More info:
Zine Club Chicago social media channels: @zineclubchicago
Image description
A flyer featuring images of a vintage synthesizer and this text: “Zine Club Chicago on Marz: Zinetronica; 7-9 p.m. Thursday, March 13; Life on Marz Community Club, 1950 N. Western Ave; Free!; Info at quimbys.com” -
Recommended Reading: Vibrant Voices on the Page
The world is a flaming mess right now. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, I’m right there with you. Whenever I’m struggling, I know that I can find respite in personal narratives. Reading about another person’s challenges, triumphs, sorrows, and joys reminds me that, as Adrienne Rich wrote, our stories flow in more than one direction.
Our shop is, of course, packed to the brick walls with vibrant voices on the page. Here are a few of the tales in which I’ve taken solace lately.
Every single issue of Lucinda J. Williams’ Bookshelf Voyeur series is a pure delight. Her latest release, #8: On Scrapbooks, delves into the fascinating lives that the zinemaker first encountered within a collection of turn-of-the-century ephemera.
Anxious Critters #1 and #2: I adore this pair of sweet zines about the relationship between creator Alex O’Keefe and her housemate: A very cute bunny named Ivy.
Although I’m a native Chicagoan, I’ve lived a good chunk of my life in small Midwestern towns, each with its own unique DIY community. Punks in Peoria: Making a Scene in the American Heartland by Jonathan Wright and Dawson Barrett takes a compelling look at how the hardcore punk movement played out in one central Illinois city in the ’80s and ’90s.
When someone I know returns from a trip, the first thing I ask is what they ate during their journey. April Malig chronicles her culinary adventures, with words and gorgeous colorwashed images, in April’s Eating Zine #5: Everything I Ate in Japan (Part One: Toyko!) and April’s Eating Zine #5.5: Everything I Ate in Japan (Part 2: Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Atami!).
I love a pocket-size zine, since I like never want to be without a story to get lost in. Ker-bloom! always delivers a perfect bite-sized tale presented in a beautiful letterpress package. Issue #171 begins with the epic statement: “Sometimes it pays to be a known Lord of the Rings nerd.”
So perhaps you’d like to add your own story to the glorious chorus of voices in this universe? We’ve got two of my favorite books about writing in stock right now. 1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round by Jami Attenberg and many of the writer’s literary friends — including Carmen Maria Machado, Roxane Gay, and Kiese Laymon — just came out in paperback. Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos is the book I would put into the hands of any storyteller who wants to deepen their own practice.
If you do decide to share your story with the world, please consider putting it into a zine and consigning it with us! You might want to grab a This is Going in My Perzine sticker to give folks a heads-up. 🙂
— With love and solidarity, C.E. Hanifin
-
New Stuff This Week
Happy Saturday! Did you know that April 9 is National Unicorn Day? While we don’t have any mythical creatures in stock right now, we do have a TON of fun new stuff in the form of zines, comics, and books. Check out this fantastic list of fresh arrivals!
Zines
My Favorite Actor is a Dog by Aim Ren $2
Women in Print #8 $8
Razorblades and Aspirin #14 $8
Dealing with COVID: Hopefully Helpful Tips by Lost Fillings $1
Time’s Up: No More Rape Culture in Our Skate Culture by Smash the Skatriarchy $3.95
How It Felt to Me: The Further Writings of Annie Howard $11
Gothic Lyric Book by Karina Song and Blaketheman1000 $5
I Miss You by Karina $1
Cut Me Up #8: Guided by Instinct $18
Something Rather Than Nothing Zine #1 $4
Bad Year by Nick Greer $5
Comics & Minis
Ghouls by Jenn Woodall $12
Future #8 by Tommi Musturi $6
Teeni Bop #1 $4
Annual Eternia Bodybuilding Contest #1 $2
Forms Saint George and the Dragon by Ryan Shipman $5
Eschew #5 by Robert Sergel $8
Smear Girl of Clay #1 $2
Heavy Metal #315 $13.99
Reptile House #9 by Nick Bunch $5
Scoundrels Don’t Get Caught by Hannibal Gerald $6
Graphic Novels
Rave by Jessica Campbell $22.95
Hell Phone: Book One by Benji Nate $14.99
One Hundred Columns for Razorcake: The Complete Comics 2003-2020 by Ben Snakepit $11.99
Book Tour by Andi Watson $24.99
Mr. Lightbulb by Wojtek Wawszczyk $29.99
Squeak the Mouse by Massimo Mattioli $29.99
Fiction
Manhunt by Gretchen Felker Martin $17.99
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan $28
Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer $18
The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers $21
DIY Books
Creative Not Famous the Small Potato Manifesto by Ayun Halliday $14.95
Stolen Sharpie Revolution: A DIY Resource For Zines and Zine Culture vol 6 by Alex Wrekk $15 – In fancy hardcover!
