Blog

Kill Your Idols event with editors Jim DeRogatis and Carmel Carrillo plus contributors live at Quimby?s
Friday, July 16th, 8:00 PM
FREE
 
In KILL YOUR IDOLS: A NEW GENERATION OF ROCK WRITERS RECONSIDERS THE CLASSICS thirty-five of the best rock writers of Generations X and Y each weigh in on an album that’s universally considered “a classic”?but which they think sucks. Kill Your Idols is edited by Jim DeRogatis and Carm?l Carrillo.
 
Jim DeRogatis is the author of MILK IT! COLLECTED MUSINGS ON THE ALTERNATIVE MUSIC EXPLOSION OF THE ’90S and TURN ON YOUR MIND:FOUR DECADES OF GREAT PSYCHEDELIC ROCK. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, the year the Beatles arrived in America, Jim DeRogatis began voicing his opinions about rock ?n? roll shortly thereafter. He is currently the pop music critic at the Chicago Sun-Times and a contributor to Spin.
 
The event will be a reading and along with Editors Jim DeRogatis (Chicago Sun-Times) and Carm?l Carrillo; contributing essayists Dave Chamberlain (New City), Allison Augstyn (Pioneer Press), Chris Martiniano, Bobby Reed, Chrissie Dickinson, Bob Mehr (Chicago Reader) and Anders Smith Lindall will also read and agitate.
 
More info is at: www.jimdero.com & www.soundopinions.net

Punk Planet Presents BETTER READ THAN DEAD
Friday, June 4th, 8:00 PM
 
BETTER READ THAN DEAD
A night of independent readings by independent thinkers
 
Featuring Joe Meno (Hairstyles of the Damned)
Bee Lavender (Mamaphonic)
Todd Dills (All Hands On: A the2ndhand reader)
Anne E. Moore (Hey Kids! Buy this Book!)
Megan Stielstra (Sleepwalk magazine)
 
Music provided by DJs Mat Daly and Nick Butcher
 

Missy Suicide and the SuicideGirls live at Quimby?s
Friday, July 2nd, 7:00 PM
FREE
 
What began as a personal homage to classic pin-up photography in 2001, has grown into phenomenon that intelligently captures new attitudes and interests of culture with a positive approach towards sexuality.
 
Since taking those first few photos of her friends who happened to be tattooed, pierced and uniformly anti in their attitudes towards the established notions of beauty, founder Missy Suicide has been propelled to the forefront of a global community and a budding main stream examination of beauty and sexuality.
 
This event is a release celebration for the new SuicideGirls coffee table book that displays the women of SuicideGirls over the past few years. SUICIDEGIRLS (published by Feral House) is 124 pages and displays over 200 fun, sexy and artful color photos that has come to define the women of SuicideGirls, the book also contains journal entries selected from the site and an introduction by Missy Suicide.
 
In addition to Missy, 8 SuicideGirls will be present to sign copies of the book and possibly perform a short set of their punk rock inspired Burlesque Act
 

Perpetual Motion Roadshow #13
starring Nick Mamatas, Frank Duff and Jasmin Dreame Wagner.
Thursday, June 21st, 8:00pm
 
Nick Mamatas writes all sorts of stuff, from horror novels to case studies of South Korean urban insurrections. His stuff has appeared in the Village Voice, Razor, The Whirligig, and Disinformation Books anthologies. He’ll be reading from the hate mail he received for his first novel, the Keruoacian/Lovecraftain novel MOVE UNDER GROUND.
More info at http://kynn.com/wwnkd
 
Frank Duff is not a well-educated, well-bred or even well-behaved person. This hasn’t however prevented him from achieving various degrees of success as a computer programmer, bicycle messenger and novelist. As a rookie roadshower, Frank Duff will be making harsh indictments against the world and everyone in it in the form of spoken word poetry and also reading from his punk rock novel Lysergically Yours.
More info at http://frankduff.com
 
Jasmine Dreame Wagner likes Clydesdale horses and hitchiking around developing countries. Unfortunately, there are few ponies in Brooklyn, and New York City is certainly well-developed, so she has to travel quite frequently in order to satiate her needs. Thanks to the Roadshow, she’ll be bringing her stories on the road, reading from her zine, Songs About Ghosts, and sharing tales about abandoned Soviet military bases in Estonia, the wildflowers of Nova Scotia, and where to find the best pizza and punkhouse shows in Brooklyn. Her interests include falling in love, telling the truth, and you.
More info at http://songsaboutghosts.com
 
FREE

An Evening with Lady Churchill?s Rosebud Wristlet
Tuesday, June 1st, 7:30 PM
 
A Night of Readings and Perhaps More from the pages of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet
featuring:
 
Hannah Wolf Bowen is a Philosophy major, an assistant editor for the Fortean Bureau, and the person of an ungrateful (yet adorable) horse and a neurotic (yet adorable) dog. Some of her stories have found homes. Others have not. These things happen.
 