Everything Depends on Me: A Book About OCD by Alice DuBois $24
A Quick and Easy Guide to Asexuality by Molly Muldoon and Will Hernandez $7.99
Pure Magic: A Complete Course in Spellcasting by Julia Illes $18.95
From Big Idea to Book: Create a Writing Practice That Brings You Joy by Jessie L Kwak $14.95
Music Books
Sigh, Gone: A Misfit’s Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock and the Fight to Fit In by Phuc Tran $18.99
Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST Records by Jim Ruland $30
Mudhoney: The Sound and the Fury From Seattle by Keith Cameron $24.99
Essay & Culture & Memoir
Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage by Rachel E. Gross $30
Stalking the Atomic City by Markiyan Kamysh $22
Mayhem & Outer Limits Books
Platform Edge: Uncanny Tales of the Railways edited by Mike Ashley $15.95
Doorway to Dilemma: Bewildering Tales of Dark Fantasy edited by Mike Ashley $15.95
Tales of the Tattooed: An Anthology of Ink by John Miller $15.95
Inside the Mind of Jeffrey Dahmer by Christopher Berry Dee $16.95
Food & Drug Books
The Microdosing Guidebook: A Step-by-Step Manual by CJ Spotswood $19.95
Sexxy
Fantasy Lewds Erotic Anthology by Andy Hood $15
Experience Points: Illustrated Queer Smutty Stories by N.A. Melamed $12.95
Magazines
Little White Lies #92 $16.99
032c #40 $24.95
Chap Books & Lit Journals
Granta #158: In the Family $19.99
Kids Stuff
Illustoria #17 $16
Other Stuff
What A Time to Be Gay and Alive Bumper Sticker by Archie Bongiovanni $3
-
Postponed: Nic Collins: Handmade Electronic Music, 3rd Edition Release Event
Nic Collins returns to Quimby’s for the release of the third edition of his book Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking (Routledge) on Saturday, June 20th!
Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking provides a long-needed, practical, and engaging introduction to the craft of making – as well as creatively cannibalizing – electronic circuits for artistic purposes. With a sense of adventure and no prior knowledge, the reader can subvert the intentions designed into devices such as radios and toys to discover a new sonic world. You will also learn how to make contact microphones, pickups for electromagnetic fields, oscillators, distortion boxes, mixers, and unusual signal processors cheaply and quickly. At a time when computers dominate music production, this book offers a rare glimpse into the core technology of early live electronic music, as well as more recent developments at the hands of emerging artists.
This revised and expanded third edition has been updated throughout to reflect recent developments in technology and DIY approaches. New to this edition are chapters contributed by a diverse group of practitioners, addressing the latest developments in technology and creative trends, as well as an extensive companion website that provides media examples, tutorials, and further reading. This edition features:
*Over 50 new hands-on projects.
*New chapters and features on topics including soft circuitry, video hacking, neural networks, radio transmitters, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, data hacking, printing your own circuit boards, and the international DIY community
*A new companion website at www.HandmadeElectronicMusic.com, containing video tutorials, video clips, audio tracks, resource files, and additional chapters with deeper dives into technical concepts and hardware hacking scenes around the worldWith a hands-on, experimental spirit, Nicolas Collins demystifies the process of crafting your own instruments and enables musicians, composers, artists, and anyone interested in music technology to draw on the creative potential of hardware hacking.
ABOUT NICOLAS COLLINS
New York born and raised, Nicolas Collins spent most of the 1990s in Europe, where he was Visiting Artistic Director of Stichting STEIM (Amsterdam), and a DAAD composer-in-residence in Berlin. He has been a Professor in the Department of Sound at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago since 1999, and a Research Fellow at the Orpheus Institute (Ghent) since 2016. From 1997 – 2017 he was Editor-in-Chief of the Leonardo Music Journal. An early adopter of microcomputers for live performance, Collins also makes use of homemade electronic circuitry and conventional acoustic instruments. His book, Handmade Electronic Music – The Art of Hardware Hacking (Routledge), has influenced emerging electronic music worldwide. nicolascollins.com -
Al Burian Brings Anarchy and Apocalypse to Quimby's June 20th
Writer, musician, comic artist zine-maker (and former Quimby’s employee) Al Burian (best known for his Orwellian-themed band Milemarker and darkly humorous personal zine Burn Collector) reads from new work and presents his newest book, NO APOCALYPSE: PUNK, POLITICS AND THE GREAT AMERICAN WEIRDNESS, a collection of columns and miscellany from turn-of-the-millennium publications such as PUNK PLANET and THE SKELETON. Seen through our contemporary lens, The 00’s reveal themselves to have been a time of splendidly naive optimism: remember when we all thought George W. Bush was the worst US president there could possibly be? Remember when the neighborhood seemed too crappy to ever get gentrified? Return to those carefree days, when the Y2K computer virus had just failed to happen and environmental collapse was still near-future science fiction.