John Trey attempts to exploit whatever meager talents he possesses from an old house in a suburb in the Midwest, where he keeps all brooms locked safely in a closet. When not writing, reading, or critiquing, he often can be found playing with his daughter, listening to jazz, or pondering the mysteries of invisibility.
 
Dave Schwartz’s “The Ichthymancer Writes His Friend with an Account of the Yeti’s Birthday Party”, was the lead story in LCRW 13. Schwartz is the reincarnation of a famous dancing bear who once entertained thousands of Bolivian mine workers. He is indigenous to the Midwestern United States, and traces of his spoor have appeared in On Spec and Flashquake.org. He prefers tea, thank you. He appears on the edge of publishing a zine.
 
Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link (Stranger Things Happen) publish the zine, Lady Churchill\’s Rosebud Wristlet and run Small Beer Press. They read an awful lot (Kelly quickly, Gavin not so) and write sometimes. They have driven here from Northampton, MA. Apropos of nothing, but we also have 2 new books coming out, 2 new chapbooks, and a new issue of our zine. People ask why is the press called Small Beer Press? We just like beer!
 
More info is at: http://www.lcrw.net/lcrw/index.htm
 
FREE

Musical group PALcelebrates the release of their new 7″ recordwith a night of music and readings
Friday, June 25th, 8:00 PM
 
The musical group PAL, will be celebrating the release of Audio Peace Treaty a new seven inch record with a delightful night of music and reading.
 
Musing on the subject of rock and roll will be Joe Meno, Katherine Raz, Keith Helt, Seth Emily, Nathan Cowing (of Pegasvs), and Erica Burkhart (of the Sunday Toredowns). The band PAL will play an exclusive acoustic rending of the 7″ and the Jugglers of Death
will try not to burn the store down.
 
You will like it!
 
More info is at: www.palpalpal.net
 

The 2ndHand celebrates the release of All Hands On
Live at Quimby?s
Thursday, July 1st, 7:00 PM
FREE
 
ALL HANDS ON: A THE2NDHAND Reading is a reading, indeed, a performance of works included in ALL HANDS ON: A THE2NDHAND Reader, the newly released anthology of the best work published in Chicago\’s broadsheet and online weekly for new writing, THE2NDHAND. Contributors to the book perform, along with the editors and various guest, whose simian hi-jinx can be anticipated, but not announced. We\’re keeping our ears up.
 
JOHN H. MATTHEWS has had fiction published in Inkburns, The Whirligig, and
Pindeldyboz and used to play drums for Six Slug Vacation. He lives in
Chicago.
 
BRIAN COSTELLO spent his unmemorable (to him) infancy in Creve Coeur, Missouri; his idyllic (to him) childhood in Peoria, Illinois; his dramatic (to him) adolescence in unincorporated Seminole County, Florida; a lost year (to all concerned) in Gainesville, Florida; AND his enchanted (to a few maybe, if not many, some though, definitely) adulthood in Chicago, Illinois. He was first published in THE2NDHAND, and has since been published in New City Chicago, Bridge, Sleepwalk, Hair Trigger, Horizontal Action, Maximumrocknroll, and others. He plays drums for the Functional Blackouts, and hosts a live talk show at the Empty Bottle. We had a chance to meet up with Brian at Spago Chicago, where he was flirting with Amanda Puck while wolfing down bruschetta and calamari appetizers. When asked \”Are you still working on your appetizers?\” he answered, \”Yes. Yes I am.\”
 
TODD DILLS lives in Chicago and is author of For Weeks Above the Umbrella, a collection published in 2002. His work has appeared in various publications, including Little Engines, Pindeldyboz, New City, the Chicago Reader, and others. He is the founding editor of THE2NDHAND.
 
JEB GLEASON-ALLURED dreams in heavy metal and describes his stories as postconscious. Yes. He lives in Chicago and is an editor at THE2NDHAND.
 

Jonathan Ames reads from his new novel
Wake Up, Sir!
Monday, July 26th, 8:00 PM
FREE
 
Jonathan Ames is the author of I Pass Like Night, The Extra Man, What’s Not to Love?, and My Less Than Secret Life. He is the winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship for prose fiction, but as a boxer he is a loser — he had a singularly unsuccessful amateur career (0-1), fighting as “The Herring Wonder.” Mr. Ames contributes frequently to Public Radio International’s The Next Big Thing and has been on Late Show with David Letterman more than once, which is nothing to sneeze at.
 
What kind of book has Jonathan Ames written this time? Well, think of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, except that Wake Up, Sir! is not as good. But that’s all right — no book is as good as Don Quixote. You might also think of A Confederacy of Dunces, but there again Ames’s book falls short. I think, though, we might be pushing this humility business too far.
 
Wake Up, Sir! Is the story of Alan Blair, a young, loony writer with numerous problems of the mental, emotional, sexual, spiritual, and physical variety. He’s very good at problems. He’s also quite skilled at getting into trouble. But luckily for Alan, he has a personal valet, a wondrously helpful fellow named Jeeves, who does his best to sort things out for his young master
 
Jonathan Ames will read and sign copies of Wake Up, Sir! at the event.
 
More info is at: www.jonathanames.com
 
Monday, July 26th, 8:00 PM
FREE

Lord of the Yum Yum
Friday July 23rd 8PM
Join Lord of the Yum-Yum for an evening of
Vocal Grind Scat Live at Quimby?s
 
Known for strange vocal ruminations and a hilarious live show, Lord of the Yum-Yum promises only the highest quality, most enriching and mind numbing entertainment all at the same time. Lord of the Yum-Yum, aka Paul Velat, combines a guttural scat vocal style, classical/jazz themes, throat singing, improvisation, and electronics to take the modern voice to a new place.
 
Paul Velat is a Former/Current Band member of: Herc., Fleck/Velat, Eric Kmiec Quartet, Six of One Half Summers, Paul Vee and Latchkey Kids, Herbal Flesh Tea. He has also studied with Don Malone, Stacy Garrop, Dan Schaff, Claude Baker, Susan Botti, Patricia Moorehead, Ilya Levinson, Lee Kesselman and Stuart Folse. As a performer, Paul has toured nationally with a concentration on the Midwest and since 1991, he has done many radio and television appearances as well as hundreds of performances around the greater Chicago area.
 
More info is at: www.lordoftheyumyum.com

Quimby?s welcomes the Perpetual Motion Roadshow #12
starring Emily Pohl-Weary, Sonja Ahlers and Jim Munroe.Thursday, May 27th, 8:00pm
 
Perpetual Motion Roadshow #12 features the superhero team-up of the century! Superhero makeovers and more from the contributors to Emily Pohl-Weary’s Girls Who Bite Back! and movie-style trailers for Jim Munroe’s Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask!
 
Emily Pohl-Weary, editor of Kiss Machine and co-author with Judith Merril of the Hugo Award-winning Better to Have Loved: The Life of Judith Merril, puts her unique stamp on the field of speculative fiction and pop culture in this one-of-a-kind anthology of short stories, cultural analysis, comics and artwork. Editor Emily Pohl-Weary, visual artist/writer Sonja Ahlers (Temper, Temper) and other contributors to the anthology Girls Who Bite Back: Witches, Mutants, Slayers and Freaks will be doing a variety of fun performances.
Check out: http://girlswhobiteback.com
 
Roadshow organizer Jim Munroe is doing a No Media Kings edition of his cult-classic novel Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask, and indie filmmakers have made short movie-style trailers to promote the corporate crime-fighting superheroes novel. They will be shown between the performances.
 
“Jim Munroe has written the first novel to harness the energy, idealism and cartoon inspired playfulness of the new wave of culture jammers. It’s about time we have some superheroes to save us after the post-irony meltdown — forces of corporate darkness, beware.” -Naomi Klein, author No Logo
Check out: http://nomediakings.org/flyboy.htm
 
ALL FOR FREE WOW!!!