The evening also sees the first US appearance of DEAN STREET, an epic comic book series (we dare not say “serialized graphic novel”) by Al Burian and Berlin comic artist Oska Wald. The action in DEAN STREET takes place in a mythical version of Chicago, and features a zany cast of characters, some unnerving supernatural occurrences, and the best rock show ever drawn.
Plus a brief music performance by ANARKUSS, the post-apocalyptic no-electricity song and story act. A glimpse into what punk bands will sound like when the power grid fails and we all revert to eating nuts and berries…
“Al Burian is the bastard love-child of Spalding Gray and Henry Rollins” -Ex Berliner
Thursday, June 20, 2019 7pm – Free Event
More info:
-
Quimby's Opens Wicker Park Lit Fest: 3 Songs with Jonas, Marc Lazar, Kathy Moseley & The Blue Ribbon Glee Club 9/14
Quimby’s is proud to to open this year’s Wicker Park Lit Fest with 3 Songs, the reading series that combines words and music, during a festival that celebrates this neighborhood’s rich legacy of literature and entertainment in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago. WP Lit fest continues through the 17th at a variety of venues around Wicker Park!
Three writers read one piece each, and each song is performed by Chicago’s only a cappella punk rock group The Blue Ribbon Glee Club. BRGC regularly performs songs by Fugazi, Gang of Four, the Dead Kennedys, the Buzzcocks and more.
Readers featuring their work at this performance:
Jonas, zinester – “Words and Guitar” by Sleater-Kinney
Marc Lazar, performer – “Glad Girls” by Guided By Voices
Kathy Moseley, zinester – “Dress” by PJ Harvey
Jonas writes zines and stuff. He wrote a long zine about punks and parenthood called Cheer the Eff Up, and a whole lot of other zines he probably can’t remember at the moment. They’re all probably also about punks and parenting in some stupid way. He also wrote a novel called The Greatest Most Traveling Circus. He lives here in Chicago with his wife and two little minions. He likes music a whole lot. The song he picked is “Words and Guitar,” but he almost picked David Bowie’s “Suffragette City” because aaaaaawwwwwwwww WHAM BAM THANK YOU MA’AM!
Marc Lazar works with adults with autism, and is a storyteller, former journalist, and member of BRGC. He is a fan of books, TV shows, and music about outsiders and misfits (including The Misfits), and recently discovered the joys of vegan elote pizza. (It’s better than it sounds, but kind of messy!)
Kathy Moseley has been publishing the zine SemiBold since the last century, is a 15-year-old girl living in the body of a 50-year-old woman. She blogs at semibold.wordpress.com.
Here’s the Facebook event invite to SHARE that you’re coming!
#WPLITFEST
#mychicagobookstore
facebook.com/blueribbongleeclub
Read local + shop small!
-
“Too Much Fun Too” Comic Release with Logan Kruidenier and Live Musical Performance 3/10
Logan Kruidenier’s experimental comic “Too Much Fun Too,” continues the mythological story of a tree-thing’s attempts to befriend and spend meaningful time with a turnip that it dug up. This work considers the nature of masochistic, repetitive routines, envious desperation and a scattered mentality. Kruidenier loves creating work that deals with the universal, yet extremely personal theme of relationships between living beings, objects and media. TMFT also features a great poem by New York based writer and performer Connor Bush. Logan Kruidenier has drawn major influence from artists such as Michael DeForge, Taiyo Matsumoto, Olivier Schrauwen, and video games such as Bioshock and the Super Smash Bros series.
“Niiiiiccccceeeee.” – Connor Bush, writer and performer.
The work of Logan Kruidenier has been featured in such places as: The Chicago Publisher’s Resource Center, Meathaus, Quimby’s Bookstore, the Mott St. Restaurant, the Beguiling, The Toronto Alternative Comics Festival, Ada Books and Desert Island Comics.
For more info visit: logankruidenier.com
Invite your friends with the Facebook invite here.
Friday, March 10th 7pm Free Event
-
Quimby's Welcomes Michael DeForge with Sadie Dupuis 3/25
Join Michael DeForge for a live reading and book signing as he introduces the world to Sticks Angelica, Folk Hero. Sticks has escaped her heritage for the refuge of the woods and through her story, DeForge delivers another deeply humane work, one that subtly questions the integrity of the political state and contemporary journalism, all while investigating our relationship to the natural world.
Michael will be joined by musician Sadie Dupuis (Sad13, Speedy Ortiz) who will play a solo set following the reading. Come out for a celebratory lo-fi comics night!
Invite your friends to this event with the Facebook invite here!
More info about the book:
A Johnson has his Boswell and every Sticks Angelica has her Michael DeForge
Sticks Angelica is, in her own words, “49 years old. Former: Olympian, poet, scholar, sculptor, minister, activist, Governor General, entrepreneur, line cook, headmistress, Mountie, columnist, libertarian, cellist.” After a high-profile family scandal, Sticks escapes to the woods to live in what would be relative isolation were it not for the many animals that surround and inevitably annoy her. Sticks is an arrogant self-obsessed force who wills herself on the flora and fauna. There is a rabbit named Oatmeal who harbors an unrequited love for her, a pair of kissing geese, a cross-dressing moose absurdly named Lisa Hanawalt. When a reporter named, ahem, Michael DeForge shows up to interview Sticks for his biography on her, she quickly slugs him and buries him up to his neck, immobilizing him. Instead, Sticks narrates her way through the forest, recalling formative incidents from her storied past in what becomes a strange sort of autobiography.
Deforge’s witty dialogue and deadpan narration create a bizarre, yet eerily familiar world. Sticks Angelica, Folk Hero plays with autobiography, biography, and hagiography to look at how we build our own sense of self and how others carry on the roles we create for them in our own personal dramas.
Author Bio:Michael DeForge was born in 1987 and grew up in Ottawa, Ontario. His one-person anthology series Lose has been nominated for, or won, every major comics award including the Ignatz and Eisner awards. His previous graphic novels with Drawn & Quarterly are Ant Colony, Big Kids, and First Year Healthy. This March he releases Sticks Angelica, Folk Hero.
Sadie Dupuis is a musician, writer and artist who most frequently performs as the frontdemon of the rock group Speedy Ortiz, which has released two critically acclaimed albums for Carpark Records. She also writes politically-geared pop songs under the moniker Sad13. Based in Philadelphia, her writing on music has been published in Spin, New York Magazine, and Nylon, and she earned an MFA in poetry from UMass Amherst.
Sat, March 25th, 7pm FREE EVENT
-
John Olson Reads From Life Is a Rip-Off with Alan Hoffman 10/8
From American Tapes to Wolf Eyes, John Olson is one of the most influential musicians of the past two decades, the obvious bridge between free jazz and noise music. Wikipedia lists over 75 projects with which Olson worked and over 100 Wolf Eyes’ recordings. Olson is now a discerning and sharp-witted author too: LIFE IS A RIP OFF, published by Jack White’s imprint Third Man Records, is a collection of surprisingly untraditional record reviews which Olson wrote over the course of 365 days. He will read from his book on Saturday October 8, accompanied by some of his many instruments.
Local writer-performance artist Alan Hoffman will open for him and debut his novella AUDITIONS about internet-porn casting-couch videos.
LIFE IS A RIP OFF: THE COMPLETE BOOK is 12 months of record reviews—one record a day, every day, for one year. Yes, John “Inzane” Olson aka Inzane Johnny of the bandWolf Eyes aka American Tapes did that. And he reviewed everything from death metal demo cassettes to the Staples Singers’ gospel. Enter into the OLZONE and find out about music you’ve never known, bands from places that you’ve never heard, and then read his review of KANSAS. Reading LRIP will make you re-realize why blues is relevant, why every punk band in America matters, why jazz is good for the heart, and metal will always ride by your side.
“To write music op-ed this good, you have to tap the primordial sap sack, to butterfly stroke the ancient ooze of tune begatment, cave dwell with the knuckle draggers, scratch symbols into the dirt with the freaks and make it rain. He do and it did.” — Henry Rollins
“[Life is a Rip Off] is the best way [John Olson] can add another cubist layer to the sound and visuality he’s already presented for the last twenty or so years. He’s sharing something the people who don’t know him personally don’t get enough of—his textual, syntactical brain, stained as it is with dollar-store spray paint.” — Ben Hell Hall, Detroit artist.
“When John agreed to write a record review a day, back in 20xx, I wasn’t too keen on the idea. Not because I didn’t think he could do it – but that I knew he would do it, even if it became a years-long all-encompassing obsessive task.” — Tovah Olson, The Dead Machines.
“[John Olson] didn’t just introduce me to different worlds, the man introduced me to entire universes.” — Bryan Ramirez, Killertrees Records
“Wolf Eyes . . . sounds like a crumbling Velvet Underground bootleg that’s been burned to ashes.” — NPR, Sept 2015
As always, this event at Quimby’s is free.
More info:
The Facebook invite for this event. Invite your friends!
